Amanda McCabe - The Runaway Countess

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.

She had also never told her sister about what had really happened at school with Mr Milne. That was only for her nightmares now, thankfully. she was done with men altogether.

‘There’s the house,’ she said. It loomed before them in the misty rain and she was glad he couldn’t yet see the dwelling clearly. Couldn’t see how shabby it was. If only she had had time to warn Jane! Then again, maybe the surprise was better.

But if she had vague hopes that Ramsay’s leg would slow him down enough to give her a head start into the house, they were quickly dashed. He held on to his saddle and carefully slid to the ground, his jaw set in his handsome, hard-edged face.

Emma leaped down and ran up the front steps to throw the door open. Murray dashed in, barking, his muddy paw prints trailing over the old, scarred parquet floor.

‘Jane, Jane!’ she shouted, completely abandoning propriety. She had only seconds to warn her sister. Then she could watch the drama unfold.

Jane emerged from the drawing-room door, her eyes wide with astonishment. She had changed from her garden clothes to her best day dress, a pale green muslin with a high-frilled collar. Her brown hair was carefully pinned up and bound with a green-ribbon bandeau. For a second, Emma couldn’t decipher why her sister was so dressed up on a rainy afternoon.

Then the Martons, Sir David and his silly sister, appeared in the doorway behind her and Emma remembered in a flash. They had guests. Respectable guests, who for some unfathomable reason Jane wanted to impress.

‘Emma, whatever is the matter?’ Jane demanded, while Sir David looked rather disapproving and his sister giggled behind her handkerchief.

‘He is here!’ Emma cried. She couldn’t worry about the Martons right now, not with Ramsay so close behind her.

‘Who is here?’ Jane said. ‘Emma, dear, are you ill?’

Across the empty hall, the door opened again, letting in a blast of rain and wind. Ramsay stood there, silhouetted in his greatcoat against the grey sky outside. For one instant there was a flash of something raw and burning, something real, in his eyes. Then it was as if a blank, pale mask dropped down and there was nothing at all.

‘Hello, Jane,’ he said calmly. ‘It’s been much too long. You are looking lovely as always.’

Emma swung back around to look at Jane. Her sister’s face had turned utterly white and Emma feared she might faint right in front of everyone. But when Emma moved to take her hand, Jane waved her back.

‘Oh, blast it all,’ Jane whispered. ‘Not now…’

‘You can’t feel it move yet,’ Jane said, her voice full of laughter. ‘It’s much too soon.’

Hayden laid down beside her on the sun-splashed bed anyway and rested his cheek on the gentle swell of her belly under her light dressing gown. It was early; the doctor had only just confirmed that Jane was truly pregnant. But his wife already seemed blooming . She wasn’t quite as thin and her cheeks were pink. Four months married and now a child on the way. Their first child .

She laughed again as he carefully touched the small bump. Her skin was so warm, so sweet, so alive. ‘You won’t break me, Hayden . The doctor says I am quite healthy.’

Hayden fervently prayed so. He didn’t know what he had ever done in his misbegotten life to deserve a wife like Jane, but he knew he couldn’t lose her now. His heart ached just to think of her laughter, her quite , calm presence, being gone in a flash .

Just like his mother .

Jane seemed to sense his sudden fear. She gently smoothed a soft caress over his hair . ‘All will be well, Hayden. I am sure of it. And in a few months, we will have a little lord or lady. The beginning of a new family for us . Just like we talked about on our honeymoon.’

Their honeymoon—those perfect, sweet days and nights, just the two of them all alone in the country. They had almost become buried under the noise and rush of London life since they returned. Jane had seemed A bit lost as a new countess, with so many eyes upon her, but now she looked perfectly content. A new family was on the way , their family. It could be very different from what he knew with his parents. He could make it different .

But still the tiny, buried spark of that old fear lingered…

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