“Whatever you do, don’t hurt her. She’s a game ’un, and she’s been through hell. Maybe all she does want is a little peace.”
“Maybe,” Leland agreed. “Who doesn’t? I won’t hurt her. I hope to merely educate her.”
But Daffyd didn’t smile. “She’s a friend, Lee. I mean it.”
One thin brow went up. “Indeed? You’re very serious. Very well, so am I. I won’t hurt her, I’ll promise you that. I don’t think I’m capable of it anyway, in any sense. But you have my word on it. I just want to find out what’s happening.”
“And your vanity is wounded,” Daffyd said.
“Of course,” Leland agreed so pleasantly that Daffyd didn’t know if he meant it or not. But it didn’t matter to him. He was content. He had Leland’s word, and no bond was stronger.
“Well, that was an evening!” Daisy said as she shed her cloak when she got back to her hotel room that night. Her maid took it. “Thank you,” she told the girl. “Now go to bed, it’s late. Look at that,” Daisy told Helena with a crooked grin, as the maid scuttled off to do her bidding. “Me, ordering a maid around as though I’d done it all my life, when my father couldn’t afford help at home for years before we were arrested. I feel good and bad about being mistress to a servant, I can tell you.”
“If your father had been more cautious, that is to say, more temperate, you would have had scores of servants,” Helena murmured.
“Aye,” Daisy agreed, as she sank to a chair. “But ‘cautious’ isn’t the word. Nor is ‘temperate’; he didn’t know the meaning of either word. Thing is, he was a damned fool, poor fellow. He drank and gambled too much, had no regard for the future, and thought too much of his ability to slip out of trouble. I can’t even say he got that way because he missed my mother when she died, as I’d like to. Because as I heard it, his drinking and gambling was one of the things that sent her to an early grave.”
She looked at Helena and added, sadly, “I grieve for what he might have been, but not for him. No, I can’t. He sold me to Tanner to get himself better treatment on the ship, you see.”
“You said he wanted to protect you. You said he did it to save you from further indignity,” Helena reminded her gently.
“So he might have done, if he’d known he was dying,” Daisy said, pulling the ribbon from her curls, laying her head back, and staring at the ceiling. “I don’t think he did, and I’m not sure he would have even if he had known. I tell folks that so they won’t think worse of me, because people do judge you by your parents. If they think he was a rogue, what will they think of me? We both went to Botany Bay, and they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I didn’t fall-I was thrown,” she added. “But now that I know you better, I don’t think I have to lie anymore.”
“You don’t,” Helena said. “You aren’t responsible for his actions. But think about it; you may have been right all along, he might have given Mr. Tanner your hand for your own protection.”
Daisy turned her head. She was sleepy and mussed, but still looked charming. Helena thought her new employer could do nothing to change that. She was a remarkably radiant creature, inside and out.
“I don’t think so,” Daisy said. “He told me I had to marry Tanner right away or we’d really be dished. I didn’t want to, but I obeyed. Well, I was only sixteen and frightened to death of the life I saw in jail, and it was worse on the ship, if that’s possible. So I did what he said. My father never said it was just to protect me, and he would have if he’d thought he’d done something noble. He loved praise. No, he was just a man. You can’t count on any of them.”
Helena gasped.
Daisy looked up at her.
“What a thing to say! It’s not true,” Helena exclaimed. “My father, my dear Vincent… they were men, and they were wonderful people. They never tyrannized or drank or gambled; they put family before themselves, always. Poor Vincent even gave his life for his country and the men under his command. Sacrifice came naturally to him. I can only hope my son grows up to be such a man. The men I’ve known have mostly been valiant and brave.
“Sometimes men are vain creatures, that’s true,” she added wistfully. “Even Vincent preened when I told him how good he looked in his uniform. But so are women vain, some notoriously so. We’re encouraged to be. Men can be irresponsible, too,” Helena continued, as Daisy watched her with a darkening expression. “But so can women. It’s true men seem to love adventure more than we do, but that may be because we can’t have adventures the way they can. I believe many of us would, if we could. There’s not that much difference between the sexes except that men are trained to responsibility, and so we’re surprised when they’re not trustworthy.”
“We don’t force men to our pleasures,” Daisy said flatly.
Helena was silent a second. Then she shook her head. “But, Daisy, most men don’t, most don’t even want to. It isn’t right to taint a whole gender because of experience with one wicked representative of that sex.”
“That’s true,” Daisy said, the darkness leaving her eyes. “Look at Geoff, I mean, the earl. He’s noble and kind, and I never saw him do a cruel thing to a woman, or heard of him doing anything like, neither. I can’t imagine him doing that, and don’t believe he ever would.”
“Of course not,” Helena said.
“Yes,” Daisy said with a sigh of satisfaction. “That’s why he’d make a perfect husband: he’s a kind, noble, and considerate gentleman.”
Helena frowned. “It’s forward of me to even ask. But it would make things easier if I knew. Daisy, are you contemplating him for your next husband? Are you setting your cap for him?”
“Of course,” Daisy said in surprise. “That’s why I came to England. He still thinks of me as another man’s wife, but I hope to change his mind about that soon. The sooner the better.”
Helena was still.
“You don’t approve?”
“It’s not for me to approve or disapprove,” Helena said, knotting her hands together. “But he is twice your age.”
“Yes, but men like young wives. I know he doesn’t need an heir, and that’s fine with me, too. If we don’t have any babies, I’ll have lots of grandbabies to play with. You heard that Daffyd’s wife is anticipating. Well, so is Amyas’s wife. All the earl’s sons are in the same boat. From what Daffyd said with a wink, I think Christian’s wife will be popping out a babe soon, too. I’ll be up to my ears in babies if I marry Geoff!”
“And the process of begetting them?” Helena asked, her eyes wide. She knew she was risking her position, and a fine one it was, but she couldn’t restrain herself. Was this glowing young woman actually saying she didn’t want a vibrant young man in her bed? She remembered her own youth and her young husband and the sensual joys they’d shared. She herself was a mother now, and she wouldn’t want her own daughter to make such a match when she came of age.
Helena hoped that was the only reason that the idea of the earl and Daisy together in a marriage bed seemed so wrong to her.
“You don’t mind missing that?” she asked Daisy, her face coloring up. “It’s not mine to say, but however hale he is, it’s a universal truth that an older man is not as… vigorous as a young one.”
“Exactly,” Daisy said. “A man can’t perform as regular when he gets older, and he loses the inclination, too. That’s what all the whor-Lord! I have to watch my mouth. I mean that’s what all the tarts in jail said. It’s harder work for them enticing older men. They have the money but not the honey. That’s what the girls used to complain, because they needed traffic to keep their rents paid. But a husband like that would suit me fine. One like that, or like Viscount Haye, who doesn’t want females in the first place!”
Helena gasped again. “What? Viscount Haye? Are you mad? Excuse me. This whole conversation is irregular, I know it,” she murmured, as if to herself. “But if you’re going to dismiss me, it might as well be for honesty.” She drew herself up, folded her hands, and announced, “Haye is one of the premiere rakes in London.”
“No!” Daisy said in surprise.
“I’d have warned you about him right off,” Helena said. “But I thought you knew, and anyhow, I didn’t believe he’d ever set out to seduce a friend of his friend. Gentlemen have their scruples, and that, I believe, is one of the foremost among them.”
Now Daisy’s eyes were wide. “The viscount? But all he cares about is clothes. And he minces and…” She hesitated. That wasn’t true. The viscount didn’t mince. She thought of how he walked, with long easy strides, and the way he moved, with supple grace. “Well, he doesn’t seem interested in females,” she concluded weakly, “only in
