‘I shall never marry again and no lover could compare to my late husband, so I shall not be taking one of those either, my lord, before you ask,’ she said very firmly indeed and squared her chin as if he might argue and would be wasting his breath.
He recognised a false trail when he heard one and ignored that slur on his supposed nobility. So her brother had been trying to persuade her to consider a second marriage, had he? Yes, he must have done for her to be looking at him so sternly she clearly thought he was joining a male conspiracy against her. And did she really think he wanted to be one of those lovers she was so determined not to have? If so, she was right. He did not blame Yelverton for doing what any responsible brother would rather than see his sister lonely or pestered by rakes and rogues for the rest of her life. She was dangerously unaware of her own looks and, even if most of him had no intention of offering her a carte blanche, he could have provided a comprehensive list of her form and features blindfolded and after barely as day’s acquaintance. No wonder her brother was worried.
She would be happier and safer with a husband to fight off the wolves if only she would consider the idea. Of course, if she was wed, she would not be here for him to gawp at like an overheated youth. If she had an eager lover waiting for her to come back to his bed, my Lord Stratford would have woken up alone and bewildered in a strange bed and that would never do.
‘What will you do when your brother marries Miss Grantham?’ he asked, using up all the tolerance an invalid could play on in one go. But at least he could talk about Miss Grantham’s wedding to another man without a trace of disappointment she was not marrying him. He was not jealous of Titian-haired, quietly lovely, well-bred and accomplished Miss Grantham and Squire Yelverton. Only yesterday, he had thought he was bereft and humiliated when it became obvious those two lovers had spent the night together in every sense of the word. Now the very idea of a marriage of convenience with Juno’s former governess seemed to belong to a different world, along with an Alaric Defford he did not know or understand any more. That blow on the head must have been more severe than she thought.
‘For now I shall be busy getting this lovely old place back in good enough order to house their guests, then I suppose I will have to find another house in need of care and attention and apply for the post of housekeeper. My perfect employer would be a reclusive elderly lady so I did not have to avoid the gossips or be put to the trouble and mess of entertaining her non-existent friends.’
‘I doubt the world will ever be incurious about you, Mrs Turner, even if it was ready to oblige your solitary and bad-tempered employer by staying away,’ he warned half-seriously because the idea of her as anyone’s housekeeper was absurd.
He hated the idea of her at anyone’s beck and call year after year, growing careworn and depressed as day followed day in a relentless procession of sameness and duty. He shuddered to think what her life would be like if she had to work for a man instead of an elderly lady as the dog was sure to try and take advantage. His fists tightened under the covers and pain shot through his damaged wrist.
‘No, you are quite wrong,’ she argued earnestly. ‘I would work hard and I am not important enough for anyone to take notice of, my lord.’
‘All this “my lording” is sheer flummery,’ he surprised them both by saying wearily. ‘And worldly rank and jostling for position in high society means nothing next to family and true friends.’
She was silent, as if carefully weighing up what to say to a viscount who did not want to be one any more and they both knew he had no choice about the matter. He felt guilty and a bit stupid for letting his confusion about his life out to someone he did not even know this time yesterday. Was this a concussion after all, then, or the after-effects of his long ride and all that terrifying anxiety for Juno as Marianne claimed? Maybe he felt low because he had wasted so much time behaving as a viscount should. He recalled his horror that Juno was hiding from him this afternoon with a shudder and a yawning gap threatened to open inside him and let loneliness flood in. Juno did not trust him; she thought he came after her to make her wed against her will and that hurt more than any bruise or sprain or sore head.
‘It seems to me we both need to review our ideas about the world, Mrs Turner,’ he told her seriously. The thought of her walled up in gloomy isolation made his heart ache as well as the rest of him.
‘Maybe we do, but not now,’ she told him as if she was humouring him. She rose from her chair to lean over him and he meekly allowed himself to be in pain and bone-weary and in dire need of her care and compassion. Tomorrow would be soon enough to restart his whole life and she still needed to be persuaded her plans were ridiculous. That sounded enough of a challenge for now and she was right, he
