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Marrying His Cinderella Countess
Louise Allen
A proposal from the enigmatic earlPlain, lame Ellie Lytton isn’t destined for marriage. She’s perfectly content being her step-brother’s housekeeper… Until the high-handed Earl of Hainford arrives with shocking news—her step-brother has been killed!Ellie believes the Earl responsible for her plight and that he is duty-bound to escort her on the journey to her new home. But soon Blake’s fighting an unwanted attraction to his argumentative companion… And when she needs protection, he determines he’ll keep her safe—by making Ellie his Countess!
A proposal from the enigmatic earl
Plain, lame Ellie Lytton isn’t destined for marriage. She’s perfectly content being her stepbrother’s housekeeper... Until the high-handed Earl of Hainford arrives with shocking news—her stepbrother has been killed!
Ellie believes the earl is responsible for her plight and that he is duty bound to escort her on the journey to her new home. But soon Blake’s fighting an unwanted attraction to his argumentative companion... And when she needs protection, he determines he’ll keep her safe—by making Ellie his countess!
‘You really are the most extraordinary creature,’ Hainford said.
Ellie opened her mouth to deliver a stinging retort, and then realised that his lips were actually curved in a faint smile. The frown had gone too, as though he had puzzled her out.
‘So, not only am I a creature, and an extraordinary one, but I am also a source of amusement to you? Are you this offensive to every lady you encounter, or only the plain and unimportant ones?’
‘I feel like a hound being attacked by a field mouse.’
He scrubbed one hand down over his face, as though to straighten his expression, but his mouth, when it was revealed again, was still twitching dangerously near a smile.
‘I had no intention of being offensive, merely of matching your frankness.’
He made no reference to the plain and unimportant remark. Wise of him.
‘You are unlike any lady I have ever come across.’
‘But?’ Ellie held her breath.
Hainford looked up, the expression in his grey eyes either amused or resigned, or perhaps a little of both. ‘But I will do it. I will convey you to Lancashire.’
Author Note (#u805bc18e-a391-51fd-8faa-4fd5f9fff2a9)
Do you ever wonder where the ideas for a novel come from? I do too! Quite often they seem to appear mysteriously in my head—but occasionally I can trace at least some elements of a story back to its inspiration.
Marrying His Cinderella Countess was a marriage of more than my hero and heroine. I knew quite a lot about Ellie already, and I also knew just how Blake came to be injured at his club, but it took a little while to realise that the two of them belonged together. And then I went to the Romantic Novelists’ Association annual conference at one of Lancaster University’s rural campuses, built around an old farmstead. The lovely farmhouse had become part of the dining hall, and after several days of eating my lunch outside its front door I began to wonder who had lived there.
It was when I imagined Ellie there that the parts of this story all fitted at last. I hope you enjoy Blake and Ellie’s tale—and if you are thinking about visiting Lancashire I can promise that it really doesn’t rain all the time. That was 1816, which was not a good year for the weather!
Marrying His Cinderella Countess
Louise Allen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
LOUISE ALLEN loves immersing herself in history. She finds landscapes and places evoke the past powerfully. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite destinations. Louise lives on the Norfolk coast and spends her spare time gardening, researching family history or travelling in search of inspiration. Visit her at louiseallenregency.co.uk (http://www.louiseallenregency.co.uk), @LouiseRegency (https://twitter.com/LouiseRegency) and janeaustenslondon.com (http://www.janeaustenslondon.com).
Books by Louise Allen
Mills & Boon Historical Romance
The Herriard Family
Forbidden Jewel of India
Tarnished Amongst the Ton
Surrender to the Marquess
Lords of Disgrace
His Housekeeper’s Christmas Wish
His Christmas Countess
The Many Sins of Cris de Feaux
The Unexpected Marriage of Gabriel Stone
Brides of Waterloo
A Rose for Major Flint
Stand-Alone Novels
Once Upon a Regency Christmas
‘On a Winter’s Eve’
Marrying His Cinderella Countess
Visit the Author Profile page
at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
For AJH. You know why.
Contents
Cover (#u3ac21e46-0348-57e2-8ec1-86186abf2627)
Back Cover Text (#u181eb509-e9ab-5ed7-ab6c-233bfdc6fed7)
Introduction (#u0e863685-82f5-5b1b-85c1-937e9b6a719d)
Author Note (#u7dfa14d2-8ec8-53c9-98cf-dd46d692ac7c)
Title Page (#ue1003e82-a259-559d-a3b7-602e81783e12)
About the Author (#u470f35cc-843f-5068-805a-3f464ff68780)
Dedication (#u0bbf22ce-f740-59b9-bc1a-ad0d87e2773f)
Chapter One (#u97f3bdac-cd75-53ed-9dfd-e573f4e33e02)
Chapter Two (#u14872bc2-55bd-5507-884a-1a3e6e3f4c97)
Chapter Three (#u536b8861-e230-5f2b-9df7-47419ce99db1)
Chapter Four (#u7d5ba1c7-b158-5206-b513-3be68bec86c5)
Chapter Five (#ue8322813-8344-5aeb-96ab-050e49c3b76d)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u805bc18e-a391-51fd-8faa-4fd5f9fff2a9)
London, May 1816
As the burning ball of the sun sinks into the shimmering azure of the Mediterranean and the soft breezes cool the heat of the day I lie in the cushioned shade of the tent, awaiting the return of the desert lord. The only sound besides the lap of the wavelets and the rustle of the palm fronds is the soft susurration of shifting sand grains like the rustle of silk over the naked limbs of...
‘Susurration... Drat!’ Ellie Lytton thrust her pen into the inkwell and glared at the words that had apparently written themselves. She opened the desk drawer and dropped the page onto a pile of similar sheets, some bearing a paragraph or two, some only a few sentences. She took a clean page, shook the surplus ink off the nib and began again.
I can hardly express, dear sister, how fascinating the date palm cultivation is along this part of the North African coast. It was with the greatest excitement that I spent the day viewing the hard-working local people in their colourful robes...
‘Whatever possessed me?’ she muttered, with a glance upwards to the shelf above the desk.
It held a row of five identically bound volumes. The gilded lettering on the red morocco spines read: The Young Traveller in Switzerland, The Youthful Explorer of the English Uplands, Oscar and Miranda Discover London, A Nursery Guide to the Countries of the World and The Juvenile Voyager Around the Coast of England. All were from the pen of Mrs Bundock.
Her publisher, Messrs Broderick & Alleyn, specialists in ‘Uplifting and Educational Works for Young Persons’, had suggested that Oscar and Miranda might fruitfully explore the Low Countries next. Edam cheese, canals, tulip cultivation and the defeat of the French Monster would make an uplifting combination, they were sure.
Ellie, known in the world of juvenile literature as the redoubtable Mrs Bundock, had rebelled. She yearned for heat and colour and exoticism, even if it came only second-hand from the books and prints she used for research. She would send young Oscar to North Africa, she declared, while secretly hoping that the Barbary corsairs would capture him and despatch the patronising little prig to some hideous fate.
What she really wanted was to write a tale of romance and passion to sell to the Minerva Press. But separating the two in her head for long enough to complete Oscar’s expedition—and earn enough from it to subsidise several months of novel-writing—was proving a nightmare. No sooner had the beastly boy begun to prose on about salt pans and date palms than her imagination had filled with the image of a dark-haired, grey-eyed horseman astride a black stallion, his white robes billowing in the desert breeze.
She pushed back the strands that had sprung out of her roughly bundled topknot and jammed in some more pins.
After luncheon, she promised herself. I will start on the sardine fisheries while the house is quiet.
Her stepbrother, Francis, who had not returned home last night, was doubtless staying with some fellow club member, which meant that all was blissfully peaceful. With only Polly the maid in the house she might as well be alone.
The rap of the front door knocker threatened her hopes of an uninterrupted morning. Ellie said something even more unladylike than drat, and tried to ignore the sound. But it came again, and there was no sign of Polly coming up from below stairs. She must have slipped out to do the marketing without disturbing her mistress at work.
Ellie cast a glance at the clock. Nine o’clock, which meant that it was far too early for any kind of demanding social call, thank goodness. In fact it was probably only Francis, having forgotten his key again.
She got up, wiped her inky hands on the pinafore she wore when writing, jammed a few more hairpins into her collapsing coiffure and went out into the hall, wincing as her damaged leg complained from too much sitting. She tugged at the front door and it opened abruptly—to reveal not Francis, but a tall, dark, grey-eyed gentleman in dishevelled evening dress.
‘Miss Lytton?’
‘Er... Yes?’
I am dreaming.
She certainly seemed to have lost the power of coherent speech.
I have only just shut you safely in the drawer.
‘I am Hainford.’
‘I know,’ Ellie said, aware that she sounded both gauche and abrupt. Where are the white robes, the black stallion? ‘I have seen you before, Lord Hainford. With my stepbrother Francis.’
But not like this. Not with dark shadows under your eyes. Your bloodshot eyes. Not white to the lips. Not with your exquisite tailoring looking as though it has been used as the dog’s bed. Not with blood staining—
‘Your shirt... You are bleeding.’
