And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake (8 page)

He smiled, tucked her ever so slightly closer, and hoped she knew exactly what he meant.

Not in your life.

While he thought she might make a scene—which would definitely guarantee her a one-way mail coach ticket back to wherever it was she came from, ruin dripping from her hem—at that moment, as she surveyed the crowd around them, she fluttered those long lashes of hers as if she’d suddenly remembered something very important.

And instead of sending him off with a flea in his ear, she did quite the opposite.

As they swept along the edge of the dance floor, the lady’s entire demeanor changed.

She smiled brightly as her gaze swept from one man to the next—all the way down the line.

And her captivated audience gazed back in appreciation.

Henry’s brow furrowed. Normally it didn’t bother him to have the
ton
’s rakes and Corinthians eyeing the armful he’d gained for a dance. It left him able to smile over the lady’s shoulder with a look that said all too clearly:

Mine if I want her. . . .

Yet when he looked down at this minx, this lady who was causing more than one jaw to drop in admiration, he realized two things:

Firstly, Miss Daphne Dale had every asset necessary to leave a man aching with desire.

And secondly, she would never be his.

Much to his chagrin, that notion—that she was well out of his reach—left him a bit off kilter.

Not that he wanted Miss Daphne Dale. Certainly he wasn’t mad like Lord Norton Seldon, the last known member of his family foolish enough to cross the firmly established lines between the Seldon and Dale clans, but there was just no arguing that she was a tempting piece of muslin.

He saw her as he had earlier, looking up at him with eyes shining—alight all for him. He rather liked the way she tipped her head as she glanced just over her shoulder, letting the waterfall of curls pinned atop her head fall all the way over her bare shoulder . . . a teasing sort of glance that made a man consider how she would look being tossed atop his bed . . . those glorious blonde tresses freed and falling all about her shoulders . . . over her naked . . .

Henry wrenched his gaze away, righting his errant thoughts as quickly as he could.

How he’d ever thought her to be his sensible Miss Spooner, he didn’t know.

Not that Miss Dale seemed to care what her come-hither glances and bright smile might do to a man. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he might think she was posing for another.

Another?

He glanced about the room and tried to gauge who this fribble might be. Not that her previous partners could be considered. A beggary lot of dull sticks for the most part. Ives. Niniham. Trewick. And that dull vicar Hen had insisted be invited.

Yet she’d turned down Middlecott, considered to be the catch of the Season. Odd choice that, given that the man was as rich as Midas and rumored to be ready to set up his nursery.

So if she wasn’t looking for a title and fortune, then what was she after?

He cast one more glance down at her rosebud lips, pursed and ready to be kissed. Henry didn’t know what came over him, but he hitched her up a little closer.

Thorns and all.

Oh, and how those thorns bristled. Her brows arched higher, and in tones dripping with censure, she said, “I’ll have you know, I am nearly engaged, and you are being entirely impudent by insisting on holding me thusly.”

Of all the self-important, pompous Dale presumption. As if he was holding her solely for his benefit.

Which he wasn’t. Not in the least.

“Nearly engaged?” he wondered aloud. “Whatever does that mean? Could it be the man can’t make up his mind, or you haven’t let him get a word in edgewise?”

Her bright smile tightened, and her lashes stopped that delectable flutter. And he should have realized the next thrust from this slight English rose would be straight into his gut.

“What would you know of love, Lord Henry?” she returned. “Being a Seldon and all. From what I hear, a Seldon’s forte is to ravage and run.”

She would bring Montgomery Seldon into all this.

Rather than acknowledge her sniping comment—good heavens, that incident had happened during the reign of Charles the Second, but leave it to a Dale to carry it about—he asked, “And is this paragon of yours here tonight? I wouldn’t mind knowing whose wrath I should be fearing.”

Her brow furrowed, her lips pressed together.

What? No answer? Henry knew a mystery when he held one, and Miss Dale’s “engagement” had all the hallmarks of a most intriguing one.

“Well, is he here or not?” he pressed. “It is a simple question.”

“Ours is not a simple engagement,” she shot back.

Of course it wouldn’t be. The fellow must be stark raving mad. Perhaps they had refused to let the poor blighter out of Bedlam to attend this evening’s festivities.

For certainly if Henry had known what was in store for himself, he would have gladly exchanged places with the fool.

“Not that I would expect you to have any understanding of such a relationship,” she was saying.

“A relationship?” he mused aloud and immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Yes, I thought the word would be foreign to you,” she shot back. “And having seen you at work this evening—”

“At work?” What the devil did that mean?

Oh, she told him.

“Lord Henry, I have not been blind to the fact that you’ve flirted and flitted your way through every innocent in the room this evening—”

He hoped she didn’t count herself amongst them. There was nothing innocent about a lady who wore such a gown.

“—but it is refreshing to discover that I am not the only one immune to your rakish charms—”

She thought he had charms? Never mind that. More to the point, she’d been watching him.

Just as you were watching her . . .

“—true love,” she continued, “a meeting of minds and hearts is not found in such trivial pursuits as flirting and dancing.”

“You don’t like to dance?” he said. And to prove his point, he held her closer and swung her tightly through the crowd.

Something fluttered in her eyes, a mischievous light. She loved to dance. Just as he did.

Yet she was also just as stubborn. “There are not so many opportunities at home for such festivities.”

“Ah, yes, in . . . where is it you are from?”

“Kempton,” she told him, her chin notching up slightly.

He nodded. “Preston mentioned the place. Something about all the ladies being cursed. Should I worry for my safety?”

“Only if we were to marry,” she shot back, and was it him, or did her gleeful note imply she’d rather like to see him married to a Kempton bride?

And end up just like all the rest of the village grooms, spending their honeymoons napping in the graveyard.

“That will never happen, I assure you, Miss Dale,” he replied.

She sighed, with a bit of resignation. “The curse is naught but a myth.”

“Yes, well, I hope so,” he told her. “For the sake of your unknown gentleman and my nephew. I would hate to have Preston turn up his toes with a fire iron sticking out of his chest—”

There was a flash of annoyance in her eyes.

So she didn’t like her hometown curse being bandied about or mocked. Yet it was so perfect an opening . . .

“—leaving me in the demmed uncomfortable position of having to inherit,” he finished.

“You wouldn’t want the dukedom?” This surprised her, as it did most people.

“Heavens, no,” he shuddered. “I have other plans for my future.”

She didn’t ask what those were, and he didn’t elaborate.

He could imagine the delight she’d take in laughing at his desires for a comfortable, sensible life in the country, well away from London and the
ton
.

Speaking of his future, he glanced down at the tempting beauty in his arms and knew that
sensible
would never be a word attributed to her.

“Now whatever is the matter?” she asked, once again wiggling in his arms to gain some distance between them.

If only she knew what that did to a man—her breasts pressed against him, her hips moving to and fro.

Or perhaps she did.

“Your gown,” he said.

She glanced down at it. “It is the first stare of fashion. Why, there are three other ladies wearing very similar dresses—though I should complain to the modiste, for she said it was the only one like it in London.”

Henry laughed at her consternation. “You needn’t worry; you far outshine them. I doubt any man in the room noticed the others.”

Then he realized what he’d said. Confessed, really.

Her eyes widened and then narrowed as she regarded him warily. “If you are trying to charm me yet again—”

“I wasn’t trying to charm you before—”

“You weren’t? Whatever was all that you were doing?”

“A grave error,” he told her, growing a bit annoyed—mostly at himself.

Every moment spent arguing and bear-baiting with Miss Dale was just more time lost and with it his hopes of finding Miss Spooner before he was forced to hie off to the country for Preston’s house party and wedding.

It would be a good month before he returned to London, and where Miss Spooner would be then or if she would still be in Town, he knew not.

He had to find her tonight.

“A grave error?” Miss Dale repeated. “Dancing with me was a grave error?”

If he had been paying more attention, he might have heard the warning note in her voice. It was one that Norton Seldon had ignored and one Montgomery Seldon should have heeded . . . and saved ensuing generations of Seldons from wagonloads of grief.

“I’ll have you know, you should be honored,” she told him, thorns coming through the silk. “I haven’t trod on your foot, like that simpering Miss Rigglesford did—twice—and I’ve managed to hold up my end of this . . . this . . .
conversation,
unlike that tongue-tied nitwit Lady Honoria, who you seemed to find so amusing. No one finds her amusing, Lord Henry. No one. You, sir, have been lucky beyond measure to dance with me. Twice, I might note.”

“Lucky?” he sputtered. “As if this is some boon to me? To be cast with one of your lot?”

“One. Of. My. Lot?” she bit out.

“Yes, lot. Dales! Stubborn, prideful, braggarts,” he told her.

“Seldons!” she shot back. “I am too much a lady to give your gaggle of relations their due.”

“Are you sure about that?”

If ever there was a question a man wished he could take back, that was one.

Her eyes darkened with fury. No simpering gel like Miss Rigglesford, or rigidly dull chit like Lady Honoria, or like any other Bath-educated, perfectly mannered London lady.

Kempton-born, and Dale to the bone, Miss Daphne Dale wrenched herself out of his arms and went to leave him mid-dance, mid-turn, as everyone was executing a complicated step.

It was uncalled for, it was a cut direct. It was a ruinous move on her part.

But her timing couldn’t have been more perfect. For the ruin, it turned out, was to be all his.

For when she gave him the heave-ho, he wasn’t prepared for her flight and found himself floundering forward, his feet tangled and hung up.

He would have sworn he’d been tripped. Or perhaps he’d just trod upon her silken hem.

Not that the
how
mattered, for all of sudden, one moment she was there, and the next she was casting him off and he was falling, his hands flailing out to catch hold of something to keep him from toppling headfirst into the tight knots of dancers.

And find something he did. His outstretched hands came right into a lady. More to the point, the very front of a lady’s gown.

Lady Essex’s, to be exact.

After that, the evening was naught but a blur for Lord Henry.

Though it all came into sharp focus when the Earl of Roxley came ambling into the upper reaches of Preston’s town house a few hours before dawn and found the duke and Lord Henry on their second decanter. Or maybe their third.

Well, perhaps not sharp focus, for Henry was well into his cups. Then again, he had much to forget.

Miss Dale, for one thing. And then that entire mishap with Lady Essex. And the hullabaloo the lady had raised. And the peal Hen had rung over him for his disgraceful behavior.

Accosting a spinster! Why, it was beneath even a Seldon.

Henry tried to forget, but it was nearly impossible. For along with Hen’s scolding chorus still ringing in his ears were Lady Essex’s shrill screams.

Oh, good God! He’d all but mauled Lady Essex Marshom. The room began to spin around him.

And now added to that whirl was Lord Roxley. Or rather two earls. It was rather difficult to discern when one was this top-heavy.

“Ah, Roxley,” Preston called out, waving him toward the sideboard. “How fares your aunt?”

The earl shuddered at the question, as if he wished the entire evening could be dismissed so easily. Teetering over to the sideboard, he poured himself a measure. Then, eyeing it, he tipped the bottle of brandy yet again until the glass was almost full.

Preston shot the nearly overflowing glass a second look. “As bad as all that?”

“Worse,” Roxley avowed. “She’s demanding satisfaction. Wants me to name my seconds. My aunt seems to think that only my shooting Lord Henry on some grassy field will ‘regain her lost honor.’ ”

“Did you point out that I am the better shot?” Henry said.

Roxley nodded. “Unfortunately, she’s quite willing to take the risk.”

Chapter 4

Have you not wondered why the Fates considered bringing us together? I fear at times they could also have a change of heart and pull us apart. Promise me we shall endeavor to avoid their snare, my dearest Miss Spooner.

Found in a letter from Mr. Dishforth to Miss Spooner

D
aphne was doing her best to forget the previous evening. Not that Lady Essex was likely to let her.

Where the lady should have been scandalized and overwrought, Roxley’s aunt was instead in alt. The tempest had put her in high demand with every gossip in London, and there was nothing Lady Essex liked more than being the center of attention.

Of course, the Dale clan might applaud Daphne’s scandalous part, saying it was only what a Seldon deserved, but then the inevitable questions and recriminations would come.

What the devil were you doing there in the first place?

And whatever would she say?

That she’d been corresponding with an unknown gentleman, who, she had discovered, was going to be attending the ball and she couldn’t help herself, she’d gone into the Seldon lair if only to discover her Prince Charming?

Yes, that would be about as well received as the gossip that was surely going to land on Aunt Damaris’s doorstep before nightfall—that her niece was a dreadful harridan.

Caused the scene of the Season!
some catty relation would come to tell the dowager of the Dale clan.

Though Daphne couldn’t imagine who would be brave (or foolish enough) to drop such a cannonball into Aunt Damaris’s gilt salon.

Which, in itself, might buy Daphne a few days.

Perhaps even enough time to discover Mr. Dishforth’s true identity before she would be shunted off to Kempton, never to be allowed back in London again.

Which was the last thing Daphne wanted or needed. So she’d made her excuses to Lady Essex and fled Roxley’s town house, claiming an obligation to visit her Great-Aunt Damaris one more time before she returned to Kempton.

If anything, she hoped beyond hope that when she got there, she would find a note, a few lines, anything from Mr. Dishforth.

Oh, Mr. Dishforth! Whatever was she going to tell him?

Daphne hurried through the streets of Mayfair, her ever-faithful maid, Pansy, trotting along behind her, her cheeks pink with the heat and the pace.

Not that she could hope to outrun the gossip, but perhaps she could head it off before it turned into an insurmountable storm.

Daphne paused at a corner to wait for traffic and considered how she might explain her wretched behavior to him.

To Mr. Dishforth.

Well, there were only two words to justify what she’d done.

Lord Henry.

Ruinous, awful man! Daphne could not think of him without shivering. No, it wasn’t shivering, more like shuddering, she corrected herself.

For shivering had an entirely different intimation.

And not one she wanted to share with Lord Henry. Not in the least.

“Horrible man,” she muttered as she started across the street.

“My pardon, miss,” a stuffy-looking fellow huffed in reply as he hurried past.

Daphne blushed a bit, especially when Pansy looked over at her with that puzzled, censorious expression she seemed to be wearing much of late.

And feeling a bit of remorse, Daphne knew eventually she would have to admit the truth. Lord Henry couldn’t be blamed entirely. For one thing, she had tripped him.

Not deliberately. Not intentionally.

Well, maybe a little.

Daphne drew herself up straight. Annoying, wretched man. Why, he was the very epitome of all that was wrong with the Seldons and had been wrong for centuries. Too handsome. Too full of his own worth. And much too handsome.

Oh, dear, she’d listed that twice. Well, it needed to be, she told herself as she rounded the corner onto Christopher Street.

No man should look that sinful; it made him capable of driving a perfectly sensible lady to make a complete cake of herself in a crowded ballroom.

Well, never again, she vowed. Never again would she be swayed by a tall, handsome, overly charming man. Not whatsoever.

And as if the Fates meant to test her resolve, she looked up and came to a complete halt. For there, hurrying down the steps at the far end of the block—on Great-Aunt Damaris’s steps, to be exact—was a tall figure in an elegantly cut jacket of navy superfine, a tall beaver hat atop his head, the brim obscuring his face.

Just the sort to make a lady’s heart do that odd double thump if only to ensure she’d taken notice.

Yes, Daphne had noticed.

This striking Corinthian paused for a moment at the end of the steps, adjusted his hat to a jaunty tilt and then continued in the opposite direction with a determined stride, his walking stick tapping out his hurried pace.

For some reason, her boots found themselves planted to the sidewalk. She could only stand there on the curb, not even caring that she was gaping like a veritable country rube.

Out of the blue, she found herself thinking it was exactly how Lord Henry might stroll along—the very same self-assured line of his shoulders, the steady stride, as if he owned the very sidewalk.

Goodness! How ridiculous, she told herself, a bit piqued that at every turn he seemed to invade her thoughts.

Now she was even seeing him where he shouldn’t be.

Besides, she told herself, studying this object of curiosity, he didn’t possess Lord Henry’s arrogance. No, certainly not. This man held himself with an air of composure and aplomb that would captivate any woman.

So, whatever was such a man doing visiting Great-Aunt Damaris? Firstly, he was too tall and too dark to be a Dale.

“Who are you?” she whispered, not even realizing she had said the words aloud until this mysterious stranger, who was about to round the corner at the end of the block, paused, as if he had heard her question.

Then, to her shock, he turned slightly and glanced over his shoulder.

Oh, my! Oh, goodness . . .
Her thoughts jangled together as his features slowly came into view, until—

“Do you mind?” a voice blared at her as a large fellow shouldered past her. Tall and wide enough, it turned out, to completely blot out her view. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” the old gentleman scolded. “Foolish chits! The same every year! Filling the streets like a baffled horde of dimwits.” He huffed and continued down the block, and by the time she could see past him, the corner where the gentleman had stood was empty.

He was gone.

“Bother,” she muttered. Then, realizing there was only one way to find out who he might be, she hurried down the street to Number 18 and had barely gained the first step when the door flew open.

“Oh, heavens, Daphne!” Cousin Philomena Dale exclaimed. “You just missed
him
.”

“Him?”

Her cousin didn’t answer immediately, having come down the steps only to herd Daphne and Pansy back up them with great haste. “Come in, come in,” she said.

Pansy, now that her mistress was in good hands, scurried off for the kitchens, while Phi plucked off Daphne’s hat and pelisse, chattering on in a blur of “ooh’s” and “ah’s,” which were punctuated by a chorus of “him” and “shocking” and “ever-so-thrilling’s.”

By the time they had gotten seated at the window bench, Daphne was dizzy, but it seemed so was Cousin Phi, who wasn’t more than a few years older than Daphne but, having failed at finding a husband, now resided at Number 18 as Great-Aunt Damaris’s companion.

A fate no one would envy her for, though Phi seemed to consider it a boon and took the old lady’s complaints and tirades in patient stride and with nary a lament.

Better still, Phi had only been too willing to help Daphne with her correspondence with Mr. Dishforth—for no one had a more romantic little soul than Cousin Philomena.

“If only you had arrived just a few seconds earlier, why, you would have met
him,
” Phi was saying, looking once again up and down the street, clearly disappointed to find the block empty.

“The man? The elegant one I saw coming down the steps?” Daphne asked.

“Yes, yes, him!” Phi exclaimed, her eyes wide.

“Who was he?” Daphne asked, for it wasn’t all that unusual for Great-Aunt Damaris to have callers. She was a bit of a legend in the Dale clan, and cousins and relations from all corners came to beseech her for advice.

Which the lady doled out with a heavy hand and no lack of sarcasm.

All good advice comes with a price,
she was wont to say.

Great-Aunt Damaris had the effect of leaving one feeling scalded, but better for the experience.

“Who was that, she asks! It was
him
!” Phi said, as if that explained everything.

Daphne paused for a second and then felt a tremor of horror. Great-Aunt Damaris hadn’t made good on her threat of ordering the Right Honorable Mr. Matheus Dale to Town on some flimsy pretense.

She’d brought it up each time Daphne had visited, claiming the two of them would suit and had a matchmaker’s fire over the notion.

Advice Great-Aunt Damaris could offer in plentitude; matchmaking, however, was not her forte.

“Not Matheus,” Daphne whispered to Phi, who was once again looking out the window.

Phi shook her head. “No, not Cousin Matheus,” she said, making a moue of displeasure. Obviously this push of Great-Aunt Damaris’s to find a Dale cousin to marry the esteemed Mr. Matheus Dale had been tried before.

“So if it wasn’t Matheus, then who?” Daphne prodded, settling into the window seat, where she and Phi always had their hasty “coze” before Great-Aunt Damaris realized, with the uncanny sense of a cat, that someone was in the house and would have Daphne summoned upstairs.

Phi’s expression brightened. “
Him
!” Then she lowered her voice, which was a good idea, for any Dale worth their salt knew—or at least swore—that Great-Aunt Damaris could hear conversations uttered all the way up north in the family’s Scottish hunting box. “Oh, bother, Daphne. You truly have to ask?” Still, Phi leaned closer and whispered in a voice barely audible, “It was your Mr. D.”

Daphne’s mouth fell open. That man . . . that elegant, self-assured, handsome man (at least he’d seemed handsome at that distance) was her Mr. Dishforth?

“No!” Daphne said, glancing back at the door, restraining herself from jumping up and setting off after him.

After all, it was her lack of restraint that had plunked her right down in the scandal broth.

“That was him?” she managed.

“Yes,” Phi said. “Oh, I’m ever so glad you did see him.” Her cousin’s face wore a dreamy sort of expression, as if she’d just witnessed a miracle.

Daphne reached over and caught Philomena by the arm—if only to steady her own racing nerves. “Are you certain? The man wearing the superfine jacket and the tall beaver hat was Mr. Dishforth?”

Phi nodded. “Yes, and he carried a silver-tipped walking stick. A most elegant one. Oh, Daphne, he is so handsome, and he must be ever-so-rich.”

Rich? Visions of a large rambling country house once again danced through Daphne’s thoughts.

Handsome was one thing, but Daphne wasn’t so impractical as to not realize the benefits of falling in love with a wealthy man. “And he came here?”

“Yes. And I met him,” Phi declared. “He came to the door, and luckily for you, I was downstairs checking the salver for Herself.”

“Herself” being how most everyone in the family referred to Great-Aunt Damaris.

“He came here?” Daphne’s heart raced. “Where was Croston?” Great-Aunt Damaris’s butler would certainly have had a thing or two to say to his mistress about an unknown gentleman calling.

“Downstairs,” Phi said, her eyes wide with the luck of it. “Checking on tea. And luckily I caught the door before
he
pulled the bell.”

He
. Mr. Dishforth. Daphne still couldn’t get over it, the image of the handsome stranger now burnt into her memory. “What did he want?”

Another foolish question, for Daphne knew all too well what Mr. Dishforth desired. Wanted. Had written so boldly.

My darling Miss Spooner, we cannot ignore that some day, some day very soon, we shall have to meet. I long for the moment when I first set eyes on you.

And Phi wasn’t so innocent not to see right through the feigned query, the desires behind it. “You, of course. He came calling to meet you.” She sat back and eyed her cousin with a look that was nothing less than incredulous.

Daphne opened her mouth to say something, yet nothing came out.

“Yes. Shocking, indeed,” the practical Phi said, echoing Daphne’s feelings precisely. Then Phi’s brows furrowed and her voice lowered noticeably—for Croston wasn’t above tattling. “You said he wouldn’t come calling.”

“He promised not to,” Daphne shot back. But then again, after last night . . .
Oh, no!

What if, somehow, he’d discovered that she, Miss Daphne Dale, was his “dearest girl” after all and had been horrified by the scene she’d created.

Perhaps he’d come to call—in person, no less—to wash his hands of their entire affair.

Daphne shivered. It was no affair. Their letters were just that, letters.

An affair implied something so much more . . . well, personal. Physical.

And why was it that when that word
physical
came teasing through her thoughts, she recalled Lord Henry’s arms around her?

Lord Henry holding her close . . . Lord Henry about to . . .

Dear heavens, had Dishforth seen her with that Seldon scoundrel? Seen her lingering in his embrace? However would she explain that she’d thought that rakish devil was him?

“Don’t look so despairing, Daphne,” Phi told her. “I know you are jumping to every conclusion but the correct one.”

The correct one? The note in Phi’s words lent some hope to the entire scenario.

“Tell me everything,” Daphne said. “
Everything
.”

Phi basked in her moment of importance. “He is the handsomest man I have ever seen. Far more handsome than Cousin Crispin.”