Marrying His Cinderella Countess

He closed his hand over hers as they climbed the steps then, at the top, swept her up and carried her over the threshold.

Home—and for the first time in a long time being here really felt like home.

Chapter Seventeen

‘I thought your ladyship would wish to start at the top and work down,’ Mrs Morgan said.

‘Thank you, but no. From the basement up,’ Ellie said firmly. ‘A well-run house starts in the domestic offices, as I am sure you agree. My husband can show me the public rooms.’

My husband.

It still felt very strange to say it—almost as strange as being addressed as my lady—even though her husband seemed determined to demonstrate his role to her at every opportunity. She had not expected that Blake would want to make love so often and so…intensely. Not that she was complaining, despite the fact that she felt a trifle sore and all kinds of unexpected muscles were making their presence felt.

Blake had made love to her twice that morning, allowing her out of bed finally to what had felt like an outrageously late breakfast. Ellie had been sure that all the staff were perfectly well aware that it was not sleep that had detained the Earl and Countess in their chamber, but Blake seemed oblivious to whatever the expressionless footmen might be thinking.

He had shown her the large dining room—they had eaten in the small one the night before—then strolled with her through the gardens closest to the house for a snatch of fresh air, then taken her back into the house to view the Countess’s Sitting Room. She must have that redecorated and furnished absolutely as she wished, he had said with an airy wave of the hand, before taking her to the Long Gallery for a tour of the ancestral portraits.

Ellie had felt herself wilting under the haughty gaze of an endless succession of ancestors. Gratifyingly, not all the women were beauties, although the fleshy, protuberant-eyed Countesses of Charles II’s reign had doubtless been considered so at the time.

Blake had conducted the viewing in chronological order, starting with the first age-darkened, wooden-looking Sir Giles Pencarrow, who had come out of the West Country to risk all at the side of the Tudor invader and had been rewarded with a barony for his gamble.

Finally they’d got to the end, and the portrait of Blake by George Romney painted ten years earlier. He was shown standing, holding his horse’s bridle, while a pair of hounds sat at his feet and Hainford Hall glowed golden under a setting sun in the background.

She’d wanted to stand and look at it for a long time—to study the young, arrogant, beautiful face staring out into the life that awaited him, would shape him. Instead, Ellie had made him walk her back slowly over three generations while she’d tried to learn the names.

‘I will come here every day until I have them all fixed,’ she’d told him.

‘And I have sent to Lawrence for our bridal portrait,’ he had replied casually, as though the prospect of finding herself looking down at future generations—Who’s that plain woman next to the handsome man, Grandpapa?—was not in the slightest bit intimidating.

Perhaps the great Thomas Lawrence would work his magic on her as he had on the Prince Regent.

Now she stood in the entrance hall attempting to assert herself with the housekeeper while at the same time keeping on good terms with the woman.

‘Carriage approaching, Mrs Morgan,’ the footman on duty by the front door called out.

‘That will be the first of the bride visits,’ the housekeeper said, apparently quite unaware that she was sending one very inexperienced countess into a nervous spasm. ‘Whose carriage is it, James?’

‘Lord Trenton—I recognise that pair of leaders.’

‘I will go and have refreshments arranged, my lady. Will you receive in the Chinese Salon?’

It was apparently a question simply for the sake of form, because she was already steering Ellie towards a pair of imposing double doors.

‘Let his lordship know immediately, James,’ Ellie called over her shoulder.

Goodness knew where he was—perhaps down at the stables or, worse, as far away as the Home Farm, leaving her to receive not just her new neighbours but the family of the woman Blake should have married.

With a harried glance around the room—exquisitely papered with Chinese scenes on a duck-egg-blue background—Ellie took a seat opposite a group of sofas and armchairs, then bounced up to check her hair in the mirror over the fireplace. She sat again, then realised she should appear to be occupied, so took a slim volume from a side table, opened it and stared unseeing at the pages.

She was perfectly socially adept, she scolded herself. She knew just what to do and how to do it. But where, oh, where was Blake?

‘Lady Trenton and Lord Trenton, my lady.’

‘Thank you, Tennyson. Please have refreshments brought up.’ Ellie rose and held out her hand. ‘Lady Trenton… Lord Trenton. Such a pleasure. Thank you so much for calling.’

They shook hands. He was a bluff, fit man in his sixties, his expansive belly doing nothing to diminish the impression of strength and determination. His lady was a faded blonde beauty, still graceful and charming as she shook hands, then bent to kiss Ellie’s cheek.

‘A new bride for Hainford Hall—such a joy,’ she murmured.