The Runaway Countess Read online

  ‘Oh, that didn’t really happen!’ she said, laughing helplessly. ‘I can’t even believe it.’

  ‘Of course it really happened.’ Hayden grinned at her, looking rather like a naughty schoolboy telling a joke he knew he shouldn’t. ‘You remember Lady Worthington’s pet monkey. She always insisted on taking the blasted thing to every party and it always escaped.’

  ‘Yes, but her footmen also captured the poor creature before it could wreak too much havoc.’

  ‘Not this time. The wretched thing proved too wily for everyone and stole Prinny’s hairpiece before carrying it up to the chandeliers. When he dropped it into the soup, Mrs Carlyle swore it was an immense African spider and, in all her shrieking and flailing, tore the cloth right off the table. Along with all the dishes. Luckily the bottle of port right in front of me was spared.’

  Jane pressed her napkin to her mouth, giggling at the wild images Hayden’s dry, matter-of-fact rendition of the tale conjured up in her mind. She had forgotten that about Hayden—that he could be so very much fun. That he could see the ridiculous in any event and make her see it, too.

  ‘I do wish I had seen that,’ she said. ‘But I’m glad Emma didn’t. She would have demanded a pet monkey.’

  Hayden refilled her wine glass and she suddenly realised that his was still half-full. He had been drinking remarkably little that night.

  ‘To keep the dog company?’ he said. ‘That creature barks more than any canine I’ve ever seen. Perhaps he needs a friend.’

  ‘She does adore Murray,’ Jane said, sipping at the wine. It felt good to sit and just talk with Hayden, to be comfortable with him. Even though she knew such a moment couldn’t last long, not with them. ‘He was the runt of a litter one of the local farmers had and she rescued him. He’s better than the last pet. It was a hedgehog and a rather ill-tempered one.’

  ‘She said she collects plant specimens as well.’

  ‘Oh, yes. She’ll show you her laboratory if you give her the slightest encouragement.’

  Hayden sat back in his chair and watched her, a half-smile on his lips. ‘You are happy here, aren’t you, Jane?’

  ‘Of course,’ she answered in surprise. She’d thought Hayden was far beyond noticing or caring whether she was happy or unhappy. Surely he could never think someone could be happy in the country. ‘It’s always been my home. You would think it much too quiet, though. The most excitement we ever have is when the vicar comes to call, or there’s an assembly in the village.’

  ‘They say the hunting is good around here,’ he said. He toyed with the stem of his glass between his long, elegant fingers, and Jane found herself mesmerised by the movement. By a flashing memory of what those beautiful hands could do.

  She tore her stare away from him and took a quick bite of the lemon-trifle dessert on her plate. She nearly choked on it. ‘It is. My grandparents even helped start the local hunt club—they were avid riders. I’m sure Emma would enjoy the sport, too, but we can’t afford to keep horses.’

  Hayden nodded and Jane noticed that a shadow seemed to flicker over his face. But he never stopped the slow, lazy turning of the glass. ‘You could let me help you, Jane.’

  ‘No,’ she said, suddenly feeling cold. ‘No, I can’t do that.’

  ‘As much as you seem to want to fight the fact, I am your husband,’ he said, so calm, so rational. It almost made her want the old, heated quarrels they had when he drank. They were easier for her to dismiss than this new, quiet, solemn Hayden. The man who was a stranger and yet also someone she knew so intimately.

  ‘As if I could ever forget that,’ she said.

  ‘Then let me help you. It’s the least I can do after how I treated you.’

  ‘How you treated me?’ Jane choked out. Like when they fought? Like when she only wanted his attention, the one thing that wasn’t hers? Like when he refused to understand her? Or when she refused to understand him. Refused to try to fit into his world, because it was not hers at all.

  ‘I wasn’t all I should have been,’ he said. ‘I didn’t really know how to be a husband. We were so young when we married. But I would like to learn how to be your friend, if you will let me. The past is gone. We must live in the present.’

  Before Jane could even think out what to say to those extraordinary words, Hannah hurried in to gather the plates from the table. Jane slumped back in her chair, glad of the interruption, the moment to gather her scattered thoughts. Hayden was right—going over old quarrels, things that were past and done, would do them no good. They had to find a way to move forwards. But how? How could she stop the pain, once and for all?

  Especially when he sat right beside her, with his beautiful eyes, the warmth and smell of him, reminding her of all she had once hoped for. All she still might long for, deep down inside, if she couldn’t keep those wild emotions tightly bound down.

  ‘Walk with me on the terrace?’ Hayden said as Hannah left the room, china clattering. ‘I think the rain has stopped and it’s a fine night outside.’

  Jane nodded. She could use the fresh air, the chance to clear her head and speak to him rationally again. When He drew back her chair and offered her his arm, she hesitated for a moment before she took it. He felt so warm and strong under her touch, so familiar and yet so foreign all at the same time. Her head whirled with how quickly they could veer now between distant politeness and falling back to the old intimacy.

  Hayden led her through the old glass doors on to the terrace, limping just the merest amount on his bad leg. He had left the walking stick behind tonight. The night was dark and cloudy, lit only by the diluted, chalky rays of moonlight and the candles in the windows. In the distance she saw the maze, dark and mysterious, almost frightening, but the only thing she was really, vividly aware of was Hayden at her side.

  ‘Do you remember the night of the Milbanke ball?’ Hayden asked quietly.

  Jane laughed. ‘Of course. How could I forget? That was when you first asked me to marry you. I was shocked out of my wits. You probably were, too.’ They’d walked on a terrace much like this one, hiding in the shadows together while the noise and colour of the party whirled on beyond the open doors.

  ‘I was shocked,’ Hayden said. ‘I never meant to blurt out those words to you like that, with no skill or charm. But once I said it—I knew it was right.’

  Jane leaned on his arm and closed her eyes as she thought back to that night. It seemed so long ago now, those shimmering moments when it seemed as if every impossible dream was coming true. It also seemed so close now, on this other warm, soft night.

  Yet they weren’t the same people they were then. She had been so disappointed so many times until that hope simply withered away. Surely Hayden felt the same. It became so clear to her that he thought he was getting something, someone, else when he married her. That they didn’t really know each other at all. They had met and married in such quick, dizzying succession.

  But that night at the Milbanke ball had been pure magic. So perfect that even now she felt the memory of it wrap around her and enfold her completely in its beautiful illusion.

  ‘I thought it was right, too,’ she whispered. ‘When you kissed me, it felt like perfection, and I was sure we could never be parted again. But life can’t always be like that.’

  Hayden suddenly stopped, and Jane opened her eyes to blink up at him. His face was concealed in the night and he turned to clasp both her hands in his. ‘I wanted to make everything perfect for you, Jane,’ he said roughly. ‘I wanted to make you smile every day, to erase that worry in your eyes once and for all. Instead I only made your life more difficult.’

  Jane was astonished at his words, so stark and simple, so laden with hurt. After they married, he had kept every vestige of true emotion, true thoughts, hidden from her behind the wild whirl of parties and the fashionable life. She never would have imagined he felt that way at all.

  ‘I was the one who was wrong,’ she said. ‘I was so silly, so sheltered behind my eccentric
family. I didn’t know what being your wife, being a countess, really meant. I could only see you. I only wanted to be with you. But marriage is never just two people, is it? It’s so much more.’

  He was quiet for a long, tense moment, until Jane feared she’d said something wrong. She tried to slip her hands out of his, but he wouldn’t let her go.

  ‘When I was growing up, my parents didn’t talk to me often. When they did it was always about duty,’ Hayden said. ‘The duty of a Fitzwalter, of an earl.

  He laughed, but Jane could hear the bitter tinge to it. Hayden never spoke of his parents to her when they were together, or of his life before he met her. She knew nothing about them, except that they died years before, his father of an apoplexy and his mother in childbirth.

  ‘Hayden…’ she began, desperate to tell him that his attractions as a husband to her had been everything about him but his title. His humour, his sense of fun, his good looks, the way he held her hand, the way she felt when he kissed her—she had wanted all those things so much. The title scared her to tears. The life he led in London scared her in its strangeness.

  And she had been right to fear it in the end.

  ‘No, Jane, let me say this,’ he said. ‘I wanted to give you everything I could, everything I thought you wanted. But I could give you nothing, could I? Not even a child.’

  Jane’s stomach seized with a sharp pain at the mention of the babies. That one thing she’d longed for above all others—Hayden’s child, a new family, a new start. The thing that would never be. She would be too afraid of the pain even to try now.

  ‘Hayden, please, no’ was all she could say. She closed her eyes against the tears she couldn’t afford to cry any more and tugged at her hands. Still he held on to her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jane,’ he said simply, starkly. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, Hayden,’ she choked out. ‘Once those words were all I wanted from you. But now…’

  ‘Now it’s too late,’ he said, a terrible ring of finality in those four simple words.

  They stood there together in silence, holding hands, so close she could hear his breath, yet far apart. As far as the moon behind the haze of clouds.

  ‘Dance with me,’ Hayden suddenly said.

  ‘D-dance? What about your leg?’ Jane stammered. As usual, Hayden was too quicksilver for her.

  ‘Like we did at the Milbanke ball. And my leg is fine. Perfectly up to a simple waltz.’

  ‘There’s no music.’

  ‘Just imagine it. Remember it.’

  His arm slid around her waist and the fingers of his other hand twined with hers. He drew her much closer than he had that night, under the watch of her aunt. Their bodies were pressed so close together she could feel his heartbeat echo through her.

  He hummed the tune of that remembered waltz under his breath, ragged and out of tune and far too endearing. He was still the marvellous dancer she’d once known, despite his leg, and soon they were spinning and twirling over the terrace, his arm guiding her steps until they once again moved as one. Faster and faster, until Jane laughed helplessly and clung to him.

  They whirled to a stop, out of breath, hearts pounding. Jane stared up at him, marvelling that she could fall into him again so quickly.

  ‘It’s been so long since I danced,’ she said.

  ‘Jane,’ he said hoarsely and she saw a light shift in his eyes. Suddenly his arm tightened around her and his mouth came down to touch hers.

  She went up on tiptoe as he kissed her, twining her arms around his neck to hold him against her. She felt his touch at her waist, dragging her even closer.

  They still fit together so perfectly, their mouths, their bodies, their touch, as if they were made to be just so. Her body still wanted his so very much, still remembered every night they’d had together. She parted her lips and felt the tip of his tongue touch hers and the kiss slid down into frantic need. She wanted this so much, wanted to forget the past and have only now. To fall into him and be lost all over again.

  Her head fell back as his lips trailed away from hers and he pressed a hot kiss to the sensitive curve of her neck. She shivered as his mouth trailed over her shoulder, the soft upper swell of her breast above her bodice. He remembered every spot that made her most wild with want for him.

  She buried her fingers in the silk of his hair and sighed at the intense feelings that poured through her. At the connection that still coursed between them like lightning.

  She felt him draw back, felt his kiss slide away from her, but he still held her against him. His arms were around her waist, pulling her up so his chin could rest atop her head. The rough, uneven rhythm of their breath mingled. Their heartbeats pounded out a frantic drum tattoo of need and want and fear.

  Jane caressed his shoulder, her hand shaking.

  ‘Oh, Jane,’ he muttered. ‘You see what you still do to me?’

  She laughed. ‘This was always the easy part between us, Hayden. Kissing, lovemaking—it was always so perfect. So wonderful. It always made us forget everything else.’

  But ‘everything else’ always waited there, lurking in the shadows around them. It always came back to remind her that Hayden didn’t, couldn’t, love her as she longed for.

  ‘Jane…’ he began, but she backed away from him, shaking her head. She didn’t want all those other things, not now, not on a night that had been so special.

  And she definitely did not want to cry in front of Hayden. ‘I must go look in on Emma,’ she managed to whisper. ‘Thank you for dinner, Hayden, and for our dance. It was—delightful.’

  And she spun around and ran away before he could see her tears.

  Hayden watched Jane go, her skirts swirling around her as she hurried up the stairs. He wanted to follow her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, but something even more powerful held him back. Something that told him if he pushed her now, if he grabbed her in his arms and refused to let her go, she would drift even further away from him.

  He raked his fingers through his hair, listening as her rushing footsteps faded away and the door to her room closed. He sat down on the step and braced his fists on the old, warped wood as he tried to make sense of all that happened tonight.

  Hayden did not like to think. Drinking, carousing, horse racing, dancing—they erased the need for thought, for doing anything but being in that one moment. It had been like that his whole life, just as it had been for his father before him. Nothing else mattered then, not being the earl, not what he had failed to do. Only the speed and movement, the slow slide into forgetfulness.

  But Jane had made him stop and think from the first time he saw her. Her quiet seriousness made him see things in a different way, made him want to be better. That he failed at that wasn’t her fault. He’d chased her away and run back into his old ways. Almost forgotten how he felt when he was with her.

  Only a few days back in her company, and it all came rushing out again. Without the barrier of drinking between them, he saw how Jane was here in the country. The pale, brittle, fragile Jane he remembered from the last days in London was gone. She was beautiful and strong here. And deeply, deeply wary of him. Rightfully so. He had failed her as a husband. He hadn’t even really tried.

  Hayden pounded his fists hard against the stairs as he envisioned the raw pain in Jane’s eyes when he mentioned the babies. He hadn’t been there for her then; she didn’t want him here now.

  He had to find a way to change again.

  ‘How did the dinner go?’ he heard Emma ask, breaking into his brooding thoughts.

  He looked up to see her leaning over the banister from the landing, staring down at him. Her blonde hair tangled over her shoulders and she held a squirming Murray under her arm. For once even the puppy was quiet.

  He shook his head and Emma groaned. ‘That bad, was it?’ she said as she hurried down the stairs to sit down beside him.

  ‘It wasn’t bad at all at first,’ Hayden answered. Emma had been such an enthusiastic he
lp in setting up the surprise for Jane, he hated to disappoint her, too. ‘We talked and laughed, just like when we were on our honeymoon. We danced…’

  ‘You got Jane to dance?’ Emma exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. We used to love dancing together.’

  Emma shook her head. ‘She won’t dance at all now. Even at the assembly, when that stick-in-the-mud David Marton asked her.’

  Marton again. It seemed the man could do, be, whatever Hayden couldn’t for Jane. ‘Marton asked her to dance?’

  ‘Yes, but she made me do it instead. It was quite dull.’ Emma thoughtfully stroked Murray’s black-and-white fur where he lay on her lap. ‘So what went wrong?’

  ‘I fear I have hurt your sister too much for one dance to make much difference,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then you must keep on trying! And on and on, until she sees how much she misses you.’

  Against his will, he felt a touch of something strangely like hope. ‘She missed me?’

  ‘I’m sure she does. She seldom talks about you or your life in London and she always tries so hard to be cheerful for me. But I see how sad she looks sometimes, when she thinks no one is around. Whatever happened, I’m sure it can’t be so bad that it can’t be fixed. You must keep trying.’

  Hayden had to laugh at Emma’s stubborn certainty. Perhaps there was hope, if Jane truly missed him. If he could change, and show her that he had changed, maybe they could make a new sort of life.

  For the first time he saw the faint, faraway light of something he never thought to have—hope.

  ‘You know, Emma,’ he said, ‘I always wanted a sister.’

  Emma laughed. ‘And I always wanted a brother. You could possibly do well. But don’t make me sorry I decided to help you.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Are you quite sure you feel like doing this?’ Jane asked Hayden anxiously as they walked out of Barton’s gates on to the lane. The drying ruts of mud sucked at her sturdy boots, but couldn’t hold her down. ‘Your leg…’