The Cinderella Countess

He could teach her everything he knew, every nuance of desire.

‘Thorn.’ The voice came through a haze and he turned to find Summerley Shayborne crossing the street to reach him.

‘You look preoccupied.’

He smiled. ‘I’ve just come from the bank.’

‘Good news?’ Shay knew of the trouble he’d been in last year with the estate when things had been turned upside down.

‘Everything is fine and long may it stay that way.’

‘You’re the new and shining light of the financial world, I hear. An earl who seems to be able to pinpoint a lucrative investment without comparison? Most peers are holding on to the family plot by their fingernails, but it seems your latest project has just come through with flying colours.’

‘The canning factory outside London? People need to eat and preserved fruit and vegetables are within the budget of most. Every large town in England by the end of the year will sport such a factory. Come in with me as a partner. I’ll get Lian and Edward on board as well.’

‘You’re serious?’

‘I am.’

‘When can we draw up the contracts?’ Shay looked excited.

‘Next week. But keep it quiet for I don’t want someone else beating me to the post.’

‘Have a drink with us now, then. Celeste is at the town house and we would love your company.’

‘Very well.’ He hailed his carriage and they both piled in.

Lytton had always admired Shay’s wife. She was tough in a way that intrigued him and beautiful enough to take his breath away every time he saw her.

She also was nothing like the bride that the ton had thought the lauded Summerley Shayborne, Viscount Luxford, would choose for himself.

* * *

‘You said you would come to Luxford in the early summer, Thorn, but you didn’t.’ Celeste looked puzzled.

‘I’ve been at Balmain for quite a few weeks because my sister has been sick. We have only just returned to town.’

‘I’ve heard that just lately she is making some sort of a recovery?’

‘I hope so. I have engaged a healer to try to coax her out of bed where she has been languishing. Miss Annabelle Smith from Whitechapel is her name and she seems to be making quite a difference.’

‘The herbalist? She is the woman my lady’s maid was speaking of so highly the other day, Summer. I should very much like to meet her. Is she at your town house this week seeing your sister?’

‘Tomorrow she is, but only very early. At nine. She keeps unusual hours.’

‘Could we call in? It might be my only chance to talk with the woman and she sounds more than fascinating.’

‘Well, I don’t see why not.’

Lytton had organised a meeting for the morning, but he supposed he could cancel it. His thoughts from earlier on had not left him and he felt...anxious. He could not quite imagine Annabelle Smith chatting about things with his sister and Celeste over jam scones and a cup of tea. He wondered, too, if Celeste had read any of the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft?

* * *

It was her birthday.

Well, her birthday as Tante Alicia had deemed it given she was four when she had turned up in the French village without any past whatsoever.

The third of July. A hot morning in the village of Moret-sur-Loing when a nun had delivered a sick child to the house of the local healer and pleaded for the girl to be taken in.

This much she did know for Alicia had retold this story over and over and never a mention of the people who had abandoned her.

Annabelle had celebrated today with a new pair of stockings and a fresh orange. She had also fashioned her hair a little differently this morning, doing away with the heavy scarf and pinning it about her face. The curls escaped, of course, but rather than detracting from the whole picture she thought that they added to it. For some reason today she felt lighter and happier than she had in months and the sun above was a part of that, too.

She hoped Lady Lucy had read the book she had given her. She hoped she had kept eating, too. If she had, then the change in her from last week to this one should be more than noticeable.

A carriage standing before the Thornton town house had Belle frowning. She did not recognise it and hoped that there were not visitors who would take away time she would have with the Earl’s sister. The horses were most handsome and the liveried driver on the box seat tipped his hat at her.

‘Morning, miss. It’s a fine day outside, to be sure.’

She smiled back at him and made her way up the steps, the door opened by a servant she had not met before.

‘The master is expecting you, miss. He is in the blue salon. I will take you through.’

Dispensing with her coat and hat, she followed him and heard the conversation between a group of people getting louder by the moment.

She stopped and the servant looked around.

‘I think there has been a mistake. I am here to see Miss Staines only. I have been attending to her medical needs.’

‘You are Miss Smith, are you not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then, you are to come right this way.’

Belle straightened down her skirts as she went, a sort of dawning horror rising in her stomach. She did not wish to meet other guests of this house. She would not be accepted by anyone in society and surely the Earl of Thornton would know this.

The door opened. The Earl stood by the mantel with two strangers, a beautiful woman and a tall and handsome man. When the Earl saw her he excused himself and came to her side.

‘I thought before you went upstairs to see my sister you may like to meet Lord and Lady Luxton.’

Belle took in a breath. This was a situation she had not come across before and she was silent as she watched for cues.

‘Miss Smith.’ The woman spoke first. ‘I am Celeste Shayborne and I have heard much about your ministry in Whitechapel. My husband is most interested in hearing about it, too.’

As if to underline this as a truth the man beside her nodded.

‘It seems your fame proceeds you, Miss Smith.’ Lord Luxford spoke now for the first time, though Belle wondered at his tone. He did not sound quite as pleased as his wife. The social conventions worried her.

Should she curtsy before this lord as she spoke or was that unnecessary?

‘Mine is a small clinic but in an area where there are many supplicants. I am quite perplexed that you have even heard of it.’

* * *

She used her voice like a weapon, Lytton thought, the low and husky tone surprising, but not as surprising as the King’s English that she now spoke. Her voice had never held tones of the East End, though, and had always sounded quite refined.

If he had closed his eyes just then, it could have been any one of the titled and well-brought-up ladies of the ton talking. He saw the interest in Celeste’s eyes and the curiosity in Shay’s.

‘Who are your parents, Miss Smith?’ Celeste was never one to refrain from trying to decipher a puzzle and she asked the question baldly.

But Miss Annabelle Smith failed to answer, turning to him instead and finding a query all her own.

‘I do hope your sister has recovered a little in the days since I have seen her, your lordship?

Now this was interesting, Lytton thought. There were secrets here and he could tell that Celeste had determined it exactly the same.

‘Miss Smith gave Lucy a copy of the Mary Wollstonecraft book, Celeste, and my sister has been most taken by the things the author wrote of.’

‘Oh, I, too, have read her books and most heartily agree with the sentiments in them.’

* * *

Belle did not feel quite up to arguing for the rights of all women no matter what their station in life so she stayed quiet. She was feeling her way here and the truth of her being from Whitechapel’s mean streets felt like an enormous stumbling block. She had not recognised this in the company of the Earl or even of his sister. But when society came crashing down upon her in a refined drawing room as it had here there was no getting away from it.

She did not fit.

A headache had begun to form behind her eyes and she prayed to God that the jagged lines of a worse malady did not reappear. Not until she could get home at least. She felt sweat run between her breasts and the fine beading of it on her top lip.

The Earl saved the day by asking her if she wanted a drink, leading her across to a cabinet where an array of bottles stood on top of a polished mahogany counter.

She had never tasted true liquor in all of her life and searched for something non-alcoholic.

‘The white wine is very good.’ The Earl lent down and said this quietly.

‘Only a small glass, please.’

He poured it with the sort of ease people used to heavy drinking must be wont to do. She did not really know, for her aunt was a teetotaller and any alcohol in the house was reserved for medicines. The devil’s brew, her aunt had often said, and there was enough evidence around Whitechapel for them to believe in such a truth.

A cup of tea would have been welcome, but she felt she could not ask. The smile she sported hurt her cheeks and she wondered how much longer she could manage to keep it up. She wished she might excuse herself and go upstairs to see her patient.

‘Celeste and Shay are friends of mine.’

‘I see, your lordship.’

‘Very good friends.’

She looked up and caught his glance. What did he wish her to say? And what was he telling her?

The tumble of the unexpected was confusing, terrifying even, and she measured her breaths with a rigid count. These people knew of her and her clinic, they understood she was from poorer stock and they were still attempting to be friendly. She took a sip of the wine and then another, surprised by the strength of its taste.

Still, it was wet and it gave her something to do. In a moment she had finished the lot.

‘Would you like more?’ A frown dashed into golden eyes as she nodded.

‘Thank you.’

This time she drank more slowly as he led her back into the room. It was relaxing her now, this white wine. For the first time in ten minutes she felt as if she might be coping.

‘Where did you learn your healing skills, Miss Smith?’

Celeste Shayborne’s voice had the lilt of another country in the words. French, perhaps. She recognised the cadence.

‘My aunt is a herbalist. She taught me.’

‘It must take a long time to learn?’

‘Years and years. I am still learning now and Tante Alicia is sixty-three and she says she does not know it all yet either. She has tried her hardest to teach me, though, in the hope that such knowledge will not be lost and I could be the one to hand it down to the next generation.’

Goodness. Had she said too much? She tried to remember every word she had uttered and found that she couldn’t, a barrier between her and the world.

It was the wine. Placing her near-empty glass down on a table, she wished again that she could have asked for tea or coffee, anything to neutralise the rising warmth that was worrying.

Control was slipping and with it reserve.

‘Your aunt is French?’ Celeste Shayborne clapped her hands. ‘Do you speak the language?’

‘A little,’ she said before she thought, for Lytton Staines had heard her using it on that very first day they had met after Stanley had torn his waistcoat. He would know that what she said was a lie, but she did not want the next questions that might rise with such an honesty.

The Earl’s voice broke her panic and she was pleased for his words.

‘I think something non-alcoholic might be useful.’ He poured a large glass of lemonade and handed it over.

Relief flooded into panic. She would be all right now. She would manage.

Exhaustion swamped gratitude and then sadness overcame that. So many emotions in so very few seconds she could hardly keep up. If she were at home she would lie down with a pillow across her head to keep out the daylight and she would sleep until the headache left her. Sometimes she took sulphate of quinine if it were severe, or cinchona bark or valerian. But there was nothing here that was remotely like anything she needed. She could see Celeste Shayborne looking at her with a frown in her eyes and even the Earl gave the impression of worry.

‘I am quite all right. It’s only a headache and I have them all the time. The wine was strong, too, and it’s still early in the morning...’

A further glance from Thornton told her that her admission had been unexpected, inappropriate even, and her words tailed off. Shaking her head, she tried hard to find a balance.

‘Perhaps on reflection I might be wise to leave. It seems that today is not a good day and I think I may need to go home and sleep.’

Another faux pas and had she just spoken completely in French?

‘I think my headache is worsening and when that happens I am never good company.’

Goodness, now she was switching languages, the words blurring into each other, skipping over tenses and trailing into gibberish. She could not be quite sure she had pronounced any of them properly.

‘So I bid you au revoir.’ She had not seen Lady Lucy as she had promised, but did not feel at all up to it. She would come back tomorrow when she felt she might manage.

The Earl’s arm was around her waist now and she allowed him to lead her to the door. Once in the entrance hall he found her hat and coat and then took her out to the carriage that he had asked to be brought around. Inside the conveyance, cocooned in silence and the comfort of the squashy leather seats, she breathed out.

‘I am sorry.’

‘For what.’

‘For creating a spectacle. For being vulgar.’

‘I hardly think you were that, Miss Smith. Entertaining is more the word that comes to mind.’

‘You are kind.’

‘Often in life I am not.’

She ignored that. ‘Your friends were kind, too.’

‘Have you ever drunk wine before?’

‘No.’

‘God.’ His laughter was not quite what she expected.

‘I hope as a consequence you don’t want your ten pounds back now for I have spent it already.’

‘I know of that. You sent me a note, remember. I did not realise that small sum of money could purchase so much. I commend you, Miss Smith.’

‘Belle.’

‘Pardon.’

‘Belle. You can call me that. Everyone else does. It means beautiful in French, but I do not think she should have named me such for I am not.’

‘Hell.’

‘You are swearing again, my lord Earl. I’m not sure you should. It is more than rude and, while I am not a high-born lady, I am still a woman.’

He knocked on the window and the conveyance stopped. ‘Take the long road around London for at least an hour, Barnes, and stop at the next shop that sells lemonade.’

‘Lemonade, my lord?’

‘In a very large bottle.’

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