The Runaway Countess Read Online Free PDF Page B

assure you he will not be so gentle.”
    He studied her face, perhaps looking for signs of her guilt or capitulation. She did not move, did not so much as breathe. She felt numb, as if she were watching him from outside her body.
    Trent was right, Harrington would not be gentle with her. The man was a brute. She had only heard hushed innuendoes, unspoken allusions to what he did with the women under his control. His acts were too despicable to talk about.
    People were known to leave gaol broken and violated. She did not want to go anywhere near the place. She just wanted this nightmare to be over.
    Trent walked to the door and wrenched it open. “Be ready to go first thing in the morning.”

Chapter Three
    “All’s fair in love and war.” Anonymous
    Early the next morning, a knock sounded on Mazie’s door. She had been waiting for this moment, expecting it, but shards of fear poured through her bloodstream all the same, slicing her everywhere into raw awareness.
    Harrington had come for her.
    She pulled the covers over her head and listened to the harsh sound of her own breath. She had spent the deep hours of darkness watching at the window, circling and circling in her living nightmare. Now she did not care to be brave. She simply wanted to avoid the inevitable a little longer.
    The knock sounded again, the beat of the drummer leading the accused to the gallows.
    When Mazie did not respond, the door opened and someone slipped inside. There was a light rustling as they opened the curtains and poured fresh water into the washbowl. Such familiar noises, domestic and safe. She peeked over the covers to see Alice, an upstairs maid, walk across the room. Alice’s white cap and apron were a far cry from the hangman’s dark hood, but she would lead Mazie to her doom none the less.
    “I was sent to fetch you at once,” the maid rushed. “We must hurry.”
    “Will I be allowed a last confession?” Mazie sank back against her pillows, not attempting to get out of bed.
    “Only if you have something good to confess.” Alice pulled the covers off her recalcitrant charge. “Here’s a wrapper, we must be quick like.”
    Mazie stood on legs that shook, her shoulders tense as she pulled on the wrapper over her shift. “Where are we going? Have I no time to dress?”
    The maid shrugged, opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. Cautious, Mazie followed. The guard fell into place behind them and they scurried down a dark, windy set of stairs. The warm smell of baking bread reached Mazie’s nostrils, then the familiar sounds of a kitchen at work. She ached for such comfort. The kitchens of her childhood home had been a place of safety and love—what she would give to step back to that time.
    Her lips pressed into a hard line. She lived in another world now. She was a different person. And she would find her own comfort again someday, one that couldn’t be taken away.
    Alice motioned for her to hurry along and opened a door that led to a dark, musty hallway.
    This did not seem promising. What exactly was she being summoned for? Some terrible and unwanted twist in this tale, she had to presume.
    Harrington. Surely it was he. But why this unused part of the estate? Had her emotions not been spent, she’d be quaking at the thought. As it was, she felt just…tired of it all.
    Mazie dragged herself through another door and down a narrow hall then stepped into a room empty of furniture. Two maids stood in the center of the sunlit chamber, and she blinked at the sight. Not here. Harrington was not here.
    One of the maids lifted the pile of fabric in her arms. “We haven’t much time. His Lordship has demanded you be ready to ride in an hour. We’ve found you a riding habit and have instructions to alter it as best we can, given the time. We mustn’t keep His Lordship waiting.”
    His Lordship is infinitely aggravating, Mazie wanted to say. And utterly tricky. She did not doubt he had some dark purpose for this