Page 75 of Road Trip With a Rogue

“So you’re refusing me?”

His tone was impossible to decipher. She couldn’t tell if he was angry, frustrated, or simply relieved.

“I am. I’d rather be ruined than tie myself to a man who doesn’t love me. But I appreciate the offer.”

He poured himself a second cup of coffee, and the look on his face gave her a moment of disquiet. He didn’t look like a man who’d been granted a reprieve. He looked… calculating. Which, in her experience of Vaughan, did not bode well.

“Have you seen Violet and Perry this morning?”

He accepted the change of topic with a comical grimace. “I have. Thankfully, it was before I’d had my breakfast, so I didn’t cast up my accounts at their nauseating display of postnuptial satisfaction. They’ve gone for a picnic somewhere in the grounds. We can only pray they don’t fall in the lake or get trampled to death by cows because they’re busy plaiting flowers into each other’s hair and composing sonnets.”

Daisy bit back a smile. “Will they be coming back to London? I’d like to leave as soon as possible.”

“Yes. Violet wants to explain things to her father, and I’ve said I’d be there to back them up. If you’ll deign to travel with us, we can all leave this afternoon.”

Daisy nodded. “As long as they have their own carriage.”

“Agreed.”

“We can all stay at Wansford Hall again tomorrow night, but we’ll still have to spend tonight on the road. Will we stay at the same inn we were at before?”

The one where she’d watched him bathe.

“Yes. I’ll get you your own room. Jenny can come as your maid.”

“Yes, please. I’ll write to Tess and ask her to meet us at Wansford. She can tell us what rumors are flying round London. If the worst comes to the worst, I suppose I’ll just go and visit my mother in Italy for a few years.”

Vaughan’s eyes narrowed in displeasure. “Are you honestly saying you’d leave the country—leave your job and your life and your friends fora few years—rather than marry me?”

Daisy lifted her chin and lied through her teeth. “Absolutely.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

The journey back toward London was very different from the one they’d taken north. Finch drove one carriage, containing Daisy and Jenny, while a second coachman drove Perry, Violet, and the small mountain of hat boxes, trunks, shoe boxes, and suitcases that made up Violet’s luggage.

If that was Violet’s idea of packing light, Daisy snorted to herself, she dreaded to think how much the girl would take when she went away for more than a week. Napoleon and his armies had probably traveled with less.

Vaughan, mercifully, elected to ride, and despite Jenny having altered a very fine riding habit for Daisy, she declined to join him outside. Being near him was both pleasure and pain, since she spent every moment vacillating between being certain she was making the right decision to refuse him, and the niggling feeling that she was being a complete and utter fool.

Vaughan might not love her, but was her insistence on such a thing truly realistic? Could a woman in her position expect the man they married to love them, heart and soul? Tess and Ellie were almost certainly the exceptionsin theton. Perhaps Daisy should just be grateful for the fact that Vaughan desired her, and abandon herself to the passion—however fleeting it turned out to be.

She seemed to change her mind with every rotation of the carriage wheels.

When they reached the White Horse at Doncaster, Vaughan joined Perry and Violet in the public dining room to eat, but Daisy took her evening meal alone in her room. It was not the same one she’d shared with Vaughan, thank God, but she was still plagued by memories of him.

She hoped Tess and Ellie would be able to meet her at Wansford Hall. She’d never been more in need of their support and advice.

The following morning, Vaughan sent Jenny up to ask if Daisy was going to “hide in the carriage all day,” and despite knowing he’d made the taunt deliberately to goad her, she told Jenny to unpack the riding habit. Avoiding him simply betrayed the fact that he had the power to affect her, and she refused to admit to such a thing.

The knowing curl to his lips as she stormed to the mounting block was irritating, but Daisy’s heart beat hard in her chest at his proximity.

Their horses fell into step some way behind the carriages to avoid the dust kicked up by the wheels.

“Not tempted to sit in with Perry and Violet?” he teased, keeping his expression impassive.

“And play gooseberry? No thank you.”

“You’re the one who supports marrying for love. That’s what you get. Kissing and crooning and holding hands.”