Unsuitable Bride for a Viscount

by Elizabeth Beacon

  Lord Stratford was lying worryingly still, but breathing evenly. He would wake up to a dreadful headache, a sore wrist and maybe a broken ankle, so perhaps it was as well if he stayed unconscious a little longer. She spared a moment to admire the stern symmetry of his features as he lay undefended. Without his challenging blue gaze to argue he was aloof and self-contained, she could see how sensitive his mouth was when he did not have it under strict control. Now the lines of exhaustion around it were relaxed he also looked as if he was born to laugh a lot more than he did.

  Being lord of so much must lie heavy on his broad shoulders and the real Alaric Defford was far more fascinating than Lord Stratford, with his lordly orders and air of owning half the world and having designs on the rest. Was it all a front, then? Having heard him with Juno before this disaster she suspected it might well be and tried hard not to pity him for needing to keep one up even with his nearest and dearest.

  ‘Well done,’ she said when Juno reappeared with the sharpest scissors they had in the house, then slipped back into her place at her uncle’s side. ‘Be careful,’ Marianne warned her as she gripped the shears herself and gritted her teeth ready for action. ‘He might grip down on your hand hard if this wakes him up. He is sure to be in a great deal of pain one way and another and he will not be in a fit state to consider who or what he has hold of.’

  ‘Worry about him, I can look after myself.’

  ‘So you can,’ Marianne said as she slipped the cold metal under his once beautiful boot and made herself cut through the supple leather.

  * * *

  Alaric was having a wonderful dream where he drifted between sleep and happy fulfilment in Mrs Turner’s bed. Her sky blue eyes were soft and heavy lidded with sleep and sensual satisfaction his dream self felt smug about. Warmth and openness and a heady passion weighed their limbs down in this soft bed with its fine linen sheets. He could smell the summer breezes and lavender on them as well as sated desire and breathed in the fresh scent and pure essence of Mrs Turner. He wondered why he did not know her first name as they were so gloriously intimate. Mary? What had Miss Donne called her when they first met? Margaret? No, Marianne. He recalled her name with satisfaction; first, because he liked it and, second, because it suited her. And it was always as well to remember a lady’s name when you bedded her to their mutual and lingering pleasure.

  A good romantic name it was, too, just right for a fine woman with lovely eyes and the slender, long-limbed body he had lusted after so fiercely at first glance. There, at least he had the trick of her name now, so he would not have to call her by another man’s surname when they woke up in the morning for an even more blissful loving by daylight after this night of it he could not remember even beginning with her. He was very willing to go on now they were here and very much together in the private summer night, but that lack of memory troubled him even in his dreams.

  Now he came to think of it, there was a deal of noise around in what should be a peaceful and private bedchamber in the middle of the night as well. And it felt as if the sun was beating on his head, which was wrong for the night-time, and there was a breath of wind against his cheek as well which did not seem to match a slumberous bedchamber in the blessed darkness. And this mattress was devilish uncomfortable all of a sudden. His dream began to spiral away and he could feel a stone under his hip. Even in the worst inn he had ever come across he doubted they had any of those in their mattresses.

  The last shards of his lovely fantasy began to shatter as pain ran in to take its place with an evil chuckle. He frowned against the loss of what felt like earthly paradise and screwed up his eyes to protest at the light. He wished whoever was making that confounded row would be quiet so he could go back to sleep.

  ‘He is waking up at last,’ Juno said. What was she doing here? He hoped his innocent niece had not seen him slip out of Mrs Turner’s bed to deal with the idiot groaning in what sounded like agony when they were all trying to sleep.

  ‘Can you remember your name?’ Mrs Turner’s otherwise pleasant contralto voice demanded.

  What a question to ask a man who had to deal with the idiot while he had agony coursing through him like hot knives. She grasped his good hand and squeezed it as if ordering him not to ignore her. ‘Your name?’ she nagged and he was far too busy with the idiot to reply to such a silly question, but he supposed he ought to oblige a lady.

  ‘I am Alaric Defford. I wish someone would tell that fool to be quiet and let me sleep,’ he murmured.

  ‘What fool?’ Marianne Turner asked as if wondering about his sanity.

  ‘The one who keeps moaning and groaning like an idiot.’

  ‘That is you, Uncle Alaric,’ Juno said and he felt his way up through another layer of unconsciousness and immediately wished he had stayed down there.

  ‘Is it? Then I must have been swearing as well,’ he admitted and opened his eyes to look up at his niece and hope she had not been listening. Agony bit as the sunlight bored into his flinching eyeballs and made him swear all over again as a jag of pain joined up with the one at the back of his aching head and ripped through him like hot iron.

  ‘So sorry, Jojo,’ he murmured and felt her hand tighten on his. Somehow he must find a way to cut himself off from the pain and protect her from it. ‘Bad uncle,’ he managed to say lamely before he shut his eyes again. He wished someone would turn off the sun so the inside of his eyelids were not such a fiery red. Shade might reduce the agony to a bearable hum and maybe he could gather his senses enough to open his eyes again and find out exactly what was going on.

  ‘No, you are the best of uncles,’ Juno argued with a tremble in her voice.

  Somehow he managed to force his eyelids open again and never mind the thunderclap he knew was waiting for him this time. He had to let her know he was back in the land of the living and intending to stay here.

  ‘Lie still and be quiet,’ Marianne Turner ordered him softly and he was glad to do as he was bid for once.

  She had put herself between him and the sun as well. He was almost ready to worship her thoughtfulness, although he wished his dream of her as his willing and about-to-be-sated-again lover was the reality he had woken up to instead of this one. In this world Mrs Marianne Turner had disliked him on sight and did not warm to him much afterwards. She was not likely to be impressed when he moaned and groaned and swore in his sleep, so there was very little chance of that rich fantasy ever coming true.

  ‘Gladly,’ he muttered and wondered when the sledgehammer inside his head would stop beating. Then he realised he could half hear and half feel a new sort of thunder through the very ground he lay on. He seemed to be in danger of being trampled by a herd of runaway horses or panicked cattle. He vaguely remembered the ill-tempered nag he rode in on taking offence at something before dreams and that very seductive fantasy took over his head and blotted out the pain and shock of being thrown. Maybe he should get up and run, but it felt beyond him so he lay as still as he could and waited for the next calamity to strike him. ‘Run!’ he muttered urgently to Juno and Marianne and tried to force his eyes open and even felt for strength to put himself between them and whatever was about to run them down.

  ‘Oh, Darius, I am so very glad to see you,’ he heard Marianne Turner call out with apparent delight as the noise of what he could now tell was a single horse’s racing hooves halted sharply. Alaric finally managed to open his eyes just in time to see Darius the Paragon leap off it and run towards them like a stunt rider.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Alaric said with all the irony he had available at short notice.

  ‘Good Gad, Nan, what has the noble idiot done to himself this time?’ Yelverton exclaimed as if Alaric had fallen off his horse on purpose.

  He actually felt sick with dislike because it was better than being sick with pain. He did not want to humiliate himself in front of his niece and the lovely Mrs Turner. Loathing Darius Yelverton for bei
ng whole and hearty and not in pain, as well as in love with the woman Alaric thought he wanted to marry until he came here, would have to do instead. Although his yearning for Marianne Turner in his bed even when he was knocked out whispered he had not wanted to marry Miss Grantham anywhere near as passionately as she deserved her husband to want to marry her.

  ‘I am not sure it was his fault this time,’ Marianne said.

  Alaric dared open one eye against the afternoon sun to look up at her. She seemed to be staring at a hangdog-looking man just within his field of vision and he did not have the slightest inclination to get a better look at the unshaven lout so he peered up at her instead. He decided dreamily he had no great interest in anyone else with her to fix his gaze on instead and managed to forget how much his head ached for a lovely moment.

  She had a sharply determined chin to add an edge to her oval face. It rescued her from mere prettiness and pushed her towards a fugitive sort of beauty. So much of her compelling attraction lay in her moods and expression that he had to wonder how she would go on in his exclusive circle of almost friends. No doubt Marianne would be fascinating and full of life and spirit if she chose to let her true nature out in public, but quiet and avoiding the limelight if she did not. What a conundrum of a woman she was and of course he had met lovelier women and even managed to bed one or two of them, but they would all fade to insignificance next to her.

  That lovely mouth of hers was too generous for classical beauty and her nose a little too pert, but even in a room full of accredited beauties he would still find her compelling and the rest all but invisible. Her face had a unique charm that made her beauty lifelong instead of a fleetingly perfect thing made of youth and beauty and a generous hand from Mother Nature.

  He also liked the fact her honey-gold curls were coming down again, despite all the pins she must have skewered into it to pin the heavy weight under that ugly cap. Why on earth did she keep trying to turn herself into a quiz when a man would have to be blind or daft not to see the intense blue of her intelligent gaze and the kissable softness of her lips? ‘Impossible,’ he murmured to argue with her cap and maybe his wits had gone begging after all.

  ‘I will have an accounting for this later,’ Yelverton was saying grimly to the silent men even Alaric could practically hear shuffling their feet and longing to get away from the man’s best officer’s glare.

  Alaric did not have the slightest inclination to watch Yelverton instead of his sister and work out exactly what had happened. He lay here and was glad that Marianne had not transferred all her attention to her brother as she shook her head at him and shrugged to say she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Impossible what?’ she asked him as everyone else was occupied with who had done what and why and it did not matter a jot as he lay still and admired the rich brown and gold and even the odd red light in her hair.

  ‘Do you think we dare move him, Marianne?’ Yelverton interrupted them and from the sound of his voice he was much closer now.

  Alaric bit back a protest. He was likely to faint again if they even tried it and that would be the final humiliation, but he could hardly say so without sounding feeble.

  ‘We must keep his head still and he is covered in bruises and has a swollen ankle to consider although luckily I do not think it is broken. We managed to cut his boot off before it swelled up too badly and I dare say a cold compress would make it feel a lot more comfortable once we can get him to bed and put one on it.’

  ‘At last, something to look forward to,’ Alaric murmured and heard her chuckle very softly.

  He felt stupidly elated to share even a moment of irony with her, but dreaded losing any dignity he had left if they tried to help him up and he lost consciousness again or cast up his accounts. He wished he could snap his fingers and be out of this bright sunlight for a while before he need set out for Broadley again, though. Juno’s hand tightened on his good one as if his flinch at the idea of his hurts being disturbed pained her.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to pass out while we get you inside, Stratford,’ Darius Yelverton loomed over him to say half-seriously and Alaric longed for the strength to plant him a facer.

  ‘I think I hate you,’ he muttered when the man was close enough to peer into his eyes as if checking them for dust motes.

  ‘I know you do right now,’ the man joked and grinned at Alaric as if he understood him all too well.

  Chapter Six

  It galled him to oblige Yelverton, but Alaric woke up hours or maybe even days later in the feather bed he had been dreaming about earlier. Except this time it felt lonely in here and there was a wary sort of silence around him. He lay still and thought about the world and his place in it and concluded it felt like night-time. He must have been out of his senses for a long time, then. He was quite happy for it to have been days if that got him closer to the end of this weakness and the pain trundling through his battered body like a bullock cart now he was awake again. He shifted against the summer-scented sheets he was fantasising about earlier and bit back a groan.

  Keep still, then, man, he reasoned impatiently and tried to track down the pain.

  He needed to find out if it was safe to move any of his aching body without a humiliating scream. If he stayed still, he only ached all over, but he knew real pain was lying in wait like a grinning demon carrying a pitchfork to prod him with. He tried to shift his arm, but his wrist shot a burning pain through it whenever he tried to move so it seemed sensible not to. He had to fight an urge to fidget and see if one place in this bed was better than another. Maybe he could curl into a ball and find comfort somewhere. He felt bruised from head to toe and, talking of toes, one of his feet felt just as usual, but the other throbbed if he tried to move it. So that was a wrist and a foot out of action.

  He frowned and felt that horrible pounding hammer start up in his head again. A savage blow to the head must be his most dangerous hurt, then. What if he had lost his wits? What would become of Stratford Park and all the farms and cottages? So many people depended on him for a roof over their heads and bread in their bellies but, worst of all, what about Juno? If he was addled, who was going to take care of his niece until she came of age?

  His mother was her only other close relative and Alaric shuddered away from the very idea of leaving Juno completely at her lack of mercy ever again. Under the provisions of the will he had made a decade ago when he came of age, Juno would inherit all the unentailed land and his private fortune when he died. Every fortune hunter in the British Isles would try to marry her by fair means or foul. At least half would not mind if it was only held in trust because he was locked up in a madhouse as they could then borrow against her expectations. The poor girl would become an object to be bought and sold rather than a sensitive being with the right to make her own choices in life. So he simply had to be well and sane. That was the only way to make sure Juno was who she wanted to be.

  He made himself open his eyes, then blinked against the pain as his vision cleared and he found himself staring up at Mrs Marianne Turner’s unique set of feminine features yet again. This time her face was shadow softened and he wondered if he had conjured her from his dreams and blinked again. As she was still here, at least he had not imagined her the first time.

  ‘Are you in a great deal of pain, my lord?’ she whispered as she misread his frown.

  ‘A little, but please will you tell me if my wits are addled before I worry about anything else, Marianne,’ he pleaded urgently. Her given name slipped out, but keeping guard on his tongue did not seem important with the threat of madness hanging over him. ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Turner,’ he corrected himself impatiently when she frowned at him as if he was talking another language.

  ‘As far as I can tell on less than a day’s acquaintance, you are sane as you ever were,’ she told him with a shrug, as if she had her doubts about his sanity at their first meeting on Miss Donne’s doorstep, so that
was not very sane at all.

  ‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Is it still today, then?’ he asked as the rest of her words sank in. It felt as if far more time should have gone by since he first set eyes on her, but at least he had not lost days or even weeks lying here like a block.

  She took a workaday sort of man’s watch case out of her pocket, flicked it open and held the timepiece up to the shaded candle flame he supposed had been masked for his benefit. He silently thanked her for that, knowing even a candle’s worth of light shining into his eyes would hurt like hell.

  ‘Two o’clock in the morning,’ she told him briskly, ‘so it is actually tomorrow if you wish to be strictly accurate.’

  ‘Thank you, it seems as well. While we are being precise, you might as well tell me what other injuries I have sustained.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to know?’ she asked with the wry smile he was beginning to watch out for. Teaching himself not to do that was another task he could face when he was feeling better.

  ‘If I am of sound mind and need to remake my will because my life is in danger, I need to know about that so it can be done properly this time and my niece will be protected from fortune hunters and her property being taken over by the Crown estate,’ he told her very seriously. Juno’s future was much too important for him to be careless about it any longer.