Marrying His Cinderella Countess. Louise Allen

safer than showing alarm or weakness.

      ‘No, to both.’ He ran his hand through his hair, his mouth grim as he seemed to search for words. ‘I have bad news for you, and I think you will need the support of another woman.’

      ‘My maid will soon be here,’ she said. Then what he had said finally penetrated. ‘Bad news?’

      That could only mean one thing. Her parents and her stepfather were dead and there was no one else, only her stepbrother.

      ‘Francis?’ Her voice sounded quite calm and collected.

      ‘Sir Francis...there was an accident. At the club.’

      ‘He is injured?’

      No, if he was I would have been called to him, or he would have been brought here.

      She seemed to be reasoning very clearly, as though this was not real—simply a puzzle on paper to be solved. ‘He is dead, isn’t he? How? Did you kill him? Was it a duel?’

      Over a woman?

      That was all she could think of, given that Hainford had been naked when he was shot himself.

      ‘No. I did not shoot him. It was an accident. Someone was shooting at me, and Francis was standing at my back.’

      ‘And you had no clothes on,’ she said, her voice flat.

      She must have fallen asleep over her work—this had all the characteristics of a bad dream. Certainly it made no sense whatsoever.

      ‘Which club was this?’

      Perhaps club was a euphemism for brothel? Or something else—something not legal. She read the newspapers, had some glimmering of what went on between certain men, but she hardly knew how to ask.

      ‘The Adventurers’ Club in Piccadilly.’

      A perfectly respectable gentleman’s club, then. Not a... What did they call them? A molly house—that was it. It would not completely surprise her if Francis had gone to one—out of curiosity, if nothing else—but this man? Surely not. Although what did she know?

      Her silence was worrying the Earl, judging by his expression and the way he leaned forward to look into her face, but she was not sure how she was expected to act, how she should feel. Perhaps this was shock.

      ‘Look, let me fetch you some brandy. It is dreadful news to take in.’ He was halfway to his feet again when the door opened.

      ‘Miss Lytton, I’m back! Oh!’ Polly stood staring, her arms full of loosely wrapped parcels. An onion dropped to the floor and rolled to Ellie’s feet.

      ‘Polly, this is Lord Hainford and I believe he needs a glass of brandy.’

      ‘I do not.’

      He was on the verge of snapping now—a man at the end of his tether. She should have wept and had the vapours. Then he could have produced a handkerchief, patted her hand, said, There, there meaninglessly. He would have felt more comfortable doing that, she was sure.

      ‘Fetch your mistress a cup of tea,’ he ordered.

      ‘And brandy for Lord Hainford. The hair of the dog might be helpful,’ Ellie suggested mildly.

      Yes, this was a bad dream. Although...could one faint in a dream? The room was beginning to spin and close in...

      She closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. Fainting would not help. When she opened them again Lord Hainford was still there, frowning at her. The crumpled shirt was still at his feet. Francis had still not come home.

      ‘This really is not a dream, is it?’ she asked.

      ‘No. I am afraid not.’ Simply a nightmare.

      Blake saw the colour flood back into Miss Lytton’s cheeks with profound relief. Things were bad enough without a fainting woman on his hands and, ungallant as it might seem, he had no desire to haul this Long Meg up from the floor.

      Her figure went up and down, with the emphasis on up, and showed little interest in anything but the mildest in-and-out. Even so, his ribs had suffered enough, and lifting plain women into his arms held no appeal.

      He studied the pale oval of her face, dusted with a spectacular quantity of freckles that no amount of Lotion of Denmark, or even lemon juice, would ever be able to subdue. Her hair was a bird’s nest—a flyaway mass of middling brown curls, ineptly secured with pins. The wide hazel eyes, their irises dark and dilated with shock, were probably her best feature. Her nose was certainly rather too long. And there was the limp... But at least she had managed not to swoon.

      The girl came back with a tea tray and he gestured abruptly for her to pour. ‘Put sugar in your mistress’s cup.’

      ‘I do not take sugar.’

      ‘For the shock.’ He took a cup himself and gulped it sugarless, grateful for the warmth in his empty, churning gut.

      The maid went and sat in a corner of the room, hands folded in her lap. He could feel her gaze boring into him.

      Miss Lytton lifted her cup with a hand that shook just a little, drank, replaced it in the saucer with a sharp click and looked at him.

      ‘Tell me what happened.’

      Thank heavens she was not some fluffy little chit who had dissolved into the vapours. Still, there was time yet for that...

      ‘I was at the Adventurers’ last night, playing cards with Lord Anterton and Sir Peter Carew and a man called Crosse. I was winning heavily—mainly against Crosse, who is not a good loser and is no friend of mine. We were all drinking.’

      Blake tried to edit the story as he went—make it somehow suitable for a lady to hear without actually lying to her. He couldn’t tell her that the room had smelled of sweat and alcohol and candlewax and excitement. That Anterton had been in high spirits because an elderly relative had died and left him a tidy sum, and he and Carew had been joking and needling Crosse all evening over some incident at the French House—a fancy brothel where the three of them had been the night before.

      Blake had been irritated, he remembered now, and had wished they would concentrate on the game.

      He had just raked in a double handful of chips and banknotes and vowels from the centre of the table and called for a new pack and a fresh bottle when Francis Lytton had come up behind him—another irritation.

      ‘Your stepbrother appeared, most agitated, and said he wanted to talk to me immediately. I was on a winning streak, and I certainly did not intend to stop. I told him he could walk home with me afterwards and we would talk all he wanted to then.’

      Miss Lytton bit her lip, her brow furrowed. ‘Agitated?’

      ‘Or worried. I do not know which. I did not pay too much attention, I am afraid.’

      ‘You were drunk,’ she observed coolly.

      It was a shock to be spoken to in that way by a woman and, despite his uneasy sense of responsibility, the flat statement stung.

      ‘I was mellow—we all were. And we were in the middle of a game in which I was winning consistently—Lytton should have seen that it was a bad time to interrupt. We began to play with the new pack. Crosse lost heavily to me again, then started to shout that I was cheating, that I must have cards in my cuffs, up my sleeves. That I had turned away to talk to your stepbrother in order to conceal them.’

      That red face, that wet mouth, those furious, incoherent accusations.

      The man had scrabbled at the cards, sending counters flying, wine glasses tipping.

      ‘Cheat! Sharper!’

      Everyone had stopped their own games, people had come across, staring...

      ‘I told him to withdraw his accusations. So did the others. He wouldn’t back down—just kept ranting. It seems he was on the brink of ruin and that this bout of