Page 3 of Runaway Countess (Those Wild Whitbys #2)

Chapter Three

“ S top !” Captain Whitby was calling. “ Don’t !”

Jenny had very little to gain by heeding him. She swung her other leg out over the windowsill. The lodging house backed onto a narrow alley, empty save for a few empty crates and a heap of kitchen refuse.

She was only one storey high.

She could make it.

Jenny wrapped the makeshift rope around her hand – this particular section seemed to be a chemise in an alarming shade of deep purple, a chemise that surely would have been much too small to be of any use at all – and swung herself out into the air.

The blue silk shoes, the most beautiful things she had ever put on her feet, scuffed against the inn’s brick wall, but they found purchase.

And the chemise held.

The air was crisp and cool. There was a great deal too much of it all around her, above and below. Jenny tried to breathe.

The ripping noise reached her ears at the exact moment that Captain Whitby’s hand seized her roughly by the elbow.

Jenny squawked and tried to shake him off, losing her foothold on the wall and falling against it with a thud.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” Captain Whitby demanded, his torso hanging halfway out the window. His grip was crushing her arm. “Stop thrashing about!”

“Let me go!” Jenny demanded. Good gracious, but the man was strong. He gave a grunt of effort, and his face reddened, and Jenny felt her gown snag and tear on the wall as he began to inch her upwards.

“Catch hold of me,” he gasped. He didn’t sound angry anymore. Perhaps he did not have the energy. “You think – lacy underwear – will hold you? Take – my – arm!”

“I’ll take my chances with the lace,” said Jenny, and twisted her elbow as viciously as she could.

Pain ripped through her arm. She wrested free, slipped down an inch as she supported her own weight on her rope, and then –

Whump .

There was a dreadful smell.

There was a strange noise in her ears.

There was no breath at all in her lungs.

But she was not dead – presumably – and she was no longer trapped in the house.

The sky arched above her, cold and clear and blue. Jennifer wiggled a finger.

A spasm of pain twinged through her left elbow. She gasped.

That terrible smell was getting worse, and something cold and damp was trickling down her neck. Still, she could feel all her fingers and toes – and the remnants of the lacy rope tickling her cheek like sad little spider webs. She was probably not paralysed.

It was time to run.

“ Don’t move !” A heavy thump shook the ground beside her. Jennifer sucked in a breath of the foul-smelling air and pushed herself up onto her elbows.

Her hand went through something soft and slimy. She yelped.

Captain Whitby’s face, sun-tanned and wind-beaten and full of alarm, blocked her view of the clear blue sky. “You’re hurt,” he said. “Don’t move. Let me help you.”

He really was obnoxiously handsome. There shouldn’t have been anything thrilling at all about landing in a kitchen scrapheap in front of a complete stranger, but deep in Jenny’s stomach, a treacherous thrum of delight started up as he knelt at her side and placed his hands on her arm.

She lifted her right hand and presented it for his inspection. It seemed she had put it through a rotten apple. Captain Whitby jerked his head back in disgust as she flicked a piece of brown fruit flesh from her fingers.

“I am only hurt where you manhandled me,” she said, with as much dignity as she could muster. She flexed her left arm. It was sore, but moved freely. Only a strain.

He flushed. “Manhandled you? You madwoman, I was trying to save you!”

Jenny selected a piece of the scrap heap that looked slightly less oozy and used it to push herself to her feet.

Her dress was utterly ruined, the delicate gauze torn in several places and stained with a truly impressive array of shades of brown. She tried to shake off the worst of it.

“Save me? Save me! By dragging me off to Lord Beeston? Oh, yes. How very heroic of you!” The skirt was beyond help. She lifted her head, preparing another fiery verbal blow for the insolent sailor –

Black spots crowded in on her vision. Jenny thrust out a hand, grasping for something to stop her fall.

Her hand found something warm, and firm, and strong.

“Steady, now,” he said. “You’ve had a nasty fall.”

Jenny blinked until her vision cleared, keeping her head bent low. She could see a pair of boots, worn and well-used. Working boots – sailor’s boots.

Here she was, in her best dress, ready to meet the man she was supposed to marry, and not only had Lord Beeston not even bothered to come in person, but the man he’d sent in his place hadn’t even bothered to dress in decent clothes.

“It will all come good in a minute,” said Captain Whitby.

Jenny lifted her eyes to his.

He shifted his grip on her arm, holding it now in the way that a gentleman might take a lady’s arm on the dance floor, at one of the lovely balls which Aunt Fanny assured her she would attend all the time as soon as she was married.

A ball full of dazzling, wealthy, charming people, people with land and titles. The sort of people that Jenny should be desperate to meet.

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 your expense – to include dresses, theatre tickets &c. The obligation to make such visits to end after three years, or upon Miss Smythe’s marriage, whichever is sooner.

Three years. Three short winters. That was all the time she’d have to enjoy London – and less if cousin Elspeth found a husband.

Three winters of pleasure to last the rest of her life.

“Captain Whitby,” she said, “I simply can’t marry Lord Beeston. I am terribly sorry, I really am. But I can’t .”

He couldn’t possibly understand. She barely understood it herself.

Lord Beeston was a dream of a match. It didn’t matter that he was cold, or that he’d put a price on her looks and family, or that she’d never met him.

This is the fairytale ending all young ladies dream of .

How could she begin to explain that to Captain Whitby, who, quite apart from being a man, and a rude one at that, must surely be Lord Beeston’s friend?

“I can’t,” she repeated, knowing it would not be enough.

All the insouciance left Captain Whitby’s gaze, as clear and blue as the sky behind him. He held her eyes a moment, his hand still firm on her arm. The pain in it was soothed to almost nothing by the warmth of his touch.

He nodded. “I understand, Miss Cartwright. Let’s get you out of here before you’re seen.”