‘Whatever I can or cannot blame myself for, we clearly cannot go to Stratford Park today, Jojo. If you will unpack one of those boxes the men have been so busy strapping safely to my travelling carriage so you may wash your face and brush your hair and meet me downstairs when you are ready, we three can decide what to do next. Come, Mrs Turner, I believe Juno will come about if we leave her in peace for a few minutes to compose herself.’
Marianne followed him out like a faithful sheepdog after her shepherd and expected to be dismissed from a position she had told herself she did not want very much anyway. Now it was fading away it seemed like a lost opportunity to be close to the man without anybody realising how badly she wanted to be close to him and that was a giveaway of her true feelings, was it not? She obviously felt far more for Viscount Stratford than she had ever wanted to feel for another man after Daniel died and this time it could not go anywhere at all. Just as well if he did dismiss her, then.
‘I should have known,’ she said as soon as they were out of Juno’s hearing.
‘Nonsense, and if we are both going to blame ourselves nothing will get done. We simply need to find another place for her to go since I do not have the heart to force her to face those little harpies. If you will help me to do so, I will be grateful and I am sure Juno will be as well.’
‘You do not mind that your plans are spoilt?’
‘No, I do not like Stratford Park very much myself so I will not be heartbroken if Juno does not want to live there.’
‘But isn’t it very grand indeed?’ Marianne said, the radical idea a man might not actually like his ancestral home making him seem less lordly and more human. Sometimes she really wished he was hard-hearted and arrogant so he would seem less appealing to a susceptible idiot like her.
‘It is, very grand. I am not very fond of grand—I have discovered lately that I much prefer comfortable. If your brother would only sell it to me, I would far rather live here than in a vast Palladian folly like Stratford Park.’
‘He will never do that, he loves it here.’
‘I know, pity,’ he said with a grin as if he really was relieved not to be going back to huge and famous Stratford Park.
‘What do you think you might do instead?’
‘If you and Juno are agreeable, we could travel until the roads become too difficult to do so freely, then we can think again. It might be good for Juno to wander about her own country and explore whatever bits of it take her fancy at the time.’
‘But you are an important man of affairs and I know you have obligations to your tenants and neighbours. At least Darius only has three farms to worry himself over and all of them are within easy riding distance.’
‘I envy him more and more every day,’ he said lightly and Marianne almost believed him.
After a day to regroup and for Juno to recover from her tears and chagrin, they ended up taking a very leisurely journey up into Shropshire for a week or more. Then they explored Cheshire for another week or two. Derbyshire came next and by then it was agreed that Lord Stratford would soon have to leave them to their travels while he attended to some of that business he and Marianne had talked about at Owlet Manor and he also met his agent and did all the things conscientious viscounts had to do.
Marianne and Juno shared a maid now and the girl sat silent and rather glum on the seat opposite them as they rolled down yet another country road to a country town where they were to spend another countrified night. The girl could not be much older than Juno, but she ghosted about their bedchambers night and morning, laying out this and that and being so silently helpful Marianne felt inhibited by the barriers between servants and served for the first time in her life.
The maids at the vicarage where she grew up had been cheerfully loud, tossing remarks back and forth to one another as they cleaned or cooked or helped the children with their dressing and undressing until they were considered old enough to do it themselves. This sort of service was different and Marianne had to find the line superior servants seemed to want to hold between them and their noble employers and even with Miss Defford’s companion. She felt subtly put in her place by the silent efficiency of the girl and even the grooms and coachman said very little as they sped through the sleepy countryside. Lord Stratford rode ahead most of the time, but he was often wrapped up in his own thoughts even when they came together at those inns along the way where they were fussed over and spoilt because of his rank and power. Perhaps he was simply enjoying the peace and quiet and the changing scene. He was obviously completely fit and healthy again after his accident, so maybe he was enjoying travelling about his homeland after several months spent among the tension and furore of a Paris struggling to come to terms with the downfall of their beloved Emperor.
Marianne sighed and shifted in her comfortable seat and heartily wished she was not such a fool. All three of them were embarking on a new life, even if this current one did feel a bit like a limbo between their old and new ones. Lord
