And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(8)

“I am quite well,” Daphne rushed to reassure her.

“It is most likely the heat in this room,” Lady Essex declared. “A ball in July—I never! Do you suppose this Owle Park of Preston’s will be so stifling?”

“No, Lady Essex, not in the least,” Tabitha assured her. “Owle Park is most delightful. Large, airy rooms and a wonderful view of the river.”

“A river? That is promising, as long as it isn’t spoiled with all the heat,” she said. “Young ladies are not to their best advantage when they are damp with the heat. Ruins good silk.” She shot Daphne a significant glance, for earlier the lady had declared her red silk too hot—which had been Lady Essex’s polite way of saying “utterly improper”—and had suggested a more modest muslin for such a warm evening.

But Daphne had been determined. She was going to wear red, and when both Tabitha and Harriet had remarked how pretty and engaging Daphne appeared in her new gown, the old girl had relented.

For if there was one thing Lady Essex wanted for Harriet and Daphne, it was for them to show well. She was taking great delight in claiming full credit for Tabitha’s engagement to Preston, and she now had her sights set on a triple play, but only if she gained excellent matches for Daphne and Harriet.

“I hope you will be attentive to the right gentlemen, Daphne Dale. No more of this missish and particular behavior you’ve displayed of late,” Lady Essex said in no uncertain terms and probably loudly enough for half the ballroom to hear. “And bother your lack of dowry. Men tend to ignore those things when a lady is as fetching as you are. If I had but possessed your hair and fine eyes, I would have been a duchess.”

“Is that why you turned down the earl, Lady Essex?” Tabitha teased. “You were holding out for a duke?”

“Not all of us can be as lucky as you, Miss Timmons!” the lady declared. “A duchess, indeed! And Preston’s bride, no less. The Seldons must be in alt over Preston finally getting married. And to think we all shall be there.”

Daphne shuddered as she always did when she heard that name. There was nothing that set a Dale’s teeth to rattling like that one single name.

Seldon.

How it was that the rest of English society didn’t see them in the same light as every Dale did was beyond Daphne.

“Miss Dale, would you please find a way to smile over Miss Timmons’s happiness,” Lady Essex chided.

“Oh, just say it,” Tabitha told her. “You wish I wasn’t marrying a Seldon.”

“I know I would never marry thusly,” Daphne said diplomatically, because she had resigned herself to the notion that her dearest friend was wildly in love with Preston, and he with her.

If only . . . he wasn’t a Seldon.

“Daphne,” Lady Essex scolded, “that feud has dragged on for how long? A century?”

Nearly three, actually, but Daphne wasn’t going to correct her.

“I would think the Dales and the Seldons could forgive and forget!” Lady Essex said. “It is all very tiresome. Besides, Tabitha is far better off marrying Preston than that odious Barkworth her uncle thought to force her to marry.”

Tiresome feud, indeed! Daphne was only glad her mother wasn’t here to hear such a thing. More so, that she wasn’t here to see her only daughter attending a Seldon ball—against her mother’s express wishes.

“Never fear, Lady Essex,” Tabitha said, looping her arm into Daphne’s and continuing their stroll around the room, “when I am married, Daphne will have no choice but to fall in love with the Seldons as well.”

“How right you are,” Lady Essex agreed. “Once she has attended the house party at Owle Park and seen your happiness in marriage, all this nonsense between the Seldons and the Dales will be forgotten. For by then, she will have found a husband as well.”

Owle Park. Daphne glanced away, the very mention leaving her at odds. The Duke of Preston’s country home. The Seldon family seat. A house as marked to the Dales as if it had been an annex to Sodom and Gomorrah.

“You are coming to the house party?” Tabitha pressed. What she really meant to ask was, Are you coming to my wedding?

Daphne stilled. Her parents, while delighted that Tabitha was making such an advantageous match, remained dead set against spending a fortnight in enemy territory.

In a Seldon house.

In such a place, her mother had said with a deep shudder.