And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake (4 page)

Henry shuddered at the thought of such foolishness and was about to make his excuses when he did a double take at the earl.

A man about Town.

Good heavens, Roxley was just the man to help him, for the earl was a regular font of knowledge when it came to the
ton,
especially as to the ladies.

More to the point, finding one.

So Henry brightened a bit. It was, after all, Roxley and Preston who had placed that demmed ad in the first place; now Roxley could help him finish the matter. Ironic and fitting.

“How nice to see you, old man,” Henry said, trying to smile.

“Of course,” the earl replied, slapping Henry on the back as if that was their usual form of greeting. “Have I missed anything?”

“Wouldn’t know,” Henry told him. “I just arrived.”

“You?” Roxley declared, taking a second long look at Henry. “Rather out of character, my good man.”

Truer words. There was a lot about Henry that was out of character of late. Because of her. Miss Spooner.

The earl continued. “Preston mentioned you’d been skulking about recently. Asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“Me?” Henry shook his head. “I never skulk.”

“So I told Preston,” Roxley avowed. “But here you are, prowling about the edges of your own ballroom. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were looking for someone.”

Oh, good God! Was it that obvious? Still, Henry tried to brazen it out. “Whyever would you say such a thing?”

And then Roxley—who usually appeared half-seas over and made little to no sense—became all too sharp-eyed, rather like that harridan aunt of his, Lady Essex. “Why because you’ve checked the door three times in as many minutes, and you’ve surveyed the dance floor twice. Who is she?”

“No one,” Henry tried. “You must be—”

“My dear man, don’t try and flummox me. I make my living telling bouncers. Who is she?” And then he stood there, poised and ready for Henry’s confession.

Henry pressed his lips together, for certainly he hadn’t told a living soul what he’d done—answering that letter and engaging in a correspondence with some ridiculously named chit, Miss Spooner. At least Henry hoped that wasn’t her real name.

Nor did he want to make a confession to the likes of Roxley. Yet something was different about the earl tonight. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t arrived in a cloud of brandy, and the man’s eyes were sharp and clear.

“I . . . that is . . .” Henry began.

Roxley held up a hand to stave him off. “Will have to wait. There’s my aunt. In full sail with Lady Jersey in her wake.” He shuddered. “I’m doomed if that pair catches me.” He edged into the alcove behind them, then opened the door to the gardens just wide enough to slip out. “Good luck with your search. I fear I must step out for the time being.” He went to leave but then turned around and added, “A word of advice—whatever it is you were about to confide, don’t tell your sister.” He nodded across the way and then was gone.

Henry glanced in that direction and spied Hen and Preston engaged in what appeared to be a terse conversation. Most likely a continuation of the debate he’d interrupted earlier this morning. Even as it played out once again in his thoughts, he still couldn’t believe what his family expected of him.

“P
reston, the only solution is to see that he doesn’t meet her. Not right away.” Then Hen had glanced up and found Henry standing in the doorway and her mouth had snapped shut.

“Who doesn’t meet whom?” he’d asked.

Hen cringed, but to her credit, she recovered quickly as she shared a glance with Preston that said all too clearly,
Do not say another word.

Why was it, when Hen was conspiring, she seemed to forget that they were twins, and, as such, he knew all her tricks? Henry had no doubt exactly who was one of the parties that was to be kept separated.

Him.

But what lady Hen was trying to keep him from? Usually his sister was dragging all sorts of debutantes and misses and Lady Most-Excellently-Bred past him for his inspection.

Now there was a woman she didn’t want him to meet? She would have managed to pique his curiosity if not for his overriding passion to discover the identity of Miss Spooner. Still, it wouldn’t do to let Hen think she’d managed to gain the upper hand.

Not this time.

“Come now, Hen, are you saying that some breathtaking Incognito is going to be in our home tonight and you don’t want me to take up with her?” Henry winked broadly at Preston.

“Nothing of the sort,” Hen informed him.

Henry’s gaze narrowed as Preston and Hen exchanged a pair of guilty glances.

“Out with it,” he told them, folding his arms across his chest. “You know how I deplore surprises.”

“You tell him,” Hen ordered Preston. As the oldest (having arrived mere minutes earlier than Henry), she thought it her right to delegate the worst of whatever needed to be done.

“Me?” Preston shook his head, exercising his position as head of the family. “It would be best coming from you.”

Hen wasn’t so easily cowed, and had her argument at the ready, even as she made her literal escape by crossing the room to the sideboard. “It won’t be best any way around it. Besides, she is your responsibility. Certainly not mine.”

This was followed by a discerning little sniff, the one Hen made when she discovered herself straying into lowly waters. Having been born the daughter of a duke, his sister was not one to step down from her lofty perch of privilege willingly.

Henry turned back to Preston, brow cocked and waiting for a response.

Steeling his shoulders, Preston came out with it. “One of our guests tonight is a Dale—”

Henry barked out a laugh. A Dale! How utterly preposterous. And he continued to laugh until he realized neither his nephew or sister were joining him. “You’re jesting,” he’d said to Preston, giving him a slight punch in the arm.

He must be.

Preston sighed. “No.” There was nothing in his stony expression that might hint at a late or belabored joke.

Then again, this wasn’t something a Seldon would find amusing.

“But she cannot—” Henry began.

“She is—”

“Here? Tonight? Are you certain she’s a—” Henry couldn’t bring himself to say it. Utter that wretched name.

Hen suffered no such lack of conscience. “A Dale. Yes, that is the point. We are to have a Dale in our midst, and apparently we had best get used to it.” This was finished with a wrinkle of her nose and a pointed glance at Preston, which meant the blame lay squarely at his feet.

“What a pile of nonsense,” Henry told them. “Turn her away.” Never mind that he couldn’t believe she’d even dare set foot in this house.

She might be a Dale, but both Seldon and Dale knew better than to mix.

Yet Preston shocked Henry when he said in reply, “I fear it is not that easy. I am slightly indebted to Miss Dale—”

Henry stilled and then shook off such a notion. “Indebted? Now you are joking—”

“No, I’m not—” Preston added. Emphatically. Too much so.

“It is as Preston says,” Hen added. “A most unfortunate situation.” She turned to Preston. “I am glad Father isn’t here to see this day. Inviting a Dale to our house! Unthinkable.”

One word stood out in Henry’s mind.
Invited
?

“You don’t mean—” he began to stammer.

“Yes, I fear we do,” Hen replied with the air of one who’d stepped into something while exiting her barouche. “Preston insisted she be invited to the ball tonight and . . .” His sister looked to be attempting to swallow the words lodged in her throat. Instead, they came out in a rush. “And the house party.”

“Noooo!” Henry gasped, rounding on the duke. Head of the household be damned, this was beyond the pale. “Preston, you cannot—”

But apparently Preston could. And then the rest of the truth had come tumbling out. She was Tabitha’s dearest friend—and here Henry had thought the vicar’s daughter quite respectable. Then worse yet, the news that this Dale chit was standing up with Tabitha at the wedding.

“Which means . . .” Preston began, slanting another guilty glance at Hen.

As if she might help him. Instead, Hen made a loud, indignant “
harrumph”
and washed her hands of the entire affair.

“I have to dance with her,” Henry had ground out. Oh, there were many things Henry was not, at least in the eyes of his Seldon relations—a rake of the first order was one of them—but he was an expert on Seldon family history and tradition.

And even now, all these hours later, Henry knew he was bound by honor to do as he was asked.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

Looking across the ballroom at Preston and Hen, Henry frowned. He had no choice but to dance with this Miss Dale. But to his benefit, he still had two hours in which to find his Miss Spooner, her recent words luring him into the crowd.

Do you ever look across a room and wonder if I am there, so close at hand, and yet unseen?

Henry paused and turned to search the faces of the sad little array of leftover wallflowers lining the ballroom walls, but none of them seemed to fit the image he’d fixed in his mind.

Miss Spooner, where the devil are you?
he thought as he waded into the crush, her words swirling through his thoughts.

Do you think we will ever truly meet? Do we dare? Mr. Dishforth, I want ever so much to meet you, yet . . . I fear you might be disappointed in me. . . .

Yes, he understood that sentiment. For while their correspondence had been of a sensible nature—favorite books, taste in music, current politics—it had been easy to put off a face-to-face meeting. For all he knew he could be exchanging letters with one of Roxley’s maiden aunts . . . or Roxley himself, given the earl’s perverse sense of humor.

Yet in the last sennight everything had taken a decidedly different turn.

One that could hardly be deemed sensible.

I laid awake last night and wondered how we might meet.

He hadn’t meant those words as anything other than a passing comment, until she’d replied.

I too. In the wee hours before dawn, I found myself drawn to the window, parting the curtains and wondering which roof might be yours. Under which eaves you slept. Where I might find you . . .

The very vision of this intriguing minx searching him out in the last hours of darkness had left him with more than just a restless night.

He’d written her specifically about his attendance at this ball. That he wanted to see her wearing red (for she’d professed it her favorite color) and that he would find her.

Glancing over at Preston again, buttonholed as he was by Hen, he decided not to rescue his nephew after all. Instead he began his search for Miss Spooner.

If he found her before the supper dance, this wretched Miss Dale could go hang for all he cared. Tradition or no.

All he had to do was hope that Miss Spooner—whatever her real name—had been invited, though it seemed that every member of the
ton
still left in London was crammed into their ballroom.

But all too soon he realized his search might not be as simple as he’d once thought. For as it turned out, it seemed half the ladies in the
ton
had taken his suggestion “to wear red.”

Red muslin. Red silk. Even a red velvet. Red in every hue.

“Good God!” he muttered. Then again, how was he to have known red was the most popular color of the Season? That was what came of having a sister who was perpetually in widow’s weeds. A man had no sense of fashionable colors save black, gray, and her current choice of mauve.

He continued through the room, nodding in greeting to friends and acquaintances alike, rather amused that not a month ago most everyone in this room had turned their backs on the Seldon family over Preston’s antics.

Now the duke’s engagement to the very respectable Miss Timmons had erased years of misdeeds in the eyes of Society.

Henry shook his head. He’d never understand the fickle nature of . . .

His thought went unfinished, for in that moment, the crowd parted and his gaze fell on a young lady across the way—a lithesome vision he’d never seen or met, wearing red silk, a mane of pale blonde hair tumbling down to her bare shoulders in a tempting waterfall of curls.

Then this unknown vision turned, as if tugged by his very examination, and looked at him.

Her eyes widened, just a bit, and then she smiled. Ever so slightly, and he felt as if he’d been harpooned, struck down as it were, the haunting lines from one of Miss Spooner’s latest missives echoing through his stricken thoughts.

Mr. Dishforth, I am taken aback by your words, your unfettered desires. I know not what to say. But when we meet, I have no doubt I will find the words and the means to express my affection for you.

Henry tried to breathe, but apparently when one met their destiny, one stopped breathing.

Good God! It had to be her. Miss Spooner.

He didn’t know how he knew it, but he did. His elusive little minx, with her tart replies and her winsome secrets, was here. Standing across the ballroom.

Practical to a fault, Henry didn’t care how the Fates had done this, just that they had, and he wasn’t going to let something as ethereal as chance or serendipity steal her away before he could.

Lord Henry, the most respectable and sensible Seldon who ever lived, suddenly found his inner rake and strode across the ballroom.

However, it was one thing to discover one could be rakish, and quite another to pull it off.

For when he came face-to-face with the lady, he hadn’t a single notion of what to say.

What if she wasn’t Miss Spooner? Demmed if he was going to make an ass of himself.

Still, what if she was?

There was only one way to find out.

So beyond all propriety, and all good manners, he simply bowed. And when he straightened, he said the only thing that came to mind.

“May I have this dance?”

Chapter 2

Your words, Miss Spooner, dare I say it, your confession, have me captivated. I long to find you—though we have promised not to do so until we both desired it thusly. Instead I spend my nights searching for you in the only way I can, prowling every ball, soirée, even the theater, God help me—hoping for a meeting that would instead be in the hands of the Fates, so that I might take your fingers in my grasp and raise them to my lips and whisper for you and your ears only, “At last, my dearest Miss Spooner, we meet.”

A letter from Mr. Dishforth to Miss Spooner

“M
ay I have this dance?

Daphne nodded—for how could she speak?

She, Miss Daphne Dale, the most practical spinster to have ever come out of Kempton, found herself stricken with the most formidable ailment a lady could suffer.

Love at first sight.

It isn’t love,
she tried telling herself, for she couldn’t even be certain this man was the one she sought.

But no matter, this was the gentleman her heart wanted, her body seemed to recognize without even the most sensible of reasons.

Why, it was a ridiculous notion, and yet . . .

She set her hand on his sleeve, her fingers trembling slightly until they came to rest on the wool of his jacket. There, beneath the smooth fabric and the linen shirt beyond, lay hidden the solid warmth of his muscled arm.

No dandy, no slight fool, this one. The same shiver that had run through her when she’d first read Dishforth’s advertisement in the paper once again stole down her spine, like a harbinger, the coursing notes of a spring robin.

Here I am,
it sang.

Falling in step beside him, Daphne moved toward the dance floor in a bit of a daze. Whatever was she to say? However could she ask him if he was Dishforth? Never mind that she was accepting his request for a dance without the benefit of a proper introduction.

And when she slanted a glance up at him, this handsome rake with his stone-cut jaw, a tawny mane of golden brown hair, and deep, dark blue eyes that held a potent light, she just knew he must be the man she’d been destined to discover this spellbound night.

For when Daphne looked again, her errant imagination took over, and all she could envision was this rake tipping his head down to steal a kiss from her lips.

In his arms, she’d be unable to resist. His lips would touch hers, and the very thought left her insides coiled with a longing that she’d never experienced.

He, and he alone, would know how to unravel this knot, with his kiss, with his touch . . . his fingers undoing the laces of her chemise . . .

Daphne nearly stumbled. Whatever was wrong with her?

Then the music struck up, and he took her hand in his, while his other wound possessively around her hip. His touch sent shock waves through her, echoing what she’d suspected moments before. . . . This man could put her in knots of desire and then unravel her tangled senses with his touch.

He held her close, and Daphne should have protested . . . might have . . . but tonight seemed so full of promise and adventure that she allowed herself to forget all that was proper and necessary.

What had Dishforth written?

Have you ever wanted to dance where you may?

Yes, she had. So many times. And now she would.

She tucked up her chin, daring anyone to naysay her, and smiled at her partner as he began to swing her through the first notes.

“You are quite daring, Miss . . .” His words trailed off, as if he was waiting for her to give him the introduction he should have sought before asking her to dance.

“Am I?” She certainly wasn’t going to let this magical moment end with the horrible discovery that this wasn’t her Dishforth. He must be, for whyever else would this particular man have her aquiver?

“Yes, you are quite daring.”

Daphne, who had never had a daring moment in her life—up until a few moments ago—felt her insides light up, as if all the candles in London had been illuminated at once.

The man holding her grinned. “Dancing with a man to whom you have not been formally introduced.” There was no censure in his words, only a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. “I could be anyone.”

“Hardly.”

His brows rose, and he made a good effort to appear affronted, yet the light in his eyes said something altogether different. “Hardly? Who am I then?”

“A gentleman,” she replied, for certainly there was something very familiar about his features. As if she knew who he was but couldn’t quite place the face.

“How can you be so certain?” He tugged her a little closer. Closer than was proper, for now she was up against his muscled body, intimately so.

Stilling her pounding heart, Daphne tipped up her chin as if to say he wasn’t going to change her mind. “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”

“You don’t know the Seldons very well or you wouldn’t say that,” he teased.

She laughed—for here was someone who shared her opinions. “You cannot hide who you are,” she told him. “Besides, I have the distinct feeling we’ve met.”

“I don’t see how.”

“What do you mean?”

“I would remember meeting you.” His brow furrowed. “Still, I am at a loss as to how we haven’t met.”

Daphne brightened. Here was an opening to start her queries. “I’ve been in London most of the Season,” she told him, in complete agreement and a bit puzzled as to how this could be. All this time in Town, and how had she not noticed this man? “And you?”

“Yes, of course,” he said with a nonchalant shrug, as if the answer was obvious. “I live here in London.”

Check number one in the “he-is-Dishforth” column.

“You live here?” she repeated, just to be certain.

“Yes, quite close, in fact.” He smiled as if he’d made a joke. Though one that ran right over Daphne’s head, for she was too busy putting a check in the “lives-in-Mayfair” column.

Quite honestly, if Daphne hadn’t fallen in love with the man in the first moment she’d spied him, he was certainly doing his best to secure her affections.

A house in Mayfair . . .
If ever there was a way to a practical girl’s heart.

Daphne couldn’t help herself. She sighed.

“And you?” he prompted.

“Pardon?” she managed. Apparently this sharing of information was going to be
quid pro quo
. Unfortunately, Daphne had been too busy giving in to the speculation that if he had a house in Mayfair, a country estate was most certainly assured. . . .

Daphne bit her lips together to keep from grinning. Truly, she shouldn’t be too obvious.

“Do you live in London?” he repeated.

She shook her head. “No.” When he appeared rather crestfallen over this, she added quickly, “As I said before, I came for the Season. I’ve been here since May.”

This brightened his countenance. “And now that the Season is over?”

“I’ve found reasons to stay.”

“Reasons? Might those reasons be regarding a certain gentleman?”

“They may,” she said, smiling at him.

The man glanced around the room, making a grand show of searching for someone. “Need I worry he’ll arrive and take grave offense to me holding you so close?” As if to prove his point, he moved her even closer.

Oh, good heavens, if Lady Essex found her lorgnette before she found her vinaigrette . . .

“I do believe he is already close at hand,” Daphne advised him.

“Indeed?”

“Indeed,” she told him.

“Is he a gentleman?”

She nodded.

“Like me?”

She smiled, “Yes, most certainly like you.”

“I don’t think we ever truly established that I am indeed a gentleman,” he reminded her.

“I know you are.”

“How so?”

Daphne leaned back a bit and took a critical glance at his ensemble. “A coat reveals everything about a man.”

“It does? What does mine reveal?”

“The cut is excellent but not overly fussy. The wool is expensive and well dyed. The buttons are silver, and the diamond in your stickpin is old. An heirloom, I would venture. Tasteful, but not overly large or showy.”

“Which means?”

“You are no Dandy whose tastes exceed his income. You prefer sensible and well-made over the latest stare. You have an excellent valet, for your coat is perfectly brushed and your cravat well tied. I have no doubt you’re a man of breeding and refinement. A gentleman.”

His eyes widened in amusement. “Indeed?”

“Indeed,” she replied, her insides quaking. Was she flirting? She’d never flirted before in her life. Coming from a family of extraordinary beauties, the sorts who inspired poetry and duels and heated courtships, Daphne had always considered herself quite ordinary. And far too practical to flirt.

But not when this man looked at her.

“You are a forward minx,” he was saying, shaking his head.

“Not in the least,” she shot back. Daphne had to wonder if he was testing her. . . . She raced through all the lines she’d memorized from Dishforth’s letters.

Which meant nearly every one.

Would Dishforth make such an assessment? More so, would he be inclined to like her being brazen?

She truly didn’t need to worry, for this man, this unknown cavalier, leaned down and whispered into her ear, “I find you perfect in every way.”

He lingered there, ever-so-close, as if he might be about to kiss her. If she dared turn her head, tip up her lips, would he?

Already his warm breath was sending shivers down her spine, as if his hands had traced a dangerous line down her back and freed her from the confines of her red silk, leaving her naked to his touch.

Naked? Daphne tried to breathe. What was wrong with her? Dishforth was expecting a sensible, respectable partner.

I opened my window tonight and called to you, softly and quietly, certain the breeze would carry my plea to you. And then I waited. For you to come and stand beneath my sill and implore me to follow you. I would, you know. Follow you. Into the night.

Well, mostly sensible and respectable, she conceded. In her own defense, she’d written those lines far too late into a sleepless night, and after one too many comfits.

They swirled and turned about the dance floor. Near the edge of the crowd, beside that invisible line which divided the dancers from the rest of the crush, stood Tabitha and her beloved Preston.

Daphne and her partner whirled past, and in a blur, she watched first Tabitha’s mouth fall open, then Preston’s.

There wasn’t even time to mouth the words,
I think this is him
. But if the expression on Tabitha’s face, a mixture of amazement and shock, said anything, Daphne felt assured she’d uncovered the man she’d risked so much to find.

Then her partner echoed her very thoughts. “I have been searching for you, my little Miss Conundrum.”

He had?

“You have?” she gasped, then tried desperately to rein in her hammering heart, all the while adding another check to her list.

He’d been looking for her.
If that wasn’t enough evidence . . .

Daphne, don’t get ahead of yourself,
that ever-present voice of reason warned.

“Of course,” he told her. “That is why we needed no introductions.”

None whatsoever,
she mused as she looked into his deep blue eyes, which shone with a rich, dangerous desire for her and her alone.

He was all but telling her who he was.

But not quite.

Straightening, she returned his sally. “I rather thought you had avoided propriety in an attempt to circumvent my chaperone.”

He peered at the edges of the ballroom. “A regular old dragon, is she? I had rather thought the invitation list a tad more exclusive.”

She laughed. “She is well disguised, but don’t say I didn’t advise you. She’s ever so fearsome.”

“I stand warned,” he said, again scanning the room as if he thought to catch sight of this fierce creature.

“Would she have stopped you from asking me to dance?”

His brow furrowed. “How fearsome are we talking? Is she the fire-breathing sort, or just the more common menacing type, all scales and teeth?”

Daphne giggled. “Oh, most decidedly fire-breathing.”

He nodded. “I’ll make a note to fetch my suit of armor before you introduce me.”

She saw her opportunity and leapt in. “And to whom would I be introducing her?”

Yet her partner was just as wily. He shook his head and refused her even a tidbit. “That is up to you to discover, that is if you haven’t guessed.”

“That won’t do,” she told him.

“It won’t? You don’t want to discover who I am?”

“Oh, yes, I would love to know who you are, but it will be ever so difficult to identify you once my chaperone has burnt you to a crisp.”

This made the rogue grin widely. “Then you must endeavor to discover who I am before that unfortunate occurrence, if only to let my family and friends know of my brave demise.”

“And again, whom should I inform?”

“I doubt very much I need to tell you,” he replied. “I daresay you already know who I am.”

“I might,” she admitted.

He leaned down and again his lips were right above the curl of her earlobe. “I knew you in an instant.”

T
he Earl of Roxley edged over and filled the space vacated by Daphne.

Harriet glanced over her shoulder. “My lord.”

“Miss Hathaway.” He smiled at her. “Enjoying your evening?”

Harriet nodded and tamped down the retort that was even now fighting for an airing.

I’d enjoy it far more if you’d ask me to dance, you lowly cur.

Yes, well, unfortunately ladies were not allowed to be honest in their interactions with gentlemen.

Of course that implied she was a lady and Roxley was . . . Well, Roxley was what he was.

He leaned closer. “Twice, Harry?”

She tucked her chin up and ignored the way his words ruffled her spine.

“I’m surprised you noticed, considering you’ve been absent most of the evening. What is it, my lord, a lack of willing widows to hold your interest?”