Mrs Turner was clearly waiting to hear whether he was resigned to his niece’s wishes, if not exactly delighted by them. He could see the knowledge that Miss Grantham would shortly be part of this household in her eyes as she met his with something like an apology because his niece seemed to prefer her company to his.
‘His Lordship must be content if that is what you really want, Juno,’ he said wearily. ‘I hope you will write to me now and again,’ he allowed himself to beg before he could make himself go away and leave her with strangers.
‘Yes,’ she said and seemed to hesitate, as if she wanted to say more, but was afraid he might try to change her mind if she risked it.
‘Good,’ he said hoarsely and fought back some unmanly feeling tears as he shook his head and managed to meet Mrs Turner’s gaze with a plea in his. ‘Look after her for me, please?’ he asked and he did trust her to do that, stranger as she was and not a particularly polite or respectful one either.
‘I will,’ she promised.
‘Very well, then. I wish you good day, Mrs Turner, Juno,’ he said gruffly and bowed, then turned on his heel before he lowered himself to beg her to trust him instead. Time to get on with the rest of his life without most of the things he thought he had when he left England on that disastrous errand to France, where it turned out nobody wanted him very much either.
Chapter Five
A tense silence settled over the usually comfortable kitchen where Marianne often sat with Darius of an evening rather than make him change back into a gentleman after his labours on the farms all day. She listened to the noise of Lord Stratford’s finely made boots on the cobbles fade from hearing and wondered what Juno was thinking as she decided they sounded very lonely. She doubted Lord Stratford would want her pity, but he had it for the slap his timid niece had just landed on him without lifting a finger.
‘I could not go with him, Mrs Turner, really I could not.’ There was a look very like guilt on the girl’s face when Marianne turned to look at her surprise guest’s face.
‘Well, you are not doing so, are you?’ she said coolly. In her opinion forgiving someone who sincerely rued a mistake was part of being grown up and Juno was using her youth and shyness as an excuse not to do so. She supposed she should not judge the girl harshly; Juno had obviously been through a few horrible months at the mercy of an unsympathetic grandmother and the indifferent ton. She smiled at the girl to take the sting out of her question and thanked her lucky stars she was not rich or noble enough to be looked down on and ignored by the cream of polite society herself.
‘No, but thank you for agreeing to take me in.’
‘It can only be for a while, Juno. You belong with your family and I think Lord Stratford will pay much more attention to your wants and needs from now on. You have put him through a dreadful ordeal by disappearing as if you had been stolen away by the fairies and I suspect he has learnt his lesson well and will take much better care of you in future.’
‘Maybe, but I still do not want to be a useless lady who sews seat covers, paints dreadful watercolours and plays the harp badly until some lord is ready to marry me for the sake of my dowry and an heir.’
Juno sounded downright sulky now and looked like an overwrought child sadly in need of her bed. Marianne sighed and supposed the girl was not so very far from the schoolroom. She certainly did not seem anywhere near mature enough to face the scarily adult dilemma she had been forced into by her grandmother. Under her crippling shyness Marianne thought the girl was angry because her uncle had not been there when she needed him most. She was certainly being unfeeling about Lord Stratford’s exhausting ride and obvious weariness when he got here, but maybe he deserved it. Marianne still felt guilty about sending him back to Broadley without his niece, though. At least Lord Stratford cared enough about the girl to ride so hard he looked almost asleep on his feet now the relief of finding out Juno was safe had removed the worst of his worries about her.
‘We can put the knotty problem of your future aside for now and think about what comes next instead. I would be very glad of your help with my endless pile of mending and I promise to stitch any seat covers that are in need of repair so you do not have to do it.’
Juno grimaced at the thought of sitting quietly and sewing after all the drama of the last few days, but if she thought it would be a nice little holiday from real life to stay here she might as well find out straight away nobody was allowed to sit idly by when there was so much to do. It would do Juno no harm at all to perform a few boring tasks. Marianne planned to talk about even more boring things while they worked, since she doubted Juno would agree to go up to bed and sleep off the worst of her adventures in the middle of the day. If she was good enough at her tedious tales, she might even allow herself to nod off and catch up on some much-needed sleep.
Suddenly there was a cacophony of barking and outraged neighs through the open door, followed by an ominous thud, then the sound of men shouting and arguing at the tops of their voices. Alarm spurred her into
