And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake - By Elizabeth Boyle Page 0,83
that the lady didn’t know the way to the armory any better than she did the dining room.
Chapter 11
Tonight, I will find you, my dearest Miss Spooner. And no longer shall we be separated by pen and paper. Nothing will ever keep us apart again.
Found in a letter from Mr. Dishforth to Miss Spooner
In the dining room, where the men were enjoying their port and cigars after dinner, Henry heaved a sigh that he’d survived so far. Now all that was left was to escape without too much undo notice.
Though he wouldn’t be surprised to find Zillah outside the door waiting for him.
The look she’d bored into him in the hallway, a combination of guilt and fury that said, Not her again. It had been enough of a censure to have him on edge all through dinner.
Lost in thought, he hadn’t even noticed that Preston had wandered over until the duke said in an oft-handed fashion, “What the devil is the matter with you?”
“Me? Why, nothing,” Henry told him, drawing himself up into a composed stance.
At least that was how he was supposed to look.
Preston’s brow arched upward. “Henry, I’ve known you all my life. And you’ve never looked so havey-cavey as you do tonight.” His nephew paused and studied him closer. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you have an assignation in the works.”
“Why does everyone think that tonight?” Henry said far too quickly.
“Aha!” Preston snapped his fingers. “So you do!”
“Ridiculous!” Henry said, resorting to a lawyer’s trick of neither confirming nor denying the truth.
“So who else thinks you’ve got a lady love stashed away above stairs?”
“No one—”
Preston gave him the Seldon stare, a glower that could wrench even a king into confessing his most dire secrets. And while Preston hadn’t quite mastered the dark glance, he was—much to Henry’s dismay—acquiring an admirable knack for it.
“Oh, bother,” Henry complained. “First there was Loftus.”
“Rather telling, my good man,” Preston remarked.
“How so?”
“A valet knows these things. If Loftus believes—”
“Loftus knows nothing.”
Preston’s expression remained for the most part entirely bland. Save for the knowing twinkle in his eyes. “Because there is nothing to know?”
“Exactly.”
Preston snorted. “And who else suggested, besides myself, that you might be engaging in some after-hours entertainments?”
Henry cringed.
“Oh, come now, Henry. You know I’ll ferret it out of you eventually. And if I can’t, a casual, inopportune comment in Hen’s hearing will most likely—”
Good God, no! Not Hen. Preston wouldn’t dare.
Slanting a glance at the duke, Henry had his answer. Hadn’t he resorted to much the same tactic to rein in Preston’s antics from time to time?
“Miss Dale,” Henry ground out.
Preston’s eyes widened, as if he wasn’t too sure he’d heard him correctly. “Did you say—”
“Yes, I did.”
“And she thinks—”
“Yes.”
“And she said as much?”
Her words came back in haunting clarity. I would say you have done all this in preparation for an assignation tonight.
Henry nodded.
“Why that saucy, shocking little minx,” Preston said, shaking his head. “These chits from Kempton, egads, they have the most forward manners. Say whatever occurs to them.”
“Who are you to complain? You brought them into this house by agreeing to marry one of them.”
The duke grinned. “So I did.”
Henry hoped that was the end of the matter.
Of course it wasn’t. This was Preston, after all, and he was rather enjoying his new role as a reformed rake.
Rather too much.
“So who is it you are meeting—because I must say, you are going about it in all the wrong way. In over your head, if I were to judge.” Preston leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.
Henry took a sip of the brandy, then, remembering its potency, he set down his glass.
If he was going to muddle his way through all this, it wouldn’t help his cause to be, well, muddled.
“Come now, Henry, you’ve been as secretive as a cat of late. Haunting the post, up all night composing letters, hardly commenting when I wagered at White’s the other night—”
“I’ve had an inordinate amount of business to attend to, what with—” Henry paused. “Just a moment, you were wagering at White’s?”
“Never mind that,” Preston demurred. “I want to go back to this ‘business’ of yours. That is what you’re calling it? Business? Really, Henry, if you are going to be a Seldon, then at least you call it what it is.”
“And what is it?”
“An assignation. An affair. A mistress.” Preston grinned. And if Henry didn’t know better, he’d say it was with a bit of familial pride.