How to Seduce a Bride

decide to go it alone? That might be interesting.”

“Wherever you wish,” Helena said stiffly.

“Oh, don’t get formal with me!” Daisy cried in exasperation. “Listen. It makes sense. I hated being married. I do like Geoff. But I just don’t know if I want a husband anymore. I mean, I always dreamed of having a decent man for a husband, a gentleman, someone who’d advise me and protect me and keep me safe, the way my father never did. That’s what I thought when I stood on the shingle in Botany Bay all those years, staring out to sea, dreaming of the day I might be free. Now I am. And I have money. I have freedom to do whatever I choose. I never thought of that. So maybe I’d be best off if I just stayed Geoff’s friend, and lived for myself. Yes, go ahead and stare. I know that’s shocking. But that’s what I’m thinking right now.”

Helena shook her head. “I can’t think of anything better than being married to a good, kind man who loves you.”

“Well, I can!” Daisy snapped. “And that’s trouble, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s just that I’ve got cold feet, here at the last. It’s one thing to dream something, another when it actually starts going your way. I never made a choice for myself, not in all my life, not until my husband died. Now I can make decisions, and I don’t want to make mistakes, because I’ll have only myself to blame this time. It’s easy to heap blame on someone else for your unhappiness. I know, I’ve done it most of my life, and rightly so. Now I have to bear that burden myself. I just don’t know what to do. Time is what I need, and time I have. Come along, we can talk as we walk. I’m itching to be out, doing something.”

She opened the door to see the hotel manager, hand uplifted, poised to knock on it. It was hard to say which of them was more surprised. The manager was clearly more embarrassed. There was a stocky man in sober clothes, with a bright red vest, standing next to him; he stared at Daisy.

“Ah, Mrs. Tanner,” the manager said, bowing. “Good morning. I was just coming to summon you. This is Mr. Robert Burrows, from Bow Street. He said he has business with you, and though I told him to wait below stairs,” he continued with a sniff, “he insisted on coming with me.”

“They hear the words ‘Bow Street’ and they flit,” the man explained. “So it’s best to collar them in their dens.”

Daisy sniffed, too, and raised her nose in the air. “A Runner. I could smell him a mile away. Well, cully, what do you want with me?”

“Mrs. Daisy Tanner?” the Runner asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her. “I got a warrant for your arrest here,” he said, tapping his vest pocket.

Daisy went totally still. “For what?”

“For the suspected murder of your husband, James Tanner,” he said. “At His Majesty’s penal colony at Botany Bay, in Port Jackson, that’s what.”

Daisy’s face went ashen. Her legs grew weak; she put out a hand to lean against the door. Then she drew herself up.

“It isn’t true,” she said. “I didn’t do it; it was an accident. I’m not going anywhere. Helena, send for Geoff. And the Viscount Haye; send for him, too. And, oh yes, my solicitor, the one I saw when I came to London. Ronald Arbus is his name; it’s there in those papers on my desk. I’m not going anywhere,” she snarled at the Runner. “I have money, and so I guess I have enemies, but they’re not getting it or me. I’m staying right here.”

“You don’t have to go to Bow Street,” the earl said as he paced. “I’ve friends in high places. I gave my word as your bond. You will stay in London, won’t you?” he asked, looking up at Daisy.

She nodded. They were in his town house. She sat in his study and felt as though she were already in a witness chair. Her hands were clenched to fists in her lap. Geoff was pacing; Leland stood by a window and watched her, unblinking. Helena sat nearby, looking as though she might break into tears at any moment.

“I won’t run,” Daisy said. “Because I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh well, that,” the earl said. “Of course.”

“I know everyone says that they’re not guilty,” Daisy said angrily. “But I mean it. Tanner went riding, well, racing is what he was doing, to win a wager with a mate of his. He came back dead as the door they carried him in on. His horse shied and bucked. Everyone said so. I was home, making dinner for him, where he expected me to be every day. So who says I did it? Or anything?”

“A complaint has been laid against you,” the earl said. “An accusation. They say it was an accident, but claim that you were complicit in it.”

“What?” Daisy exclaimed. “They think I ran to where he was, stood by the side of the road, and waved my hands at his horse?”

“No,” Leland finally said. “They claim you put a burr under the saddle.”

“Well, it took them long enough to say it!” Daisy said. “Now, when there’s no way anyone can look to see. Why would I do that? A burr under the saddle? That’s rich, that is. If I wanted to be rid of Tanner-and I did-I’d have done it where I could watch to make sure it was done right. I thought about it, many times. Lord! Setting a burr under his saddle? What good would it do if he fell off his horse and only broke something? He’d give me the devil of a time when he so much as got a bellyache; if he had a broken leg, it would pain me more than him. He’d break my head if he even thought I’d done such a thing. It’s a lie. And they can’t prove it.”

“Possibly not,” Geoff said. “But they can pay someone to swear to it, and that’s what worries me. Well, you know the type of people we lived among in Port Jackson, Daisy.”

“I do,” she said. “And I know they weren’t all bad. No one wants to get the name of a rat, neither, Geoff. You know that!”

“Possibly,” he said. “But there’s more. Everyone knew you hated Tanner; you never made a secret of it. That gets them a foot in the door.”

“Possibly?” Daisy echoed, seizing on the first thing he’d said. “Oh, Geoff. I didn’t break Tanner’s neck for him, but you saying that? You fair break my heart, you do.”

He came to her and took her hand. “I don’t think you did anything, Daisy. I’m just saying the road ahead may be rocky.”

She slowly withdrew her hand and raised her head. She glanced over at Leland, and caught her breath on a stifled sob. “My life’s been rocky. I’m used to that. I didn’t do Tanner in, though I’ll never deny I wished I could. So does that mean they can put me in prison again? Or send me back to Botany Bay?”

She sat straight in her chair, clearly afraid, looking desperate but proud, like a queen on her way to the tumbrels. Or so Leland thought. Her flaming hair and outrageously red gown accentuated the fact that her complexion was too white, and her eyes too bright. She was crestfallen at the moment, but there was something unquenchable about her fire. She was all spirit and rage, and he thought, yes, she could kill a man if she had to, but not by such a craven scheme as putting a burr under his saddle. She would, he thought, warn the fellow first and then, if she had to, yes, she might well put a bullet through him or cut out his heart. But only if she or someone she loved was in danger, and she had no other way to stop it.

“So who is my accuser?” Daisy asked.

“Bow Street will not divulge the name,” Leland said. “Yes, I know, I asked, and so did the earl, but that they’re adamant about.”

“Because they’re afraid I’d kill the fellow!” Daisy said with a sniff. “Well, I wouldn’t, you know. Him, I’d try to maim.”

Leland laughed.

“I would,” she said, looking at him. “Of all the low tricks! No one, not anyone in all of Port Jackson, ever said a thing like that. And I had those who didn’t like me. Well, no one’s perfect, and I’m certainly not. I didn’t like Morrison, our butcher, for example. I hated him because he charged too much, and put his hands on rumps and breasts that were no part of his business or his merchandise, and so I told him, and everyone, you can be sure.

“And there was Mrs. Coleman,” she said. “Now, there was a criminal! She poisoned two husbands and never denied it. Not because they were cruel, though they might have been, but for their money. She only got free because she married a guard. I wouldn’t ever take tea with that one, and so I said.”

She stopped and looked down. “I said things too freely, I suppose. Not about those two, believe me! But about others, yes, I might have done. I was unhappy, and unhappy people try to make others feel the same way. I should