And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake (2 page)

A composition that would scald even Preston’s thick skin.

Not even realizing what he was doing, Henry sat down at the table, entirely engrossed in the lady’s frank words. Pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee—for while Hen and Preston loved tea, Henry much preferred coffee, and Benley always made sure there was a pot on hand—he propped his feet on Hen’s chair and read the entire letter. Twice.

And laughed both times. Good God, what a handful of a minx. He tossed the letter down on the table, but his gaze kept straying back to the last lines.

However, if your wishes are truly to meet a sensible lady, then perhaps . . .

He paused and looked at that one word.
Perhaps
.

No, he couldn’t, he thought, shaking his head. But then he glanced at the letter again and, against every bit of sense he possessed (for Preston had been correct about one thing; Henry was overly sensible), he called for Benley to bring him a pen and some plain paper.

Chapter 1

Miss Spooner,

I will be frank. Your reply to the advertisement in the paper displayed exactly how little you know of men. No wonder you are as yet unmarried. Either you are a frightful scold or the most diverting minx who ever lived. I suppose only time and correspondence will abate my curiosity.

A letter from Mr. Dishforth to Miss Spooner

London, six weeks later

“M
iss Dale, you appear flushed. Are you coming down with a fever? That will never do, not here at Miss Timmons’s engagement ball!” Lady Essex Marshom declared, turning to her recently employed hired companion, Miss Manx. “Where is my vinaigrette?”

While the beleaguered young woman dug through a reticule the size of a valise to find one of the many items Lady Essex insisted Miss Manx have on hand at all times, Daphne did her best to wave the dear old spinster off.

“I am most well, Lady Essex,” she told her, sending a look of horror over at her best friend, Miss Tabitha Timmons. The last time Lady Essex had pressed her infamous vinaigrette into use, Daphne hadn’t been able to smell a thing for a week.

“You do look a bit pink,” Tabitha agreed, a mischievous light flitting in her brown eyes.

Daphne bit back the response that came to mind, for ever since Tabitha had gotten herself engaged to the Duke of Preston, she’d become as cheeky as a fishwife, displaying none of her previous sensible nature.

This is what came of marrying a Seldon.

Daphne tried not to shudder right down to her Dale toes, for here she was in the very heart of Seldon territory—at their London house on Harley Street, where Tabitha and Preston’s engagement ball was being held.

But Daphne couldn’t begrudge Tabitha her happiness—there was no arguing that Preston had her glowing with joy. And the engagement had brought them all back to London. Where all Daphne’s hopes lay.

Ones that rested upon a certain gentleman. And tonight, Daphne carried high expectations she would be . . . would be . . . She glanced over at her dear friend and whispered a secret prayer that when she found her true love, she might be as happy.

And how could she not with Mr. Dishforth somewhere in this room?

Yes, Mr. Dishforth. She, Daphne Dale, the most sensible of all the ladies of Kempton, was engaged in a torrid correspondence with a complete stranger.

And tonight she would come face-to-face with him.

Oh, she would have stared down an entire regiment of Seldons tonight if only to attend this ball. To find her dear Mr. Dishforth.

“Who looks a bit pink?” Miss Harriet Hathaway asked, having just arrived from the dance floor looking altogether pink and flushed.

Meanwhile, Lady Essex was growing impatient. “Miss Manx, how many times do I have to remind you how imperative it is to keep one’s vinaigrette close at hand?”

Harriet cringed and asked in an aside, “Who is the intended victim?”

Tabitha pointed at Daphne, who in turn mouthed two simple words.

Save me
.

And being the dearest friend alive, Harriet did. “It is just Daphne’s gown, Lady Essex. That red satin is giving her a definite glow. A becoming one, don’t you think?”

Bless Harriet right down to her slippers, she’d tried.

“She’s flushed, I say,” Lady Essex averred. Then again, Lady Essex also liked any opportunity to bring out her vinaigrette and had even now taken the reticule from Miss Manx and was searching its depths herself. “I won’t have you fainting, Daphne Dale. It is nigh on impossible to maintain a ladylike demeanor when one is passed out on the floor.”

Tabitha shrugged. It was hard to argue that fact.

Yet Harriet was ever the intrepid soul and refused to give up. “I’ve always found, Lady Essex, that a turn about the room is a much better means of restoring one’s vitality.” She paused and slanted a wink at Daphne and Tabitha while the lady was still engrossed in her search. “Besides, while I was dancing with Lord Fieldgate, I swore I saw Lady Jersey on the other side of the room.”

“Lady Jersey, you say?” Lady Essex perked up, immediately diverted. Better still, she failed to remember that she should probably be chastising Harriet for dancing with the roguish viscount in the first place.

“Yes, I am quite certain of it.” Then Harriet did one better and looped her arm into the spinster’s, handed the hated reticule back to Miss Manx and steered the old girl into the crowd. “Weren’t you saying earlier today that if you could but have a word with her, you’d have our vouchers for next Season?”

Just like that, the hated vinaigrette was utterly forgotten and so was Daphne’s flushed countenance.

A Lady Jersey sighting trumped all.

With Harriet and Lady Essex sailing ahead, Daphne and Tabitha followed, albeit at a safe distance so they could talk.

“You are taking a terrible risk,” Tabitha whispered to Daphne. “If Lady Essex were to find out—”

“Sssh!” Daphne tapped her finger to her lips. “Don’t even utter it aloud. She can hear everything.”

It was a miracle as it was that the old girl hadn’t discovered Daphne’s deepest, darkest secret—that she’d answered an advertisement in the paper from a gentleman seeking a wife.

There it was. And the gentleman had answered her. And then she had replied in kind. And so the exchange had gone on for the last month, all anonymous and mysterious and most likely beyond the pale and ruinous if anyone discovered the truth.

Certainly if Lady Essex found out that such a scandalous correspondence had been carried out right under her nose, the only notes Daphne would be composing would be answering the messages of condolences for Lady Essex’s fatal heart ailment.

“Do you think he’s here yet?” Tabitha asked, looking around the room.

Daphne shook her head, glancing as well at the crush of guests. “I have no idea. But he’ll be here, I just know it.”

Her own Mr. Dishforth. Daphne felt that telltale heat of a blush rising in her cheeks. At first their letters had been tentative and skeptical, but now their correspondence, which was carried out in a daily flurry of letters and notes, had suddenly taken a very intimate turn.

I would write more, but I have obligations this evening at an engagement party. Dare I hope my plans might intersect with yours?

Daphne pressed her fingers to her lips.
An engagement party.
Which could only mean he was here. At Tabitha and Preston’s ball. Her Mr. Dishforth.

Wear red if your plans take you to such a festivity, and I will find you.

So she’d donned her brand-new red satin gown and come with breathless anticipation of finally putting the mystery of Mr. Dishforth’s identity to rest.

Which would also stop Tabitha and Harriet from worrying over the entire situation. When they’d discovered what she’d done—
was
doing, rather—they’d been shocked.

“Daphne! How could you? An advertisement? In the paper?” Tabitha had said, clearly taken aback. “You have no idea who this Dishforth might be.”

Harriet had been more to the point. “This bounder could be exactly like that horrible man in Reading last year who advertised for a wife when he already had one in Leeds. Why, he could be one and the same!”

Daphne had cringed, for her Cousin Philomena, who’d been intercepting the letters being sent by Mr. Dishforth and passing them along to Daphne, had made the very same argument. Twice.

“You won’t tell Lady Essex, will you?” she’d begged. Lady Essex did not take her role as their chaperone in London lightly. If she caught wind of this illicit correspondence—given the spinster’s strict notions of suitable
partis
and proper courtship—Daphne’s chance to discover Mr. Dishforth’s identity would be lost.

Forever.

But luckily for Daphne, her friends, who were more like sisters to her, had agreed to keep her secret as long as she allowed them to have the final say in Mr. Dishforth’s suitability before Daphne did anything rash.

As if she, a proper and respectable Dale, of the Kempton Dales, would do anything less.

Still, Daphne shivered slightly as she recalled that last line from Mr. Dishforth’s recent missive. The one she hadn’t read aloud to her friends.

I will be the most insensible gentleman in the room. Insensible with desire for you.

Smiling to herself, she stole another glance around the room, hoping beyond hopes to find some way to distinguish the man she sought from the press of handsome lords and gentlemen who filled out the distinguished guest list.

“Daphne, don’t look now, but there is someone ahead who is paying you close heed,” Tabitha whispered.

Indeed there was. Daphne tried to be subtle as she looked up, well aware that any gentleman in this room could be him.

But immediately she shook her head. “Oh, heavens no!”

“Why not?” Tabitha asked.

“Look at the cut of that coat. It is not Weston,” Daphne said. No, complained. For if any of the three of them knew fashion, it was Daphne. “My Mr. Dishforth”—for he was her Dishforth—“would never use that much lace. And look at the overdone falls of that cravat.” She shuddered. “Why, with all those wrinkles it looks as if it has been tied by a stevedore.”

Tabitha laughed, for she was well used to Daphne’s discerning and mostly biting opinions on fashion. “No, no, you are correct,” she agreed as the rake sidled past them, casting an appreciative glance at Daphne’s décolletage.

Not that such a glance wasn’t to be expected. The gown was a bit scandalous and Daphne had ordered it in a moment of passion, wondering what Dishforth would think of her, so elegantly and daringly attired.

Lady Essex came to a stop to gossip with an old friend, and Harriet drifted back toward them. “Now quickly, who is on your list, Daphne? Let’s find your Dishforth.”

Daphne plucked the list from her reticule. From the moment she’d learned that Mr. Dishforth was attending Tabitha’s engagement ball, the trio had scoured the invitation list for possible suspects.

“Lord Burstow,” Tabitha read over her shoulder.

The three of them glanced over at the man and discovered their information hadn’t been entirely correct.

“However did we get him so wrong?” Harriet whispered.

“He is well over eighty,” Tabitha said, making a
tsk
,
tsk
sound.

“And the way he shakes, well, he’d never be able to compose a legible note, let alone a letter,” Harriet pointed out.

They all agreed and struck him from their list, once again going back to their investigation.

“Tell us again what you do know,” Tabitha prodded.

Daphne, with Harriet’s help, had assembled a thick dossier on everything she knew about Dishforth. A compilation that would have rivaled the best produced by Harriet’s brother, Chaunce, who worked for the Home Office.

“First and foremost, he is a gentleman,” Daphne said. “He went to Eton—” a point he had mentioned in passing. “And his handwriting, spelling and composition all speak of a well-educated man.”

That fit most of the men in the room.

Daphne continued on. “He lives in London proper. Most likely Mayfair, given the regularity of his posts.”

“Or at the very least,” Harriet added, “has been in London since the appearance of his advertisement.”

“Nor did he quit Town at the end of the Season,” Tabitha pointed out.

Daphne suspected he might be a full-time resident of the city. “His letters are all delivered by a footman in a plain livery.”

“Sneaky fellow,” Harriet said. “Livery would be so helpful.”

Oh, yes, Mr. Dishforth was a wily adversary to track down. The address his letters were sent to had turned out to be a rented house situated quite nicely at Cumberland Place—something the trio had discovered while they’d been purportedly walking in the park.

“It is too bad we have yet to meet Lady Taft,” Tabitha mused, glancing around the room, referring to the current occupant at that address. They had been able to learn—with the help of Lady Essex’s well-thumbed edition of
Debrett’s
—that her ladyship had two daughters and no sons.

Sad luck that, for it meant that Dishforth most likely resided elsewhere. Then again, Daphne was using her Great-Aunt Damaris’s address for her letters to avoid Lady Essex’s discovering the truth.

“If we do not find Dishforth tonight,” Harriet said, “then tomorrow we knock on Lady Taft’s door and interview her butler as to why her ladyship acts as Dishforth’s intermediary.”

“Or who her landlord might be,” Tabitha suggested.

“No!” Daphne exclaimed, for she held a secret hope for a much more romantic venue for their first meeting. And storming the portals of Lady Taft’s rented house did not fit into that scenario.

Of course, all of what Daphne knew about the man assumed that he was being completely honest with her. That his letters were not as fictional as his name.

Certainly she’d been honest with him.

Mostly so. Certainly not her name. For she had replied as Miss Spooner, the name of her first governess. It had seemed the perfect pseudonym at the time. Hadn’t her own Miss Spooner eloped one night with a dashing naval captain?

Still, it wasn’t only her name that wasn’t true. Daphne shifted uncomfortably, for she hadn’t been absolutely honest with Mr. Dishforth. She hadn’t mentioned her lack of finishing school. Or how she loathed London.

But some things were best not admitted in a letter.

And good heavens, if everyone was completely honest in courtship, no one would ever get married.

Woolgathering as she was, Daphne hadn’t noticed that Lady Essex had returned.

“Miss Dale, you appear undone.” The old girl studied her with those piercing blue eyes of hers. “Positively flushed, I say. Miss Manx, my vinaigrette–”

“I am quite well,” Daphne rushed to reassure her.

“It is most likely the heat in this room,” Lady Essex declared. “A ball in July—I never! Do you suppose this Owle Park of Preston’s will be so stifling?”

“No, Lady Essex, not in the least,” Tabitha assured her. “Owle Park is most delightful. Large, airy rooms and a wonderful view of the river.”