Scandal in Spring (16 page)

"It's because of your condition," Annabelle soothed. "It's perfectly natural. You'll be back to rights after the baby is born."

"It's going to be a he," Lillian told her, wiping her eyes with her fingers. "And then we'll arrange a marriage between our children so Isabelle can be a viscountess."

"I thought you didn't believe in arranged marriages."

"I didn't until now. Our children can't possibly be trusted with a decision as important as whom to marry."

"You're right. We'll have to do it for them."

They chuckled together, and Lillian felt her mood lightening just a little.

"I have an idea," Annabelle said. "Let's go to the kitchen and peek in the larder. I'll bet there's still some gooseberry cake left from dessert. Not to mention the strawberry jam trifle."

Lillian lifted her head and blotted her wet nose on her sleeve. "Do you really think a plate of sweets will make me feel better?"

Annabelle smiled. "It can't hurt, can it?"

Lillian considered the point. "Let's go," she said, and allowed her friend to pull her up from the bench.

* * *

The morning sun snapped through the windows as housemaids tugged back the main entrance hall drapes and secured them with tasseled silk ropes. Daisy walked toward the breakfast room, knowing there was little chance any of the guests were awake. She had tried to sleep as long as possible while restless energy coursed through her, demanding an outlet until finally she had jumped up and dressed herself.

Servants were busy polishing brass and woodwork, sweeping carpets, carrying pails and baskets of linens. Farther away were the clangs of metal pots and the clinks of dishes as food was prepared in the kitchen for the morning repast.

The door to Lord Westcliff's private study was open, and Daisy glanced inside the wood-paneled room as she passed. It was a beautiful room, simple and spare with a row of stained-glass windows that shed a rainbow of light across the carpeted floor. Daisy paused with a smile as she saw someone sitting at the massive desk. The outline of his dark head and broad shoulders identified him as Mr. Hunt, who often made use of Westcliff's study when he was at Stony Cross.

"Good morning…" she began, pausing as he turned to look at her.

She felt a pang of excitement as she realized it was not Mr. Hunt but Matthew Swift.

He rose from his chair, and Daisy said bashfully, "No, please, I'm sorry to have interrupted…"

Her voice trailed away as she noticed there was something different about him. He was wearing a pair of thin, steel-framed spectacles.

Spectacles, on that strong-featured face…and his hair mussed as if he had been tugging absently on the front locks. All that combined with a plenitude of muscles and masculine virility was astonishingly…erotic.

"When did you start wearing those?" Daisy managed to ask.

"About a year ago." He smiled ruefully and removed the spectacles with one hand. "I need them to read. Too many late nights poring over contracts and reports."

"They…they are very becoming."

"Are they?" Continuing to smile, Swift shook his head, as if it had not occurred to him to wonder about his appearance. He tucked the spectacles into the pocket of his waistcoat. "How do you feel?" he asked softly. It took a moment for Daisy to realize he was referring to her tumble from the pony cart.

"Oh, I'm quite well, thank you." He was staring at her in that way he always had, concentrated, unwavering. It had always made her uneasy. But just now, his gaze didn't seem critical. In fact, he was staring at her if she were the only thing in the world worth looking at. She fidgeted with the skirts of her muslin gown, pink with printed flowers.

"You're up early," Swift said.

"I usually am. I can't imagine why some people stay abed so late in the morning. There's only so much sleeping one can do." As Daisy finished speaking it occurred to her there was something else people did in bed besides sleeping, and she turned scarlet.

Mercifully Swift didn't mock her, though she saw a subtle smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. Discarding the risky subject of sleeping habits, he gestured to the sheaf of papers behind him. "I'm preparing to go to Bristol soon. Some issues have to be settled before we decide to locate the manufactory there."

"Lord Westcliff has agreed that you will manage the project?"

"Yes. Though it seems I'll have to maneuver around an advisory committee."

"My brother-in-law can be a bit controlling," Daisy admitted. "But once he sees how dependable you are, I predict he will loosen the reins considerably."

He gave her a curious glance. "That almost sounds like a compliment, Miss Bowman."

She shrugged with elaborate casualness. "Whatever faults you may have, your dependability is legendary. My father has always said that one may set a clock by your comings and goings."

Sardonic amusement edged his voice. "Dependable. That is the description of an exciting fellow."

Once Daisy would have agreed with the sarcastic statement. When one said a man was "dependable" or "nice," one was damning him with faint praise. But she had spent three seasons observing the caprices of gentlemen who were rakish, absent-minded or irresponsible. Dependability was a wonderful quality in a man. She wondered why she had never appreciated that before.

"Mr. Swift…" Daisy tried to sound light, with only marginal success. "I have been wondering about something…"

"Yes?" He took a half-step backward as she moved closer, as if it were imperative to maintain a certain distance between them.

Daisy watched him intently. "Since there is no possibility that you and I…that marriage is out of the…I was wondering, when
do
you plan to marry?"

He looked bemused, then blank. "I don't think marriage would suit me."

"Ever?"

"Ever."

"Why not?" she demanded. "Is it that you value your freedom too much? Or are you planning on becoming a skirt-chaser?"

Swift laughed, the sound so warm that Daisy felt it like a stroke of velvet down her spine. "No. I've always thought it would be a waste of time to pursue hordes of women when one good one would suffice."

"How do you define a good one?"

"Are you asking what kind of woman I would want to marry?" His smile lingered much longer than usual, causing the fine hairs to prickle on the nape of Daisy's neck. "I suppose I would know when I met her."

Striving to seem unconcerned, Daisy wandered to the stained-glass windows. She held a hand up, watching the mosaic of colored light on the paleness of her skin. "I can predict what she would be like." She kept her back to Swift. "Taller than me, for one thing."

"Most women are," he pointed out.

"And accomplished and useful," Daisy continued. "Not a dreamer. She would keep her mind on practical matters, and manage the servants perfectly, and she would never be tricked by the fishmonger into buying scrod after it's turned."

"If I did have any thoughts about marriage," Swift said, "you've just driven them completely out of my mind."

"You'll have no difficulty finding her," Daisy continued, sounding more glum than she would have wished. "There are hundreds of them in Manhattanville. Maybe thousands."

"What makes you certain I would want a conventional wife?"

Her nerves tingled as she felt him approaching her from behind.

"Because you're like my father," she said.

"Not entirely."

"And if you married someone different from the woman I just described, you would eventually come to think of her as a…parasite."

The light pressure of Swift's hands closed over her shoulders. He turned Daisy to face him. His blue eyes were warm as he searched hers, and she had the discomforting suspicion that he was reading her thoughts far too accurately. "I prefer to think," he said slowly, "that I would never be that cruel. Or idiotic." His gaze felt to the exposed skin of her chest. With utter gentleness, he traced his thumbs across the winged shape of her collarbones, until gooseflesh rose on her arms beneath her puffed sleeves. "All I would ever ask of a wife," he murmured, "is that she would bear me some affection. That she might be happy to see me at the end of the day."

Her breath quickened beneath the touch of his fingers. "That's not very much to ask."

"Isn't it?"

His fingertips had reached the base of her throat, which rippled from her hard swallow. He blinked and removed his hands promptly, seeming not to know what to do with them until he buried them in his coat pockets.

And yet he didn't move away. Daisy wondered if he felt the same irresistible pull that she did, a perplexing need that could only be appeased by more closeness.

Clearing her throat in a businesslike manner, Daisy straightened her spine and drew up to her full height of five feet and one debatable inch.

"Mr. Swift?"

"Yes, Miss Bowman?"

"I have a favor to ask."

His gaze sharpened. "What is it?"

"As soon as you tell my father definitively that you're not going to marry me, he will be…disappointed. You know how he is."

"Yes, I know," Swift said dryly. Anyone acquainted with Thomas Bowman was well aware that for him, disappointment was but a quick stop on the way to high dudgeon.

"I'm afraid it will result in some unpleasant repercussions for me. Father is already unhappy that I haven't brought someone up to scratch. If he assumes I've deliberately done something to foil his plans about you and I…well, it will make my situation…difficult."

"I understand." Swift knew her father perhaps better than Daisy herself did. "I won't say anything to him," he said quietly. "And I'll do what I can to make things easier for you. I'm leaving for Bristol in two days, three at the most. Llandrindon and the other men…none of them are idiots, they have a fair idea of why they were invited here, and they wouldn't have come if they weren't interested. So it shouldn't take long for you to get a proposal out of one of them."

Daisy supposed she should appreciate his eagerness to shove her into the arms of another man. Instead, his enthusiasm made her feel sour and waspish.

And when one felt like a wasp, one's main inclination was to sting.

"I appreciate that," she said. "Thank you. You've been very helpful, Mr. Swift. Especially by providing me with some much-needed experience. The next time I kiss a man— Lord Llandrindon, for example— I'll know much more about what to do."

It filled Daisy with vengeful satisfaction to see the way his mouth tightened.

"You're welcome," he said in a growl.

Perceiving that his hands were half-raised as if he were on the brink of throttling or shaking her, Daisy gave him her sunniest smile and scooted out of his reach.

* * *

As the day progressed the early morning sunshine was smothered in clouds that unrolled in a great gray carpet across the sky. Rain began to fall steadily, turning unpaved roads to mud, replenishing the wet meadows and bogs, sending people and animals scurrying to their respective shelters.

This was Hampshire in spring, sly and mercurial, playing pranks on the unsuspecting. If one ventured out with an umbrella on a wet morning, Hampshire would produce sunlight with a magician's flourish. If one went walking without the umbrella, the sky was sure to dump buckets of rain on one's head.

Guests clustered in various ever-changing groups…some in the music room, some in the billiards room, some in the parlor for games or tea or amateur theatrics. Many ladies attended to their embroidery or lace work while gentlemen read, talked, and drank in the library. No conversation escaped without at least a nominal discussion of when the storm might end.

Daisy usually loved rainy days. Curling up next to a hearth fire with a book was the greatest pleasure imaginable. But she was still trapped in a fretful state in which the printed word had lost its magic. She meandered from room to room, discreetly observing the activities of the guests.

Pausing at the threshold of the billiards room, she peered around the doorframe as gentlemen milled lazily around the table with drinks and cue sticks in hand. The clicks of ivory balls provided an arrhythmic undertone to the hum of masculine conversation. Her attention was caught by the sight of Matthew Swift in his shirtsleeves, leaning over the table to execute a perfect bank shot.

His hands were deft on the cue stick, his blue eyes narrowed as he focused on the layout of balls on the table. Those ever-rebellious locks of hair had fallen over his forehead once more, and Daisy longed to push them back. As Swift sank a ball neatly into a side pocket, there was a scattering of applause, some low laughs, and a few coins changing hands. Standing, Swift produced one of his elusive grins and made a remark to his opponent, who turned out to be Lord Westcliff.

Westcliff laughed at the comment and circled the table, an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth as he considered his options. The air of relaxed masculine enjoyment in the room was unmistakable.

As Westcliff rounded the table, he caught sight of Daisy peeking around the doorframe. He winked at her. She pulled back like a turtle jerking into its shell. It was ridiculous of her to creep around the manor trying to catch stolen glimpses of Matthew Swift.

Scolding herself silently, Daisy strode away from the billiards room and toward the main hall and the grand staircase. She bounded up the stairs, not stopping until she reached the Marsden parlor.

Annabelle and Evie were with Lillian, who was half-curled on the settee. Her features were pale and tense, her forehead lightly scored with frown lines. Her slim arms were wrapped around her stomach.

"That's twenty minutes," Evie said, her gaze fastened on the mantel clock.

"They're still not coming regularly," Annabelle remarked. She brushed Lillian's hair and braided it neatly, her slim fingers dexterous in the heavy black locks.

"What aren't coming regularly?" Daisy asked with forced cheer, coming into the room. "And why are you watching the— " She blanched as she suddenly understood. "My God. Are you having birthing pains, Lillian?"

Her sister shook her head, looking perplexed. "Not full-on pains. Just a sort of tightening of my stomach. It started after lunchtime, and then I had one an hour later, and then a half-hour later, and this one came after twenty minutes."