Page 3 of The Duke I Wished For
Then she could escape a future which included pinching husbands only interested in her social position or mothers who only cared about how much money her match might bring to the family.
She wanted a future all her own. A path forward that took her far away from this life. She closed her eyes and cast her wish…
1
Despite her flowery name, Lady Daffodil was no wallflower.
Normally.
If the situation were different, she’d be standing beside her cousin Aubrey right now, in the middle of the drawing room, laughing and chatting with the guests who crowded around the new Duchess of Amesbury.
But her cousin was holding court on her own as her husband, the Duke of Amesbury, watched with a doting smile from the far side of the room, where he took part in what appeared to be a lively conversation about hunting dogs.
Daffodil tried to catch whatever it was he’d said that had made his friends laugh so hard, but she was too far away to hear much.
Drat.
This was what she got for hiding. She was bored to tears here in the corner. Not hidden behind curtains, necessarily, just…strategically placed in their shadow.
There was a difference.
The former was pathetic, while the latter was…strategic.
Daffodil flinched at this logic, folding and unfolding the fan in her hand. She was acting like a coward and she knew it.
Worse, she was a bored coward.
She shouldn’t have come in the first place. No doubt Jane would have refused the invitation. Jocelyn would have found some excuse to avoid the dreaded encounter. And yet, the best Daffodil could come up with was to hide among the drapes and hope her mother forgot about her.
Or her father grew weary of this soiree and decided it was time to leave.
Considering her father despised societal functions as much as her mother relished them, the latter seemed the likelier option. Either way, she hoped to get through this evening without having to exchange pleasantries with the new suitor her mother had chosen…and hopefully before she perished from boredom.
She fretted with the silk skirt of her gown as she eyed this crowd of lords and ladies. The last she’d seen of her mother, she’d been trying to find Mr. Horace Benson, a man her mother assured her was smitten with her.
Smitten.
With her.
But how? Daffodil had asked.
Her mother’s stare had been blank.
How could he be smitten with me when we’ve never even met?
Her mother had given her the same disdainful “pshh” sound she always used when Daffodil asked questions she deemed irritating.
“There you are!” Her mother’s voice gave Daffodil a start.
The countess narrowed her eyes as she strode toward Daffodil, her anger obvious despite the smile carefully fixed upon her face. “Daffodil, what are you doing over here in the corner?”
“I thought you’d said…” Daffodil floundered. “Er, didn’t you wish for me to wait here until you’d found Mr. Benson?”
Her mother sighed, craning her neck to see past a group of gentlemen standing nearby. “I don’t know what Aubrey was thinking,” her mother muttered. “Inviting all these guests when she knew quite well what tonight was about…”
Daffodil cast a quick glance at her kind cousin. Was Aubrey acquainted with the latest suitor who’d been chosen for Daffodil? He must be a horrid choice if Aubrey went to all this trouble to avoid an intimate meeting.
Daffodil feigned innocence as she echoed her mother, “What tonight was about?”
