CHAPTER 34
Daisy
I’m standing in front of a dramatic painting of a girl clutching a suitcase in London in the 18th century. There’s an older woman eyeing her up. To the side, a grubby man in a hat is visibly leering, while a mangy dog sniffs at her skirts
I shift on my feet, trying to look cultured.
I am absolutely a chav.
Edward, meanwhile, is thriving.
“The depth of symbolism here is extraordinary,” he murmurs, as if he’s forgotten who he’s talking to. “Look at the way the fabric gathers, the stark contrast between light and shadow. Exquisite, isn’t it?”
I nod solemnly, trying to summon the intellectual energy of Amal Clooney. What would she say?
Something clever about . . . light?
“Mm-hmm” is my brilliant contribution.
Edward is still talking, saying words like “composition” and “historical context.” I wonder if Amal ever stands in galleries thinking about what she’s going to have for dinner? Because I’m currently invested in whether we should get chips on the way home.
His gaze sharpens, narrowing slightly. “Daisy, I’m boring you.”
Fuck.
“What? You are NOT ,” I say instantly.
His lips twitch.
I scan the room like my life depends on it. “I adore some of these pieces.”
“Is that so? Which is your favorite?”
I point to a painting in the far corner—a naked bloke who’s sprawled across the canvas like he’s auditioning for Love Island: Renaissance Edition . All golden curls and come-hither eyes, with his bum positioned at what can only be described as maximum dramatic impact. “Him. I like him.”
Edward looks over, then back at me, his expression somewhere between amused and unsurprised. “Really? And what, exactly, do you like about that painting?”
Channel Amal. Something about composition or perspective or . . .
“The artist’s masterful grasp of . . . anatomical . . . things. The way he’s captured the, um, classical form.” My brain betrays me. “Also his bum looks like two perfectly risen soufflés and I haven’t had lunch.”
Edward makes this strangled sound, like he’s physically wrestling a laugh back down his throat.
“Your artistic analysis is . . . in-depth.” He plants an amused kiss on my forehead. “Come on, let’s get you fed.”
“No,” I protest, determined to prove I can be cultured for more than thirty consecutive seconds. “I want you to enjoy this. We’ve only been here—” I check my phone and internally scream. “Fifty minutes.”
Fuck me.
Edward huffs a laugh that’s way too knowing.
“Tell me about the paintings.” I pout.
He pauses, glancing at me like he’s assessing whether I’m actually interested. “If you’re sure,” he says slowly, then shifts into sexy professor mode like it’s second nature. “This is the beginning of A Harlot’s Progress. The protagonist, Moll Hackabout, has just arrived in London from the countryside. She’s naive and untouched by the city’s corruption. She thinks she’s here to make an honest living, but the tragedy is, she has no idea what’s coming. But Hogarth does—this is him painting her on the cusp of her downfall.”
I squint at the girl in the painting, clutching her little suitcase like she’s just stepped off the Megabus from Yorkshire. “That old lady beside her with the mad bonnet is a nasty bitch then?”
“That ‘nasty bitch’ is a brothel madam, yes.”
“Knew it.”
He smiles. “Moll thinks London will be full of opportunity. But by the next painting, she’s the mistress of a wealthy man, no longer innocent. And then . . .” He pauses, studying me like he’s testing whether I’m still paying attention. “Should I go on?”
I cross my arms. “I’m invested in Moll’s poor life choices. Continue.”
His lips twitch, but he obliges, stepping over to the next painting. “Here, Moll appears to have ascended in status—at least on the surface. She is now the mistress of a wealthy merchant, surrounded by the trappings of affluence: opulent furniture, little lapdog . . .”
“Seems like a glow-up to me.”
“It’s a trap. She’s comfortable, yes, but entirely dependent on this man’s whims. She’s no longer an innocent country girl. But look at the door in the background.”
I squint. “Someone’s sneaking out?”
He nods. “Her protector’s servant, helping himself to her things. She’s kept but not respected. And look at her face. That smile—it’s got an edge to it, like she knows this won’t last.”
Something about that makes me shift uneasily. Bit too relatable, actually.
Edward moves on to the third painting. “By this stage, she’s hit rock-bottom.”
I stare at Moll in her grimy room, fine clothes gone, looking hollow-eyed and lost. A constable looms ominously in the background.
Edward crosses his arms, eyes sweeping the painting. “She’s now a common prostitute, abandoned by her wealthy lover. Everything about her new life is chaotic—look at the crumbling plaster on the walls, the drunken brawl in the corner.”
Chaotic?
Bit on the nose there.
“That escalated quickly,” I mutter.
I am the Moll Hackabout in this scenario. The country girl who landed herself a posh boyfriend and thinks she’s living the dream. Except instead of being a literal harlot, I just sell tools provocatively in a mini skirt.
There are six paintings in this series.
Which stage am I at? The “temporary mistress who doesn’t know she’s temporary” stage?
“Fuck,” Edward mutters, suddenly going stiff beside me.
For a horrible moment, I think he’s just had the same Moll-related epiphany I have. We’re literally standing here looking at my future.
But then I follow his gaze.
A well-dressed couple is approaching.
“Edward!” The man beams, his arm slung casually around his partner’s waist. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“John,” Edward says, his voice oddly strangled. “Rita. Yes. Great exhibition, isn’t it?”
John looks at me expectantly.
Edward shoots me a fleeting, panicked glance. “This is—”
I hold my breath.
Please say girlfriend.
That desperate little thought ambushes me from nowhere, which is just pathetic really.
But Edward says . . . nothing.
Please say literally anything that makes sense.
“This is Daisy. My niece.”
I stare at him like he’s just announced I’m actually a raccoon.
His WHAT?
“Daisy. This is my colleague John and his lovely wife, Rita. John is a radiotherapist at the hospital.”
Niece?
Right.
Okay. Sure.
I force my mouth into a pleasant smile. “Lovely to meet you both.”
The next five minutes pass in a blur of pretentious art chat that I’m physically incapable of processing. Edward could be confessing that he’s secretly running an underground ring of rogue surgeons who perform blackmarket operations, and I wouldn’t notice.
I’m too busy burning from the inside out.
His hand finds my back, steering me away. “We really must be heading off.” His voice is smooth. As if he did not just pretend I’m his fucking niece in public .
He practically frog-marches me down the Tate’s stairs. I feel like I’m being escorted out of the premises for licking one of the paintings.
The second we hit the bottom step, I round on him.
“Your niece?” I hiss. “What in the actual fuck was that?”
“Keep your voice down,” he mutters, glancing around.
Oh, absolutely not.
He is not going to make me feel like I’m being dramatic over this.
I fold my arms, seething. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Should I be grateful for this promotion? Shall we get ‘World’s Best Fictional Niece’ printed on a mug?”
He exhales, rubbing a hand down his face like I’m the problem, like I’m giving him a migraine. “He works with me. What did you expect me to say?”
My pulse is thundering , a dull roar of humiliation and rage. “Hmm, I don’t know, maybe that we’re dating? Or would that require too much explanation? ‘Yes, this is Daisy, the woman I’m seeing’?”
His jaw tightens. “We agreed not to tell anyone yet. Giles works at the hospital, remember. I can’t let it get out with colleagues.”
“Does Giles work in the same department as John?”
He frowns. “No, but—”
“But nothing.” My voice wobbles traitorously. “Wow. You really are ashamed of me, aren’t you? I’m your dirty little secret.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Oh, I’m being ridiculous? Fucking niece ? Do you know that’s what Vivian was to her Edward?”
His brow furrows, clearly thrown by the world’s most niche movie reference. “What?”
“ Pretty Woman ! Vivian was a gorgeous, funny, bubbly lady who just so happened to be a hooker and had to pretend she was Edward’s niece so he wouldn’t be embarrassed by her!” I throw my hands up. “Sound familiar?”
He rubs the back of his neck, grimacing. “I apologize. I panicked.”
And that’s it.
That’s his grand explanation.
“You don’t want to be seen with me. I’m your Moll Hackabout.”
His eyes snap to mine. “That is not true.”
“Isn’t it?” I swallow hard, my voice raw. “Because that’s exactly what it feels like.”
The muscles in his cheek tighten. “Can we please not do this in the foyer of the Tate Britain?”
That tone. That sharp, warning edge.
It’s meant to shut me up.
It does not .
“Don’t worry, Dr. Cavendish. Or should I start calling you Uncle Edward, like Spencer? I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of all your cultured, highbrow friends.”
“Daisy. Stop this.”
I press my lips together, forcing the words past the knot in my throat. “I’m going to stay in my own flat tonight.”
He takes a slow breath, exhales through his nose, and nods. Sharp. Businesslike. Like we’re negotiating a fucking contract instead of talking about us. “Very well.”
He didn’t even try to argue. Didn’t even pretend to want me to stay.
“I’m not going to have a childish argument with you.” His voice is cool. “Come on, I’ll get you a cab.”
Childish .
The word slaps.
Is that what this is to him? A tantrum? Just another example of Chaotic Daisy failing to meet his standards of proper adult behavior?
“I can get my own bloody cab.”
“I really don’t want to argue with you any further.”
I sniff, too angry—too humiliated—to speak.
We walk out in suffocating silence.
I barely register getting into the cab.
Barely notice the driver pulling away.
But the second the door slams shut, the second I’m alone—
The tears hit.
It’s fine. London cabbies have seen it all.
Just another girl crying in the back of a black cab over a man who can’t decide if he wants her or not.
The knock comes just as I’m drifting between exhaustion and restless thoughts.
For a second, I assume I’ve imagined it. That my brain, being the utter dick that it is, has manufactured this as a sick joke.
Then—another knock.
A slow, insistent rhythm that sends a pulse of adrenaline flooding through me.
I blink in the dim light, my heart stumbling over itself as I fumble out of bed. The floor is freezing against my bare feet, but I barely notice. My pulse is too busy thundering in my ears as I shuffle, half conscious, down the stairs.
I pull open the door.
And there he is.
Edward, standing in my doorway at one in the morning, looking . . . tired. No, wrecked. Like he’s had a full hour of fighting himself before ending up here.
Which is satisfying.
His suit jacket is gone, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hair is unkempt. But it’s his expression that stills me.
The kind of look that makes my stomach flip, because Edward Cavendish is never uncertain.
And yet, right now, he looks uncertain.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I—” He lets out a breath. “I’m trying, Daisy. I just . . . I’m not always getting it right.”
I don’t even realize I’ve moved until I’m pressing into him, forehead resting against his chest.
For a long, quiet moment, we just stand there. Letting whatever this is settle around us.
“Let me in?” he murmurs against my hair.
I nod.
He steps inside, closes the door, and follows me to bed.
We don’t speak when we slip under the covers, when he wraps himself around me.