“Oh. I see,” Daffyd said with a dawning tucked-in smile.
Leland waved a long hand. “You don’t. I’m there because Geoff begs me to be. He doesn’t want to ruin her reputation by seeing her alone, because even with her companion there it will look like they are a deux. He was the one to remind her that she needed a respectable companion, by the way, and I had to send her applicants for the position. Thank God I was visiting at the time she landed herself on Geoff, after stepping off the docks and into his life with only a maid in tow. I knew a good employment agency, or who knows what she may have accomplished by now?
“Geoff says he doesn’t know who to introduce her to yet. He says his other friends are too stodgy and opinionated to take her at face value, and friends from the old days in prison would want to take her for far more, whatever he said. He’d rather not bring her into Society until she has a full wardrobe and has been coached in the finer niceties… there being few practiced in New South Wales, I gather.”
“But she knows her manners. She was wellborn and well bred,” Daffyd said. “That was why Tanner insisted on marrying her soon as he clapped eyes on her. Pretty females are rare on a prison ship. He could have used her and passed her along for profit. That was done. But beautiful, innocent, and wellborn? If her damned fool of a father hadn’t alienated his family years before, she’d never have been there at all. Tanner seized the opportunity. He grabbed her and wouldn’t let go. He knew what he had. A real rarity.”
“Yes. Precisely,” Leland drawled. “She may have fallen into some sloppy speech patterns, but she knows how to speak and behave. Still, Geoff’s like a mother hen with her. If he were merely paternal, I wouldn’t worry. I’m not at all convinced that’s it. And if you were secretly amused a moment ago because you think I am slain by her big brown eyes,” he added too lightly, “I assure you I am not. She never turns them on me anyway.”
Daffyd’s eyes searched his. “And does that rankle? You’re famous for your taste in females, and as you say, she’s tasty. Are you annoyed because she ignores you?” The haughty look he received in return made him laugh. “Don’t give me your famous offended camel look. I don’t understand her overlooking you. I don’t know how you do it, but you usually get any female you want. And she doesn’t notice you at all? Really? Wait. Have you been nice or have you been your famous ‘Viscount Too Cruel,’ as that caricature put it? Be honest.”
“That ridiculous caricature?” Leland asked. “Really, no one’s nose is that long! Well, Wellington’s maybe. But Rowlandson drew that because he owed me money and was angry about it. The man’s a genius with his pen, but he should never bet on anything when he’s drunk. Actually, that means he should never bet. At any rate, I haven’t been cruel or kind, and it wouldn’t matter if I were. As I said, her eyes slide off me. She can only see Geoff.”
“Then it’s time for me to have a look,” Daffyd agreed. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. I doubt she’s up to anything underhanded, but it’s impossible to fool another old flimflammer, which is what I am.”
“Was,” his half brother corrected him. “And I’m not?” he added, sounding offended.
“You have some scruples, Lee. They’ll be the ruin of you, too, if you don’t watch out.”
They laughed. But they looked pleased, too. They nodded at each other, because whatever the outcome, at least they would be working together.
Chapter Five
“I want a gold gown,” Daisy told the dressmaker. “Not the one you showed me the other day. Not precisely, that is. I loved it, but I don’t want Viscount Haye sneering at me all night. You heard how he felt about how revealing it was, or at least how it would be for me. But I’ve been invited to dinner with him and the earl tonight. They said they have a surprise, an old friend come to see me, and so I want to look wonderful! I know there isn’t much time and so I thought if you could alter a gown that was already made up? That one was so lovely. Oh, please, madame, say you can somehow make it acceptable for me!” This one, Madame Bertrand thought, as she saw the doting look the lady’s companion bent on her charge, could charm a mossy rock. And money is money, and Haye brought her here. That one’s approval could make her rich.
“I could, I think,” the modiste said. “I haven’t sold that one yet. I could make… alterations. But in a day? I don’t know.”
“Oh, please. Surely you could add an underskirt, or something, to make it more the thing for me. Price,” Daisy said, and paused as she swallowed down her fear, “is not an object.”
She waited, half hoping the answer would be no. Price was always an object, and spending money frightened her. But if the viscount had been telling the truth, and the earl and her companion agreed that he was, then it would be some time before she had to pay her bills. If it was true that creditors gave ladies special favors, then time was on her side, and timing was everything in life. By the time she absolutely had to pay she could be married, or her investments could have made more money. And so far, everyone thought she was a lady. So she had to act like one and run up debts, though it went against the grain.
She’d taken a hired carriage to the dressmaker’s as soon as Helena said the shops would open. She was delighted to find that, as Helena had also said, no lady would be up at this hour. It was easier to play the lady of leisure when there weren’t any real ones around.
“Please?” she added, smiling at Madame Bertrand.
“Let me see,” the dressmaker said. She clapped her hands. “Margot!” she called. “Put on the gold cloth gown and come out here at once, if you please.”
A few moments later, the same tall, dark-haired model she had seen the day before came gliding out in the daring gold cloth gown. It still looked wondrous to Daisy.
Madame Bertrand walked around the model, muttering. “A train would add elegance,” she murmured. “Oui. But it must be rose-colored, a gauzy spray of rose spread out in a train, floating behind the gold, moderating it, like a sunrise seen through clouds. And an underskirt, mais oui. We raise the neckline and add a chemise so the gold cloth doesn’t lie like a second skin. Add long sleeves, puffed at the shoulders… Oui. And rose ribbons; gold is too harsh for you, mademoiselle, the viscount was right. But a touch of rose here, a dash of it there, to tame the gold, and you will glow.
“Yes,” the dressmaker added. “We can have the gown looking proper enough so that even the Viscount Haye won’t be able to say it is daring, though daring it would still be. But it will not be audacious. It’s beautiful as it is,” she added with regret, “but he’s right. Such gowns are best left to those women who know how to use them, and who can. But yes, mademoiselle, it could be done.”
“Thank you! Then do it!” Daisy said, then added, “And it is Madam Tanner, madame. I am a widow. I know how to use such gowns, too, you see, but alas, I’m a lady, and so I cannot.” Her grin was nothing like a lady’s.
This one, the dressmaker thought appreciatively, will go far. “I must find the right gauze, and begin,” she said, and marched back to her workroom. “Margot!” she called over her shoulder, “Please return the gown to me, and put on the blue one. The countess is coming, and we know how she loves blue.”
Daisy didn’t need the rose gauze in order to glow; she felt triumphant. Whatever surprise Geoff had planned, now she could meet it with equanimity. She had a proper companion and would wear a wonderful gown, and whomever she met from the old days would have to forget the shame and degradation of her marriage and see only the success she’d become.