Page 4 of The Rebellious Countess (The Ruined Duchess #2)

She would rest. Let her head stop hurting and her shoulder stop smarting and her stomach calm. Just close her eyes and let the darkness shroud her with visions of a happier time and place. Just a few minutes rest, and she would find a safe place to spend the night.

A loud crack startled her awake. A horse whinnied and Máira blinked several times before realizing she had been asleep, her face resting on her hands as she lay on the hardest bed of her life. She looked up to find an orange tabby cat looking down upon her.

“Meow.”

She blinked again but the cat was still there. She wasn’t dreaming but her head felt as if she’d been kicked by a cow. When had an orange tabby shown up in the barn?

She reached for the feline, but it scurried away, exposing her surroundings. An alley. No. The alley. No. No. No.

She was home. In Scotland. In the barn where they had horses and kittens. She was not lying in a stinky alley in France. God, the smell. Was that coming from her? It couldn’t be, it was awful.

Slowly sitting up, nausea threatened and she touched her head where it hurt most. A fig-sized knot was in the middle of her forehead.

Taking in her surroundings, she tried to remember why she was there.

Something had happened that sent her running.

Broken crates and tipped-over barrels littered the area.

Next to her sat an empty barrel that smelled distinctly of fish waste. Hadn’t that been full?

If it had, that meant someone had been here, and she hadn’t noticed.

Oh. Oh. Fear threatened and she recognized the terror wanting to take control.

She checked her person to make sure no one had done the unthinkable.

Nothing felt off or different, other than her entire existence.

It was the one spot of luck in the entire nightmare.

Her head hurt, along with her shoulder and knees, and everything else, but it was her heart that felt bruised and battered.

And her pride. She’d been a fool of the first order.

Falling for the first blackguard to speak prettily to her.

Misery threatened to take over, until she remembered her sister’s final goodbye.

“Remember you are one of the Blair sisters, and we bow to no one, unless we choose to show them deference.”

She would not bend to fear and despair, certainly not to her bawbaggin’ husband. A smile threatened and she surveyed her surroundings. She had at least learned some colorful alliterations to toss his way.

The sun would soon be rising—she looked toward the entrance of the alley to gauge the position of the sun.

It couldn’t be. How could it be setting again, it wasn’t possible.

It had already set by the time she’d closed her eyes last night.

There was no way she’d slept through an entire night and most of the day.

Yet the sky was telling her otherwise. Her body was screaming the truth.

She hurt everywhere, not just her forehead, and her bladder was talking loud and clear.

The rumble of a cart traveling down the road captured her attention.

She needed help and that may be her only opportunity to get—somewhere.

She slowly rose to her feet, lest more nausea overtake her, and leaned on the stone building for support.

The whistling cart driver grew closer, the melodic tune causing her chest to squeeze with recognition as she stood.

Except the closer the wagon got, the more the song caused her back to stiffened.

She peered out of the alleyway to watch the cart driven by a farmer stop in front of The Happy Hag.

It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t possible.

He was a pirate, not a farmer.

Yet he’d been an earl before he was a pirate.

Her Scottish blood began to simmer. The mettle of her ancestors wronged by backstabbing, licentious English bastards was rising to a call so deeply ingrained in her soul, she wanted to fight.

It didn’t matter her mother was English, she was a Scottish bastard through and through as far as the ton was concerned.

One of the scandalous sisters . Even Iseabail’s marriage to a duke hadn’t been able to stop the label from spreading.

Máira’s good- for-nothing husband had just added to her family’s ruination by making her a walking, talking scandal of the worst kind.

It was Ellison. There was no doubt. It didn’t matter that he wore clothes she didn’t recognize, or that a hat sat low over his brow hiding most of his features.

It didn’t matter that the sun was going down and the only light in town was coming from the windows of The Happy Hag.

It didn’t matter that she’d somehow slept the night and day away probably due to the bump on her head.

She knew it was Ellison by the tune he whistled and poetical way he performed it. He’d whistled that same tune the night of their wedding. How she remembered that she wasn’t certain, but it was him, of that there was no doubt.

He could whistle like no one she’d ever heard in her life. Melodic, and sorrowful, his song spoke of love found and lost. It spoke to her soul, and she wanted to punch those sinful lips for making her feel anything but hatred.

Máira crouched down low behind the empty barrel that reeked of fish waste and watched as her husband, sitting on the wagon seat, stopped the horse in front of the stone tavern located in the middle of the block on the opposite side of the street.

The dark wood siding of The Happy Hag stood in stark contrast to every other white-washed building in the village. Now, it was the noise erupting from inside the tavern that drew the attention of anyone left on the streets, including Ellison.

She prayed the night didn’t end with another dead body.

“The bloody fool is going to get himself killed,” she muttered to the cool ocean breeze. She shouldn’t care. She didn’t care. She wanted to be the one to insert the dagger in his black heart.

She should steal his cart and go…but she was in France, and the only English-speaking people she’d run into were the sailor who tried to share her space under the table, and the man who’d attacked her under that same table.

Then there was Ellison…and the ruthless beauty who’d killed without a care.

Memories of the dead man made her body shudder from head to toe. She should stop Ellison, save him, and then maybe he’d take her home.

Except he’d had his first mate deposit her on shore with nothing.

“ The captain said your marriage was a mistake. He was going to sell you to the highest bidder this evening. Go to The Happy Hag. Hag is the pretty redhead who owns the place. She’ll make certain you arrive back in Scotland safely.

” With those parting words, the man she’d known as Peter had jumped back in the dinghy and rowed away.

Leaving her standing on the docks with nothing but a few words that tore her heart in two.

When they’d headed for shore, she’d hoped Ellison was waiting in the village with a bath, a bed, and an apology.

She would have stupidly forgiven him. When Peter abandoned her, she’d thought him to be back on the Maribelle , avoiding her as he had for the entirety of that miserable voyage.

Now, she wasn’t certain where he’d been.

The only thing she knew without a shadow of a doubt, was that her husband had deserted her, and she wasn’t going to risk her neck for a man who had thrown her to French wolves.

The ship, however, was still anchored in the harbor and it remained her only means of transportation home. It wasn’t as if she was going to ask Hag for safe passage anywhere. The woman was a merciless killer.

Her heart dropped. Had that been Ellison’s plan? To have her gutted by the barkeep in order to be done with her?

She shook the ridiculous notion from her head and nearly lost her balance. It didn’t make any sense. Why marry her in the first place if he was just going to kill her? Or had he planned to collect her dowry without having the burden of a wife? If she died, Nash would still owe him her dowry.

She watched as Ellison jumped down from the seat, his feet surprisingly bare.

He patted the old swayback horse on the neck and then walked around toward the back of the cart.

His hair, no longer tied back, fell loosely on his shoulders and was visible despite the hat he wore.

She remembered the one time he’d allowed her to release it from its queue.

Ellison had almost looked pained at her request, but when she’d bit her lip and said, “ Please ,” it was as if he could refuse her nothing.

In that moment she’d felt powerful. The Earl of Dorset had given in to the request of a mere slip of a girl who’d failed at her first season.

And she’d marveled at the thick, luxurious mane that was too long for fashion and yet so entirely masculine in its beauty.

It was softer than she’d imagined. The rich chestnut locks felt like silken threads in her hands as the sunlight captured streaks of gold in its length.

She didn’t think any man could possibly have sensual locks, but her husband did.

Their innocent picnic near the lake had turned into so much more.

Staring up at a perfect azure blue sky, and pointing out bears and cats and chariots forming in the clouds.

It had been the most intimate, magical moment of her life when she’d made that request. He’d leaned over and tentatively kissed her, as if he didn’t want to frighten her or hurt her.

One taste of him, however, and she’d been lost and had pulled him down for more.

She’d been brazen, and he turned the kiss into everything she’d ever wanted.

When he’d torn his lips away breathless, and asked her to marry him, she knew he’d felt the same.

What a bloody fool.