Buch lesen: «The Cinderella Countess»

Chapter One
London—1815

‘There is a man here to see you, Belle, but I warn you he is unlike any man I have ever seen before.’

‘Is he disfigured?’ Annabelle Smith asked from above her burner where a tincture of peppermint and camphor was coming to a boil nicely, the steam of it rising into the air. ‘Or is he just very ill?’

Rosemary Greene laughed. ‘Here is his calling card. His waistcoat is of pink shiny satin and he has ornate rings on every one of his fingers. His hair is styled in a way I have never seen the likes of before and there is a carriage outside in the roadway that looks like it comes from a fairy tale. A good one, with a happy ending.’

Annabelle glanced at the card. Lytton Staines, the Earl of Thornton. What could a man like this possibly want with her and why would he come here to her humble abode on the fraying edges of Whitechapel?

‘Put him into the front room, Rose, and make certain the dog is not in there with him. I will be there in a moment.’

Rosemary hesitated. ‘Do you want me to accompany you?’

‘Why should I require that?’

‘Our visitor is a young man from society and you are a young woman. Is not a chaperon needed in such circumstances?’

Belle laughed at the worry on her friend’s face. ‘Undoubtedly if this was society it would be needed, but it is not and he has probably come to purchase medicines. Give me five minutes with this brew and in the meanwhile offer him a cup of tea. If he asks for anything stronger than that, however, do not allow it for we need all the alcohol we have left for the patients.’

Rose nodded. ‘He looks rather arrogant and very rich. Shall I get your aunt to sit with him? I don’t think I feel quite up to it myself.’

Belle smiled. ‘If we are lucky, the Earl of Thornton might have second thoughts about staying and will depart before I finish this.’

* * *

Lytton Staines looked around the room he had been asked to wait in, which was small but very tidy. There was a rug on the floor that appeared as though it had been plaited with old and colourful rags and on the wall before him were a number of badly executed paintings of flowers. He wondered why he had come here himself and not sent a servant in his stead. But even as he thought this he knew the answer. This was his sister’s last chance and he did not want another to mess up the possibility of Miss Smith’s offering her help.

The woman who had shown him into the front parlour had disappeared, leaving him with an ancient lady and a small hairy dog who had poked its head up from beneath his chair. A sort of mongrel terrier, he determined, his teeth yellowed and his top lip drawn back. Not in a smile, either. He tried to nudge the animal away with his boot in a fashion that wasn’t offensive and succeeded only in bringing the hound closer, its eyes fixed upon him.

In a room down a narrow passageway someone was singing. Lytton would have liked to have put his hands to his ears to cancel out the cacophony, but that did not seem quite polite either.

He should not have come. Nothing at all about this place was familiar to him and he felt suddenly out of his depth. A surprising admission, given that in the higher echelons of the ton he’d always felt more than adequate.

The cup of tea brought in by a servant a moment before sat on the table beside him, a plume of fragrant steam filling the air.

For a second a smile twitched as he imagined his friends Shay, Aurelian and Edward seeing him here like this. It was the first slight humour he had felt in weeks and he reached for the softness of the emotion with an ache.

Dying became no one, that was for certain, and sickness and all its accompanying messiness was not something he had ever had any dealings with before.

‘Thank God,’ he muttered under his breath and saw the old lady look up.

He tipped his head and she frowned at him, the glasses she wore falling to the very end of a decent-sized nose and allowing him to see her properly.

Once she must have been a beauty, he thought, before the touch of time had ruined everything. His own thirty-five years suddenly seemed numerous, the down slide to old age horribly close.

With care he reached for the teacup only because it gave him something to do and took a sip.

‘Tea was always my mother’s favourite drink.’ These words came unbidden as Lytton recognised the taste of the same black variety his mother favoured and the frown on the old woman opposite receded.

As he shifted a little to allow the material in his jacket some room, the dog before him suddenly leapt, its brown and white body hurtling through the air to connect with the cup first and his waistcoat second, the hot scald of liquid on his thighs shocking and the sound of thin bone china shattering loud upon the plain timber boards of the floor.

The dog’s teeth were fastened on the stranger’s clothing. Belle heard the tear of silk and breathed out hard, wondering why Tante Alicia had not reprimanded her pet for such poor behaviour.

‘Stanley. Stop that.’ She hurried into the front room with horror. ‘I am so sorry, sir, but he loves the colour pink and your waistcoat is of the shade he is most attracted to.’

Her hands tried to dislodge the canine’s teeth from their sharp hold, but she had no luck at all. If anything, the expensive silk ripped further and she was pulled over almost on top of the Earl of Thornton in the ensuing tangle, her hand coming across the warm wetness at his thighs before he snatched it away.

‘Cease.’ His voice cut through the chaos and for a moment Belle wondered momentarily if it was to her or to Stanley that he spoke.

Tante Alicia’s terrier did just as he was told, slinking to the door and out of the room with his tail firmly between bowed legs, Alicia herself following.

Annabelle was left in a more compromising position, her balance precarious because of her desperate hope of allowing no more damage to a garment of clothing that looked as if it might be worth more than cost of this entire house put together.

‘God, but he has torn it badly,’ she said beneath her breath, further words dissolving into French and directed at her departing aunt.

She broke off this tirade when she realised its absolute inappropriateness and regained her feet, crossing to the cabinet by the window and proceeding to extract a pound note from her velvet purse in the drawer.

‘I will certainly pay for any damage, sir. I’d hoped Stanley might have been outside in the garden, you see, but unfortunately, he was not.’

‘He has a penchant for the colour pink because of a fluffy toy he had as a puppy?’ the man asked.

‘You speak French?’

‘Fluently. I presume that you are Miss Annabelle Smith? The herbalist?’

When she nodded he carried on.

‘I am Lord Thornton and I wish to employ your services in regards to my sister. She has been struck down with a wasting sickness and no physician in England has been able to find a cure for her.’

‘But you are of the opinion that I might?’

‘People talk of you with great respect.’

‘People you know?’ She could not stop the disbelief betrayed in her words.

‘My valet, actually. You were instrumental in allowing his father a few more good years.’

‘Yet more often I do not foil the plans of God.’

‘You are a religious woman, then?’

‘More of a practical one. If you imagine me as the answer to all your...prayers, you may be disappointed.’ She faltered.

‘I am not a man who puts much stock in prayers, Miss Smith.’

‘What do you put stock in, then?’

For a second she thought she saw anger flint before he hid it.

‘Brandy. Gaming. Horseflesh. Women.’

There was a wicked glimmer of danger in his gold eyes and Belle stepped back.

* * *

Miss Annabelle Smith looked shocked but he was not here to pretend. She had the most astonishing blue eyes Lytton had ever seen and when her fingers had run over his private parts in her haste to remove the dog from the hem of his waistcoat he’d felt an instantaneous connection of red-hot lust.

Hell.

Did the tea have something in it, some herbal aphrodisiac that befuddled his brain and bypassed sense? Because already he wanted her fingers back where they had only briefly rested.

He pushed the money she offered away and stood, his boot crunching the remnants of the teacup into even smaller parts, the roses once etched into the china now disembodied.

He could not imagine what had made him answer her query as to what he put stock in so rudely, but, he suddenly felt just like the dog—Stanley, had she called him?—all his hackles raised and a sense of fate eroding free will.

There was protection in the depravities of his true self and suddenly even his sister’s need for Annabelle Smith’s magical concoctions was secondary to his own need for escape.

But she was not letting him go so easily, the towel she had in her hand now dabbing again at his thigh.

Was she deranged? What female would think this acceptable? With horror he felt a renewed rising in his cursed appendage and knew that she had seen the betrayal of his body in her instant and fumbling withdrawal. The white towel was stained brown in tea.

‘I thought...’ She stopped and dimples that he had not known she had suddenly surfaced. ‘I am sorry.’ With determination she stuck the cloth out for him to take and turned her back. ‘You may see to yourself, Lord Earl of Thornton. I should have understood that before.’

His title was wrong. She had no idea how to address a peer of the realm. He rubbed at his thighs with speed and was glad of the lessening hot wetness.

Taking in a breath, he realised how much he had needed air. She still had not turned around, her shapely bottom outlined beneath the thin day dress she wore. There were patches at a side pocket and the head of some straggly plant stuck out of the top.

She smelt of plants, too, the mist of them all around her. Not an unpleasant smell, but highly unusual. Most ladies of his acquaintance held scents of violets, or roses, or lavender.

‘I have finished with the towel, Miss Smith.’

He was amused by her allowance of so much privacy.

‘Thank you.’ She snatched it back from him and the awkward maiden became once again a direct and determined woman, no air of humour visible.

‘I would need to see your sister before I prescribed her anything. Proper medicine does not enjoy guesswork and a wasting sickness encompasses many maladies that are as different from each other as night is to day.’

‘Very well. She is here in London for the next week, seeing specialists, so if you would have some time...’

‘Pick me up here at nine tomorrow morning. I need to prepare some treatments but...’ She hesitated and then carried on. ‘I do not come cheap, my lord Earl. Each consultation would be in the vicinity of three pounds.’

Lytton thought she held her breath as she said this, but he could have been wrong. ‘Done. I will be here at nine.’

‘Good day, then.’

She put her hand out and shook his. He felt small hardened spots on her fingers and wondered what work might have brought those about.

Not the soft pliable hands of a lady. Not the grip of one either. The one ring she wore was small and gold. He felt the excess of his own jewellery with a rising distaste.

A moment later he was in his carriage, leaning his head back against fine brown leather. He needed a stiff drink and quickly.

‘White’s,’ he said to the footman who was closest, glad when the conveyance began to move away from the cloying poverty of Whitechapel and from the contrary, forceful and highly unusual Miss Annabelle Smith.

* * *

His club was busy when he arrived and he strode over to where Aurelian de la Tomber was sitting talking to Edward Tully.

‘I thought you were still in Sussex with your beautiful wife, Lian?’

‘I was until this morning. I am only up here for the day and will go home first thing tomorrow.’

‘Wedded life suits you, then. You were always far more nomadic.’

‘The philosophy of one woman and one home is addictive.’

‘Then you are a lucky man.’

Lytton saw Edward looking at him strangely and hoped he’d kept the sting out of his reply. It was getting more and more difficult to be kind, he thought, and swallowed the brandy delivered by a passing servant, ordering another in its wake.

He was unsettled and distinctly out of sorts, his visit to the East End of London searing into any contentment he’d had.

‘I’ve just had a meeting with a woman who concocts medicines in the dingy surroundings of Whitechapel. Someone needs to do something about the smell of the place, by the way, for it is more pungent than ever.’

‘Was the herbalist hopeful of finding some remedy for your sister?’

Edward looked at him directly, sincerity in his eyes.

‘She was.’ Lytton said this because to imagine anything else was unthinkable and because right now he needed hope more than honesty.

‘Who is she?’ Aurelian asked.

‘Miss Annabelle Smith. My valet recommended her services.’

‘She cured him? Of what?’

‘No. She prolonged the life of his father and the family were grateful. I can’t quite imagine how he paid the costs, though.’

‘The costs of her visits?’

‘Three pounds a time feels steep.’

‘Had you given her your card before she charged you?’

Lytton nodded. ‘And I would have been willing to pay more if she had asked.’

‘The mystery of supply and demand, then? How old is she?’

‘Not young. She spoke French, too, which was surprising.’

That interested Aurelian. ‘Smith is not a French name?’

‘Neither is Annabelle. There was an older woman there who did appear to be from France, though. An aunt I think she called her after their dog attacked me.’ He loosened the buttons of his jacket to show them the wreckage of his waistcoat.

‘A colour like that needs tearing apart.’ Edward’s voice held humour, but Aurelian’s was much more serious.

‘I have never heard of this woman or of her French aunt. Perhaps it bears looking into?’

‘No.’ Lytton said this in a tone that had the others observing him. ‘No investigations. She is meeting Lucy tomorrow.’

Edward was trying his hardest to look nonchalant, but he could tell his friend was curious.

‘What does she look like?’

‘Strong. Certain. Direct. She is nothing like the females of the ton. Her dress was at least ten years out of date and she favours scarves to tie her hair back. It is dark and curly and reaches to at least her waist. She was...uncommon.’

‘It seems she made quite an impression on you then, Thorn? I saw Susan Castleton a few hours back and she said you were supposed to be meeting her tonight?’

‘I am. We are going to the ballet.’

Susan had been his mistress for all of the last four months, but Lytton was becoming tired of her demands. She wanted a lot more than he could give her and despite her obvious beauty he was bored of the easy and constant sex. God, that admission had him sitting up straighter. It was Lucy, he supposed, and the ever-close presence of her sadness and ill health.

He wished life was as easy as it used to be, nothing in his way and everything to live for. One of his fingers threaded through the hole in his waistcoat and just for a second he questioned what ill-thought-out notion had ever convinced him to buy clothing in quite this colour.

It was Susan’s doing, he supposed, and her love of fashion. Easier to just give in to her choice of fabric than fight for the more sombre hues. He wondered when that had happened, this surrender of his opinion, and frowned, resolving to do away with both the excessive rings and the colour pink forthwith.

Miss Annabelle Smith was contrary and unusual and more than different. He could never imagine her allowing another to tell her what to wear or what to do. Even with the mantle of poverty curtailing choices she seemed to have found her exact path in life and was revelling in it.

Belle awoke in the dark of night, sweating and struggling for breath. The dreams were back. She swallowed away panic and sat up, flinting the candle at her bedside so that it chased away some of the shadows.

The same people shouting, the same fear, the same numbness that had her standing in the room of a mansion she had never recognised. She thought she hated them, these people, though she was not supposed to. She knew she wanted to run away as fast as her legs could carry her and although she could never quite see them she understood that they looked like her. How she would know this eluded sense, but that certainty had been there ever since she had first had the nightmares when she was very young. Sometimes she even heard them speak her name.

The sound of the night noise from the street calmed her as did the snoring of her aunt in the room next door. At times like this she was thankful for the thin walls of their dwelling, for they gave her a reason to not feel so alone.

The visage of Lytton Staines, the Earl of Thornton, floated into her memory as well, his smile so very different from the clothes he wore.

She remembered the hardness of male flesh beneath the thin beige superfine when her fingers had run along his thighs by mistake. Her face flamed. God, she had never been near a man in quite such a compromising way and she knew he had seen her embarrassed withdrawal.

The incident with the spilled tea this afternoon began to attain gigantic proportions, a mistake she might relive again each time she saw him which would be in only a matter of hours as he was due to collect her in the morning at nine. She needed to go back to sleep. She needed to be at her best in the company of Lord Thornton because otherwise there were things about him that were unsettling.

He was beautiful for a start and a man well used to the exalted title that sat on his shoulders. He was also watchful. She had seen how he’d glanced around her house, assessing her lack of fortune and understanding her more-than-dire straits.

She wondered what he might have thought of her paintings, the flowers she lovingly drew adorning most of one wall in the front room. Drawing was a way for her to relax and she enjoyed the art of constructing a picture.

In her early twenties she had drawn faces, eerie unfamiliar ones which she had thrown away, but now she stuck to plants, using bold thick lines. The memory of those early paintings summoned her dreams and she shook off the thought. She would be thirty-two next week and her small business of providing proper medicines for the sick around Whitechapel was growing. She grimaced at the charge per visit she had asked the Earl to pay, but, if a few consultations with the sister of a man who could patently afford any exorbitant fee allowed many others to collect their needs for nothing, then so be it. Not many could pay even a penny.

He’d looked just so absurdly rich. She wondered where he lived here in London. One of the beautiful squares in the centre of Mayfair, she supposed. Places into which she had seldom ventured.

Would it be to one of those town houses that he would take her in order to tend to his sister? Would his family be in attendance? Alicia had told her the Earl had mentioned a mother who enjoyed tea.

She had not addressed him properly. She had realised this soon after he had left because she had asked Milly, the kitchen maid, if she knew how one was supposed to speak to an earl. The girl had been a maid in the house of a highly born lord a few years before.

My lord Earl was definitely an error. According to Milly she could have used ‘my lord’ or ‘your lordship’, or ‘Lord Thornton’. Belle had decided when she saw him next she would use the second.

At least that was cleared up and sleep felt a little nearer. She had prepared all the tinctures, medicines and ointment she would take with her to see Lord Thornton’s sister so it was only a case of getting herself ready now.

What could she wear? The question both annoyed and worried her. She should not care about such shallow things, but she did. She wanted suddenly to look nice for the mother who enjoyed tea. That thought made her smile and she lay back down on her bed watching the moon through undrawn curtains.

It had rained yesterday, but tonight it was largely clear.

As she closed her eyes, the last image she saw before sleep was that of the Earl of Thornton observing her with angry shock as she had wiped away the hot tea from his skin-tight pantaloons.