Edith Layton: How to Seduce a Bride

The fourth book in the Botany Bay series, 2006

– English folk song

Port Jackson, New South Wales

1817

“Be damned to all men,” the young woman said angrily. “I’ll marry and be done with them!” She stood on the dock, her back rigid and her hands closed to fists.

“Oh, Daisy, you don’t mean it,” her friend exclaimed.

“Well, maybe I don’t,” Daisy said with the winsome smile that drove half the men in Botany Bay mad with desire and set the other half to lustful daydreams. “But I’m going to leave this place on the next fair tide, see if I don’t. I’m bound and determined to marry again. That’s the only way to be safe from unwanted attentions.”

“There are plenty of single men right here,” her friend protested.

“Yes,” Daisy said. “But not a gentleman among them. I’ve friends here I’ll miss, true. It’s a good enough place to live if you’re free. But I’m not free, even though I’m single again. Especially since I’m single again.” She watched the horizon and the departing ship, and as it became smaller her voice became firmer. “I know what I mean to do and how I’m going to do it. And if a randy captain thinks he can keep me off his ship unless I share his bed, let him. There are other ships and other captains, and not all of them such horn-mad, lusty-guts neither.”

“Daisy!” Her friend gasped. “You’ll never catch a nob with a mouth on you like that.”

Daisy laughed. “Oh, really? I’ve never heard any complaints from you before.” Then her expression grew sober. “But you’re right, that’s not me; it’s the me I became in order to survive. A gentleman wants his wife to be mealymouthed as a parson, no matter what he likes his light-o’-love to whisper in his ear. And the man I’m going to marry is a gent, through and through.

“So, not to worry,” she said with resolve. “By the time I get to England, I’ll speak so well I’ll put duchesses to shame. That’s how I spoke before I set sail from England, before I met you. I’d quite forgotten the way of it. It’s easy enough to remember and feels more natural, too. Soon it will be habit again, just as will my living like a lady. I won’t be traveling in chains in the hold at the bottom of the ship this time, either. And I won’t have to marry to get out of the hold. No, this time I’ll be up on the top deck, sipping champagne with the Quality. When I get to England, I’ll live with them, too. When I thought I’d spend the rest of my life here, I made the best of it. But Tanner was taken so suddenly, by accident, it set me thinking. Life’s short.

“So why not dare while we’re still above ground? I know what I want and am lucky enough to be able to go after it at last. I’m a widow now, not the frightened girl I was when I got here. So why shouldn’t I try? I’ve been a prisoner and a wife-which is like a prisoner only you eat better-and now I’m free, rich, and still young. It’s time to dare.”

“But after all that traveling to get to him,” her friend protested, “you don’t know if he’ll marry you!”

Daisy laughed at the disapproval she saw in her friend’s expression. “I’m not being vain. I know he liked me well enough. You saw his face whenever he looked at me. He called me ‘charming,’ didn’t he?”

“But you were married then. And he was always a gent.”

“You think he didn’t mean it?”

“Why not write to him first?”

“Writing’s cold,” Daisy said, shaking her head. “My father wasn’t a lucky man but he knew how to gamble. He always said, ‘Play your strongest hand.’ I’m not a monster of conceit, but only a fool doesn’t know her assets. I know what I’ve got and it’s all face cards, and I mean that exactly. My brain’s first rate, but forget that, because men do. All they care about is my face and what’s below it. I can’t remind him of that in a letter.”

“Daisy,” her friend said sadly. “You’re the belle of Botany Bay and a beauty, no mistake. But there are thirty men to every female here. London’s full of beauties, many wellborn and rich as they can stare.”

Daisy said nothing, but the morning sunlight spoke for her. It shone through the windows, highlighting the rosy gold hair that tumbled to her slender shoulders, turning her simple muslin frock transparent, outlining her graceful, lithe, lush form. Daisy’s tilted, almond-shaped, brown-gold eyes were sober, the feathery brows over them arched in sad surprise.

“I can measure up to any woman in London and go her one better,” Daisy finally said, lifting her chin. “I’m rich now, wellborn enough, and I have a full pardon, too.”

“But he’s twice your age,” her friend lamented.

“Yes!” Daisy said. “Exactly! He’s past the age of all that cuddling and knocking nonsense. Even so, he’s not dead, and so I might be able to get a child from him one day. That would be beyond wonderful. But I likely won’t, what with his age and my history. I didn’t have one when I was married. Still, Tanner never blamed me for it, and he would have if he could have, so I think it might have been his fault.”

She shrugged. “Whatever happens, it won’t matter much to a man my gentleman’s age. He’s got his son and heir already, and two more fellows that he calls sons. They’re all married now, so he’s on his own at last. He’s perfect for me. He liked me; I respect him. I can make him happy; he won’t ask for much but I won’t begrudge him much, either. Don’t you see? I could live free with him,” she said fervently. “I know I could live safe and in peace with him.”

“You could marry anyone here.”

“No one here would give me the freedom he would. Wealthy noblemen in England let their wives have their own bedchambers as well as their own social lives. Their own beds! Can you imagine a man here allowing that?”

She gave a theatrical shudder. “Besides, soon I won’t have a choice anymore, what with the way Thompson and Edwards are acting and the way that horrible Hughes is talking. I don’t dare go out after dark and have to keep my doors locked at all hours. I’ve no influential male to protect me. No, no matter how much money she has, a woman alone has no power or freedom here. The same’s true in England, but at least there I’ll have my choice of husband. And I choose Geoffrey Sauvage: once a convict, now the Earl of Egremont. Who would understand what I’ve been through better? Who would suit me better? He’s old, wise, and kind.”

“I wish I were half as brave as you are!” her friend blurted. “But I’m not. Though I suppose I could make a life again in England, I’m not willing to chance it.”

Daisy turned, her eyes grave. “I’m not brave. The truth, after all my bluster, is that I don’t have the courage to stay here any longer.” Her smile was sudden, radiant, warming, like the sun coming out from the clouds. “But I can pretend to be brave, and I will. I mean to take my chances, because at least this time, they’ll be my chances to take.”