Rules for Reforming a Rake(30)
Lots of shillings jingling in his pockets, Daisy imagined. “You might have warned me. I wouldn’t have followed that muggins out of the ballroom.”
“Stop calling poor Lumley that,” her mother chided. “He’s a very accomplished young man. And stop blaming Julia for your mistakes. I suppose you’ll also blame her for your jaunt with Lord Gabriel Dayne.”
Daisy pursed her lips.
“Oh, yes. I know you spent a shocking amount of time in his company. Don’t try to deny it.”
“I wouldn’t call our time together shocking,” Daisy said with an exasperated shake of her head. Except, of course, during the carriage ride.
Oh, worth a lifetime of punishment for that ride!
And that kiss.
Was it possible for a man to kiss a woman like that and not be in love with her? Or did Gabriel kiss all his women, outside of his family, of course, that way? Had she misinterpreted the significance of the moment? Had there even been “a moment” between them? All questions to jot down and ask her older sisters as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
She studied her mother’s expression, then Julia’s. No, she couldn’t ask them. She’d sooner read Lady Forsythia’s ridiculous book. Reforming a rakehell, indeed!
“I expected better of you, Daisy. I worked so hard to mold you into a proper young lady. Is this how you repay me? By traipsing about with that inconsiderate dissolute?”
She wasn’t sorry. No, not one bit.
“Don’t give me that impertinent look. You and Lord Dayne were seen dancing together! Your very first dance at a ball! Oh, why did it have to be with him?”
“Because he was the first man to ask me? What is so shocking about that?”
Her mother sank back in her chair. “Julia, please tell me where I went wrong with this child. What did I do to turn her out so badly?”
“I’m not the village idiot, Mother. Nor am I some wanton female... er...” Well, she had been a tad out of control when responding to Gabriel’s kiss, but that didn’t count. Did it? “I won’t deny that I made some mistakes last night. Minor errors, and no irreparable harm was done. As for Lord Dayne, he graciously helped me with a problem.”
“You should have come to me with your problems.”
“Yes, of course, and I will in future. However, since I couldn’t find either you or Father in the crush at Lord Hornby’s, I had no choice but to rely on a friend.”
Her mother clasped a hand to her heart in a gesture Daisy considered both cheap and theatrical. She and Julia must have practiced their histrionics together. “You are never to consider that man a friend! He is never to be trusted!”
“Very well, I’ll be politely cool to him from now on. However, I would like it noted that he was a gentleman at the ball.”
“Don’t make light of his behavior,” her mother warned, shaking her head so sternly that her fashionable chignon threatened to come undone. “He is no gentleman. Never has been and never will be. His poor parents. They must be suffering greatly.”
Daisy frowned. She’d heard the gossip about Gabriel many times before, but meeting him in person... well, he just didn’t seem to be the coward, the dissolute everyone said he was.
“Now he’s taken up with that lightskirt. That... that Cyprian!”
“What are you talking about?” Daisy asked with a shake of her head.
“His new mistress,” Julia intoned, her green eyes aglow as she related the gossip. “It was quite the on dit, all anyone spoke of last night. Weren’t you paying any attention to the whispers?”
No, she’d been too busy searching for her necklace.
“Daisy, dear,” her mother said more gently. “There’s something I must tell you about Lord Dayne. He’s a scoundrel of the lowest order. Julia, didn’t I tell you that a man with scars as prominent as his just had to be depraved?”
Julia’s golden curls bobbed prettily as she nodded. “Indeed, you did.”
“He wasted no time in resuming his life of debauchery, setting up that woman on... well, it’s time you learned that such places exist... Curzon Street.”
Daisy’s heart sank into her stomach, though she couldn’t imagine why she should care. “His mistress?”
“I hear she’s beautiful in an indecent way,” her mother continued with a blush. “Why else would he set her up so finely?”
“Are you certain?” She’d actually believed Gabriel had enjoyed their kiss. Well, she was a foolish, naive girl.
Her mother shook her head impatiently. “Many men keep mistresses, even happily married men indulge. I’m not surprised that Lord Dayne did so, but he showed a shocking lack of respect by taking up with her so openly, and a foreign girl at that, when perfectly suitable English girls are available.”