And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake - By Elizabeth Boyle Page 0,37

gown, straight to her very heart.

“And your family approves?”

“But of course,” she lied again. “My lord, let me be frank—”

“I prefer it,” he said emphatically.

“As do I,” she told him. “I am here for Tabitha and Tabitha only. Once she and Preston are wed, I will return to London . . .” Or to wherever her furious family decided to banish her. She suspected a prolonged visit to Dermot Dale would be in order, never mind that Dermot had the distinction of being the only Dale ever to be convicted and transported to Botany Bay.

A moment of panic struck her. I wonder if they have modiste shops in New South Wales?

She steeled herself to such a fate and looked Lord Henry directly in the eye. “So you can see, you will not have to suffer my company any more than a fortnight, and then we shall never see each other again.”

She waited for him to add some comment. An “Amen!” or “Thank God.” Or the one probably closest to the surface of his sharp tongue, a heartfelt “Good riddance.”

But he did not. Much to her amazement, he nodded and sat down in the chair across from hers. “Then if that is the case, Miss Dale, might I suggest that we pledge to keep our distance?”

“You mean keep to our separate corners, as it were?” she asked, glancing tellingly down to the other end of the table.

“Yes, exactly,” he said, completely missing her point.

“An excellent proposal,” she agreed.

“Nothing I would like more,” he said, then tucked into his breakfast.

Daphne paused, then cleared her throat. “Ahem.”

He glanced up and blinked at her as if he had already forgotten her presence. “Yes, Miss Dale?”

“You can start by moving.”

He glanced up. “Excuse me?”

“Moving, my lord.”

“Wherever to?”

“The other end of the table.” She nodded down to the far end. The one well away from her.

“But I am settled here. I always sit here.”

“Yes, that may be so, but this was your idea, your proposal.” She dabbed her lips with her napkin. “It hardly seems gentlemanly to insist on such an arrangement, then require a lady to move.”

She eyed him yet again, sending a skeptical, scathing glance that said she highly doubted he was capable of such a gentlemanly concession.

Henry’s eyes narrowed, murderously so, but even still, he picked up his plate and stomped down to the end of the long table, well away from her.

And once he was well settled, she handed Mr. Muggins the last of her sausages and arose, having suddenly lost her appetite. As Lord Henry gaped at her, Daphne left the morning room at a serene pace despite the glowering storm cloud rising behind her.

Daphne spent a good part of the morning in the quiet of the library, comparing the guest list she’d purloined from Tabitha’s desk drawer to her own list of possible candidates. She’d come quickly to the conclusion that she had her work cut out for her, for nearly half a dozen of the gentlemen assembled could be the man she sought.

“Bother, Mr. Muggins! However will I narrow the field?” she asked the now ever-present terrier.

Mr. Muggins scrambled to his feet, his ears at attention, and it was only after he’d raced to the door that Daphne heard the telltale click of Tabitha’s sensible boots.

Her friend poked her head in the library. “Here she is, Harriet,” she called out. And to Daphne she said, “We have been hunting for you all over. Whatever are you doing?” she asked as Harriet appeared at her shoulder.

“What else? Trying to discover who Dishforth might be.” Daphne quickly folded her papers and notes into her notebook, tying it shut.

“Perhaps you’d need only look as far as Lord Henry,” Harriet suggested.

Daphne bristled. Not this again. Ever since Tabitha’s engagement ball, Harriet had been unrelenting in her conviction that Lord Henry must be Mr. Dishforth.

“How many times must I say it, Harriet? Lord Henry is not my Mr. Dishforth.”

“But at the ball—”

“Yes, yes, I might have been misled into thinking he was Mr. Dishforth, but can’t you see how wrong I was?”

Tabitha and Harriet exchanged a pair of skeptical glances.

“Daphne,” the future duchess began, “why don’t I ask Preston if he knows—”

Daphne cut Tabitha off in an instant. “No! You mustn’t! What if he were to mention it to Lord Henry?”

“Might clear this all up,” Harriet muttered under her breath.

Daphne ignored her, as did Tabitha.

“The night of the engagement ball was mortifying enough—” Daphne began. “Please, Tabitha, I beg of you, don’t mention any