Page 11 of If a Lady Lingers

Wanting to comfort him, she placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a small, reassuring touch. “Hugh, I’m so sorry…for everything.”

He gave a silent, short nod. Then his head snapped up. He swung his gaze to her, and faint hope sparkled through his grief. “Say that again.”

She rubbed another consoling caress across his shoulder, the forest green velvet of his jacket soft beneath her fingertips. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I mean my name.” He turned to face her and gently clasped her arms. “That’s the first time you’ve used my given name. Say it again.” He gently squeezed her arms with a low urgency she felt bubbling up inside him. “Please.”

Apologetically—and warmed by something else she couldn’t name—she whispered, “Hugh.”

A wide grin spread across his face, and his blue eyes lit with affection and understanding. So much so that she couldn’t help but smile back.

He reached up to rub a stray tendril of her hair between his fingers. “May I…may I call you Daisy, too?”

She should have been unsettled by his behavior, but she wasn’t. She’d come to learn over the past few weeks that Hugh Whitby was one of the most gentle, kind-hearted men she’d ever met. “Of course.”

Her permission impossibly widened his smile. “Daisy,” he mused, repeating her name. “Bright and pretty, just like the flower.”

“Hugh Whitby.” She arched a brow. “Bright and flirtatious, just like a dandy.”

He laughed as she hoped he would. But then he surprised her by saying, “And you’re the exact opposite.”

“Exact opposite of a dandy? Heavens, I’d hope so!”

She pushed him away from the drafting table with a large swing of her hips. But he simply circled the table until he stood across from her and leaned down on his forearms. His tall and gangly body folded over its surface and blocked her attempt to straighten the drawings pinned beneath his elbows.

“No, silly.” He refused to move when she swatted at his shoulder. “The exact opposite of me.”

“Heavens, I’d hope so,” she repeated and tugged the drawings out from under him. “Iama woman, after all.”

She didn’t mean that as an invitation for him to ponder her femininity, but he did just that by raking a slow look over her. “Oh,” he acknowledged in a drawling murmur, “I’ve noticed.”

Her cheeks flushed. In her embarrassment, she wanted to crawl under the table and vanish from sight.

“But I’ve also noticed that you never do anything to draw attention to yourself, which isn’t at all like other women I know.” He cocked his head to the side as he studied her. “No bright colors, no jewelry, no fancy ribbons or lace… You wear plain clothes and simple knots in your hair.” He frowned. “You do everything you can to blend in and never stand out despite how beautiful you are. Why is that?”

Her lips twisted. Well,thatwas a backhanded compliment if ever she’d heard one.

Yet she knew that he’d meant nothing judgmental or insulting; he was simply making an observation. Which made it all the worse because it was true. Since her father’s illness, she’d had to fade into the background. She couldn’t risk that she’d be noticed, because if she were noticed for how she looked, then perhaps people would notice what else she was doing. She simply could never be as conspicuous as Whitby and do the work necessary to support her family.

Still, though, she felt a pang of guilt as she lied, “I don’t do that.”

“Oh, you do!”

She began to give him the put-down that deserved, but he cut her off.

“But why?” He rapped his knuckles on the desk. “Daisy is a posy, all right, but not of the wattle and daub variety.”

What on earth… “Pardon?”

“Wallflower,” he explained succinctly.

She slapped her hands onto her hips and glared at him. “Now that’s just—”

“You haven’t let yourself have any fun lately, either.”

Thatsimply flabbergasted her, and she dropped her hands to her sides. “What do you mean? I have fun.”

“Not according to Elias.”