And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake - By Elizabeth Boyle Page 0,4
Essex was growing impatient. “Miss Manx, how many times do I have to remind you how imperative it is to keep one’s vinaigrette close at hand?”
Harriet cringed and asked in an aside, “Who is the intended victim?”
Tabitha pointed at Daphne, who in turn mouthed two simple words.
Save me.
And being the dearest friend alive, Harriet did. “It is just Daphne’s gown, Lady Essex. That red satin is giving her a definite glow. A becoming one, don’t you think?”
Bless Harriet right down to her slippers, she’d tried.
“She’s flushed, I say,” Lady Essex averred. Then again, Lady Essex also liked any opportunity to bring out her vinaigrette and had even now taken the reticule from Miss Manx and was searching its depths herself. “I won’t have you fainting, Daphne Dale. It is nigh on impossible to maintain a ladylike demeanor when one is passed out on the floor.”
Tabitha shrugged. It was hard to argue that fact.
Yet Harriet was ever the intrepid soul and refused to give up. “I’ve always found, Lady Essex, that a turn about the room is a much better means of restoring one’s vitality.” She paused and slanted a wink at Daphne and Tabitha while the lady was still engrossed in her search. “Besides, while I was dancing with Lord Fieldgate, I swore I saw Lady Jersey on the other side of the room.”
“Lady Jersey, you say?” Lady Essex perked up, immediately diverted. Better still, she failed to remember that she should probably be chastising Harriet for dancing with the roguish viscount in the first place.
“Yes, I am quite certain of it.” Then Harriet did one better and looped her arm into the spinster’s, handed the hated reticule back to Miss Manx and steered the old girl into the crowd. “Weren’t you saying earlier today that if you could but have a word with her, you’d have our vouchers for next Season?”
Just like that, the hated vinaigrette was utterly forgotten and so was Daphne’s flushed countenance.
A Lady Jersey sighting trumped all.
With Harriet and Lady Essex sailing ahead, Daphne and Tabitha followed, albeit at a safe distance so they could talk.
“You are taking a terrible risk,” Tabitha whispered to Daphne. “If Lady Essex were to find out—”
“Sssh!” Daphne tapped her finger to her lips. “Don’t even utter it aloud. She can hear everything.”
It was a miracle as it was that the old girl hadn’t discovered Daphne’s deepest, darkest secret—that she’d answered an advertisement in the paper from a gentleman seeking a wife.
There it was. And the gentleman had answered her. And then she had replied in kind. And so the exchange had gone on for the last month, all anonymous and mysterious and most likely beyond the pale and ruinous if anyone discovered the truth.
Certainly if Lady Essex found out that such a scandalous correspondence had been carried out right under her nose, the only notes Daphne would be composing would be answering the messages of condolences for Lady Essex’s fatal heart ailment.
“Do you think he’s here yet?” Tabitha asked, looking around the room.
Daphne shook her head, glancing as well at the crush of guests. “I have no idea. But he’ll be here, I just know it.”
Her own Mr. Dishforth. Daphne felt that telltale heat of a blush rising in her cheeks. At first their letters had been tentative and skeptical, but now their correspondence, which was carried out in a daily flurry of letters and notes, had suddenly taken a very intimate turn.
I would write more, but I have obligations this evening at an engagement party. Dare I hope my plans might intersect with yours?
Daphne pressed her fingers to her lips. An engagement party. Which could only mean he was here. At Tabitha and Preston’s ball. Her Mr. Dishforth.
Wear red if your plans take you to such a festivity, and I will find you.
So she’d donned her brand-new red satin gown and come with breathless anticipation of finally putting the mystery of Mr. Dishforth’s identity to rest.
Which would also stop Tabitha and Harriet from worrying over the entire situation. When they’d discovered what she’d done—was doing, rather—they’d been shocked.
“Daphne! How could you? An advertisement? In the paper?” Tabitha had said, clearly taken aback. “You have no idea who this Dishforth might be.”
Harriet had been more to the point. “This bounder could be exactly like that horrible man in Reading last year who advertised for a wife when he already had one in Leeds. Why, he could be one and the same!”
Daphne had cringed, for her Cousin Philomena, who’d been intercepting