And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake(95)
Come with me, love. Come with me, his body cried out to hers. Come see what we can find up here.
She rose with his touch, with his kiss. Let him lead her upwards, where there was no air, no light, just his touch and her need.
Her hips were moving on their own, urging him to touch her faster. Deeper. Harder.
The darkness burst into light, her mouth opened to cry out, but no words came out. Shattering waves rushed through her, tossing her, crashing over her, until she had gone as high as she could.
And when she began to fall, fluttering in the wind like a feather on the colliding currents, there was Lord Henry, holding her, whispering to her, teasing her still so the waves of pleasure continued until she was spent.
That was also when she heard the footsteps in the hall. The sharp trod of boots sending a warning refrain through her muddled senses.
She blinked once, then twice, and looked up at Lord Henry.
He grinned at her with a lion’s share of pride at what he’d done. What he’d drawn from her.
But her passion was replaced with panic.
Dishforth!
Oh, what had she done? What had Lord Henry done to her?
Pleased you immensely, I imagine.
Good heavens, would she ever be able to get the seventh duke out of her head? Oh, yes, it had been a pleasure.
But it was also ruinous. She had pleaded with Dishforth to come, and this was how she repayed his loyalty? By letting him find her entwined with another man?
Putting her hands to Lord Henry’s wall of a chest, she shoved with all her might and toppled him off the settee.
He landed on the carpet with a thump and a curse. “What the devil—”
“Oh, do be quiet,” she whispered. “He’s coming—”
“No, he’s not,” Lord Henry complained, rubbing his backside. “Whoever it is, they’ve gone.”
“Gone?” Daphne glanced briefly over her shoulder at him and then did a quick shake of her gown, righting the hem in place and tugging up her sleeves. “No, that cannot be. Oh, what have I done?”
“Daphne, wait,” he said. No more Miss Dale. She was Daphne. As if she was his.
But she couldn’t be his. Not now. Not ever.
“I cannot. Oh, however did I let this happen?” she moaned, and then fled.
Out the door and away from the pleasures and utter ruin that was Lord Henry Seldon.
But it was too late. For even as her slippers padded up the stairs, she knew.
It was far too late for Dishforth. Or any other man.
Now that she was ruined.
Lord Henry went to follow Daphne out of the library, but he found his path blocked by his nephew.
“Looks like she took the news hard,” Preston said, glancing up the stairs where Miss Dale had disappeared. “So much so that all her hairpins fell out.”
“Um, yes,” Henry managed.
“What went on in there?” The duke looked over Henry’s shoulder into the shadows of the library. “She didn’t break anything, did she? Like Hen did when that scoundrel Boland threw her over?”
Henry shook his head. Though he had rather feared she’d take up the pike on the wall. All that Kempton nonsense coming back to haunt him.
No, that cannot be. Oh, what have I done? Her words full of anguish, her expression rife with a rising anger. Once she got done blaming herself, then she’d aim her fury at him.
Rightly so.
“Then what did she say?” Preston asked again.
“Um, well,” Henry began, shuffling his feet and wishing himself in a thousand different places.
Like in the lady’s bedchamber finishing what they had started.
“You did tell her, didn’t you, Henry?”
“Tell her? Oh, that.”
“Yes, that. Did you tell her or not?”
Henry shook his head.
Preston caught him by the arm and towed him back into the library, closing the door behind them. “Whyever not?”
Henry cursed Preston’s newfound respectability. “I . . . that is to say . . . it’s rather complicated . . .”
Preston, pacing before the aforementioned pike, came to an abrupt halt. “You can’t continue this! You have to tell her who you are.”
Henry shook his head. “I can’t!”
“Why not?”
“She despises me now,” Henry told Preston. “She’ll hate me more so when I tell her the truth.”
And that was putting it mildly. Especially now . . .