Louise Allen - Marrying His Cinderella Countess

‘I see.’

She met his gaze, her hazel eyes cool and judgmental. She did not have to say the words—if he had left the card game, spoken to her stepbrother there and then, not only would Lytton still be alive but he might have salvaged his investment by making immediate sales the next day.

Now it only remained to deliver the really bad news and she would go from despising him to hating him.

The solicitor spoke before Blake could. ‘I am afraid it is worse than that, Miss Lytton. It appears that not only did Sir Francis invest all his available resources in this scheme, but also yours.’

‘Mine? But he could not do that.’

‘He could,’ Blake said. ‘And he did. He had complete control of your finances. Doubtless he thought it was for the best.’

She took a deep, shuddering breath, her hands clenched together tightly in her lap, and Blake braced himself for the tears.

‘I am ruined,’ she said flatly.

It was not a question and there were no tears.

‘The investments have gone, and this house, as you know, is rented,’ Rampion said. ‘There is nothing remaining of your liquid assets—nothing to inherit from your stepbrother. However, you do own Carndale Farm in Lancashire. It was part of your mother’s dowry, if you recall, and tied up in ways that prevented Sir Francis disposing of. It is safe. That is nothing has been sold and it still brings in rents...although a mere two hundred a year.’

‘Lancashire,’ she murmured faintly. And then, more strongly, ‘But there is a house?’

Any other lady would have been in a dead faint by now, or in strong hysterics, Blake thought. Certainly she would not be wrestling with the essentials of the situation as this woman was. It occurred to him fleetingly that Eleanor Lytton would be a good person to have by one’s side in an emergency.

‘Yes, a house—although it has been uninhabited since the last tenant left a year ago. The farm itself—the land—is leased out separately.’

‘I see.’ She visibly straightened her back and lifted her shoulders. ‘Well, then, the furniture and Francis’s possessions must be sold to pay any remaining debts. Hopefully that will also cover his bequests to the staff. I will move to Lancashire as soon as possible.’

‘But, Miss Lytton, an unmarried lady requires a chaperon,’ the solicitor interjected.

‘I will have a maid. I think I can afford her wages,’ she said indifferently. ‘That must suffice. My unchaperoned state is hardly likely to concern the Patronesses of Almack’s, now, is it? Perhaps we can meet again tomorrow, Mr Rampion. Will you be able to give me an assessment of the outstanding liabilities and assets by then?’

She stood and they both came to their feet.

‘I think I must leave you now, gentlemen.’

She limped from the room, a surprisingly impressive figure in her dignity, despite her faded blacks and the scattering of hairpins that fell to the floor from her appalling coiffure. The door closed quietly behind her and in the silence Blake thought he heard one gasping sob, abruptly cut off. Then nothing.

‘Hell,’ Blake said, sitting down again, against all his instincts to go and try to comfort her. He was the last person she would want to see.

He was trying his hardest not to feel guilty about any of this—he was not a soothsayer, after all, and he could hardly have foreseen that bizarre accident and its consequences—but his actions had certainly been the catalyst.

‘Indeed,’ the older man re-joined, tapping his papers into order. ‘Life is not kind to impoverished gentlewomen, I fear. Especially those whose worth is more in their character than their looks, shall we say?’

‘Why does Miss Lytton limp?’ Blake asked.

‘A serious fall three years ago, I understand. There was a complex fracture and it seems that she did permanent damage to her leg. Her stepfather suffered a fatal seizure upon finding her. I imagine you will want to be on your way, my lord? I am grateful for your efforts to make these notes legible. I can see I have some work to do in order to present Miss Lytton with a full picture tomorrow.’

‘I will leave you to it, sir.’

Blake shook hands with the solicitor and went out, braced for another encounter with Miss Lytton. But the hallway held nothing more threatening than scurrying domestics, and he let himself out with a twinge of guilty relief.

* * *

‘That is the last of the paperwork concerning Francis Lytton’s death.’ Jonathan Wilton, Blake’s confidential secretary, placed a sheaf of documents in front of him.

Blake left the papers where they lay and pushed one hand through his hair. ‘Lord, that was a messy business. It is just a mercy that the Coroner managed the jury with a firm hand and they brought a verdict of accidental death. Imagine if we were having to cope with Crosse’s hanging. As it is, he’s skulking in Somerset—and good riddance.’

Jonathan gave a grunt of agreement. He was Blake’s illegitimate half-brother—an intelligent, hard-working man a few months younger than Blake, who might easily have passed for a full sibling.

Blake had acknowledged him, and would have done more, but Jon had insisted on keeping his mother’s name and earning his own way in the world. It had been all Blake could do to get him to accept a university education from him. He had gone to Cambridge, Blake to Oxford, and then Jon had allowed himself to be persuaded into helping Blake deal with the business of his earldom.

In public Jon was punctiliously formal. In private they behaved like brothers. ‘Lytton was a damn nuisance,’ he remarked now.

‘What I ever did to deserve being a role model for him, I have no idea.’ Blake made himself stop fidgeting with the Coroner’s report. ‘He irritated me. That was why I was so short with him that evening, if you want the truth. I didn’t want him hanging round me at the club.’

‘Not your fault,’ Jon observed with a shrug as he slid off the desk and picked up the paperwork.

‘I could have talked to him—made him see he was acting unwisely.’

He couldn’t shake an unreasonable feeling of guilt about the incident, and Miss Lytton’s courage in the face of bereavement and financial ruin had made him feel even worse. He did not like feeling guilty, always did his rather casual best not to do anything that might justify the sensation, and he managed, on the whole, to avoid thinking about the last time he had felt real guilt over a woman.

Felicity...

The woman he had driven to disaster. The woman he had not realised he loved until too late.

As usual he slammed a mental door on the memory, refused to let it make him feel...anything.

There was a knock on the study door. Blake jammed his quill back into the standish. ‘Come in!’

‘The morning post, my lord.’

The footman passed a loaded salver to Jon, who dumped the contents onto the desk, pulled up a chair and began to sort through it.

He broke the seal on one letter, then passed it across after a glance at the signature. ‘From Miss Lytton.’

Plain paper, black ink, a strong, straightforward hand. Blake read the single sheet. Then he read it again. No, he was not seeing things.

‘Hell’s teeth—the blasted woman wants me to take her to Lancashire!’

‘What?’ Jon caught the sheet as Blake sent it spinning across the blotter to him. ‘She holds you responsible for her present predicament...loan of a carriage...escort. Escort? Is she pretty?’

‘No, she is not pretty—not that it would make any difference.’

I hope.

‘Eleanor Lytton is a plain woman who dresses like a drab sparrow. Her hair appears never to have seen a hairdresser and she limps.’ He gave her a moment’s thought, then added for fairness, ‘However, she has guts and she appears to be intelligent—except for her insistence on blaming me for her stepbrother’s death. Her temper is uncertain, and she has no tact whatsoever. I am going to call on her and put a stop to this nonsense.’