And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(18)

“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.