The Runaway Countess

by Leigh LaValle

  She was a devil of a confusing woman.

  For himself, Trent did not put too much stock into Vale’s picture. How easy it would be for the Midnight Rider to change his looks, to grow a beard or wear a hat, to cut his hair or affect new manners.

  Silence settled as Mazie stared into her tea and Mrs. Pearl cut more teacake. Trent studied the many frames scattered about. There were a number of hand-drawn pictures, mostly of horses. One looked to be a sketch of Mrs. Pearl herself and a few reminded him of the local countryside.

  “Is the artist a friend of yours?” he asked by way of conversation.

  Mazie and Mrs. Pearl both froze for an imperceptible moment.

  “Oh, these?” Mrs. Pearl waved her hand aimlessly. “Well…I…yes.” She smiled brightly. Too brightly. And Mazie investigated the needlework on a pillow.

  “The artist must have an affection for horses,” he continued, wondering at their odd reaction.

  “Oh?” Mrs. Pearl offered him a slice of teacake.

  He bit into the teacake, still warm from the oven. Mazie was right, it was delicious. Then he put the plate aside and reached for one of the drawings. “One can tell by the care the artist took in rendering the animal to paper.”

  He thought of the folded drawing in his pocket, the sketch of the Midnight Rider atop his stallion. Mrs. Pearl’s artist was a horse lover, and, if the drawings were true, the highwayman was as well. No man could ride such a stallion without a love for the beasts.

  Was there a connection? His gut told him all was not as it seemed here at Mrs. Pearl’s cottage. His brain, on the other hand, told him many Englishmen were horse-mad fools. Learning of two in one day was no great coincidence.

  “Can you tell all that by a drawing? Are you interested in art, my lord?” His hostess neatly tried to change to topic. Perhaps the artist was her gentleman caller. That would explain the odd reaction of the women.

  “I enjoy art well enough.”

  “Horses, then?” Mrs. Pearl smiled brightly.

  “Of course.”

  Mazie remained silent at his side, but shifted her shoulders against the cushions. She had not sat still the entire visit. In fact, she was always in motion. Some part of her was constantly restless, prepared for flight at any moment. Like a bird. A hummingbird, for even as she seemed to freeze in place, a thousand rapid movements were holding her there.

  He glanced at her from the corner of his eye as he put the picture down. She was lovely in profile, just lovely. She deserved to be rendered on paper.

  He considered the pictures scattered about, searching for her familiar face. There, it was there by the window. He stood to retrieve it, then sat back down.

  She was drawn with movement. As if she were talking, or laughing, or ready to teasingly run off from the artist.

  And she looked happy.

  Gone were the shadows beneath her eyes, the worry around her mouth. Everything about her looked young and free and beautiful.

  Why ever had she placed her happiness, her very life, at risk? For her lover? Or for his cause?

  What the hell was so important to her that she would steal and lie. And be so afraid.

  He put the picture down, faced away from him. He did not like the reminder that he would never see her smile. Not for him. Not like that.

  But he would discover why she had done it.

  “What of Mr. Grantham? Have you a picture of your nephew?” He was curious about this man who went to Scotland to cut down trees.

  “Yes, I believe I do.” Mrs. Pearl stood and puttered about the room. “I thought I had one here. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

  “I’ve explained how Mr. Grantham’s interest in timber brought him to Scotland,” Mazie said.

  “Ah, yes.” Mrs. Pearl nodded. “Scotland.” She shuffled out of the room and into another, then returned with a frame in her hands and handed it to him. “Terrible of me not to have it about. He’s been away for some time.”

  He glanced at the young man, slight of stature, with narrow shoulders and a long nose. The boy looked almost sickly and would struggle to survive in the harsh conditions of the north.

  Not the highwayman he sought. “I wish Mr. Grantham the best of luck in his endeavors.”

  Mazie coughed next to him and put her tea down before she spilled it.

  “Thank you, my lord.” Mrs. Pearl took the frame from his hands then glanced at Mazie with motherly concern.

  Quiet settled over the room again. He ate two more slices of teacake and wondered again about the stables. How in the world was he to ask his hostess about her lover?

  “Lady Margaret has shared a number of interesting stories with me,” he began.

  “Has she?”

  “Nothing that interesting,” Mazie muttered.

  He glanced at his captive. “Lady Margaret is rather modest about her, er, fascinating life history.”

  “Perhaps I don’t find it as fascinating as your private investigator.”

  Mrs. Pearl’s eyebrows rose even higher. She opened her mouth, closed it, and offered him yet another slice of teacake. How much cake did the women think he could eat?

  “Lord Radford wonders why you took me in,” Mazie said bluntly. “He wants to know why you took pity on me.”

  “Pity? Gosh, no.” The older woman shook her head. “It would be hard to pity a girl like you. Envy you, maybe, for your spirit and the life still ahead of you. But there is no great mystery about why I took you in. You seemed up for the work and accepted the wage I could pay. It was as simple as that.”

  “Ah.” He nodded.

  Mrs. Pearl studied him like she had more to say and was considering what he was worth telling. “A woman has few choices in this world. I saw that we each had something the other needed.”

  “Mmm,” he murmured, noncommittal.

  “I know Mazie is not staying with you willingly, despite what the villagers say.” Mrs. Pearl furrowed her brow, looking like a confused kitten and belaying the heat of her words. “How long until she will be returned to me?”

  “How long until she will be free?” he corrected.

  Mrs. Pearl waved her hand. “She is already free, if she chooses to be.”

  He frowned. Was she saying Mazie could escape?

  “No person can do this or that to keep another from being truly free. We are always free. Even if imprisoned.”

  He couldn’t decide if he agreed with her opinion. Next to him, Mazie just drank her tea. She must be familiar with Mrs. Pearl’s brand of philosophy.

  “Others might make one angry or sad, but one always has the choice of how to react. Whether to view the offending person with resentment or compassion.”

  “I see,” he said. Though, in truth, he did not see at all. As the Earl of Radford he could not always choose how he wanted to react. Rather, he had to follow the protocol set before him.

  He was the first to admit that he was not free. Not in the least. But then there were more important things than independence. There was trust, responsibility and the legacy of his ancestors. There was honor.

  “Do you see, my lord? Very good. I have been trying to teach Mazie this lesson. That one must be truly responsible for oneself, no matter the situation. Indeed, the suffering is one’s own in the end.”

  “Of course I am responsible for myself,” Mazie said, her brows drawn together. “I don’t blame Lord Radford for what has befallen me.”

  “That is good to hear.” Mrs. Pearl tilted her head. “I worried you would bristle under His Lordship’s insistence on detaining you.”

  Mazie pursed her red lips. She was bristling and Mrs. Pearl knew it. He bit back a smile, amused by Mazie’s chagrin and relieved that someone other than he was at the receiving end of her ire.

  Mazie’s shoulders lifted as she took a deep breath, but she did not say anything more.

  “And you, my lord.” The older woman shifted her watery blue eyes to him. “The twelfth Earl of Radford with such a burden on your shoul
ders. You must feel responsible for everyone and everything.”

  He swallowed, uncomfortable with the scrutiny placed on him. It was as if she saw into his private thoughts.

  “The eyes of the village are on you. We all wonder if you will be like your father or if you will grow into your own man.”

  “I hope to follow my father’s example.” He was surprised when Mrs. Pearl frowned into her tea cup. Had he said something offensive? Wasn’t he the honoring and dutiful son?

  The older woman leaned back in her chair with a sad smile, as if disappointed in him somehow. He felt irritated, but did not know why. It was a vastly uncomfortable sensation that he wanted to squash at once.

  Mazie must have felt similarly, for she stood. “Excuse me, I would like to help tidy around the cottage while I am here.”

  He considered telling her to stay put, thinking both to use her as a distraction from his hostess and also to keep her from enacting some covert plan. But he held his tongue and stood as he watched her leave the room with a swish of her long skirts. Moments later the sound of water sloshing and the clanking of dishes came from the back of the cottage. His prisoner, the daughter of the Earl of Redesdale, was doing the work of a scullery maid.

  Whatever was he to do with her?

  “I did come for a purpose.” He sat, trying to get back in control of the conversation.

  “Of course you did. I’m sure you have a purpose for everything you do.”

  Again, he was knocked off center. He took a breath, blew it out. “Mazie tells me you met the Midnight Rider when he came to call on her. I would like your account of the fellow.”

  “Ah, yes, the Midnight Rider.” She smiled, though sadness was evident in her eyes. “A smart lad, but too much…force. So many questions and so much strength. And without the guidance of a father to help him learn to manage it.”

  “He didn’t have a father?” That was something new, something Mazie had never told him.

  She blinked. “Yes, I think he mentioned something about that. I could be wrong, of course. I tend to forget things in my old age.”

  The woman was far wiser than many he had met. He doubted her claims of a feeble mind.

  “Mazie, dear, do leave those for me,” she called out.

  He pulled the folded picture from his pocket. “Does this drawing resemble him?”

  Mrs. Pearl squinted as if she couldn’t see. She took the paper from him and held it close to her face, then held it an arm’s length away. “I couldn’t say. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

  She handed the paper back to him and he frowned, looking around the room. There was a small embroidery hoop in a basket by her feet, as if she had just been working on it earlier. Certainly that required detailed eyesight.

  “How often did he visit?”

  “Oh, now and then. Mazie would remember better than I.”

  “And you found nothing…unusual about his behavior? You weren’t concerned for Mazie’s safety?”

  She shook her head. “Not in the least. But never would I have expected him to take things so far. He is confused, I fear.”

  “Why is he confused?”

  Mazie walked into the room then.

  “Only he could say.” Mrs. Pearl held her hand out to Mazie. “This one has a tendency to get into trouble, but she’s a good sort.”

  He snorted. Trouble, yes.

  Mazie did not sit but wandered off into another room again.

  “How goes your search for the highwayman, then?”

  Of course the old woman would be concerned for her own safety, living alone as she did. Not that the man preyed on older ladies tucked away in bed.

  “We are well on the way to apprehending the fellow,” he assured. “He may even be in custody as we speak.”

  “I see,” The older woman’s face creased with worry. Worry for her safety or worry for the Midnight Rider, he couldn’t be sure.

  “There is no need for concern, madam. Justice will be served.”

  She must have read something in his expression, for she said, “There are some things more important than justice. There can be no justice without compassion.”

  Hadn’t Mazie said something similar? His insides felt scrambled. Somehow, he’d lost control of the conversation yet again.

  “And there can be no justice with leniency,” he muttered.

  The purpose of laws and prosecuting lawbreakers was to ensure a safe and organized community where hardworking men were rewarded and children could flourish out of harm’s way. It was his place as lord lieutenant to enforce those laws. It made him unpopular, but that was the way of things. He was less free than the lawbreakers really.

  He was less free than the lawbreakers.

  The thought dug into his mind like a burr, multifaceted and tenacious.

  He decided the interview was over. He had heard all he needed for today. “Thank you ever so much for tea, Mrs. Pearl, and the delicious cakes. Lady Margaret is relieved to see you are well, I am sure.” He stood. “I will have a food basket brought ’round on Saturday since I have detained Lady Margaret from your service.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Mrs. Pearl stood as well.

  “It has been a singular pleasure.” He bowed over the older woman’s hand.

  “I’ll be here anytime you need to find me,” she said, as if she expected him to seek her out. She opened her arms when Mazie came back into the room and wrapped her in a long embrace. “The good Lord will show the way, dear.”

  Mazie drew back and rolled her eyes.

  “Now, no more of that nonsense.” Mrs. Pearl swatted her playfully as they left the room. “He is good and He loves you more than you deserve.”

  Mazie threw the older woman a wan smile before she stepped out of the cottage.

  Trent walked outside after Mazie and breathed a lungful of fresh air. He felt bound and agitated by their conversation, as if he were lost in the twists and turns of a hedge maze. It was simply that Mrs. Pearl’s cottage was cluttered and cramped, he told himself. Any man would feel uncomfortable there. He looked forward to the mild exertion of their ride home.

  “An interesting woman,” he murmured to Mazie as they walked to the stables. “I can only imagine the trouble she was as a girl.”

  Mazie laughed. “I was beyond relieved when she took me in.”

  “Yes, I can easily imagine the two of you settling in for a cozy chat.” He looked out over the open meadow. Dusk had begun to settle and the birds were swooping and diving for their dinner. “What would you tell her about me?”

  He did not just ask that.

  “You did not just ask that.” She chuckled.

  “I’m serious,” he smiled.

  “Very well, if you must know, I would say that you are arrogant and foolish, too handsome for your own good and far too cognizant of your own intellect. Unbending, unsympathetic, dogmatic, pig-headed—”

  “Handsome?” he interrupted, unable to keep the smile from his face. “And intelligent?”

  “Don’t forget arrogant.”

  Still smiling, he stopped outside the stables. “Wait here, by the window. Please.” He winked.

  She huffed, but waited for him in the shade.

  He stepped into the cool building and again noticed how well kept it was. He stood in the middle and swept his gaze in a circle. Something knocked at the back door of his mind, some intuition that took form in the slanting sunlight.

  Words and ideas swirled like the dust motes as he walked around the small structure, kicking at piles of hay and checking inside and behind the random objects hanging from pegs on the wall. Buckets and horse brushes and a wool horse blanket. Scissors, sponges, cloth and hoof ointment. Nothing out of the ordinary if one was to take good care of grooming one’s horse.

  He climbed the ladder leading to the small loft and found nothing except bits of hay and mouse droppings. He scanned the stable from his high vantage point.

  There was something here, some clue about the M
idnight Rider, something the women weren’t telling him. He felt certain of it.

  Unbending and unsympathetic as he was, he would enjoy uncovering their secrets.

  He’d found nothing. Not a single clue.

  Trent closed the secretaire with a muttered curse.

  He’d been angry and out of sorts since returning from Mrs. Pearl’s. A correspondence from the prime minister’s office—sent special messenger and requiring an immediate response about the investigation—did not help matters. Other than the supposed picture of the Midnight Rider, he hadn’t much to report, being that the victims would share nothing more than the chosen details of their robberies. Trent couldn’t expel the feeling that something terrible was looming, that some dark cloud was roiling and frothing in the distance.

  And so he’d come to his father’s office to search for something, anything. But there was not one mention of the Midnight Rider’s victims among his father’s papers. Odd, considering all of the victims had been intimate friends of his father’s. He dusted his hands and sat in the chair behind his desk.

  His father’s chair. His father’s desk.

  Actually, it was his great-great-great-grandfather’s desk, but that did not make it feel any less imposing. The massive hunk of wood, hewn from Radford timber centuries ago, gleamed with the toil of his ancestors and innumerable passes of a waxed cloth. Just like his father’s lectures, it served to remind Trent of all that lay on his shoulders, of his duties as the twelfth Earl of Radford and the generations of men who had held his title before him. And the generations to come after.

  The Midnight Rider’s antics did not just threaten Trent, but every Radford, past and future. As Trent’ luck and good fortune were not his own, neither were his mistakes. He found comfort in this connection, this sense of belonging to something larger, something meaningful.

  And he was determined to protect it.

  He scrubbed his hand through his hair then took a burning sip of whisky. With a sigh, he opened a side drawer and riffled through the contents. The desk hadn’t been touched since his father’s death and still held traces of the man’s presence—the quill pens that he favored, a tin of aniseed, a handkerchief stained with ink. Nothing related to the highwayman.