The Cinderella Countess. Sophia James

a maid sat, but she instantly stood and went from the room, though there had been no gesture from the Earl to ask her to leave.

      ‘Lucy?’ The Earl’s voice was softer, a tenderness there that had been missing in every other conversation Belle had had with him. ‘Miss Smith is come to see you. The herbalist I told you of.’

      ‘I do not want another medical person here, Thorn. I’ve said that. I just want to be left alone.’

      The tone of the voice was strong. A further oddness. If Lady Lucy had been in bed for this many weeks and deathly ill she would have sounded more fragile.

      She had burrowed in under the blankets, only the top of her golden head seen. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick, every single one of them, but there was no discolouration of the nail beds.

      ‘Miss Smith is well thought of in her parish of Whitechapel. She seldom visits outside her home area, so in this we are more than fortunate.’

      ‘Where is Mother?’

      ‘I asked her to stay in her room.’

      ‘She is being impossible this morning. I wish she might return to Balmain and leave me here with you. How old is Miss Smith?’

      ‘See for yourself. She is right here.’

      The blanket stilled and then a face popped out from the rumpled wool. A gaunt face of wrecked beauty, the hair cut into slivers of ill-fashioned spikes.

      Belle hoped she did not look surprised, the first impressions between a patient and a healer important ones.

      ‘You are not too...old.’ This came from Lucy.

      ‘I am thirty-two next week. It seems inordinately old to me. But what is the alternative?’

      Unexpectedly the young woman smiled. ‘This.’

      ‘Perhaps,’ Belle said quietly. ‘When did you last eat?’

      ‘I am no longer hungry. I have broth sometimes.’

      ‘Could I listen to your pulse?’

      ‘No. I don’t like to be touched.’

      ‘Never?’ Surprise threaded into her words. ‘Who has examined you then?’

      ‘No one. I do not allow it. It can be seen from a distance that my malady is taking the life from me. All sorts of medicines have been tried. And have failed. One doctor did touch me against all my will and bled me twice. Now I just wish to die. It will be easier for everyone.’

      Belle heard the Earl draw in a breath and felt a huge sorrow for him.

      ‘Could I sit with you for a moment, Miss Staines? Alone?’

      ‘Without my brother, you mean. Without anyone here. I do not know if...’

      But the Earl had already gone, walking like a ghost towards the door, his footsteps quiet.

      Belle waited for a moment and closed her eyes. There was so much to be found in silence. The girl’s breathing was fast and a little shallow, but there was no underlying disease in her passageways. She moved her feet a lot, indicating a nervous disposition. She could hear the sound of the sheets rustling and Lady Lucy sniffed twice. She was coming down with a cold, perhaps, though her constitution sounded robust.

      Opening her eyes, Belle looked at her patient directly, the golden glance of the Earl’s sister flecked with a darker yellow.

      ‘Why do you lie, Miss Staines?’

      ‘Pardon?’ A shocked breath was drawn in with haste.

      ‘There is no disease in your body. But what is there is something you need to speak of.’

      ‘You cannot know this.’ These words were small and sharp.

      ‘Today I shall run camphor across your chest and peppermint under the soles of your feet. If I was you, I should then begin to take an interest in the world. Tomorrow I shall return with different medicines. A week should be enough for you to start getting up again and then we can face the problem that is the true reason why you have taken to your bed.’

      ‘Problem?’

      ‘Think about it. Your family is suffering from the charade you are putting them through and if the physicians they have dispatched to attend to your needs have never delved deeper into the truth of what ails you then that is their poor practice. But it is time now to face up to what has happened to you and live again in any way that you can.’

      ‘Get out.’

      Belle stood, her heart hammering. ‘I am sorry, but I will not. Only with good sense can you face what must come next because, believe it or not, this is the way of life. A set back and then a triumph. Yours will be spectacular.’

      ‘Are you a witch, Miss Smith? One of the occult?’

      ‘Perhaps.’ Her reply came with a fervour. This girl needed to believe in her words or otherwise she would be lost. ‘Magic is something that you now require so I want you to unbutton your nightdress and I will find my camphor.’

      * * *

      Ten minutes later she was downstairs again and the Earl of Thornton had recalled his conveyance.

      ‘I am sorry I cannot accompany you back to Whitechapel, Miss Smith, but I have other business in the city. You said that you’d told my sister that you would be back on the morrow so I shall make sure my conveyance is outside your house again at nine.’

      ‘No. Tomorrow we shall find our own way. But have the maid bring up a plate of chicken broth with a small crust of bread for your sister. Tell her that such sustenance will do her good and I will be asking after how much she has eaten.’

      ‘Very well. Thank you.’

      The Earl did not believe that his sister would deign to eat anything. He was disappointed in her short visit, too, Belle could tell, the smell of camphor and peppermint the only tangible evidence of her doctoring. He imagined her a quack and a charlatan and an expensive one at that and would continue to do so unless his sister took her advice.

      She tipped her head and turned for the pathway, unsurprised when the door was closed behind them.

      * * *

      Once home she sought out her aunt where she sat in the small alcove off the kitchen.

      ‘I recognised the Earl of Thornton’s house, Tante Alicia. I think I knew one just like it.’

      Her aunt simply stared at her.

      ‘It was similar to the house in my dreams. The one I told you about.’

      ‘I always said that you were an auld one, Annabelle, a traveller who has been here before in another lifetime.’

      ‘Who are they, Alicia? The people I remember who are dressed like those at the Thornton town house.’

      ‘I have told you again and again that there are no ghosts who stalk you and that I do not know of these people you see.’

      ‘Then who were my parents?’

      ‘I never met them. I took you in when a nun from the convent in the village asked it of me. A sick child from England who was placed in the hands of the lord when a servant brought her there, to the church of Notre-Dame de la Nativité. Maria, the nun, was English herself and spoke with you every day for years until your French was fluent and you could cope. That is all I know. I wish there had been more, but there was not. I’d imagined you would stay with me for only a matter of weeks, but when no one came back to claim you and the months went on...’ She stopped, regathering herself. ‘By then you were the child I had never had and I prayed to our lord every day that the situation would continue, that I would not have to give you up because that would have broken my heart.’

      They had been through all this before so many times. It all made perfect sense and yet...

      Today Lady Lucy