A Fragile Chain of Daisies: Flowers of the Aristocracy (Untamed Regency Book 4) Read online

  A Fragile Chain

  of

  Daisies

  Flowers of the Aristocracy

  Untamed Regency 4

  By

  Jackie Williams

  Copyright©JackieWilliams 2019

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used/copied/lent in any form whatsoever without the written consent of the author.

  All characters, names, and events are from the imagination of the author. Any resemblance to persons alive or deceased is entirely coincidental.

  You can contact Jackie at anytime to give feedback, check out any offers,

  and keep up with new releases.

  Please email her at

  [email protected]

  Or go to her website

  www.romanticsuspensebooks.org

  Contents

  Prologue – A Daisy’s Promise

  Chapter One – A Fugitive’s Lot

  Chapter Two – Taking Back the Reins

  Chapter Three – An Unexpected Encounter

  Chapter Four – A Surprise Visit

  Chapter Five – A Room with a View

  Chapter Six – An Awkward Position

  Chapter Seven – Hidden in Darkness

  Chapter Eight – Playing with Fire

  Chapter Nine – A Light in the Darkness

  Chapter Ten – A Tempestuous Morning

  Chapter Eleven – The Demon Drink

  Chapter Twelve – Confession and Convention

  Chapter Thirteen – Wedded Bliss

  Chapter Fourteen – Cushioning a Blow

  Chapter Fifteen – Breaking with Convention

  Chapter Sixteen – A Flight of Fancy

  Chapter Seventeen – An interesting Perspective

  Chapter Eighteen – A Night to Remember

  Chapter Nineteen – Arresting Accusations

  Chapter Twenty – Trials and Tribulations

  Chapter Twenty One – Hanging by a Thread

  Chapter Twenty Two – Raising One’s Spirits

  Epilogue – Rising from the Dead

  Prologue

  A Daisy’s Promise

  Pierce Trenchard could feel his cheeks flaming as he concealed the tiny flower head in his palm.

  “I was not playing the ‘love me, love me not’ game, you idiot!” The young lord protested vociferously, his seventeen year old face burning an even deeper shade of red as he ran a finger round a suddenly over tight cravat. Why he had to wear the blasted thing was beyond him. It was only a garden party with his family’s oldest friends, at the Trenchard country estate, but now that he was meant to be a gentleman, his mother had insisted.

  He gave as derisory snort as he could and glared at his possibly former friend’s gloating smile. “I was pretending it was that gigantic black spider that hides in the corner of the stables and the petals were his horrible, hairy legs! If you had cleaned out your ears this morning, you would have heard me saying, ‘It will get me, it will get me not.’ ” Fists clenched at his sides, Pierce fought the urge to punch the smile from Lucas Caruthers arrogant features.

  Lord Lucas Caruthers, also seventeen, and also wearing stiff silk about his neck, tilted his still hairless chin, smirked, and raised a dark, aristocratic eyebrow at the slightly fairer Pierce.

  “Liar! You wouldn’t do that on a flower. I saw you pulling out petals and I quite clearly heard you saying, ‘She loves me, she loves me not.’ as I came across the lawn, so you might as well confess. Stop beating about the bush and tell me who has captured your heart.”

  Pierce concentrated on his expression and glowered harder. There was no possible way that anyone could make him confess what was hidden deepest in his heart, let alone his best friend, but he wasn’t sure that his ferocious glare was working as Lucas’ grin appeared to grow wider. Good Lord! How was he going to get out of this mess? He hadn’t known Lucas’ family had already arrived for the summer party or he would never have been idling away the time picking the blasted daisy in the first place. But he wasn’t going to let on about that now.

  “I was saying nothing of the sort!” He protested again with as much of a sneer as he could muster. “Your nanny must have left cotton in your ears after washing behind them this morning.” He tossed away the mostly stripped head of the daisy, while wishing he had counted the few remaining petals, and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.

  Lucas drew in an affronted breath.

  “I don’t have a nanny, as well you know! I’d be a laughing stock if I couldn’t wash behind my own ears by now.” He tried not to think of his new valet’s attentions. Davison could be quite as vigorous with a scrubbing brush as any nanny Lucas had ever had.

  Pierce snorted again, taking the advantage of their verbal sparring.

  “You’re a laughing stock anyway. A great long lanky thing like you. Why, you haven’t even grown a whisker yet!” His eyes ranged critically up and down Lucas’ taller than average frame and rested on his still smooth chin.

  Lucas grimaced and rubbed his hand over his annoyingly smooth face before staring hard down the Caruthers’ noble nose.

  “Better than being a prissy little squirt! And you cannot throw insults at me when you still look as though you are fifteen. Cast your slurs when your own whiskers have decided to sprout. But just wait until Bren, Algy, and Bertie arrive and I tell them what you were doing. Is it Jemima, the parlour maid? Or Vivienne at the Black Bull? Maybe it’s Kate, the pig farmer’s daughter. I heard that she likes her tumbles to be young and eager.”

  Horror sliced through Pierce at the thought of bedding any of the women mentioned. Although some of his friends felt ready to lose their virginity, it wasn’t something Pierce had ever considered. Well, not yet. He was saving himself for something special. Someone special. When she became old enough to realize he actually existed outside of their current realm. A long way off, he knew, but he couldn’t help hoping. Futile, probably. She was so young yet. Far too young to consider in that way at all. And he didn’t think of her like that. But he knew that he would. Later. When she was old enough to know the ways of the world. He huffed out a frustrated breath, answering his friend’s enquiries with exaggerated patience.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! They are practically old women, besides, I told you what I was doing. And it certainly wasn’t anything to do with any of those haggard old tarts you mentioned. Apart from the likelihood of catching something ghastly, those kinds of women are not to my taste.”

  Lucas sniffed and ignored Pierce’s answer.

  “Ah! So you like younger flesh too. Maybe it’s Felicity? Sophie? Clara?” Lucas smirked as he mentioned their best friends’ younger sisters, but then his eyes suddenly opened a little wider and his hands fisted at his sides. “Wait a minute! It better not be my sister you were mooning over! Daisy’s younger than the rest. She’s only just twelve!” Lucas’ own face became a dangerous shade of puce.

  Pierce rocked on his heels, frantically trying to remember if he had spoken the object of his desires name aloud. He tried to bluff it out and looked down his own nose, but its shape didn’t lend itself to haughtiness. Still, he gave it his best shot.

  “Fourteen next week actually, if you even remembered her birthday this year.” Gratification filled him at Lucas’ surprised expression. Clearly the idiot had forgotten his sister’s special day yet again. Pierce had a moment’s regret at reminding Daisy’s brother. He would have liked to see a bucket of water tipped over Lucas’ arrogant head for the third year in succession.
Hiding his grin, he stopped thinking about the previous year’s birthday deluge and carried on. “Really! Do you really think I’d be mooning over your little sister!” He exploded with a dramatic laugh as if the mere thought were the most ridiculous thing in the world. “Don’t be stupid. I was pretending to pull the legs off that massive spider in the stable, not daydreaming over any girl. Blasted creature creeps out of its hole on those thick, black, hairy legs and looks at me every time I go to saddle my horse. Besides, I would never consider throwing my cap at Daisy. Apart from being your sister and far too young, she is the worst of the bunch, always making the others follow us about all over the place! She drives me mad with all her silly games. And that bear she carries about with her! Huh! At fourteen years old, and with the way they all talk about balls and dresses and coming out in two or three years, you would have thought she had outgrown such babyish toys.”

  Lucas had to agree. The ragged animal seemed glued to her side most of the time.

  “You would think so, but it appears not.”

  Glad of the slight change of subject, Pierce laboured his point.

  “She looks so pathetic with it hanging over her arm all the time. I would never have given her the dratted thing if I had known it would still be sitting with us at the dinner table ten years later.” He was about to give a derisory sniff when there was a sudden stifled cry from behind him.

  Turning swiftly, he caught sight of bright sapphire eyes staring right at him. He almost smiled before realising that the eyes were not smiling back at him. In fact they looked positively tortured. Daisy Caruthers blinked furiously, but couldn’t disguise the tears glistening on her ink dark lashes.

  A tatty bundle of brown material suddenly landed at Pierce’s feet.

  “It’s nearly twelve years actually, but there... Have your horrid bear back! I never wanted it in the first place.” A flurry of yellow and white silk skirts disappeared around the tree trunk and both Lucas and Pierce stared after the soles of her matching slippers as she ran across the grass, back towards the imposing country mansion.

  Lucas pressed his lips together before suddenly grinning and speaking again.

  “Well, I think you’ve sorted out the problem of her following us about rather neatly. Doubt she’ll be doing it again. Well done! Well done indeed. Now we can ask our fathers about shooting, or taking out our bows and arrows on our grand tour.”

  Pierce opened his mouth to answer, but found that he couldn’t. A lump of something hard had become lodged between his stomach and his voice box. Drat it all! He hadn’t meant to hurt Daisy’s feelings, especially not as he and Lucas were about to leave the country, but he had to defend his own dignity. If only he had known she was there, he might have thought of something else to say. What, he wasn’t quite sure, but something was bound to have occurred to him. Swallowing the lump, he bent to pick up the ragged stuffed animal that had once been his own, and dusted off some blades of recently cut grass.

  The stuffed animal looked a sorry little thing. Always had, but it had been given to him by some aging aunt who had it made especially for him at great expense. An odd thing to give a boy, he had thought at the time, and he had only been too glad to hand it on to someone else. It seemed that she had now given it back.

  His voice threatened to tremble as he spoke, but he cleared his throat and squared his shoulders.

  “Just goes to show how ridiculous girls can be. Cannot believe you seriously thought I was mooning over one.” He frowned down at the bear, his heart thumping hard as he denied the fledgling feelings that had been growing hard to ignore of late. He glanced at Lucas. “Do you think she really meant to give it back to me? Seemed like a bit of a sudden decision. Perhaps we should take it in with us. She did seem rather attached to it before just now.”

  Lucas narrowed his eyes for a moment longer before his expression cleared.

  “Best had. Nearly fourteen she might be, but the little squirt will probably cry her eyes out and won’t be able to sleep tonight if she doesn’t have it in bed with her.” He looked somewhat worried at the thought.

  Horrified, Pierce thrust the toy away from himself, holding it at arms’ length as he spoke again.

  “She sleeps with the blasted thing? You have to be joking.”

  Lucas shook his head and took the bundle of brown material from his friend.

  “Not joking at all. He’s always with her, even at night. Hasn’t been out of her sight since the day you gave it to her when she was about two years old. She was frightened during a thunderstorm if I remember rightly and you said that he would always protect her. For some reason she took you at your word and I don’t think it has left her side since.”

  Pierce swallowed again. He had known the girl took the bear everywhere during the day, but that she had it in her bed too was a little shocking. More personal somehow, but he had to remain nonchalant.

  “I only gave it to her to stop her crying. She had a wail on her to rival a banshee. You must remember. You used to cover your ears and run away whenever she started.”

  Lucas nodded as he brushed off more grass. And a lone, near naked daisy head. He picked the stripped flower up by the stalk and held it to the light, examining it closely. Sunlight glinted through the remaining few petals. Spider, my arse! he thought surreptitiously as he glanced curiously at his friend before speaking again.

  “Yes, I remember. Funny how she took everything you said at your word. If I had given her one of my toys and told her such a tale, I would have likely had it thrown right back at me. Much as you had done now.” He twirled the daisy head around this way and that.

  Pierce blinked, his eyes trying to follow the spinning bud of green and white. He held his breath. Odd or even? Love me or love me not?

  And then the twirling flower head spun from Lucas’ fingertips and rose into the air before dropping into some longer grass a few feet distant. Lost forever.

  The friends turned, differences quite forgotten as they noticed their mothers hurrying across the terrace, pinched expressions on both their faces.

  “Oh hell!” Lucas rolled his eyes. “They must have seen Daisy running in. I bet she was crying her eyes out about your bear.”

  Pierce glanced down at the toy he had once held in his own bed every night.

  “Best see she gets it back then.” He took it from his friend’s hand, raised it above his head, and waved it at the women. “We have it! She dropped it on the lawn!” He called as he made to walk towards the two women, but he was stopped in his tracks.

  Lucas reached out and caught his friend’s shoulder. He looked down at the slightly shorter Pierce and gave a softer smile.

  “There were three,” he said quietly.

  Pierce’s gaze dropped to Lucas’ hand, and then back toward his face. He huffed out a breath and ignored the warmth spreading through his chest.

  “Three what?” He raised a casual brow.

  Lucas stared at his friend for a few seconds, shook his head, and laughed.

  Chapter One

  Twelve Years Later

  A Fugitive’s Lot

  Lord Pierce Trenchard kept his eyes shut tightly as he shifted uncomfortably on the lumpy straw mattress, stuck his finger in his exposed ear, and dragged the thin blanket up over his chilled shoulder. His actions didn’t help. The coop’s cockerel clearly wasn’t about to shut his beak. Resigned to his fate, Pierce opened his eyes and pulled his finger from his auditory orifice.

  A momentary break in the feathered fiend’s morning repertoire allowed the sound of a muffled stomp of a restless hoof to filter through the floorboards. Along with the scent of fresh horse muck. Pierce reached beneath his pillow and blinked hard before squinting at his pocket watch as he gave an involuntary shiver. Good God! If it wasn’t before six in the morning and not only had the damnable cock already been crowing fit to raise the dead, but the horses had also begun their day.

  He sighed and rolled onto his back, staring up at the wooden beams a mere five feet abov
e his bed, as he had discovered only a few days before. The bump he had sustained back then was a still sharp reminder that the height of stable’s attic did not allow for a specimen of Pierce’s stature to stand to their full height. Stable lads were apparently much shorter. Younger too, and not quite so robustly built. Pierce’s back ached and his feet stretched off the end of the bed while both shoulders overhung the sides.

  He gave a snort of derision at his own thoughts. Robustly built? While that once might have been the case, he now spread his hand over an unusually concave stomach. The last few weeks had been somewhat chaotic. And his once elegant figure was suffering for it.

  Mornings should begin with an enormous breakfast of bacon, kippers, eggs, toasted bread, honey, jam, and gallons of tea brought to his bedside at somewhere near lunchtime. Not stodgy porridge made with water, and a cup of fresh milk if he was lucky. And, if he wanted those two meagre rations, he would have to go downstairs and serve them himself.

  As if reminding him of its current starved straits, his stomach gave an enormous grumble. Wouldn’t be any good lying there trying to get another few minutes sleep. Rumbling stomach aside, the horses would be becoming impatient for some exercise, and the cock wouldn’t be silent until the hens were out of their coop, or the maid had filled their grain trough.

  And that was supposing that the stablemaster didn’t come in and whip the covers from his body as he had done the previous morning. Blasted cheek of the man! At any other time, Pierce would have given Andrews his marching orders before the covers had settled again.

  But this wasn’t any other time. It was now. And needs must. He had a sudden, and rather alarming thought, that he might have to put up with a lot more inconvenience than his belly eating his backbone, an over enthusiastic cock crowing at all hours, and a surprise stripping before he was done here.

  Who knew that living in the country could be so disagreeable? He had never considered it so before. But then he had almost always travelled with his valet, sometimes even his own cook. Never had he to endure such deprivations as he was now experiencing. He put the thought of soft clean linen and thick rashers of smoked pork out of his mind. Thinking of them wasn’t going to assist him at all.