The Runaway Countess (14 page)

Lady Catherine placed one luxurious lump of sugar in the Wedgwood china cup then handed it to her. “Did Radford explain to you that I would be staying here as your chaperone?”

“Yes, he did.” The tea smelled crisp, like citrus. She guessed it was Ceylon. A fine cup indeed. “I do hope we have not torn you away from your other responsibilities. Do you have children?” If there was anything a mother loved to talk about it was her children.

“No, no children.” She dabbed at a spot of tea on her saucer. “Forster left for India a fortnight after our wedding, I haven’t seen him since. And, I assure you, a male is necessary for the act of creating children.”

“Oh.” Mazie blinked, unsure what to say.

“Did I shock you?” Catherine peered at her.

“No, I am afraid not.”

“Good, then.” Her hostess brightened. “I am tired of all the proprieties of polite conversation.”

“Mmm.” What was Mazie to say? That she hadn’t had a proper conversation in a year? That right now she was hiding from the man who would hang her brother?

Catherine glanced over the rim of her tea cup. “I much prefer talking openly.”

I am sure you do.
She wondered how much of their conversation Catherine would relay back to her brother. Most likely all of it. She would not pretend to think the woman across from her was a friend. They had not been close in their younger years and had less cause for intimacy now.

Of course Lady Catherine’s loyalties lay with Trent. Mazie understood the impulse to love and protect one’s brother. Roane was her half-brother, four years her senior and conceived before her parents wed, but they had grown up on the same estate and had always been close.

While Mazie had lived in the luxury of Rodsley Manor, and Roane in the shabby comfort of his Aunt Pearl’s cottage, there was a bond between them that only siblings shared.

Roane was not interested in girl’s things, was not invited to her meals or even to take lessons from her governess. But he had taught Mazie to ride, to climb trees and told her tales of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Mazie had loved to visit him at Mrs. Pearl’s cottage at the edge of her father’s estate, pilfering tea cake and playing in the woods.

She swallowed back a knot in her throat, plopped a spoonful of clotted cream on her plate and selected a scone.

“You are quite changed, Lady Margaret.”

“Oh, please.” Mazie waved her hand around in some sort of reply, then realized the awkwardness of the action and let it drop. “Don’t stand on formality with me. You may call me Mazie. I have not been a lady in many years now.”

“Very well, Mazie. Please call me Catherine. Or Cat, if you wish.”

Mazie bit into her scone. Lemon, piquant and delicious. The taste made her mouth want to sing. What was Roane eating? Was he somewhere safe? She forked some strawberries onto her plate and waited for the next question sure to come.

“My brother has told me why you are here.” Cat busied herself with stirring her already stirred tea. Obviously she was avoiding Mazie’s gaze. “I must say, it came as quite a shock.”

“Did it?”

Finally, Cat’s gaze lifted to Mazie. “I think Radford has suffered a shock as well.” She chuckled in amusement but did not explain further.

“Where do you think he is right now?” Mazie dipped an early summer strawberry in clotted cream and popped it into her mouth, preventing any further questions on the topic. The less she thought about him the better. Trent would make himself known soon enough.

“In his office, no doubt. Such a stickler, that one. I had hoped he would mellow with age.” Cat sighed and lifted one shoulder, as if deeming her brother a lost cause. “I desperately wish I had seen him farming yesterday, if only to believe it.”

“Is it so uncommon that he should be in the fields?”

“I haven’t seen him labor since we were children and he snuck off to work in the stables. He had an ungodly love for horses as a child.”

“What happened?”

“Preparation for the title, I suppose. The twelfth earl and all that.” Cat considered her. “What about the Midnight Rider? Is he very serious or is he more droll? Would he make me relinquish my jewels in fear or in laughter?”

Ah, yes. Clever, Lady Catherine. “He is like most men, I suppose. Stern or amusing depending upon the occasion.”

“How romantic it must have been to have a highwayman for a beau.” Cat watched her closely. “Is he handsome?”

Mazie considered how much to divulge. “Yes.” It was true. Roane was too handsome for his own good and charming to boot, but incredibly stubborn and all too foolish.

Cat sighed and sank back into her chair. “I wish I had a highwayman. I am so bored.”

The clock struck the quarter hour, reminding Mazie that her time was running short. Trent would be looking for her now.

Cat sat forward. “Will the Midnight Rider come for you? Will he try to save you?”

Mazie coughed on her tea. Save her? Roane was the one who needed saving. She truly suspected Trent would be more lenient with her, especially now he knew of her heritage. But Roane, what grace was there for a bastard highwayman? “No. I don’t think… I hope not.”

“You must love him greatly to put yourself at such risk.”

“Yes.”

“How worried you must be for his life.”

Why was Cat pressing this? Did she want to see her guest come undone there on the settee? Mazie stared at her hands. Her parents’ deaths were still a raw ache four years later. How could she endure it again? With Roane, so young and proud?

No, she could not see Roane dead. Could not see him locked on the other side of that dark door. What use would there be for her on this side when all those she loved had gone over the threshold?

She stood. “This is a very large library. Is it well organized?”

Cat made a face. “It belongs to my brother. Of course it is well organized. Is there something you would like to read? A novel perhaps?”

Anything to take her mind off the fact that they were plastering Roane’s picture across the countryside. “I was thinking more of a travel book.”

“Ah, of course. What better distraction when one is a
special
guest? The travel section is there—” she pointed down a long wall of books, “—at the far corner.”

Mazie wandered in that direction. Maybe she could slip out of the library before Trent came for her.

“Have you traveled much?” Cat’s voice journeyed across the room but remained cultivated at the same time.

“Not far. Never outside of England, though I’d like to.” Cat would notice at once if she disappeared. She dare not risk it. She grabbed a few books from the shelf, choosing them by title alone.

“Forster has been all over the world and I have been stuck in the midlands. Somehow, it doesn’t seem fair.”

“Mmm.” Mazie quickly selected a few more books. She did not suppose Cat was interested in quiet time in the library and was most likely formulating more questions. She sought to distract her. “Has Forster never talked of coming home?”

Cat did not reply and Mazie walked back to the sitting area, concerned she had upset the woman.

Her hostess looked out the window, her perfect pale skin glowing in the afternoon sun. “I do not think he will ever return. He would have to forgive me first.”

“That seems rather extreme,” Mazie said quietly. “Is he so wise that he should sit judgment upon others?” Unwillingly, Trent’s earlier challenge echoed through her mind. He had asked her the same thing.

“I had an affair,” Cat said after a long silence. “I thought it would bring me my freedom, but I find myself only more bound.”

Mazie tried to tamp down her surprise. The woman across from her had seemed thrilled to marry Forster.

Cat turned away from the window. Mazie noticed a tension around her hostess and braced herself for the next difficult question.

“What about you? Why this life?” She did not disappoint, but launched right into her next line of interrogation. “The crime, I mean. Why did you never travel yourself, or go to London, or marry someone from the country?”

Mazie blushed and took her time sitting. It was not a topic she liked to speak of, but she found that she was thankfully unaffected by it today. The usual sharp pang of resentment was not there. She adjusted her skirts and quickly fashioned a truthful answer that did not relate to Roane in the least. “I was living off the charity of relatives and was never in a position to visit London, or even to marry a gentleman from the country. I was little more than a servant really.”

“So, you…what? Found a position in another household?”

“Yes, as a governess.”

Cat sighed. “It is ironic, is it not, how life turned out? We, who were taught to be terribly naïve and innocent, were ill prepared for the reality of our lives.”

Mazie was quiet for a moment. She had always assumed Lady Catherine would be gloriously happy, but the woman who sat across from her now held shadows in her eyes. “It does seem neither of our lives has progressed as expected.”

Cat squeezed her sad eyes closed. “I would rather go back to that innocence, I think, even if it was a lie.”

Mazie considered her reply, surprised at the intimate turn of the conversation. “No one likes it when the veil is torn away.”

“What is there to like? The sense of falling and panic? The loneliness?”

“The scales have to balance at some point.” Mazie knew this like the single point of gravity deep in her belly.

“So we were destined to fall?”

“How could we not? Reality is too powerful to keep out on a cold winter night. Any crack or deepening shadow must carry the one truth.”
That life is hard as nails.
Mazie picked up her plate and held her tongue. The rawness was too embarrassing, too personal and vulnerable. She had said too much already. She had forgotten to be careful in her conversation somewhere along the way. Was that the purpose of Cat’s intimate confession? To draw one out of Mazie herself? She frowned, the camaraderie she had felt moments ago turned cold and stiff. “I would choose the fall over the innocence, I think. In the end, it has given me a freedom I never dreamed of before.”

“I long for such freedom, but I do not think I am willing to pay the cost.”

“What is all this talk of the fall of innocence and freedom?”

He had found her. Mazie glanced up to find Trent brooding in the doorway. It hadn’t taken him long, not that she had many places to hide in his home. But it was still a bit disheartening.

He entered the room like a cloud of gloom. His riding clothes, designed in his usually urbane colors of black and grey, looked much more severe than they had that morning. His gaze held Mazie’s and a warm flush suffused her body. Her mind, oh traitorous organ, brought forth the memory of him. The feel and taste and heat of him.

He was all seriousness, as usual. “You have disregarded my command to ride and chose instead to corrupt my sister, I see.”

Cat scoffed at her brother’s jab and rose to Mazie’s defense. “I am the fallen wife in the room, do not forget, brother.”

“Never in my eyes.” He kissed his sister on the forehead, then glared at Mazie again. “Get dressed. You have ten minutes before I come for you myself.”

“Trent!” Cat admonished. “Please, Mazie, forgive my brother his manners.”

“Mazie?” Trent’s dark brow rose. “How intimate you two have become.”

“Why are you here?” Cat challenged.

“To take my houseguest for a ride about the village. It seems she conveniently forgot.”

“That sounds nice. Mazie, do wear one of the riding gowns I brought.”

How easily these two decided her life for her. Mazie considered Trent. How far must she press to prevent this ill-conceived visit to Mrs. Pearl’s?

He watched her, did not say anything, just pointed to the door.

So rude.

“Thank you for the dresses, Lady Catherine.” She stood. Maybe Trent would let her stall if she were polite to his sister.

“Oh, it is nothing. I have no need of the gowns. I shop and shop and never have anywhere to go anymore. A few dresses are nothing between friends, after all.”

Were they friends? Or were they playing the game?

“It’s been so long since I’ve had something beautiful to wear, I—”

“Mazie,” Trent bit out, his tone laced with warning.

She scooped up her books from the table with a huff and kept her gaze averted as she walked to the door.

Don’t look at him. Don’t look at him. Don’t look at him.

She looked at him.

And he was looking at her, of course, his eyes a stormy grey. “Ten minutes.” His voice was silk over steel. “Not a second more.”

Could the day get any worse?

Mazie navigated the familiar path to Mrs. Pearl’s cottage, her stomach curling with every clip-clop of the horse’s hooves beneath her. She felt seasick, as if the little boat of her world struggled to stay afloat during a thrashing, pummeling storm.

They were walking right into Roane’s hiding place. His home for many years, where evidence of his existence was on every surface of every room. Pictures of him hung on the walls, pictures that would easily identify him as the Midnight Rider.