Marrying His Cinderella Countess

‘The agents have turned up nothing, Murray dithered about his patients’ confidentiality, but it was largely to save face, and he couldn’t hide his surprise when I told him I thought she had been to visit him, so she hasn’t been in touch.’

‘So where else?’

Jon looked as tired as he felt, Blake thought as he sat down again. Neither of them had slept much over the past three nights, and he had noticed that Jon had been pushing his breakfast around his plate as much as he had just now. At least his head had stopped aching. His doctor had pronounced him free of the concussion—not that it seemed to have done his thinking powers much good.

Eleanor had some money, but not much, and she had respectable servants. If anything serious had occurred they would have let him know, surely? She did not know his other properties but—

‘Of course—Carndale. She is familiar with it, it is a good long way away and it is not mine. Or rather she would prefer not to think of it as mine.’

‘I will order the carriage.’ Jon pushed away his half-eaten breakfast and stood up.

‘No, the curricle. Just you and me and a bag apiece. We’ll drive turn-about, if your arm can stand it.’

When Jon began to protest—something about Blake resting because of his head, the distance—Blake said flatly, ‘No. I cannot bear to think of her believing that I would hurt her deliberately. But I have hurt her, Jon.’

‘All right.’ His brother nodded agreement. ‘But we are taking your tiger, so we’ve a third to spell us with the driving—and do not tell me that the entire staff doesn’t know what is going on, because they do. With you looking like there’s been a death in the family and no funeral, they don’t have to use their imaginations to know what the cause is.’

*

Nine days since Ellie had left Hainford Hall. Long enough, surely, for her to have decided what to do, she told herself as she tried for the third time to draft a letter to Blake.

The part concerning Polly and Finch was easy—praise for their loyalty to her, a word about how carefully Finch had looked after her, a statement that she was certain Blake would not be angry with him for following her orders…

What was difficult was how to make him understand that she needed time before she could return to the marriage, but that she would come back, that she had every intention of honouring her vows. She set out how she had felt about his prevarication over the miniature, how she had come upon him in the churchyard unintentionally and how she felt hurt, angry and…lonely.

In a way, it would have been easier if you were in love with a living woman. I would be able to fight, then. But all I have now is the knowledge that I am so far from what you need and want, let alone desire, that staying in your past is easier for you than making a present with me.

I have to come to terms with that, and now I must discover how to forgive and to understand because I—

She almost wrote love you, then jerked back her hand, blotting the page. That was too much like emotional pressure.

I want this marriage to work so much. For the—

For the baby’s sake. No, she could not mention the child either.

The letter was almost right. She had told him why she had left, assured him that she was coming back, and done her best to safeguard Polly and Finch from his anger. Now all she had to do was finish it appropriately—however that might be done—and then work out how to cope with a loveless marriage and a baby on the way and go home again.

There was the sound of hooves in the front yard. Mr Grimshaw’s gig, by the sound of it, although the dogs were barking, which was odd. Polly was upstairs, changing the bed linen, so Ellie put down her pen and went to the front door herself.

It was a high-perch curricle with a team of four steaming horses, a tiger perched up behind and two men…

The tiger jumped from his seat and ran to the leaders’ heads and the driver climbed slowly down.

Blake.

He looked gaunt and grim, there was stubble on his chin, and his heavy driving coat was thick with white dust. For a moment her treacherous heart sang with relief and joy. He was here, he had come for her, and she took two running steps before joy turned to dismay.

What am I going to do now?

She stopped dead, began to back away—as though getting behind the door, closing it, would make him disappear, like a child playing hide and seek.

If I cannot see you, you will not know that I’m here.

‘Eleanor.’

He came across the few feet between them faster than she could back away.

‘Eleanor, don’t run from me. Please.’