The Cinderella Countess

by Sophia James

Their conversation was cut short as her mother joined them. The Countess of Dromorne was an arresting woman and Lytton had heard all the stories of her first Season in society. She had been incomparable and her daughters had taken after her, though he doubted that they had quite reached the heights she so obviously had.

  The blonde perfection of mother and daughter was striking and Lytton found himself looking for flaws that must after all be present, though he found none.

  ‘My husband and I are pleased for the commitment you are showing to Catherine, my lord. I know your mother must have been thrilled as well, as this union was something we had spoken of together when our daughter was first born.’

  Lytton had not told Cecelia anything at all about the understanding between them, preferring to push it under the carpet until he had to face it or at least until he saw his mother next and could try to explain.

  ‘My younger daughter Jane is due out this next Season, so it is always a pleasure to get one child well seen to before the other arrives.’

  Relief rather than pleasure was evident in her voice and Lytton was grateful when refreshments came and she turned to help herself.

  Catherine, however, hurried on to another topic. ‘I hear that your sister is so much better for although she was a few years behind me at school I always liked her. Mama is a friend of Lady Isabel Franklin, who lives near Balmain, so we receive the gossip about your family.’

  Not all of it, Lytton hoped, and accepted a glass of white wine from the passing footman. Visions of Annabelle Smith in the carriage came with force, her hand in his, her smile uncertain, the dimples in her cheeks so deep that they contained shadows.

  He could see Aurelian watching him from over in the corner, but there was nothing else he could do but concur that he had lost the battle and that unless something extraordinary happened he would have a wife in tow by the end of the year. A wife that he liked, but would never love. A wife that would suit the Earldom admirably, but would never hold his heart.

  Catherine herself looked less worried as he continued to bide at her side, talking to him of her latest foray into the world of fashion and of a horse she had recently procured.

  ‘I heard you had won a beauty yourself, Thorn, and from Lord Huntington. I imagine he would not have been happy. He has gone back to Highwick Manor to face his grandmother, by all accounts, for it was her steed. She is a woman of opinion and steel, the Dowager Countess, and not one I would like to cross. Do you know her?’

  He didn’t. He had no real knowledge of Huntington’s family at all.

  ‘Oh, well, enough of them. Mama feels we should have a party in three weeks at our town house. An invite will be coming your way and I hope you might stand with me in the receiving line.’

  To announce his intentions to everyone present, Lytton thought, vowing to be out of London for that occasion. He was not ready for this, for any of it. All he wanted was to go home and try to work out when and where his direction in life had gone so terribly wrong.

  ‘I hope, Catherine, that you do realise I see you as a friend. I have never held stronger feelings.’ He knew this was hardly the place to have this sort of conversation, but time was running out and he needed her to understand.

  Catherine shook her head and waved the words away. ‘Well, who has really, Thorn? Look around you. This love that people speak of is a myth, I think. If one can get on in a marriage and enjoy friendship, surely that should be enough?’

  ‘The Shaybornes have more, I think, and the de la Tombers.’

  ‘Two couples out of a hundred and who really is to say it will last? Please, Thorn, we have never once had a disagreement. We laugh at a lot of the same things. Our parents are friends and we have had a most similar upbringing.’

  He could not dispute that and yet in all the sentiment he understood a loss.

  When a friend of Catherine’s came over to join her he made an excuse and was able to extricate himself from further talk. Celeste Shayborne took his arm as he passed her by.

  ‘You seem to be spreading yourself thinly of late, Thorn. I seldom see you any more.’

  ‘The curse of being busy, I am afraid. The cannery business is time consuming.’

  ‘So are women, I should imagine? Annabelle Smith was certainly interesting. And beautiful, too. I have heard you have been a regular visitor in Whitechapel ever since?’

  ‘A carriage knocked Miss Smith over. I was seeing if she needed help.’

  ‘My God. I had not heard of that? Is she all right? Does Summer know?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t, for it just happened and, yes, she lived, but with bruises and scratches.’

  ‘Who wanted her hurt?’ Lytton could see her mind working. Celeste Fournier had once been a spy in Paris and for her nothing extraordinary was ever simply chance.

  ‘I am trying to find out. Lian is helping me.’

  ‘I can’t imagine someone like Annabelle Smith having enemies unless...’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Could he have materialised from the time she does not wish to talk about?’

  ‘I am certain he has.’

  ‘Then what has changed lately? You? You have come into her life? Could he know you?’

  ‘That is a good point, Celeste, and I will think about it.’

  ‘If Annabelle Smith wants to talk to me about her past, I would be very happy to listen. God knows my own was hardly exemplary.’

  ‘She barely talks to me of it, Celeste, so I doubt she will want that.’

  ‘But she will talk when you earn her trust. Besides, when we met her I saw her watching you with something more than mere interest in her startling blue eyes, something more akin to worship.’

  ‘I doubt she would agree with your assessment of her feelings.’

  ‘I knew in a moment that Summer was the one for me, the one I would love for ever. A good union is like that, Thorn. A poor one only emphasises what is missing.’

  ‘Thank you for your advice, Lady Shayborne.’

  Celeste laughed at his tone and finished her drink.

  * * *

  Lytton returned home in a worse mood than he had ventured out with. He’d hardly wanted to spend any time with Catherine and her family, skirted around the best intentions of his friends and allowed Celeste to plant the hope that perhaps Miss Annabelle Smith really did think more of him than she was showing.

  And a foolish hope it was. Miss Smith had not uttered anything that could be construed as vaguely personal and she had always looked thankful as he had left her company.

  Even the bracelet had been a poor idea. In Whitechapel it would probably be stolen and then pawned, no one having the slightest idea of what the thing was really worth. Or she might wear it only once or twice because she had promised it. Miss Smith gave the impression of a woman who would keep promises no matter how irksome they might become to her.

  All in all, he had sold his soul to pragmatism and reaped the reward of compromise. He was miserable.

  He noticed the rapping bang on the front door just before midnight and tipped his head to listen. The butler was saying something loudly and the visitor was shouting back in a voice that was louder still.

  Fire was one of the first words Lytton heard and he stood. Where? Here? He sniffed at the air and could detect no scent of smoke. Feet were running now towards the library and he crossed the floor to open the door before the knock came.

  ‘There is someone here from Whitechapel, your lordship. Mr McFaddyen I think he said his name was and...’

  Lytton was out of the door before his man was even finished speaking, striding towards the front lobby and the dishevelled and ash-covered giant who stood within it.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The house went up, my lord, in a flash. It were started under the front door and spread like wildfire.’

  ‘Did she
get out? Miss Smith and her aunt? Are they safe?’ He felt as though time was suspended, the ticks of the grandfather clock to one side slowing and the roar in his ears muffling any sound left. Like running through water, but on land. Drowning.

  ‘They are, Sir, but only by a whisper and there is nothing left of their possessions. They are in the carriage outside. I brought them here ’cos I didn’t know what else to do.’

  The world refocused and Lytton walked out into the night to find Annabelle sitting on the carriage seat with the door open and watching the sky. Her aunt was fast asleep beside her, wrapped in the only blanket between them.

  ‘Hell.’ He could say nothing else as the tears she had held on to suddenly flowed down her cheeks at the sight of him, clean runnels of skin showing where soot had just been.

  ‘I did not want to come, but...’

  Lytton looked back at the house and made up his mind.

  ‘Stay inside the carriage and I will be right back.’

  Thornton House would be too much of everything for two women ripped from Whitechapel by fire and standing in the dirty rags of what was left of their clothes. The servants would talk and Annabelle would hear all of what he wanted her not to. The ravages of snobbery would destroy her as would the blow to her reputation should he deem to invite her in with only her aunt as chaperon. And that was notwithstanding any gossip about his peculiar arrangement with Lady Catherine Dromorne.

  No. It had to be somewhere else and the rooms that he had learnt Susan Castleton had vacated last week in Kensington would be the bolthole he needed. He was still paying the rent, after all, and the place was the peak of discretion when it came to the ever-changing residents. His mind whirled as he catalogued the furniture within. Was there anything untoward or plainly crude about the decor? He thought not, even though it was slightly on the wrong side of being respectable. He did not imagine Annabelle and her aunt would know enough about the more usual interior decoration of the great houses in London to be surprised by this one, so he left that there.

  After retrieving the keys from his library, he returned outside. Tomorrow he would hire servants and get the place in order. Tonight Annabelle and her aunt looked only as if they needed a bath and a bed.

  Annabelle watched him intently, the splint missing from her hand now and the black eye much less swollen. He could not tell if the bruising was still present, but thought not given the whiteness of her skin showing through the line of tears.

  Three days since he had seen her last. It seemed like for ever.

  He took the seat opposite to the women, Aunt Alicia having wakened now and sitting in a miserable bundle against the door. McFaddyen climbed in beside him.

  ‘What can you tell me about the fire?’

  ‘It were lit, my lord, but we saw nothing at all.’

  ‘You were not out front?’

  If it was possible for a large and ornery man to look embarrassed, McFaddyen did.

  ‘I were inside sitting down to dinner, your lordship. The maid Milly had just left to visit her mother and Miss Smith had invited me in, for it were the last of the mutton stew I had been smelling for days and so...’

  ‘I see.’ And he did. Kind manners had undone them. Sharing the last of their meagre amount of food with the guard had allowed an opportunity for whoever it was that wanted them dead.

  ‘How did you get out?’

  ‘I grabbed them both and charged through the front door. The dog is missing.’

  Lytton breathed in hard. Stanley. Even a hound who had ripped his pink waistcoat and barked outrageously every time he had visited did not deserve to die that way.

  ‘We will look for him again tomorrow. Dogs have a way of escaping such things.’

  Aunt Alicia looked at him directly as he said this and he saw an aching hope in her old eyes.

  In Annabelle’s he saw nothing. She sat there as if she were made of stone, her expression dead and her chin quivering.

  ‘Her Bible is burnt,’ the old aunt murmured in her best English by way of explanation and Lytton frowned. He had not thought Annabelle Smith was so religious.

  ‘I can buy you another one, Miss Smith.’

  She simply shook her head at that and looked away. As she moved Lytton saw the beads of blue and green around her wrist under the tattered remains of her patched-up shirt and he swallowed.

  It was all gone. Stanley. The house. Her paintings. Lucy’s gift. The medicines. The furniture. Their lives. Gone up in smoke in the time it might take to make a cup of tea. Her Bible was the thing she regretted the most after Stanley, a link to her mother that had only just been forged. She had slept with it beside her ever since her aunt had retrieved it from the top shelf and told her the truth of where it had come from.

  And now here they were, washed up again into the care of the Earl of Thornton in the late evening and smelling like burnt logs. At least she had been wearing her bracelet when Mr McFaddyen had seized them around the waist and dragged them out. It was safe. She tucked the treasure up under her sleeve so that it would not be damaged further by the soot.

  This time she could not pay him. This time, if he were to have turned them away, they would have been on the street, trying to fathom where on earth they might go next.

  Oh, the nuisance of it for him, she thought. No wonder the Earl would not take them into his house, but had brought them further afield. She had not wanted to meet his glance for fear of the disgust she might see there. She wanted to be apart from it all, somewhere else, somewhere clean and free. But most of all she wanted to lie down and just sleep.

  Her wrist was sore and her head ached and the cut received on her leg as she was dragged through the house would need to be tended. She looked down at the soft leather of the carriage seat and saw that the soot from their clothes had left rivers of darkness upon it. There was blood there, too.

  When the conveyance drew to a halt the Earl alighted first and held out his hand and Belle could do nothing but place her fingers into his. His palm curled up, the warmth of him scalding, and she might have tripped with the shock had he not steadied her.

  ‘Careful.’

  He was close now, almost against her, his big body shielding hers from the cold of night. Her aunt was watching as was the guard, Mr McFaddyen, but even with the onlookers Belle found it impossible to let go as she began to shake.

  ‘You are safe now. No one will hurt you here.’

  But they would, she wanted to say to him, and they will, because you are who you are and I am who I am. In this one small second after disaster they had a place, hung between realities and compassion. In another moment even that would be gone and common sense would prevail.

  Tears resurfaced with the grief of it and then all contact was gone as he reached for her aunt.

  She stood in the street, watching the building until the others stood beside her. This area of London looked nothing like Whitechapel with its dirtied bricks and its filthy streets. Here everything was clean and there was no one around. An empty place. With trees and greenery and a park just yards away. The steps were shining and the door was made of gold.

  Large bunches of real flowers were displayed in vases as they walked inside and a few scattered armchairs were carved with angels and cherubs in a style she had never seen before.

  Taking a candleholder that sat on a table, the Earl ushered them up a circular ironwork staircase at one end of the hall. He looked completely at home in such a place and amid the paintings decorating the wall almost from top to bottom. Once on the landing she saw the rugs on the floor were thick, burgundy interwoven with orange and blue and cream.

  Then there was a door and a key turned and they were inside a space that was twenty times bigger than their dwellings in Whitechapel. A room that went on for ever.

  ‘I hope this will do?’ The Earl’s voice was an echo as he glanced around quickly. Was he
looking for something? Annabelle thought.

  ‘It is like a palace,’ Belle whispered before she realised she had, drawing herself in so that the dirt would not spoil anything here. Her aunt seemed to be doing the same. McFaddyen had stopped by the door as if he understood that his sooty bulk wouldn’t be conducive at all in a place like this.

  ‘There is a bath this way. I will have hot water sent up. The bedrooms are in there.’

  One room had angels on the ceiling that had the look of a picture Belle had seen in the church at Moret-sur-Loing. They were all naked. Lamps on each side of the bed had the same general look except these were of women displaying bounteous charms.

  The married couple who once lived here must have enjoyed each other, Belle thought, and smiled. Thornton for his part did not look happy at all.

  ‘I will have the rooms looked over tomorrow and some of the pieces in it replaced.’

  ‘It is beautiful, but if we make it dirty—’

  He didn’t let her finish.

  ‘I’ll pay to have it cleaned.’

  It was his, this place, for people owned many more houses than they could ever live in when they were wealthy. It was a knowledge on the streets.

  ‘We won’t be here long. Friends will help...’ She tailed off. Places were small and crowded in Whitechapel, but Rose would have them, she was sure of it, at least until they could get on their feet.

  A knock on the door brought a wave of servants in, all carrying clothes and food and other necessities and before she knew it Alicia and she were whisked off into a bath chamber. When she returned to the main room in a borrowed nightdress and slippers both the Earl and Mr McFaddyen were gone.

  * * *

  The letter came first thing in the morning, by special mail.

  Lytton had not been to bed, the events of the night leaving him tensed up and furious, and he knew that today would be a busy one trying to piece together exactly what had happened in White Street.

  The address at the top of the page was Highwick Manor in Essex and the stamp at the bottom was from the Dowager Countess of Huntington.