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.’
Ellie banged the door open wide and came down the step to take his arm. It was only when she touched him that she remembered she was alone in the house. But, chaperon or no chaperon, she couldn’t leave a man out there, whoever he was. Losing blood like that, he might collapse at any moment.
‘Were you attacked by footpads? Do come in, for goodness’ sake.’ When he did not move she took his arm. ‘Let me help you—lean on me. Into the drawing room, I think. It has the best light. I will dress the wound and as soon as my maid returns I will send for Dr Garnett.’
She might as well have tugged at one of the new gas lamp posts along Pall Mall.
‘I am quite all right, Miss Lytton, it is merely a scratch. I must talk to you.’ The Earl of Hainford, standing dripping blood on her doorstep, looked like a man contemplating his own execution, not a shockingly early social visit.
He was going to fall flat on his face in a moment, and then she would never be able to lift him. Worry made her abrupt.
‘Nonsense. Come in.’
This time when she grabbed his arm he let himself be pulled unresisting over the threshold. She shouldered the door closed and guided him down the hallway, trying not to let her limping pace jar him.
‘Here we are. If you sit on that upright chair over there it will be easiest.’
He went willingly enough when she pushed him into the drawing room, and she realised as he blinked at her that he was very tired as well as wounded, and possibly rather drunk. Or in the grip of a hangover.
‘You are Miss Lytton?’
No, not drunk. He sounded perfectly sober.
Something fell