Scandal in Spring (Wallflowers #4)(40)

“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.