A Notorious Countess Confesses (PG7) Read Online Free PDF

approached.
    “Why did the vicar wrap the horse’s hoof?” she asked the footman.
    “He said he should hate for us to ruin our livery, m’lady. He insisted upon it.”
    “But … I’m not certain I understand. Why would anyone need to ruin anything?”
    “As a precaution, m’lady, to protect it until he can be shod again, we needed to wrap his hoof. Shoe came off cleanly, like, so no damage done yet, and we’re fortunate he wasn’t lamed. Vicar knows his horses!” he said admirably. “If we take the drive slow, we should reach home without harming him. Vicar said he’d send the farrier out to us straightaway.”
    It was the sort of report one’s servants didn’t usually trouble a countess with. But there was no man of the house, and her budget, settled upon her by Monty’s estate, could scarcely justify keeping the horses and carriage and the footmen as it was, and the health of something as valuable as a horse was of paramount concern. And she had no doubt that everyone below stairs knew it.
    And livery was costly, too. Likely the vicar knew it. She imagined what the cost of a cravat meant to a vicar, and his kindness threw her own churlishness into stark relief.
    “Thank you,” she said gently to the footman. “We shall take the drive home slowly, then, and come to know the lovely scenery of our new home a little better.”
    “Very good, my lady.”
    She’d made him smile, and this lightened her mood a little. It was such an easy thing for her to do, normally, to charm, to ease, to make things better, to take care of things, and she felt her failure with Reverend Sylvaine bleakly. She was an expert at identifying the thing that made a man feel most proud and the thing that made him feel most inadequate, and she would praise the one and bolster the other. Of course, once captivated, she could tweak his vulnerabilities and strengths the way a skilled driver used ribbons to steer horses, should the need arise.
    “Now, Lord Asquith, he could by no stretch of the imagination be compared to a flower,” Evie concluded inside the carriage, continuing the argument with Henny, determined to win it.
    “Lud, but isn’t that the truth of it,” Henny agreed, sighing and leaning back into the well-sprung seats. “The man stunk like a shop in Seven Dials. ’Twas an ointment ’e bought in the dead of night at McBride’s Apothecary and used for a masculine complaint.”
    Evie was fascinated despite herself. She knew McBride’s well, in large part because McBride could be relied upon to pawn things, something actresses often needed to do. “How would you know a thing like that?”
    “I ken a thing or two. I might ’ave been a tart in my day, too,” Henny said smugly. “Given arf a chance.”
    Evie was too weary to object to the word “tart,” especially when it was said with genuine affection. Henny had known her in every incarnation. And Henny had surprising success with men. “Perhaps you ought to give it a try, Henny. Mayhap you can land an earl, too, and the two of us can retire in style.”
    Her maid gave her thigh a delighted slap. “I may do that very thing.”
    Evie looked out the window, out upon the soft hills unfolding endlessly, to the smoke spiraling up into the sky from cottage chimneys of houses filled with people who would in all likelihood be gossiping about her within days and would never welcome her, to the flat silver line of the sea in the distance, and knew a moment of disorientation: The view could have been her past or present or future.
    For some reason she found herself craning her head in the direction Adam Sylvaine had disappeared. As if he, of all things, was the star she could navigate by.

Chapter 4
    ADAM WAS SURPRISED to find himself at Lady Fennimore’s door. He paused and fished out his pocket watch; he was only ten minutes later than usual. He frowned, surprised, and stuffed it back into his coat. He could scarcely recall the walk at all, and he’d taken it once a