The Undoing of Daisy Edwards (A Time for Scandal) by Marguerite Kaye Read Free Book Online Page A

think about going there yourself?’
    ‘Yes.’ I was sitting opposite her, with my desk between us. She had that bland actress face on, determined not to give anything away. ‘I thought about it,’ I said. ‘I thought about all you said to me that night, too, though, and it seemed to me you were right.’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘Jeremy’s dead. I’m alive. Sheer luck, but my luck. I should make the most of it, not pretend it hasn’t happened.’
    ‘Do you think you can?’
    Her control slipped when she asked me that. She looked anxious. As if it was a question she’d asked herself. Which of course she had, I saw then. Which was why I forced myself not to shrug her off. ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘No,’ she replied with a quivering smile, getting to her feet and walking over to the window that overlooked the runway. ‘We have that in common.’
    She gazed out of the window in silence, and I watched her perfect profile. She had on one of those hats that look like a bell. Black. Her hair curled out from under it onto her pale cheek. Her lips and her nails were scarlet. ‘I was angry with you,’ she said, speaking at the glass, ‘but mostly I was angry with myself. It seems such a waste.’
    She whirled round suddenly, the tiny pleats of her dress rippling out to give me a tantalizing glimpse of her knees. ‘I expect I’d be a stout matron with a brood of children if Anthony had lived. He wouldn’t have wanted me to stay on the stage. I’d probably have been happy. I know he would have been. I’d have made sure of that. Even if—but I made my choice. I’d have stuck by it.’
    Her hands were clenched into fists. ‘Did you love him?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes. I did then. I wanted to wait, though. We were both so young. If we met now, I doubt that I would, but if we met now, and he hadn’t died, and there hadn’t been a war, I doubt I’d be this,’ she said, holding her hands up, gesturing at herself. ‘Whatever this is. I don’t know. Do you know who you are, Dominic?’
    ‘I know I’m not what I was.’
    ‘Yes.’ She smiled briefly at that, and perched on the desk beside me. ‘I’ve had enough of the guilt. You see, you were right about that,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you wrote. I wanted to tell you that. To say thank you.’
    ‘Does that mean you feel better?’
    ‘Maybe. I don’t know. It means I want to.’ She picked up a pen, one of those promotional things that a sales rep from a tyre company had given me. ‘I don’t want to—you understand, if you want to—whatever you want, I can’t—it won’t—I can’t make promises. It can’t mean what it would have. Before.’ She dropped the pen and looked straight into my eyes. ‘You understand that, Dominic. I’m not the settling-down type, if that’s what you want.’
    Another woman wouldn’t have dared be so blunt, but then I would never have sent a note like the one I’d sent to Daisy to any other woman. ‘What I want is you,’ I said finally. ‘Just you and me. And each day as it comes. Nothing more. I don’t think I’m capable of anything more any more than you are.’
    She cupped my chin and leaned towards me, smiling that smile that made my toes curl in anticipation. ‘That sounds like a deal to me,’ she said. Then she kissed me. A slow, slow kiss, running her tongue along my bottom lip. ‘Now,’ she said, sliding from the desk and out of my reach way too early, ‘let’s start as we mean to go on. I want to do something I’ve never done.’
    ‘Right here?’ I said, laughing. ‘I warn you, there’s no lock on the door, and my secretary –’
    ‘Can walk in any time she likes,’ Daisy said. ‘We’re going flying.’

Chapter Six
    Daisy
    Being up in an aeroplane was terrifying, the kind of terrifying you never want to end. I screamed up there. I begged Dominic to take us back down to earth, and I didn’t mean it and he didn’t listen. Afterwards, we went back to my flat. No questions, no need to say anything. It