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“I must return to London.”
“Immediately?” Elizabeth wasn’t able to keep the disappointment from her voice. He didn’t make her blood rush like James, but Dunford was certainly marriage material.
“I’m afraid so.” He shook his head. “I’m going to kill Riverdale.”
“Who?”
“The Marquis of Riverdale. A rather good friend of mine, but he can be so vague. Look at this!” He shook it in the air, not giving her any opportunity to look. “I can’t tell if this is an emergency or if he wants to show me his new horse.”
“Oh.” There didn’t seem to be much else to say.
“And how he found me, I’d like to know,” Dunford continued. “The man dropped out of sight last week.”
“It sounds serious,” Elizabeth murmured.
“It will be,” he said, “once I strangle him.”
She gulped to keep from laughing, which she sensed would be very inappropriate.
He looked up, his eyes focusing on her face for the first time in several minutes. “I trust you can continue without me.”
“Oh, of course.” She smiled wryly. “I’ve done so for more than twenty years already.”
Her comment caught him by surprise. “You’re a good sort, Miss Hotchkiss. If you’ll excuse me.”
And then he was gone. “A good sort,” Elizabeth mimicked. “A good sort. A bloody good sort.” She groaned. “A boring good sort.”
Men didn’t marry “good sorts.” They wanted beauty and fire and passion. They wanted, in the words of the infernal Mrs. Seeton, someone utterly unique.
Well, not too unique.
Elizabeth wondered if she’d go to hell for burning Mrs. Seeton in effigy.
“Elizabeth.”
She looked up to see James, grinning at her from the doorway.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Reflecting upon the sweet hereafter,” she muttered.
“A noble pursuit, to be sure.”
She looked up sharply. His voice struck her as a little too amiable. And why was it that his smile made her heart stop, when Dunford’s—which, objectively speaking, had to be the most startling combination of lips and teeth in all creation—made her want to give him a sisterly pat on the arm?
“If you don’t open your mouth soon,” James said in an annoyingly bland voice, “you’re going to grind your teeth to powder.”
“I met your Mr. Dunford,” she said.
He murmured, “Did you, now?”
“I found him quite pleasant.”
“Yes, well, he’s a pleasant sort.”
Her arms straightened into two angry sticks at her sides. “You told me he was a rake,” she accused.
“He is. A pleasant rake.”
