The Countess

Chapter One

My lady?”

Christiana remained curled on her side in her cocoon of blankets. She merely opened one eye to peer at the older woman bent over her. Grace, her maid. “Hmm?”

“Your sisters are here.” Those four words and the urgency behind them brought her other eye open at once.

“What? My sisters in London?” Christiana rolled over, thrusting the blankets and linens away to sit up. “And here at this hour? There must be some sort of emergency for them to be calling so early.”

“That was my thought when I saw them getting out of the carriage,” Grace admitted as Christiana got out of bed. “So I hurried up here to fetch you. If you’re quick we can have you dressed and downstairs before your husband sends them away.”

“Dicky wouldn’t send them away,” Christiana said with surprise, and then tacked on an uncertain, “Would he?”

“He’s done so with others.”

“Who?” Her horror and surprise came muffled from inside the cloth of her nightdress as the maid dragged it off over her head.

“Lady Beckett, Lady Gower, Lord Ollivet and Lord Langley . . . twice.” Grace turned away to trade the nightdress for a pale blue gown that matched Christiana’s eyes. As she began to help her don it, she added, “And I can tell you Lord Langley didn’t like it the first time, but was absolutely livid the second.”

“I can imagine,” Christiana said with a sigh as the dress dropped to cover her body. The Langley estate bordered her childhood home, Madison Manor.

Robert, the only son and heir, had grown up with her and her sisters. He was like family, the big brother she’d never had. He wouldn’t have appreciated being sent away like some sort of undesirable. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Grace snatched up a hairbrush and began to drag it through her hair before saying, “What good would it have done?”

“None,” Christiana admitted unhappily. Her husband had every right to turn away whomever he wished from his door, while she, as she’d come to learn, had few to no rights at all in this marriage. She sighed, and then grimaced as Grace tugged at her hair, pulling it into the tight, matronly bun Christiana had worn since marriage, a style she absolutely abhorred. Aside from being ugly, having her hair pulled so tight all day resulted in terrible headaches, but Dicky insisted it gave some sophistication to her unruly person.

“What could have brought my sisters here?” Christiana asked worriedly.

“I do not know, but it must be something important. They did not send word of their arrival in the city ere arriving,” the woman pointed out, and then stepped back. “There. I have finished with your hair.”

Christiana barely managed to swipe up her slippers before Grace took her arm to urge her to move. “Come, we must hurry. Haversham will have found and fetched Lord Radnor by now. Let us hope we were quick enough and your husband has not yet sent them away.”