Marrying For Love Or Money?

‘It is old fashioned and neglected, but I doubt I will be bored for at least a couple of decades and, as I said before, I never even dreamt I might inherit such a fine old place one day, so I am not an impartial witness.’

‘You must have stayed in some odd places when you were with the army on campaign,’ she said to keep this polite thread going while she trudged up a gentle enough slope. She hoped they were near his promised viewing point and she could have a rest at last as she felt very weary now. His legs were longer than hers and she did not want to have to gasp out a plea for him to slow down when she wanted to get to his home and be clean again rather urgently as well.

‘Aye,’ he said somberly, as if looking back on the hard and unpredictable life it must have been and expecting to wake up one day and find this was only a dream.

She slapped at a persistent fly and sighed. Never had being clean and well groomed seemed such a luxury. Then he stopped at the crown of the hill and she was glad to get her breath back before she could spare attention for the generous view.

‘There,’ he said, a touch of apprehension in his silver-blue eyes, as if it mattered to him what she thought of his home and that was downright fanciful of her. ‘Owlet Manor is over there, at the foot of the southern slope.’

‘It is such a beautiful valley and the house looks so perfect from up here,’ she said with genuine awe. A substantial brick, timber and plaster manor house was cradled among trees and meadows and what looked like an extensive orchard down there in the valley bottom. It was obviously very old and surrounded by mellow redbrick and stone barns and stables of a very similar age. There was even a tiny church beyond it to add to its air of self-sufficient contentment as it basked in the summer sun, as if warming its old bones. Even from up here she could see how the oak timbers had weathered to a silvery grey and, looking more closely, she noted that almost half of the panels of plaster shone brighter and must have been whitewashed recently. Of course Mr Yelverton and his sister would be in a hurry to protect his splendid old house from the elements before autumn gales swooped down the valley to buffet it. Valuing that venerable old house only added to his appeal to her mind and senses, though, and he was far too attractive for them already. ‘Is that a moat?’ she asked as a sparkle of sun on water shimmered around the main house in a snatch of breeze.

‘Not now, although it might well have been once upon a time. I suppose when the Marches were thick with pikes, swords and rival armies it would have felt safer to have a stretch of water between you and the local robber barons. There is only a small lake at one side of the house now and I keep thinking my sister will unearth some old maps or plans to show us how it was, but she has not done so as yet. My great-uncle seems as likely to have kept important family papers in an attic or cellar or a horse stall as to have put them anywhere you might expect to find them.’

‘He sounds like rather an eccentric gentleman.’

‘He was not the only one,’ he said gloomily. ‘The entire Peacey family seem to have hoarded every piece of cracked china or worn-out furniture that crossed their threshold since the house was built. Great-Uncle Hubert has only added the top layers of the ancient lumber my sister is working her way through room by room. I suppose it is as well she is here to stop me adding to it and leaving the rest to addle, until I pass away a bad-tempered recluse in my ninetieth year and someone else has to tidy up after another reclusive squire of Owlet Manor.’

‘Do you feel there is a danger of you doing that?’ Fliss asked before she could remind herself not to ask personal questions. He would certainly not stay unwed long if the local beauties set eyes on him, crumbling old house and neglected farms or not.

‘There is so much to do that I could forget the rest of the world if I was not careful,’ he said absently, as if brooding over which task was next on his list trumped taking offence, or even listening very hard to what she had to say.

Apparently it trumped meeting his neighbours as well, since she would have noticed him at any of the local celebrations of the peace Miss Donne had insisted on attending, so Fliss would not be bored. Although Fliss secretly suspected Miss Donne was happy to have an excuse to gad about the neighbourhood and enjoy those parties herself, now she had retired and did not need to set a good example to the young ladies in her charge any longer.

‘I know I am no expert, but the hedges and field walls here look quite well maintained to me,’ she said doggedly taking an interest in them instead of him.

‘It is unusual to enclose common land here, so fortunately there are not all that many to maintain. If we landowners were to fence in the woods and wastes, the local people would be certain to starve on the pittance we can afford to pay them in this remote part of the country,’ he said and she was glad he was not a grasping landowner happy to enrich himself at the cost of poor commoners.

‘It does seem wrong to take away what little extra a man can make spin out after a long day’s work, then expect him to feed his family on even less when life is so hard for them already even in more prosperous places closer to the big cities.’

‘It is iniquitous,’ he said abruptly.

She felt guilty about living in great houses on prosperous estates for most of her life, even if she had never quite been part of those noble households as first a dependent and unwanted orphan, then as a governess. She was almost glad when he turned his back on the view and frowned briefly before giving her an almost polite nod and leading the way downhill again. He seemed intent on getting home as fast as possible so he could be rid of her now. Trying to ignore her bruises, sore feet and the hot sun on her back, she trudged in his wake, dreaming of cool, clear water and soap, maybe even rosewater, or lavender oil to take away the stench of eau de mud from her skin and hair. And clean clothes so fine they would drift and drape around her with every breath of a breeze and fascinate any stray gentlemen awestruck by her transformation from frog woman into fairy princess. Well, she could dream.

‘Good heavens above, Darius, whatever have you been up to this time?’ demanded the tall girl whom Fliss had taken for a housemaid at first glance, as she took in the strange little procession that emerged from the overgrown orchard and into the drying yard behind the house.

Since no maid would dare address her employer so abruptly this must be his sister, even if she was dressed in an old-fashioned cotton gown, rough apron and a cobweb-and-dust-strewn mobcap. She had been beating what looked like a very old carpet when they walked through the gate, but dropped the stout stick she was using to beat it with and came to have a closer look at the female scarecrow her brother had brought home with him.

‘Nothing to do with me, Marianne; Miss Grantham had got herself in this state before we even met, so you cannot lay her ills at my door.’

‘And if only you were wearing a jacket I am sure you would have given it to Miss Grantham to wear and hide some of the damage,’ his sister said as if it had to be his fault in some way and she surprised Fliss into hiding a smile she had not thought she had anywhere about her person until she was clean again and had something to smile about.

‘As I was not wearing one I could hardly hand it over to her, could I? And there was nobody to see her except me anyway.’ The other woman rolled her eyes at Fliss to say she had heard the wrong in that statement and sympathised with Fliss for having to walk however far they had come with such an idiot for company. ‘But never mind berating me for my sins of omission,’ he went on regardless. ‘Is there any hot water left in the copper for Miss Grantham to bathe in?’

The lady nodded and Fliss could not bite back a sigh of relief. The very thought of being able to wash some of this horrible mud off her person and out of her hair sounded like heaven to her and she was tempted to walk into the stretch of water she could see through the stand of trees at the end of the orchard and be rid of some of it right now. She might come out with nearly as much mud and some extra pond weed so she just managed to stop herself running past them both and throwing herself in.

‘Good. I had best keep this demon dog in check while you find Miss Grantham a place to bathe in peace and quiet, Nan. Then once I have carried the buckets in I will fetch one of the horses in so we can drive them both back to Broadley as soon as may be,’ he added gruffly.

‘One thing at a time, Captain Yelverton,’ his sister replied and at least now Fliss knew what his rank had been. Marianne sounded well used to overriding her bossy and impatient brother’s orders. ‘First, you must haul the hip bath into the little parlour so we can close the shutters against the sun and any impudent rogues who might intrude on a lady’s privacy. Then, after you have filled it with the copper of hot water I got ready to use to scrub the floor in the front parlour now it has been cleared for the first time in about a century, you can draw more water from the well to heat up again so I may bathe and be clean enough to drive into town as your chaperon. We will need to dunk this grubby little animal in my bath water so she is a more acceptable companion on the journey than she would be right now as well. Life is rarely as straightforward as you men think it ought to be, Brother dear,’ she said as he sighed at her list of tasks to be done before he could be comfortable again.

‘As I am going to be so busy, let us hope you will not make too much fuss about being shut in the stables while all that happens then, young lady,’ he said to the dog, as if he was more comfortable talking to her than his sister and an inconvenient stranger like Fliss.

‘I don’t care if she minds or not, she got me into this mess in the first place,’ Fliss said crossly.

‘True, but I have no time to dash around the countryside looking for her if we are to get you both home before midnight,’ he said and Fliss could practically hear him adding And look what happened when you did it under his breath.

‘I could feed her some scraps to make her more contented while you are busy,’ his sister told him with a severe look to say he was being rude to their surprise visitor. ‘I expect you would like something to eat after such a tiring day, wouldn’t you, darling?’ the lady said to the little dog and Fliss had not even known she was hungry until now. She began to wonder if naughty dogs were more important here than muddy young women who had drying mud smeared in places she did not even want to think about right now.

‘Please refrain from making the little wretch so comfortable she keeps trying to come here on her own and causes even more mayhem than she has today,’ Mr Yelverton warned his sister, then walked off to the farmhouse with Luna tucked under his arm and not even a glance behind him to see if they were following.

‘Do you think he means me or the dog?’ Fliss muttered with an infuriated glare at his broad back.

‘Oh, definitely the dog, he knows we cannot keep you.’

There was a moment of awkward silence while Fliss wondered whether to be offended and decided it was too much trouble and laughed instead. She liked Mr Yelverton’s forthright sister. ‘At least there is one thing to be thankful for today, then,’ she said with a rueful shrug.

‘Do forgive me; I often say things I should keep to myself. My mother despairs of me, but at least she cannot even try to turn me into a proper lady now I am here and she is miles away in Bath. So please don’t take offence and forgive us for being such poor hosts. Darius is embarrassed by the state of his house and I expect that is why he is being even more of a gruff bear than he usually is,’ Marianne said with a wry grimace that said a lot about her opinion of his delicate manly sensibilities. ‘And he forgot to introduce us properly. I am Marianne Turner, Miss Grantham...’ She paused and shrugged as if facing a duty she did not relish, but refused to sidestep. ‘I might as well warn you that I put myself beyond the pale seven years ago by running off with my brother’s sergeant and marrying him at the drumhead despite his scruples and my parents’ dire warnings of disaster. I have never regretted a single moment of my life with my husband, only that Daniel is dead and buried in a far-off land and I miss him like the devil. I refuse to bury my sins in his grave and pretend it never happened, especially as they never felt like sins while he was alive, or at any time since for that matter. My mother and father are so ashamed of my marriage they would rather deny it ever happened, but I refused to lie our love out of existence so it was a huge relief to us all when Darius invited me to help him fight the dust of ages and make this lovely old house into a home again. And I talk too much as well.’

Feeling as if she was being expected to face one more difficult obstacle between her and that bath she longed for when she was dazed with weariness and horribly dirty, Fliss searched for the right words. Marianne Turner looked as if she regretted telling her the truth, even if she would never regret the life she had with her late husband. ‘I cannot imagine why your mother and father were so against the marriage when he obviously made you happy. It is not as if you ran away without marrying him and I admire you for following your heart. You did what you needed to do in order to marry your sweetheart and just think how bitterly you would regret it now if you had stayed at home and done as you were told.’

Marianne gave a great sigh, as if she had been dreading saying her piece to the first lady who crossed her path ever since she came here. ‘I knew I was going to like you,’ she said. ‘Anyone who could get as dirty as you are and not cry or have an attack of the vapours about it cannot be anything like the ladies who used to look down their noses at me in Bath.’

‘And you have dust all over your mobcap and a streak of it down the side of your face, so it’s not as if you have much room to talk about my dirt,’ Fliss said and supposed the lack of tear tracks among the mud and grime on her own cheeks was something to be thankful for after all. Just as well her urgent need to find Luna, then Mr Yelverton’s manly presence, saved her from one humiliation then.

Chapter Four

Darius could hear the murmur of feminine voices outside in the garden as his sister chatted to Miss Grantham as if they were already friends and he did as he was bid. He heaved the hip bath into the small parlour, then filled the tub with hot water as fast as he could get it there without spilling too much of it. Marianne would have to find soap and wash cloths and any bits of this and that a lady like Miss Grantham would need to feel properly clean again.

He tried hard to think about the farms and all the urgent tasks awaiting him, but his inner rake kept wondering how she would look stripped of her ruined gown and everything she had on underneath it. He had to keep reminding himself she was a lady and strictly off limits for a rough farmer like him. It was not her fault she aroused his basest masculine urges the first moment he saw her across that clearing. Those urges were tugging at his resolution to be a proper gentleman every time he thought about her naked even now.

She clearly had no idea how lushly appealing her curvaceous figure was to the likes of him, but at least a cleaner and less-revealed lady would stand in her ruined shoes when she had to put them on again. He could not imagine Marianne’s shoes fitting a lady six inches shorter then she was and that had him thinking about Miss Grantham, the pocket Venus, all over again. That was not at all what he wanted when he had to be fit for mixed company as soon as they had finished their chat and come in to find out how he was doing with Marianne’s latest list of works.

Then Miss Grantham came to the back door to warily watch Marianne feed the little dog. Luna ate ravenously, drank thirstily and looked around for a place to sleep off her busy morning and Darius was glad of the excuse of making sure the cold water in the large jug he was carrying did not spill on to the scrubbed brick floor so he could avoid looking at Miss Grantham and his sex becoming fully aroused again. ‘Your bath will soon be ready for you, my lady,’ he said as lightly as he could manage under the circumstances.

‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she said and she was a gallant female, wasn’t she?

‘My pleasure, ma’am.’

‘I doubt it, Mr Yelverton, but thank you for pretending. I know what a nuisance Luna and I are being to you and your sister.’

‘Nonsense.’ Marianne dismissed all his trouble and this uneasy wanting he was fighting with an impatient snap of her fingers as she stepped past her new friend and took a critical look around her kitchen as if he might not even be capable of filling a lady’s bath without sisterly supervision. ‘We are glad of the company and both of us need to practise our social skills before we turn into a pair of grumpy old recluses like our great-uncle.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Darius muttered as he ferried another jug of ice-cold well water into Miss Grantham’s makeshift bathing chamber and tried to halt his wayward imagination. Outside and sharing a light-hearted conversation with his sister she had only been a prickle of awareness under his skin, but even in the shade inside the house he could almost see through the mud and cloth to the woman underneath as she stood hesitating by the door with the sun behind her. He would soon be embarrassingly rampant again if she did not come inside. At least Marianne was too busy unearthing washing balls and towels to cast him a knowing look. And Miss Grantham had no idea what a temptation she was to a battered former soldier who had obviously not managed to beg or charm his way into a woman’s bed for far too long.

‘You had best come inside, Miss Grantham,’ he told her gruffly. ‘Marianne will soon find you everything you will need and bring it in to you, then guard the door against all comers. After her experiences in the Peninsula she understands exactly how you are feeling right now and one thing I do know is that you will never get clean if you skulk in the yard for the rest of the day. We can hardly throw buckets of water over you until you think you might be clean enough to risk tiptoeing across my sister’s nice clean floor.’

‘It will hardly be so after I have tracked mud and dust all over it, but thank you anyway,’ she said stiffly and came inside by about two steps and stopped as if she felt the tension in the air between them as acutely as he did.

Impossible, he told himself, she was a respectable female in very trying circumstances and of course she was self-conscious and tongue-tied with him now they were actually at Owlet Manor. ‘You are welcome,’ he said almost truthfully.

‘There, I think I have thought of everything you will want for now,’ Marianne said as she came back into the room and frowned at Darius as if she could not imagine why he was still here. ‘I will leave you to your bath and try to find something clean for you to wear while you are busy,’ she said pointedly to Miss Grantham and not him.

‘I am supposed to refill the copper from the well, remember?’ he said to her back.

‘There is an outside door to the scullery though, isn’t there?’ Marianne said flatly and she was quite right, there was. He was the one who had had to take it off its hinges and plane it into the right misshape to fit the equally twisted doorjamb when they got here and she had insisted on it functioning to save whoever had to fill the copper tracking through her kitchen.

‘And you would have given me the rough side of your tongue if I forgot to take in cold water as well as hot, would you not, sister dear?’

‘It is good for you to be humbled every now and again, Captain, so why not go and do as you are bid for once, Darius?’

‘It’s just like being in the army again,’ he said disgustedly and picked up the other empty bucket and stumped through the scullery door, then shut it behind him with such restraint they ought to know he wanted to slam it so hard the windows rattled.

It was unusual to see such dark eyes combined with Miss Grantham’s fiery locks, Darius mused as he marched to the well and drew water as fast as he could lift the buckets out. Of course he was trying to distract himself from a sensual inner picture of him being in there with her, in that tight little tub and a shadowy private room, with no Marianne about to guard her new friend’s privacy from rogues like him. So were Miss Grantham’s eyes darkest velvet brown or deep, dark blue at close quarters? There had been no question of him peering down at her to find out when they first set eyes on each other and he doubted she had looked him properly in the face all the time they were walking here or since they had arrived at the manor house. Despite that avoidance his inner fantasist imagined her shooting a languishing, inviting look his way from darkest-brown or deepest-blue eyes under steam-spiked and ridiculously long lashes, preferably over a bare and soap-slicked shoulder to make it seem even more enticing. It would be a look that beckoned him to act as her bathroom attendant and lover when he joined in her ablutions and never mind a few splashes on Marianne’s immaculately scrubbed floor as they explored one another as lovers in the intimate and steamy half-light of the shuttered and intimate parlour. No, it was not even to be thought of, nor pictured so vividly it could be real, if he tried hard enough to envision every move, every sigh and sweet little moan of encouragement as they came together in the ultimate intimacy. And they would need a much cleaner bath than hers would be as soon as she had been in it long to satisfy his sinful longings, even if they were reciprocated. He very much doubted she knew what a sinful longing was. Not that his inner satyr would care if he could join her in that tub of steamy water and lure her into a dirty game of them as lovers, eagerly satisfying one another among breathy sighs and splashes and soap bubbles and never mind the state of the water.

Damn it, he was hard as rock and tempted to pour the latest bucket of ice-cold water over himself out here in the yard to cool his inner demons down. He could only have a lady like her if he married her first. The last thing he needed was a wife who would divert him from all the things he should be doing elsewhere with one inviting look over her slender shoulder. If he was ever going to save his sisters from a life of hard work and genteel poverty, he would have to work hard and wed a decent fortune as well. Miss Grantham would be a congenial friend for his elder sister, if she was broad minded enough to accept Marianne had loved her Daniel passionately, and that was all. She could never mean anything more to him. He was not going to let any woman love him, not after watching his beloved elder sister grieve for Daniel as if she was broken and dead inside for all those terrible weeks before he finally got some of his back pay and could afford to send her home. It had torn his heart every morning she faced him blank-faced and red-eyed and pretended she was perfectly well; there was nothing wrong with her that time would not cure. He doubted it; even now he doubted it to his very heart and soul. His sister had been a loving and devoted wife and Daniel had worshipped the very ground she walked on. His brother-in-law was an exceptional man, he had realised with hindsight—a warrior with a heart as soft as butter whenever he was not in battle. Who could ever replace her beloved Dan in Marianne’s heart and scout the shadows from her eyes? She loved him so much it sometimes seemed to Darius she actually had walked through hell for him on the march. So, knowing what love had done to his sister, why on earth would he want it for any female he cared for when he knew how uncertain life was at first hand? Why would he risk putting a woman like Miss Grantham through what Marianne had endured for his unworthy sake? Not that she seemed that impressed by Farmer Yelverton and he did not blame her. Love was not for him, sentimental novels and poets were welcome to it and he was hardly the stuff of any girlish dreams the lady still had, so that was just as well.