Free My Lady, My Lord by Katharine Ashe

twitched.
    Her eyes shot wide and she leaped from the bed. When the valet returned with shaving gear and garments, her face was buried in a basin of freezing water.
    “My lord?”
    Corinna stood, allowing the frigid water to trickle down her neck and over her shoulders. She shook her head, clearing it of all thoughts of Ian Chance. That, however, was somewhat difficult to accomplish while staring at his image in the mirror.
    “I should like to have my hair cut this morning,” she stated firmly.
    “If you recall, we only cut it last week, my lord,” the neat little man said, not as though he were speaking to an imbecile, though somewhat like he didn’t expect the earl to remember such an insignificant detail.
    She met his gaze in the glass. “It is far too long. Unfashionable. I would like it shorter now.” She looked at herself again, at the wavy strands of black satin dripping onto the sodden nightshirt. Corinna had once heard a pair of giggling girls at a ball compare the Earl of Chance’s long hair to a prize stallion’s mane.
    She crossed her arms. “Much shorter.”
    ~o0o~
    Few people visited the park at such an early hour, no doubt the reason Ian wanted to meet her now. Without the assistance of her driver, she climbed from the carriage and set out on the winding walking path around the central lake, delighted to be able to stroll without a maid or groom.
    She folded her hands behind her and thanked heaven none of the other walkers or riders seemed interested in speaking with her. She’d no idea whom Ian counted as friends in society, except fellow reprobates and rogues, of course, but she didn’t know if she could discern those simply by appearance. The people currently enjoying the park seemed like a tame crowd, elderly ladies and their maids, mature gentlemen, and young mothers or nurses with tiny children. A thoroughly unfashionable lot, thank goodness.
    A pair of riders approached on the path. For the second time, the sensation of vertigo seized her to see herself at a distance.
    He rode her little gray mare with a surprisingly fine seat given the sidesaddle. Ian Chance might be a scoundrel and a cad, but no one could find fault with his knowledge of horses. The one time Corinna had tried, she paid dearly. As a permanent reminder of her childish pride, she still had the scar on her ankle from the bone mending improperly and needing to be reset.
    Rather,
he
now had the scar.
    She hoped it rained soon.
    At least he’d had the decency to think to bring a groom. He came forward to help his mistress dismount. Ian didn’t even bother shaking out the skirts of Corinna’s new velvet riding habit, moving directly toward her in long, masculine strides, his gaze hard.
    “Sleep didn’t work,” she said as soon as he stood before her.
    He scowled. “Excellent deduction. Now I understand why all your stuffy friends admire your intellect so greatly.”
    “You needn’t insult me. Oh, wait, I forgot. You insult me from habit.”
    He frowned, then peered at her closely. “You cut my hair.”
    She fingered the short locks curling around the edge of her hat. “It is much more respectable this way.”
    “You don’t care about respectability. You host a salon, for God’s sake.”
    “A respectable salon.”
    “My hair was fine.”
    “It was too long.”
    “I liked it.”
    “Well, you don’t have to wear it any longer. I am stuck with it.”
    “You could be stuck with much worse,” he growled, fussing with the heavy skirts tangled about his legs. The fellow was a libertine, spent the lion’s share of his time outside of gaming hells with women of loose morals, but he clearly did not know the first thing about what to do with the train of a riding habit.
    “Don’t do that,” she said. “You will damage the fabric.”
    Corinna had read it upon the page, but she’d never actually seen someone look daggers. Now she had. Interesting. And strangely unsettling. Unaccountably, her heart raced.
    “Did I win