And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(54)

I am a tangle of shivers since I read your last letter. Promise one day we will dance under the stars. Dance where we may, just as you wrote. I would dance with you, sir. Wherever you may.

Henry had glanced up at the carriage before him, where all he’d been able to see had been the back of Miss Dale’s fair head.

No! . . .

And yet . . . what if Miss Dale was his Miss Spooner?

Henry had shaken that thought off just like Mr. Muggins had shaken the rain from his wiry coat—quickly and efficiently.

There was no way the impetuous beauty in the carriage before him was his Miss Spooner.

Would you mind if she was? a voice like Dishforth’s had nudged.

Indeed I would, he’d told himself, ignoring the way his body had thrummed to life as he’d recalled how she’d felt in his arms, her gown clinging to her full breasts, the rounded lines of her hips beneath his hands.

He hadn’t given her his coat out of some duty of chivalry. He’d done it to hide those damnable curves of hers—at least that had been his reasoning the second time around—for the sight of her could have turned even the most sensible of fellows into the most Seldon of rakes.

Even him.

Ah, those curves . . .

“Ahem,” Hen said, clearing her throat and wrenching him back to the present.

Henry glanced around and found all three of them looking at him. “She was not tumbled,” he told his self-appointed tribunal.

“She was wearing your coat,” Preston pointed out. Being a rake of the first order gave him a rather unique familiarity with the subject.

If anyone could spot tumbled, it was Preston.

But Henry wasn’t a proper and sensible gentleman for nothing. “She was soaked,” he told his nephew. “Would you rather have had me leave her shivering? Or worse, catch her death?”

“Whose fault would that have been?” Hen mused.

Preston ignored her and continued on. “How the devil did you get so far afield as it was? Another few miles and you’d been over the boundary.”

The boundary.

Demmit! Henry had hoped to avoid that subject. And to his consternation, his guilt must have shown on his face.

“Henry! No!” Preston exclaimed. “You didn’t.”

He managed a deep breath and knew there was no choice but to confess it all.

The boundary part. Not the kiss. Nor about Miss Spooner. Or his suspicions as to who she might be.

Stealing a glance over at Zillah, he reordered his list. No confessing about the kiss. Especially not the kiss.

“Well, if you must know—” he began.

“No!” Preston groaned.

“Yes, I fear so,” Henry admitted.

Hen, scenting a growing scandal, sat up.

“Whatever are you going on about?” Zillah asked, her head snapping up to attention. Apparently her nap was over. “I will not be left out!”

Ignoring her, Henry lowered his voice. While a set down by Hen and Preston was one thing, Zillah was known to take umbrage for months. Years. Decades.

And while no one would venture a guess as to how long the old girl might have left, knowing Zillah she’d give it her all and last another quarter of a century, if only to make good on a grudge.

“I had a bit of a dustup with the viscount,” he admitted. He didn’t have to say which one.

“You not only crossed the line but you also managed to happen upon him?” Preston said, raking his hand through his hair and beginning to stalk about the room.

“Yes, I fear so,” Henry told him, his gaze following the duke warily.

“What is this?” Zillah demanded, her hand cupped to her ear.

His sister was more than willing to enlighten her, for it hadn’t taken her long to catch up. “Apparently, Henry strayed across the boundary onto Langdale, Auntie.”

Zillah’s eyes widened. And then she let fly. “Lord Henry Arthur George Baldwin Seldon! How could you? There are just three rules we Seldons live by—”

Oh, no, Henry winced. Not the rules.

She held up her bony fingers and ticked them off in order. “A Seldon serves his king. He does his duty by his family. And he never, I mean ever, crosses that line.”

“Yes, right, but it isn’t well marked,” Henry said in his defense, not that any of them were listening.

“What happened?” Preston demanded in a voice that reminded one and all he was the duke.

Henry related Crispin’s demands and Miss Dale’s obstinate refusal to acquiesce.