Bronwyn Scott - Tempted By His Secret Cinderella

‘My sister is with me this Season,’ the first one said, and Sutton restrained the urge to laugh. Of course she was. It had taken the man all of thirty seconds. A record, to be sure. If his uncle wasn’t already dead, Sutton would kill him for this. His uncle had made his life a living hell.

The fast click of boot heels on the wooden treads of the boarding-house stairs alerted Elidh to her father’s return. From the sound of those clicks, he was excited and in earnest. That worried her. It usually meant he had concocted a new scheme to lift them out of the encroaching poverty of their life. Elidh set aside her mending and steeled herself for whatever came through the door. With her father, one never knew. Sometimes he brought home people, sometimes he brought home ideas. Once he’d brought home a monkey. She wished he’d bring home money. They could use some right now. She’d economised all she could and it still wasn’t enough. Not for the first time, she wished her father could be normal, that he would get up in the mornings and go to a clerking job for the Bank of London. A man could make a hundred pounds a year clerking and there was security. A clerk worked for life, until he chose to quit.

Right now a hundred pounds a year sounded like a fortune to her. They could move out of the dingy boarding house, even out of the dockside neighbourhoods, to a cottage, perhaps in Chelsea. They could eat their own meals instead of the general fare served downstairs in the dining room where they ate with the other boarders. But her father wasn’t a clerk. Clerking was beneath him. Just ask him. He was a playwright, the leader of an acting troupe. At least he had been three years ago, when her mother was still alive and every day had been full of adventure.

Her mother was dead now, lost to tuberculosis, and her father might as well be, too, stumbling through life without his wife, his love, his raison d’être . He had moments. Moments when he was inspired to write his next big play. The moments lasted a few days, long enough to conjure hope that this time it might end differently, that he might complete a work, that it might actually be good enough to sell. But it always ended the same way. Crumpled papers on the floor, a mad rage in which he declared his latest work was rubbish and he vowed never to write again. But that had to change. They’d been close to broke before, but nothing like this. There’d always been something to sell, something to be done to get them by. This time, Elidh wasn’t sure anything would save them. There wasn’t anything left to pawn, no prospects left to hope on that a play might be finished, that a patron might emerge to purchase it. She had counted their funds this morning. Counting her recent payment from a dress shop that gave her piecework during the Season, they had enough to pay the rent for another month, but that was an unreliable source, petering out when the Season ended. Such inconsistency made for long winters. When the money gave out this time, she didn’t know what would happen next.

The door to their rooms crashed open, her father waving a newspaper excitedly in one hand. ‘I’ve found it, Elidh! This will be the making of us!’ He thrust the paper at her. ‘Read!’

Elidh took the newspaper hesitantly. It was fresh, newly printed. She thought of the coin that had been spent on this luxury, precious shillings that could have been hoarded against the inevitable. She scanned the page her father had folded back. Her brow furrowed. It was the society page. Gossip, all of it, most of it about a Sutton Keynes and his newly acquired fortune. The reported amount staggered her. Just moments ago, she’d been thinking a hundred pounds a year would be heavenly. Lucky him. ‘I don’t see what this has to do with us.’ She passed the paper back to her father.

‘Don’t you see, Daughter? The bloke needs to marry, quickly, or his fortune is forfeit. He’s holding a house party to find a bride. Anyone is welcome.’

A tremor of angst rippled through Elidh. What was he planning? Her father couldn’t possibly be thinking of going? Of passing her off as bride material? Had he looked at her recently? She was plain: blonde hair, nondescript eyes that vacillated between hazel and brown. The most interesting thing about her was her name. A man who could pick anyone would definitely not choose her. He probably wouldn’t even notice her. She took back the newspaper, scanning it once more. ‘Anyone who fits the standards, Father,’ she corrected, feeling more confident she could scrap his airy plans. ‘He needs a woman with a title.’ There was nothing her father could do about that. There wasn’t a title anywhere in their family tree. He was a playwright, her mother an actress.

‘Then we’ll make one.’ Her father turned about the room, dancing with his imagination. He snapped his fingers, inspiration finding him. ‘I know—you will be an Italian principessa ! Where is my map of Italy?’ He opened one of the trunks crowded into their small space, doubling as storage and furniture. The scent of cedar filled the air as he rummaged. ‘Ah, here it is.’ He shut the lid and unrolled the map, reaching for a mug and a plate to anchor the sides.

‘Father, what are you doing?’ Elidh crossed the room cautiously, fearfully even. She hoped she hadn’t understood him aright. ‘I can’t be an Italian principessa .’ Surely he wasn’t thinking they’d impersonate royalty?

His finger stopped at a spot of the map. ‘There—Fossano. You can be the Principessa of Fossano. Now, let me see. You need a name.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Chiara di Fossano. Principessa Chiara Balare di Fossano. I think that has a nice ring to it.’

Elidh grabbed for the map and rolled it up in a fury. ‘Stop! This is nonsense. You want me to impersonate an Italian princess?’ There’d been schemes before, little scams on the road when the troupe had been short on coin, but nothing like this. This was madness even for him.

‘It’s not really impersonation, Elidh. I don’t think Chiara Balare actually exists,’ her father reasoned as if creating a fiction was somehow better than pretending to be someone else.

‘That’s not the point.’ Elidh lifted the trunk and put the map away. She wished she could put her father’s ideas away as easily.

‘What is the point, my dear? This man needs a wife to claim his fortune and we need a fortune.’ For a moment, the light left her father’s dark eyes. They were sober and sad. ‘Don’t you think I know how close we are to the edge? This time, we might very well fall off.’ He took her hands and turned them over, surveying her palms. ‘Thank goodness you haven’t stooped to doing other people’s laundry. Your hands aren’t ruined. It would give you away immediately.’

Elidh sighed, summoning her patience. How like her father. Serious one minute and back to his schemes the next. It had been an enchanting quality in her childhood. It had made every day part-adventure, part-fairy tale. Her world had been magical. It wasn’t any more. The enchantment had worn off long ago, leaving the realities of poverty and hopelessness in its wake. It was up to her to be the voice of reason. She took her father’s hands and led him to a trunk. ‘We have to think about this logically. To start, the premise is madness. You want us to infiltrate a party for nobles and impersonate Italian royalty.’ Couldn’t he hear the preposterousness of his own suggestion? What he proposed was impossible.

‘We’ve done such things before, Elidh,’ her father chided as if she was somehow in the wrong. ‘Do you remember the time your mother and I pretended to be an English lord and lady on a Grand Tour whose carriage had broken down?’