The Cheer in Charming an Earl (The Naughty Girls) (3 page)

Ohh.

He glanced at the slender hand cupping his manhood. While such a distraction was no match for the sorrow eating at him, he couldn’t fault the woman’s attempt to gain his attention. And at least now he was thinking about whether he appreciated her hand on his nether regions, rather than anything else.

That was, after all, the reason she was here.

He reached for his snifter, now conveniently filled with brandy, and sipped the finest liquor France had to offer. “There shall never be enough cleavage for me,” he lied. “
Especially
not at Christmas.”

De Winter chuckled, but when Grantham turned to look over his shoulder at his dissolute friend, de Winter was being straddled by some dark strumpet who was undoubtedly costing Grantham a small fortune. May as well let the man have his fun. Grantham sank lower in his chair. It seemed he, too, was about to be…distracted.

“My lord?” his butler interrupted loudly as he peered over the heads—and breasts—of the assembled crowd.

Grantham didn’t bother to move the Cyprian’s delicate fingers from his stubbornly uncooperative genitals. If she could make him interested in depravity, he wasn’t about to stop her. “Yes, Smithers, what is it?” he asked with only a modicum of annoyance.

“My lord, there has been an
accident
.”

“Oh?” Grantham replied, barely listening.

“An unprecedented event,” his servant pressed.

“Enlighten me,” Grantham drawled as his nether regions continued to fight the talented ministrations being wasted upon them.

“I fear there’s nothing left of the kitchens, my lord. We shall dine on cold meats tonight.”

Grantham sat up suddenly. “No roast?” That piglet was to have been the
piece de resistance
of his Christmas Eve dinner. Without it, they might as well eat gruel.

“I’m afraid not, my lord,” Smithers said, causing groans of disappointment to rumble from their guests. “Our kitchen hearth seems to be wedged inside a carriage frame.”

“What the devil!” But oddly, for the first time in a long time, Grantham felt a flicker of interest in something. He pushed away the blonde groping at his genitals and came to his feet. “Never fear, my friends,” he said to his guests. “We’ll have our bacon and eat it, too.” Not that he had any notion
how
they were to accomplish that. His hearth, inside a carriage? How in blazes had that been managed?

His drunken guests cheered, “Hurrah!” and returned to their licentiousness. All but de Winter, who looked at Grantham musingly. So contemplatively, in fact, that when Grantham arrived in his kitchens, he wasn’t surprised to see the earl had followed him belowstairs.

“Mrs. Calloway,” Grantham said, ignoring de Winter, “what’s gone on?”

“Oh, the usual,” she replied with a hearty chortle. “Pretty young lady crashed into the hearthstone. Driver had to be given a large dose of my special brew, and she’s gone clean out. A usual Saturday at Chelford, my lord.”

Grantham glanced at his friend. Both men shrugged.

“Have you sent for the physician?” Grantham asked.

“Oh, aye, first thing I did. But it’s snowing, my lord. He might not be reached in time to arrive today.”

No physician? Grantham didn’t like that.

“She’s not in a bad way,” Mrs. Calloway reassured him at the sight of his frown. “A bump on her head, that’s all. Nothing I’d worry about, my lord.”

Nothing he would have worried about, either, before he’d lost Hannah. Now every scrape and knock unnerved him, especially when it involved a woman’s fragile form. God’s teeth, what if she died? Here, in his house, at Christmas?

He
couldn’t
lose another woman in his care. Especially not at Christmas.

“Will you take me to her?” He moved forward, though he had no idea where she was being kept.

Mrs. Calloway’s lips pursed. “You’d best leave her to my care, my lord, until the snow clears enough for her to be on her way. The less she sees of you, the better, for word has a way of wandering, and it would do worse than titillate to say you were introduced at Christmas.
If
you see my meaning.”

He did, unfortunately. He’d made no secret of his annual bacchanalia. Nevertheless, he wanted to verify her condition for himself, or he’d never sleep tonight. “I’m not made of brimstone, Mrs. Calloway, and I do feel the need to ensure the lady’s health. Do you want me to wander the halls calling her name?”

When Mrs. Calloway stubbornly didn’t reply, Grantham said over his shoulder, “De Winter, clear your throat. I fear we have a long night ahead.”

“Poor lady!”
his friend called in high-pitched voice.
“Pray tell, where are you?”

Mrs. Calloway wiped her hands on her apron. The jangle of chatelaine’s keys made her sound far more in control than Grantham felt. “I’ll take you to her, but none of your nonsense, you hear?”

Grantham pressed his lips together.
This
was the trouble with being a rogue. Even his servants felt the need to disapprove of him. So what if he had just pried a buxom woman’s hand off his nether regions? He still liked to think he was a gentleman.

He followed his housekeeper to a narrow, unpainted door. It seemed his unanticipated guest had been put up in the servants’ hall, giving him pause.

“What kind of lady stays in the servants’ hall?” de Winter asked from behind him, stealing—as usual—the words right from Grantham’s mouth.

Mrs. Calloway didn’t flinch. Her hand rested on the door’s knob, though she didn’t push it. “She’s not one of your pretty things, my lord. That doesn’t make her a lady.”

“It makes her a sight more intriguing,” de Winter murmured.

Grantham agreed. He indicated for his housekeeper to proceed, for the truth was, he’d seen plenty of women in dishabille. Ladies
and
commoners. But not ones whose carriages crashed into kitchens, he allowed.

When Mrs. Calloway opened the door and he had his first look at the seraph reposed upon the bed, he sucked in his breath. God’s teeth, she was exquisite. Not simply her features, which were recommendable enough: high cheek bones, reddish hair, and the right amount of bosom to catch any man’s eye. It was her air of innocence. As she dozed upon the narrow mattress, even her shallow breaths were unsullied. And her mind, he was sure, had never produced an untoward thought in her life.

He looked at de Winter. “Do not, under any circumstances, let those fools in the drawing room know she’s beautiful.”

“Is that what you see?” De Winter shrugged. “I would have called her passingly fair.”

Grantham gazed at the ethereal specimen laid out on the bed. “Then you’re an idiot. I would have expected a creature like her to use wings rather than an earthly carriage. Or are angels reputed to travel by chariot?”

The earl rubbed one crooked finger under his chin. He shook his head contemplatively. “I don’t believe any of this is biblical, Chelford.”

Grantham was too distracted to chuckle. He continued to gaze at this sudden gift. “Seems rather unlikely she landed here, don’t you think?”

De Winter looked askance at him again, as if he’d lost his mind. “How far
is
your kitchen from the road?”

ELINOR DIDN’T breathe. Goodness, but she’d never thought she’d be figured out within the first
minutes
. Or did the man whose voice she didn’t recognize merely guess she’d come across them by more than happenstance?

She was too worried by the distinction to care that he’d dismissed her as passingly fair. Besides,
Grantham
thought her heavenly.

“So,” her Adonis was saying, “either an angel accidentally plunged headlong into my kitchens mere hours before Christmas, or He is telling me that my current Christmas Eve plans are blasphemous.”

The other man snorted. “Did you require divine intervention to know that?”

“Ah, de Winter, now that you’ve made your clever remark, what are we to do with her?”

“Absolutely nothing. You heard Mrs. Calloway. We barely have permission to stand in the doorway; we’re not to
do
anything with her.”

Oh, no! Elinor didn’t know this Mrs. Calloway, but the moment she had a chance to plead her case, she would positively
beg
for Grantham to be allowed to see her. He couldn’t be kept away.

“I do believe Mrs. Calloway meant for us to eject her,” Grantham replied, causing yet more fear to swell in Elinor’s chest, “and that is certainly some form of doing. But it’s snowing something fierce outside, or didn’t you hear her? Even if we could get this woman’s carriage righted again, or fix whatever it is that’s wrong with it, she won’t be able to leave until the storm passes. So I say again, what do we do with her while we wait?”

Elinor perked up at that. Snowing? It hadn’t been snowing when her wheel had finally come undone. Just
bloody
cold, if that was a word a lady would use, which it was not, though she’d heard her brother bandy it about enough times to know that it was an appropriate description of the bitter weather she’d endured shortly after she’d set the wheel to break.

“She can’t come above stairs,” the other man answered, driving another wedge of fear into Elinor’s heart. “It’s impossible. She’ll be ruined.”

She kept her lips from turning down. This man, Mr. de Winter, was doing his best to put a damper on her plans, even if he did sound perfectly reasonable about it.

“Then get rid of everyone else,” Grantham replied without pause.

She almost bolted upright. Yes, she could like
this
plan. She hadn’t expected him to have guests—she ought to have, but in her perfect world, her Adonis had room for no one but her.

“Might I remind you that it’s snowing?” his accomplice replied. “If she can’t leave, then they can’t, either.”

Grantham let out an exasperated noise. “What luck! I’d really prefer not to have them around.”

Though she wasn’t certain who “they” were, her breath caught at the idea of having Grantham all to herself. He seemed to want it, too.

“Did you hear that?” Footsteps sounded at her ear. “Even as she dreams, she seems to care what becomes of our pathetic friends. Isn’t that sweet?”

Elinor could almost hear the other man rolling his eyes. She would have, in his place. “I wouldn’t get too close,” Mr. de Winter warned. “We don’t know where she came from. What if she’s after your coffers?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. She can’t snatch my inheritance right out of my pocket. Besides, she’s an injured young woman, not a succubus. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“Do you have twenty thousand pounds a year or not?” the stranger asked. “That sort of rare fortune is enough to turn anyone avaricious. Even as we speak, she could be hatching a plan to get her claws into you.”

A lesser man would have stepped away. Grantham crept closer. He reeked of tobacco smoke and brandy, yet his breath bore the faint trace of mint, as though he’d attempted to conceal his earlier activities. When his fingers touched her brow she inhaled sharply.

Well, there was no longer any point in feigning near-death.

The two fingers on her brow disappeared, leaving cold spots where Grantham’s warm skin had touched hers. The tobacco scent cleared as he moved away.

Whether he and his friend already suspected her of trickery or not, it was time to execute the next phase of her plan. She stretched her arms out and contrived a big yawn. “Ah-hmm-mmm,” she pretended, rubbing at her eyes. But she jumped wide awake when her fingers touched bandages. “Am I hurt?” she cried, her shock very real. There shouldn’t be bandages!

She tried to remember when a dressing might have been wound around her head. She’d been awake the entire time, hadn’t she? She clearly recalled the deafening
crack
of the carriage wheel splitting apart. Then the whole thing had gone topsy-turvy, and the horses had whinnied in terror, and Mr. James had cursed something foul—

She bolted upright. None of it was amusing anymore. “Is Mr. James all right?” She started to get out of bed, but an awful dizziness washed over her and she almost vomited. “What of the horses? Please, tell me no one
died
.”

She sank against the stack of pillows and held her hand to her lips. When the nausea passed, she craned her neck to see her host. Even the sight of Grantham didn’t quell her fear that everything had gone horribly wrong.

“Your driver survived,” he said, “for I was told he was brought inside and given a tonic. I can’t say for certain about the condition of your horses. I’ll inquire after them.”

She clutched at the rough sheets until her fingernails dug into her palms. “Thank you, my lord. I’ll worry myself ill until I learn their fate. It was a terrible accident, wasn’t it?”

Grantham glanced at the other man. Her handsome earl looked just as she remembered him: straw-colored hair, eyes the tarnished silver of a horseshoe, a strong jaw set off by the most flamboyantly folded cravat she’d ever seen. But the doubt in those gray eyes troubled her. “Truthfully, I can only speculate on the severity of their injuries. We came straight here.”