‘Go away and dream of your bride-to-be. I am busy,’ she said brusquely.
‘You promised to stop trying to make this old place perfect.’
‘I did not actually promise,’ she said sneakily.
‘Then I shall stay here until you do,’ he said, leaning against the door jamb and ignoring her hard stare at his work shirt, covered in several sorts of dirt and maybe even worse from the smell.
‘Oh, very well,’ she conceded wearily because she knew he would stand there however long it took her to do as he wanted. ‘After this room I will stop. There are things I must do before the wedding and I suppose I had best get on with them.’
‘Promise?’ he said implacably.
‘Promise. Except if a crisis blows up you cannot expect me to sit on my hands and pretend it has naught to do with me.’
‘If Fliss or Miss Donne cannot deal with it first,’ he qualified and he was right, drat him. This was going to be Fliss’s home and she had every right to take over the running of it.
‘I agree,’ she told Darius with a bland, blank smile to stop him finding out how desolate that felt.
‘Very well, I will wash and change and, if I was a stern and managing sort of brother, I might suggest you do the same before you take your luncheon with Fliss and Miss Donne and me in the parlour.’
‘Luckily you are only managing, then,’ she muttered.
He grinned and left her to her spider and the empty old room. To her it was a pleasure to see a place like this coming alive again and now she had to give it up. In a way this was what she used to do on the march with Daniel—wrench comfort and cleanliness out of chaos. Whatever shelter she managed to commandeer after a long and weary march or a bloody and terrible battle was soon as clean and comfortable as she could make it. Then and now it felt like the least she could do for those she loved. And this time there was the added benefit of avoiding a man she did not want to love, but dreaded she might have to if she saw too much of him. It was high time she cut impulsive, romantic Marianne out of her life for good and became careful and realistic Mrs Turner, lady’s companion.
‘Was there anything worth saving?’ Darius asked as he came back hastily washed and wearing clean clothes. He caught her standing exactly where he left her, staring at the pile of torn-down draperies and ancient bedding as if they fascinated her. That was where dreaming got you—absolutely nowhere.
‘Were you hoping there was a suite of modern furniture under the piled-up wreckage of ages?’
‘I doubt the word modern is one Great-Uncle Hubert would have recognised if it was painted across the house in letters ten feet high. What I am hoping for is hot tea and currant buns with my luncheon and you will have neither if you do not hurry up,’ he said with a frown, as if he was getting ready to worry about her all over again.
‘I will, then, since I know what a glutton for currant buns you are,’ she replied and went to clean up and put on a better gown until he was safely busy again. Since Miss Donne’s Bet had a light hand with a currant bun, it would be a pity to miss out on them altogether.
‘Felicity looks so beautiful,’ Miss Donne whispered tearfully as Reverend Yelverton said the last majestic words of the marriage service over the happy couple and they faced the world as Mr and Mrs Yelverton.
‘And they are so happy I have no idea why I am crying,’ Marianne agreed as she watched Fliss walk down the aisle of the tiny church on Darius’s arm.
‘Nor do I,’ the lady said as she dabbed away at her eyes with a whisper of lawn and lace and sighed happily.
‘I seem to be your escort, Mrs Turner,’ Lord Stratford whispered as the best man followed Darius and Fliss out with his own wife on his arm. ‘I hope I will do?’
‘Of course,’ she said and took his offered arm and they emerged from the little church together as local children held hoops of flowers interwoven with corn over the bride and groom like a triumphal arch. The wedding party followed the bride and groom across the fields and around to the grand front of the house rather than the back door they normally used for more everyday occasions. ‘It is as well it is high summer,’ Marianne said as they approached the wide open front door. ‘Sunlight and warmth casts such a good light on the house.’
‘Indeed,’ he said as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
‘And Papa was so happy to marry Darius himself,’ she said with an anxious glance behind them to see if her father had exhausted himself getting here.
‘Marbeck has promised to stay with Reverend Yelverton until he is ready to make the return journey and as your sister is not here yet I expect all three are sitting in the shade waiting for the fuss to die down. Your father will have plenty of time to get his breath if he can walk at his own pace.’
‘And Sir Harry did not mind?’ The man had brought her sister all the way here in a curricle and four as well and Marianne was not quite sure she approved, even if it was an open carriage attended by a tiger and two outriders so nobody could accuse them of impropriety. She supposed the man had exerted himself to get Viola here to see Darius and Fliss marry after some domestic crisis made it doubtful Viola could have got here in time without
