The Runaway Countess (19 page)

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.’

I
t 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 was 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.

I
t was 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.

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 tightly. ‘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.