The Cinderella Countess Read online

  From rags to riches

  By the earl’s side!

  Abandoned as a small child, Annabelle Smith has only vague memories of her past. Now living as a healer in London’s poverty-stricken East End, she receives a life-changing visit from the rich and imposing Lytton Staines, Earl of Thornton. He needs a cure for his ailing sister and helping him thrusts Belle into his dazzling life of luxury. But it’s Lytton who makes her world come alive!

  “Annabelle Smith is not as she seems,” Lytton said. “There are secrets that she holds close, but I do not know of them. Yet. By her own account she seldom leaves the borders of Whitechapel.”

  “A mystery, then, and one that refuses to unravel. It just gets more and more interesting,” Shay said and began to laugh.

  “What does?”

  “That you should be protecting her as you do. Is she your mistress?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think, that is the trouble. She looks like a sultry angel and speaks two languages, both in the accents of the highborn. And yet she resides in Whitechapel? There has to be a story there.”

  Author Note

  Lytton and Belle’s story is the third in The Gentlemen of Honor series. I absolutely love the title The Cinderella Countess because it encapsulates everything this book is. Hope. Hardship. Fortitude. Triumph. It was such a fun book to write. I still smile as I picture Stanley the dog tearing at the Earl of Thornton’s pink silk waistcoat in the front room of Belle’s small Whitechapel dwelling.

  I hope you might also like to read Shay’s and Aurelian’s stories after finishing this one.

  A Night of Secret Surrender (Shay and Celeste)

  A Proposition for the Comte (Aurelian and Violet)

  SOPHIA JAMES

  The Cinderella Countess

  Sophia James lives in Chelsea Bay, on the North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, who is an artist. She has a degree in English and history from Auckland University and believes her love of writing was formed by reading Georgette Heyer on vacations at her grandmother’s house. Sophia enjoys getting feedback at sophiajames.co.

  Books by Sophia James

  Harlequin Historical

  Ruined by the Reckless Viscount

  Gentlemen of Honor

  A Night of Secret Surrender

  A Proposition for the Comte

  The Cinderella Countess

  The Society of Wicked Gentlemen

  A Secret Consequence for the Viscount

  The Penniless Lords

  Marriage Made in Money

  Marriage Made in Shame

  Marriage Made in Rebellion

  Marriage Made in Hope

  Once Upon a Regency Christmas

  “Marriage Made at Christmas”

  Visit the Author Profile page

  at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  I’d like to thank all my lovely writing friends from the RWNZ.

  Your help and support have really been appreciated.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Shipwrecked with the Captain by Diane Gaston

  Chapter One

  London—1815

  ‘There is a man here to see you, Belle, but I warn you he is unlike any man I have ever seen before.’

  ‘Is he disfigured?’ Annabelle Smith asked from above her burner where a tincture of peppermint and camphor was coming to a boil nicely, the steam of it rising into the air. ‘Or is he just very ill?’

  Rosemary Greene laughed. ‘Here is his calling card. His waistcoat is of pink shiny satin and he has ornate rings on every one of his fingers. His hair is styled in a way I have never seen the likes of before and there is a carriage outside in the roadway that looks like it comes from a fairy tale. A good one, with a happy ending.’

  Annabelle glanced at the card. Lytton Staines, the Earl of Thornton. What could a man like this possibly want with her and why would he come here to her humble abode on the fraying edges of Whitechapel?

  ‘Put him into the front room, Rose, and make certain the dog is not in there with him. I will be there in a moment.’

  Rosemary hesitated. ‘Do you want me to accompany you?’

  ‘Why should I require that?’

  ‘Our visitor is a young man from society and you are a young woman. Is not a chaperon needed in such circumstances?’

  Belle laughed at the worry on her friend’s face. ‘Undoubtedly if this was society it would be needed, but it is not and he has probably come to purchase medicines. Give me five minutes with this brew and in the meanwhile offer him a cup of tea. If he asks for anything stronger than that, however, do not allow it for we need all the alcohol we have left for the patients.’

  Rose nodded. ‘He looks rather arrogant and very rich. Shall I get your aunt to sit with him? I don’t think I feel quite up to it myself.’

  Belle smiled. ‘If we are lucky, the Earl of Thornton might have second thoughts about staying and will depart before I finish this.’

  * * *

  Lytton Staines looked around the room he had been asked to wait in, which was small but very tidy. There was a rug on the floor that appeared as though it had been plaited with old and colourful rags and on the wall before him were a number of badly executed paintings of flowers. He wondered why he had come here himself and not sent a servant in his stead. But even as he thought this he knew the answer. This was his sister’s last chance and he did not want another to mess up the possibility of Miss Smith’s offering her help.

  The woman who had shown him into the front parlour had disappeared, leaving him with an ancient lady and a small hairy dog who had poked its head up from beneath his chair. A sort of mongrel terrier, he determined, his teeth yellowed and his top lip drawn back. Not in a smile, either. He tried to nudge the animal away with his boot in a fashion that wasn’t offensive and succeeded only in bringing the hound closer, its eyes fixed upon him.

  In a room down a narrow passageway someone was singing. Lytton would have liked to have put his hands to his ears to cancel out the cacophony, but that did not seem quite polite either.

  He should not have come. Nothing at all about this place was familiar to him and he felt suddenly out of his depth. A surprising admission, given that in the higher echelons of the ton he’d always felt more than adequate.

  The cup of tea brought in by a servant a moment before sat on the table beside him, a plume of fragrant steam filling the air.

  For a second a smile twitched as he imagined his friends Shay, Aurelian and Edward seeing him here like this. It was the first slight humour he had felt in weeks and he reached for the softness of the emotion with an ache.

  Dying became no one, that was for certain, and sickness and all its accompanying messiness was not something he had ever had any dealings with before.

  ‘Thank God,’ h
e muttered under his breath and saw the old lady look up.

  He tipped his head and she frowned at him, the glasses she wore falling to the very end of a decent-sized nose and allowing him to see her properly.

  Once she must have been a beauty, he thought, before the touch of time had ruined everything. His own thirty-five years suddenly seemed numerous, the down slide to old age horribly close.

  With care he reached for the teacup only because it gave him something to do and took a sip.

  ‘Tea was always my mother’s favourite drink.’ These words came unbidden as Lytton recognised the taste of the same black variety his mother favoured and the frown on the old woman opposite receded.

  As he shifted a little to allow the material in his jacket some room, the dog before him suddenly leapt, its brown and white body hurtling through the air to connect with the cup first and his waistcoat second, the hot scald of liquid on his thighs shocking and the sound of thin bone china shattering loud upon the plain timber boards of the floor.

  The dog’s teeth were fastened on the stranger’s clothing. Belle heard the tear of silk and breathed out hard, wondering why Tante Alicia had not reprimanded her pet for such poor behaviour.

  ‘Stanley. Stop that.’ She hurried into the front room with horror. ‘I am so sorry, sir, but he loves the colour pink and your waistcoat is of the shade he is most attracted to.’

  Her hands tried to dislodge the canine’s teeth from their sharp hold, but she had no luck at all. If anything, the expensive silk ripped further and she was pulled over almost on top of the Earl of Thornton in the ensuing tangle, her hand coming across the warm wetness at his thighs before he snatched it away.

  ‘Cease.’ His voice cut through the chaos and for a moment Belle wondered momentarily if it was to her or to Stanley that he spoke.

  Tante Alicia’s terrier did just as he was told, slinking to the door and out of the room with his tail firmly between bowed legs, Alicia herself following.

  Annabelle was left in a more compromising position, her balance precarious because of her desperate hope of allowing no more damage to a garment of clothing that looked as if it might be worth more than cost of this entire house put together.

  ‘God, but he has torn it badly,’ she said beneath her breath, further words dissolving into French and directed at her departing aunt.

  She broke off this tirade when she realised its absolute inappropriateness and regained her feet, crossing to the cabinet by the window and proceeding to extract a pound note from her velvet purse in the drawer.

  ‘I will certainly pay for any damage, sir. I’d hoped Stanley might have been outside in the garden, you see, but unfortunately, he was not.’

  ‘He has a penchant for the colour pink because of a fluffy toy he had as a puppy?’ the man asked.

  ‘You speak French?’

  ‘Fluently. I presume that you are Miss Annabelle Smith? The herbalist?’

  When she nodded he carried on.

  ‘I am Lord Thornton and I wish to employ your services in regards to my sister. She has been struck down with a wasting sickness and no physician in England has been able to find a cure for her.’

  ‘But you are of the opinion that I might?’

  ‘People talk of you with great respect.’

  ‘People you know?’ She could not stop the disbelief betrayed in her words.

  ‘My valet, actually. You were instrumental in allowing his father a few more good years.’

  ‘Yet more often I do not foil the plans of God.’

  ‘You are a religious woman, then?’

  ‘More of a practical one. If you imagine me as the answer to all your...prayers, you may be disappointed.’ She faltered.

  ‘I am not a man who puts much stock in prayers, Miss Smith.’

  ‘What do you put stock in, then?’

  For a second she thought she saw anger flint before he hid it.

  ‘Brandy. Gaming. Horseflesh. Women.’

  There was a wicked glimmer of danger in his gold eyes and Belle stepped back.

  * * *

  Miss Annabelle Smith looked shocked but he was not here to pretend. She had the most astonishing blue eyes Lytton had ever seen and when her fingers had run over his private parts in her haste to remove the dog from the hem of his waistcoat he’d felt an instantaneous connection of red-hot lust.

  Hell.

  Did the tea have something in it, some herbal aphrodisiac that befuddled his brain and bypassed sense? Because already he wanted her fingers back where they had only briefly rested.

  He pushed the money she offered away and stood, his boot crunching the remnants of the teacup into even smaller parts, the roses once etched into the china now disembodied.

  He could not imagine what had made him answer her query as to what he put stock in so rudely, but, he suddenly felt just like the dog—Stanley, had she called him?—all his hackles raised and a sense of fate eroding free will.

  There was protection in the depravities of his true self and suddenly even his sister’s need for Annabelle Smith’s magical concoctions was secondary to his own need for escape.

  But she was not letting him go so easily, the towel she had in her hand now dabbing again at his thigh.

  Was she deranged? What female would think this acceptable? With horror he felt a renewed rising in his cursed appendage and knew that she had seen the betrayal of his body in her instant and fumbling withdrawal. The white towel was stained brown in tea.

  ‘I thought...’ She stopped and dimples that he had not known she had suddenly surfaced. ‘I am sorry.’ With determination she stuck the cloth out for him to take and turned her back. ‘You may see to yourself, Lord Earl of Thornton. I should have understood that before.’

  His title was wrong. She had no idea how to address a peer of the realm. He rubbed at his thighs with speed and was glad of the lessening hot wetness.

  Taking in a breath, he realised how much he had needed air. She still had not turned around, her shapely bottom outlined beneath the thin day dress she wore. There were patches at a side pocket and the head of some straggly plant stuck out of the top.

  She smelt of plants, too, the mist of them all around her. Not an unpleasant smell, but highly unusual. Most ladies of his acquaintance held scents of violets, or roses, or lavender.

  ‘I have finished with the towel, Miss Smith.’

  He was amused by her allowance of so much privacy.

  ‘Thank you.’ She snatched it back from him and the awkward maiden became once again a direct and determined woman, no air of humour visible.

  ‘I would need to see your sister before I prescribed her anything. Proper medicine does not enjoy guesswork and a wasting sickness encompasses many maladies that are as different from each other as night is to day.’

  ‘Very well. She is here in London for the next week, seeing specialists, so if you would have some time...’

  ‘Pick me up here at nine tomorrow morning. I need to prepare some treatments but...’ She hesitated and then carried on. ‘I do not come cheap, my lord Earl. Each consultation would be in the vicinity of three pounds.’

  Lytton thought she held her breath as she said this, but he could have been wrong. ‘Done. I will be here at nine.’

  ‘Good day, then.’

  She put her hand out and shook his. He felt small hardened spots on her fingers and wondered what work might have brought those about.

  Not the soft pliable hands of a lady. Not the grip of one either. The one ring she wore was small and gold. He felt the excess of his own jewellery with a rising distaste.

  A moment later he was in his carriage, leaning his head back against fine brown leather. He needed a stiff drink and quickly.

  ‘White’s,’ he said to the footman who was closest, glad when the conveyance began to move away from the cloying pover
ty of Whitechapel and from the contrary, forceful and highly unusual Miss Annabelle Smith.

  * * *

  His club was busy when he arrived and he strode over to where Aurelian de la Tomber was sitting talking to Edward Tully.

  ‘I thought you were still in Sussex with your beautiful wife, Lian?’

  ‘I was until this morning. I am only up here for the day and will go home first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Wedded life suits you, then. You were always far more nomadic.’

  ‘The philosophy of one woman and one home is addictive.’

  ‘Then you are a lucky man.’

  Lytton saw Edward looking at him strangely and hoped he’d kept the sting out of his reply. It was getting more and more difficult to be kind, he thought, and swallowed the brandy delivered by a passing servant, ordering another in its wake.

  He was unsettled and distinctly out of sorts, his visit to the East End of London searing into any contentment he’d had.

  ‘I’ve just had a meeting with a woman who concocts medicines in the dingy surroundings of Whitechapel. Someone needs to do something about the smell of the place, by the way, for it is more pungent than ever.’

  ‘Was the herbalist hopeful of finding some remedy for your sister?’

  Edward looked at him directly, sincerity in his eyes.

  ‘She was.’ Lytton said this because to imagine anything else was unthinkable and because right now he needed hope more than honesty.

  ‘Who is she?’ Aurelian asked.

  ‘Miss Annabelle Smith. My valet recommended her services.’

  ‘She cured him? Of what?’

  ‘No. She prolonged the life of his father and the family were grateful. I can’t quite imagine how he paid the costs, though.’

  ‘The costs of her visits?’

  ‘Three pounds a time feels steep.’

  ‘Had you given her your card before she charged you?’

  Lytton nodded. ‘And I would have been willing to pay more if she had asked.’