And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake by Elizabeth Boyle Page B

time he had left to risk.
    “There is much that needs to be said between us,” he told her, gazing down into those bright blue eyes. He’d always imagined her thusly—fair and lithe.
    “Is there?” she asked, smiling slightly. “I rather thought we’d said all that was necessary.”
    “True enough,” he agreed, his blood running thick and hot with her pressed up against him.
    Good God, whoever was this minx? Not that it mattered, for whoever she was, she left him insensible with desire. For a thousand utterly irrational reasons, he wanted her, would have her.
    Henry could sense the others closing in around them—Hen coming up from behind, Preston and Tabitha moving toward them.
    And somewhere, her scaly, fearsome chaperone was beating a path to them.
    To make matters worse, here they were, still in the middle of the dance floor. The music had ended, the other couples had scattered throughout the room, and while the crowd had exhaled and moved in to fill up some of the empty space, there was still a wide circle around them.
    Leaving a daunting number of curious gazes fixed on them. Enough to give the London gossips a full dish of cat lap on the morrow.
    Suddenly the fact that half the ton was watching him—Lord Henry Seldon—and not his errant nephew was a bit unnerving.
    That is, until he looked into her starry gaze.
    And the light there said she thought him the most rakish, perfectly ruinous gentleman alive.
    “I should find your chaperone,” he managed. Not that he meant it.
    “Must you?” she whispered, even as she nestled a bit closer. “What if—”
    Her question hung there for a moment, sending this tremor of warning through him.
    It isn’t going to be this easy . . .
    Yet here she was, in his arms, and everything about her perfect . . . and perfectly willing.
    I am yours, her lips, parted, moist and pert, seemed to whisper.
    Never in Henry’s life had he ever been the rake, never been Seldon enough to manage even a trifler’s reputation. Having lived all his life in Preston’s shadow—as the spare heir, as the sensible Seldon (for in his family that was a worse crime than a scandalous reputation)—he’d never fit in.
    Even Hen had all her notorious marriages to maintain her stake in the family tree.
    Not that Henry had ever truly minded. He’d never wanted to be the duke, had thought all the scandals more bothersome than essential, and Hen’s penchant for dashing off to the altar? He nearly shuddered.
    No, Lord Henry Seldon had been quite content to be rather normal.
    Boring, even.
    Yet not when this slip of muslin looked up at him with that very dangerous light of desire. Something sparked inside him that he’d never thought he’d inherited.
    Now, damning every bit of propriety he possessed as he glanced at her lips, he had only one thought.
    To kiss her.
    Claim her. Then he’d carry her off to Gretna Green if he must, if only to have her always.
    Fire-breathing dragon of a chaperone notwithstanding.
    Then it happened all at once.
    Later he would realize that the warning note in her voice before that “what if” had been the Fates’ way of saying, Be careful what you wish for .
    Or rather, Who you desire .
    “Daphne!”
    “Henry!”
    “My goodness, unhand her, you bounder!”
    That remark, he assumed, came from the chaperone.
    As they broke away from each other, Henry swore that something fragile and most rare broke, as if snipped away before it ever had a chance to grow, to fully wind around them, bind them together.
    Ridiculous notion, he thought immediately, glancing at her, and yet she was already lost, looking one way and then the other as the barrage of questions and outrage continued.
    “What the devil are you doing?” Preston demanded, glancing first at Henry and then at the lady, his expression bordering on horror.
    “Daphne, whatever are you about?”
    But it was her chaperone who shocked him as she rounded Hen and pushed her way to the forefront. “Daphne Dale! I