And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake (7 page)

“Traitor,” Daphne whispered.

“Again, not my feud,” Harriet replied with a shrug.

Meanwhile, Tabitha stood there, arms crossed and slipper tapping impatiently.

“Oh, bother both of you!” Daphne said. “Yes, I promise.”

“I do not know what has come over you,” Harriet scolded as she had to tug Daphne back into their ambling pace around the room. “I thought you’d come to like Preston . . .”

But Daphne wasn’t really listening. She was taking one last scan of the crowd around them for any man who might possibly be Mr. Dishforth. Much to her chagrin she found her wandering led her right back to one man. Lord Henry.

Ah, yes, there he was, having moved on from his previous conquest of Miss Lantham to charming a pair of impressionable and utterly innocent twins.

“Harrumph
.” Daphne shook her head as the girls took turns fluttering their fans and batting their lashes in hopes that Lord Henry could discern one from the other.

Not that he would probably care.

“Which of you is Lucinda and which is Lydia? No, don’t tell me. I prefer to guess.”

“Giggle.”

“Giggle.”

“Hmm. I believe it could take a man an entire lifetime to discern between the two of you.”

“You aren’t making up the conversation again, are you?” Harriet asked over Daphne’s shoulder.

Daphne blushed a little. “No.”

“Yes, you are,” Harriet contradicted.

“I might be,” Daphne conceded as the dialogue continued unabated inside her head.

“Ah, the problem with twins is that I find it hardly fair that I must choose.”

“Must you, Lord Henry?”

“Oh, aye. Must you choose?”

“I don’t even want to know what is going on in that diabolical mind of yours,” Harriet avowed, shaking her head.

Daphne glanced around the room. “I would like to know where their mother might be, for she’s left them utterly unguarded.”

“Perhaps they are not here in London with their mother.”

“Then a companion? Or a maiden aunt?” Daphne turned to her friend. “You have no idea what he is capable of.”

“And you do?” Harriet asked, as if she would like Daphne to enlighten her.

Which she was not going to do. Notching up her chin, Daphne turned her gaze back at the identical pair, look-alikes right down to their matching gowns and gloves. Oh, bother, there must be, at the very least, a guardian nearby, perhaps one with a penchant for pistols.

For if Lord Henry was called out, then sadly she would have to forgo the pleasure of partnering him for the supper dance.

“He hardly seems as bad as you would like me to believe,” Harriet said, nudging into Daphne’s reverie, one that had Lord Henry face down on a grassy meadow, with the retort of a pistol still echoing through the early morning shadows.

Daphne turned to argue but just as quickly bit back her remarks. For if she was to point out that Lord Henry Seldon had spent the entire evening prowling about the ballroom, dancing with every woman he could charm—which was any bit of muslin his lustful gaze fell upon—Harriet would only too gleefully point out the obvious.

Whyever were you watching him if you know he isn’t the man you want . . . ? Unless . . .

Unless nothing!

And luckily for her, now that she knew exactly who he was, she was quite immune to his charms.

Unlike that silly pair of girls who stood there, gazing up at that handsome, roguish son of a duke with stars in their eyes.

“Oh, Lord Henry, say that again . . .”

“Oh, yes, Lord Henry, tell us that witty story over and over . . .”

Daphne would never be so misled, not again. Not by him.

“Brace yourself if you are determined to be stubborn about all this,” Harriet warned. “Here he comes.”

“Why must I dance with him?”

“Because Tabitha is our dearest friend. And we will not have her happiness marred in any way whatsoever,” Harriet said as both a reminder and a bit of scold. “And it is only one dance.”

Yet for some reason, that thought—one dance—made Daphne’s heart beat a little faster, her insides quake and tighten.

Ridiculous, truly. Quite insensible.

“Oh, don’t look like that,” Harriet was saying. “It scrunches up your brow in the most unbecoming way—you look older than Miss Fielding.”

Daphne immediately smiled, for Tabitha’s sake and so as to avoid any further unflattering comparisons, especially since Miss Fielding was three years her senior. It would never do to be thought of as that ancient and still unmarried.

Even if she was from Kempton.

“Do make the best of it,” Harriet continued. “Show these Seldons that the Dales possess all the manners and grace you keep declaring is the difference between your families. Besides, you know not who else might be watching you.”

Daphne stilled. But of course! Dishforth! Perhaps he was here still—or had been delayed and was even now set to arrive. Oh, yes, he’d been delayed. That was it. Nor would he find her scowling like an old maid, even when faced with Lord Henry’s glowering visage, which made him resemble some stone-carved mythical beast.

Albeit a rather handsome one.

Daphne buttoned down her resolve, as well as the odd rabble of passions he evoked. One dance. That was all.

And the supper . . .

Clearly Lord Henry found this situation as distasteful as she did, for he did nothing to hide the disdain in his glance.

So why was it, as she stared into his stormy gaze, that all she could think of was a line from one of Dishforth’s early letters?

We are all bound by our lot, by tradition, are we not, Miss Spooner? But don’t you long to be free of it all? Free to choose? Free to dance where you may?

Dance where you may . . .
She would dance with Lord Henry—under duress—but very soon she would find Mr. Dishforth, and they would dance where they may and no one would naysay her choice ever again.

“Miss Hathaway,” Lord Henry said, bowing low to Harriet. As he rose, he sent a scant glance at Daphne. “Miss Dale.”

The greeting came out in a tone one might use upon finding a beggar curled up on one’s front step.

Ignoring his complete lack of manners—truly, what did she expect?—Daphne pasted a bright smile on her face, the most regal tilt to her chin and sent a slight flutter of lashes at Lord Henry, if only to disarm him.

She was, after all, a Dale.

“Lord Henry,” she replied with a mixture of bright charm and an equal dose of disdain.

Harriet cringed, having recognized the same polite, yet terse, tones Daphne took when she locked horns with Miss Fielding over some point of order in their weekly meetings at the Society for the Temperance and Improvement of Kempton.

“I believe we are expected to begin this dance,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the parties forming. “But, if you . . .”

Daphne shot a glance at Harriet to see if she had heard the implication behind Lord Henry’s statement.

If you refuse me, Miss Dale, it will not break my heart.

Unfortunately for Daphne, Harriet stood stonily at her side, an ever-present reminder, her conscience, per se, that she was not allowed to give in to what she wanted more than anything.

To avoid this dance.

“Apparently it is a Seldon tradition,” she said, reminding him that this was not a situation of her making. It was a slippery slope, a moral equivocation.

She didn’t dare glance over at Harriet, but she heard all too clearly her snort of derision.

No, Harriet wasn’t buying her dissembling in the least.

“Yes, tradition,” he agreed, sounding no more pleased about it than she. “Are we not all bound by it?”

Daphne stilled. Good heavens, he almost sounded like . . .

Then Lord Henry did her the favor of proving himself utterly unworthy of the title of Dishforth, dispelling any further comparisons.

“Well, shall we get this over with?” he asked as the music started.

Get this over with?
Daphne wrenched herself out of her woolgathering and let the full impact of his words come to rest.
Get this over with?
Why, she’d never been so insulted. He should be so lucky to be able to dance with a Dale.

And she would show him just how lucky he was.

H
olding Miss Daphne Dale, Henry quickly surmised, was akin to holding a rosebush.

One with a generous portion of thorns that had previously been hidden beneath her beauty.

If only she wasn’t so demmed pretty. That was the real problem, Henry told himself. Lithe and fair, Miss Dale’s gown—some tempting creation of silk that clung to her every curve and left her looking like one of the Three Graces come to life—was enough to make any man mad with desire.

And how ironic that it was red. He nearly shuddered. Now every time he tried to envision his Miss Spooner, all that came to mind was this tempting chit.

Worse, the supper dance had them hedged in—for nearly everyone was dancing. Even Roxley’s old aunt, Lady Essex, was being squired about the floor by some aging gallant.

So here he was, forced to dance with an utterly desirable lady, one who would most likely leave him pricked and bleeding by the time the musicians got out the last note.

Certainly the expression on her face suggested that such a fate would not be beyond her means.

He tried smiling in the face of his predicament.

“You needn’t feign any affection you do not feel, Lord Henry. Not for my sake,” the blunt little snip told him.

So much for putting her at ease in hopes she might rein back the worst of her thorns.

“Affection is hardly the word I would use,” he replied, not caring that he was being an ass. Besides, he had a few choice things he could say about her behavior earlier.

“Then may I be frank?” she asked.

As if she wasn’t planning on being so anyway. He just nodded, for it was a rather ridiculous question.

“Lord Henry, you know who I am, and I know
what
you are—”

What
he was? Of all the rude, presumptuous—

“Well, yes, I am under no delusions that you, as a Seldon, cannot help your predilection to vice and debauchery—”

Him? He was the most sensible Seldon who had ever borne the name, yet, holding this impossible miss, this woman who had more charms than a lady deserved, he had the insensible urge to take up Preston’s newly retired rakish mantle and prove Miss Dale right.

That he was truly a Seldon. A rake of the first order. Might send her scurrying back to Kennels . . . No, Kempling . . . Oh, bother, whatever that village of spinsters she’d come from. Well, they could have her back with his blessing.

Perhaps he could take up the matter in Parliament and see about having a wall constructed around the village so no more of its ladies descended upon London.

“—so let us make the best of this situation, and when this evening is over, we can go our separate ways,” she said, as if that settled everything neatly and properly.

As if she’d been the paragon of virtue and he the devil incarnate.

Then, to make things worse—if one could imagine this entire tangle going much further down the well—he detected what could only have been a shudder running through her limbs.

Whatever did she have to shudder about?

He straightened slightly, ruffled by her implications, for they pricked at his pride. He’d spent his entire life being tarred with the Seldon brush—that he must be a rake, that he must be inclined to vice, and he had thought he’d risen above such implications.

“Miss Dale, believe me when I say I am merely trying to make the best of this situation,” he told her, smiling this time for the sake of Aunt Zillah Seldon, who looked ready to storm the dance floor and pluck Henry from these ghastly straits.

Good heavens, she was in her eighties and could barely cross the room without her cane, let alone manage to weave and wind her way through an entire floor full of swaying couples.

Then he glanced down and realized he hardly appeared the willing gentleman—he had Miss Dale out nearly at arm’s reach and was dancing with the measured grace of a twelve-year-old lad.

While Miss Dale, despite his clod-footed handling, moved with the grace of a lady born.

A lady, indeed. He’d show one and all what sort of
ladies
the Dales produced.

As they swung around the next turn, Henry hitched her up close. Scandalously close.

Miss Dale’s mouth opened in a wide moue, and her brows? They now arched like a pair of cats on points.

Well, she did assume him to be quite the rake. And he hated to disappoint a lady.

Ignoring her outraged expression or her attempt to step from his grasp, he said, “I know that Miss Timmons is ever so disappointed that you will not be attending the wedding.” He smiled as if the very idea was certainly not breaking his heart.

“Yes, well, we both know that such a thing is impossible,” she replied, not at all looking at him.

“Quite so, which makes your attendance this evening ever so surprising.”

“It was a last-minute decision,” she told him. “For Tabitha’s sake.” Then she glanced away, as if she could wish herself halfway to Scotland rather than be here. In his arms.

Henry rather liked her dismay. Served her right. Coming here and pretending to be . . . Well, never mind that. . . . After all, he’d been only her first in a long string of conquests this evening. He’d seen how she’d taken great delight in accepting nearly every gentleman who’d asked her to dance and then summarily dismissing them after.

Not that he’d been watching her. Not in the least.

“Ahem,” she coughed.

He glanced down at her and wished he hadn’t. For here she was, all blue eyes and fair complexion. And how hadn’t he noticed before that delicate spray of freckles on her nose? So very kissable and so tempting.

“Yes, Miss Dale?” he managed.

“Must you hold me so close?”

He leaned a bit to one side and studied his own stance for a second. “Am I?”

“Yes,” she complained, followed by a stony glance that said what the lady refused to say in public.
Let me go, you great pondering ape.