‘Seth brought his horse out. I was thatching the rick like you said I was to, Mrs Turner. I only looked over here when our Seth shouted the horse was getting ready to bolt and it must have thrown yon lord against the wall before Seth could grab it and make it stop. Bad-tempered great brute it is. I wonder the Royal George hired him out to a proper lord.’
‘I expect he was in a hurry and demanded the fastest horse they had in their stables,’ Marianne said and fought the oddest feeling she knew him that well while she ran exploring hands over surprisingly heavy bands of muscle on His Lordship’s torso as gently as she could to find out if he had any more serious injuries they needed to worry about.
‘He would do that. He does not like to wait,’ Juno agreed almost fondly.
Marianne carried on with her exploration. Now she knew Lord Stratford did not have a spare ounce anywhere on his impressively muscular body and she should not be impressed by the strength and endurance of the man at a time like this. She soothed the gentlest of touches over his waist and narrow hips and even lying in a heap like this she could tell his legs were the same length. At least there was no need to worry about a serious fracture that could put his life in danger from internal bleeding. His left ankle seemed awkward, though, and she dreaded having to cut the snug-fitting riding boot off it so she could see if it was broken. Best do it before he was awake and would feel every agonising movement and she might flinch with him and risk cutting him instead. ‘I need the boning shears from the scullery, Juno. Take care, they are very sharp and please do not run on the way back—I do not have time for any more patients,’ she said and Juno was gone before she even finished her sentence.
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
