Edith Layton Read Online Free PDF Page B

live to be amused.”
    “I know it. Now, my plan is to get Daisy Tanner into Society, find a good man to take care of her, and see her well settled. I’ll have to think of some way to get her to trust your advice, at least. But that’s what I mean to do. Are you with me?”
    “Of course,” Leland said. “Make a chit from Botany Bay into a paragon of fashion? Create a diamond of the first water from a felon, and marry her to a lord, at least? It would be quite a coup for me.”
    “You aren’t working with an empty basket. This isn’t the fable of Pygmalion. You aren’t making something of mere clay, building an ideal woman from nothing. She already has breeding and beauty and wealth.”
    “And a fascinating criminal past.”
    “It’s her future I’m speaking of. I’m serious.”
    “So am I,” Leland said. “I mean it. Count me in. This is something I have to see.”

Chapter 3
    S he wouldn’t go back, but didn’t know how to go forward. Daisy paced the hotel suite she’d taken for herself and her maid. She’d much to think about and little time to do it in. The rooms she paced were decently furnished, but only that, but they cost so much, she thought she ought to have been gliding over velvet carpets and sleeping in a golden bed. She’d only wanted respectable lodgings. That was what she was paying for, but she didn’t know how long she could or should stay here.
    Daisy hadn’t lied; she did have money now. But what had looked like vast riches in Port Jackson was nothing like it here. Geoff’s house had staggered her. There was wealth in every seamand fleck of paint of it. She and her father had lived in a modest home. What she’d lived in while with Tanner was considered good in a raw new colony, but the tiles in Geoff’s front hallway probably cost more than that whole house had.
    If she’d had another place to go, she’d have left the hotel the minute they quoted her daily rates. In truth, she’d been half dreaming, half hoping the earl would invite her to stay with him. She supposed he could have if he’d a respectable older female relative living with him. But Geoff lived alone, although the strange viscount who’d made her so uneasy yesterday certainly made himself at home there…
    Daisy halted in her tracks. Was there a reason for that? Did the fellow live there?
    That would put a different light on everything, one she could see clearly in. She wasn’t an innocent anymore, or like most young women in England whether they were experienced or not, for that matter. Living as she had done, in prisons and among convicts, meant she’d seen and heard about different sides of life. Men took love where they found it, and some found it in unusual ways. She’d accepted that without judging it.
    Daisy sat down abruptly. Still, that was certainly something she hadn’t thought of. She’d never seen a hint of it in the earl when he’d been plain Geoff Sauvage. She cocked her head to the side, considering the matter. It could account for his peculiar friendship with the much younger,fashionable, and oh-so-affected viscount! She sensed the fellow didn’t trust her and didn’t know why, but if she was right it would make sense. He might be afraid she’d steal Geoff’s affections.
    She chewed her lip and frowned. It would definitely explain why Geoff was single even now, when he had wealth and title.
    But she still admired and respected Geoffrey Sauvage. The more she thought of it, the more she liked the idea of marrying him even if he preferred men. She’d be untouched but not un-loved. They could always adopt a child. Hadn’t he already taken two boys under his wing, seen them grow into happily married men, and rejoiced for them?
    Daisy contemplated the idea of marrying a man who’d never take her physically. It seemed too good to be true after the years of marriage she’d endured. In fact, she thought with rising spirits, if the earl were so inclined toward his fellow man, it might be the