Scandal in Spring (Wallflowers #4)(51)

“This is a discussion between men,” Bowman retorted, flushing from guilt, anger, or some combination of the two. “It’s none of your concern.”

“Daisy is my concern,” Lillian said, her voice soft but chilling. “And I’d kill you both before letting you make her unhappy.” Before her father could reply, she turned and proceeded down the hall.

Swearing, Bowman left the room and headed in the opposite direction.

Left alone in the study, Matthew slammed the coin onto the desk.

“All this effort for a man who doesn’t even care,” Daisy muttered to herself, thinking dire thoughts about Matthew Swift.

Llandrindon sat a few yards away on the rim of a garden fountain, obediently holding still as she sketched his portrait. She had never been particularly talented at sketching, but she was running out of things to do with him.

“What was that?” the Scottish lord called out.

“I said you have a fine head of hair!”

Llandrindon was a perfectly nice fellow, pleasant and unexceptional and utterly conventional. Glumly Daisy admitted to herself that in the effort to drive Matthew Swift half-mad with jealousy, she had succeeded only in driving herself half-mad with boredom.

Daisy paused to raise the back of her hand to her lips, stifling a yawn as she tried to appear as if she were immersed in her sketching.

This had been one of the most miserable weeks of her entire life. Day after day of deadly tedium, pretending to enjoy herself in the company of a man who couldn’t have interested her less. It wasn’t Llandrindon’s fault—he had made every effort to be entertaining—but it was clear to Daisy they had nothing in common and never would.

This didn’t seem to bother Llandrindon nearly as much as it did her. He could talk about practically nothing for hours. He could have filled entire newspapers with society gossip about people Daisy had never met. And he launched on long discourses about things like his search for the perfect color scheme for the hunting room at his Thurso estate, or the detailed course of studies he had followed at school. There never seemed to be a point to any of these stories.

Llandrindon seemed similarly disinterested in what Daisy had to say. He didn’t laugh at the tales of her childhood pranks with Lillian, and if she said something like “Look at that cloud—it’s shaped just like a rooster,” he stared at her as if she were mad.

He also hadn’t liked it when they discussed the poor laws and Daisy questioned his distinctions between the “deserving poor” and the “unworthy poor.” “It seems, my lord,” she had said, “that the law is designed to punish the people who need help the most.”

“Some people are poor because of choices they make through their own moral weaknesses, and therefore one can’t help them.”

“Such as fallen women, you mean? But what if these women had no other—”

“We will not discuss fallen women,” he had said, looking horrified.

Conversation with him was limited at best. Especially as Llandrindon found it difficult to follow Daisy’s quicksilver transitions between subjects. Long after she had finished talking about one thing, he would keep asking about it. “I thought we were still on the subject of your aunt’s poodle?” he had asked in confusion that very morning, and Daisy had replied impatiently, “No, I finished with that five minutes ago—just now I was telling you about the opera visit.”

“But how did we go from the poodle to the opera?”

Daisy was sorry that she had enlisted Llandrindon in her scheme, especially as it had proven so ineffective. Matthew Swift had not displayed one second’s worth of jealousy—he had been his usual granite-faced self, barely sparing a glance in her direction for days.

“Why are you frowning, sweeting?” Llandrindon asked, watching her face.

Sweeting? He had never used an endearment with her before. Daisy glanced at him over the edge of the sketchbook. He was staring at her in a way that made her uneasy. “Be quiet, please,” she said primly. “I’m sketching your chin.”

Concentrating on her drawing, Daisy thought it was not half-bad, but…was his head really that egg-shaped? Were his eyes that close-set? How strange that a person could be quite attractive, but when one examined them feature by feature, much of their charm faded. She decided sketching people was not her forte. From now on she would stick to plants and fruit.

“This week has had a strange effect on me,” Llandrindon ruminated aloud. “I feel…different.”

“Are you ill?” Daisy asked in concern, closing the sketchbook. “I’m sorry, I’ve made you sit out in the sun too long.”

“No, not that kind of different. What I meant to say is that I feel…wonderful.” Llandrindon was staring at her in that odd way again. “Better than I ever have before.”

“It’s the country air, I expect.” Daisy stood and brushed her skirts off, and went to him. “It’s quite invigorating.”

“It’s not the country air I find invigorating,” Llandrindon said in a low voice. “It’s you, Miss Bowman.”

Daisy’s mouth fell open. “Me?”

“You.” He stood and took her shoulders in his hands.

Daisy could only stutter in surprise. “I—I—my lord—”