And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(19)

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.

He 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.