Marrying His Cinderella Countess

You do not care? You expect me to believe that? You must have known her well enough to have fallen in love with her. Was she at least a friend? Did you have no feelings at all for what happened? Or perhaps your nose was so put out of joint by her implicit rejection of you that your pride became more important than your concern for a girl you had known all her life.

That was not a good thought to have about the man who was now her husband. She had considered him better than that.

Ellie found her bonnet, put it on and tied the bow with care while she got her expression back under control. She turned to find Blake perfectly composed and smiling.

He leaned forward and tweaked the bow. ‘Perfect. Welcome home, my dear.’

*

It had been inevitable that Eleanor would mention Felicity. At least he had told her enough to squash any curiosity, any desire to probe his feelings about the girl next door who had been so very rash.

The girl I drove to rashness by my arrogant neglect. The love I lost. Lost before I realised I loved her.

He had been young. Was that any excuse? Young and privileged and used to having what he wanted when he wanted it. Felicity—petite, pretty, apparently so docile—had been what he wanted. But not then. Not while he had still had his wild oats to sow and a father who had been carrying all the burden of the estate and its responsibilities and had been in no mood to acknowledge his own eventual mortality by handing over any part of that burden and its power to a son.

He’d had money, freedom and no responsibilities.

Except to Felicity.

Now he handed his new wife down from the carriage and wondered if his desire to marry Eleanor had not been some distorted reflection of his squandered love for Felicity. She had been pretty, docile—until provoked past bearing—perfect both physically and dynastically. Eleanor was plain, lame, independent, and came with no useful connections or wealth of any kind.

‘My lord.’ Tennyson, his butler, was advancing across the carriage drive, managing to hurry without appearing in any way flustered or out of breath—quite an achievement as he was elderly, rotund and red in the face.

The benefits of my best port, Blake thought, his spirits lifting.

He had known Tennyson since the butler had been a skinny under-footman, sneaking him leftover sweetmeats from the adults’ dinner table.

‘My lady.’ Tennyson bent almost double. ‘Welcome to Hainford Hall. I am Tennyson. We have been too long without a mistress.’

That was a jab at Blake, as both he and the butler knew full well. How much the servants knew of what had taken place before Felicity had fled with her poet Blake had no idea, although he suspected that staff always knew considerably more about their employers’ business than their employers ever suspected. But what they wanted now was clear direction, the kind of stability a family in residence with a countess who ran the household on a fair, firm rein would provide.

He glanced at Eleanor, wondering at the sudden tightening of her features, as though she had just stopped herself from pursing her lips.

Instead she smiled. ‘Thank you, Tennyson. I look forward to meeting all the staff, but particularly the housekeeper. Mrs—?’

‘Mrs Morgan, my lady. She will be at the front entrance with the rest of the staff to greet you.’

Blake offered

his arm and guided Eleanor towards the sweep of steps, keeping his pace slow and pointing out features as they went so that she could walk as smoothly as possible.

‘The East Wing—that is the oldest part. The West Wing came next, and then the centre was built to replace an earlier single-storey connection between the two. A strange design, but it seems to work.’

He risked a downward glance, but Eleanor was smiling and seemed quite confident. She obviously understood enough about the management of a great house to know that the housekeeper was her point of contact with the staff and that the butler worked to Blake’s direction.

‘Mrs Morgan is experienced and capable,’ he said, hoping to reassure her.

‘Not so capable that she is entrenched and will expect your bride to dance to her direction, I hope?’ Eleanor said crisply.

‘So do I.’ Blake suppressed a smile and recalled what Eleanor had said about the work involved in managing a household. She might have no experience of one this size, but she knew the principles.

Beside him, he sensed rather than felt her take a deep breath as the staff came out and lined both sides of the steps.

He had written to Tennyson a few days before.

The Countess suffers from some lameness. Unless she asks for assistance, or refers to it herself, no member of staff in any department is to give the slightest indication that they are aware of it.

He watched now, intent for any betraying glance that might embarrass Eleanor, and realised just how much it mattered to him that nothing upset or hurt her. It was possessiveness, he supposed. She was his now.