Marrying His Cinderella Countess

As he’d hoped, Polly was used to the man of the house laying down the law about everything, and now Blake was there she was happy enough to leave the responsibility in his hands. He watched her trudge upstairs and then let himself into the front room.

There was a good blaze in the wide stone fireplace and a pile of logs by the side. Grimshaw and his men had at least done that job well. The heat was still superficial, though, barely touching the bone-deep cold of a house that had stood empty throughout a long winter and a wet, miserable summer.

Eleanor was sitting on a pile of sheepskins with blankets around her shoulders and her hair loose and curling wildly on her shoulders. She did not look round as he closed the door with a soft click.

‘Do go to bed, Polly, please.’

‘She has,’ Blake said, and saw her stiffen, although she did not turn from the leaping flames. ‘I was worried about you so I came back.’

‘Blake?’ She did finally look round, and he thought her like something from a fairy tale—silhouetted against the fire, enthroned on her pile of sheepskins, her hair unbound and undisciplined, the glimmer of her pale oval face almost invisible against the light.

‘You must be exhausted.’ He shivered despite his caped greatcoat, but he unbuttoned it, tossed it onto a settle and went to hunker down beside her. ‘Are you frightened to go to bed, is that it? Did Grimshaw—?’

‘Oh, no, he couldn’t have been kinder, in that abrupt, growly way he has. And Mrs Grimshaw came and brought us a can of milk and some bread and eggs. I am just…’ Her voice trailed away and she hunched her shoulders under the blankets.

‘So tired that you have gone beyond sleep, even?’

He had been that way himself before now, after an all-day, all-night orgy of card-playing, but that hadn’t been accompanied by anxiety and an argument and having to struggle to make a dirty, cold house habitable.

‘Mmm,’ she agreed.

‘Go to bed,’ he said. ‘I’ll sleep down here in front of the fire. Stand guard.’

‘What against?’ she asked, and lifted her head to look him in the eye. ‘Ghosts? I don’t think this house has any.’

‘Against whatever it is stopping you sleeping,’ Blake said. When she did not respond, except to give a little shake of her head, he shifted onto the sheepskins beside her, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. ‘I’ll carry you up.’

‘Cold up there,’ she mumbled, almost limp against his shoulder. ‘I put the warming pan in Polly’s bed.’

Of course you did, Blake thought with exasperated admiration. Most mistresses wouldn’t even have thought of it—would assume that the servants would heat themselves a brick on the range.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Sleep here.’ He laid her down, then slid his arm out.

Eleanor was asleep as soon as her head touched the soft curling wool, he realised. He heaped the skins up to make a barrier between her back and the draught from the door, then quietly mended the fire and banked it down with some turves that had been stacked on the hearth—presumably for just that purpose.

He couldn’t leave now, he realised, because unless he woke one of the two women to lock up behind him he could not secure the house. He could spend the night in the lean-to, of course, but he didn’t feel quite that chivalrous.

Blake went out to see to the horse, then came back in through the kitchen, dealt with that fire and blew out the lamp. Then he went into the front room and eyed the available furniture. It was all bare wood—two settles and an uncompromising upright chair with arms. And it was cold.

He pulled off his boots, took off his coat, waistcoat and neckcloth, and eased down behind Eleanor. He pulled the sheepskins over both of them, pillowed his head on his bent arm and closed his eyes. The skins smelt of lanolin and sheep, the room of woodsmoke and dust…and Eleanor of woman and good plain soap.

He pushed away the sheepskins until he could curl his body around her, wriggled his cold feet into the skins and closed his eyes, expecting to find that he was also too tired, too full of churning thoughts to be able to sleep. Oblivion came almost on a breath.

*

She was warm, and the bed smelt of sheep and—and Blake? The realisation of why she was warm came with the awareness of an arm lying heavily across her waist and the large, solid body she was held against.

Ellie blinked into the dawn light and the weight over her waist lifted away. The pressure of the body—Blake’s body—left her back.

‘You are awake.’ He was still so close that his breath tickled warmly on the nape of her neck. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to crowd you.’ He sounded sleepy, comfortable.

‘Blake. My lord. You are in my bed.’

Now that the immediate shock of finding herself in bed with a man had left her, she found she had to force herself to pretend outrage. It was really rather lovely to feel that warm, big, male body curved around hers, protecting her. More than lovely.

‘It was the only warm, comfortable place and we are both clothed. And nobody knows.’

‘I know,’ Ellie pointed out, making no attempt to move. ‘And so do you.’