The Runaway Countess

by Leigh LaValle

  “I do not ask you to understand my personal reasons.” His voice was controlled, lucid. Somber.

  Icy claws of alarm spread in her gut. “No one knows about our indiscretions. No one is demanding this of you.”

  “I know what happened. I demand it of myself.”

  “You don’t want to marry me.” She forced her tone to be patient and condescending, as if lecturing a small child.

  He raked his gaze over her, again with a touch of wildness. “It would have its advantages.”

  Annoyed at the hot blush returning to her cheeks, she lifted her chin. “You cannot force your marital rights on me. I won’t allow it.”

  He arched his brow at the challenge, and she wanted to take back the words.

  The caress of his gaze was slower this time. Over face, her hair, down her neck. She burned. Her inhale only made it worse, drew the heat down into her belly, her pelvis. Memory was a lucid touch on her skin. His attention rested on her breasts and her nipples puckered. When he lifted his eyes to hers again, they were dark, half-lidded. “I doubt force will be necessary.”

  His voice rumbled through her, and she warmed between her thighs. Damn him, damn this unwanted intimacy. It was disturbing how little she could manage him and what he demanded of her. She would drown in it.

  He must have noticed her wavering. “You are mine, Mazie.”

  Anger slapped against her like a life raft. “I am no man’s.”

  “You gave your virginity to me.”

  Trust a man to have such faulty logic. “I do not honor the rules that say a compromised woman must be wed.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, it is a stupid rule and certainly a stupid reason to make sacred vows for life.” She tried like hell not to stomp her foot in ire. Control, where was her control? She exhaled, forced her words to be civilized. “I am ruined in the eyes of society. I would bring shame to the Radford name.”

  “Hardly.” He was not going to give up, stubborn man. “No one knows where you have been. And it would be a victory to return you to your rightful place in society.”

  A victory for whom? “I am exceedingly ill prepared to be a countess. Certainly there are any number of women vying for the position. Choose one of them.”

  “And what do you propose I do with you?” He crossed his arms.

  “Let me go?”

  He scoffed. His discipline was slipping. She recognized the churning tension within him. Good. They were on equal footing now.

  “I only ask for an heir,” he said, dangerously soft. “You may live here in peace. Meddle with the villagers all you desire, as long as you stay within the code of the law.”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  He shrugged. “I see no other solution.”

  “This makes no sense.” She shook her head. “How can this make sense?”

  He did not reply, did not defend his reasons. He simply watched her, waiting.

  Did he think a few babies would settle her down? That she would bring the villagers’ trust to the union as her dowry? Well, maybe that was true. But even a bond like marriage would not convince her to disclose all she knew about the Midnight Rider.

  “You cannot just take over my life. You cannot place me in your puzzle as you would wish.” Mazie tried one last feeble protest. Inside, her chest was being pressed into a hard knot.

  “I thought you would be pleased.” His voice was tight. “Am I interrupting some grand plans for your future?”

  “Yes, I have plans.”

  “What are they?”

  “I would like to travel.”

  He waited, but she did not say anything more. More thunder sounded, farther away now.

  “Travel?” he asked. “Where? In case you hadn’t noticed, the world is a very unforgiving place for a single woman with no money.”

  She looked away and focused on the rain-patterned windows. “Perhaps I will travel with my husband. You would never be able to go to India; your political work will always hold you here.”

  “You want to go to India? I thought it was St. Petersburg, or the Caribbean.”

  “Well, maybe not India, per se. But I would like to go wherever I want, whenever I want.”

  “I see.”

  “And I want a h-husband who is not so…” she waved her hands, searching for the words, “…overwhelming. Someone who would listen to me, consider my side of things.” Someone she trusted not to hang her brother. Someone who would not overrun her emotions, who offered her pleasure in more manageable pieces.

  “You mean you want to control everything about your life.”

  She whipped her head around to face him and slammed her fists against her thighs. “It is my life to control!”

  “I think you are scared.”

  He knocked the breath from her. “This is ridiculous.”

  “That word again.” He shook his head, sparks in his grey eyes. “All this meddling, running, manipulating. I think you are scared of life.”

  “Ha.” It was a feeble reply. She was slipping, needed to get away. She backed toward the closed door.

  His long legs carried him there first as if he would prevent her leaving. “Run away then, hummingbird, back to your little nest.” He glared at her, jerked open the door and let her out into the hallway like she was his to command. His caged bird to be let into the solarium. Oh, the man infuriated her.

  But he did not scare her. She stomped down the hallway. The gall to insinuate such a thing. Oh, he might try to intimate her, to shock her or overpower her, but she did not fear him. Or her past. Or…or life.

  Of course not.

  This, this shaking, this nauseousness was anger. Fury.

  And it was good. Yes, her anger was good. It made her strong, powerful.

  It made her want to be victorious in this misadventure. Free.

  She pounded her way up the stairs, her mind already focused on forming a new plot, a new ruse, a new way to trick his arrogant lordship, the twelfth Earl of Radford.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.” John 8:7

  Nothing. In two days, she had come up with nothing. But Trent waged quite the battle, knocked the breath right out of her. Not with threats or search parties, not with long lectures or even heated looks.

  A dinner party. The man decided to host a dinner party.

  A party obviously organized to punish her. What other reason did he have to gather this particular group? From her seat at middle of the table, Mazie looked around the dining room with an odd sense of disconnect. Many of the guests had been served by her outlaw justice. The others had been visited by Roane, or, as they knew him, the Midnight Rider. But she felt nothing, no panic, no fear. Just…empty.

  “It has been some time since you were in society, Lady Margaret.”

  Mazie glanced up from her plate to the elder woman seated across from her, the table a wide expanse of linen and silver between them. “Yes, a long time.”

  A lifetime.

  “Where have you been hiding?” Lady Arlington’s wrinkles organized into a frown. Displeasure? Concentration? “I have heard nothing of you in all these years. I was a friend of your mother’s, you see. I made her acquaintance at Chatsworth house. “

  Mazie sipped her wine. She felt removed from the room, from her body, from the questions. Her mother? Chatsworth house?

  And where had she been all these years? Why, exiled by such as Lady Arlington herself, women who claimed to be friends of her parents, but did nothing when Mazie was paupered, ill. An orphan.

  And how had she got along? Lady Arlington need only ask her son, seated next to Mazie. She had liberated him of his billfold just months ago after he forced his attentions on a chambermaid.

  Still, the woman’s pale eyes watched her, waiting to judge. Where had she been? Mazie inhaled, the air was rich with the smell of flowers, beef and perfume. It did not help. She focused instead on the elder woman’s gown of deep purple, s
uch a lovely color, and her matching turban. The headpiece was magnificent and included three silk tassels, fresh flowers and ropes of pearls for trim. Her thoughts snapped into line. “I have traveled some, but mostly I’ve been rusticating.”

  The turban trembled as Lady Arlington shook her head. “And you are yet unmarried?”

  Yes, there was displeasure in her voice. Indeed, Mazie’s own maman would have asked the same question with the same unspoken judgment behind it. And here she had repudiated the earl’s proposal of marriage. She could have been the next Countess of Radford. What would these women think?

  I think you are scared.

  Ha, she was hardly frightened. Look at her, calmly facing this extended torture. She sipped her wine, letting herself float once more. She was free of this need to cater to other’s expectations, other’s opinions. “I am unattached.”

  Lady Arlington looked like she wanted to pry, but was interrupted by Lady Usling. Seated two seats down, Lady Usling was dressed in black taffeta and diamonds. She nearly shouted over Lord Persing’s head. “Will you attend the Morton’s ball this weekend, Etty?”

  Mazie sat back and let the two ladies converse, glad for the reprieve. Maybe she had drunk more wine than she realized. Perhaps she was ill. There must be some cause for this numbness. This whirling of her thoughts. She would blame her breathlessness on her corset, but she had again instructed the maid to leave the laces loose. No, it was the closeness of the room shut against the drenching rain outside. It was the flippant talk of her mother casually rolling off Lady Arlington’s lips and the insensitive use of her name. Lady Margaret, they said. Lady Margaret, we chose who you are. Lady Margaret, we define you.

  And the worst of it…her victims were seated around her like fish dangling on a string.

  Mazie glanced down the table where Trent held court. He looked ever the proper lord this evening, worlds away from the man she had danced with just three nights before. His black-and-white attire was flawless, his posture stiff and manner impeccable. He must have felt her shooting daggers at him, for he turned with a secret, intimate smile. In a motion small enough that none would notice, he lifted his wineglass and toasted her.

  Checkmate.

  She frowned at him, but heat bloomed and her muscles squeezed. He had been inside her. Filled her. Her censure was countermanded by a blush that crept over her cheeks. His grey eyes glittered with what seemed like anger, but there was more. Something smoldered in his gaze, some promise. They had barely shared a friendly word since his ill-conceived proposal, but she could not say he ignored her.

  Indeed, Cat had assured her that Trent would have eyes only for his special guest as they chose this dress for the evening. Cut low in the bodice, the unusual golden apricot color set off her pale skin. Upon Mazie’s instruction, Alice had arranged her hair in a loose chignon, then twined an apricot-colored ribbon through it, leaving one dark, twisted strand to fall over her shoulder where it rested on the swell of her breast.

  Mazie could feed a small village with the price of her apparel, but she did enjoy wearing it. Especially when it made Trent look at her with such thinly veiled desire.

  “Lady Margaret,” the man seated next to her purred entirely too close to her ear. “How did you come to be a guest of our host?” The younger Lord Arlington withdrew only slightly when Mazie turned to face him. He did not hide his slow perusal of her form. It was maddening, this inspection, and the fear that he would recognized her.

  “Lady Catherine and I had our coming out together. We were happy to be reacquainted.” Should she be haughty? Friendly? How best to distance herself from the girl who had stolen his billfold at the market?

  He flashed a quick smile. A dandy, with his salmon-colored waistcoat and not one but three watch fobs. But attractive in the way pale, blond men are. “Might I call on you while you are here? Surely Radford would not hoard such a lovely guest.”

  “Oh, well, I…” Mazie paused, unsure how to answer. She glanced at Trent, who watched their exchange with a hard expression. “Perhaps,” she answered, choosing to be coy. Lord Arlington would see what he wanted in her. And what he wanted was a flirt.

  Her assumption was correct if his answering smile was any indication. There were no shouts for the magistrate, no accusations of theft.

  For now.

  Hoping to avoid further interaction, she picked at her lemon syllabub. The dessert was beyond delicious, but she had little appetite.

  “Are you enjoying our fair countryside, Lady Margaret?” Lord Persings asked from her other side.

  And so she turned to another one of her victims. “Very much.”

  It had been an arrogant theft, and her largest, one she’d had to ask Roane to help her with. She had stolen Lord Persings’s coach, of all things, then had sold the conveyance and given the money to his sister. An aging spinster, she was left to molder in a small cottage while he and his family lived in the elegant family estate. Everyone in town knew Miss Augustus was suffering, as her clothes were old and thrice mended and she scrimped and scraped for food.

  Lord Persings dabbed a handkerchief against his moist brow, and Mazie was glad to see she was not the only one who found the room overly warm. “It is a lovely time of year,” he puffed.

  “Lovely or not, she should be in London, that is where one finds a husband.” Lady Arlington shook a bejeweled hand at them, sending shards of candlelight glittering across the room. “But at least you can entertain Lady Catherine. She could use some friends, living alone as she does.”

  Mazie remembered this from before. The judgments, the rules, the barbed words. She did not miss it. She glanced at the windows, wishing they could be opened for a touch of fresh air. A smell of the freedom beyond.

  “I much prefer living alone,” Lady Usling boomed, not attempting to moderate her voice. “No man directing me about. Who’s to say Lady Margaret here needs to go to London to find herself a husband?”

  Thank you, Mazie wanted to say. She suspected she would much prefer living alone as well. Marriage was entirely too much of a bondage for the woman. And love was too…messy. Dangerous. It made one so vulnerable.

  “I should hope my wife does not share such an opinion.” Lord Persings glanced down the table toward his spouse. “Though I am sure my sister would applaud your independence, Lady Usling.”

  “Where is your sister tonight?” she asked. “I do enjoy her company.”

  The older gentleman again dabbed his forehead. “She declined the invitation. Doesn’t like the fuss and bother of dinner parties.”

  “I’d hoped to see her in a new dress with that fortune she found.”

  “Then you did not hear?”

  “That she gave it away?” Lady Arlington breathed. “Surely such rumors are not true.”

  “It is true,” he sighed. “Silly old bird, she gave it all away. But I love her.”

  She what? Mazie dropped her spoon and nearly choked on her own tongue.

  “Are you well, Lady Margaret?”

  “Drink some wine, dear.”

  “It is this talk of husbands.”

  “Then let us talk of kinder things.” Lord Persings patted Mazie’s arm, a warm smile on his face. “I was a friend of your father, you know. The trouble we got into as lads…”

  Mazie sputtered on her wine and set the glass back on the table. She had robbed a friend of her father?

  “You have the look of your mother,” he continued. “A beautiful woman. We were all green with envy when Reddy brought her back from France. That was before the war, of course.”

  “Your mother once told me how she met your father.” Lady Arlington smiled, though her wrinkles still wanted to frown. “How fate brought them together. So romantic.”

  “Thank you.” The words sounded choked. Her maman loved to tell that story, how her carriage wheel had come loose just as her father was riding by. “Une catastrophe naturelle,” her mother would say, An act of God. Mazie had believed her until later, when it became appa
rent God was not watching over them. Not at all.

  “I did so admire your mother, even if she was French,” Lady Arlington continued. “She had the most delicate style, and such grace of manners.”

  “Talking of delicate style, Etty, you must show my maid how to do that turban.” Lady Usling made a circling motion with her hand. “I must have one.”

  Lady Arlington pressed her lips together as if annoyed, but she did hold herself taller. “If you need anything, Lady Margaret, you must come to me. I will introduce you to all the right people in Radford and see you well settled.”

  “You are too kind.”

  “You mustn’t think yourself alone.” Lord Persings again patted her arm. “You are among friends here.”

  Mazie slid her hands into her lap, clutched them and willed her face to remain expressionless. She would return to her earlier numbness if she could. It was difficult, this talk of her parents. She had been on her own for so long she forgot what it was to be connected to something bigger. A family, a community.

  She hated to think what her parents would say of her life, the disappointment they would feel. She had become a vagrant, a thief. She had turned down an offer of marriage from an earl.

  She had robbed their friend, only to give the money to a woman who did not want it.

  And what of Lady Usling and her prize roses? Surely there was a story there. And Lord Arlington and the chambermaid? Did she truly know the details, or just the gossip? Had she acted in haste?

  Justice was a complicated beast.

  Just as Trent had said. Mazie glanced over at him. He was deep in conversation with Lord Atherton, who looked well recovered from his carriage accident.

  The war hero she had stolen from.

  Damn. Mazie hated that Trent was right, if only a little bit.

  An hour later, Trent stood by the dining room window and watched the fat droplets of rain splash against the flagstone outside. It had poured steadily all day, and he wondered idly if the lake would swell and overflow. He pictured the grassy bank where he had made love to Mazie. Was it drowned by the storm?