And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake

chapter 14



Miss Spooner, I have never been in love before. You’ll excuse me if—at some point—I make a terrible muddle of all of this, won’t you?

Found in a letter from Mr. Dishforth to Miss Spooner




Owle Park

Eight hours later

“I’m coming with you.”

Preston found Hen, valise in hand and jaw set, blocking his path to the front door. He looked over her shoulder to where his traveling coach waited in the drive beyond and frowned.

Hen’s expression was just as grim and determined. “He is my brother and I will see his reputation put to rights.”

“His reputation?” Preston shook his head. He didn’t have time for this.

Suddenly Zillah came marching up and took a stand beside Hen. “Well, of course, Henry’s reputation! He’s obviously been lured. Perhaps even drugged.” The old girl glanced up at Hen. “I’ve never believed that nonsense that Cornelius Seldon went willingly with that mad-as-a-hatter Doria Dale.”

Tabitha looked ready to leap into this squabble, if only to defend her bosom bow, but Preston cut her off. They would all need each other in the coming days and weeks, and this sniping didn’t serve anyone.

“You two,” he said, wagging a finger at Hen and Zillah, “need to reconcile yourselves to the fact that Henry is in love with Miss Dale—”

When they both looked ready to erupt in a bevy of protests, he summoned his most ducal glare.

Which, to his shock, actually worked. At least for now.

“Be advised that the only course for Henry and Miss Dale is to see them married. To each other,” he finished, making sure to close any loopholes.

“Married?!” This might have been a duet of protest, but a third voice had chimed in.

For there on the front steps had suddenly appeared none other than Crispin, Viscount Dale. “Married?” he repeated. “Over my dead body.”

“That can easily be arranged,” Zillah muttered.

Out from behind Tabitha came Mr. Muggins, who, spying his former adversary, let out a warning growl.

“Now what is all this?” Crispin demanded. “Where is my cousin?”

“Gone!” Hen told him. “She lured my dear brother to his ruin.”

“Lured? Daphne?” Lord Dale sputtered with indignation. “More like she was kidnapped!”

“Kidnapped!” came yet another protest from behind Crispin. “Where is my dearest niece?”

This was probably the first time Damaris Dale had ever uttered that phrase in reference to Daphne, but it wasn’t something the Seldons would know.

The tall, willowy figure of a matron came up the steps and took her place at Crispin’s side. In her wake hurried a slight young woman in the plain hand-me-down gown of a companion. She maintained a respectful distance a few steps down.

“I said, where is my niece?” the older woman repeated.

All three Seldons stilled, chilled to their marrow.

“Damaris!” Zillah hissed.

The Dale matriarch flicked a glance in her direction, then sniffed. Loudly. “Zillah. I didn’t think you were still alive.”

The pair eyed each other like old sparring partners, until Damaris’s gaze wavered over toward Mr. Muggins.

“Still breeding mongrels, are we?” She sniffed at the overgrown terrier. Then, having had enough of the Seldons, Damaris turned her attention to the viscount. “Where is our Daphne?”

“Gone,” he bit out. “Stolen by Lord Henry.”

“The ruinous, evil fiend!” she announced before she turned to her companion. “Summon Bow Street. Send word to Derby Dale in the Home Office that we have need of him. I’ll have Lord Henry Seldon dragged and tried through the courts until he’s—”

“Aunt Damaris, this is not helping,” Crispin told her.

And wonders upon wonders, she stopped and bowed her head slightly in deference, though she hardly looked pleased at being interrupted.

Then Harriet Hathaway, who up until now had been watching the drama play out from the grand staircase, waded into the fray. “Daphne hasn’t run away with Lord Henry but with Mr. Dishforth.”

“Dishforth?” they all said in a loud chorus.

Especially Hen, whose eyes went wide at the mention of the man’s name.

The duke cringed. Oh, demmit, this was going to be the devil’s own puzzle to explain.

Not that he had an explanation to give. He was of the same mind as Damaris Dale and inclined to send Bow Street after Henry. Or some sturdy hands from Bedlam.

“How the devil—”

“Who the devil—”

“When I catch this rogue!”

Everyone set up a clamor demanding answers, save Preston and Hen. And Tabitha noticed. “What do the two of you know of this Mr. Dishforth?”

Hen and Preston shared a guilty look.

“Preston!” Tabitha said in a tone that would stand her good stead once she was his duchess. “Who is this Dishforth?”

“There is no Dishforth,” Preston admitted, while Hen threw her hands up in the air and began pacing in tight circles as if she was trying to unravel all of this.

“But there must be,” Harriet insisted. “Daphne has been corresponding with him. Mr. Dishforth placed an advertisement in the paper seeking a wife. And Daphne answered it. They have been exchanging letters ever since. Here is one of the letters he wrote just recently.”

Hen rushed forward and took the paper from Harriet. After a quick glance, the color rushed from her face. “Oh, no! This cannot be. Not Dishforth! The demmed rogue.”

“Why, he seemed quite respectable when I met him,” Damaris’s bespectacled companion piped up.

When all eyes turned on the girl, she blushed deeply, already regretting her hasty words. “I warned Daphne this would all turn out bad,” she said in her own defense. “Tried to convince her—”

“We will discuss this later, Philomena,” Damaris told her.

Hen, meanwhile, had turned back to Preston and was shaking the note under his nose. “You know what this is, what this means.”

“What does it mean?” Tabitha asked, her solemn question lending a moment of calm to the rising panic in Hen’s voice.

“It’s Henry’s handwriting,” Preston told her, told all of them.

“Oh, I knew it all along!” Harriet declared. “Lord Henry is Mr. Dishforth. How perfect!”

Though as it turned out, no else seemed to be sharing her joy.

Especially not Damaris Dale. She rounded on Preston. “Now, Your Grace, explain all this. Immediately.” Her cane came down with a sharp rap.

Preston didn’t have time, for Hen, having added it all up, now turned on him, fury in her eyes. “That abominable advertisement of yours! This is all your doing,” she blasted, wagging an accusing finger at the duke. “You and Roxley.” She cast a disparaging glance at the earl, who was lounging on the stairs.

Roxley shrugged, as if he hadn’t the slightest notion of what she was saying. But he also did so as he took two steps back up the stairs, distancing himself from this growing scandal.

And then Preston explained all he knew—about the ad, about Henry’s part in all of it—with Tabitha, Harriet and Philomena filling in Daphne’s portion.

“I should have known you had a hand in this disgrace.” Lady Damaris wagged an aggrieved finger at Preston, sparing Roxley just a shuddering glance for his part. “Now tell me once and for all, where has your uncle taken my niece?”

“Gretna Green, I imagine,” Preston told her.

Damaris’s eyes widened, then narrowed into two tight slits. “I should have known. This is all my fault for turning a blind eye to Daphne’s stubborn determination to keep such company.” This was followed with a scathing glance at Tabitha.

“Never fear, Aunt Damaris,” Crispin told her, taking her hand. “I shall get our Daphne back.” Then he turned to Preston. “And woe be it to Lord Henry when I get my hands on him.”

“Is that necessary?” Preston demanded. “After all, we have every reason to believe they are in love.”

Honestly, he had no idea if that was true or not, but it was a far sight better than unleashing another civil war between their families.

Besides, the Seldons were sadly outnumbered.

“Love! Harrumph!” Damaris wagged a bony finger at them. “Be well reminded of what happened to Kendrick Seldon when he lured Miss Delicia Dale into an ill-advised elopement.”

With that said, the old girl turned and stormed over to her carriage, Crispin and Philomena in her wake.

Roxley had come down the steps to stand beside Preston, most likely to gain a better vantage point. He leaned over and asked, “Whatever happened to this Kendrick fellow?”

Preston told him, though not loud enough for anyone else to hear.

But the meaning of his words were clear as Roxley blanched, then flinched, his hand going to cover the upper part of his breeches, as if to ward off such a fate.



The Hornbill & Cross, Manchester Road

Twenty-four hours later

“And that’s the whole story,” the posting lad told the overflowing room at the inn in Bradnop. He had arrived from Swinescote with the tale, having heard it from the lad who rode between Swinescote and Mackworth. “There isn’t a soul up and down the road who hasn’t heard of them. The runaway lovers. They say the lady is ever-so-pretty. She has eyes like June bells.”

There were sighs from some of the ladies, guffaws from the old duffers with their half-filled tankards.

“I don’t get them toffs,” a gruff old drover said from his stool near the fire. “Why doesn’t he just tell ’er there is no other fellow? That this Dishworth—”

“Dishforth,” the lad corrected.

“Eh, Dishworth, Dishforth, what does it matter if the plain truth is he don’t exist?”

“Oh, but Sulley, he does,” the serving girl told him. “Didn’t you listen to Timmy’s tale? Dishforth is this Lord Henry, and he must love his lady ever so much to go to such lengths to win her heart.”

Spitting into the fire, Sulley shook his head. “Well, this lady is going to find out the truth soon enough, that she’s been right deceived, and see if she doesn’t toss this fellow into the nearest ditch.”

There were nods about the room, including a solemn one from the innkeeper’s wife, who swung her ample hips easily through the crowded room as she refilled pitchers. “Right you are, Sulley,” she agreed as she topped off his cup.

Sulley grinned at the crowd and raised his tankard in triumph. Such a sight was a rare thing to see, considering Sulley had always been one of the most cantankerous coachmen on Manchester Road.

“Don’t you be taking on airs, John Sulley,” she scolded. “It is as fine a tale as I ever heard. And deservin’ of our help.”

“Help?” he sputtered, sending froth all over the front of his coat.

“Yes, help,” she said, casting a firm glare about the room. “We are going to help this gentleman win his lady love.”

“How can we do that, Mrs. Graham?” the lad asked, sitting up straight on his stool, eyes alight with the promise of mischief.

“By getting Mr. Dishforth to Gretna Green.”

“I think you’ve been drinking a bit too much of your own brew, missus,” Sulley told her. “There is no Mr. Dishforth.”

“There is now,” she said. And then she explained exactly what needed to be done.

Simple. Miss Dale thought Dishforth a simpleton.

Lord Henry crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the seat of the hired carriage, glaring at the countryside whirling past.

To make matters worse, he had the sneaking suspicion she was utterly correct.

Dishforth was a simpleton. Which meant in actuality that he—as in Lord Henry Seldon—was a fool.

For what sort of man would find himself dashing toward Gretna Green with the woman he loved, but not, as one might suspect, with the intention of making a runaway marriage but to stop a man who didn’t exist from eloping with the figment of a stablehand’s overly fertile imagination?

The entire scenario was giving Lord Henry a severe megrim.

But obviously not one painful enough to get him to confess the truth.

For God’s sake, tell her everything, he could almost hear Preston’s stern voice saying.

Lord Henry blew out a breath. Oh, yes, that would be sensible. Miss Dale, you are chasing after a phantom. I know this because I am your beloved Dishforth. I have led you on this merry, ruinous adventure in hopes of your coming to your senses and realizing that I am the only man for you.

She’d kick him out of the carriage. Most likely on a blind corner. With some sharp object imbedded in his back—if she was feeling merciful.

Worse, he’d end up like Kendrick Seldon.

Henry flinched and then shuddered.

However had he gotten so mired into this tangle?

He glanced across the carriage to where Daphne sat, serene and calm, hands folded in her lap and eyes bright as she looked out the window.

She was the epitome of beguiling—one fair curl peeking out from beneath her bonnet, fluttering slightly in the breeze, a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and those lush pink lips of hers, the curve of which tempted a man to haul her close and kiss her senseless.

Well, tempted him, at the very least. Tempted him more than he cared to admit.

He knew what the seventh duke would tell him to do.

Kiss her, then follow it with a rousing session of tupping. That solves any number of difficulties with the female persuasion. A good tupping always does.

Henry would argue that it had been kissing that had gotten him into this mess.

But who could blame him? She possessed the wiles of a courtesan and the eyes of a siren. One look, one glance and she’d entangled him, with no hope of escape.

At least not alive. He grimaced again.

“Lord Henry, is something on your mind?” she asked, peering up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet.

Here it is . . . your chance. Screw up your courage, man, and tell her.

But while he was a Seldon through and through—for wasn’t he leading her to complete ruin with every passing mile?—the Seldons had one weakness.

They were horrible at confessing the truth. Especially when it came to love. His only hope was that she would grow weary of this chase and call it off. Disavow Dishforth. And then the field would be clear for him to . . .

Him to do what?

Henry had no idea. But he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. For truly, how far would Miss Dale go for such a pompous nit as Dishforth?

He shook his head and smiled at her. “No, nothing, Miss Dale. Nothing at all.”



Two days later

“You do not seem overly distressed that we are stranded,” Lord Henry posed as they stood beside the road and watched the posting lad and coachman ride away with their horses.

“Travel is fraught with such mishaps,” Daphne replied, hoping her sense of relief as she watched them disappear around the bend wasn’t overly apparent.

“Don’t you think it odd that all four horses suddenly went lame?”

“I suppose it can happen; in fact it has,” she replied, nodding at their own horses happily trotting down the road and hardly looking lame.

“Still . . .” Lord Henry kicked a stone across the road, his jaw set.

Perhaps she should feign a demeanor fraught with worry and concern for Dishforth, or, more to the point, over her certainly lost reputation.

For here she was stranded out in the middle of nowhere with Lord Henry Seldon.

All alone.

Where anything could happen.

She slanted a glance in his direction. Anything.

And yet nothing was. Much to her growing annoyance.

If anything was leaving her fraught with worry, it was Lord Henry’s suddenly honorable and gentlemanly behavior toward her.

“I will say, though,” she offered, “that if one must be stranded, it is in a perfectly lovely spot.”

Indeed it was. For there was a large oak on the other side of a rock wall, and beyond its sheltering shade were wide meadows dotted with wildflowers. There was even a wide, clear stream dividing the valley laid out before them.

Lord Henry glanced around and huffed another sigh, picking up the basket and crossing the road.

Daphne chewed at her lower lip and went over the last few days in her head. Through all the changes of horses, all the miles, all the hours of traveling so intimately together, not once had Lord Henry attempted anything untoward.

He’d been the epitome of a gentleman.

Wretched beast.

Hopefully this delay would be enough to nudge him into confessing the truth.

That he was Mr. Dishforth.



A few days earlier at Owle Park

“Was it him or wasn’t it?” Lady Zillah demanded.

Something inside of Daphne—most likely that bit of her that had left more than one relation shaking their head and likening her to Great-Aunt Damaris—refused to yield.

She took a few steps forward and smiled at the lady politely. As if she were a Fitzgerald or a Smythe and not this Seldon crone.

“Pardon, my lady?”

“Harrumph!” Zillah snorted. “You have Damaris Dale’s pride all over you.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“That was no compliment.”

“I shall take it as one, all the same.”

“Bah! He’s a fool to even glance in your direction. And what’s worse is that you know it.”

Daphne didn’t reply, for even to acknowledge the lady’s accusation was to give it credit.

Where none was deserved or wanted.

Lord Henry! She didn’t know whether to shout with joy or cry her eyes out. She was head over heels in love with him and all but promised to another.

“He’d have none of my advice to leave you be. Quite the opposite, he’s determined to make mischief where it doesn’t belong.”

Meaning with her. With a Dale.

“So I am asking you, since for some folly of a reason Preston will not, to leave Owle Park before you have that boy in knots.” Daphne opened her mouth to protest, but again Zillah obviously had been looking for an opportunity to make this speech and had it all planned out. Thus, she continued unabated, “You will make your curtsy, apologize profusely and leave immediately. I will not see him bedeviled another day.”

“I have no reason to leave. Whatever would I say?” Daphne posed.

“Lie,” the lady said plainly. “You’re a Dale, after all. It should come naturally.”

Daphne sucked in a deep breath, every bit of indignation she possessed coming to the forefront.

While Lady Zillah’s age and rank required Daphne to give the lady every bit of respect she possessed, in her estimation, Lady Zillah deserved none.

But there was no time to utter even the quickest of retorts, for Lady Zillah had turned back to the piano and was gathering up her music sheets. She tsk tsk’d over each one. “And after Henry was so kind to make all these notations for me,” she complained, glancing down at the pages she held. “For another time when I won’t be disturbed.”

Then she flounced off with all the arrogance that only the daughter of a duke could possess.

And as she swept past Daphne, her skirt held to one side so as not to even graze a Dale, one of the lady’s music sheets slipped unnoticed from her grasp.

Though not unnoticed by Daphne. Leaning over and snatching it up, she was about to call after her.

Truly she was—not even the wry thought of crumpling the page and tossing it after the old witch’s head had lasted overly long—that is, until she looked at the page, heavily annotated as it was.

Daphne stilled and gaped down at the bold, broad, sure hand that had written all over Lady Zillah’s music sheets.

A script Daphne knew all-too-well.

For not only did it belong to Lord Henry but it also belonged to another.

Mr. Dishforth.



Back on the road to Gretna

So Daphne hadn’t dashed out of the inn in a wild state, determined to save “poor Dishforth” as she’d professed.

She’d done it to force Lord Henry’s hand. To get him to confess the truth. Declare himself.

Because until he did so, how could she?

And now here she was, nearly to the Scottish border, ruined beyond redemption, and not one word had Lord Henry uttered. Oh, this had become a ruinous, ridiculous farce.

One of your own making, Daphne Dale.

And worse yet, it seemed the lie that was Dishforth’s elopement had spread up and down the road that led to Gretna Green.

Every inn they stopped at, every posting house, every tollgate, there was some new addition to the story . . .

The beauty of Dishforth’s faux bride-to-be.

The man’s kindness and gallantry toward his lady love.

And his extravagance. Buying pints all around in one inn to toast his good fortune. Tipping the posting lads ungodly amounts to hasten their dash to Scotland.

Daphne and Henry always seemed to have “just missed the pair.”

Funny, that. Ridiculous lies, all of them. But every time one of these bouncers landed in their lap, she watched for Lord Henry’s reaction, for surely now he would say or do something.

But each time he listened attentively and did nothing.

Daphne ground her teeth together. Whenever was he going to put an end to all this? She couldn’t imagine it would be much longer, for at least she’d had the presence of mind to actually pack a valise.

She’d gone down to the inn outside of Owle Park half expecting him to make a full accounting of himself and then beg her to elope.

And when he hadn’t, and he and the innkeeper and that terrible boy—goodness, whoever had thought to include such a wretched liar in their plans?—had gone on about Dishforth’s departure, she’d had no choice but to force his hand.

And instead of telling the truth, he’d gone along with her madcap scheme.

For what reason, she couldn’t fathom. Not once had Lord Henry looked ready to confess during these last few days, not when it meant wearing the same clothes day after day or even when he’d had to subject himself to the ministrations of whatever hapless servant could be pressed into duty as “his lordship’s temporary valet.”

She almost pitied him, for the shave he’d gotten this morning looked as if it might have been done by a blind man.

Nicked, battered and rumpled, and still he wouldn’t confess.

And whyever not? She’d spent nearly every waking minute trying to answer that one question.

What was it Lady Zillah had said about him? You are too nice by half. Respectable and kindhearted.

Was he not telling her the truth—that he was Dishforth—simply because, as a man of honor, he wanted to avoid hurting her?

Or might it be a way of avoiding a scene when she discovered his deception?

Certainly she was avoiding the moment when he discovered she’d known of his duplicity all this time and could well have put her foot down . . . including saving him from that butchering barber . . .

One thing was for certain: it made little sense that Lord Henry was attempting to avoid marrying her by running off with her all the way to Gretna Green.

Which left her right back at the beginning of this terrible muddle, to the one possibility that tended to haunt her in the middle of the night:

What if he was simply waiting for her to cry off? To beg him to turn the carriage around and take her back?

Waiting for her to disavow Dishforth so they could return to Owle Park, where she would be whisked away by her family in a complete state of ruin and he could go about his normal existence—his Seldon reputation affirmed and no one overly shocked as to his hand in all this.

After all, he was a Seldon and allowed a few scandals.

And her? Well, she’d be ruined and shuttled off to the farthest reaches a Dale could travel.

Yet when Daphne looked at Lord Henry, or caught him studying her—on those rare moments when he thought she wouldn’t catch him—she felt, oh, how she wondered how he could remain silent.

If only . . . if only . . . he’d kiss her again.

Then she’d be able to know . . . she was sure of that.

But he hadn’t tried. Not once in these past few days.

Apparently such mischief was only for the confines of Owle Park.

She glanced down the now empty road and sighed. At least they had the basket the innkeeper’s wife had packed for them this morning—even though they hadn’t ordered one. The thoughtful lady had insisted, saying that it was impossible to know what was ahead but anything could be faced better with a full stomach.

So Daphne had accepted the proffered basket gratefully.

Looking back, one might suspect the lady had known what was in store for them.

But how could she have known? Ridiculous, romantic notion, really.

As if the entire Manchester-to-Glasgow road was conspiring for them to fall in love.

Fall in love. Too late, she would have told them all.

Glancing over at Lord Henry, where he was bent beside a hedge examining something—she frowned, for romance was in very short supply on this misguided and unwitting elopement.

But when he turned around, she realized how wrong she was. In his hands, Lord Henry held a fistful of forget-me-nots.

He walked over to her—well, a Seldon never just walked, they had this way of striding about as if the very soil beneath their boots was theirs to command.

He handed the flowers over without so much as a word, and she took them.

Now he’s going to confess, she thought, biting her bottom lip in anticipation. Now he will finally tell me.

And she dared to look up.

The moment their gazes met, it was so magical—wasn’t it to him?—that it left her trembling. Her heart hammered, her throat went dry, her every limb was a-shiver, as if calling out to him to sweep her into his eager grasp.

But once again, Daphne found herself disappointed.

“Yes, well,” he began, before he turned from her, took up the basket and headed over to the low stone wall by the side of the road. He nodded toward the flowers clenched in her hand. “Perhaps those will last until we reach Gretna. They can be your wedding bouquet when you find Dishforth.”

Like the music sheet back at Owle Park, the forget-me-nots very nearly ended up being tossed at a Seldon’s head.

Very nearly.

Since Lord Henry had made off with the basket, she had no choice but to follow. He’d climbed over the stile and plunked down in a spot under the large oak and was plundering the basket like a pirate by the time she joined him.

“Ah, tarts!” he exclaimed as if he’d just found a cache of Spanish doubloons.

Tarts. The rogue. He knew those were enough to lure her closer. Spread about was a tin—tea, most likely—along with apples, a wedge of cheese and a small round loaf of bread.

“Come sit,” he bid her. “The view is most excellent.”

It was. The Cumbrian countryside rolled all around them, with a scattering of green trees here and there, while the lush green meadows carpeted the valley before them.

“He’s a fool, you know,” Lord Henry told her as she sat down. “To have eloped with the wrong woman.” He handed her a tart.

As she broke it into pieces, she mused that Dishforth wasn’t the only fool.

“He was deceived,” she replied. “Poor Dishforth is not a worldly sort.” She smiled fondly into the distance, as if dreaming of her simple, foolish lover. When she glanced back, she found Lord Henry’s brow furrowed.

“He’s what?”

“Not very worldly, not whatsoever,” she told him most emphatically, liking the way her words made his eye twitch ever-so-slightly with indignation whenever she praised Dishforth’s less than stellar qualities. “He’s a sensible man, but he’s also overly romantic, which, I suspect, is why he was so susceptible to this Jezebel who has him in her clutches.” She clucked her tongue at the injustice of it all. “However, I don’t fault him for it.”

“You don’t?” Lord Henry looked up from the apple he was eating.

“No, not in the least.” She dug into her pocket and pulled out a letter. “Just listen to this—” Daphne read the lines from a poem inscribed there.

“I find that most well put,” Lord Henry told her, sounding just a tad too defensive.

“Yes, but—” She paused and sighed.

He sat up a bit. “But what?”

“Well, those lines are hardly original,” she confided, carefully folding the letter.

“I found them quite stirring.”

“Really? I found them overly familiar. Indeed, I asked Harriet’s brother, and he laughed—told me every boy at Eton learns those lines. A schoolboy’s sentiments.” She shrugged.

“A schoolboy’s—” he began.

She leaned forward and cut him off. “I don’t like to admit this, but I fear you are right and Mr. Dishforth will turn out to be an overly simple man. Otherwise why else would he be so easily duped, as you said before.”

“Overly simple?”

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “Ever so much so.”

This time, when Lord Henry straightened, he let his apple fall to one side. “And you like that?”

“Of course. A simple man will not overrun me or attempt to deceive me. I think he sounds the perfect husband.”

“Doesn’t sound so to me. Not if he’s the sort to pass off schoolboy lines.”

“Not everyone can have your dash and polish, Lord Henry.” She smiled at him, met his gaze and waited.

There was a moment when neither of them spoke. “I have dash and polish?” he managed.

“Yes.” Again waiting for some sort of inspired declaration from the man.

Instead, he leaned back against the tree, his hands behind his handsome head.

Daphne wasn’t in the mood to let him preen for long. “Oh, you needn’t be so proud of the fact. That is also one of your faults. Seldon pride.”

“I’ve always thought the Dales possessed the lion’s share of that trait, leaving hardly any for the rest of us.”

“I’ll admit we are a prideful lot,” Daphne told him, “but then again, we have much to preen over.”

“Bah! Dales!” he mocked.

“Harrumph! Seldons!” Daphne met his gaze with an arrogant one of her own, and before she knew it, they were both laughing uproariously at the ridiculousness of it all.

“How long have our families been at each other?”

She shrugged. “Forever.”

“Over a litter of mongrel pups.”

Daphne looked aside and blushed, for she wasn’t supposed to know that, but of course she did.

“Foolish, isn’t it?” He looked at her, his glorious eyes filled with something that was far from mockery, far from the usual Seldon disdain, and Daphne’s heart skipped and tumbled as it always did when he looked at her that way.

“Very much so.”

He thrust out his hand. “Then a truce is in order!”

“A what?” she managed, looking down at his hand and willing herself to take hold of it. For as much as she bemoaned his unwillingness to declare himself, now she was just as hesitant to take what he was offering.

“A truce, minx. Yes, a Seldon-Dale truce. I declare all hostilities between our families hereby null and void.” He pressed his hand closer, and Daphne took it.

What else could she do?

And as his large palm wound around her smaller one, she felt as she always did around him—engulfed.

She looked down at their intertwined hands. “I don’t think I shall be counted as a Dale after this.”

He laughed and let go of her, leaning back again in that lord-of-the-manor way of his. “I suspect the seventh duke will haunt me to the end of my days, but it is a fate I am willing to risk.”

He was? Willing to risk the censure of his family for her? Was that what he was saying?

“Why?” she asked.

“Because, Miss Dale, you and I are alike.”

At this she laughed.

“We are,” he insisted. “Whether you approve or not.”

Daphne stilled, for she was quite convinced he was about to haul her into his arms and kiss her. He was, she just knew it.

And then he blinked, as if remembering something, and turned around as quickly as the moment had begun. “Yes, well, if we are so alike, I suppose you are as famished as I am.”

And so they returned to their meal in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Henry ran through a thousand different ways he might nudge Miss Dale into admitting that Mr. Dishforth was not the man for her.

It wasn’t until he spied a fine house rising in the distance that he thought he might have the perfect entree. This was not some tumbledown relic but a gentleman’s house—a respectable home. The sort a lady like Miss Dale would admire.

“Such an excellent house. I wonder who lives there?” he asked with a nonchalant wave of his apple in that direction.

She glanced at it and shrugged.

“Does Mr. Dishforth have such a residence?” he asked, all the while examining the apple in his hand.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“What do you know about this rogue?” he pressed, glancing in the basket again as if the answer really wasn’t that important to him.

“Oh, plenty,” she replied from the other side of the blanket, where she sat picking at the grass blades.

“Such as . . . ?”

She huffed a sigh, then looked over at him. “He lives in London. With his sister. She must be a most gracious and delightful creature, for he is ever so fond of her.”

Henry had made the mistake of taking a bite of apple at that point, and he nearly choked.

Miss Dale was not done. Why, it was as if the lady had compiled an entire dossier on the man. “He also cares for a nephew, who is a dreadful trial—”

Henry couldn’t argue with that.

“So Dishforth must be a great blessing to his family.”

Henry tried to appear thoughtful. “Can he keep you?”

“Keep me?”

“Yes, afford a wife?”

She sniffed at this. “What a vulgar thing to ask.”

“Yes, well, silks don’t come cheap.” Well he knew. He’d seen enough of Hen’s bills.

Her chin chucked up. “I hardly think new gowns will be on my mind when I am Mrs. Abernathy Dishforth.”

“Abernathy?” This time he’d had the presence of mind not to take another bite from his apple.

She glanced up at him, a quizzical look on her face. “Yes. Didn’t I mention his name before?”

“I suppose I forgot,” he mused, trying to remember if he’d ever used a first name—which he was quite positive he hadn’t.

What the devil? Was she just making this up as she went along?

“Abernathy,” she sighed. “Such a romantic name. Though Harriet is of the opinion he must have a wen.”

This brought Henry right up. “A wen?!” Not that again.

“Yes, right in the middle of his forehead,” she said, pointing to her own. “Further, it is Harriet’s opinion that such a name, Abernathy Dishforth, is the sort one gives a child who will grow up prone to eating paste and tattling. But I doubt that he could be that dreadful.”

Henry ground his teeth together. First his letters were classified as simple, and now this? A wen-sporting looby with a penchant for eating paste?

“It might not be his true name,” he pointed out.

“It doesn’t matter to me what his name is,” she replied, once again absently picking at the grass blades.

“It might well,” he muttered.

“What was that, Lord Henry?”

Here it was, the opportunity to confess everything, and yet his pride wasn’t about to reveal that he was her paste-eating simpleton of a lover.

“Nothing,” he ground out.

Miss Dale shrugged. “I suspect given Abernathy’s sensible opinions, he must be a gentleman reduced to trade.”

There was no way he’d heard her correctly. “Reduced to wha-a-at?”

“Trade.”

He couldn’t help himself; he shuddered. “And this isn’t a problem for you?”

She smiled. “Trade isn’t as ignoble as it used to be. Perhaps with the help of my Dale relations, he might be elevated. Knighted, perhaps.”

Henry closed his eyes. He still was unconvinced he’d heard her correctly, but he had no desire to explore her theories as to why she thought Dishforth was in trade.

His pride couldn’t take it.

So he tried another tack. “Have you considered what you’ll do if you and Mr. Dishforth don’t suit?”

“We already do,” she said with such supreme confidence that Henry wondered how he could ever change her mind.

But it was Miss Dale who took pity on him and changed the subject, albeit unwittingly.

“Is your house like that one?” she asked, nodding toward the residence he’d pointed out before.

He looked at it again. “Yes, the one in Sussex is most similar, but the one in Kent is a rambling pile. If you like Owle Park, you would love Stowting Mote. It’s an amazingly old keep, with a hodgepodge of Tudor additions tacked on. It needs a thorough cleaning and some renovations.” He glanced at her.

“Two houses, Lord Henry?”

Lord Henry grinned at her surprise. “Three, actually.”

“Three? Oh, yes, I quite forgot. You had mentioned that the other day, hadn’t you? I don’t know why I didn’t remember.” She paused. “Rather unusual, isn’t it? A second son with three houses?”

“It isn’t as if I won them at cards or dice, or came by them in some illicit manner.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“No, no. After all, I am naught but a spare. And a suspected Seldon wastrel at that.”

“I thought we’d declared a truce on that notion.”

“Yes, indeed. My apologies.”

“None needed,” she told him. “I would think having three houses would make you quite a catch.”

“That is why I don’t nose it about Town.” He picked up the loaf of bread and tore it in two, handing her one half. “Besides, there is more to a man than his property and income.”

“There is?” she teased, nibbling at her half of the loaf.

“You are a dreadful minx.”

“Well, property and income—you did say income, didn’t you?”

“Yes. An indecent one, if I do say so myself.”

“Now you are just showing your—”

“Pride?”

She nodded.

“I suppose I am.”

She looked again at the house in the distance. “I’ve always dreamt of being a mistress of such a house.”

“And why wouldn’t you?”

“I’m from Kempton, to begin with.”

“Yes, Preston mentioned some nonsense about the lot of you being cursed.”

“Well, there hasn’t been a happy marriage in quite some time.”

“I think Preston and Miss Timmons will change all that. Suppose it will cause a flurry of courtships in your village.”

She laughed. “I doubt it. Traditions are so very difficult to surmount. Sometimes it is a divide that cannot be crossed.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” he admitted. He thought not of Kempton but of them. Seldon and Dale. “But you aren’t amongst such narrow-minded spinsters. Surely you came to London with the hopes of—”

He resisted teasing her. Snaring a husband . . . Catching a fellow in the parson’s trap . . .

“I had rather hoped that Mr. Dishforth—”

“Ah, yes, we always end up back there,” he said, weary of the subject. “Still, you are a Dale—and one of the loveliest. I can’t imagine you’ll be a spinster for long.”

“Me?” She shook her head. “I am merely Daphne Dale, of the Kempton Dales. I am considered a rather poor relation and hardly one of the family’s beauties.”

He leaned back and studied her. “Then they are all blind.”