The Cheer in Charming an Earl (The Naughty Girls) by Emma Locke Read Free Book Online

Eells’s ear.
    The red-haired woman glanced at Elinor. Then she laughed, too.
    Elinor folded her hands in her lap and tried not to look “wonderfully naïve.” Only then did she notice the courses had been cleared and the men were at their port. How Bohemian! Not at all what she expected of an earl. It wasn’t that she’d never stayed on after dinner with a man; at home, Gavin often took his port and tobacco while she and her sisters remained in the room. But that was because they were family. Gavin seemed to enjoy passing a quarter hour or so asking after their day and reassuring himself they had all they required for the morrow. Really, there wasn’t much point to formality in a house as small as theirs, anyway. But here, in this grand mansion, Grantham must have a dozen rooms where she and the ladies might have retired. Instead he chose to relax in their company.
    She looked around to see if any of the other females were as charmed as she was and realized Mrs. Fawcett and Cousin Fanny were smoking thin paper cheroots, just like the men. Good heavens, these women were quite fast! Could she be allowed to join them?
    Mr. Tewseybury caught the direction of her gaze. He extended his cheroot toward her. Before she could reach for it, Grantham batted it away. “Let her alone.”
    “Just doing the chivalrous thing.” Mr. Tewseybury drew on the cheroot until the end glowed red, then expelled the smoke in a fragrant, impressive O.
    “Good heavens! Teach me to do that!” She leaned forward too fast. Her head spun. The combination of wine, smoke and her earlier megrim threatened to undo her dinner, and she clutched the edge of the table.
    “Amateur little pet.” Mrs. Fawcett’s voice held a hint of amusement. She reminded Elinor of a cat, one sated and ready to stretch her paws. “Yet I can see you’re fascinated, Chelford.”
    “Someone ought to help her to bed.” Grantham’s hand settled on Elinor’s upper arm and she jumped at the contact. “Miss Pearson, I think that will be all for tonight.”
    “No!” she cried. “It’s Christmas Eve. We need presents.”
    “We’re not children.” Lord Steepleton smirked. “At least, most of us aren’t.”
    She stood abruptly. “I have presents.” The room did a pirouette around her. Nevertheless, she was determined. She made a beeline for the door and was halfway to the servants’ hall before anyone got himself together enough to try to stop her.
    Or mayhap no one intended to stop her. She reached her room without incident and knelt beside her trunk. Buried in the bottom of the box was a metal locket with a tendril of her hair curled carefully into it. Only her sweetest smile had convinced her brother’s apprentice to forge it for her in secret; the tendril she’d trimmed herself. She withdrew the adornment and a pink kerchief with her initials embroidered in one corner. Then, thinking quickly, she fished around in her portmanteau until she found a container filled with Georgiana’s famous biscuits.
    Aunt Millie would never know the treats had been meant for her.
    Voices drifted from the open dining room doors as she returned to the party. She caught only a few words at first.
    “…suspects nothing...”
    “…in rare form, Mariah…”
    The next she heard clearly. “You ought to kiss her, Grantham, just to see what she does.”
    “I vow, that would be very diverting for the lot of us.”
    Her heart leapt at the excellent idea. She edged closer to the door.
    “You blockheads, I’m not going to touch her. The only reason she hasn’t seen through your horrific acting is because she’s too inexperienced to recognize your dreadful performances. She has no notion of what she’s looking at.”
    Elinor stepped into the room. “What am I looking at?”
    Grantham’s ears turned pink. Then he glared at the lot of his friends. “See what you’ve made me do?”
    Lord Steepleton crushed his cheroot out. “And I thought this entertaining before .”
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