Elinor buried her face in her brother’s coat. Please, please, please don’t let them realize the truth.
Grantham stepped closer. “When? I’m not aware of it.” He sounded genuinely confused.
Elinor couldn’t look. She bit her lip and sent another prayer up as her brother held her tighter still. “Some months ago. A white gelding with a light step. In Gloucester, near Hempsted.”
She waited breathlessly for Grantham’s reply. Though she couldn’t see him, she imagined he’d cocked his head to one side. “It seems the sort of thing I ought to remember, but poor Ned is always throwing shoes. At any rate, yes, I am Lord Chelford. And you are?”
“Mr. Gavin Conley,” she started to answer for her brother, but he shushed her and pulled her about so that she tucked into the crook of his arm. She was halfway to being shoved behind him, as Grantham had done, only this time, she didn’t want to be protected. Not from her beloved.
“I can speak for myself,” Gavin said. “I’m Elinor’s brother. Her very incensed brother.”
“Oh?” Grantham’s nervous laughter did nothing to reassure her. “There is no need to be agitated. Miss Conley has been in good hands.”
“Your hands,” her brother corrected.
Elinor flushed so hotly, she couldn’t bear to look at either man. She was mortified.
“Well, yes, I might have kissed her. I have a kissing ball.” Grantham explained this as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world and her brother shouldn’t bother to question it. “It’s still Christmastide, when these types of things are permitted. So you see, there is nothing amiss here.”
Gavin fairly growled. He spun Elinor off so that she was forced to twirl away behind him. He advanced on Grantham, who made a heroic effort to appear unperturbed.
“My sister has no experience with kissing balls! You, sir, have no right to look at her, let alone touch her.” He seized Grantham by his cravat and held him up so only the toes of his shoes scraped the floor. Elinor raced to interfere, but her ineffectual tugging on her brother’s arm gave her no hope of saving Grantham before Gavin strangled him.
“Gavin, stop!” she cried.
“When I heard her carriage had crashed into the home of a libertine,” Gavin grated, “I wept for her innocence. But I calmed myself with the notion that an earl would never disgrace himself by taking advantage of a girl still in pinafores. You, sir, are no gentleman. I demand pistols.”
“Stop this!” Elinor cried again, doubling her efforts to save Grantham. She didn’t have time to be miffed at her brother’s admission that he still thought her a little girl.
Grantham’s hands fought Gavin’s, but he, too, was unable to budge the much larger man.
“Let him go!” she begged Gavin. “He did no wrong!”
“I told myself that,” Gavin said through clenched teeth, “as I rode hell-for-leather through the night. But I’m no nitwit. The man’s done more than kiss you. I can see it in his lustful,” he leaned forward so that he and Grantham were nose to nose, “beady,” he cinched Grantham’s cravat tighter, “ugly eyes. You blackguard.”
She beat against her brother’s enormous bicep. “Don’t kill him! I’m not in pinafores! We’re to be married.”
Gavin eased his hold enough for Grantham’s heels to touch the floor. The earl sucked in a great wheezing breath. Then he clasped his hands over Gavin’s grip and continued to pry at the strong fingers shunting his windpipe. Her merciless brother didn’t release his cravat. “Over my corpse.”
She laughed self-consciously. “You have no choice. You just said you believe he’s had his way with me.”
“Don’t say those words.”
She wanted to disappear for her embarrassment, but she daren’t look away. Finally, her brother relented. He flung the wheezing earl away like a bag of refuse and turned to her. “I want to know everything.”
Elinor flinched. No, that wouldn’t do, not at all. She drew a breath and resisted sneaking a peek at Grantham. “Lord Chelford has been unfailingly polite. Why, Aunt Millie and I shared a delightful dinner with him at his table not a few hours since.”
Gavin made a show of searching the room for Aunt Millie. “Is that intended to relieve my mind? Your absentee chaperone?”
“She’s, ah, taking air.” Elinor smiled brightly. He would have arrived just when their aunt was proving to be especially scandalous.
“Why? Is she ill?” He shifted as if to go find her, then stopped as if struck by a thought. “She is ill. Why the devil is she here?”