And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(22)

Found in a letter from Miss Spooner to Mr. Dishforth




“The supper dance is next,” Harriet said happily, rocking on the heels of her slippers as she scanned the crowded dance floor.

“Don’t remind me,” Daphne groaned. If anything, she was becoming desperate. For every tick of the clock that left her search unresolved, every dance that left her lacking an answer, she remained under the threat of having to dance with him.

Lord Henry Seldon.

She still wasn’t quite past her shock that the man she’d thought—nay, would have sworn—must be Mr. Dishforth was none other than Preston’s uncle.

His Seldon uncle.

Harriet hardly batted an eye. “Have you considered, Daphne, that Lord Henry might be your Mr. Dishforth?”

Daphne tried to speak, but the words choked in her throat.

Her Mr. Dishforth a Seldon? Wasn’t it bad enough she’d considered, even been willing, to let that ne’er-do-well kiss her?

“No, he cannot be,” she told her friend. “I am sure of it.”

“How unfortunate.” Harriet shrugged and continued scanning the crowd around them.

Unfortunate? Daphne would call it a blessing.

Nor did she want to recall the delicious sense of wonder that had unfurled inside her limbs as Lord Henry had held her, gazed down upon her. The hard strength of his chest beneath her hands, the steady drum of his heart.

Daphne shuddered. This was exactly the madness she had hoped to escape when she’d started corresponding with Mr. Dishforth.

A sensible courtship, that’s what she’d sought.

Which certainly meant not letting some dratted man leave her at sixes and sevens, what with his rakish charms and lies.

No, somewhere in this room was a sensible, reliable, perfectly amiable man, and she meant to find him. But when she looked up, all she spied was a portly fellow heading in her direction, and she edged behind a large red velvet curtain to escape his wandering gaze.

Harriet glanced over her shoulder. “What are you doing back there?”

Daphne sighed and stepped out of its protective shadow. “Hiding from Lord Middlecott.”

“Whyever won’t you dance with him?” Harriet asked, propping herself up on her tiptoes and taking a measure of the baron, who was prowling the crowd for his next choice.

“There isn’t a prayer that he is Dishforth,” Daphne replied, maintaining a position well out of the man’s line of sight.

“Is that because he isn’t as handsome as Lord Henry?” Harriet teased.

Daphne cringed, for there was some truth in that statement. However, it wouldn’t do to give an ounce of credit to Harriet’s impertinent opinions. “No. It is because he’s only just come to London. Which rules him out as a possible candidate.”

“And you thought Mr. Ives, that rather rapscallion Mr. Trewick, and that poor vicar—”

“Mr. Niniham,” Daphne supplied.

“Yes, Mr. Niniham, might be Dishforth?” Harriet echoed. “You will dance with him, a vicar with barely enough income to keep you in hats, and two fellows who aren’t worth a snap, just in hopes that one of them might be him.”

“Yes,” Daphne told her, though she’d been quite relieved the poor vicar had turned out to be in no way, shape or form her Dishforth.

Oh, she’d been so confident when she’d strolled into the ball earlier. So sure she’d find her dearest, genuine Mr. Dishforth.

But that had been before . . . before he’d ruined everything.

Now every time she tried to recall her list of parameters for identifying Mr. Dishforth, the only thing that rose up in her mind was the image of an arrogant, tall, and exceptionally handsome man—one with leonine features, a tawny shock of hair, a piercing gaze and a sure stance.

Daphne’s brow furrowed. For what she envisioned was the very image of Lord Henry.

Lord Henry, indeed!

Her dismay must have been all too obvious, for here was Harriet studying her. “Good heavens, Daphne, whatever has your petticoat in a knot?”

Daphne straightened and pressed her lips into a line. “Harriet Hathaway! What a singularly vulgar thing to say!”

Harriet hardly appeared chastened. Quite the opposite. “Oh, don’t start parroting Lady Essex to me. I know you,” she shot back, arms crossed over her chest. “So what is it?”

“Him!” Daphne said, nodding across the way.