And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(41)

If only she had seen the man up close, for the more she looked around, she realized nearly all the men in attendance carried themselves thusly.

Good heavens, it was just her luck to be at the house party with every handsome man in England. So much for going by Phi’s near-sighted description.

“Have you been introduced to all of them, Tabitha?” she asked.

“I have,” she offered but said nothing more.

Harriet nudged her with her shoulder. “Stop being a tease and tell us who they are. Before Daphne trips you.”

Tabitha smirked. “She wouldn’t dare try that stunt twice.”

Daphne ignored them both and marched down the steps, her friends following her quickly.

Once they’d finished laughing.

As they strolled across the yard, Mr. Muggins following at their heels, Daphne tipped her head ever so slightly toward the first man before them. “Whoever is that?”

“Which one?” Tabitha asked, shielding her eyes.

Harriet laughed. “The one who looks like a pirate.”

For indeed there was a gentleman who did resemble a privateer of old—from his rugged, tanned countenance, his untamed crop of dark hair, to the nonchalance of his dress. He leaned heavily on a cane but at the same time gestured wildly as he conversed with another man.

“That is Captain Bramston,” Tabitha told them.

“Bramston?!” Harriet gasped. “The Captain Bramston?”

All three ladies gazed over at England’s newest hero. Daphne knew the name well, for his naval daring had figured prominently in the papers for years, and his prominence had continued once he’d been sent home to London to recuperate.

“He is a cousin or some such to Lady Juniper and Lord Henry, on their mother’s side. He also brought his sister, Lady Clare,” Tabitha supplied as they continued past the captain, who doffed his hat and winked as they passed.

“So he’s not a Seldon, then,” Daphne remarked.

Harriet let out a low whistle. “He’s handsome enough to be one.”

“And a bit devilish,” Daphne noted, wondering if perhaps behind all the man’s bluster lay Dishforth’s sensible soul. It didn’t seem possible, so she moved to the next possible candidate. “And who is that with the captain?”

“Believe it or not, the Earl of Rawcliffe,” Tabitha told them.

“Rawcliffe?” they both gasped, their gazes pivoting back to the man who, in Kempton, was as infamous as he was absent. The earl held the living that had been Tabitha’s father’s until his death, and that Tabitha’s uncle, Reverend Timmons, now held.

“Yes, he’s back in England. Has been since the beginning of the Season. Preston mentioned seeing him at White’s, and so I invited him,” Tabitha confided. “Imagine my surprise when he accepted.”

The man noticed their attentions and bowed to the three of them.

Daphne sighed. There wasn’t a spinster in Kempton who didn’t dream of being the mistress who restored Rawcliffe Manor to its former glory, the grand Tudor mansion having sat empty for far too many years. If he were Dishforth . . .

She slanted one more glance at the Earl of Rawcliffe and considered the possibilities.

No wonder Lady Essex and several other ladies from Kempton—the Tempest twins and even shy Miss Walding—hovered about in the man’s orbit.

As they continued to move along the outside of the crowd, Daphne discarded several of the guests as unlikely candidates: Harriet’s brother Chaunce, too much a Hathaway to sit down and compose a letter; Roxley, too much a gadfly even to think of such a thing; and the Earl of Kipps? Easily dismissed, for he had pockets to let.

Kipps needed an heiress. Not something one sought by placing an advertisement in the Morning Chronicle.

As they got to the front of the crowd, Daphne spied Lord Henry off to Preston’s right, and discovered, much to her annoyance, that he was watching her.

She wet her lips and glanced away, that wild tremor racing through her limbs, the one that always ran rampant whenever she looked at him.

She had to imagine that when she found Dishforth, her entire body would tremble so, and so she glanced around at the crowd of gentlemen, waiting for one of them to inspire such a passion.

A slight shiver.

A spark?

And yet there was nothing.

“Daphne,” Harriet whispered. “Smile. That scowl you are wearing will have Lady Essex over here with her vinaigrette, convinced you have need of it.”