“A dangerous tactic, but an adventurous one. Have fun.”
He stepped back, offered his careless, elegant bow, and pulled open the door. Eleanor stood there for a moment, wondering what she could possibly do that would make her feel as wicked as that kiss. Shaking herself, she pulled a mirror from her reticule to check her face and hair, then returned to the ballroom. She’d barely entered when Zachary appeared before her.
“Are you mad?” he muttered, taking her elbow and guiding her toward one side of the room.
“About what? Dancing with Deverill?” she returned, hoping wildly that no one had seen them vanish into the library. “Heavens, Zachary, I’ve known him for…forever. And what about our agree—”
“Not that,” he said dismissively, “Fitzroy. You can’t go racing on the Thames. And certainly not with his usual boatload of drunken idiots.”
And she hadn’t had to say anything at all for the rumors to begin. “He asked me to accompany him, and I thought it sounded fun,” she returned, actually grateful for the accusation. At least it distracted her from Deverill. “I’ve witnessed the races before. You’ve even taken me there more than once.”
“Spectating and participating are two different things, Nell. And I don’t—”
“Yes, they are two different things, aren’t they? Thank you for pointing that out. Now either dance with me or go away.”
“Why, so you can arrange to sail to India and learn how to charm cobras? There has to be a point where you realize a little adventure isn’t worth your safety—or the complete loss of the freedom you’ve made all this fuss about.”
“Zachary, I am the one who will judge what a ‘little’ adventure might be, and I am the one who will decide whether said adventure is worth risking my safety and my reputation or not. And it’s not a fuss. It’s a declaration, and it’s important to me.”
“Nell, I’m on your side, but you’re being a fool.”
“Deverill doesn’t think so.”
“Deverill? You’re judging your sanity by Deverill’s? For God’s sake, Nell, he’s mad as a hatter. You’ve heard the rumors of some of the things he’s done. And most of them are true!” Her brother scowled, looking as though he wanted to shake her very hard. “Aside from that, you’re a female. Like it or not, there are things a man may do freely that would ruin a woman. Rowing sculls is one of them.”
And kissing was another. “If I find myself ruined, then you and Melbourne win. So don’t distress yourself.”
She would have walked away, but he grabbed her arm again, turning her to face him. “This isn’t about winning or losing. This is about my sister. Be a little cautious, Nell. I don’t want to see you married to some witless buffoon because Seb thinks he’ll be a steadying influence or something.”
Eleanor froze. “He’s selected someone, hasn’t he?”
Her brother flushed, abruptly releasing her. “No. I’m just saying—”
“Who is it, Zachary?”
“It won’t signify if you stop chasing about like some high-flyer and choose your own spouse.”
“I haven’t even begun chasing about,” she lied, sending a glare in Melbourne’s direction. “And just all of you remember the agreement. No one’s said a word about any ill behavior on my part. Therefore, I still have the reins of my own destiny.”
“Not if you get killed on the Thames tomorrow.”
“That would be better than marrying whichever old goat the lot of you have plucked out of the pasture for me.” She turned on her heel. “Good evening.”
Even as she stalked over to rejoin Barbara and a few of her other friends, she reflected that it was only by the grace of Deverill that her impending marriage hadn’t already been announced in the London Times. If he couldn’t do something to stop Stephen Cobb-Harding from wagging his tongue, she might as well throw herself into the Thames tomorrow.
How odd, though, that she had asked one rake to defend her from the blackmail of another. She would say a prayer this evening, that the unlikeliest of heroes would prove worthy of her trust.
Chapter 10
For the fifth day in a row, Valentine found himself out his front door before noon. Well before noon, in fact. It wasn’t the only change in his sleeping habits, either, but the devil knew he’d had enough sex in his life that he could do without for a week or two. Anyone other than Eleanor wouldn’t have satisfied this odd new craving of his, anyway.
He wolfed down his breakfast and then headed out the front door. The tide wouldn’t be going out until just after eleven in the morning, but he had several things to accomplish before he made his way to the Thames for the boat races.
His household staff, used to his late hours, looked nearly as disheveled as he felt at this change of schedule. When one was hunting songbirds, however, one needed to rise with them. And the same theory applied to jackal hunting.
Jezebel’s hadn’t opened its doors yet for the day, most likely because the club had only closed two or three hours earlier. Nevertheless, Dicken, the club’s owner, let him through the doors with only a quick nod of recognition.
“What brings you here at this hour, my lord?” he asked, his carefully cultured words still betraying their Cockney origins to anyone who knew how to listen.
“I have a question for you, Dicken,” Valentine answered. “Several, actually. And they may very well be to your monetary advantage.”
The former boxer’s thick face split into a grin. “I’m always glad to assist a loyal patron of my establishment.”
Valentine sat at one of the gaming tables, taking in the worn cloth coverings and the stains on the deep red carpet with cynical interest. With the windows thrown open and daylight pouring in, Jezebel’s had a shabby set to it that he’d never noticed by chandelier light. “You keep papers on several of your patrons, don’t you?”
Dicken spat into a nearby cleaning bucket. “Aye. I’ve a few who ain’t as diligent about keeping out of debt as you are, my lord.”
“Drinking debt, or gambling debt?”
“Mostly both.” The heavyset face grinned again. “Seems one follows the other.”
“That would make sense.” Valentine leaned closer, noting and ignoring the faint sour smell of vomit and urine that Dicken’s hostesses usually managed to cover by night with their cheap French perfumes. “Would you happen to have any paper on Mr. Stephen Cobb-Harding?”
“That’s confidential, my lord.”
Valentine pulled his billfold from his pocket. “It’s just that Stephen is a friend of mine, and to save his family embarrassment, I might be willing to buy his debts from you. For a fair price, of course.”
Dicken stood. “Wait here a minute.”
Jezebel’s owner vanished into a small room off the main parlor and emerged a moment later with a ledger book and a wooden box tucked under his arm. He took the seat opposite Valentine again and opened the book, flipping through several pages before he found the entry he was looking for.
“Mr. Cobb-Harding ain’t sat at our tables for over a month, but I would wager that’s because the house beat him at faro by a margin of seven hundred eighty-six quid. And that don’t include another thirty-seven quid for liquor. Mr. Cobb-Harding likes his brandy.”
“Don’t we all.” Valentine would never let Dicken know, but the figure surprised him. As far as wagering clubs went, Jezebel’s catered mostly to the less well-heeled gentlemen who enjoyed a bit of gambling together with a bit of muslin wriggling on their laps. Eight hundred twenty-three quid was a huge amount for the club to keep papers on without sending an enforcer to recoup.
“I can see what yer thinkin’, my lord, that I’ve been patient with the gentleman. I would’ve been more persuasive, but he did tuck his head in here a week or so ago to tell me he had a plump heiress on his hook, and that he’d settle his accounts with interest by the end of the month.”
That was damned optimistic of Cobb-Harding, considering. “I have it on good authority that his heiress has her sights
set elsewhere,” he returned, working to keep his voice easy and his jaw from clenching.
“Well, damn me. If anybody knows, it’d be you.”
“That it would. And so what do you say I give you a reasonable return on your kind investment, and we’ll leave settling Cobb-Harding’s debt to me?”
Dicken narrowed one eye. “How reasonable?”
“Say five hundred pounds?”
“Eight hundred would let me sleep peacefully.”
“Six hundred quid in hand would let you sleep better than eight hundred you’ll probably never see.”
For a long moment Dicken chewed on his lip. “Done,” he said finally. “Six hundred in cash. No more notes.”
“Done,” Valentine repeated, counting the bills out. If the morning continued as he expected, he was going to have to visit his banker for more ready funds. “And the papers?”
The former boxer signed over the promissory notes and slapped his wooden accounts box closed again. “I’d consider it a favor if you informed Mr. Cobb-Harding that he ain’t welcome in Jezebel’s again without ready blunt.”
“It would be my pleasure. Thank you, Dicken.”
“Nice to do business with an understanding gentleman such as yourself, my lord.”
As Valentine left the club, he stuffed Cobb-Harding’s promissory notes into his pocket. Eight hundred pounds worth of blackmail down, and who knew how much more to go. With a whistle he hailed a hack. “Boodle’s Club, if you please,” he requested, tossing the driver a shilling.
After Boodle’s, White’s, the Society, the Navy, and a dozen so-called clubs that were little better than thieves’ rookeries and houses of ill-repute, Valentine had paid out more than thirteen thousand pounds and bought precisely twenty-three thousand, two hundred and eighty-six quid in promissory notes signed by Stephen Cobb-Harding.
Most of the bookkeepers, club owners, and tavern masters he approached were more than happy to sell him the papers; none of them seemed to have much hope of being repaid. But several of them had recently received visits from Cobb-Harding and assurances that he would soon have the means to repay his debt, which served to increase the amount Valentine had to pay out to them. It also increased the level of his anger, but he and Cobb-Harding would settle that later.
The overall amount of debt appalled him. He wagered, and heavily, from time to time, but never more than he could afford to lose—not that he lost very often. Cobb-Harding didn’t appear to be nearly as skilled. No wonder the baronet’s son had decided it was time to marry into money. But what he had done in an attempt to net himself a bride—what he had planned, and nearly accomplished—that was what his more conservative friends would call beyond the pale. As for Valentine, he was simply…furious. Ruining some innocent’s life to rectify his own stupidity was cowardly. The fact that it had been Eleanor Griffin’s life made it criminal, as far as he was concerned.
His accountant hadn’t been overly pleased at the amount of money he’d stopped in to request. Since he and his father had invested the family fortune wisely, however, he’d barely notice the absence. It would have been worth a pinch, anyway.
Once he had the stack of promissory notes in his possession, he’d been tempted to walk up to Mr. Cobb-Harding’s front door and break it down. Though pummeling the bastard and ordering him to pay his debt or flee to America would have been infinitely satisfying, he crushed the idea. He had a plan, and he would stay with it. He’d bought those papers for a reason—to protect Eleanor Griffin’s reputation.
Eleanor. With a curse he pulled the watch from his pocket. Half past eleven. The sculls would already be lining up on the Thames. He had few concerns about her safety; Fitzroy was an idiot, and Eleanor knew that. Unless she’d gone completely mad overnight, she wouldn’t set foot in one of the narrow boats.
She would be there by herself, however, looking for an adventure and surrounded by gentlemen hunting her fortune. And any one of them might prove to be as desperate as Cobb-Harding.
He could tell her that, but she would have figured it out already. Eleanor was extremely bright. She also had a troubling habit of thinking for herself. It made her unpredictable, a trait he generally frowned upon in females. In this particular chit, however, he found it interesting.
As he paid off the hack and sprinted to the edge of the pier, she was standing there amid a crowd of onlookers and waving a handkerchief at the first flotilla of departing sculls.
“Where are your brothers?” he asked, skidding to a halt and approaching the last few feet through the crowd at a more civilized stroll. His heart still raced, but not from the pace. The sun brightened the brunette of Eleanor’s hair into a rich, honeyed bronze, and through the thin green and yellow muslin of her gown his discerning gaze could make out the crisp white of her muslin shift beneath.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I would imagine they’re on the far bank yelling at Fitzroy. They seemed to be under the impression that I would be rowing in the race.”
“And how did that happen?”
Eleanor shrugged, her eyes dancing. “I never said anything.”
“They’re only worried for your safety, you know.”
“I know. But they made it clear that I would be wiser to abstain from racing. That done, it was supposed to be my decision. They couldn’t stop there, though. They had to—”
“No. I would have stopped you, too.”
Lowering the kerchief, she faced him. “You? But—”
“This isn’t about freedom. It’s about drowning.” He grinned at her. “I do, however, have an idea for an adventure that wouldn’t require inhaling the Thames.”
“And what might that be?”
Now he had to come up with something. Since he had little experience with propriety, thinking of an acceptable activity took more effort and energy than simple sin. “Joining me for luncheon,” he stated, hoping it sounded more adventurous aloud than it did in his head.
“Luncheon,” she repeated.
“It’s all—”
“Very well.”
Valentine closed his mouth again. “Yes? Oh. Good. Come along, then.”
“As long as we don’t inform the prison guards where we’re off to.”
Jesus, she was still taking stupid risks. “We could inform them and still go,” he suggested.
“Since when are you the proper one?”
That was a very good question. “Since you asked me for assistance, and since I don’t want to be pummeled by the Griffin brethren for damaging you. Or rather, I wouldn’t want to have to pummel them when they threatened me.”
“So your concern is merely out of self-preservation?”
He smiled. “You already called me a conundrum, I believe.”
She sighed. “So I did. Might we settle for leaving them a note?”
Valentine was surprised—and extremely relieved—that she’d agreed. “Splendid idea. Less chance for anyone to get hurt.”
Luckily he’d ended up with a spare scrap of paper during the purchase of Cobb-Harding’s promissory notes. She produced a pencil from her reticule and informed her brothers that she was not boat racing, and would be dining at luncheon with the Marquis of Deverill.
That done, Valentine hired a hack and sent the note to Griffin House. He nearly hired one for himself and Eleanor, but in broad daylight the chances were too great that someone would see them entering a closed vehicle without a chaperone. This whole propriety thing was a damned nuisance all the way around, but it remained at the base of both Eleanor’s quest and his obligation to Melbourne.
“Where to?” Eleanor asked, apparently having come to the same conclusion, since she wrapped her fingers around his sleeve.
Perhaps propriety had its place, after all. He looked over at her, her gray eyes alight with both amusement and a touch of anxiety. Cobb-Harding had made an impression with her—and though it was probably a good lesson considering how close to the edge she’d chosen to walk, it was still one he wished she hadn
’t had to learn.
“Prospero’s is close by,” he returned, naming the least offensive sidewalk dining establishment in the area.
She nodded, and they headed north away from the river. For a few moments they walked in silence, while Valentine congratulated himself on averting both a catastrophe and a direct intervention from her brothers. Well, she’d averted the catastrophe on her own, but if Melbourne had confronted her, she might very well have leaped into a boat just to be contrary.
“Do I seem like I’m being a complete fool?” she asked, leaning a little closer against him.
His damned heart beat harder. “Not that I’ve noticed. Are you referring to anything in particular?”
“I feel as though I’m meandering about making grand claims with no idea how to accomplish anything. And nice as your…kisses are, they seem to confuse the issue.”
Nice? He could sympathize with the confusion bit, though. “You don’t know what you want. You’re hardly unique in that, Eleanor. At least you’ve recognized that you want something.”
“I have no idea why you’re being so…understanding, Deverill. You’ve made fun of Zachary for the way his cravat is tied. And I…happen to have overheard some rather unflattering remarks you’ve made in the past about members of my sex.”
“About your sex, yes. But not about you.”
Her fine cheeks colored. “And why is that?”
Hm. She wanted her lesson in freedom; she needed to realize that kisses were only the beginning where scoundrels such as himself were concerned. On the other hand, he didn’t want to frighten her, especially after Cobb-Harding’s boorishness. The proper thing would seem to be to leave the choice up to her. “How straightforward would you like me to be?” he asked quietly.
Eleanor stopped, facing him. “Actually, I would like you to kiss me again,” she stated.
That was straightforward. “I would like to kiss you again.” Valentine took a breath, praying that his cock could control itself until he got out of this mess. “But I won’t.”
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