And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(90)

You might be surprised how perfect it is to be kissed by a rogue. . . . To let your passions run away unfettered . . .

She glanced back up at the portrait, for she could have sworn the old duke had just nudged her with such a scandalous thought.

Let him run away with you. . . .

“Oh, do be still,” she scolded the duke. “You are only complicating matters.”

For weren’t things complicated enough? Any moment now, the door to the library would open and in would come Mr. Dishforth.

Dishforth no longer, she corrected. She’d know exactly who her sensible gentleman was.

And what if it is Fieldgate?

Daphne slanted a glance at the painting. “That is hardly helpful, and I doubt it is him.”

No, she couldn’t imagine Viscount Fielding ever using the world sensible, let alone knowing how to spell it.

Then what about that earl? The one with that awful shock of ginger hair? Oh, he’s spilled a bit of his wild oats and gotten himself into a bit of financial trouble, but what young man hasn’t? He could be a sensible sort, with the right woman.

Daphne nodded in agreement. Kipps was an earl. And he did have his heart in the right place trying to find a bride to save his family.

“Why would a money-strapped earl use an advertisement to find a bride?” she posed, and when the seventh duke had no answer, she crossed the earl off her list. Yet again.

Astbury?

Daphne shook her head.

Bramston?

She laughed. The captain was quite dashing, but hardly the sort to sit down and compose such heartfelt missives.

Cowley?

Daphne bit her lower lip. He was rather the most likely choice. But oh, dear, whatever would she do if it was him?

Indeed. Can’t imagine him giving you a good thorough tumble.

“That would hardly be a proper consideration for choosing a mate.” Daphne stole a glance at the woman hanging in the portrait next to the duke. The seventh Duchess of Preston.

Little do you know, her satisfied expression seemed to say.

Daphne ignored her. Hadn’t that particular Preston duchess been an opera dancer?

The duke continued to grin. Rawcliffe? Could be him. All that scandal around his first wife’s death has left him a bit of a pariah in Society. Certainly a passionate fellow when riled—they say he finished off Lady Rawcliffe in a fit of rage by . . .

“That is hardly helpful,” Daphne pointed out. “Now, however am I to get that image out of my head if it is indeed Lord Rawcliffe who comes through that door?”

The duke hardly appeared penitent, lounging in his frame and smiling at her with that look of scandalous delight.

There’s always my grandson, he offered. Could be him.

Daphne snorted. “I doubt he would know what a ‘rational meeting of minds’ entails. Lord Henry, my Dishforth? I’d rather eat my gloves.”

Before or after he kissed you?

Preston led Henry down a passageway that wound behind the walls of Owle Park, holding a single candle aloft to gauge where they were.

As if one could tell in such a narrow, dark space, Henry thought.

“I had forgotten these were here,” Preston was saying, almost as if he was reminding himself, “until you started on about meeting this chit in the library. These tunnels run right alongside the wall where the seventh duke is hanging on the wall. Freddie and Felix used to take great delight in scaring the living daylights out of me from inside here. Had me utterly convinced the house was haunted until Dove showed me how to get in here. Then I had my revenge. Oh, how they howled.” He chuckled at the memory.

Henry’s gaze flew up to Preston’s back. It was the first time he could ever remember the duke speaking of his long-lost brothers and sister.

Then again, it was miracle enough that Preston had reopened Owle Park, and now here he was happily reminiscing about the family he’d lost nearly overnight.

It was as Hen claimed; they owed a great debt for the healing touch Miss Timmons had brought to his life. Their lives as well, for Preston was now happily settling into his role as the duke and the head of the family.

Perhaps too much so.

“Henry, I still can’t believe you answered one of those letters,” Preston whispered, swiping his other arm in front of him to clear out the cobwebs.

“I’m rather at a loss to explain it myself,” he admitted, hoping the spiders had long since fled. Henry really loathed spiders.

“I wager we find Miss Walding in the library,” Preston said over his shoulder.