Marrying His Cinderella Countess

Chapter Three

‘Lord Hainford, Miss Lytton,’ Polly announced.

So he had come.

Ellie had known from the moment the idea had occurred to her that it was outrageous. In fact she had been certain he would simply throw her letter into the fire. But she had lain awake half the night worrying about getting herself and her few possessions to Lancashire, about how she could afford it, and how she would probably have to dismiss Polly in order to do so.

The loan of a carriage would save enough to keep her maid for two months—perhaps long enough for her to raise some more money and finish her book—and an escort would save them both untold trouble and aggravation on the road. She had written the letter and sent it to be delivered before she’d had time for second thoughts.

‘Good morning, my lord. Polly, I am sure his lordship will feel quite safe if you sit over there.’

‘Good morning. I feel perfectly safe, thank you, Miss Lytton. Confused, yes—unsafe, no.’ The Earl sat down when she did so, and regarded her with a distinct lack of amusement.

He looks like an elegant displeased raven, with his sharply tailored dark clothes, his black hair, his decided nose, she thought.

There had been no apparent soreness when he sat, so presumably the bullet wound was healing well.

‘Confused?’ Ellie pushed away the memory of the feel of his naked torso under her palm and folded her hands neatly in her lap.

‘I am confused by the reference to Lancashire in your letter, Miss Lytton.’

She had been right—he was not going to be reasonable about his obligations. Not that he would see it that way, of course. Probably he still did not recognise his responsibility in the way Francis had behaved. But why, then, had he called? A curt note of refusal or complete silence—that was what she had expected.

‘My lord—’

‘Call me Hainford, please, Miss Lytton. I feel as though I am at a meeting being addressed if you keep my-lording me.’

I will not blush. And if I do it will be from irritation, not embarrassment.

‘Hainford. My brother was your devoted disciple. He spent money he could ill afford copying your lifestyle and your clothing. He invested money he most definitely could not afford, and some he had no moral right to, in a scheme inspired by your dealings. And then, when he came to you for help and advice, you turned your back on him and neglected your friend for the sake of a card game.’

‘Francis was an adult. And an acquaintance, not a friend. I never advised him on his clothing, nor his horses or his clubs, and most certainly not on his investments.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you implying an improper relationship, by any chance, Miss Lytton?’

‘Improper?’

It took her a heartbeat to realise what he was referring to, and another to be amazed that he would even hint at such a thing to a lady. Probably he did not regard her as a lady—which was dispiriting, if hardly unexpected.

‘Polly, kindly go and make tea.’ Ellie got up and closed the door firmly behind the maid. ‘No, I am not implying anything improper, and it is most improper of you to raise such a possibility to me.’

‘I am attempting to find a motive for your blatant hostility towards me, Miss Lytton, that is all.’

‘Motive? I have none. Nor am I hostile. I merely point out the facts that are at the root of my disapproval of your behaviour.’

Attack. Do not let him see how much you want him to help.

It had been dangerously addictive, the way he had stepped in after Francis’s death and arranged matters. She should have too much pride to want him to do so again. And, besides, the less she saw of him, the better. He was far too attractive for a plain woman’s peace of mind—unless one had a bizarre wish to be dismissed and ignored. There was this single thing that she asked of him and that would be all.

‘Why do you attempt to recruit me to escort you the length of the country if you disapprove of me so much?’

He sounded genuinely intrigued, as though she was an interesting puzzle to be solved. The dark brows drawn together, the firm, unsmiling mouth should not be reassuring, and yet somehow they were. He was listening to her.

‘I am impoverished thanks to my stepbrother’s foolishness and your failure to him as a...as an acquaintance and fellow club member. To reach Lancashire—where I must now be exiled—I face a long, expensive and wearisome journey by stage coach. The least you can do is to make some amends by lending me your carriage and your escort.’

‘Do you really expect me to say yes?’ Hainford demanded.

He was still on his feet from when she had got up to close the door and, tall, dark and frowning, he took up far too much space. Also, it seemed, most of the air in the room.

‘No, I do not,’ Ellie confessed. ‘I thought you would throw the letter on the fire. I am astonished to see you here this morning.’ She shrugged. ‘I had lain awake all night, worrying about getting to Carndale. The idea came to me at dawn and I felt better for writing the letter. I had nothing to lose by sending it, so I did.’

‘You really are the most extraordinary creature,’ Hainford said.

Ellie opened her mouth to deliver a stinging retort and then realised that his lips were actually curved in a faint smile. The frown had gone too, as though he had puzzled her out.

‘So, not only am I a creature, and an extraordinary one, but I am also a source of amusement to you? Are you this offensive to every lady you encounter, or only the plain and unimportant ones?’

‘I fear I am finding amusement in this,’ he confessed. ‘I feel like a hound being attacked by a fieldmouse.’

He scrubbed one hand down over his face as though to straighten his expression, but his mouth, when it was revealed again, was still twitching dangerously near a smile.

‘I had no intention of being offensive, merely of matching your frankness.’

He made no reference to the plain and unimportant remark. Wise of him.

‘You are unlike any lady I have ever come across, and yet you are connected—if distantly—to a number of highly respectable and titled families. Did you not have a come-out? Were you never presented? What have your family been doing that you appear to have no place in Society?’

‘Why, in other words, have I no good gowns, no Society manners and no inclination to flutter my eyelashes meekly and accept what gentlemen say?’

‘All of that.’

Lord Hainford sat down again, crossed one beautifully breeched leg over the other and leaned back. He was definitely smiling now. It seemed that provided she was not actually accusing him of anything he found her frankness refreshing.

You are entirely delicious to look at, my lord, and lethally dangerous when you smile.

‘If you want it in a nutshell: no parents, no money and no inclination to become either a victim of circumstances or a poor relation, hanging on the coat-tails of some distant and reluctant relative.’

‘A concise summary.’ He steepled his fingers and contemplated their tips. ‘My secretary will tell me I am insane even to contemplate what you ask of me...’

‘But?’ Ellie held her breath.

He was going to say yes.

Hainford looked up, the expression in his grey eyes either amused or resigned, or perhaps a little of both. ‘But I will do it. I will convey you to Lancashire.’ His gaze dropped to his fingertips again. ‘If, that is, we do not find ourselves compromised as a result.’

‘Polly will come with us.’

‘A maid? Not sufficient.’

‘Lord Hainford, do you think I am plotting to get a husband out of this?’

He looked at her sharply.

‘Because I am not looking for one—and even if I were I have more pride than to try and entrap a man this way. A maid is a perfectly adequate chaperon. No one knows me in Society. I could be observed in your carriage by half the Patronesses of Almack’s, a complete set of duchesses and most of the House of Lords and still be unrecognised. I can be your widowed distant cousin,’ she added, her imagination beginning to fill out the details of her scheme. ‘A poor relation you are escorting out of the goodness of your heart.’

His mouth twisted wryly.

Yes, she realised, he had been wary that she was out to entrap him. From what she had heard he was exceedingly popular with the ladies, and had managed to evade the ties of matrimony only with consummate skill.

‘I could wear my black veils and call you Cousin Blake,’ Ellie suggested helpfully.

A laugh escaped him—an unwilling snort of amusement that banished his suspicions—and something inside her caught for a moment.

‘You should write lurid novels for a living, Miss Lytton. You would be excellent at it.’

‘You think so?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Oh, I see. You are teasing me,’ she added, deflated, when he shook his head.

‘What? You would aspire to be one of those ink-spattered blue stockings, or an hysterical female author turning out Gothic melodramas?’

It seemed he had forgotten the quill in her hair and the ink spots on her pinafore when they had first met—clues that might well have given her away. But then, Lord Hainford had had other things on his mind on that occasion.

‘No, I have no desire to be an hysterical female author,’ she said tightly, biting back all the other things she itched to say.

Ranting about male prejudice was not going to help matters. Hainford’s reading matter was probably confined to Parliamentary reports, the sporting papers, his investments and Greek and Latin classics.

That little stab of awareness, or attraction, or whatever it was, vanished. ‘When do you wish to set out?’

‘How long do you need?’ he countered. ‘Would six days give you enough time?’

‘That would be perfect. Thank you... Cousin Blake.’

He stood. ‘I will be in touch about the details, Cousin Eleanor.’

‘Ellie,’ she corrected, rising also.

‘I think not. Ellie is not right for the character you will be playing in this little drama. Eleanor is serious, a little mournful. You will drift wistfully about under your floating black veils, the victim of nameless sadness...’

So what is Ellie?

She did not dare ask—he would probably be happy to explain in unflattering detail.

‘Tell me, Cousin Blake, do you make a habit of reading Minerva Press novels or do you have a natural bent for the Gothic yourself?’

‘The latter, Cousin Eleanor. Definitely the latter. Dark closets, skeletons...’ There was no amusement in his eyes.

‘Will you not wait for tea?’ She rose, gestured towards the door.

‘I think not.’

He caught her hand in his and lifted it to his lips, his breath warm as he did not quite touch his mouth to her fingers, which were rigid in his light grip.

The door opened and Polly edged in, a tea tray balanced against one hip.

‘Lord Hainford is just leaving, Polly. Put the tray down and see him out, if you please.’

And leave me to recover from having my hand almost kissed and from the knowledge that I am about to spend several days in the company of such a very dangerous man.

She would be quite safe, she told herself. Polly would be with her, would sleep in her room every night, and an earl would stop at respectable inns—inns with locks on the bedchamber doors.

The problem was, he was not the danger—she was. Or rather her foolish imagination, which yearned for what, quite obviously, she could never have.

* * *

Ellie stood at the foot of the stairs and regarded the sum total of her personal belongings. One trunk with clothes and books, one hat box containing two hats, one valise with overnight necessities, one portable writing slope. And one umbrella. Nothing so frivolous as a parasol.

Polly had almost as much luggage.

Somewhere upstairs an auctioneer was going round with Mr Rampion, making an inventory and sorting the furniture into lots. The solicitor had managed to locate enough money and small items of value to discharge the debts and the legacies to old servants, which was a weight off her mind, but she would get no recompense from the sale for her losses.

The new baronet was inheriting nothing more than a title.

Polly was peering through one of the sidelights framing the door. ‘He is here, Miss Lytton. The Earl, I mean.’

‘I guessed that was who you meant,’ Ellie said wryly, and took a firm hold on the umbrella, feeling like a medieval knight arming himself for battle.

What did she know about this man? That he spent a great deal of money on his clothing and his boots, his horses and his entertainment. And most of the entertainment, she gathered, was hedonistic and self-indulgent but not, as a perusal of the gossip columns had told her, undisciplined.

Lord Hainford might enjoy gaming, racing...all matters of sport. He might be seen at every fashionable event and he might enjoy himself very well in other ways, as sly references to ‘Lord H’ and ‘renowned beauty Lady X’ being ‘seen together as we have come to expect’ betrayed, but there were never any reports of riotous parties, scandals at the opera or heavy gaming losses. He was not married, betrothed or linked to any respectable lady who might have expectations—which was interesting as he was now twenty-eight and had his inheritance to consider.

And when he smiled she thought there was something behind the amusement—as though he could not quite bring himself to surrender to it. Her imagination, no doubt...

Polly opened the door a fraction before the groom’s knock. ‘All these,’ she said pertly to the man, with a wave of her hand to the small pile of luggage.

‘It will go in the baggage carriage,’ the groom said, and Ellie saw there was a second, plainer vehicle behind the Earl’s glossy travelling coach with his coat of arms on the door. ‘Is there anything you would like to keep with you, Miss Lytton?’

‘Thank you, no.’ She had her reticule, holding her money, her notebooks, a pencil and a handkerchief. ‘Polly, run upstairs and tell Mr Rampion that we are about to leave.’

By the time the solicitor had come down Lord Hainford was out of the carriage and the luggage was loaded. She shook hands with the solicitor, took the letter he handed her with details of the house that would be her new home, and gave him, in return, the keys of the London house.

She had lived there for more than five years, and yet she could feel no particular sadness at leaving it. The companionship of her friends, the bookshops, the libraries—yes, she was sorry to lose those. But in this place she had been no more than a glorified housekeeper, the poor relation. At least now she would be mistress of her own house.

My own hovel, more likely.

All it would take was the willingness to endure the company of the Earl of Hainford for a few days.

He stood waiting to hand her into the carriage and she balked on the doorstep, the reality of being in such an enclosed space with a man making her stumble. She gripped the railing and limped down to the pavement, exaggerating the hitch in her gait to account for that moment of recoil.

Courage, she chided herself. She was not going to allow the past to rule her present, her future. And this man was the bridge to that future—whatever it held.

* * *

‘Miss Lytton, may I introduce my confidential secretary, Jonathan Wilton?’

Jon got to his feet, stooping under the roof of the carriage. ‘I do beg your pardon for not getting out to greet you, Miss Lytton. I did not realise you were ready to join us.’

Blake noticed the fractional recoil before she held out her hand, and the sudden loss of colour in her cheeks, and yet she was perfectly composed as she greeted Jon. Was she simply unused to the company of men? He supposed that might be the case, if she had not made her debut and had led a somewhat isolated existence. Then, as she sat and looked up, seeing Jon’s face properly for the first time, he saw her surprise, carefully but not perfectly masked.

‘We are half-brothers,’ he said, settling himself next to her, opposite Jon.

The little maid scrambled up and sat opposite her mistress, a battered dressing case clutched on her knee.

‘It is something recognised but not spoken about. With the typical hypocrisy of Society Mr Wilton, my secretary, is perfectly acceptable, whereas Jonathan, my somewhat irregular brother, is not.’

‘Which can be amusing, considering how alike we are.’ Jonathan, three inches shorter, brown-haired and blue-eyed, grinned. ‘Acceptable as in a suitable extra dinner guest in emergencies, but not as a potential husband for a young lady of the ton, you understand.’

‘Yes, I quite see.’ Eleanor Lytton nodded. ‘One day everyone will be judged only on character and ability, but I fear that is a long way off.’

‘Are you a radical, Miss Lytton?’ Blake asked as the carriage moved off. He noticed that she took no notice of their leaving, and did not send so much as a fleeting last glance at her old home.

‘Cousin Eleanor, is it not?’ she reminded him. ‘I suppose I might be a radical—although I would not want change to be driven by violence. Too many innocents suffer when that happens.’

Blake was intrigued. There was plenty of room on the carriage seat and he shifted a little so he could study her expression. Most ladies, other than the great political hostesses and the wives of politicians, would be appalled at the suggestion that they might have an opinion on politics, and even those who did would be obediently mouthing their husband’s line.

To have radical leanings was quite beyond the pale, and indicated that she both read about such matters and thought about them too. What a very uncomfortable female she was to have around—and yet somehow refreshingly different from his usual female companions.

‘I agree with much of what the radicals advocate—both the need for change and the perils of making it happen,’ he said, jerking his thoughts back from his recent amicable parting with Lady Filborough, his latest mistress.

A gorgeous creature, and yet he had become bored very rapidly with her predictability. He had no desire for a mistress who would try and plumb the depths of his soul—far from it—but he did prefer one who engaged his brain as well as his loins.

‘People need bread in their stomachs before peaceable progress can be made.’

‘Bread in their stomachs and books in their hands. Education is critical, don’t you think?’

Her earnestness was rather charming, Blake decided. She was so unselfconscious, so passionate. Such a pity that she had no looks, he mused as he settled back into his corner. That passion combined with beauty would be truly...erotic. Good Lord—what a peculiar word to think of in conjunction with this woman.

Jon was ready to launch into his own opinions on working class education, he could see. A discussion of that all the way to Lancashire was going to be distinctly tiresome.

‘I hope you will excuse us, Cousin Eleanor, but we must go through this morning’s post.’

‘Of course.’

It was like blowing out a candle. All the intensity went, leaving only a meek spinster effacing herself in her corner.

‘Polly, pass me the book from my case, please. I have my notebook here.’

By dint of dropping his gloves, Blake managed to get a glimpse of the spine of the volume. Agricultural Practices of the Mediterranean Lands. He sincerely hoped that she was not going to try and impose those on the farm labourers of Lancashire or she would soon come to grief.

What a strange little female she was. Or not so little—she must be all of five feet and nine inches, he estimated, before he reached for the first letter Jon passed him and became lost in the detail of a land boundary dispute affecting a property he was buying.

Chapter Four

To be closed in with not one but two gentlemen had almost caused her to back out of the carriage in instinctive panic. Ellie was quite proud of herself for not only standing her ground but greeting Mr Wilton with composure. No one would have noticed anything amiss, she was sure.

And, curiously, the secretary’s presence made things easier. He was not as good-looking as his half-brother—more of a muted version—and the fact that the men had soon become engrossed in their work had helped her to relax. She did not like being the centre of attention under any circumstances, and now Lord Hainford—Cousin Blake—had a perfect excuse for virtually ignoring her, and she was sure he much preferred to do so.

She looked up from her book. The carriage was luxurious beyond anything she had travelled in before, with deeply buttoned upholstery and wide seats which meant that she could sit next to Blake without touching him or his clothing. Even though she told herself it was irrational, she had dreaded being shut up in a closed carriage, pressed against another body—or, worse, sandwiched between two men, which would have been quite likely to happen on a stage coach.

Ellie wriggled more comfortably into her corner and put her notebook on the seat. It was an effort to concentrate on date production and wheat yields, especially when she could smell Blake. It had to be him—that elusive scent of starched linen, an astringent cologne and warm, clean man. Mr Wilton was too far away for it to be him setting her nostrils quivering every time the two of them shifted, leaning across to pass papers or stooping to rescue fallen sheets from the carriage floor.

It was very provocative, that intimate trace that he left in the air. And just because the threat of a man touching her made her anxious, it did not mean she did not wish that was not the case. Blake was beautiful to look at—strong and male, the perfect model for both fantasy and fiction... Perfect, that was, when there had been not the slightest danger of getting close enough to speak to him, let alone scent him.

Ellie wrenched her concentration back to the book. Goodness, but the production of dates was dull. She flipped through the pages. Perhaps water management would be a more riveting subject for the tiresome Oscar to explore. He might even fall into an irrigation canal.

The thought cheered her, and she picked up her notebook and began to scribble not notes but an entire scene.

* * *

‘Bushey,’ Blake said. ‘We are changing horses here. Would you like to get down for a few minutes?’

Ellie almost refused. Oscar was now vividly describing the experience of being hauled out of a muddy irrigation canal, and the scene was giving her great pleasure to write.

Then it occurred to her that this might be a tactful way of suggesting that she might wish to find the privy. ‘Thank you. I would like to stretch my legs.’

Polly looked grateful for the decision, and Mr Wilton helped both of them to descend from the carriage, then turned away, as tactful as his brother, as the two of them went towards the inn.

When they returned Blake himself got out to help them in. ‘You look pleased about something, Cousin Eleanor.’

‘We were admiring the facilities. A most superior stopping place—thank you.’

‘Thank Jon. He sorts everything out.’

Mr Wilton glanced up from his papers and acknowledged the compliment with a tilt of his head. ‘Just doing my job, Miss Lytton.’

‘So what does an earl’s confidential secretary do, exactly?’ she asked as the groom closed the doors and swung up behind as the carriage rolled out of the inn yard.

‘I deal with Lord Hainford’s correspondence, keep his appointments diary, monitor all the newspapers for him, organise journeys, settle his accounts, ensure that reports from all his properties and investments are received regularly, scanned, and that any matters requiring his decision are brought to his attention. I make notes on topics he might wish to speak on in the Lords. That kind of thing.’