And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake (5 page)

Roxley ignored her barb and continued on. “I’ll not say it again; he is not fit company.”

Of course he was speaking of Fieldgate.

She slanted a glance up at the earl, a look that she hoped did to him what his whispered words did for her. “What a relief.”

“How is that?”

“If you are not going to speak of it again, then I shall no longer have to listen to your tiresome lectures.” She smiled and turned her attention back to Daphne, who was dancing with a handsome fellow. And given the bright smile and warm light in her eyes, Harriet suspected she had found her Mr. Dishforth.

“Harry, I’m warning you—”

Harriet lost her patience, wrenching her gaze away from Daphne and her mysterious partner and glaring up at the Earl of Roxley. “Then do something about it, my lord.”

Shoot the fellow. Tell my brothers. Declare yourself.

All the things she wanted him to do.

But what she got was his silence.

His lips pressed shut, his glance flitted away and then he leaned against the wall and pretended he hadn’t heard her.

Yes, there it was. If he wanted to have a say in her life, he would have to do something.

But he wouldn’t.

And for the last three months they had met over and over again and danced on the edge of this very precipice time and time again.

So Harriet danced with Fieldgate and ignored Roxley’s complaints.

Daphne whirled past them, and Roxley straightened up.

“Is that Miss Dale?” he asked.

“Yes,” Harriet said, turning her gaze back to Daphne to see what had alarmed Roxley so.

“With Lord Henry?” Roxley continued.

“Lord Henry?” Harriet rose up on her tiptoes. “Is that who that is?”

“Yes.” Roxley shook his head.

“Lord Henry who?”

Roxley turned his wide-eyed gaze to Harriet. “Lord Henry Seldon. As in Preston’s uncle.” He let out a low whistle and went back to watching the couple sail about the dance floor.

“Seldon?” Harriet whispered. “Oh, no!”

“Whatever are they doing together?”

“I don’t think they know who the other is,” Harriet told him, rising again on her tiptoes and looking around for Tabitha.

This was going to be a disaster.

“Their ignorance won’t last long.” The earl nodded over at his aunt, Lady Essex, who was watching the couple dance with a light of impending doom in her eyes. Then he tipped his head in the other direction at a woman in half-mourning, who appeared in the same state of rare horror. “Lord Henry’s sister, Lady Juniper. She looks ready to roast him alive.”

“If only they didn’t have to discover the truth,” Harriet mused. “They look quite enamored.”

“Enamored? You can see that from here?” Roxley rose up to his full height to get a better look at the pair.

“Yes, of course I can,” Harriet told him. “See how he looks at her.”

The earl shrugged. “Might be merely the cut of her gown that has him in such straits.” Then he glanced over at Harriet. “Besides, what do you know about a man’s regard?”

“If you haven’t noticed, I am no longer the little girl you liked to tease. And I am not so young as to not see when a man is looking at a woman just as Lord Henry is looking at Daphne. He is enamored.”

Roxley shook his head. “Harry, you made more sense when you asked me to marry you all those years ago.”

“I never asked—”

He grinned. “No, I suppose you didn’t ask . . . ordered is more like it. You were rather a bossy minx as a child. Still are, all these years later.”

“Roxley—” she began, the warning clear.

“You aren’t going to lay me low like you did the last time I refused you?”

Harriet crossed her arms over her chest and willed herself not to do just that.

Lay him low.

But that didn’t stop her from smiling. “Did I?” she asked, all bright and innocent.

“Yes, you did,” he shot back.

“Ah, I remember it now.” She tipped her head and smiled again. “But it seems you have a better recall of the events, since you persist in reminding me of it every time we meet.”

“Of course I remember it. A most humbling moment, if I must say.”

“Oh, isn’t that doing it up a bit?” Harriet said. “You were twelve. I daresay you’ve been made a worse fool of since then—and all on your own, I might add.”

“You would. Still, it’s demmed embarrassing to be flattened by a little girl.”

“Then you shouldn’t have refused my offer.” Harriet smirked, for that thrust was almost as satisfying as her original facer had been.

But the thing about boxing is that one’s opponent can always surprise you.

Roxley leaned closer. “Then ask again, Harry.”

“I shall not,” she vowed, though much to her chagrin she shivered as she held fast to the words that nearly sprang from her lips.

Oh, Roxley, please marry me.

“You know you want to,” he said, all smug and all-knowing. Of course it had been that same condescending air that had gotten him into trouble as a twelve-year-old.

“I’d rather flatten you,” she told him, crossing her arms over her chest and holding the words inside her heart with a will that matched his.

“I daresay you would.”

Oh, yes, she would.

Roxley straightened, tugging at the edges of his immaculate coat.

He nodded out at Daphne and Lord Henry. “Care to make a wager as to whether or not Miss Dale and Lord Henry’s dance comes to something?”

“I hope it does,” Harriet said, wishing her words hadn’t come out with that wistful note. A leftover result of having had Roxley so close at hand.

He always did this to her—left her insides a tumbled pile of knots. Of desires unfulfilled . . .

Roxley, damn his hide, edged closer to her, as if he knew exactly how he made her feel. “You have a romantic nature, Harry. Who would have suspected as much?”

“Someone should have a chance at happiness.”

And she wasn’t talking about Daphne and Lord Henry.

H
e knew her? He claimed to know who she was. . . .

“Indeed?” Daphne managed, breathless and teetering on the edge of something she’d never imagined before. Feeling a bit off kilter to be at this disadvantage.

“Indeed.” It wasn’t just a word but a pronouncement. A possession. He knew her, and he wanted her.

“How so?” she asked.

“You sparkle, where the rest of the ladies in the room merely shine.”

Daphne, who’d never been flirted with in her life, drew back a little. “I do not sparkle.”

“Your eyes do,” he whispered into her ear.

Did he know what the heat of his breath did to her senses as it teased across her ear, her neck? The way it sent coils of desire through her limbs?

He continued on, “I always knew one day my heart would be stolen by a lady with eyes in just your very shade.”

“You mean blue?”

He shook his head, grinning at her practical response.

“Like larkspur or bluebells?” she offered. Truly, she’d always thought the poets and their flowery comparisons were naught but a pile of foolish flummery, but right now, the notion of being compared to anything romantic, like the attributions regularly laid at the feet of her Dale cousins, was just too tempting a notion.

“Not in the least,” he said, putting a damper down on her moment of wonder. But not for long. “Your eyes are the shade of intelligence, able to pierce a man’s heart with merely a glance. As they have done so to mine.”

He thought her intelligent? Daphne would have found the words to say something, blurt out her name, beg to know if he was indeed her Dishforth, but in that starry moment she spied Lady Essex out of the corner of her eye.

And the old girl didn’t look amused.

“Oh, dear,” she muttered.

“What is it?” he asked, turning his head in that direction.

“No, don’t,” she said, tugging him in the opposite way and nearly running them into another couple. “Don’t look!”

“Whyever not?”

“My chaperone. She doesn’t look pleased,” Daphne whispered, stealing a cautious glance over his shoulder, then back up at the man holding her. “Who are you?”

“I can assure you, she has nothing to fear from me. Besides, she had best get used to seeing me holding you thusly.” And with that he tugged her scandalously close.

“Oh, you mustn’t,” she told him, even as her body nestled closer to his. To the sturdy wall of his chest, to the steady confines of his arms, against the lean, long muscled length of his thighs.

Oh, yes, you must.

But even as Daphne tried to will herself to maintain a position of decorum, the man holding her suddenly straightened, his gaze locked on the opposite corner of the room.

“Good God, what now?” he muttered.

“Is it my guardian?” she asked, turning to glance in that direction.

He whirled her around, making it impossible to pinpoint the source of his dismay. “No, worse. My sister appears to be in a fettle over something.”

“Your sister?” Daphne brightened. For here was another check in the “Yes-I-Am-Dishforth” column. For on more than one occasion, Mr. Dishforth had mentioned his sister.

“Yes, my sister. But don’t ask for an introduction. I daresay she could out-dragon your chaperone.”

“She could try,” Daphne told him, knowing all too well what sort of adversary Lady Essex made.

“Whatever has her in such a stew?” he mused.

Daphne couldn’t offer an answer, for Lady Essex and Tabitha were bearing down on them through the crowd.

It was then that Daphne realized the set was finishing. The last notes wheezed out, so quickly ending their dance—
their first dance
, she corrected—that Daphne came to a tumbled stop. Instead of a graceful pause, she slammed into his chest, hands splayed out over his waistcoat, leaving her fully and completely aware of every bit of the man who’d claimed her.

Stolen her heart.

No wonder poor Agnes Perts had been willing to risk madness and marry John Stakes all those years ago. Even if they’d only had one night together.

Well, half a wedding night.

For to be held like this, Daphne discovered, was the most perfect madness. Her fingers curling over the muscles beneath her hand, her hips swaying slightly, seeking desires as yet unknown.

But oh, the promise . . . it left her breathless. She looked up and into his deep, dark blue eyes and found herself trapped with no wish to ever break this spell.

And whoever he was, Dishforth or no, it mattered naught. He could be anyone for all she cared.

Or so she thought as she glanced up at him, ready for this man who had so quickly stolen her heart to steal so much more.

H
enry caught the delightful armful of muslin that came tumbling up against him. She’d been as caught unaware that the music was ending as he’d been.

But not so insensible of the woman in his arms.

From the moment he’d spied her across the ballroom, he’d suspected she was Miss Spooner. Who else could she be?

Now, in the course of a dance, she’d given him all the evidence he needed.

She had been in London for the Season. Demonstrated Miss Spooner’s sharp wit and keen intelligence, both in her words and the bright, sharp light in her eyes.

Though definitely a spinster—he gauged her to be nearly, if not so, at her majority—she wasn’t so far up on the shelf to make one wonder why it was a beauty like her wasn’t married.

He drew a deep breath and thought about her letters, her words. Tart, opinionated, strong-willed.

Those traits in a lady were enough to scare off most gentlemen.

Not him.

Gathering her closer, Henry glanced up to gauge which of the matrons coming closer might be her fire-breathing chaperone.

And how much time he had left to risk.

“There is much that needs to be said between us,” he told her, gazing down into those bright blue eyes. He’d always imagined her thusly—fair and lithe.

“Is there?” she asked, smiling slightly. “I rather thought we’d said all that was necessary.”

“True enough,” he agreed, his blood running thick and hot with her pressed up against him.

Good God, whoever was this minx? Not that it mattered, for whoever she was, she left him insensible with desire. For a thousand utterly irrational reasons, he wanted her, would have her.

Henry could sense the others closing in around them—Hen coming up from behind, Preston and Tabitha moving toward them.

And somewhere, her scaly, fearsome chaperone was beating a path to them.

To make matters worse, here they were, still in the middle of the dance floor. The music had ended, the other couples had scattered throughout the room, and while the crowd had exhaled and moved in to fill up some of the empty space, there was still a wide circle around them.

Leaving a daunting number of curious gazes fixed on them. Enough to give the London gossips a full dish of cat lap on the morrow.

Suddenly the fact that half the
ton
was watching him—Lord Henry Seldon—and not his errant nephew was a bit unnerving.

That is, until he looked into her starry gaze.

And the light there said she thought him the most rakish, perfectly ruinous gentleman alive.

“I should find your chaperone,” he managed. Not that he meant it.

“Must you?” she whispered, even as she nestled a bit closer. “What if—”

Her question hung there for a moment, sending this tremor of warning through him.

It isn’t going to be this easy . . .

Yet here she was, in his arms, and everything about her perfect . . . and perfectly willing.

I am yours,
her lips, parted, moist and pert, seemed to whisper.

Never in Henry’s life had he ever been the rake, never been Seldon enough to manage even a trifler’s reputation. Having lived all his life in Preston’s shadow—as the spare heir, as the sensible Seldon (for in his family that was a worse crime than a scandalous reputation)—he’d never fit in.

Even Hen had all her notorious marriages to maintain her stake in the family tree.

Not that Henry had ever truly minded. He’d never wanted to be the duke, had thought all the scandals more bothersome than essential, and Hen’s penchant for dashing off to the altar? He nearly shuddered.