“…doesn’t promise to be much of a breeder…” one of them was saying.

The comment was met with a low but indignant objection. “Timid? Holy hell, the woman has enough spirit to climb Mont-Blanc with a pen-knife and a ball of twine. Her children will be perfect hellions.”

Daisy and Evie stared at each other with mutual astonishment. Both voices were easily recognizable as those belonging to Lord Llandrindon and Matthew Swift.

“Really,” Llandrindon said skeptically. “My impression is that she is a literary-minded girl. Rather a bluestocking.”

“Yes, she loves books. She also happens to love adventure. She has a remarkable imagination accompanied by a passionate enthusiasm for life and an iron constitution. You’re not going to find a girl her equal on your side of the Atlantic or mine.”

“I had no intention of looking on your side,” Llandrindon said dryly. “English girls possess all the traits I would desire in a wife.”

They were talking about her, Daisy realized, her mouth dropping open. She was torn between delight at Matthew Swift’s description of her, and indignation that he was trying to sell her to Llandrindon as if she were a bottle of patent medicine from a street vendor’s cart.

“I require a wife who is poised,” Llandrindon continued, “sheltered, restful…”

“Restful? What about natural and intelligent? What about a girl with the confidence to be herself rather than trying to imitate some pallid ideal of subservient womanhood?”

“I have a question,” Llandrindon said.

“Yes?”

“If she’s so bloody remarkable, why don’t you marry her?”

Daisy held her breath, straining to hear Swift’s reply. To her supreme frustration his voice was muffled by the filter of the hedges. “Drat,” she muttered and made to follow them.

Evie yanked her back behind the hedge. “No,” she whispered sharply. “Don’t test our luck, Daisy. It was a miracle they didn’t realize we were here.”

“But I wanted to hear the rest of it!”

“So did I.” They stared at each other with round eyes. “Daisy…” Evie said in wonder, “…I think Matthew Swift is in love with you.”

CHAPTER 10

Daisy wasn’t certain why the notion that Matthew Swift could be in love with her should set her entire world upside-down. But it did.

“If he is,” she asked Evie unsteadily, “then why is he so determined to pawn me off on Lord Llandrindon? It would be so easy for him to fall in with my father’s plans. And he would be richly rewarded. If on top of that he actually cares for me in the bargain, what could be holding him back?”

“Maybe he wants to find out if you love him in return?”

“No, Mr. Swift’s mind doesn’t work that way, any more than my father’s does. They’re men of business. Predators. If Mr. Swift wanted me, he wouldn’t stop to ask for my permission any more than a lion would stop and politely ask an antelope if he would mind being eaten for lunch.”

“I think the two of you should have a forthright conversation,” Evie declared.

“Oh, Mr. Swift would only evade and prevaricate, exactly as he has done so far. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“…I could find some way to make him let his guard down. And force him to be honest about whether he feels anything for me or not.”

“How will you do that?”

“I don’t know. Hang it, Evie, you know a hundred times more about men than I do. You’re married to one. You’re surrounded by them at the club. In your informed opinion, what is the quickest way to drive a man to the limits of his sanity and make him admit something he doesn’t want to?”

Seeming pleased by the image of herself as a worldly woman, Evie contemplated the question. “Make him jealous, I suppose. I’ve seen civilized men fight like dogs in the alley behind the club over the f-favors of a particular lady.”

“Hmm. I wonder if Mr. Swift could be provoked to jealousy.”

“I should think so,” Evie said. “He’s a man, after all.”

In the afternoon Daisy cornered Lord Llandrindon as he went into the library to replace a book on one of the lower gallery shelves.

“Good afternoon, my lord,” Daisy said brightly, pretending not to notice the glaze of apprehension in his eyes. She smothered a grin, thinking that after Matthew Swift’s campaign on her behalf, poor Llandrindon probably felt like a fox run to ground.

Recovering quickly, Llandrindon summoned a pleasant smile. “Good afternoon, Miss Bowman. May I ask after your sister and the baby?”

“Both are quite well, thank you.” Daisy drew closer and inspected the book in his hands. “History Of Military Cartography. Well. That sounds quite, er…intriguing.”

“Oh, it is,” Llandrindon assured her. “And wonderfully instructive. Though I fear something was lost in the translation. One must read it in the original German to appreciate the full significance of the work.”

“Do you ever read novels, my lord?”

He looked sincerely appalled by the question. “Oh, I never read novels. I was taught from childhood that one should only read books that instruct the mind or improve the character.”

Daisy was annoyed by his superior tone. “What a pity,” she said beneath her breath.

“Hmm?”