Read Online The Countess's Groom by Emily Larkin - Free Book Online Page A

pleasant months ahead as his mistress.
    And on that note, dear readers, I shall end this latest confession from my pen.
    Chérie.
    Mattie laid down the quill. She glanced at the window again, hastily blotted the pages, and folded them. She sealed the confession with a wafer and wrote the address of her publisher clearly. Then she folded a letter around it and sealed that too, writing the address of her friend Anne on it, Mrs. Thos. Brocklesby, Lombard Street, London.
    Done.
    Mattie bundled up the draft and hid it with the others in the concealed cupboard in the wainscoting. She crammed a bonnet on her head, threw a thick shawl around her shoulders, and grabbed the letter.
    There was still an hour of daylight left, but deep shadows gathered in the corridors of Creed Hall. The stairs creaked as she hurried down them. The entrance hall was cave-like, dark and chilly and musty.
    “Matilda!”
    Mattie swung around, clutching the letter to her breast.
    Her uncle stood in the doorway to his study, leaning heavily on a cane. “Where are you going?”
    Mattie raised the letter, showing it to him. “A letter to a friend, Uncle Arthur. I’m taking it down to the village.”
    Her uncle frowned, his face pleating into sour, disapproving folds. “I sent Durce with the mail an hour ago.”
    “Yes, uncle. I hadn’t quite finished . . . ”
    “Durce can take it tomorrow.”
    “I should like to send it today, uncle. If I may.”
    Uncle Arthur’s eyebrows pinched together in a scowl. The wispy feathers of white hair ringing his domed skull, the beak-like nose, made him look like a gaunt, bad-tempered bird of prey.
    “Mr. Kane will be arriving soon.”
    “I’ll only be twenty minutes. I promise.” Mattie bowed her head and held her breath. Please, please, please...
    Her uncle sniffed. “Very well. But don’t be late for our guest. We owe him every courtesy.”
    “No, uncle.” Mattie dipped him a curtsy. “Thank you.”
    Outside, the sky was heavy with rain clouds. The air was dank and bracingly cold, scented with the smell of slowly decaying vegetation. Mattie took a deep breath, filling her lungs, feeling her spirits lift, conscious of a delicious sense of freedom. She walked briskly down the long drive, skirting puddles and mud. On either side, trees stretched leafless branches toward the sky. Once she was out of sight of the hall’s windows, Mattie lengthened her stride into a run. She spread her arms wide, catching a wintry breeze with her shawl. It felt as if she were galloping, as if she were flying, as if she were free .
    At the lane, she slowed to a walk and turned right. The village of Soddy Morton was visible in the hollow a mile away.
    Mattie crossed the crumbling stone bridge. The brook rushed and churned below, brown and swollen, its banks cloaked in winter-dead weeds. She blew out a breath. It hung, fog-like, in front of her. Icy mud splashed her half-boots and the hem of her gown, but a feeling of joy warmed her. She didn’t see the bleak landscape, the bare fields, the bare trees, the heavy, gray sky. She saw instead a cheerful boardinghouse with a cozy kitchen and a view of the sea through the windows.
    Mattie inhaled deeply, almost smelling the tang of the ocean, almost tasting sea salt on her tongue.
    Her grip tightened on the letter. Soon she would be free of Uncle Arthur, free of Creed Hall, free of Soddy Morton and Northamptonshire. Every word that she wrote and every confession she mailed to London brought the dream of owning a boardinghouse closer.
    Soon it wouldn’t be a dream, it would be reality.
    …
    Edward Kane, lately of the Royal Horse Guards, tooled his curricle over the low bridge to the clatter of iron-shod hooves on stone and stopped at his first glimpse of Creed Hall. It crouched to his left at the crest of the hill, built of stone so dark that it almost looked black, crowded by leafless trees. He grimaced. What had Toby called it? The dungeon.
    “Ugly,” his batman, Tigh, commented