The Summer Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) Read online

  PRAISE FOR ANNE GRACIE AND HER NOVELS

  “The always terrific Anne Gracie outdoes herself with Bride By Mistake . . . Gracie created two great characters, a high-tension relationship and a wonderfully satisfying ending. Not to be missed!”

  —Mary Jo Putney, New York Times bestselling author

  “A fascinating twist on the girl-in-disguise plot . . . With its wildly romantic last chapter, this novel is a great antidote to the end of the summer.”

  —Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author

  “With her signature superbly nuanced characters, subtle sense of wit and richly emotional writing, Gracie puts her distinctive stamp on a classic Regency plot.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Anne Gracie’s writing dances that thin line between always familiar and always fresh . . . The Accidental Wedding is warm and sweet, tempered with bursts of piquancy and a dash or three of spice.”

  —New York Journal of Books

  “Threaded with charm and humor . . . [An] action-rich, emotionally compelling story . . . It is sure to entice readers.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Another [of] Ms. Gracie’s character-rich, fiery tales filled with emotion and passion leavened by charm and wit.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “The main characters are vibrant and complex . . . The author’s skill as a storyteller makes this well worth reading.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Berkley Sensation titles by Anne Gracie

  The Merridew Sisters

  THE PERFECT RAKE

  THE PERFECT WALTZ

  THE PERFECT STRANGER

  THE PERFECT KISS

  The Devil Riders

  THE STOLEN PRINCESS

  HIS CAPTIVE LADY

  TO CATCH A BRIDE

  THE ACCIDENTAL WEDDING

  BRIDE BY MISTAKE

  The Chance Sisters

  THE AUTUMN BRIDE

  THE WINTER BRIDE

  THE SPRING BRIDE

  THE SUMMER BRIDE

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  THE SUMMER BRIDE

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2016 by Anne Gracie.

  Excerpt from The Autumn Bride by Anne Gracie copyright © 2014 by Anne Gracie.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY SENSATION® and the “B” design are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 9780698411623

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / July 2016

  Cover art by Judy York.

  Cover design by George Long.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Aunty Jean and Cousin Di, with love.

  With thanks to all the readers who’ve followed the adventures of the Chance sisters, and who wrote to me asking for Daisy’s story.

  And with thanks, as always to my writing friends who are always there to listen and support and brainstorm.

  Contents

  Praise for Anne Gracie and her Novels

  Berkley Sensation titles by Anne Gracie

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Autumn Bride

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.

  —JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

  London March 1817

  “I can make anyfing out of anyfing, but even I can’t make a silk purse out of a bloomin’ sow’s ear!” Daisy Chance declared. “I was born in the gutter, raised in an ’orehouse and I got a gimpy leg. I don’t look like a lady or speak like a lady and I ain’t never gunna be a lady, so what’s the point of—”

  Lady Beatrice cut her off. “Nonsense! You can do anything you set your mind to!”

  Daisy rolled her eyes. “Maybe, but I don’t want to be a lady! I want to be a dressmaker—and not just any dressmaker. I aim to become the most fashionable modiste in London—fashion to the top nobs.”

  The old lady shrugged. “No reason why you can’t be a modiste and a lady.”

  Daisy stared at the old lady incredulously. “You don’t have no idea, do you? What it’s gunna take—”

  “Any idea. It’s any idea.”

  Daisy rolled her eyes. “Work, that’s what it takes—hard work, never-endin’ work. I’m workin’ every hour God sends as it is, and even so I’m barely managin’. There ain’t no time for me to prance around pretendin’ to be a lady!”

  “You are a lady!”

  Daisy snorted, and Lady Beatrice went on, “Your entire nature declares it. Inside, you are a lady, Daisy—loyal, loving, honest, sensitive to others’ needs—all we have to do is teach you to be ladylike on the outside as well!”

  “Bugger that,” said the budding lady. “Apart from the fact I ain’t got time for all that, the thing is I don’t care about it. And there’s no point! All the lessons in the world ain’t goin’ to make me the kind of lady that Abby or Jane or Damaris is. They was born with lovely manners and a sweet way of speakin’—I was born in the gutter and brung up rough.”

  “Brought up not brung, and they were born not was. But that is immaterial—”

  “No it’s not. I’ve got a chance now—thanks to you and Abby and the girls—to make somef-something of meself.”

  “Yes, a lady.”

  “No, a modiste, wiv a shop of me own. I want to dress fine ladies, not ape them.”

  Lady Beatrice drew herself up stiffly. “With me conducting your lessons, there is no question of aping anyone—and please do not use such a vulgar expression!”

  “Yeah, well, I’m from the vulgar classes, me, and I call a spade a bloomin’ spade, but if that’s too blunt for you, I’ll say it different—I ain’t a lady and I don’t like fakery.”

  “Says the girl living in my house under a false name,” the old lady said with a sweetly sanctimonious air. “An
d presumably planning to open her business under that same false name.”

  Daisy gaped. “You can say that? You, who’s told more lies about us than anyone? Who invented her own false half sister—and made her a bastard, eh? Who claimed us as her nieces when we weren’t no such thing? Who made up the whole piece of nonsense about Venice? Who—” She broke off. The old lady was chuckling. She was proud of her lies.

  Daisy said with dignity, “You know dam—perfectly well I only went along with the Chance surname for Abby and Jane’s sake—they was in danger.”

  Lady Beatrice shrugged. “They were. Nevertheless, you still call yourself Daisy Chance instead of—what was your surname, anyway?”

  “Smith. But that was just a surname somebody picked out of a hat. I’m a foundling, never known me mum or dad, so me real name is anyone’s guess.”

  “You’re getting off the point,” Lady Beatrice said. “All the other gels will be gathering upstairs tomorrow afternoon and I want you there as well.”

  “I thought they wa—were finished with all that, now the Season has started.”

  The old lady waved her hand dismissively. “They require further polish. The gentle art of social intercourse—conversation, dancing and deportment—does not come naturally to all ladies, and Jane has a tendency to romp, rather than dance. So, you will come.” It was an order, but there was the faintest note of uncertainty in her voice.

  Daisy pounced on it. “No, I got too much work to do now to waste any more time on social flimflam.” Daisy had found the lessons about conversation and deportment interesting enough, and she figured the curtsying might come in useful for her business, but that was enough. Besides, Lady Bea kept going on about her learning to dance, and that she downright refused to do.

  “An hour or two won’t hurt.”

  “I can set a sleeve or finish a hem in an hour.”

  “Pfft!” The old lady dismissed the sleeve and the hem. “I want you there and you shall attend.”

  “Bad luck. I ain’t comin’.”

  “I won’t argue with you, Daisy. You will learn what I say you must! No niece of mine will leave this house knowing less than she ought.”

  Daisy glared at her. “But I ain’t your niece and we both know it.” The old lady was asking the impossible and she knew it, so why . . . .

  The old lady glared back, stamping the floor with her cane. “Gels who live under my roof do as I tell them!”

  “Or what?” Daisy demanded. There was a short, tense silence, and she added half incredulously, “Are you threatenin’ me? Tellin’ me to do as you say or get out o’ your house?”

  The silence stretched. Daisy felt her stomach clench. Oh, gawd, her bloody temper . . . The old lady had every right to toss her back onto the streets . . .

  Lady Beatrice subsided in her chair with a sigh. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, child. Of course I’m not. I might want to strangle you—and I’d be perfectly justified, stubborn wench that you are!—but you must know that I love you like a daughter—a stubborn, infuriating daughter who doesn’t know what’s good for her, mind—but then that’s quite common in daughters, I’m told by women who have ’em. And nieces are clearly just as troublesome. Some of them,” she added with a beady look.

  Daisy started breathing again. Tears pricked at the back of her eyelids. She blinked them away. She never cried, but the old lady’s declaration had shocked her. She knew the old girl was fond of her—Daisy was more than fond of her too—but to say, right out loud that she loved Daisy. Like a daughter . . .

  Lady Beatrice continued, “But that doesn’t mean I won’t threaten, bully, cajole, blackmail and utterly insist on your doing some things you don’t want to do.” She gave Daisy a stern look. “Because that’s what mothers and aunts do—if they have any sense.”

  She raised her lorgnette and fixed a horribly enlarged eye on Daisy. “So missy, you will attend this lesson—if I have to fetch Featherby and William to carry you there, kicking and screaming.”

  There was no point in continuing the argument, Daisy decided. They’d just go round and round, like two old boxers in a ring, making no progress and just getting tired. And upset. “All right, I’ll think about it,” she said in what she hoped was a convincing voice.

  When the time came for the lesson, she’d lock her door. William and Featherby would hardly break it down.

  The old lady graciously inclined her head. “I’m glad to see you’re talking sense at last. You’ll find these lessons invaluable.”

  “I still say you can’t make a silk purse out of a—”

  “Stop saying that, Daisy! If you are a sow’s ear, what, pray, as your aunt, does that make me?”

  Daisy’s lips twitched as she fought a grin.

  “Don’t you dare say it, you atrocious gel!” Lady Beatrice threw a fan at her and missed. And then she started to chuckle. Daisy’s own laughter exploded at the same time.

  After a few minutes, Lady Beatrice lay back in her chair, wiping her eyes with a wisp of lace. “Dreadful, dreadful gel! I refuse to be the aunt of a sow’s ear!”

  “Can’t choose your relatives,” Daisy said with a grin. She picked up the fan, laid it on a side table and got up to leave.

  “Nonsense! I do, all the time. It’s perfectly simple to do, and a great deal more satisfactory—even when they’re impossible.” Lady Beatrice gave her a speculative look. “So, upstairs then, tomorrow afternoon at four.”

  “I’ll see how me sewin’s goin’.” There might be some work she could take with her.

  “Sewing, going,” said Lady Beatrice, emphasizing the g’s. “Don’t drop your g’s.”

  Daisy gave her a basilisk look. “That friend of yours, Sir Oswald Merridew—he drops his g’s all the time.”

  “Yes, but in an aristocratic, stylish manner.”

  “Then that’s how I’ll drop mine then,” Daisy said with a grin.

  Lady Beatrice threw her handkerchief at her. “Impossible gel!” But she was trying not to smile.

  Daisy picked up the handkerchief and gave it back to her as she left. As she closed the door, the words stubborn wench floated after her.

  * * *

  Daisy tromped up the stairs, feeling shaken. Her bloomin’ temper—she’d practically dared Lady Bea to chuck her out on the streets, and then where would she be? Back where she’d started, that’s where—homeless and friendless and with barely two pennies to rub together.

  Oh, Abby or Damaris would take her in, she knew that, but she’d never been anyone’s charity case, and she wasn’t going to start now.

  Besides, she loved Lady Bea and didn’t like upsetting her. Even if the old lady did have this crazy notion of turning Daisy into a lady.

  The trouble was, Daisy was so tired. She woke each morning in the wee small hours, tossing the same problems over and over like a butter churn in her head—the work she had to get through, the promises she’d made, the money she didn’t have . . .

  She’d given up on trying to get back to sleep. Instead she’d started getting up in the dark, giving thanks that Lady Bea’s house was fitted with the wonder of gas lighting.

  Better to work than worry.

  But now here she was, snapping at the slightest provocation, losing her temper with the people she cared most about.

  You must know that I love you like a daughter . . .

  A lump came to her throat. No one had ever loved her like a daughter.

  Nobody had ever loved Daisy at all—not until she’d met Abby and Damaris and Jane—not really. Oh, there had been declarations in her past, but they’d proved to be false. Men were liars and cheats—at least they were to a girl on her own with nothing to offer except herself.

  And she’d thought Mrs. B. had cared about her like a daughter, but when the time came . . . Nah, Daisy had learned her lesson young: In this life, you were on your own. />
  But even when things had gotten so desperate with Abby and Jane, they hadn’t dumped Damaris and Daisy—which would have been the practical thing to do, them not being related at all. Instead they’d vowed to stick even closer together and become as sisters.

  Daisy still hadn’t gotten over the wonder of that.

  And then they’d moved in with Lady Beatrice—an earl’s daughter, a real, proper blue-blooded toff, no matter what state she was in at the time—and she’d claimed them as her nieces.

  Lady Beatrice was the best thing that had happened to any of them.

  Still, the old lady had a maggot in her brain. A blind man could tell Daisy would never make any kind of fine lady, even if she wanted to—which she bloomin’ well didn’t! But would the old girl listen?

  Daisy had no illusions about herself. She was a little Cockney guttersnipe with a gimpy leg and a foul mouth—though she was working on the swearing and her grammar. But she loved beautiful clothes and—praise be!—she was good at making them.

  She was going to be somebody, and she was going to do it all herself: Daisy Chance, Dressmaker to the Toffs, with a shop and a business all her own. That was her dream, and she was so hungry for it she could almost taste it.

  She reached her workroom. When she first came to live with Lady Bea, it had been her bedchamber—the first time in her life she’d had a room all to herself—but gradually her sewing had taken it over and they’d pushed her bed into Jane’s room and replaced it with a big, old table.

  It was a large, spacious room, and on a clear day it was flooded with natural light. Light was precious for a seamstress. Now there were clothes and fabrics and bits of braid and lace draped everywhere.

  Daisy loved stepping into this room—her cave of gorgeousness. Visible evidence of her dream coming true. This was what mattered. This was her future, not some mad idea of turning her into a bad imitation of a lady.

  Daisy threaded her needle and picked up the dress she was working on. She had a long list of things to do. The Season had already started, but her work had only intensified. Two more ball gowns to finish off, luckily they weren’t as fiddly as the one she’d made for Jane’s first ball; and then three more morning dresses—gawd, but the gentry were big on visiting—and a new pelisse to cut out.