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If Dunford heard her, he pretended not to Henry's eyes followed him as he walked into what appeared to be his study He bent over a desk and quickly shuffled through so i at?"

"Nosy brat"

She shrugged

"Just soone And some invitations I want to be careful about what you attend at first"

"Afraid I ht embarrass you?"

He looked up sharply, relief evident on his face when he saw she was only teasing "Soly dull I wouldn't want to make a bad impression on you the first week out This, for example" He held up a snohite invitation "A musicale"

"But I think I would enjoy a musicale," Henry said Not to mention the fact that she probably would not have to

"Not," he said eiven by my Smythe-Smith cousins I went to two of them last year, and only because I lovedear Philippa, Mary, Charlotte, and Eleanor play Mozart, one would know exactly hoould sound if perfor with distaste, he crumpled up the invitation and dropped it carelessly on the desk

Henry, spying a suessed was used for discarded paper, picked up the crumpled invitation and lobbed it in When it hit itsher hands together and raising her arms in the air in a victory salute

Dunford just closed his eyes and shook his head

"Well, goodness," she said pertly "You can't expect me to abandon all of my hoydenish habits, can you?"

"No, I suppose not" And, he thought with a tinge of pride, he didn't really want her to

An hour later Dunford was seated in Belle Blackwood's parlor, telling her about his unexpected ward

"And you had no idea you were her guardian until Carlyle's will arrived a week and a half later?" Belle asked disbelievingly

"Not even an inkling"

"I can't help but chuckle, Dunford, to think of you as a young lady's guardian You, as a defender of maidenly virtue? It's a ate that I cannot steer a young lady through society," he said, stiffening his spine "And that brings me to two other points First, as pertains to the phrase 'young lady' Well, I have to say that Henry is a trifle unusual And second, I will need your help, and not only a show of support I need to find soings"