And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake - By Elizabeth Boyle Page 0,51
that state of enticing dishabille, all wet and disheveled, her hair tumbling . . . yes, tumbling . . . down in wet curls, making her stunning confession, she’d turned his world upside down.
Haven’t you ever wanted to dance where you may?
He’d staggered back as if she’d slapped him. Dishforth’s words. Coming out of her lips.
No, not Dishforth’s, but his words.
How the devil had she known to say that? Pure chance? A mockery by the gods of love?
And before he’d been able to react, before he’d been able to demand an explanation from her, haul her back into his arms and kiss her until she was willing to explain how she knew such a thing, Preston, Hen and Tabitha had driven up, all too clearly witnessing the spectacle of the two of them—drenched to the bones, gaping at each other in wonder.
Then everything had sped forward so quickly that it was as if the thread binding them together with those words had been whisked back onto the spool from which it had come.
In the blink of an eye, Miss Dale had been bundled off in Preston’s carriage and Lord Henry had been left with the pony cart to trot obediently behind, with only Mr. Muggins for company. That, and the one burning question that had Henry at sixes and sevens.
Could that minx be . . . ?
No, he’d told himself over and over. Impossible.
Miss Spooner was a respectable lady. Sensible. Well-bred.
With a tart pen and a passionate nature, Dishforth would have added. Don’t you recall what she wrote to us?
I am a tangle of shivers since I read your last letter. Promise one day we will dance under the stars. Dance where we may, just as you wrote. I would dance with you, sir. Wherever you may.
Henry had glanced up at the carriage before him, where all he’d been able to see had been the back of Miss Dale’s fair head.
No! . . .
And yet . . . what if Miss Dale was his Miss Spooner?
Henry had shaken that thought off just like Mr. Muggins had shaken the rain from his wiry coat—quickly and efficiently.
There was no way the impetuous beauty in the carriage before him was his Miss Spooner.
Would you mind if she was? a voice like Dishforth’s had nudged.
Indeed I would, he’d told himself, ignoring the way his body had thrummed to life as he’d recalled how she’d felt in his arms, her gown clinging to her full breasts, the rounded lines of her hips beneath his hands.
He hadn’t given her his coat out of some duty of chivalry. He’d done it to hide those damnable curves of hers—at least that had been his reasoning the second time around—for the sight of her could have turned even the most sensible of fellows into the most Seldon of rakes.
Even him.
Ah, those curves . . .
“Ahem,” Hen said, clearing her throat and wrenching him back to the present.
Henry glanced around and found all three of them looking at him. “She was not tumbled,” he told his self-appointed tribunal.
“She was wearing your coat,” Preston pointed out. Being a rake of the first order gave him a rather unique familiarity with the subject.
If anyone could spot tumbled, it was Preston.
But Henry wasn’t a proper and sensible gentleman for nothing. “She was soaked,” he told his nephew. “Would you rather have had me leave her shivering? Or worse, catch her death?”
“Whose fault would that have been?” Hen mused.
Preston ignored her and continued on. “How the devil did you get so far afield as it was? Another few miles and you’d been over the boundary.”
The boundary.
Demmit! Henry had hoped to avoid that subject. And to his consternation, his guilt must have shown on his face.
“Henry! No!” Preston exclaimed. “You didn’t.”
He managed a deep breath and knew there was no choice but to confess it all.
The boundary part. Not the kiss. Nor about Miss Spooner. Or his suspicions as to who she might be.
Stealing a glance over at Zillah, he reordered his list. No confessing about the kiss. Especially not the kiss.
“Well, if you must know—” he began.
“No!” Preston groaned.
“Yes, I fear so,” Henry admitted.
Hen, scenting a growing scandal, sat up.
“Whatever are you going on about?” Zillah asked, her head snapping up to attention. Apparently her nap was over. “I will not be left out!”
Ignoring her, Henry lowered his voice. While a set down by Hen and Preston was one thing, Zillah was known to take umbrage for months. Years. Decades.