Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(20)

“Excellent.” Carlisle took another sip of spirits.

“There’s only one problem,” he took great pleasure in adding.

“Jesus, Trent. You’re tipping the scales tonight, and it isn’t in your bloody favor,” the duke warned.

“The lady’s aunt will need to be distracted.” He grinned. “And she rather took a liking to you. Ply the biddy with some drink and she’ll be all yours. If you don’t, I can’t promise Miss Vanreid can manage an escape.”

With that parting shot, he ducked back out of the room, Carlisle’s growled curses trailing after him.





he Duchess of Trent.

Her Grace.

How odd. How absurd. She, Daisy Vanreid, who’d earned her carefully honed London reputation as a bold flirt and a rebel, who had been snubbed by New York’s Knickerbocker elite and an untold number of haughty aristocrats, had just married a duke. And not just any duke, but the most handsome duke she’d laid eyes on since landing on England’s dreary shore. Sebastian Fairmont, the Duke of Trent.

Daisy stared at her reflection in the strange mirror in the equally strange chamber. She didn’t look any different. Her hair remained styled in the same Grecian plait Abigail had fashioned for her before she’d managed to flee Aunt Caroline’s home. She still wore her afternoon gown, a vibrant emerald silk trimmed with lace, navy cording, and a cluster of crushed velvet roses on the bodice. Not her finest dress, and certainly not the dress she’d envisioned as her wedding frock, but a more inspired choice would have roused Aunt Caroline’s suspicions. Daisy hadn’t been willing to take the risk.

Sacrificing her vanity for the sake of her future had been the wisest decision to make. And in a life that had been marked by a series of unwise decisions, to Daisy, the handsome afternoon gown—not nearly as impressive as most of her wardrobe—was a sign that she was ready to turn over a new leaf. To begin again. To live a life unencumbered by fear or threats of violence.

To be… her true self, something she had never had the opportunity to be. Under her father’s watchful gaze, she had been quiet and reserved, her every action above reproach lest she earn his rage. With Aunt Caroline as her chaperone, she had been someone else, a desperate flirt whose confidence was largely pretense.

And now here she stood, stripped of both roles. Plain old Daisy. Daisy who didn’t know what to do. Should she be bold? Should she be coy? Goodness, she didn’t even know the duke, the man she’d just wed. She had shown so many different faces to so many different people—all in an effort to escape her father’s violence and disapproval in one fashion or another—that she wasn’t certain she even knew who she was.

Her hands shook as she smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her skirt and pinched her pale cheeks to lend them a hint of color. She had no lady’s maid. No portmanteau. No other gowns. All she had stood reflected in the glass: herself, the duke’s unadorned gold band he’d slipped on her finger, the gown and undergarments beneath it, the heavy weight of the diamond jewelry she’d carefully filled her hidden pockets with.

That was all.

Bring only what you require, the duke had instructed, and Daisy had followed his directive. The sole exception was the king’s ransom in diamonds her father had bestowed upon her, most of which had been gifts after he’d hurt her and all of which had been his means of showing the world just how immeasurable his wealth was. No, the diamonds weren’t required, but something within her—that old instinct for survival—had told her to take them just before she fled.

Her dowry, she thought with a grim smile, for she very much doubted her father would grant her another penny after she’d flaunted and defied him in such a public, irrevocable manner. Earned by every bruise she’d ever worn, each slam of a fist into her body.

She had borne his cruelty. She had allowed herself to be paraded before New York high society first and then London, clothed in the most luxurious Parisian silks and satins. Adorned by enough riches to rival any queen. She had accepted his slaps, his shoves, his brutal beatings when she disappointed him or went against his strict edicts.

But she had finally reached her limit. Consigning herself to the life he’d chosen for her had been the last outrage. Bearing his rage one more time when her freedom hovered within her grasp had been an impossibility. Leaving hadn’t been a difficult decision. She’d never known a true home or family in her life. Aunt Caroline cared only for the attention chaperoning Daisy brought her. Her father cared only for the wealth and connections she could give him with her marriage.

How ironic it was that a near stranger—now her husband—was the only person in her life who didn’t want to use her for his own selfish gain. And there was no doubt about it, Trent had nothing to gain by marrying her. Even the lure of her immense dowry could not be enough since her father would revoke it and she’d made no secret of the fact.

Daisy read the gossip sheets, which often spewed thinly veiled venom toward her. For a duke to wed an American girl who had flouted convention and courted ruin—even if her motivation for so doing was justifiable—who had spent the last month in a desperate bid to kiss as many bachelors as possible in the hopes she could land a proposal, for the Duke of Trent to marry the notorious Daisy Vanreid, he would have to be motivated by only two things. His desire for her and his honor.