Marrying His Cinderella Countess Page 10

  Ellie went through into the kitchen, chilly despite the fire in the range that had been burning all night beneath its turves. She pushed them back with the poker and put on more fuel, filled the old iron kettle from the pump in the corner. The kettle looked as though it had come new with the house. She hoisted it over the fire and went upstairs to dress. She did not want to face Blake again, but if she had to then it would be armoured behind as many layers of clothing as possible.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘It’s raining again, miss.’

  Marjorie, the youngest Grimshaw daughter, who came in three times a week to do the cleaning and help with the laundry, paused in the doorway to impart the good news, then went on down the passageway to the kitchen, a basket of ironing on her hip.

  ‘Amazing,’ Ellie muttered, chewing the end of her pen as she scanned her accounts. ‘What a novelty. Raining this morning and this afternoon. And presumably this evening and all night. Just like yesterday, and the week before, and the week before that. The minister will be preaching on the subject of Noah soon—although if anyone expects me to help herd sheep into an ark they can think again. Stupid animals.’

  The accounts did not look any better the more she pored over them.

  At first she had been so optimistic. Dear little Oscar’s North African adventures had, to her considerable surprise, pleased Messrs Broderick & Alleyn—presumably because she had refrained from having him captured by corsairs—and was even now being printed for the delectation of young people thirsting for information on date-harvesting, camels, and the uses of papyrus for paper-making. Even better was the money for the book that was now sitting in Hodgkin’s Bank in Lancaster, along with Mr Grimshaw’s quarterly rent.

  A significant part of that flowed back into the Grimshaw coffers, in the form of Marjorie’s wages and payment for eggs, milk and a weekly ride into Lancaster for marketing, of course, but that was perfectly affordable.

  And they were comfortable enough. After a month of hard work the house was clean, and mostly warm now that constant fires had had time to sink their heat into the thick walls. She and Polly had a bedchamber each, and the other upstairs rooms were closed off. Downstairs she used the parlour as a sitting room and study, and Polly reigned in the kitchen.

  When—if—it stopped raining Polly had plans for a kitchen garden and a hen coop, but that would only put some food in their stomachs. It would not help with the main problem.

  She mended her pen and tried to think of the positives. The rain kept her inside and usefully occupied in writing a novel of passion and romance, with a grey-eyed desert lord on a black stallion…a hero who kissed like a dream… It was a rational use of her North African research, Ellie told herself, and was considerably more warming than her latest project for Broderick & Alleyn—a juvenile history of Scotland that was dragging along because it took so much longer for her to obtain the books she needed for research, being so far from the London libraries and bookshops.

  When she finished the novel she hoped to sell it to the Minerva Press, and was trying to think up a suitable nom de plume. But she had to complete it first, and get it accepted. Goodness knew when—if—that would produce some money.

  And she was well. Not cold, moderately comfortable, doing productive work. Putting on weight…

  She grimaced at the thought, running a finger over the rather tight seams of her bodice. Much as it had smarted, she had taken Blake’s criticism—or perhaps concern was a kinder description—to heart. She had no need to peck at her food to keep her womanly curves at bay. There was no potentially dangerous man in the house, and outside it no one saw her without the layers of clothing the weather forced on everyone this year—the year they were calling Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.

  Even so, it had been difficult at first to abandon the discipline of always being hungry and to get used to the feeling of sometimes being full up without feeling apprehensive.

  So she was well, busy, plumper… Lonely. The answer to that was to work harder. But, although she was tired by eleven in the evening, there was nothing to fill the long, sleepless hours at night as she lay listening to the soft hiss of rain, the soughing of the wind and thought about a strong male body curled protectively around hers.

  How was he? Where was he? Was he happy? She feared not, although why she could not say.

  Ellie gave herself a brisk mental shake and looked again at the accounts book. Blake was no longer any concern of hers and she had other things to worry about. Good health, hard work and even all the success in the world with one as yet unwritten novel would not help with the problem of the state of the roof.

  She had called in a builder to investigate a wet patch Polly had discovered, and he had found a dozen more. The roof itself would stand for a hundred years, he assured her. The problem was it would leak like a sieve while it did so. Some of the heavy stone slates had slipped, their pegs had rotted, and it all needed stripping off and re-fixing.

  When it stopped raining, of course.

  Then there was the stream that provided their water supply. Despite the rain, the thing was becoming a trickle—and that, Grimshaw had informed her, was because Farmer Bond over on the next farm was diverting water for his new stockyard. Apparently he was perfectly entitled to do because the spring rose on his land. At least, so had said the lawyer she had asked to advise her.

  Now she had no stream and a fat lawyer’s bill for unwelcome advice. Grimshaw had said the only thing to do was to sink a well. And then he’d told her what that was likely to cost. As it was, he was having to take his stock over to the far side of the land he rented from her to water them. The lawyer had said that according to the terms of his lease she was supposed to provide him with an adequate water supply, and if she did not he could legitimately ask for a reduction in rent. So far he hadn’t asked for one, but Ellie was braced for the shock when he did.

  The lawyer had also helpfully pointed out that either she had to raise money for the well and the roof or accept a lower rent and the loss of income—which would further delay the roof and the well—or find someone to buy a farm where there was little water despite constant rain. Except, of course, in the attics, and soon in the rooms below as well. And with the farm went her rents…

  The figures tumbled over and over in her head, getting in the way of her writing, getting in the way of her attempts to plan. If she spent the money from the publishers on the roof or the well—it wouldn’t do both—then there went her tiny nest egg…

  The knocker was rapped sharply. Strange. Ellie put down her pen. The Grimshaws and the farm workers would go to the kitchen door, so did pedlars. It sounded again. Polly was probably up to her elbows in bread dough.

  Ellie took off her writing apron and went to the front door, opened it and found a bedraggled young gentleman on the step and a pony trap standing in the muddy yard.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but I’ve lost my way. I was hoping for directions to Lancaster.’ He took off his hat politely and stood there with the rain soaking his hair.

  He seemed eminently respectable—and very, very wet. ‘You had best come in out of the rain and have a cup of tea before you go on. It will take you another hour, and you will catch your death if you don’t warm up a little. Lead the pony around to the back, where you will find a shed to shelter the trap. Then come in through the kitchen door.’

  ‘I am very much obliged to you, ma’am.’ He resumed his hat, somewhat pointlessly, and did as she’d said.

  Ellie went through to warn Polly to put the kettle on while she went upstairs for a stack of towels. Ridiculous how much she was looking forward to an hour’s conversation with a total stranger when what she needed was a pixie or an elf, or whatever the local supernatural life forms were, to come and guide her to a crock of gold. That or the arrival of a financial wizard.

  The young man introduced himself as James Harkness, on his way to conduct some business in Lancaster. Polly took his dripping coat and hat to put in front of the fi
re and promised to find him an oilskin for his shoulders before he ventured out again.

  He proved good company, regaling them with tales of his encounters on the road north. He accepted a second cup of tea and a slice of cake with expressions of gratitude.

  ‘This is a fine old house, ma’am. It looks sturdy and warm.’

  ‘Sturdy enough except for the roof,’ Ellie said grimly, and reached for another slice of cake. The seams in her good brown gown would have to be let out soon. ‘Which is in dire need of work.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that, ma’am. It will be a big job on a place this size, I should imagine.’

  ‘Big enough.’ Ellie made herself smile, even if it was somewhat lopsided. ‘We will sort it out in time.’

  They sent the damp young man on his way with an oilskin and careful directions, and she went back to her desk. If she could only forget Blake’s words the day they had arrived.

  Stupidly independent…

  ‘You can stay on the doorstep until you rust and get rheumatism. See if I care,’ she had retorted.

  But despite her hostility he had cared. He had come back to make certain she was all right.

  It was a good thing he did not know about the roof or the water supply.

  She wanted Blake, wanted his practical good business sense. Wanted his advice. Wanted him.

  That is just too bad, Ellie. You are stupidly independent, remember? And plain, and of no interest to his lordship whatsoever. So get on and manage. Lord Hainford is no more likely to materialise here than that mythical financial wizard with his pointed hat.

  *

  Mr James Harkness, private enquiry agent, sat on the other side of Blake’s desk and produced his notebook. ‘It is not good, my lord. There’s a water dispute that will reduce the rents and the land value, and the roof is an expensive job. The place is clean, tidy, but it reeks of just making do and I have never been so cold and wet in my life. The locals say it has been the worst summer anyone can recall, just like it has been everywhere this year, and that there’ll be famers heading for ruin. I imagine a farm like hers will be impossible to sell for anything like what it is worth.’

  ‘How did Miss Lytton seem to you?’ Blake kept his voice studiously neutral. He had given Harkness the impression that Ellie was a distant relative and he wanted to keep it like that—although the man would find out soon enough if his interest was aroused.

  ‘Tired,’ the other man said after a moment’s frowning thought. ‘Tired and worried and…dogged. The lady has courage—I will say that for her. The local people say she is always pleasant, pays up on time, is a good neighbour. But you can see they wonder what on earth a southern lady is doing on a remote Lancashire farm with just the one maid.’

  She is up there because some idiot was too tied up in a game of cards to stop her even more idiotic stepbrother ruining her, Blake thought. And then said idiot put her back up to such an extent that she dug her heels in and now her pride won’t let her yield. And the same idiot hasn’t learned from the past…hasn’t worked out how to deal with an intelligent woman without driving her to disaster.

  He had sworn not to become emotionally involved with a woman again, and yet here he was once more with his instincts and his intentions all awry. Very well—he would throw his money and influence at the problem. He could do it at a distance…there was no need for him to become involved.

  ‘Right, get back up there and go and see her lawyer. You will pretend to be the agent for someone. Let me think… I know—some newly rich manufacturer from Manchester who is buying up land while prices are depressed because of the agricultural crisis. Anonymous, of course. Assure her that her tenant is safe, because she will worry about that, and pay top price. Don’t haggle.’

  *

  A month later Blake tossed the deeds for Ellie’s farm across the desk to Jonathan. ‘It worked. I imagine her lawyer could hardly believe his luck, finding a Manchester manufacturer desperate to own land and willing to pay the first price he mentioned. And Harkness says it is still raining—just like it is down here, only colder.’

  ‘What will she do now, do you think?’

  ‘I have no idea. Buy an annuity and a nice cottage somewhere, one hopes. I—Yes, Turner?’

  The butler came in and closed the door. ‘A Miss Lytton, my lord. Asking to speak with you. Demanding, to be more accurate. A most…determined lady. Should I tell her you are not at home?’

  ‘Eleanor Lytton? Here?’

  ‘Yes—here.’

  The door behind Turner opened and Eleanor stalked in. Blake and Jonathan got to their feet. Blake only hoped he was not looking as ridiculously amazed as his brother was.

  ‘I want my farm back, Lord Hainford.’

  ‘Thank you, Turner. That will be all. Eleanor, will you sit down?’

  ‘Do not Eleanor me.’ She took hold of the back of the chair but did not sit. ‘You bought my farm under false pretences.’

  She looked dreadful, he thought, although she had gained weight and in the process developed a figure he most certainly did not remember…

  He dragged his eyes away from her bosom, which was frankly heaving with suppressed emotion, and looked at her face. There were shadows under her eyes, her skin was even paler than before, and beneath the anger she seemed desperately tired.

  ‘I paid a very fair price. The sale is perfectly legal,’ he said. There seemed no point in denying it. ‘How did you know I was the buyer?’

  ‘I was so grateful at first that I didn’t think.’ She came around the chair and sank into it.

  Blake sat too—warily, ready to jump up and catch her if, as seemed likely, she fainted. Anger appeared to be the only thing keeping her going.

  ‘Then the morning after it had all gone through I realised it just did not add up—that either it was a miracle or something strange was going on. I thought perhaps there was coal or iron or something under the land, and in that case I wanted it. So I bribed a chambermaid to let me into that nice Mr Harkness’s bedchamber at the inn while he was eating his breakfast and I went through his papers.’

  ‘You searched his room—?’

  ‘Of course I did. When I saw your name I knew it was too much to hope that he would take the money back—not if he was working for you. So I came straight down here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To give it back myself.’ She opened her reticule and produced a bank draft. ‘Here it is. Now, give me the deeds.’

  ‘No. Why, Eleanor?’

  ‘I do not take charity.’

  When he shook his head she picked up the bank draft, walked across to the fireplace and tossed it into the flames.

  Jonathan leapt to his feet with an oath and seized the poker—but too late. He threw it into the grate with a muttered curse and stalked back to his seat.

  ‘I will simply write another,’ Blake said.

  ‘And I will not take it. I cannot be beholden to you.’ She swallowed, but kept her head up, staring at a point over his left shoulder.

  Her hazel eyes swam with tears that she would not let fall, and he realised suddenly that this was not anger, but the stubborn defiance of a woman at her wits’ end.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked, holding up a hand to silence Jonathan. ‘Why not let me help? You blame me for Francis’s death, for letting him ruin you. All I am doing is making amends as best I can. I might have paid over the odds for that land now, but eventually I will get my investment back and you need the money at once—not in some indefinite future.’

  ‘No…’ she whispered, and closed her eyes on those betraying tears.

  Her lips were parted, just a fraction, and suddenly he was back in that meadow, with her body warm and eager beneath his, those lips fresh and sweet and open to him. Back on that heap of sheepskins, with her defenceless and trusting, asleep in his arms, turning drowsily to meet his questing mouth.

  Blake blinked and there she was, sitting opposite him. Drab and plain and, despite the new curves, a beanpole. And as f
ierce and proud as a defeated queen.

  ‘All right,’ he heard himself saying. ‘If you won’t take my money then take me. Marry me.’

  ‘What?’ Jonathan’s chair went over with a crash as he shot to his feet.

  ‘Marry you?’ Eleanor’s eyes were wide open now. ‘Me?’

  ‘Why not?’

  The room seemed to swim around him and he wondered if he was coming down with something. Certainly words seemed to be issuing from his lips without any conscious thought behind them.

  ‘You are from a good family, perfectly eligible, and I really ought to get married—should have done it sooner. Yes?’

  Jonathan was staring at him as though he had gone mad. He probably had. That was it—not a fever but insanity. Or he was drunk. Or this was a dream.

  He had just asked a plain, penniless spinster to marry him.

  Chapter Ten

  Ellie blinked and swallowed salt. Blake had just asked her to marry him. Lord Hainford was asking her to be his countess. But it could not be true, of course. She was so tired, so worried, so miserable that she had made herself ill and now she was hallucinating in the grip of a fever. Or she was dreaming.

  But if this was a fantasy, she might as well enjoy it until she woke up.

  ‘Yes,’ she said as his face blurred and she felt herself slide from the chair.

  *

  Where was she? Somewhere warm. Somewhere that was not damp and that did not smell of woodsmoke. Somewhere exceedingly comfortable, with deep feather beds. Oh, yes. She was going to be a countess. That explained it.

  Ellie sat up in bed with a muffled yelp and clutched at her swimming head. That had been a dream, not real—so where was she now?

  There was a bell-pull right next to the bed and she tugged on it. It would not bring Polly. She was still up in Lancashire, keeping an eye on the farm. Unless that was all part of the dream as well…

  ‘Good morning, Miss Lytton.’ Not Polly, but a tall, dark-haired maid in neat blue, with a crisp white apron. She was holding a tray. ‘I was just coming up to see if you were awake yet and to bring you some chocolate. Would you like breakfast in bed? Or I can lay the table over there if you would rather get up, miss.’