Page 5 of Scales and Sensibility
Elinor turned around...and had to stifle a groan of pure horror.
The gentleman who’d saved her was tall and broad-shouldered and only a few years older than her, with rumpled brown hair, warm hazel eyes, and a ruefully appealing smile. Even worse, he was dressed in the sort of close-fitting, forest-green coat and embroidered silver waistcoat that positively shrieked of money and taste—just like the elegant traveling carriage that had pulled up behind him.
Of coursehe was a romantic ideal come to life! What else could possibly make this moment more painful?
In any one of the sentimental novels that Rose had always devoured and that Elinor had always mocked, this would have been precisely the moment when the wealthy hero fell head over heels in love with the innocent young heroine and swept her away to a life of ease and romance as his bride...barring, of course, all the necessary misadventures with wicked cousins and leering highwaymen along the way.
Rose would have swooned over a scene like that.
Most of Elinor’s muddy, wet hair was plastered across her neck or pasted to the shoulders of her ruined gown. One long, slimy hank hung over her right eye and directly across her mouth. She blew it away from her face in a sigh and saw her rescuer’s lips twitch before he raised one hand to politely shield his expression.
Somehow, she didn’t think he was about to sweep her off her feet into a life of romantic luxury.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly, and stepped away from him. Her elbows, shoulder, and back felt like one big bruise; her dignity was far more battered. She turned painfully to pick up her valise, which had fallen to the ground a few feet away. “I appreciate your help, sir, but I won’t delay you any…oh,” she breathed, staring at her own bare wrist. “Oh,no.”
This time, her voice didn’t squeak. It dropped a full octave.
Despair did that, it seemed. Elinor had finally noticed what she should have realized immediately: her reticule was missing.
It had been hanging around her wrist before the accident. Now, her wrist wasn’t the only thing that was bare. So was the ground around her.
She lunged back towards the watery ditch and dropped to her knees in the dirt, heedless of any further damage to her gown.
“What is it?” said the man behind her. “What’s amiss?” And then, as she leaned over to plunge her hand into the water, “Be careful! You’ll fall back in.”
Elinor ignored him. All of her attention was fixed on the muddy water below. She couldn’t even see through the muck that filled it. She leaned further and further forward, swiping her hand desperately through it, until…
“There!” She finally felt it under her fingers: a plain cotton bag, squidged into a muddy ball.
“Wait!” Her rescuer grabbed her waist again just in time, as she began to slide back over the edge into the ditch. “For heaven’s sake. Whatever it is you’re hunting for, it can’t be worth the risk.”
“Oh, yes, it can!” Elinor straightened triumphantly, holding the reticule high. “It’s…” Her mouth dropped open. She finished, blank with shock: “It’s empty.”
The little reticule had come open in the ditch.
She stared at it. Her vision blurred.
Four shillings and sixpence, carefully saved over so many months…
Gone.
Chapter 3
Elinor had resolutely refrained from swooning, shrieking, or giving in to any other romantic self-indulgences across the last year of her life. But as she looked at the empty reticule in her hand now, she felt the insides of her head begin to spin in a decidedly ominous fashion.
“I say,” said the man behind her. “Are you quite well? You weren’t carrying too much of your money in that little bag, were you?”
“Everything I had.” Elinor’s lips felt numb. Little spots began to dance before her eyes.
“Hawkins!” Another man’s voice called out from the open door of the carriage. “You won’t believe this, but I’ve just found the most astonishing fallacy in De Groot’s thesis. You’ll laugh when you hear what he says about wingtips!”
She really must be losing consciousness, Elinor thought muzzily. She hadn’t understood a word of what he’d said.
The man behind her sighed and stood up. “Look here, I think you’d better come with us.”
“I beg your pardon!” Abruptly regaining her wits, Elinor scooted away from him and scrambled to her feet, while Sir Jessamyn chuckled ominously on the ground beside her. “I’ve thanked you for your help, sir, but—”
“Oh, yes, we have been terribly helpful, haven’t we? Especially knocking you into the ditch in the first place, to lose you all your savings.” He gave her a lopsided, self-mocking grin. “I can only imagine just how grateful you must be feeling right now.”
