by Sophia James
This was the woman who had said that to her, all that time before. The hands, the rings with the sapphires upon them, the eyes that were the same as her own. She breathed in. Even the smell was the same. Lost. To her. A lifetime ago.
The room began to swirl around, upending balance and sense. Belle tried to find a place to cling to and then the Earl’s arms were around her, lifting her up, his jacket beneath her cheek, binding her to him. The sofa came under her and a blanket was found, warm and thick to take away her shakes. Her fingers threaded into Thorn’s and she held on for all she was worth, the only centre in her out-of-control world.
‘Don’t go. Please.’ She whispered the words and he smiled.
‘I won’t.’
The older woman sat now in a chair next to the sofa. ‘I am sorry to give you a fright, Anna, but I have had rather a big one myself.’ A handkerchief was in her grasp now and she dabbed at her eyes.
Anna? Her name? Anna Buchanan. She remembered that, too. Lady Anna Elizabeth Tennant-Buchanan.
‘Who are you?’ Her voice was working again, but even as she asked the question she understood exactly who this was.
‘I am your grandmother. Your mother Elizabeth was my daughter and I have never been able to find you though I have searched and searched.’
‘Where?’
Thorn balanced on the arm of the sofa and she looked up at him as though she needed confirmation on all that was being said. He nodded, allowing her belief.
‘In Europe. Your parents died in a carriage accident near Marseilles in France twenty-seven years ago and there was never any sign of you, but I always prayed and hoped. And now...well... Thornton has brought you home to me and I cannot thank him enough.’
‘How did you know?’ This query was for the Earl.
‘Your cousin was responsible for both the carriage accident and the fire. He wanted you gone, I suspect, before his grandmother got word of you. It seems that to divide even a little of your grandmother’s wealth was untenable to him.’
The Dowager Countess frowned and was about to speak when Aunt Alicia moved forward to stand in front of her.
‘Anna was delivered to me by a nun from the Notre-Dame de la Nativité in the village of Moret-sur-Loing. She said your daughter had brought the child in to be safe from her violent husband, for they had both been hurt by his fury.’
‘I warned her. I warned Elizabeth so many times, but she would not listen.’ Annalena Tennant-Smythe’s voice was shaky and Annabelle reached out at the pain she could hear, her fingers cupping the small fragile hand. Her skin felt like crinkled paper but warm.
‘Your father was a handsome man and my daughter was head over heels in love before he’d said his first words. I had my reservations about such a whirlwind romance, but he was charming and well born and so...’ She tailed off. ‘George Buchanan hit her once at Highwick, but Elizabeth would not hear a word against him. He was a Scottish earl and the family held extensive lands in the hills to the north of Edinburgh and after they left with you late one night I never saw them again. My husband was a violent man, too, so perhaps she was drawn to someone of a similar character to her father. I never forgave myself for the loss of a daughter and a granddaughter and then to have you back, alive after all these years...’ She could not carry on.
Annabelle took a breath and began to explain. ‘My mother saved me, I am sure of it, for when she delivered me to the small village outside of Paris she made the nuns promise that they would look after me until she could come back. Tante Alicia has done her very best to keep me safe ever since.’
‘Then I have you to thank, too, Alicia. There are no words to say what I feel, but...’
Reaching out, Annalena hugged her aunt. Alicia’s own arms came around the Countess’s back and they clung on to each other, two older women caught in the storm of family disappointment, violence, greed and love.
‘I did listen out for strangers who might have come to Moret-sur-Loing to find Annabelle, but they never arrived. I only wanted the very best for her.’ Her aunt sounded exhausted, but she also sounded relieved.
The circle of life and lies had come fully around. She was no longer Annabelle Smith but Anna Elizabeth Tennant-Buchanan, the granddaughter of a countess, this old woman whose quiet bravery was astonishing.
Thorn was a huge part of it, too, for without him this would not be happening. It was his cleverness that had placed all the pieces of the puzzle together after making the connections.
She was a lady now, a woman of the ton with titles from the peerage on both sides of her family; all the reasons she had rejected the idea of being married to the Earl of Thornton in the first place. Yet there was a sadness in his eyes as she felt him unlink her fingers and stand back.
‘I shall leave you in the hands of your family, Annabelle. Your grandmother can protect you now. Alicia will travel with you also back to the Huntington seat in Essex and this is how it should be.’
‘You won’t come with us?’ Terror struck her.
‘No, but I shall be there in London when you are introduced to society. Shayborne and Celeste shall stand with you as will Aurelian and Violet and you will be a sensation. No one will equal you and this is your birthright.’
He said the words in the way that made it certain he wanted no argument. He stated it as a goodbye, too.
Her grandmother was nodding, as was her aunt, the two of them a formidable pair.
Had her new circumstances made him waver, the reality of being aligned with a woman who was the cousin of the man who had mistreated his sister too onerous to contemplate?
She felt marooned by Thorn’s indifference and by his willingness to leave, to simply walk out and desert her here while he returned to London.
She could understand none of it and the initial warmth of finding family began to fade under the realisation that she was losing the only man she would ever love.
He had never said he loved her, however, and he did not now. She went to stand, but her grandmother held her back.
‘I asked Thornton for some time, Anna, and he promised it.’
Chapter Thirteen
Once back in London Lytton went straight to the town house of the Huntingtons in Grosvenor Square and demanded to see Albert Tennant-Smythe.
‘He is indisposed, my lord. The doctor has just left.’
‘Tell the Earl it would be worth his while to get up. Tell him I will wait ten minutes.’ He handed across his card.
‘Yes, your lordship.’
His name was noted and uncertainty flared, but the servant strode up the stairs to relate the message none the less as Lytton waited.
Four minutes later Tennant-Smythe was before him, sporting two black eyes, an arm in a thick bandage and a broken nose.
‘If you are here to finish the job on me, Thornton, then you’d best be getting on with it. As you can see I am in no condition to resist and—’
Lytton interrupted him. ‘I am not going to gaol because of the sorry likes of you, Huntington. Your attacks on Annabelle Smith are repugnant and vile. While I would love to wrap my hands around your neck and squeeze the life from you, I also realise the sheer stupidity of such an action. I want you gone. From England. For ever. I have first-hand accounts of your part in the carriage accident in Whitechapel and I believe that it was you who set the fire in White Street. I have enough evidence to have you flung into gaol for a good many years, yet to drag you through the mire of your misdeeds would impinge upon your grandmother and cousin who are innocents in the face of all the crimes you have committed.’
The other swallowed at that and real fear crossed in to his eyes.
‘Your cousin has been reunited with her grandmother and they have retired to Highwick together. Annalena Tennant-Smythe knows in intimate detail all that has taken place and to say she is ill pleased is putting it mildly. However much I would lik
e to see you rot in gaol personally, I am of the opinion that complete ruin often promotes a misguided and unwelcome notion of revenge and so I am here to offer you an alternative. Leave England within the next few days accompanied by two servants of your choice and I shall provide you with enough money to start again. In America, perhaps. Or somewhere else as equally far-flung. Your choice.’
‘Why would you do that?’ His sneer did not look nearly as pronounced now.
‘I told you. I want you gone. I do not want the Huntington family to be caught up in a scandal just as much as I wish my own not to be. If you do return, everything I hold on the choices you have made shall be offered to the magistrate here in London, immediately, and I shall be baying for your blood.’
He looked at his watch. ‘You have ten seconds to decide your next course of action, Huntington. Starting now.’
In three seconds his answer came.
‘I accept.’
‘My man shall visit you tomorrow with a substantial bank draft. He shall want the name of the ship you have decided to take and the destination you will travel to before he hands it over to you.’
‘I am sorry...’
‘I do not want your apologies, Huntington, I just want you gone.’
In his carriage a few moments later Lytton leant back against the leather and looked out across the London streets. Part of him shook with the need to simply plunge a sharp knife through the chest of the Earl, but the other more sane part warned against it.
He must do everything he could now to safeguard Annabelle’s name. She did not need scandal or foolishness or shame. Gossip would be rife about her past and her unexpected return to London society and he wanted her to have a place here, a home and a family.
He had promised the Dowager Countess on the way to Oxford that he would allow her to show her granddaughter her birthright before seeing her again. An introduction into a society ready to pick a stranger to pieces, no matter how illustrious their family, needed to be handled carefully and with exactly the right set of circumstances and he did not want his relationship with Lady Catherine Dromorne to be part of the equation. Setting Annabelle up in his old apartment had been a mistake, too, he knew that now and by withdrawing from her life completely until she came out any rumours might be allayed.
But he felt alone and desolate and his interview with Huntington had left him edgy and furious.
When Annabelle had taken his hand he had wanted to simply pick her up and take her home, for after days of not seeing her he was anxious to know that she was safe and well. The shock of her grandmother’s reappearance had taken its toll on her, too, he could see that it had, but he could also decipher a sense of excitement and belonging that had not been there before.
With the Earl gone Lytton had made sure that she would stay safe and for now that was all he could do. He needed to let Annabelle go in order to find her again and allow her time to know who she truly was.
Would she still choose him? This query wound around in his head like a curse, for he knew that she would be fêted and admired by every unmarried red-blooded man of the ton.
But a promise was a promise and he meant to keep his word. In six weeks the Dowager Countess Annalena Tennant-Smythe would bring out her granddaughter at a splendid ball in the family town house in Grosvenor Square and he would then make it clear to her exactly how he felt.
Chapter Fourteen
The European silk gown she wore had been primped and fussed with for hours, so that the floating sleeves sat just right and the organza top skirt embellished with embroidered leaves fell in a draped and classic fashion. Peach suited her, she decided, the soft shade picking up the darkness of her hair and the whiteness of her skin. Ribbons of the same shade were threaded through the high waist and the neckline sat off her shoulders, plunging in both the back and the front.
Annabelle tried to pull it up a little so that it did not seem quite so low, but the dressmaker was having none of it, instantly taking it back to where it had been and admonishing her gently.
‘With skin like yours, my lady, and a bosom worth looking at, there should be no reason why one would not show it off. So often I dress girls with far less charm and a lot more uncalled-for arrogance. You will be the belle of the ball and your grandmother will be thrilled, for even in Paris at this moment I doubt one would find a more beautiful gown or a more beautiful woman to fill it.’
Belle thought she would have to take the word of Madame Hervé, for she had no true idea at all of the latest trends in ball gowns and neither did she have much interest in finding out. But the whole idea of being such a centre of attention filled her with anxiety.
She just wanted this first foray into society over so that life as she had known it might return even in a small measure. She could not believe the time it had taken across the past weeks to learn the steps of the dances undertaken at the great balls or the complex eating habits and the rules and manners associated with being a lady that were so ludicrously numerous and unfailingly exact.
Would Thorn be here tonight? Would he ask her to dance? Would he like the new and improved Lady Anna Elizabeth Tennant-Buchanan? There was not much left of the woman he had known in Whitechapel.
He had not come to Highwick. He had not arrived at the doorstep of the Hall to see her. It was only this week that her grandmother had explained she had asked the Earl of Thornton for a promise not to visit so that the life she had lost all those years ago might be able to be fully realised again. Had he let her go? Had he moved on? He had not mentioned love when he had tossed out his words on marriage in the house of his inventor friend and the fact that he had installed her in the rooms of his former mistress didn’t bear great witness to any higher order of intention.
He had wanted her, she knew that, and wanted her badly. Badly enough to even propose his idea of a union?
Her grandmother had come into her room now and she had a long burgundy case in her hands.
‘These were my mother’s, Anna, and her mother’s before her. Would you wear them tonight?’
She flicked open the catch and the necklace and matching earrings of sapphires and diamonds inside were astonishing. Belle had never owned any jewellery apart from the bracelet that she had returned to Thorn.
‘They are beautiful.’
‘They will show the world that you are sponsored by me and in the ton that is not a small thing.’
The last six weeks had been eye opening. Her grandmother was a woman of culture and pride and passion. But as well as all those things she had taken her and her aunt beneath her wings and made sure that they had wanted for nothing.
Alicia had flourished, the chesty cough that had plagued her in Whitechapel for years and years had all but disappeared in Highwick. It was one of the reasons her aunt had not journeyed down to London to see her out in society. She simply could not bear the thought of the London air aggravating her lungs again, the purity of that in the countryside much more to her liking.
Annabelle could scarcely believe her change of circumstances. Now instead of sharing a small rented dwelling in Whitechapel, her grandmother had allotted each of them luxurious suites in Highwick Manor and dressed them both as befitted their station.
She had not seen the Earl of Huntington once and neither had her grandmother and for that they were both actually extremely grateful. She prayed to God that she would not come across him at the ball tonight, for he was one of the few people in the ton who would know that Miss Annabelle Smith and Lady Anna Buchanan were one of the same. Thorn’s friends, of course, held that same knowledge, but she did not imagine them to be a threat at all.
She was nervous. Nervous of making a mistake. Nervous of not being all her grandmother hoped she could be. Nervous of seeing Thorn’s indifference or even dislike.
‘We will go downstairs in fifteen minutes, my dear,’ Annalena said as she fastened the necklace and turned h
er to the mirror.
She looked so very different. She looked like a lady. She looked as if she was born to be in the peach-silk gown with her hair pulled up at the back and a series of ringlets curling around her face. Fastening the earrings with shaking hands, Belle turned to pick up her reticule. It held a handkerchief, lavender salts and a dance card and was embroidered with peach-coloured ribbons to match her dress.
Like the fairy tales in the books she had read in the Tennant-Smythe library of princesses and godmothers and cruel circumstances that had been altered for the better on a trick of magic.
Like Cinderella going to the ball.
She had heard the carriages drawing into Grosvenor Square across the past half an hour and knew the Countess had invited above two hundred guests to her grand and formal evening. The sound of conversation and music could be heard here upstairs, laughter punctuating the hum every now and again.
After this there would be no turning back.
A knock at the door brought the maid in with a calling card.
‘The Honourable Percy Rawlings is in the room outside, my lady.’
‘Oh, good, send him in. My brother has offered to be our escort tonight and he is always very good at these large occasions.’
Belle had met Percy a number of times already, the affable man a firm favourite of the household. She was glad they would have him to lead them down and said so as he appeared.
‘Well my love,’ he returned quickly, ‘your rediscovery has been one of the nicest things to have happened in my life and I know you will be a huge success. It can seem daunting, but Annalena and I shall chase away any wolves.’
Her grandmother brought them each a chilled drink of lemonade and they clinked the crystal glasses together.
‘To family,’ her grandmother said, ‘and to happiness. To Elizabeth, too, wherever she is for making certain in the only way she could that her daughter should return to Highwick.’
The poignant reminder of her mother made Belle smile gently. ‘I wish Mama could have been here.’