Page 37 of Lady Daring
Was she ever. He was very aware of her breasts, the tops of which showed clearly in the low-cut gown. The sight sent his thoughts scrambling.
“Miss Wardley-Hines,” he said, “you told me you were not rich.”
“Not compared to my father, or yours,” she said. He managed to drag his gaze away from her bosom, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“She’ll have a settlement at marriage,” Jasper said, “but I won’t sell her to the highest bidder. Hetty needs a man who knows her value.”
“We’ll be beating the fortune hunters away once her holdings become known,” Darien said to Sir Jasper. His use of “we” escaped him until he saw Jasper’s smile turn speculative.
Henrietta shrugged again. Darien was determined not to track the movement of her breasts at this gesture. “I’ve had fortune hunters test the waters before,” she said.
“But you are launched now,” Darien reminded her. “There will be plenty more cads who hope you will tow them out of the River Tick.”
“Hetty’s no fool, and she has a family to look out for her,” Jasper said. “But perhaps you can give her a hint about the worst of them, eh? I expect you’ll know who they are.”
Darien stiffened as he perceived which way the wind was blowing. Jasper was not throwing Henrietta at Darien’s head; he thought Darien no more worthy of her than Rutherford. A businessman to the bone, and a shrewd one, Jasper wanted the best for his daughter. He was socializing with Darien to indulgehis wife, who came from high circles, but to this owner of his own empire, Darien was like every other useless nobleman with little to recommend him beyond his handsome face and the cut of his coat.
The snarling cur inside of him, too close to the surface these days, had already taken a blow from Sir Pelton’s rebuff. Now it wanted to snap. Did everyone here think him nothing more than the caricature made of him in the papers?
Henrietta clucked her tongue against her teeth. “I know a scoundrel when I see one, Papa, and if I don’t, Charley will tell me.”
She didn’t see him as the slightest threat either. There she stood, all gleaming innocence, as smooth and untouchable as the Diana in the Ellesmere gallery. Miss Henrietta Wardley-Hines needed to be put on her guard, or she would fall prey to the first rascal who saw those creamy shoulders and slender neck, whether or not he knew of her income.
“Miss Wardley-Hines,” Darien said, “would you care to show me the gardens? It is a most pleasant evening.”
“Oh, certainly,” she said, and gathered up her shawl. “They’re quite lovely. Papa, do you mind?”
Her sire shrugged, casting his daughter all unwitting into the jaws of the wolf, and moved to the settee where Rutherford and Marsibel sat. “Go right ahead, pet,” he said. “I want to ask Mr. Bales if he thinks I should enroll my new son in Eton or Harrow.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Darien marveled at how easy it was. In the ballrooms of the elite, the daughters were hedged off by glowering mamas, and he couldn’t go on a ride without seeing parasols of the upper crust raised in guard. Here in Hines House, he was a fox set loose in the henhouse.
He had no sooner stepped with Henrietta out the door from the library to the quiet walk behind the house than he stopped and turned so she ran into his body. She gasped and fell back, and when he moved toward her, she stumbled back again, plastering herself against the low stone wall. He held her pinned there, his chest an inch away from hers.
“Rule number one,” he said. “Never,neverlet a rake get you alone. It only takes a moment to be compromised.”
Her eyes flared, and then her brows shot together. “You’re not?—”
“Oh, yes, I am,” he said, leaning in so the lapels of his double-breasted coat brushed her breasts. A warm burst of air touched his neck as she exhaled in surprise. “I could do anything I wanted to you right now.”
There were several things he wanted to do to her right now. He was so close that the silk of her gown slid over his breecheswhen she shifted. All he had to do was move forward an inch, and?—
“I could poke you in the eye with a pearl hairpin.” She pushed at his chest.
He smiled and stepped away. The tartness of her response showed her complete innocence, and her strong defenses. She was a woman well worth the wooing.
“Point to me,” he said, and his entire body warmed with pleasure as the light of battle entered those bottomless dark-gray eyes. She wouldn’t be easy to conquer, and no man would ever break that fierce, bright spirit. He’d never met a woman like her, a burning flame who fed everyone around her with warmth and light.
She wrapped her shawl around her shoulders with a huff of disapproval. “I wouldn’t expect such behavior from a guest in my father’s home.”
“You should,” he said. “You need be on your guard at all times in the company of a rake.”
They walked side by side through the warm enclosed garden, drenched in moonlight. Vegetable beds and herb borders alternated with carefully pruned shrubbery and fruit trees, while vines climbed the wall in several places. It was a lovely refuge, and the night air fell on his skin with a cool touch. Here and there, Henrietta paused to inspect a branch or a young fruit.
“You look like a Grecian nymph wandering the forest,” he said. “Tending the things you have brought to life.”
Something hard and uncomfortable clenched in his gut at the pristine beauty of her. Unlike every other woman of his acquaintance, interested only in her own success, Henrietta focused outward, using her gifts to rescue others, right wrongs, and improve the world about her.
