Enslaved (20 page)

“Have no worries, Miss Lake. From here on, you shall receive no more unwanted attention from me.”

He turned on his heel and started toward the park gate. For an absurd few seconds, Daisy had to hold herself from running after him. But she was right. There was too much unhealed hurt between them. Even if it might be healed, they were too different, their lives were too set to ever come together as more than casual lovers, and in the end even that had proven too difficult to carry out.

Flora came up beside her. “What was that all about?”

Daisy shook her head and looked away, willing the tears in her eyes to dry. “Not now, Mum.”

Flora arched a dark brow and regarded her adopted daughter. She loved Daisy as dearly as if she were her own flesh and blood, but she’d long ago given up on trying to shape her into the image of the little girl she and Bob had lost. Daisy was like a strong wind whipping through a stand of trees or a ship’s sail. You couldn’t control it. You simply had to accept it for what it was and hope that in the end it landed you in a good place.

Daisy would confide in her own time and not a moment sooner. She wrapped her arm about her daughter’s slender waist and led her back toward Bob and Freddie, the latter bursting with energy and eager to get on with the day. “In that case, let’s see about that tea.”

“The fool doth think he is wise,
but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
—W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE
, Touchstone in
As You Like It

D
aisy was devastated by Gavin’s walking away, more devastated than she imagined she might be ever again. Not even Freddie’s father taking off upon learning she was pregnant came close to hurting this much. When her other liaisons ended, it was usually with a minimum of bother and a suitably expensive parting gift. No lover from her past had managed to make her feel so wholly miserable, so entirely lost.

Never had she imagined Gavin following her to the park and confronting her in front of her family. That he staged a scene in front of an impressionable child seemed an almost unpardonable sin. She hadn’t felt such cutting betrayal since she’d finally given up on him answering any of her letters. The irony was that just when she’d begun to drop her guard, to consider he might really be different from other men she knew, he’d shown himself to be cut from the same cloth. Like them, he didn’t care to be saddled with another man’s bastard—even if Freddie happened to be the most beautiful, wonderful little girl on the earth.

For Freddie’s sake, she kept her emotions in check for the next few hours, through the romp in the park, the outing to the teashop for a cup and a sweet, and finally the stop-over to pick up her things from Gavin’s. More than once throughout the day she caught Flora’s eye on her, but fortunately Freddie kept up such a stream of chatter she was spared having to answer any questions, at least of the probing, grown-up sort. Once she settled them all into the Whitechapel flat, however, she couldn’t hold her feelings in any longer. She hurled a teapot and several vases, all gifts from former lovers, to the far side of the room. Afterward she fled to her bedroom and let the tears flow.

She wasn’t really surprised when the soft knock sounded outside her door. Lifting her head from the sopping pillow, she called out, “I’m having a rest. I’ll … I’ll be out in a bit.”

“In that case, I’ll come in.” It was Flora, of course.

She took one look at Daisy and settled her plump form on the side of the bed. “There, there, my dear, no more tears. You’ll be puffy-eyed for your rehearsal.” Over tea, Daisy had told them all about her winning the part of Rosalind in
As You Like It.

“I don’t care how I look,” Daisy said and though a certain degree of vanity was part of her nature, it was more or less the truth. Gavin wouldn’t be there to see her and there was no one else for whom she cared to look pretty. After that day, he’d likely not want to lay eyes on her ever again.

“You’ve had a row with your young man is all. You’ll patch things up.”

Daisy shook her head. “Not this time. I have a child, an illegitimate child, something someone like Gavin can’t begin to accept or understand. He’s washed his hands of me. I disgust him as though I was the lowest of whores.”

Smoothing back the hair from Daisy’s damp brow, Flora shook her head. “I have an inkling your Mr. Carmichael is made of sterner stuff than that.”

“He’s not my Mr. Carmichael, at least not any more. Oh, Mum, it’s all such a mess.”

“In that case, begin at the beginning, and we’ll sort it out from there.”

So much had happened over the past weeks Daisy scarcely knew where to begin. “We quarreled.”

“I saw as much. What over?”

“He thought … that is to say, he got it into his head I’d a lover coming over from France.”

“What rubbish. You most certainly don’t—do you?”

Daisy shook her head. “No, of course not.”

“Then why ever should he think that?” Flora asked in the same tone she used when as a child Daisy had been hiding some mischief.

“Because … well, he came across a letter I was writing to Freddie and assumed she was a ‘he.'”

“I see. Well, small wonder he was upset at first but naturally you set him straight … didn’t you?”

Daisy hesitated and then answered with a miserable shake of her head. “Since he seemed so hell bent on believing me no better than I should be, I let him go on thinking what he would.”

Flora’s eyes flew open. “Oh, Daisy, why ever didn’t you simply tell him the truth?”

“Once he learned I had a daughter, a
bastard
daughter, he was bound to leave anyway. I thought if I let him go on believing there was someone else, someone coming over from France to meet me, we’d end the affair before anyone got hurt.”

Flora arched a salt-and-pepper brow. “Is it him you were afraid might be hurt … or you?”

“Both, I suppose. Oh, why couldn’t matters between us run their natural course and fizzle before you all arrived?”

“Perhaps the natural course for the pair of you isn’t for things to fizzle at all but for the bond to grow stronger with time—if only you’ll put aside your pride and fears and let someone love you.”

Gavin’s words came back to her.
What are you so afraid of? That we might be happy? That I might actually love you?

“My dear, the plain truth is you’ve been pushing people away all your young life and while I, of all people, can’t fault you for it given the sad start you had, it’s time to turn over a new leaf.”

Raising herself up on her elbows, Daisy asked, “I don’t really push people away … do I?”

“Daisy, dear, surely you already know the answer to that? Why, when Papa and I first glimpsed you, we fell in love with you straightaway, but you were considerably less charmed by us. If I had a penny for every time you swore you hated us for taking you away from your friends, I’d be a wealthy enough woman to keep us all. You ran off a score of times that first year, once after we’d crossed the Channel to France.”

Too weary to argue, Daisy dropped back down on the mattress. “What does it all matter now? What’s past is past and Gavin is gone.”

“I’d say it must matter a great deal or else you wouldn’t be closeted in your bedroom crying buckets onto your pillow.”

Daisy fitted a hand over her pounding forehead. If anyone had told her being a grown woman would be so complicated, she would have gladly stayed a little girl forever. “Letting him think I had a lover back in France seemed so much simpler. It’s not entirely a lie. There’ve been men since Freddie’s father, as well you know.”

Flora stroked a soothing hand over her brow, making her feel like a beloved child again, comforted and cherished. “My dear, I love you to bits, you know I do, but this shading of the truth simply must stop. If you keep on this path, you’ll only make yourself miserable and everyone who loves you miserable into the bargain, including Mr. Carmichael.”

“I only did so to keep him at arm’s length.”

“At arm’s length, why, my dear, you’ve pushed him a great deal farther away than that. At this rate, there’ll be the great sea to separate the two of you once again—that and your foolish pride. Had you been honest about Freddie when he first came upon the letter, he might have had some time to warm up to the idea.”

“It’s too late now. He loathes me.”

Flora shook her head. “Though I only met the man for a few moments and under the worst of circumstances, I’m sure you couldn’t be more wrong. What you saw in his face wasn’t loathing but a feeling of betrayal, the keenest sort of pain, as well you know. Mr. Carmichael loves you, Daisy. A man doesn’t turn his life inside out for a woman he cares for only mildly or not at all. To wound him as you have, he must love you very much.”

Gavin hadn’t felt so betrayed since the headmaster at Roxbury House turned him over to his grandfather fifteen years before. Looking back on that experience through adult eyes, he saw the man hadn’t had a choice. Daisy, on the other hand, had a plethora of choices—and at every turn or so it seemed she’d chosen to deceive him.

It had been a shock to discover she had a love child, but what hurt him most was that she kept such a profound part of herself as motherhood secret from him. No, not a secret—a lie. It was clear she didn’t trust him enough, let alone love him enough, to share her life with him. Feeling as though his heart was being wrenched from his chest, he did what he hadn’t done since his university years. He went out to a pub and got rip roaring drunk.

Hours later, the barkeep leaned over the scarred wood of the bar and said, “It’s coming on closing time, mate.”

“I wanna another drink.” Gavin clanked his almost empty mug, adding to the spillage.

The barkeep shook his bullet-shaped head. “'Ave it somewhere else. We’re closing, so shove off.”

Gavin slid off the stool. His weaving feet took him through the smoky taproom to the outside. Once on the street, he started walking and ended up on Rourke’s doorstep. As part of his search for a society bride, Rourke had been assembling the gentlemanly trappings money could buy, including a smart townhouse in Hanover Square, one of Mayfair’s more fashionable neighborhoods. Eschewing the brass door knocker, Gavin banged his fists upon the lacquered wood.

A butler in nightcap and robe finally answered. “I’m sorry but Mr. O’Rourke is not receiving callers.”

Rourke’s mussed ginger-colored head and broad shoulders appeared in the doorframe. “That’s all right, Sylvester. Mr. Carmichael is a mate of mine.”

Gavin staggered inside. Gripping the carved stair banister to steady himself, he gathered a vague impression of walls bedecked in tooled leather, gas lit sconces, and plush Persian carpets. He tried whistling only to find he’d forgotten how.

Rourke closed the door and regarded him with astonished eyes. “Gav, you’re drunk.”

“Correction, I’m
very
drunk.” He bobbed his head and nearly fell forward.

Rourke grabbed him. Draping a steadying arm about his shoulders, he guided him through the hallway. Shooting a look over his shoulder, he called back, “Sylvester, send us up a pot of coffee as strong and black as you can find.”

“Right, sir,” the butler said and disappeared in the direction of what must be the kitchen.

Gavin shook his spinning head. The evening, like the rest of his life, wasn’t going at all as he’d planned. “Don’t want coffee, want another drink. Got any … got any scotch?”

Rourke steered them inside his study. “None for you, I’m afraid.”

“A Scot without any Scotch.” For whatever reason, that struck Gavin as exceedingly droll. He collapsed into a leather-covered wing chair, roaring with laughter.

He opened his parched mouth to demand a drink a second time when nausea hit him like a fist in the gut. “Water …”

Rourke slipped off the edge of the desk and stood. “You want a glass of water?”

Gavin shook his head, the study seesawing. “Water … closet.”

“You need to use the WC, man?” Rourke’s eyes grew big at the same time another wave of sickness broke over Gavin. “Sylvester!”

“I knew I shouldn’t have spent a wee fortune on carpeting,” Rourke remarked some time later. He handed over the bucket and sponge to Sylvester and rose from his knees.

Sober, albeit with a thrumming head, Gavin reached a shaking hand for the coffee cup from the tray Sylvester had just carried in. He took a scalding swallow and said, “I’ll replace it. You’ve only to tell me where you purchased it.”

Sitting back against the desk, Rourke shrugged. “Dinna fash yourself. By the looks of it, your belly was empty save for ale and gin. If anything, I think that spot’s the cleanest of them all.” Turning back to Gavin, he added, “So, are you going to tell me why someone who’s always sober as a judge—or a top notch barrister of Her Majesty’s Queen’s Court, I should say—suddenly decided to get stinking drunk, or am I to play guessing games into the wee hours? Come to think of it, it
is
the wee hours.” He lifted a broad-backed hand to his mouth and yawned behind it.

“It’s Daisy.”

“Now, there’s a shock.”

Gavin whipped his head about. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Rourke looked up from pouring a dram of whiskey into his coffee cup. “Only that everything’s been about Daisy since she turned up again. It’s amazing to me that one wee woman can be the cause for so much mischief.”

Gavin swallowed more coffee, the scalding chicory blending with the bile scoring his throat. “Mark my words, your day will come.”