The Runaway Countess (14 page)

Hayden caught her hand as she turned back towards the door. ‘Jane, you must listen to me. Lady Marlbury and I—’

‘Not now, Hayden, please,’ Jane said. She was tired, confused and her dignity was hanging on by a mere thread. ‘We can talk later.’

Hayden stared down at her for a long moment. Jane dared not look at him. ‘Very well,’ he finally said, and let her go.

She hurried away, but as she went that
laughter seemed to follow her like a dream phantom. ‘Ramsay, darling, is this funny little place really where you’ve been hiding?’ she heard Lady Marlbury say. ‘You have been missing the most amusing parties while you’ve been buried here…’

Hayden stared after Jane as she dashed away, her shawl pulled tightly around her shoulders and her head held rigidly high. The laughing woman who had lain beside him in their warm bed was vanished and he had the sinking fear that she would never return.

In the room behind him he heard the loud laughter of his friends. Once he would have been with them in an instant, eager to pour the brandy and join in the jokes. To seize on the forgetfulness such revelry offered. Now he realised that was a mask he sought to hide behind and the mask was slipping away from him.

He had lost it in Jane’s bed, when she touched his cheek with her fingertips and looked up into his eyes and they saw each other as if for the first time.

Something sharp and hot clawed at
Hayden and he raked his fingers through his hair. Part of him wanted to turn to his friends, grab up the brandy bottle and dive back into his old life. Part of him was desperate to do that.

But the other part only wanted to run after Jane. To make her listen to him, stay with him.
See
him again.

‘Is everything all right, Hayden?’ he heard John say.

Hayden slowly turned to face him. Of all the group that had shown up on Barton’s doorstep, John Eastwood was the only one Hayden would call a real friend. They had been at school together, blazed their way through society together as young bucks, drank and caroused all over town until John married—and then lost his young wife within the year. John had only just emerged out of his mourning in time to stand up for Hayden at his wedding to Jane.

They had faced a great deal together. Hayden couldn’t just throw him out—even if he wished he could send everyone else in that sitting room to the devil for what they had interrupted.

‘What wouldn’t be all right?’ Hayden said, trying to give a careless laugh.

But John’s brown eyes seemed to see too much. That was the price of years of friendship. ‘Lady Ramsay didn’t look happy to see us.’

‘I could hardly toss you back out in the storm, now could I, old man?’ Hayden said. He glanced past John into the sitting room, where the others were lounging around the fire, passing the brandy bottles and snickering about London gossip.

Lady Marlbury pushed Sir Ethan’s seeking hand off her leg with a throaty laugh and he merely tried again to get closer to her. She tossed back the banner of her red hair, trying to play her well-worn haughty game, and Hayden wondered what he had once seen in her. Next to Jane’s laughter, Jane’s fresh beauty, she was nothing.

But still there was that pull of the past. The lure of things that used to help him dull the pain. Old habits, old pleasures. It never seemed to quite let him go.

‘Carstairs said he met you at some inn and
you were coming here,’ John said. ‘I wouldn’t have come if I’d known…’

‘Known what?’ Hayden said. He hated for anyone to know his personal business and he cursed that day he ran into Carstairs in that inn.

‘That you were here trying to reconcile with your wife.’

Hayden had a flashing memory of Jane in bed with him, smiling up at him, her hair spilling across the pillows, wrapping around him. And the coldness in her eyes when she looked at his friends. ‘We aren’t reconciled,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’m merely here trying to arrange some business matters.’

John nodded thoughtfully. ‘Just as you will. But I’ll tell you this, Hayden, as your friend. If I could be with my Eleanor again, even for a moment, I would never waste my time with reprobates like Carstairs and Browning.’

A shriek of laughter caught Hayden’s attention and he looked back to the group in the sitting room. Carstairs had given up on Lady Marlbury and was chasing Mrs Smythe
around the sofa. A table overturned and laughter roared out again, even louder.

‘What
are
you doing with them?’ Hayden asked. ‘They don’t seem to be your usual crowd any more.’

John gave a humourless laugh. ‘Because I
can’t
be with my Eleanor. I have to take my distractions where I can. You should be beyond that now, too, Hayden.’ He turned back to the sitting room. ‘We’ll be gone as soon as we can, I promise.’

Hannah hurried towards the door from the servants’ staircase, a tray in her hands. The usually shy and scurrying maid, who he’d thought he had won over with his surprise dinner for Jane, gave him a withering glance.

‘Lady Ramsay took Miss Emma upstairs, my lord,’ she said. ‘Before she could see any of—this. But the guest rooms are nearly ready if anyone wishes to retire.’

By Jove—Emma
. Hayden had nearly forgotten his sister-in-law, so curious and alert. So young and innocent. Just one more reason for Jane to rue the day she had let him back into their home, back into their lives.

‘Of course, Hannah. Thank you,’ he said.

Hannah sniffed. ‘Lady Ramsay also said she would stay in Miss Emma’s room tonight.’ She dropped a quick curtsy and scurried away.

Hayden shook his head with a wry laugh. It seemed as if, with that one sniff, the doors of Barton Park, which had just barely opened before him, slammed shut.

I
t was more like studying zoology than botany, Emma thought as she watched Hayden’s friends cavort around the sitting room. Plants always sat obligingly still and let one take notes, while animals would insist on wriggling about and being most unpredictable. Still, it was worth the observation.

Jane had told her last night, as they huddled in Emma’s bed and listened to the unexpected interlopers stumble down the hall, that they would soon be gone and in the meantime she had to stay well out of their way. Her sister sounded again like the Jane who first brought her to Barton a year ago,
so strained and worried, her eyes full of unfathomable worries.

Emma had never wanted to see that Jane again, and since Hayden came to Barton there was no sign of her. Jane had started to laugh again, to be the sister who used to play with her and tease her when they were children. Hayden, too, was losing those haunted shadows around his eyes. They all had fun together and Emma began to hope maybe, just maybe, they could all live here at Barton and find a way to build a new family.

Hope was a pernicious thing. It came and went so easily, and was so very fragile. A pounding at the door could shatter it.

So Emma resolved to watch those people and see why Jane behaved so strangely at the sight of them. Emma had promised she would stay out of their way, but Jane didn’t know about this little hidey-hole in the sitting-room corner, behind a screen their mother had once painted with scenes of fat cherubs and shepherds.

Emma slipped in there when everyone was at breakfast and sat perched on a stool with her notebook open on her lap. Murray lay
curled up at her feet, quiet for once. Even he seemed cowed by the sudden raucous invasion of their home.

Emma had decided to make notes as she would in any other study, but she sometimes forgot to write just from watching.

In her school, there had been girls like the daughter of a duke, the nieces of an earl and, scandalously, the illegitimate daughter of a famous theatre owner. Those girls had been wildly sophisticated and had to show off their gossipy knowledge even to an odd bluestocking like Emma. From them she heard tales of aristocratic parties, royal marriages gone horribly sour and
affaires d’amour
.

The girls’ parents would have been appalled at what they really knew behind their demure, proper façades. So would Jane, if she knew what Emma had heard from them—including gossip about Jane and Hayden’s own marriage. Jane’s letters had always been sunny and loving. Emma would have known nothing at all about the marriage without that late-night school gossip.

So she had heard of people like this, even though, thanks to Jane’s caution, she seldom
encountered them. she had to watch them now, while she had the chance.

Lord John Eastwood she had met before. He was Hayden’s friend and had been at Jane’s wedding. Emma rather liked him. He sat apart from the others, laughing as he watched them. Despite that laughter, she could see a deep melancholy lurking in his eyes. She remembered he had lost his wife not so long ago.

Lord Browning and Mrs Smythe had no such depths. They frolicked around like a pair of puppies.
Amorous
puppies, Emma thought with a giggle as she watched Browning snatch Mrs Smythe around the waist and haul her across his lap. She kicked out with her slippered foot and knocked over a row of empty brandy bottles with a loud clatter. Despite the fact that it wasn’t even noon yet, there seemed to be a great many of those bottles.

Lady Marlbury lounged on the sofa, a luxuriously embroidered shawl wrapped around herself. She was very beautiful, in a way Emma quite envied. So tall, so exotic, with that long, waving banner of red hair. She
looked like an empress, a goddess, whereas Emma herself often felt like a milkmaid. But there was such a distance with that beauty, such a veil between her and everyone else.

And Emma didn’t like the way the woman looked at Hayden, the casual way she touched him. It almost made Emma wish she could yank out Lady Marlbury’s hair by the roots and toss her out in the still-pouring rain, since she was sure Jane never would.

Emma craned her neck around the edge of the screen to see the rest of the room. It seemed only those four were around at the moment. Jane and Hayden were nowhere to be seen, though Emma feared they weren’t together. the last time she had seen Jane, her sister was hiding in the kitchen. And that other man, the handsome one named Carstairs, wasn’t there, either.

She was rather disappointed about that. She had only caught a quick glimpse of him when everyone arrived last night, but it was most intriguing. He was very handsome, always with a mysterious smile on his face, always watching. Was he one of those rakes the
girls always gossiped about? Very interesting. She just hoped he wasn’t like Mr Milne.

She wondered who he was and what he was doing here. Unlike with Lady Marlbury and Lord John, she hadn’t been able to observe him at all.

Emma bent her head over her notebook and scribbled another line. Murray cracked open one eye and peered up at her. It was clear he only wanted these interlopers gone and his house to himself again. He was accustomed to being the only one knocking things over and being noisy.

‘Perhaps I should abandon botany and take up writing for the stage,’ she whispered to him. ‘This would make a fascinating play.’

Murray just sighed and closed his eyes again. Emma scribbled another line and was soon lost in her observations. People really
were
fascinating; one never knew what they would do next.

Except for dull people like David Marton. One surely always knew what he would do next.

‘Well, well. Who do we have hiding here?’

Emma jumped off her stool, so startled
her heart pounded. Her notebook clattered to the floor, making Murray bark, and she spun around to find Ethan Carstairs smiling at her.

He leaned lazily on the edge of the screen, watching her with a wide, amused smile on his face. She’d thought when she first saw him arrive at Barton that he was handsome and in the light of day he was even more so. He could almost be a poet, with bright curls swept across his brow. He twirled a small golden coin between his fingers.

Despite all the gossip at her school, Emma hadn’t really spent much time with young men, hadn’t talked to them or flirted with them. With men like David Marton, she could simply lecture them about books and studies because it hardly mattered what they thought. But with a handsome young man like Ethan Carstairs, a friend of her brother-in-law whom she trusted…

Emma was utterly tongue-tied.

‘You’re Lady Ramsay’s sister, are you not?’ he asked. His words were a drawl as lazy as his pose, slow and careless. She remembered the rows of empty brandy bottles and realised he really should be as lazy as
the others today. But his shimmering eyes, though slightly red-rimmed, watched her with lively interest.

‘Yes,’ she managed to say as she scooped her notebook off the floor. ‘I’m Emma Bancroft.’

‘Well, Miss Bancroft, I’m Sir Ethan Carstairs. Most pleased to make your acquaintance.’

‘I know who you are,’ she blurted out.

One of his brows quirked and he laughed. ‘Do you indeed? That’s more than I can say about you, Miss Bancroft. It’s too bad of Ramsay to keep you hidden away here. You’d be a sensation in London.’

Emma very much doubted that. Everything she had heard from the girls at school told her she was exactly the sort who would not fare well in London. But the frank admiration in his eyes and his smile made her feel strongly warm and giggly, deep down inside.

‘I’m too young for a Season yet,’ she said. ‘Besides, I like it here at Barton.’

‘I can see why,’ he said, all friendly ease. ‘It’s a most interesting house.’

‘Do you think so?’ Emma said, startled.
She loved Barton very much and it was indeed interesting, hiding so many intriguing secrets in its corridors. But it surely wasn’t grand or stylish, as she was sure Hayden’s friends required in a house. ‘It’s very old, with no modern comforts to speak of.’

‘That’s why it’s so interesting,’ he said. ‘Old houses like this have the best stories. Ghosts, pirates and elopements, all sorts of dastardly doings lurking in their dark pasts.’

He looked so boyishly delighted in the idea of ‘dastardly doings’ that Emma had to laugh. He laughed with her and she immediately felt more at ease.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘There are indeed many fascinating tales here at Barton.’

‘And you must know all of them.’

‘I try to write them down,’ she said and held up her notebook.

‘Will you write them into horrid novels one day?’

‘I have thought about that,’ Emma exclaimed. ‘It might be rather fun to be an authoress.’

‘I’m sure you would be very good at it, Miss Bancroft,’ he said, still smiling. ‘I think
I may have once heard a tale of Barton Park myself.’

‘Really? What sort of tale?’

‘Oh, the best sort. One of lost treasure.’

Emma was shocked. She didn’t think anyone outside her family knew of the treasure. ‘The stolen Stuart-era treasure?’

‘Yes. Do you know about it, then?’

‘Emma!’ Jane suddenly called from beyond the screen. ‘Are you in here?’

‘Yes, I’m here,’ Emma answered automatically. She scooped up Murray beneath her arm, trying to hush his growls as he eyed Ethan Carstairs standing there. She longed to stay and ask Ethan more about what he knew of the treasure, but Jane sounded so strained and harried that Emma knew she had to go.

She slipped past him, but before she left the cover of the screen he leaned down and whispered, ‘I hope we may talk more later, Miss Bancroft. I am most intrigued.’

So was Emma. Intrigued—and flustered. She nodded and hurried past him into the sitting room. The others had left while she was preoccupied, and only Jane was there, standing in the doorway.

‘Emma, dear,’ Jane said softly, stopping her in her path.

‘Yes?’ Emma said.

‘I think it would be best if you stayed in your room most of the time while the guests are here.’ Jane’s voice was quiet, but implacable. She didn’t put her foot down very often, but Emma knew very well that when she did she meant it.

But how could she observe Carstairs if she was trapped in her room?

‘Of course, Jane,’ she said, and crossed her fingers behind her back. Surely what Jane didn’t know couldn’t matter? And there were lots of little hiding places at Barton that were perfect for quietly watching…

What a pretty girl
, Ethan Carstairs thought as he watched Emma Bancroft walk away with Lady Ramsay. How much easier that would make his job here at this godforsaken house.

Emma glanced back at him just before she slipped out the door and Ethan gave her his most charming, boyish grin. The one that always made his London conquests giggle
and blush. Emma Bancroft was no different, despite her unpolished, country-maid looks and unfashionable clothes. She smiled and waved, as Lady Ramsay tugged her away with a frown.

Lady Ramsay had always seemed a pale, humourless thing to Ethan. He never understood why all the fashion papers were so interested in her, how she got an earl to marry her. But she certainly had a lovely little sister, one ripe for a few compliments.

He hadn’t been expecting that when he came to Barton with half-formed plans of treasure hunting. he only knew his allowance was soon to be cut off and he needed a lot of money however he could get it. But the fact that pretty Miss Emma already knew about the legend of the treasure, and was willing to tell him about it in the bargain, was a rare plum. No sneaking about to dig in dusty attics needed, which was good. He’d hate to muss his coat. He still owed the tailor for it.

Now if he could just entice the delectable Miss Emma into the garden for a little treasure
hunting, all would be set. Two birds with one stone, so to speak.

‘Why are you smiling like that, Sir Ethan?’ he heard someone say.

He turned to find Lady Marlbury watching him. She was a rare beauty; even golden little Miss Emma paled next to her. But she had pushed him away over and over again.

What would she think of all her rejections once he was rich as Croesus? Would she rue them, pine for him? The thought made him smile even more and her eyes narrowed.

‘I’m having a good time, that’s all,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘In a ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere, with endless rain and nothing to do?’ she said. ‘I don’t know why you suggested we come here.’

‘Because it was the nearest house, of course,’ Ethan said, thankful once again for that rare stroke of luck. Luck—and a light hammer to the carriage wheel. ‘I would have thought you’d enjoy the time to be with Ramsay again. Weren’t you two something of an item?’

A dull red flush touched her sharp cheekbones.
‘With his wife looking on? Don’t be silly, Carstairs. Besides, Ramsay and I broke apart long ago.’

Ethan remembered Lady Ramsay’s frown, the unhappy way she had studied them all since their arrival. ‘Perhaps you’ll have another chance with him soon enough,’ he said dismissively, starting to turn away. He had treasure to seek.

‘You should leave that girl alone,’ Lady Marlbury called after him.

Ethan paused, his interest piqued. Lady Marlbury had noticed his talk with Miss Bancroft? ‘Who do you mean?’

‘That pretty little Miss Bancroft, of course. She is far out of your league, Carstairs.’

‘Is she now?’ Ethan shot a grin back over his shoulder at her. ‘Who should I turn my attention to, then? Someone like you, perchance?’

She laughed, a sound that said all too clearly ‘don’t be ridiculous’. It made that anger surge up in him all over again.

‘I’m only offering a bit of advice,’ she said. ‘If you mess about with that girl, you’ll have
Ramsay to contend with. And you know very well you are no match for him.’

Her words echoed in his head and, as he looked at her little smile, his anger grew and expanded like one of the storm clouds outside. How often had he heard those words? No match for his father, no match for his perfect older brother, for his so-called friends. Ethan had had quite enough of it.