And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(59)

He paused for a moment beside the pianoforte and gazed across the room, where Roxley and Miss Hathaway were playing a fierce game of backgammon—something it appeared they had done before, given Roxley’s accusations of “Harry, you always cheat.”

Henry found he rather envied the earl’s easy friendship with the affable, albeit cheating, Miss Hathaway. A far sight more enjoyable than prowling the room in search of a phantom miss.

“I see you’ve settled on your conquest,” came a pert comment from his right.

Henry glanced over and found Miss Dale on the opposite side of the instrument. How had he not seen her standing there before? Yet there she was, in that same red silk gown she’d worn the night of the engagement ball, her blonde hair all piled up atop her head save for a few stray curls that tumbled down.

Tumbled.

He cringed, for suddenly he found himself wary of that word and all its implications. Especially since it carried with it echoing refrains from Zillah’s scold.

That gel looked tumbled when you brought her back. Tumbled, I say!

Looking at Miss Dale now, Henry would argue that the lady always looked slightly undone, from her fluttering lashes to that impossibly tousled hair. She was temptation in all its incarnations.

Worse, everywhere he’d turned this evening, she’d caught his eye, what with the sway of her hip as she walked, the curve of her smile, the rare light in her eyes when she laughed—really laughed, not just the polite noise she’d made for Lord Crowley when he’d recited some nonsense verse he’d written lately.

And now here she was, teasing him from across the pianoforte.

“My what?” he asked.

“Your conquest,” she repeated, then shook her head. “Oh, dear, I forgot who I was talking to. A flirtation. A dalliance, a trifling.” She listed every definition a lady could politely use.

Those words—conquest, flirtation and dalliance—from any other person would have been ridiculous, but from Miss Dale, they seemed to hold a challenge within them. As if she knew of what she spoke.

Which she did. For look how he had behaved earlier. When it had been just the two of them.

Shaking off that memory—one that left his blood thick and throbbing through his body—he instead focused on her accusation.

That he was about to make yet another conquest.

As if he was the only one who’d spent all evening flirting. She ought to look at the wake behind her. Why, she’d dallied with nearly every man in the room, having moved from Kipps to Bramston, then Astbury, and even Crowley. Taking turns around the room with them, laughing at their jokes, fluttering her lashes at them, her gloved hand atop their sleeves, then moving to her next conquest.

And he was about to point out her expertise on the subject, but she was already nattering on.

“—I don’t suppose she is the dallying type, though she rather seems your sort.”

“My sort?” Henry’s gaze followed hers toward the trio of ladies by the window.

Of course, there sat Lady Alicia, Lady Clare and Miss Nashe—the trio he’d spent the night dancing attendance upon.

Henry decided the best course of action was one of innocence. “Whoever do you mean?”

“Why, Miss Nashe, of course,” she said, tipping her head as she took another examining look at the heiress.

“Whatever does that mean? My sort, indeed,” he puffed before he remembered what he’d said about Crispin Dale earlier.

Not that Miss Dale was going to let him forget as she turned his own sword on him, making a perfectly timed thrust into his chest. She leaned closer as she made her move. “Overdressed. Vain. Wealthy.”

He had the feeling she’d left out a few. Given the arch of her fair brow, he had to imagine that “overreaching mushroom” was a possibility.

Henry knew Miss Nashe was exactly the “sort” a second son like himself sought for a bride—wealthy, gracious and lovely, beloved by the society columns—but there was one impossible hurdle that not even her dowry could tempt him to leap.

The girl herself.

Still, he feigned surprise. “Miss Nashe? You think her vain?”

“You don’t?” Miss Dale’s nose wrinkled. “Why, look at her! Even now she is regaling poor Lady Clare and Lady Alicia with tales of her social prowess.”

Given the set of Lady Clare’s jaw, Miss Dale was probably correct, but Henry wasn’t going to admit such a thing. Instead, he asked, “However can you hear what is being said? They are all the way across the room.”