And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake (22 page)

“I took great pains to appear to advantage tonight, and you find me just amiable?” she complained.

Having Hen for a twin, Henry knew an argument that could not be won from twenty paces.

And this was just such a mire.

“What I meant was—” he tried.

She waved her hand in dismissal. “Never mind.”

Ah, yes. Unwinnable.
But that didn’t mean . . .

“What is so special about tonight?” he asked.

Her steps faltered slightly. “No reason.”

Henry took a glance at her. He hadn’t done business in London all these years not to know when someone was bluffing.

Or had something to hide.

And given the distracted flutter of Miss Dale’s long lashes, he would guess the latter.

But before he could press forward with an inquisition, she turned the tables on him.

“You’ve taken pains tonight as well,” she said, giving him a thorough once-over.

“H-h-hardly,” he faltered.

Miss Dale smirked. “Your cravat is tied in a waterfall, is it not?”

He glanced down at himself. “I suppose it is. Loftus, my valet, rather insisted I—”

“Yes, I suppose so. He must have grown tired of your usual Mailcoach.”

“I allowed it because I truly didn’t think anyone would notice,” he demurred, trying to fob her off. How the devil had she pulled the rug out from beneath him?

But Miss Dale wasn’t done with her perusal. “And your boots. They have extra polish. Perhaps His Grace’s valet did them—for that gloss makes you look quite the Corinthian.”

Henry looked down at his boots as if this was the first he’d noticed them. He’d actually asked Loftus to redo them, which had nearly put his proud valet to tears. “He must have convinced Preston’s valet to share his infamous concoction for boot black.”

“Or he pinched it,” she teased.

“Loftus? He’d quit in shame first!” Henry avowed.

She laughed merrily, and after a few moments, so did Henry.

“If I were a wagering sort,” she mused, “I would say you have done all this in preparation for an assignation tonight.”

Henry came to a blinding halt. “That is utterly ridiculous,” he told her. “Whatever do they teach young ladies in these Bath schools?”

“I wouldn’t know. You will have to ask Miss Nashe—if that is who you are meeting.”

“I’d never—” At least he hoped it wasn’t Miss Nashe. Good God, if it was, he’d be on the first ship out of the London pool.

No matter its destination.

Miss Dale eyed him up and down again. “Yes, there is no doubt in my mind, you are angling to catch some lady’s eye tonight.”

Angling? If anyone was angling . . . “One could say the same of you.” His hands waved at her hair and her gown. “What with all this. Whomever are you fishing for, Miss Dale? Are we all to discover the identity of your most excellent gentleman tonight?”

Touché. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open to protest, but just as quickly snapped shut.

However, Henry’s triumph—and his resolve—were short-lived, for as they continued on down the gallery, Miss Dale came to a blinding halt. “Who is that?” She pointed up at the painting towering on the wall.

“My grandfather,” he told her after taking a closer look. “Actually, I was named after him.”

She drew closer and read the plate on the bottom of the frame. “Henry George Seldon, the seventh Duke of Preston.
Hmmm
. You favor him,” she said, looking at his grandsire and then at him.

Henry took a step back and shuddered. “I should hope not.”

“What do you mean?”

“If family rumors are to be believed, he was a terrible scoundrel. Wild Hal, he was known as,” Henry said, turning from the portrait and the mocking, rakish gaze of the seventh duke.

“Truly? A Seldon who was a scoundrel? Why, I never,” she teased, that light in her eyes glowing with impish delight. As she stepped back to get a better look at the imposing portrait, her skirt brushed against his thigh, reminding him how much she enticed him.

Suggesting that he had more in common with his forebear than he’d ever realized. That was all it took, that ever-so-brief moment, a glance at her, and he was lost.

For there was in her smile and nod of approval evidence that she saw in him that same enticing light that had made the previous Henry Seldon the most notorious courtier of Queen Anne’s court.

Some even said he’d dallied with the old queen herself. Then again, hadn’t Owle Park come into the family about then? And wasn’t Lady Essex encamped in the room known as “The Queen’s Chamber”?

“I am hardly in the same league,” he protested aloud.

Miss Dale shot him a wide-eyed glance, a bit startled by his outburst. After another glance at the seventh duke, she grinned. “In my opinion, the resemblance is uncanny.”

Her words held all the notes of a suggestion. Admiration, even.

But mostly, they held the one thing Henry couldn’t resist. Not from her.

A dare.

Henry turned to her and closed the gap between them. He had every intention of gathering her up in his arms and running away with this tempting miss, but Lord Henry Seldon had yet to master one very important part of being a rake: timing.

“Finally! Someone to help me find the dining room,” came Zillah’s booming voice from behind him. “Confounded place gets me lost every time.”

Then out from behind Henry stepped Miss Dale.

And from the look on his great-aunt’s face, Henry sent up a prayer that the lady didn’t know the way to the armory any better than she did the dining room.

Chapter 11

Tonight, I will find you, my dearest Miss Spooner. And no longer shall we be separated by pen and paper. Nothing will ever keep us apart again.

Found in a letter from Mr. Dishforth to Miss Spooner

I
n the dining room, where the men were enjoying their port and cigars after dinner, Henry heaved a sigh that he’d survived so far. Now all that was left was to escape without too much undo notice.

Though he wouldn’t be surprised to find Zillah outside the door waiting for him.

The look she’d bored into him in the hallway, a combination of guilt and fury that said,
Not her again.
It had been enough of a censure to have him on edge all through dinner.

Lost in thought, he hadn’t even noticed that Preston had wandered over until the duke said in an oft-handed fashion, “What the devil is the matter with you?”

“Me? Why, nothing,” Henry told him, drawing himself up into a composed stance.

At least that was how he was supposed to look.

Preston’s brow arched upward. “Henry, I’ve known you all my life. And you’ve never looked so havey-cavey as you do tonight.” His nephew paused and studied him closer. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you have an assignation in the works.”

“Why does everyone think that tonight?” Henry said far too quickly.

“Aha!” Preston snapped his fingers. “So you do!”

“Ridiculous!” Henry said, resorting to a lawyer’s trick of neither confirming nor denying the truth.

“So who else thinks you’ve got a lady love stashed away above stairs?”

“No one—”

Preston gave him the Seldon stare, a glower that could wrench even a king into confessing his most dire secrets. And while Preston hadn’t quite mastered the dark glance, he was—much to Henry’s dismay—acquiring an admirable knack for it.

“Oh, bother,” Henry complained. “First there was Loftus.”

“Rather telling, my good man,” Preston remarked.

“How so?”

“A valet knows these things. If Loftus believes—”

“Loftus knows nothing.”

Preston’s expression remained for the most part entirely bland. Save for the knowing twinkle in his eyes. “Because there is nothing to know?”

“Exactly.”

Preston snorted. “And who else suggested, besides myself, that you might be engaging in some after-hours entertainments?”

Henry cringed.

“Oh, come now, Henry. You know I’ll ferret it out of you eventually. And if I can’t, a casual, inopportune comment in Hen’s hearing will most likely—”

Good God, no! Not Hen.
Preston wouldn’t dare.

Slanting a glance at the duke, Henry had his answer. Hadn’t he resorted to much the same tactic to rein in Preston’s antics from time to time?

“Miss Dale,” Henry ground out.

Preston’s eyes widened, as if he wasn’t too sure he’d heard him correctly. “Did you say—”

“Yes, I did.”

“And she thinks—”

“Yes.”

“And she said as much?”

Her words came back in haunting clarity.
I would say you have done all this in preparation for an assignation tonight.

Henry nodded.

“Why that saucy, shocking little minx,” Preston said, shaking his head. “These chits from Kempton, egads, they have the most forward manners. Say whatever occurs to them.”

“Who are you to complain? You brought them into this house by agreeing to marry one of them.”

The duke grinned. “So I did.”

Henry hoped that was the end of the matter.

Of course it wasn’t. This was Preston, after all, and he was rather enjoying his new role as a reformed rake.

Rather too much.

“So who is it you are meeting—because I must say, you are going about it in all the wrong way. In over your head, if I were to judge.” Preston leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

Henry took a sip of the brandy, then, remembering its potency, he set down his glass.

If he was going to muddle his way through all this, it wouldn’t help his cause to be, well, muddled.

“Come now, Henry, you’ve been as secretive as a cat of late. Haunting the post, up all night composing letters, hardly commenting when I wagered at White’s the other night—”

“I’ve had an inordinate amount of business to attend to, what with—” Henry paused. “Just a moment, you were wagering at White’s?”

“Never mind that,” Preston demurred. “I want to go back to this ‘business’ of yours. That is what you’re calling it?
Business
? Really, Henry, if you are going to be a Seldon, then at least you call it what it is.”

“And what is it?”

“An assignation. An affair. A mistress.” Preston grinned. And if Henry didn’t know better, he’d say it was with a bit of familial pride.

“It isn’t that at all,” Henry said, once again resorting to a solicitor’s meandering ways. “Besides, I’ve had mistresses in the past.”

Preston sighed, looking a bit bored. “Yes, but you’ve hardly ever been in a fix over one of them.”

“I am not in ‘a fix.’ ”

“So you keep saying, but let us look at the facts.” Preston held up one hand. “Late nights.” He ticked off one finger. “Haunting the salver.” Another fell. “And composing business letters that should be the domain of your secretary, but for whatever reason you are insisting on composing them yourself so they remain private.” The third finger went down, and it was as if a spark lit inside the duke as he tallied the facts at hand.

Henry watched in horror as the duke silently mouthed that last word again, as if testing it.
Private
.

Preston shook his head. “No. That advertisement! Oh, you didn’t?! It cannot be.”

Without a ducal glare to call upon or the practiced gambler’s instincts to help him, Henry’s expression must have given Preston every bit of confirmation he needed.

He caught Henry by the elbow and towed him to the other side of the room, well out of earshot. “Tell me you didn’t answer one of those demmed lonely hearts letters.”

Gone was the mocking light in Preston’s eyes, his larkish demeanor having fled. Panic marked his every word.

Because for all their teasing and ribbing back and forth, they were family. And they were all they had.

And Henry knew this, even as he suddenly longed to confide in someone. Because it was exactly as Preston had said: he was in over his head.

Not just with the letters and Miss Spooner. There was Miss Dale as well.

“I had no intention—” he began.

Preston paled. Actually grew a bit white. His mouth opened as if he had something to say, but nothing came out.

Henry couldn’t have shocked his nephew more if he had claimed to have taken up with the Princess Royal.

“But it isn’t like you think,” he continued hastily on.
In for a penny, in for a pound . . .

“Hen doesn’t—” Preston began.

“No!” Henry shuddered.

“Yes, of course not. If she knew, she would have wrung your neck by now.” Preston scratched his chin and drew a deep breath. “Tell me everything.”

Knowing this was the best course, Henry spilled the entire story, starting from the moment the letter had fallen from the basket until he’d arrived at his present predicament.

Though he left out everything to do with Miss Dale. There was confession, and then there was finding oneself being carted off to Bedlam.

And Henry knew the difference.

“Do you know which of the ladies it is?”

“That’s just it,” Henry confessed. “I haven’t the slightest notion.” So this wasn’t quite the truth either. He could hardly tell Preston that he suspected it was Daphne Dale.

Rather hoped it was. Then again, it could be Miss Nashe.

His dismay must have shown on his face. But luckily for Henry, if there was anyone who could see a way out of this mire, it was Preston. And it turned out he had just the solution.

“And you say this gel is in the library, right now, waiting for you?”

“Yes. At least that’s the plan.”

“That’s excellent news,” Preston said, his eyes once again alight with mischief.

“Excellent for you, perhaps—you aren’t the one who has to endure the surprise and possible shock of it.”

“Who says you have to go into the room not knowing who your Miss Dishes—”

“Spooner.”

“Yes, yes, Spooner. Who says you have to go in uninformed? You always are going on and on about how one can’t go into a partnership without knowing exactly who you are doing business with—”

“Certainly,” Henry agreed. “But what does that have to do with finding out who Miss Spooner is?”

“Everything,” Preston said, nodding toward the door. “Let’s go see who this lady love of yours is.”

Henry caught him by the arm. “You are not going in there with me.”

“I have no intention of doing that. Would make you look like an utter coward, arriving with a second and all. But I would think a man of your business inclinations wouldn’t mind arriving forearmed.”

“Preston, whatever are you going on about?”

And so the duke told him.

D
aphne didn’t know whether she was disappointed or relieved when she entered the library and found no one in there.

“If anything, I have a few moments to compose myself,” she said to Mr. Muggins as they both looked about the large, well-appointed room.

It was all as it had been this morning when she’d penned her note to Dishforth. Bookshelves lined three of the walls, interrupted by several large paintings and a grand fireplace. French doors let out into the rose gardens. There was a map desk in the middle of the room, a collection of settees and a grand chair near the fireplace, and a few chairs and stools scattered in the corners, the sort that encouraged settling in for a cozy read. Thick carpets and green velvet curtains gave the large, rambling room a sense of studious decorum.

But at night, the corners were cast in shadows, and the room held an intimate, cozy appeal, the sort a Seldon could appreciate.

Well, she certainly hadn’t invited Mr. Dishforth here for
that
.

Smoothing out her skirt and doing her utmost to compose her nerves, Daphne tried to gauge the best place to sit and wait—a spot from which she would be seen at best advantage. But no matter where she tried—lolling on the settee, modestly composed on a straight-backed chair or feigning a bluestocking’s interest in some old, dusty tome—she felt only one thing: utterly foolish.

Mr. Muggins suffered from no such nerves. He plopped down on the rug before the hearth and let out a contented sigh.

Since she couldn’t very well follow his example, Daphne decided a dignified pose might be the best. Until, that is, she looked up at the portrait she’d found herself standing beneath.

“You!” she gasped, gaping accusatorially at the face looking down at her.

Lord Henry. Well, not her Lord Henry.

Not that he was
hers,
per se. But . . .

Oh, bother, just stop, Daphne,
she chided herself. How was it that scoundrel always left her so tangled up?

“I don’t care what he says,” she told the painting of Henry Seldon, the seventh Duke of Preston, “the resemblance between the two of you is uncanny.”

The seventh duke had no reply other than that mischievous smile that could not be contained in oil and paint, or dimmed with age. As she gazed up at the rogue, she had the feeling that even now, His Grace was looking down at her from his gilt-framed prison and taking a lascivious delight in imagining her clad only in her chemise.

Daphne whirled around and put her back to the painting. “You devil!” she scolded over her shoulder.

Oh, good heavens, what was wrong with her? She was going mad if she was talking to paintings.

Stealing a glance over her shoulder, she found the duke still grinning at her, but all she saw was Lord Henry’s face—as he’d held her tonight in the shadowed hallway and looked to be about to tell her something.

No, rather, show her something.

Well, the seventh duke would know.

“Your grandson hasn’t fallen so far from the tree,” she told the old duke. “He nearly ravished me in the hallway earlier.”

Nearly.

But he hadn’t. And what the devil had she been doing letting herself fall into his arms?

If she’d had any sense, she would have found her footing far more quickly and extracted herself from his grasp without a moment’s delay.

But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d lingered.

Yes, lingered. Just as he’d accused her before.

Dangerously waiting to see if Lord Henry would prove his heritage and make good his Seldon name.

By kissing her.

Daphne’s insides quaked just thinking about that moment. His lips so close to hers, her breasts pressed to his solid chest, his arms coiled around her—holding her fast.

Lord Henry had left her feeling completely undone. As if her hairpins had all fallen out, her gown had been stripped away and she’d been his for the ravishing.

“He may argue to the contrary, but he is no different than you,” she accused. “Well, I suppose you would have finished the task.” Daphne paced before the painting, stealing glances up at the old duke, infamous for his affairs.

Which had been left out of his lengthy description in
Debrett’s
.

Of course they didn’t put such things in
Debrett’s
. If they started including all the noblemen’s mistresses and affairs, well, there wouldn’t be enough paper in England to chronicle all that.

Was that why Lord Henry hadn’t kissed her? He was saving himself for another?

“Well, he was rather done up tonight,” she told the duke. “Handsomely so.” She paused. “As if he had an assignation.”

Daphne, well used to filling in lines for others, could well imagine what the duke might say.

Ah, you are correct, my lovely little delight. The perfect cravat. The shine to the boots. The light in his eye. No, our Henry hasn’t fallen too far from the Seldon tree. When he didn’t kiss you, I’d quite feared—

Daphne’s insides turned from that melting sort of memory of being held by Lord Henry into something more like boiling oil.