He suspected there was a lot more than employer and governess between Miss Yelverton and Harry Marbeck as well, but he would not lay odds on them reaching a happy ending. He sensed a troubled soul under Marbeck’s determined pursuit of pleasure and deliberate provocation of the gossips, but if any female could tame him it was a Yelverton, so who knew? He was far more wrapped up in his own Yelverton female to even want to interfere and he hoped it was just a question of planning and hoping and not giving up on a very different dream than he thought he wanted before Juno went missing and his whole life seemed to collapse around him.
Chapter Seventeen
Marianne felt shaken and bewildered by the speed they had travelled since Juno received an invitation to spend a week or two with Miss Donne in Broadley and immediately wrote back accepting it and promising to be with her very shortly. The usually docile and obliging girl then insisted they travel as fast as they could go to get back to a place she had obviously been longing to be during this whole month of leisurely exploring this place and that.
So now here they were, back where they started. Marianne was not quite sure how she felt about being at Miss Donne’s neat home where she had opened that lady’s front door so unwarily that first memorable morning and found a travel-worn and exhausted viscount on the doorstep. Images of Alaric tense with exhaustion and worry and handsome as ten devils haunted her at the most inconvenient moments as it was. Being back in Broadley and visiting Owlet Manor without him when his presence there was imprinted on her memory as well would feel so bittersweet. He was hardly likely to come here when he knew Juno was safe and sound and happy with people she felt at ease with. Now he could go back to his old life and his fashionable and important friends and forget he had ever kissed a prickly woman who could not guard her tongue or her heart effectively whenever she was with him.
In a few months’ time he would probably struggle to recall her name when they met to discuss Juno’s next move and whether it was too soon to try and persuade his ward to try another London Season in the spring and hope for a much better outcome for her this time. Goodness, she was tired after all this travelling, though. She sighed and wondered what was wrong with her as she struggled to be glad Juno was so much happier now that her uncle obviously thought it was all right to leave her to carry on with her life without his constant presence.
Tiredness and a lack of spirits had dragged at Marianne ever since Alaric left them in Buxton. She looked back at the long days of work she had put into Owlet Manor before Darius married Fliss and sighed for the energy and single-minded verve of those first weeks and months at the dear old place, before life became complicated by love declared and fulfilled for her beloved brother and this unexpected and ridiculous love of hers for a man who probably did not want her anywhere near as much as she did him.
‘Uncle Alaric!’ Juno exclaimed as she stepped out of the hired carriage ahead of Marianne and ran towards her uncle like an eager schoolgirl.
And it was true! Lord Stratford really had just stepped out of the yard entrance to the Royal George at Broadley and now he was striding forward to greet his niece as if a magician conjured him up out of Marianne’s yearning thoughts and what the devil was he doing here? Whatever it was she felt her heart race and colour flush into her cheeks as she wondered if she might be about to faint for the first time in her life. The shock of seeing him so unexpectedly made her feel light-headed and silly and then there was this urgent need to forget the rest of the world and run towards him and embrace him in such a very public place as soon as Juno had finished with him. The poor man would be horrified. Even the thought of his face as he fended her off with a harassed expression sobered her.
But, oh, dear, he was handsome, though, wasn’t he? And strong and compelling as well and he made the rest of the world fade to silence and never mind the activity and noise all around them. She must be standing here gawping at him like an open-mouthed yokel. For a moment she dreamed of a fairy-tale world where they were the only ones who mattered to each other, until reality stepped back in and the rest of the world was suddenly noisy and curious and real again.
They were in a yard with horses and grooms and ostlers busy all around them and even the odd curious face or two at the windows looking to see what important personage had arrived this time in a luxurious carriage with outriders and mud-splashed and weary horses that said no expense had been spared in getting here as fast as possible. And Alaric was a lord and she was a lady’s companion.
It was her own fault he had ordered himself to forget they had ever kissed one another as if they meant it, her doing. She had snapped and snarled at him so effectively he had treated her as an almost polite stranger from the moment they set out from Owlet Manor on this meandering journey to show Juno there was another world outside her schoolroom and the London ballrooms she had hated so much.
‘Jojo!’ he greeted the girl with a huge smile and
