you.”
He lit the cigar. “‘Need’ is a very strong word, Lydia.
I don’t think you need anything. If you want someone aside from your husband in your bed, I imagine you would have a wide range of choices.”
Silence radiated from the coach. Even with the curtains pulled shut, he could practically see her sitting there on the crushed velvet cushions, eyes narrowed as she rumin-ated over what he’d said, examining it from every angle, looking for any opening or opportunity. “You’ve found someone new,” she finally said.
He snorted. “That’s the conclusion you’ve come to?
Do you think that my finding another interest would have anything to do with you and me?”
“That depends. What, have you reached your quota of lovers so you have to let one of us go before you can bed another one?”
Valentine sighed, his gaze still on the shop door. “This is becoming tiresome. Make up any reason you like. Find Sin and Sensibility / 89
someone else, Lydia. Having fun together is one thing, but I don’t want to be needed, or nagged at. And certainly not by a married woman.”
Her next comment was a slew of curses aimed at him and more directly, his cock. Thankfully, Eleanor and Lady Barbara left the milliner’s to continue down the street, and he pushed away from the coach to follow them, leaving Lydia swearing in solitude behind him.
Technically he didn’t have to be there. Shopping was one of the items on Eleanor’s schedule, one of the events Melbourne had considered innocent enough that she didn’t require watching. Valentine was fairly certain her brother was correct.
That didn’t explain why he’d waited around the corner from Griffin House until she’d left to meet Lady Barbara, or why he’d followed them to Bond Street rather than joining his peers at the House of Lords.
He had no logical reason at all for being there, actually.
Nothing other than a desire—a need , damn it all—to figure Eleanor Griffin out. For Christ’s sake, he’d come within a breath of kissing her in her own morning room.
In Melbourne’s morning room.
It didn’t make any damned sense. He’d hunted dangerous game before, game already owned by another man—though she never seemed to be held too dearly by her captor. Friends, however, were another matter. He didn’t have many, and he didn’t betray them. Ever.
Melbourne had asked him to keep an eye on Eleanor, to keep her out of trouble and theoretically to report on anything that might be construed as improper. Within one day of that he’d seen her half naked and accompanied her home without a chaperone—either of which might have forced him into a marriage with the girl if anyone reported
90 / Suzanne Enoch
it—and then he’d promised not to tell anyone what had happened.
What Cobb-Harding had attempted hadn’t been her fault; of that he was certain. But she had gone to Belmont’s of her own free will, so he should have felt perfectly comfortable with relaying that fact to her brother.
His sense of fair play forbade that, or so he could tell himself, but after this morning he had a sneaking suspicion that his decision to keep this little surveillance going had nothing to do with fair, and everything to do with play.
Taking a long draw of his cigar, Valentine hung back far enough in the afternoon crowd of shoppers that all he could see of Eleanor was the curling ostrich plume atop her hat. Since he’d declared himself elsewhere, it wouldn’t do for her to discover him trailing thirty feet behind her.
And he wasn’t sure what the exercise was accomplishing, except to increase his level of frustration. Damn it all, if Melbourne hadn’t gone to him and he’d learned about Eleanor’s little rebellion on his own, he would have been first in line for the opportunity to educate her about freedom and sin and passion. Thanks to the duke, however, he’d effectively been gelded. Of course his head knew that, but the rest of him wasn’t paying much
He lit the cigar. “‘Need’ is a very strong word, Lydia.
I don’t think you need anything. If you want someone aside from your husband in your bed, I imagine you would have a wide range of choices.”
Silence radiated from the coach. Even with the curtains pulled shut, he could practically see her sitting there on the crushed velvet cushions, eyes narrowed as she rumin-ated over what he’d said, examining it from every angle, looking for any opening or opportunity. “You’ve found someone new,” she finally said.
He snorted. “That’s the conclusion you’ve come to?
Do you think that my finding another interest would have anything to do with you and me?”
“That depends. What, have you reached your quota of lovers so you have to let one of us go before you can bed another one?”
Valentine sighed, his gaze still on the shop door. “This is becoming tiresome. Make up any reason you like. Find Sin and Sensibility / 89
someone else, Lydia. Having fun together is one thing, but I don’t want to be needed, or nagged at. And certainly not by a married woman.”
Her next comment was a slew of curses aimed at him and more directly, his cock. Thankfully, Eleanor and Lady Barbara left the milliner’s to continue down the street, and he pushed away from the coach to follow them, leaving Lydia swearing in solitude behind him.
Technically he didn’t have to be there. Shopping was one of the items on Eleanor’s schedule, one of the events Melbourne had considered innocent enough that she didn’t require watching. Valentine was fairly certain her brother was correct.
That didn’t explain why he’d waited around the corner from Griffin House until she’d left to meet Lady Barbara, or why he’d followed them to Bond Street rather than joining his peers at the House of Lords.
He had no logical reason at all for being there, actually.
Nothing other than a desire—a need , damn it all—to figure Eleanor Griffin out. For Christ’s sake, he’d come within a breath of kissing her in her own morning room.
In Melbourne’s morning room.
It didn’t make any damned sense. He’d hunted dangerous game before, game already owned by another man—though she never seemed to be held too dearly by her captor. Friends, however, were another matter. He didn’t have many, and he didn’t betray them. Ever.
Melbourne had asked him to keep an eye on Eleanor, to keep her out of trouble and theoretically to report on anything that might be construed as improper. Within one day of that he’d seen her half naked and accompanied her home without a chaperone—either of which might have forced him into a marriage with the girl if anyone reported
90 / Suzanne Enoch
it—and then he’d promised not to tell anyone what had happened.
What Cobb-Harding had attempted hadn’t been her fault; of that he was certain. But she had gone to Belmont’s of her own free will, so he should have felt perfectly comfortable with relaying that fact to her brother.
His sense of fair play forbade that, or so he could tell himself, but after this morning he had a sneaking suspicion that his decision to keep this little surveillance going had nothing to do with fair, and everything to do with play.
Taking a long draw of his cigar, Valentine hung back far enough in the afternoon crowd of shoppers that all he could see of Eleanor was the curling ostrich plume atop her hat. Since he’d declared himself elsewhere, it wouldn’t do for her to discover him trailing thirty feet behind her.
And he wasn’t sure what the exercise was accomplishing, except to increase his level of frustration. Damn it all, if Melbourne hadn’t gone to him and he’d learned about Eleanor’s little rebellion on his own, he would have been first in line for the opportunity to educate her about freedom and sin and passion. Thanks to the duke, however, he’d effectively been gelded. Of course his head knew that, but the rest of him wasn’t paying much
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