The Runaway Countess

by Amanda McCabe

  After a few moments, Emma’s sobs faded to sniffles. ‘I won’t ever be alone with a man again. Ever. I promise.’

  Jane had to smile at Emma’s fierce tone, despite the anger that was growing like a ball of fire inside her. ‘One day there will be a man you can be alone with, dearest. A much more worthy man than someone like Ethan Carstairs. He is only a scoundrel.’

  ‘But he was so handsome, and he—he seemed to like me. I feel ridiculous.’

  ‘Appearances aren’t everything. You know that.’ And so did Jane. Hayden was never what he appeared to be and he always seemed to change on her in an instant.

  ‘I won’t forget it again.’

  After a few more minutes, Emma sat up straight and smoothed her tangled hair. Jane handed her a handkerchief and Murray looked on worriedly as Emma wiped at her eyes.

  Jane knew what she had to do. She couldn’t deal with Carstairs alone as he deserved. Hayden had brought these people into Barton Park. He had to help her now.

  ‘Better?’ she asked.

  Emma nodded. ‘You aren’t angry with me, Jane? For being so foolish?’

  ‘Oh, Emma. If being foolish was a great offence, I would have to be furious with myself. We will both be more careful in the future.’

  ‘What do you have to be careful about? You’ve always been perfect.’

  Jane laughed. ‘Come along,’ she said, helping Emma up off the floor, careful not to touch her bruises. ‘You could use some tea, I think.’

  Once she had Emma settled next to the kitchen fire with Hannah, Murray sitting watchfully at her feet, Jane climbed resolutely up the stairs. She marched to the library and unceremoniously pushed open the door.

  Hayden sat behind her father’s old desk, slumped back in his chair with his eyes closed. Her account ledgers were open in front of him, as if he had been trying to work on them, and Hannah’s tea tray was pushed to one side. He didn’t look as rumpled as last night; his hair was brushed and his coat was draped over the chair. But he still looked tired, as tired as she felt with everything rushing at her at once.

  His eyes opened at the slam of the door and he sat up straight.

  ‘Jane,’ he said, smiling tentatively. ‘The carriage is coming around to the front for the remaining guests in a moment. I was just looking at the numbers here…’

  ‘Carstairs attacked Emma,’ she blurted out. She hadn’t meant to say it quite like that. She’d meant to calmly tell him what had happened and what she wanted him to do about it, but her calm was dissolving around her as she thought of Emma sobbing in the pantry.

  Hayden’s smile vanished and his whole face hardened. He pushed himself to his feet. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I found Emma in the pantry, crying. She—she has bruises on her arm and she told me Carstairs grabbed her. He came across her in the garden and…’

  Hayden reached for his coat on the back of the chair and shrugged into it. Everything about him seemed to have gone very cold and still in only an instant. ‘Is that all that happened?’

  ‘I think so. She said Murray bit him and she was able to run away. But…’ Jane shook her head, and found that she was shaking. ‘Men like that should never have been in my house, around my sister! She is only sixteen and so sheltered.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I don’t know. Emma said he found her in the garden maze.’

  ‘I will find him. He can’t hide from me.’ Hayden paused beside her in the doorway. He reached out to touch her arm, but when she stiffened his hand fell away. His face grew even harder, as if it was carved from granite. ‘This is my fault, you are right. I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Jane called after him as he strode down the corridor.

  He didn’t answer, and she hurried behind him as he went out the door into the garden. She’d never seen Hayden quite like this, so silent, so still and stony. She didn’t know what had happened between last night and this morning, what he’d wanted to talk to her about when she burst into the library, but this new Hayden had her most concerned.

  ‘Hayden, wait!’ she cried, but he was too far away to hear her. His long legs had carried him across the garden paths and he disappeared into the maze.

  Jane ran to catch up, chasing him down the twisting walkways. As she slid into the clearing at the maze’s centre, she saw Hayden was already there. And so was Carstairs.

  At first the man didn’t see them. He knelt in the mud near the summerhouse, digging frantically. His coat was flecked with dirt, his hair streaked with sweat and he was so engrossed in his labour he didn’t notice them.

  Jane’s throat felt so tight and dry that she couldn’t cry out. She pressed her hand hard against her stomach as she tried to catch her breath and watched helplessly as Hayden moved as quickly and silently as a large, lethal jungle cat.

  He grabbed Carstairs by the back of his coat and pulled the man to his feet. Carstairs shouted out in surprise, spinning around just as Hayden shoved him away. But Hayden wasn’t done with him. He followed as the man tried to run and planted a solid facer to his nose. As blood spurted and Carstairs screamed, Hayden just grabbed him up again by the coat collar and half-marched, half-dragged him out of the maze and up to the front of the house where the carriage was waiting, with Lord Browning and Mrs Smythe already inside.

  Hayden shoved Carstairs inside, watching impassively as the man fell to his knees on the carriage floor. ‘Don’t expect to enter the club when you return to London,’ Hayden said. ‘Or anywhere else for that matter. And if you ever, ever come near my family again, that broken nose will be the very least of your troubles.’

  Then he slammed the door and with a slap of his palm on the carriage door sent it rolling away. Carstairs never had time to say a single coherent word.

  Jane stared at Hayden, shaking with the force of all the emotions rolling through her. His shirt was torn and a bruise darkened his cheekbone. She just wanted to take him in her arms, hold him as she cried about all the things she had seen.

  But there was also a part of her, a small but insistent part, that wouldn’t let her forget he was the one who had brought these people into her house in the first place. He was the one who drank with them, who let them break the peace of Barton Park.

  It wasn’t completely fair, she knew that. He couldn’t really have tossed them out in the storm, any more than she could have done to Hayden when he arrived in the midst of the rain. But so very much had happened—her house invaded, the strange talk with Lady Marlbury, the intense lovemaking with Hayden, Emma being attacked and the violence of Hayden’s fight. She simply couldn’t make her thoughts stop spinning.

  She wanted to be alone to cry, to try to think.

  ‘I have to find Emma,’ she said, spinning around to run up the stairs.

  ‘Jane…’ Hayden said and she felt him reach towards her. She didn’t want him to touch her, not now. She didn’t want to shatter.

  She slid away, not looking back. ‘We can talk later, Hayden. I have to see to my sister.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said tonelessly.

  She nodded and hurried into the house. Only when the door was closed between them and she was alone did she let herself cry.

  She was so damnably tired of tears, she realised as she dashed them away. They never solved anything, not in London and not here. She still loved Hayden. And they still wanted such different things from life.

  She wouldn’t cry any more.

  Hayden’s blood was up. He knew he shouldn’t go back to the house when he felt like that, as if he would lash out at anyone in his path. Especially when Jane looked at him like that, as if what had happened to Emma was his fault. Her beautiful hazel eyes so full of anger and sadness.

  Or maybe that was his imagination. Maybe he was sending his own shattered thoughts on to her. She should blame him. He let Carstairs and the rest of them into Barton, let them send him spiralling back into the past. Jane had given him another chance when he didn’t deserve
it and he pounded her kindness into the ground. Again.

  His sweet, darling Jane. His wife.

  Hayden paced the muddy lane, his fists curled tightly around his bruised knuckles. He wanted to hit something again, wanted to be face-to-face with Carstairs again to beat the villain down. But Carstairs was gone—Hayden had seen to it himself, had tossed the blighter into a carriage and followed it into the lane to be sure it was headed towards London.

  And he could never beat down what he was most angry at—himself.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The sitting-room door opened, and Jane sat up eagerly, the book she was pretending to read falling from her hands, only to sink back down to her chair when she saw it was Hannah standing there and not Hayden.

  The clock was ticking inexorably towards dinner time, the sky outside the window darkening, and still Hayden hadn’t come back. Her anger was tinged with the sharpness of worry. Where could he have gone? Was he in trouble somewhere?

  She hadn’t liked the wild light in his eyes when he tossed Carstairs out of the house. She’d seen that look too often and she didn’t want yet more trouble.

  But it was, oh, so hard to sit there and wait! To not go running out into the gathering night to find him.

  Hannah put the lamp she carried down on the table and only then did Jane notice how dark it had become in the room.

  ‘You have a caller, my lady,’ Hannah said.

  ‘A caller?’ Jane said, surprised. For just an instant she was sure it was Hayden, but then she felt silly. He wasn’t a ‘caller’, he lived there—or so she had begun to imagine. ‘At this time of day?’

  ‘It’s Sir David Marton, my lady. Shall I tell him you’re not at home?’

  Jane shook her head wearily. That disappointment that Hayden hadn’t returned lingered, but she hadn’t seen Sir David in several days, not since their walk to the village. Perhaps he could be a welcome distraction. ‘No, show him in. Is Miss Emma still in her chamber?’

  ‘Yes, my lady. I just left her some tea.’ Hannah paused, shuffling her feet. ‘And I haven’t seen Lord Ramsay come back yet.’

  ‘Thank you, Hannah.’ As the maid left, Jane went to the looking glass and tried to tidy her hair, to erase the marks of the long, strange day. She gave up after a moment, seeing it was a lost cause.

  ‘Lady Ramsay,’ Sir David greeted her as he entered the room. He gave her a bow. ‘I hope you’re doing well. Louisa has been complaining she hasn’t seen you in ages. She says you must come to tea next week.’

  ‘It has been rather busy here, I’m sorry to say, but hopefully very soon all will return to normal here at Barton,’ Jane answered. ‘It’s good to see you again, Sir David.’

  And it was good to see him. He seemed like a spot of calm, a sign of the orderly life She had once fashioned for herself and Emma here at Barton that had been so disturbed lately. She invited him to sit by her on the sofa and tell her of all the local doings she had missed. Soon he had her laughing at a tale of the vicar’s cow getting loose from the vicarage yard and running amok around the church and she almost forgot Carstairs and the others. Even the usually solemn Sir David laughed as he told her about it.

  They were still laughing when Hayden strode into the room. ‘Sir David,’ he greeted abruptly, his glance flickering between Jane and their guest as he frowned.

  Really, that is too unfair, Jane thought, considering the trouble his friends had caused of late. Her friends were nothing compared to that. She wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes and said, ‘Sir David has brought greetings from his sister and an invitation to tea next week.’

  ‘I had no idea tea invitations were so mirthful,’ Hayden said.

  ‘Oh, no, we were only laughing at a story about the vicar’s cow,’ she said. ‘That is nothing to London repartee, of course, but rather amusing to us locals. Perhaps you’d care to hear it, Hayden?’

  As Sir David obligingly told the story again, Jane went to pull the bell to send for some tea. Suddenly, something outside the window caught her attention, some sudden flare of light in the gathering darkness.

  ‘How strange,’ she murmured, and as she hurried to investigate Hayden and Sir David broke off their tense conversation to follow her.

  ‘What is it?’ Hayden asked, peering over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m not sure. I thought I saw something.’ The garden looked peaceful again, quiet and sleeping. She started to turn away, but a sudden burst of orange-red light shot up above the walls of the maze.

  ‘Fire!’ she screamed, spinning towards the door in a rush of fear.

  Hayden and Sir David were already running out of the room. Jane dashed after them. Surely the earth was damp enough to contain any flames, but the horrible image of the gardens and house blackened and crumbling loomed in her mind.

  As the men rushed into the garden, Jane hurried downstairs and grabbed the basket of linen waiting to be washed. Maybe she could use it to smother some of the flames.

  ‘Fetch help from the village!’ she called to Hannah and ran back into the hall.

  When she got into the garden, the air was tinged with the sharp, metallic smell of smoke. As she ran down the pathway, the terrible visions faded and she could only hear the roar of her heartbeat in her ears, the rush of frantic activity all around her.

  The fire was flaring higher and higher at the centre of the maze. Smoke rolled towards her like a silver-grey wall, stinging her eyes and burning her lungs. She could barely see the figures of Hayden and David Marton ahead of her.

  Jane quickly dug out a handkerchief from her apron pocket and tied it over her nose, then she ran into the very centre of the maze. The flames were spreading from the overgrown flowerbeds, licking at the wooden walls of the old summerhouse. If they didn’t get it under control, she knew they would spread to the hedge walls and out to the rest of the garden.

  She dived towards the outermost edges of the flames and beat at them with one of the sheets. The heat prickled on her skin, tiny pinpricks of searing steel, and her eyes watered until she could hardly see, but still she fought on. She had to. This was her home.

  She managed to put out one fire and spun around to beat at another. The figures of the men, ghostly and faint, mere blurry outlines, slid in and out of view through the smoke. She was vaguely aware of shouts, of more people running into the clearing, but all she could do was keep fighting. Keep fighting even though her arms ached as if they would wrench away from her shoulders, even though she couldn’t breathe.

  She fought until suddenly her knees collapsed beneath her. Coughing and choking, she fell to the ground, too weak to move. She tried to push herself to her feet, to get away from the horrible, searing heat, and she sobbed in frustration.

  Suddenly, strong hands caught her by the shoulders and lifted her up. Jane blinked away the smoke tears to see David Marton standing above her.

  ‘You need to get away from here,’ he shouted above the chaos.

  She shook her head, but he wouldn’t let go of her. He drew her away from the charred ruins of the summerhouse, collapsing in on itself, and made her sit down in a quieter, cooler spot near the hedge. Only then did she see that most of the flames were out. Hayden was beating at the last of them, his white shirt grey and his usually immaculate hair dotted with ash. Hannah and some of the villagers who had no doubt been out in the fields nearby and saw the flames were putting out the smaller fires.

  The ground was scorched and seared, the summerhouse in ruins, but it finally looked as if the rest of the garden was safe.

  Suddenly it was as if every ounce of frantic fight drained out of Jane and left her shaking. She choked back a sob.

  ‘It’s all right now, Lady Ramsay,’ David said. He knelt down beside her and she was glad he was there. He was so quiet and steady, just as she’d once thought. ‘The fires are out.’

  ‘But how did they start?’ she said. She hated how shaky she sounded. Despite the heat of the flames, she couldn’t stop shivering. ‘The ground is
still so damp…’

  David took off his coat and gently draped it over her shoulders. It smelled of smoke, but she was glad of its comforting warmth.

  ‘I fear it may have been started deliberately,’ he said, still so very calm. ‘There was broken glass and some old rags near the building. I think it spread from there.’

  Jane was shocked. Someone had done this thing deliberately? Here at Barton, which had always been her safe haven? ‘Who would do that? That is monstrous! No one could possibly hate us like that…’

  Suddenly an image of Ethan Carstairs flashed in her mind. His face twisted in fury as Hayden threw him out of Barton Park. He would hate them. And surely he had the evil nature that could do something like this.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she whispered. ‘How could this have happened? All I wanted here was peace and quiet.’ She couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. They stung her eyes and she swiped them away.

  David silently took a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully dabbed at her cheeks. His simple, kind gesture steadied her and she gave him a wobbly smile.

  ‘You really are very kind, Sir David,’ she said. ‘You only came here to pay a simple call and instead you have to fight fires and comfort weeping women. How tedious for you.’

  He gave her one of his rare smiles and Jane was astonished to see that it took him from a quietly good-looking man to a dazzlingly handsome one. But still he was not as handsome as Hayden. No man was.

  And she feared now she would always think that. She would always compare everyone else unfavourably to her husband. Damn him.

  ‘Perhaps I should change my name to Sir Galahad,’ he said with a wry laugh.

  Jane laughed with him and when he squeezed her hand comfortingly she let him. It was comforting. Not confusing and enflaming and wonderful, like when Hayden touched her.

  ‘I think we have a great deal of work to do here,’ she said. ‘Finding an arsonist, clearing up this mess.’

  ‘You have plenty of friends to help you, I presume, Lady Ramsay,’ he said. ‘And when we catch the villain who did this, he will be very sorry indeed.’