The Runaway Countess Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 writtenthat 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 wherethe 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 likeit