Marrying His Cinderella Countess Read online

  My husband.

  It still felt very strange to say it—almost as strange as being addressed as my lady—even though her husband seemed determined to demonstrate his role to her at every opportunity. She had not expected that Blake would want to make love so often and so…intensely. Not that she was complaining, despite the fact that she felt a trifle sore and all kinds of unexpected muscles were making their presence felt.

  Blake had made love to her twice that morning, allowing her out of bed finally to what had felt like an outrageously late breakfast. Ellie had been sure that all the staff were perfectly well aware that it was not sleep that had detained the Earl and Countess in their chamber, but Blake seemed oblivious to whatever the expressionless footmen might be thinking.

  He had shown her the large dining room—they had eaten in the small one the night before—then strolled with her through the gardens closest to the house for a snatch of fresh air, then taken her back into the house to view the Countess’s Sitting Room. She must have that redecorated and furnished absolutely as she wished, he had said with an airy wave of the hand, before taking her to the Long Gallery for a tour of the ancestral portraits.

  Ellie had felt herself wilting under the haughty gaze of an endless succession of ancestors. Gratifyingly, not all the women were beauties, although the fleshy, protuberant-eyed Countesses of Charles II’s reign had doubtless been considered so at the time.

  Blake had conducted the viewing in chronological order, starting with the first age-darkened, wooden-looking Sir Giles Pencarrow, who had come out of the West Country to risk all at the side of the Tudor invader and had been rewarded with a barony for his gamble.

  Finally they’d got to the end, and the portrait of Blake by George Romney painted ten years earlier. He was shown standing, holding his horse’s bridle, while a pair of hounds sat at his feet and Hainford Hall glowed golden under a setting sun in the background.

  She’d wanted to stand and look at it for a long time—to study the young, arrogant, beautiful face staring out into the life that awaited him, would shape him. Instead, Ellie had made him walk her back slowly over three generations while she’d tried to learn the names.

  ‘I will come here every day until I have them all fixed,’ she’d told him.

  ‘And I have sent to Lawrence for our bridal portrait,’ he had replied casually, as though the prospect of finding herself looking down at future generations—Who’s that plain woman next to the handsome man, Grandpapa?—was not in the slightest bit intimidating.

  Perhaps the great Thomas Lawrence would work his magic on her as he had on the Prince Regent.

  Now she stood in the entrance hall attempting to assert herself with the housekeeper while at the same time keeping on good terms with the woman.

  ‘Carriage approaching, Mrs Morgan,’ the footman on duty by the front door called out.

  ‘That will be the first of the bride visits,’ the housekeeper said, apparently quite unaware that she was sending one very inexperienced countess into a nervous spasm. ‘Whose carriage is it, James?’

  ‘Lord Trenton—I recognise that pair of leaders.’

  ‘I will go and have refreshments arranged, my lady. Will you receive in the Chinese Salon?’

  It was apparently a question simply for the sake of form, because she was already steering Ellie towards a pair of imposing double doors.

  ‘Let his lordship know immediately, James,’ Ellie called over her shoulder.

  Goodness knew where he was—perhaps down at the stables or, worse, as far away as the Home Farm, leaving her to receive not just her new neighbours but the family of the woman Blake should have married.

  With a harried glance around the room—exquisitely papered with Chinese scenes on a duck-egg-blue background—Ellie took a seat opposite a group of sofas and armchairs, then bounced up to check her hair in the mirror over the fireplace. She sat again, then realised she should appear to be occupied, so took a slim volume from a side table, opened it and stared unseeing at the pages.

  She was perfectly socially adept, she scolded herself. She knew just what to do and how to do it. But where, oh, where was Blake?

  ‘Lady Trenton and Lord Trenton, my lady.’

  ‘Thank you, Tennyson. Please have refreshments brought up.’ Ellie rose and held out her hand. ‘Lady Trenton… Lord Trenton. Such a pleasure. Thank you so much for calling.’

  They shook hands. He was a bluff, fit man in his sixties, his expansive belly doing nothing to diminish the impression of strength and determination. His lady was a faded blonde beauty, still graceful and charming as she shook hands, then bent to kiss Ellie’s cheek.

  ‘A new bride for Hainford Hall—such a joy,’ she murmured.

  ‘My husband will be with us shortly, I expect,’ Ellie said. ‘What a very pleasant afternoon for a drive you have had—although I believe your house is not far distant?’

  ‘A stone’s throw,’ Lord Trenton agreed. ‘Our lands march together along the entire valley.’

  Tennyson entered again, followed by a flurry of footmen with tea things, an urn, plates of little dainties. ‘His lordship’s apologies, my lady, he will be with you directly he has changed. He was at the stables, I understand.’

  Ellie was mid-way through an enquiry about lemon or milk and was passing the sugar when the door opened and Blake walked in.

  ‘Sir, ma’am—my apologies.’

  There was a flurry of greetings before they all settled back with their teacups. Conversation was general and surprisingly stilted, considering that these were close neighbours who had known Blake since he was a boy. Perhaps it was her presence that had put a damper on everyone’s mood, for surely Lord and Lady Trenton would be baffled by Blake’s choice of bride.

  She looked again at Lady Trenton and thought that if her daughter had inherited her looks she would have been truly lovely as a young woman.

  And Blake ended up marrying a hedge sparrow instead of their bird of paradise.

  Sheer pride kept her expression bright, and somehow she made conversation and did all the right things with the teapot and cream jug. She might be a hedge sparrow, and one who had not been raised to be a great lady, but she would be a hedge sparrow with perfect deportment if it killed her.

  She made determined conversation with Lady Trenton who, as she explained, had just returned from Bath, where she had been attending the deathbed of a distant relative.

  Ellie noted that Lady Trenton was not wearing mourning for that relative, and could only conclude that her final attendance had been in hopes of a legacy.

  ‘I am so sorry to hear of your loss, Lady Trenton. Doubtless that is why we did not have the pleasure of your company at our wedding?’

  Lady Trenton gave a nervous titter. ‘Oh, yes, of course. We would have so enjoyed being there. Dear Blake…quite like a son to us.’ She sighed. ‘Such hopes we had.’

  Lord Trenton scowled at her, and his wife gave another of her irritating little laughs and added hastily, ‘Of our dear Felicity, I mean. She was such a beauty.’

  She turned from Ellie with what looked suspiciously like relief as Blake moved over to sit beside her on the sofa.

  ‘Will you be restoring the rose garden, Blake dear?’

  ‘I had not given it any particular thought,’ he said. ‘It has certainly been allowed to deteriorate since my mother’s day. I have had little time or inclination for garden design.’

  ‘Our Felicity loved roses. You remember, of course.’ Her voice was low, intimate, as though she and Blake were alone in the room. ‘I have never been able to grow them in our own garden—they remind me of her so. That evening when you and she walked out amongst them—’

  ‘Time we were taking our leave, my dear.’ Lord Trenton stood up abruptly. ‘We should not be monopolising the newly wedded pair.’ His smile was ghastly. ‘Stop boring Hainford with your everlasting gardening. It will be Lady Hainford’s decision now—she who tells her gardener what to grow.’

  He ha
d not been fast enough to prevent Ellie seeing Blake’s face—that one revealing moment when there had been nothing but memory and pain and loss before he had his expression under control once more.

  He had loved Felicity, she realised. Perhaps in his heart he still did, whether he acknowledged it or not.

  Her insides seemed to have turned to ice, but somehow polite social behaviour kept her smiling brightly as she shook hands, determined not to look at Blake as he said goodbye.

  *

  ‘How very lovely Felicity must have been. Her mother is still a handsome woman.’

  Blake looked down at Ellie, standing beside him, neat, composed, apparently cheerful. My wife. And he had not given her a moment’s coherent thought since he had walked into the drawing room and found the Trentons sitting there.

  Bloody idiot, he snarled at himself now. You knew they would come—you should have been prepared.

  Because Eleanor had sensed something—he was sure of it.

  ‘…love her?’

  ‘What?’ He jerked back to the present. ‘I…er…yes, of course. I had known her for years…we were going to marry. Of course I loved her.’

  Not that I realised until it was too late.

  ‘I am sure you did,’ Eleanor said, with the faintest touch of impatience in her voice. ‘What I asked was whether you love her still. Her memory?’

  ‘No.’

  It was so abrupt—far too forceful. Betraying. Did he mean it? He found he did not know. But he could scarcely believe that Eleanor had asked so directly.

  She looked up, her face showing nothing but that sparrow-like intensity, as though she was studying something that might or might not be good to eat.

  ‘No,’ he repeated. ‘Of course not. I am married to you, Eleanor.’

  ‘What on earth has that got to do with anything?’ she asked, and he realised suddenly that he had no idea whether she was hurt or angry or merely curious. ‘I had hoped for honesty from you, Blake.’

  Then she walked away, leaving him staring after her, quite incapable of finding anything to say. But he was no longer in any doubt as to her feelings, even if he could not sort out his own. His wife was both very hurt and very angry, and he could have prevented that with a little forethought and by keeping a better guard over his reactions.

  And my emotions.

  Loving a ghost, clinging to guilt, was a dishonourable way to go into a marriage.

  Hell. Hell.

  He turned and strode after her, around the the West Front and onto the long terrace. There was no sign of his wife.

  ‘Wilkins!’

  The under-gardener, who was sweeping up trimmings from the climber he had been pruning, dropped his brush and hurried over.

  ‘Have you seen her ladyship? She came this way a moment ago.’

  ‘Yes, my lord. She went along in the direction of the sunken garden. She was—’ He glanced nervously at Blake’s face. ‘Hurrying, my lord.’

  That was probably the man’s tactful code for crying, Blake thought grimly. He nodded his thanks to Wilkins and strode off towards the far end of the terrace, where the sunken garden was located. The intimate little rose garden, neglected since his mother’s death. The garden where he had proposed so disastrously to Felicity.

  He blinked and was back in those moments before it had all gone so horribly wrong. She had been standing amidst white and yellow roses, her blonde hair more beautiful even than the satiny petals, her slender figure more graceful than the sweep of the arch above her head…

  He shook himself and found he was looking down on an overgrown tangle of briars as he stood at the top of the flight of ten shallow steps that led down into the square plot. Somewhere in the centre was an octagonal pond, but that was invisible amidst unpruned rose bushes and sagging vine-swagged arbours. Blake stood listening, but he saw Eleanor before he heard her—just a glimpse of deep rose-red skirts between the stems.

  He ducked under low thorny branches, stepped over fallen pergola poles and finally reached the centre, where Eleanor stood looking down into the scummy water of the pond, her back to him. Felicity had stood just there, a single white rose in her hand, and he had stepped forward, pressed a kiss to the vulnerable nape of her neck, She had turned. Turned and slapped his face. Turned and poured out her anger at his neglect of her, his complacent assumptions.

  He had made no effort to move quietly but Eleanor did not turn when he reached the paved area behind her.

  ‘Lady Trenton is quite correct—this does need complete restoration,’ she said, apparently addressing a mat of pond weed. ‘In fact it has gone beyond that. I will have it stripped right out.’

  ‘You will?’ Blake said, startled by her assumption of control.

  ‘Certainly. I know that it is difficult to grow roses in the same soil they were planted in before. I have no idea why that is, but I have read about it. So I will have the earth cleared as well, and replaced.’

  He made an involuntary sound and she finally turned to face him, chin up, eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

  ‘As Lord Trenton implied, the flower gardens are part of the responsibilities of the lady of the house, are they not? And I am the lady of this house, whether you like it or not, husband. Wedded and bedded.’

  ‘Eleanor, I am sorry. I do not know what you think, but—’ Blake began.

  She put up a hand to silence him. ‘You are sorry, I am sorry, and Lady Trenton was tactless—which is not your fault. And I should know better than to care about your past, or even what you still feel about it. How very unbecoming of me to feel jealous of a ghost, even if you are still in love with her,’ she added with a brittle laugh.

  ‘Eleanor, don’t joke about it,’ Blake said, and caught her hands in his, pulling her round to face him fully.

  ‘No? What else is there to do, I wonder, other than joke and carry on? You have no need to tell me I am being foolish.’

  ‘My feelings are more of guilt and regret than anything,’ Blake said, pruning the truth as rigorously as Wilkins had been pruning that shrub. ‘I was so arrogantly certain of what was right for both of us that I tried to push Felicity into a decision she was not ready to make, and that sent her into flight, into doing something that if I had been more careful, more patient, she would never have contemplated. Until she had gone I did not realise how I felt about her.’

  ‘And you did not go after her? This woman you loved?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I was hurt… I was angry. She had made her bed and I simply assumed she was happy lying on it. By the time I knew what had happened—that her poet had abandoned her in Rome when Trenton refused to let them have any money—it was too late.’

  ‘Oh, poor thing. To be betrayed like that…’

  One tear welled up and ran down Ellie’s cheek. Her eyes were red, and he saw that she would never be a woman who could weep prettily. Her eyes would become bloodshot, her nose would go pink and she would blow it energetically on a large, practical handkerchief. She had no pretty little wiles as Felicity had had.

  ‘Oh, Ellie.’

  She looked up, seemingly startled by his use of her shortened name, and he kissed her on a wave of affection and guilt and pity. Betrayed. Was his failure to find out what had happened to Felicity a betrayal too?

  She tasted of salt, and Eleanor, and somehow of anger, and she was stiff in his arms.

  Still too thin, he thought, feeling her shoulders under his palms, as fragile of the bones of the sparrow he had likened her to.

  For a moment he thought she was yielding, that her lips had softened under his, but then she pushed him away and stood, head down, still in his arms.

  ‘Don’t, Ellie.’ He couldn’t tell if she was still crying, but he thought he would rather she stabbed him.

  ‘Don’t push you away? No, I will not—and of course I will be a conformable wife,’ she said, still addressing his middle waistcoat button. ‘You will just have to give me a little time to… I was not so naïve as to believe that you as
ked me to marry you because you loved me, but I did not realise that you…that you still loved someone else.’

  She put back her shoulders, effectively dislodging his hands, and raised her gaze as far as his chin.

  ‘Just because I do not much want to kiss you right at this moment, it does not mean that I am going to close my bedchamber door to you. It is very foolish of me to behave as though a dead woman is as much a threat as a living one.’

  Relief swept through him. She was upset—of course she was. And naturally she wanted time to get over the upset. He would stop thinking about Felicity, difficult though it seemed at the moment. But he had received a shock too, Blake told himself, wrestling with the turbulence of his emotions. He had thought Felicity safely in the past—a matter for sadness and regret. Now he could almost see her standing there amidst the roses, could almost hear her voice on the soft breeze, although the words he heard she had never spoken.

  Love is pain…

  ‘You need not worry that I do not know my duty as your wife,’ Eleanor continued, her voice firmer now. ‘I know you want an heir.’

  Relief was replaced by a flood of something that was not precisely anger, nor hurt pride, but an unpleasant mixture of emotions that contained, at its churning centre, something horribly like fear.

  ‘Damn it, Eleanor, I don’t want you sleeping with me out of duty. Children are not the point.’

  Her lips moved soundlessly.

  Not the point…

  ‘Out of what, then?’ she demanded.

  Now she was looking him in the eye, and he wished she was not. He was not the only one who was hurt and angry, and he had made her feel like that. ‘You did not marry me for love, that is clear, and you surely do not think I love you.’

  ‘I had rather hoped that you might enjoy making love,’ he said through stiff lips, almost unable to believe he was actually asking a woman to approve his bedchamber skills.

  ‘I did,’ she said. ‘I do. You are very good at it. At least I assume you are. I cannot compare it to anything. It is very…’

  ‘If you say nice I will not be responsible for my actions,’ Blake said grimly.