And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(109)

It wasn’t until he spied a fine house rising in the distance that he thought he might have the perfect entree. This was not some tumbledown relic but a gentleman’s house—a respectable home. The sort a lady like Miss Dale would admire.

“Such an excellent house. I wonder who lives there?” he asked with a nonchalant wave of his apple in that direction.

She glanced at it and shrugged.

“Does Mr. Dishforth have such a residence?” he asked, all the while examining the apple in his hand.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“What do you know about this rogue?” he pressed, glancing in the basket again as if the answer really wasn’t that important to him.

“Oh, plenty,” she replied from the other side of the blanket, where she sat picking at the grass blades.

“Such as . . . ?”

She huffed a sigh, then looked over at him. “He lives in London. With his sister. She must be a most gracious and delightful creature, for he is ever so fond of her.”

Henry had made the mistake of taking a bite of apple at that point, and he nearly choked.

Miss Dale was not done. Why, it was as if the lady had compiled an entire dossier on the man. “He also cares for a nephew, who is a dreadful trial—”

Henry couldn’t argue with that.

“So Dishforth must be a great blessing to his family.”

Henry tried to appear thoughtful. “Can he keep you?”

“Keep me?”

“Yes, afford a wife?”

She sniffed at this. “What a vulgar thing to ask.”

“Yes, well, silks don’t come cheap.” Well he knew. He’d seen enough of Hen’s bills.

Her chin chucked up. “I hardly think new gowns will be on my mind when I am Mrs. Abernathy Dishforth.”

“Abernathy?” This time he’d had the presence of mind not to take another bite from his apple.

She glanced up at him, a quizzical look on her face. “Yes. Didn’t I mention his name before?”

“I suppose I forgot,” he mused, trying to remember if he’d ever used a first name—which he was quite positive he hadn’t.

What the devil? Was she just making this up as she went along?

“Abernathy,” she sighed. “Such a romantic name. Though Harriet is of the opinion he must have a wen.”

This brought Henry right up. “A wen?!” Not that again.

“Yes, right in the middle of his forehead,” she said, pointing to her own. “Further, it is Harriet’s opinion that such a name, Abernathy Dishforth, is the sort one gives a child who will grow up prone to eating paste and tattling. But I doubt that he could be that dreadful.”

Henry ground his teeth together. First his letters were classified as simple, and now this? A wen-sporting looby with a penchant for eating paste?

“It might not be his true name,” he pointed out.

“It doesn’t matter to me what his name is,” she replied, once again absently picking at the grass blades.

“It might well,” he muttered.

“What was that, Lord Henry?”

Here it was, the opportunity to confess everything, and yet his pride wasn’t about to reveal that he was her paste-eating simpleton of a lover.

“Nothing,” he ground out.

Miss Dale shrugged. “I suspect given Abernathy’s sensible opinions, he must be a gentleman reduced to trade.”

There was no way he’d heard her correctly. “Reduced to wha-a-at?”

“Trade.”

He couldn’t help himself; he shuddered. “And this isn’t a problem for you?”

She smiled. “Trade isn’t as ignoble as it used to be. Perhaps with the help of my Dale relations, he might be elevated. Knighted, perhaps.”

Henry closed his eyes. He still was unconvinced he’d heard her correctly, but he had no desire to explore her theories as to why she thought Dishforth was in trade.

His pride couldn’t take it.

So he tried another tack. “Have you considered what you’ll do if you and Mr. Dishforth don’t suit?”

“We already do,” she said with such supreme confidence that Henry wondered how he could ever change her mind.

But it was Miss Dale who took pity on him and changed the subject, albeit unwittingly.

“Is your house like that one?” she asked, nodding toward the residence he’d pointed out before.