The Cheer in Charming an Earl(35)

Grantham jumped back in horror. He didn’t know what he’d thought her reason for deliberately breaking her brother’s carriage would be, but this was not it. “Me? You plotted to marry me?”

She nodded and stared at the ground.

He clasped his head in both hands. He spun away, for he couldn’t look at her. The brazen little vulture! And here he’d thought her above the antics employed by most marriage-minded misses. Completely innocent, he’d called her. An angel without an untoward thought. But she didn’t hold him in esteem, the scheming little liar! She thought him a fool!

“My lord?” she tried timidly. She didn’t press further. He was glad of it. He couldn’t have tolerated an excuse. He could hardly believe what he was hearing now.

“Let Lord Chelford be,” Conley advised her in a gentler voice. “If he’s having any sort of the same reaction as I am, he’s trying to think how best to wring your neck without killing you.”

Grantham couldn’t even laugh. Yes, that described it. But more significantly, he was berating himself for not seeing it sooner. Of course the silly wench was angling for marriage. He couldn’t even claim to have been ignorant of the possibility. Hadn’t de Winter warned him? “Even as we speak, she could be hatching a plan to get her claws into you.”

Claws, indeed. Now she had her jaws clamped on his jugular, too, and with her giant of a brother standing over the both of them, Grantham had no hope of escape. Why had he stupidly admitted to kissing her? And oh, ho, he’d gone much further than that! He’d made her a bloody offer of marriage. There might as well be a snare around his leg, for he wasn’t eluding the marriage trap this time. Not if he wanted to keep what was left of his reputation intact.

He was going to marry her, and then he was going to be done with her. But before he did any of that, he needed to ask one last question. His mouth was so dry and his heart pounded so hard, he almost couldn’t croak, “Dear God, why me?”





ELINOR EXTENDED her hand toward his shoulder but she knew better than to touch him. He hated her. And she deserved his contempt. Even if she hadn’t known not to reach for him, her brother’s expression beseeched her to leave Grantham be. Touching him now would only set him off, when she wanted desperately for him to understand.

He’d asked for her reason; she must be courageous and give it to him. She straightened her shoulders as best she could, given her sense of futility. Her gaze didn’t waver from the stark black greatcoat hugging his shoulders perfectly, or the wisps of blond hair at his nape. “I observed you on the day you rode up to our smithy,” she said, though it wasn’t much of an explanation. Nothing she could say would ever sound sensible to a man who could have his pick of suitable ladies, or even choose not to marry at all. “I learned you are unattached and I believed we would suit, should we chance to know each other.”

“So you ensured we would have that opportunity.” Grantham’s angry summation was loud enough to be clear even from behind. He dropped one hand from his head and set it on his hip. He shook his head and continued to stare in the direction of the carriage house entrance. “I should have seen it.”

“I’m sorry,” she answered. “I should have told you.”

He turned to face her. Never had she seen him look so bleak. That was what struck her; it wasn’t simply that he was angry with her, but that he was disappointed in her. He’d believed in her, and she’d lied to him.

“Told me?” he said. “Why? Do you think I would have chuckled and forgiven such an appalling misdeed? I wouldn’t have, I assure you. Where would you be, then, had you confessed before I proposed? At least now, you shall have your prize.”

“Oh!” She pressed her knuckles to her lips at his awful, awful words. Then she turned and fled, because what he’d said was true; from the moment she’d descended on his house, she’d been doomed to failure. She could have Grantham through trickery, but she could never have his heart. Not this way.

She stopped suddenly. Quickly, before she could reconsider, she spun to face him again. From this distance she could see Grantham and her brother standing immobile where she’d left them. Bravely, she set aside her certainty that neither man had intended to follow her and called out, “You are hereby un-affianced, Grantham Wendell. I am jilting you.”

Then she made for the house.





Chapter Twelve





AUNT MILLIE found Elinor in bed an hour later. “The earl was not understanding,” her aunt surmised, gliding into Elinor’s room. “I applaud your pluck in telling him, nevertheless.”