‘I was not the noble heroine you seem to want to paint me as when I first met my husband, Juno. I could not believe I could really be in love with my brother’s sergeant and fought my feelings for him for as long as I could fool myself it was simply not possible,’ she said as honestly as she could with that forbidden and this time I shall have to fight them for the rest of my life caveat in her head. ‘Daniel was Darius’s steadfast comrade in arms and saved his life more than once and I clung to all the distinctions of rank and fortune between us for a while, as if I was a princess and he was a peasant. I wonder he did not simply shrug and march away from me with barely a second thought.’
‘Obviously you did not cling to them all that hard,’ Juno argued.
Marianne decided she would have to be careful not to make it sound a wildly romantic tale and tempt Juno to follow her example. There could never be two men like Daniel even if there were any more wars to fight and God send there were not. ‘I had enough of my mother in me back then to do my very best to deny the fire and warmth that sparked between Daniel and me from the first moment we laid eyes on one another, Juno,’ she continued as carefully as she could with the memory of that time to warm her with a smile for the man who had marched into her heart and stolen it without even trying. ‘His honesty and big heart and the uniquely lovable fact of him wore my snobbery down in the end. I knew I could never even think about being happy with another man while he was alive somewhere to let me know I was wrong to even try to forget him inside a more suitable marriage for a vicar’s elder daughter.’
And apparently I still possess that genius for falling in love with unsuitable men.
Marianne finally admitted the truth to herself. She was no happier about this admission of her true feelings for a man than she had been seven years ago when she finally accepted the fact Daniel would always hold her heart, never mind him being a suitable life partner or being able to keep her and any children they might have in the sort of comfort, if not much luxury, she was used to as a lady of gentle birth.
‘I should never have asked you to talk about this when it obviously upsets you. Please will you ignore my nosiness, I truly did not mean to make you cry.’
Impossible to say it was the awful realisation she was actually in love with Juno’s uncle that did that, not only the memory of Daniel being so gruffly silent for once when they first met and so gallantly determined not to act upon the unseemly spark of attraction between himself and Lieutenant Yelverton’s sister. ‘Sometimes we have to cry, Juno. It is the only right response to a situation we have no control over. I learned to hold my tears in and pretend not to be feeling anything very much while I lived with my parents in Bath after Daniel died and grief twisted in on me until I felt dead inside. Anything is better than living in a world that suddenly feels grey and hopeless and I hope I never have to go back to the wretched place again and relive the sorrow I lived with there. If you have a yearning to see the place, I would be grateful if you would dismiss me and engage another companion because I cannot endure it.’
‘That I do not and even if I did I would rather have you and put off a need to visit a place that sounds far too full of dull people without enough to do. And I do hope I will be considered a disgrace to my family and far too disreputable to be allowed to join the gossips in Bath if I never marry. I would rather keep cats and a procession of scandalous lovers than end up in such a hotbed of silver loo and scandal one day because I forgot to live an exciting life.’
Marianne had to laugh at the highly unlikely scenario. ‘I think perhaps you should become a playwright instead with an imagination like that,’ she said.
‘I really wish I had the talent for it, but was it really so awful living there?’ Juno said as if she could not believe a lady so much older than she was could be bowed down by hard words and slights just as she was by those spiteful girls in London.
‘Not really, I was feeling low and that colours the way you see a place, but it really was boring and full of bored people with nothing much to do but make up stories about anyone a little out of the ordinary to enliven their days.’
‘I wish they would mind their own business, then.’
‘So do I, but most of the time I barely heard the tutting and whispering about me. It was trying to pretend there was nothing wrong with me that made the world seem so bleak. Not being true to yourself is a curse I hope you never endure.’
‘No, indeed, it sounds even worse than my miserably unsuccessful debut. So you hate Bath and I loathe London. I hope neither of us needs to set foot in them ever again, but there is not
