Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(93)

He looked to Griffin, who gave him a grim nod before leading the remaining three men from the chamber. Vanreid wouldn’t come out the victor. He was outmanned and outgunned.

“Hush, love,” he told Daisy. “Stay with me, now. Griffin will arrest your father. You’re safe. It’s over.”

She blinked at him owlishly. “Is it?” Her words were sluggish, slurred. “It is really over?”

He wondered for a grim moment whether she referred to her father’s plots or their union. But before he could ask her, she fainted dead away.





2nd June, 1881





Darling Daisy,

I hope that this note finds you well. Please convey my thanks to the Duchess of Leeds for granting you the hospitality you requested. Your doctor promises me you will mend and that our babe was unharmed, and I am heartily glad, as I cannot fathom a life without the both of you in it.

Bravo, buttercup. The newspapers are ablaze with talk of The Daring Duchess. The Home Office assures me that your name is cleared and there remains no shadow of doubt concerning your integrity, bravery, and courage. You were—and are—magnificent.

I am unutterably sorry for everything—deceiving you, doubting you, hurting you. I hope you will find it within you to forgive me some day, though I know I’m not deserving of your clemency. Regardless, I’m inordinately proud of my fierce, beautiful, Daring Duchess.

Though I must say a hundred pounds on ice sculptures was rather extortionate.

Yours,

Sebastian





P.S. I’ve begun inquiries into your sister’s whereabouts. I won’t stop looking until she is found.





Daisy finished reading the note and allowed it to flutter to her lap. It would seem that her letters had at last found their way into Sebastian’s hands. And he had read them. Not only that, but he was searching for Bridget on her behalf. Her foolish heart quickened in her chest.

“Well?” Georgiana demanded, holding a white cat to her bosom as she seated herself at Daisy’s bedside. “What has he to say for himself?”

She swallowed, tamping down the unsettled emotions Sebastian’s words had brought back to teeming life within her. A week had passed since her world had been torn asunder. Abigail and her father had been arrested, along with a string of other plotters in London and a host of other cities. Still, both Padraig McGuire and Bridget remained unaccounted for, and Daisy could only hope that wherever she was and whatever she had done, her sister hadn’t mired herself too deep within the dangerous Fenian organization.

Daisy herself was healing fine. Thankfully, the bullet had only passed cleanly through her shoulder. Daisy had lost a fair amount of blood, but the doctor had been able to stitch her up, and thus far, she remained free of infection. The babe continued to grow, blissfully unaware throughout it all. She’d chosen to recover at Georgiana’s home rather than staying with Sebastian, and he had honored her request by keeping his distance. She hadn’t seen him since the awful day Abigail had attempted to take her hostage.

She’d spent the last week lolling about in a spare guest chamber, eating pastries and feeling sorry for herself. In the furor of the moment, she had left Hugo behind with Sebastian, which meant she’d been settling for the company of Georgiana’s menagerie—which had grown to include a family of mice, a parrot, and a frightfully inquisitive lizard—whilst she recovered.

“Daisy?” Her friend’s gentle voice reminded her that she’d asked her a question.

Ah, yes. Sebastian’s bittersweet note. “He says that the newspapers are calling me The Daring Duchess.”

Georgiana laughed. “He is correct on that score, anyway. You’re being hailed as a veritable goddess. Your bravery will be the stuff of legends.”

“There was no bravery, only necessity.” She paused, frowning. “Do you mean to say the people who once flayed me alive are now touting my praises?”

“You helped to catch some of the Fenian menace.” Georgiana winked, giving the cat a thorough scratch behind her ears. “Lady Philomena Whiskers likes that, doesn’t she?”

Daisy chuckled in spite of her unsettled emotions, and then she grimaced when her body’s movement pulled at the stitches in her shoulder. “What a ridiculous name for a cat.”

“For some cats, perhaps, but not for this one,” Georgiana said with a grin and raised brows. “She’s descended from feline royalty. Just look at her delicate paws and her sweet, heart-shaped nose. She’s destined to marry a marquis, at the least. No second sons for her.”

The woman was as ridiculous as the names she gave her animal friends. “But inquiring minds do long to know—how does she get along with the mouse family?”

“The Lilliputians, you mean?” Georgiana winked. “Ludlow has been seeing to their care. Lady Philomena Whiskers doesn’t prefer their company. Rather, she would prefer their company, but only if they were obliging enough to be her dinner, and we cannot have that.”

The mere notion of Georgiana’s odd, mountain of a butler caring for a family of mice was just too much. Daisy collapsed into a fit of giggles. “No. You jest.”

The Duchess of Leeds raised an imperious brow. “I assure you, I would never joke about such a thing. You’d have to see it to believe it. But Ludlow does have a heart beating beneath that rigid, scarred hide of his. I swear.”