And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(5)

London, six weeks later

“Miss Dale, you appear flushed. Are you coming down with a fever? That will never do, not here at Miss Timmons’s engagement ball!” Lady Essex Marshom declared, turning to her recently employed hired companion, Miss Manx. “Where is my vinaigrette?”

While the beleaguered young woman dug through a reticule the size of a valise to find one of the many items Lady Essex insisted Miss Manx have on hand at all times, Daphne did her best to wave the dear old spinster off.

“I am most well, Lady Essex,” she told her, sending a look of horror over at her best friend, Miss Tabitha Timmons. The last time Lady Essex had pressed her infamous vinaigrette into use, Daphne hadn’t been able to smell a thing for a week.

“You do look a bit pink,” Tabitha agreed, a mischievous light flitting in her brown eyes.

Daphne bit back the response that came to mind, for ever since Tabitha had gotten herself engaged to the Duke of Preston, she’d become as cheeky as a fishwife, displaying none of her previous sensible nature.

This is what came of marrying a Seldon.

Daphne tried not to shudder right down to her Dale toes, for here she was in the very heart of Seldon territory—at their London house on Harley Street, where Tabitha and Preston’s engagement ball was being held.

But Daphne couldn’t begrudge Tabitha her happiness—there was no arguing that Preston had her glowing with joy. And the engagement had brought them all back to London. Where all Daphne’s hopes lay.

Ones that rested upon a certain gentleman. And tonight, Daphne carried high expectations she would be . . . would be . . . She glanced over at her dear friend and whispered a secret prayer that when she found her true love, she might be as happy.

And how could she not with Mr. Dishforth somewhere in this room?

Yes, Mr. Dishforth. She, Daphne Dale, the most sensible of all the ladies of Kempton, was engaged in a torrid correspondence with a complete stranger.

And tonight she would come face-to-face with him.

Oh, she would have stared down an entire regiment of Seldons tonight if only to attend this ball. To find her dear Mr. Dishforth.

“Who looks a bit pink?” Miss Harriet Hathaway asked, having just arrived from the dance floor looking altogether pink and flushed.

Meanwhile, Lady Essex was growing impatient. “Miss Manx, how many times do I have to remind you how imperative it is to keep one’s vinaigrette close at hand?”

Harriet cringed and asked in an aside, “Who is the intended victim?”

Tabitha pointed at Daphne, who in turn mouthed two simple words.

Save me.

And being the dearest friend alive, Harriet did. “It is just Daphne’s gown, Lady Essex. That red satin is giving her a definite glow. A becoming one, don’t you think?”

Bless Harriet right down to her slippers, she’d tried.

“She’s flushed, I say,” Lady Essex averred. Then again, Lady Essex also liked any opportunity to bring out her vinaigrette and had even now taken the reticule from Miss Manx and was searching its depths herself. “I won’t have you fainting, Daphne Dale. It is nigh on impossible to maintain a ladylike demeanor when one is passed out on the floor.”

Tabitha shrugged. It was hard to argue that fact.

Yet Harriet was ever the intrepid soul and refused to give up. “I’ve always found, Lady Essex, that a turn about the room is a much better means of restoring one’s vitality.” She paused and slanted a wink at Daphne and Tabitha while the lady was still engrossed in her search. “Besides, while I was dancing with Lord Fieldgate, I swore I saw Lady Jersey on the other side of the room.”

“Lady Jersey, you say?” Lady Essex perked up, immediately diverted. Better still, she failed to remember that she should probably be chastising Harriet for dancing with the roguish viscount in the first place.

“Yes, I am quite certain of it.” Then Harriet did one better and looped her arm into the spinster’s, handed the hated reticule back to Miss Manx and steered the old girl into the crowd. “Weren’t you saying earlier today that if you could but have a word with her, you’d have our vouchers for next Season?”

Just like that, the hated vinaigrette was utterly forgotten and so was Daphne’s flushed countenance.

A Lady Jersey sighting trumped all.

With Harriet and Lady Essex sailing ahead, Daphne and Tabitha followed, albeit at a safe distance so they could talk.

“You are taking a terrible risk,” Tabitha whispered to Daphne. “If Lady Essex were to find out—”