Sin and Sensibility
Page 32
“I can explain,” Eleanor said unexpectedly.
The duke lifted an eyebrow. “Please do, then. Keeping this in mind, of course.” He pulled a folded note from his pocket. “I doubt you’ve read it, so I’ll tell you. It says that you’ve been kidnapped by Deverill, and that he is taking you to Gretna Green with the idea of marrying you to keep you from my,” he looked down, “my ‘overstuffed, self-important ignorance’ of your needs.”
“I left voluntarily,” she blurted, flushing.
“So the note is a lie, and this is an elopement?”
“I kidnapped her,” Valentine put in. Whatever happened, Eleanor loved her brothers. He wouldn’t allow her to drive a wedge between them, even for his sake. “I couldn’t sit by and watch you force her into a—”
“—a life of misery?” Melbourne finished. “A little dramatic, I think. Especially for you. You’re a pragmatist, Deverill. And a cynic.”
“I was going to say a common, ordinary life,” Valentine countered.
“But I asked him to help me in the first place,” Eleanor interrupted again. “This is my fault. Don’t be angry at Valentine. He saved me.” She glanced over at Cobb-Harding, mumbling in a pained, muffled tone. “He saved me.”
“Oh, stop it, Nell,” the duke cut in. “Deverill doesn’t look after anyone’s skin but his own. Everyone knows that.”
“Yes, they do,” Valentine agreed, anger threatening to overthrow the calm he’d forced on himself. “So why would you choose someone as jaded and irresponsible as I am to watch over your sister in the first place?”
Charlemagne slipped back into the room and tossed the billfold back to Melbourne. “Taken care of,” he grunted, striding over to stand beside the fireplace. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing yet. Melbourne was about to explain why he would select someone unacceptable to guard his sister,” Valentine said, before Zachary or Sebastian could color the conversation with their version of events.
“I didn’t,” the duke said slowly.
Even Shay looked puzzled. “You didn’t what?”
“Select someone unacceptable to guard my sister.”
“I beg to differ,” Zachary said with a snort. “Jesus, Melbourne, he kidnapped her out of our house in the middle of the night! And you consider him a friend. I say we call for the constable and have all four of them dragged before the bar and carted off to Australia.”
Valentine ignored the insults, instead looking at the duke for a long moment. A hundred conversations, a dozen scenarios, played through his mind. He’d known Melbourne for a long time, and he’d never seen him make a false step, misjudge a business proposal or a partner. No, by God, the duke had known precisely what he was doing when he blackmailed Valentine into the middle of this mess.
“You were matchmaking,” Eleanor gasped. Evidently she’d been coming to the same conclusions. “You were trying to put Valentine and me together.”
“What?” Shay straightened. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would Melbourne think Deverill would ever commit to—”
“But he did,” Melbourne interrupted.
Eleanor stood, her face white. “You can’t possibly be saying that you arranged all of this.” She looked down at Valentine, her hurt expression like a thousand knives in his chest. “You didn’t—”
“I didn’t know anything about it.” And if Melbourne’s smug assumption of the responsibility for everything that had happened continued, he was going to lose her. He gingerly stood beside her, forcing himself not to wince. “And I don’t care. Whatever happened to this point to bring us here, I don’t care.”
“Valentine, I am tired of being manipulated. I am not going to tolerate another instant of this. How am I—”
Valentine kissed her. It had little finesse, but it stopped her argument. Slowly her mouth softened against his, and he deepened the kiss in response, sliding his hands around her waist. “Eleanor,” he whispered, lifting his head a little, “I love you. I truly don’t care about the circumstances which brought it about.”
She blinked, lifting her gaze from his mouth to his eyes. “What did you say?”
“Oh, just ignore us,” Zachary broke in. “You’re the ones who ran off to—”
“Shut up, Zachary,” Valentine interrupted, grasping Nell’s hand. “Eleanor, walk with me.”
“We’re not letting you out of our sight.” Charlemagne started across the room toward them.
“Then stop us,” Valentine said, lifting his chin.
“Let them go,” the duke broke in, before the fighting could begin again. “They know better than to leave without us.”
Valentine wouldn’t have wagered on that, but he didn’t say anything more as he led Eleanor from the room, through the kitchen, and out into the small, simple side yard.
“Do you really think he masterminded all of this?” Eleanor asked, facing him. “That he arranged for us to end up together?”
He shook his head. “I think he figured I’d be a good influence on you, and you’d be a good one on me. As for the rest, he couldn’t have had any idea.”
“I’m a good influence on you?” Eleanor studied his face. Somehow he looked even more handsome now, with his hair disheveled and his face bruised and bloodied. It was as if with the polish gone, she could see the true value of the gem.
“Yes. Especially in the way you wanted your moment of freedom, but not in a way that would hurt anyone else.” He hesitated. “Responsibility isn’t something I’ve ever had much use for. I always thought it would feel like a shackle, or a noose around my neck. And then I realized that I felt responsible toward you, that I worried over what could happen, that I didn’t want you to be sad or disappointed. And it didn’t make my world feel smaller, Eleanor. Just the opposite. And I do love you.”
Eleanor cupped his face in both hands, leaning up to kiss him. She couldn’t help herself. He meant it. He’d said that he loved her, and he meant it. “I went swimming naked in a baptismal pond in the middle of Hyde Park,” she said softly, chuckling against his mouth. “I went for drives without an escort, and I spoke about my interests to people without worrying what they might think.” Slowly she kissed him again.
“And you can still do all of that, Eleanor. You don’t have to live a small life.”
“I don’t think I could, with you.”
“With me?” he repeated, brushing hair from her face. “This hasn’t been too much of an adventure, even for you?”
“Never. I’ve known what I wanted for my adventure—for my life—since the night you saved me from Stephen at the Belmont soiree. I just didn’t know whether it would be wise or not.”
“And now?”
“And now I know that you may be rather unconventional, but you’re also kind and caring and honorable.” Her smile deepened. “I do want to be like you, Valentine.”
“You are like me. In only the good ways, of course. Marry me, Eleanor.”
She nodded, another tear running down her face. “I want to marry you. More than anything.”
He kissed her again, slow and feather-light. “Good. Then let’s be off.”
Eleanor lifted both eyebrows. “To Gretna Green?”
“Melbourne thinks he knows everything. But I’ll wager he won’t expect us to continue with this particular adventure.”
She covered her mouth with both hands. Now that her brothers were there, now that she knew what she wanted, she’d just expected that everything would settle back into easy convention. Where Valentine Corbett was concerned, though, she supposed she shouldn’t expect anything but surprise. And that, for her, was perfection.
“Yes,” she agreed, laughing aloud. “Let’s go.”
About the Author
A native and current resident of Southern California, SUZANNE ENOCH loves movies almost as much as she loves books. She once appeared on an E! special, Star Wars Is Back, as an expert on the romance in the Star Wars movies. Other highlights include winning her third grade spelling bee, receiving
an E.T. poster and T-shirt in an alien-inspired poetry contest, and submitting a script for The A-Team (which was not why the series was cancelled).
When she is not busily working on her next novel, Suzanne likes to contemplate interesting phenomena, like how the three guppies in her aquarium became 161 guppies in five months.
Suzanne loves to hear from her readers, and may be reached at:
c/o Lowenstein-Yost Associates
121 W. 27th Street, Suite 601
New York, New York 10001
Or send her an e-mail at suzie@suzanneenoch.com.
Visit her website at www.suzanneenoch.com.
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By Suzanne Enoch
SOMETHING SINFUL
DON’T LOOK DOWN
AN INVITATION TO SIN
FLIRTING WITH DANGER
SIN AND SENSIBILITY
ENGLAND’S PERFECT HERO
LONDON’S PERFECT SCOUNDREL
THE RAKE
A MATTER OF SCANDAL
MEET ME AT MIDNIGHT
REFORMING A RAKE
TAMING RAFE
BY LOVE UNDONE
STOLEN KISSES
LADY ROGUE
Coming in November 2006
The Exciting Contemporary Romance
BILLIONAIRES PREFER BLONDES
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SIN AND SENSIBILITY. Copyright © 2006 by Suzanne Enoch. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition September 2006 ISBN 9780061752094
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