Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(3)
Unless he hadn’t been following her or watching her? Perhaps it had been her overzealous imagination, fueled by one too many gothic novels she secreted from her father’s censorious eye. After all, she had run across any number of the same lords and ladies at the endless parade of society functions to which she’d dutifully marched at Aunt Caroline’s side.
She had to admit it was possible he had merely been a guest at the same events, and that he had accidentally stumbled upon her embrace with Lord Wilford. The thought of Wilford was enough to sour her mood. He’d been inebriated, and he kissed as she imagined a fish would. Even his mouth had tasted of an unlikely combination of champagne and algae.
Still, Daisy would have chosen him as a husband over the Viscount Breckly, which was why it had been so disappointing when Wilford had mumbled an apology and disappeared after she’d stiffened upon catching sight of an interloper.
That interloper stood before her now, handsome as sin. Rangy and broad and far too tan of skin and muscled of form to blend in with his fellow aristocrats. She had seen a flash of him in the partially ajar door of the music room where she’d slipped away with Wilford. And she’d been watching for him ever since.
But it would seem that the enigmatic duke didn’t want to play a game that wasn’t of his own making, and time was running out for her. In just a week, her father would arrive from New York, and he’d made his intentions clear. He expected an engagement to be finalized between herself and the officious Lord Breckly, a man who was thirty years her senior and smelled of sweat and unlaundered linens. A man who had attempted to lift her skirts and force himself upon her in the drawing room not two days past. Who would have, had not Aunt Caroline returned from the library bearing the book she’d been seeking in her flimsy ploy to force Daisy into spending time alone with the villain.
Daisy knew a stab of disappointment at the realization that the duke would not be the answer to her problems any more than Wilford had. However, she kept her expression neutral, as if she couldn’t be bothered to care if he remained or left. “If you must decline, then I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t linger. Lord Bolton should arrive at any minute and it would be dreadfully awkward if he found you here.”
The duke flicked a grimly assessing glance over her person that left her with the impression he saw far more of her than she would have preferred. In truth, she hadn’t said a word to Lord Bolton. She’d flirted with him, but he’d had eyes only for her bosom, and she’d delivered a sound tap of her fan to his arm for his insouciance.
“Lord Bolton has a reputation of which you are undoubtedly unaware,” he said then. “Run along back to your chaperone and forget you ever knew his name.”
Aunt Caroline was long in her cups by now, and at parties such as these, she made a mockery of the term “chaperone,” much to Daisy’s relief. It rendered her attempts to thwart her father’s plans a bit more sustainable. But she only had a week of such freedom remaining, and the Duke of Trent was encroaching on the days she had left.
She raised a brow. “Thank you for the advice, Your Grace.”
She needed to find someone to marry her in haste, and this man was not he. Gainsaying her father would only earn her the most vicious bruises imaginable, all strategically placed where no one’s eye would ever chance to fall. He liked to hit her in the stomach. He knew how to pull hair without ripping it from the root while causing the maximum amount of pain. His booted foot could do the most damage, she’d discovered the last time she’d gone against his wishes.
That grim knowledge was the ultimate source of the desperation propelling her—the frantic need to escape both her father and the life he’d predestined for her. If she had a choice between marrying Lord Breckly and anyone else, she’d decided anyone would do. Anyone at all who could help her to avoid a detestable marriage to a brute or another raised fist.
“Perhaps your American customs are not the same, Miss Vanreid,” the Duke of Trent said then, his tone patronizing. “Only one thing will come of you awaiting Lord Bolton in this chamber for an assignation, and it most assuredly will not benefit you. You’ll be ruined.”
Truly. For a man who wanted nothing to do with her, he was an odd sort. Unless…her mind grappled with their brief exchange, with the handful of times she’d caught him watching her.
Her pride had made her second-guess herself, but her common sense now reminded her that he had come to this chamber. He had intentionally sought her out. Their gazes had briefly clashed earlier, and she’d hoped he would follow in her wake after she exited the ballroom. And he had. Something about him was decidedly not as it seemed.
Either way, her patience was at an end. If he didn’t wish to kiss her, she didn’t have any further need of him. For she required to be ruined. Compromised. The sooner the better to avoid becoming Viscountess Breckly and escape her father’s wrath.
She stalked forward, intending to quit the chamber. “Good evening, Your Grace. If you won’t leave, then I shall. And if you don’t mind, seek someone else to harass in the future. Ducal condescension isn’t to my liking.”
But when she would have slipped past him, he caught her upper arm in a firm yet gentle grip, forcing her to face him. His scent hit her, a masculine blend of shaving soap and musk. She drank in the sight of him despite herself. Something about all that flawlessness made her long to disturb it. To muss up his hair, flick open a button.