“Ah.” He blinked, unsure of what he was seeing. “Mrs. Whitlaw. Um. Is your daughter…”
His aunt just shook her head. “No, Crash, she isn’t here. We thought she was with you.”
He didn’t know what these women were doing together. Why were they discussing him and Daisy? He had barely discussed the matter with Daisy.
“Where’s the rum?” Harriet asked.
“I don’t have—”
“Hmm.” She sniffed. “No rum, no entrance.”
His aunt barred the door.
“Also, no Daisy, no entrance. What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” He threw up his hands in bafflement. “What are the lot of you doing?”
Behind him, Daisy’s mother rolled her eyes. “What does it look like they’re doing? They’re teaching me how to cheat at cards.”
His aunt made a shooing motion. “Get out. Go away. We don’t need you.”
Crash refused to give up; he just needed to regroup. He made his way home, up the stairs to his rooms. He came to the final landing and stopped.
Daisy sat just outside his door, looking as tired as he felt. She huddled on the floor, her arms around her knees. She looked up at him with wide, hurt eyes. Then she smiled.
His heart lifted. His weariness fell away. “Daisy, what are you doing here?”
She met his eyes and slowly—not entirely gracefully—clambered to her feet. “Where have you been?”
“Looking for you.” He set his hand against the wall next to her. “Where have you been?”
“Waiting for you.” She gave him a smile. A bright one. A brilliant one, in fact, one that warmed him everywhere.
“No,” he said. “Never mind any of that. How are you, Daisy? That stage—what happened this morning has been much on my mind. I saw your face. I saw what they did to you.” He took a step toward her. “I wish I had a host of well-fed pigeons to release over their heads. How are you?”
“Truly?” She took a step toward him. “I feel bruised. Hurt. Angry. Sad.”
“Of course you do.” Then, because she stood mere inches from him, he reached out to her. He cupped her cheek with his fingers, stroking the soft warmth of her skin. “Of course you do.”
“I am also,” Daisy said, “determined, triumphant, and exuberant. They won’t stop me.”
There was something in her eyes as she spoke. Something so strong and unbreakable that he wanted to squeeze her tight, just to prove that she was real. “Of course they won’t.”
“They can’t,” she said. “They handed me the largest pile of dung a horse has ever dropped on the street and pretended it was my due. That I deserved nothing better.” Her chin went up in defiance. “I held it. I smelled it. And I’m throwing it back at them.” Her eyes bored into his. “When you feel your velocipede slipping, there’s only one thing to do.”
“Go faster,” he said softly.
“Don’t stop. Go hard. Pedal. Don’t flinch. Maybe you’ll still fall, but maybe, just maybe, you’ll make it through the other end.” Her smile glittered. “I’ve signed partnership papers. With Lady Ashworth—that’s Judith.”
He grinned at her. “Have you now?”
“I have. And I was thinking. You told me a while back that you’d looked at a storefront that was too large by half.”
“Yes?”
“If you haven’t committed to anything yet… Do you suppose we might take it together? We could divide the space in two.”
He broke out in a grin. “Yes, Daisy. I think we might. I rather think we might.” He paused. “You know, it wasn’t just space for a business. There were living quarters above the shop.”
“Oh.” She looked over at him and a small smile touched her face. “Oh dear. We shall have to argue over who gets them. And I had so hoped that we were done with arguing.”
He folded his arms. Two could play at that game. “No arguing necessary. We shall simply divide them down the middle.”
“What a lovely solution,” Daisy said. “Be sure to tell me which half is yours so I can come visit. I’ve been told you have scones. And tea. And orgasms.”
“God, Daisy.” He found himself laughing. “I love you. Will you please stop teasing me and tell me you’ll marry me and share everything?”
“I suppose if there are pastries…” She hesitated just a moment. “Then, yes. Yes. I might as well admit that I love you, too.”
Their hands clasped. She leaned toward him.
“Wait.” He stopped her. How he stopped her when she was on the verge of kissing him, when her lips were so close he could have touched them with his tongue, he didn’t know. “Wait. I have some bad news about your mother.”
She gasped. “Oh, God. My mother. Is she… Has anything happened?”
He shook his head sadly at her. “You’ll never beat her at whist again. My aunt has found her out. She cheats, and she’ll teach your mother everything.”
Daisy smiled. “Good. My mother could use a little cheating in her life.”
Ever so slowly, he wound his arms around her.
“So can I,” he said.
Her lips brushed his, and he pulled her to him.
Epilogue
Four months later
There ought to have been some sort of fanfare. Daisy would have settled for a single trumpet playing a few triumphant notes. After months of hard work, the world ought to have announced the alteration of Daisy’s life with something more than the chiming of a church bell two streets away.
That was all she had, though. Daisy turned the iron key in the lock on a sunny spring morning and opened the door to her new emporium. The key didn’t even give so much as a portentous squeak.
The door swung open onto the cobblestone street. The glass window showcasing Daisy’s goods glittered in the sunlight.
It was just another day. Soon this would be prosaic. Daisy danced a little jig of excitement in place and retreated back inside.
Nothing to do now but wait for customers.
Daisy was too n
ervous to sit. She paced instead—from one end of the store to the other. The mahogany chairs in the sitting area for tea and biscuits gleamed with polish, but she wiped them down anyway. The brightly colored scarves didn’t need to be rearranged, but she fussed with them regardless.
That all took precisely one minute.
She glanced out the window, and the bell on the door rang.
In came Mrs. Wilde. In the months since the competition, they’d conversed several times. Daisy had promised her that if she ever needed an assistant, she would ask her first.
The woman looked around and smiled.
“My dear, this is lovely. You’ve done an excellent job.”
Daisy smiled in pleasure.
“I’m here for my buttonhole,” Mrs. Wilde said. “Then I’ll be out of your hair. I’m sure you’ll be busy.”
Daisy hoped so. “Flowers. Excellent. We’ve three choices today. Violets, nasturtiums, and—”
The bell rang again, and Daisy looked up. She didn’t recognize the woman who came in. She wore a light green gown with a gold sash, and she smiled and looked about with an air of satisfaction.
“Good day,” Daisy started.
But a man entered ten seconds behind her, and Daisy did recognize him. He was one of the judges from the competition. The last one, the one who had chosen Daisy to give her presentation. He had set her up for that painful embarrassment.
Daisy winced. She’d be gracious. She would. She prepared a smile, however false it was.
“You were right, Benjamin.” The woman turned to the man behind her. “She has done an excellent job.”
Daisy inhaled in surprise.
“Let me look at these hairpieces,” the woman said, and the couple walked across the room.
Daisy turned back to Mrs. Wilde. “And tulips,” she finished in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
Her mind had not yet recovered from the shock. The judge had thought she would do an excellent job?
She wasn’t sure how to credit it.
But after Mrs. Wilde had left with a cluster of tulips, the woman in the green frock picked out a bangle, a set of hairpins with paste jewels on them, and a scarf. Her husband paid for them, counting exact change from a coin purse.