The Cinderella Countess. Sophia James

he had closed his eyes just then, it could have been any one of the titled and well-brought-up ladies of the ton talking. He saw the interest in Celeste’s eyes and the curiosity in Shay’s.

      ‘Who are your parents, Miss Smith?’ Celeste was never one to refrain from trying to decipher a puzzle and she asked the question baldly.

      But Miss Annabelle Smith failed to answer, turning to him instead and finding a query all her own.

      ‘I do hope your sister has recovered a little in the days since I have seen her, your lordship?

      Now this was interesting, Lytton thought. There were secrets here and he could tell that Celeste had determined it exactly the same.

      ‘Miss Smith gave Lucy a copy of the Mary Wollstonecraft book, Celeste, and my sister has been most taken by the things the author wrote of.’

      ‘Oh, I, too, have read her books and most heartily agree with the sentiments in them.’

      * * *

      Belle did not feel quite up to arguing for the rights of all women no matter what their station in life so she stayed quiet. She was feeling her way here and the truth of her being from Whitechapel’s mean streets felt like an enormous stumbling block. She had not recognised this in the company of the Earl or even of his sister. But when society came crashing down upon her in a refined drawing room as it had here there was no getting away from it.

      She did not fit.

      A headache had begun to form behind her eyes and she prayed to God that the jagged lines of a worse malady did not reappear. Not until she could get home at least. She felt sweat run between her breasts and the fine beading of it on her top lip.

      The Earl saved the day by asking her if she wanted a drink, leading her across to a cabinet where an array of bottles stood on top of a polished mahogany counter.

      She had never tasted true liquor in all of her life and searched for something non-alcoholic.

      ‘The white wine is very good.’ The Earl lent down and said this quietly.

      ‘Only a small glass, please.’

      He poured it with the sort of ease people used to heavy drinking must be wont to do. She did not really know, for her aunt was a teetotaller and any alcohol in the house was reserved for medicines. The devil’s brew, her aunt had often said, and there was enough evidence around Whitechapel for them to believe in such a truth.

      A cup of tea would have been welcome, but she felt she could not ask. The smile she sported hurt her cheeks and she wondered how much longer she could manage to keep it up. She wished she might excuse herself and go upstairs to see her patient.

      ‘Celeste and Shay are friends of mine.’

      ‘I see, your lordship.’

      ‘Very good friends.’

      She looked up and caught his glance. What did he wish her to say? And what was he telling her?

      The tumble of the unexpected was confusing, terrifying even, and she measured her breaths with a rigid count. These people knew of her and her clinic, they understood she was from poorer stock and they were still attempting to be friendly. She took a sip of the wine and then another, surprised by the strength of its taste.

      Still, it was wet and it gave her something to do. In a moment she had finished the lot.

      ‘Would you like more?’ A frown dashed into golden eyes as she nodded.

      ‘Thank you.’

      This time she drank more slowly as he led her back into the room. It was relaxing her now, this white wine. For the first time in ten minutes she felt as if she might be coping.

      ‘Where did you learn your healing skills, Miss Smith?’

      Celeste Shayborne’s voice had the lilt of another country in the words. French, perhaps. She recognised the cadence.

      ‘My aunt is a herbalist. She taught me.’

      ‘It must take a long time to learn?’

      ‘Years and years. I am still learning now and Tante Alicia is sixty-three and she says she does not know it all yet either. She has tried her hardest to teach me, though, in the hope that such knowledge will not be lost and I could be the one to hand it down to the next generation.’

      Goodness. Had she said too much? She tried to remember every word she had uttered and found that she couldn’t, a barrier between her and the world.

      It was the wine. Placing her near-empty glass down on a table, she wished again that she could have asked for tea or coffee, anything to neutralise the rising warmth that was worrying.

      Control was slipping and with it reserve.

      ‘Your aunt is French?’ Celeste Shayborne clapped her hands. ‘Do you speak the language?’

      ‘A little,’ she said before she thought, for Lytton Staines had heard her using it on that very first day they had met after Stanley had torn his waistcoat. He would know that what she said was a lie, but she did not want the next questions that might rise with such an honesty.

      The Earl’s voice broke her panic and she was pleased for his words.

      ‘I think something non-alcoholic might be useful.’ He poured a large glass of lemonade and handed it over.

      Relief flooded into panic. She would be all right now. She would manage.

      Exhaustion swamped gratitude and then sadness overcame that. So many emotions in so very few seconds she could hardly keep up. If she were at home she would lie down with a pillow across her head to keep out the daylight and she would sleep until the headache left her. Sometimes she took sulphate of quinine if it were severe, or cinchona bark or valerian. But there was nothing here that was remotely like anything she needed. She could see Celeste Shayborne looking at her with a frown in her eyes and even the Earl gave the impression of worry.

      ‘I am quite all right. It’s only a headache and I have them all the time. The wine was strong, too, and it’s still early in the morning...’

      A further glance from Thornton told her that her admission had been unexpected, inappropriate even, and her words tailed off. Shaking her head, she tried hard to find a balance.

      ‘Perhaps on reflection I might be wise to leave. It seems that today is not a good day and I think I may need to go home and sleep.’

      Another faux pas and had she just spoken completely in French?

      ‘I think my headache is worsening and when that happens I am never good company.’

      Goodness, now she was switching languages, the words blurring into each other, skipping over tenses and trailing into gibberish. She could not be quite sure she had pronounced any of them properly.

      ‘So I bid you au revoir.’ She had not seen Lady Lucy as she had promised, but did not feel at all up to it. She would come back tomorrow when she felt she might manage.

      The Earl’s arm was around her waist now and she allowed him to lead her to the door. Once in the entrance hall he found her hat and coat and then took her out to the carriage that he had asked to be brought around. Inside the conveyance, cocooned in silence and the comfort of the squashy leather seats, she breathed out.

      ‘I am sorry.’

      ‘For what.’

      ‘For creating a spectacle. For being vulgar.’

      ‘I hardly think you were that, Miss Smith. Entertaining is more the word that comes to mind.’

      ‘You are kind.’

      ‘Often in life I am not.’

      She ignored that. ‘Your friends were kind, too.’

      ‘Have you ever drunk wine before?’

      ‘No.’