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CHAPTER TWO

Daisy tapped her fan against her chin, wondering whether that rake Rhys would actually show. That was the thing. He might not.

She wouldn’t blame him. He owed her nothing, not really—not for that garden rescue all those months ago, when she’d saved him from a scheming miss with more ambition than morals. But she’d hoped the favor might be enough to sway him.

Because she needed him.

Because—blast it—he might be the only person who could help her stop being invisible.

Everything hinged on him.

Well. As Mer had pointed out more than once, there were other ways to catch the Duke of Frosthaven’s attention. But for some unfathomable reason—possibly lunacy, possibly fate—every instinct she had, pointed to that devil-tongued rogue.

She couldn’t explain it. Only that from the moment she saw him arrive at the estate, she’d known. Him. He would be the one.

To help her, that was.

That the man was impossibly attractive didn’t help. Or it did. It was one of those conundrums she didn’t dare examine too closely—much like the flutter of her pulse when he slipped from the ballroom and into the garden, his gaze sweeping until it locked on her.

He came.

The very personification of wicked temptation and unapologetic sin came. For her.

Her nerves tightened another notch.

She inhaled deeply, her lungs filled with the crisp night air that carried the lingering scent of flowers, damp stone, and—beneath it all—a hint of danger. She bit her lip.

He came.

Now all she had to do was somehow convince him to teach her how to sparkle.

His shadow lengthened across the garden path as he approached her, stretching toward her like the whisper of a promise, one dark brow arched already. He stopped a few paces before her.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Lady Daisy,” he drawled, voice wrapped in sin dipped in just enough throatiness to make her stomach flutter. “To what do I owe this clandestine summons?”

Daisy clutched her fan tighter. It was better not to play coy with a man such as this, unless you wished to rouse the wolf in him. “A proposition.”

The second brow joined the first. “A proposition,” he echoed, as though the word amused him. It probably did. “How delightfully vague.”

Oh, Dear Lord. Broad shoulders rested beneath a dark coat with a cravat just crooked enough to hint he didn’t care—or wanted people to think he didn’t.

His mouth curved in half a smile, and his eyes, this close, well…

they were simply dangerous. Not because they promised ruination to all who wandered too close, but because they made her think she might welcome it.

Focus, Daisy!

She cleared her throat, tilting her chin. “Do you remember the ball in Mayfair? The one where I helped you sidestep a marriage trap from Miss Pennington?”

He hummed. “I recall.”

“You owe me a favor for that.” She held her breath as soon as the words left her.

“I see.” He considered her. “And what is this favor you seek from me?”

Here it was. “I need your help to catch someone’s attention.”

A flicker of something passed through his eyes. Interest? Curiosity? “What sort of attention are we discussing?”

“Not the kind you are thinking!” Whatever kind that could be. “The kind that leads to courtship,” she said, then firmer, “and eventual marriage.”

His head tilted. “And you believe I, a notorious rake with the most deserved reputation, am the ideal man to help you ensnare another?”

“Yes.”

He stepped closer. She didn’t retreat. Wouldn’t. Though her pulse hammered like she’d just danced three sets of the quadrille without stopping. His voice dropped low, dark as velvet.

“Dare I ask whose attention we’re after?”

Daisy licked her lips. “The Duke of Frosthaven.”

Rhys blinked.

Then—laughed.

Not cruelly, but with such open, startled delight that she nearly turned on her heel.

“I’m being serious,” she snapped.

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” he said, still grinning. “However, the duke... he has never paid any woman the slightest attention, except to his closest confidant, Lady Cecilia.”

“Are you saying I don’t stand a chance?”

“Of course not. Far be it from me to claim such a thing.”

Daisy’s eyes narrowed on the rogue. “Then will you help me?”

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Make me shine as bright as the stars in the sky.”

Say no.

Do not agree with this.

Rhys stared at Daisy Lovenight, wondering if she had lost her faculties.

Make her shine?

She shone plenty already, didn’t she? Soft, dark brown curls and expressive blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face.

Creamy pale skin, and exactly twelve freckles scattered over her nose.

Yes. He’d counted. The first time they’d met in fact, and every moment since had been a losing battle not to notice something else about her—the curve of her lips, the quiet way she surveyed a room, and the way she constantly fiddled with a fan.

The fact that Frosthaven hadn’t noticed her beauty wasn’t due to any lack of it—only a fool would miss that his attention lay elsewhere.

As for the rest of the so-called gentlemen of the ton?

Blind, the lot of them. And up until now, this little flower had been content to let them stay that way. That was all.

So what in the devil’s name had changed?

“You give me more credit than I deserve, Lady Daisy,” he said, his gaze dropping to her lips before lifting again to meet her eyes. “I’m not the sort of man to make any woman shine.” Not the way she meant. Glisten, perhaps. In the aftermath of pleasure. But shine like stars? No.

Her brows pulled together, and blast it, she looked even prettier when determined.

“I disagree.”

Of course she did. Rhys stepped back before she got any brighter ideas. Or he did. Which was a distinct possibility.

“I am the wrong man.”

“You’re the only one here who could possibly help me.”

Her tone stilled him.

Damn.

He’d spent a lifetime being the sort of man who never did anything right. Not for his father. Not for his mother. Not for anyone who might have mattered. He certainly wasn’t the man people turned to for help. And he most assuredly was never the only.

Which made this, her, all the more dangerous.

He could help her.

But he shouldn’t.

Because if he did.

“I don’t have the patience for lady lessons,” he said gruffly. “Or dances, or fan-fluttering nonsense.”

“I don’t need lessons.”

“No? Then how do you imagine I’d help make you shine?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I thought you could do some rakish magic to aid me.”

Rhys laughed at that. He couldn’t help himself. It was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard in all his thirty years.

She crossed her arms, consternation furrowing her beautiful features. “Laugh if you must, but I need you to be honest. I need you to tell me what men see. What they don’t. How I can become the sort of woman who turns heads. Is that enough of an answer for you?”

God help him.

This was lunacy.

He had no business entertaining it.

Because already, he was looking at her differently. Like she was more than a favor. More than a lady with an impossible request. Already, the hunter in him stirred.

And yet?—

“You truly want this?”

“I do.”

He stepped up to her again, crowding her. She didn’t so much as flinch. “And you understand the consequences?”

She paused, only for the slightest of seconds, before nodding. “Don’t worry. I have no delusions about your reputation, Nightingale. If this ends up in a scandal, I won’t cry foul.”

Damn it.

Were these not the words of every rake’s dream?

Rhys exhaled, low and ragged. “You said you wanted to shine?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me make you shine as bright as the sun.”

And then he crashed his lips on hers.