And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake (26 page)

Him to do what?

Henry had no idea. But he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. For truly, how far would Miss Dale go for such a pompous nit as Dishforth?

He shook his head and smiled at her. “No, nothing, Miss Dale. Nothing at all.”

Two days later

“Y
ou do not seem overly distressed that we are stranded,” Lord Henry posed as they stood beside the road and watched the posting lad and coachman ride away with their horses.

“Travel is fraught with such mishaps,” Daphne replied, hoping her sense of relief as she watched them disappear around the bend wasn’t overly apparent.

“Don’t you think it odd that all four horses suddenly went lame?”

“I suppose it can happen; in fact it has,” she replied, nodding at their own horses happily trotting down the road and hardly looking lame.

“Still . . .” Lord Henry kicked a stone across the road, his jaw set.

Perhaps she should feign a demeanor fraught with worry and concern for Dishforth, or, more to the point, over her certainly lost reputation.

For here she was stranded out in the middle of nowhere with Lord Henry Seldon.

All alone.

Where anything could happen.

She slanted a glance in his direction.
Anything
.

And yet nothing was. Much to her growing annoyance.

If anything was leaving her fraught with worry, it was Lord Henry’s suddenly honorable and gentlemanly behavior toward her.

“I will say, though,” she offered, “that if one must be stranded, it is in a perfectly lovely spot.”

Indeed it was. For there was a large oak on the other side of a rock wall, and beyond its sheltering shade were wide meadows dotted with wildflowers. There was even a wide, clear stream dividing the valley laid out before them.

Lord Henry glanced around and huffed another sigh, picking up the basket and crossing the road.

Daphne chewed at her lower lip and went over the last few days in her head. Through all the changes of horses, all the miles, all the hours of traveling so intimately together, not once had Lord Henry attempted anything untoward.

He’d been the epitome of a gentleman.

Wretched beast.

Hopefully this delay would be enough to nudge him into confessing the truth.

That he was Mr. Dishforth.

A few days earlier at Owle Park

“W
as it him or wasn’t it?” Lady Zillah demanded.

Something inside of Daphne—most likely that bit of her that had left more than one relation shaking their head and likening her to Great-Aunt Damaris—refused to yield.

She took a few steps forward and smiled at the lady politely. As if she were a Fitzgerald or a Smythe and not this Seldon crone.

“Pardon, my lady?”

“Harrumph
!” Zillah snorted. “You have Damaris Dale’s pride all over you.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“That was no compliment.”

“I shall take it as one, all the same.”

“Bah! He’s a fool to even glance in your direction. And what’s worse is that you know it.”

Daphne didn’t reply, for even to acknowledge the lady’s accusation was to give it credit.

Where none was deserved or wanted.

Lord Henry! She didn’t know whether to shout with joy or cry her eyes out. She was head over heels in love with him and all but promised to another.

“He’d have none of my advice to leave you be. Quite the opposite, he’s determined to make mischief where it doesn’t belong.”

Meaning with her. With a Dale.

“So I am asking you, since for some folly of a reason Preston will not, to leave Owle Park before you have that boy in knots.” Daphne opened her mouth to protest, but again Zillah obviously had been looking for an opportunity to make this speech and had it all planned out. Thus, she continued unabated, “You will make your curtsy, apologize profusely and leave immediately. I will not see him bedeviled another day.”

“I have no reason to leave. Whatever would I say?” Daphne posed.

“Lie,” the lady said plainly. “You’re a Dale, after all. It should come naturally.”

Daphne sucked in a deep breath, every bit of indignation she possessed coming to the forefront.

While Lady Zillah’s age and rank required Daphne to give the lady every bit of respect she possessed, in her estimation, Lady Zillah deserved none.

But there was no time to utter even the quickest of retorts, for Lady Zillah had turned back to the piano and was gathering up her music sheets. She
tsk tsk’
d over each one. “And after Henry was so kind to make all these notations for me,” she complained, glancing down at the pages she held. “For another time when I won’t be disturbed.”

Then she flounced off with all the arrogance that only the daughter of a duke could possess.

And as she swept past Daphne, her skirt held to one side so as not to even graze a Dale, one of the lady’s music sheets slipped unnoticed from her grasp.

Though not unnoticed by Daphne. Leaning over and snatching it up, she was about to call after her.

Truly she was—not even the wry thought of crumpling the page and tossing it after the old witch’s head had lasted overly long—that is, until she looked at the page, heavily annotated as it was.

Daphne stilled and gaped down at the bold, broad, sure hand that had written all over Lady Zillah’s music sheets.

A script Daphne knew all-too-well.

For not only did it belong to Lord Henry but it also belonged to another.

Mr. Dishforth.

Back on the road to Gretna

S
o Daphne hadn’t dashed out of the inn in a wild state, determined to save “poor Dishforth” as she’d professed.

She’d done it to force Lord Henry’s hand. To get him to confess the truth. Declare himself.

Because until he did so, how could she?

And now here she was, nearly to the Scottish border, ruined beyond redemption, and not one word had Lord Henry uttered. Oh, this had become a ruinous, ridiculous farce.

One of your own making, Daphne Dale.

And worse yet, it seemed the lie that was Dishforth’s elopement had spread up and down the road that led to Gretna Green.

Every inn they stopped at, every posting house, every tollgate, there was some new addition to the story . . .

The beauty of Dishforth’s faux bride-to-be.

The man’s kindness and gallantry toward his lady love.

And his extravagance.
Buying pints all around in one inn to toast his good fortune. Tipping the posting lads ungodly amounts to hasten their dash to Scotland.

Daphne and Henry always seemed to have “just missed the pair.”

Funny, that. Ridiculous lies, all of them. But every time one of these bouncers landed in their lap, she watched for Lord Henry’s reaction, for surely now he would say or do something.

But each time he listened attentively and did nothing.

Daphne ground her teeth together. Whenever was he going to put an end to all this? She couldn’t imagine it would be much longer, for at least she’d had the presence of mind to actually pack a valise.

She’d gone down to the inn outside of Owle Park half expecting him to make a full accounting of himself and then beg her to elope.

And when he hadn’t, and he and the innkeeper and that terrible boy—goodness, whoever had thought to include such a wretched liar in their plans?—had gone on about Dishforth’s departure, she’d had no choice but to force his hand.

And instead of telling the truth, he’d gone along with her madcap scheme.

For what reason, she couldn’t fathom. Not once had Lord Henry looked ready to confess during these last few days, not when it meant wearing the same clothes day after day or even when he’d had to subject himself to the ministrations of whatever hapless servant could be pressed into duty as “his lordship’s temporary valet.”

She almost pitied him, for the shave he’d gotten this morning looked as if it might have been done by a blind man.

Nicked, battered and rumpled, and still he wouldn’t confess.

And whyever not? She’d spent nearly every waking minute trying to answer that one question.

What was it Lady Zillah had said about him?
You are too nice by half. Respectable and kindhearted.

Was he not telling her the truth—that he was Dishforth—simply because, as a man of honor, he wanted to avoid hurting her?

Or might it be a way of avoiding a scene when she discovered his deception?

Certainly she was avoiding the moment when he discovered she’d known of his duplicity all this time and could well have put her foot down . . . including saving him from that butchering barber . . .

One thing was for certain: it made little sense that Lord Henry was attempting to avoid marrying her by running off with her all the way to Gretna Green.

Which left her right back at the beginning of this terrible muddle, to the one possibility that tended to haunt her in the middle of the night:

What if he was simply waiting for her to cry off? To beg him to turn the carriage around and take her back?

Waiting for her to disavow Dishforth so they could return to Owle Park, where she would be whisked away by her family in a complete state of ruin and he could go about his normal existence—his Seldon reputation affirmed and no one overly shocked as to his hand in all this.

After all, he was a Seldon and allowed a few scandals.

And her? Well, she’d be ruined and shuttled off to the farthest reaches a Dale could travel.

Yet when Daphne looked at Lord Henry, or caught him studying her—on those rare moments when he thought she wouldn’t catch him—she felt, oh, how she wondered how he could remain silent.

If only . . . if only . . . he’d kiss her again.

Then she’d be able to know . . . she was sure of that.

But he hadn’t tried. Not once in these past few days.

Apparently such mischief was only for the confines of Owle Park.

She glanced down the now empty road and sighed. At least they had the basket the innkeeper’s wife had packed for them this morning—even though they hadn’t ordered one. The thoughtful lady had insisted, saying that it was impossible to know what was ahead but anything could be faced better with a full stomach.

So Daphne had accepted the proffered basket gratefully.

Looking back, one might suspect the lady had known what was in store for them.

But how could she have known? Ridiculous, romantic notion, really.

As if the entire Manchester-to-Glasgow road was conspiring for them to fall in love.

Fall in love.
Too late, she would have told them all.

Glancing over at Lord Henry, where he was bent beside a hedge examining something—she frowned, for romance was in very short supply on this misguided and unwitting elopement.

But when he turned around, she realized how wrong she was. In his hands, Lord Henry held a fistful of forget-me-nots.

He walked over to her—well, a Seldon never just walked, they had this way of striding about as if the very soil beneath their boots was theirs to command.

He handed the flowers over without so much as a word, and she took them.

Now he’s going to confess,
she thought, biting her bottom lip in anticipation.
Now he will finally tell me.

And she dared to look up.

The moment their gazes met, it was so magical—wasn’t it to him?—that it left her trembling. Her heart hammered, her throat went dry, her every limb was a-shiver, as if calling out to him to sweep her into his eager grasp.

But once again, Daphne found herself disappointed.

“Yes, well,” he began, before he turned from her, took up the basket and headed over to the low stone wall by the side of the road. He nodded toward the flowers clenched in her hand. “Perhaps those will last until we reach Gretna. They can be your wedding bouquet when you find Dishforth.”

Like the music sheet back at Owle Park, the forget-me-nots very nearly ended up being tossed at a Seldon’s head.

Very nearly.

Since Lord Henry had made off with the basket, she had no choice but to follow. He’d climbed over the stile and plunked down in a spot under the large oak and was plundering the basket like a pirate by the time she joined him.

“Ah, tarts!” he exclaimed as if he’d just found a cache of Spanish doubloons.

Tarts
. The rogue. He knew those were enough to lure her closer. Spread about was a tin—tea, most likely—along with apples, a wedge of cheese and a small round loaf of bread.

“Come sit,” he bid her. “The view is most excellent.”

It was. The Cumbrian countryside rolled all around them, with a scattering of green trees here and there, while the lush green meadows carpeted the valley before them.

“He’s a fool, you know,” Lord Henry told her as she sat down. “To have eloped with the wrong woman.” He handed her a tart.

As she broke it into pieces, she mused that Dishforth wasn’t the only fool.

“He was deceived,” she replied. “Poor Dishforth is not a worldly sort.” She smiled fondly into the distance, as if dreaming of her simple, foolish lover. When she glanced back, she found Lord Henry’s brow furrowed.

“He’s what?”

“Not very worldly, not whatsoever,” she told him most emphatically, liking the way her words made his eye twitch ever-so-slightly with indignation whenever she praised Dishforth’s less than stellar qualities. “He’s a sensible man, but he’s also overly romantic, which, I suspect, is why he was so susceptible to this Jezebel who has him in her clutches.” She clucked her tongue at the injustice of it all. “However, I don’t fault him for it.”

“You don’t?” Lord Henry looked up from the apple he was eating.

“No, not in the least.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out a letter. “Just listen to this—” Daphne read the lines from a poem inscribed there.

“I find that most well put,” Lord Henry told her, sounding just a tad too defensive.

“Yes, but—” She paused and sighed.

He sat up a bit. “But what?”

“Well, those lines are hardly original,” she confided, carefully folding the letter.