Sin and Sensibility (40 page)

With a shriek Eleanor snatched up a piece of firewood and ran at him. “Go away! Go away!”

He caught the blow against his forearm, stumbling backward as she slammed the wood at him again. Her mind refused to go beyond the thought that he couldn’t be there. They were finished with him. He’d tried to ruin her before, and he’d failed. Valentine had stopped him.

A sob ripped from her throat. “Help!” she screamed, swinging at him again.

Cobb-Harding grabbed her arm and yanked the firewood out of her hand. “Stop that!” he bellowed, pushing her onto the floor.

She fell beside Valentine, who lay prone half on his face. “No, no, no,” she whispered raggedly, touching his cheek.

The door opened again. “Keep her quiet, damn it all,”

another voice said. “The innkeeper’s already asking for more blunt.” The man dressed like a gentleman, and he looked vaguely familiar—one of the male horde who had been swarming around her for weeks, but to whom she couldn’t even remember speaking. Looking over his shoulder, he left the room again, leaning back in as he swung the door closed. “And hurry up. You know we don’t have much time.”

Cobb-Harding jerked her upright by one arm. “You heard him, Nell. Keep quiet. I don’t want to hit you.”

“Then what do you want?” she rasped, pulling away so hard that her sleeve ripped off.

352 / Suzanne Enoch

He shifted his grip to her shoulder. “It’s a simple business proposition,” he grunted, “if you’d calm down and listen.”

“Calm down? You attacked Valentine from behind, you coward!”

“Be glad I didn’t kill him, Nell. That would remove a considerable amount of debt and embarrassment—and the need for relocation—on my part.”

Oh, God, she’d forgotten about that. “I don’t—”

“I tried to explain to Melbourne that I am in an untenable position. Unfortunately,
you
are obviously my only solution.”

She kicked at him, and he flung her into the fireside chair. A third man pushed into the room, and Eleanor frowned as he dragged the limp Valentine out of the way.

“I know you. Peter Burnsey. You play cards with Charlemagne.”

“I
lose
at cards with Charlemagne,” the grandson of the Marquis of Sneldon returned, lifting an eyebrow. “And Deverill. I also lose at other things. Until today, of course.”

“You must be desperate, to throw in your lot with this idiot,” she snapped, wishing her voice were steadier. She glanced over at Valentine, now crumpled in the corner.

He hadn’t moved, and her throat constricted.
Please let
him be all right
.

“A little risk, for a lot of reward,” Mr. Burnsey said.

“His coach is ready. Are we taking it, or do you want to wait for the next mail coach north?”

Cobb-Harding gave a short grin. “Since Deverill was kind enough to bring it this far, we might as well avail ourselves of it.” Rubbing at his forearm, he jerked Eleanor back to her feet. “You might have dressed a little less conspicuously, Nell.”

Sin and Sensibility / 353

She pulled against his grip. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Let me go at once!”

“You don’t get to give orders here, my lady,” Cobb-Harding returned. “Besides, we’re only continuing the journey you began. Deverill was taking you to Gretna Green, was he not?”

Deep dread froze Eleanor’s heart. “Stop this.”

“No. I need twenty-five thousand pounds to pull me out of my debt to Deverill. Short of killing him, that is, which I really don’t wish to do. That would serve to banish me from England, and that’s what I’m trying to avoid. I gave your brother the opportunity to assist me and to keep your reputation safe. He refused.”

“You attacked me!” she snapped. “You tried to—”

“I tried to secure our marriage. And now the match is even more necessary than before. So you and I will marry, with Burnsey and Perline as witnesses, and your brother will
have
to make good on my debts.”

Burnsey came forward to eye her as well. “And perhaps
my
debts.”

“In any case,” Stephen continued, “I’ll be free from Deverill, and I’ll be part of the Griffin clan. Do you see a negative side to any of this? Because frankly I can’t see one.”

“I can.”

Valentine hit him in the chest. His arms flailing, Stephen slammed backward into the hard wood table.

Burnsey stumbled out of the way as bread and tea flew in the air. Cobb-Harding tried to roll sideways, but Valentine hit him again, this time with a fist into the jaw.

She jumped forward to help. Before she could reach Valentine, a foot caught Eleanor’s skirt, dumping her onto the floor. Pain shot through her right knee, but she didn’t care. Valentine needed her help, or at least her distraction.

354 / Suzanne Enoch

She scrambled away, pulling herself back to her feet as Burnsey stormed past her to grab Valentine’s shoulder.

“No,” she shrieked, slamming him across the head and shoulder with the remains of the teapot.

As Burnsey staggered backward, hot tea dripping from his hair, Andrew Perline charged into the room. “Deverill, behind you!” she yelled, throwing the bread platter at Burnsey.

Whipping around, Valentine took Perline’s charge in the ribs instead of in the back. They crashed through a chair, splintering the heavy thing and sending pieces scattering. Eleanor snatched up part of the armrest and limped forward.

A hand grabbed her arm, wrenching the club free of her grip. “None of that,” Cobb-Harding growled. “Come along, Nell.”

“Let go!” She tried to bash him with her elbow, but he slapped her hard enough to stun.

Even with a bloody nose and a cut across his forehead, he managed to look smug. But then he had Valentine outnumbered three to one. “My friends will be along shortly. I’m sure they’ll tell you Deverill’s fate if you ask them nicely. Of course if you were to cooperate, this episode might end a bit more pleasantly—for him.”

Valentine
. “You may as well stop this and let me go,”

she snapped, digging her thin slippers into the floor and fighting his pull with every ounce of strength she had,

“because I will never agree to marry you.”

“Of course you will. If you don’t, your reputation will be ruined beyond repair.”

“Not over a forced kidnapping.”

“I only secured you from Deverill. You were in the midst of an elopement, were you not? It’s Deverill who’s Sin and Sensibility / 355

ruined you; not me. I’m only stepping in to finish the job.” He gave a slow grin, made lopsided by his swollen lip. “You should be thanking me, rather than fighting me.”

“I don’t care if I have to spend the remainder of my life in a French convent,” she returned, swinging her fist at his face. “I will not marry you!”

“Eleanor!” Valentine bellowed, half buried beneath the other two men.

“Shut him up. Permanently,” Cobb-Harding snarled.

“I’ve been reasonable beyond all expectation.”

Oh, God, they were going to kill him
. She did have more to risk than her reputation. And she couldn’t, wouldn’t, give away Valentine’s life. Not for anything. “Stephen, I’ll go with you,” she said quickly.

He stopped, looking down at her with suspicion clear in his sunny blue eyes. “Oh, really. And why is that?”

“I’ll go if you’ll leave Deverill alone. Tie him up or lock him in a room, and I’ll go with you.”

“And you’ll agree to marry me.”

A tear running down her face, she nodded. “If you don’t hurt him anymore.”

He yanked her up against him, reminding her horribly of the night he’d attacked her. She could tolerate his company for a short while, she told herself, until she could get free, or until her brothers caught up. Or until Valentine could figure out a way for them to get out of this.

“You heard her, Deverill!” Cobb-Harding yelled. “She’s going with me. You lose.”

Blood dripping from his hairline, Valentine shoved to his feet, Perline clinging to his back and half choking him.

“Eleanor,” he rasped. “Don’t.”

“Stop it, Valentine,” she ordered, another tear joining the first. “Don’t fight them. I’m going with Stephen.”

356 / Suzanne Enoch

He glared at her through his disheveled tangle of dark hair. “So you’re just giving up?”

“No, she isn’t. She’s choosing me. Tie him up.”

Valentine yanked an arm free of Burnsey’s grip. “Don’t bother. I thought you were a fighter, Eleanor. If this is how little your freedom means to you, then good riddance. This is all too damned sticky for me.”

Eleanor blinked. A short time ago she would have believed his easy dismissal of her. Now she could only watch, wide-eyed and not having to pretend her look of horror, while she wondered whether Burnsey and Perline knew the old Deverill better than the new one.

“Do you expect me to believe you would just abandon her, Deverill?” Cobb-Harding asked.

Valentine shrugged his torn coat back onto his shoulders. “I was in this for a bit of fun, a romp at the expense of the almighty Griffins,” he returned, and looked pointedly at Eleanor. “In truth, she’s a bit too stiff, and this is no longer fun.”

Play along, Nell
, she told herself. “How…how could you, Valentine?”

“Don’t look at me,” he snorted, wiping blood from his face. “You made the agreement. Not me.”

“But—”

Moving so quickly his arm seemed to blur, Valentine shot out his fist, catching Burnsey flush on the jaw. The man collapsed without a sound. Perline lunged at him again, but he’d lost the angle. Deverill’s knee caught him in the face, and he went down with a
wumph
.

“There now,” Valentine said, dusting his hands together.

“That’s better.”

“But you agreed—”

“
She
agreed, Stephen,” he countered, stepping over Sin and Sensibility / 357

Burnsey’s legs as he advanced. “I didn’t. And I’d guess she was probably lying to you.”

Cobb-Harding tightened his grip on Eleanor’s arm.

“She’s coming with me. Stay back, Deverill. I don’t want to hurt her, but I will if you don’t give me another choice.”

“A choice,” Valentine repeated, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. His tone remained calm, but the look in his eyes was frightening. Eleanor was abruptly doubly glad that she wasn’t Stephen Cobb-Harding at this moment. “I’ll give you a choice, then,” he continued.

“Let her go, or I’ll skin you alive and feed your carcass to the hogs.”

“No,” Cobb-Harding replied. “You don’t get to win, Deverill. You’ve treated me poorly, when you would have done the exact same thing if our positions were reversed.

You can have any woman. You don’t need her. I do.”

“You’re wrong about that, Stephen.” Staggering a little, Valentine gripped the back of the one upright chair in the room. “Eleanor…
duck
!”

She threw herself down. The chair whistled over her head, catching Cobb-Harding high in the shoulder and sending him sprawling over the table and to the floor. As soon as he went down Valentine was on him, twisting an arm behind Cobb-Harding’s back until Stephen screeched.

“You’re breaking my arm!”

“And your complaint is?” Valentine panted. “Lie down, facedown on the floor.” He glanced over his shoulder at Eleanor. “Get ropes or blankets or draperies. Anything we can use to bind their hands.”

She hurried for the door, shoving it open and nearly falling over the innkeeper and his wife. “You heard him,”

she barked. “What do you have?”

358 / Suzanne Enoch

“They threatened us, you know,” the innkeeper blustered, backing away.

“I don’t care. Find me some rope, instantly.”

Apparently he realized that the bribe he’d been promised was no longer forthcoming, because he produced a length of rope from a storage closet and handed it over.

“Shall I fetch a constable?”

She nearly agreed to that, but first she wanted to check with Valentine. In her mind the optimistic ten hours lead they had kept ticking away. Calling in the constabulary would eat it away entirely. “I’ll inform you in a moment,”

she hedged, running back into the private room.

Together they bound the three men. Valentine knotted Cobb-Harding’s legs, pulling the rope so taut that Eleanor wouldn’t be surprised if the earl’s son ended up with gangrene.

“There,” Valentine said, finally straightening. “They aren’t going anywhere now.”

“You’re all right?” she asked.

Slowly he held out his hand to her. She placed her fingers in his, and he led her to the far side of the room.

“You have blood on your cheek,” he murmured, reaching out to touch her face.

“I don’t think it’s mine. You’re the one with the cracked skull.” She realized that his fingers were shaking, and she tightened her own grip. “You scared me a little.”

“I know. I needed them to relax for just a moment. I would never…” He stopped, clearing his throat. “I would never let anyone hurt you, Eleanor. I should have realized Stephen wouldn’t give up so easily. I put you in danger.

This—”

“Shh,” she whispered. “I’m not hurt.”

Sin and Sensibility / 359

“Yes, you are.” He leaned down to kiss her. “I’m not the sort of man that women trust. I know you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you with my life, Valentine.”

He smiled a little. “But not with your heart.”

“That’s not what I meant. You scared me because I thought for a second that he’d killed you.”

For a long moment Valentine gazed at her. “Thank you for that.” Then to her surprise, he took her other hand and clasped it as well, then sank down onto both knees before her. “I…I couldn’t stand to lose you, Eleanor,” he continued in a husky whisper. “You make me feel optimistic, and happy, and content. You’ve taught me so much.”

With his face upturned, blood running down one cheek, and his deceptively sleepy eyes more earnest and sincere than she’d ever seen, Eleanor could believe him. She
wanted
to believe him. “You’ve taught me a great deal, as well. More than I thought I had to learn.”

His smile deepened into his eyes. “You and I, we aren’t so different, you know. You worry about too many things, and I worry about too few. Except for you, now. You’ve caused me a great deal of thought recently.”