The Cinderella Countess

by Sophia James

  ‘Then I could send a letter to her at the church in Moret-sur-Loing?’

  Alicia crossed the room to sit beside her. ‘Now that you’ve remembered a few things, it is probable you will remember more. You are English so some members of your family might still be here.’

  ‘Is that why we came to London?’

  ‘No. France was in a turmoil and I thought you could be in danger if we stayed. You were still too young to be truly safe and I wanted to protect you.’

  And here was another honourable guardian, a woman who would leave behind all she knew for the custody of a child who was not her own. Belle took her old aunt’s hand and felt the crepe-thin skin, the sun from the fading day sending small last shards of light down upon them, dust motes swirling in the eddies.

  Outside Whitechapel burst into night noises, the men coming home from the pubs, the merchandisers selling fish and bread for tea, the children running in dirty tumbling bundles home through the narrow and poverty-stricken alleys. The proper order of life had been turned upside down only for her and there was a reassurance in that as she sat clutching her mother’s Bible.

  * * *

  Annabelle Smith came again to Portman Square the following Wednesday and Lytton was waiting for her.

  ‘Could I have a word with you in the library, Miss Smith?’

  Today she wore an old blue gown with a half-jacket in red. The hat she sported was too large for her head, the front of it falling down over her forehead in a way that looked almost comical. Why did she never look as he expected? She carried a bunch of white daisies, too, wrapped in newspaper.

  ‘For your sister,’ she explained when she saw him looking. ‘They grow in one of my patients’ garden and so I asked her if I could pick some.’

  ‘I see. Could you sit down for a moment?’ Already this meeting was veering off to some place he did not wish it to go and he was pleased when they reached the library and were alone.

  With care she did as he asked, folding her skirts across her legs so that not even the tiniest piece of skin showed above her boots or below the hemline.

  ‘I have reason to believe that my sister is with child, Miss Smith.’

  Lytton saw the shock of it on her face, the darkening eyes, the way her tongue licked her top lip. The utter stillness that was so unlike her.

  ‘I was hoping you might have some more details to add to what I know.’

  Her answer came very quietly. ‘What is it you do know?’

  So she didn’t deny it. The dark rush of sorrow made him swallow. ‘Very little. My sister has always been secretive and as such it is now difficult to see the way forward, to ensure the child has a father and she has a place in society.’

  ‘She will not marry him, your lordship.’

  His heart thumped at this statement. Loudly.

  ‘I told your sister that you would always be protective of her and that she was safe here with you.’

  ‘Which, of course, she will be, but—’

  She did not let him finish.

  ‘He will not just get away with it. The man who did this to her. I promised her that, at least.’

  Lytton was horrified and could not believe what he was hearing. ‘It is not your problem to deal with, Miss Smith, it is mine. Who is he?’ He tried to keep the fury from his tone, but failed.

  ‘I am a healer, your lordship, and the things a patient relates to me in confidence are for my ears alone. If your sister wishes it different, she will tell you.’

  ‘God. I want to kill him!’ There was no kindness left in him now. If she had given him a name he would have primed his guns and left Annabelle there, revenge banishing reason and eliminating sense.

  ‘I was thinking more in the line of a rough up.’ Her voice came quietly.

  ‘A rough up?’ He stood. ‘With a group of assorted strong men from Whitechapel? A measured punishment that was untraceable?’

  She nodded.

  ‘No. I will not let you do that. Nothing is untraceable and when you are caught...’

  ‘The seething shifting population of Whitechapel stays well out of the way of the law. Being caught, as you put it, is not something that happens often there. More normally the world just goes on a little different from the way it was before and the one who is at fault is punished.’

  The Earl of Thornton was furious. Belle could see it on his face and in his stance and in the balled fists he held rigidly at his side. Men often struck out in anger in Whitechapel when they held the same look of violence and a new worry surfaced. Would he be like that?

  Rising from her chair, she took a step back, bringing her reticule between them. If it was even possible, his eyes blackened further, one hand reaching out to take her arm.

  ‘I would not hurt you. Ever. Believe at least that of me, Miss Smith.’

  She did have faith in these ground-out words, impossible as they might seem, as she tipped her head to observe him. He was so beautiful up close, his eyes webbed in a lighter gold, a masculinity that was undeniable and worrying. She wanted to lose herself in such a glance and be taken to the point of no return, all logic melted.

  Kiss me.

  Had she said this? Relief welled when she realised she had not. But he must have seen the echo of it on her face as she turned away, this raw thought making her shake, shock scrawled in waves across her body. She wanted him, she did, wanted him to simply reach out and take her lips with his. She wanted to kiss him in the way women had kissed men all across the centuries, without barriers or reasons or explanation.

  In her whole life she had been distant with men, detached and reserved. But with Lytton Staines, the Earl of Thornton, there was an awareness that was startling, almost discomforting, a sort of sentience that held no true understanding.

  Stars hide your fires;

  let not light see my black and deep desires.

  Shakespeare’s words tumbled around and around in her head, the rhythm allowing her some equanimity. Others in history and literature had felt like her and they had managed, though Macbeth’s dubious example was perhaps not quite what she was after. But the inclination to hide her feelings from both others and herself felt mildly honourable and so the words stayed. A protection to what lay beneath.

  ‘Children are always a gift, your lordship, even ones that come unexpectedly. Your sister is young, but she is a survivor and the Thornton name can conceal much.’

  She needed to bring the conversation back before she faltered, needed it to be about Lucy and her child and the future and not about the feelings that simmered between them or about the violence that hovered close.

  ‘You truly believe this, that there is the propensity to recover from this?’

  ‘A huge bulk of the population survives without having anything at all to do with society. Your sister can help out at the Whitechapel clinic, she can teach other younger girls how to read and write, she can...’

  ‘Stop. You have no idea what is at stake here. With a child born out of wedlock my sister will never have a place to live safely, never be accepted by all the people she knows. Who would marry her now?’

  ‘Maybe she is not after marriage.’ Her own ire had fired. ‘Maybe she wants freedom and options and other possibilities.’

  ‘Like the pathway you have chosen?’

  ‘A husband is not always the way to lasting happiness, your lordship.’

  ‘God.’ The huge chasm that yawned between them widened further. Annabelle Smith had no idea of the life he lived, the conventions and expectations, the unspoken truths of privilege. And how could she? How could he even have supposed it? Her voice and her body and her startling eyes had mesmerised him, made him foolish, were still making him foolish, but it needed to stop. Now.

  ‘How much could I pay you in order for you to keep quiet about this whole...situation, Miss Smith?’

 
‘Pardon?’ She looked puzzled.

  ‘Blackmail, Miss Smith. I want to make certain that it never happens because of this. What sum would keep you from mentioning my sister’s circumstances to anyone else...for ever?’

  He felt her breathe out, felt the loss of her respect with an ache. ‘The sum of honour, your lordship, and if you had to ask such a question then you have none.’

  He smiled, though there was a tightness in his throat. ‘I have thousands of pounds to my name and a good number of them could be at your disposal if they allowed me to ascertain silence. Consider that.’ Sometimes, thought Lytton, it took a few tries to get a person to reveal their true colours. How many times in the business world had he seen this? ‘If you won’t think of yourself, Miss Smith, then think of the difference such an amount might make in Whitechapel.’

  ‘To sell my soul on the account of your deceit? To be devalued by standards that are repugnant to me? I think not.’

  ‘You were the one who lied about my sister’s malady.’ He could not let it go, not just yet, not till he understood her purpose completely.

  ‘I did not tell you of her condition because she asked me not to, as my patient.’

  ‘And as the one paying the bills am I accorded no rights whatsoever? As a brother? As a guardian?’

  ‘I cannot be the puppet of two masters, your lordship. It is neither feasible nor advisable.’

  ‘Who are you then exactly, Miss Smith? No other soul from Whitechapel whom I have met speaks the King’s English as you do and yet refuses the chance of a lucrative handout. If I asked around about your history, what might I find?’

  The fear on her face made him falter.

  ‘I do not wish to hurt you. I only wish to keep my family safe.’

  ‘Then allow me to do my job, your lordship, and see to your sister’s health needs. That is all. Afterwards I doubt we shall ever meet again.’

  He nodded and summoned a servant, the relief he saw in her eyes as she left more than evident.

  * * *

  Perhaps she hated him, Belle thought. Perhaps it was easier. Perhaps in the full comprehension of the differences between them it would be a more sensible thing to feel. He had mistresses and a woman who had been handpicked for him in marriage by his parents. He had others, too, who were hopeful of a relationship according to his sister, for Lucy, by her own admission, had been beating off enquiries about him ever since arriving in society.

  Annabelle sat down on her bed and put her head in her hands. The Earl thought she might blackmail him about his sister’s pregnancy? What sort of a person would think such a thing? One with a huge estate to run and a family who was falling to pieces all around him, that was who.

  He did not trust her. Perhaps he did not trust anyone as faith diminished under responsibility. What would it be like to live with a man like that, a man who imagined everyone his enemy, adversaries around every corner.

  Reaching for her Bible, she held it close, wishing her mother were here to talk with, to ask advice from, to alleviate her utter loneliness. As she did this she noticed the stitching on the bottom back corner of the leather cover had unravelled, a small piece of paper tucked away inside suddenly seen.

  With care she prised it out to find a single name written there. Annalena. The blue ink was faded and the writing was cursive, an old style of handwriting that was prevalent in the borrowed books from the printer in London.

  Annalena.

  She had no memory of this name, try as she might to find one, as she said it out aloud to herself in as many different ways that she thought it could be pronounced.

  This little clue was enthralling and captivated her attention. Was it her mother’s name? The woman with the beaten face who had thrust her at the nun at the Catholic church? Was it a place, somewhere denoting her origins? Or the name of the house in the green fields descending to a lake?

  Annalena? Blue eyes were there. Eyes the same colour as her own. Piercing and sad. Saying goodbye to her. Holding her close. Crying.

  ‘Come back to me, little one. Come back when you can.’

  Belle felt her own tears pouring down her face here in her room years and years later. A mother. No. That did not quite seem right. An older woman. A grandmother?

  Nannalena? Another remembered word. She had called her that, there in the green fields with the manor at her back, a winding moat across the front façade hiding a small river running to the sea.

  She was lost from it. Lost from this and the woman. Annalena. Lost from sight and yet remembering. Abandoned, but loved. Once. Her own name was a part of this one. Anna. The whisper of history reached out and she heard them calling her, among the green of trees and flowers.

  ‘Anna. Anna. Where are you?’

  ‘Here,’ she whispered. ‘I am lost and waiting.’

  How could she find them again, these people, with such a small and tiny clue? She could not ask for help from her aunt and she did not have the funds to leave London and search the rural countryside for a needle in a haystack.

  She needed to remember more, but try as she might she could not. A headache was all she got for her trouble. That and a blinding realisation that she would need to be patient.

  The Earl of Thornton’s words today also reverberated around in her head.

  ‘Who are you then exactly, Miss Smith? No other soul from Whitechapel whom I have met speaks the King’s English...’

  Her secrets were beginning to hunt her out, the small enclave she had lived in here widening with her recent visits to Portman Square.

  There were answers close and possibilities which both frightened and excited her.

  ‘Who are you, Miss Smith?’

  It felt it would not be too much longer before she found her answers.

  Chapter Six

  Two days later she was back again at Portman Square and Lady Lucy looked so much better. It was youth, Belle supposed, for at twenty the body could bounce back from things that a decade later might only be managed with much more difficulty. The Earl of Thornton’s sister made her feel old and after the interview with Lord Thornton in the library the other day she was already on guard, a melancholy assailing her that was unlike anything she’d ever known before. She hoped she would not see him almost as much as she hoped she would.

  He was lost to her, the Earl. She could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. The end of regard. The beginning of distance. His sister, however, was more than animated.

  ‘I am so glad you have come, Miss Smith, for I have begun to take note of Mrs Wollstonecraft’s words and such strength has been a considerable help. I feel now as though I can go on with my life in a renewed way.’

  ‘And the child?’

  ‘I shall retire to Balmain and live in the country with my mother until I decide what must be done next. London feels lessened for me now and exhausting and I need to recover.’

  ‘Your brother knows you are with child. He has asked me for the name of the father.’

  Lucy nodded her head. ‘I thought he knew, for I could see it in his eyes when he spoke to me yesterday. If I tell him it was Huntington, I think he will kill him and then what will happen? The estate has only just recovered from my father’s unwise excess and if Thorn is thrown into gaol for his act of revenge then where will it leave us all? My brother is a man who likes to be on top of things, you see, and one who dislikes any surprise. I think you are a great surprise to him, Miss Smith.’

  Now this was new. ‘How do you mean, Miss Staines?’

  ‘Lucy. I wish you to call me that. Thorn is a man who is in control of every part of the Earldom. The finance, the family, the estates. My sister, brother and I have probably all in our own ways been trials to him, but he has handled everything with aplomb. With you he has been knocked askew, for I think he cannot believe that a woman might choose her way in life without a man and enjoy it.
’

  Annabelle was astonished. In little more than a week the younger sister of the Earl of Thornton seemed to have grown up and blossomed. She was no longer downtrodden or sad and, although she was still very thin, she also looked healthy.

  ‘I also want to ask something of you, Miss Smith, something personal.’

  Annabelle nodded.

  ‘I have decided to let go of my anger and, although I might have intimated to you that revenge was something I was after, I no longer feel that way at all. I want now to simply enjoy my baby without being held back by anything.’

  ‘A wise choice, I think.’

  ‘So the favour that I would ask of you is to forget all I told you and be happy for me.’

  ‘I shall do that, Lucy. My aunt would applaud your choice, for there are things in my family that have been difficult and she is one who would look to the future with hope rather than to past regrets.’

  ‘I knew you would understand. I hope you might be persuaded to visit me at Balmain. I could send the carriage down if you would deign to come. Perhaps when the baby is near time for I would feel far happier and safer if you were there.’

  ‘I should like that.’

  ‘I also want to give you something, Miss Smith. Something to remember me by.’

  She walked across to a desk at one side of the room and extracted a small parcel wrapped in coloured paper and red ribbon.

  ‘It is only a small token, I know, but it reminds me so much of you.’

  When Annabelle opened it she saw it was a painting of flowers done in oil.

  ‘It’s a painting I bought last year in the Academy’s Summer Exhibition. The fallen bloom is me and you, Miss Smith, are represented in the strength of the roses above.’

  ‘It’s beautiful.’ And it was. How could have Lucy known she enjoyed images of flowers? Perhaps her brother had told her of the paintings in the front room at White Street. Her own attempts at mimicking nature seemed naive against the detail of this image.

  ‘I shall hang it on my wall, Lucy, and think of you. I am sorry I have nothing to give in return...’