‘Because they are not—I have ordinary brownish hair and trust Mama to inform me I am too thin and look older than my years the moment she arrived here.’
‘I do not think Lord Stratford agrees with her,’ Viola said with a sidelong glance that dared Marianne to retaliate and mention Sir Harry Marbeck.
‘Lord Stratford has beautiful manners and even his worst enemy could not accuse him of being above his company.’
‘Does he now?’
‘Yes, and he treats all his staff with respect and consideration.’
‘I am sure he does,’ Viola murmured and her eyes were full of mischief and too much understanding. It felt wonderful to be teased by her sister again, but Marianne wished Viola would choose someone else to tease her about. ‘Have you ever wondered if loving so deeply once would help you cope with that passionate nature of yours even better if you ever do it again?’ Viola asked almost innocently.
‘There is very little chance of it as far as I can see.’
‘Never say never,’ Viola told her in a crisp parody of their mother in Mrs Yelverton’s days as the busy wife of a country vicar.
Marianne had to laugh, as her sister intended, but there was more than a pinch of sadness under it as they went arm in arm to join a half-hearted supper left over from the wedding feast. Owlet Manor was still lovely and mellow and looked like a proper gentleman’s house as it basked in the evening sun, but it felt as if the glow and energy had gone out of the place for her now Alaric was no longer here.
She would be living under his roof soon so it was impossible to put the man to the back of her mind and forget she had ever met him even if she wanted to. Impossible anyway, she realised as she moved through the knot of family and friends staying the night. This should be a completely joyful occasion. Yet she had this odd sense that something crucial was missing as soon as Lord Stratford’s finely sprung carriage disappeared around the first of the bends in the road.
Chapter Fourteen
As Alaric made himself climb into the carriage he told himself he had to leave Owlet Manor and the world out of time that he felt he had been living in for nigh on a month. He had meant to bring Juno with him so they would be ready to travel back to Stratford Park in the morning, but Marianne’s acceptance of his offer of employment changed all that. Juno was so delighted she persuaded him to let her stay where she was for a few more days while Mrs Turner packed and said her goodbyes to her family and they had insisted they would love to have her there. Juno and the new Mrs Yelverton were close and she had a good excuse to stay, but he did not. His presence disrupted the family gathering and Mrs Yelverton Senior was on pins all the time with a real live viscount under her son’s roof and her husband was embarrassed when she assumed airs to impress him.
Alaric might have dismissed her as a social climber if he had not met her children first, but now he had learnt to look beyond surface appearances and a fussy manner he rather liked the lady under the fluster and chatter. No doubt she was interfering and had been tactless with her elder daughter, but she obviously loved her children and he could see where Marianne and Darius got their energy and determination. Given the choice between his own mother and Marianne’s, he knew which one he would rescue from a burning building.
He stared out of the carriage window at the darkly green trees of late summer and the fields of ripening grain they were passing at the leisurely pace country roads dictated. His life had changed so radically since he had set out from Paris to find out what was amiss with his niece, but he was not quite sure what came next. Juno would do much better now he had found her a companion instead of a heartless grandmother to keep her company, but what about Alaric Defford?
For so many years his life had been set. He had thought he would carry on being isolated from the real world by a title and possessions until he finally bit the bullet and married for the sake of an heir and even then it would be a polite sort of marriage to a well-bred and dignified lady who would not expect grand emotions from her noble husband.
Yet Stratford Park had never felt like a true home as poor rundown Owlet Manor did even before Marianne and his staff made it shine again for the wedding. But it was his family seat and he supposed it was the place he had to go to when he thought about home. Juno was familiar with it as well, even though she had been living across the park in the Dower House for most of her young life. Thank heavens Marianne had agreed to go with them when they went back—her vital presence would scout some of the ghosts from the vast house he had lived in virtually alone since George died.
Now he had solved Juno’s and Marianne’s lonely dilemmas in one go he should be feeling a lot better about the future. Except he ached for so much more from Mrs Marianne Turner than he had any right to expect from her. He reminded himself about his words to her this afternoon about a true gentleman not taking advantage of a lady in his employment. ‘You have been too clever for your own good this time, Stratford,’ he muttered at the late summer twilight outside the window.
There was Broadley on the horizon once again now and it was still too early for him to retire to the best bedchamber at the Royal George with nothing to do but curse himself for tying himself in knots over a female who was probably barely aware he existed as a mature and potent man. He wanted her so much he might have to take up fencing and rowing and horse racing in order to give himself something physical to exhaust himself on when she was living under his roof. Then he would only need to decide where life was going to take him without Viscount Stratford’s protective armour against the world to keep it at bay and all might yet be well. Hmm, it might be, but just now he felt as if he had left everything that really mattered to him in life behind at Owlet Manor. Was he cursed to always feel lonely without it for the rest of his life?
Best not think too hard about that particular version of a wasteland and he was a patient man. He could wait for Mrs Marianne Turner to make up her mind about the man under his viscount disguise and he had forgotten about boxing when he made up his list of ways to avoid throwing himself at her in a stew of lordly passion, had he not? He would be the fittest man in England as soon as his stupid ankle was back in full working order.
* * *
Three days after the wedding Marianne waved her parents and Viola off in Lord Stratford’s comfortable travelling coach. Fliss and Darius were busy pretending to help with the harvest and probably wandering about staring into each other’s eyes and getting in the way instead and she was escaping her packing. Her excuse was a burning need to find a book to take with her on the journey to Stratford Park a couple of counties away in Wiltshire. So she was in Great-Uncle Hubert’s study tidying a small part of it because tidying was soothing and if she happened to do some dusting while she was in here nobody could deny the room needed it.
‘Ah, so there you are.’
‘Yes, here I am, Lord Stratford.’
‘I thought you promised your brother to stop attacking his house as if your life depended on getting it clean from top to bottom.’
‘I am not cleaning. I am looking for a book.’
‘Then you would seem to have come to the right place.’
‘Indeed.’
‘And why are you wielding a duster?’
‘You would not want me importing dust into your fine carriage or your magnificent country house, now would you, my lord?’
‘Admit it, you are cleaning, Mrs Turner.’
‘I am sorting,’ she said and that was all she was prepared to admit.
‘Why?’
‘I have an orderly mind.’ It felt anything but orderly just now and why did he have to stand so close to her in order to talk? Although she did have to admit she had only managed to clear a small space in the piles of books stacked all around the room when Great-Uncle Hubert had run out of bookshelves, so he had little choice but to be close to her even if his presence somehow seemed to have sucked some of the air
out of this dusty old book room and she was conscious of every breath he took.
‘Liar,’ he accused her with so much laughter in his blue eyes she smiled back at him like an idiot.
‘I am sorry,’ he said at last.
‘Why?’
‘I am not your employer yet, but I am still supposed to be a gentleman and should not close doors behind me when there is a lady in the room.’
She felt her heartbeat thunder in her ears as the musty scent of old books and the little noises of the old house shifting on its oak bones as the sun moved around the house faded and all she could see and sense was him. ‘Are you?’ she murmured. ‘Luckily I am not a lady.’
He stepped back as if she had bitten him. ‘If anyone else said the things you say about yourself, you would loathe them,’ he told her furiously.
She was glad he had to shut the door to make enough space to join her in here so nobody could hear them now. ‘Best do it myself rather than wait for someone to do it for me,’ she replied coolly.
‘And what do you think your husband would think if he could hear you say them, Mrs Turner?’
‘You have no right to bring him into it,’ she told him with enough anger to hide her worry Daniel would hate the lesser version of herself she became when he died.
‘Your brother seems to dread throwing you back into grief so much he does not feel he can argue when you call yourself names, but I can. I do not want to, Marianne, but you can hate me without hurting yourself. I was wrong to think I could lock my feelings away after my brother died and I cannot even start to imagine how much worse it must feel to lose the love of your life, but you can take it from me, pretending not to feel at all is not really living—it is existence and no more.’
How dare he criticise her when he had no idea how it felt to lose your true love? He had just admitted he did not and he was right. Temper hammered in her temples, but the horrible suspicion he was right was fighting it. ‘You have no right to say things even my nearest relatives dare not say,’ she argued.
‘Darius told me the Bath tabbies made your life a misery when you were living under your parents’ roof and he was still away fighting, so no wonder he does not want to upset you.’
‘Even if they had welcomed me with open arms I would still just have been stumbling around in the dark after my husband was killed. I hope Darius has stopped feeling guilty because he lived when Daniel died at his side, though, and at least he has Fliss to make him see the world as it really is now,’ she said and tears threatened as she remembered that terrible time in both their lives.
‘While you have nobody?’ Lord Stratford said so gently she had to let his words sink in and do their damage.
‘Yes,’ she said and a terrible sob ripped out of her like a rusty saw. ‘Now look what you have done,’ she told him unsteadily and clenched her fists against the fury and heartache and beat them on the air as if it might help, but of course it did not; nothing did when she let the full force of what she had lost on that terrible night at Badajoz overwhelm her.
‘Come here, you stubborn woman,’ Alaric said softly and pulled her into his arms so she could beat him instead, or cry if that worked better. Brave of him and she was wrong; there was comfort to be had in the world after all. Who would have thought a viscount would have a shoulder just the right height and breadth for a tall lady to weep into and feel safe as she let the storm rage at long last?
‘I will damage your fine coat,’ she gasped between sobs. She did not want him to let her go, but he was sure to when he felt her tears soaking into his neat but superbly cut country gentleman’s clothes.
‘Serve me right,’ he murmured and thank goodness her stupid mob cap must have fallen off so she could feel him whisper it against her unruly hair.
And Alaric just went on holding her when she could not halt the storm of tears she had probably made worse by denying it an outlet for so long. It was such a relief to let out all the hurt and loneliness she had kept to herself in her parents’ little house in Bath and even when she had come here with a brother still raw from the war. Alaric whispered the occasional word of comfort as he bent over her like a protector and she felt safe. She dare not even think the word, lover, but there it was in the back of her mind like a siren voice. She could almost feel her eyes going red and swollen as she tried to grab back enough self-control to remember who they were and where they were before someone came in and caught him with a weeping widow in his arms.
‘I must stop this nonsense,’ she murmured and tried to draw back from him.
‘It is not nonsense and you have at least two years’ worth of Bath gossip to get out of your system,’ he told her with a wry smile when most men would hastily mumble an excuse and back away.
‘They were awful and I suppose seeing Mama and Papa again has reminded me of that time and how miserable I was there,’ she told him with a grimace.
‘Jealousy,’ he told her as if it was so obvious it needed no more explanation.
‘I am all but penniless and have lost the husband I eloped with—how can anyone be jealous of me?’
‘You are a beautiful woman and that is a black mark against you for the likes of them. And you have had what they never can and never will have themselves because you dared everything for love. Can you imagine a single one of them giving up their comforts and position for a man even if they loved him to distraction?’
Marianne disregarded his flattering notion she was beautiful, but she did think hard about some of her mother’s cronies and the little lives they led. She almost laughed at the very idea of a single one following in the tail of an army to be with the man they loved. ‘No,’ she said as all the petty limits they put on their own lives suddenly struck her as pitiful and so very unimportant she wondered she had ever let them make her feel less than they were.
‘Neither can I, nor a sensible man asking them to. They would make his life a misery and I suspect they bullied and belittled you because you made their lives look so small and dull in comparison.’
Tears had made her eyes sore and the occasional sob still shook her, but he had not pulled away in disgust. Alaric’s strength and humanity seemed to have melted something icy and painful inside her and she was glad. She felt as if she could breathe more freely without it, even if every breath she took drew in his warmth and the pure temptation of being alone with him in a musty old room. Reminding herself she must look terrible, she scrubbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘How did you know all that?’ she asked him huskily.
‘Perhaps I know you and all I need to do is imagine the small lives they lead and contrast them with you and there you are—jealousy and guilt. It is obvious. No wonder they disliked you, Marianne. How dare you be twice the woman they are?’
‘A few were men,’ she qualified with a shudder.
He frowned. ‘Damn them for being spiteful when you rebuffed them, then.’
‘How did you know they tried to seduce me first?’
‘I have eyes and a heart and feelings, Marianne,’ he told her as if he thought she might not have noticed.
‘I know,’ she said soothingly, but it seemed to make him even more gruff and grumpy.
She made the mistake of patting his shoulder to soothe whatever ailed him and felt the fine tension in his body. Intent on what she wanted for once she stood on tiptoe and kissed him, quick and hard, on the lips. She would have swiftly backed away if he had not taken over as if he was starving for her, then deepened it into something more intense. Their kiss in the garden had felt warm and wonderful, but this was far more passionate, much more demanding.
She felt little pulses of lightning shimmer through her wherever he touched her, but sanity might have saved them if she had not felt hesitation in his touch, as if he was afraid he might hurt her. She murmured a wordless argument and gasped at the need blazing inside her when she opened her mouth against his and
forgot all about lords and soldier’s widows in the glorious heat of the moment.
Passion hot and heady flamed between them. This time her tongue was bold and teased his firm mouth, then tangled with his. She ran a shaking hand over his crisp dark curls and loved the freedom of being able to touch him. She explored the nape of his neck with a touch of wonder at his latent strength under her fingertips. He was so different from Daniel she felt like a traitor for a moment as she thought about then and now, but the richness of the moment soon swallowed it up. Alaric was always himself, just as Daniel had been, and right now he was a novel pleasure under her exploring hands, then her mouth again once they took in enough air to risk driving one another out of control.
His hands were broad and strong on her back and she wriggled closer and gazed into his eyes for a luxurious moment. He stared back at her with his blue eyes blazing emotion she was desperate to read, but could not quite decipher. She wondered why his eyes were much the same colour as her own, but so very different. His pupils flared with what looked like strong, almost desperate feelings.
‘Marianne,’ he breathed her name so huskily it sounded like a magical spell. What they both wanted was clear enough from the grinding need inside her, but from the regret in his eyes he was not going to allow them to have it. Now his touch was meant to soothe instead of inflame. The loneliness of him drawing away from her made her want to cry, again, if she had any tears left. Except she felt them prickle her sore eyes for him this time, for the loss and lack of him even when he was still warm and strong and very much alive against her wanting body.
She shook her head. ‘Alaric,’ she whispered in the book-stale air of Hubert Peacey’s private lair. ‘You stopped,’ she half accused him, although anyone might have come in and caught them entwined like lovers and that really would not do.
Unsuitable Bride For A Viscount (The Yelverton Marriages Book 2) Page 14