Page 20 of Love and the Shameless Lady

“She chooses to,” Bennett said.

“It’s her right,” Bonaventure agreed.

“It’s her punishment,” Sir Julian snarled. “How can you just sit there and watch? If that lout in the yellow cap tries to paw her once more, I’ll—”

Mr. Bennett stood and took Julian by the arm. “You’ll do no such thing. We’re leaving before you start a brawl. She can take care of herself, and if she can’t, there are plenty of fellows here who’ll protect her.”

Daisy poured a tankard of ale over the yellow cap. The drunken lecher sputtered, his neighbor cuffed him genially amid hoots and cheers, and the smugglers’ celebration went on.

Right. She didn’t need his help. She was none of his business. He stood and left.

Just because Daisy had learned to handle herself in a lowly tavern filled with drunken smugglers, it didn’t mean she enjoyed it.

It wasn’t any worse, though, than maneuvering through a society made up of malicious gossips. One way or the other, one had to put up with a great deal of unpleasantness. At least she could be herself at the Diving Duck.

Except that this wasn’t really the self she wanted to be. She didn’t quite know what that was, but it didn’t involve working in a room redolent of piss and seaweed, nor a ton party of lazy snobs whose greatest accomplishment was one-upmanship.

She rather liked Mr. Bonaventure’s comparisons between the behavior of rich and poor, educated and illiterate. A worthy man.

So, she supposed, was Sir Julian. He’d been kind and considerate of her, when he might easily have shunned her. Another estimable man . . .

Who wouldn’t want a boring bedmate. God, how that hurt.

Which was absurd. She didn’t care a hoot about Sir Julian’s preferences. He was fairly pleasant and good-looking as well, but so what? They would never be in bed together.

It had been an exhausting evening, often the case after a successful smuggling run. She was too tired to write and not the least bit inspired, so she undressed and went to bed.

She woke to soft, subtle sounds. She lay very still in bed, drowsily wondering what they were. Not the usual creaks and groans of the old inn. Not rain or wind. Not footsteps . . .

Someone was at her door.

Wide-awake now, she sat up, feeling automatically for the knife under her pillow.

It wasn’t there. Drat, had she set it aside whilst making her bed this morning? She turned up the oil lamp that burned low on her bedside table. No knife. She opened the drawer and groped for her gun.

It wasn’t there.