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

was the only thing that could be done after that; the only thing we wanted.
    We made love as though we were still flying. I’ve never felt so—just so. He did things to me that I couldn’t even have imagined, because how can you imagine what you don’t know can be done? He kissed my body as if he was afraid to leave any inch of skin untouched. He kissed me in ways that still make me blush thinking about it. In ways I don’t want to describe. There are terms. I know now, there are technical terms. But it wasn’t technical, what Dominic did to me. It was magical. Stupid word. But true all the same.
    We drank lemonade afterwards. Not champagne. We didn’t need champagne. I didn’t want it. So we sat in my bed, completely naked, and drank lemonade and told silly stories and we laughed and what was strange was, we neither of us noticed that we were laughing until later.
    There was ice in the lemonade. Cold ice. Warm skin. Hot mouths. Kissing, stroking, our skin scented with what we’d done. We lay together afterwards in my lovely big claw-footed bath, soaping ourselves in the oil-perfumed water. And though we were exhausted by then, we still couldn’t get enough.
    He never stayed overnight, not once, but he called me every morning. We talked on the telephone. Not about anything. We talked about what we’d done. We talked about what we wanted to do. Words I can’t write, we said to each other. And we traced our desire with our own hands, on the other end of the telephone line. Do the operators listen? I didn’t think about it at the time. Afterwards, I didn’t care.
    He came to see me in the theatre every night. Sometimes he watched the play; sometimes he arrived at the last curtain. We never went out in company, though we did go together to Southampton to see Grace off on the
Berengeria
. She told me to take care of Dominic. She gave me one of those
significant
looks when she said that. I pretended not to understand. I pretended there was no reason for any sort of look.
    Dominic
    It was the week before Christmas when I took Daisy to Harrington House. I woke up one morning and knew it was time—though it wasn’t as if I’d been conscious of thinking about it that much before. I thought I’d been doing what we said, just taking each day as it came. Only it turned out that all of those days, all of that time with Daisy, added up to something more than I’d planned or expected. But not more than I wanted.
    What I wanted was a whole lot more. That’s what I was thinking when I drove her through the gates to the estate. Not that I told her so. I didn’t tell her anything, because—well, obviously because I was scared. I didn’t know, you see, if she felt the same. No idea. No plans to ask, either. Not at that point.
    ‘I didn’t think it would be so grand,’ she said as we pulled up in front of the house. ‘It looks like a castle. How old is it? How many bedrooms?’
    ‘About two hundred.’ I was struggling with the locks on the front door. ‘And about thirty.’
    She stared, wide-eyed, as we entered the marbled hall. ‘Two staircases,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit creepy. I bet Miss Havisham and her wedding feast are here somewhere.’
    I could see what she meant. Our footsteps echoed as we wandered around the place. There were cobwebs everywhere. It felt sad. Forlorn. The war had left its mark here, as everywhere else. Iron bedsteads stood stacked in the bedrooms. The patients had left their names on the plasterwork. ‘The dining room,’ I told Daisy when she asked where the operating theatre had been, pointing out the grapes and wine flagons on the cornicing, which was too high for anyone to bother damaging it.
    ‘Where are all the furnishings?’ she asked.
    ‘In the attic. The valuables are stored in vaults.’ I was distracted. Bringing her here, I realised it wasn’t so much about clearing up the past as about recognising there just might be a future. I can’t tell you how terrified that made