The Count's Secret Maid

For Paula, each day brought fresh reminders of her own homeliness. Yet it was precisely that disfigured face which kept her from being sold into a brothel or meeting the tragic end that befell her sisters. When her father trades her into service at a prestigious noble household, she comes to understand that peasant girls are treated as little more than expendable chattel. There, she discovers the young Count Belunita, sequestered away in a private annex and deliberately concealed from prying public eyes. As Paula struggles to navigate the capricious demands of her harsh new master, she must also accept her duty as his hidden maid.