And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(67)

Just like he’d always imagined Miss Spooner at her desk, writing to him.

No, no, no! It couldn’t be. Not her.

Henry took a deep breath, for he knew exactly what he would have to do if it was Miss Dale: Hie off to London as fast as he could and then pay his secretary an indecent amount of money never to let him compose another letter ever again.

Well, he wasn’t ready to flee just yet, not before he’d scratched Miss Nashe’s standing from his shrinking list.

Slowly and with as much nonchalance as he could possess, he rose from his chair and, looking around for an excuse, picked up his half-finished plate and wandered over to the sideboard to refill the empty spots.

“Miss Dale, do you have a spare piece of paper?” Miss Nashe was saying. “I need to make a list for my maid, and the coarse sheets you seem to prefer appear perfect for such a task.”

“Yes, of course,” Daphne told her and fished out an extra sheet of paper for the girl.

As Miss Nashe walked down the side of the table, Henry saw his chance.

But then, as it had with everything else in his search for Miss Spooner, Fate intervened.

Or rather Hen did.

“Henry! There you are!” she said in that exasperated tone of hers. “I’ve been searching all over for you.”

“Just a moment,” he told her, the page and his answer nearly in his sights.

“I will not be put off. Zillah is causing another commotion. I have assured her you want nothing to do with that wretched Miss—”

At that moment Hen stopped her grand entrance and spied the rest of the occupants of the room. “Oh, my, Miss Dale. And dear Miss Nashe. How charming,” she said, shooting a glance at Henry that said she was anything but.

Charmed, that is.

Henry took this momentary diversion to start for the other end of the table, but Hen was too quick for him.

“Oh, don’t think to escape through the butler’s pantry. You will help me with Zillah, or I will move her to your wing of the house.” She bustled over to his side, one hand coiling into the crook of his elbow like an anchor line. In the blink of an eye, he was being towed from port, a reluctant ship against the tide.

And when he stole one last glance at the room, he found both ladies watching him leave.

Miss Nashe with a smile that encouraged him to return.

From the far end came the wry glance of Miss Dale, one that wished him well on his journey.

And if he didn’t know better, she hoped it would be a long and hazardous one.

Daphne drew a deep breath as Lord Henry was hauled from the room, and she did her best to ignore the knowing glance that Miss Nashe tossed in her direction.

Yet the heiress was hardly done with just her snide expression. After several minutes, she set down her pen and pushed her “urgent” correspondence aside. “Lord Henry,” she announced, “is certainly a creature of strong habits if both our maids have discovered his penchant for an early breakfast and correspondence.”

“Our maids?” Daphne said, not quite catching on.

“If we are both arriving here at this ungodly hour to catch him,” she supplied, one brow tipped in a challenge.

Daphne’s mouth fell open. “Oh, goodness, no! You don’t think that I . . . that is, I have no desire to—”

“Miss Dale, everyone at this house party is discussing your blatant attempts to ensnare Lord Henry.” Miss Nashe’s nose turned up slightly. “A girl in your situation and a man of his wealth and lands, why wouldn’t you set your cap so far above your station?”

For a moment Daphne was too shocked to take in the more insulting parts of what Miss Nashe was saying. How was it that this girl knew all about Lord Henry’s wealth, as if his holdings were common knowledge?

Perhaps she knew as little about the Seldons, as she’d accused Lord Henry of knowing about the Dale dynasty. Well, she’d make sense of all that later.

Right now there was a more insulting matter to be dealt with.

“Above my station?” she echoed.

“Well, of course,” Miss Nashe said in all sympathy.

For her. Daphne Dale of the Kempton Dales.

“Miss Dale, you seem quite intelligent despite your lack of finish and must know the only reason you are here, in this company, is because of Miss Timmons’s dear and simple affection for her former friends.”

Former friends?

“But if it were any other lady marrying the Duke of Preston, you would never have been invited.”