“Tomorrow, then.” He frowned. “No. Tomorrow I’ve appointments to see more space for my velocipede shop. Friday, although that’s cutting it rather close.”
“Friday. And now, my mother will be wondering where I am. Good heavens. You must really want to win those wagers.”
He frowned at her and looked away. Then he gave his head a tired shake. “I didn’t take wagers, Daisy.”
Her mind went blank. Of course he had taken wagers on the competition. His entire point in assisting her was to make a little money. He had to… She couldn’t… Feelings swarmed her, assailing her from all sides.
“You said.” The words came out all choked up. “You said, you told me, that people placed bets on the competition.”
“Technically,” he said, looking upward, “I merely implied they had done so and let you come to a false conclusion.”
A hard lump formed in her throat.
“But we’ve never much been technical, have we, Daisy?” He gave her a weary half- smile. “Yes, if you want to put it that way. I lied to you. Of course I didn’t make wagers. It would be wrong for me to take bets as if I were an independent observer and then try to influence the outcome. You should know that.”
She couldn’t help herself. She was exhausted, emotionally drained, and… She began to laugh. “Most people would say that it was wrong to make bets where a woman was involved. That’s your reason why you didn’t? You have the strangest version of morality I have ever heard.”
He looked honestly confused. “Is it supposed to be a compliment for me to say that I’d not risk my money on you? I didn’t wager because… Oh, for God’s sake, I’m not going to explain it now. I just didn’t.” He shook his head. “English morality is utterly ridiculous. It doesn’t make a lick of logical sense.”
Talking to Crash about morality was like talking to a wall. You could never talk the wall down, and no matter how you bounced things off it, it always stayed right where it was. Immovable. Unchanged. After an hour of shouting, one was left with the distinct impression that the wall was probably in the right place to begin with. Crash made the rest of the world seem utterly mad in comparison.
Maybe it was.
They stood in silence, Daisy not wanting to speak. She had too many questions. Why didn’t you take the bets? If it wasn’t the wager, why did you intervene? Why are you here? It was the last question she most wanted answered, and he wasn’t talking.
“Why?” She made sure her voice didn’t shake. “Why did you…”
“Why did I lie to you?” He shrugged. “Well, that’s easy. I was fairly certain that if I told you the truth, you wouldn’t want my help.”
“Crash.” She tried to imbue the single syllable of his name with the deepest reprimand.
“Daisy.” He didn’t mirror her tone. He said her name quietly. Once before, he had used to say her name like that. Like her name was a precious thing, an important thing. Like those two syllables were an honor on his lips.
She couldn’t look at him. “If you knew I didn’t want your help, you should have…”
“What,” he said, “done nothing? I suppose I should have let it go. But I am notoriously terrible at letting things go.”
She understood precisely what he was telling her. She’d walked away from him, and nobody had ever done that. He wanted her the way she’d once been—silly, unwise, willing to throw over all good sense when he tossed a smile in her direction. And she, fool that she was, could feel herself falling back into her old ridiculous yearning.
This is not going to happen. This was the moment when she should bar her shutters and wait out the storm.
She was tired.
“It was simple,” he said. “If you want to know why I did it, it’s because of your sweetheart.”
This brought her up short. She turned to him, frowning. “My sweetheart?”
“Yes, your sweetheart.” He looked in her eyes. “I wanted to… Well, that is…” He frowned. “Maybe I wanted you to miss me a little. I used to imagine him forgiving you for who you are. It made me angry. I wanted you to know you were wrong. That neither you nor I needed forgiveness.”
She felt her throat close.
“What are you talking about?” she finally managed to say.
He frowned at her. “You must be exhausted.” He sounded patient. “We’re talking about your fiancé, Daisy. The man you’re supposed to marry? How hard is it to understand that I want you to be happy? That I think he should care about you?”
She felt utterly stricken. She had no fiancé, and the one she would eventually try to acquire would, by necessity, not know her at all.
What came out of her mouth was this: “Crash. You idiot.”
“What?”
She took a step toward him.
“You colossal, stupid, ridiculous—” She’d run out of adjectives, but she still had nothing to say to him. “Don’t pretend to be a fool. You know.”
“What do I know?”
She snapped off the next words. “You know I made him up. There is no sweetheart. There is nobody waiting for me. There isn’t anyone who cares what I do aside from my mother.”
He stared at her in such dazed noncomprehension that she wanted to slap him.
“You knew it,” she told him. “I told you and you looked at me just like that and you said ‘Of course I believe you.’”
“Of course I said I believed you,” he said stupidly. “Because of course I believed you. Why wouldn’t you have a sweetheart? Why wouldn’t some officer out there—” He jerked his thumb in the vague direction of what might have been Portsmouth “—dream of you every night, and want you to be his? It sounded perfectly reasonable to me.”
“Look at me.” She gestured. “Oh my God, Crash, look at me.”
“I am.” He frowned at her. “I have. And I know you hate to admit it, but we’ve known each other quite a while. I know you extremely well. You’re lovely. You’re loyal. You’re funny, and you always put the best face on anything bad that comes your way. Who wouldn’t want you?”
“You must think I’m the most gullible woman on the planet.”
“Wait one moment,” he said. “Are you telling me you don’t have a sweetheart?”
It took her a moment to realize that he was serious. That all this time, he’d thought… He had actually thought…
He was frowning now. “I returned. I sought you out. You thought you had to lie to me about having a sweetheart to keep me away? Did you not think I would listen to you? Did you not trust me? Were you afraid of me?”
“Always,” Daisy said. “Every day. Every time I saw you.”
He looked surprised. “Daisy, I was an ass. But I would never force myself o
n you. If I have somehow allowed you to believe otherwise—”
She couldn’t listen to him any longer. “I was afraid,” she said, “that I would do this.” She stepped close, wrapped her hands in his coat lapels, and drew herself up.
One instant, when she felt his shocked breath against her lips. One crazed instant, where she wondered what she was doing—and why—and then she imagined herself on a velocipede, heading pell-mell down the street at top speed.
So she kissed him. She didn’t hold back. All the months of hurt, of pain, of loneliness poured out in her kiss. In the feel of his chest against the palms of her hand, his body, radiating warmth against her.
His arms wrapped around her, holding her close. His mouth opened to hers.
God, she’d missed kissing him. Missed the taste of him, that mix of coal-smoke and spice. The all-encompassing feel of his hand on her spine, drawing her in.
She’d missed the brush of his lips, the way he drew her bottom lip in his mouth and bit it, lightly, before he descended on her again. She’d missed feeling beautiful and strong and desired.
She’d missed feeling his heart beat faster, knowing that she was affecting him. She’d missed him, and they’d hurt each other so much, and maybe…
She pulled away. He was looking down at her, his eyes dark with desire. Their kiss had turned into a question, the question she hadn’t answered yet for herself. Letting this moment linger on would make her response irrevocable. She was tired and upset and…
And she needed time, time to think it all through.
“My mother is waiting,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’m sorry—” She bit off that apology. “No, never mind. I’m clearly in need of more practice on that front. Let me start again: I refuse to apologize for kissing you.”
The corner of one lip tilted up. “Nicely done, Daisy.”
“Good day, sir.” She stepped out of the circle of his arms.
“Friday, then?” he called after her. “After you finish at the shop? You need to practice more, and…”
He paused. How was it that she could hear him smirking in silence?