The Summer Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) (25 page)

“If I said that—”

“Hush! I do and I don’t. The part of me that’s selfish wants to marry you, the part of me that I would like to think is noble—but really it’s just cowardly and afraid—that part doesn’t.”

“I prefer the selfish part.”

“And I think you think that you come second in me affections to the shop.”

He said nothing to that. And now she didn’t know if that was because he did think that, or because he was finally not interrupting.

“So I’ve given away the shop.”

“What? Given aw—”

She made a sharp gesture and he subsided, a peculiar look on his face. She continued, “If I’m going to be your wife, I’m going to do it properly, all the way. Society wives don’t keep shops, and I don’t want to embarrass you—and it would if you had guests who were also my customers. So it’s gone—the shop. I hope you weren’t counting on getting it when we marry, because it ain’t mine anymore.”

“Who did—?”

“Louisa, me silent partner. Now shush—I’m not finished.” She took a deep breath, and said it, the thing she’d been afraid of saying all along. “I love you, Flynn. I really truly do—I’m not just saying it to please you—you know I’m a rotten liar.”

His gaze softened. “I know.” He reached for her.

“And I know you’re bein’ noble and—no, don’t touch me, I’m not finished. I know I’m all wrong for you, but I
promise
you, Flynn, you won’t regret it. I’m going to do everything I can to make me-
my
self into the kind of wife you can be proud of. I’ll learn to behave like a proper lady—Lady Beatrice will help me. I’m going to stop swearing and learn good grammar, and—”

“Deliver baskets of food to me poor?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t you dare make a joke of this, Patrick Flynn. I’m dead serious here.”

“You are, aren’t you, ye daft wee besom.” He leaned forward, tugged her forward and into his arms, and rolled with her on the bed.

“I’m not finished,” she told him.

“Yes, you are. Now it’s your turn to listen to me.”

“But—”

He kissed her. “Ready to listen now?”

“I haven’t expl—”

He kissed her again. “Keep talkin’. Every time you open your mouth, I’ll kiss you.”

She pressed her lips together and glowered at him. He wasn’t taking any of this seriously.

“I’ve been a big eedjit in the way I handled this whole thing,” he told her. “The first thing I should have told you, and didn’t, was that I love you, Daisy-girl.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide.

“I love you with all my heart and soul. You’re the other half of me, girl, don’t you know that?” He kissed her, long and possessively, and it was a declaration and an affirmation, and if she didn’t believe him at first, if she thought he was only saying it to be kind, the murmured words and endearments between kisses soothed at least some of the doubts.

Soon they were both trembling with need and with one accord they stripped off their clothes and fell back on the bed.

He reached for her, then hesitated. “Is it safe to do this? It won’t hurt the baby, will it?”

“It’s safe,” she told him—she’d checked with Abby—and drew him down to her.

He made love to her then with a quiet intensity that brought tears to her eyes, murmuring endearments and repeating his declaration of love, and it was a forerunner—their own private vow-making.
With my body I thee worship.

They climaxed together, their bodies in perfect harmony, and afterward lay in silence, curled together, listening to the light patter of rain against the overhead window, and the
dripping of water in the pipes. Beyond their little haven, the huge metropolis of London rattled on, indifferent to the falling night, ever busy, ever changing.

He held her close, quietly, skin to skin down the length of their bodies, warm and replete, one hand stroking her almost absently. She felt worshiped, felt cherished. And loved.

She believed him when he said he loved her—he had affectionate ways, did Flynn—but she still knew she was the wrong kind of wife for him.

He could make a joke of it, pretend he didn’t mind that she wasn’t a proper lady, but
she
minded. He deserved the best, and she vowed to herself that he would get it.

She could do whatever she set her mind to. She would become the wife he needed.

“It’s a funny thing, love,” he said after a while. “I reckon I loved you all along, almost from the first, but I was so set on—”

“Marrying a fine lady.”

“Exactly, that I couldn’t see what was there, under me nose all the time. The sweetest, bravest, lovingest, prickliest, stubbornest girl in the world.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Stubborn?”

He gave a huff of amusement and kissed her nose. “You are, darlin’, but I even love that about you.”

There was a long silence. She wasn’t used to people saying “I love you”—not to her. Not meaning it the way he did. It made her feel so humble. So unworthy.

“I will become a proper lady, Flynn, I promise you.”

He made a small exclamation and propped himself on one elbow to look at her. “Are you still on about that? For God’s sake Daisy, I told you I love you—does that not mean anything to you?”

“It means
everything
to me,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Which is why—”

He kissed her. “You’re talkin’ nonsense again. I don’t want a perfect lady—I want
you
!”

Flynn looked into her wide, doubting eyes, and shook his head. She didn’t really believe him—and who could blame
her, the way he’d gone on about the finest lady in London. Fool that he’d been, prattling about perfect ladies when he’d had the perfect woman right in front of him all the time.

She wasn’t a girl who trusted easily, his Daisy, and it wasn’t surprising, the way she’d been treated all her life. As far as he could tell every single person she’d ever cared about had let her down—except for her sisters and Lady Bea and she’d only been with them for a year.

He had a lifetime in which he’d teach her different. But right now he had to make her understand.

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

—JANE AUSTEN,
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

“D
aisy, love, the way that old bitch from the brothel talked to you that time . . . it’s no wonder you don’t want to believe me. All your life she was runnin’ you down, dragging you down, tellin’ you you were rubbish, a joke, tryin’ to make you less than you are. God, darlin’, how you grew up with that and came out the other end so strong and sweet and decent—”

She made a small muffled sound of denial.

“Yes, you are. You’re like . . .” He searched his mind for a way to make her understand. “You’re like Damascus steel.”

“Steel?” She pulled a doubtful face.

“Damascus steel is famous—the best quality steel ever. It’s well-hammered in the making, tempered by fire and quenched in dragon’s blood—that’s you, growing up tough. Swords made of Damascus steel are the finest in the world.”

She squinted up at him, as if wondering whether he was serious. “Gawd, Flynn. I reckon I know who the dragon was but really . . . You reckon I’m like one of them swords?”

“You are,” he assured her. “Strong, beautiful, flexible, and wonderfully sharp. And greatly prized.”

She snorted. “And here I was, thinking I was the sheath and you was the sword.” Her hand moved to caress his “sword” and he laughed.

They made love again. But when it was over and they lay quietly, listening to the dripping of the rain in the pipes and the rattle of the carts over the cobbles, he knew he hadn’t yet made her understand. That she’d turned it into a joke because it made her uncomfortable to think that she was good and fine and worthy of love.

“I can see I’m goin’ to have to explain it, where I got that ‘finest lady’ notion from—or rather, where I think I got it from, for God only knows how some ideas get lodged in our brain.”

He tucked her against him. “I told you about me mam and da’, back in Ireland, and how it all ended.”

She nodded.

“For years I tried not to think about them, tried not to remember. It was too painful.” She slid her arms around him and hugged him, half draped across his chest, warm and soft. She didn’t yet trust that he truly loved and wanted her, but she was a loving, generous little soul, his Daisy.

“Since I’ve been in London, I’ve been remembering more and more. Would you believe it was a blue teapot that started me thinkin’.” He told her about the tea setting he’d seen in the shop window and how it had sparked a memory and how it had helped unravel all of his thinking about Lady Elizabeth.

“See, the first time I saw her, she was pourin’ out tea for her guests, and somehow, it made me think she was the one.”

She gave him an odd look. “You were goin’ to marry her because of a teapot?”

He laughed. “Not exactly. It was what the teapot symbolized—and I didn’t even know it meself, at the time. Until a certain girl’s kiss brought me to me senses.”

She kissed his chest and rubbed her cheek against him.

“Later I realized there was more to it than just that—things I’d forgotten, ideas that got somehow twisted up in me mind.”

He told her how he remembered his father, during the good times, before the accident, saying he’d married the finest young lady in three counties. “And Mam would laugh and blush, and
say, ‘Only three counties, is it?’ And Da would pull her onto his lap and say, ‘The whole country, lass—I married the finest lass in all of Ireland.’ And he’d kiss her.

“I was just a boy, but they said it often enough that I remember. But after the accident Da never pulled Mam onto his lap like that again.”

There was a short silence. “Somehow, I tucked that memory away. Forgot it, but held onto it in some part of me. And over time, the memory hardened and changed, until there I was, a brash eedjit, tellin’ everyone I was going to marry the finest young lady in London—and believin’ it. And thinking that meant an earl’s daughter, some kind of symbol of what I’d achieved with me life.”

He looked at Daisy. “When instead, what I really wanted, deep down, was a woman like me Da had, a loving, warm-hearted woman, to share me bed and me life, and to raise a family with.”

Her eyes were liquid with unshed tears.

“I didn’t realize the right woman was there, right under me nose, until I’d kissed you, Daisy. And once I had . . . well . . .” He gave a rueful grin. “Served me right that I’d found the girl for me, but she didn’t want me at all—only to use as her occasional plaything. It did terrible things to me self-esteem, so it did. But I like a challenge.”

“You were never a plaything,” she mumbled, embarrassed.

“You had all you ever needed, you said—your family, your shop, food in your belly and a man in your bed.”

“I didn’t mean any man, I meant you.”

“And you never wanted children at all.”

There was a short silence. “I know. It wasn’t until I fell pregnant that I even thought about it. And when I did I was scared to bits. I still am. I don’t know nothing about babies.” She cupped her hand protectively over her belly. “But I realized I wanted her. Loved her.”

Flynn covered her hand with his. “Her?”

She nodded. “And I want her to have all the things I never had—a mum, a dad, a home. I might never have wanted it, Flynn, but I’m going to be the best mother and wife I can be.”

“I know, love. You never do anything half-hearted, do you?”

“What’s the point of being half-hearted? If you want something, you have to go for it.”

“My feelings exactly.” Flynn dropped a kiss on her head. “So you think it’s a girl?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Could be a boy.”

She started at him and a faintly panicked look came into her eyes. “It can’t be a boy. I don’t know nuffin’ about boys.”

He smiled. “I do. There’s two of us now, don’t forget.”

She stared at him frowning, and shook her head. “No, she’s a girl. I know she is. With black curls and big blue eyes.”

“Sounds grand to me.”

“You won’t mind if she’s not a boy? An heir?”

He shook his head. “Whoever God sends us will be fine by me. I just want you and a family—you’re what matters most.”

Her eyes filled again. “I will learn to be a better—”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake, woman, will you not understand? I don’t want you to learn
anything
! I want
you
, Daisy Chance, just exactly as you are—spiky, difficult, stubborn as hell, swearing, punching, loving—just exactly the way you are.”

He glared down at her, frustrated by her persistent misunderstanding of what he wanted. “You’re the woman I fell in love with. Why the hell would I then want you to become something different?”

She frowned up at him, puzzled. “I thought you were ambitious?”

“I am.”

“Then you’ll need a wife who’s ambitious as well.”

“So? You are ambitious.”

“Well, I was for me shop, yes. But I don’t have that any more, remember?”

He grimaced and gave her a cautious look. “Actually, no. I do.”

She jerked her head back and stared at him. “
You
do? How? Did you find out—”

He grimaced, knowing she wasn’t going to like what he said. But he had to say it. “
I’m
your silent partner, Daisy.”

She blinked, then shook her head. “What are you talkin’ about, Flynn? Louisa—”

“Is the widow of an old friend of mine.”

She reared back, glaring at him, her eyes chips of anger. “She’s
what
?”

He held up his hands in a peaceable gesture. “Now don’t get cross with me, darlin—you were bein’ so stubborn about taking me on as a partner, and when I bumped into Louisa, quite by accident, she told me she was at a loose end and finding society life a bit dull, after the life she and her husband led in the Far East. So I filled her in and gave her the money to invest in your business.”

There was a long silence. She wasn’t happy about it, he could see. He braced himself for a thump. It didn’t come.

Her eyes still glittered with anger, but also betrayal. She lifted her chin. “You never did trust me to be able to do it on me own, did you?”

He sat up and grabbed her by the arms. “It wasn’t that at all, darlin’. It was because you were wearin’ yourself out, workin’ all hours of the day and night, givin’ yourself no fun at all and turning yourself into a pale wee shred of the girl I loved.” He slid his hands up to cup her face gently. “I couldn’t bear to see you like that, Daisy-girl, not when the solution was so simple.”

She swallowed and pushed his hands away. “You lied to me, Flynn.” She tried to hide the hurt in her voice, but it was fathoms deep.

He nodded. “I know. And I apologize. But I’m not sorry I did. I’d do the same again.”

She frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but he jumped in first. “I had to lie to you—it was the only way. Because you couldn’t bring yourself to trust me.”

There was a short silence and he added, “I know I hurt your feelings, darlin’, but think about where you’d be now, if I hadn’t lied to you.”

She thought about it. She wouldn’t have her lovely shop,
she wouldn’t have had that splendid opening, and half of London flocking to buy her things. She wouldn’t have a bunch of girls working for her and making their own lives better, and she wouldn’t have a friend like Louisa.

Most of all she wouldn’t have had those glorious, beautiful private times with Flynn here in their own little attic love nest. She probably wouldn’t have Flynn at all. Or the baby.

And at that thought her anger trickled away. “I was stubborn, wasn’t I?”

“Just a little bit reluctant to mix business with friendship, I reckon—which isn’t such a bad thing. And worried that I’d tramp all over your dream enterprise with me big clumsy feet, tellin’ you what to do and sticking me nose in where it wasn’t wanted.”

She sighed. “That was partly it. But mostly it was because until you, there’d never been a man I
could
trust. I’m sorry, Flynn, I should have known better.”

“Ah, don’t be sorry, darlin’. It helped me to understand exactly why you were the perfect wife for me.”

She frowned in puzzlement. “How?”

“You and me, darlin’, are two halves of a whole. We’re both ambitious, we neither of us care much for appearances—”

“Oy, I do care a lot about—”

“Not how-you-look appearances, but what-other-people-think-of-us appearances. If you cared more, you would have tried harder in those lady lessons of Lady Bea’s.”

She acknowledged that with a rueful nod.

“And if I’d married someone like Lady Elizabeth, I’d never be able to talk about the things that interest me—my latest ventures or new business possibilities—over the breakfast or dinner table.”

“Vulgar,” she said in an imitation of Lady Bea.

“That’s right, or else she’d be endlessly polite—tolerating me vulgar ways, whereas you and I, we can talk about this stuff for hours.” He pulled her closer. “Even when we’re curled up in bed.”

“Well, business is interesting.”

“So it is. To both of us. And if you think I’m talkin’
rubbish, you’ll tell me so, to my face, instead of hiding behind polite phrases, believing that what’s on the surface is all that counts. Marrying some lord’s daughter would have been the stupidest thing I could do. I’d be an outsider in me own house, and worse, I’d be bored. With you I’m never bored. We’ll love and argue and love again.”

He kissed her. She was starting to believe him now.

“So who will we get to run the shop?” she said after a while.

He gave her an odd look. “You, of course.”

“
What?
” Daisy flashed him a look of complete surprise.

“You don’t think I’m going to keep it meself, do you? What would I do with a ladies’ dress shop? I’ll sign it over to you now, if you like. Do you have a pen and paper?” He looked around for something to write on.

Daisy struggled to take it in. All these years she’d been worried about losing her business to some man—and she had!—and now he was handing it back to her like it was . . . like a handkerchief she’d misplaced.

“Don’t worry, it can wait until after the wedding.”

“But I thought—”

“I trust you, Flynn.” She leaned forward and kissed him. “But I can’t keep workin’ at the shop. I’ll be married, remember? Married ladies don’t go out to work.”

He raised his brows at her. “Do you want to give up the business you’ve worked so hard to achieve, then?”

“No, of course not, but I thought—”

“I wouldn’t take your dream away from you, darlin’. If you want to continue running your shop, I don’t see why you can’t. We’ve got the money to hire all the help we need with the baby. As for what anyone else thinks, it’s between you and me and nobody else.”

He pulled her tight for a long warm hug. “Listen—can you hear that?”

She listened. “I don’t hear nothin’”

“Yes, you do—the sound of London out there, still busy and tradin’ and cheatin’ and sellin’ and buying, even though it’s dark. It never sleeps, this city.

“The world is changing, darlin’ and we’re movin’ right
along with it. But the toffs—most of them—aren’t. They know things are changing, but they’re not looking out and learning; they’re resisting, closin’ ranks, getting more and more exclusive, tryin’ to keep people like you and me out.

“What they don’t understand is, it’s not about the past anymore, who your ancestors were, who knows the right fork to hold or any of that. It’s not about London, or even England or the United Kingdom—it’s about the world. And you and me, Daisy, we’re citizens of the world. I’ve got a worldwide trading business and—”

“I’ve never been out of London except to visit me sisters’ country homes.”

“I’ll take you to Venice on our honeymoon.”

She shook her head. “No, the place is sinking, I heard. Damaris and Freddy were there just a few months ago.”

He laughed.

She said, “But I see what you’re gettin’ at. The toffs still have a lot of influence, though.”

“Yeah and we have plenty of friends. We don’t need to play at being toffs—we’ll just be ourselves, and know that the friends we have are real ones. And make sure this little one”—he patted her belly—“has the opportunities we never had, but doesn’t fancy herself better than other people, just because she was born in a comfortable home.”