The Undoing Of Daisy Edwards. Marguerite Kaye
she was a sinfully attractive woman and she was here, in my bedroom, that my body was very much aware of her presence. And even though my body hadn’t been the slightest bit interested in any woman for so long, I waited, and I wasn’t disappointed.
‘Dominic,’ she said, making quite a meal of it. A slow drawl—it made my name curl like smoke. Then she produced a smile that was the exact same thing: a slow curl. ‘I take it you rescued me,’ she said. ‘Funny, but I don’t remember you being at the party.’
‘That would be because I wasn’t. I picked you up from a cell.’
The mask slipped when I said that. For a second she looked pretty horrified. Then it was back. Her reputation as one of London’s finest actresses had obviously been earned. She arched one of those perfectly shaped eyebrows. ‘So I’m a jail-bird,’ she said, with a whimsical little smile. ‘Tell me, Dominic, do you hang about the police stations on a white charger?’
‘No, I don’t saddle up until I get a telephone call.’
She laughed at that, and I got a glimpse of the woman behind the mask again, but the sound of her laughter seemed to startle her, and it was gone before I could decide whether or not I liked what I saw. ‘How charming,’ she said, sliding down onto the bed, sitting so that the curve of her behind just brushed my thigh. ‘Do our boys in blue call you every time a female is brought in?’
‘Oh, no, I’m very particular. They know only to call me under very specific circumstances.’
Her face froze. ‘You’re a reporter. How very naive of me.’
I caught her wrist as she made to go. ‘I’m Grace Harrington’s brother.’
She frowned over that, and then she smiled. Not a stagy smile, a more gentle thing, and more fleeting. It made her look younger. Relieved. Oddly vulnerable. ‘Oh. I see. Yes, Grace does rather have a habit of getting into scrapes, from what I’ve heard. You don’t look very like her.’
‘She takes after our mother.’ Which she did, in looks, if not in temperament. That she got from our sainted and now not-so-dearly departed father.
‘Thank you,’ Daisy said. ‘For not leaving me there, I mean. I suspect you’ve saved me from the embarrassment of a very unflattering picture in the paper.’
‘No one knew you were there.’
‘Save the policeman who called you. And let’s face it, it’s not likely that you’re the only one greasing his palm. If Grace hadn’t had him call you—as I presume she did—then he would have been on the telephone to the gentlemen of the press.’
She said it with a kind of world-weariness. I supposed that dealing with such things is part of being a famous actress. And that under that soft, vulnerable face, there must be quite a tough little nut. The contrast was—I don’t know, it was intriguing. ‘You didn’t have a handbag with you,’ I said. ‘I had no option but to bring you here. There’s a telephone in the hall if you want to call someone. If there’s anyone at home worrying, I mean.’
It had only just occurred to me. She wasn’t wearing a ring, though she wasn’t wearing any other jewellery either, which was a bit odd. But she simply shrugged. ‘There’s no one,’ she said. ‘I live alone.’
‘Me, too.’
There was a silence then, as we stared at each other. I hadn’t meant it to sound the way it did—or maybe I had, because my hand, which was still clasping that slim wrist, was already pulling her down towards me. I hadn’t been planning on kissing her, I hadn’t planned anything, but as she leaned in to me, and I smelt the faint trace of her perfume and the mint of my own tooth powder, and those big, big eyes seemed to look way too deep inside me, I couldn’t not have kissed her.
There was a split-second, as her lips touched mine, when I thought, This is a mistake, and I almost drew back. And then I didn’t. Her lips were soft, her skin cold. Her hands were icy through my shirt-sleeves, I remember. She kissed as if she wasn’t used to kissing, and I probably did the same, because I wasn’t.
Then something shifted. I don’t know if it was just me. It felt like both of us. We—we found it. Our mouths matched. Her eyes closed. Or mine did. And she sank against me, all soft curves through that dress, her breasts pressed against my chest. And she kissed me. Dear God, how she kissed. I felt as if she had reached inside me and twisted my guts with that kiss. When she tore her mouth away, I was struggling to breathe.
‘I don’t do this,’ she said.
I thought she meant she was going to leave. ‘I don’t, either,’ I said. ‘Not since—not now.’
She nodded. ‘No,’ she said, with a sad little smile, ‘not now.’ She sat up, pushing her hair back from her eyes. ‘I took cocaine last night. I never have before, but I was…’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, that’s what happened.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘I have no idea. No. I wanted—I just wanted to feel something.’
‘And did you?’
She shook her head, giving me another of those tragic smiles. ‘Nothing works any more.’
‘No.’
She touched my face, running her fingers over my forehead, my cheeks, my mouth, as if she was trying to read something from it. ‘That did. For a moment, that did.’
I touched her the way she had touched me. Forehead. Cheek. Mouth. ‘It did. Maybe we should give it more of a chance.’
She stared at me with those big eyes. Then she shrugged, and leaned back in to me. ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘I’ve tried everything else.’
Daisy
I couldn’t believe what I’d just said, but it was the one thing I hadn’t tried. It wouldn’t be the same. This man was nothing like Anthony. But that was the point, wasn’t it? I didn’t want gentle. I didn’t want loving. I wanted raw. I shuddered as I looked at him. That particular twisting, wrenching kind of shudder that comes from low inside you. Raw was exactly what I wanted, and I was pretty sure raw was what I would get from Dominic Harrington.
Maybe it was shameless of me. Calculating, even. Maybe I was still under the influence of that stuff. I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. It was as if something inside me had been caged and I’d opened the door just a tiny bit, but already it was pacing, anticipating. I could have shut it back up again at that point. I’m pretty sure I could have. But I didn’t. I wanted this. I needed it. But at the same, I was scared I wouldn’t have the courage to go through with it. So I did what I’ve always done—I played it. I imagined myself as Poppy’s friend Theda Bara, and quite deliberately I let out my own version of the Vamp.
I wriggled free of Dominic and got to my feet. The fastenings on my Lanvin gown were at the side. I undid them and let the whole thing slither to the ground. He was watching me. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. Daisy would have been blushing by now, but it wasn’t Daisy standing here in her stockings and her cream silk underwear. I leaned back over the bed to unfasten his shirt, but he caught me, rolling me down beside him onto my back. And then he kissed me again, and it was what I wanted. Exactly what I wanted. Raw. Rough. Hot.
He slid his leg between mine. I could feel the weight of his chest pressing against me. He still had his shirt and trousers on. I tore at the shirt, kissing him back just as roughly as he was kissing me. His tongue slid into my mouth. I touched mine to his. It was a shock. A good one. Like being jolted into life. Our mouths opened. Our kisses were wild. It was like fighting. Not anything like before. Not anything like anything
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