Giving in…

To their unlikely attraction

When Alaric Defford, Lord Stafford, bursts into her life, widow Marianne Turner is shocked by their instant connection. She never expected to feel this way for another man, especially one so formidable and arrogant! Having vowed never to love again, Marianne hides behind the fact she’s a completely unsuitable match for him. But her resolve is tested when Alaric’s injured and nursing him back to health reveals a warmer, more passionate side to the viscount…

ELIZABETH BEACON has a passion for history and storytelling—and, with the English West Country on her doorstep, she never lacks a glorious setting for her books. Elizabeth tried horticulture, higher education as a mature student, briefly taught English and worked in an office before finally turning her daydreams about dashing piratical heroes and their stubborn and independent heroines into her dream job: writing Regency romances for Mills & Boon.

Also by Elizabeth Beacon

The Black Sheep’s Return

A Wedding for the Scandalous Heiress

A Rake to the Rescue

The Duchess’s Secret

The Yelverton Marriages miniseries

Marrying for Love or Money?

Unsuitable Bride for a Viscount

And look out for the next book

coming soon!

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Unsuitable Bride for a Viscount

Elizabeth Beacon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90149-3

UNSUITABLE BRIDE FOR A VISCOUNT

© 2020 Elizabeth Beacon

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Viscount Stratford hardly noticed the rain-sodden countryside he was riding through or the cloud-veiled hills slowly emerging from the gloom.

Confounded storm, Alaric thought briefly as urgency drove him relentlessly on.

Finding his niece was all that mattered and last night’s rain had cost him precious hours. He spent the time pacing a wayside barn impatient for even a glimmer of light and how could he sleep when his niece was missing in a deluge? At this time of year nights were short, and the rain had finally stopped, but at this very moment Juno could be wandering alone and lost and soaked to the skin in the hills—even if she had been taken in by strangers would they be kind to her or use her to make money? He shook his head to try and shake off an image of his naive niece held for ransom by hardy rogues, or lying hurt and feverish somewhere and needing him. So badly it hurt to think that he had failed her yet again.

How had he ever managed to persuade himself it was a good idea to leave Juno in his mother’s care while he went to Paris to try and be useful to the Duke of Wellington in his new role as British Ambassador to France? The Royalists and even some former Bonapartists might fawn on the Duke, but it was Bonaparte’s former capital, for goodness’ sake. It beat Alaric how anyone thought it a good notion to put one of the defeated emperor’s foes in such a post, but never mind that now. Juno was all that mattered and thank goodness his London agent had sent warning all was not well so he was already on his way home when she ran away.

And who can blame her when her life was intolerable and you were busy being self-important elsewhere, Stratford? What a fine guardian you have proved to be.

No wonder his orphaned niece had run away to find her former governess, who was now living in the still-sleeping town just visible in the distance. What comfort had Juno ever got from him or his mother?

None at all, the relentless voice of his conscience condemned him once again.

Even thinking about the Dowager Lady Stratford made the weariness of his days on the road between here and Paris lie heavy on his shoulders and he tried to shake it off. But now that Juno had run away from the only family she had left he could not escape the truth any longer. Since he inherited this wretched title he had neglected his niece and driven himself to places he did not really want to go and done things he had no need to do just so he did not have to think about the dratted woman and all the cold places she had left in his life. Which made him a coward, he concluded as he eyed the sleepy Herefordshire town up ahead.

Even if she was not so fond of Miss Grantham, he could see why Juno would set out for this quiet and out-of-the-way place so far from fashionable Mayfair. His mother would sooner walk barefoot down New Bond Street in rags than come here to make her granddaughter return to Stratford House and do as she was bid. So of course Miss Grantham had looked like Juno’s best ally in a crisis. The lady had taught, guided and cared for the girl for four years and he had not. His own niece did not feel she could ask him for help when his mother decided to ignore Juno’s objections and marry her off against her will to a rich middle-aged peer who was willing to pay the Dowager Lady Stratford handsomely for a young wife and the prospect of an heir as soon as he could get one on her.

‘Over my dead body,’ Alaric vowed as impatience and guilt made the distance between here and Broadley seem endless.

His horse had to pick its way past ruts and potholes full of floodwater and it would be reckless and cruel to try and spur him on. How dare two selfish aristocrats try to impose such a repellent match on such a young and diffident girl? And what a fool he was to think it would do his shy niece good to meet people her own age who would teach her to take life less seriously. He had only ever wanted her to make a few friends and see that under all the show and sparkle, the polite world was made up of human beings with all the faults, virtues and foibles of their kind. It was never his intention to marry her off so young and especially not against her wishes.

He thought he had made that very clear to his mother when he financed an extravagant new wardrobe for her and Juno and told his staff to make Stratford House ready to launch his niece in style. It was a rite of passage, he had reasoned, an experience Juno would have to go through sooner or later, so she might as well get it out of the way rather than build it up into a dreaded ordeal. And society would expect the only child of the last Viscount Stratford to make her curtsy the moment she was old enough. Alaric did not want whispers there was something wrong with the girl and her family were keeping her close to make her debut seem even more daunting if they put it off until she was older.

He knew Juno was a bright girl who could talk happily enough when she felt at ease with her company because he had heard her laughing and chattering to Miss Grantham on their walks around the park and pleasure gardens at Stratford Park. He even got past her wariness and shyness himself now and again, but they were not close enough to be easy together very often. He had to blame himself for that, as well as so many other things that had gone wrong with Juno’s life while he was not looking.

There now, he was on the outskirts of the town he had been aiming for ever since he grimly ordered a fresh horse and set out from Stratford House. At least the place was small enough for him to find the centre easily so he rode his weary and very muddy horse as fast as he dared into the stable yard of the posting inn and tipped a sleepy groom to tend to the animal as it deserved after such stalwart service.

‘Do you know of a Milton Cottage?’ he asked as the groom yawned, stared sleepily at such a filthy gentleman and scratched his head as if he had never seen the like of him before.

‘Aye.’

‘Where is it then, man?’ Alaric demanded, impatience and terror making him sound harsh. It was either that or fall into the nearest haystack and sleep for a week, but he could not do that until he knew Juno was safe and sound.

‘Up yonder.’ The man pointed at an area of more prosperous-looking houses to the east of the town and backing on to yet more hills and heath.

‘What street?’ Alaric demanded, not wanting to waste time wandering about in the sleepy streets looking at every house along the way.

‘Hill side of Silver Square—see them little houses almost out of the town by the Big House beyond, governor?’ Alaric nodded. ‘About in the middle is Milton Cottage.’

‘My thanks,’ Alaric said and tossed the man another coin before striding off as fast as he could go. The sun was nearly up at last so that would have to do. He could not wait for a respectable hour to find out if Juno was safely with her former governess.

It was hardly a square at all by London or Bath standards. The only house worth a second glance was the large one taking up the whole of the south side of the so-called square with one row of cottages at a right angle to it and another one ranged opposite. The rest was open to the view of the western plain and he could see a hint of distant hills and thought it was probably a fine prospect on a clear day. Today only the odd shaft of sunlight managed to peer past the hurrying clouds left over from last night’s downpour. Alaric frowned against the brilliance of one of those bright rays of light as he knocked on the highly polished brass knocker loudly enough to tell whoever was supposed to answer it to get out of bed and do their duty.

He was lifting his hand to do it again and never mind the respectable ladies sleeping within who had a right to sleep for several hours yet, he had to know if Juno had got here safely. At last he heard movement inside and bolts being drawn back, then a key turning in the lock. About time, he huffed to himself, and glared into the narrow crack of space at the stranger warily peering back at him.

Alaric blinked to make sure he was not seeing wonders conjured up by his weary mind instead of a much plainer truth. No, she was still there, staring back at him as if he was about the worst thing she could imagine opening a door to at any time of day, let alone this one. Ye gods, what ailed him? He had never been the sort of low and lusty fool to ogle and squeeze the maids whenever he managed to catch one alone in a dark corner. He despised masters who preyed on local girls and left a trail of little bastards and ruined lives behind them. Yet even as he was ordering himself to look away and think why he was here and how urgent it was to find Juno his eyes were eating the woman up as if she was the best thing they had ever seen and they could not get enough of her.

A shaft of that curious sunlight darted into the corridor through an open door behind her and added a shine of gold to her honey-coloured hair. She had eyes of a clear, light blue he refused to call forget-me-not because it would be a cliché and there was nothing weary or shopworn about them. Still, he could not think of a better description, so it would have to do for a worn-out fool like him. It was not as if he was going to write poems to a housemaid, so it hardly mattered what colour he called her fascinating blue gaze. Still, his mind would not let go of the delightful picture of this tall and slender female blinking back at him in the early morning light.

She must have slept in her dark-coloured gown and her hair was tumbling down her back and made him want to reach out and find out for himself if it was as softly full of life and as silkily touchable as the brown-and-gold mass looked from here. Her face was a nearly perfect oval and she had finely cut features and a haughty nose, but it was her mouth—generous and still half-asleep and unwary as if it had not yet caught up with the rest of her—that did the most damage. It drew his gaze like a magnet and made him yearn for things he had no right to yearn for. He tried to dismiss the idea of kissing her unguarded lips properly awake as he wondered how such a definite, determined-looking female managed to take orders and skivvy for her so-called betters. And how would it feel to kiss that soft and sleepy mouth until the differences between lord and maidservant faded away and he felt as if he had come home at last to a place he was made for and fitted perfectly.

Stiff and still half-asleep, Marianne Turner was woken by hammering on the door and stumbled to open it before whoever was out there could knock again. On her way here hope won over weariness for a heady moment, then reason told her if this was the lost girl she had a very heavy hand with a door knocker. Marianne sighed with tiredness and disappointment as she drew back the bolts and unlocked the door as quietly as she could. The impatience of whoever was out there had made her fumble, which said a lot about impatience and people who used it as a weapon to get their own way.

‘About time,’ a deep masculine voice grumbled as soon as she had the door open a cautious few inches to eye up the stranger on the doorstep and shake her head in disbelief. He made it sound as if she was incompetent for not coming sooner when he was being rude and demanding at an outrageous hour of the morning.

‘What do you mean by thundering on a lady’s door at cockcrow? You will wake up half the street.’ She blinked at the unshaven, mud-spattered and very male idiot standing on the doorstep as if he had every right to go where he chose and wake up anyone he wanted to and never mind the time. She glared at him and, goodness, there was an awful lot of him to glare at, wasn’t there? ‘You must have heard me trying to get the door open—have you no manners at all?’ she demanded.

‘Not with incompetent bunglers. Now hurry up and let me in, then go and tell Miss Grantham I need to speak to her,’ he demanded as if she should scurry about at his bidding and curtsy as if her life depended on it all the while and she was not doing that either.

‘No,’ Marianne said grumpily and refused to be awed by his height and powerful build.

Luckily, he could have no idea Fliss Grantham was not upstairs fast asleep in her maidenly bed. In fact, Fliss had been marooned up in the Broadley Hills by last night’s storm and at least Miss Donne’s maid had told Marianne’s brother, Darius, about a shepherds’ hut up there where they could take shelter from the deluge. Secretly Marianne had been delighted that the stubborn pair would now have to admit the powerful attraction between them that had been so obvious from the start. They would have to marry after a night alone in the hills so that was one reason to be cheerful this morning, now she came to think of it. Except this ill-mannered, unshaven and travel-worn stranger had thrust his very muddy boot in the door while she was busy thinking about Fliss and Darius, so now she could not slam it in his face.

Oh, and Fliss’s former pupil, Juno Defford, was still missing after a night of heavy rain. She had far more important things to do than wonder how it might feel if this arrogantly masculine fool was clean, had shaved and was as fascinated by her as she was in danger of being by him, if she did not wake up properly and get back to real life.

‘Go away and take a bath and shave, then come back at a civilised hour,’ she ordered the man impatiently. ‘But only if you intend to ask civil questions when you get here, mind. Throwing demands about as if the rest of us cannot wait to obey you sets people’s backs up and we have enough to worry about already.’

She glared down at his intrusive foot in the hope he would remove it. No such luck; the man had neither manners nor regard for a lady’s peace and privacy. She tried not to blink in the face of his eagle-eyed scrutiny, but he was tall and she was not used to looking up that far at a man. It felt as if a force of nature was glowering back at her and it was far too early in the morning to deal with one of those when she had so many other things to worry about. She eyed the powerful masculine form under his dirt-spattered and travel-worn clothing and wrinkled her nose fastidiously to tell him what she thought of his disreputable state.

Behind several days’ growth of beard his features were clean-cut and patrician and she supposed he would look stern and impatient even without the whiskers. With them he looked like a pirate, or a very dirty duellist who was all hard eyes and dangerous edges. Something deep inside her whispered he looked like a warrior rather than the idle gentleman of means his accent and the quality of his clothes under all that dirt argued he must be. She almost preferred him this way if he had to be here at all. The set of smooth-shaven and immaculate gentlemen of fashion he probably belonged to when he was clean and decent and not trying to intimidate his way into strange houses made her inner radical stir and shake her fist at the luxury they took for granted while so many people in this unfair world had nothing but the rags on their backs.

‘I must speak with Miss Grantham immediately,’ he argued like a king in disguise.

A pretty heavy disguise, she argued silently and stayed where she was.

‘On personal business,’ he added in the deep and growling voice that secretly sent a shiver of awareness down her spine. ‘Kindly let me in without more ado, then go and tell Miss Grantham I have arrived. Never mind if she is dressed or no, it is urgent,’ he added as if his outrageous demand would remove her from his path like magic.

‘Absolutely not,’ she replied, folding her arms across her body to make it very clear she was going nowhere.

She could stand here until half the townsfolk were wide awake if she had to and she had no intention of telling this grim and arrogant stranger that Fliss had been out all night with a man she would now have to marry if she wanted to save her good name. Even if Marianne had wanted to tell him that tale, it was not hers to tell. The man glared at her again and looked determined to stay in the way until he got what he wanted. She felt a treacherous stir of pity for the dark shadows under his hard blue eyes and the lines of exhaustion so stark around his mouth. He looked as if he had been screwing up his face against the elements and physical weariness most of the way here. He was not wet enough to have been out in the worst of the storm, but he did not look as if he’d spent much of last night sleeping either. In fact he looked as if he had spent days of hard effort and not much sleep to get here with the dawn.

For a fleeting moment he reminded her sharply of her husband Daniel after too many hard days on the march. But this was not the time to weaken or grieve for what she had lost and this man did not need her pity. Her memory of how exhausted she had felt after days in the tail of the Peninsular Army would not help her be sternly objective about him either. And this bossy autocrat had nothing in common with gallant and kind Sergeant Daniel Turner and his beloved but sometimes very weary wife. She reminded herself this man’s filthy clothes had once been of the finest quality and no amount of money could buy him a right to stand on a lady’s doorstep issuing brusque orders at dawn. He needed taking down a peg or two if he thought it should.

‘Go to the local inn and get some sleep,’ she told him brusquely. ‘If you fall down on their doorstep, at least the grooms and ostlers can carry you to the barn to sleep off your journey. If you collapse out there, we will just have to leave you lying there until you wake up again.’

‘I dare say you think you are a good girl protecting your employer’s privacy, but a young woman’s life could depend on you doing as you are bid, my girl, and you are confoundedly in the way,’ he informed her with exaggerated patience, as if she was the last straw he was trying hard not to sweep aside like an annoying fly.

‘I am not the maid, you stupid man. Nor am I a girl,’ she told him with a sneaky little worm of temper writhing away inside her. He must have taken one look at her slept-in clothes and unkempt hair and decided she was of no account.

‘Who are you, then?’ he barked impatiently.

‘A friend of Miss Grantham’s and of her own former governess, Miss Donne—whose privacy you are violating by calling at her house at such an unearthly hour and demanding the company of a lady living under her roof.’

‘Privacy be damned,’ he said with an exasperated sigh, as if he was still thinking of pushing past her to rouse the household and maybe even opening every door he came across until he found Fliss behind one of them. And all he would find was an empty room and neatly made bed so she could not allow that.

‘Do tell me where you live, sir, so I can organise an early morning invasion of your house and see how you like it,’ she said and did her best not to blink when he stared back as if daring her to do her worst.

‘Stratford Park,’ he snapped impatiently.

Oh, no, he must be Viscount Stratford, then—Juno Defford’s uncle and guardian and Fliss’s former employer. How could she not have realised he was the only autocrat likely to turn up in Broadley demanding Fliss’s presence at this ridiculous hour of the day and throwing his weight about when she did not jump to obey his orders? He was supposed to be in Paris annoying the French, but here he was on Miss Donne’s doorstep, annoying Marianne instead.

‘So you are the idiot who caused this unholy mess in the first place,’ she said with a glare to let him know what she thought of him for neglecting a girl he should be honour bound to care for.

‘Maybe,’ he said wearily. He took off a fine and filthy riding glove to rub a hand over his eyes.

‘I suppose you really are Lord Stratford?’ she said with haughtily raised brows to let him know his title cut no ice with her.

‘Yes, and you are still in my way. Whoever you are, you seem to know a great deal about me and mine although we have never set eyes on one another until this very moment, so you must also know how urgent my mission is and I must suppose you are being rude and obstructive on purpose.’

‘Think what you please, I am not rousing the household when they had so little sleep and so much worry yesterday because of what you did to your unfortunate ward.’

‘Is Juno here, then—is she safe?’

Chapter Two

At last, there was a gruff but almost painful anxiety for the lost girl in his voice and Marianne had been accusing him of not caring about her ever since she heard Juno Defford’s sad story from a panicked Fliss yesterday morning. He had treated the poor child like an unwanted package he could hand over to his mother to be rid of however she chose and look how the wretched woman had chosen to do it. The very idea of such an April and December marriage for the girl had made her shudder with revulsion, so goodness knew how alone and desperate such a young woman must have felt when she realised what was being planned for her. Taking a deeper breath to calm her temper and trying to remind herself there were two sides to every story, Marianne struggled to be fair to him, although it really was a struggle.

‘No,’ she said starkly. She could not give him false hope. There had been no sign of the girl yesterday and no late-night knock on the door to usher in a soaked and exhausted Juno.

‘God help us, then,’ he murmured wearily, as if hope his ward was here was all that had kept him riding on for what looked like days and the loss of it meant he might collapse after all. ‘What must I do to find her?’ he added despairingly.

Marianne knew he was not speaking to her when he shut his eyes and swayed as if her No was a felling blow. She watched him battle exhaustion and despair and her temper calmed at such signs he really did care about that lonely little rich girl whose only refuge in a storm was her former governess, but something told her sympathy would only revolt such a proud man so she had best not risk it for both their sakes.

‘We looked all the way from here to Worcester yesterday and searched every hiding place we could think of on the way back,’ she explained curtly. ‘The rain was so heavy in the end we could only see a few steps in front of us, so we were forced to give up the search for the night. It will begin again as soon as all the searchers are awake after their long and weary day yesterday.’

‘I would not have stopped,’ he muttered almost accusingly.

She felt fury flare again and was glad it stopped her having to feel sorry for his lordly arrogance. ‘Then you would be no use to anyone now, would you? I told you we could not see for the force of the rain. If you had been out looking for her in it with no idea of the local terrain, we would now be put to the trouble of rescuing you as well as finding your niece.’

‘You were out in it as well, then?’ he asked incredulously.

‘Of course I was. Did you expect me to sit at home sewing while a young woman was lost and alone and with all that brooding cloud about to warn us that a heavy storm was on the way?’

‘I expect nothing, ma’am. You are a stranger to me and still in my way.’

His hard expression and stony look of indifference made her temper flare, hot and invigorating this time, and there was no reason to hold back now he had made it so obvious her opinion did not matter a jot. ‘Then expect me to be furious about a girl’s lonely and probably terrifying journey from London to Worcester on the stage. She must have been easy prey for a petty thief and thank God she met with nothing worse than robbery, unschooled as she must be in the ways of rogues and con men. I dare say she has never even travelled by post before, let alone on a public stagecoach, and I admire her for getting as far as she did.

‘So you can expect me to admire her courage in walking into an unfamiliar countryside when all her money was stolen and I doubt she is used to much more than a leisurely stroll in the Park. And expect me to pity a lonely, put-upon girl who felt the only person she could flee to for protection was her former governess. But please don’t expect me to think you care a snap of your fingers for your niece and ward, my lord. I cannot believe you can possibly do so when you left her so alone and friendless under your noble London roof that she felt she had to come all this way on her own to find sanctuary with the one person who would love and support her come what may.’

‘I expect nothing of you. I do not even know who you are,’ he replied shortly.

She might have felt her temper hitch even higher if not for the flat weariness in his blue eyes as he stared back at her as if he could hardly see who she was for utter weariness and worry. ‘Just as well,’ she said grumpily because she did not want to feel compassion for him. Loathing for the haughty and indifferent family who gave a shy girl no choice but to run away from home had powered her through anxiety, fatigue and the threatening storm all day yesterday. She did not want to be fair to him until Juno Defford was safe and she was still very tired herself. She had fallen asleep waiting up for Juno to knock on Miss Donne’s door and walk in out of the endless rain. Obviously she needed to be angry with someone to keep on doing whatever had to be done to find the missing girl and he would do very well.

‘Who is it, Marianne?’ Miss Donne’s sleepy voice demanded from the top of the stairs and Marianne could hear the painful anxiety in it.

Lord Stratford used the momentary distraction to move her out of his way as if she weighed nothing. He was inside the house before she could protest or counter his sneaky move. Oh, drat the man! She cursed him under her breath. She should never have lowered her guard for even a second and now he was sure to get in the way of the search for his niece. He would throw orders out left, right and centre and he had no idea of the shape of the countryside or any of the places where a girl might seek shelter from a storm. Marianne shut the door behind him with an outraged sniff and glared at his lordly back. She had been right about his arrogance and bad manners all along then. How stupid of her to feel even an iota of pity for the man when he obviously did not deserve any.

‘Viscount Stratford,’ she called out to warn Miss Donne exactly who had broken into her house at an outrageous hour of the morning. Yet her shoulders still felt the echo of his leashed strength under that fleeting touch. She refused to let that be because awareness of him as a man had shot through her when he put her aside as if she was weightless.

‘Oh.’ Miss Donne’s voice gave away her horror at such a visitor arriving at her door at dawn with Fliss not here to greet him.

A few moments of tense silence stretched out and Marianne hoped His Lordship was squirming with discomfort as the wrongness of forcing his way into a lady’s residence at such a ridiculous hour of the day finally hit home. No, of course he was not, she decided as his impatient frown stayed firmly in place. He was not capable of examining his own actions and could only pick holes in all they had done yesterday to find his unfortunate niece.

‘Then of course you must let His Lordship in, Marianne, dear. Ask him to wait in the front parlour while I dress. I will come down and explain what little we know of his niece’s movements as soon as I am fit to be seen.’

Miss Donne’s voice faded as she went back to her room and shut the door behind her and Marianne was left eyeing the filthy viscount dubiously. She raised an eyebrow to tell him he was not fit for a lady’s parlour, particularly not one as neat and clean as Miss Donne’s. ‘You could always come back when you are cleaner and more civilised and in a better temper,’ she suggested coldly.

‘Where is the kitchen?’ he barked as if she had not spoken.

‘Of course, silly me. You are not humble or polite enough to go away to bathe, shave and change out of your riding clothes and come back later, are you? How could I be so stupid as to think you might act like a gentleman instead of an aristocrat?’ she carped as he shot her an impatient glance, then strode down the corridor leading to the cheerful best kitchen Miss Donne and Fliss used as a dining and sitting room when they did not have company. She had left the door open when she stumbled towards the front door still half-asleep to stop his rattle on the front door. Silly of her, she reflected now, as he spotted the obvious place for a filthy and travel-worn gentleman and Marianne had to tag on behind like a sheepdog keeping a wary eye on a fox.

‘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 looked at Marianne as if she would know where to start.

‘Miss Defford may be walking into town after sheltering from the storm as we speak,’ she made herself say bracingly.

Chapter Three

Alaric stared down at the fire and tried to do as Marianne said and put the worst of his terrors out of his head. He could not call her anything else because he had no idea who she was and where she fitted into brisk little Miss Donne’s household and perhaps Miss Grantham’s life as well. Speaking of whom, where the devil was the woman? He glared at the door between this cosy room and the rest of the oddly silent and empty-feeling house and sensed yet another mystery on the other side of it. A pity his brain seemed so slow and dazed with lack of sleep since he really needed it smartly aware and on parade with its buttons polished and boots blacked.

It was lack of sleep that made him puzzled and foggy about the unfamiliar new world he seemed to have been wandering in ever since he had reached Stratford House—however long ago that now was—and found out Juno was missing. He would probably find a genuine housemaid, dazzling and quick-witted and even a little bit compassionate towards such a bumbling idiot right now. And wholly delicious and so very unconscious of her own attractions. Tall and slender and just the right height for a lofty lord like him as well, his inner idiot pointed out as he tried to pretend he was as unaware of her as a woman as she seemed of him as a man.

Marianne seemed to be doing her best to pretend he was not even here as she bent cautiously to push the already-filled kettle hanging on its iron arm over the fire without coming anywhere near him. She swiftly stepped back and away as if he might be contagious and he knew he was filthy and smelt of horse and mud and whatever had been in the barn before he took shelter in it last night. He was lucky both ladies had much better manners or a lot more compassion than his mother.

He only had to imagine the Dowager Lady Stratford’s hard grey eyes icing over with contempt at even a glimpse, or a whiff, of him right now and he felt all the coldness of his childhood at his back like a January wind from the Arctic ice caps. Shivering in his boots despite the fire and the calendar telling them it was high summer, he tried to gauge whatever it was they were being so careful not to tell him about Miss Grantham’s prolonged absence.

He had told himself all the way to Paris and back it was sensible for him to marry kind, well-bred and beautiful Miss Grantham so he could provide a much better home for Juno and a loving mother to his children when they came along. At least he knew enough about bleak and unloving childhoods to want better for his sons and daughters than the one he endured. Yet now he was here and Miss Grantham might have decided to accept his sensible offer of marriage, he felt as if he had left something crucial out of his calculations. Surely he could not have felt as if Marianne was all the warmth and impulsiveness and loyalty he had ever wanted at first glance if there was any more than polite friendship between him and Juno’s former governess? How could he have thought common interests and civility were enough, that instant of surprised and horrified recognition had whispered, as he had stared at a very different female when she had opened the door? He wanted her until his bones ached and a lot more besides he had best not even think about now.

‘Tea, my lord?’ Miss Donne asked and it felt as if he had to come a long way back to the now sunny-again kitchen to look at her as if he had never even heard of the stuff.

‘Hmm?’ he heard himself say like a looby.

‘A beverage made with leaves from the tea plant and imported from China at great expense,’ Marianne pointed out impatiently and with a wave at the fat brown kitchen teapot on the scrubbed table as if he might not have seen one before.

‘I do vaguely recall the idea,’ he said with a smile of apology for Miss Donne and a wary glance at Marianne in case she had any idea why he had been lost in his thoughts. From the frown of impatience knitting her slender honey-and-brown brows almost together, he imagined to her he was just being an annoying sort of lord again instead of a lustful and predatory one. So at least he had been excused the shame and indignity of being rejected by Marianne Whoever-She-Was before he could do more than stare at her like a mooncalf. That was one horror to cross off his list, then. He did not know if he could face another furious lady telling him how hateful he was and how bitterly she wished he had never been born after his mother did just that when he found out what she had done to Juno and challenged her selfishness and lack of feeling. ‘The French seem to prefer coffee,’ he added, ‘or drink chocolate at breakfast time.’

‘You can hardly expect us to roast and grind coffee beans or ask our closest wealthy neighbour to lend us cocoa beans and her chocolate pot when you have turned up on the doorstep with the dawn uninvited, Lord Stratford.’

‘Now then, Marianne, that is hardly polite and invitations are unimportant at a time of crisis,’ Miss Donne said and Alaric could have hugged her, except he liked her too much already to engulf her in the reek of sweaty man and the less savoury smells of the road.

‘Thank you, Miss Donne. Miss…’ he let his voice tail off because he could hardly call her Marianne.

‘Mrs,’ she snapped crossly, and he suspected her tiredness was almost as huge as his when she seemed to repent her brusque impatience with a sigh. ‘My name is Mrs Turner,’ she admitted as she avoided both their gazes and poured tea into all three breakfast teacups without waiting for any more foolish arguments from him.

Just as well since jealousy and acute hatred of the lucky Mr Turner shot through him in a hot arrow of frustration. He was too late, he let himself mourn silently as the absurdity of being too late for a woman he had not even met an hour ago tried to snap him back to sanity. She obviously did not like him, so that made his feral longing for another man’s wife feel even worse.

‘I am a widow,’ she told him almost defiantly and with no idea she had just freed him from a fire he had never wanted to burn on. He did not have to want another man’s wife so unmercifully he was having trouble keeping hold of the elusive thread of this not quite a conversation as well as his dignity.

‘I am sorry for your loss,’ he lied.

‘Thank you,’ she said as if that was the last she wanted to hear on the subject. ‘Do not let your tea get cold,’ she advised him. ‘It might not be coffee or chocolate, but it is hot and you look as if you need reviving, my lord.’

‘Well, really, my dear,’ Miss Donne chided, as if personal comments mattered at a time like this, ‘this is not the time for picking at one another with Miss Defford still to find and time a-wasting.’

‘No, you are right,’ Mrs Turner admitted. ‘We need to eat and be out and ready for the search as soon as the others are awake,’ she added.

Alaric could only nod his agreement and drink his tea. Both ladies were right, they did need to eat and drink so they would have strength for the resumed search for Juno. His niece was all that mattered and never mind his foolish obsession with a honey-haired widow with dreamy blue eyes and a mouth a man would ride a hundred miles to kiss, if only those eyes were dreamy for him and her mouth half-asleep still after a night of hot and heady loving in his bed.

When Miss Donne’s Bet came downstairs, tying her apron and struggling with her cap, she blurted out the story of Fliss walking off into the hills in the pouring rain last night to look for Miss Defford before she even noticed the travel-worn lord lurking in front of the kitchen fire. So then Miss Donne had to tell His Lordship Marianne’s brother, Darius, had gone after Fliss and neither of them had returned yet. Lord Stratford had tersely demanded directions and marched out of the back door as soon as Bet could gasp them out. By the time Marianne put her damp shoes on and stumbled after him, the viscount was almost out of sight and obviously in a fine temper. She had been forced to pant after him up the winding lane out of town and even then she only just managed to keep him in sight.

She scurried into earshot just in time to hear why he was in such a hurry. Apparently Darius had compromised Fliss before Lord Stratford could marry her himself. From the dreamy way Fliss was looking at Darius, Lord Stratford would not have got his way even if he had got here in time to keep them apart last night. Then the viscount said Fliss had recently inherited a fortune and accused Darius of being a fortune hunter. How ironic when Darius had tried so hard to resist his attraction to Fliss because she was a poor governess and he thought he should marry money. If Juno’s disappearance was not so sharp in all their minds, Marianne might have been amused by the sight of Lord Stratford frustrated of a rich and suitable viscountess.

She did smile now as she recalled the look on Fliss and Darius’s faces while they faced His Lordship on a sodden hillside track. Every look and gesture screamed they were lovers and Fliss did not look in the least bit sorry to turn her back on His Lordship’s flattering offer. Then they all remembered Juno was still missing and never mind who would marry whom.

Lord Stratford was the girl’s guardian and he had said they should all forget worrying about gossip. If the whole world knew she had gone missing, they just needed to find her—so now half the neighbourhood were out looking for the missing girl. Finding waiting for news at Miss Donne’s more wearing than actively looking for Juno, Marianne was glad when Darius asked her to come back to Owlet Manor with his orders for the men today so he could stay in Broadley.

All these hours on, Marianne shook her head at her vivid mental image of Lord Stratford when she should be worrying about the still-missing Juno. In her shoes Marianne knew she would have bolted as well, however worrying it was not to have found the girl so many hours after she set out to walk the last stage of her long journey. Indeed, she had run away to marry Daniel, but that was a glorious adventure with him at the end of it. Marianne felt the bleakness of Daniel’s death at the bloody siege of Badajoz more than two years ago threaten and there was always this hollow in her heart now. No Daniel to tease and quarrel and laugh with or to love with every breath in her body. How fiercely he would argue with her about that empty heart if he could hear her! He would insist she must live life to the full and love again, even if the best part of her was cut away the night he died.

Marianne shook her head at the bereft and gloomy place her tired mind had taken her when she was not paying attention. Things were better now. She was free of the suffocating respectability of genteel Bath society and her parents’ compact new home. Darius inheriting Owlet Manor had rescued her from her mother and the condemnation of the Bath tabbies. She would rather scrub floors than go back there, so it was best to live in the moment and worry about the future when it got here.

And now the tall and fancifully twisted brick chimneys of Owlet Manor were visible above the sheltering trees at last and she was nearly home. A slender, dark-haired girl stepped out from behind the largest tree of all next to the grand gates of Owlet Manor nobody had shut for at least half a century. Marianne drew rein sharply and made Robin snort and shake his head in protest as she stared down at the girl and paid no attention to her horse this once. If she had not seen Lord Stratford first she might wonder if there was more than one girl wandering the countryside today, since this one was in quite the wrong place, but if there was a Defford stamp this girl had it. She was as dark haired as the viscount and her eyes the same clear bright blue.

Juno shot Marianne a wary look, her white teeth worrying at her lower lip like a child who knew she had not learned her lesson well enough. Marianne recalled Fliss worrying about the girl’s painful shyness with strangers and bit back the rebuke for all the trouble she had caused that was trembling on her lips. The girl would bolt into the woods if Marianne was not careful and she had proved very good at being invisible when she chose, so goodness knew when they would manage to find her again.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Defford,’ she managed to say calmly. ‘Would you like a seat in the gig for the last bit of the way to my brother’s house?’

Juno shook her head, shot a frightened look towards the bustle and noise of the farmyards where the men must be thatching ricks and seemed to be on the edge of doing that bolt Marianne was so worried about. The men were doing whatever it was with so much shouting and laughter Marianne guessed they had taken advantage of Darius’s absence to drink a lot more cider than they should have this morning. She hoped the hay was dry under the tarpaulins before they began again or the wet grass could overheat and catch fire and that was the last thing Darius needed.

‘Will you promise me not to run away again while I have Robin stabled and rubbed down? Miss Grantham has chewed her nails to the quick worrying about you and you must love her if you have come all this way to see her. I hope you will not let her suffer such painful anxiety for much longer by running away yet again.’

Juno looked shamefaced and shook her head, but that was not enough for Marianne. ‘Promise me out loud that you will not bolt as soon as my back is turned,’ she insisted with a stern look to say she would know if the girl lied.

‘I promise,’ she whispered and even managed to look Marianne in the eye so she supposed she would have to trust her.

‘Very well, then. If you do not wish to be seen, follow the path over there. It winds around the house by the side of the lake and nobody in the stable yard or on the other side of the farm will be able to see you. There is a garden door round there and a bench where you can wait while I see to Robin and get the men working as they should be. I will have to get them to see the error of their ways while I am about it, so do not be surprised if it takes longer than either of us want it to.’

Juno surprised her with a shy smile and another shake of the head at the notion of Marianne ordering the farm workers about and them doing as she said.

‘Having dealt with soldiers of most ranks and temperaments when I was with the army, those rogues are child’s play,’ she told the girl with a nod towards the noisy rickyard before she smiled back with mischief in her eyes. ‘It is just a matter of learning how to handle them,’ she added.

Juno shook her head again and looked dubious about the notion of even trying to understand what made most men tick.

‘I will try not to be long,’ Marianne promised with one last look at the diffident but determined girl who was already slipping into the unkempt gardens like a wraith. Marianne shook the reins to persuade patient Robin to move on and tried not to look back as she fervently hoped Juno Defford was a girl of her word.

After handing out brusque orders to the farm servants and a crushing rebuke to make them see the error of their ways, Marianne made sure Robin was spoiled after his gruelling day yesterday. She let herself into the manor house by the back door as if in no particular hurry lest any of the men were watching her go, but as soon as it was shut behind her she dashed across the hall to let the girl in. Juno rose from the sun-warmed bench and Marianne gave a sigh of relief.

‘What the deuce are you doing here, young lady?’ she asked with all the effort and worry of the last day making her sound brusque and irritated.

‘Miss Grantham told me about you and your brother and this poor old house in her letters,’ Juno replied with a half-defiant, half-apologetic look that said there might be more of her uncle’s fire in her than appearances suggested.

‘Walking on past Broadley for the sake of curiosity would be cruel, so I hope you have a better reason for doing it. Miss Grantham is beside herself with worry.’

‘I should never have sent that message. Nobody would have known I was here if I had not scribbled it in panic after I was robbed,’ the girl said sulkily.

‘And that would make everything all right, would it? You sound very young and foolish when you spout such rubbish and you put us through hours of worry today for no good reason. Can you even imagine what horrors Miss Grantham is dreading as the hours tick by with no sign of you?’

‘I—’ The girl broke off whatever she was going to say and Marianne saw her throat work as if she was fighting a sob. ‘I will not go back to London and I will not marry that man. I would rather die.’

‘Stop being such a tragedienne. Of course you must not marry a man who is so much older than you, especially if you do not even like him.’

Juno shook her head as if she could hardly believe someone was agreeing with her. She burst into overwrought tears as the strain and hardship of the last days and weeks caught up with her and Marianne drew the sobbing girl into her arms.

‘I am a crotchety old woman to rip up at you like that when you have been having such a dreadful time, but we have been so worried about you,’ she said to the top of the girl’s head. ‘And now I have made you cry when there are so many things we could be busy doing.’

‘I am so sorry,’ the girl managed to gasp out between sobs.

Marianne urged her back towards the ancient oak bench. ‘Here, sit down and cry it all out,’ she said and had to guide Juno’s steps as she could not see for tears. Trying to will comfort into the weary and woebegone girl, Marianne recalled her little sister crying as bitterly seven years ago when Marianne had told Viola she was leaving home to find Daniel. If anything could have kept Marianne away from him, it would have been her sister’s tears, but she had loved him too much to be swayed even by Viola’s heartbreak. So she had gone anyway and the close bond between her and Viola had broken that night and the gap had never truly healed.

Her little sister had not written back when Marianne sent letters to tell her about her adventures as an army wife and tried to bridge the gulf between peaceful England and the war-torn lands where she had spent most of her married life. When she had come back, she was too full of pain and grief to reach out to her aloof and preoccupied teacher sister.

Then Viola had taken her current post as governess to Sir Harry Marbeck’s wards and moved fifty miles from Bath and their parents’ cramped house and it was too late. A few stiff letters since had not mended things and Marianne did not feel far from tears herself now. She smoothed Juno’s tangled dark hair. ‘Better?’ she asked at a pause between sobs.

‘Yes,’ Juno said with a sigh that sounded as if it came from her boots and a hiccupping sob. ‘Have you a handkerchief? I lost mine.’

Marianne dug in her unfashionable but convenient pocket and Juno wiped her eyes, then blew her nose a few times and held out the handkerchief. Marianne shook her head and was pleased when Juno managed a small chuckle. ‘Not very appealing, is it?’ she said.

‘It can be washed. Speaking of washing—after you have done so, brushed your hair and eaten something, I expect you will feel much more ready to face the world again.’

‘I am not sure I want to.’

‘No? Well, I will have to send word to Miss Grantham you are safe and well and here with me so that she can call off the search and stop worrying about you.’

‘Does Uncle Alaric have to know?’

‘Alaric?’ Marianne frowned and searched her memory for one of those. Oh, of course, the girl must mean Lord Stratford. ‘Is that His Lordship’s name?’ Juno nodded. ‘It suits him,’ Marianne said unwarily.

‘The first one was King of the Visigoths who sacked Rome. Uncle Alaric is not a barbarian.’

He had certainly looked like one when he had been filthy from the road, unshaven and tired half to death, her inner Marianne argued silently, and that reminded respectable Mrs Turner how much trouble she had had with her inner siren this morning. Her silly fantasy of a pirate lover had been ridiculous, especially when he had turned out to be a viscount and way above her touch. ‘Then why did you walk past Broadley and not let His Lordship and Miss Grantham know you are safe and well?’

‘Because he might make me go back and I truly cannot live with Grandmama ever again after some of the things she said and did while we were in London, Mrs Turner. She told me she would lock me in my room until I agreed to marry Lord…’ Juno paused as if she could not even bring herself to say the man’s name. ‘Anyway, I ran away before she could actually do it, but then I got to Worcester and…’ Juno’s voice tailed off as she remembered the disaster of being robbed and Marianne expected more distraught tears.

‘I suppose you were right to run away—’ she began to say.

‘I knew you would understand,’ Juno interrupted impulsively and gave a gusty sigh of relief.

‘If there was no other way to make your feelings plain to your suitor and your family, but it was very wrong of you to leave Miss Grantham and your uncle frantically searching for you today when you are quite safe. His Lordship must have ridden after you as if the devil himself was on his heels and I doubt from the look of him that the poor man has had much sleep since he left France.’

‘I saw him. I hid behind a hedge when I heard a horseman coming and nearly stepped out when I saw it was Uncle Alaric, but he looked so grim and stern I did not dare. Maybe he is furious with me and has come to fetch me back and make me marry that horrid man and Grandmama was right all along and he did approve of the match. So that is why I came here to beg you to hide me, then get word to Miss Grantham, but ask her not to tell my family where I am because I would rather die than wed that—that man…’ Juno paused as if she did not have words in her to describe how much she hated the lord her grandmother had been so determined to make her wed.

Marianne wondered what they had done between them to make Juno so revolted by the very idea of him she could not even say his name. From the almost childlike appeal in the girl’s blue eyes she really hoped it had not been the ultimate in forced persuasion to make her agree she would have to marry a man who had ravished her. Heaven forbid, Marianne decided with a shudder. Sooner or later Fliss or Lord Stratford or maybe even Mrs Marianne Turner would have to try and persuade Juno to talk about what had happened to make the terrible risks of running away from all she knew to get here and escape that terrible situation seem worthwhile.

‘I promise I will make myself useful and I would much sooner scrub floors and clean windows for the rest of my life than marry that awful old man. I know you work very hard because Miss Grantham said so in her letters and I am sure you could do with some help,’ Juno said earnestly and that proved she was still more child than woman, did it not? To think she would just stay here and pretend the frantic search for her would die away and leave her in peace with Lord Stratford ransacking half the Welsh Marches for her was a world away from reality.

‘Hiring yourself out as a housemaid until you are of age could never work. Lord Stratford nearly collapsed from shock and exhaustion when he found out you had not got to Broadley ahead of him, so we simply have to tell him you are safe, Juno. It would be cruel not to and you do not seem a heartless person to me.’

‘No, I am not,’ Juno said, her extreme youth obvious in her pout and refusal to meet Marianne’s eyes and admit she was wrong to panic and come here instead of simply walking on into the town and saving herself and everyone else the extra trouble and effort of coming all the way out here. ‘I suppose you are right,’ she said at last.

‘Can I trust you not to run away again while I write to tell Miss Grantham you are here and ask her to pass the news on to your uncle?’

‘I did promise I would not,’ Juno said and sounded so sulky and misused that Marianne nearly laughed. She resisted the urge as the girl was obviously in a fragile state and might take offence and flounce off if she did, promise or no.

‘Good, then I will write a hasty letter and get our stable lad to deliver it before I come and find you again. Thank goodness the lad had enough sense to stay sober so he is in a fit state to ride Robin’s brother Swift to Broadley.’

‘I must hope he is not, then,’ Juno said. ‘Swift,’ she explained when Marianne raised her eyebrows.

Chapter Four

Alaric knew it was a mistake to come, but he could not stay away. Even after the bath and shave Miss Donne had insisted on before he set out and the change of clothes he had needed for so long, he was not fit to do much more than sleep. But he had to see Juno with his own eyes and reassure himself she was safe, however foolish it was not to rest first and let her do so as well. At least every time his vision blurred and his brain threatened to shut down, his abiding sense of shame jerked him back to life again and urged him relentlessly on.

This was all his fault; he should have stayed in England and never mind his mother’s open dislike of her only surviving child. It had been his duty to be sure Juno felt supported and loved during her first Season in town, even if he was too shallow to actually admit he loved his niece despite what her grandmother thought of both of them. What a fool he had been to think it would be better if he was not there to irritate the Dowager Lady Stratford and make Juno’s debut a disaster. He shook his head to try to dismiss the fact his mother had hated him from the day he was born from his weary thoughts. He had always borne that burden and piling it on top of the guilt might make him forget the here and now and fall off this hard-mouthed and restive animal. He frowned at the road ahead because surely this back-of-beyond house of Yelverton’s should be in sight by now? His latest hired horse was not an easy ride, but was every bit as fast as the ostler promised he would be.

Ah, there it was and a far more impressive house than expected, given Yelverton’s rough manners and ruffian-like appearance this morning. As if he had any room to talk about appearances, Alaric chided himself and frowned at the streak of pale blue sky fighting the pall of cloud. Yelverton’s home was nestled at the heart of a verdant valley and soon Alaric would have no more time to rail at himself for being a useless guardian. ‘Aye, and do not forget you are a loser in love as well, Stratford, and Yelverton is the one you lost to,’ he reminded himself out loud, thinking it was high time he slept if he was talking to himself like a lunatic. ‘Even if it was not love between you and Miss Grantham, she was your best chance of finding yourself a polite, well-bred and kind-hearted viscountess,’ he added under his breath. It did not help him feel any better now he had to revise Yelverton’s status up a notch from the look of the substantial manor house up ahead. The road twisted and turned yet again. Was nothing in this confounded county straight or direct? Ah, there it was again and Owlet Manor was a fine and ancient gentleman’s residence. Alaric already owed the man respect for the fine military career Miss Donne had outlined while Alaric ate a hot meal at her insistence before he got back in the saddle to find this place.

The worst of his fears had faded when they got that hasty message of Mrs Turner’s to say Juno was safe, but the flood of emotion he felt on learning he could stop worrying about her safety had left him weak with relief. And this was no time for weakness when his niece clearly needed him to be strong. Despite his exhaustion he decided he simply had to see Juno with his own eyes and let her know he was sorry he had been such a poor guardian and protector, before he found a bed and slept for a week then thought a bit harder about his many sins of omission.

He blinked his eyes open wide again and realised he had almost nodded off in the saddle. He made himself take note of the land around the fine manor house growing ever larger on the horizon to keep himself awake. Closer in, he could see that the old house had been neglected for many a long year. The landlord in him could see that hard work and a little money had been spent on it lately. As the owner of prosperous estates he could offer Yelverton help getting this house and his land in order, if he happened to like him. As it was he had no intention of staying longer than it took him to remove Juno from Mrs Turner’s care and get her back to Broadley, even if he had to beg the naggy-tempered and annoyingly unforgettable woman for the loan of her gig and a fresh horse to draw it with.

Tomorrow he would feel alive and awake enough to hire a carriage for the journey back to Stratford Park and a new life. He could worry about the details when they got there, but at least both of them would be excused his mother’s cold dislike for the first time in their lives.

How could he have trusted the Dowager to put Juno’s interests before her own? He had thought the obsessive love the woman had had for her eldest son would have rubbed off on George’s only child, but apparently he was wrong about that as well as everything else. The Dowager Lady Stratford had told him she would never forgive Juno for being born female when they had had their last confrontation in London, before they finally washed their hands of one another and he galloped away. George’s girl or not, Juno was a female, so she failed to keep the Dowager Lady Stratford’s despised second son from inheriting his title and the fine estates that went with it. Of course she despised the silly chit, she told Alaric as if he was stupid not to have known it all along. And how could he have trusted Juno to his mother’s care believing she must care because George was the girl’s father?

‘It suited you to believe in a fantasy, my lord,’ he condemned himself disgustedly now.

Deep down he must have known his mother only had one chip of love in her stony heart and she had buried it with his brother. Alaric had given up trying to convince his mother he never wanted his brother’s inheritance long ago, but he must have carried on dreaming impossible dreams when he passed Juno into her care after George’s funeral and thought he had done the right thing. At seventeen he felt overwhelmed by the burdens that fell on him and poor little Juno was one more. But this was not about him and his excuses for behaving badly; it was about putting things right for Juno if he still could. He deserved to be so tired every bone in his body ached. He should feel the loss of an ideal wife in Miss Grantham. He had been a fool to leave her free to find and love a better man than careless, self-absorbed Alaric Defford. He truly hated himself as he dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and urged the sullen animal on as fast as he would go.

He shot a disapproving look at rusted, open main gates to the venerable manor house’s front door and rode on past. Grass was growing across the once-gravelled drive and there were so many weeds between the stone flags nearer the house that the flags were barely visible. He shook his head at such wanton neglect. He hoped Yelverton was ashamed of himself for not getting the path to his front door cleared straight away. How was the man’s sister to receive polite visitors if they had to come in through the farmyard? ‘Place is a shambles,’ he muttered as he rode into the stable yard.

‘Sir?’ a slightly unsteady-looking farmhand asked warily, as if he thought he should have heard an order if his ears were up to it.

‘Are you castaway?’ Alaric demanded as he dismounted and staggered until the earth settled under his feet.

‘If I am, that’s two of us,’ the man muttered, then stared back at Alaric with pretend innocence.

‘Does your master know you despise his kind?’ Alaric asked with a steady look to let the rogue know he was not deceived by forelock tugging.

‘He’s bin a soldier, though, ain’t he?’ the man said as if that excused Yelverton’s sins as one of the ruling elite.

Alaric decided he had heard quite enough about Saint Darius and his heroic past for today. ‘Respect for his army service does not seem to have stopped you drinking in the middle of the day when you were supposed to be hard at work for him, though, does it?’ he replied to let the fellow know he was not fooled by his act and taking advantage during a crisis was reprehensible.

‘No, sir, but Mrs Turner ripped up at us so there’s no need to join in. Said she was going to open the taps on the cider barrels until they was empty if we didn’t get back to work, so she did,’ the man said with a hint of male appreciation for a fine and spirited woman in his bleary eyes Alaric did not like one bit.

‘Serve you all right if she did it anyway,’ Alaric informed the man coolly. ‘And kindly see that my horse is tended while I speak to the lady.’

The man gave a mocking salute that hit his ear instead of his forehead and Alaric decided Mrs Turner’s wrath must have been mighty indeed to work its way past all that alcohol. He supposed he should be grateful she had managed to put the fear of God into her brother’s workmen, since this one took the horse’s bridle and led it towards the stables without another word. At least the nag would be inside and might get watered and maybe even fed to put it in a better temper for the return journey.

Alaric stopped frowning after the rebellious farmhand and frowned at the back of Owlet Manor instead. At least the narrow garden separating the house from the farmyards and the road was neat and newly planted with herbs and even one or two cottage-garden flowers to brighten it up. There was an old orchard to the side of the place that looked as if it had received some attention as well and a row of raspberry canes still glowed with the occasional red fruit the birds had not gobbled up. Mrs Turner’s concerns were obviously more about food than decoration. Understandable if her brother did not have funds for more than the basics despite his grand house. Miss Donne had told him the manor and estate had fallen into the man’s lap when he came home from the war.

Alaric eyed the narrow and mellowed Tudor brick on this side of the house and wondered how he would have felt if his grand heritage came with no money attached and years of neglect to make up for. Lucky that most Deffords had been careful landlords, then, and they never spent more than they could afford. It was no credit to him that he was a rich man and a lord, he decided as he noted the bricks needed pointing and the ancient oak porch was listing to one side like the farmhand who had done his best not to welcome Alaric to his master’s new home. Ah well, none of it was any of his business, he decided and stepped through the porch to rap on the door.

‘Yes, whatever is it this time?’ Mrs Turner opened the door and demanded impatiently before she took the trouble to see who was out here.

Alaric supposed she had an excuse with all those fools half-drunk and maybe a little bit dangerous and her brother occupied elsewhere. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said with a silly echo of the awe and wonder that shot through him the first time he laid eyes on her troubling him again. He had hoped she would be less lovely and desirable than he recalled, but if anything he had undershot the mark.

‘Oh, it is you,’ she said as if he was the last person she wanted to see on her brother’s doorstep even with a pack of half-cut rogues to be impatient with. ‘I am sorry. Good day to you, Lord Stratford,’ she said, sounding a lot more polite, but still not enthusiastic about their second doorstep of the day.

‘I have come to see my niece,’ he told her. She stood in the doorway as if trying to hide even the kitchen from his view and he was tempted to lift her aside and march in again, but could not bring himself to be so rude twice in a day.

‘She is very tired,’ she said and would not meet his eyes.

‘I dare say, but I need to see for myself Juno is safe and well,’ he insisted.

‘You do not trust my word, Lord Stratford?’

‘I do not know you, ma’am, and you seem to be determined to prevent me seeing my ward.’

‘It is not that,’ she said uneasily.

‘What is it, then?’ he barked, nearly at the end of his tether. He would invade her brother’s house to make sure Juno was whole and safe if he had to.

‘I am sorry, my lord,’ she said as if she really meant it, ‘but Miss Defford does not wish to see you.’

He put out a shaking hand to steady himself against the door jamb and wished he could lean on this noble old house, let exhaustion wash over him so he could sleep standing up and forget about those hurtful words. If he slept long enough, maybe this nightmare would end and he would wake to a world of sanity and order. ‘What do you expect me to do, then?’ he asked lamely at last.

‘Go back to Broadley and wait until you have both had a proper night’s sleep and are feeling less exhausted and more rational,’ Mrs Turner said as if she thought he could meekly ride back to that wretched little town without seeing for himself Juno was safe at last.

‘I cannot leave here without knowing she is unharmed,’ he allowed himself to plead.

Mrs Turner looked uneasy about keeping him standing out here like a beggar hoping for scraps. ‘No, of course you cannot,’ she murmured her agreement. ‘Juno, you must show yourself and reassure your uncle you are safe and well,’ she spoke up to his lurking niece and Alaric supposed he must be glad Juno did not bolt for the nearest attic to hide in when she realised he was coming. ‘We cannot let His Lordship think we are holding you to ransom or whatever nonsensical ideas he will think up if you refuse to come out. No need to say a word if you would rather not, but you must prove to him you are well and in one piece, even if you are footsore and rather oddly dressed.’

He thought he heard a soft whisper of a laugh in the cool shadows beyond the kitchen and gazed hungrily past Mrs Turner’s slender form, hoping for a glimpse of his niece. ‘Just let me see you are unharmed, Jojo, and I promise you I will go away again until you are feeling better,’ he said quietly and willed her to step forward. He loved his niece far more than he had ever been able to let her know, but he was the adult and he should have told her all through her lonely childhood if he wanted her to believe him now.

‘You used to call me that when Papa was alive,’ she said so softly he had to strain his ears for the words and he longed for her to come properly inside the room so he could catch a glimpse of her for the first time in far too long.

‘And how he would rip up at me for letting his little girl be so miserable in London that you felt you had to come so far to find Miss Grantham.’

‘You will not make me go back to live with Grandmama, will you?’ she said and finally found the courage to peer around the doorpost at him.

All he could see was two anxious blue eyes looking warily at him and her pale face looking thinner and even more worried than last time he had set eyes on her. Then he had been bidding her goodbye at his London home before he travelled on to Paris. ‘No, even if I wanted to I could not since the Dowager has left the country and will live overseas from now on. I will not make you go anywhere you do not want to go ever again, Jojo,’ he promised recklessly and with a wobble in his voice he wished Mrs Turner was not here to pick up on.

‘I want to stay here,’ Juno managed to say almost out loud.

Alaric’s heart sank as he realised it could be too late to put his relationship with his niece right. Maybe he had defended himself against loving anyone for so long it had become a habit. But how could he have refused it to a child who had lost her father so young she could barely remember him? It seemed feeble and self-pitying to admit he had felt so shaken and alone when he lost his brother that he had built a wall around himself. Perhaps George had been lonely as his parents’ only surviving child, but whatever the reason, he had taken to his baby brother and refused to hear their mother’s orders to let the brat go to the devil and come away. Even as a boy he had taken care Alaric was happy and well looked after when he had inherited their father’s title as a mere lad himself. George had always done his best to shield Alaric from the Dowager’s cold dislike and it had hit him like an Arctic blast when George was killed and Alaric had to step into his brother’s shoes. Within the new Viscount Stratford’s barricades he must have looked self-sufficient and composed instead of bereft and terrified. Men of power were certainly fooled and they began to use him for not quite official tasks like the one in Paris to help the Duke of Wellington through an awkward situation in any way he could. Little did they know there was a coward lurking behind all that lordly composure and now Juno had paid the price.

‘Then so you shall, if I can make arrangements for your board and lodging and any other expenses. And if Mrs Turner does not mind having such a demanding young lady about the place when she has a great deal to do?’

I will miss you like the devil, but that will serve me right, he did not add. It would not be fair, after all he had not done for his niece up to now, to put any pressure on her to try and get her to love him back. Serve him right if he never did after walling her out along with the rest of the world ever since her father died.

‘You really do not mind if I stay, then?’ Juno said and she was so eager to hear his reply she actually crept past the doorway and stood just inside the room like a feral kitten ready to bolt for cover if he made the slightest move towards her. ‘I promise not to get under your feet, Mrs Turner,’ she added earnestly. ‘I know you are very busy, but I would love to help you clean and sort through all the curious old things you have found. Miss Grantham made it sound such an adventure I feel as if I know you and the house already.’

‘I wonder if she knows how hard that work can be. It is rough and ready living here, Juno. I have a great deal to do before this old place even feels like a proper gentleman’s residence once again. If you really want to stay with us for a while and rough it and His Lordship is content for my brother and me to have you here until you have recovered from your long journey, then I am sure we would be very happy to have you stay here until you feel you are ready to face the world again.’

Mrs Turner was clearly waiting to hear whether he was resigned to his niece’s wishes, if not exactly delighted by them. He could see the knowledge that Miss Grantham would shortly be part of this household in her eyes as she met his with something like an apology because his niece seemed to prefer her company to his.

‘His Lordship must be content if that is what you really want, Juno,’ he said wearily. ‘I hope you will write to me now and again,’ he allowed himself to beg before he could make himself go away and leave her with strangers.

‘Yes,’ she said and seemed to hesitate, as if she wanted to say more, but was afraid he might try to change her mind if she risked it.

‘Good,’ he said hoarsely and fought back some unmanly feeling tears as he shook his head and managed to meet Mrs Turner’s gaze with a plea in his. ‘Look after her for me, please?’ he asked and he did trust her to do that, stranger as she was and not a particularly polite or respectful one either.

‘I will,’ she promised.

‘Very well, then. I wish you good day, Mrs Turner, Juno,’ he said gruffly and bowed, then turned on his heel before he lowered himself to beg her to trust him instead. Time to get on with the rest of his life without most of the things he thought he had when he left England on that disastrous errand to France, where it turned out nobody wanted him very much either.

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