Page 92 of Love and the Shameless Lady

She turned from him, weeping now, with rage or shame or what, he couldn’t tell. “At first I didn’t mind too much, but after a while it hurt like the devil. I was bleeding, although I didn’t realize that until I reached home, and he kept cursing and changing positions and ramming into me! Of course I tried to stop him. I did stop him. I yanked myself away and kicked him, and grabbed my clothing and left, but not until after he’d told me . . .”

“Told you what?”

She said nothing, but her bosom rose and fell. She’d already confessed to an appalling experience, but apparently they hadn’t reached the end. She got off the bed and walked away. “I wish you hadn’t said you won’t leave, because you must.”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, but didn’t get down. Let her have a bit of distance, if that helped. “I’m waiting, Daisy. Just tell me.”

“Oh, very well.” That petulant voice meant she’d raised a wall between them, but at least he now had the ammunition to tear it down again. An hour! As a lady with an excessively proper mother and likely no other source of information, she’d had no notion what to expect.

“He said that I was boring in bed. In fact, that I was a bore in general, and that now that he’d sampled a lady . . .” She gritted her teeth. “He said that word, lady, as if it meant excrement or worse.” She stormed across the room and back, not meeting Julian’s gaze. “He said he now knew why gentlemen had to have mistresses, and he’d stick to ordinary whores from now on.”

“Christ. Insult added to injury. Too bad he’s dead, for I wish I could gut him.”

“I don’t feel boring.” Tears glistened in her eyes.

“Because you’re not. You’re brilliant, and I adore you.”

“That’s very kind of you,” she muttered, dashing the tears away.

“It’s not kindness. It’s the truth.”

Her bosom rose and fell in the candlelight. She gave him the ghost of a smile. “I got in the last word, though.”

He snorted. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I advised him to leave the area, if not the entire country, as soon as possible, for when my brother found out what he’d done to me, he would surely kill him.”

“Rightly so.”

“I slammed the door and went downstairs and into the coffee room full of patrons. I was stark naked but too upset to care. Sally, bless her, pulled me into the kitchen and helped me dress, then got me safely to the stable and my horse. I managed to get home unseen, but I knew it was hopeless. Reggie was sure to spread the word far and wide that he’d deflowered me, and that I was a bore in bed.”

“But he didn’t, of course.”

“There’s no of course about it, although I never did find out what he’d told everyone. I wasn’t about to ask Sally or anyone else for details. I confessed to Mama the next morning. She tried to cast me out of the house forever, but I told her she couldn’t, because Colin was master. She ranted and raved, and I didn’t blame her, but I refused to leave. I never tried to pretend I was ashamed of my behavior. I was furious at myself for being a stupid little ninny, but never ashamed.”

“No, why should you be?”

She shook her head, her expression incredulous. “That same day, she had her first apoplectic fit. She couldn’t speak after that.”

“Which certainly solved the problem of too much talking.”

Daisy started to speak, but her voice caught on a sob.

“Pardon my making game of it, but she sounds like a dreadful female. Did she really never speak to Colin after your sister died?”

“No, never.”

“You have turned out remarkably well in spite of her.”

Daisy sniffled. “I liked my father, but I was very young when he died. I still remember him fondly.” She opened a drawer in the dressing table, found a handkerchief, and blew her nose. “Mama declined after that first apoplectic fit. She had another several months later and was dead in under a year.” Daisy made a rueful face. “I don’t know why I took exception to Philippe dropping his servant down a hole. I killed my mother, after all.”

“Nonsense. She would have died sooner or later anyway.”

“But I hurried it along. Colin came home after a few weeks, but by then I’d gone. I couldn’t tolerate the neighbors refusing to acknowledge my existence, and the servants looking at me as if I were a whore. The injustice of it infuriates me and still does. A man can bed any number of women—in fact, it’s seen as a measure of prowess, while a woman . . . But I don’t wish to talk about that. I stole one of Colin’s dueling pistols, a knife that had belonged to my father, and fifty pounds from the strongbox, and went to live at the Diving Duck. Luckily, Reggie had taken my advice and left Lancashire.”

“But he died anyway.”

“Yes, in a brawl. Colin tried to persuade me to come home, but I was happier at the Diving Duck. Sally is a dear, good friend, and the common people, the really common ones, not the merchants and mushrooms, are not so fussy about propriety. They are kind to me, and after a while they learned not to treat me like a lady. And of course the regular money helps the inn. Colin gives me an allowance that more than covers my room and board, my clothing, and everything else I can possibly need.”