Have You Any Rogues? (3 page)

When he got nearly out of sight, he turned once more and took one last look at her. Longing and desire filled his eyes, but the set of his jaw told the true story.

There were some lines that couldn’t be crossed.

And that very image of Crispin, Viscount Dale—handsome and rugged, steely and determined—Henrietta Seldon carried in her heart until the next time they met.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

Every Dale is given the same middle name: Obstinate.

A
SELDON
FAMILY
ADAGE

Owle Park, 1810

“I
’ve come to see Preston,” Viscount Dale told Henrietta as he came marching up the steps, his announcement, or rather demand, wrenching her back to the present.

Well, of all the arrogant, presumptuous . . .

“He’s not here. He and the duchess have returned to London. Seek him there,” she told him, turning on one heel and about to slam the door in his face, but he was too quick for her, having wedged his boot in the doorjamb and then easily shouldering it open, striding in like the conquering hero.

She pointed toward the drive. “Get out or I’ll have you tossed out.”

An idle threat if ever there was one.

There was only Mrs. Briar and her son in the house. And dear Mrs. Briar was deaf as a post, while her son was a kindly, simple boy who was perfect for fetching horses and carrying in more kindling, but hardly the type to toss this devil of a rogue out by his well-appointed breeches.

Nor was Tabitha’s renowned dog much help. Mr. Muggins sat beside her and watched the viscount through narrowed eyes.

Henrietta hoped that meant the dog was about to make good his wretched reputation and chase this villain from the premises.

But not even that was meant to be, as Mr. Muggins just held his position.

For his part, Lord Dale hardly seemed to care that the object of his quest wasn’t available. He turned his sharp, blue-eyed gaze on Henrietta, and she nearly shivered.

Because it was when Crispin Dale looked at her thusly that mayhem usually ensued.

Mayhem of the heart.

The worst sort, in her estimation.

“Get out,” she told him, pointing again at the door.
Before you wreak havoc on my life. Yet again.

Words she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing.

“You’ll do,” he told her, setting down a large hamper before her.

At this, Mr. Muggins sat up, softly whimpering, then coming over to nudge the lid of the large basket.

“Yes, you hell-bound mongrel, your sins have finally come home to roost,” Crispin told the dog.

“Whatever are you talking about?” Henrietta demanded. “What is the meaning of all this?”

“The meaning?” he sputtered, then reached over and flipped open the lid.

There was a brief second when Henrietta realized exactly what was inside the basket, before the contents erupted in a whimpering, barking melee of puppies.

“That . . . that beast,” he told her, pointing at Mr. Muggins, “got my best hunting bitch pregnant.”

So there it was. History repeating itself. Wasn’t this how the entire feud had begun all those centuries ago? Over an ill-begotten litter.

A litter of prized hunting pups intended as a gift for Queen Elizabeth—set to have been born when Her Majesty had been due to arrive at Langdale during one of her summer progresses. Save the puppies had come out looking exactly like one of the Duke of Preston’s infamous mongrels.

Oh, how the queen and the duke—one of her favorites—had laughed over it, but the Dales had never forgotten the humiliation.

So here was Crispin, glaring at her as if she had sent Mr. Muggins over with just that intent.

To impugn their reputation once again.

Well, he could glare all he wanted. Henrietta wasn’t a Seldon for nothing. She scowled right back at him.

After all, hadn’t Crispin’s cousin, that vixen Daphne Dale, recently seduced Henrietta’s own dear brother, Henry—sensible and responsible Henry—into a scandalous runaway marriage, reopening all the old wounds between the two clans?

These pups, as far as she was concerned, were just desserts.

“Well?!” Crispin demanded.

Henrietta glanced again at the pups and then at Mr. Muggins. Oh, there was no denying that these pups were his—same rough coat, same wild manners—but she was feeling mulish.

“However do you know that Mr. Muggins is responsible?” she asked, even when her eyes told her quite clearly that the basket full of scruffy mongrels could come from only one source.

Without missing a beat, Lord Dale reached inside his jacket and drew out what, she supposed, had once been part of a feather-trimmed glove. He held it over that basket, and in unison all seven puppies began to growl.

As did Mr. Muggins.

That is until she shot the big oaf of a dog a dark glance.

“Well, yes, I suppose they might be of the same breed,” she conceded.

“A breed indeed! As if I would expect a Seldon to know anything about good breeding,” he said, sparing a glance at Mr. Muggins. “But that isn’t my problem. Not any longer.”

He began to leave, and good riddance, she thought—until, that is, she realized what he intended.

“You can’t think to leave those . . . those . . .”

“Mongrels?” he offered.

“Puppies,” she corrected, if only not to offend Mr. Muggins—she had her plumed hat to think of. “You cannot leave them with me. Whatever am I to do with seven puppies?”

She shot another aggrieved glance at Mr. Muggins.

Leave it to an Irish terrier to be so prolific.

“Take them to Preston, with my compliments,” Lord Dale replied as he continued toward the door.

“Oh, no! Don’t you dare! This is—” Hen began, until, that is, one of the puppies jumped out of the hamper and began scampering around the foyer. Inspired by their sibling’s newfound freedom, the others followed suit, bounding this way and that, and Hen scrambled to gather them up.

For his part, Viscount Dale just stood in the middle of the mayhem, arms crossed, still looking as if his entire family had been besmirched.

“Oh, bother, don’t just stand there,” Henrietta snapped. “Help me.” Glancing over her shoulder, she spied one of the pups venturing down the steps into the wine cellar.

Good heavens, she’d forgotten to close the door.

Down the steps the puppy went, and Henrietta followed into the darkness. And got halfway down before she realized she’d need some light to find the little fellow.

“Crispin, I’ll break my neck in the dark down here,” she called out. “Bring down the candle.”

She heard him muttering about “always having to come to your aid,” but she ignored his complaint once he appeared at the top of the steps and followed her down into the dark of the cellar.

M
rs. Briar came bustling out into the foyer and blundered to a stop at the sight before her, even as her son, Charlie, came up the front steps.

“Oh, goodness,” she exclaimed, pointing at one of the pups, “catch hold of that one before it gets out.”

Charlie caught the little scamp, and together they quickly had the entire pack corralled back in the hamper.

Hands fisted to her hips, Mrs. Briar took only one glance at the pups and then Mr. Muggins to put two and two together. “Made yourself at home in the neighborhood, did you?” she said with a laugh, gathering up the basket. Spying the carriage in the drive, and her ladyship’s valise sitting abandoned near the door, she didn’t need any explanation as to what had happened when Lord Halwell had arrived.

Well, the lady was a widow. Three times over. And Mrs. Briar wasn’t one to comment on the goings-on of her betters, even if she did sniff a bit with disapproval.

Instead, she instructed Charlie to drive the carriage down to the stables. “Must be that Lord Halwell Her Ladyship said was due to arrive.” She glanced up the stairs and decided not to go seeking out Lady Juniper until the lady summoned her.

“Bad as you,” she told Mr. Muggins, then turned to take the pups down to the kitchen. And when she did, she noticed that the door to the wine cellar was wide open.

“That won’t do,” she muttered and promptly shut the door, throwing the latch shut. “Won’t have anyone blaming me for the wine going missing.” She huffed a sigh. “Come on, you little mites. I think I have some nice milk just in.”

And she toddled off to the kitchen, Mr. Muggins following behind her, sparing the door to the wine cellar one last knowing, well-pleased glance.

“O
h, here he is,” Henrietta called out from the back of the cellar. “However did you get so far afield so quickly?”

Even as she said the words, she heard the door to the wine cellar close with a decided thud.

“No!” she gasped, pushing past Crispin and dashing for the stairs. When she reached the door she pushed at it, but it was as she feared: locked tight.

“Mrs. Briar! Mrs. Briar! Please, open the door!”

But there was no reply. Good heavens, she was trapped.

It was then she remembered who else shared her predicament.

Him.

That was when Henrietta truly panicked.

“Y
ou might as well stop,” Henrietta told Crispin after he spent the next hour pounding on the door. “As I’ve said before, Mrs. Briar is nearly deaf—she won’t hear you unless she is right next to the door.”

“I’m not willing to give up just yet. We Dales don’t abandon ship at the first leak.”

The words rattled Hen. For now he wasn’t talking about the door or their current plight. He was slighting her.

“I never—” she began and stopped just as quickly. Especially when one of his brows quirked up.

Well, perhaps she had given up. Once. Or twice. But in her heart she’d never been able to stop her feelings for him. And besides, each time she’d been quite certain it was Crispin who had “abandoned ship.”

“And if I hadn’t ‘given up,’ then what, Lord Dale? Would you have declared your undying love for me? A Seldon?” She snorted and settled back down on the stool she’d claimed. Beside her, the errant pup, the one who had led them down into this dungeon of sorts, slept in a crate she’d found for it. “Would you have married me? Invited your dear Aunt Damaris to the wedding?”

When Crispin didn’t respond, she huffed again and crossed her arms over her chest. “So I thought.”

After a few moments, he stomped down the steps and sat down on the last one, his long legs stuck out in front of him. “I gave you my word,” he repeated stubbornly.

Obstinately. So very much like a Dale.

She stole a glance at him.

Those words, that promise, were exactly why everything had gone so very wrong.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

Once bewitched by a Seldon beauty,
madness is your only salvation.

A
WARNING
GIVEN
TO
ALL
DALE
MALES
FROM
THE
TIME
THEY
ARE
IN
SHORT
PANTS

London, 1802

A
grand masked ball was the sort of thing a Seldon loved, and the Duke of Preston’s masquerade in honor of his daughter’s presentation at Court was no exception.

Every important family in the
ton
had been invited, which was to say, they all were.

Save one. But no one ever mentioned them in front of the duke.

Not if they wanted an invitation to the next fête or soirée.

Nor had Hen noticed. With such a grand crush, a full dance card and free-flowing champagne, Henrietta had been too busy dancing every dance. Now with it well after midnight, she wasn’t paying attention as she ought to her choice of companion.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Lord Bertram asked, his breath awash with brandy. He was the third son of a marquess, and she had agreed to dance with him only because their mothers were friends—that, and as a child, Bertie had often been brought to the Seldon nursery to play with Christopher and Henry.

Though he, like her brother and nephew, had learned quickly that she ruled the roost above stairs.

“Some sort of goddess or the like?” Bertie guessed after another leering glance at her costume.

“Calypso,” Hen supplied.

He snorted. “Ah, yes. She’s a bit of a wanton, now, isn’t she?” He leaned over and tugged her rather close, his brows waggling at her in what he probably assumed was a seductive air.

It wasn’t. Hen’s stomach rolled.

“It is merely a costume,” she told him, trying to get a bit of distance between them, but unfortunately, Bertie had her in his clutches and was steering her out the garden doors.

“Wan-n-n-ton
,” he repeated, his drink-addled tongue slurring the word. “I rather like that about you, Henny. All grown up and filled out nicely”—he took another leering glance at her breasts—“but I can’t see why you’re thinking of wasting all that on such a dull stick as Astbury. Now with me, I’d give you something you’d never be bored with.”

His full, wet lips came dipping down toward her, and she twisted her head away, desperate to escape his grasp. “Bertie, let go of me this instant.”

But her undisputed authority from the schoolroom no longer held sway in this milieu, and Bertie was determined, since he presumed he now had the upper hand.

Though as it turned out, the smug lordling wasn’t the only one about.

“Unhand the lady,” a firm, deep voice commanded.

“Eh?” Bertie muttered, glancing over his shoulder. “Shove off. I was here first.”

“And now I’m here. Leave.”

Henrietta looked up—for there was something very familiar about this man’s voice. And when she spied his costume, saw the burnished gold of his hair and the piercing blue of his eyes behind his mask, her heart nearly leapt from her chest. “Odysseus,” she gasped.