Free And the Miss Ran Away With the Rake by Elizabeth Boyle Page A

dance. You must be there to lead it off with Lord Henry—it means everything to Preston. Besides, if you refuse, there will be talk.”
    “I think their first dance together covered that issue quite nicely,” Harriet said with a well-meaning smirk.
    Daphne’s gaze flew up. “I hardly think . . .”
    But the look that passed between Tabitha and Harriet said it all. Oh, goodness, it hadn’t looked as bad as all that, had it?
    Apparently so.
    But gossip? Daphne stifled a groan, for the last thing she needed was on dit about her attendance at this ball bandied about London. A Seldon ball. She was still a bit in horror that someone might let drop to Great-Aunt Damaris that they’d spied her niece dancing the night away.
    With Lord Henry Seldon.
    She might be able to explain away her attendance—for Tabitha’s sake and all. But a second dance? Unforgivable.
    “Daphne? Do you promise?” Tabitha said, giving her a little shake to rattle her out of her reverie.
    Harriet crossed her arms over her chest and shot her pointed stare. “I’ll see that she makes it over to his lordship,” she said, more to Daphne than Tabitha.
    “Traitor,” Daphne whispered.
    “Again, not my feud,” Harriet replied with a shrug.
    Meanwhile, Tabitha stood there, arms crossed and slipper tapping impatiently.
    “Oh, bother both of you!” Daphne said. “Yes, I promise.”
    “I do not know what has come over you,” Harriet scolded as she had to tug Daphne back into their ambling pace around the room. “I thought you’d come to like Preston . . .”
    But Daphne wasn’t really listening. She was taking one last scan of the crowd around them for any man who might possibly be Mr. Dishforth. Much to her chagrin she found her wandering led her right back to one man. Lord Henry.
    Ah, yes, there he was, having moved on from his previous conquest of Miss Lantham to charming a pair of impressionable and utterly innocent twins.
    “Harrumph .” Daphne shook her head as the girls took turns fluttering their fans and batting their lashes in hopes that Lord Henry could discern one from the other.
    Not that he would probably care.
    “Which of you is Lucinda and which is Lydia? No, don’t tell me. I prefer to guess.”
    “Giggle.”
    “Giggle.”
    “Hmm. I believe it could take a man an entire lifetime to discern between the two of you.”
    “You aren’t making up the conversation again, are you?” Harriet asked over Daphne’s shoulder.
    Daphne blushed a little. “No.”
    “Yes, you are,” Harriet contradicted.
    “I might be,” Daphne conceded as the dialogue continued unabated inside her head.
    “Ah, the problem with twins is that I find it hardly fair that I must choose.”
    “Must you, Lord Henry?”
    “Oh, aye. Must you choose?”
    “I don’t even want to know what is going on in that diabolical mind of yours,” Harriet avowed, shaking her head.
    Daphne glanced around the room. “I would like to know where their mother might be, for she’s left them utterly unguarded.”
    “Perhaps they are not here in London with their mother.”
    “Then a companion? Or a maiden aunt?” Daphne turned to her friend. “You have no idea what he is capable of.”
    “And you do?” Harriet asked, as if she would like Daphne to enlighten her.
    Which she was not going to do. Notching up her chin, Daphne turned her gaze back at the identical pair, look-alikes right down to their matching gowns and gloves. Oh, bother, there must be, at the very least, a guardian nearby, perhaps one with a penchant for pistols.
    For if Lord Henry was called out, then sadly she would have to forgo the pleasure of partnering him for the supper dance.
    “He hardly seems as bad as you would like me to believe,” Harriet said, nudging into Daphne’s reverie, one that had Lord Henry face down on a grassy meadow, with the retort of a pistol still echoing through the early morning shadows.
    Daphne turned to argue but just as quickly bit back her remarks. For if she