Lady with a Black Umbrella Read online

  His friend whistled. “She don’t look tall or strong enough even to lift a gentleman’s umbrella,” he said, “let alone vanquish an army of three with it. Who is she, Giles? Must be wealthy at least if she can afford to pay your debts, including a king’s ransom to a sporting wench.”

  Lord Kincade looked uneasily at his brother and glared pointedly at his friend. “I don’t know who she is,” he said. “But I intend to find out. I wonder if there are more sisters at home. Lily? Violet? Pansy? Jonquil? Buttercup? Or did the father run out of energy before he could make such an ass of himself?”

  “I think it rather a charming idea to call one’s daughters by the names of flowers,” his brother said with gentle reproach. “And I would not talk disrespectfully about the ladies if I were you, Giles, before you even know them. What Miss Morrison has done, though it has brought you considerable embarrassment, was kindly meant, I believe. The lady looked at you just now with an open, guiltless countenance.”

  “There speaks Saint Arthur,” Lord Kincade said with the first genuine grin he had managed in four days. “And I am not speaking with sarcasm, either. You would find goodness in a hanged criminal, my dear brother.”

  “I would hope so too,” the other said seriously. “Our Lord did. Giles, are you going to pay the ladies a visit? Will you allow me to accompany you?”

  “You would ruin my carefully laid schemes,” the viscount protested. “I had every intention of strangling the wench, you know, but I suppose I cannot if you come too.”

  “My thought exactly,” his brother said, his smile giving quite unexpected and extraordinary beauty to his long, angular face.

  Chapter 4

  Daisy dressed with care the following morning, putting on the blue muslin dress that she had already received from the London modiste. It was perhaps a little light for a chilly April day and perhaps a little frivolous for morning wear, but she liked it. It fell loosely from beneath her bosom and had a neckline low enough to free her neck, and sleeves that puffed in a youthful way from her shoulders.

  Not that she had any wish to appear unduly youthful. It would be improper to receive a gentleman in a private parlor of a hotel if she were really just a young single lady. She saw herself as a steady aging spinster. But even aging spinsters can have their little vanities, she thought as she coiled her heavy braids high on the back of her head and glanced to see that Rose looked far prettier and far more youthful than she.

  Rose had the good fortune to be perfect in every way, her sister thought with satisfaction. She was of medium height, slender but curved in all the right places; she had wavy blond hair that looked delightful in any style at all; her complexion was all peaches and cream. And to crown it all, she had the sweetest nature that Daisy had ever encountered. She was not exactly timid or shy; she was all soft and glowing femininity.

  It was certainly a blessing that she had Daisy for a sister, that young lady always thought. Without Daisy to look after her, Rose would have been doomed to bloom unnoticed. Papa had never been much concerned about the fate of his girls. He was the most indulgent of papas, except when it came to spending any money, but he seemed to have considered that his duty to his offspring had ended when he had begotten them.

  And Mama was of no earthly use to Rose except as a well of endless affection. Mama dithered and dreamed her way through life. She had married for love a man of small property and modest fortune, and had continued to love him and live in her quiet way even after he had amassed fabulous wealth. It was probably as well that Mama had not grown dreams and ambitions to match the riches. It was unlikely that she would have persuaded Papa to spend one penny of it on anything that he would have considered frivolous. And Papa had considered almost everything but the essentials of survival to be frivolous.

  So, Daisy thought, consulting the pocket watch that had been her father’s and feeling slight palpitations of the heart that her mind denied, and noting that it was well into the morning and surely almost time for the viscount to put in an appearance, it was fortunate indeed that Rose had her. Rose was sweet and placid enough to marry the first gentleman to ask her, and clearly a few of the gentleman farmers who were their neighbors were winding up their courage to do just that.

  But Rose deserved far better. She must have a Season. She must have all the eligible dukes and marquesses and earls with which London was said to abound see her and come to appreciate both her beauty and the lovely character behind it.

  Daisy’s thoughts were interrupted suddenly by a light knock on the door of the sitting room. She squared her shoulders and dressed her face in its best sociable smile.

  “He is here,” she said brightly to Rose, an unnecessary announcement, apparently, as Rose had turned a shade paler and looked with anxious reproach at her sister.

  “Daisy,” she said, “we ought not to be doing this, you know. We really ought not.”

  “Nonsense!” her sister said briskly, and crossed the room to open the door.

  Viscount Kincade took a deep breath as the door opened, and wished for the dozenth time that morning that his brother was not with him and standing now quietly at his shoulder. He would feel rather inhibited in his wrath with the gentle Arthur observing all. And of course, his brother had realized as much and had asked to accompany him for that very reason. Sometimes, for all his sweet gentleness, Arthur could be quite sly.

  Yet again Lord Kincade found himself surprised at the appearance of Miss Daisy Morrison. She was very small—she reached barely to his shoulder. And her figure was girlishly slim. He thought somewhat irrelevantly that he could probably span her waist with his two hands if he tried, though that waist was hidden beneath the soft folds of her blue dress. Her fair hair was drawn back from her face and piled high at the back of her head. He had a flashing memory of those braids reaching to her waist. And her face was bright and eager, extremely pretty, in fact, if one ignored the dusting of freckles on her straight little nose.

  It would be hard to imagine that such a bright, neat little package could contain such fiendishness if he did not have painful and lasting proof that it was so.

  Lord Kincade hardened his heart and refused to respond in kind to the eager smile of greeting. He bowed stiffly and unsmilingly. “Miss Morrison?” he said.

  “Oh, good morning, my lord,” she said, opening the door wider and standing to one side to let him in. “I knew you would not fail us. How glad I am to see you.”

  Lord Kincade stepped inside the room and turned to indicate his brother. “May I present the Reverend Arthur Fairhaven, my brother?" he said. He inclined his head to the beautiful and uncomfortable-looking sister, who was hovering in the background.

  Arthur took the hand that Daisy extended to him and bowed over it, smiling.

  “I am very pleased to meet you, sir,” Daisy said. “A vicar. How splendid!”

  “A curate merely," Arthur corrected. “And not even quite that yet. I am waiting for my first posting in the autumn. And I am pleased to meet you too, ma’am, and to thank you for the help you have given my brother. It seems that you showed extraordinary courage.”

  Daisy looked up at the very tall, thin young man who still held her hand, and across at the viscount. “If you have come here to thank me,” she said briskly, “then I will ask you both to leave immediately, for you will put me to the blush, and I hate to feel uncomfortable.” She smiled dazzlingly. “I did only what any decent person would have done. Will you have a seat, my lord? Reverend? Shall I ring for tea?”

  Lord Kincade, fascinated by the audacity of the creature, decided to take charge of the situation before it got out of hand and descended into a mere social tea-drinking occasion.

  “I owe you money, ma’am,” he said coldly. “If you will name the sum, I shall repay you without further ado.”

  “Oh, please do not mention it,” Daisy said. “A trifle merely. I was glad to be of some service to you, my lord, for I must confess to a dislike of that innkeeper, whose manner was quite insolent
for one who has taken upon himself to look to the comfort of travelers. I only wish he could be brought to justice for having had bullies set upon you merely because you had the misfortune to lose your purse at his inn.”

  “The sum, ma’am, if you please,” Lord Kincade insisted, glancing at his brother and feeling quite heroic for holding on to his temper so well.

  “I beg you to think no more of it,” Daisy said. “And that girl, you know. I swear she was actually proud of herself and showed no shame whatsoever. It was as well to pay her immediately, you know, for I would not put it past her to gossip about you to the very next traveler who walked through the door. And it would never do for you to be gossiped about, would it?” She smiled warmly into the viscount’s eyes.

  Lord Kincade could feel himself flushing as the sister muttered an agonized “Daisy!” behind him. He took his purse from a pocket and drew a wad of bank notes from it.

  “I know what my gaming debts were,” he said, forcing the words past his teeth. “I will have to guess what you paid the innkeeper and the barmaid on my behalf. Here, ma’am.” He held out the money and glared down at her from his one and three quarter eyes.

  “Oh,” she said ruefully, her head to one side, taking the bank notes from his hand, “you are going to insist. And of course, how foolish of me to forget that a gentleman has his pride. Forgive me, my lord. I did not mean to humiliate you.”

  She counted out a number of bank notes into one hand and held out the remainder of the pile to him. “There,” she said. “Now we are even and your pride is restored.”

  The clever little baggage, Lord Kincade thought in a fury as he put his money away in his purse and thrust the latter back into his pocket. He had counted on her to argue more. By giving in so sweetly, she had cut the ground from under his feet and had allowed him no vent for his anger. There was nothing more he could do but to bow to her as icily as he could and take his leave.

  “I did not consider you in my debt even before this,” Daisy said, looking back up at him again and indicating the money in her hand before stuffing it into a pocket of her dress. “But now I feel more shy about the favor I would ask of you, my lord. Will you not sit down, please? You are both so tall that you put me at quite a disadvantage.”

  A favor? The woman must be mad. A candidate for Bedlam, no less.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Arthur, his brother saw to his dismay, was smiling and accepting the invitation. “May I beg the honor of being presented to the other young lady?”

  “Oh!” Daisy said. “How very rag-mannered of me. My sister, Rose Morrison, sir and my lord. I have brought her to town for the Season, you see, but we have encountered a quite unexpected and troublesome problem.”

  Lord Kincade found himself sitting on a chair and regarding the lovely and clearly mortified Rose.

  “Yes?” Arthur prompted encouragingly.

  “We have no one to sponsor us,” Daisy said. “My aunt would have been glad to do so, but unfortunately she has chosen this very spring to visit Paris. And we do not know anyone else in London, my father—Lord Brigham, that is—having rusticated all his life.”

  Lord Kincade could thoroughly sympathize with the aunt who had taken herself off to France rather than be saddled with Miss Morrison for the Season. “Your aunt did not warn you that she would not be here?” he asked.

  “We wrote to my uncle—Sir Charles Pickering, that is,” Daisy said. “But I would not wait for his reply, for I know how busy life in town must be during the Season and I feared that by the time he thought to write back to me, the Season would be well-nigh over. But we felt confident of our welcome as both our uncle and aunt urged us last year to come.”

  “You came to London without any firm invitation and without chaperons?” Lord Kincade asked, wondering even as he formed the words why he should be surprised at anything the little baggage should choose to do. “Where are your parents, if I may make so bold as to ask?”

  “Papa is dead,” she said, “and Mama does not have the will or the courage to venture from home. And we are not without chaperons, you know. At least, I do not need a chaperon, being a spinster past my youth. And Rose has an older female to care for her and make her respectable.”

  “You refer to yourself,” Lord Kincade said. He did not need to frame the words as a question. Why did he suddenly feel like shouting with laughter? A spinster past her youth! She looked not a day over twenty, though he supposed that if she could make such a claim in all seriousness, she was probably somewhat older. Where must be the mother’s sense to allow such a situation to have developed? But then, gazing at the determined little face before him and remembering what the woman was capable of, he felt a sudden and profound sympathy for the mother.

  “You find yourself in distressing circumstances,” Arthur was saying gently. “How may we be of service to you, ma’am? May we arrange for your journey home? Do you have your own carriage?”

  “Oh, we are not going home,” Daisy said briskly, “not after we have gone to all the trouble of getting here. No.” She turned wide gray eyes on the viscount and smiled sweetly. “I want you to help us, my lord. Would you recommend a suitable lady to sponsor us? Just to secure us an introduction to society, you see. Once we are launched, everything will be all right, for I will be able to chaperon Rose wherever she goes. You must have a mother or sisters or someone.”

  Lord Kincade stared at the smiling face and felt that he must have walked into some bizarre dream. Indeed, it must be an uncommonly long dream. He seemed to have been trapped inside it for several days. Was it possible that the little slip of a female who had made him into the clown of London was now demanding that his mother—the Countess of Atherby, no less— give her an introduction to society? Even apart from the sheer gall of the woman, could she seriously expect him to do such a dreadful disservice to society? Society might never be the same again.

  She was awaiting his reply. Lord Kincade drew breath. “I regret to say that my mother is in Bath with my father at present,” he said, “and my older sister is incr— in a delicate state of health. My younger sister is not yet twenty.”

  “Oh!” Miss Morrison’s face lit up eagerly. She seemed not to have recognized the set-down for what it was. “Rose is nineteen. Perhaps they can be friends. Is your sister making her come-out, my lord?”

  “No,” the viscount said, ignoring what had preceded the question. Miss Rose Morrison, he could see from the corner of his eye, was twisting her hands together in her lap. At least her older sister appeared to be one of a kind. Her audacity did not represent a family trait.

  “There is Hetty," he was suddenly aghast to hear his brother say. And Arthur was looking at him in mild inquiry. He turned back to Daisy. “Our cousin, ma’am. Lady Hetty Parkinson. She is always lamenting the fact that she has no daughters of her own to bring out. Only three sons.”

  Daisy was on her feet, her hands clasped to her bosom, her face glowing. “Oh yes,” she said. “It would be perfect. Oh, I knew I did not misjudge you when we were at the inn, my lord, for all the innkeeper swore he would never see either you or your money again. I knew you were a perfect gentleman. Thank you, thank you, my lord.”

  Did she think he was a ventriloquist? The words had come from Arthur’s mouth, yet she was looking at him with such gratitude shining from her eyes that Lord Kincade closed his for a moment.

  He rose to his feet. “I will call on my cousin this afternoon,” he heard himself say, “and try to procure an introduction for you and your sister, Miss Morrison. May I have the honor of calling upon you tomorrow morning again?”

  She was holding out both hands to him. “Our rector at home is fond of saying that a good deed always brings its reward even if one does not do it for that reason, ” she said. “And it is true. But the reward is far in excess of the small service I was able to do for you, my lord. If only Rose can be successfully launched into society, I shall be eternally grateful. Perhaps one day I will be able to do something else for you.�
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  Had he really stretched out his own hands to take hers? Lord Kincade wondered, looking down in some surprise to find that indeed he was holding both her hands. Cool, slim hands that one could scarce imagine holding and wielding as powerful a weapon as a gentleman’s umbrella. He had surely never seen such a mask of innocence as the pretty face that beamed up into his. He bowed over her hands, stopping himself only just in time from obeying instinct and lifting one of them to his lips.

  “I hope the occasion will never arise,” he said fervently. “We must take our leave, ma’am. Until tomorrow, then.”

  Arthur was bowing to Rose and smiling at her.

  Lord Kincade’s eyes strayed to Daisy’s smooth slim throat with some regret. He had been so looking forward to having his hands there. Or even if everyday reality had kept his hands at his sides, then he had truly looked forward to ripping up at the woman, telling her exactly what he thought of her interfering, tattling ways. And yet here he was still clasping her hands—he dropped them in some haste—and allowing himself to be the object of her smile of warm admiration and gratitude.

  The viscount preceded his brother from the room. Perhaps soon he would wake up, he thought with some desperation. Had he really just promised to secure an introduction to Hetty for those two females? He could not quite persuade himself to think of them as ladies. Good Lord, their situation was quite scandalous. Two unchaperoned young females, one of them masquerading as an elderly spinster behind a slim girlish figure and open, pretty face, were living at the Pulteney, seemingly without a servant between the two of them, trying—and apparently succeeding—to wheedle their way into the beau monde. For all anyone knew, they might be a couple of milkmaids or worse. Lord who had been their father? He had never heard of the man. Sir Charles Pickering was their uncle? And he was conveniently in France.