Marrying His Cinderella Countess

‘I… I do not know. We can never be as we were before.’

She loved him, and courtesy and kindness and his remorse at having hurt her would simply be coals of fire because now—selfishly—she wanted so much more. She wanted it all, and anything less would break her heart. But she would have to endure for the child’s sake.

Ellie got to her feet and the solid flagstone floor felt unstable beneath her. ‘I do not think I can—not yet.’

How could she be a good wife, having to hide how she felt because she was too much of a coward to tell him? Suffer his kindness and his pity and probably, because he was a kind man, his lies about how he felt for her?

She walked past him, out through the door before he could stop her, out through the kitchen where Jon and Polly and Finch scrambled to their feet as she passed. Out across the yard past the chicken coop and the privy and out onto the hillside.

She did not know where she was going or what good it would do. She knew only that she could not be in the same room as Blake, seeing his face, seeing his expres

sion change when he realised his plain, lame wife was foolishly in love with him and wanted more than a fresh start or for things to be as they had before.

*

‘Eleanor!’ Blake stood unable to comprehend it as the door banged closed behind her.

Hell, had he failed to apologise enough? Had he not managed to communicate how deeply sorry he was that he had hurt her, how wrong he had been, how much he loved her?

The dark green of her gown moved across the back window of the parlour and he strode across to see her weave her way, limping rapidly, through the outbuildings and out of the gate into the hillside meadow beyond.

And then he realised just what he had not done.

The catch on the window was old and stiff, and he had to thump it hard with the flat of his hand before it opened, but he was in no mood now to find his way out of the house. He wanted the fastest route to Eleanor.

A coat seam split as he climbed through the casement and dropped to the ground, and a strong smell of mint wafted up. He had landed in the middle of the herb patch.

Kicking the crushed leaves and earth off his boots Blake ran, scattering chickens as he went. He lost sight of her for a moment, and then he was through the gate and running up the hill.

‘Eleanor!’

She stopped on the crest of the ridge, where a clump of windswept trees made a small spinney, and stood waiting for him, her back turned. She looked…weary.

Blake slowed, getting his breath as he walked round to face her. ‘You are unhappy because you love me and you think I do not love you. But you are wrong. I do love you,’ he said.

No time now for elaborate explanations that might be misunderstood.

‘You love me? Why didn’t you say so?’ she demanded, staring at him.

‘I meant to and then I got too tied up in explaining. Concussion, male stupidity, guilt… I don’t know, Eleanor. I have never told anyone I loved them before.’

‘You love me,’ she repeated, and this time it was not a question.

Blake nodded, instinct telling him that this was not the time to protest too much.

Then the rest of what he had said seemed to reach her. ‘You believe that I love you?’

He pulled a folded paper from his inside breast pocket. ‘I found all of these in your room when I was searching for clues to where you had gone and I read them. You are writing a novel, aren’t you?’

She shrugged, the colour high in her face. ‘I was trying to. It is no good—I realise that. I couldn’t send it to a publisher.’

‘Because it reveals too much about your own thoughts and feelings. And the hero looks just like me. I was jealous until I recognised him.’

‘You are very good-looking,’ she said tightly, still blushing. ‘I saw you with Francis once and you seemed so right for the hero.’

‘I sorted them into order,’ he said. ‘You start off with what I flatter myself is sensual desire and as the story progresses something else happens. You were writing about your feelings for me, weren’t you, Eleanor? Why didn’t you tell me that you loved me?’

‘When you married me because I would do as a wife and you liked me? How could I have borne it if I’d told you and you were kind to me?’