“Keep them to yourself,” the marquis interrupted. “I have a waltz.”
With that he took Eleanor’s hand and wrapped her fingers around his arm. Behind them Chesterfield stammered for a moment, then wandered toward the gaming room with its well-stocked supply of liquor.
“Was that really necessary?” she asked. “He only asked to take me on a picnic.”
Valentine slowed. “Was he one of your potential husbands?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow. “My apologies. Go back and finish your conversation. You must be desperate to know what his prospects are.”
“You’ve made him so nervous now that I’ll never have a decent conversation with him.”
His lips curved. “I doubt you could have before.”
The waltz began, and he faced her, slowly sliding his hand around her waist and tugging her a little closer than propriety dictated. Her heart hammered, both with excitement and anxiety—she needed to tell him her plan tonight, if she wished to accomplish it. At the same time, she wondered what it was that made him so much more appealing to her than other men, even more decent, proper gentlemen.
“Deverill, give me a compliment,” she said, gazing into his lazy green eyes.
“A compliment?”
“Something you would say to impress a young lady.”
His smile deepened. “Most of what I would say wouldn’t be appropriate in public.”
“Give it a try, will you?”
He sighed. “Very well.” They waltzed in silence for a moment. “A compliment. Hm.”
“Oh, stop it,” she protested, blushing. “Surely you can think of something.”
She waited for the inevitable comment about her eyes, or her hair, or her resemblance to one or other of the goddesses of love. Instead, Deverill’s gaze became surprisingly serious.
“You are the most interesting female I’ve ever encountered,” he said.
And that was probably the best compliment she’d ever received. “Considering the number of females with whom you are acquainted,” she said, smiling so he wouldn’t notice her stammering and see that he’d nearly left her speechless, “I’ll merely say thank you.”
“You might also tell me which adventure you’ve decided on,” he said in a lower voice, tugging her a breath closer.
Goodness. If Melbourne and Deverill hadn’t been friends, the marquis would be in a great deal of trouble with the Griffin brethren right now. And so would she be. She blinked. Being in his presence had become rather…distracting. Again.
“Yes. I’ve been trying to think about what I would most like to do, and I realized that it’s something I used to do, but can’t any longer.”
His gaze studied her face. “Enlighten me, then.”
She drew a breath. This was the embarrassing part. “I want to…I want to go swimming.”
“Swimming.”
“Yes.”
“That’s easy enough. I have to admit, though, I’m a bit disapp—”
“It’s what I want to do,” she cut him off. Disappointed. She’d disappointed him. And that bothered her to a surprising degree. “I’m sorry if it’s not something…spectacular, but it’s important to me.”
“Why?” he asked.
Eleanor tightened her lips. At least he wasn’t making fun yet. “I…when we were children, we used to go swimming in the lake at Melbourne Park nearly every day during the summer. Half the time we were completely naked. No one cared—we were children, and it was fun. I want to feel that way again, Valentine.”
“‘Naked’,” he repeated.
He would seize on that word. “That’s not the point. I hardly think I would do that again. But I would like to go swimming. In a pond.” She drew a breath. “At midnight. In Hyde Park.”
Slowly he closed his mouth, and she thought he might even have paled a little. In the same moment, as they twirled about the room, the distance between them abruptly became proper again, though she hadn’t been aware of him pulling away.
“Is something wrong?” she asked in a whisper, feeling heat flood her cheeks. She wasn’t being ridiculous. If that was how he saw it, she wouldn’t be able to hold another conversation with him without embarrassment.
“It’s more spectacular than you might think, Eleanor,” he finally murmured. “That’s a very public place.”
“It will be completely dark.”
“You’re determined, then?”
“I am. I would like you to…assist me as my lookout, but if you don’t want to be involved, I’ll find another way. It’s not—”
“When?” he interrupted.
“You’ll help me?”
“I’ll help you.”
Abruptly she was more nervous than before she’d told him anything. Now it was real. Now she had to go through with it, or both she and Valentine would know she was a coward, and that this rebellion of hers was nothing but a sham, a plea for attention or some other pitiful thing.
“I looked at the almanac,” she said, her voice beginning to shake despite her best efforts to remain as calm and cool as he seemed to be. “Tomorrow night is supposed to be both good, mild weather, and a new moon.”
He grinned, humor touching his eyes. “You’ve done your research. That’s quite admirable.”
“I know how much trouble this could be for me.”
“It won’t be. I won’t allow it to be.”
The waltz ended, but he wrapped her fingers around his dark sleeve. “Can you get out of Griffin House without anyone knowing?”
“I’ll manage it.”
With a glance in Melbourne’s direction, he nodded. “My coach will be waiting for you around the corner from Griffin House at midnight. If you change your mind, send me a note.”
“I won’t change my mind,” she whispered, forcing a smile as Barbara joined them again.
Deverill released her to her friends, and moved away to observe from a distance. Jesus. He’d expected something wild, something closer to the adventures he’d suggested previously. But a swim—he would never have suspected that. On the surface, it sounded simple and naive and childlike, and that was probably why it bothered him so much. Of all the things Eleanor Griffin might have chosen, she wanted a simple, private gesture just for herself.
She meant this rebellion. It wasn’t a boast, something with which to antagonize her brothers or to make her the center of Society’s attention. Hell, she had that regardless of what she might be wearing or with whom she might be dancing.
No, this was something she meant, very seriously. And if he had any sense of self-preservation, he would march straight over to Melbourne and tell him everything that had transpired, starting with Belmont’s and ending with their conversation this evening. But he knew that he wouldn’t do any such thing.
Across the room Lydia, Lady Franch, sent him a glare. She was clinging to the arm of Earl Pansden, so apparently she hadn’t spent more than a night or two with only her husband for company. What had made her decide to seek out a lover after her marriage? Had the decision been a difficult one? She was jaded and cynical and held a grudge, but that was now. She’d been married for six years, and they’d been lovers on and off for nearly two. He was fairly certain he hadn’t been her first, but the whys and wherefores had never occurred to him before.
Until the past week or two, the mathematical equation had been simple: He wanted something, or someone, and he either achieved his goal or he didn’t. Now, though, he’d become acquainted with Eleanor Griffin—not the girl he’d always thought of her as, but the young woman she’d become. And the equation didn’t seem quite so straightforward any longer.
Eleanor wanted things that weren’t tangible, that couldn’t be counted among conquests or wealth or property. Everything he’d seen, everything he’d learned from his father and from observing the parade of females in and out of the old marquis’s bedchamber—and his own—had taught him that women were scheming manipulators, and that they thought of nothing but their own security, freeing him to think o
f nothing but his own pleasure.
“You feeling well, Deverill?” Shay asked, relinquishing his dance partner and freeing a glass of port from a footman. “You look as though you’ve inhaled a bug.”
“I’m fine,” Valentine said absently, watching as Eleanor’s next partner joined her circle of friends by the refreshment table. “Just contemplating.”
“Gads. I suppose Nell’s to blame for that. Any idea what she’s plotting now?”
Forcing a chuckle, Valentine claimed his own glass of port. “Do you think she would trust me with anything? I’m the incarnation of sin, if you’ll recall. I give advice; I don’t listen to confessions.”
“Yes, well, I shudder to think what advice you’d give her. She’s not talking to us at all, except for those pronouncements that we can’t tell her what to do.”
Looking down at the ruby liquid in his glass, Valentine felt the pricking of his conscience, or rather of his strong sense of self-preservation. Sternly he locked it back up again. “How often do you tell her that, anyway?” he asked.
“Tell her what?”
“What to do, or what not to do.”
Charlemagne frowned. “What kind of question is that? We’re her brothers. We all tell each other what to do or what not to do.”
“So why is she rebelling, and not Zachary, for example?”
“I’m not sure I like this line of questioning, Deverill. Melbourne asked you to keep her out of trouble. The rest of it really isn’t any of your affair.”
Male aggression was something Valentine very much understood, but even though inside he was preparing for battle, he offered Shay a loose shrug and a grin. “I just thought if I knew what she was rebelling against, I might have a clue about her intentions here. Which means I might not have to keep chasing her all over the damned town.”
His shoulders visibly lowering, Shay took another sip of port. “If I had the least idea what she thought she was doing, I could probably head this off myself. But I don’t. I mean, what good brother wouldn’t be concerned over who his sister spoke with or danced with? We don’t want some bloody fortune hunter marrying her and then bleeding the lot of us dry, now do we?”
“So that’s your concern? Her association with unacceptable men who might inconvenience you?”
“I wouldn’t word it that way,” Shay grumbled, “but I suppose so.”
Valentine wondered whether Melbourne thought the same thing, and whether the brothers had any idea at all that this had very little to do with men and with whom she was allowed to dance. No wonder they’d been so baffled by her rebellion. And no wonder the duke had had to call in reinforcements, even in the sorry person of himself. If Eleanor didn’t find what she was looking for soon, the Griffins were going to be in a great deal of trouble. And he’d be right at the forefront.
“Uh-oh,” Shay muttered. “Nell’s looking this way. I’d best go elsewhere; don’t want her to think we’re conspiring or something.”
“No, we wouldn’t want that.”
As Charlemagne strolled away, Valentine turned his full attention once again to Eleanor, now dancing a quadrille with Thomas Atherton. She smiled as she turned, obviously enjoying herself. Atherton was quite the charmer, but Valentine doubted she’d be going on any solitary drives with him. Not after Stephen Cobb-Harding.
He wasn’t doing any more dancing tonight himself, so with a sigh that he refused to acknowledge might be regret, he left the dance floor and headed downstairs to summon his coach. It looked as though he had twenty-four hours to find a pond in Hyde Park where a young lady might go swimming without being discovered.
Chapter 13
Eleanor slid between the covers of her soft, warm bed and closed her eyes while Helen pinched out the candle on her bedside table and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Then Eleanor counted to one hundred to make certain the maid would be well downstairs and nowhere close to the bedchamber door.
“One hundred,” she whispered, and flung off the sheets.
Hurrying to her wardrobe, she selected a simple, plain gown and pulled it on over her night shift, then padded in her bare feet to the dressing table to comb her hair into a long, wavy tail that she coiled up and pinned to the top of her head.
“Shoes,” she muttered, heading into the dressing closet. She couldn’t very well run down to the corner in her bare feet. Heavens. No one was that brazen.
Squinting, she could just make out the hands of the clock over her fireplace. Two minutes after twelve. She’d tried for half an hour to get her brothers to take her home from dinner with the Gurnseys, but Zachary had been determined to win at least one game of charades. Damned charades. And now she was late.
She knew the Marquis of Deverill had a very finite amount of patience, and while he’d likely waited around the corner for young ladies to join him in his coach before, she doubted it had been with so little reward for himself in the offing. She had no idea how long he would wait before he decided to drive off and find amusement elsewhere, so with barely a thought as to whether they matched, she pulled out a pair of soft slippers, yanked them on, and hurried to the door.
At the last moment she decided to wear a bonnet; if someone saw her climbing into or out of his coach, at least her face would be partially concealed. After all, this was about freedom, not being ruined beyond repair.
The bonnet on, she then remembered it had been quite cool when they’d returned from the Gurnseys’, so she freed a shawl from her wardrobe and pulled that across her shoulders. “Stop stalling,” she hissed at herself, and resolutely stalked to her door.
Her fingers on the handle, she paused again, taking a deep breath. This was it; this was where she had to decide whether she was actually going to go through with it or not. On the surface, of course, going for a late-night swim with a trusted friend to keep watch seemed insignificant. When she took into account, though, that she was one-and-twenty, and that she hadn’t been permitted to swim for eight years, and that the trusted friend was an infamous rakehell with whom she seemed to be quite infatuated, the idea didn’t seem nearly as brilliant, if no less appealing.
Open the door, Nell, she ordered herself, and with a last breath she turned the handle and stepped into the hallway.
A few of the hall candles were still burning, which at best meant at least one servant was still on duty. At worst, one of her brothers still roamed the house. Eleanor prayed for a servant even as she moved quietly to the stairs and started down, avoiding the fourth stair with its infamous squeak.
Her heart pounded. If this was what an adventure felt like, she wasn’t certain she would be able to survive anything more strenuous. In fact, the actual escaping of the house—and Melbourne’s watchful gaze—concerned her more than what would come after. That, however, would change as soon as she reached Valentine’s coach. If she reached Valentine’s coach.
She paused in the foyer, listening for footsteps or voices or anything that might indicate she wasn’t the only soul awake in Griffin House. Complete silence met her ears. According to the rules, she should have been able to inform her brothers of what she was doing, and then be perfectly free to go swimming. Since the Vauxhall lie, she was supposed to inform them of her whereabouts. In the face of reality, though, she was far from being that naive. Sebastian would never allow this, no matter what he might have agreed to in principle.
The clock on the landing kept ticking, reminding her that she was already several minutes late. Testing Valentine’s patience was an uncertain prospect at best, and she didn’t think she would have the nerve to do this again, rebellion or not. “On the count of five,” she whispered soundlessly, then had to go through the count twice before she could make her legs move to the front door.
Gripping the handle, she slowly turned it until it clicked free. Even more gently now she pulled, and the door smoothly, silently, swung open. Before she could change her mind, Eleanor stepped onto the front portico and closed the door behind her. The click as the latch en
gaged seemed deafening, but she couldn’t afford to wait and see if anyone had heard and would come to investigate.
Gathering her skirt in one hand, she hurried for the corner, running with every few steps as she neared her destination. “Please be there,” she muttered, rounding onto Brook’s Mew.
Silently beneath one of the gas lamps, a black coach waited. There in the dark it abruptly occurred to her that someone could possibly have overheard their plans, that it could be Stephen Cobb-Harding waiting in the black night for her to wander by. She slowed, but made herself keep walking. She was not going to stop just because of her wild imaginings.
As she drew nearer, the yellow crest of Deverill became visible on the door panel, and she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. He’d come, and he’d waited. The driver ignored her, and in fact seemed to make a point of looking in the opposite direction. Undoubtedly he was used to the marquis and his odd hours and secretive rendezvous.
Eleanor rapped on the coach’s door, and it swung open. “Good evening, my dear,” Deverill’s deep voice came, and he extended a hand to help her up the steps into the vehicle.
“I didn’t think you would be here,” she panted, taking the seat opposite him and grateful for the lamp lit beside his head. In the dark, wearing a black, austere coat and trousers with a gray waistcoat, he seemed even more…arousing—especially now, when all her senses felt awake and attuned to the world around her. Whether that was from excitement or anxiety she wasn’t certain, but her heart had never pounded so hard in her life.
“I said I would be,” he returned, pulling the door closed and rapping on the ceiling with his walking cane. It wasn’t for walking; she’d seen him with it before, mostly in the late evenings when he stopped in to see Melbourne after a night at some club or other. It held a razor-sharp rapier, for “unwelcome encounters,” he’d said.
“I know, but I’m late.”
“I expected you to be.” He pulled a flask from his pocket, lifting an eyebrow as he offered it to her. “Whiskey?”
She was tempted. Tonight was not about liquid courage, however, and after a moment she shook her head. “No, thank you. But keep it close by; I may require it later.”
Sin and Sensibility Page 18