attention to logic and loyalty. The rest of him wanted to bed Eleanor Griffin.
“Deverill? What are you doing here?”
Valentine stopped as Zachary Griffin emerged from a men’s clothiers. “What do you think I’m doing here? he returned, putting an unfelt edge of annoyance into his voice. “I’m paying off my bloody debt to Melbourne.”
Zachary immediately dodged into the shadow of the Sin and Sensibility / 91
building. With almost comic urgency he sent a piercing gaze about the crowd. “She’s here?”
Shaking his head, Valentine moved forward again. It wouldn’t do to lose her now. “You have all the subtlety of a cannonball,” he commented. “She’s half a block ahead of us, shopping with Lady Barbara Howsen.”
“She said she would be,” Zachary admitted, falling into step beside him, “but she seems to be rather more devious than I’d realized. Did Melbourne tell you about her escape to Vauxhall?”
Damn . “She told me this morning,” he improvised,
“when I called to ask after her health.”
“It’s my health I’m beginning to worry about,” Zachary countered. “There are rules of behavior, after all.”
“Ah. So I hear. Personally, though, I have to applaud her for catching the lot of you by surprise. Did you just assume she would never grow up and wish to experience what the world has to offer?”
“I don’t know,” her brother grumbled. “I did think she’d be more reasonable about it.”
“Women are rarely reasonable, my boy.”
Zachary walked beside him in silence for a moment. “I suppose we might have been a bit overprotective, but that’s not our fault. When she disappeared in Devon that time…I’ve never seen Sebastian so frantic.”
Valentine hid a frown. “She disappeared? You mean she’s done this before?” She’d seemed so genuinely lost last night. “Melbourne never said—”
“He knows about your dislike for family drama,”
Zachary cut in. “But it’s not like that. Nell was twelve, and Melbourne was what, twenty-three? Shay and I were somewhere in between. Nell used to do everything we 92 / Suzanne Enoch
did—swim in the lake, fish, fence”—he chucked, obviously at some memory—“and even ride astride. Anyway, one afternoon she took out Seb’s gelding, a big brute named Atlas. Forty minutes or so later Atlas came back without her.”
The ladies entered a sweets shop, and Valentine stopped in the alleyway. “What happened?”
“The grooms and I rode out, but didn’t see her along the riding trail she usually took. So Melbourne turned out the entire estate staff, and forty of us went looking for her. She’d been thrown before, and we’d taught her how to fall, so at first we weren’t all that worried. I wasn’t, anyway. But then the sun set, and we still hadn’t found her.”
Valentine realized his breathing and heart rate had accelerated, and he mentally shook himself. It wasn’t like him to become so involved in a story, to the point where he actually worried over the main participant. Especially not when the events had taken place nine years earlier and he knew the outcome. Eleanor was in a candy shop twenty feet away from him, for God’s sake. But he wanted to know what had happened. “And?” he prompted Zachary.
“We brought out torches and lanterns and kept looking.
By then Melbourne was hoarse from calling for her, and I think he was half-convinced that someone had kidnapped her and meant to ransom her for the family fortune. He would have given it to them.”
“That’s uncharacteristic.”
With a short grin, Zachary nodded. “You have no idea.
We looked for six or seven hours. It was after midnight before Shay fired off his pistol and the rest of us came running. He’d found her four miles away in a pile of leaves, asleep, waiting for daylight to head for home. Her damned arm was broken, but otherwise she was fine.”
He chuckled
Sin and Sensibility / 93
again. “She wanted to know what had taken us
“Deverill? What are you doing here?”
Valentine stopped as Zachary Griffin emerged from a men’s clothiers. “What do you think I’m doing here? he returned, putting an unfelt edge of annoyance into his voice. “I’m paying off my bloody debt to Melbourne.”
Zachary immediately dodged into the shadow of the Sin and Sensibility / 91
building. With almost comic urgency he sent a piercing gaze about the crowd. “She’s here?”
Shaking his head, Valentine moved forward again. It wouldn’t do to lose her now. “You have all the subtlety of a cannonball,” he commented. “She’s half a block ahead of us, shopping with Lady Barbara Howsen.”
“She said she would be,” Zachary admitted, falling into step beside him, “but she seems to be rather more devious than I’d realized. Did Melbourne tell you about her escape to Vauxhall?”
Damn . “She told me this morning,” he improvised,
“when I called to ask after her health.”
“It’s my health I’m beginning to worry about,” Zachary countered. “There are rules of behavior, after all.”
“Ah. So I hear. Personally, though, I have to applaud her for catching the lot of you by surprise. Did you just assume she would never grow up and wish to experience what the world has to offer?”
“I don’t know,” her brother grumbled. “I did think she’d be more reasonable about it.”
“Women are rarely reasonable, my boy.”
Zachary walked beside him in silence for a moment. “I suppose we might have been a bit overprotective, but that’s not our fault. When she disappeared in Devon that time…I’ve never seen Sebastian so frantic.”
Valentine hid a frown. “She disappeared? You mean she’s done this before?” She’d seemed so genuinely lost last night. “Melbourne never said—”
“He knows about your dislike for family drama,”
Zachary cut in. “But it’s not like that. Nell was twelve, and Melbourne was what, twenty-three? Shay and I were somewhere in between. Nell used to do everything we 92 / Suzanne Enoch
did—swim in the lake, fish, fence”—he chucked, obviously at some memory—“and even ride astride. Anyway, one afternoon she took out Seb’s gelding, a big brute named Atlas. Forty minutes or so later Atlas came back without her.”
The ladies entered a sweets shop, and Valentine stopped in the alleyway. “What happened?”
“The grooms and I rode out, but didn’t see her along the riding trail she usually took. So Melbourne turned out the entire estate staff, and forty of us went looking for her. She’d been thrown before, and we’d taught her how to fall, so at first we weren’t all that worried. I wasn’t, anyway. But then the sun set, and we still hadn’t found her.”
Valentine realized his breathing and heart rate had accelerated, and he mentally shook himself. It wasn’t like him to become so involved in a story, to the point where he actually worried over the main participant. Especially not when the events had taken place nine years earlier and he knew the outcome. Eleanor was in a candy shop twenty feet away from him, for God’s sake. But he wanted to know what had happened. “And?” he prompted Zachary.
“We brought out torches and lanterns and kept looking.
By then Melbourne was hoarse from calling for her, and I think he was half-convinced that someone had kidnapped her and meant to ransom her for the family fortune. He would have given it to them.”
“That’s uncharacteristic.”
With a short grin, Zachary nodded. “You have no idea.
We looked for six or seven hours. It was after midnight before Shay fired off his pistol and the rest of us came running. He’d found her four miles away in a pile of leaves, asleep, waiting for daylight to head for home. Her damned arm was broken, but otherwise she was fine.”
He chuckled
Sin and Sensibility / 93
again. “She wanted to know what had taken us
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