And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(108)

“I find that most well put,” Lord Henry told her, sounding just a tad too defensive.

“Yes, but—” She paused and sighed.

He sat up a bit. “But what?”

“Well, those lines are hardly original,” she confided, carefully folding the letter.

“I found them quite stirring.”

“Really? I found them overly familiar. Indeed, I asked Harriet’s brother, and he laughed—told me every boy at Eton learns those lines. A schoolboy’s sentiments.” She shrugged.

“A schoolboy’s—” he began.

She leaned forward and cut him off. “I don’t like to admit this, but I fear you are right and Mr. Dishforth will turn out to be an overly simple man. Otherwise why else would he be so easily duped, as you said before.”

“Overly simple?”

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “Ever so much so.”

This time, when Lord Henry straightened, he let his apple fall to one side. “And you like that?”

“Of course. A simple man will not overrun me or attempt to deceive me. I think he sounds the perfect husband.”

“Doesn’t sound so to me. Not if he’s the sort to pass off schoolboy lines.”

“Not everyone can have your dash and polish, Lord Henry.” She smiled at him, met his gaze and waited.

There was a moment when neither of them spoke. “I have dash and polish?” he managed.

“Yes.” Again waiting for some sort of inspired declaration from the man.

Instead, he leaned back against the tree, his hands behind his handsome head.

Daphne wasn’t in the mood to let him preen for long. “Oh, you needn’t be so proud of the fact. That is also one of your faults. Seldon pride.”

“I’ve always thought the Dales possessed the lion’s share of that trait, leaving hardly any for the rest of us.”

“I’ll admit we are a prideful lot,” Daphne told him, “but then again, we have much to preen over.”

“Bah! Dales!” he mocked.

“Harrumph! Seldons!” Daphne met his gaze with an arrogant one of her own, and before she knew it, they were both laughing uproariously at the ridiculousness of it all.

“How long have our families been at each other?”

She shrugged. “Forever.”

“Over a litter of mongrel pups.”

Daphne looked aside and blushed, for she wasn’t supposed to know that, but of course she did.

“Foolish, isn’t it?” He looked at her, his glorious eyes filled with something that was far from mockery, far from the usual Seldon disdain, and Daphne’s heart skipped and tumbled as it always did when he looked at her that way.

“Very much so.”

He thrust out his hand. “Then a truce is in order!”

“A what?” she managed, looking down at his hand and willing herself to take hold of it. For as much as she bemoaned his unwillingness to declare himself, now she was just as hesitant to take what he was offering.

“A truce, minx. Yes, a Seldon-Dale truce. I declare all hostilities between our families hereby null and void.” He pressed his hand closer, and Daphne took it.

What else could she do?

And as his large palm wound around her smaller one, she felt as she always did around him—engulfed.

She looked down at their intertwined hands. “I don’t think I shall be counted as a Dale after this.”

He laughed and let go of her, leaning back again in that lord-of-the-manor way of his. “I suspect the seventh duke will haunt me to the end of my days, but it is a fate I am willing to risk.”

He was? Willing to risk the censure of his family for her? Was that what he was saying?

“Why?” she asked.

“Because, Miss Dale, you and I are alike.”

At this she laughed.

“We are,” he insisted. “Whether you approve or not.”

Daphne stilled, for she was quite convinced he was about to haul her into his arms and kiss her. He was, she just knew it.

And then he blinked, as if remembering something, and turned around as quickly as the moment had begun. “Yes, well, if we are so alike, I suppose you are as famished as I am.”

And so they returned to their meal in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Henry ran through a thousand different ways he might nudge Miss Dale into admitting that Mr. Dishforth was not the man for her.