Her Every Wish (6 page)

She couldn't think of her mother, and her mother's future, without feeling a little ill.

She didn't want to talk about her day. She considered all her possible responses.

“I did some research,” Daisy said instead.

“What sort of research?”

“Research into the sorts of new businesses that are opening shortly.” Daisy frowned and speared a bite of potato.

“Oh? Anything interesting?”

Daisy considered the white lump on her fork. “There's a shop that is selling…um. Velocipedes.”

“Whatever is a velocipede?”

“It's…” How to even describe the thing? “A metal frame. With wheels. Difficult to describe.” She trailed off, mid-twirl of her fork, and looked at her mother's pursed lips.

“That's a thing that people would purchase? Why?”

Now that she'd ridden one, she could understand. There had been a moment of exhilaration. A sense that she could fly.

Daisy shrugged. “It's not much stupider than, say, a carbolic smoke ball.”

“A
what?”

“Another thing.” She frowned. “For invalids. It's supposed to prevent influenza.”

“Fools and their money.” Her mother sighed. “Fools and their money. Drat it, why don't we know more fools?”

Daisy smiled. “I shall have to expand the circle of our acquaintance.”

Her mother turned and contemplated Daisy. “You know, Daisy, it's probably time that you start looking for a fool.”

Her heart sank. “You mean so that I can sell him a carbolic smoke ball?”

Her mother reached out and touched her hand. “To marry.”

Daisy looked away. She felt raw. Unready for this conversation.

“Youth won't last forever,” her mother said. Her fingers tightened on Daisy's hand. “I know you're telling yourself that you have time…”

Daisy's fingers lay quiescent under her mother's while her stomach churned.
You are remarkably good at lying to yourself.
Crash was wrong; she knew perfectly well how things were.

“You have to take care of yourself,” her mother was saying. “Establish yourself. Have you seen a girl working in a flower shop above the age of thirty?”

Daisy shook her head.

“There's a reason for that.” Her mother's grip tightened subtly on Daisy's hand. “It's like those flowers you sell. Nobody wants them after they've begun to wilt. I know I sound terribly mercenary, but Daisy, dear, you don't have to
love
him. You just have to be able to pretend well enough.”

Here was the thing: Daisy wouldn't be marrying for herself, and her mother knew it. On her own, she might support herself indefinitely.

The person she could not support was her mother. Her emporium was a dream. No, worse; a distraction. It was a plaything she held up to pretend her future might be different than it was.

But this was the stark reality she faced. She needed to find a fool who wouldn't mind—or notice—her lack of virginity. If she didn't, one day she would have to walk away from the woman who had raised her because she could no longer afford her care.

It didn't matter how little Daisy wanted that to happen. It didn't matter how sick she felt at the thought. Coins didn't lie.

Daisy could only hope she hadn't ruined her chances at marriage. If she couldn't marry, if nobody ever wanted her…

She couldn't think of that.

She
had
to think of that.

Crash was right. Daisy was remarkably good at lying to herself. One day, she'd stop hoping to come to her own rescue. One day, she'd recognize that there was no escape. She'd do her best to find herself a fool of a fiancé, because she knew she wouldn't leave her mother. She couldn't.

When that happened, when she smiled at some man with half her sense, Crash would think the worst of her. He'd call her a liar and a cheat and more. He wouldn't be wrong.

There were some things one could not say to one's mother.

I cannot marry yet. There's this man I hate—incidentally, the one who took my virginity—and he would poke fun at me.

No, it was time to grow up and face the truth. She couldn't care what Crash would say.

She smiled at her mother instead. “I know.” Her cheeks hurt, holding that false expression.

Today was Monday evening. On Saturday, the judges would award the bequest to someone else. They would crush her dream. They'd make it clear that she'd told herself lies. At that point, she would have to accept what she had to do. She would
have
to stop hoping for an escape.

It was as inevitable as her mother's rheumatism.

“Sunday,” Daisy said. “This Sunday. That's when I'll start looking.”

D
aisy was
glad for work early the next morning, even though she woke with every muscle in her body shrieking in protest at their ill-usage the day before. Work gave her an excuse to wash quickly and hide the bruise on her hip before her mother noticed. Work allowed her to leave before the sun rose.

She didn't have to think of her presentation or what would come after she lost. She arrived at the shop in the early morning hours and lost herself in her work, bunching together little bouquets of forced violets and tying them with ribbon. It was quiet work, comforting work; she didn't have to talk to anyone while she was doing it. She could just match flowers together and tie them with cord. White and purple; pink and lilac. Each little bouquet was a bit of happiness that she put together for someone else.

Today, though, she couldn't entirely lose herself in the activity. Her mother's words came back to her.

It's like those flowers you sell. Nobody wants them after they've begun to wilt.

Bouquets of temporary happiness. Purchased for a penny; discarded the moment they became inconvenient.

She could almost imagine Crash leaning close to her and whispering in her ear.
You are remarkably good at lying to yourself.

She shoved her mental image of him away.

At least she enjoyed her work. She made people happy. She made them smile.

The shop bell rang and a woman peered in. She was wearing a sober working-woman's skirt of dark wool and a dingy gray shirtwaist—likely once white—with ink stains on the cuff.

Daisy summed the woman up with a single glance. She was likely one of the unmarried women who labored in the backroom of one of the nearby shops. Daisy had talked to many such women. She probably lived in a rooming house with dozens of other women. She saved her coins, one by one, dreaming of another life, a better life.

It would never come. Women never worked their way up. They started their life near their pinnacle and had only to fall from there.

Daisy had been instructed to shoo women like this away when she first started.

“They're trying to poach our heat,” Mr. Trigard, the owner of the shop had grumbled. “They know we must warm the place for our flowers, and they're looking for a handout. They'll never purchase a thing.”

For the first month, Daisy had done as Mr. Trigard said. Then he'd started trusting her, and he'd stopped coming in.

It turned out that inhospitality was not one of her talents. She'd given up and started making them bouquets in her spare moments. Not the exquisitely put-together sprays of baby's breath and rosebuds that she constructed for the gentility. Instead, she made little things, pretty things, with left over bits: flowers cut too short, extra sprigs of leaves, scraps of ribbon that would otherwise have been discarded.

Her creations could be purchased for a halfpenny.

The woman looked from bucket to bucket, her lips pursed.

That was the thing about working in a flower shop. One learned to assess customers. A maid in crisp, brown livery buying for an entire household didn't want to dilly-dally over her purchase. She wanted Daisy to tell her what was available right away.

A woman who wandered in, glancing about timidly, was exactly the opposite. If Daisy launched herself in her direction the instant she entered the room, she'd disclaim all interest and slink away.

Give a customer a little time to start imagining a flower in her life, though, and she'd take it.

The woman stopped at the violets in a little metal tray filled with water, brushing the velvety green leaves with a single finger, before biting her lip and moving on.

It was November; the wares were much denuded. But then again, it was November, and so was the world. A single forced tulip could bring color to any room these days.

Daisy concentrated on tying ribbons and watched her customer beneath her lashes. The woman removed knit gloves carefully. She glanced at the hothouse rosebuds, looked at the golden lilies with wonder in her eyes, and then gave her head a little shake.

Time now for Daisy to intervene.

“Are you looking for a buttonhole or a bouquet?” she asked cheerily.

The woman jumped. “Oh. I hadn't thought.”

Daisy pointed to her own buttonhole—a bright pink dahlia, smaller than usual, just over her right breast.

“Me personally, I prefer a buttonhole. They're not so expensive as a bouquet, but I can carry one around with me all day. That way I always have a little beauty close by.”

The woman looked away. “Pardon me for saying so, but it seems extravagant. Flowers are for…” She gestured outside, at the rest of London. “Not really for someone like me.”

Someone like
her.

Maybe it was her conversation with her mother, but Daisy felt a kinship with the woman. This was who she would be in ten years if she didn't marry. Alone. Cloistered in a backroom, thinking that a halfpenny expenditure was too extravagant.

“Nonsense,” Daisy said a little too sharply. “Whoever said that flowers aren't for you?”

The woman blinked.

Daisy knew the answer to that question.
Everyone
said that flowers weren't for her. The woman wasn't married and likely wasn't going to be. She worked for a living. She didn't have servants. She was supposed to be satisfied living a drab little life, just because everyone thought she was a drab little woman.

Drab women didn't get flowers. They didn't deserve beauty.

The woman glanced down. “It's such a luxury. I don't see…”

She had stopped in front of the yellow flowers. Daisy reached out and picked out a creation she'd made of a forced tulip that had snapped off its stem—nothing more than the brilliant yellow bud and a spray of green leaves.

“Here,” Daisy said, holding it out. “It's a halfpenny. Tell me, Miss…” She trailed off.

The woman inhaled. “It's missus, actually.” Her eyes shut. “Mrs. Wilde. My Jonas passed away five years ago, and…”

“Mrs. Wilde,” Daisy said softly, “is there anyone who believes you're worth a halfpenny of beauty any longer?”

The woman shook her head.

“Well, then.” Daisy gave her a nod. “Maybe the person who needs to believe it is you.”

Daisy had done this before, convincing a reluctant woman to bring a little beauty into her life. She'd never felt guilty about it—but now she did. She could almost imagine Crash standing behind her, whispering in her ear.

My, you
are
good at lying to yourself. Listen to you.

She wasn't lying to herself. She wasn't. She
did
bring a little beauty into these women's lives; if she didn't, why did they all come back? Why would they bring their friends?

“I shouldn't.” But Mrs. Wilde hadn't relinquished the tulip.

“Where do you work?”

Mrs. Wilde sighed. “The apothecary down the way. I weigh and measure for him and track his receipts.” Her mouth pinched. “I keep track of whatever fine remedy is in vogue, make sure it's ordered and on the shelves. This month, it's the carbolic smoke ball.”

Those damned carbolic smoke balls again.

“So you help hundreds of people take their medicine and get well,” Daisy said.

“That's…one way of looking at it.”

“I'd never tell you to spend money you don't have,” Daisy said sympathetically. “But if you're saying you don't
deserve
this, with all that you do…?”

She let her words hang.

Mrs. Wilde looked at the tulip. She glanced down at her hands, out the door, and then back to the tulip. Then she gave a fierce little nod.

“Here.” She opened her purse and removed a coin. “Take it before I change my mind.”

It was worth it for the smile she saw on Mrs. Wilde's face as she left the shop. Daisy
was
selling happiness. Temporary happiness, very likely, but was there any other kind? Poor women deserved flowers as much as rich ones—more so, in fact. They had that much less beauty in their lives.

Daisy went back to making bouquets, but bouquet-tying was delicate work, and her fingers jerked the twine a bit too hard. She wasn't lying to herself, and she hadn't lied to Mrs. Wilde. She hadn't. Rich women were taught that their every wish would be granted. Women like Daisy? Like Mrs. Wilde? They were allowed nothing. They weren't even supposed to properly wish, not for anything worth having. They were allowed to subsist, and then only if they were lucky and useful.

Daisy wasn't lying to herself. She was just making it possible to get through one day and then the next, to find the little moments that made it possible to not dread her future.

That future loomed closer than ever.

Sunday. She'd promised her mother to start encouraging gentleman on Sunday. The very idea left her cold. No wonder she was wasting time submitting applications for a charity bequest. She wanted to believe she had a chance to get away.

She wasn't that naïve.

Daisy stared at her violets. They were just as pretty and just as purple as they'd been a few moments before.

“I don't lie to myself,” she told them. “I know the truth all too well.”

They looked up at her. Purple petals faded to white in the center, with a dot of yellow. Flowers couldn't really
look.
They didn't have eyes. So why did this batch seem to glower at her in disapproval?

She switched from making bouquets of violets to working with tulips. Putting a good face on things wasn't lying. She told herself the truth with scrupulous regularity. She was running out of time.

Running out of time to establish herself, running out of time to save her mother, running out of time to be anything except another drab woman in a drab occupation telling herself she didn't deserve so much as a halfpenny flower.

So she took a moment to make sure her dreams were well and thoroughly crushed before accepting the inevitable. What of it? Crash was wrong. She didn't
lie
to herself.

But then Crash had said that she'd lied about
him
. That was what rankled. She'd thought of that moment when everything had gone wrong between them over and over.

It had been after…after…

No, if she wasn't lying to herself, she could use the proper words.

It was after they had sex.

Speaking of stupidity. What sort of idiot was Daisy? He'd told her he needed to leave town. He'd said he would be gone to the continent for months. She'd thrown herself at him.

She was a first-class fool, and her face burned in memory.

But he'd been sweet, and it had been lovely, and… And then it had been over. They'd been in bed together, holding each other. She'd been naked and vulnerable and too much in love to realize she ought to have been scared.

“You know, Daisy,” he had said. “I told you, you shouldn't have a thing to do with me. Look here. I've corrupted you.” He'd kissed her.

“You never told me any such thing. Not seriously.”

“True.”

She'd kissed him back. “I don't mind being corrupted, if it's by you.”

Now,
she could flinch at her gullibility. Then, she'd leaned into him with complete trust.

He had sat up in bed. “I haven't explained to you why I'll be gone yet. I've a plan to turn…well, not respectable. But.” He had shrugged. “Something like. I've taken risks, but I can't keep doing that, not with a wife and a family.”

Her heart had thumped wildly at those words.
Wife. Family.

“I need to go to France,” he told her. “There's a craze building there for velocipedes.”

“What are those?”

“They're metal vehicles. With foot-pedals.”

“With what?”

“One pushes the pedal with one's foot, and it turns a wheel…” He'd gone on.

It turned out there was no way to describe a velocipede, not with any number of words. She'd stared in confusion.

“It will all make sense when you see one.” He'd given her a cocky grin. “They're on the verge of becoming a phenomenon in France. Give it five years, and they'll be the rage here, too. I'm going to have the premiere velocipede shop in all of London. But I'll need to visit factories, learn how to repair them… I'll be gone a while. Months, at least.”

Her hands entwined with his.

“The way I see it,” he said, “you could marry me and come with me.”

She had inhaled.

“Or we could wait two months for me to go in order to be certain that nothing comes of what we just did. I would return to you as soon as I could.”

That dose of reality had made Daisy stop and think.

“Crash.” Daisy had leaned her head against his shoulder. “I can't leave my mother for months on end, and I can't see her traveling to France.”

He'd kissed her. “Wait two months it is, then. That is, assuming you'll marry me despite my terribly checkered past. Will you?”

In the time since that night, Daisy had examined her response over and over.

“That depends,” she had said teasingly. “Precisely how many checks does your past have?”

“Maybe one or two.” His eyes had glinted wickedly.

“You can't fool me.” She'd leaned in and kissed him. “There must be dozens. I know about the gambling.”

“That? That's not really a check at all—just illegal.” He had given her a cocky smile.

Daisy had heard this from him a great deal in the last months. In some ways, it had felt like Crash had suspended her good sense.

She'd started arguing his side to herself.

Who do I hurt if I kiss him? If I let him put his hand there? It can't really be wrong, not if it feels so right.

She'd told herself that so often that she'd almost completely believed it. Almost. She was already making excuses for him.

That had brought her to this moment, naked in bed with him.