‘And I might not have made him go away and he would not have been thrown from that horrid horse and given us all such a terrible fright.’
‘We would probably not be sitting here having this conversation then, since His Lordship and I did not like one another very much at the time. I dare say he would never have realised my sterling qualities and companionable virtues for the bad blood between us back then and, if you had agreed to go back to Wiltshire with him, I would never have got to know you better either and I would miss you, Juno.’
‘No, you would not, because you would never have found out how wonderful and unique I am and what excellent company I can be, but I am very glad we did stay at Owlet Manor and that you are my companion now.’
‘Thank you, so am I,’ Marianne said, but she was not quite sure she really meant it. If Lord Stratford had only gone away again as soon as he reclaimed his niece, maybe Marianne would have forgotten about him by now. At least then her heart would not ache whenever she thought how differently matters might have fallen out if he was born a humbler man and she was a more confident woman.
Chapter Sixteen
After Lord Stratford went off to be a dutiful lord and look after his grand house and estates and vast numbers of tenants’ interests for a while it felt lonely and a little bit pointless and meandering to keep on travelling without him. Marianne sat in a coffee room of yet another comfortable inn one morning, brooding about whether it was more painful to see him every day and not be able to touch or be touched by him or not to see him at all and miss even the sight of him. Sometimes it felt as if half of her was always somewhere else, wondering how he was and what he was doing and if he missed her, too. Probably not, she concluded and sighed over her letter from Darius and Fliss and almost wished she was back at Owlet Manor with them, except Alaric would not be there either.
‘You look very pensive, Marianne,’ Juno interrupted her reverie and made her start guiltily.
‘I was daydreaming,’ she replied truthfully.
‘About sad things from the look of you,’ Juno said gently. ‘Did you love your husband so very much?’ she asked impulsively, then looked cross with herself for asking. ‘I do beg your pardon. Of course you do not want to talk about him to a stranger. How clumsy of me.’
‘No, it was not and you are not a stranger.’
‘I know I am young and must respect your privacy as Uncle Alaric told me to, but I cannot help wondering how it feels to be in love. How do you know when you have found your special he, that he is not just another gentleman with a pleasing face and form and gentle enough manners?’
‘Of course you must ask such questions or how are you to learn more about the world? Yes, I did love my husband, very deeply. I miss him so much at times it feels as if I only lost him yesterday and at others he seems so far away from me I think I must have imagined so much about him I know to be true. I dare say none of that makes any sense to you, but I pray you will never have to find out for yourself how it feels to love someone deeply and sincerely and then lose him, Juno. I hope your love affair turns out to be a lifelong one when you finally get around to falling in love with a man who deserves you.’
‘But how will I know it is really love I am feeling? How did you know your husband was going to be the one you would love for life when you met him?’
‘I—’ Marianne broke off and met Juno’s painfully honest blue gaze and for a moment she could not get past the fact her eyes were so much like her uncle’s the resemblance jarred her heart with pain and nostalgia and made her think too hard about love again.
Now she was missing Lord Stratford instead of Daniel Turner and it felt disloyal. She suddenly had a mental picture of her beloved husband turning around to smile one of his loving, glowing smiles at her as he walked away with a wave towards another path she had to take without him now. This time the tears could not be held back.
She had been wrong at Owlet Manor when she cried all over Alaric—she was a watering pot. The panic and remorse in poor Juno’s face at the sight of her tears made her reach for her sensible handkerchief and scrub them away. The poor girl obviously thought she had caused these tears, but they were Alaric’s fault and she could not even be furious with him to stop it hurting. Under all that lordly temper and arrogance he was a good man and would probably hate the idea of causing her pain, so Juno must never find out she sometimes cried over him and not just Daniel.
She wondered as she stared out of the coffee-room window to try and fight her eyes dry if it would truly be better if she had never met the man. No, she would have missed so much. She shook her head at the thought of the hollow that she would have left in her life. He had marched into it and forced her bruised emotions back to life; it was much better to feel than simply exist from day
