The Runaway Countess (3 page)

‘That old stick-in-the-mud?’ Emma said with a scoffing laugh. ‘What is he going to do, read us sermons?’

‘Emma!’ Jane protested. ‘Sir David is hardly old—I doubt he is even thirty. And he is not in the least bit sermon-like. He and his sister are very nice.’

‘Nice enough, I suppose, but still very stick-in-the-muddy. When he danced with me at the assembly he kept going on about some German philosopher with terribly gloomy ideas. He didn’t know anything about botany. And his sister only seemed to care about hats.’

‘Nevertheless, they
are
nice, and they are to be our nearest neighbours since they took over Easton Abbey,’ Jane said, trying not to laugh at her sister’s idea of proper social discourse. ‘You need to be here when they call. And properly dressed, not drenched from getting caught in the rain.’

‘I won’t be gone long at all, Jane, I promise,’ Emma said. ‘I will be all prim and proper in the sitting room when they get here,
ready to talk about German philosophy over cakes and tea.’

Jane laughed as Emma kissed her cheek and hurried away, Murray barking madly at her feet. ‘Half an hour, Emma, no more.’

‘Half an hour! I promise!’

Once Emma was gone out the garden gate, Jane hurried through the kitchens, where their cook was making a rare fine tea of sandwiches and lemon cakes, and went up the back stairs to her chamber. Emma wasn’t the only one who needed to mend her appearance, she thought as she caught a glimpse of herself in the dressing-table mirror. She could pass as the scullery maid herself.

And somehow it seemed so important that Sir David and his sister not think ill of her appearance.

As she tugged the scarf from her hair and untied her apron, she thought about Sir David and their recent meetings. He was a handsome young man, in a quiet way that matched his polite demeanour. With his sandy-brown hair and spectacles, he seemed to exude an unobtrusive intelligence that Jane
found calming after all that had happened before in her life.

She enjoyed talking to him and he seemed to enjoy talking to her. When she had declined to dance at the assembly, saying only that her dancing days were behind her, he did not press her. But he was kind enough to dance with Emma and listen to her talk about plants, even though Emma seemed to find him ‘stick-in-the-muddy’.

So when Jane had encountered him and his sister in the village, it seemed natural to invite them to tea. Only to be a friendly neighbour, of course. There could be nothing more. She was a married woman, even though she had not seen her husband in years.

She was a married woman for now, anyway. And she could not quite deny that when David Marton smiled at her, sought her out for conversation, she felt something she hadn’t in a long time. She felt—admired.

Even before she left London she had begun to feel invisible. The one person whose admiration mattered—her husband—didn’t see her any more and all the chatter in the fashion papers about her gowns and her coiffures
didn’t matter at all. Nothing mattered beyond Hayden’s indifference. She started to feel invisible even to herself, especially after she had failed in her main duty to give her husband an heir.

Back home at Barton Park she had started to feel better, slowly, day by day. She had started to feel the sun on her skin again and hear the birds singing. The weed-choked gardens didn’t care what she looked like and Emma certainly didn’t. Things seemed quite content. So it had come as quite a surprise how much she enjoyed Sir David’s quiet attentions.

She leaned towards the mirror to peer more closely at her reflection.

‘No one in London would recognise you now,’ she said with laugh. And, indeed, no one
would
recognise the well-dressed Lady Ramsay in this woman, with her wind-tossed hair and the pale gold freckles the sun had dotted over her nose. She reached for her hairbrush and set to work.

She suddenly felt giddily schoolgirlish in how much she looked forward to this tea party.

‘R
amsay? By Jove, it
is
you! Blast it, man, what are you doing in this godforsaken place?’

Hayden slowly turned from his place at the bar. He had just been asking himself that very thing, What was he doing in a country inn, sipping at tepid, weak ale, running after a woman who clearly didn’t want him, when he could be in London, getting ready for a night out at balls and gambling clubs?

He had just come to the startling realisation that a night out gaming and drinking wasn’t something he would miss very much when he heard those shouted words. They
were a welcome distraction from his own brooding thoughts.

He turned away from the bar and saw Lord Ethan Carstairs making his way across the crowded room towards him. Lord Ethan was not what Hayden would call a friend, but they were often in the same circles and saw each other at their club and across the gambling tables. Lord Ethan was rather loud and didn’t hold his liquor very well, but he was tolerable enough most of the time. Especially at moments like this, when Hayden needed distraction.

‘Lord Ethan,’ he said. ‘Fancy seeing you here. Can I buy you an ale?’

‘I won’t say no to that,’ Ethan said affably as he leaned against the bar next to Hayden. To judge by his reddened cheeks and rumpled hair, and the dishevelled state of his expensive clothes, he had been imbibing the ale for quite a while already. ‘My damnable uncle is making me rusticate for a while. Says he won’t increase my allowance until I learn some control and I am completely out of funds.’

‘Indeed?’ Hayden asked without much
interest as he gestured to the innkeeper for more ale. Everyone knew that Ethan’s Puritanical uncle, who also held the Carstairs family purse-strings, disapproved of his nephew’s wild ways. Hayden sympathised. His own father had so often been disapproving.

And now here he was, drowning his doubts in drink. Just like his father. That was certainly something he did
not
want to think about.

‘Most unfair,’ Ethan grumbled. He took a long gulp from his glass, the reached into his pocket and took out a small, gold object he twirled through his fingers. Hayden recognised it as an old Spanish coin the man often used as a lucky charm at the card tables. ‘I’m on my way to some country pile to wait him out. But what are
you
doing so far from town?’

Hayden shrugged. He might as well tell the truth. All of society would know soon enough, when he either came back to London with Jane by his side or instigated scandalous divorce proceedings. ‘I am on my way to Barton Park to see Lady Ramsay.’

‘By Jove!’ Ethan sputtered. ‘I had forgotten you were married.’

‘My wife is delicate and prefers the country for her health,’ Hayden said, as he always did when someone asked about Jane. They seldom even bothered any longer.

‘I see. I remember they said she was a pretty little thing.’ Ethan’s gaze narrowed, and for an instant it was as if the ale-haze cleared in his bloodshot-blue eyes. ‘Barton Park, you say?’

‘It’s her family home.’

‘I think I have heard of it. Isn’t there some tale of treasure or some such there?’ Ethan laughed, and that instant of clarity vanished. ‘We can both rot here in the country for a while, then. Damnable families.’

Damnable families
. Hayden almost laughed bitterly as he sipped at the terrible ale. He wasn’t even sure what it felt like to have a family, not now. He had been alone for so long it seemed like the only way he could be. The only way he could avoid hurting anyone else.

Once, for a moment, he had seen what it could be to have a real family. He had a
flashing memory of a sunlit day, of Jane with her dark hair loose over her bare shoulders, smiling up at him. She took his hand and held it against the warm skin of her stomach, where he could feel the swell of their child. The first child that was lost.

He knew now that that was the most perfect moment of his life, but it had only been an illusion. Jane was done with him now. But he wasn’t done with her. Soon enough she would see that.

‘I have to be on my way,’ Hayden said. He pushed his half-f glass away. ‘Good luck with your rusticating, Carstairs.’

Lord Ethan blinked at him. ‘Same to you, Ramsay. Maybe we’ll meet again soon.’

Hayden nodded, though really he was quite sure they wouldn’t. He left the stale-smelling room behind for the innyard. As he waited for a fresh horse to be brought around, one of the servants said, ‘It looks like rain is coming, my lord. Might be best to wait to ride out.’

Hayden peered up at the sky. It had been a pale blue when he arrived at the inn, hazy with country sunlight, but now he saw the
servant was right. Grey clouds were gathering swiftly and the wind was colder.

But the thought of going back inside to drink some more with Ethan Carstairs was most unappealing. He had already waited too long to go after Jane—he needed to get on with the business of confronting his wife.

‘I haven’t far to ride,’ he said as he swung up into the saddle. But he hadn’t been gone long from the inn when the lowering skies burst open on a clap of thunder and rain poured down.

Hayden was glad of the cold, it seemed to drive him onwards and cleared his head. He galloped faster down the narrow, rutted lane, revelling in the speed and the wildness of the nature around him. All too often in London he felt closed in, trapped by the buildings and the noise, by all the people watching him.

Here there was nothing but the trees and the wind, the dark clouds sweeping in faster and faster over his head on the rumble of thunder. Maybe that was why Jane had run here, he thought as his horse leaped over a fallen log in the road and galloped onwards even faster. Just to be able to breathe again.

He urged the horse on, trying to outrun the raw anger that had burned in him ever since he had read Jane’s letter. Even if she was tired of her London life, she had duties, damn it! Duties as his wife and countess. She had left them, left him, behind. And now she wanted to abandon them permanently.

She had to see how impossible her suggestion of divorce was. He had to
make
her see.

A bolt of sizzling blue-white lightning suddenly split the sky, cleaving a tree beside the road only a few feet away. With a deafening crack, a thick branch split away and crashed into the road. Hayden’s horse reared up and the wet reins slid from his hands at the sudden movement.

He felt himself falling, the sky and the rain and the mud all tumbling around him. He crashed to the ground and pain shot through his leg as it twisted under him.

Hayden cursed as loudly as he could, but he was drowned out by the shout of the thunder. The horse scrambled to regain his footing and ran away down the lane. Hayden tried to push himself up, to balance on his good leg, but he fell back to the mud.

He shoved back his sodden hair and stared up into the leaden sky. He laughed at the storm. It seemed even nature wanted to keep him away from Jane.

‘Are you all right?’ he heard a woman call. He twisted around to see her running towards him through the misty sheets of rain, like a ghost.

She looked vaguely familiar, not very tall and too slender in a faded, rain-spotted dress. A loose braid of wet golden hair lay over her shoulder and a barking puppy ran in circles around her. But despite that nagging sense that he should know her, he didn’t really recognise her as she ran down the lane towards him.

Until she knelt beside him, completely careless of the rain. She stared up at him with bright green eyes, pale and clear. He remembered those eyes. He had seen them at his wedding when Jane proudly introduced her sister. She had been younger then, scrawny and awkward. Now time had moved on and she had grown up.

And he remembered that Jane had written
that her sister lived with her now. He had to be close to Barton Park.

‘Emma?’ he said.

She sat back on her heels, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. ‘Yes, I am Emma Bancroft. How do you…?’ Suddenly she gasped. ‘Ramsay? What in the hell are you doing here?’

‘Does your sister let you curse like that? Most unladylike,’ he said, suddenly aware of the utter absurdity of his situation. He was sitting in the rain, in the middle of a muddy country lane, arguing about propriety with the sister-in-law he hardly knew.

He laughed and she frowned at him as if he was an escaped bedlamite. He certainly felt like one.

‘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.