The Runaway Countess (31 page)

“Your duty?” He was serious? Her amusement fled as quickly as it had appeared. She curled her hand around the back of the chair. Another wave of rain pelted against the windows.

“You must have expected this.” His eyes searched hers. “That my honor and duty would triumph. That I do not turn my back on my obligations, my responsibilities.”

She was numb, as if she watched this scene on stage, watched it happen to someone else. Surely this wasn’t her life. “Expected that you would propose to your prisoner? I’m sorry, my lord, but even my vivid imagination did not conjure such a possibility.”

Watery light played over his skin, hiding his reaction. “It still stands that we will be wed.”

“You are mad.” Shock blunted the sharp edge of her pronouncement. She let go of the chair, not knowing whether to fight or flee from this ridiculous situation.

“Am I mad?” he countered, leaning forward. His expression was sharp and intense, and obliterated any thoughts of fleeing from her mind. “What else could be the result of our indiscretions last evening? It is a simple rule. You were compromised, and now you must be wed.”

“Must I?” She lifted her brows. He would take her acquiescence for surrender. Would see her curiosity as submission. So like a man. She wanted to hit him. “Must I marry you, truly? I see no authority commanding such a fate.”

“I am that authority.”

Of course he was. Her breath struggled in her chest, wanting to explode from the force of her emotion. Terror. Anger at him. Anger at herself. “Exchanging one prison for another, is that it? By marrying me you think to control me.”

His flash of white teeth was not quite a smile. “Ah, yes, that idea does have its merit. Honor and obey, lord and master and all that.”

“Newgate would be preferable to such an institution,
my lord
.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Truly? Have you been to Newgate?” He stepped forward as if he would touch her. “The cold, damp cells. The rats. The moldy water and fetid puddles of human excrement. You would not prefer Giltbrook Hall?”

Mazie opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “This conversation is absurd.” Her thoughts raged. She could not get them in line. “You may believe in these harebrained rules, but I do not.”

“You should be grateful. I am offering you protection. The Radford name is old and prestigious. Many would be honored by such a proposal.”

She scoffed. Oh, it was only getting better. Or worse.

“I see no other alternative.” His tone was even and controlled as if he sought to make her understand. “I’ve no more choice in the matter than you.”

Thunder rolled in the distance. “Such a charming proposal.” She clenched her hands into fists as if she could physically hold in her wild reactions. “I free you of your obligation to me. You are only proposing because of my name, nothing more. You may treat me as you would any commoner. I expect and desire nothing more.”

“I would offer for you whether you were Mazie or Lady Margaret.” He ran his fingers though his hair in exasperation. “But yes, I do owe this to your father and grandfather, whose blood flows through your veins.”

“This is ridiculous.” She threw her hands up in the air, exceedingly tired of this conversation. Who was the worse fool? He, for his stupidity? Or her, for believing he had changed? “Would the world truly fall apart if you ignored your overdeveloped sense of duty this one time? Would the sky fall down? Would the walls of your ancestral home cave in? Really, Trent, it is all a bit much.”

“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, such 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.