And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(34)

“Downstairs,” Phi said, her eyes wide with the luck of it. “Checking on tea. And luckily I caught the door before he pulled the bell.”

He. Mr. Dishforth. Daphne still couldn’t get over it, the image of the handsome stranger now burnt into her memory. “What did he want?”

Another foolish question, for Daphne knew all too well what Mr. Dishforth desired. Wanted. Had written so boldly.

My darling Miss Spooner, we cannot ignore that some day, some day very soon, we shall have to meet. I long for the moment when I first set eyes on you.

And Phi wasn’t so innocent not to see right through the feigned query, the desires behind it. “You, of course. He came calling to meet you.” She sat back and eyed her cousin with a look that was nothing less than incredulous.

Daphne opened her mouth to say something, yet nothing came out.

“Yes. Shocking, indeed,” the practical Phi said, echoing Daphne’s feelings precisely. Then Phi’s brows furrowed and her voice lowered noticeably—for Croston wasn’t above tattling. “You said he wouldn’t come calling.”

“He promised not to,” Daphne shot back. But then again, after last night . . . Oh, no!

What if, somehow, he’d discovered that she, Miss Daphne Dale, was his “dearest girl” after all and had been horrified by the scene she’d created.

Perhaps he’d come to call—in person, no less—to wash his hands of their entire affair.

Daphne shivered. It was no affair. Their letters were just that, letters.

An affair implied something so much more . . . well, personal. Physical.

And why was it that when that word physical came teasing through her thoughts, she recalled Lord Henry’s arms around her?

Lord Henry holding her close . . . Lord Henry about to . . .

Dear heavens, had Dishforth seen her with that Seldon scoundrel? Seen her lingering in his embrace? However would she explain that she’d thought that rakish devil was him?

“Don’t look so despairing, Daphne,” Phi told her. “I know you are jumping to every conclusion but the correct one.”

The correct one? The note in Phi’s words lent some hope to the entire scenario.

“Tell me everything,” Daphne said. “Everything.”

Phi basked in her moment of importance. “He is the handsomest man I have ever seen. Far more handsome than Cousin Crispin.”

More handsome than even Crispin, Viscount Dale? Was such a thing possible?

Then Daphne noticed something important. “Phi?”

“Yes?” Her cousin winked owlishly at her.

“Where are your spectacles?”

Phi touched her nose and, realizing she didn’t have them on, plucked them out of her apron pocket and quickly slid them on. She blinked a few times, then glanced at Daphne as if seeing her anew.

Which she was.

“My, don’t you look lovely today!” Phi enthused. Then she must have seen Daphne’s speculative expression. “I know what you are thinking, and yes, even without my spectacles, I can discern a truly handsome man.”

“If you say so—”

“I do,” she insisted, ruffling a bit. “Now where was I? Oh, yes, sorting out the salver—just in case one of his letters had been mixed in—when I heard someone coming up the steps. His boots made such an impressive sound—so strong a stride. Immediately I knew.”

Daphne nodded in understanding, thinking of the steady, purposeful beat of Lord Henry’s heels as he’d danced with her.

Though the comparison was not to be taken very seriously. Lord Henry could hardly hold a candle to Mr. Dishforth.

Especially now that she’d seen him. Well, sort of.

“I got the door just as he was about to ring the bell,” Phi said.

“Thank goodness!” Daphne exclaimed, having been curious as to how Great-Aunt Damaris had not been awakened.

“Yes, precisely,” Phi agreed. “Then he bowed—most elegantly—”

“Of course,” Daphne agreed, envisioning him doffing his top hat and making his bow.

“And then he introduced himself,” she said. “And asked to see you. Well, not you, but Miss Spooner. ‘I am here to see Miss Spooner,’ he said and in such a commanding voice, Daphne.” Phi sighed. “Yet he was ever-so-considerate at the same time. I nearly swooned.”

“Truly?” For Phi was the most practical of all the practical Dales.