‘All I care about is my niece, everything else can wait,’ he told her and looked around the sunny room as if they might be hiding Juno in a corner.
Now she had to admit to herself he really was desperate to find his niece and he seemed so much safer when she could fool herself he was heartless. He sighed when he realised he was wrong about Juno perhaps being hidden in here from the likes of him, then he frowned down at the last faint glow of last night’s fire as if he had never seen one before. That traitor pity for his desperate state of mind and body turned her heart over; followed by embarrassment when she realised her own nest of cushions and covers was still lying on a Windsor chair like a discarded shell and betraying her own largely sleepless night.
She hastily folded the quilt Miss Donne’s maid had found for her when Marianne insisted on waiting up just in case the missing girl found her way to Miss Donne’s house despite the downpour and nobody heard her knocking. She might as well have accepted the guest bedroom Miss Donne offered her. Then at least she would not have woken with a crick in her neck and half her wits missing when this man hammered on the front door and startled her out of the rest of them. Marianne plumped up the cushions that had shaped themselves around her while she slept and would have knelt to rekindle the dying fire if he had not got there first.
Silence stretched between them like fine wire this time as he concentrated on reviving the fire and ignored her as best he could. Who would have thought he even knew how, let alone be considerate enough to sweep up the cold ashes on the stone slab to save them spilling out into the room? He looked at the brass shovel full of them when he had gathered them as neatly as he could as if he did not know what to do with them. She was glad of something to look disapproving about as she took it off him without a word, then went outside to add them to the neat ash pile by the back-garden gate. She paused out in the fresh air to frown at a new pall of cloud trying to blot out the early morning sun.
‘I really hope it is not going to rain again,’ she observed as she re-entered the room. He seemed taller and darker without the sun to lighten the place with a little hope.
He frowned as if it might be her fault it had gone in. ‘Where the devil can Juno be?’ he barked and glared at her as if she should know. Apparently their brief truce was over now he had got the fire burning nicely and Miss Donne would be down shortly for him to be a lot more polite to.
‘If I knew that I would not have been out looking for her most of yesterday,’ Marianne snapped because she had only had a couple of hours’ uneasy sleep as well and she did not see why she should play the perfect lady when he was being such a poor gentleman.
‘If you truly want to help my ward, then tell me everything you know about her journey and the search so far.’
‘I doubt if I know much more than you do.’
‘All I know is my ward has been missing in the wilds of Herefordshire for far too long. I rode to Worcester, expecting to find out she had taken the Leominster stage to get here at last only to discover some cur took every penny she had so she could not buy a seat. If only I had got to her a few hours earlier I could have saved her the ordeal of wandering penniless and alone through a strange countryside. If only I had left Paris even a day before I did I could have made sure she got here safe and well or that she need not flee in the first place. Because I failed to find her in time my niece is probably lost and frightened half out of her wits at this very moment and even if she has not fallen into the hands of a villain she could be soaked to the skin and in a high fever.’
She had wanted him to show some sign of emotion and now he had she was not quite sure she knew what to do with it all. ‘Stop imagining the worst,’ she told him briskly. ‘For either of us to be of any use in this search we must believe your niece had the good sense to find shelter last night. After having her pocket picked she is sure to be wary of being seen walking alone, so even not finding sight or sound of her is a good thing when you think about it rationally.’
‘Where is she, then?’ he asked starkly.
All she could do was shake her head in reply because she was tired as well and the girl had seemed to vanish from the face of the earth from the moment she walked across the New Bridge at Worcester and out into the countryside. It was probably as well brisk footsteps on the stone-flagged floor announced Miss Donne’s arrival and stopped them both imagining Juno in all sorts of terrible situations now he had put them back into her head.
‘Have you brought us good news of Miss Defford, my lord?’ Miss Donne asked rather breathlessly.
Marianne marvelled hope could blind such a shrewd lady to Lord Stratford’s grim expression and weary eyes.
‘Only that she is still lost, ma’am. I hoped to find my niece when I got here and I was bitterly disappointed,’ he said wearily.
‘Indeed?’ Miss Donne said with a sigh as if a heavy weight was back on her shoulders. ‘Then we must begin searching once again,’ she said resolutely and
