The Runaway Countess

by Amanda McCabe

  How could she ever have thought this man was handsome? How could she have listened to his flattery for even a moment?

  She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, as if that could be her armour. On her sash she felt the press of something small and hard, cold through her chemise. It was the pearl circle pin that had once been her mother’s, that Jane had given her to comfort her.

  Before she could think about it too long, Emma tore it free and leaped to her feet. When Carstairs turned towards her again, she lunged forwards and stabbed him as hard as she could in the temple.

  ‘Bitch!’ he roared and reached out for her wildly. His hand struck her on the side of the head and she reeled backwards, but she forced herself to stay upright. She shoved him away and rushed out of the meagre shelter of the old house and into the rain.

  Emma ran blindly through the pouring downfall, not knowing for certain where she was going. She heard Carstairs give a roar of fury behind her and it drove her on through the rain.

  The mud soaked her thin slippers and she was sobbing with fear, but still she kept running. He was still after her, she knew he was.

  She stumbled and fell, landing hard in the cold mud. She held her breath and listened carefully. Her heart thundered in her ears, along with the waters of the river rushing below the slope. Somewhere she could hear Murray barking, faint above the rush of the water. And thunder—and Carstairs shouting her name.

  She pushed herself to her feet and ran towards the river.

  The old ruined farmhouse was deserted.

  Jane stood inside the gaping doorway and stared around the empty space in cold disbelief. She’d been so sure Emma would be there, that this would all end soon. But if her sister had once been here, she was gone. Hayden held up his lamp, his pistol held ready in his other hand, but there was nothing to see.

  ‘Where could she be?’ he muttered, his voice thick with an anger and anxiety that matched her own.

  She kicked out at the damp dirt floor. A lightning strike caught a sparkle on the floor and Jane knelt to snatch it up. It was Emma’s small pearl brooch, the one that had once belonged to their mother.

  ‘They were here,’ she said.

  And then a scream split the night around them.

  Emma balanced carefully on the slippery riverbank, the wind tugging at her wet skirts. Her feet were numb, holding her rooted in place. She could still hear the ring of Murray’s frantic barks, but she couldn’t see him.

  She glanced frantically over her shoulder, sure Carstairs must be just behind her. He appeared at the top of the slope, his face white and twisted in the lightning-light.

  ‘You stupid little whore!’ he shouted. ‘Come back here right now. You’ve caused me enough trouble and you’ll be very sorry for that.’

  ‘No!’ she screamed, trying to spin away from him as he reached for her.

  ‘Emma,’ she heard Hayden call out of the storm.

  She half-turned and glimpsed her brother-in-law through the rain, not far behind Carstairs on the riverbank. She tumbled off balance as Carstairs snatched at her sleeve and she fell backwards in a tumbling blur of confusion and fear. The water caught at her and Carstair’s hard hands tried to push her even harder.

  Through the haze, she saw Hayden catch Carstairs and ram his fist into the man’s jaw, once, twice, driving him back. With a wild shout, Carstairs went tumbling into the rushing river.

  Just before Emma plunged into the icy waters after him, Hayden snatched her by the arm and jerked her up and free. He fell to his knees with her, the waves lapping at her skirts, but not close enough to get her.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him, sobbing. She could feel Hayden trying to rise to his feet, but she was too scared to let go of him. So he knelt there in the mud, holding her.

  ‘It’s all right now, Emma,’ he said in her ear, the words strong and calm in the midst of the storm. ‘He’s gone. He can’t hurt you now. We’re here.’

  ‘H-how do you know?’ Emma wailed. She’d been so scared of Carstairs and the crazy, wild light in his eyes. How could he be gone, just like that?

  ‘I saw him swept down the river,’ Hayden said. ‘I had to pull you out instead.’

  Emma nodded against his shoulder. She was still so numb, she could hardly comprehend what had happened. But somewhere in the distance, she heard the echo of a bark and it shook her out of her panic.

  ‘Come on, we must find your sister,’ Hayden said. ‘She’s terrified for you.’

  Emma let him help her to her feet. She swayed dizzily, but his arm around her shoulders held her steady.

  ‘Jane is lucky to have you, Hayden,’ she said. ‘We’re both lucky you came here.’

  ‘I doubt Jane would agree with you,’ he answered. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you could put in a good word for me with her.’

  And together they climbed up the steep, slippery riverbank into the light.

  Some wild creature was howling like it was wounded, a horrible, mournful sound. Jane clapped her hands over her ears to blot it out, only to realise that the howling was her. It was inside her head.

  She stood balanced at the top of the riverbank, struggling to see what was happening through the darkness and rain. All she could make out was flashes of sudden, pale movement. Screams and shouts, a dog barking frantically somewhere in the distance. But she couldn’t see what was happening to whom, if her husband and sister were still there somewhere.

  Suddenly she saw a tall figure go reeling back into the rushing river. He instantly vanished into the water.

  ‘Hayden!’ Jane screamed. She took one lurching step forwards, only to trip and fall to her knees. Pain shot up her legs when she landed hard in the rutted mud, but she barely felt it through her fear.

  There was a rush of sound, and a small, wet, warm object hit her in the chest. Murray, caked in mud, his ribs heaving, as panicked as she was. She clutched him against her, trying frantically to see what was happening down at the river. For a second she closed her eyes tightly and whispered a desperate prayer.

  Let them be safe…

  When she opened them, it was to a wondrous sight. Hayden and Emma were stumbling up the steep bank. Her sister’s head rested on her husband’s shoulder, her golden hair trailing around them in tendrils like serpents.

  Jane had never seen anything more beautiful than the two of them, soaked through and covered with mud, but alive. The people she loved. Her family.

  She scrambled to her feet and raced to throw her arms around them, Murray at her heels. ‘You’re alive, you’re alive,’ she sobbed, over and over.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jane,’ Emma cried. ‘I never…’

  ‘Hush,’ Jane whispered. She kissed Emma’s cheek, then Hayden’s, just letting herself look at them, letting herself know they were all there. ‘You’re alive. We’re together. That’s all that matters now.’

  And in that moment, fear still humming in her veins, cold rain pouring down on their heads, she knew that was true. It was the only truth. They were together. That was all that ever mattered.

  ‘Jane…’

  ‘Hush, don’t say anything, Hayden,’ Jane said as she hurried to open the bedroom door and help her husband to the bed. She tried to be brisk, nurse-like, to not show him her fear that he was bleeding. He was hurt, hurt trying to save her sister, and she had to be strong for him. Even though inside she was terrified.

  Terrified she would lose him now, when she had only just found him again.

  She urged him to lie back on the pillows. ‘Sir David has gone to fetch the doctor, he will be here very soon. You must rest until then.’

  ‘Emma?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ‘She is safe now. The doctor will see to her, too.’

  Hannah hurried in with a tray in her hands, a basin of steaming water and pile of clean cloths. Jane wrung one out and carefully dabbed at the worst of the bleeding cuts on Hayden’s face.

  He suddenly reached up and grabbed her hand, holding her tig
htly. ‘Don’t leave me,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Hayden,’ she said, her throat tight. She felt tears prickle at her eyes and she couldn’t do anything but let them fall. ‘Don’t you know by now? I could never leave you again. I was so silly and foolish when we first met, I didn’t know what marriage was.’

  ‘I was the foolish one. I couldn’t see then what you really offered.’

  What had she offered him, compared to what he could give her? She had loved him, or thought she did anyway, but it had never amounted to all she had hoped for. ‘What did I give you? I had nothing then, just my own fanciful dreams.’

  He pressed a quick, fervent kiss to her hand. ‘You had everything. Love, a family, a home. All things I never had and never realised I could have. I saw your gentle spirit when we first met and I wanted it for myself. But just as you said, I didn’t know what that meant. I was selfish.’

  Jane’s tears were falling now in earnest, splashing over their joined hands. She had once dreamed he would say this to her, would mean it, and now it was really happening. She thought her heart would burst. ‘What went wrong for us, Hayden?’

  ‘We just weren’t ready for each other, my love. But I swear I will be a true husband to you now. I will spend every day making sure you are happy. If you will only let me.’

  She wanted that so very much it hurt. It seemed she had been waiting so, so long to know he meant his words and for her to be ready to fully return them. She loved Hayden. She had loved him since the moment they met, but since he came to Barton that love had deepened, ripened.

  Yet still a hard, cold kernel of fear lingered.

  ‘What about the babies?’ she choked out, and that was all she could say. The pain and fear of their lost children lingered like ice in those words.

  And Hayden seemed to hear it all and understand it. He bowed his head over her hand. ‘We can try again, make it work. Or if you can’t, if the doctor says you should not, we’ll let my blasted cousin have the title. I don’t care, Jane. I only want you. Only you. Please…’

  Suddenly he groaned. His hands fell from hers and he collapsed to the bed, unconscious.

  Fear pierced through Jane, sharper than any sword. ‘Hayden!’ she cried. ‘No, no. Come back to me, please. I love you, too. Please, please…’

  But all she heard were her own pleading words, echoing back to her. Hayden was silent.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jane paced the length of the corridor, and sat down in the chair at the end, and then jumped up to pace all over again. She couldn’t be still, couldn’t stop and think. Whenever she stopped moving, the whole nightmare reeled through her mind again. The lightning, the rushing rain, the screams. Hayden stumbling up the slippery riverbank with Emma in his arms.

  The men from the village said Carstairs’s body had been pulled from the river, with roughly sketched, sodden maps of the Barton garden in his pocket. It was something of a relief to know the man would never trouble them again, but still her mind would not be calm.

  Jane looked for the hundredth time towards Hayden’s closed chamber door. How long had the doctor been in there? It seemed like hours. Hayden hadn’t wanted to let the doctor tend him when the man came to look in on Emma, but Jane had insisted. Hayden was limping on the leg he injured when he first came to Barton and there was a deep cut on his forehead. Now they’d been in there for too long.

  What if there was some terrible injury, some bleeding inside where it couldn’t be seen? What if—what if she lost him again? This time for good?

  Just the thought of it all, of Hayden being somewhere she could never say she was sorry, she was wrong, was utterly unbearable.

  She sat down hard on the chair and closed her eyes against the pain in her head. She tried to force the fear away and imagine good things again. Hayden laughing with Emma in the garden. Hayden across the dinner table from her, smiling at her in the candlelight. Hayden in her bed, touching her, kissing her.

  The peace they had found here for such brief days. The peace, the family, she had wanted all along, and lost in misunderstandings and anger. Surely it couldn’t be gone for ever?

  ‘Jane?’ she heard Emma say softly. She opened her eyes to find her sister standing at the end of the corridor, Murray cradled in her arms. She still looked pale and startled, bruises standing out in stark purple relief against her white skin.

  Jane pushed herself to her feet. ‘Are you all right, Emma? You’re supposed to be resting.’

  ‘I can’t possibly sleep.’ Emma glanced at Hayden’s door. ‘Is the doctor still there?’

  ‘Yes. I haven’t heard anything yet.’

  Emma nodded. ‘I—Will Hayden leave again, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jane answered truthfully. She didn’t know what was in Hayden’s mind after all that had happened. He seemed happy here at Barton. But maybe now he missed his old London life, the one his friends brought to their doorstep. The one a woman like Lady Marlbury could give him.

  ‘I don’t want him to go,’ Emma said, her voice thick, as if she held back tears. Murray whined up at her. ‘He isn’t at all what I once thought he was.’

  ‘No, he isn’t.’ Jane’s husband was at once more complex and far simpler than she ever could have imagined.

  ‘I thought I could help us by finding the Barton treasure,’ Emma said. ‘But I see now I didn’t need it. Our treasure is right here, isn’t it? It’s us.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jane murmured, smoothing her hand over her sister’s hair. ‘Yes, our treasure is in us.’

  The bedchamber door suddenly opened, and the doctor emerged with his valise in hand. Jane leaped up and Emma grabbed her hand.

  ‘How is he?’ Jane asked tightly.

  The doctor shook his head. ‘Lord Ramsay certainly gets battered around a bit, doesn’t he, my lady? He has some cuts and bruises, and I certainly recommend rest for several days at least, but there should be no permanent damage.’

  Jane let out the breath she was holding as relief rushed through her. No permanent damage. Hayden was still alive; he would live. There was still hope. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

  The doctor gave them a stern glance before he turned towards the stairs. ‘I think a seaside holiday would be in order for all of you, Lady Ramsay. A month or two at Brighton would do you some good. Or even better—Italy.’

  ‘Italy.’ Emma sighed. ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Hayden took us to Italy, Jane? I could find so many new plant specimens there.’

  Jane had to laugh. Yes, it would be splendid. A long, sunny holiday, just the three of them, away from all that had happened. A fresh start.

  If only Hayden wanted it, too.

  ‘I should go look in on him,’ Jane said, reaching for the door handle. ‘You should rest, Emma.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Emma said, already distracted now. ‘Just as soon as I find some books on Italy in the library…’

  As Emma dashed down the stairs, Jane stepped into the darkened bedchamber. The curtains were drawn across the windows, blocking out the greyish daylight, and two lamps burned on the dressing table. A tray with a pitcher of water and discarded bandages was on the bedside table, and the sick-sweet smell of medicine and woodsmoke hung in the air.

  Hayden lay in the centre of the bed, blankets and pillows piled around him in copious heaps. Hannah had been very solicitous towards him since he got home. His black hair was stark against the white linens, his eyes closed.

  They opened when Jane clicked the door shut behind her and he watched her from across the room as she tiptoed closer.

  ‘How do you feel?’ she asked.

  A faint smile touched his lips. ‘As if I did ten rounds at the boxing saloon—and lost.’

  That smile made Jane want to cry. She’d been so afraid she might never see it again, might never have the chance to be with him and tell him…

  ‘I’m so sorry, Hayden,’ she whispered.

  His smile drifted into a frown. ‘What do you mean? Jane, this was all my fault.
I let Carstairs into the house, even though I never liked him. You have nothing to be sorry about.’

  Jane hurried across the room and carefully sat down on the edge of the bed. She could feel Hayden watching her intently, but she stared down at her clasped hands in her lap and tried to decide how to tell him what she had to say. The confusion that had plagued her for days had suddenly cleared and she could see everything she should have known all along.

  Everything she wanted—if it was still there for her. If it wasn’t lost for ever.

  ‘I loved you so much when we married, Hayden,’ she said quietly. ‘I’d never known anyone, anything, like you. So full of life, like a whirlwind. I was dazzled by you, by what I thought you were.’

  ‘Are you saying you were deceived then, that you thought you loved me but you no longer do?’

  Jane heard the confusion and pain in his voice, even though he tried to conceal them. She remembered what he told her about his family, about how he could never be good enough for them to love him, and her heart ached.

  ‘No!’ she protested. She turned to him and stared into his eyes, those beautiful blue eyes that seemed to contain the whole world. ‘I am saying—back then I was young and foolish. I thought marriage would be perfect, easy, and when it wasn’t I didn’t know what to do. I was frightened. I loved a dream that could never be true. But now I love the reality, Hayden. I love you.’

  And when she said those words she saw how very simple it all was after all. She loved Hayden. She loved what he’d fought against inside himself and won, loved how he had come for her, loved the life she saw now they could have here at Barton. When he had risked his life for her and for Emma, she’d known her first instincts when she met him and fell for him had been right after all.

  She loved him, She didn’t want to lose him again.