Page 3 of Miss Ellis Unleashed

“But I’m not done with reading it yet,” she protested, eyes wide with feigned surprise. “What a shame you denied me my own copy so you have to share yours.”

She said it mildly enough but inside, she was still seething mad at him for never letting her have her own. He claimed the expense was excessive when they could share.

“Never mind the paper now,” he said, sighing heavily afterward. “I’ll purchase another copy on my way there.”

Daisy shrugged. “Well, good, and have a jolly good time out with your friends.”

“The Mambles are your friends, not mine.” Throsby’s lips thinned briefly, but when Daisy inched her gown up again, he shook his head. “I will return in plenty of time to escort you to tonight’s masquerade.”

“It will never be said that you have shirked your duty as a guardian, my lord,” she murmured, picking up the paper again but stealing a glance at his face first. There was no indication of anticipation for their last ball together or for escorting her there. Yet, he was hesitating to leave. Would she have to throw her gown up over her knees today to drive him away?

Daisy had always assumed Throsby was as eager as herself for an end to their annoying and unnecessary arrangement, but lately, he seemed to linger around as if she needed constant supervision.

Daisy had lost her papa at sixteen years old but had managed the household and her papa’s finances for many years before that. She’d hardly needed a guardian to manage so small a sum of money, and certainly not a man like Throsby. He’d been a complete stranger when he had arrived and had taken over everything, despite her protests that she was more than capable and she did not need him.

And it continued to irk her that her papa had saddled her with a humorless lump of a man. Papa’s final act as a father had been hard to reconcile.

She squinted at the paper and mumbled a few sentences softly, pretending she didn’t fully comprehend what she read, since that too would irk him.

Throsby snorted again. “So, I will be waiting for you at eight o’clock in the hall,” he announced as the housekeeper slipped into the room around him.

“Yes, and I will be ready and on time as you expect me to be,” she answered, knowing some sort of response was required to complete what had become their daily ritual.

When she said nothing more, he left the room as abruptly as he’d come, and the front door slammed shut behind him.

Daisy tossed the paper aside in disgust and looked around the cluttered room.

Just a few more hours and then…freedom.

Her home would be her own again, she could spread out her belongings, and her servants would take her orders and not his. And she would have the distinct pleasure of having her servants move her father’s old bed back upstairs to the currently empty master chamber where it should have remained all along.

There would be no more pleasing Lord Throsby’s needs under this roof.

Daisy sighed as the housekeeper sat at her side once more.

Some supervision was required from time to time, though. She wasn’t completely immoral.

“You can come out now, Mr. Pinkerton,” Daisy called, and then flipped up the long cloth covering the table and peeked under. “He’ll be gone for five and forty minutes at the very least.

“I thought he’d never leave,” Pinkerton replied, as he emerged from under the table. He straightened his coat, smoothed his hair, and cast a cheeky smile toward the housekeeper. “That was close. I was certain he’d find me this time around. I don’t know why he doesn’t like me.”

Vain, pretty men—fops—seemed to bother the viscount excessively when they came to call. Honestly, she couldn’t work out why the man bothered him so much, either. Pinkerton was amusing but hardly a suitor. He’d never once taken liberties anytime he hid under the table, either, and his gaze only ever lingered on other men, and never her own cleavage or legs.

“Never mind Throsby. I am eager to hear about your recent travels abroad…and that handsome man you met along the way,” she promised, as she uncovered the map she had hidden inside the paper. Talk of her traveling anywhere beyond London did seem to alarm Throsby excessively. “I’ve always wanted to travel to Rome, too, no matter how tedious Throsby claims I would find it.”

Chapter Two

Miss Daisy Ellis had been a thorn in Max’s side since the day they’d met. He’d been stuck with her as his ward for several years, and tomorrow, he would finally be free of the infernal arrangement. No more mincing his words, pretending her future, her good reputation, was the only thing that mattered in his entire life.

He glanced down at the top of her head—dark curls adorned with silly ribbons and flower buds yet again—and withheld a heavy sigh.

Miss Ellis appeared serene, as if his company did not bother her, which meant the minx was plotting some secret excursion he would not approve of, like almost everything she did. Her attempts to consort with the rakes and rogues who routinely called on her behind his back—or men so timid they would hide beneath a table, for God’s sake, whenever he was about—had mostly been routed by servants he paid well to protect her from ruin.

The minx hid her penchant for mischief from others well, but he knew the signs of trouble in the wind. She was too agreeable with him tonight, smiling too often in that empty-headed way she’d adopted of late. No matter what he said or how hard he scowled, she never stopped. Not a word of complaint had left her lips for the past two hours, and that was always an omen of trouble on the horizon.

He nodded to an unmarried marquess as he staggered past, too deep in his cups for decent conversation, and thankfully, the rogue thought better of stopping to flirt with his ward and ogle her chest.

Word had spread quite early into his guardianship that, despite his prior reputation for scandalous misadventures himself, Max would brook no nonsense when it came to his ward’s future. But still, some fools came to call on her when he was gone from the house with that goal in mind.