And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake - By Elizabeth Boyle Page 0,23
stare. “I’ll see that she makes it over to his lordship,” she said, more to Daphne than Tabitha.
“Traitor,” Daphne whispered.
“Again, 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 do not know what has come over you,” Harriet scolded as she had to tug Daphne back into their ambling pace around the room. “I thought you’d come to like Preston . . .”
But Daphne wasn’t really listening. She was taking one last scan of the crowd around them for any man who might possibly be Mr. Dishforth. Much to her chagrin she found her wandering led her right back to one man. Lord Henry.
Ah, yes, there he was, having moved on from his previous conquest of Miss Lantham to charming a pair of impressionable and utterly innocent twins.
“Harrumph.” Daphne shook her head as the girls took turns fluttering their fans and batting their lashes in hopes that Lord Henry could discern one from the other.
Not that he would probably care.
“Which of you is Lucinda and which is Lydia? No, don’t tell me. I prefer to guess.”
“Giggle.”
“Giggle.”
“Hmm. I believe it could take a man an entire lifetime to discern between the two of you.”
“You aren’t making up the conversation again, are you?” Harriet asked over Daphne’s shoulder.
Daphne blushed a little. “No.”
“Yes, you are,” Harriet contradicted.
“I might be,” Daphne conceded as the dialogue continued unabated inside her head.
“Ah, the problem with twins is that I find it hardly fair that I must choose.”
“Must you, Lord Henry?”
“Oh, aye. Must you choose?”
“I don’t even want to know what is going on in that diabolical mind of yours,” Harriet avowed, shaking her head.
Daphne glanced around the room. “I would like to know where their mother might be, for she’s left them utterly unguarded.”
“Perhaps they are not here in London with their mother.”
“Then a companion? Or a maiden aunt?” Daphne turned to her friend. “You have no idea what he is capable of.”
“And you do?” Harriet asked, as if she would like Daphne to enlighten her.
Which she was not going to do. Notching up her chin, Daphne turned her gaze back at the identical pair, look-alikes right down to their matching gowns and gloves. Oh, bother, there must be, at the very least, a guardian nearby, perhaps one with a penchant for pistols.
For if Lord Henry was called out, then sadly she would have to forgo the pleasure of partnering him for the supper dance.
“He hardly seems as bad as you would like me to believe,” Harriet said, nudging into Daphne’s reverie, one that had Lord Henry face down on a grassy meadow, with the retort of a pistol still echoing through the early morning shadows.
Daphne turned to argue but just as quickly bit back her remarks. For if she was to point out that Lord Henry Seldon had spent the entire evening prowling about the ballroom, dancing with every woman he could charm—which was any bit of muslin his lustful gaze fell upon—Harriet would only too gleefully point out the obvious.
Whyever were you watching him if you know he isn’t the man you want . . . ? Unless . . .
Unless nothing!
And luckily for her, now that she knew exactly who he was, she was quite immune to his charms.
Unlike that silly pair of girls who stood there, gazing up at that handsome, roguish son of a duke with stars in their eyes.
“Oh, Lord Henry, say that again . . .”
“Oh, yes, Lord Henry, tell us that witty story over and over . . .”
Daphne would never be so misled, not again. Not by him.
“Brace yourself if you are determined to be stubborn about all this,” Harriet warned. “Here he comes.”
“Why must I dance with him?”
“Because Tabitha is our dearest friend. And we will not have her happiness marred in any way whatsoever,” Harriet said as both a reminder and a bit of scold. “And it is only one dance.”
Yet for some reason, that thought—one dance—made Daphne’s heart beat a little faster, her insides quake and tighten.
Ridiculous, truly. Quite insensible.
“Oh, don’t look like that,” Harriet was saying. “It scrunches up your brow in the most unbecoming way—you look older than Miss Fielding.”
Daphne immediately smiled, for Tabitha’s sake and so as to avoid any further unflattering comparisons, especially since Miss Fielding was three years her senior. It would never do to be thought of as that ancient and still unmarried.