‘Oh, well, that clinches the matter,’ she said with a wry smile.
‘I am serious and so is she, Marianne. We need you and this was never about finding work for you until the house was its proper self again. It was built for a family and we have always mattered to one another, you and I, but we do so even more after everything we saw and did in Portugal and Spain. I want this to be your home and Viola’s as well, when we can finally persuade her to stop working for that rogue Marbeck and join us.’
‘Even if she did she would rather find another post than become an idle lady paying calls and fascinating all the local beaux. It is your dream for all three of us to live under the same roof again, Darius, but it is not going to come true. It is a wonderful one and shows what a good man you are under your annoying elder-brother ways, but you have a true love to share this lovely old place with now and must stop worrying about your sisters. Get on with living the life you can have with Fliss and I wish you so very happy, Darius, but sooner or later I must move on as well. Viola has her own road to travel and neither of us wants to intrude on your new lives as man and wife.’
‘I will never stop trying to change Viola’s mind while she is in Sir Harry Marbeck’s employ,’ Darius said grimly.
Marianne wondered if he was thinking of galloping to Gloucestershire and demanding their little sister pack her bags and join them at Owlet Manor straight away. ‘The more you rant and rave about the man, the less she will do as you want, Darius,’ she warned. ‘You ought to know Viola is as obstinate as both of us put together by now.’
‘Aye, you are right,’ he said with a gusty sigh, ‘but please don’t insist on going away as well, Nan,’ he added as if it would hurt him. Trust him to know using his nickname for her from her childhood would sway her as much as she was willing to be swayed.
‘I will stay long enough to help you and Fliss get this fine old place in good order for the wedding, but after that I must find something else to do, Darius. You know I cannot bear to be idle and Fliss already loves this house and will soon learn to run it with the help of some good servants and all the modern refinements you two can afford now she is rich. It will be a lovely, gracious old home for you and Fliss to raise your family and the last thing you need is your sisters here to argue and interfere at every turn. You know very well we would do so as soon as the first gloss of us all being a family again had worn off because neither of us is a meek and biddable female who would tactfully fade into the background.’
‘You never stand still long enough to fade into anything,’ he argued.
‘I cannot, Darius,’ she said seriously because she knew he would not let her laugh this off and he would argue with her every step of the way if she did not make him realise she was determined to leave. ‘I need to be busy. I need it as much as Fliss needs to have her own home and I think she needs it very badly. It sounds as if she could never call anywhere home for very long as a child so she must have a place of her own to love and look after without me here to interfere.’
‘I think you know us both a little too well, Little Sister,’ he said with a heavy sigh, as if he did not think it a very good quality.
‘I know how it feels to love as strongly and truly as you two do, now you have finally admitted it and thank goodness for that.’
‘Aye, we have and we do,’ he said with a far-off look in his eyes as he stared down the road to Broadley where his lover was sleeping without him.
‘The sooner you two are wed and left to get on with being besotted with each other in peace, the better, then,’ Marianne told him with a knowing smile and he just shrugged and grinned back at her. Loving Fliss had given him his true self back after those hard years on campaign. She would have to thank her sister-in-law-to-be for that even if she didn’t already like her very much indeed for her own sake as well as his.
Yelverton and his sister must have been living more or less alone here for too long to worry that anyone could hear their murmured conversations. The narrow windows that actually opened must have been left wide to stop this room becoming stifling and even through the shutters Alaric could hear most of what they said in the stillness of yet another dawn. Listening shamelessly distracted him from his ills as he lay here like a log in the otherwise darkened room and he was not even ashamed of himself. He could not prop himself up to watch the sky lighten and doubted he could hold a book without flinching even if his battered brain could concentrate and he had enough light to read it. He needed to lie still to avoid jarring the bruise on the back of his head and making the confounded headache start up again.
So what else was there for
