‘Marbeck is not the yahoo some of the gossips like to believe,’ Lord Stratford said as if he actually liked the raffish baronet.
‘Yet I cannot help but wonder why he is trying so hard to prove his sooty reputation false today,’ she said with a frown.
‘Maybe he has turned over a new leaf. He has put himself out to drive your sister here and says he will drive himself back to Gloucestershire to spend a few days with his wards, so Miss Yelverton can stay and enjoy a small holiday.’
‘What a considerate employer he is,’ Marianne said blandly, still not sure she liked or trusted such a handsome rake with her little sister’s welfare and good name.
‘Whether he usually is so or not, he needs your sister a lot more than she needs him, so it is in his interests to be kind to her when he has three wards under the age of ten to cope with alone if she leaves her post. I can barely manage to look out for one eighteen-year-old with a retiring disposition myself.’
Marianne loved her sister, though, and really did not want her to suffer the sort of insinuation and slights she faced when she came back from Spain a widow. ‘Maybe I am judging him on not even a whole day’s acquaintance and you are right to tell me so, but I am not inclined to be fair when my sister could be gossiped about if she does not keep Sir Harry and his bad-dog reputation firmly at arm’s length.’
‘Hmm, I wonder,’ he replied with a preoccupied frown as he turned to watch the Reverend Yelverton join the company at last, looking none the worse for his more direct walk past the farmyard while he continued to discuss some obscure piece of scholarship with his younger daughter and Sir Harry Marbeck.
Marianne tried to see them through unbiased eyes and frowned because, never mind fairness, Viola seemed different today. She had not seen Viola since she left Bath to become governess to Sir Harry’s wards nearly a year ago, but her sister was more animated and less tightly in control of her thoughts and emotions than she was then. Viola even seemed to move more freely as she strolled along at her father’s slow pace. And what on earth had they found to talk about so intently with wild Sir Harry Marbeck that they hardly seemed to notice the rest of the company were even present?
‘Stop worrying, Marianne. Marbeck is too much the gentleman to take advantage of a lady employed to care for his wards and living under his roof.’
‘It is not his roof,’ Marianne replied absently. ‘And she is not your sister.’
‘Yet Miss Yelverton is clearly a lady of character and I expect she has her own share of stubborn Yelverton pride to add to it. Trust her to put him firmly in his place if he steps over the line and Marbeck will be so desperate for her to stay I am sure he will not risk it. As she used to teach at Miss Thibbett’s School Miss Yelverton can pick and choose who she works for and you can trust Harry Marbeck to know it and treat her accordingly.’
‘Is he a friend of yours?’
‘An acquaintance merely, but I do not think he is as black as he has been painted.’
‘But attractive rakes like him can cloud the most sensible lady’s judgement,’ Marianne objected because she did not want to be fair to the dangerously attractive young baronet.
‘Indeed?’ Alaric said with a glint of devilment in his eyes that contrarily made her want to laugh at his almost suggestion he might have to become a rake if she liked the idea.
Perhaps laughter was the most dangerous quality a handsome employer could offer a governess or a young lady’s companion, she mused, and decided to concentrate on her sister’s vulnerabilities rather than her own this afternoon. ‘My sister has seen far less of the world than I have, Lord Stratford,’ she said primly.
‘Maybe she has just seen different bits of it, Mrs Turner,’ he replied almost seriously.
‘Maybe,’ she replied. Did he think she was being overprotective? Perhaps she was not giving her sister enough credit for being four and twenty and a lady of character. She shot a brooding glance at Viola, Sir Harry and her father and decided even if Alaric was wrong and she was right she had no cause to interfere. Viola would see it as her big sister thinking she knew best and the fragile bond between them might break for good this time. ‘And I have a wedding breakfast to supervise despite my mother’s best efforts to create chaos, so kindly let me get on with my last duty as housekeeper here, my lord.’
‘Heaven forbid you ever shirk one of those, Mrs Turner,’ he said rather wearily and she refused to meet his eyes. Hard work had been her salvation these last few months and it was very useful to hide behind at times like this. She would miss it, she decided as she glanced around the polished and immaculate hall and the wide open doors into the drawing room and the dining hall, where tables groaned with bright glass and gleaming porcelain ready for the feast. And without Alaric’s help and his servants’ effort she could not have achieved even half of it.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Have you decided to say yay or nay to me yet, Mrs Turner?’ Alaric asked her several hours later, when the last of the guests were standing about feeling awkward and Fliss and Darius had departed in a flower-decked gig for Miss Donne’s house in Broadley and a private wedding night.
Miss Donne and the family were to stay here and welcome the happy couple back in the morning, then they would spend the rest of the week here before they finally left the newlyweds in peace. And all Marianne could think of was that Lord Stratford would shortly be leaving for Broadley
