How to Seduce a Bride

thrown some sort of spell over me. I didn’t protest, or slap him, but I did run away.”

“Was it so distasteful?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know,” Daisy said. “Well, I do,” she muttered to the floor. “It was nice, very nice. But I knew what comes after, so I got out of there fast as I could. There’s nothing worse than what comes after, and I want no part of it. The question is: How do I prevent it in future without getting him angry? Because I do like to see him and talk to him, and I will, because he’s Geoff’s good friend.”

She kept her eyes on the floor. The truth was, she couldn’t forget that kiss. For a miracle, it had actually tempted her to try for more. She’d left him before that madness, and madness it would be. But she couldn’t forget the feelings he had woken. She hadn’t felt them in years, since before Tanner, in fact. They weren’t desires she wanted, but she couldn’t repress them. They made her squirm and ache, and even came to her in dreams she tried to forget when she woke.

“So what do I do?” she asked, scowling fiercely. She’d planned every step of her way back to England, and it was hard to find something that might block her goal here at the last.

“Do you intend to do it again?” Helena asked. “I mean, kiss him?”

“God, no!” Daisy said.

Helena remained silent a moment. Then she cleared her throat. “Stealing a kiss from a grown woman who seems to know what she’s about isn’t such a sin,” she said. “Not even stealing two or three. Nor should it discourage your friendship with him if you make it clear it can’t happen again. But what concerns me is the rest of what you said.

“Daisy, ‘what comes after’ isn’t worse,” she said slowly. “Well, I suppose it is if you’re not married to the fellow and have no plans to be. You know what gossip is. But if it were done with discretion, no one would mind, or be surprised. You’re a widow, you have more leeway, and the viscount is a single man. Of course, it would be wrong to have an affaire with him. Apart from the risk of bearing a child, which I assume he would be clever enough to make less possible, if you had an affaire and he left you, someone might find out. That wouldn’t do wonders for your reputation. Actually, he’d be a brilliant match for you. He’s intelligent, wealthy, has excellent address, and he doesn’t have to answer to anyone. In fact, it would be quite a coup. But I don’t say it could be done. He’s defied matchmakers for years now.”

Daisy’s head snapped up. “I don’t want to marry him!” she said in horror. “All I want to know is how to go on with him comfortably now after that kiss.”

“You go on as you did before,” Helena said. “He’ll understand so long as you make it clear, by word or attitude, that you don’t wish to have any more of it. But why do you say what comes after a kiss is so terrible?” she persisted. “It isn’t, it’s wonderful if you’ve the right man.”

“Wonderful?” Daisy said in surprise. “No, thank you; that it is not. I suppose the viscount can’t help it because that’s the sort of man he is, a slave to his passions, and when he likes a woman all he can think of is having her. One of the best things about Geoff is that he likes me and yet doesn’t expect that sort of thing. Maybe because he’s older, maybe because he has such fine sensibilities, but he’s above that.”

Helena sat down quickly on a nearby chair. “Daisy!” she said breathlessly. “That’s just not so. I’m sure it isn’t. He’s a man; the fact that he’s older doesn’t mean he’s dead. Sensual pleasure is the right of any man of any age, and women, too. If the earl cared for a woman, naturally he’d want to have relations with her. I’m not saying he doesn’t care for you, because clearly he does. But maybe because he has fine sensibilities he wouldn’t steal a kiss unless he’d plans to marry you.”

Daisy fiddled with the pleat she’d made in her skirt. “The truth of it is, Helena, that I don’t like it.” She looked up with sudden hope. “But you’ll agree that an older man doesn’t want to do it that often?”

Helena laughed in flustered surprise. “I don’t know. I really don’t. The best thing to do would be to ask him.”

“Talk about it?” Daisy asked in shock.

“Why not? If the moment’s right, of course. If you’re seriously considering marrying him, you must discuss it. It’s true Society may produce girls who have no idea of what to expect in the marriage bed. You do. The men you meet expect that. You’re a woman grown, a widow to boot. The earl, or any grown man, will have certain expectations. It wouldn’t be fair to enter into a marriage without discussing how you feel about the act of love with him first.”

“Act of love,” Daisy muttered. “A pretty way of talking about a rude thing. It really is, you know. Like the way a person’s entrails work: It’s a thing of the body that polite people don’t discuss, unless they use flowery or scientific speech. I came from a place where people said what they meant. They didn’t say they had to find the ‘withdrawing room’ at the end of dinner, I can tell you that. And they didn’t talk about ‘the act of love,’ neither. Instead they said f-” She paused. “I suppose I am too much of a lady-or you are-for me to go on, so I won’t. But thank you. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“Please feel free to talk about it with me any time,” Helena said “But more important, please remember you can talk about it with anyone you think might one day be a lover.”

“Little chance of that!” Daisy said.

Helena’s expression was sympathetic. “Was it so bad then?”

“Then? Oh yes,” Daisy said. She remembered Tanner’s groping hands and insistent body, and shuddered. “I didn’t like him, and so you can imagine how much I didn’t like that with him.” She gave Helena a clear-eyed look. “I’m not so stupid that I don’t think it might be different for different people, or with different people. But honestly, I don’t even like to think about it. Still, if and when Geoff asks me to marry him, I wouldn’t lie to him.”

She took a deep breath. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meanwhile, thank you.”

Helena nodded, but looked troubled.

Daisy went back to the dressing table and fiddled with a rose in her hair, pretending it had come loose. She thought about seeing Geoff tonight, and thought that, yes, fair was fair. It was a thing she should talk about with him someday. He was so kind and gentle, she thought she could.

She thought about seeing Leland Grant tonight, and shivered, but not in revulsion. He made her forget what she was afraid of. That was amazing, and dangerous. And yet… Daisy wondered. Sometimes in the past she’d thought about how it would be with someone she cared for. How would it be with someone who amused her? Just the fact that she was considering it could mean that she wouldn’t always find the act hideous. Maybe there was something to it. All she knew of it, after all, she learned from Tanner’s hands.

Daisy pushed Tanner from her mind. He was gone. And there were things here that she hadn’t imagined, so why couldn’t enjoyment in that be one of them, after all?

Helena said there was no harm in a kiss. Against all odds, Viscount Haye made Daisy wonder if there could be pleasure in one-or two.

Chapter Twelve

It was not a party. Leland smiled, the earl groaned, and Daisy gasped. The dowager viscountess Haye had invited them to what looked like a grand ball.

“Are you sure you feel well enough to go to attend?” Daisy asked again, as the carriage stopped.

“As I said, yes,” Leland said in bored tones. “There’s nothing left of my wound but the memory.”

“Well, I think I have to go home and change,” Daisy said nervously when she peered out the window to see the long line of carriages ahead of theirs, waiting to discharge their passengers at the front door to his mother’s town house.

“I think you look not only proper, but wonderful,” Helena said from her quiet corner of the coach.

Daisy shook her head. “No. I’ll look downright shabby at a ball.” She thought of the golden gown she’d never dared wear and breathed a silent sigh of relief. If they’d let her go back, she could get herself up in it and look like she belonged.

Leland laughed. “It’s not a ball. It is, however, my mama’s idea of a party. There’s no dancing, unless someone gets drunk enough to bribe the fiddlers she has on hand to play a sprightlier tune. But they’d waste their money.