Page 1 of Runaway Countess (Those Wild Whitbys #2)

Chapter One

Plymouth, England, 1823

M iss Jennifer Cartwright had often wondered how and when she would meet her future husband.

Perhaps she’d turn her ankle on a country walk and find herself swept up in the arms of somebody strong and heroic. Perhaps she’d be caught in a downpour outside her uncle’s manufactory, only for a passing nobleman to open the door of his gilded carriage and invite her inside.

Being the ideal husband-in-waiting, of course, he’d understand without a word passing between them that she was in desperate need of his protection. All it would take was a look, and he would be down on one knee, whisking her away from Uncle Fitz and Aunt Fanny and all their cold looks and sharp words…

Yes, it was a little ridiculous, but this was her daydream, after all, and the reality of life as a poor orphaned relation offered precious little in the way of either romance or comfort. It was not as though she actually believed any of it would happen.

Quite the contrary, in fact. It was all quite impossible, because Jenny was about to meet her future husband for the very first time, and she was neither draped artfully across a hedgerow with a lightly sprained ankle, nor clad in silk and jewels and drifting across a ballroom ready to lock eyes with a handsome stranger.

She was hiding in a hope chest. A rectangular wooden box so small and cramped that nobody, not even Jenny herself, had ever imagined she might climb inside it and pull the lid closed over her head.

She was terrified.

The chest had once contained Jenny’s trousseau, such as it was. Her mother, rest her soul, had left behind only a paltry collection of table linens and lace chemises. Aunt Fanny had never bothered adding anything to it until the past month, when the news of Jenny’s fine match had at last inspired her to buy vast quantities of distressingly lacy and sheer items, all of which filled Jenny’s heart with dread.

“It doesn’t matter if you like them,” Aunt Fanny told her. “They are for him .”

The him of whom she spoke was Arthur Graham, Earl of Beeston. A lord . Who lived in a castle. He had an estate, a nasty reputation, a war wound, a lot of debts, and very shortly, he would have Jenny, too.

Along with a tidy sum of money from her uncle’s coffers.

Jenny closed her eyes to block out the slim crack of light peeping through the lid of her hope chest. She tried to breathe.

It was the perfect match. That was what everybody kept telling her. A match of which girls like her should not dare to dream. He was an earl , for goodness’ sake, and not one of the fusty old sorts which one often saw in portraits, but young and strong and probably very dashing. According to Uncle Fitz, his wound had cut short a dazzling career in the Navy. Their union would provide everybody with exactly what they wanted: gentrification for Aunt Fanny and Uncle Fitzherbert, an opportunity for cousin Elspeth to meet gentlemen , and enough money to set up the new Lord Beeston comfortably in his recently-inherited castle.

And as for Jenny…

Well, she’d be a countess, and that was the stuff of fairytales, just as much as being rescued from terrible danger by a dashing officer in a red coat. Wasn’t it?

The loud, insistent knocking sounded at the door again. Uncle Fitzherbert’s voice came with it, trying to sound kind, but already sharp with irritation.

“Come along, Jenny! Let’s not keep his lordship waiting!”

Jenny shivered, though the chest was in fact uncomfortably warm.

At best, she had one minute left before Uncle Fitz decided to open the door.

One minute to change her mind, climb out of the chest, pull up the makeshift rope of lacy underwear she’d fashioned in an attempt to make it look as though she had escaped through the window, and go downstairs to meet Lord Beeston.

There was still a chance, however slim, that he might fall in love with her at first sight…

Jenny touched her hand to the silver locket at her chest and silently repeated to herself the words of the letter which was lying on her bedside table, along with a very polite explanatory note addressed to her aunt and uncle.

She had never been supposed to see the letter, but Uncle Fitz had left it out the evening they arrived at the lodgings in Plymouth, and once she realised what it was she could not stop herself from reading it. She had memorised every word.

Your terms are acceptable, Lord Beeston wrote, subject to the following amendments:

To compensate for Miss Cartwright’s inferior family connections, the sum of two thousand pounds.

To compensate her education and deportment, five hundred.

Miss Cartwright’s pin money shall not exceed fifty pounds per year.

Any and all visits to London which Miss Cartwright undertakes for the purposes of securing Miss Elspeth Smythe a match shall be made entirely at Mr Fitzherbert Smythe’s expense – to include dresses, theatre tickets she had been bought and sold.

When Uncle Fitz announced he was coming in, Jenny did not move. When the door slammed open hard enough to rattle her cramped wooden hideaway, she stayed put.

Her lungs burned and black spots danced across her vision, but she didn’t dare take a breath.

“Good lord,” said Uncle Fitz. His heavy footsteps went to the window. “Jenny? Jenny !”

She closed her eyes. She wished she could close her ears, too, so that she did not have to hear the turmoil which followed. There was shouting – a great deal of it, in increasing volume. There were stamping feet, bells rung for servants, doors flung open all through the house.

Nobody thought of the trousseau.

“After her!” Uncle Fitz was screaming. “All of you, out, out! Get after her! Bring her back here at once!”

And then, at last, there was silence.

Jenny permitted herself to crack open an eye. She could see nothing, of course, but even the darkness was a relief from her own imagination.

There. She’d done it. And it could not be undone.

All that remained now was to creep from her hiding place while the household was in uproar and everyone was out searching for her, find some money, make her way to the nearest coaching inn, and… And…

Well, it might not be the most robust plan of escape, but it was all she had, and the finer details would simply have to sort themselves out as she went along. She had very little time before everybody realised they were not going to find her boarding a ship in the harbour, as her explanatory note implied.

She was just about to push open the trunk and embark upon the second, sketchier portion of her daring escape when somebody else came into the room.

Jenny froze with her hands in the act of pushing at the heavy wooden lid. She’d lifted it only an inch, but that was already too much. She couldn’t set it down without making a sound and revealing her whereabouts.

But it was enormously heavy, and her arms were beginning to ache.

Who on earth was in her bedroom now? Why hadn’t they gone out to join the search with the others?

The footsteps were nothing like Uncle Fitz’s. They were steady, unhurried. They moved to the window and paused there.

Jenny’s arms began to tremble.

A low whistle sounded, followed by what sounded distinctly like a laugh. A man’s laugh. Jenny screwed her eyes closed again, her face hot at the idea of a man – any man – drawing up the makeshift rope of flimsy, gauzey underthings.

The footsteps left the window and made a slow circuit of the room. Jenny saw a dark figure pass by her little crack of light. Her wrists were burning. This trunk lid must have been the heaviest thing in all the world. She couldn’t possibly hold it a moment longer…

The man in her bedroom was opening the wardrobe door. The pain in Jenny’s wrists was subsumed by the agony of suspense.

“Not in here.”

Jenny’s eyes narrowed at the tiny crack of light. Who was that? A young voice – an almost pleasant voice, given the circumstances. An amused voice. And not one she recognised.

The voice of the person who clearly did not understand the gravity of the situation came next from under the bed. “Nor here.”

Then the footsteps crossed the room, and the man knocked on Jenny’s trunk lid.

She was so startled that she let it drop back on her. It didn’t make a sound, after all. But that was little consolation now.

“Miss Cartwright?” asked the man. He was educated, by the sound of it, though not perhaps aristocratic. Certainly not Lord Beeston, at any rate. This gentleman still had both of his legs.

The lid of the trunk was lifted abruptly and Jenny was confronted by a glare of sunlight that made her screw up her eyes, and a young man with a red neckcloth in place of a cravat and a pair of shockingly blue eyes.

The smirk on his face, as those shocking eyes raked her from head to curled-up toes, sent a hot shiver of danger through Jenny’s body.

“Captain Whitby?” called a voice – a familiar one, this time. Uncle Fitz’s valet. “Have you seen anything?”

Jenny forced herself to meet Captain Whitby’s insolent blue eyes. She pressed a finger to her lips.

Please . She couldn’t say it aloud, but surely there was no mistaking the desperation in her eyes. Please don’t say anything .

Captain Whitby glanced over his shoulder, lowering the lid of the trunk as he did. Jenny was cast halfway into shadow once more.

“She’s gone out the window, sure enough,” he said. “You had better get after her. I’ll stay in case she returns.”

“Very good, Captain.” Vickers sounded uncertain, but there was a hard ring of command in Captain Whitby’s voice that brooked no argument. He left, and a few moments later the front door clicked shut.

Jenny had time to release a hasty breath in the quiet moment before Captain Whitby raised the lid of the trunk again.

Instinctively, she clutched her arms about her chest to cover herself. She felt terribly vulnerable lying there, prone and cramped into an awkward position.

Captain Whitby cocked an eyebrow as he regarded her in silence for a moment. He extended a hand.

“Out you come, Miss Cartwright.”

Jenny hesitated. Captain Whitby sighed and snapped his fingers as though she were a puppy he was bringing to heel.

“Or would you rather I load you onto a cart and bring you to Beeston, trunk and all? Don’t think I won’t do it.”

Jenny pushed herself into a sitting position, tucking her legs primly underneath her and settling her arms on either side of the trunk.

“What a ridiculous idea,” she said. “You are not going to bring me to Lord Beeston. I am running away from him, and you are going to help me.”