Read Online The Runaway Countess by Leigh LaValle - Free Book Online Page A

not think she was going to like this game. “I am comfortable here, thank you.”
    “If you please, miss,” the maid glanced toward the door, then back at Mazie, “I’ve clear instructions to show you to your new chambers.”
    She sighed. “Very well.”
    Having nothing to gather, she followed the maid out of her room and down the narrow hallway to the servants’ stairs, then out into a larger, brighter hallway in the main part of the house. She had never seen this wing of the estate before and trepidation followed her like a shadow. Floor-to-ceiling windows graced one length of the hall and provided views out over the manicured front drive and gardens. The other long wall was broken up by closed doors intermixed with Dutch still-life paintings.
    The maid opened the fourth door and Mazie stepped inside.
    Lovely, the room was lovely.
    Decorated in soft greens, pale blues and buttery yellows over a backdrop of cream and gold, the chamber was elaborate and ornamental and yet delicate and peaceful at once. One wall was comprised almost entirely of windows looking out over the sloping lawns to the lake. The other walls, painted a robin’s-egg blue, were stamped with gilded flowers. Cream furniture with golden accents punctuated the room, while embroidered tulle of the softest silk hung from the windows and around the canopy of the bed.
    It was an elegant room, appropriate for the daughter of an earl. Appropriate for Lady Margaret.
    Despite herself, Mazie fluttered around the room like a butterfly, appreciating one thing then wandering on as the next caught her eye—seventeenth-century Flemish paintings in gilt frames, Worcester porcelain vases filled with fresh blooms, cut-glass candelabras and a Jacobean walnut side table inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
    Old, all of it. And most likely originally owned by former Radfords. She doubted either Trent or his sister had any inclination of what they took for granted. They had grown up among wealth that spanned generations. It was braided into the fibers of their being, as the gilt thread was braided into the silk upholstery around her.
    She hardly noticed as two maids entered and only turned when one called her by her title.
    “My lady,” the young girl said, “we’ve another gown to alter for you, a dinner dress.”
    Mazie smiled at the two seamstresses and was about to tell them she had no use for such a garment when loud footsteps sounded in the hallway. All four women paused to listen. Like a summer thunderstorm, the noise rolled clamorous and heavy toward them.
    Everyone froze when Trent appeared on the threshold dressed in his shirtsleeves, the material marred with dirt, his wonderful forearms exposed. Without a coat, his shoulders looked impossibly wide.
    His gaze swept the room and landed on Mazie. He stepped into the chamber. “Leave us.”
    The maids bumped into each other as they scurried out of the room while gaping at their half-dressed lord. Once they had fled into the hallway Trent banged the door closed behind them.
    “So charming.” Mazie huffed with a forced confidence. My God, the man was handsome. “Where did you learn your manners? The stables?”
    He raised a brow and his grey eyes flashed with unconcealed emotion. “ Lady Margaret ,” he drawled, “I have spent the better part of the day dusting the cornrows and trying to forget the shattering revelations of this morning. Despite my exertions I fear my anger has only grown fiercer.”
    “Perhaps you are unused to such labor.” Choosing self-preservation over pride she walked away and put the length of the room between them. “Toiling in the midday sun is not good for an angry constitution. A cool bath—”
    He frowned, his chin and brow cut in harsh angles, making him appear even more masculine and fierce. He continued as if he had not heard her. “What I cannot wrap my mind around, what has stuck there like a sharp stone, is the truth of your bloodlines.”
    “Yes, I see.” She did see. The