Read Online And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake by Elizabeth Boyle - Free Book Online

will have answers! You were supposed to dance with Lord Henry for the supper dance. Now that will make two dances, and there will be talk.” The hawk-eyed matron shot him a stony glance that said she blamed him. Entirely. “As if there won’t be already.”
    Not that Henry was really listening, for he’d rather come to an abrupt halt over one thing.
    Her name.
    Daphne Dale . His gaze shot back to her. Oh, good God, no!
    “Lord Henry?” his once perfect miss was managing to say. Her words came spitting out as if she’d found a pit in a cherry tart. A very sour one. “As in Lord Henry Seldon ?”
    She backed up, her hands brushing down her arms, sweeping away whatever vestiges of him might be still lurking about, her nose wrinkled in dismay.
    Not that he felt much better. What the hell sort of spell had she cast to leave him so blind? How had he not seen it? The disingenuous beauty, the deceptively fair and frail features . . . of course she was a Dale.
    “Henry, explain yourself,” Hen was saying as she tugged him off the floor and into the folds of the crush of guests.
    “Daphne, come with me at once,” Lady Essex said at exactly the same moment, carting off her charge with an air of indignation that suggested Daphne had missed the last tumbrel to her execution.
    She cast one last glance at him before the crowd enveloped her, and the furious, scornful shame in her eyes tore at Henry’s heart.
    It was as if she was suddenly the dragon to be feared.
    As if she had the right to be angry.
    Well, he’d like to remind her that this was his home. A Seldon home. Whatever was she, a Dale, doing here in the first place?
    If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she’d gone out of her way to beguile him on purpose. Lured him to her side, teased him into believing . . . tipping her smile just so he might . . . might . . .
    Good God! He’d nearly kissed her. Right in front of the entire ton .
    Meanwhile, Hen was the epitome of fury and composure, smiling to their guests while her fingernails dug into his sleeve. “What were you thinking? How could you not know who she was? I only hope Aunt Zillah didn’t notice you out there making a cake of yourself with one of them. Why, it would be—”
    Ruinous . Yes, he knew.
    “How was I supposed to know?” he said in his own defense. Better that than confessing the truth: that he’d thought Daphne Dale was someone else. Against his better judgment, he looked over his shoulder toward her. Not that there was any sight of of the minx, save the whisk of her red skirt as she was pulled from the room by her chaperone.
    Henry shook that vision from his thoughts. Shook her from his heart, even as it clamored for him to fetch her back. Demand answers of her.
    Gain that kiss . . .
    No. None of that. There would be no kissing that minx. Vixen. Witch.
    That starry-eyed miss who’d stolen his heart.
    No, he reminded himself, “she” had a name.
    He only wished she hadn’t that one.

Chapter 3
    Do you think it is possible that we have met? Have seen each other and not known who the other truly was? Could such a thing be possible, for I think I would know you, sir, anywhere.
    Found in a letter from Miss Spooner to Mr. Dishforth
    “T he supper dance is next,” Harriet said happily, rocking on the heels of her slippers as she scanned the crowded dance floor.
    “Don’t remind me,” Daphne groaned. If anything, she was becoming desperate. For every tick of the clock that left her search unresolved, every dance that left her lacking an answer, she remained under the threat of having to dance with him .
    Lord Henry Seldon.
    She still wasn’t quite past her shock that the man she’d thought—nay, would have sworn—must be Mr. Dishforth was none other than Preston’s uncle.
    His Seldon uncle.
    Harriet hardly batted an eye. “Have you considered, Daphne, that Lord Henry might be your Mr. Dishforth?”
    Daphne tried to speak, but the words choked in her throat.
    Her Mr.