he said to the footman who was closest, glad when the conveyance began to move away from the cloying poverty 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.’
‘The mystery of supply and demand, then? How old is she?’
‘Not young. She spoke French, too, which was surprising.’
That interested Aurelian. ‘Smith is not a French name?’
‘Neither is Annabelle. There was an older woman there who did appear to be from France, though. An aunt I think she called her after their dog attacked me.’ He loosened the buttons of his jacket to show them the wreckage of his waistcoat.
‘A colour like that needs tearing apart.’ Edward’s voice held humour, but Aurelian’s was much more serious.
‘I have never heard of this woman or of her French aunt. Perhaps it bears looking into?’
‘No.’ Lytton said this in a tone that had the others observing him. ‘No investigations. She is meeting Lucy tomorrow.’
Edward was trying his hardest to look nonchalant, but he could tell his friend was curious.
‘What does she look like?’
‘Strong. Certain. Direct. She is nothing like the females of the ton. Her dress was at least ten years out of date and she favours scarves to tie her hair back. It is dark and curly and reaches to at least her waist. She was...uncommon.’
‘It seems she made quite an impression on you then, Thorn? I saw Susan Castleton a few hours back and she said you were supposed to be meeting her tonight?’
‘I am. We are going to the ballet.’
Susan had been his mistress for all of the last four months, but Lytton was becoming tired of her demands. She wanted a lot more than he could give her and despite her obvious beauty he was bored of the easy and constant sex. God, that admission had him sitting up straighter. It was Lucy, he supposed, and the ever-close presence of her sadness and ill health.
He wished life was as easy as it used to be, nothing in his way and everything to live for. One of his fingers threaded through the hole in his waistcoat and just for a second he questioned what ill-thought-out notion had ever convinced him to buy clothing in quite this colour.
It was Susan’s doing, he supposed, and her love of fashion. Easier to just give in to her choice of fabric than fight for the more sombre hues. He wondered when that had happened, this surrender of his opinion, and frowned, resolving to do away with both the excessive rings and the colour pink forthwith.
Miss Annabelle Smith was contrary and unusual and more than different. He could never imagine her allowing another to tell her what to wear or what to do. Even with the mantle of poverty curtailing choices she seemed to have found her exact path in life and was revelling in it.
Belle awoke in the dark of night, sweating and struggling for breath. The dreams were back. She swallowed away panic and sat up, flinting the candle at her bedside so that it chased away some of the shadows.
The same people shouting, the same fear, the same numbness that had her standing in the room of a mansion she had never recognised. She thought she hated them, these people, though she was not supposed to. She knew she wanted to run away as fast as her legs could carry her and although she could never quite see them she understood that they looked like her. How she would know this eluded sense, but that certainty had been there ever since she had first had the nightmares when she was very young. Sometimes she even heard them speak her name.
The sound of the night noise from the street calmed her as did the snoring of her aunt in the room next door. At times like this she was thankful for the thin walls of their dwelling, for they gave her a reason to not feel so alone.
The visage of Lytton Staines, the Earl of Thornton, floated into her memory as well, his smile so very different from the clothes he wore.
She remembered the hardness of male flesh beneath the thin beige superfine when her fingers had run along his thighs by mistake. Her face flamed. God, she had never been near a man in quite such a compromising way and she knew he had seen her embarrassed withdrawal.
The incident with the spilled tea this afternoon began to attain gigantic proportions, a mistake she might relive again each time she saw him which would be in only a matter of hours as he was due to collect her in the morning at nine. She needed to go back to sleep. She needed to be at her best in the company of Lord Thornton because otherwise there were things about him that were unsettling.
He was beautiful for a start and a man well used to the exalted title that sat on his shoulders. He was also watchful. She had seen how he’d glanced around her house, assessing her lack of fortune and understanding her more-than-dire straits.
She wondered what he might have thought of her paintings,
