The Cinderella Countess. Sophia James

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       Chapter One

      London—1815

      ‘There is a man here to see you, Belle, but I warn you he is unlike any man I have ever seen before.’

      ‘Is he disfigured?’ Annabelle Smith asked from above her burner where a tincture of peppermint and camphor was coming to a boil nicely, the steam of it rising into the air. ‘Or is he just very ill?’

      Rosemary Greene laughed. ‘Here is his calling card. His waistcoat is of pink shiny satin and he has ornate rings on every one of his fingers. His hair is styled in a way I have never seen the likes of before and there is a carriage outside in the roadway that looks like it comes from a fairy tale. A good one, with a happy ending.’

      Annabelle glanced at the card. Lytton Staines, the Earl of Thornton. What could a man like this possibly want with her and why would he come here to her humble abode on the fraying edges of Whitechapel?

      ‘Put him into the front room, Rose, and make certain the dog is not in there with him. I will be there in a moment.’

      Rosemary hesitated. ‘Do you want me to accompany you?’

      ‘Why should I require that?’

      ‘Our visitor is a young man from society and you are a young woman. Is not a chaperon needed in such circumstances?’

      Belle laughed at the worry on her friend’s face. ‘Undoubtedly if this was society it would be needed, but it is not and he has probably come to purchase medicines. Give me five minutes with this brew and in the meanwhile offer him a cup of tea. If he asks for anything stronger than that, however, do not allow it for we need all the alcohol we have left for the patients.’

      Rose nodded. ‘He looks rather arrogant and very rich. Shall I get your aunt to sit with him? I don’t think I feel quite up to it myself.’

      Belle smiled. ‘If we are lucky, the Earl of Thornton might have second thoughts about staying and will depart before I finish this.’

      * * *

      Lytton Staines looked around the room he had been asked to wait in, which was small but very tidy. There was a rug on the floor that appeared as though it had been plaited with old and colourful rags and on the wall before him were a number of badly executed paintings of flowers. He wondered why he had come here himself and not sent a servant in his stead. But even as he thought this he knew the answer. This was his sister’s last chance and he did not want another to mess up the possibility of Miss Smith’s offering her help.

      The woman who had shown him into the front parlour had disappeared, leaving him with an ancient lady and a small hairy dog who had poked its head up from beneath his chair. A sort of mongrel terrier, he determined, his teeth yellowed and his top lip drawn back. Not in a smile, either. He tried to nudge the animal away with his boot in a fashion that wasn’t offensive and succeeded only in bringing the hound closer, its eyes fixed upon him.

      In a room down a narrow passageway someone was singing. Lytton would have liked to have put his hands to his ears to cancel out the cacophony, but that did not seem quite polite either.

      He should not have come. Nothing at all about this place was familiar to him and he felt suddenly out of his depth. A surprising admission, given that in the higher echelons of the ton he’d always felt more than adequate.

      The cup of tea brought in by a servant a moment before sat on the table beside him, a plume of fragrant steam filling the air.

      For a second a smile twitched as he imagined his friends Shay, Aurelian and Edward seeing him here like this. It was the first slight humour he had felt in weeks and he reached for the softness of the emotion with an ache.

      Dying became no one, that was for certain, and sickness and all its accompanying messiness was not something he had ever had any dealings with before.

      ‘Thank God,’ he muttered under his breath and saw the old lady look up.

      He tipped his head and she frowned at him, the glasses she wore falling to the very end of a decent-sized nose and allowing him to see her properly.

      Once she must have been a beauty, he thought, before the touch of time had ruined everything. His own thirty-five years suddenly seemed numerous, the down slide to old age horribly close.

      With care he reached for the teacup only because it gave him something to do and took a sip.

      ‘Tea was always my mother’s favourite drink.’ These words came unbidden as Lytton recognised the taste of the same black variety his mother favoured and the frown on the old woman opposite receded.

      As he shifted a little to allow the material in his jacket some room, the dog before him suddenly leapt, its brown and white body hurtling through the air to connect with the cup first and his waistcoat second, the hot scald of liquid on his thighs shocking and the sound of thin bone china shattering loud upon the plain timber boards of the floor.

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