He looked away, releasing her. “Any new ideas about my assailant?” he asked the earl.
“No. And you?”
“None,” Leland said. “I pride myself on my enemies. After all, it isn’t only one’s friends that are the measure of a man. My enemies are superior, too.” When they stopped laughing, he added, “At least my enemies are outspoken and would never hire anyone to do their dirty work. The more I think of it, the more I think it was an accident. London’s full of thieves; they can’t all be expert. But Daisy,” he added, meeting her eyes again with a steady, serious gaze, “you be careful, at least until we’re sure.”
“I’m prepared,” she said, holding up her chin.
“I’ll bet you are,” he said. “But I don’t want to see you tested. Now, I should be ready for a public viewing by the end of the week. Shall it be at the theater or a party? Or a ball? I’ve invitations to a delightful ball; it will be a mad crush. I haven’t sent in my card yet.”
Daisy considered it. She wanted to go anywhere the earl could, to find out if she’d fit into his world.
She just wasn’t sure if she was ready for such a big test. It wasn’t a matter of suitable gowns. Because if she found she was a total scandal, she’d have to leave Geoff, with regrets. She wanted him as her husband but it wasn’t fair to saddle him with a wife who could never be accepted. She knew too well how it felt to be an outsider, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone she liked.
“But surely you aren’t ready to dance,” the earl protested.
“No, but I never am,” Leland said. “I do it only to be obliging, but I don’t care to caper, I’m just not cut out for it. I look like a scarecrow in the wind if I join a country dance, and like I’ve also got a broomstick up my breeches if I try a minuet. Excuse me,” he said, with a look at Helena, seeing she was trying to suppress her laughter. “I’ll try to be more sensible of my guests’ tender ears, ma’am.
“Still, I could dance by then, if I wished,” he added. “And if not, then surely flirting won’t use up my strength, and that’s what I do best. Another benefit is that I’ll be such a sensation after my mishap that we can slip Daisy into any fashionable party without anyone looking at her with undue scrutiny. They’d be too busy goggling at me. Would you mind not being the belle of the ball?” he asked Daisy.
She could swear he’d read her mind. “No,” she said, with relief, “not at all.”
“I’m not sure the doctor will let you,” the earl told him. “But if you want to try, we have to leave you now, so you can be up to it. The doctor said rest, and that’s what you’ll get until his next visit.”
“Alas!” Leland said, sinking back on his pillows. “You’re not going to let any more lovely ladies come up to my bedchamber? That might kill me. But I will survive, if only because I’ll be readying myself for Saturday evening. Save a waltz for me, Daisy, will you?”
His voice asked for more than a waltz; his eyes did, too. She found herself unable to say yes, because of the sudden vision of herself in his arms. How could she resolve her uneasy feelings about him if she got that close to him?
“I haven’t danced in years,” she said truthfully.
He waved a hand. “You’ll remember when you hear the music. And I’m infinitely patient. So?”
“Thank you, yes. I’d like that,” she lied.
He grinned, and she knew that he knew that, too.
Leland lay back and closed his eyes after Daisy left, seeing the red of his inner eyelids in the sunlight, and the red-gold of her hair in his mind’s eye; feeling the warmth of the sun on his face, imagining the warmth of her body next to his. He didn’t know if he’d ever feel that in reality, because for some reason he’d frightened her today. He didn’t know why.
He had the reputation of a rake, that was true.
But why should she fear that? Especially coming from where she’d been? After all, with all he was, he was a gentleman. She had to know he’d never force her to do anything. In fact, he wasn’t sure he was that much of a libertine; it was only that he’d gotten the name and it amused him to keep it. Many gentlemen had just as many lovers, but he was more open about it than most; he’d concede that.
The truth was that he loved to love. The joy of a woman’s body was a miracle in which he could always forget himself, and that was no small miracle in itself. He liked more than their bodies; he numbered women, even though many were unobtainable, among his friends. Unlike other men he knew, he didn’t believe a person’s body shaped her mind, at least not entirely. Yet he’d never loved the way poets said a man could: once and forever and with a burning desire that was more than passion. Since he hadn’t, he didn’t know if he could. But the game of love, flirtation and challenge, acceptance and pleasure, always delighted him.
He didn’t know whether Daisy Tanner knew she’d been flirting with him. She’d done it beautifully, though, until he’d frightened her. That surprised him. Did she have a guilty secret? Did that have something to do with why she was wary of him and making a dead set for Geoff?
It was important, for Geoff’s sake, that he find out. He laughed aloud.
“My lord?” his valet, who had been cleaning the room, asked. “Are you all right?”
He opened his eyes. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing. I laughed because I was so amused by lies I was telling myself. It must be the effect of the medicine the good doctor gave me for pain. I tell you what, give me some more to make me sleep. I have to be ready to dance.”
Chapter Ten
Daisy took one last look in the mirror. She was going to pay another call on Geoff and Viscount Haye after breakfast, and so had tried to look both elegant and cool this warm summer’s morning. Her hair had been tamed, drawn taut and smoothed back from her face, allowing ringlets to riot only at the back of her head. She had on a yellow gown, sprigged with tiny pink flowers and green leaves. There was even a parasol to match, but she regretfully left it in its wrapping tissue. She still didn’t feel enough of a lady to sport one, never knowing when to use it for shade, rest it on her shoulder, or twirl it flirtatiously, in the easy way ladies of fashion did. That, along with the use of a fan, was like using another language, an art she meant to acquire.
She picked up a pair of yellow kid gloves. “I can’t look better,” she said. “Let’s have breakfast. I’m starved.”
Helena sighed but held her tongue. A lady wouldn’t have said she was starved, but she wouldn’t hurt Daisy’s feelings by correcting her for something that minor.
But Daisy had seen her expression. “I mean,” she said puckishly, raising a hand to her forehead, “I vow I am fairly famished.”
Helena laughed. “No. You said it right the first time, because you said it the way only you could.”
“I may never be styled a lady, you know,” Daisy confided as they walked to the door.
“You’ll be called ‘charming’ and ‘candid’ and ‘refreshing,’ and that’s much better.”
Daisy stopped and looked at Helena. She was frowning. “Do you really think they’ll do that? That they’ll accept me?”
Helena didn’t have to ask who “they” were. “If the earl does, they will,” she said diplomatically.
“Good,” Daisy said in relief. “I can change, but only so much. I mean, I suppose I could, but I’ve had enough of being someone I’m not in order to please a man.”
It was Helena who was frowning slightly as they went down the stair. But Daisy didn’t notice, she was too intent on getting downstairs to eat and then see Leland. And Geoff, she reminded herself.
“Go right on up,” Geoff said when Daisy and Helena arrived. “I’ve a visitor, my man-at-law; our business won’t take long. Leland’s still upstairs, but only because he can’t get down here on his own yet and refuses to be carried.”