Marrying His Cinderella Countess. Louise Allen

hatter and bootmaker. Social events, the opera, the theatre, gaming. A positive whirl of dissipation.’

      Mr Wilton snorted. ‘Are you attempting to paint yourself as an idle rake to Miss Lytton? Should I not mention the House of Lords, your charity boards, investors’ meetings?’

      ‘It will do no good, Jon. My new cousin considers me to be an idle rake already. I have no need to paint myself as one.’

      ‘I am quite prepared to believe that you work as hard at your duties and responsibilities as you do at your pleasure, Cousin Blake. It is merely that I imagine you have to consider no one else while pursuing those occupations.’

      ‘I am selfish, in other words?’ Those dark brows were rising dangerously.

      How had she allowed herself to be tempted into saying what she thought? She should be meek and mild and quiet—so quiet that he forgot she was there, if possible. An apology and a rapid return to the details of the North African date harvest was called for.

      ‘If the cap fits, my lord,’ Ellie retorted, chin up, ignoring common sense. ‘How pleasant not to be responsible for a single soul.’

      Mr Wilton opened his mouth, presumably in order to enumerate his lordship’s friends, staff, tenants and charitable beneficiaries.

      Blake silenced him with an abrupt gesture of his hand. ‘It is,’ he agreed, with a charming smile that did nothing to disguise the layers of ice beneath.

      Stop it, she told herself. He will put you off at the next inn if you keep provoking him.

      She was not even quite sure why she was doing it, other than the fact that it was curiously stimulating, almost exciting—which was inexplicable. Rationally, yes, he had been thoughtless in ignoring Francis’s plea for his time and attention. And, yes, he had behaved outrageously—stripping off like that, provoking that unpleasant Crosse man to the point of violence. But she could not pretend that she was devastated at Francis’s death, that she had loved her stepbrother, and Blake had done all she might have asked afterwards.

      Just as he would have done whoever Francis’s relatives had been.

      He did not help for your sake, whispered an inner voice—the one she always assumed was her common sense. He thinks you are plain, argumentative and of no interest. Which is true. He is helping because his conscience as a gentleman tells him to—and because it happens not to be desperately inconvenient for him. Just because you have been daydreaming about him, and just because you want to put him in your novel, that does not mean he has the slightest interest in you. You should try and be a nicer person. Ladylike.

      After that mental douche of cold water she picked up her notebook. Perhaps she should start by being nicer to Oscar. Perhaps he might be treated to a marvellous banquet tonight. What would there be to eat...?

      One of the travel books she had read contained several accounts of food, so she put together all the dishes that particularly appealed. Roast kid, couscous—which sounded delicious—exotic fish, pungent cheeses, flatbreads. Pomegranate juice, sherbets, honey cakes...

      Her pencil flew over the pages.

      * * *

      They stopped for the night at Aynho, a Northamptonshire village Ellie had never heard of. It was built of golden stone and had an exceedingly fine inn, the George, which Mr Wilton had selected for them.

      She was ushered to the room she would share with Polly and found it large, clean and comfortable. A bath had been ordered and would arrive directly, she was told, and dinner would be served in the private parlour at seven. Would Miss Lytton care for a cup of tea?

      ‘We both would,’ she said gratefully. ‘I could become very accustomed to this,’ she remarked to Polly as the inn’s maid hurried out after setting a very large bathtub behind a screen.

      ‘Me too, miss.’

      Polly was soon answering the door to another maid with the tea tray. She set it on a side table and they both sat and gazed happily at dainty sandwiches and fingers of cake.

      ‘But we must not. I do hope I will be able to continue to employ you, Polly, and that you will want to stay with me, but I have no idea what we are going to find in Lancashire or how far I can make my money stretch. The house may be half a ruin, for all I know.’

      ‘We’ll manage,’ Polly said stoutly, around a mouthful of cress sandwich. ‘It’s in the country—we can have a garden and grow vegetables, keep chickens and a pig, perhaps.’

      ‘Of course,’ Ellie said.

      It was her duty to give a clear, confident lead to anyone in her employ, she knew that, but it was very tempting to wail that the only useful thing she knew how to do was to write children’s books and she had not the slightest idea how to look after chickens. Pigs she refused even to think about.

      I am an educated, intelligent woman. There are books on everything. I will learn how to do all this, she told herself firmly, choosing a second cake for courage.

      The hot water arrived and she persuaded Polly to take one end of the big tub while she took the other. It was a squash, with both of them having to fold in with their knees under their chins, but she could not see why her maid should have to make do with a washbasin and cloth while she wallowed in hot water.

      Fashionable ladies would faint with horror at such familiarity, she was certain, but she was not a fashionable lady, after all.

      ‘May I ask a question, miss?’ Polly was pink in the face from the contortions necessary to wash between her toes.

      ‘Of course, although I won’t promise to answer it.’

      ‘Why don’t you like his lordship? I think he’s ever so lovely.’

      ‘Polly!’

      ‘Well, he is,’ the girl said stubbornly. ‘He’s good-looking and rich and he’s got nice manners and he’s taking us all this way in style. That Mr Wilton’s nice too.’

      ‘Lord Hainford could have prevented Sir Francis’s death,’ Ellie said coldly, and Polly, snubbed, bit her lip and carried on rinsing the soap off her arms in silence.

      And I should forgive him. It is the right thing to do. He has made amends as best he can, so why is it so difficult? It was an accident, just as he said.

      She would be in close proximity with Lord Hainford for at least another three days. She really must learn to be easy with him, she told herself.

      * * *

      It was not until they were sitting around the table in the private parlour, Ellie and the two men—Polly was taking her supper in the kitchens—that she realised what it was that made her react to Blake as she did. This was not about Francis, nor about Blake’s character.

      She could forgive him for ignoring Francis that night—for failing to suppress her stepbrother’s expensive obsession with him. Francis had had a thick skin and it would probably have needed physical violence to turn him away from his admiration. And he had been infuriatingly self-centred and tactless—it would not have occurred to him that interrupting the game with a demand to discuss his own affairs was unmannerly and deserved a snub.

      She could forgive and she could understand. That was not the problem. It was not Blake. It was her.

      She was frightened of him in a way that went far beyond the straightforward fear of what a man might do to a lone woman without protectors. There was that, of course. There was always that whenever a man came close enough to touch, whenever she was cornered with a man between her and the door. That was her secret fear. and understanding why she felt like that was no help at all in conquering it.

      But she desired this man—found him deeply attractive—and had done so from the moment she had seen him. It was irrational to feel like that, she knew. Even if she was not crippled by her anxieties she was crippled in fact—and plain with it—and he would never spare her a glance under normal circumstances. For men like him women like her did