And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake - By Elizabeth Boyle Page 0,19
rather normal.
Boring, even.
Yet not when this slip of muslin looked up at him with that very dangerous light of desire. Something sparked inside him that he’d never thought he’d inherited.
Now, damning every bit of propriety he possessed as he glanced at her lips, he had only one thought.
To kiss her.
Claim her. Then he’d carry her off to Gretna Green if he must, if only to have her always.
Fire-breathing dragon of a chaperone notwithstanding.
Then it happened all at once.
Later he would realize that the warning note in her voice before that “what if” had been the Fates’ way of saying, Be careful what you wish for.
Or rather, Who you desire.
“Daphne!”
“Henry!”
“My goodness, unhand her, you bounder!”
That remark, he assumed, came from the chaperone.
As they broke away from each other, Henry swore that something fragile and most rare broke, as if snipped away before it ever had a chance to grow, to fully wind around them, bind them together.
Ridiculous notion, he thought immediately, glancing at her, and yet she was already lost, looking one way and then the other as the barrage of questions and outrage continued.
“What the devil are you doing?” Preston demanded, glancing first at Henry and then at the lady, his expression bordering on horror.
“Daphne, whatever are you about?”
But it was her chaperone who shocked him as she rounded Hen and pushed her way to the forefront. “Daphne Dale! I will have answers! You were supposed to dance with Lord Henry for the supper dance. Now that will make two dances, and there will be talk.” The hawk-eyed matron shot him a stony glance that said she blamed him. Entirely. “As if there won’t be already.”
Not that Henry was really listening, for he’d rather come to an abrupt halt over one thing.
Her name.
Daphne Dale. His gaze shot back to her. Oh, good God, no!
“Lord Henry?” his once perfect miss was managing to say. Her words came spitting out as if she’d found a pit in a cherry tart. A very sour one. “As in Lord Henry Seldon?”
She backed up, her hands brushing down her arms, sweeping away whatever vestiges of him might be still lurking about, her nose wrinkled in dismay.
Not that he felt much better. What the hell sort of spell had she cast to leave him so blind? How had he not seen it? The disingenuous beauty, the deceptively fair and frail features . . . of course she was a Dale.
“Henry, explain yourself,” Hen was saying as she tugged him off the floor and into the folds of the crush of guests.
“Daphne, come with me at once,” Lady Essex said at exactly the same moment, carting off her charge with an air of indignation that suggested Daphne had missed the last tumbrel to her execution.
She cast one last glance at him before the crowd enveloped her, and the furious, scornful shame in her eyes tore at Henry’s heart.
It was as if she was suddenly the dragon to be feared.
As if she had the right to be angry.
Well, he’d like to remind her that this was his home. A Seldon home. Whatever was she, a Dale, doing here in the first place?
If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she’d gone out of her way to beguile him on purpose. Lured him to her side, teased him into believing . . . tipping her smile just so he might . . . might . . .
Good God! He’d nearly kissed her. Right in front of the entire ton.
Meanwhile, Hen was the epitome of fury and composure, smiling to their guests while her fingernails dug into his sleeve. “What were you thinking? How could you not know who she was? I only hope Aunt Zillah didn’t notice you out there making a cake of yourself with one of them. Why, it would be—”
Ruinous. Yes, he knew.
“How was I supposed to know?” he said in his own defense. Better that than confessing the truth: that he’d thought Daphne Dale was someone else. Against his better judgment, he looked over his shoulder toward her. Not that there was any sight of of the minx, save the whisk of her red skirt as she was pulled from the room by her chaperone.
Henry shook that vision from his thoughts. Shook her from his heart, even as it clamored for him to fetch her back. Demand answers of her.
Gain that kiss . . .
No. None of that. There would be no kissing that minx. Vixen. Witch.