And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(64)

“Ruin you?” Henry laughed. “Oh, if that isn’t a lark!”

“A lark? That’s what you call it?” Miss Dale stood her ground. “You use every opportunity you can gain to take advantage of me.”

Henry had had enough. He stalked over until they were nose to nose. “Then why do you linger, Miss Dale? Why do you stay?”

“Linger?” she sputtered back.

“Yes, you. Always lingering about as if you want me to kiss you. Again.”

She took a step back. “Oh, I never! Want to kiss you? I’d rather take my chances with Mr. Muggins.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

Mr. Muggins, who still manned his spot at the sideboard, looked from Henry to Miss Dale and then back at Henry again, and gave his head a tousled shake, then another pointed glance at the sideboard. Enough talk of kissing. Sausages, anyone?

Henry gave up on both of them and went back down to the end of the table, where he’d left his writing box. “Lingering!” he muttered in accusation.

“Hardly lingering, I have correspondence to attend to,” she said, sitting back down and folding the letter she’d been writing, her jaw set with obstinate determination.

Stubborn chit. Standing her ground despite everything that had happened between them.

Could happen between them. Could ruin them both.

Oh, Zillah might rail on and on about the Dales and their failings, but Henry couldn’t fault them for their bottom. Daphne Dale’s audacity in the face of ruin was nothing less than impressive.

Like how she’d faced down her cousin. Or last night, when she’d been about to dump him on his backside. (He was now more than convinced she had been the one who’d tripped him at the ball.) Audacious, dangerous minx! Those traits alone should have warned him off. But no, he rather admired her mettle, nor did it stop him from prodding her a bit to test it.

“Writing your parents to inform them where you are?” he asked, the epitome of polite and measured concern.

“Harrumph.”

Apparently not. Yet Daphne Dale never liked to leave a question unanswered.

“If you must know—” she began.

“Truly, I hardly care,” he shot back.

“Then whyever did you ask?”

Henry paused. He supposed he had asked. “Merely being polite.”

“You needn’t be,” she told him. “I have much to attend to this morning.”

And indeed, she had what looked like a long list before her and a stack of letters. It all appeared as organized and orderly as the stacks Henry preferred for his business matters.

And a twinge of curiosity prodded at him.

Whatever was she about?

Not that he was going to pry. Not into Miss Dale’s business.

“Yes, well, so do I,” he said, hoping that was the end of it.

It wasn’t.

“Whatever do you have to write about?” she asked. “Other than your usual daily apologies to the ladies you’ve wronged.”

Henry pressed his teeth together and ignored her jab; instead, he decided to retort with something more shocking—the truth.

“I will have you know, in addition to helping Preston manage the ducal estates, I have my own houses and properties, which require close attention.” Henry couldn’t help himself; he puffed up a bit, for her face was a mix of skepticism and shock.

“You do?”

He nodded. Most people—apparently Miss Dale as well—just assumed that because he was a second son, he was barely worth noting, save as a conduit to the duke . . . that is, when Preston’s favor was being curried.

“Properties? As in a house and lands?” she asked.

This question from any other miss might have implied that she was measuring him for a trip to the parson’s mousetrap, but from Miss Dale it was completely and utterly a test to see, he suspected, if he knew one from the other.

“Three houses,” he told her. “One is quite productive—good wool, and a coal vein has just been discovered on the other.”

She sat back and looked at him as if he’d fallen from the sky and just landed in front of the buffet. He could almost see the calculations going on behind her furrowed brow.

Three houses? However could that be?

“And you don’t have a steward or an agent who handles these matters?” she asked.

Not an unusual question, for most men handed over the care and maintenance of their estates to others—as Preston would have if Henry hadn’t been there.