as she shifted again. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Is it your stays?” Belinda asked sympathetically. “Stays can be quite dangerous, you know,” she said, launching into conjecture about the dangers of corsets.
Daisy sank into the squabs and resolved not to think of the stranger again. She would think of London, of all the reasons she’d been so determined to leave.
Ah yes, that stream of suitors.
Her husband’s will had made London unbearable for her. It was no secret to the gentlemen bachelors about town that Lord Chatwick’s widow must remarry within three years of his death or risk forfeiting her son’s inheritance.
Clive had explained this to Daisy from his deathbed. “You must understand, darling. I should not like to see you refuse to marry again and deplete Ellis’s inheritance to live as you like. You will rely on Bishop Craig to help you find a suitable match. He will see to it that the man you agree to marry will ensure Ellis’s education in the finest institutions and will possess the proper connections for Ellis when he reaches his majority.”
Daisy had been horrified by his unexpected edict. She could scarcely embrace her husband’s looming death, much less the plans he’d made for her for after he’d gone. “I can look after him, Clive,” she’d said. “I am his mother—of course I will.”
Her husband had lost a moment in a fit of coughing, then patted her hand. “You will do as I decide, Daisy. I trust you to understand.”
But she didn’t understand. She would never understand.
Daisy and Clive’s match had been made on the basis of compatible fortunes and family interests. He was fifteen years her senior, and Daisy had been his second wife, his first having been lost in childbirth along with the child. It was the sort of match she’d been brought up to expect, and she’d been somewhat prepared for it. Duty first, wasn’t that what had been drummed into her?
But something miraculous had happened in that first year—she’d discovered affection for Clive. She’d been a steadfast and true companion, and she’d given him a son. She’d remained at his bedside when other women might have sought diversion elsewhere, and she’d held his hand when he felt searing pain rack his body. She’d been the wife she had promised him she would be.
And for her devotion, in the last weeks of his life, he’d made his final wishes known to her. Plans he’d already made. None of them included any regard for her.
Daisy had felt used and unimportant. As her husband lay dying, she’d realized that she was and always would be nothing more than a conduit to provide a son and then bring that son to his majority. That was her worth to Clive. Her feelings, her wants, were irrelevant to him.
As Daisy had struggled to keep her bitterness from coloring the days and weeks following his death, word of his final wishes began to whisper through the salons of Mayfair. The Chatwick fortune was up for bidding!
In fairness, Daisy had enjoyed the attention at first—it was a welcome change after caring for a sickly husband for so many years. She quickly became one of the most sought-after women in London...but, as it was readily apparent to everyone, not for herself. She was a widow with a fortune and a deadline for remarriage, and that was like raw meat to lions as far as the bachelors of the Quality were concerned. She could hardly keep them from her door.
As time ticked by, and the vultures flocked around her, Daisy began to distrust the intentions of anyone who came calling. She felt suffocated by it all and began to question her own instincts. Bishop Craig made the situation all the more intolerable as he began to negotiate on her behalf—without her knowledge—with men she scarcely knew. Her pleas to him to stop fell on deaf ears. “Your husband put his trust in me, Lady Chatwick. I will not let him down in this.”
There was nothing she could do, and Daisy had all but resigned herself to her fate. But then, five months ago, as if delivered on the wings of angels, came the letter from Robert Spivey. Rob.
Rob was now a captain in the Royal British Navy. She really didn’t know more about him than that, for it had been a little more than eleven years since she’d last seen him. She’d imagined he was married and surely had children of his own. She thought that he’d forgotten her altogether. Eleven years was a lifetime in loves lost, wasn’t it?
Well, she’d not forgotten him. He’d been her first love, her deepest love and her only real love.
Ah, but they’d been so young when they’d met, so hopelessly idealistic. They’d dreamed of a future together—nothing terribly magnificent, mind you, but one that suited two people consumed with each other and with love. A future that had room for only the two of them.
Lord, how naive she’d been then! She used to daydream of how they would live: in a thatched-roof cottage with window boxes filled with flowers. They would have children, too—robust, healthy children—who would run among the fields of heather. She would have a garden, and take great pride in it, entering her flowers and fruits in the village festivals. At night, she and Robert would lie in bed beside each other, listening to the sounds of their children slumbering, their dogs in their corners. And they would make love, sweetly, gently, reverently.
What silly dreams. She’d always known her path, and no amount of wishing could change it. Daisy was the only surviving child of two elderly parents, and she was the shiny bauble they dangled before titled and wealthy men. She’d known since she was a girl that she would be married to a fine family, that her marriage would consolidate fortunes and land and forge important connections. But then she’d met Robert, and she had foolishly believed that if two people truly loved each other, they would find a way to be together.
In the eyes of her parents and society, however, Robert wasn’t good enough for her. He’d even warned her he wasn’t, so much more present in the truth of their affair than she’d been. He knew that because he didn’t have a title, or any wealth to speak of, and was merely the son of a country vicar, her parents would never agree to a marriage. It was true—while she was dreaming of her idyllic life with Robert, her parents were striking the marriage bargain with Clive. Daisy’s fate had been sealed before she even knew what was in the offing.
When she found out, she’d begged Robert to elope with her, but Robert, always the voice of reason, had refused. “I would never dishonor you in that way, Daisy,” he’d said gallantly.
She’d argued with him. “Dishonor me! Take me from here, please! You love me—how can you let me go?”
But let her go he had. “You must accept it,” he’d said.
Wasn’t it funny that those were the exact words Clive would utter to her from his deathbed many years later? You must accept it.
Robert Spivey’s family had managed to arrange a commission in the Royal Navy and he’d left Nottinghamshire without even saying goodbye to her. He had forced her to accept it.
Daisy was older and wiser now, and she was determined that she’d not merely accept these things in her life. She wouldn’t accept that an old bishop would tell her who and when she had to marry. She wouldn’t accept that one of the most important decisions of her life had been tainted with a fortune that followed her everywhere she went.
And then, the letter had come. It is with sadness and grave concern that I have received the news of your husband’s passing, he’d written. Long have I kept you in my heart, Daisy. I will not lose you to another man again...
He’d
