And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake (3 page)

“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.

Though they hadn’t been so ill-mannered to say it thusly in Tabitha’s hearing.

“I have been discussing the matter with my mother,” Daphne told them. Discussing it was not quite the right way to describe the situation.

When Daphne had broached the subject, her mother had gone straight to her bed and spent two straight days encamped there, crying and wailing over the request, certain that taking her only daughter, her
unwed
daughter, to a Seldon house party was akin to consigning her to the nearest house of ill-repute.

Everyone knew the Seldons practiced the worst sort of debauchery, but out in the country? Well away from the prying eyes of society, who knew what sort of depravity they would witness, be subjected to . . .

We will all be ruined. Or worse,
her mother had wailed and complained to her sympathetic husband.

What exactly “worse” implied, Daphne didn’t know. She only hoped that Tabitha wouldn’t soon regret her marriage into such a notorious family and especially to its infamous duke. And his equally notorious relations—whom Daphne had managed to avoid meeting thus far.

“Of course she is coming to your wedding,” Lady Essex said, handing her fan to Miss Manx. “If your mother can see fit to allow you to attend the engagement ball, surely she will set aside her own prejudices and allow you to attend the duke’s house party. Why, half the
ton
is mad for an invitation, and the other half is just plain mad over not getting one. Your mother is no fool, Daphne Dale.”

That might be true, Daphne wanted to tell Lady Essex, but her mother was a Dale through and through—both by marriage and birth. Her disdain of the Seldons was born not from a lifetime of distrust but from generations of enmity.

“At least you are here tonight,” Tabitha said, smiling. “She didn’t forbid you to come to my engagement ball.”

Daphne pressed her lips together, for her mother had not exactly given her permission to attend.

Quite the opposite.

Certainly she had meant to keep her promise to her mother when she’d left Kempton and come to London with Tabitha that she would not spend a moment more than was necessary in the company of the Seldons.

Certainly tonight would suffice as “necessary,” with the likelihood of meeting Mr. Dishforth so close at hand.

Even if it meant enduring a dance with Preston’s uncle, Lord Henry Seldon.

Oh, it was a wretched notion, though.

“You’re thinking about Lord Henry, aren’t you?” Harriet said, giving her a nudge with her elbow.

“Please do not pull such a face when he comes to collect you,” Tabitha added.

“I wasn’t thinking of Lord Henry, nor am I pulling a face,” Daphne lied, forcing a smile onto her lips.

“You are and you were,” Harriet said. Sometimes there was no getting anything past her.

“Traitor,” Daphne whispered.

“Not my feud,” Harriet replied with a shrug.

Meanwhile, Tabitha stood there, arms crossed and slipper tapping impatiently.

“Oh, bother both of you!” Daphne said. “Yes, I promise I will appear the most gracious and contented lady in the room when I have to dance with
him
.”

“I don’t see what has you in such a state,” Harriet said. “From what Roxley says, Preston’s uncle is a most amiable fellow. A bit of a dullard, really.”

“Tsk
,
tsk,
” Lady Essex clucked. “Whatever are you doing, Harriet, listening to that rapscallion nephew of mine? His opinions hardly hold any credit. And Miss Timmons is correct, Miss Dale, you cannot go to the supper dance pulling such a face. Just dance with Lord Henry and be done with the matter.”

“How many times do I have to explain it?” Daphne huffed with a sigh of exasperation. “He’s a Seldon. If my family discovers I have danced with him, supped with him . . .”

She stopped herself right there.

Every time she thought of dancing with Lord Henry, she saw quite clearly every Dale Bible across England being opened and her name being vehemently scratched out.

And in some cases gouged out.

Great-Aunt Damaris would waste no time in ordering a new one in which would be inscribed a reordered family lineage.

One that did not include Daphne.

“Daphne, I do not know what has come over you,” Tabitha scolded. “I thought you’d come to like Preston.”

“Oh, he seems to have come around,” she admitted, “but I think that has more to do with your influence, Tabitha, and nothing to do with his inherent Seldon nature.”

“Inherent Seldon nature?” Harriet’s nose wrinkled. “Listen to you. You sound like the worst sort of snob.”

Daphne took offense. “I am no snob, just well versed in the Seldon family history. Even Lady Essex will tell you that blood runs thick.”

Lady Essex pressed her lips together, her brows deeply furrowed, for indeed she did believe thusly, but she could hardly admit such now. Instead, she made every appearance of searching the room for her previous quarry, Lady Jersey.

“Again, I have to ask, why must I dance with him?” Daphne grit her teeth and lips into a tight smile, if only to appear slightly amenable.

“It is Seldon tradition,” Tabitha repeated for about the fourth time, “that whoever is standing up with the bride dances at the engagement ball with whoever is standing up with the groom.”

Harriet chimed in quickly. “And you will do so because Tabitha is our dearest friend. And we will not have her happiness marred in any way whatsoever.” Her words were both a reminder and a bit of a scold.

“You could dance with him,” Daphne pointed out. For wasn’t Harriet as much Tabitha’s friend as Daphne was?

“I told you, I already promised that dance to another,” Harriet said, folding her arms across her chest. “And it is only one dance.”

“It is not just one dance,” Daphne pointed out. There was also the supper arrangements. She had to dine with him. “You both know that my mother would not approve.”

“Your mother is in Kempton,” Harriet pointed out. “And we are here in London.”

“Gracious heavens, Harriet,” Lady Essex declared, squinting at a spot across the way. “There is Lady Jersey! And here I thought you’d made it up to keep me from pressing my vinaigrette upon Miss Dale.” She made a very pointed glance at the three of them, a warning to say that nothing, nothing, got past her, and then said, “Come now, Harriet, Miss Manx, we shall secure those vouchers for next Season—if they become necessary.” Again the sharp glance that spoke quite pointedly to the fact that she would prefer Harriet and Daphne to get on with the business of finding suitable
partis
and stop dragging their heels.

Tabitha sighed. “I am ever so glad to have found Preston. . . . Goodness, speaking of him, there he is being buttonholed by Lady Juniper. Probably over the seating arrangements. Again.”

Daphne glanced in that direction and found Tabitha’s soon-to-be groom indeed cornered by an elegantly clad lady in mauve—the aforementioned Lady Juniper. Preston’s aunt and Lord Henry’s sister.

Tabitha glanced back at Daphne, her desires clear.

“Yes, yes, go save him,” Daphne told her friend. “I will be safe and sound right here.”

“If you find him”—meaning Mr. Dishforth—“bring him to me immediately.” Tabitha wagged a finger in warning. “Don’t you dare fall in love at first sight and run away with him before I grant my approval.”

“Tabitha, I am far too sensible for such a thing. I promise, when I find my Dishforth, I will not run away with him.” She crossed her heart for good measure.

Satisfied, Tabitha hurried across the room to make her rescue while Daphne took a moment to study one and all filling the Seldon ballroom. She was probably the first ever Dale to cross into this unholy space.

So far, so good, she mused, considering she’d been here nearly an hour and had yet to be ruined. Or sold to an Eastern harem.

Oh, Tabitha could swear up and down that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the Duke of Preston’s residence. Yes, the Red Room was a bit ostentatious, but only what one would expect of a ducal enclave.

And certainly, Daphne had to concede, there were no odd remnants of the Hell Fire Club or some other league dedicated to debauchery laying about in open view.

Those damning bits of evidence, she suspected, were kept in the basement.

She made a cautionary note to herself: Do not go in the cellar.

Then again, considering she’d risked everything by coming here tonight, the cellar might be the least of her worries. Especially if her family found out what she’d done.

But in her defense, she’d come to the ball with the noblest of intentions. Because
he
was going to be here. Her Mr. Dishforth.

And after tonight, theirs would no longer be a love affair of merely letters.

Oh, she knew exactly what was going to happen. She was going to look up and their eyes would meet. He would smile at her. No, grin with delight that he’d discovered her.

In that so-very-magical moment they would know. Just know they had found their perfect partner.

Dishforth would be dressed elegantly, but sensibly. No grand waterfall or scads of lace, just a well-cut Weston coat, his sterling white cravat done in a simple, but precise, Mailcoach, and he’d be handsome. Perhaps even as handsome as Preston.

Oh, she’d concede that much about a Seldon. Preston was a good-looking devil. But all the men in his family were reputed to be too well put together by any measure.

Daphne sighed. Still, if Mr. Dishforth was even half as grand . . .

Then she glanced up, telling herself it was all naught but a ridiculous, fanciful dream.

And it was just that, a silly fancy, until she looked across the ballroom and it happened exactly as she thought it ought.

“H
o, there,” the Earl of Roxley called out as Henry tried to slip unobtrusively into the ballroom. He usually arrived promptly at social gatherings, but tonight, Henry was late. And to Preston’s engagement ball, no less.

Hen was going to be furious with him.

Nor was the earl making his entrance any less discreet.

“Ah, hello, Roxley,” Henry said. He wasn’t overly fond of Preston’s gadfly friend, for he could never get a full measure of the man. Yet here he was—as if they had been boon companions since they were in short pants. Of course, with Preston about to be married, the earl was probably looking for a new comrade-in-arms, as it were, to join him in his capering about Society.