Christmas Cinderellas Read online

  ‘The Earl of Norwich. It seems he is back in England.’

  Lucy’s mouth fell open. ‘The Stevenage heir? My goodness—but is he not the most handsome man you have ever set your eyes upon?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Ariana gave her reply with hesitation, because she did not wish to be thinking so as they walked on.

  ‘His mother once told mine that her son was a saint, believe it or not. She said that it was love that made him burn the house down. Word was he tried to torch the stables as well, for Norwich loathes horses, by all accounts.’

  ‘Well, he must hate them even more now. He said he had fallen off a steed at Stevenage yesterday.’

  ‘Stevenage Manor has been completely rebuilt, you know, and it’s said to be magnificent. The Duke is rather a recluse, however—especially since the death of his wife—and seldom graces any social occasion. My mother is adamant he needs more outings, for she swears a broken heart is relieved only when other people jolly one into life again.’

  Well, your mother is wrong, Ariana thought, but smiled in the way she always did when the past forced memory into the present and claimed her. She had become so good at grouping her life into those things she wanted to remember and those things that she did not that surprise barely touched her now.

  As if tired of the topic of conversation, Lucy had let her mind wander on to other things. ‘I am going to the Shawler ball on Friday and I have decided to wear the new dark green satin gown which I have only just received from the workroom of Madame de Clerc.’

  The talk of attire had Ariana’s own mind wandering. Once she had loved clothes, and all the attending fuss. Now she only thought it a chore and a waste of money to be forever changing her gown for this event or that one. Besides, she’d sold her soul for a wardrobe when she was seventeen and had regretted it ever since.

  Such ruminations brought sadness.

  ‘I wish you would come to more of these society events, Aria. It would be lovely to have a friend in tow.’

  Ariana took Lucy’s hand. ‘Tell me more of this dress you have purchased, because it sounds wonderful.’

  As expected, such an opening brought a barrage of description and her friend’s chattering was soothing, allowing Ariana to forget her strange and disquieting chance encounter with the enigmatic Earl of Norwich.

  North visited White’s as his next destination, and the first person he met was Alistair Botham, the Earl of Harding.

  ‘I’d heard you were back, North, and was sorry to learn of your mother’s passing. When did you arrive?’

  ‘Last week. I took a ship from New York and it was a fair passage all the way across.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘Is the same as he always was.’

  ‘So you’re not at Stevenage, I take it? You’re in Town.’

  ‘St James’s. I’ve rented a house on the square for the winter. After that I will return to America.’

  ‘My youngest sister was right when she said she was sure she had seen you yesterday, surrounded by a group of fawning women, at the home of Lord and Lady Foxton. Any in particular take your fancy?’

  ‘Nope. I was trying to escape.’

  ‘Let’s have a drink, North. I have the table over there, and Seth Douglas will be along soon. He married Pamela Charleston. You did know that, didn’t you?’

  North shook his head. ‘Anna’s sister?’

  ‘It’s been over five years since you left. Things change. I’ve heard you will be at the Shawler ball on Friday night, so you will see exactly how much. Marriage... Children... Most of our friends have moved on. Who are you bringing with you as a partner for the ball, anyway?’

  ‘Mrs Ariana Dalrymple.’ He gave Alistair her name without thinking much of it.

  ‘Hell, you are not. Andrew Shawler will kill you for it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Mrs Dalrymple is unbending and ferocious in her attacks upon him.’

  ‘Attacks about what?’

  ‘His womanising and his lack of remorse in breaking hearts and thinking nothing of it.’

  ‘Including hers?’

  Alistair started laughing. ‘She certainly does not fall in love. Surely you should know at least that of her, North, for she was here in Society before you left for America.’

  ‘I remember hearing her name, but it was more in connection with her looks. I never met her.’

  ‘Well, Shawler will turn her away summarily, without a doubt, so I would save myself the embarrassment of such an insult and go alone, if I were you.’

  ‘I can’t. I have made a promise. That gaggle of women your sister mentioned at the Foxtons’ was chasing me again today, and Mrs Dalrymple offered me shelter.’

  Alistair was laughing so hard now that he could not speak. When he did it was in a breathless fashion.

  ‘God, things were never boring when you were around, North, and I’ve missed that. What time are you planning on arriving at the Shawler townhouse, so that I can make certain I am there before you? Douglas will be there, too, so you will have friends to support you.’

  ‘I won’t need help.’

  Further laughter made him frown.

  North arrived back at his house in St James’s Square late that night, with a feeling of empty tiredness in him that he could not shake. He’d been like this for a long while. Since his mother had died. Since fire had razed Stevenage to the ground on that late spring day, burning history, heritage and truth with it. The flames had leapt to the height of the oaks at the rear of the house, and the heat had been so fierce it had melted the steel in the forge and the anvil of the old smithy workshop in the barn beside it.

  At least the horses had survived.

  The scars on his arms tightened at the memory and he shook away his recall. He’d departed because he’d had to, and because lies had a way of scouring out love until nothing was left save bitterness and hostility.

  The widow Dalrymple had a mouth that looked ripe for kissing and a twinkle in her deep blue eyes that he’d warmed to. She did not look run down by life or beholden to another. She was a woman making her way independently and without too much caution, and it was a breath of fresh air to find the truth in all its forms so baldly stated.

  She dressed oddly. She looked one straight in the eye. She did not mince her words, and most certainly did not give one the feeling of neediness.

  He wondered what she was doing now.

  ‘That’s finished.’ Ariana put down the needle and held up the gown. Her stitches were careful things that gave no impression of a homemade fitting. ‘What do you think?’

  Aunt Sarah glanced up from the hat she was constructing with matching lace and long rust-coloured feathers.

  ‘I have no idea why you do not simply go and get fitted for a new gown, Aria, instead of making these outlandish and colourful creations you insist upon wearing. You can well afford a thousand gowns, and Madame Berenger is always saying how she longs to style you in a proper fashion—one more suited to your circumstances and station in life.’

  ‘It’s the boredom of it all, Aunt Sarah. The tiring hours of fittings are a complete and utter waste of time, and in the end one has a garment which is no better than this. Besides, I enjoy putting odd hues together. Look at the colours here.’

  She picked up the dress from her lap, turning the fabric in the light.

  ‘Gold against leaf-green edged in red. Madame Berenger would put me in pink, or some ghastly pastel, and I should spend the night feeling like a flower, made wilted and sad by wearing such ordinariness.’

  Sarah laughed and finished her substantial brandy. ‘I have heard that Odette Northwell’s son is well favoured...’

  ‘You knew the Earl’s mother?’

  ‘Slightly. She was, of course, younger than me, but she was a girl of small opinion. She leaned on others to surviv
e, which is not a flattering thing and is certainly an exhausting trait for whoever had to prop her up. Her husband is a domineering man, but I think she needed someone like that. The true pity is that their only son does not have more family about him.’

  ‘No aunts or uncles?’

  ‘There are two elderly grandparents on his mother’s side, but apart from that nothing.’

  ‘Friends, then? What of those?’

  ‘Christopher Northwell ran with a wild set, and it came back to haunt him when the girl he was about to marry—a Miss Anna Charleston—fell into some river and drowned.’

  ‘Was he there? The Earl?’

  ‘He was. They had to pull him from the water to stop him searching when her body could not be located. Word has it that he contracted pneumonia as a result and nearly died.’

  ‘He loved her?’

  ‘With all his heart. I admired him for that—for, unlike his mother, he seemed to have strong beliefs and stuck to them. Until he burned down Stevenage. That was a step too far in anybody’s book.’

  ‘In the brief meeting I had with him he said that was his mother’s version.’

  ‘Interesting...’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of the timing of his arrival back. Odette Northwell died four months ago, which is about the length of time it takes for a letter to be dispatched from London to New York and to take a subsequent return sea voyage, even given inclement weather.’

  ‘You are saying he only came home because he knew his mother had died?’

  ‘Families can be complex, Ariana. Of all the people in the world you should know that.’

  ‘How did she die? Odette Northwell?’

  ‘By suicide. She’d been threatening it for years, and finally managed it by throwing herself off the top of the newly finished Stevenage Manor.’

  ‘Oh, my God! Is this common knowledge? I have not heard of this at all.’

  ‘It isn’t—although of course one does hear whispers. The doctor who attended her is a friend of mine and he asked me to keep it confidential, which I am sure you will, too. The story being put about in public is that it was a terrible accident and that the winds on the roof were unseasonably strong that day.’

  ‘Do you think the son knows the true story?’

  ‘Undoubtedly. His father is not the sort of man who would go to great lengths to make a lie more palatable. No...beautiful, fragile Odette Neilson Northwell never had a chance from the beginning, for extreme timidity runs alongside beauty in the Neilson bloodline. Her son, by all accounts, has inherited the looks of the Neilsons and the brains of the Northwells, for it is said he has made a fortune of his own in the Americas. All say he has been besieged mercilessly by interested females since arriving back and has had to swat them off like flies.’

  Ariana lay in bed that night and thought of her day. Christopher Northwell had smelt of wood-smoke and pine trees when he had pressed close in that doorway, his cloak enveloping her and his body feeling nothing like those of the simpering lords she was far more used to.

  She wondered what he had been up to in the Americas, for she had heard little of his adventures—which, in itself, wasn’t surprising, as she had barely arrived in Society when he had left it. He’d simply disappeared for the past five years, but he was now returned in all his full and former glory.

  And bringing back a great deal of money, it seemed, for Lucy Chambers had regaled her with gossip about his sumptuous living arrangements in St James’s and the freeness of his spending.

  The puzzle deepened and Aria turned over, her face snuggling in to the pillow.

  The women who had been chasing him had been undoubtedly fierce, determined, and very well dressed. She’d recognised a few of them, and knew they were females who usually had far more sense—girls from good families with strict upbringings. Women who usually behaved with far more decorum and modesty.

  The frequency with which Christopher Northwell had been worming his way into her thoughts since their first meeting was worrying, and she slammed one hand down hard on the bed beside her.

  Like a puff of smoke he disappeared, and she sat up and helped herself to a glass of the brandy she hid in the cupboard of her bedside table. Sometimes she just needed help to get through the darkness of the night, and this was one of those times.

  Mama and Papa had not protected her—that was the trouble. They had thrown her into the lions’ cage of the Dalrymple turbulence and expected her to survive. She had and they had not—though she wondered sometimes just who had received the better bargain.

  Opening the drawer beside her, she found the pearl pendant that her aunt had given her a few years ago, and held it tightly.

  ‘Help...’ she whispered into the translucence, and then she said it louder, the echo of the word reverberating in all the frightened corners of her heart.

  She needed purification, harmony and balance. She would never remarry—never again allow anyone such power over her. She was damaged beyond repair and it would not take much for anyone to see it should she allow them close.

  The bells of St Clement Danes’, one of the Island churches, began to ring: ‘Oranges and Lemons’. The melody calmed her and she glanced at the clock on the mantel. Eleven already, and not a sign of sleep in sight.

  Where was Christopher Anthony Stephen Northwell now? Tucked up in bed or drunk at one of his clubs. She knew he was a member at White’s because Lucy had told her. She understood he was sad, too, because the sort of melancholy she had seen in his eyes was the kind that couldn’t be hidden from one who knew it to the very bone herself—and, although she had liked his humour and his ease, she had been more intrigued by the darker things about him.

  Would he come to escort her to the ball on Friday? Or would he find out more about her and decide to cancel? Personally, she would place her bets on the second option, but she hoped he’d be stronger.

  Please, God, let him have faith in me. Let him come.

  Anna Charleston had been beautiful. Ariana had heard the name down the years, and knew she was the tragic youngest daughter of Lord and Lady Duggan, but she had not known of the girl’s relationship with the Earl of Norwich. He had been unlucky in love too, then, but not in the way she had been. Ariana imagined him searching the freezing waters of some river for his lost love and failing to find her, even as she thought of the sort of nightmares he must suffer as a result.

  They were both alone.

  They were both victims of circumstance.

  Her eyes flicked to the banked fire on one side of the room. Orange flame had been transformed into ember, and the last warmth slipped into grey ash even as she watched.

  Heartache was not fixed in time. It was only smoored like flame, until circumstance allowed it to escape and its heat rose again to eat into everything. Bitterness made deep runnels, and anger saw to it that nothing filled them up again.

  The sum of her life rested precariously on the sharp edge of grief, loss and secrets.

  She wished Christmas was over. She wished it was already January and a new year was upon them.

  Chapter Two

  Aunt Sarah stood near the window and drew the curtain back. ‘He’s here.’

  The words made Ariana’s heart beat faster and she breathed in deeply to try and calm herself. She felt in her pocket for the small piece of paper folded there and was reassured.

  ‘Don’t get caught, and once you have found the letters come home.’

  Her aunt’s instructions were explicit, but Ariana could hear the worry in her voice.

  ‘Northwell is a friend of Andrew Shawler, by all accounts, so tell him nothing.’

  She glanced at the clock. ‘It will take a quarter of an hour to get inside the house, another quarter to find my bearings and the same to travel home again. I should be back before eleven.’

  ‘If you are not I shall c
ome looking for you.’

  ‘No. If you do that I shall only worry, and I need all my wits about me. Promise you will not, Aunt Sarah.’

  A terse nod was her only answer, before the butler knocked at the drawing room door and announced the Earl of Norwich.

  He wore a black armband on the sleeve of his black jacket. For his mother, Ariana supposed, as his shaded brown eyes raked across hers. He carried a bouquet.

  ‘For you,’ he said, and stepped forward to place it in her hands.

  The red of holly berries complemented the green of rosemary, with bay nestled amongst the pungent foliage of a young branch of fir.

  ‘An American custom,’ he explained, and for the first time she heard the slight burr of the colonies in his pronunciation. ‘Soon it will be Christmas.’

  ‘I am not a great believer in the season, Lord Northwell.’

  ‘I am shocked, Mrs Dalrymple,’ he returned, but the emotion playing in his eyes showed he was far from it.

  Did Christopher Northwell know that she loathed Christmas? Had he been speaking to others and finding out what they thought of her? If that was the case it was a mystery why he was even here, and had not run for the hills with the haste most others were apt to do.

  He turned to her aunt now and tipped his head. ‘I am pleased to meet you, Lady Ludlow.’

  Ariana was astonished as her aunt coloured and smiled back.

  ‘I knew your mother once, many years back, and I was sorry to hear of her passing.’

  ‘At least she is at peace now.’

  He said this flatly, one of those stock answers people might articulate, but a certain hardness in the words belied the sentiment.

  ‘How is your father managing?’

  Her aunt asked this in the growing silence and a flicker of something akin to surprise filled his eyes.

  ‘Badly.’

  Aunt Sarah nodded. ‘I always thought theirs was an unusual love story. Odette had found a rock to stick to and your father was pleased to provide her with the shelter.’