The Cinderella Countess

by Sophia James

  Grabbing his hair, he slammed the Earl’s head down on to the cobbles, but if he thought the bastard was finished he was wrong.

  Strong legs wrapped around his own, toppling him to one side and then it was his turn to feel the thud of knuckles against the flesh of his mouth and eyes. He was blinded for a moment by blood or by the force, he knew not which, but fury held strength as well and he smashed the other in the side of the head, feeling the crunch of skin and bone. Huntington went down, his nose bleeding, his eyes closed and his body curled up around the pain. Groaning.

  ‘Thorn?’ His name said softly. ‘Thorn?’

  And then he was back, back in a street in Kensington in the middle of a London day, his sister crying, Annabelle looking shocked.

  He let his body relax into stillness, as he took in breath.

  ‘Thorn?’ His name again. Annabelle’s voice. She’d never called him that before, never used his family name in any of their many conversations.

  He closed his eyes momentarily. His arm ached and he was sure one of his bottom teeth had been loosened, but his focus had been regathered by the strong sense of her.

  ‘Take my sister home.’ His first words were directed at the Thornton driver and he was glad when the man took them as an order. Within a few seconds Lucy and her maid were in the awaiting carriage and then she was gone.

  The law was there even as he turned, the large group of bystanders multiplying by the moment as four Runners descended on them. Without thought Lytton stepped across to Annabelle and took her hand, bringing her to his side where she would be safe.

  ‘You will all need to come with us, sir, to the Public Office, for we cannot allow such lawlessness on London streets.’ An unfamiliar carriage had now drawn up beside them and two Runners got in. Albert Tennant-Smythe was being shepherded into his conveyance by the other two, blood dripping down his face and on to his clothes.

  Lytton did not want the law involved, especially if Lucy’s name was to be bandied about because of it, but there was nothing else to do but accompany the men to the station.

  ‘I hope he dies.’ He could not help the bleak desolation in his words and did not even try to temper vehemence even as the two law men opposite looked over at him.

  ‘You found out?’ Annabelle’s query was quiet.

  ‘Yes.’

  The silence between them lengthened, the blood in his mouth pooling and a nausea rising. He was glad Annabelle was with him despite everything, safe for this moment from a world that had fallen to bits. He saw blood on the cream in her skirt.

  ‘God. He didn’t hurt you?’

  ‘No. I bit him. I think it is from that.’

  He laughed and was surprised by the sound of it.

  * * *

  Lytton Staines looked battered and hurt, the flesh around his eye blackening and his top lip split. Blood stained his fingers and his shirt was torn where a knife had ripped through the fabric to slide into the forearm below.

  Belle had meant never to speak to him again, yet here she was pushing back his sleeve to peer at the wound.

  ‘It’s deep.’ Her fingers pressed down and he grimaced. ‘An inch or so to the left and he’d have sliced your radial artery here.’

  ‘Then I was fortunate.’

  His flat tone suggested anything but. She wondered what might happen when they reached the Public Office, but didn’t dare to enquire. At least for the moment they were away from Lord Huntington. Her fingers fisted in her lap and they sat there in silence, the two men opposite them tight-lipped and frowning.

  * * *

  Half an hour later they were in a room, a magistrate before them.

  ‘What the hell were you thinking, Thornton? Attacking Huntington like that out on the street in broad daylight and in front of at least three dozen bystanders?’

  ‘The man is an ass, Wilton.’

  So they knew each other these two, Belle thought, and was comforted by the fact.

  ‘Then why not find him in some dark corner and deal with him? Somewhere where nobody else could observe you? Somewhere the law would not have had to be involved? Somewhere justice could have taken place quietly?’

  ‘He was going to hit Miss Smith with his big bloody fist.’

  ‘Yes, I heard that.’

  ‘He had a knife as well.’

  ‘Which we have confiscated. Huntington does not seem to be talking at all. He has called for his lawyer. He does not wish to take this further. Do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. I hoped you would say that. There are a number of newspaper reporters at the front door ready to pounce on you for a statement. I have arranged for a carriage to collect you at the back.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I should also imagine there will be unwanted talk in society, but I am certain you can handle that?’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘If you need any help with this privately from me, Thorn—’

  The Earl did not let him finish.

  ‘I don’t, but I am thankful for the offer.’

  ‘Very well. On my behalf the case is closed then.’ He handed over a sheaf of papers. ‘On your part you might like to keep the statements and names of those who supported your side of the argument. In case the Earl has other plans, you understand.’

  When the door opened behind them both men shook hands, the file tucked under the Earl’s arm as they followed the one who had come to show them the way out. As they turned a corner into a further passageway a woman stepped out before them, an older woman with bright white hair, two servants by her side.

  Annabelle caught only a quick glimpse of her before she stepped back against the wall and shaded her face with her hand as if she was feeling unwell. The older woman’s maids crowded around her in consternation as they passed. The Earl gave no sign at all of knowing the woman. Perhaps she had come for Huntington? A grandmother or a great-aunt? Or perhaps she was here on other business altogether.

  Annabelle was glad when the carriage was suddenly before them and there was no sign of others anywhere.

  ‘Where do you wish to be taken, my lord?’ The driver stood at the doorway, hat in hand.

  ‘Number Twenty-Nine Bromfit Place in Kensington.’

  ‘Very well, your lordship.’

  In a few seconds the conveyance was moving and ten moments later it stopped in front of a tall stately town house.

  ‘This belongs to a friend of mine. He has gone up north to see his family before leaving for the Americas.’

  As Belle stood she thought the Earl looked wobbly. The footman hurried forward, knocking on the door, and when a servant answered they were soon inside. Lytton made straight for a sitting room of sorts, the shelves behind full of small models of planes, ships, buildings and other inventions that she had never seen the likes of before.

  ‘Ed’s passion is to invent things,’ he said by way of explanation and then sat down in a leather chair by a small cabinet, helping himself to a drink.

  ‘I would offer you one, but after last time...?’

  He left the rest as a question and waited until she shook her head.

  ‘I hope you do not mind me bringing you here. We need to talk and I thought it the most private of all the places I know.’

  ‘The magistrate will not question you further?’

  ‘No. Wilton is a friend of mine and can be trusted. If Huntington does not talk, then neither shall I.’

  ‘Because it will be better for Lucy that way?’

  ‘Yes.’ His eyes were burning gold, no tenderness within them. ‘Once that secret is uncovered publicly there will be nothing I can do to stop it hurting my sister. As it is Tennant-Smythe knows I know and for the moment until all this dies down I need to imagine that to be enough.’

  ‘And after?’

  He ignored that and asked her a
nother question entirely.

  ‘Can you sew?’

  ‘As in clothing?’ Belle could not understand just what he meant. Did he wish for her to mend his shirt?

  ‘My skin. I think it might need a stitch or two.’

  Relief bloomed. ‘Yes, of course. Is there a needle?’

  ‘Probably in the drawers of that desk over there.’

  He waited till she found one, threading up the cotton and knotting one end.

  ‘Take off your shirt.’

  She saw his smile.

  ‘I’ll need hot water, too.’

  The same servant as before came on the pull of a cord and the Earl asked him to bring water, flannels and bandages.

  When he placed the bottle he’d held down on the table between them she picked it up. ‘This will keep things clean.’

  Overturning the liquor into a kerchief from her pocket, she waited until it was soaked in and pulled the needle and strands of thread through the damp material.

  With his shirt off she saw that he was not a man prone to indolence. His body was well muscled, an aged scar of considerable proportion slicing down the top of the same arm that he had hurt.

  He didn’t look inclined to talk of it, though.

  ‘How did you find out about Lord Huntington?’ She needed to keep his mind off the pain that was to follow.

  ‘I’d had word of my sister seeing Huntington from a few people, but then I read a letter my sister had written to him but had never sent. It was jammed into the Wollstonecraft book in her room. Huntington did not rape her, by the sound of her confessions, but he pushed her much further than he should have.’

  ‘The familiar and unsettling entitlement of a lord.’

  Belle pricked through his skin, but he did not move an inch. Knotting the stitch before taking another, she blotted away the dribble of blood. She should mention that she knew about the purpose of her accommodation in Kensington and the name of his unmentioned bride-to-be, but just for this moment he was her patient and she would leave confronting him until she had finished stitching at least.

  ‘The Earl has always been a troublemaker. I knew him at school.’

  ‘Your sister made a lucky escape, then.’ She finished a sixth stitch and then a seventh, finally knotting the last one off and placing her linen handkerchief across the gash.

  ‘Luck is a word that can hold many shades.’

  ‘As does truth, my lord.’

  Reaching for the roll of fabric the servant had delivered, she wound the length of it around his arm, tying it off with a divided end. He replaced his shirt immediately, buttoning the garment up to the neck with difficulty. There was sweat on his brow.

  She did not help him. She would fashion a sling for him when she could, but for now...

  ‘Your sister mentioned that you are to be married before the end of the year.’

  He stilled, though the pulse in his throat quickened.

  ‘So I was wondering how you thought it appropriate to...kiss me in the light of such a troth?’

  Holding the wounded arm into his side, he stood. His eye was swelling, his lip was bleeding and there was a graze right down the side of his cheek. Yet he looked beautiful, his eyes fastened upon her, a sadness there edged in despair.

  ‘I could not help myself and Lady Catherine Dromorne is, in truth, no more than a friend.’

  ‘Who you have asked to marry?’

  ‘Not exactly...’

  Now anger did surface.

  ‘How does one become promised to another in a “not exactly” way?’

  ‘I am an earl and the position, while having many advantages, also has its drawbacks.’

  ‘Drawbacks.’

  ‘I cannot marry just anyone. Catherine and I have been promised from birth and it is my duty to make certain the Earldom leaves my hands in better shape than I found it in.’

  ‘Then what am I doing here? With you? Why did you bring me here to this place?’

  ‘Because I cannot ever get time alone with you and because there is something between us that is inexplicable. I want to know what that is. Understand it.’

  ‘And then what? Will you proceed to ruin me and then scurry back to your suitable bride-to-be. Like Lord Huntington? Or did you mean to establish me as a mistress in your grand rooms in Kensington? A little bit on the side when you had the time or the inclination. A visit now and then when you felt like it?’

  ‘No. It was not like that.’ He stopped, giving the impression that he wanted to say more, but couldn’t. ‘I wanted to protect you, keep you safe...’

  The weight of his words felt heavy inside her. He had done that. Time after time. After the carriage accident, after the fire, after the Earl had brought his big heavy fist down through the air in her direction.

  He had protected Lucy, too, and her Aunt Alicia. He had employed McFaddyen to stand guard on the apartment and brought Stanley home from the ashes in Whitechapel.

  He’d been a buffer to absolute poverty, a bulwark against homelessness and starvation. He was still being that, even now, with his damaged hand and face. But his destiny lay elsewhere, not by his command, but by the forces of history.

  The anger left her in a rush and all that was left was tiredness.

  ‘I think we shall never understand what this is between us, my lord, but we need to have the sense to leave it alone.’

  He sat at that on the chair by the window and leant back against the leather headrest. His exhaustion was palpable. The blood loss, she supposed, for the cobbles had been running with redness. Quietly she took her place opposite him, in a deep burgundy armchair, positioned at an angle to include his own.

  ‘I will order us something to eat, Annabelle.’

  He waited until she nodded before calling the servant back.

  It had begun to rain outside. Belle could hear it dripping against the window. But her own world was encapsulated in here, the sense of dislocation heightened by the strangeness of the room and all the small inventions around her. The Earl waited till the servant was gone before he began to speak again.

  ‘You pushed my sister behind you when Tennant-Smythe was about to strike. I do not know one other woman who might have done the same.’

  ‘I am from Whitechapel, my lord. There is nothing soft there.’

  ‘You used my name when you called to me in the fight?’

  ‘I thought he might kill you with the knife.’

  He smiled at that. ‘Hardly. Shay and Aurelian taught me much about the art of defence.’

  ‘Yet there is a large scar at the top of your injured arm?’

  ‘That came from a mistake. I trusted the man who did it, you see.’

  ‘Who?’ A single word dragged from horror.

  ‘My father. I had just won Balmain back in a game of cards and he was not thankful. He shot himself a few hours later. I have never told anyone those exact details before.’

  ‘He hated you?’

  ‘He hated himself. At least for me I have tried to behave honourably. The rooms in Kensington were all I had at such short notice and I had my staff take away anything even vaguely offensive the day after you arrived.’

  ‘The statues and the paintings. I wondered where those had gone.’

  ‘I have been seeking something else more suitable in the meantime, but...’

  ‘But?’

  ‘You do not accept help easily and it seemed such a gift might be construed as charity and as such rejected. So we are at an impasse, you and I, caught by circumstance and perhaps by lies.’

  ‘Your lies?’

  ‘Ours, Annabelle. Can you not feel what is here in this room between us?’

  Shock held her still. He felt it, too, this connection, quivering and desperate? ‘What is it?’

  ‘Desire,’ he whispered. ‘Yearning. Nee
d. There are a hundred other words I could say and all them together might still not explain it.’

  ‘But it is there none the less.’ Her words rolled into the silence as the lump in her throat made tears pool in her eyes.

  Neither of them moved, the fragility of such a confession too new and too wondrous. With only a tiny mistake it might shatter, these troths of hope and faith. Such a brittle truth. Everything was too precarious with Lady Catherine Dromorne in the mix and her own lack of family. It was too soon for honesty. She stayed quiet.

  The food came on a tray. There was cheese and figs and crusty bread as well as a cake and biscuits. He had asked for tea as well, the steaming aroma of it filling the air around them.

  As the maid bent to pour the Earl stopped her. ‘We will manage. Thank you.’

  When she was gone Belle leaned to pick up the teapot, glad for something to do. He took milk and two teaspoons of sugar. She handed over the cup with care, making certain that she did not touch him, and then she poured one for herself.

  * * *

  She looked frightened and uncertain. She looked as if she might leap from the chair and run out the door. But the teacup at least momentarily anchored her. Lytton sipped at his own drink with distaste. He seldom drank the stuff, but she had poured it for him and he needed harmony. The sugar at least steadied him.

  He wished he might simply have reached over and taken her hand, but he did not dare to. The ground he stood on was shaky and the next move had to be hers if there was to be any hope in it.

  ‘I have had no luck with identifying the carriage that hit you and your friend on the Whitechapel Road despite an exhaustive search. Whoever it was went to great measures to avoid being caught.’

  ‘Which implies either wealth or luck?’

  ‘My pick is probably both.’

  She nodded and sat back, her feet square on the floor, her boots scuffed with age and use.

  ‘But I will find him,’ he continued. ‘At least believe that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  A silence again. Ignoring the awkward tension that swirled around them, he breathed out. When she looked up the light caught her eyes, surprising him as they did each time with the pure blueness.