The Cheer in Charming an Earl (The Naughty Girls) (13 page)

ELINOR WOKE with a start. She pushed onto her elbows and looked around her, having the sense she was not in her room at home. Nor was she. Faint light barely brightened the bedchamber, but it was enough to see that the imposing four-poster bed gleamed with fresh polish and the draperies were cut from heavy velvet, rather than cotton. Not her bedchamber at home, then, or the cozy yet unremarkable quarters she’d been afforded at her aunt’s cottage, either. “Where am I?” she mused aloud, while her belly fluttered with the hope that she’d been laid in Grantham’s bed.

Now
there
was a wicked thought.

“We thought it best to remain at Chelford for the night,” Aunt Millie said, causing Elinor to jump.

Then Elinor
remembered
. She groaned and hid her face in her hands. Memories of the prior evening came flooding back, each more horrible than the previous. Gavin’s arrival. His resolve to investigate the carriage accident. Grantham’s proposal, a mistake he would surely right once he knew of her scheming.

Her heart caught in her throat. No! She raised her head and turned to see her aunt seated at her bedside with a book in hand. Aunt Millie had stripped down to her chemise and unpinned her coiffure, then reworked her ginger hair into a serviceable bun. She no longer looked like Mrs. Rebmann, the shocking actress, but like Mama.

Elinor burst into tears.

“Come now, child, we’ve no time for that. Lord Chelford and your brother are beside themselves with worry. Lord Chelford more so than Mr. Conley, perhaps, but you
must
cease this caterwauling and make yourself presentable nonetheless.”

Elinor drew up her knees and folded her arms over them. Then she buried her face against her forearms and sucked in several shuddering breaths. “D-d-do they k-know?”

Aunt Millie patted her shoulder awkwardly yet soothingly. “Don’t tell me your brother guessed correctly. Are you keeping a secret, child? You should have confided in me. I might have been able to help.”

It wasn’t too late. Elinor lifted her head and dabbed at her eyes. She’d been stripped to her chemise, too, and though the light waned, she guessed it was morning. Still too early, however, for Grantham to have taken Gavin out to the carriage house. “I ought to have done. As soon as I tumbled from the coach on Christmas Eve, I should have confessed. The wheel broke because
I
broke it, Aunt Millie. This was entirely my doing, and now Grantham and my brother will know what a silly girl I was.”

Her aunt pressed a soft kerchief into her hand, then set her book aside on a nearby table. She folded her hands in her lap. “Am I to understand you caused a
carriage
accident? Why on earth would you have done such a foolhardy thing?”

Tears threatened to flow again. Elinor swallowed against a rising lump in her throat and pushed away the covers so her bare toes were visible. Never had she been so hot and embarrassed in all her life, and it would only worsen from here. She
must
tell Grantham before he learned the truth of it himself. “It was exceedingly stupid of me,” she answered, and felt immensely better for having admitted it aloud—so much so that she sat up straighter. “Yes, stupid. I knew he lived in York, only a stone’s toss from your cottage door. Mother had told us you were an invalid, and so I told her you were dying and begged to be allowed to attend you. But I sabotaged the carriage wheel on the way. I meant to become stranded at Chelford, because I…because I…”

Oh, good heavens, it was one thing to confess her impulsiveness and another to try to explain her dreams. But Aunt Millie’s silent compassion buoyed Elinor until she felt composed enough to continue. “I saw him one day in Gavin’s smithy, you see. He was so handsome, the finest gentleman I’d ever laid eyes on. And an earl, besides! We weren’t introduced, but I learned his name easily enough. I ran to my room and searched through every edition of my
Ladies’ Companion Magazine
until I reasoned he was unmarried. I thought…”

Her shoulders caved as she picked at a loose thread in the bed linens. “I believed if we were introduced, he would see how well suited we are. I didn’t realize I didn’t know the first thing about him. I didn’t even know he was a
libertine—
,” she turned to face her aunt, “and I don’t care anymore, actually. I might have started out imprudently, but I can’t regret my actions entirely. He has a good heart, and he is droll. He has been nothing but kind to me in spite of my foibles. I think he would make me a very good husband. But first I must tell him everything and pray he doesn’t think me a silly twit. Will you help me? I must see him before breakfast, or Gavin will take one look at the carriage wheel and he will
know
.”

Mama would have required her smelling salts after hearing such a tale, but Aunt Millie only looked intrigued. “Yes, child, you must tell him without delay. Let me ring for a maid, then we will see about your gown. It was sent with mine to be aired and pressed.”

The minutes passed interminably as Elinor waited to be made presentable. “Please, ask them to hurry,” she begged the maid who brought them toast and chocolate, then for the eighth time she opened the bedchamber door and peeked into the hallway. No dresses. No Grantham.

Finally, she was able to run down to the breakfast room. But when she skidded into the airy nook, she found two plates in the process of being cleared and no sign of her brother. “Did Lord Chelford accompany Mr. Conley out of doors?” she asked the footmen.

They snapped to attention. Then the older of the two nodded. “Yes, my lady. They went to see the carriage before the storm comes in.”

She followed his gaze to the tall windowpanes and saw there was in fact a purple cloud lurking on the horizon, darker than the gray clouds covering the rest of the sky. “Thank you,” she called over her shoulder as she spun and raced down the long hallway.

But she had no idea how to get out of doors aside from the main entrance. The foyer was as far from the noisy carriage house as possible, so that by the time she finally reached its stone façade and pushed on the polished wheel decorating its gate, she was out of breath. “Gavin!” she called anyway, using the last bit of air in her lungs. “Gavin!”

He materialized around the corner. In one hand he held a piece of the fractured carriage wheel. In the other, a bronze-rimmed magnifying glass. His face was as thunderous as the storm cloud fast approaching. “Was there something you wanted to tell me, Elinor?”

GRANTHAM HURRIED to keep up with Conley’s longer, angrier strides. To Grantham’s untrained eye, the carriage wheel segment in Conley’s left hand appeared to be broken; nothing unexpected given the nature of carriage accidents. But Conley had appeared to see something more. He’d run his gloved forefinger across the splintered edge as if the jagged wood held secrets, then he’d reached for a nearby magnifying glass and scowled into its lens.

Now he towered over Elinor with enough fury to give Grantham alarm, and
he
wasn’t even the one in Conley’s sights. Grantham pushed the gate open farther and stepped into the gravel yard. To his right, Elinor’s face had taken on a ghostly pallor. Her fingertips were at her lips, and if he wasn’t mistaken, her pretty blue eyes brimmed with tears she was valiantly trying to keep from spilling over.

His heart went out to her and he started to reach for her hand, but Conley’s menacing step forward made him reconsider. Gently, Grantham asked, “Darling, do you know what he’s talking about?” He glanced to his right, where her brother stood seething.

Her shoulders quivered with a deep sigh. “I-I…” Then she looked up at Conley. Grantham wished she would look at him instead of her brother, so he could reassure her everything would be set to rights as soon as they’d cleared up this misunderstanding. But her gaze didn’t waver from Conley’s. “I do,” she said in a stronger voice. “
I
broke the carriage wheel.” In spite of her bravado, she hung her head.

“And?”
Conley’s livid countenance offered her no relief.

Grantham frowned. “No need to badger her. We all know the vehicle was in a pitiful state of disrepair. Why, anyone could have taken a toss in that derelict contraption. Her being the passenger doesn’t make the accident her fault.”

Conley briefly dropped his irate façade to send Grantham a look of pity. “That’s not what she means.”

It wasn’t? Grantham looked curiously from one sibling to the other. He was beginning to feel out of place. “What, then?”

She pushed the toe of her slipper into the gravel. Her head hung lower, if that were even possible. “He means
I
broke the carriage.” Then she added, “Intentionally.”

Grantham gaped at her. “No!”

She nodded. “It’s true.”

Grantham was too stunned to do else but stare at her. Questions formulated faster than his stupefaction would allow him to fire them out. He could only gawp at her and hear her admission repeating over and over in his head,
“I broke the carriage wheel.”

He was pulled from his trance when she took a step forward. Her spine straightened and even the tears pooling in her eyes seemed to abate, though she clutched her hands together in a pleading pose and entreated her brother to have mercy. “It was an awful thing I did, Gavin. No apology can atone for it. But I
am
sorry I acted so thoughtlessly. I never knew…” Her gaze dropped away, then slid to Grantham’s. When she looked at him with those wide, frightened eyes, his heart positively broke for her earnest apology. “I
shouldn’t
have behaved like a child, when I want nothing more than to be seen as a woman.”

Grantham could hold himself in check no longer. He reached for her.
His woman.
His hand splayed across the small of her back and he pulled her to him, reveling in the hug he’d wanted to give her from the first. “We’ve all done foolish things, darling,” he said, petting the back of her head. “One regrettable action doesn’t make you any less deserving. Not in my eyes.”

“Not so fast,” Conley interjected. “We don’t know why she broke the wheel, or how, or what she thought would come of it. Let her speak.”

Grantham released Elinor enough so they both could face Conley. A sense of foreboding began to churn in Grantham’s belly. What did he fail to see that was so obvious to the man who, admittedly, knew her better?

“Go on,” her brother prompted her, holding up the broken wheel. “Explain yourself.”

Her sapphire eyes slid in Grantham’s direction again, then quickly darted away.
Guilt.
His foreboding turned to alarm. She kicked at the gravel again, then notched her chin and met her brother’s eyes. “The how of it is simple: I used a hammer and chisel to crack the wheel apart. Not entirely in two, but enough to create a fissure down the center approximately a hand’s length. Then I pinned the pieces together using an iron scrap. When I was near to York, I removed the plate so that the wheel would break if it happened to meet the right rock or rut. The rest you can see for yourself.”

Grantham’s hand dropped from her waist. The brilliance of her plan both impressed and horrified him. “That was no impulsive act! You planned it from the start!”

Her gaze fell. “Yes.”

Conley tossed the wheel piece into the gravel behind him and advanced until he and his sister were nose to nose. “My driver could have
died
. My horses could have been lamed. My
sister
could have been returned to me in a wooden box. For all that is holy, why the devil did you do such a reckless thing?”

She winced. Admirably, she didn’t retreat, though she did look like she would rather fall through the earth than answer his question. “That’s the crux of it, you see.” She sucked in a breath. “I…I…”

“You? Yes?”

This time, her voice was barely a whisper. “I wanted to marry Lord Chelford.”

Grantham jumped back in horror. He didn’t know what he’d
thought
her reason for deliberately breaking her brother’s carriage would be, but this was not it. “Me? You
plotted
to marry
me?
”

She nodded and stared at the ground.

He clasped his head in both hands. He spun away, for he couldn’t look at her. The brazen little vulture! And here he’d thought her above the antics employed by most marriage-minded misses.
Completely innocent,
he’d called her. An angel without an untoward thought. But she didn’t hold
him
in esteem, the scheming little liar! She thought him a fool!

“My lord?” she tried timidly. She didn’t press further. He was glad of it. He couldn’t have tolerated an excuse. He could hardly believe what he was hearing
now
.

“Let Lord Chelford be,” Conley advised her in a gentler voice. “If he’s having any sort of the same reaction as I am, he’s trying to think how best to wring your neck without killing you.”

Grantham couldn’t even laugh. Yes, that described it. But more significantly, he was berating himself for not seeing it sooner.
Of course
the silly wench was angling for marriage. He couldn’t even claim to have been ignorant of the possibility. Hadn’t de Winter warned him?
“Even as we speak, she could be hatching a plan to get her claws into you.”