Free The Runaway Countess by Leigh LaValle

birthday she had been made an orphan, a pauper and an outcast. Certainly she could do better than that. “I suppose so, yes.”
    He blinked, looked away from her, then looked back, his face a tableau of surprise.
    She had finally silenced him.
    “But that is an absurd amount of control.” He found his voice. “Prideful and without reverence or humility.”
    Ha! “Who are you to talk of power? You, the lord above all?”
    “Even I bow to the Creator.” His face was flushed from anger or perhaps discomfort.
    “Are you so religious, then?” She was tired of those who would preach that her parents’ death had a purpose. That, like a baker taking bread out of the oven, or a conductor drawing out the end of a symphony, a higher power had deigned their lives to be fully lived.
    “I am not a religious man, but neither am I cynical.” His mouth twisted as he said the words, as if they had an ill taste.
    “I am not cynical. How dare you accuse me of that? I have simply chosen to take charge of my life rather than leave events up to fate.”
    He shook his head, his expression mocking.
    “It is my life to control.” Her anger boiled over into her voice.
    “A higher power is necessary, Mazie, moral guidance is needed. Otherwise we fall into habits of crime and deceit.”
    His words were like a slap. She crossed her arms and looked toward the windows. She had said too much, revealed too much. No one wanted to hear that she had lost faith in God, doubted that there was a force of good watching over the world.
    “In any case,” Trent ground out, his voice controlled as usual, “you cannot remain here as Mazie Bell. You will stay as my sister’s guest. You will be known to us as Lady Margaret Chetwyn, and you will dress and comport yourself accordingly.”
    She glanced over at him with a snort. “So you think to decide my identity for me?”
    “I think to maintain the identity that is rightfully yours.”
    “And you say I am controlling and without humility.”
    “I did not bring you into this world, Mazie, but your father did. You are a Chetwyn whether you wish it or not.”
    She rubbed her temples. Her head was beginning to ache.
    “Have you no care for family honor?” he asked. To a man like him, honor was everything. He would never understand her reasons for changing her name, no matter how hard she tried to explain. He did not wait for an answer anyway. “We will talk more later. At dinner. See that you are prompt and dressed appropriately.” He opened the door, turned back to look at her. “Don’t ever lie to me again.”
    Mazie rolled her eyes at his retreating form. If there was anything she hated it was being stuck. Powerless. Managed. Controlled by someone she could not trust and unable to know or exercise her own decisions.
    Really, the man was too conceited by half. Someone needed to take him down a peg or two.

Chapter Five
    “The miserable have no other medicine/But only hope.” Shakespeare
    Lady Margaret Parthena Harlan Chetwyn was restored to life in the course of two hours by an upstairs maid named Alice.
    After a brief fitting for her dinner dress, Mazie stepped aside as an elegant bathtub was brought into her new chamber. Constructed of hammered copper, the tub was enormous, large enough for two people, and a vast difference from the hip-baths she had grown accustomed to. Determined not to think of her argument with Trent, she watched a parade of maids fill the tub with buckets of steaming water. Alice added a generous handful of rose petals and fresh milk before she helped Mazie step in.
    With a contented sigh, Mazie leaned back and rested in the warm water.
    It was a luxury she had missed.
    She had missed soft, velvety towels and silk dressing gowns as well. Thirty minutes later, she sat in a chair surrounded by bright afternoon sun and let Alice brush out her hair. She felt everywhere soft and warm and fragrant, free of the anxiety that had plagued her for days. When her hair was adequately