Unsuitable Bride For A Viscount (The Yelverton Marriages Book 2)

by Elizabeth Beacon

  He had best carry on explaining himself before she packed her bags and stormed off to stay with her parents. ‘Your brother has agreed I can set them to work here instead of leaving them to argue endlessly at Stratford Park.’

  ‘How easily led he has become since he fell in love,’ she said coolly.

  She was very good at making a man feel bad, wasn’t she? He almost felt sorry for Turner facing his wife’s wrath for some clumsy male misdemeanour. Except the man had her passionate love and Alaric was ashamed of being so jealous of a dead man. He wanted her sharp wits and hard-earned wisdom for Juno and he would just have to lock his inner satyr in the cellar and throw away the key when they got to Stratford Park.

  ‘Love will do that to a man,’ he said blandly. She looked so horrified when she took her eyes off the undergrowth it cost him an effort not to kiss her again. ‘Or so I have been told,’ he added to let her know he was not speaking from experience.

  ‘Why?’

  Why what? He shot her a sideways look and she was staring at the mess in front of them again and that was a relief, was it not? ‘Why do I want to help Yelverton get this wreck in some sort of order for his wedding to my niece’s former governess? Or why do people fall in love with one another when life would be so much simpler if they married for sense and a settled future?’

  ‘Why help with all this, of course,’ she said as if he was a fool to even ask.

  ‘Miss Grantham was Juno’s only real friend until recently. If not for her, Juno would have had nowhere to escape my mother’s heartless plans for her.’

  ‘She could have found you, my lord.’

  ‘All the way across the Channel and on to Paris? I very much doubt it. I must pity her lack of a real home to flee to even if you do not.’

  ‘That I do not. You would have made one wherever you happened to be if she only had the maturity to confide in you. Indeed, I doubt you would have gone in the first place if she had admitted how terrified she was of her grandmother and the ton.’

  And there it was again, the warmth he had lived without for so long, and he wanted it for Juno if he could not have it for himself. ‘I did nothing to make her feel she had a right to confide in me.’

  ‘Most people think a child is best in the care of a woman, so I cannot see why you insist on blaming yourself for an honest mistake.’

  ‘You do not think women must be better with children than men, then?’

  She shrugged and looked uncomfortable and he reminded himself she and Turner had not had children, so that could well be a sore spot in her life. ‘Some men are every bit as caring and loving as women and some females simply do not have the heart to put the welfare of a child before their own,’ she answered carefully and set him wondering if her mother was as cold and selfish as his had been. If so, someone had done a fine job raising her and her brother since they were far more open to love and life than he had ever been.

  ‘Is that the voice of experience?’ he asked because he could not help being interested in her and interest was not fascination.

  ‘No, my mother has always wanted the best for us in her own way.’

  ‘But her way is not your way?’

  ‘No, our standing in the world and marrying well was never important for me. I only wanted to be with a man I loved with all my heart.’

  ‘I can see both sides of the coin,’ he said and fully expected her to hotly declare he understood nothing about true love then, but she was silent, as if she was thinking about those sides and wondering how different her life would have been if she had been more wary.

  She would be right about him, though; even as a spotty youth he had not managed to fall in love with an unsuitable girl. He had been too busy missing his brother and avoiding his mother’s fury because he was still alive when George was dead to have had enough feeling left for the moody ups and downs of calf love. He supposed he had been too young and alone at seventeen to do more than survive when his world had turned upside down. Being called by his brother’s title, knowing so much responsibility rested on his shoulders, had frozen the young man he should have been. Alaric Defford should have been free to do foolish things like fall in love with grocer’s daughters and run about town with the fastest set that would have had him. George would have eyed his pranks with tolerant amusement and tugged him out when he was drowning in River Tick.

  Then his big brother would have said he must do something useful with his life as a younger son, like join the diplomatic corps or enter politics. Except by the time he had been old enough to live that life George had been dead. As Lord Stratford, Alaric could not be the wild second son because if he had been wild and irresponsible nobody would have been able to look after his thousands of acres, several lofty mansions and the legion of staff and tenants who made it all work.

  ‘Now I am older and perhaps a little wiser I realise a parent or guardian must worry about material things,’ Marianne said and they were talking about mothers. At least hers had cared enough to argue with her choice of husband. ‘At twenty years old I felt I had every right to ignore them and grab happiness with both hands. But how did we get around to my unwise marriage when we were talking about Darius and Fliss’s wedding only a moment ago, Lord Stratford?’

  ‘Would you consider becoming Juno’s companion when they are safely married?’ he said impulsively and found he was holding his breath for her answer.

  At first she looked dumbfounded, then doubtful, as if she thought her ears were deceiving her. ‘I... Well, I had no idea. I do not know why you would think it a good notion,’ she said and shook her head as if that was all she could manage right now.

  First he had kissed her, now he was blurting out his plans for a better future for her than staying here and feeling in the way or going back to her parents’ house and enduring a life she had obviously not enjoyed. How inept could one man be? ‘You would only have to keep her company and Juno likes you—that is all that really matters,’ he said, but she was clearly bewildered by the idea.

  ‘We only met a week ago, my lord, and you know nothing about me.’

  ‘I have known Miss Grantham for several years and she likes and trusts you. Even on such a short acquaintance I can tell you are painfully honest. I just want Juno to be safe and happy and stop feeling like a misfit. My mother and I did that to her, Mrs Turner. Juno needs a better life and I hope you are willing to help her build it.’

  ‘I cannot see how having a companion who married beneath her, then spent five years travelling on the coat-tails of an army on the march could give her enough confidence to rejoin the polite world on her own terms.’

  Alaric heard the defensive note in her voice and cursed the two years of grief and gossip Darius told him his sister had endured in Bath before they had come here this spring. He hated the idea of her being picked on because she was different and that was what bullies always did. They must have chipped away at her confidence and her brave marriage until she felt she must point out her unsuitability before someone did it for her.

  ‘It does not matter if she never wants to set foot in a ballroom again, but I do want to make her happy and the first step towards that is finding her an honest and caring companion like you, Mrs Turner.’

  ‘There must be plenty of genteel officer’s widows who would guide and help her much more surely than I can hope to,’ she objected.

  He suspected from the thoughtful frown into the middle distance the notion was tempting her. She had a heart as soft as butter under her brusque manner and it was better to make this about Juno instead of her having somewhere to go after her brother’s wedding. ‘Can you think of one?’ he risked asking her.

  She opened her mouth to give him a list and hesitated. ‘No,’ she finally admitted with a sigh.

  ‘Then will you think about filling some of the gaping holes my stupidity has left in Juno’s life?’

  ‘You could
do that if you chose, my lord. She is very ready to love you.’

  ‘Being a lord is not all velvet and ermine and learning to walk with your nose in the air and not fall over. I have a great many duties and I cannot be with her as much as I would like, so this role is really to be her companion and friend and I believe you are the right person for it. I think you love your brother too much to stay here and resent playing second fiddle to your sister-in-law.’

  ‘Yes, yes—I admit you are right about that much at least. I do want him and Fliss to be left in peace to live well together and I know he is worried about me going back to Bath with our parents.’

  ‘Then why not come back to Stratford Park with Juno and help us and your family?’

  ‘Have you talked to Darius about this? You two seem to have been confiding in one another like a pair of bosom bows.’

  ‘This is only between you and me until and unless you say yes. I would not push you into doing something you do not want to do by underhand methods.’

  ‘I cannot make up my mind just like that. I need time to think, then discuss this offer of employment with my brother and sister-in-law-to-be.’

  ‘And there I was, thinking you made up your mind about things and then told your family.’

  ‘Then kindly give me time to do so.’

  Alaric still felt like a bumbler for kissing her, then springing his wonderful idea for her future on her before she had hardly had time to catch her breath. Of course she would hesitate after that and he must let the dust settle and hope she came to the right conclusion now. Although if she was not going to be living under his roof and in his employ, perhaps... No, there was no perhaps for them. She believed in love and happy-ever-after and he most definitely did not and that was that.

  Chapter Eleven

  Marianne carefully avoided him for the rest of the day and one or two after that. It was not until his stone masons and carpenters began work on the chapel a couple of days later that she confronted Alaric over their mission.

  ‘You and Yelverton were so worried about your father making the journey to the next village and back to marry him to Miss Grantham I thought they might as well be wed here instead. The chapel is only a few hundred yards away, so there is no need to worry about carriages and delays if the marriage takes place here.’

  ‘How do you know the chapel is still consecrated?’

  ‘Because I asked your brother and he asked the local vicar.’

  ‘You would.’

  ‘I did and the reverend gentleman is happy to oblige the local lord of the manor so your father can perform the ceremony.’

  ‘Smug and managing,’ she said. ‘I have to admire you for it,’ she added, ‘although I am surprised Darius and Fliss are meekly agreeing to all your plans.’

  ‘Apparently true love means doing almost anything for your beloved.’

  ‘Does it indeed? I doubt it will ever do so for you, my lord.’

  ‘So do I,’ he said with a pinch of real sadness under his cynical smile. He doubted he could ever be undefended enough to love beyond reason.

  ‘And I am far too busy supervising all the maids and handymen now flocking about the house getting in each other’s way to stop here and argue with you any longer,’ she informed him and marched back to her housekeeping duties.

  * * *

  ‘Avoiding me again?’ Lord Stratford asked softly from behind her a week after their bewildering conversation in the garden.

  Marianne was surveying the now empty and—as clean as it could be got with mops and brooms and scrubbing brushes—grand dining room. ‘How do you manage to creep up on people like that when you still have to walk with a stick, my lord?’

  ‘I suppose stealth comes naturally to me and if I had not, you would have left before I could get here.’

  She almost smiled—no, she nearly laughed and that was worse. ‘I am a very busy woman,’ she told him severely instead and wished she had managed to escape him yet again. He made her feel on edge yet almost excited when he watched her with that wary warmth in his clear blue eyes. A shiver of awareness always seemed to slip down her spine as soon as she heard his voice in the distance and made her tingle all over until she managed to find a task that demanded all her attention. She had to keep on reminding herself he only wanted her for her supposed skills as a companion and that kiss in the garden was an impulse he regretted just as much as she did. ‘Was there something you wanted, my lord?’ she asked.

  ‘Common sense,’ he told her.

  ‘You know I cannot supply that.’

  ‘No,’ he said with a stern look. ‘You have none to spare. You are working too hard to lay claim to any of your own, never mind giving some away.’

  ‘There is only a fortnight to go until my brother weds Miss Grantham now and there is so much left to be done.’

  ‘And you are doing far more of it than you need to, Mrs Turner. Please stop it before you wear yourself out and ruin the day for your family.’

  ‘My brother and Miss Grantham deserve the best wedding they can have and I will work morning, noon and night if that is what it takes to be sure they have it.’

  ‘Which is why I sent for as many of my people as could be squeezed in here, so you would not do it all yourself to save your brother money,’ he objected and he was right, drat him. ‘My servants are well-trained and work well together. All you need to do is set them going and leave them to get on with their work.’

  ‘They still need direction,’ she argued stubbornly.

  ‘Not with you to keep them going at the relentless beat you set yourself they do not.’

  ‘There you are then, I am doing my job.’

  ‘And wearing them out as well as yourself and I doubt your brother has ever thought of you as an employee, Marianne.’

  ‘You cannot call me that,’ she argued. She had to do something to stop it feeling so warm and intimate in this great echoing, empty room now he was in here as well.

  ‘Why not? There is nobody else to hear.’

  ‘I can and you know perfectly well it is not correct.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And I have already told you not to address me like an elderly lady.’

  ‘Some days there is just no pleasing you, Mrs Turner,’ he said with a cynical smile.

  ‘And if you came to badger me about your extraordinary offer that I should become Juno’s companion, please remember I know nothing of the polite world and please go away again.’

  He stared at the newly whitewashed walls as if he found it very hard to talk about whatever it was he was planning to tell her to persuade her she was wrong. ‘I must plead, then, and tell you some family history you would probably prefer not to know,’ he said at last. ‘My mother is a cold woman, Mrs Turner,’ he admitted stiffly. ‘She loved my elder brother obsessively. I thought her love for George would transfer to his only child after my brother died, but what a mistake that was.

  ‘The Dowager Lady Stratford informed me when I confronted her with her appalling behaviour towards Juno that she had never forgiven her for not being born a boy. George’s son would have inherited his title and estates instead of me and I already knew she hated me for being alive when my brother is dead, but I was too much of a fool to see the Dowager Lady Stratford does not have another jot of love in her to spare and she despises poor little Juno for not keeping me out of George’s shoes when he died. So my niece grew up with the same coldness and lack of love in her life I endured as a child and you would not want her to turn out like me, now would you?’

  She could hardly say he seemed to have turned out remarkably well, considering. ‘My mother can be exasperating, but at least she has always loved us under all her fuss and fancies,’ she told him instead and felt very lucky indeed.

  ‘I did not tell you as a bid for sympathy on my account.’

  ‘You still h
ave it.’

  ‘She has reason to dislike me,’ he argued as if he actually believed it.

  ‘I doubt it. If you are a madman or a murderer, you hide it well and nothing less could justify her turning against her own child. Even you must have been a helpless innocent once upon a time and cannot have done anything to deserve it.’

  ‘I suspect just being born was enough to make her hate me.’

  ‘Why?’ she said.

  He hesitated and seemed disinclined to say more and she badly wanted to know now—and not for Juno’s sake. ‘I should not discuss such matters with you.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I am a widow—not a shrinking spinster likely to faint at the very mention of childbirth or the marriage bed.’

  ‘Very well, then. The Dowager told me when we were ranting at each other in London that she loathed the indignity of being with child even the first time, but at least she birthed a healthy boy and thought her travails must be over. My father did not agree and insisted on another boy as insurance before he would excuse her from her marital duties.’

  ‘I cannot believe you even thought about making a marriage of convenience with such an example in front of you,’ she said impulsively, then put a hand over her mouth when she realised where her tongue had taken her. ‘I beg your pardon, my lord,’ she took it away in order to say. If Fliss heard her she would have been hurt as the possible viscountess he had picked out to marry and he must be embarrassed by her clumsiness.

  ‘Why should you? I cannot quite believe I did it myself now matters have fallen out so much more happily for Miss Grantham and your brother. It seemed a good idea at the time, but I have had my eyes opened to how bleak a marriage of convenience can be since then by my darling mama.’

  ‘And you and Miss Grantham are better people than your parents,’ she said, because now they were started on frank and free conversation.

  ‘Thank you. I am no saint, but I would never force a reluctant wife to endure me in her bed for the sake of the succession. Not all the acres in the world and a far more lordly title could be worth the misery he caused, then and now.’