How I Met My Countess (9 page)

The documents before him argued that this was a likelihood he might well have to consider. For they contained lists of troop movements, skirmishes fought, men lost, requests for aid.

And there was more to the last dispatch to discover, but he needed help if he was to unlock the code.

Glancing over at his sleeping mentor, he knew he could wake the man and he’d easily show Clifton the pattern to deciphering the letter, but then again …

Go ask her to help you …

Going to a lady to ask for help went against everything he’d ever been raised to think. This business was no affair for a woman. Wars and espionage were the province of men, not to be inflicted on the delicate nature of ladies.

And then there was Lucy Ellyson, who defied every convention, working tirelessly beside her father to serve England with the same diligence as any loyal, upright Englishman might.

It was the sort of tenacity of spirit, the sharp intelligence, that made her more akin to a great queen of old than a mere lady.

She will save your life, Clifton. One day, she will rescue you from a depth you will never have imagined.

The odd whisper of words tread over his soul like the hand of fate, sending a shiver down his spine.

He rose abruptly, nearly overturning his chair. In the corner where Ellyson slept in his great chair, the man stirred at the noise, but only for a moment before he let out another snore and was once again lost in his dreams.

What haunts you, George Ellyson?
the earl wondered as he glanced at the old man. Here was a spy who’d served his country for fifty years, thirty of it in the field across the Continent. His adventures and narrow escapes were legend, as were the rumors of the dangerous, dirty deeds he’d done or overseen.

And yet here he’d come to rest in the quiet of Hampstead, beside his own fireplace surrounded by his daughters and loyal servants.

Let me come home
, Clifton prayed as he gathered up the yet-to-be deciphered document and left the map room, making his way down the stairs. It wasn’t fear that made him say those words but a deep desire to return to the green shores of England, to his estate beside the Thames, and continue his family line as so many of his forebears had done before him.

And to find a woman to share that life with …

That thought gave him pause and he stopped on the stairs, the light from the parlor down below gleaming like a tempting beacon.

She’s right there, if only you dare… .

Clifton shook his head, as if trying to dislodge such a notion.

Lucy Ellyson indeed! His countess. What a ridiculous thought that.

And yet here he was continuing down the steps, his heart waking up and beating a little bit quicker. It wasn’t just the thought of what she would have prepared for their dinner—for she was a devilish good cook—but what might the evening bring?

Last night the four of them, he and Malcolm, Lucy and Mariana, had played cards until the wee hours. Oh, it had been like playing with a pair of sharps, but so much more entertaining.

Mariana had flirted outrageously, giving every bit of evidence that she was indeed the daughter of the notorious Contessa di Marzo. She’d even offered to loan them the books their mother had sent them recently—French treatises on the arts of
l’amore—
and from the blush that had risen on Lucy’s face, he’d imagined they weren’t the usual romantic drivel that young ladies devoured.

Still, Mariana’s outrageous antics aside, he couldn’t remember a night when he’d laughed more, or had been more reluctant to lay down the last card.

That is until he’d revealed it.

A queen of hearts.

And he’d glanced up to find Lucy shyly smiling at him. At him, and him alone.

Had she dealt it to him deliberately, or had it been by chance? Not that it mattered, for in that moment, Justin Grey, the fourteenth Earl of Clifton, had found himself mesmerized. Lost in her eyes, his mouth dry, his heart stilled.

Lucy Ellyson had gone from being George Ellyson’s headstrong, wily daughter to the most enchanting miss he’d ever met. He would have told her as much right there and then, but knowing her, she would have laughed him right out of her parlor.

Or worse, sent him packing, as she had Monday Moggs. And since Clifton currently had only one good eye, it was risk he wasn’t willing to take.

Not until he’d gotten that kiss.

He heaved a sigh at that folly, but then realized that perhaps Lucy Ellyson was why he’d decided to take up Jack and Temple’s offer to join the Foreign Office.

Not Lucy per se, but he’d looked at the available misses in London and found them a dull lot. The prospect of marriage to one of those manageable, proper ladies had been a worse sentence than being caught by the French.

But here was Lucy, like the gatekeeper to a rare and dangerous world, and all he needed to do was dare to steal the key from her.

Steal that kiss.

As he got to the bottom of the stairs, he paused on the last step. From this vantage point, he could see the table set for four, though only Mariana and Malcolm were in there, already eating and chatting away as if they had known each other for years.

Lucy was nowhere to be seen, which was probably why her sister was in the middle of an outlandish tale about how her father had escaped Paris with the help of Thomas-William.

He stood in the doorway and listened, as rapt as Malcolm appeared to be.

“The French agent who shot Father had left him to die in the alley, not knowing that Thomas-William was close at hand,” Mariana was saying. “Thomas-William could have fled, for he would have had his freedom if he’d done so.”

Malcolm laughed. “Yet he stayed and helped your father.”

“He saved Papa’s life,” she said. “Got him out of Paris and to the coast where they could gain a ship home. Papa remembers none of it, but as I’ve heard it told, they barely escaped with their lives. In one village, Thomas-William lied to the authorities, hinting that Papa was a Russian nobleman who had dallied with
le duc’s
wife and been shot trying to escape the lady’s bedchamber.”

“A Russian nobleman? And the authorities believed that?”

Mariana leaned forward and smiled like a conspirator. “It helped that Father was feverish and all he would speak was Russian.”

Malcolm laughed. “He’s lucky the French authorities didn’t turn him in.”

“Oh, no! Bless the good people of that village. They thought Thomas-William’s story and Papa’s perilous situation quite romantic!”

They both laughed, and Clifton was struck by the pure sound of his brother’s high spirits. Malcolm fit into this household so easily; Clifton envied his brother.

For as much as he tried, something still held him back.

Too many centuries of Grey blood in his veins. The weight of his forebears keeping him in place, reminding him of his obligation to dutifully and properly safeguard the family’s inheritance, their perfect lineage, their place in Society.

By not falling in love with the daughter of a thief and an Italian Incognita.

“Whatever is she going on about now?” Lucy whispered from behind him.

He nearly jumped out of his jacket, for she’d come upon him with that catlike skill of hers. “The time when your father and Thomas-William escaped Paris,” he whispered back.

She rolled her gaze upward. “Which version?”

Clifton glanced over at Mariana’s animated features and smiled. “Something about
le duc
and your father being Russian.”

Lucy nodded. “That’s her favorite one.”

“Is it true?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Father doesn’t remember how he got from Paris to England, and Thomas-William, well, he’s never very forthcoming about the past. So Mariana”—she flexed her shoulders—“gives the story her own embellishments.”

“Malcolm is entertained.”

“Then Mariana will be pleased,” she said in a wistful little voice. “It isn’t often she has such an attentive audience.”

“But surely—”

She stopped him right there. “No, my lord. As Mariana said the other night, we are not received. You and your brother are the most company we’ve had—well, ever.”

“Because of your mother?” he asked softly.

She glanced toward her sister, her gaze more far away, and then she nodded. “That, and of course, Father’s reputation.”

“How did your father … ” he began. Oh, bother, how did one ask such a question? “What I mean to say is …”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What you want to know is how did a man like my father end up in the company of a married Italian contessa?”

“Yes, I suppose that is it,” he said.

Lucy smiled and told the story in a soft tone that he’d never heard her use. It was like a child reciting a favorite bedtime tale, and this one had all the requisite pieces.

“Our mother was married at a very early age to the Count di Marzo, who was nearly thirty years her senior and a disreputable brute. Parkerton had gone to meet with the count in hopes of forming a trade alliance with the man, for he was one of Venice’s leaders.”

“And that is how they met,” Clifton said.

She nodded. “There was a masked party and the English contingent was all there, including my father. He spied my mother from across the room and was immediately smitten.” She paused. “Do you believe in love at first sight, my lord?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“Nor do I,” she agreed. “But Papa claims he knew right then she would be his. And at midnight, at the unmasking, he searched for her but couldn’t find her. So, being who he was, he made a more thorough search of the count’s palace.”

“He stole through the house,” Clifton said.

“Yes, like the thief he was. And he found the contessa—for he had no idea who she was—on a high balcony with her back to him. It was evident she’d been crying. She begged him not to come closer, but he insisted on knowing the reason for her distress.” Lucy glanced away.

“Whatever was wrong?” the earl asked.

“She’d been beaten by her husband and couldn’t stay for the unmasking because everyone would have seen her disgrace—the bruises on her face and throat.”

“Dear God! Her husband had done this?”

“Yes, because she had yet to bear the count a child. Never mind that his previous four wives had all been childless, the count was convinced the problem could not lie with him, and so …”

“He punished her.”

Lucy nodded. “Papa asked her why she didn’t leave, but she explained the count kept her a virtual prisoner, didn’t trust her out of his sight, and even this—her leaving the party—would most likely have her punished further.”

“So he saved her,” Clifton supplied.

“Yes. Snuck her out and onto the Duke of Parkerton’s ship in the harbor. Parkerton had no idea what Papa had done and they sailed with the early tide, taking the contessa with them. When he discovered the count’s wife aboard, he was furious, until he met her—and was charmed. Utterly and completely, as Papa was.”

“I’ve heard your mother could sway an entire legion to lay down their arms.”

“She has a way about her,” Lucy conceded. “Mariana is very much like her.”

“Yet there is more to the story,” Clifton said.

“Oh, certainly, though most people know it,” she said with a shrug.

“I don’t,” he said.

She laughed. “Then you haven’t been out in Society enough, for there isn’t a Season that passes without some new scandal and the contessa embroiled right in the middle of it. She loves to be in the eye of the storm.”

“Like you?”

Then, as she always did when the topic got too close, too personal, she changed the subject, nodding at the papers in his hands. “Papa doesn’t approve of dispatches leaving the map room.”

He glanced down at the forgotten missives. “My apologies. I didn’t know. But I needed some help with these last passages, and thought … well, hoped …” He faltered to a halt and looked at her. Dared to gaze into her intelligent eyes.

“You want my assistance?” she asked, as if amazed that he’d even made such a suggestion.

He stilled and glanced down at the woman before him, her gaze alight at the prospect of a challenge. “Why, yes. I’ve come to realize in the last few days that you are quite extraordinary …”

She took a wary sort of step back, as if she knew what he truly meant. But there was a spark to her eyes, a shiver to her arms.

“… at these sorts of things,” he added hastily. “These codes and alike.”

“Yes, of course, with the codes,” she replied, glancing away.

He couldn’t tell if she looked relieved or vexed.

“And your father was unavailable … ” he said, nattering on like Mariana after her second glass of claret.

“Yes, I suppose Papa is asleep—”

“He is, and I didn’t want to—”

“No, no, it is best not to disturb him.”

They both glanced at the parlor, where Mariana and Malcolm were laughing over some bit of gossip Mariana had gleaned from Mrs. Kewin. Their laughter filled the room.

“Perhaps we could go in the kitchen,” she offered. “It is quieter in there.” Then she turned and headed—some might even have said fled—for the kitchen at the back of the house.

Not that he was about to let her get away.

He followed her down the hall, smiling to himself at the purposeful click of her heels, like a regiment going into battle.

The kitchen was cast in shadows, the single light of a candle burning on the large table in the corner and the glow of the coals in the hearth the only light.

Lucy moved through the room as if she could have done so blindfolded, fetching another candle down from the hearth and adding its glow to the table, giving them enough light to read by.

But instead of settling down, she went to the stove and pulled a plate from the warming chamber.

“Malcolm said you might be delayed, so I set your supper in there to keep it warm.” She smiled and settled down beside him. “I hate cold meals, don’t you?”

“Very much so,” he said. “You really do an excellent job of managing your father’s house.”

“Thank you. I’ve been doing so since the contessa left.”

“When was that?”