The Runaway Countess Read online

  ‘Of course she doesn’t let me,’ Emma said. ‘But she is not here and this situation clearly warrants a curse or two. What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in London?’

  ‘I was, but now I’m on my way to Barton Park. Or I was, until that infernal horse threw me.’

  Emma glanced over her shoulder at where the horse had come to a halt further down the lane. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘I think I twisted my leg. I can’t stand up.’

  Her frown of suspicion vanished, replaced by an expression of concern. Perhaps like her sister she was too soft-hearted. ‘Oh, no! Here, let me help you.’

  ‘I’m far too heavy for you.’

  ‘Nonsense. I’m much stronger than I look.’ She wrapped her arm around him and let him lean on her as he staggered to his feet. She was rather strong, and between them they managed to hobble over to the fallen branch.

  ‘Stay here, Ramsay, and I’ll get your horse back,’ she said. ‘You need to get out of the rain and have that leg looked at.’

  She dashed away, leaving her now-silent dog to watch him suspiciously in her place. She returned very quickly with the recalcitrant horse.

  ‘We aren’t far from Barton Park,’ she said. ‘I can lead you there, if you can manage to ride that far.’

  ‘Of course I can ride that far, it’s just a sprain,’ he said, even though his leg felt like it was on fire and he could see blood spotting his rain-soaked breeches.

  ‘Good. You’ll need to save your strength for when Jane sees you. She doesn’t know you’re coming, does she?’ Emma asked matter of factly, as if she ran into estranged relatives every day.

  Hayden gritted his teeth as he pulled himself up into the saddle. The pain washed over him in cold waves and he pushed it away. ‘Not yet.’

  To his surprise, Emma laughed. ‘Oh, this day just gets more interesting all the time.’

  Emma tried not to stare at her brother-in-law like a lackwit, tried to just calmly give him directions to Barton Park as he pulled her up on to the horse behind him and set them into motion, Murray running alongside them. But she just couldn’t help it. She couldn’t believe Lord Ramsay was actually there, that she had actually stumbled on him right in the middle of the road as she tried to hurry home for tea.

  Whatever was he doing there? It couldn’t possibly be good. As far as Emma knew, Jane hadn’t even talked to him in all the time since they came to live at Barton. Jane never even talked about him, so Emma had no idea what had happened in London.

  But she did have imagination and it had filled in all sorts of lurid scenarios that could drive her kind-hearted, responsible sister away from her husband. Ramsay had become something of an ogre in Emma’s mind, so her first instinct when she saw him there in the road had been to run from him as fast as she could. Especially after what had happened to her at school, with that odious Mr Milne, the music master. He had been enough to scare her off men for ever.

  And yet—yet she remembered that one other time she had met Ramsay, on the day he married her sister in that elegant town ceremony. He had looked at Jane then as if all the stars and the moon revolved only around her and he had held her hand so tenderly. And Jane had been radiant that day, as if she was lit from within. Emma had never seen her sister, who tended to worry over everyone else so much, so very happy. Emma had even known she could endure her hated school because she knew Jane was happy in her new life with her husband.

  What had gone so wrong? Why was Ramsay here now, after so long? Emma was bursting to know, but she just said calmly, ‘Turn right up there at the gate.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Bancroft,’ he said through gritted teeth. When she glanced up at his profile, she saw he looked rather pale. He was probably in more pain than he wanted to show, just like a man.

  ‘I hardly think we need to be so formal,’ she said teasingly. ‘I’m your sister. My name is Emma.’

  A flash of a smile touched his lips. ‘I do remember your name, Emma.’

  ‘That’s good. If you turn left here, you’ll see the house just ahead.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said again. ‘So, Emma, what are you doing running about in the rain?’

  ‘It wasn’t raining when I left,’ she said. ‘And if you must know, I was collecting some specimens.’

  ‘Specimens?’

  ‘Plants. For my studies.’ And she really had taken a few cuttings of the plants. He didn’t need to know her other errands. No one had to know, not yet, that she was hunting for the lost Barton Park treasure.

  Emma tucked her sack closer to her side and felt the reassuring weight of the small journal in its pocket. She had found it in a forgotten corner of the Barton library last month. She had been hoping to find old plans of the gardens, but this book was even better. It was a journal belonging to the young cousin of the first mistress of Barton Park.

  It seemed this girl had been a poor relation, sent to stay at Barton to gain some Court polish. Emma didn’t know her name, but she had quickly been drawn into her sharply observed tales of the people and parties of the house back then. Barton was so quiet now, silently crumbling away with only her and Jane living there, but once upon a time it had been full of life and scandal.

  Then the journal’s writer had fallen in love with one of the naughty guests—the very man who had stolen the treasure and hid it somewhere in the gardens. Emma had been combing its yellowed pages for clues ever since.

  Surely if she could find it, their worries would be over. Jane could cease working so very hard, could lose that pinched, concerned look on her face. Jane had always been the best of sisters. Emma only wanted to help her, too.

  But she didn’t want Jane to know what she was doing. Emma didn’t want to be compared to their father, so caught up in useless dreams he couldn’t help his family. So she did her detective work in secret, whenever she could. And she had found nothing yet.

  She had also never told her sister about what had really happened at school with Mr Milne. That was only for her nightmares now, thankfully. she was done with men altogether.

  ‘There’s the house,’ she said. It loomed before them in the misty rain and she was glad he couldn’t yet see the dwelling clearly. Couldn’t see how shabby it was. If only she had had time to warn Jane! Then again, maybe the surprise was better.

  But if she had vague hopes that Ramsay’s leg would slow him down enough to give her a head start into the house, they were quickly dashed. He held on to his saddle and carefully slid to the ground, his jaw set in his handsome, hard-edged face.

  Emma leaped down and ran up the front steps to throw the door open. Murray dashed in, barking, his muddy paw prints trailing over the old, scarred parquet floor.

  ‘Jane, Jane!’ she shouted, completely abandoning propriety. She had only seconds to warn her sister. Then she could watch the drama unfold.

  Jane emerged from the drawing-room door, her eyes wide with astonishment. She had changed from her garden clothes to her best day dress, a pale green muslin with a high-frilled collar. Her brown hair was carefully pinned up and bound with a green-ribbon bandeau. For a second, Emma couldn’t decipher why her sister was so dressed up on a rainy afternoon.

  Then the Martons, Sir David and his silly sister, appeared in the doorway behind her and Emma remembered in a flash. They had guests. Respectable guests, who for some unfathomable reason Jane wanted to impress.

  ‘Emma, whatever is the matter?’ Jane demanded, while Sir David looked rather disapproving and his sister giggled behind her handkerchief.

  ‘He is here!’ Emma cried. She couldn’t worry about the Martons right now, not with Ramsay so close behind her.

  ‘Who is here?’ Jane said. ‘Emma, dear, are you ill?’

  Across the empty hall, the door opened again, letting in a blast of rain and wind. Ramsay stood there, silhouetted in his greatcoat against the grey sky outside. For one instant there was a flash of something raw and burning, something real, in his eyes. Then it was as if a blank, pale mask d
ropped down and there was nothing at all.

  ‘Hello, Jane,’ he said calmly. ‘It’s been much too long. You are looking lovely as always.’

  Emma swung back around to look at Jane. Her sister’s face had turned utterly white and Emma feared she might faint right in front of everyone. But when Emma moved to take her hand, Jane waved her back.

  ‘Oh, blast it all,’ Jane whispered. ‘Not now…’

  ‘You can’t feel it move yet,’ Jane said, her voice full of laughter. ‘It’s much too soon.’

  Hayden laid down beside her on the sun-splashed bed anyway and rested his cheek on the gentle swell of her belly under her light dressing gown. It was early; the doctor had only just confirmed that Jane was truly pregnant. But his wife already seemed blooming. She wasn’t quite as thin and her cheeks were pink. Four months married and now a child on the way. Their first child.

  She laughed again as he carefully touched the small bump. Her skin was so warm, so sweet, so alive. ‘You won’t break me, Hayden. The doctor says I am quite healthy.’

  Hayden fervently prayed so. He didn’t know what he had ever done in his misbegotten life to deserve a wife like Jane, but he knew he couldn’t lose her now. His heart ached just to think of her laughter, her quite, calm presence, being gone in a flash.

  Just like his mother.

  Jane seemed to sense his sudden fear. She gently smoothed a soft caress over his hair. ‘All will be well, Hayden. I am sure of it. And in a few months, we will have a little lord or lady. The beginning of a new family for us. Just like we talked about on our honeymoon.’

  Their honeymoon—those perfect, sweet days and nights, just the two of them all alone in the country. They had almost become buried under the noise and rush of London life since they returned. Jane had seemed A bit lost as a new countess, with so many eyes upon her, but now she looked perfectly content. A new family was on the way, their family. It could be very different from what he knew with his parents. He could make it different.

  But still the tiny, buried spark of that old fear lingered…

  Chapter Four

  ‘Won’t you introduce me to your guests?’

  Hayden. Hayden was here, standing in her house. Jane was sure she must have fallen and hit her head, that she was lying on the drawing-room floor having dream visions. One minute she was serving tea, trying to make polite conversation as she worried about Emma wandering around out in the rain. And the next she was facing her husband.

  Her husband. It truly was Hayden, after all these years. She stared at him, frozen, stricken. Her dreams of him had been nothing to the real thing. Hayden was even more handsome than she remembered, his elegantly sharp-planed face drawn even leaner, harsher with his black hair slicked back with the rain.

  His eyes, that pure, pale blue she had once so loved, stared back at her unwavering. For an instant she went tumbling back to that moment when she first saw him. She was that romantic girl again, hopeful, heartstruck, so sure that she saw her own passionate need reflected in those eyes. So sure he was what she had been longing for all her life. Hayden, Hayden—he was here again!

  She almost took a step towards him, almost reached for him, when he suddenly smiled at her. But it was not a smile of joyful welcome. It was sardonic, almost bitter, the smile of a sophisticated stranger. It made Jane remember what had become of her romantic dreams of marriage and the man she had thought was her husband. He had been living his fast life in London while she was healing here in the country. Hayden was truly only a stranger now.

  Jane’s half-lifted hand fell back to her side and the haze of dreams cleared around her. For a moment she had seen only Hayden, but suddenly she was aware of everything else. The rain pounding at the windows. Emma beside her, her golden hair dripping on to the floor, watching her with a frown of concern. The Martons just behind, witnessing this whole bizarre tableau of unexpected reunion.

  The way that Hayden leaned heavily on the wobbly old pier table. There was a tear in his finely tailored breeches and spots of blood on the pale fabric muted by the rainwater.

  Jane’s throat tightened at the realisation that he was hurt. ‘What has happened?’ she asked hoarsely.

  It was Emma who answered. ‘I found him on the road,’ she said. ‘His horse had thrown him and his leg was so hurt he couldn’t stand.’

  ‘Thrown him?’ Jane said. Surely that was impossible. Hayden was one of the finest riders she knew. Despite her fears and doubts, she couldn’t help but be concerned he was truly hurt.

  ‘A lightning strike startled the horse,’ he said, remarkably calm for a man who was standing drenched and wounded in his estranged wife’s house. ‘I fear I’m interrupting a social occasion.’

  ‘I—No, not at all,’ Jane managed to choke out. ‘Merely tea with our neighbours. This is Sir David Marton and his sister, Miss Louisa Marton. May I present Lord Ramsay, my—my husband.’

  ‘Your husband?’ Miss Louisa cried. ‘Why, how very exciting. We were not expecting to meet you here, my lord.’

  ‘No, I imagine not,’ Hayden murmured. ‘How do you do?’

  Miss Louisa giggled while Sir David said nothing. Jane sensed him watching her, but she couldn’t deal with him now. She had to take care of Hayden. She forced herself to move, to go across the hall and reach for Hayden’s arm.

  For an instant he was stiff under her tentative touch and she thought he would jerk away from her. But he let her thread her fingers around his elbow and swayed towards her.

  Up close, she could see how carefully rigid he held his body, the bruised-looking shadows under his eyes. He felt thinner, harder than he had the last time she had touched him. But his smell was the same, that clean, crisp scent of sun and lemony cologne and man that had once made her long to curl up beside him and inhale him into her very heart. There was the faint undertone of ale, but the brandy was gone.

  ‘We need to get you upstairs and send for the doctor,’ Jane said quietly. He was obviously in more pain than he would ever reveal.

  ‘I can go,’ Emma said.

  ‘No, permit me to go for the doctor, Lady Ramsay,’ Sir David said. ‘Louisa and I have the carriage and Miss Bancroft should be by the fire.’

  Jane glanced over at Sir David, surprised by the offer. He didn’t smile, just looked back at her solemnly and gave her a polite nod. The tea had been going rather well, she suddenly remembered, until this most unexpected interruption. Unlike Emma, Jane rather enjoyed hearing about philosophy, books and ideas, and Sir David was an intelligent, pleasant conversationalist. He had seemed to enjoy talking to her as well, and if nothing else his company gave her hope that life would not always be so lonely. That life could be—nice, rather than chaotic or painful.

  Then Hayden appeared.

  ‘Thank you, Sir David,’ she said. ‘That is so kind of you.’ He nodded and took his sister’s arm to lead her away. She waved at them merrily over her shoulder.

  Emma tactfully withdrew, leaving Jane alone with Hayden for the first time in three years. Jane took a deep, steadying breath. She had to help him just as she would anyone else who showed up on her doorstep in a storm. He was merely a stranger to her now.

  But he didn’t feel like a stranger as she took his arm again. His eyes weren’t those of a stranger as he looked down at her. Once he had known her so well, better than anyone else ever had. He had known her body as well as the secrets of her heart. She had trusted him so much, allowed him to see so much.

  She had bitterly regretted that ever since. She could never let herself be so vulnerable again.

  She turned away from the blue light of his eyes. ‘Let me help you up the stairs,’ she said softly.

  ‘Do you have no butler or footmen?’ Hayden asked. ‘Those stairs look rather precarious.’

  Jane almost laughed. ‘We have an elderly cook and a shy little maid who is no doubt cowering in the pantry right now. I’m the only help available, I fear.’

  Hayden nodded grimly and let her hold on to his arm as
she led him slowly up the stairs. She sensed he was trying to lean on her as little as possible, even as his jaw was set with the pain. She never really noticed the staircase any longer, it was always just there. But now she saw it through his eyes, the missing carved posts, the chips in the once-gilded balustrade, the loose boards in the risers.

  ‘I usually use the back stairs,’ she said. ‘But they are rather a long walk from here.’

  Hayden nodded again and together they concentrated on getting to the landing. At the top, they faced the long corridor lined with closed doors and Jane realised there was no choice. She had to take him to her room. Besides Emma’s, none of the other chambers were habitable.

  She pushed open the door and led him over to the old chaise next to the window. He lowered himself down to its faded cushions, still looking up at her with those eyes that seemed to see so much. Seemed to remember her, know her.

  Jane remembered that when he was drinking, when he was caught up in his London life, he didn’t seem to see her at all. Why was he here, now, finally looking at her when she had at last gained a small measure of contentment?

  ‘What do you want, Jane? What in God’s name will make you happy? You have everything here.’

  Those long-ago words of Hayden’s suddenly rang in her memory. The frustration in them, the anger. And she remembered her own tears.

  ‘All I want is for you to spend time with me,’ she answered, so confused that he couldn’t understand without her saying anything. That he didn’t know.

  ‘I was with you all last night, Jane.’

  ‘At a ball.’ A ball where they had danced once and then he had disappeared into the card room. He had not even made love to her when they got home near dawn. And the times when they had made love, when it was only the two of them alone in the darkness, were the only times she felt sure he was really with her.

  ‘Let’s go back to Ramsay House, like on our honeymoon,’ she had begged, trying not to cry again. She was so tired of crying. ‘We had such fun there.’

  ‘We have duties here, Jane. Don’t be ridiculous.’