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.