Page 9 of Runaway Countess (Those Wild Whitbys #2)

Chapter Nine

B y the time they reached the coaching inn partway between Plymouth and Whitby Manor, Jenny was no longer afraid of marrying Lord Beeston.

If his temperature continued to rise at this alarming rate, there would be no Lord Beeston to marry at all.

Sebastian leapt into action the moment they arrived at the Ring O’ Bells Inn. He had fires lit in the rooms upstairs, he had a doctor summoned, he ordered food and drink and lodging for the servants, he cast the footman aside and carried Beeston upstairs in his own arms. When the innkeeper’s boy was slow fetching water from the pump, Sebastian went out to see what was the matter and unclogged the blockage himself. His sparkling blue eyes turned as cold and unforgiving as the winter sea.

Jenny understood, for the first time, a little of what he must be like in command of a ship. For her own part, she all but jumped to fulfil his commands to her, brief and simple though they were.

She aired out the room, dodging the protests of the innkeeper’s wife who believed that she would let in foul spirits with the wind. She soaked dishcloths in the cool pump water and laid them over Lord Beeston’s brow, switching them out each time his skin turned them hot. She held cups of water to his lips and tried to persuade him to drink.

She tried not to think about the other Jenny, living the other life. The Jenny who was obedient, and who had not hidden in a hope chest nor asked a red-neckerchiefed sailor to spirit her away.

The Jenny who was now Countess of Beeston, who presumably had remained in Plymouth enjoying whatever passed for the bliss of married life between two strangers with as little in common as she and Lord Beeston, and whose husband would have no need to travel until he was stronger. Her dowry would provide all they needed.

No, she sat and recited the little pieces she had memorised of Debrett’s Peerage rather than think of that Jenny, because she was horribly afraid that the other life she might have led would have made this wounded, fever-wracked man – well, it would not make him happy nor precisely healthy – but at least strong enough to heal.

Mr Plum, the disapproving valet, was spending an inordinate amount of time hanging up shirts in the closet. Jenny could not imagine why he bothered. It was plain to see that Lord Beeston would not be dressing for dinner.

“Will he live, d’you think?” Mr Plum asked, looking down at Lord Beeston with a doleful expression. Jenny jerked out of her morose imaginings and stared at him.

“What a question!” She was not entirely sure whether a nurse ought to speak so to a valet, particularly an earl’s valet. She softened her tone. “I suppose you must be terribly worried about him, Mr Plum.”

“Indeed I am,” said the valet drearily. “A dreadful time I’ll have of it if he passes on without writing me a character reference.”

Jenny kept staring, no matter whether or not it was rude, as cold astonishment and disgust washed over her.

“He’s spent more time at sea than on land these past ten years,” said Mr Plum, as though it were an excuse or an explanation. “I’ve had no opportunity to display my skills, nor make connections with other gentlemen. How am I to get myself an equal position now? I thought I’d at least have one Season in town to show how nicely I can fix up a gentleman’s dress. Wouldn’t expect him to make it to Parliament, of course, not with –” He gestured vaguely, nose upturned, at the hollow in the bedsheets which marked Lord Beeston’s lost leg. “But there was a piece of luck, you see, when he was jilted. He’d have to go to Town to find a bride, wouldn’t he? Now it’s all come to nothing!”

“Mr Plum,” she said, drawing herself up, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I have never heard a more heartless sentiment in my life!”

Mr Plum blinked. The detached dolour drained from his face, replaced with eyes that were sharp and nasty. “You forget to whom you speak, Nurse Hughes.”

Ah. So nurses were not permitted to chastise valets. Well, she supposed she’d know better next time.

“If it offends you to be asked to treat Lord Beeston with basic decency and respect, Mr Plum, then I am sorry, but I must and will offend you.”

Mr Plum took a step towards her, all his languor cast aside. His eyes gleamed. “How dare you speak of respect and decency when you do not seem to know your betters. I can have you dismissed without pay with a mere snap of my fingers, woman. I warn you, you’ll shut your mouth from now on, or I’ll –”

The door opened and Nurse Thomas bustled in, carrying another bucket of fresh water. Mr Plum subsided, that nasty gleam still bright in his eyes, and gave her a nod of greeting. He returned to hanging out the shirts, but his eyes lingered a moment too long on Jenny.

It was just like being in Uncle Fitz’s study in the moments before company arrived.

Stupid girl.

Waste of my time and money.

Seen and not heard.

For a moment, the creeping awfulness of it all threatened to choke her. She knew how she was expected to behave, after all.

Cower. Back down. Lower your eyes, lower your head. Smile in company. Say nothing. Obey.

Be a good girl, Jenny, and try not to make yourself completely worthless.

She looked down at Lord Beeston.

Nobody would tell a countess to shut her mouth. Nobody would dare call her worthless .

Was this why Sebastian had brought her along? To show her what life would be like if she rejected her chance, and make her reconsider marrying the earl?

She lifted her head, catching Mr Plum in the act of shooting her another vicious warning glare.

Sebastian would not tell her to shut her mouth – countess or not. Even at her maddest, most vulnerable moment, he had listened to her. He even admired her.

She did not need to marry well to be worthwhile. She needed only to be herself.

“Mr Plum,” she said, in clear, cool tones that drew Nurse Thomas’s attention at once, “I repeat my request. You will speak of Lord Beeston with respect. Not only in front of me, but at all times. You will please desist, as well, from trying to frighten me. You will not manage it.” She returned her attention to Lord Beeston, lifting the warm flannel from his brow and squeezing out another to replace it.

“What’s all this?” asked Nurse Thomas, gazing from her to Mr Plum in alarm.

“Nothing!” Mr Plum spluttered. He had dropped one of Lord Beeston’s fine white shirts to the floor.

“Nothing?” Jenny repeated. She cocked her head to the side and gave Mr Plum a beaming smile. “Oh, I do hope it was nothing , after all. Times of illness are so difficult, are they not?”

“Mrs Hughes –” Nurse Thomas began urgently.

Jenny rose to her feet. “If you’ve had time enough to eat, Mrs Thomas, then I will go downstairs now. We must all keep up our strength if we are to give his lordship the care he deserves.”

Nurse Thomas shook her head and muttered something under her breath as Jenny went. Jenny wished there was a way of letting her know she had no need to worry, but since she could not think of one, she simply made her way out of the bedroom, closed the door and let out a deep sigh.

It felt as though all the fresh country air which had filled her lungs on the coach ride with Sebastian was washing out of her now in one great rush, blasting aside all the old, bitter cobwebs that had been festering inside her since childhood.

She had not stopped to consider that abandoning her good name and throwing away all her prospects would make her feel so free .

As she descended to the bustling kitchen of the inn, she heard Sebastian’s voice ringing above the others.

“Beef won’t do. He doesn’t like it. Have someone fry him up a little fresh fish, if you have it – no, it doesn’t matter what it costs. Have you any parsley? Make up a parsley butter sauce. He likes that. It may tempt him.”

She entered the taproom and, instead of joining the footman and coachman at the table with their bowls of watery stew, she went to Sebastian’s side, instead.

He glanced at her in surprise, but when he smiled, some of the colour came back to his features. “It’ll do him good to eat, won’t it?” he asked, as though he had forgotten that she was not really a nurse, and could no more reassure him than could the innkeeper. “Doctors like to bleed a man dry and starve him on gruel, but Captain Graham – Lord Beeston, I mean – he’s not some shrinking aristocrat. He’s strong. Or he was, before all this. He must eat, I think, or he won’t get well.”

Jenny laid a hand on his arm, and Sebastian’s voice trailed away.

“You have done a great deal for him,” she said. “You have need of food and rest, just as he has. Have you eaten anything?”

Sebastian shook his head, lips pressed tight. He had removed his hat, and his sandy hair was standing up at odd angles as though he had been clutching at it in distress in whatever private moments he had managed to snatch between tasks. “I cannot. I am half mad, I think. Madmen do not need food.”

She frowned, leaving her hand on him. “I don’t understand you, Captain Whitby. All this distress for a man you profess to despise?”

“I do despise him!” Sebastian hissed, though he looked miserable as he said it. “And that’s the worst part, because I ought to love him, oughtn’t I, after he saved my blasted life!”

Jenny said nothing, only increased the pressure on his arm until Sebastian’s eyes dropped to it. The sight of her hand on him seemed to ease his torment.

“I must check on Kendrick’s horses,” he said abruptly, and shook her away.

The innkeeper came back out from the kitchen and greeted Jenny with a friendly nod. “Evening, Nurse. Go and sit down and I’ll send you over a bite to eat.”

“Will you make up a bowl of stew for Captain Whitby?” she asked. “A bit of bread too, the best you have, and a tray to carry it on.”

The innkeeper blinked. “One of my girls will serve him, Nurse. There’s no call for you to trouble yourself.”

Jenny leaned in conspiratorially. “He’s wracked with worry, the poor man, and he has a fiery temper. A familiar face will do better, believe me.”

The innkeeper shrugged. “As you will.”

Perhaps he thought her infatuated, or worse – fallen already. Since Jenny was not really Nurse Hughes, she did not much mind sullying the imaginary nurse’s reputation.

She found Sebastian around the back of the stables, sitting on a little patch of grass, pulling pieces off a dried stalk of meadowgrass and tossing them away. He did not look up as she approached.

“You are wrong,” she said, setting the tray down on the grass. “Madmen need food, the same as the rest of us.”

“Why, Lady Beeston,” he said, voice bitter, eyes still fixed on his shredded piece of grass. “What an honour, to be served dinner by a countess.”

She sat beside him. “How are the horses?”

“In remarkable form. Kendrick always takes good care of his animals. They could’ve taken us to Whitby Manor and back again at a gallop before breaking a sweat.” He looked at the stalk, bereft of its flowers, and threw it viciously away into the bushes. “It ought to be me lying up there, one leg lost, too weak to travel any further. It should have been me, but instead it is him , and I never gave him any reason for it.”

“You know that he prefers fish to beef,” she said. “You, of all people, seem to know his moods and his temper. Perhaps there was more friendship between you than you realise.”

“Friendship?” Sebastian took up the hunk of bread and bit into it, tearing off a dry chunk with his teeth. “No. I served under him, and he was never foolish enough to fraternise with his subordinates. Always, always, I found myself under his command, though we started off at the same time and should have risen at the same pace. At first I told myself it was because he was from a noble family. He had all the connections, all the advantages. Not that I had nothing, but…” He shook his head, mouth twisting. “What I had, I squandered. Whereas he would have risen even if he’d been born a pauper.”

“You admire him,” said Jenny.

“I hated him, and was jealous of him, and it was easy to hate him, because no matter how much success we had under his command, he never stopped pushing us to be better. Easier still when I realised I had to be like him, if I wanted to succeed.” He shot her a dark look and shook out his shoulders, shrugging away the remorse. “So I followed his orders better . I took him for my model. I was made captain. I received my first command.” He jerked his thumb up in the direction of the inn. “ He recommended me. Was I grateful? Was I hell! I wished I’d done it all as he had – on my own merit, through and through. I wished I had a cooler temper, a firmer command, a better head for battle. I wished I was the kind of man who could see there was potential in a lieutenant who hated him, and recommend him for promotion though it brought no advantage to myself.” He lifted the bowl of stew, sniffed it dubiously, and took a deep gulp straight from the bowl. “Strewth! Don’t eat this, milady. It’s terrible. I’ll have them give you some of Beeston’s fish, instead.” He took another gulp, set the bowl down and pulled out a handkerchief to scrub across his mouth. “The plain truth is that you will not find your married life unbearable, my lady. I can’t speak to love. I can speak to decency. I can give him his due. He will keep you comfortable. He will do his duty by you. Even if he dislikes you – even if you become a thorn in each other’s sides for the rest of your lives – if you are under his protection, he will take a bullet for you without a second thought.”

“I am not going to marry him,” said Jenny. Sebastian gave her a mirthless smile but did not respond. Instead, his gaze turned distant and fixed upon the hills in the distance, where purple night was beginning to stain the edges of the sky.

Perhaps Whitby Manor lay just beyond those hills. Perhaps, when his face softened that way, and his eyes filled with sadness and his hand went unconsciously to his pocket and took out the little round pebble to rub between his fingers, it meant he was thinking of home.

“My father,” he said. His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, grimacing, and tried again. “My father is the cause of all this. He made sure to seek Beeston out at his club, of course, when I was promoted. A natural enough connection, you’d think. A proud father ought to thank his son’s benefactor. I don’t know how – I’m not sure I wish to – but he talked Beeston into loaning him a great deal of money. And why should he not? My family, not that you’d know it to look at me, is one of the fine old families of England. You wouldn’t believe the way my parents live when they’re in Town, my lady. The parties! The dresses! The carriages! A family like that ought to know how to handle their finances, wouldn’t you think? An up-and-coming naval officer with a great deal of prize money he doesn’t know what to do with can really trust a man like my father, especially when he’s owed a favour.

“But the money’s gone, and Beeston’s suffering because of it, and he’s too stubborn to accept he needs rest, so here we are. If he dies on this journey, I’ll have killed him twice over. Once by failing to catch that bullet, and the second time by letting him trust my beloved old father.”

He lifted hollow eyes to her, and there was a desperation in them that caught her breath. “The least I could have done,” he said softly, “was bring him his bride.”

Jenny could not break his gaze. All the pain she had felt while she sat and nursed Lord Beeston was reflected tenfold in Sebastian’s eyes.

It was such a strange thing, to feel that she truly understood someone. Strange and rich and wonderful, to feel that he understood her .

Even now, tortured by his guilt, desperate to do something – anything – to repay a debt that could never be repaid, Sebastian was not going to force her to marry Lord Beeston. She knew it without question. That decision was still exactly where he had placed it – in her own hands. Wouldn’t it only be right, to repay Sebastian’s kindness by helping him in return? Uncle Fitz would still pay out her dowry. Lord Beeston would have money enough to get himself home, and ease the pressure on Sebastian’s father to repay that horrible debt.

Jenny was no longer afraid of him. She could not pretend that she wanted to marry him, but at least she would not begin her married life as a quaking little mouse.

The only problem – the huge and glaring and unavoidable problem – was that she was currently staring into Captain Sebastian Whitby’s dazzling blue eyes, and she was sitting closer to him than she had ever been to any man who was not her relative, and yet it felt so perfectly natural and easy and right to be close to him, and she knew that – just as she understood him – he must understand her, too, right down to the secret inner part that sparkled and danced when he looked at her with those helpless, admiring eyes.

His gaze flickered to her lips, just for an instant, but then he forced it back up again. “Don’t do it, Lady Beeston. Don’t even think it.”

“I don’t want you to call me by that name,” she said. “It is not mine.”

The edge of his mouth quirked upwards. “I have to,” he said, his voice matching hers, low and soft and intimate. “I am afraid of what will happen if I don’t remind myself who you are.”

She had never in all her life been bold before, but sitting beside him, knowing that despite all the ruin it would bring him, he still wanted to kiss her more desperately than he could bear, she could have conquered an armada.

“My name is Jenny,” she said.

“ Jenny .” It sighed from his lips like a curse, like a wish, like a prayer.

Neither of them had consciously moved, but the space between them had dwindled to mere inches. The darkening sky seemed to draw a veil about them, shrouding them in twilight.

What happened now would be secret, she knew, and likely fleeting. She’d never have more of this wild and noble and tormented man than one stolen, secret kiss.

She wanted it all the same.

“Captain Whitby!”

Jenny jumped as though someone had thrown scalding water over her. Her hands flew to her mouth.

Ah. So it seemed she was not quite the reckless lioness, after all. Apparently she did care, just a little bit, for the reputation of the imaginary Mrs Hughes.

Sebastian was on his feet in an instant. “Into the stable,” he ordered, as Mr Plum’s dratted voice sounded out in the forecourt again.

“ Captain Whitby !”

“Wait,” she said urgently, catching at his arm. “You ought to know – Mr Plum is not kind – he –”

Sebastian caught her shoulders and turned her about to face the stable door so quickly she almost lost her footing.

“Wait there, Plum!” he called, over his shoulder. “The ground is all over mud around here.”

He marched around to the yard, leaving Jenny standing halfway to the stable door.

Unkissed. Unruined.

Unashamed.

She pressed her hand to her lips, where the untouched ghost of his kiss seemed to linger, warm and sweet and forbidden.

She knew then that, no matter how clearly it was the right thing to do, she could not marry Lord Beeston.

Not without, just once, being kissed by a man who admired her, and whom she trusted, and who made her stomach fill with fizzing champagne and her heart roar like a lioness.

Just one kiss from Sebastian Whitby. Then she could resign herself to marriage with a happy heart, knowing that she had tasted at least once the fairytale adoration she had always dreamed of.