The Cheer in Charming an Earl (The Naughty Girls) (15 page)

And if
that
didn’t take his mind off Elinor, he’d try again on the morrow. And the next. Every night was a new opportunity to forget that everything he’d tried to do had ended in precisely the same way: ruin.

“I told Miss Conley you’d meet her in your carriage house at half three,” de Winter said behind him. “It’s a quarter past. You’d best be going down.”

What the devil?
Grantham turned on his heel. “You must be frothing mad to believe I’d agree to that.”

De Winter shrugged. He didn’t attempt to elucidate his reasoning or urge Grantham to acquiesce. While Grantham had only been an earl for half a decade, de Winter had been raised in the role. It never occurred to him to explain anything.

“Why?” Grantham demanded. “You know how I feel about her.”

De Winter’s arched eyebrow communicated more than Grantham wanted to perceive. “I do.”

Grantham crossed the room. But not to exit the drawing room, because he wasn’t conceding his friend’s strategy. He went to the sideboard and tossed the last few fingers of brandy into the bottom of a clean snifter. “You bloody well think you know everything about me because you lost a dear person, too. Fine. You’re an expert. Now tell me how
that
excuses what she did? The danger she put herself in? What about everyone else? My servants? Us? You said so yourself, the entire
house
could have burned down. We were so up to our hips in lightskirts, we wouldn’t have even realized it was smoldering around us. For what? So a woman without scruples could secure herself a titled husband?”

He drained the snifter without breaking de Winter’s gaze. Again the earl didn’t try to argue. He leaned against the door’s frame and crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell her so yourself.”

“I did.”

“Tell her again.”

Grantham set the empty snifter on the sideboard. “So she can ignore me the way you’re ignoring me? I don’t want a wife who can’t tell right from wrong, who puts herself and everyone else in danger on a whim. I may be a wastrel but at least I’m aware of my faults.”

“And she has no notion of her own? Go on with you, now, for I’ll hear no more of your leaving without talking to her.”

It wasn’t like de Winter to push him at a woman. And Grantham could see his friend
was
going to be obstinate about this, even if he refused to explain why. Might as well get on with it so he could get back to the business of packing, and perhaps have another bottle of brandy brought up from the cellar.

He pushed past de Winter and made his way to the carriage house gate, where he paused to take stock of his roiling emotions. If she wanted to see him so badly, she could wait. No sense bursting in. The last thing he wanted to do was leave himself open to seduction. Barreling in with his heart pumping at full rate would surely be a weakness she could easily exploit.

He entered when he was sure he could set eyes on her without unleashing a tirade or, worse yet, smothering her apologies with his lips. Not that he knew what he’d find inside the frigid structure, but it didn’t seem beyond her temerity to find her stark naked and begging for his touch.

The thought of that scenario both infuriated and aroused him, and he had to stop again to pull himself together. If she
dared
try to entice him, he’d have de Winter’s head.

He waited until he no longer felt the thrum of need in his veins then proceeded to the rear of the building where Conley’s carriage still lay jumbled in a dozen pieces. She was there. Fully dressed, thank heavens.

“You came.” The breathless quality of her voice made him think she was surprised to see him. Her hands dropped to her sides, then worried together in front of her skirt. But she looked at him directly, as if refusing to be disconcerted entirely.

He couldn’t be rude to her, even if seeing her again made his heart ache for the possibilities that had been so cruelly snatched from him. So rather than say,
“I had little choice in the matter,”
he said, “I’m here to hear you out, nothing more.”

It was
mildly
kinder, at any rate.

She swallowed. A feeble smile touched her lips. “I have nothing to tell you, my lord. I make no excuses for my actions. But I did want you to see something. Would you mind coming closer?”

Yes, he would mind. He wasn’t the sort to be overwhelmed by a woman’s nearness, yet he feared her motives. Would she toss herself into his arms and practice her wiles on him? What if she did? He’d strangle de Winter. But maybe he would strangle him later.

Elinor approached him cautiously, her gaze never wavering. Then she held out her hands to him, palms up. “It’s not a trick, my lord.” Her hands were empty.

“What is it, then?” he asked, and took a step back. She was close enough to touch him. That made her too close.

“Come.” She turned and walked back to the carriage, then faced him again when she reached the door. He followed and stopped an arm’s length away.

Her hand settled on the carriage door. With a backward glance at him, she opened it and climbed in.

The conveyance shifted under her weight and his heart leaped into this throat. Before he could call out, “Don’t!” however, the coach settled. She poked her head out of the door and beckoned him to enter, too.

He eyed the broken vehicle suspiciously. It was only a few feet from the ground, not too far too fall unsafely if it did give, and he had to admit he was curious. Carefully, he entered it.

She slid down the length of the bench and patted the cushion beside her. “Sit, my lord. We are travelers and the journey is long.”

He did as she bade him, still not understanding why he was here or what the devil they were doing. “Where are we going?” he asked after several moments had gone by in silence and, of course, the carriage hadn’t moved an inch.

She smiled. “Somewhere beautiful. A place with a shimmering lake and two little ponies exactly the right size for riding. You’ll adore it.”

A small smile played on her lips. Her eyes seemed focused on a faraway point. He sat stiffly against the squab, hands on his knees, and decided she just might be deranged. But even as he wondered whether she was mad, he marveled that a person could live so fully in one’s own private world that outside troubles couldn’t breach reasoned thought.

Assuredly, that
was
the definition of madness. “Are you touched?” he asked her, for he could think of no other reason for them to be sitting here on a pretend journey to an imaginary place.

He received a chime of laughter for his question. “No, my lord. Haven’t you ever played make-believe?”

“Is that a real question?”

Her cerulean eyes slid toward him. “My brother used to pretend he was a pirate. He sailed the high seas and plundered booty from ships and made my older sister scrub the deck.”

“But not you?” Grantham relaxed a fraction. He hadn’t truly thought her daft, but it was nice to know she was a dreamer, not a lunatic.

She chuckled and shook her head. “I was a pirate, too. A better one, for I knew where the gold was.”

Grantham laughed at that. He couldn’t help himself. Then he realized something. “But your brother is far older than you. He couldn’t have engaged in make-believe with a little girl almost half his age. Not with any seriousness.”

Her lips formed an O of surprise. “I never thought of that!”

He enjoyed watching her cheeks redden as she comprehended her brother’s indulgence of her. Hannah had been years younger than he was, too. Not quite as fanciful as Elinor, but close. He could easily imagine why Conley had spared an hour or two to entertain his quixotic little sister. Just imagine, Elinor as a pirate! Grantham chuckled.

“It
was
sporting of him to play with me,” she mused, seeming to have come to terms with her brother’s game. “Georgie—she’s my older sister—never would. She was always much too serious for it.”

“But you said she scrubbed the decks.” Grantham was enjoying the conversation, even if he didn’t quite understand where it was leading.

“For Gavin, yes. She’d do anything for Gavin. Besides, he always set her to scrubbing the kitchen floors, pretending it was the upper deck. I think he knew how best to mix work and play for her. Me? I was far too busy woolgathering to care what made Georgie happy. When it was the two of us alone, it was work, work, work, for neither of us truly understood the other.” Elinor’s gaze fell. “I miss her.”

Grantham reached for her hand before he could stop himself. A small gasp escaped her parted lips. What was it about this openhearted minx that captured his affection so easily? The barest display of sentiment and he was ready to pull her into his arms.

She glanced at the place where their fingers entwined. She looked away quickly, to the carriage window and the stone wall beyond it. “It would have done me good, I think, to listen to Georgie more. She would never have conceived anything so ill-advised as to wreck Gavin’s carriage on your kitchen wall.”

“She sounds like a dead bore,” Grantham said automatically. But he didn’t take it back.

Elinor’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but she didn’t turn her head from the window. He could see her reflection in the pane, though she likely didn’t realize it. Her hopefulness was written like a light across her face. “She isn’t all seriousness, not entirely. I do pray one day a man attracted by her competence will ride through our village. Perhaps
he
will make her smile.”

Grantham immediately understood Elinor’s subtle meaning. Her well-mannered sister would never marry because she would never put herself in the position of being noticed.

That didn’t excuse Elinor’s behavior. “Why are you here?” he asked. “What’s this assignation about?”

She glanced at him. “I have no plan, my lord. Your friend Lord de Winter bade me to come.”

Nothing she could have said would have surprised Grantham more, and yet he could easily imagine de Winter orchestrating this tête-à-tête. “Did he say why?”

She shrugged, just as de Winter himself would have done. “I’m sure it was because he knew I would agree to it. I’m not precisely the sort to give up after one go.”

Grantham laughed despite himself. “I can see that.” But the funny thing was that he did see it. He also saw how easily
he’d
been about to give up. Grantham the gambler was the cautious one, and Elinor the innocent miss was the buccaneer.

It was time for Grantham to be the adventurer.

“Did you mean to trap me into marriage?” he asked plainly.

He watched her face for any sign of duplicity, but all he saw was honesty. “No, my lord. Not that I didn’t
intend
for us to marry. I admit fully to that. I did think that once we had a chance to become familiar, you’d come to realize we suit.” Her eyes were wide as saucers.

He didn’t like having to rethink his opinion of her scheme. Rash, foolish, dangerous, but not malicious. Much like his younger sister’s tragic attempt to espy the groom from the hayloft had been. Elinor had never meant to hurt anyone; she’d simply followed her heart without stopping to consider the consequences.

There were, unfortunately, significant consequences. “You’re ruined, you know,” he told her.

She blanched. No tears, however. His little watering pot had learned how to control them. “Aunt Millie says news of my misfortune is all over the countryside. Even Gavin heard the rumors all the way in Gloucester. That’s why he rode hard to fetch me. So yes, I am quite aware of it.”

Only a few days earlier, Grantham had felt no sympathy for her. But it was within his power to make things right for her, and to be honest, what needed to be done felt right for him, too. “We could still marry.”

She sighed;
not
the swept-off-her-feet reaction he’d expected. “But my lord, I’ll always be the girl who took a tumble into the midst of a Christmas bacchanalia, regardless of whether I marry the host—possibly even more so because of it.” A self-deprecating smile touched her lips. “It would be humorous, except it’s not.”

Grantham felt the first stirring of fear. What if she
didn’t
accept him? What if his angry words four days ago had caused her to reconsider the strength of her devotion to him? “Surely you’re not saying you see no benefit to our being wed?”

She shrugged and traced the center of the windowpane with her gloved fingertip. It was cold in the carriage house. Their breath was fogging the inside of the glass. “I see many benefits to our union, my lord. The salvage of my reputation isn’t one of them. I fear a wedding would only fuel the gossips. I shall be Mrs. Bacchanalia to them, or Lady Bacchus, if you prefer. Aunt Millie says the scandalmongers will be vicious.”

She wasn’t crying or complaining, merely stating what she believed to be fact. Grantham let out a sudden guffaw. “Lady Bacchus! And I suppose I would be
Lord
Bacchus. But only Lord and Lady B in the papers, to satisfy discretion.” He leaned toward her. “I’d never wish such a vile appellation on you. Not my dear wife.”

She drew the letters
L. B.
in the center of the fogged window. Then she turned to him. A smile broke across her face. “Do you really want to marry me?”

He slid from the bench onto the carriage floor and settled on one bent knee. His hands clasped hers. “More than anything I’ve ever wanted. You brighten my life with your curiosity. I want to know you, inside and out. I want to watch you dream and then I want to make those dreams come true. I want you to tell me that nothing is impossible if only we set our minds to it. And I want to make sure you never do anything so harebrained as risk your life again.”

“Not even for you?” Her grin was infectious.

“Especially not for me.” Grantham leaned forward and kissed her. She sighed softly against his lips and he knew, without a doubt, that he was going to enjoy bringing Miss Elinor Conley’s fancies to life.

THE END

The Cheer in Charming an Earl

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