The Incomparable Countess. Mary Nichols

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СКАЧАТЬ was cool and urbane, in the thick of everything, known by everyone. She was fashionably attired, knew how to conduct herself. She also had a prodigious talent. He laughed aloud, making one or two people nearby look sharply at him. They probably thought he was foxed, he did not care; it had come to him in a flash of inspiration, a way of keeping Lavinia occupied. He would ask the Countess of Corringham to paint her portrait and give her drawing and painting lessons.

      He need not be present and it would leave him free to go about the business which had brought him to London. But would she do it? Was she still angry enough to turn him down? But she did not seem particular about whom she painted and was prepared to flatter her sitters for a fat fee, so why should she treat him any differently, if money was all she cared about? Tomorrow he would call on her.

       Chapter Two

      Frances smiled as she left the door of the rundown tenement in Monmouth Street which was home to some twenty orphans. If her Society friends could see her now, they would have apoplexy, she decided—that is, if they recognised her at all. Hatless and dressed in a grey wool dress and a short pelisse, she looked the image of a very ordinary woman, the wife or widow of a clerk or some such, respectable but nondescript.

      Although, as Countess of Corringham, she was in the forefront of the charity which raised money for the orphans, it was as plain Mrs Fanny Randall that she worked at the orphanage, rolling up her sleeves to help bathe the children, or serve them the plain food which her money helped to provide. She loved the work and the children.

      ‘A real pied piper, you are,’ Mrs Thomas, the plump matron of the home, had said, adding that she must be sorry she had had no children of her own. Frances had passed it off with a smile, but her childlessness was the biggest regret of her life and something she found difficult to talk about.

      She climbed up beside John Harker, who had been instructed to come and fetch her at noon in her tilbury. He was used to her ways and made no attempt to stop her when she picked up the ribbons and drove them towards Oxford Street, which was lined with shops and businesses, its pavements full of pedestrians and street hawkers. She tooled the horses with consummate ease, weaving the light carriage neatly in and out of the medley of riding horses, carts and carriages of every description which filled the road. No one paid any attention to an unmarked vehicle being driven by a nobody, but the slight chance she might be seen and recognised led an added piquancy to the adventure.

      Less than twenty minutes later she turned into Duke Street and drew up with a flourish at the door of Corringham House, only to discover the Duke of Loscoe, dressed for riding, standing on the top step, apparently having found she was not at home and about to leave. She would have driven on in the hope he would not recognise her, but it was too late; he was standing quite still, staring at her. Was it in distaste? She could not be sure.

      There was nothing for it but to carry off the situation as if it were nothing out of the ordinary for ladies of the aristocracy to drive themselves about town in what was considered to be a single man’s carriage. Throwing the reins to Harker and instructing him to see to the horses, she jumped down with an agility which the ladies of the ton would have described as hoydenish if they could have seen her, and advanced towards him, smiling.

      ‘Your Grace, I did not expect you, or I would have been at home to greet you.’

      ‘Good day, Countess,’ he said, doffing his curlybrimmed hat and bowing, while at the same time his dark eyes appraised the simple clothes she wore and his eyebrows rose just a fraction. ‘If it is inconvenient…’ His voice tailed off.

      She smiled inwardly to think that he was more discomfited than she was. She could easily have asked him to come another time when she was prepared to receive him, but she had to admit to being a little curious. Why was he visiting her? Surely they could have nothing to say to each other after all this time? ‘It is not inconvenient, my lord. Please come in.’

      The door had been opened by a footman who stood on the threshold, waiting for her to step inside. She led the way. ‘Creeley, show his Grace into the green salon and ask Cook to bring refreshments.’ She turned to the Duke. ‘Please excuse me while I change. I will not keep you long.’

      Once in her bedchamber, she stood and looked at herself in the mirror. She was a perfect antidote. The gown, although it had been clean when she left the house three hours earlier, was spotted and rumpled and some of her hair had escaped its pins and was curling about her neck. There was a smudge on her nose and a scratch on the back of one hand where the kitten they had bought to help keep down the mice at the orphanage had scratched her. It had been her own fault for teasing it.

      Rose was waiting for her, clucking her disapproval. ‘And the Duke of Loscoe standing on the step,’ she said, pulling the gown over Frances’s head. ‘What must he have thought of you?’ Rose had been with her a very long time and considered that gave her the right to speak her mind.

      ‘I do not care a fig what he thinks, Rose.’

      ‘What shall you tell him?’

      ‘About what?’

      ‘This,’ she said, throwing the grey dress into a corner in distaste.

      ‘Nothing. It is none of his business.’

      ‘It will give him a disgust of you.’

      ‘Do you think that bothers me, Rose? Do you think I lay sleepless at night, wondering what people think of me?’

      ‘No, my lady.’

      But there had been a time when she had lain sleepless because of the man who waited for her in her drawing room and that thought brought a wry smile to her lips. She had pretended not to care then for her pride’s sake, but she did not need to pretend now, she told herself firmly, she did not care.

      But even so, she had a feeling her ordered way of life was about to be eroded by a man she thought she had left far behind in her youth. If she had not known him before, if they were only now making each other’s acquaintance, would she feel any differently? Would she find him elegant and charming? She did not know. It was not possible to rewrite history.

      Marcus prowled round the room and wondered what the lovely Countess was up to. The house was furnished in exquisite taste, with carpets and curtains in pale greens and fawns. There were paintings by the masters on the walls and one or two that were unsigned and which he guessed she had executed herself. There was a cabinet containing some beautiful porcelain and vases of fresh flowers on the tables.

      In his experience, when aristocratic owners of beautiful houses fell on hard times, it showed in threadbare carpets or peeling paint or walls bare of valuable paintings, but this was a room of quiet opulence, with not a hint that there was anything wrong with its owner. So why was the Countess so shabbily attired? The Earl had left her well provided for, hadn’t he?

      But she didn’t own the house, he reminded himself. It belonged to her stepson, the present Earl of Corringham. Did he keep his stepmother on short commons? Was that why she had to paint those sickening portraits and teach young ladies to draw? Oh, poor, poor Fanny. He was glad he had decided to visit her. Teaching Vinny would add to her income and he felt he owed her something for the way he had treated her in the past.

      He was standing at the window, looking out on a perfectly maintained garden when he heard her enter. He turned towards her, a smile on his lips which he only just managed to stop becoming a gasp of surprise.

      She СКАЧАТЬ