A Notorious Countess Confesses (PG7) Read Free Page A

Satisfied? as clearly as if she’d spoken it aloud. “I am the Countess of Wareham. This is my maid, Henrietta La Fontaine.”
    The Countess of Wareham … the name echoed in the recesses of his mind. He was certain he’d been told something about her. Given her appearance, he was unsurprised by both the title and her accent—he secretly thought of those etched consonants and indolently elongated vowels as The London Ironic Dialect. It was as though nothing, nothing in the world could ever possibly divert her again, so she indulged the world by viewing it with detached indulgence.
    He was, however, surprised a countess would introduce her maid. There had in fact been the slightest hesitation before the word “maid,” as though the countess wasn’t entirely certain what to call her.
    He bowed graciously. “A pleasure to meet you, Lady Wareham. I’m the Reverend Adam Sylvaine. How kind of you to attend the service.”
    Henrietta dipped a graceful curtsy. “Yer sermon was a balm to me soul, Reverend.”
    She had a very fierce gaze, did Henrietta. Eyes like bright little currants pressed into dough.
    “As soothing as a lullaby, some might say,” Adam said pleasantly.
    Lady Wareham stiffened. Her eyes narrowed so swiftly one might almost have missed it.
    He didn’t.
    But then a distant little smile drifted onto her face, the sort a queen might offer a peasant child who held a daisy out to her.
    “Thank you, again, Reverend, and good day. Come along, Henny.”
    “Good day to you,” he said politely, and bowed elegantly.
    He bit back a wry smile. He suspected she’d exhausted the novelty value of church, and he wouldn’t be seeing her there again.
    Henrietta winked at him as she walked away.

Chapter 2
    IN THE CARRIAGE, Evie gloomily entertained the possibility that her soul really was impermeable to moral repair or renewal. Clearly it was resistant to sermons. An inauspicious start to her exile—that was, new life—in Sussex.
    Cheeky vicar. The nerve. Lullaby, indeed.
    “You were snoring,” Henny said.
    “Surely not,” Evie said idly.
    “Quiet-like,” Henny conceded. “But you were.”
    And then Evie listened with half an ear as Henny planned aloud about supper “—cold roast, I think there is, and didn’t you ask Mrs. Wilberforce to get in some cheese?” She’d hired a housekeeper by the name of Mrs. Wilberforce, but Henny was in charge of her staff, as her capabilities were far-ranging, her roles and titles as diverse and subject to change as Evie’s had been: maid, housekeeper, Abigail, advisor, scolder, dresser at the Green Apple Theater (which was where Evie had met her), frightener of unpleasant suitors, visitor of apothecaries in the dead of night. She viewed Pennyroyal Green as penance, of a sort. For Eve had all but saved Henny’s life many years ago by employing her as her dresser when Henny was penniless. She would follow Eve to the ends of the earth, but she reserved the right to complain.
    Suddenly, the coach lurched to a halt, and they were both thrown forward, nearly knocking their heads together.
    The coach rocked a bit as the driver clambered down. Eve unlatched the door and peered out just as he was about to peer in.
    They both reared back.
    “Beggin’ yer pardon, m’lady, but seems summat is awry wi’ one of the horses. Team’s gone balky. We beg a moment to have a look to see if we may find the trouble.”
    And thus the utter disintegration of my life continues, Eve thought wryly.
    “Certainly. If I may just step out for a moment … ?”
    Because all at once she wanted air. Being transferred from the enclosed little church to the enclosed carriage merely enhanced the sensation of her life shrinking to the size of a cell.
    He assisted her down from the carriage, and she landed lightly on the road, bordered by low grass and other greenery not yet killed by frost.
    She inhaled and inspected what was now her new view and would be for the forseeable future: soft hills mounded