The Cinderella Countess. Sophia James

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СКАЧАТЬ sum of being abandoned sat on her like a weight, altering worth and condemning certainty. No man had ever come near her in the way of a suitor. Did she repel them or was she simply repellent?

      These thoughts of wanting more and wanting it with a man like the Earl of Thornton were witless and unwise.

      He had only ever looked at her in the way of an oddity, a woman who did not fit into any of the boxes the men of the ton needed their women to inhabit.

      Appearance was not important to her and yet she was drawn to Lord Thornton’s beautiful face with an ache. The wealth of a person was also a factor that had held no real weight. Yet the Earl’s pounds had paid for things she would never have been able to procure otherwise, things that eased the wretched life of those struggling with very survival.

      A conundrum and a puzzle.

      She should take heed of his mother’s warnings and make certain that she was soon gone from the lives of the Thorntons. Yet she couldn’t. Lady Lucy needed her and, if truth be told, so perhaps did the Earl. To make him happier. To bring a smile across the sadness in his eyes.

      They were right, these poets and novelists of long ago. The erotic hopes of a body were hot and heady things. Her hands ran across her breasts, nipples standing hard and proud.

      She was not immune after all to the charms of men. No, she shook her head and rephrased. Not men, but one man. The enigmatic and beautiful Earl of Thornton. She knew it was stupid. But there it was. Unarguable.

      * * *

      Lytton smiled at the letter Annabelle Smith had sent him. Fish and stockings, blankets and coats were not things he usually read of, but each item here had been qualified with the person who had received it and that was what made it fascinating reading.

      A young child with a chest complaint that was ongoing, a housewife pregnant for the eighth time in one of the winding and narrow alleys off the Whitechapel Road. An old soldier without a leg who was nearing sixty and needed a pack of cards to fill in the hours of a lonely day.

      Numbers had always been simple things for him and if his father had squandered the coffers of the Thorntons’, then he had refilled them ten times over. Easily. But these pounds that he had accrued also lacked depth, no story behind them save that of an investment.

      His mother’s voice brought him from his thoughts and he watched as she came into the room, a book in hand.

      ‘Have you seen what your healer has left Lucy?’

      He looked up and shook his head as the small tome with blue ribbons was delivered with force to his desk.

      ‘Mrs Mary Wollstonecraft writes that men and women need educational equality and is critical of conventional women. If one were to believe in her premises, where would society be? Washed up, I tell you, each wife and mother attending to her own needs and not to those of her husband and her children. Books like this are a disgrace, Thornton, and one you need to be aware of and forbid when the insidious opinion comes beneath your own roof, crawling into your sister’s consciousness.’

      For a moment he looked at Cecelia and wondered when it was his mother had changed from a gentle parent into this one? The death of his father, he supposed. It could not have been easy for a woman who would listen so carefully to gossip.

      ‘Perhaps returning to Balmain would be a good thing for you? Lucy’s sickness has not been easy for any of us.’

      ‘You cannot think I might leave her? My God, she is still at death’s door.’

      ‘I think we both know that is not true. She is eating again and her countenance is rosier. Certainly, we have passed the point of no return and Miss Smith has done wonders for her.’

      ‘Wonders?’ The word was whispered. ‘It is witchcraft she has employed and who knows how long such things truly last?’

      ‘Being grateful might bolster hope, Mama. Miss Smith is a woman who is an accomplished healer and there is no more to it than that.’

      ‘She knows things.’

      ‘Pardon?’ Lytton looked up.

      ‘Lucy says that she can read her mind and find out exactly what she is thinking. She says it is unsettling.’

      ‘Yet she still wishes to meet her. She told me so this morning, so it cannot be too uncomfortable.’

      ‘Your father would not have allowed it. Such a one in the house. He would have told her to leave the moment she tried to inveigle herself in to our family affairs and sent her packing back to Whitechapel where she belongs.’

      ‘He is dead, Mama. And has been for a good year and a half.’

      ‘Someone shot him. Someone broke into Balmain and shot him. I know it.’

      For a second horror slid down the back of his neck. His mother was going mad and he had not noticed. How long had she been like this? He had been so busy trying to save the estate he had given his mother’s mental state little thought but Lucy must have known as well as David and Prudence. No wonder his oldest sister had disappeared off abroad and his brother was playing up at school.

      A tumbling house of cards, he ruminated, and walked across to Cecelia, taking her hand as he led her to a seat by the window.

      ‘I want you to go back to the country. I will bring Lucy up in a week or two and spend some weeks there as well. You need to rest, for this has all been more than trying for you.’

      Unexpectedly his mother nodded. ‘Perhaps you are right. I could garden and tend to my flowers and walk a little. The glade is always beautiful at this time of the year. When Lucy returns we can follow quiet pursuits.’

      Patting her hand, he was glad as she calmed. ‘The carriage will be readied in the early afternoon and the family physician will accompany you just to be certain. Everything will be arranged so that you will not have to worry again and your great friend Isabel will be thrilled to have you back.’

      After his mother had gone Lytton did another hour’s work to see to all the details of her journey before picking up the book and wandering into Lucy’s room. He found her up in an armchair that was slanted towards the sun. She wore a thick nightdress tied at the waist and her feet were bare.

      ‘It is fine to see you up again.’

      Her smile brightened when she noticed him and brightened further when she glanced at the book he was carrying. ‘Mama took it away.’

      He handed it back to her. ‘The stuff of treason, she thinks.’

      ‘What do you think?’

      ‘I have not read it, but there are movements afoot to cast more light on the inequalities of women. A lot of it makes sense.’

      She undid the blue ribbons and found a dog ear on the top of one page.

      ‘Listen to this.’

      With exaggerated care she read a few pages to him, her voice trembling with the tale of the woman she spoke of. When she had finished she placed the opened book on her breast and looked over at him.

      ‘It СКАЧАТЬ