‘You were born a lady whether you like it or not, Mrs Turner, and I do not think your brother would thank me for calling him less than a gentleman now. You are still Yelverton’s sister and he has the role of lord of the manor to keep up whether you like it or not. You have to be concerned for your good name if you do not want your family suffering from your lack of one by association.’
That nagging piece of grit in her oyster made her want to blaze fury back at him and tell him he had never been more wrong in his life, but he was quite right, drat him. ‘I know,’ she admitted with a heavy sigh.
Her sister Viola might live in a respectable house several miles away from Chantry Old Hall with her charges and a stern maiden aunt of Sir Harry Marbeck’s, but she was still in Sir Harry’s employ and vulnerable to gossip about her family. For Viola’s sake and for Darius and Fliss’s she had to pay lip service to the conventions. Doubtless Fliss and Darius would soon add another generation of Yelvertons to the mix and the lid would be screwed down on Marianne’s dreams of an independent life once and for all. So she might have to care about things she had left behind with a sigh of relief when she married Daniel, but that did not mean she must like it.
‘I cannot undo the past even if I wanted to and I do not, Lord Stratford,’ she told him defiantly. ‘I do not regret my runaway marriage. As I was not ashamed of my husband while he was alive, I am certainly not going to be now.’
‘Why should you be?’ he said with a quieter challenge. ‘Do you expect me to think less of your late husband because he was born in a more humble bed than you or I? He must have been a brave and honourable man for you to want to marry him in the first place and I respect such men wherever I meet them.’
He sounded offended by her assumption he would not, so she supposed she ought to stop making them. She had secretly accused him of prejudice from the moment their eyes met on that doorstep and he had mistaken her for the maid and her fury with him for that misstep felt far too personal now. She shook her head at her own stupidity, but he took it as disagreement with him and impatience flashed in his eyes as he shot a challenge back at her.
‘Perhaps you ought to think harder about which of us is most inclined to rush to judgement, Mrs Turner,’ he said with a hint of disgust that made her squirm.
‘What you think of me is immaterial. I must go and find out what is going on down there and if you have any sense you will go back to sleep,’ she told him brusquely, trying to pretend his accusation did not sting. What looked like a hired gig had arrived outside now and she saw Fliss draw the horse to a neat halt, so at least her attempt to teach her friend to drive over the last few weeks had paid off.
‘Curse it, we are not done,’ Lord Stratford said as she turned away from her vantage point to leave him to his solitude with what she told herself was a sigh of relief.
‘We are as far as I am concerned,’ she told him and at least in his current state she could walk away from an argument with him. If he was his usual self, she would probably not get halfway across the room before he stood in her way to stop her going and make her listen to his opinion of her. He might even kiss her to be certain of her attention and that was an indignity she must not even think of. So she did nothing else but wonder how it would feel to be kissed by His Lordship while she ran downstairs as if the devil was on her tail.
How fortunate that Miss Donne, Fliss and all those trappings were waiting outside to distract her from impossible fantasies. The very idea of Lord Stratford kissing her until she forgot all the differences between them and sighed for him like a dizzy schoolgirl was unthinkable. It was high time she got it right out of her head and went on with real life.
Chapter Nine
‘That was well done, Defford,’ Alaric muttered disgustedly as he listened to Marianne hurry away. Now he was shut up here with his wretched body aching in every bone and sinew and his head hurt like blazes. No use trying to get up and stagger after her to apologise and explain himself better. ‘The lady must be feeling so much better about her hard lot in life now, you infernal idiot.’
Unfortunately for him the fantasy he had of her sleepy eyed and sated in his bed while he was drifting in and out of sleep yesterday was impossible. Mrs Turner was a lady, whether she wanted to be one or not, so he could not ask her to be his mistress. And the idea of her life being picked over and sniffed at by the Dowagers if he married her made him shudder. Only if they were deeply in love would there be any point risking all the gossip about her
