The Cheer in Charming an Earl (The Naughty Girls) (5 page)

A knock at her door caused her to spin around so suddenly, her temple began to pound. “Yes?” she called across the chamber.

“’Tis Lord Chelford. May I enter?”

A thrill shot through her. “Y-yes, my lord.” She wrapped the blanket she’d pulled from the bed around her shoulders more thoroughly. Still clad in her carriage dress, it wasn’t as though she were
en dishabille
. It only felt that way.

The door creaked open and Grantham stepped into the room. His friend, de Winter, was nowhere in sight.

“You’re up and about,” Grantham said, seeming disappointed.

“Yes.” She brushed her hand against her temple, though she didn’t mean to. If he realized her head ached, he’d no doubt order her back into bed.

“That’s good,” he said without enthusiasm. Then he drew his shoulders back, as though resolved to proceed with something unpleasant. “You’ll be glad to know your horses weren’t hurt. I’m sorry, Miss Conley, but I can’t say the same for your carriage. What’s left of it will make good tinder and not much else.” He tempered his bad tidings with a half-smile. He couldn’t know how very relieved she was to know the horses hadn’t been harmed by her impulsive actions. While she did feel guilty about the carriage, it was nowhere near as important as the cattle.

“I do have better news about dinner,” he continued. “The piglet I’d planned for Christmas Eve has been spit across an open flame. My clever cook has dished up cold salads to serve alongside it. And my guests have called me a beast for not inviting you to dine with us. Will you accept my humble apology and join us tonight?”

She grinned broadly before she remembered to behave demurely. Try as she might, however, she couldn’t quell her eagerness entirely. She was to dine with him!
And
his guests, but surely this was progress.

As she stared at him with adulation and tried to form the proper phrases needed to accept his request without sounding giddy, she realized what he’d said. He didn’t
want
her to meet his guests. No doubt he thought her far below him on the social ladder. “Am I an embarrassment to you?” she asked worriedly.

“Oh, no!” He answered so quickly, she couldn’t believe him. “I want nothing more than the pleasure of your company.”

Laid that on a bit thick, too. Nevertheless, she
was
invited. She’d make do. “Did my trunk survive the accident? I should like to don something more suitable.”

He raked his eyes over her as though seeing her costume for the first time. Wrapped in a tattered blanket and wearing a dusty carriage dress, she couldn’t look half as desirable as she’d like. Yet when his silver eyes darkened and he seemed to grudgingly pull his gaze to her face, she stood a fraction straighter.

“I’ll have it sent in.” He stopped mid-turn toward the door. “Miss Conley, are you by chance the vicar’s daughter?”

She laughed at that. He smiled back, and her heart could have burst with happiness. “No, my lord. My father was a farrier.”

“Was.” Grantham’s humor faded. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Her mood dampened, too. “Thank you. It was a long time ago, but sometimes I still hear the particular rhythm of his hammer on the anvil. It’s always my brother, though.”

Grantham’s head slanted as if she’d caught his interest with that. “Your brother is a blacksmith?”

She nodded, uncertain whether she’d just doomed herself in his eyes or not. But he was bound to discover her humble origins eventually, and she didn’t want him to regret marrying a commoner by accident. Besides, he had hidden her away in the servants’ quarters and refused her request to dine at his table. Clearly, he suspected she wasn’t of his ilk.

“Do I know you?” he asked abruptly.

Her eyes widened. Should she answer truthfully? Or would he toss her in
his
carriage and ferry her straight back to Gavin if she reminded him where they’d crossed paths?

It wasn’t a risk she wanted to take. “We’ve never met, my lord,” she answered honestly.

“Oh.” He set his hand on the door’s knob. Then he looked at her again. “Christmas is a rotten time to be away from one’s family. Were you on your way home?”

Again, she only just resisted the urge to shift uneasily. “I was traveling to visit my aunt. She’s ailing.”

His hand fell from the knob. “Then I shall escort you the moment the weather clears! Is it far?”

Blast again. While she
would
feel conscience-stricken if Aunt Millie breathed her last while she was delaying here, she had no reason to believe her aunt in danger of dying this week, nor did she think her company particularly desired. Had she not written to Aunt Millie pleading for a respite from her tedium of a life, she wouldn’t have been invited to Yorkshire at all. “It’s not far,” she said truthfully, “but I’m not sure I’m quite ready to set foot inside another carriage yet.” She gave him her best hopeful expression. Only another small, white lie. “I’d much prefer to recover here, if it’s no trouble to you.”

Then she held her breath. She had so little time to succeed before she was found out. Approximately a fortnight to make him fall in love with her, for surely after a week had passed without word, Aunt Millie would write to Elinor’s mother asking if she’d decided not to come after all.

Grantham’s brow creased. “That furrow between your brows… Does your head bother you? I’ll have a tincture of laudanum sent in.”

She quickly smoothed her countenance. “It’s not that. I’m just…scared.”

“There, there,” he said, leaving the door to approach her. As he came closer, she caught the increasingly familiar whiff of smoke and brandy. Suddenly he wrapped her in his arms and rocked her back and forth gently. “Your tumble gave you a fright, that’s all.”

His breath against her hair and the warm solidness of his chest was the most comforting, charming experience of her life.
Oh, Grantham.
He was every bit as gallant as she’d always believed.

“See?” He pulled away to look into her face. His chin was so close, she could kiss it. Tiny golden stubble decorated it, as if he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. And his gray eyes were so honest, she lost herself a moment.

“See?” he said again. “Nothing to worry about.”

Oh, but he was wrong. Because just as he said the words, his eyelids fluttered half-closed. Those soft-looking lips parted. She braced her palms on his chest and lifted her face up to his, letting her eyelids fall closed, too.

“I’m not scared now,” she murmured when nothing seemed to happen. Wasn’t he about to kiss her? She opened her eyes slightly. He was staring at her with a desire even she recognized. It was coupled with suspicious confusion.

Without warning, he set her firmly away from him. He took a step back. Both hands splayed at his sides, almost as if he still felt her under his palms. “Miss Conley, I don’t maul innocents. I’m not that sort of man.”

“Oh!” She clapped a hand to her mouth and widened her eyes in feigned maidenly offense. “Were you about to kiss me?”

Some of his suspicion was replaced with embarrassment, much to her relief. “I think I was. How terribly inappropriate of me.”

She tried not to sigh. Yes, terribly. But he didn’t seem to want to believe she’d been a willing party, so she cast her eyes downward. “You think me fast.”

“I don’t!” He seemed horrified by the charge, and she felt guilty for befuddling him, but she couldn’t risk him eyeing her with suspicion again.

He shook his head as if to clear it. “I merely wanted to comfort you, and then I suppose…” He shook his head quickly once more, then stepped back even farther. “I’m
not
made of brimstone,” he muttered.

What an odd thing to say.

“Very well,” she announced, “we didn’t
almost
kiss. May I have my trunk now? I don’t want to be late for dinner.”

He continued to look somewhat absent, as though he’d baffled himself with his supposed ungentlemanly behavior. “Of course, Miss Conley. I’ll see to it immediately.”

He turned and left. As soon as his boot steps muffled down the hallway, Elinor wasted no time hurrying to a narrow wardrobe in one corner of the small room. Rifling through its drawers, she turned up a sewing kit. Just as she’d feared; she
was
being kept in the servants’ quarters.

No mind. At least now she had what she needed to alter the bodice of her best frock. When her trunk was finally brought to her, she’d leave Grantham in no doubt that she was, indeed, ready to be kissed.

WHEN GRANTHAM went down to dinner a few minutes early, he almost didn’t recognize his own drawing room. The hookahs had been replaced with sprigs of holly. Rather than snifters sticky with remnants of liquor, twinkling candelabras were set about the room. All of the pillows on the chaises were fluffed, rather than strewn about the floor. And the windows had been left open earlier in the afternoon, it seemed, because the stench of the party had been cleared and a chilly bite lingered in the air.

Lord Steepleton was picking at the thistles of an evergreen bough with practiced ennui. “Do tell us you have a kissing ball, Grantham. At least we should be allowed that diversion.”

Grantham stiffened. A kissing ball. The perfect excuse to finish what he’d started with Miss Conley.
Exactly
the reason he wasn’t about to hang one from the door. “We lost it,” Grantham lied, at almost the same time Mrs. Calloway bustled into the room.

“Here ’tis, my lord, with a fresh sprig of mistletoe on it.” She handed the ball and a tack to Lord Steepleton, who must have asked her to find them. “If you require a footman to hang it, let me know and I’ll have one sent in.”

Lord Steepleton waved away her offer. “I’ll manage it myself.”

No sooner had she left than he pulled a chair beneath the door frame and tacked the kissing ball over his head. Grantham frowned. “Chaste kisses only.”

Steepleton leered at him. “Are you offering?”

Grantham would have laughed, only he was too concerned by his own outrageous behavior to be amused by Steepleton’s. What had possessed him to hold her close? And then he’d almost kissed her! Why did he have the feeling she’d been more than willing to let him?

As his guests filtered into the room, he knew he had been right to be concerned about the kissing ball. Soon there were wagers flying over who would kiss whom. Thank heavens there were only four berries on the mistletoe, each allowing one kiss; this torture couldn’t last all night.

“Where’s your mystery woman?” Tewseybury asked. “I want to see if I ought to be betting on her or not.”

“Not,” Grantham ground out.

Tewsey only laughed.

De Winter drew Grantham’s attention with a beckoning finger. “You’ll want to hear the ladies’ names,” he said when Grantham came over. “Mrs. Fawcett and Miss Bennett you know. This is Miss Sarah Moppet, Mrs. Eells and Cousin Fanny.” He indicated to the blonde, the brunette, and a freckled-faced young woman with golden-red hair, respectively.

“Cousin Fanny?” Grantham asked skeptically. He was never going to remember their names.

She beamed at him. “I thot, wot, that’d be fun, being related to an eyrl for once.” Her cockney patois ruined the effect of her perfect posture and bejeweled gown.

He shuddered as a sweeping feeling of misgiving swept over him. “Just so, cousin.”

At last, Miss Conley arrived, shown in by Smithers. The men who were seated came to their feet. The women craned their long, pale necks around their fans. Grantham strode toward Miss Conley and extended his hands to take hers. “Welcome to my dinner party.”

Her hands were cold through her gloves. If she was otherwise nervous, he couldn’t tell. Her blue eyes reflected the sparkle of candlelight and Christmas wishes. “Thank you for allowing me to join you, Lord Chelford. I thought I might chew my way through my walls, it smells so delicious from my room.”

“Like a rodent?” Mariah’s voice grated even when she
wasn’t
finding fault.

Miss Conley looked around him for the speaker. Her hands slipped from his and she stepped farther into the room. “If you had endured the entire afternoon smelling what is sure to be a scrumptious dinner, you might have considered it, too. My bedchamber is just to the right of the kitchens, you see.”

Grantham turned in time to glimpse Mariah blanch. “Our guest is a delight, isn’t she, Mrs. Fawcett?” he warned in a tone only his close friends would recognize as caustic.

“Precisely my thought,” Mariah drawled. “Like a breath of fresh air.”

Lord Scotherby approached Miss Conley and gave her a courtly bow. “Lord Scotherby here. Glad to see we’ve been spared both your demise and the forfeiture of our dinner.”

She smiled and curtseyed back. “That makes two of us, my lord.”

Mr. Tewseybury came forward next. “Edward Tewseybury, of nowhere in particular. A pleasure to meet you. Tell me, are you one of the Pearson girls?”

She shook her head. “My family name is—”

“Tewsey, none of that,” Grantham cut in. He turned to her and softened his expression. “You’ve no chaperone. Should word of your being here escape, I might find my skull flattened between a hammer and an anvil.”