Marrying His Cinderella Countess Read online

  ‘You sway elegantly,’ Verity said, prowling behind her to tweak at her skirts. ‘Time to go.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. I do not want to be late.’

  ‘Of course you do. It does men good to be kept waiting. Kept wondering. Veil down, now.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Blake stood and studied the dark wood panelling behind the altar and willed himself not to fidget. Eleanor was late—the church clock had chimed the hour at least ten minutes ago—but looking at the time would only betray his anxiety. The whispering and speculation was bad enough without presenting the congregation with a picture of a nervous bridegroom. Beside him Jonathan stood silent and still, exuding competence and the aura of a man who knew exactly where the wedding ring was.

  He had put up a spirited resistance to the request that he be best man until Blake had snapped that it would prove a welcome distraction for the gossips, and that speculation about exactly why his secretary looked so much like him would give the busybodies something to think about other than Eleanor.

  ‘Most of them know already,’ Jon had pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but it really irritates Great-Aunt Hermione.’

  ‘Oh, well, in that case I would be honoured,’ Jon had said with a grin.

  Now he nudged Blake with his elbow.

  ‘Eleanor has arrived.’

  Despite his resolution, Blake turned as though he was a trout on a line and looked down the aisle. There was a flurry of movement in the porch—probably inevitable when the Duke of Severingham was involved, because the man was probably the greatest fusspot in London. But he appreciated the gesture from Lady Verity in securing him to support Eleanor.

  He had no idea what to expect when he saw his bride. She had told him she was leaving off mourning, which had been a relief he had tried to keep off his face. Marrying a woman in dowdy crow-black draperies really would have given the newspapers column inches of comment.

  But this—this slender figure in a subtle shimmer of almost-colour coming towards him—this he had not expected. Then he realised something.

  ‘Jon, that’s not Eleanor—she is not limping,’ he said in an urgent undertone.

  ‘She is…slightly. She must have done something—her shoes, perhaps,’ Jon whispered back.

  It was not a long aisle in St George’s, a relatively modern church, so Blake had little time to collect himself, but he thought he looked adequately solemn and composed when his bride reached his side and they faced the altar rail together.

  Blake had studied the marriage service, in order to be prepared, but now it might have been chanted in Latin for all he knew. He must have made the appropriate responses in the right places, because Jon’s elbow did not come into play again, and he was aware of Eleanor’s voice making her responses, clearly but quietly.

  And finally, ‘Man and wife.’

  There was silence, as though the congregation was holding its collective breath. Then Blake turned, took the edge of the filmy cream veil, lifted it back to drape it over the scintillating crescent of the diamond tiara and caught his own breath.

  For a moment he did not recognise the woman looking at him, and then he realised that the big hazel eyes were those he had come to know well, and that the freckles were still there, hiding under their own veil of rice powder, and the curve of the jaw and the simple undistinguished oval of the face was Eleanor. But her hair… The unruly tangle of curls had gone, replaced with a softness cupping her head, baring her face and emphasising her neck.

  Not beautiful, his wife, but unique, striking, characterful. He lifted both her hands in his, kissed her fingertips, then drew off the big ruby that she had put on her right hand and slid it over the wedding ring, trapping it.

  ‘There,’ he murmured. ‘Mine.’

  Brave girl, he added mentally, feeling the tremor in her hands, seeing the serene smile on her lips. She must be a mass of nerves, he thought, as he turned her to face the massed pews. All these people she did not know—all of them judging and commenting and pigeonholing her.

  Eleanor held his arm firmly as they walked slowly down the aisle towards the double doors. Touching her like this, he could feel the effort she was making to walk straight.

  What has she done? he wondered.

  Demanding to know would not be tactful, but he was worried. Under the rice powder she was very pale, although perhaps that was simply nerves. He laid his right hand over hers as it rested on his arm and squeezed, trying to send messages of reassurance.

  Blake felt the slightest recoil in her as they stepped out and she saw the crowds that always gathered around this most fashionable of churches when a wedding was in progress. He saw people scribbling in notebooks, getting every detail of the gown for the Court and Social columns. There was even an artist, frantically sketching.

  The gown would appear in the pages of La Belle Assemblée or Ackermann’s Repository next month: ‘Wedding gown as worn by the Countess of Hainford’, followed by a description of the fabrics, trimmings and accessories, presumably provided by the modiste.

  It felt exceedingly intrusive, and he wondered if Eleanor would mind or whether she would be amused by the attention. He knew her well enough to guess that she would not be flattered. She knew all too well that this was nothing to do with her own taste or personality, but everything to do with her new rank and newsworthiness.

  ‘Safe,’ he said as they sat down in the open carriage and the door was closed. ‘I felt rather like a hunted fox there for a moment.’

  ‘Yes.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘A mob is a frightening thing, even in a good mood. Today the steps of a church…yesterday the steps of the guillotine.’

  ‘How morbid we are,’ he said, and she smiled. ‘You look quite stunning, my dear. Elegant, striking—every inch a countess.’

  ‘And every inch Ellie?’ she said, with a laugh that had a slight edge to it.

  ‘Every inch,’ he agreed, letting her see his gaze linger on the scooped neckline of her gown. ‘Your dutiful application in eating cream cakes is fully appreciated,’ he said as she blushed. ‘But—Ellie? Is that what you prefer?’

  ‘It is how I think of myself. But I like you calling me Eleanor. It reminds me that I am someone else now.’

  ‘I hope you are no one else. I married Ellie as well as Eleanor, surely? Who did I kiss in that field…in Green Park?’

  ‘Definitely Ellie.’

  This time there was no shadow behind the laugh, only genuine amusement and a warmth that stirred his sensual imaginings.

  ‘Any airs and graces had been very thoroughly shaken out of me.’

  ‘I like your hair,’ Blake said, following some inner train of thought he could not quite analyse. And, although he had never seen her with short hair before, he rather thought that this was Ellie too. Eleanor was a countess. Ellie was the girl with hazel eyes and the surprising alter ego of Mrs Bundock. Ellie was the woman who faced life on a rain-soaked, leaky farm with courage.

  ‘You suggested it, and you were right. I like it too now—although my head feels so light it might float away.’ She put up a hand to touch the newly shorn curls. ‘It is a good thing it is weighted down with all these diamonds.’

  ‘They suit you. You must keep them on.’

  She frowned, puzzled. ‘You mean I would normally take them off once we get to the house? I thought I would wear them while all our guests are there.’

  ‘I mean later. Much later. When everything else comes off.’

  He wished the guests to the devil now. Wished he had decided to leave early and travel out of London for their first night. But that might have implied that he wanted to limit the amount of time the guests had to observe his new countess.

  ‘Blake!’

  She was flushed and pink and delicious, and Blake, who had been telling himself that he must do his duty in the marital bed and not be hankering after one of his beautiful, sophisticated mistresses, had the startling revelation that he was unlikely to be doing any hankering at
all.

  He had always expected—demanded—beauty and assurance and luscious curves, also knowledgeable sensuality in a lover, and had expected that his wife would have all those attributes. Except, of course, the knowledge. And that would be something that he would have looked forward to imparting. He was still looking forward to that, he realised, smiling at Eleanor.

  The tiny lines of strain had gone from around her eyes and mouth. Perhaps it had simply been apprehension and shyness—not, as he had feared, physical discomfort.

  He would have asked, but the carriage was already drawing up at the Berkeley Square house, and footmen were running down the steps. Turner presided from the doorway with an expression that might have straightened a crooked red carpet at twelve paces and the groom was opening the carriage door.

  He gave Eleanor his hand to help her descend from the carriage, then led her across the pavement and up the steps, pausing at the top. ‘I promise this will be rather more comfortable than the field,’ he said, before he bent and scooped her up in his arms to carry her across the threshold.

  She made a surprised little sound in his ear, then tightened her arms around his neck.

  ‘I am not going to drop you,’ he said as he stepped into the hallway.

  ‘I know,’ she murmured in his ear. Then kissed it.

  Blake almost dropped his bride.

  *

  The impulse to kiss Blake had come out of nowhere, emerging from the dizzying sensation of being swung up into his arms mixed with embarrassment at the sight of his butler beaming at them. His ear had been right by her mouth and the temptation to bite the lobe had been irresistible.

  Appalled, and mystified as to why she should even think of such a thing, Ellie had kissed it, nuzzling surprisingly soft skin, inhaling the seductive scent of warm male and peppery cologne, smiling at the tickle of his hair on her face.

  Blake jolted to a halt and drew a deep, shuddering breath before setting her on her feet. ‘Wicked woman,’ he breathed as he bent to kiss her cheek, now at a normal level. ‘Welcome to your new home, Lady Hainford.’

  There was applause, and she looked around to find that the hall was full of staff—footmen, maids, a male cook, a severe-looking dame who must be the housekeeper, a tweeny peeping out from behind the aprons of the kitchen maids… All these staff—and this was only the townhouse. Tomorrow they would set out for his Hampshire estate and their honeymoon.

  Honey. Moon.

  Ellie turned the words over in her mind, feeling as though she was prodding a coiled snake that might or might not be a viper. A honeymoon implied all kinds of unspoken things, including intimacy, togetherness, being the focus of each other’s full attention for days, perhaps weeks. She had no confidence at all that she could stand up to such close scrutiny without disappointing Blake, and she had no idea at all how she would feel about him at such close quarters either.

  But first there was the wedding breakfast to survive, and then their wedding night—the skeleton in the cupboard waiting to leap out at her.

  She found she was splitting the day up into small, hopefully manageable, pieces, trying to look no further forward than the next challenge. And that was to stand with Blake and greet all the guests who would be streaming through that door very soon.

  Stand and ignore the nagging pain in her legs and back and hips. Smile and look confident despite the fact that she was certain to forget every person she was introduced to. Remember the exact depth of her curtsey to a marquess or a duke.

  I can do that, she told herself. Verity had drilled her over and over again.

  Polly came, led her away, removed her veil, twitched at her skirts, powdered her freckles into submission, then took her back downstairs to stand by Blake.

  ‘Here they come,’ he said as the first arrivals walked through the door, and then, just as she was thinking that it was going to be manageable, ‘Oh, good. I hoped some of them would make it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The royal dukes,’ he said, and before she could turn and run went on, ‘Two of them anyway. Sussex and Clarence.’

  Ellie took a deep breath as two bulky gentlemen, both recognisable from endless scurrilous caricatures and prints, seemed to fill the hall. They were talking amiably to Blake, shaking hands after he had bowed, and then they turned to her. She willed her aching joints into the deepest curtsey she could manage, and by some miracle rose again without stumbling.

  After that the day passed like a dream.

  *

  Ellie was jolted out of the trance in which she moved, smiling and talking—apparently coherently—by hearing Jonathan say, ‘And that is the last of them—thank goodness.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Blake drawled. ‘Use a pitchfork?’

  ‘More or less. Stopped bringing up the champagne, which had the same effect. I will be off myself now. Turner is working his usual magic on the reception rooms, Polly is in her ladyship’s chamber, and Jacques informs me that a light collation is being set out in your bedchamber. Unless there is anything else I will be away to my rooms, where I intend removing these bloody shoes, destroying this neckcloth and getting dead drunk before falling into bed.’

  He bowed to Ellie.

  ‘With apologies to your ladyship for my language.’

  He was gone before either of them could thank him.

  I can stop now, Ellie told herself. I have done it.

  As far as she was aware she had made no ghastly errors, and everyone had been exceedingly civil to her. Even the royal dukes had made conversation, flirted with her rather too warmly, and been gracious to Blake on the superiority of the food.

  All that was left of this part of the day was somehow to get upstairs. The special shoes were like instruments of torture now, racking her protesting joints and muscles as they were forced into positions they had not taken for years, and both sitting and standing were equally painful. All she wanted was to take them off—take everything off—and lie down.

  But this was her wedding night. That was the next step.

  No, do not think about steps. This time you cannot run away. This time you cannot even run.

  ‘Jonathan is a miracle-worker,’ she said. ‘I’ll… I will go up now, I think.’

  ‘Of course. I will come and collect you for some supper in a while, shall I?’

  Supper.

  She supposed that was not a euphemism—not after Jonathan had mentioned the light collation. No, the events that might require euphemisms would come afterwards.

  She got out of the room, across the hall and to the foot of the stairs. Two footmen were stationed at attention and she smiled at them before she turned to tackle the steps.

  One at a time.

  ‘My lady!’ Polly came at a run as Ellie finally made it through the bedchamber door and leaned back against it, quite incapable of another step.

  ‘It is these damnable shoes. Take them—burn them. I never want to see them again and I do not care if I have to limp up to Her Majesty to be presented, or whether Blake refuses to take me to Court. I am never going to wear them again.’

  Polly was on her knees, easing them off, and reached up to steady Ellie as she gasped in pain.

  ‘Oh, now the pain is throwing everything out in the opposite direction. Help me to the bed, Polly. I will see what lying down does to ease it.’

  Not a great deal, she discovered, when Polly had her stripped down to her chemise and into the sweeping velvet robe that she had been so delighted to find for her trousseau. Everything ached appallingly, and her joints felt as though someone was sticking sharp blades into them.

  ‘Shall I fetch the laudanum?’ Polly suggested.

  ‘Polly, this is my wedding night! I cannot drug myself into a stupor with laudanum—whatever would Lord Hainford think?’

  But the thought was appallingly tempting. Just enough to make everything into a hazy dream…

  ‘Isabella takes it in The Lord of the Dark Fortress,’ Polly said. ‘I saw it at the theatre when T
homas from next door took me. She did it to escape the loathsome embraces of Count Horatio.’

  ‘I am not attempting to escape “loathsome embraces”,’ Ellie said, with a laugh that verged shakily close to tears.

  The exact opposite. Only, can I make myself believe that when it is actually about to happen?

  ‘No, my lady. Should I brew some willow bark tea? That is good for headaches and the monthlies.’

  ‘Yes, we will try that. And then a hot bath.’

  Ellie lay back on the heaped pillows, closed her eyes and made herself think about all the good things. Her gorgeous gown, how kind the Duke had been, taking her down the aisle. Blake standing at the altar rail, so serious, so handsome. Her dream man. Her fantasy. Hers. His expression when he’d raised her veil and looked at her—looked at her as though she was just for one moment beautiful.

  And the wedding breakfast had gone without a hitch, and no one seemed to have been whispering about what an awful mésalliance Hainford had made.

  Now all she had to do was summon up the resilience to make it through the rest of the evening and the night without Blake realising there was anything wrong.

  The hot bath helped—especially as it was a new fixed tub that she could actually lie down in. The practical benefits of marrying a rich man had not really come home to her before, beyond being showered in jewels, which was a worry, and having the burden of concern over Carndale Farm and her tenants removed. But hot baths like this—that was very definitely a benefit.

  She sipped the tea, grimacing at its bitterness despite the honey Polly had stirred in, and dozed a little in the steam until she finally called the maid to help her out before she became as wrinkled as a prune.

  ‘There.’ Polly stood back and admired her efforts. ‘Lady Verity’s woman said that was the right nightgown, with the green velvet robe over the top and the matching slippers.’

  She’d wanted to get dressed again, so that they could eat the light supper as though it were a normal meal, not a prelude to…that.

  Now that the hot water and the tea had taken the edge off the pain there was room for nerves to come fluttering back.