Marrying For Love Or Money?

Chapter Two

Fliss wished this tall stranger would set her on the right path, then leave her to make her way back to Miss Donne’s house before the lady raised the whole town to look for her missing guest. She felt an itchy sort of shame that such a compellingly handsome and vital man had seen her in such an appalling state. Yet at the same time the cold weight of her wet skirts and sodden underpinnings made her long to be close to his warmth even on this hot summer day, simply for the sake of being warm again of course, except...

Best not even think about being close to him if you were clean, Felicity. He is a complete stranger to you after all, she told herself sternly.

And such a powerful-looking one as well as he stood there in his shirtsleeves and a pair of breeches that had seen better days. His boots owed nothing to Bond Street, or wherever rich and idle gentlemen got their fine and immaculately polished top boots and Hessians. He wore his work boots with an air, though, and he must have been working hard since he had set out for a day of ungentlemanly toil. Yet did Miss Felicity Grantham’s secret inner self find the sight and scent of such a strong and healthy man all ruffled and lightly sweating in the middle of his day’s work offensive? No, she did not. He looked more of a man than any of the fine gentlemen she had met under her last employer’s roof, up to and including Lady Stratford’s son and her own would-be fiancé, Viscount Stratford.

How wrong of you to think so, Felicity, her inner governess whispered disapprovingly.

She should seize His Lordship’s splendid proposal with both hands and stop fantasising about passing males like this one. Although he did look to be in the prime of life, just as His Lordship was, she reminded herself hastily. Wondering about the wisdom of making a marriage of convenience with a viscount should be enough of a dilemma to stop her thinking about a work-worn stranger. It might if she could only call an image of Lord Stratford to mind. Unfortunately, she had never seen the cool and detached Lord Stratford in his shirt sleeves with mud on his boots and the smell of cattle or sheep about his person. And if His Lordship had an impressively muscled torso and arms like a timber-feller his tailor had done a good job of disguising them under exquisitely cut coats, sober waistcoats and gentlemanly pantaloons. Then there were his immaculate top boots—the ones she imagined this man wearing instead and found much too flattering on his long and muscular legs for comfort.

Stop it this instant, Felicity; Lord Stratford is dark and elegant and self-assured and should not be thought of in the same sentence as a work-mussed son of the soil like this one.

His Lordship did not have a thick pelt of tawny hair that still managed to curl wildly despite a severe military-style haircut though, or piercing ice-blue eyes that even made this man’s frown seem intriguing. And was the Viscount’s hair curling or straight; were his eyes brown or blue? She could not remember even when she tried to force a picture of the man into focus again so she could get this one into perspective. The vivid reality of him overpainted her inner image of a polite and dignified lord, even if she had almost agreed to marry His Lordship simply because he wanted her to. Lord Stratford was not in love with her and she had managed to fob him off with a maybe while he went to Paris to help establish the British Embassy there.

The Viscount probably had a list of attributes his Viscountess should possess to have made him offer for a former governess before he went and she suspected well-enough looking, but not a beauty was near the top of it, just after sensible and practical and not too demanding.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded rather rudely, but if the man was planning to ravish her he would have shown some signs of rabid male lust by now and that was hardly likely when she smelt like a swamp and felt miserably self-conscious.

‘Darius Yelverton, very much at your service, madam,’ he said solemnly and bowed as if she was an immaculately attired lady he had met in a drawing room.

She was right then; he must have been born a gentleman. Yet gentlemen did not work. Having demanded his name so rudely, it was only fair for her to give him hers in return, though, gentleman or no. ‘I am Miss Grantham and I am staying in Broadley Town with a good friend of mine. The fine little actress in your arms is my friend Miss Donne’s pet dog and she is very welcome to her since I want nothing more to do with you, you wretched little turncoat,’ she said sternly. Luna just about managed a desultory wag of her stubby tail, then sighed blissfully as Mr Yelverton rubbed her ear in exactly the right place. ‘I suppose whatever she was chasing must be miles away by now,’ Fliss said to stop herself having any more wicked thoughts about how it might feel for her to be so gently caressed by him instead.

‘I have no idea what she was chasing all the way out here, but I suspect one of the farm cats must have been enjoying itself at her expense just now. They are wild and scratch and bite everyone but my sister, who will insist on feeding them so well they prefer teasing the farm dogs to catching vermin nowadays.’

‘I dare say you are right, then, and while I must thank you very sincerely for catching Luna for me, sir, I really must get her home now. If you would be kind enough to hold her still while I fasten her collar and lead on again I shall be grateful to you,’ she said, trying to sound quietly composed as she brushed as much mud as possible off the supple leather of Luna’s expensive collar with a handy dock leaf. She had been forced to clasp collar and lead around her neck and chest for the want of a pocket in her high-waisted gown, so of course it got muddy when she fell.

‘Make sure you buckle it tightly this time,’ he said as if she might be silly enough to make the same mistake twice.

‘I am so glad you told me that,’ she said irritably.

‘And you can just keep still, you little madam,’ Mr Yelverton told Luna sternly as she ducked and squirmed so Fliss had to spend far longer this close to his warm and lightly sweating male body than felt proper.

She did not want to feel the warmth of his skin under that robust cotton work shirt as she buckled the collar, or be haunted by the salty scent of the work he had already done today. She backed hastily away once the collar was finally fastened tightly enough to hold the little devil if she did struggle out of his arms, which looked unlikely just at the moment. At least she could now hand him the other end of the lead and step away, but she knew he had begun the day fastidiously clean and that was another item on the list of reasons her inner idiot found him far too appealing. There was no sour trace of yesterday’s labour on his skin or, horrid thought, yet older days of it on him or his clothes. Someone must see he had a clean shirt to put on every day and thank goodness he was particular enough to wear it. Hopefully he had a wife as well as a sister at home and that should stop him being such a temptation to wandering ladies. Temptation! What a ridiculous word for her to define him with. She was not at all tempted by tall and muscular gentlemen with mocking silver-blue eyes that looked as if they would read her wicked thoughts like a child’s primer if she did not stop having them immediately. Maybe it was a blessing her face was slicked with drying mud then, as long as it was thick enough to hide the blush she could feel scorching her redhead’s giveaway pale skin.

‘You can hand her over or set her on the ground now, Mr Yelverton. We two wanderers must be on our way and if you will be kind enough to tell me how to get back to Broadley I shall be even more grateful to you than I am already,’ she said stiffly.

‘If I can persuade you to trust I am not a foul attacker or would-be seducer I believe it would be much better if you came home with me, Miss Grantham. My sister Marianne will do her best to make you a clean and respectable young lady again so we can drive you home in our gig and nobody will think anything of it. Your friend will suffer less anxiety if you both return home neat and clean and I can send a boy with a message to say you are on your way and not to worry. I may only be a farmer now, but I hope I am still enough of a gentleman to help a lady in distress.’

The idea of being clean again and back in Broadley before she could get there on foot tugged one way, while common sense and native caution argued it was better to suffer the humiliation of being seen like this in public than take a risk on his good intentions, despite his direct steel-blue gaze and very gentlemanly dignity as he stood there defying her to find him less than he should be because he worked his own land. ‘How can I be sure you even have a sister?’ she asked him anyway.

‘I defy anyone to invent a force of nature like Marianne, but I am actually blessed with two of them. Only Marianne lives with me, but they certainly exist,’ he said with a preoccupied frown, as if his absent sister was far more of a concern than a stray young woman holding up his hard day’s work. ‘The older of my two sisters is called Mrs Marianne Turner and she is the widow of an old army colleague and friend. She has agreed to keep house for me, since she dearly loves a challenge and my house is certainly one of those. I must warn you Owlet Manor has been shockingly neglected. My great-uncle lived there alone after his parents died and seems to have had little regard for his own comfort. Even after six weeks of my sister clearing and scrubbing and dusting the poor old place morning, noon and night it is still very much a work in progress.’

‘I am sorry for your sister’s loss,’ she said stiffly and considered how horrifying it must be to lose a beloved husband to an enemy bullet or bayonet thrust. So that was why this man could stand so militarily present and correct at times—if he was with the Duke of Wellington’s Peninsular force until recently she could see why he had learnt to hide his true feelings from interested strangers.

‘Kind of you,’ he said abruptly.

‘Are you sure your sister will want a muddy and wild-looking stranger descending on her when she has so much to do?’ she asked doubtfully. She was hazy about the details of life as a farmer’s wife, sister or housekeeper, but dairying, cooking and maybe even a little light gardening and hen-keeping might well be part of it, as well as all that scrubbing and dusting. If Mrs Turner shared her brother’s barely suppressed energy and impatience to get through all the work left undone for so many years the lady might be annoyed by such an interruption to her busy day.

‘Marianne will always have a welcome ready for anyone in genuine need of her help,’ he said with a wry smile that spoke of great affection for his widowed sister.

Fliss was reluctant to ask for it, though, and he was a stranger and she was used to being independent, and they were in the middle of nowhere. She realised the sheep nearby had calmed down so she could only hear an occasional maternal baa and an answering shriller one from a half-grown lamb. Even the birds sounded sleepy and the distant drum of a woodpecker and the occasional bark of a farm dog drifted towards them on a sudden stir of breeze. She eyed him cautiously and he looked back at her blandly, as if he wondered what else he could say to reassure her and whether he should even bother to try. ‘Very well, then. Thank you for offering such hospitality to a chance met and very muddy stranger,’ she said ruefully and gestured him to go first. ‘You know the way,’ she explained and left him with Luna to carry so that the wriggling little madam would keep his hands full if she had misread his essential character and he made a grab at her along the way. The little dog was so happy in the crook of his arm she had gone to sleep and was clearly no use whatsoever as a protector, whatever Miss Donne had said this morning about her pet’s wonderful talent as a chaperon and guard dog. It felt a bit galling that he had charmed the little terrier so easily when she had been staying with her friend for a few weeks now and the dog only seemed to notice she was there when she wanted something from her.

Fliss sighed and resigned herself to an uncomfortable walk in the sticky heat of whatever time of day it was by now. They strolled along at what she was quite sure was a much slower pace than he would set on his own. They must make a very odd procession and she wondered what his old comrades would say if they could see him now. Officer Yelverton escorting one muddy lady and her dog back to his home to be dealt with by his sister. That blush stained her cheeks again under the mud when he strode over the tumbledown stile at the end of the woodland path and woke up those silly fantasies in her stupid, misguided head all over again. He had tucked Luna under one arm until he was over the hedge and now held out his other hand to help Fliss over the step in her dirt-sodden and surprisingly heavy skirts. He looked impassive, but Luna seemed cross about being woken up and stared reproachfully at Fliss as if it was her fault. Vexed by the dog’s convenient memory, she scrambled over the stile with her skirts held in one hand while she grasped Mr Yelverton’s strong and work-calloused one with the other. She had to lean more of her weight on him than she wanted to in order to avoid tearing her gown. Although it was already ruined, the thought of rambling around the countryside with a great rent in it as well as all the mud weighing it down made her quail. The feel of his firm, warm male hand under her palm was intimate and rather heady and added yet another layer to the temptation she had hardly even known existed until today. She had never felt anything close to this jag of awareness at the mere touch of a man’s bare skin against hers until now. In truth, she had not been used to much masculine company at all, but something still told her this one was exceptional and clinging to his strength after so many misadventures felt far too much of a temptation.

‘Thank you,’ she said breathlessly as soon as she was standing on solid ground. She pretended to look at the high stone walls as she willed her heartbeat to slow and her breathing to steady. Not that there was very much to see. ‘The lanes around here are very deep, are they not?’ she said more or less at random.

‘This track is the dividing line between one farm and another so I suppose it must be very old to have been worn so deeply.’

‘These banks and wall certainly hide most of the land from our view.’

‘Probably just as well; the farms are not quite as neglected as my house, but there are too many thistles and rushes and nettles about for me to be able to feel proud of any of it yet.’

‘You must find this a very different life from soldiering.’ Even from behind she saw his shoulders stiffen at her clumsy reminder of his former life and she should not make personal comments about a man she had met only minutes ago. It did not feel like that, though, and at least listening for his reply meant she did not have to dwell on the strange idea she had known deep down that he was important to her the instant she met his eyes across an overgrown clearing in an overgrown wood.

‘My father is a clergyman and ran the glebe farm when we were young, so at least I have some idea of what to do,’ he said as if he was oversensitive about the gap between soldier and farmer.

‘I did not mean it as a criticism,’ she said. She was the one who insisted he walk ahead of her, so it was her own fault if she found talking to his back frustrating. ‘And it must seem like a very quiet life after the hustle and bustle of the army.’

‘Indeed it does and that’s what I was looking for when I sold out after the Battle of Toulouse, determined never to fight in another battle. I should not complain about the state of this windfall that has fallen into my lap so unexpectedly, thanks to my late great-uncle’s generosity in naming me his heir.’

‘You must feel torn between missing him and wanting to get this place in good order as fast as can be,’ she said more warily.

‘As I had never set eyes on the gentleman I can hardly miss him, although living in his house does sometimes feel as if I inhabit his shell. It sounds a fanciful idea, but his presence is sometimes so strong at Owlet Manor that I almost expect to turn round and see him glaring at me for all the upheaval and our new-fangled ideas about his house and farms. My mother claims her uncle was a recluse even when she was a little girl and recalls being brought here by her parents, hoping he would take to the only child of her generation as his heiress. She claims he ordered her to stop her chatter and told her parents to take her away and leave him alone and if he wanted to be deafened by a widgeon he would go and sit in the henhouse. She avoided him from that moment on and I can hardly blame her, but he did leave me a letter saying it was only because I did not toady or try to see him that he left me Owlet Manor and the land so I have a lot to thank her for because she took him at his word. It feels a little unjust I benefited so much when I only had a vague idea he existed and my sisters had left him alone as well.’

‘It sounds a fine heritage,’ she said, her own recent inheritance on her mind.

‘It is; I am a very lucky man.’

She was silent for a while since he had left her nothing to say. He had been lucky to inherit so much, but the state of the wood and the fact he was working so hard on his own farmland argued this place was not exactly proving to be a goldmine. They strode on—him looking preoccupied with his responsibilities and his acres, her swatting away flies and hating the feel of all this dirt on her skin and even in her hair. If she could think of something else to talk about, she might not feel so self-conscious and troubled by all her aches and scrapes now she had time to think about them. It was silly to feel safe inside these strong sandstone walls with a strong man to protect her when he was only a chance-met stranger and she could look after herself, most of the time. She felt alive in every pore and far too aware of him and it was time she stopped wondering how it might feel to stroll here with him and be clean and feel feminine next to him arm in arm, instead of follow-my-leader and about as dirty as she could be while he walked in front and tried not to breathe in her stench.

‘Your sheep have settled down,’ she remarked more or less at random as they paused at the first gateway into the fields so he could check on his flock. ‘I am very sorry that Luna’s barking disturbed them so.’

‘Aye, it is far too hot for them today and I came too late in the year to hire a good team of shearers to work on my flocks until they have finished everyone else’s, so now I have to wait until next week before they can start,’ he said, as if he was far more interested in his sheep than the disruptive female taking up so much of his time on a busy day.

‘You have more than one flock, then?’ she asked, trying to take a polite interest in his farms since he was kind enough to take time to help her.

‘Aye, these are pure Ryelands and the others are Ryeland-cross-Cotswolds, and they are all too heavy with wool for this time of year. I have no idea how my uncle thought they were going to get shorn if he did not engage a competent team of shearers in good time, or why he did not ask whoever he had last year to come back and do it again.’

‘Are they held to be good examples of their breed?’ she asked as the ways of reclusive elderly gentlemen were beyond her, too. ‘They look as if they had spent the night at rather a wild ball with their curly fleeces and those curious topknots.’

‘Aye, you’re right, they do,’ he said with a delighted smile as if he had been looking for the right words to describe them since he got here.

She caught herself grinning back at him like an idiot and managed to tear her gaze away and eye the sheep up again as if they fascinated her.

‘They are not excellent yet, but not terrible either,’ he said in answer to her question and now he was frowning again when she chanced a sidelong glance. ‘Those who know a great deal more about sheep than I do tell me I must beg, borrow or buy a new ram by the autumn if I want to improve their bloodlines, but I doubt breeding sheep is considered a proper topic of conversation for a refined lady so we had best change the subject.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake, why will people pretend we women are incapable of facing the truths of life simply because some of us are lucky enough not to have to dig or spin for a living?’ Fliss said impulsively. He looked uncomfortable with her attempt to tear down some of the social barriers between ladies and gentlemen and right now she supposed she ought to agree with him. Not that she could be much temptation to be over-familiar with as filthy and smelly as she was now.

‘The niceties of life keep us civil and civilised,’ he said dourly and seemed to be making an effort not to look at her disgracefully muddy and unkempt person.

Was he repulsed by her deplorable state or trying to deny her right to speak as a human being rather than an easily shocked lady? Or could he possibly mean she aroused uncivilised thoughts in his manly bosom? Wrinkling her nose at the smell of dank mud and sweaty and overset woman, she very much doubted it.

Chapter Three

‘Shall we carry on?’ he said patiently, as if he had satisfied himself his sheep were settled and he had best get this duty to help a stranger over with as fast as possible.

‘The sooner the better,’ she said briskly and waited for him to lead the way again. So they trudged along the closed-in lane in silence. How would it be if he wanted to be with her? she mused to divert herself from the bruises and scrapes on her knees and hands. Best not know how filthy her feet were, but she regretted not looking down at them when she stumbled on a rough area where rainwater had carved a gully.

‘Are you all right?’ he stopped long enough to turn and ask her.

She waved a hand to tell him it was nothing. ‘I am perfectly well, thank you,’ she lied airily, even if a childish part of her longed for a shady corner and the peace to have a good weep over the fiasco her day had turned into. ‘Best if I pay more attention to where I am going from now on, though, and stop trying to see over the walls.’

‘When we reach the next bend in the path there I can promise you a fine view across the valley and down to Owlet Manor and there will not be much further to go once we get there,’ he said encouragingly and turned to lead the way again.

‘Is your house very picturesque?’ she asked the back of his head. If he had insisted on her going first he would have to look at her back view instead and what a filthy and unkempt sight that would be for him whenever he looked up. And she was surrounded by a whole cloud of flies attracted by the stench of stagnant mud and overheated human, so he must be doubly glad he was ahead and not behind her.

‘To me it is nigh perfect,’ he said ruefully as they entered a stretch of the track blissfully shadowed by the dappled shade cast by rowan and birch trees, ‘and, yes, very picturesque, although not that comfortable or convenient at the moment and a century or two out of date.’

‘It sounds lovely,’ she said politely, keeping up the pretence they were taking a quiet stroll on a warm day and making idle conversation about his new home.