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.”