Marrying His Cinderella Countess

Chapter Twenty-One

Finch hired a coachman and a groom in Lyndhurst, so they could drive through the night, and sent the team back to Hainford Hall with a groom from the livery stables.

‘There is no way anyone could know which way we’ll go from here,’ Finch explained when Ellie protested about giving up the strong team so early. ‘This is on the way to London just as it is to the North.’

Hopefully her reference to seeking medical advice would make Blake think she was going to London, as she’d intended him to think. She would write to him once she was settled at Carndale, Ellie thought. There was no reason to hide from him—not if they were to find some way to save this marriage. But she did not want to see him. Not yet. She did not think she could cope with it, if she was honest with herself. Quiet reflection was what was needed. She would write eventually…tell him to write back.

‘His lordship hasn’t let Carndale, has he?’ Polly asked suddenly. ‘I only just thought of that. What are we going to do if he has?’

‘There is no need to worry—they haven’t finished the roof repairs or the bore hole for the well yet, Jonathan was telling me that only the other day. It will not be let until everything is complete.’

It was strange how the old farmhouse represented a haven of calm now. Security. Perhaps it had even stopped raining.

*

It took them four days. Without Jon to book ahead and secure the best accommodation Ellie had been reluctant to arrive anywhere late in the evening and chance finding rooms, so she and Polly were both sick of the sight of the coach interior by the time it drew up in front of Carndale. The journey had not been helped by the fact that there had been absolutely nothing they’d felt like talking about.

The past was too painful—especially the recent past—and the present too uncertain.

Her nausea persisted, worse in the morning, which Polly told her was the usual pattern. ‘My ma used to suffer from it something awful,’ she confided. ‘But it stops after a bit.’

‘I hope so,’ Eleanor said wanly. She was making herself eat for the baby’s sake, although keeping breakfast down was proving a lost cause.

She felt relief at the sight of Mr Grimshaw’s craggy face as he crossed the yard to meet them. With his dour unflappability he seemed like a rock in a storm, utterly reliable.

‘Miss—my lady, I should say. We weren’t expecting you.’

‘No. I have come to stay for a while, Mr Grimshaw. Are the family all in good health? And the farm? I hope the well is finished soon for you.’

‘Aye, my lady.’ He held out a callused hand to help her down. ‘That’s just finished today, and they’ll be done with the roof come next week. No need to worry, though. It’s sound enough, and we’ll not have any rain for a few days.’

‘That seems like a miracle,’ she said, looking at a clean, dry yard under a blue sky. Even the plain old house looked warm and welcoming. ‘Do you think Marjorie will be able to lend a hand again?’

‘She will that, my lady.’ He dug in his pocket and produced the key. ‘I’ve been letting the men in and out to do the roof.’

‘Thank you.’ Ellie took the key. ‘Have you anywhere my men can sleep? Mr Finch, my steward, Phipps, my driver and David, the groom.’

‘Aye, I can house them if you want, my lady. But there are rooms over the stable at the back. Needs a clean-out, but I reckon it would suit bachelors.’

Finch’s eyebrows had risen at his new job title, but she had to do something to reward him for his support and loyalty. Hopefully he would be marrying Polly soon, and they could have their own rooms in the main house. She could only hope that Blake was not going to dismiss him. Surely he would not do that? She had to trust that she was not completely wrong about him.

Although that might be easier to bear, she thought as she waited for Finch to unlock the front door. If she had been utterly misguided about Blake, if he was simply the arrogant rakehell intent on only his own pleasure and interests that she had taken him for in the beginning, then she could surely learn to fall out of love with him—which would make it so much easier to endure this marriage.

The old house was warmer than she remembered. It smelt of woodsmoke and dust, but not of damp or neglect. She could take refuge here until she found the strength to go back and discover some way to exist and create a family.

A refuge, not a hiding place, she repeated to herself as she walked through the dim rooms. If she ran, as a cowardly little voice inside her urged, then they would never be able to reach any way forward. And besides, tempting as the idea of hiding somewhere and pretending to be a widow with a child might be, it was a coward’s way out.

This baby deserved to know his or her father. And Blake had the right to be the kind of father she knew he could be if he could only forget he was an earl and think like a plain man. But just now the last person she wanted to see was her husband.

*

When he arrived in Berkeley Square that evening the house was as Blake had left it—empty except for a skeleton staff busy draping the main rooms under dust sheets as Turner directed a campaign of deep cleaning and repairs.

‘Her ladyship?’ Turner stood amidst the table silver in the strong room, surrounded by metal cleaner, polishing cloths and tubs of steaming water. ‘There has been no word from her, my lord.’

‘Obviously a misunderstanding,’ Blake said. ‘I understood her to be coming to Town on some business, but she must have gone to… Oh, what the hell? If I cannot trust your discretion, I cannot trust anyone’s. Between you and me, Turner, my wife has left me. I thought she would come here.’

‘It seems we must put on our thinking caps, my lord.’