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misbegotten life to deserve a wife like Jane, but he knew he couldn’t lose her now. His heart ached just to think of her laughter, her quite
,
calm presence, being gone in a flash
.
    Just like his mother
.
    Jane seemed to sense his sudden fear. She gently smoothed a soft caress over his hair
.
‘All will be well, Hayden. I am sure of it. And in a few months, we will have a little lord or lady. The beginning of a new family for us
.
Just like we talked about on our honeymoon.’
    Their honeymoon—those perfect, sweet days and nights, just the two of them all alone in the country. They had almost become buried under the noise and rush of London life since they returned. Jane had seemed A bit lost as a new countess, with so many eyes upon her, but now she looked perfectly content. A new family was on the way
, their
family. It could be very different from what he knew with his parents. He could make it different
.
    But still the tiny, buried spark of that old fear lingered…

Chapter Four
    ‘W on’t you introduce me to your guests?’
    Hayden
. Hayden was here, standing in her house. Jane was sure she must have fallen and hit her head, that she was lying on the drawing-room floor having dream visions. One minute she was serving tea, trying to make polite conversation as she worried about Emma wandering around out in the rain. And the next she was facing her husband.
    Her husband. It truly was Hayden, after all these years. She stared at him, frozen, stricken. Her dreams of him had been nothing to the real thing. Hayden was even more handsome than she remembered, his elegantlysharp-planed face drawn even leaner, harsher with his black hair slicked back with the rain.
    His eyes, that pure, pale blue she had once so loved, stared back at her unwavering. For an instant she went tumbling back to that moment when she first saw him. She was that romantic girl again, hopeful, heartstruck, so sure that she saw her own passionate need reflected in those eyes. So sure he was what she had been longing for all her life. Hayden, Hayden—he was here again!
    She almost took a step towards him, almost reached for him, when he suddenly smiled at her. But it was not a smile of joyful welcome. It was sardonic, almost bitter, the smile of a sophisticated stranger. It made Jane remember what had become of her romantic dreams of marriage and the man she had thought was her husband. He had been living his fast life in London while she was healing here in the country. Hayden was truly only a stranger now.
    Jane’s half-lifted hand fell back to her side and the haze of dreams cleared around her. For a moment she had seen only Hayden, butsuddenly she was aware of everything else. The rain pounding at the windows. Emma beside her, her golden hair dripping on to the floor, watching her with a frown of concern. The Martons just behind, witnessing this whole bizarre tableau of unexpected reunion.
    The way that Hayden leaned heavily on the wobbly old pier table. There was a tear in his finely tailored breeches and spots of blood on the pale fabric muted by the rainwater.
    Jane’s throat tightened at the realisation that he was hurt. ‘What has happened?’ she asked hoarsely.
    It was Emma who answered. ‘I found him on the road,’ she said. ‘His horse had thrown him and his leg was so hurt he couldn’t stand.’
    ‘Thrown him?’ Jane said. Surely that was impossible. Hayden was one of the finest riders she knew. Despite her fears and doubts, she couldn’t help but be concerned he was truly hurt.
    ‘A lightning strike startled the horse,’ he said, remarkably calm for a man who wasstanding drenched and wounded in his estranged wife’s house. ‘I fear I’m interrupting a social occasion.’
    ‘I—No, not at all,’ Jane managed to choke out. ‘Merely tea with our neighbours. This is Sir David Marton and his sister, Miss Louisa Marton. May I present Lord Ramsay, my—my husband.’
    ‘Your husband?’ Miss Louisa cried. ‘Why, how very