The Runaway Countess

by Amanda McCabe

  Jane swiped away the last of her tears as she studied the scene before her, the smoky, damp pall cast over everything, the huge cleaning-up task before her.

  And she found Hayden watching her from across the clearing. He stood there very stiff and still, his eyes narrowed on her. Only then did she realise David Marton’s hand was still on her arm. She slid away from him, but it was too late. Hayden had already turned and vanished into the wisps of smoke.

  He was touching her.

  The man was actually touching Jane. He stared across the blackened clearing at them, sitting so close together, their heads near each other as they whispered together, and at first he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Then pure fury roared through him, stoked by the fight in his blood from the fire.

  Jane was his wife, damn it all! Maybe their marriage wasn’t all it should be, maybe he hadn’t beaten it into shape as he half-planned to when he rushed so impetuously to Barton. But still—she was his.

  He dropped the bucket in his hand and took an angry stride towards them. He would beat that blasted David Marton, the man who was always so infuriatingly calm and cool, to a bloody stain. Then he would pick Jane up in his arms, carry her into the house and make her see once and for all that she truly belonged to him. That she had to finally give up this nonsense and come back with him to London, come back to their lives there.

  But something made him freeze in his tracks and that hot anger froze, too. Marton handed Jane a handkerchief and, as she wiped at her eyes, he spoke quietly in her ear. She gave a little smile and nodded.

  Hayden realised with a sword-sharp suddenness that he should not go to Jane now. He couldn’t give her what Marton could in that moment, what she needed after seeing her garden burning—steady, quiet understanding. All the terrible things that had happened to Jane today were because he had let that London life intrude on what she’d worked so hard to build here at Barton.

  She’d run away from what they had together and rightly so. He hadn’t seen what she needed, and even if he had he couldn’t have given it to her. He could only see his life as it had always been, as his parents’ lives had been, and that wasn’t enough for Jane.

  Maybe she should marry someone like Marton. But it was too late for that. Too late for them to change.

  As he watched Jane smile up at Marton, something inside of him seemed to crack wide open, something he had kept locked away his whole life. He wanted to fall to his knees and howl with the pain of it.

  But he just watched as Marton helped Jane to her feet and they left the chaos of the maze together. One long moment ticked past, then another, and the sharp pain faded to a dull, throbbing ache. It could almost be just another part of him now.

  Hayden curled his hands into fists. He knew he couldn’t fight Marton, couldn’t fight the past. Yet as he battled to save Barton Park, one true thing had flashed over him. He didn’t just fight to save the house for Jane, he was desperate to save it for himself. Desperate to save all Barton had come to mean to him, because without him even looking, it had become something amazing.

  In those few days here with Jane and Emma, Barton had become a home. And that was something worth fighting for as he’d never fought before in his life.

  ‘My lord,’ a man called and Hayden turned to face him.

  It was one of the men who had come running from the fields around the village to fight the fire. All The flames were out now, but grey, ghostly drifts of smoke still drifted from the charred grass. The ruined walls of the old summerhouse swayed in the wind and the air smelled acrid and foul.

  ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t save the building, my lord,’ the man said.

  Hayden shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. The summerhouse can be rebuilt. Everyone was absolutely splendid. The important thing, the only thing, was to keep the fire from spreading.’ And losing Barton would have utterly broken Jane’s heart—and Hayden’s, too, if he still had a heart to lose.

  ‘This was found over there, my lord, near that pile of broken glass.’ The man held out a tiny, flashing gold object. ‘Looks valuable. Someone might be searching for it. One of your guests, mayhap?’

  So everyone knew about his scandalous guests now? Hayden gave a wry laugh as he reached for the lost object. Of course they knew. Life in the environs of Barton were quiet. People like his erstwhile friends would be a rich mine of speculative gossip. One more thing for him to repair.

  As he turned the gold object on his palm, he recognised it at once. An old Spanish coin that Ethan Carstairs considered lucky for some unfathomable reason. Hayden had often seen the man take it out and twirl it between his fingers at the card tables.

  And it was lost here in the maze. Near where the fire looked to have begun.

  ‘Thank you,’ Hayden said tightly. ‘I will make very sure it’s returned to its owner.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was raining again, the needle-sharp droplets pattering at the window glass as lightning split the night sky and thunder cracked overhead.

  Emma felt like she was the only one awake to feel the old house shake with it. Jane took dinner in her room; Emma hadn’t seen her since the fire had died down and everyone from the village drifted home. Hayden, too, had vanished, so Emma ate alone in the dining room and then retreated to the library to try to read. She’d neglected her botanical studies too long in the fruitless search for treasure.

  But she couldn’t quite focus like she once did. The smell of smoke still hung heavy in the air, though the fresh rain would surely banish any lingering sparks. But no storm could banish the terrible images in her mind, of looking out the window and seeing the garden on fire. Of her sister’s tear-streaked face as Sir David Marton helped her into the house, both of them stained and reeking from the smoke. Marton had been so solicitous, so comforting in those moments of chaos.

  Emma almost felt bad about thinking him just a dry old stick.

  She buried her face in her hands and listened to the howl of the thunder. Murray laid his paw on her foot, whining, but she had no comfort to give him. Barton Park, which had been her family’s refuge for so long, felt like it was under siege. Ethan Carstairs, the fire, Jane’s sad eyes—Emma just wanted to banish it all, but she couldn’t.

  Jane had seemed so happy for a few days and so had Hayden. The angry look in his eyes when he first came to Barton had faded, only to come back in force when his friends showed up. Everything Emma had thought so sure, so hopeful, had vanished like that smoke outside. She didn’t like it at all.

  She thought about the treasure she’d been so sure was in the maze. The treasure that would save them, almost as if it was some sort of magical talisman. Maybe the fire would uncover something. But even if the old treasure was found it wouldn’t fix anything. Jane and Hayden would still be apart. Emma still would be full of that restless knowledge that she couldn’t fix anything.

  Emma tossed her pencil down on the open book in front of her and pushed herself back from the desk. Once she’d felt so sure of so many things. Now she knew nothing.

  She moved out of the circle of candlelight and into the darkness by the window. Rain poured down in earnest now, battering the abused garden. A quick flash of purplish lightning illuminated the overgrown flowerbeds, the haze of smoke that hung in the dark air.

  Suddenly she saw something, a flash of movement in the blackness. It could almost have been a shadow thrown off by one of the old statues, but then it slid away, along the path towards the house. Emma shielded the glare of the window glass with her hands and peered closer, hardly daring to breathe. After everything that had happened today, she feared it could be anything at all.

  One more bolt of lightning illuminated a man’s face as he ran and she saw it was Ethan Carstairs returned to Barton Park.

  ‘That bloody bastard,’ she cried, in a fit of profanity that would have horrified Jane. But she couldn’t think of any other way to describe that horrible man. He had attacked her, probably started the fire—and now he w
as back to cause even more trouble.

  Well, Emma wasn’t going to allow it.

  Without stopping to think, she snatched up a sharp silver letter-opener. she ran out of the library, Murray at her heels, and took a cloak from the hook in the hall. After she tugged its folds around her, she pulled open the front door.

  The cold force of the rain drove her back, only for a second, but it was long enough to shake her into seeing what she was doing. Being so impetuous had got her into trouble before. She needed to get help now.

  But before she could slam the door and go back, a hand shot out of the darkness and grabbed her by the arm. Hard fingers dug into her skin like sharp steel hooks and yanked her out into the storm.

  Terrified, Emma opened her mouth to scream, but another hand clamped hard over her mouth, suffocating her.

  ‘So kind of you to meet me halfway, Miss Bancroft,’ she heard Ethan Carstairs say, just before stars exploded behind her eyes and she sank down into blackness.

  ‘No!’ Jane sat straight up in bed, disoriented and dizzy. What woke her? Was it the rain and wind lashing at the window? Or something inside her chamber?

  Inside her own mind?

  Her eyes still itched and stung from the smoke, and she rubbed at them as she took a deep breath. It must have only been a dream, a bad, strange dream brought on by the long day. Her body ached and her mind was still heavy with the sleep that clung around her. She couldn’t remember her dream, but surely it involved fire and people she loved hovering on the brink of terrible danger where she couldn’t reach them.

  Finally her pounding heartbeat slowed and she opened her eyes to see that her bedchamber was just as it was before she fell asleep. Her shawl was tossed over the chaise and her half-eaten supper still lay on its tray on the table. The bathtub was still in front of the fireplace, the water grey with soot. The curtains were flung open to reveal the storm beyond her window.

  Jane rubbed at her arms through her thin muslin sleeves. She’d fallen asleep in her dress. The wind rushing around the house sounded like screams and it made her shiver.

  Just a dream, she told herself sternly. Yet there was something deep inside, some whisper of disquiet, that wouldn’t go away.

  She had a sudden strong urge to look in on Emma. It had been such a long, horrible day, for Emma more than anyone else. She’d been so quiet after the fire, retreating into her room with Murray.

  Jane climbed out of bed and wrapped the shawl tightly around her shoulders before she lit a candle and tiptoed down the corridor. Hayden had retired to the room Lady Marlbury had used and the door was tightly closed. Everything was silent there.

  But she couldn’t think about Hayden, not now. He had looked so strangely tense and distracted after the fire, they hadn’t spoken more than a few words and she almost feared to ask him how he felt. She hurried on to Emma’s room. She raised her hand to knock on the door, but it swung open at her touch to reveal an empty space beyond. The bed was turned down, but not slept in.

  Jane crept slowly into the room. The air smelled of Emma’s light, lemony perfume, but was also cold and deserted. Even Murray wasn’t there, his cushion by the window empty. The hair at the back of Jane’s neck prickled and her hands went cold.

  Don’t be silly, she told herself. Emma could be anywhere in the house. She probably just couldn’t sleep, after all that had happened, and she was still in the library. But that icy feeling wouldn’t go away.

  Jane hurried downstairs to the library. A lamp burned on the desk and books and notebooks lay open on its surface, but Emma wasn’t there. The rainy night seemed to creep in closer and closer.

  She spun around and dashed into the hall, her throat tight with a rush of panic. The door was swinging open, rain leaving the tile floor slick and glossy. Something small and shiny gleamed on the wood of the door.

  Filled with the creeping stickiness of dread, Jane moved closer. the rain touched her skin, tiny wet pinpricks, but she didn’t even notice that. She saw it was the letter-opener from the library, stabbed into the wood to hold a scrap of paper.

  Jane snatched it down and quickly scanned the scrawled words.

  The treasure for your foolish sister. Unless you want your garden to burn again. Send Ramsay to the ruined farmhouse outside the village. Carstairs.

  ‘Oh, not again,’ Jane whispered. She had thought, hoped, the man was gone for good. Hadn’t he done enough to them? Hadn’t they been through enough at his hands?

  She read quickly over the note again, sure she must have misread it, was imagining things. The treasure? What did he mean? The old legend of the Barton treasure? That seemed so silly, so ridiculous. Yet if he’d taken Emma, it was so deadly serious.

  How could she give him what she didn’t have? What didn’t even exist, except in her father’s imagination?

  ‘Jane? What are you doing down here?’

  Jane spun around, startled at the sound of a voice, and slipped in the puddles on the tiles. She leaned against the wall and watched Hayden as he hurried down the stairs. He was in his shirtsleeves, his coat over his arm, his hair rumpled and his face hard with worry.

  And suddenly she didn’t feel so alone in the world, so adrift in a stormy sea of panic. Hayden had been there to help fight the fire. He was there now.

  She held out the note. ‘Carstairs took Emma,’ she said simply.

  She half-expected doubts, questions, statements that the smoke must have addled her brain. She should have known better from Hayden. The Hayden who’d so coldly beaten Carstairs up and thrown him out of Barton for touching Emma. Who’d fought the fire with her to save her home.

  The Hayden she suddenly knew she could rely on, no matter what came.

  ‘Blast!’ he cursed, that one word a low, swift explosion. He took the note from her hand and read it quickly.

  ‘The ruined farmhouse?’ he said, his voice taut, as if he held himself tightly, carefully together, just as she did.

  Jane watched as he put on the boots he had left discarded on the floor after the fire and shrugged into his coat. ‘It’s on the road just before you reach the village, behind the old tollgate. We saw it on our walk that day.’

  Hayden nodded and turned to go into the library. Jane followed just as he opened a small trunk of his things that had been left there when he arrived at Barton. He drew an inlaid box from the bottom of the case and Jane recognised it right away. His duelling pistols, kept on a high shelf in the library of the London house. She’d never actually seen him use them, but she had no doubt he could.

  He removed one of the pistols and secured it, along with a small bag of shot, inside his coat.

  Jane didn’t say a word. This Hayden was one she knew could keep her—and Emma—safe.

  ‘Wake up Hannah, so you can start to form a search party,’ Hayden said. ‘They can ride out after me, while you stay here and keep watch.’

  ‘No!’ Jane cried, remembering how frightened Emma was the first time Carstairs attacked her. Once they found her, Emma would need her sister. ‘I can’t wait here. I’m coming with you.’

  Hayden looked up at her with a frown. ‘Jane, it’s still storming out there. And you’ve already seen how desperate Carstairs is, what he is capable of.’

  ‘I am going. I know the area better than you, Hayden. And Emma is my sister. She— she’s going to need me.’ Jane held her chin up high, swallowing her tears, swallowing everything but the knowledge that Emma needed her now and she had to be strong. ‘If you make me stay behind, I will just follow on my own.’

  Hayden gave her a quick flash of a smile. He came to her and took her cold hand tightly in his. He raised it to his lips for a quick kiss, and that warm touch steadied her.

  ‘I know better than to argue with you, Jane,’ he said. ‘Fine, we will go together. Just stay close to me.’

  Jane nodded. Of course she would stay close to him. There was no telling what they would find out there in the storm.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It wa
s a hellish night.

  Hayden couldn’t see five feet in front of him in the impenetrable curtain of rain, which drove like relentless tiny needles into his skin. They’d managed to ride Hayden’s horse for a while, until the muddy ground forced them to go forwards on foot. Now they walked, the saturated ground sucking at their boots, the wind howling around them, tearing at their clothes.

  The lamp Hayden held in one hand did them no good, barely lighting their own faces. His other hand held on to Jane’s, her fingers stiff and cold in his. Her pale face, framed by the sodden folds of her hood and beaded with raindrops like tiny diamonds, stared ahead with fierce determination. She was like a furious mother lion whose cub was threatened and, if Hayden didn’t hate Carstairs for what the villain had done, he would almost feel sorry for the man. Jane was indomitable when it came to fighting for what she loved.

  Once she’d tried to fight for them and he had only driven her away. Given up what could have been theirs. They began with such hope on their wedding day and he just threw it away. Threw away the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  But he would find her sister now. He would save the person Jane loved and make sure her life was happy from now on. Even if he couldn’t be in it himself.

  It was the very least he could do for her.

  ‘Whatever you are trying to do, it won’t work,’ Emma said. She tried to sound brisk and cool, as Jane did when she was directing something. She couldn’t show that she was scared. She wouldn’t, not to the wild-eyed madman who paced the dirt floor in front of her.

  She drew her knees up under her chin and tried not to shiver. The old roof of the ruined farmhouse was mostly gone, but she had managed to find a semi-dry spot under the eaves, where she could huddle out of the rain. Her head hurt where she had hit it on the doorstep when Carstairs grabbed her and she had to fight off waves of dizziness.

  She needed all her wits about her now if she was to escape.

  ‘Be quiet, witch,’ Carstairs shouted, pacing back and forth, shaking his head madly as if he could cast away this whole ugly night. As if he couldn’t quite believe what evil he had done. Emma couldn’t believe it, either. Barton was her haven, she could never have imagined such a thing could ever happen there. But it had. She had to stay calm and find a way to get out of there.