Page 6 of If a Lady Lingers

She snapped her book closed and rushed upstairs to the drafting table. She had a dream house to plan!

Hugh Whitby practically skipped as he hurried out of the townhouse and down to the waiting carriage. His heart soared, his pulse pounded, and every inch of his skin tingled with awareness and excitement. All because ofher. The lovely Daisy Daring.

He allowed himself only a brief pause at the carriage door to glance back over his shoulder. Of course, he wouldn’t see her. She was too serious and business-like to stand at a window and watch him leave. Still, he couldn’t help hoping—

“Well?” His best friend Mariah Winslow Carlisle called out impatiently from inside the carriage. He’d insisted that she wait here because he’d wanted to arrange for the house on his own. Oh, she knew what he was planning—she was his best friend, after all, and he couldn’t keep secrets this large from her…well,anysecret, actually, because she had a way of seeing and hearing everything and then prying to get answers when she couldn’t—but he wanted the completed house and its details to be a surprise for as long as possible. “Is Mr. Daring going to build your house?”

“Better.” He grabbed the doorframe and swung himself onto the bench seat across from her with a self-pleased grin. “I’m going to marry his daughter.”

“I see.” She thanked the tiger who closed the carriage door and signaled to the coachman to drive away. “And does she know this?”

“Not yet. The time wasn’t right to tell her.”

“No, I suppose it wasn’t,” she replied, deadpan. “After all, you were gone less than twenty minutes.”

“Enough time to know that she’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.” He removed his beaver hat and played with it in his hands. He needed to keep busy or he’d simply burst with excitement. Never had he felt the same shock of electricity at meeting a woman as he’d just experienced with Daisy. Never had his mind ran wild as it leapt ahead to days and months and years together.Neverhad he met a woman like her. “I know it sounds utterly daft, but it was love at first sight. For me anyway.” Laughter bubbled out of him. “Oh, she’s remarkable, Mariah! Brilliant, talented, kind…simply perfect.”

“You discovered all that in just twenty minutes?”

“Yes! One—” He held up a single finger. “Brilliant—she knows simply everything about architecture and building houses. What other woman knows those kinds of things?” A second finger went up. “Two, she’s a most talented artist and designer. She showed me her sketches—better than Reynolds and Lawrence.”

“Aren’t they oil painters?”

He ignored that. “And three—” All five fingers went up this time. “She’s kind-hearted to a fault.”

Mariah frowned. “What makes you think that?”

He grinned. “She didn’t toss me out.”

Or make fun of his clothes, the way other women did. Or his bright red hair that he could do absolutely nothing about. And, he reminded himself, she and her father were the only architectural firm of the eight they’d visited so far who’d agreed to work with him. The other men had all laughed when he’d told them what kind of work he wanted done, how many bedrooms, and for whom. Those architects had all said the same thing—they built houses, not hotels for urchins.

Although, in retrospect, Whitby hadn’t really given Daisy and her father much chance to decline his project. He needed a house for the children of the Gatewell School, her father wanted the work, and Whitby wanted to spend more time with Daisy.

A win for everyone.

“She sounds remarkable,” Mariah commented.

“Oh, she is.” But he couldn’t keep the grief from his face when he added, “She lost her mother when she was young.”

Mariah nodded, her eyes instantly glistening. She completely understood the importance of that, because both she and Whitby had also lost theirs when they were young.

Yet concern darkened her face. They’d been best friends for several years, and he recognized that worried look when he saw it, which she often gave him. “But she might not feel the same way about you.”

“Only because she hasn’t had time yet to realize exactly how good we’ll be together.” He slapped his hat onto his head and leaned back against the velvet squabs. “I’m going to marry her.” He held no doubts about that. He was as certain of that as he was of his own name. “And I want you to be my best man when I do.”

Her eyes gleamed with amusement. “Best woman, you mean.”

“Secondbest woman, after Daisy.” He shot her an apologetic look. “No offense.”

“Absolutely none taken.”

“Miss Daring,” he murmured to himself as he looked out the window but saw nothing except Daisy’s glittering sea-green eyes and her golden hair, the bright and excited glow of her face when she’d talked about her sketches. She lit the world from within.

He had six months to win her heart. The most perfect woman he’d ever met and…him.

His brow pulled into a frown. He might be a dandy, but he wasn’t a dullard. He knew exactly how difficult his courtship of her would prove in the end. And exactly how daring she truly had to be in order to love him back.

A flash of movement on the footpath caught his attention. He pounded his fist against the ceiling.