London, England
Daisy Daring traced her fingers lovingly over the blueprints spread across her father’s drafting table, as if touching the plans could somehow make her dream house come to life.
“One day,” she promised, “I will build you, and you will be splendid.”
To seal that pledge, she tapped her fingertip to the sketch of the formal front door she’d made in the corner of the large sheet. The little portico was complete with a hanging gas lamp and brass knockers not in those usual boring shapes of lions’ or horses’ heads, but ones crafted to resemble flowers. The door handles were gracefully arching lilies, the knocker the cup-like bloom of a tulip, the gas lamp a blossoming rose…They made the portico so welcoming that the house simply sparkled with life.
Oh, it was a beautiful townhouse! Someday, it would be the envy of those grand residences on London’s tree-crowded squares. Not just a terrace house with the typical five bays and three floors, but one unlike any townhouse that any architect had ever built. She laughed. Not even the celebrated Robert Adam had ever designed such architectural details as these!
“Because he lacked imagination,” she whispered to herself.
No one could overhear her as she worked in her father’s attic studio where he’d spent his career as one of London’s most talented architects, yet she didn’t dare speak any louder. Putting voice to her dream of becoming an architect was surely tempting fate. And wasn’t fate already against her? After all, she’d been born a woman.
Becoming an architect had proved an impossible dream. She’d already tried to squeeze through the door of the architectural world, only to have it slammed shut in her face, then locked, barred, and fitted with a portcullis.
She heaved out a sigh. Well, perhaps her experience wasn’t quite that medieval, yet the results had been just as disheartening. She’d shown her house plans to her father’s clients, only to be patronized by empty compliments and chuckles beneath their breaths—those who hadn’t dismissed her outright, that is. One had told her that her ideas held merit, but since he was certain she’d gotten them all from her father anyway, he’d prefer to work directly with Elias Daring and not muddy the waters by indulging his daughter. Indulging…as if working for hours and hours until her vision blurred and her hand ached from holding her drafting pencil was a mere flight of fancy.
So she’d given up on house plans to focus on interior designs. Since decorating decisions were largely the realm of wives, she’d hoped they would be more willing to work with a woman designer, yet she’d fared no better with them. They either didn’t believe a woman was capable of creating beautiful works of architecture and design—after all, how could their little minds actually understand the geometry and science necessary to create an entire building? Why, a house built by a woman would surely collapse on their heads!—or they thought it was morally wrong of her to take work away from men who needed commissions to support their families.
Some clients dismissed her designs as amateurish and banal; others refused to look at them at all. One woman actually threw her sketches back in Daisy’s face and demanded that she be shown work only by a true designer, a man who had made his mark… A man. When Daisy presented the exact same sketches a sennight later as her father’s work, the woman gushed out a stream of compliments and commissioned every one.
Daisy had learned a harsh lesson that day. In society’s eyes, the person who created the designs was more important than the designs themselves. Clients would never want them as long as they knew Daisy had imagined them.
She picked up the plans for the recent renovations to Baron Hansen’s Belmont Square townhouse, and a wry smile curved at her lips. Perhaps she’d managed to thwart fate in a small way after all. Although the baron had commissioned her father for the project, she was the one who’d actually drawn up the plans.
Oh, she loved doing this work! Being creative, using her imagination to bring to life a place where families might be safe and happy for decades to come…making her mark on the world. She only wished she could also put her own name to her drawings.
But she knew the terrible truth.
No matter how talented or hard-working, a woman could never be an architect. Society simply wouldn’t allow it.
“Miss!” Mrs. Jones rapped excitedly at the door. “There’s a visitor asking for your father.”
A lead ball of dread formed in Daisy’s belly as she glanced up at the housekeeper and whispered, “A merchant?”
The Darings owed money to nearly everyone. There were barely enough funds to keep up with the ticks from the butchers and dry goods stores, let alone pay for the mounting doctor’s bills. They were behind in paying her younger brothers’ tuition, with the headmaster sending letters requesting payment as regularly as clockwork. They’d even fallen behind in paying wages to Mrs. Jones and Mary, the maid of all work they’d employed to help the aging housekeeper with the more physical tasks, such as the laundry. Soon, they might even have to let Mary go. After all, why would they need someone to do laundry if they couldn’t afford clothes?
Daisy had robbed Peter to pay Paul so often that she feared she’d be handed a ledger upon entrance to heaven. But then, when it came to managing the household finances, she’d long ago surrendered to being cast into hell.
“Not a merchant.” Hopeful excitement shone on Mrs. Jones’s face. “A new client!”
Her heart somersaulted. Oh, the timing was perfect!
Daisy nodded eagerly. “I’ll be right down.”
Mrs. Jones scurried away. “And I’ll bring up a tea tray!”
She leaned against the drafting table in relief. Thank God.
Her father, Elias Daring, had once been a shining star in London’s architectural world. But then he’d taken ill three years ago, and his business had fallen off drastically. Only old friends and those who didn’t have the means or connections to hire a more prominent architect had graced their doorstep. If business had kept dwindling at that rate, they might very well have found themselves homeless and at the mercy of the parish poor laws.
She’d had no choice but to commit fraud.
At first, Daisy had simply served as his assistant, with Papa still capable of creating the plans himself. He still met with clients face-to-face, too, whenever he’d felt well enough. But on days when he was too ill to leave his room, she’d acted on his behalf to interview the clients and assure them that she would pass along their information to her father. She’d acted on his behalf the following mornings, too, when she sent out letters accepting their work on retainer to which she’d signed her father’s name. That left Papa free to focus all his energy on his building plans.
Soon, though, even that had become too difficult for him. He’d grown more fragile, capable only of giving direction to her from his chair while she sketched out the preliminary plans that he would end up finishing himself. But then he’d grown too weak to finish them. So the work had sat undone. The clients were demanding their retainers back, the bills were piling up—
That was when Daisy took it upon herself to finish the plans on her own.
Soon, though, she wasn’t just finishing them; she was creating them from the very beginning. Her own house renovation plans, her own interior designs—her own hands shaking as she presented them to clients under the pretense of being her father’s emissary. Oh, she didn’t dare admit she’d done them! They would have laughed themselves silly, then refused to accept them, just as others had done before. But when she scrawled her name across the bottom right corner—Daring, just the last name and no initials—it was as close to claiming them for her own as she ever could. They believed that her father had renovated their homes and were thrilled with the finished projects.
Whoever was waiting downstairs would believe the same.
Even though she’d managed to save her family—so far—the tiny bit of work she was able to do was barely enough to keep them from bankruptcy. Since he’d become housebound, few people remembered that Elias Daring existed, and commissions had dried up until they were now few and far between. Very few and very, very far. That’s what made this new client such an unexpected surprise. No—he was simply a godsend!
And one who shouldn’t be kept waiting. So she snatched up her sketch book and pencil and hurried downstairs. She paused outside the parlor to offer up a prayer, put a smile on her face, and swept into the room—
“Hulloo!”
She froze, startled mid step by the man who wheeled around to greet her. By the flame-red hair that sat tousled on his head except for one startling shock that fell right between his eyes. By the ruddy cheeks that stood out even more against the red hair. By the giant smile that seemed to engulf his face. And most of all, by the flamboyant lime-green waistcoat, brown trousers, and orange kerseymere jacket that stretched over his impossibly tall, slender body and made him resemble an orange tree.
Goodness. Apparently, God had a sense of humor about what he sent her way.
Bright blue eyes swept over her, from head to toe and back again. And yet again. Impossibly, his smile grew even wider.
“Apologies.” Surprise rang in his voice as he stared unabashedly at her. “I was expecting Mr. Daring.”
Finally, Daisy remembered to close her mouth and took a tentative step into the room. This was her potential client? He looked as if a wagonload of Chinese silks had collided with a maypole.
“Of course.” She cleared her throat and forced a smile that struggled not to reveal her shock at his appearance. “Unfortunately, my father is indisposed at the moment and asked me to meet with you on his behalf.” She curtsied as he gave a low and far too formal bow. “I’m his daughter Daisy.”
“Daisy,” he repeated in an awed whisper that once more set his bright blue gaze sweeping over her. “Daisy Daring…oh, that’s fabulous! Absolutely lovely.” His smile quirked up at the left corner of his mouth. “You are lovely.”
Startled by that wholly unexpected compliment, she choked out, “Pardon?”
His eyes blossomed into wide circles, matching the O that formed at his lips. “Did I say that aloud? Deuces! My apologies. It’s just…” His grin returned as he clasped his hands behind his back and rocked back on his boot heels, teetering so much that she wondered how he didn’t fall over. “Well, you are lovely.”
That made her mouth fall open again. Doing her best to ignore both her shock and the flush rising in her cheeks, she prompted, “And you are…?”
“Not so lovely.” He laughed at himself, such a good-natured and self-effacing laugh that she couldn’t help but smile back. “I’m Hugh Whitby. I certainly hope you haven’t heard of me.” He lowered his voice earnestly. “I have a bit of a…” He waggled his brows at her. “A rakish reputation.”
“Do you?” She bit her inner cheek to keep from laughing as she cast another glance over him. “No, I’ve never heard of it.”
“Thank goodness!” His narrow shoulders sank under his visible relief. “I wouldn’t want Mr. Daring to refuse to work with me.”
No chance of that! He could have dressed like a harlequin—although he seemed close even now—and been as scandalous as the royal dukes themselves, and she wouldn’t have turned him out. She and her father needed him…however peculiar he was.
“You see, Miss Daring, I have quite the project planned.”
Relief warmed up from her toes. “Then you’ve come to the right place.”
She gestured at the settee for him to sit, then took her own chair on the opposite side of the tea table. She placed her sketch book on her knees and busied herself with opening it as he perched himself on the edge of the cushion and leaned eagerly forward.
“I apologize that my father couldn’t be here to welcome you personally. I know you were expecting him,” she explained. “But he’s asked me to act as his proxy for this meeting, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all! I was told to expect an elderly man with a beard and a cane, but when you came into the room, golly, I had to blink to clear my mind.” His eyes sparkled apologetically at the idea of mistaking her for her father. “For a moment there, I’d imagined you in a beard.”
“Yes…well.” A most peculiar man.
He glanced back at the door, as if expecting another person to enter. “Your mother doesn’t involve herself with clients?”
“No.” She looked down at her sketch book. “My mother passed away several years ago.”
“I’m so terribly saddened to hear that.” Apparently, he was. Grief filled his voice, which had grown oddly quiet. “You must miss her a great deal.”
“Every day,” she whispered. Then she cleared her throat and brought the conversation promptly back to business. “Now, Mr. Whitby, are you interested in renovating your entire house or only a portion of it? We can also do projects as small as single rooms, although—”
“Oh, no!”
Her gaze darted up to his. “Pardon?”
“You have the wrong idea, Miss Daring.” His expression was suddenly serious. “I don’t plan on renovating anything.”
Her heart plunged to the floor, all possibility at earning a sizeable commission falling away with it. Disappointment panged in her hollow chest, which was filled a second later by more worry about how she would settle that month’s bills, pay for doctor’s visits, and keep her brothers at school. Just last week the headmaster threatened to send them home for falling behind on tuition. Again.
“Oh.” She slowly closed her book and stood. “Well, then I don’t think my father can help you with—”
“No, you don’t understand.” He scrambled to his feet, blinking rapidly with confusion. “I plan on building an entirely new townhouse.”
She sank onto the chair with a soft gasp as her knees gave out. He couldn’t possibly mean… “A new house?”
He nodded and reached into his jacket’s inside breast pocket. “I just secured a leasehold on a section of a square that’s being laid out to the north of Marylebone Road.” He held out a folded piece of paper across the tea table. “I need a house, Miss Daring, built to fit this space. A house with a very specific purpose.”
She unfolded the paper with trembling fingers and scanned the description of the square and lot, her heart pounding so hard that it ricocheted against her ribs. Not just one room or two, but an entire house! Not just a small renovation commission but house plans that could finally erase all her family’s debts. “And what would that purpose be?”
“A house big enough for all the children, of course.”
He was…married? She forced a smile past her surprise. “And how many children do you have, Mr. Whitby?’
“Oh, it varies—”
Varies? She gaped at him. “Pardon?”
“—but I’d like to make the house big enough for a dozen children or so.”
She blinked. “A dozen children?”
“Or so.” He shrugged with a laugh. “Well, as many as we can cram in, I suppose!”
Too startled to remember herself, she blurted out, “Are you mad?”
That stripped the grin from his face, and he stared at her as if she’d just sprung a second head. As if she were the one who should be placed in bedlam instead of him.
“I’m so sorry!” Heat rose in her cheeks. Oh, she’d ruined everything! “I didn’t mean—”
“Well, perhaps I am mad,” he answered, his grin slowly reappearing, “although no one’s ever asked me about it before. But I suppose I must be.” He circled his eyes in self-deprecating amusement. “After all, I’m the patron of a school.”
“A school?” Relief flowed through her. In all the times she’d acted as her father’s assistant, she’d never once had a client conference like this!
“The Gatewell School for Orphans of the Sea,” he explained, pointing at the agreement she still held in her hand. “That’s why I secured the leasehold. I want to build a new house for the students so that when they no longer need classroom instruction they’ll still have a place to live while they find apprenticeships and positions.” He blinked. Twice. “What did you think I meant when I said a dozen or so children?”
“Why, a school, of course.” She smiled to hide her embarrassment. “What else?”
Mrs. Jones knocked on the open door to announce the arrival of tea. Thank goodness! This conversation certainly needed a change of direction.
Whitby stood in gentlemanly politeness as Mrs. Jones carried in the tray. Mrs. Jones winked at Daisy in encouragement, then quickly left so the meeting could continue.
Daisy poured him a cup of tea. She was more grateful than she wanted to admit to be able to reset the conversation and start again. “So Mr. Whitby—”
“Hugh.” His hand brushed hers as he accepted the cup and saucer, then returned to his seat across from her. “Please call me Hugh.”
“Mr. Whitby,” she insisted. His offer of familiarity startled her, and now was not the time to ponder why her fingers tingled where his had touched hers. “Tell me about your project. What features are you hoping to have in the house?”
“I want it to be a grand place, safe and welcoming.” Resting the tea on his knee, he leaned forward, and his eyes practically glowed. “For the boys and me. A house where they can adjust to their futures and where I can live instead of renting bachelor’s rooms. You know…a home.” He helped himself to one of the lemon biscuits from the tea tray. “If it works, I’m hoping to build a second house for the girls, perhaps on the same square. Wouldn’t that be grand to have them all together so close? Your father would design it, too, of course.”
She couldn’t breathe at the implication behind that. A second commission! She cleared her throat and brought them both back down to earth by saying, “Building two houses is going to be quite expensive for a charity school.”
“True, but I recently came into money.” He took a bite of the biscuit and said through the crunching, “My late uncle William.” He snapped off another bite between his front teeth. “Had no children of his own. Always liked me a great deal, though. Better than all my brothers.” He popped the last bite into his mouth. “Irked my father, too, I daresay.”
“Your father?”
He somehow managed to nod while taking a sip of tea. “Baron Whitby.”
Her arm jerked in surprise, and she nearly spilled tea on herself. He was a baron’s son?
“But I assure you that my father has nothing to do with this. It’s all my idea.” He reached for a cucumber sandwich and added, “And Mariah’s, of course.”
She smiled tightly. “Ah…your wife.”
“Mariah?” He snorted laughter at the idea. “Heavens no! She’s married to Lord Robert Carlisle. But she’s my best friend and helps me run Gatewell. The school was her idea, in fact, but she lets me help.” He grinned sheepishly. “But I’m keeping her away from the new house. I want this project to be all mine. She knows I’m building it, of course—couldn’t keep something like that secret from her prying—but I want to surprise her with how grand it will be, how perfect for the children.” He took a bite of the sandwich, then gestured wide with his long arms and said between chews, “I want a townhouse that’s bright and light, with big rooms, lots of windows—nice rooms for the servants, too. I want everyone to feel as if it’s their home, not just an extension of the school or the place they work.”
She jotted down his wish list, then read back over it. Her heart pounded at the possibilities. “Your uncle left you money, you said?”
“A great deal of money.” He grinned at her hesitation. “No expense spared!” Then he popped the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and somehow managed to keep smiling even as he devoured it, only to frown during the last few bites. “But all the corner lots were already leased. Mine is part of the middle terrace which limits what your father can do with it, I suppose.” Then his expression turned downright grim, and he heaved out a heavy sigh. “I’m giving him a difficult challenge.”
One Daisy relished! This would be her chance to finally make real the ideas she’d been mulling over for some time now, ideas that would break away from the tyranny of the terrace box. Excitement pricked at her toes.
“Actually,” she ventured as she slowly set her cup aside, not wanting him to sense her enthusiasm for his project, “I can suggest some ideas that I think you might like.”
Before he could rise to his feet again, she’d moved around the tea table to the settee, and her hand went to his arm to keep him seated. She ignored the surprised look that fluttered across his face, opened her book, and flipped to the pages she’d been working on. They held all her ideas for transforming a boring London terrace house into something grand, bright, and airy while maintaining the same narrow frontage and typical five bays.
“The main difficulty with terrace houses is the lighting, of course,” she explained as she rested the book between them so he could see her plans. “How do builders construct on a large scale when a house can only be two rooms deep because they can’t place any windows on either side? So architects have compensated for narrow lots by building up. But that’s limited to how many sets of stairs the owner wants to climb, usually only allowing for three stories, with perhaps an additional room in an attic and a basement for the kitchens. On a square like yours, the architect and builder are further limited because the owner won’t let you build higher than the houses next to yours.” She sighed at the rules of Neo-Classicism which seemed as if they’d never die out. It was the nineteenth century, for heaven’s sake! “Because of symmetry.”
He leaned toward her to peer into her book, and she caught the faint scent of bergamot. It was surprisingly nice.
“All the terrace houses I’ve ever seen have been like that,” he said.
“But they don’t have to be. Look here.” She tapped her finger on a sketch. “Instead of stacking the rooms on top of each other in a two-room deep square, they can spread behind the house in an L-shape like this, giving each room plenty of light. Depending on how deep your lot is, you can add an extra room per floor by doing this.” She flipped the page. “Or this—change the shape from an L to a U, eliminating the rear service yard for a central courtyard. Once you let go of traditional thinking about what a townhouse should be, the possibilities become—”
“Endless!”
She laughed. “I was going to say exciting.”
He grinned at her. “That, too.” He took the book and looked carefully at her sketches, then turned the page before she could stop him. “What’s this?”
Her heart skipped. It was her dream house. The set of original ideas she’d jotted down one boring rainy afternoon last year when she’d let her mind run wild with possibilities.
“Nothing important.” She reached for the book. “Just some silly ideas.”
But he refused to let her take the book from him. “These are yours?” He let out a low whistle as he flipped through the pages. “Deuces, they’re grand!”
“But they’re not for a townhouse like yours.” Her face flushed with equal measure embarrassment and pride. “Not really.”
She made another grab for the book, which he deftly moved out of her reach.
“Tell me about them.” His eyes shone earnestly. “Please do. I’d love to hear about what inspired you.”
She bit her lip in indecision even as her heart somersaulted at the temptation. No one had ever asked to see her house plans before, not even her father.
Until now.
That it was Mr. Whitby who was the first, this very odd client of all people, surprised the daylights out of her. Yet he was serious about her work. That is, as serious as a man dressed like a fruit salad could be, she supposed.
“Well,” she started tentatively, even though he urged her on with an excited nod, “this floor plan is based upon putting all the work rooms, kitchens, and cisterns beneath the house, all the way to the far end of the property. Just a small sliver of the traditional rear yard would be left for those things that can’t be put beneath the house…access for the night soil men, for example. For that matter, most of what was previously needed in a service yard can be done away with altogether, considering all the services that can be hired out these days. Gentlemen don’t even need their own horses and carriages with the number of hackneys available in London.”
He let out a low whistle of appreciation. “Golly.”
Her cheeks heated with pride. “The world is changing, Mr. Whitby. Why, soon we might not need cisterns in houses at all. Think of it—all water and waste simply carried to and from in pipes!”
“That would sure be something if it ever came to be,” he agreed. Then he frowned at her sketch. “But if all the work areas are underground, how do the servants see to work?”
A good question. Most people didn’t care about the comfort of their servants. What mattered to them were the rooms above where they lived. “First, we put large windows in the access area beneath the front façade. Then, instead of having a rabbit warren of little work rooms, the basement is mostly open space and lit with gas lamps throughout.” She said thoughtfully, half to herself, “You’d be surprised at how much light a single well-placed lamp can emit. All the new squares will have a gas supply. If you’d like, we can even put gas lighting throughout your house, along with sinks and water closets.” She looked up and met his gaze—he’d been watching her. But oddly, that didn’t bother her. “You will putting in pipes and subscribing to a water service, won’t you?”
“Oh, yes!” He stopped suddenly, mid nod. “That is, if your father thinks it’s a good idea.”
Your father…not her. That stung more than she wanted to admit. “It’s definitely a good idea. I think you’ll want a fixed tub in your dressing room, too.” When he blinked at the idea, perplexed, she flipped through the pages to show him the new bath room she’d been designing. “It’s the latest thing. A round tub that you can sit in with a water tank above that rains down over you, and the water all drains away through pipes into the cistern in the basement. It’s called a shower tub.”
“A shower tub,” he repeated, his voice tinged with awe. “La, that’s brilliant!”
“Isn’t it, though? The water source comes from the roof cistern. To have hot water, though, the servants will still haul it up from the kitchens and pour it into that little reservoir there on the ceiling. But the fixed drain cuts their work in half because they don’t have to carry the water all the way back down. Why, you could even have a wash basin with running water in the same room.” And a flush toilet. Oh, she longed to have a house with one of those! “And a subbasement for storage.”
“Perfect,” he murmured, his eyes not leaving her face.
Heat rose in her cheeks. He was making her uncomfortable…although not necessarily in an altogether bad way. “Mr. Whitby, if you would please focus on—”
“Because we’re going to need lots of storage space.”
Her face flushed even more, this time in self-embarrassment. Oh, she was a goose for thinking he was making advances! He was only speaking of cellars.
She forced a smile. “We can certainly do that.”
“Excellent!” He clapped his hands together and then flipped back the pages to her dream house. “But tell me more about this. Lots of rooms, you said, and lots of light.”
“It’s built in a U-shape which adds two extra rooms on each floor and a small courtyard. The stairs are centered beneath a glass dome to let light into the interior—” She caught herself as her excitement swelled and shook her head. “But these are only concepts, you understand. Only my imagination running wild.”
“That’s what makes them so exciting!” This time his clapped hands were accompanied by a bright laugh. “Exciting and excellent—I can’t wait to hear how you and your father will work these innovations into my house. Coming here was the right decision.” An infectious grin lit his face, and she couldn’t help but smile back. “We’re going to build a marvelous house together, Miss Daring.”
I hope so. Two of them.
He stood. “So I’ll leave you both to it.”
He gave her a bow so low that she feared he might topple over. She scrambled to her feet to catch him, only for him to straighten with a wide grin. He handed her one of his cards with his direction on it.
“You will send information to me regarding the retainer and when the initial sketches will be ready, won’t you?” His question sounded more like a plea.
“Of course.”
He bounced to the doorway, then paused to pick up the hat and gloves he’d left on a chair when he’d arrived and turned back to her. “The lovely Miss Daisy Daring,” he said quietly, his wide grin fading into a dreamy smile. “Build me a grand house.”
Then he was gone, leaving her to gape after him.
Rather, almost gone. He poked his head back into the room. “By the by, how long does it take to build a house?”
“What you’re asking for—basement, frame, interiors… Six months, I should think.”
“Six months,” he murmured. Happiness beamed from him as if he’d just been told he’d won the lottery. “Wonderful!”
Then he was gone.
Daisy stared after him, blinking, her book still lying open in her hands and her forefinger pointing at a sketch. Good heavens, had that conversation really just happened? Her mind swirled. What had they agreed to, exactly? After all, on the tip of her tongue poised all the reasons why she couldn’t possibly build this particular house for him…
Yet a slow smile spread across her face, one nearly as bright and big as his grins had been. “Why not?”
She snapped her book closed and rushed upstairs to the drafting table. She had a dream house to plan!
Hugh Whitby practically skipped as he hurried out of the townhouse and down to the waiting carriage. His heart soared, his pulse pounded, and every inch of his skin tingled with awareness and excitement. All because of her. The lovely Daisy Daring.
He allowed himself only a brief pause at the carriage door to glance back over his shoulder. Of course, he wouldn’t see her. She was too serious and business-like to stand at a window and watch him leave. Still, he couldn’t help hoping—
“Well?” His best friend Mariah Winslow Carlisle called out impatiently from inside the carriage. He’d insisted that she wait here because he’d wanted to arrange for the house on his own. Oh, she knew what he was planning—she was his best friend, after all, and he couldn’t keep secrets this large from her…well, any secret, actually, because she had a way of seeing and hearing everything and then prying to get answers when she couldn’t—but he wanted the completed house and its details to be a surprise for as long as possible. “Is Mr. Daring going to build your house?”
“Better.” He grabbed the doorframe and swung himself onto the bench seat across from her with a self-pleased grin. “I’m going to marry his daughter.”
“I see.” She thanked the tiger who closed the carriage door and signaled to the coachman to drive away. “And does she know this?”
“Not yet. The time wasn’t right to tell her.”
“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” she replied, deadpan. “After all, you were gone less than twenty minutes.”
“Enough time to know that she’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.” He removed his beaver hat and played with it in his hands. He needed to keep busy or he’d simply burst with excitement. Never had he felt the same shock of electricity at meeting a woman as he’d just experienced with Daisy. Never had his mind ran wild as it leapt ahead to days and months and years together. Never had he met a woman like her. “I know it sounds utterly daft, but it was love at first sight. For me anyway.” Laughter bubbled out of him. “Oh, she’s remarkable, Mariah! Brilliant, talented, kind…simply perfect.”
“You discovered all that in just twenty minutes?”
“Yes! One—” He held up a single finger. “Brilliant—she knows simply everything about architecture and building houses. What other woman knows those kinds of things?” A second finger went up. “Two, she’s a most talented artist and designer. She showed me her sketches—better than Reynolds and Lawrence.”
“Aren’t they oil painters?”
He ignored that. “And three—” All five fingers went up this time. “She’s kind-hearted to a fault.”
Mariah frowned. “What makes you think that?”
He grinned. “She didn’t toss me out.”
Or make fun of his clothes, the way other women did. Or his bright red hair that he could do absolutely nothing about. And, he reminded himself, she and her father were the only architectural firm of the eight they’d visited so far who’d agreed to work with him. The other men had all laughed when he’d told them what kind of work he wanted done, how many bedrooms, and for whom. Those architects had all said the same thing—they built houses, not hotels for urchins.
Although, in retrospect, Whitby hadn’t really given Daisy and her father much chance to decline his project. He needed a house for the children of the Gatewell School, her father wanted the work, and Whitby wanted to spend more time with Daisy.
A win for everyone.
“She sounds remarkable,” Mariah commented.
“Oh, she is.” But he couldn’t keep the grief from his face when he added, “She lost her mother when she was young.”
Mariah nodded, her eyes instantly glistening. She completely understood the importance of that, because both she and Whitby had also lost theirs when they were young.
Yet concern darkened her face. They’d been best friends for several years, and he recognized that worried look when he saw it, which she often gave him. “But she might not feel the same way about you.”
“Only because she hasn’t had time yet to realize exactly how good we’ll be together.” He slapped his hat onto his head and leaned back against the velvet squabs. “I’m going to marry her.” He held no doubts about that. He was as certain of that as he was of his own name. “And I want you to be my best man when I do.”
Her eyes gleamed with amusement. “Best woman, you mean.”
“Second best woman, after Daisy.” He shot her an apologetic look. “No offense.”
“Absolutely none taken.”
“Miss Daring,” he murmured to himself as he looked out the window but saw nothing except Daisy’s glittering sea-green eyes and her golden hair, the bright and excited glow of her face when she’d talked about her sketches. She lit the world from within.
He had six months to win her heart. The most perfect woman he’d ever met and…him.
His brow pulled into a frown. He might be a dandy, but he wasn’t a dullard. He knew exactly how difficult his courtship of her would prove in the end. And exactly how daring she truly had to be in order to love him back.
A flash of movement on the footpath caught his attention. He pounded his fist against the ceiling.
“Stop the carriage!” he shouted at the coachman, then bounded to the ground before the wheels had stopped rolling.
In front of a bakery, a man in a soiled apron with white flour graying his hair and beard held a small slip of a boy by the scruff of his neck. He smacked the boy alongside the head with his large hand in an angry and brutal attempt to box the boy’s ears. The child struggled and twisted to get away, crying out in pain and terror yet keeping a death grip on the half-eaten meat pasty in his hands.
“Let go of him!” Whitby charged up to the man. “Let go of him this instant, I tell you!”
The baker sneered at Whitby and struck the boy again. This time he drew a small trickle of blood from the boy’s left ear, and the boy cried out in pain. “This is none of your damned business, you peacock!”
“You’re beating a child.” Which made it everyone’s business. Whitby grabbed the man’s arm before he could strike the boy again. “Why don’t you beat on me instead?”
The man laughed. The beefy brute lowered his arm but didn’t release the small boy who continued to cry in pain. His little hand clamped over his bloody ear to protect it, while his other retained its grip on the pasty.
“Hell, guv’nor,” the man laughed. “This child could put up more of a fight than you, ye scrawny thing!”
Whitby ignored that insult if not the sting of it. He could hold his own in fights, despite how slight he appeared. He’d taken private lessons in fisticuffs from Gentleman Jackson’s salon for years, building on what his six older brothers had taught him from the time he was just a lad. They’d had to. The other boys at school had delighted in tormenting him, and his brothers had grown tired of always having to fight in his defense. The problem was that while Whitby knew that other solutions were usually available that didn’t involve bare knuckles, swords, or pistols, he also knew that children should never be beaten, regardless of the reason.
It was time to fight. Gritting his teeth, Whitby clenched his fist and drew back—
Mariah darted between the two men and grabbed his arm. “What did the boy do?”
“Caught the little urchin attemptin’ to steal from me, my lady,” the baker explained, giving a nod of deference to Mariah and a hard shake to the child by his collar for good measure.
The pasty flopped in the air, but the boy’s fingers held tight. It was his prize. He wasn’t giving it up.
“He was probably hungry, the poor little thing,” she scolded the baker. “Where is a child like him supposed to get money for food?”
“Don’t know.” The man spat on the footpath. “Don’t care.”
“And you’re beating him for trying to keep from starving?” Whitby accused.
“That’s right. Givin’ him a good pummelin’ ’fore I take him to the authorities so he’ll think twice ’bout doin’ it again.”
Whitby couldn’t let that happen. At worst, the boy would be sent to gaol or have his palm branded for theft, and at best, he’d be sent to a workhouse, where he would be farmed out for labor to pay the parish for his keep. Either way, his young life would be over before it began.
“I’ll pay for the pasty.” Whitby reached into his pocket for the loose coins he kept there. “How much?”
The baker slid an assessing gaze over him. “Half a crown.”
Whitby’s arms fell to his sides in exasperation. “Tuppence at most.”
“Half a crown,” the brute repeated, “or I drag him ’fore the magistrate right now.”
Whitby grimaced. Resentfully, he handed the coins to the baker.
The man snatched them into his large hand. He dropped the boy onto the stone footpath, then kicked him for good measure as he turned to stomp back inside his bakery.
The boy shoved the remaining pasty into his mouth.
“Wait here!” Mariah ordered, then rushed inside the chophouse next door.
As they waited, Whitby looked down at the boy. The child glared back at him with an insolent gleam in his eyes, as if waiting for Whitby to strike him just as the baker had. Most likely because he was used to being beaten by every adult he encountered on the streets. Whitby’s chest tightened with grief. The boy couldn’t have been more than six, but his young existence was already bleak and brutal.
Mariah returned with a small package wrapped in paper and string. She bent down to the boy who was still chomping away at the pasty that filled his entire mouth and plumped out his cheeks like a chipmunk’s. Or the king’s.
“This is for you.” Mariah held out the package to the child who eyed her suspiciously. “For later. Some bread, cheese, and meat…and a sticky bun.”
He didn’t take it, but swallowed down the last bite and struggled not to choke. “What fer?”
“For you,” Whitby interjected. “So when you get hungry again, you won’t have to steal.”
The boy nodded and slowly took the package, then looked quickly around to make certain the gift wasn’t some kind of trick, that the baker wasn’t going to come running back out, this time to beat him with a rolling pin.
“Thank you, ma’am.” He climbed to his feet and wrapped his arms around the package as if it were more precious than gold. But then, Whitby decided, to the boy it was. Gold wasn’t edible.
Whitby bent down onto his heels to look the lad in the eyes. He reached into his pocket, removed one of his cards, and held it up. “If you ever get in trouble again, show this to a hackney driver and tell him to take you here.” He tucked it into the boy’s jacket pocket. Then Whitby fished out his handkerchief and wiped gently at the trickle of blood at the boy’s ear. “I’ll help you.”
The boy nodded and mumbled his thanks. Then he scrambled away as fast as he could.
Whitby watched the boy dart out of sight into a side alley. Maria put her hand reassuringly on Whitby’s shoulder.
“It’ll only be a matter of time before he’s caught stealing again.” She’d said what they were both thinking.
“Perhaps.” Whitby folded the soiled handkerchief and put it away, then squared his shoulders and looked up at her. “But maybe he won’t.”
Silently, Mariah slipped her arm around his and gave him an affectionate squeeze. Nothing more needed to be said.