Read Online Sin and Sensibility by Suzanne Enoch - Free Book Online Page B

of not being early—or even on time—anywhere, and even after Eleanor arrived nothing interesting was likely to happen tonight. At two hours or more before his usual arrival time, he’d be lucky not to die of boredom before she did put in an appearance.
    He was on the verge of striking up a conversation with a footman when the next group of guests came through the door. The butler announced each one, though he certainly wasn’t impressed, and the other couple there were too deaf to hear anything short of a cannon shot.
    After the fifth round of introductions, he was ready to gouge out his own ears and join them.
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    “Deverill?” a surprised voice came from the edge of the ballroom.
    With a sigh Valentine turned around. “Francis Henning,” he acknowledged, shaking the rotund young man’s hand.
    “What the devil are you doing here already?” Henning cast his gaze about the slowly filling room. “I say, which game are you stalking tonight?”
    “None,” he answered. “I’m here for the roast duck.”
    Henning’s open face folded into bafflement. “Duck?
    You mean there’s no chit?”
    Valentine smiled. “There’s always a chit.”
    “So who is—”
    “I haven’t decided yet.”
    After a moment, Henning burst into uncertain laughter.
    “Oh, I understand. Very good, Deverill. Ha ha.”
    Luckily for Henning the butler took that moment to bellow Melbourne’s name, and Valentine looked up. “Ah.
    There he is. If you’ll excuse me, Henning, I’ll have to stop toying with you now.”
    He made his way over to the doorway where Sebastian, Shay, and Zachary lingered, accepting greetings from the host and hostess. Halfway there, he frowned. Where was Eleanor? Under normal circumstances she was at least as easy to spot as her powerful brothers, but tonight she should have stood out like a dove among crows. Wonderful . Now he was paraphrasing Shakespeare.
    “Deverill,” Zachary greeted, clapping him on the shoulder. “You just won me twenty quid. Shay said you’d never be here when we arrived.”
    “Well, I am here,” he returned, scowling at the duke.
    “Where is she? I’m definitely not doing this for my health, you know.”
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    The duke had the bad manners to chuckle at him. “You, my friend, are off the hook tonight.”
    Valentine glared at him. “Beg pardon?”
    “She had an aching head, and is home in bed. You’re free to go off and damage your health to your heart’s content tonight.”
    To his surprise, Valentine felt…disappointed. He wouldn’t be able to see the gown she’d chosen for this evening. “You might have sent over a damned note.”
    “We didn’t know until the last moment,” Zachary protested. “She wanted to come; I think she might even have dressed. It’s not our fault.”
    Now that was interesting . “She ‘might’ have dressed?”
    he repeated. “You didn’t see her tucked into bed?”
    Melbourne pushed in front of the youngest Griffin brother. “Are you implying that she waited for us to leave and then snuck out somewhere?”
    Valentine shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s not my sister.
    But the fact that it didn’t occur to you until now makes me ashamed to know you.”
    The duke looked at him for a moment, his expression thoughtful. Finally he began to swear, quietly and vehemently. “Her maid watched out the window for us to leave,” he muttered. “I saw her, and I didn’t think anything of it.”
    “But Nell has an agreement with us,” Zachary protested.
    “She doesn’t need to sneak about.”
    “That, my friend, would probably depend on what she’s up to.” Valentine stifled the urge to smile. A chit had outsmarted the Griffin brethren; that didn’t happen every day. “I could be wrong, you know. She could be at home, asleep.”
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    “Shay, go and see,” Melbourne ordered.
    Without another word Charlemagne turned on his heel and slipped back down the hallway. Zachary, on