Chapter Four
To be closed in with not one but two gentlemen had almost caused her to back out of the carriage in instinctive panic. Ellie was quite proud of herself for not only standing her ground but greeting Mr Wilton with composure. No one would have noticed anything amiss, she was sure.
And, curiously, the secretary’s presence made things easier. He was not as good-looking as his half-brother—more of a muted version—and the fact that the men had soon become engrossed in their work had helped her to relax. She did not like being the centre of attention under any circumstances, and now Lord Hainford—Cousin Blake—had a perfect excuse for virtually ignoring her, and she was sure he much preferred to do so.
She looked up from her book. The carriage was luxurious beyond anything she had travelled in before, with deeply buttoned upholstery and wide seats which meant that she could sit next to Blake without touching him or his clothing. Even though she told herself it was irrational, she had dreaded being shut up in a closed carriage, pressed against another body—or, worse, sandwiched between two men, which would have been quite likely to happen on a stage coach.
Ellie wriggled more comfortably into her corner and put her notebook on the seat. It was an effort to concentrate on date production and wheat yields, especially when she could smell Blake. It had to be him—that elusive scent of starched linen, an astringent cologne and warm, clean man. Mr Wilton was too far away for it to be him setting her nostrils quivering every time the two of them shifted, leaning across to pass papers or stooping to rescue fallen sheets from the carriage floor.
It was very provocative, that intimate trace that he left in the air. And just because the threat of a man touching her made her anxious, it did not mean she did not wish that was not the case. Blake was beautiful to look at—strong and male, the perfect model for both fantasy and fiction... Perfect, that was, when there had been not the slightest danger of getting close enough to speak to him, let alone scent him.
Ellie wrenched her concentration back to the book. Goodness, but the production of dates was dull. She flipped through the pages. Perhaps water management would be a more riveting subject for the tiresome Oscar to explore. He might even fall into an irrigation canal.
The thought cheered her, and she picked up her notebook and began to scribble not notes but an entire scene.
* * *
‘Bushey,’ Blake said. ‘We are changing horses here. Would you like to get down for a few minutes?’
Ellie almost refused. Oscar was now vividly describing the experience of being hauled out of a muddy irrigation canal, and the scene was giving her great pleasure to write.
Then it occurred to her that this might be a tactful way of suggesting that she might wish to find the privy. ‘Thank you. I would like to stretch my legs.’
Polly looked grateful for the decision, and Mr Wilton helped both of them to descend from the carriage, then turned away, as tactful as his brother, as the two of them went towards the inn.
When they returned Blake himself got out to help them in. ‘You look pleased about something, Cousin Eleanor.’
‘We were admiring the facilities. A most superior stopping place—thank you.’
‘Thank Jon. He sorts everything out.’
Mr Wilton glanced up from his papers and acknowledged the compliment with a tilt of his head. ‘Just doing my job, Miss Lytton.’
‘So what does an earl’s confidential secretary do, exactly?’ she asked as the groom closed the doors and swung up behind as the carriage rolled out of the inn yard.
‘I deal with Lord Hainford’s correspondence, keep his appointments diary, monitor all the newspapers for him, organise journeys, settle his accounts, ensure that reports from all his properties and investments are received regularly, scanned, and that any matters requiring his decision are brought to his attention. I make notes on topics he might wish to speak on in the Lords. That kind of thing.’
‘It looks like a great deal more than that.’ Ellie could see a stack of notebooks, bristling with markers. ‘Cousin Blake makes you work exceedingly hard.’
‘And he makes me work exceedingly hard in return,’ Blake countered dryly. ‘Did you imagine that earls sat around all day, reading?’
‘No. I imagined that they spent most of their time enjoying themselves,’ she admitted, surprised into frankness.
‘I do—when I am allowed to escape.’ He cast her a sardonic glance. ‘I do all the things you imagine, Cousin Eleanor. All the things that put that judgmental expression on your face. Clubs, sporting events, my tailor, hatter and bootmaker. Social events, the opera, the theatre, gaming. A positive whirl of dissipation.’
Mr Wilton snorted. ‘Are you attempting to paint yourself as an idle rake to Miss Lytton? Should I not mention the House of Lords, your charity boards, investors’ meetings?’
‘It will do no good, Jon. My new cousin considers me to be an idle rake already. I have no need to paint myself as one.’
‘I am quite prepared to believe that you work as hard at your duties and responsibilities as you do at your pleasure, Cousin Blake. It is merely that I imagine you have to consider no one else while pursuing those occupations.’
‘I am selfish, in other words?’ Those dark brows were rising dangerously.
How had she allowed herself to be tempted into saying what she thought? She should be meek and mild and quiet—so quiet that he forgot she was there, if possible. An apology and a rapid return to the details of the North African date harvest was called for.
‘If the cap fits, my lord,’ Ellie retorted, chin up, ignoring common sense. ‘How pleasant not to be responsible for a single soul.’
Mr Wilton opened his mouth, presumably in order to enumerate his lordship’s friends, staff, tenants and charitable beneficiaries.
Blake silenced him with an abrupt gesture of his hand. ‘It is,’ he agreed, with a charming smile that did nothing to disguise the layers of ice beneath.
Stop it, she told herself. He will put you off at the next inn if you keep provoking him.
She was not even quite sure why she was doing it, other than the fact that it was curiously stimulating, almost exciting—which was inexplicable. Rationally, yes, he had been thoughtless in ignoring Francis’s plea for his time and attention. And, yes, he had behaved outrageously—stripping off like that, provoking that unpleasant Crosse man to the point of violence. But she could not pretend that she was devastated at Francis’s death, that she had loved her stepbrother, and Blake had done all she might have asked afterwards.
Just as he would have done whoever Francis’s relatives had been.
He did not help for your sake, whispered an inner voice—the one she always assumed was her common sense. He thinks you are plain, argumentative and of no interest. Which is true. He is helping because his conscience as a gentleman tells him to—and because it happens not to be desperately inconvenient for him. Just because you have been daydreaming about him, and just because you want to put him in your novel, that does not mean he has the slightest interest in you. You should try and be a nicer person. Ladylike.
After that mental douche of cold water she picked up her notebook. Perhaps she should start by being nicer to Oscar. Perhaps he might be treated to a marvellous banquet tonight. What would there be to eat...?
One of the travel books she had read contained several accounts of food, so she put together all the dishes that particularly appealed. Roast kid, couscous—which sounded delicious—exotic fish, pungent cheeses, flatbreads. Pomegranate juice, sherbets, honey cakes...
Her pencil flew over the pages.
* * *
They stopped for the night at Aynho, a Northamptonshire village Ellie had never heard of. It was built of golden stone and had an exceedingly fine inn, the George, which Mr Wilton had selected for them.
She was ushered to the room she would share with Polly and found it large, clean and comfortable. A bath had been ordered and would arrive directly, she was told, and dinner would be served in the private parlour at seven. Would Miss Lytton care for a cup of tea?
‘We both would,’ she said gratefully. ‘I could become very accustomed to this,’ she remarked to Polly as the inn’s maid hurried out after setting a very large bathtub behind a screen.
‘Me too, miss.’
Polly was soon answering the door to another maid with the tea tray. She set it on a side table and they both sat and gazed happily at dainty sandwiches and fingers of cake.
‘But we must not. I do hope I will be able to continue to employ you, Polly, and that you will want to stay with me, but I have no idea what we are going to find in Lancashire or how far I can make my money stretch. The house may be half a ruin, for all I know.’
‘We’ll manage,’ Polly said stoutly, around a mouthful of cress sandwich. ‘It’s in the country—we can have a garden and grow vegetables, keep chickens and a pig, perhaps.’
‘Of course,’ Ellie said.
It was her duty to give a clear, confident lead to anyone in her employ, she knew that, but it was very tempting to wail that the only useful thing she knew how to do was to write children’s books and she had not the slightest idea how to look after chickens. Pigs she refused even to think about.
I am an educated, intelligent woman. There are books on everything. I will learn how to do all this, she told herself firmly, choosing a second cake for courage.
The hot water arrived and she persuaded Polly to take one end of the big tub while she took the other. It was a squash, with both of them having to fold in with their knees under their chins, but she could not see why her maid should have to make do with a washbasin and cloth while she wallowed in hot water.
Fashionable ladies would faint with horror at such familiarity, she was certain, but she was not a fashionable lady, after all.
‘May I ask a question, miss?’ Polly was pink in the face from the contortions necessary to wash between her toes.
‘Of course, although I won’t promise to answer it.’
‘Why don’t you like his lordship? I think he’s ever so lovely.’
‘Polly!’
‘Well, he is,’ the girl said stubbornly. ‘He’s good-looking and rich and he’s got nice manners and he’s taking us all this way in style. That Mr Wilton’s nice too.’
‘Lord Hainford could have prevented Sir Francis’s death,’ Ellie said coldly, and Polly, snubbed, bit her lip and carried on rinsing the soap off her arms in silence.
And I should forgive him. It is the right thing to do. He has made amends as best he can, so why is it so difficult? It was an accident, just as he said.
She would be in close proximity with Lord Hainford for at least another three days. She really must learn to be easy with him, she told herself.
* * *
It was not until they were sitting around the table in the private parlour, Ellie and the two men—Polly was taking her supper in the kitchens—that she realised what it was that made her react to Blake as she did. This was not about Francis, nor about Blake’s character.
She could forgive him for ignoring Francis that night—for failing to suppress her stepbrother’s expensive obsession with him. Francis had had a thick skin and it would probably have needed physical violence to turn him away from his admiration. And he had been infuriatingly self-centred and tactless—it would not have occurred to him that interrupting the game with a demand to discuss his own affairs was unmannerly and deserved a snub.
She could forgive and she could understand. That was not the problem. It was not Blake. It was her.
She was frightened of him in a way that went far beyond the straightforward fear of what a man might do to a lone woman without protectors. There was that, of course. There was always that whenever a man came close enough to touch, whenever she was cornered with a man between her and the door. That was her secret fear. and understanding why she felt like that was no help at all in conquering it.
But she desired this man—found him deeply attractive—and had done so from the moment she had seen him. It was irrational to feel like that, she knew. Even if she was not crippled by her anxieties she was crippled in fact—and plain with it—and he would never spare her a glance under normal circumstances. For men like him women like her did not exist. They were not servants and they were not eligible girls or members of the society in which he existed. Spinsters, those to be pitied for their failure to attract a man, were invisible.
Before she had met him it had been safe to keep Blake in her daydreams. But now, for him, for a few days, she did exist. She was a constant presence day and night, from breakfast to dinner. What if he could tell how she felt? What if her pitiful desire showed in her eyes?
And it was pitiful—because she was determined to manage her own life, to live a full and independent existence, earn money. Be happy. This wretched attraction was a weakness she must fight to overcome. It was merely physical, after all—like hunger or thirst.
‘You look very determined, Eleanor,’ Blake remarked. ‘Claret?’ He lifted the bottle and tipped it towards her glass, holding it poised as he waited for her answer.
He had called her by her first name without even the fictitious Cousin.
‘Yes.’ The agreement was startled out of her and he poured the wine before she could collect her wits and refuse it. ‘Yes, I am looking determined. I was thinking about pigs.’
Mr Wilton blinked at her over the rim of his wine glass. ‘Pigs, Miss Lytton? Not present company, I trust?’
‘Raising pigs. Or a pig. And chickens. I should have thought of it before and bought books on the subject before I left London. But Lancaster is certain to have a circulating library.’
‘Forgive my curiosity, Eleanor,’ Blake drawled, ‘but why should you need to know about raising livestock?’
‘To eat. Eggs and ham and bacon and lard. I must learn about vegetables as well.’
When both men continued to look at her as though she was speaking Greek—which she supposed they would probably comprehend rather better than talk of chicken-keeping—she explained. ‘I must make my resources stretch as far as possible. Polly suggested a vegetable garden and poultry.’
‘Eleanor, you are a gentlewoman—’
‘Who has not, my lord, made you free with her name.’
‘What is the harm? I make you free with mine, and Jonathan, I am sure, will do likewise. We have been thrown together for several days in close company—can we not behave like the cousins we pretend to be? I promise you may “my lord” me from the moment you step out of the carriage at your new front gate, and I will be lavish with the “Miss Lyttons.”’
‘Has anyone ever told you that you have an excessive amount of sheer gall, my... Blake?’
‘I am certain that they frequently think it, Eleanor, although they are usually polite enough to call it something else.’
‘Charm, presumably,’ she said, and took an unwise sip of the wine. ‘Oh.’
‘It is not to your taste?’
‘It is like warm red velvet and cherries and the heart of a fire!’ She took another sip. She had meant to leave it strictly alone, but this was ambrosia.
‘Are you a poet, Eleanor?’
‘No, a—’
She’d almost said a writer, but bit her tongue. He might ask her what she wrote, and she could imagine his face when she admitted to the ghastly Oscar and his equally smug sister. As for her desire to write a novel—that would be a dangerous admission indeed. She could just picture the scene: her, after a glass of this wickedly wonderful wine, blurting out that Blake was the hero of her desert romance. He would either laugh himself sick or he be utterly furious. Neither was very appealing, although she thought she would probably prefer fury to mockery.
‘A mere amateur at poetry,’ she prevaricated. Which was true. Her attempts at verse were strictly limited to the moon-June-swoon level of doggerel. ‘But words are dangerously tempting, are they not?’
‘All temptation should be dangerous,’ Blake said. ‘Otherwise it is merely self-indulgence. May I carve you some of this beef?’
‘Self-indulgences can be dangerous, surely?’ Jonathan passed her the plate and followed it with a dish of peas. ‘In fact most of them are—even if it’s merely over-indulgence in sweet things. Before one knows it one is entrapped in corsets, like poor Prinny, or all one’s teeth go black and fall out.’
‘Not a danger for any of us around this table,’ Blake remarked, carving more beef and then passing the potatoes to Ellie.
She wondered if that was a snide remark about her skinniness. Her mother had been used to saying, with something like despair, that she would surely grow some curves with womanhood—and she had indeed begun to just before Mama had died. But they’d seemed to disappear in the general misery afterwards, when she’d so often forgotten to eat properly. At least that had made it easier to be inconspicuous...
‘Some bread sauce and gravy?’ Jonathan passed the two dishes, one glossy with butter, the other rich and brown. ‘And will you take more vegetables, Eleanor?’
‘Thank you, no. I have only a small appetite.’
They devoted themselves to their food for a while. The beef was good, and the two men clearly close enough friends not to feel the need to talk of nothing simply to fill a silence that felt companionable to Ellie. They were attentive to her needs, but when their conversational sallies were met by monosyllabic replies they seemed comfortable with her reticence.
‘Where is our next destination?’ she asked, when Blake began to carve more beef.
‘Cannock, I hope. It is a village north of Birmingham and about another seventy miles from here.’
‘A long day, then. At what hour do you wish to take breakfast?’
‘Would seven be too early for you, Eleanor?’
‘Not at all.’ She was usually up by six on most mornings, hoping to get at least an hour to write before the house came to life. ‘But I will retire now, if you will excuse me?’
‘No dessert? This apple pie looks good, and there is thick cream.’
‘Delicious, I am sure. But, no, thank you.’
Besides anything else, her life was not going to hold much in the way of roast beef and thick cream in the future, so best not to get used to them now.
The men stood as she did, and Blake walked across the parlour to open her bedchamber door, which was uncomfortable. She heard his footsteps retreat back to the table as she turned the key and then lifted a small chair and wedged it under the door handle.
‘Isn’t the lock sound, miss?’ Polly was shaking out their nightgowns.
‘I expect so. But it is best not to take risks in strange buildings, I think.’
And not just strange ones. She had followed the same routine every night at home, rising in time to move the chair and unlock the door before Polly came to her room—another reason to rise at six. She had forgotten that the maid would be on her side of the door while they were travelling.
‘This seems very cosy. Did you have a good supper?’