Should he do his duty...

...Or can he marry for love?

Seeing his widowed sister’s heartbreak after her husband’s death, Darius Yelverton turns his back on love. Until he meets intriguing, spirited governess Felicity Grantham. But in order to protect his sister and their home, he needs to marry an heiress. A passionate encounter with Felicity under the moonlight chips away the armour guarding his heart. With duty and desire warring within him, Darius has a decision to make...

ELIZABETH BEACON has a passion for history and storytelling—and, with the English West Country on her doorstep, 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

A Year of Scandal miniseries

The Viscount’s Frozen Heart

The Marquis’s Awakening

Lord Laughraine’s Summer Promise

Redemption of the Rake

The Winterley Scandal

The Governess Heiress

The Yelverton Marriages miniseries

Marrying for Love or Money?

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Marrying for Love or Money?

Elizabeth Beacon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90132-5

MARRYING FOR LOVE OR MONEY?

© 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

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Fliss tried to ignore the panicky feeling that she might never find her friend’s dog again in this wild wood. Perhaps she should go back to Miss Donne’s house and admit she had lost it, but since she was lost herself she might as well keep looking.

She scurried down an unkempt path and wished she had insisted on walking alone this morning, despite her former governess’s protests. And she was no nearer to working out what to do next either.

The whole country was rejoicing and she felt out of step as she worried her way around this dratted wood. Napoleon had abdicated two months ago and the war that gripped Europe for most of her life was over. She was alive on a fine June day, had good friends and a profession she managed to enjoy until her latest employment ended and the sun was very definitely shining. Oh, and she was rich, thanks to her late godmother’s astonishing bequest of thirty thousand pounds. She had a very eligible offer to consider while she took a holiday with Miss Donne and there was still time to find the wretched animal before they were truly missed.

Then she remembered the latest tear-blotched letter from Juno Defford and frowned despite all those reasons to be cheerful. Her former pupil dreaded crowds of strangers and noisy, stuffy rooms, but Juno’s grandmother, the Dowager Viscountess Stratford, had ignored the girl’s fears and Fliss’s protests and insisted Juno make her debut in polite society while the bloom of youth was still on her. It had been a total disaster. The poor girl was miserable and lonely, despite London being en fête for the victorious Allied Sovereigns’ visit to celebrate peace. But Juno was in London and Fliss was here and she still had a dog to find, so she must worry about her former pupil later.

‘Luna,’ she called without much hope of being listened to. ‘Lu-n-a!’ she bellowed, although the sharp little creature was even less likely to come if she heard anger in her voice. ‘Wretched animal,’ she muttered darkly.

There, she was right, she had heard a distant and excited yip, yip almost in reply when she called last time and she impulsively plunged into this wild and ill-kept wood after her. Luna even sounded a little closer this time; not as if she meant to come when she was called, but nearby was a lot better than over the hills and far away. Fliss broke into a trot, then a run when Luna’s surprisingly deep bark sounded ever more excited and closer than ever. She almost dared hope the little dog was tired of hide and seek and might come to her if she managed to get closer before she called her again. She tried to judge how long ago they had left Broadley Town from the length of shadows the trees were casting now. Which meant she was not looking where she was going when she stumbled over an exposed tree root. Flailing her arms to regain her balance, she knew it was too late to avoid the puddle of mud at the foot of the tree even as she pitched forward with a jarring thump and hit the ground so hard the breath whooshed out of her with a startled ‘Oomph’.

Sprawled headlong in the surprisingly cold puddle that was still here even in midsummer, thanks to the lie of the land and the dark shadow cast by the mighty oak, her soft landing felt like a mixed blessing. Mud was soaking through her light summer gown until she felt as if she might as well have bathed naked in the awful stuff. She wrinkled her nose and fought a strong urge to gag at the stench of stagnant slime. Now she was filthy; lost and still without her friend’s beloved pet.

Blinking back tears of shock and frustration, she gasped for air and made herself assess the damage to her limbs and body before she got cross about ruining every single garment she had on and still having to find her way back to Broadley and Miss Donne’s house in this sorry state. Apart from stinging knees, one or two bruises and bruised and grazed hands where she had tried to save herself as she hit the ground it could be a lot worse, she supposed philosophically. She was disgustingly dirty and sore, but at least nothing felt broken or sprained and she did not appear to be bleeding.

A couple of choice phrases were out of her mouth before she could stop herself saying them as she rose very gingerly to her feet and felt every ache more acutely now the shock of landing in a morass had worn off. She recalled her sailor father muttering them under his breath when she was a girl and took a tumble when they were out on one of their long rambles through the Devon countryside, during what turned out to be her parents’ last-ever shore leave before his ship was lost. Even the memory of her mother’s fury with them both when Fliss innocently repeated his curses was a poignant reminder that her parents were so long dead now she sometimes found it difficult to recall what they looked like.

She was not going to cry, though. Luna was still loose and they had a long walk to endure in this sorry state when she found her. Tears would not help to make any of it seem less of a challenge.

‘You will just have to brazen it out, Felicity,’ she told herself crossly. Excited yips from the other side of the great tree spurred her into prising herself out of the mud completely and stumbling on past the soreness and bruises to the urgent business of finding her friend’s dog. If only she could catch the horrid little animal, they could hurry back to Miss Donne’s house and get clean again. If she was very lucky indeed, nobody would see her looking so awful and smelling this foul.

Darius Yelverton had heard those distant yelps as well, but he was furious with whoever had let a dog stray on his land. From the noise and restless movements he could hear up ahead his best ewes and lambs felt under threat from it as well. Dashing up the lane in his still-unfamiliar workingman’s boots, he wished he had his army boots as well as his rifle so he could shoot the cur if it was playing the wolf with his stock.

He hated killing anything after years of doing it for his country as an officer in Wellington’s Peninsular Army, but he was determined to protect his flocks and this precarious new way of life with his last breath. He had come back home after the ill-starred Battle of Toulouse a war-weary former infantry officer without much idea of what he was going to do with the rest of his life but, please God, let it not be fighting. Then Owlet Manor and its rundown farms had fallen into his lap like a miracle and he would fight even harder than he had had to in the army to keep it.

He felt his heartbeat race with dread of what he might see and broke into a run, cursing the lie of the land, all this overgrown scrub and the high-banked stone walls blocking his view of his precious livestock. He reached the gate and heaved a sigh of relief; the sheep were milling about, calling in alarm as they clustered by the gate to get as far away from the noise of a predator nearby, but they were safe, for now. He had to catch that dratted dog before it got among them and caused terrible damage. The sight of their shepherd would have soothed the flock, but he was busy helping mend walls and fences so they could be moved closer to the house. Not being as quick at the job yet, Darius had volunteered to check on the flock for him, but as he was still more or less a stranger to them they did not quiet when he appeared. He really had to get hold of that yapping dog before it did them any more harm. It was a good thing they were not heavy with lamb at this time of year so at least they could not abort in their terror.

While he might not know every inch of his land yet, nothing had prepared him for the fierce burn of possession he felt for this rundown but almost magical place the moment he had laid eyes on it. He was never going to let the tired old manor house and rundown farms go unless someone physically wrested them from him. If he could only afford to have both of his sisters living safe under his roof at long last, he would be a very happy man.

Darius scrambled over the rickety stile and into the unkempt woods and wished he could afford a woodsman, especially when a bramble snagged his ankles and he had to stop and unwind himself from its sneaky barbs before he could hurry onwards. The noise of the confounded dog sounding almost hysterical with excitement now spurred him into a run as soon as he was free again. If the animal was after a fox it could get itself killed and maybe that would be good riddance to it—except he had seen too much death and wanton destruction in the Peninsula to shrug and pass by.

Now he could hear the scrabble of claws as the still-unseen dog shifted to get closer to whatever was provoking it. Frustratingly the path snaked round a twisted old oak tree and he slowed down as his boots squelched into a dip he was surprised was still dank with muddy water even in midsummer. Human footprints and a watery impression of human hands not quite filled in by the sluggish mud said someone else had passed this way very recently. He felt a little bit guilty that someone had fallen into a near swamp on his land, even if they had to be the neglectful owner of the yapping dog he had been cursing since he first heard it in the distance. He really must get the undergrowth cleared and the ditches re-cut before winter, even if he had to do it himself.

‘Come here, you double-damned limb of Satan,’ an otherwise refined female voice muttered on the other side of the tree and past another thicket of brambles. The sound of more unladylike curses made him smile as he carefully avoided following in her muddy footprints and skirted the tree root that had probably caused her to fall into the mud in the first place. ‘I will string you up and carve out your liver with a spoon when I finally catch you, you triple-confounded spawn of hell,’ she told the excited dog in a sweetly coaxing voice as the noise of its scrabbling paws told him it had evaded her yet again.

He rounded the bole of the vast old tree, then the brambles beyond, and got his first sight of the female supposedly in charge of the dog. She tried to outwit the sharp little terrier again and fell on her hands and knees as the dog sped past her and one of the brambles he had just cursed himself snagged her already ruined gown. He was fiercely glad she was too preoccupied to look up and see him staring at her like a dumbstruck idiot. He knew he should avert his eyes, but he was a man as well as a former officer and supposed gentleman. Her buxom figure and wildly tumbling red curls would have forced a furtive second glance from any sentient adult male, even before her gown was sodden with mud and dirt and clinging to her magnificent figure like a lover. Now her lush breasts and hips were clearly outlined by a filthy and wet summer gown and she had no idea he was gawping at her, but he still let his gaze linger on a Venus revealed as if she was stark naked. In the middle of his own overgrown wood as well! He could still hardly believe his eyes. Even her back view was delightful. He fought to control his inevitable masculine reaction to so much feminine temptation innocently on display.

She scrambled to her feet and darted after the small brown and white dog and the sight of her generous breasts moving under her mud-stained and lovingly clinging draperies had a fire blazing his gut. He was so fascinated by the sight of her—so blissfully unaware his darker male impulses were being stoked up by her far-too-revealed curves—that for a few moments he forgot he was a gentleman and gawped wolfishly while she darted about the clearing like a very dirty wood nymph concentrating all her efforts on the dog. He was far too fascinated by the way her lithe and slender legs contrasted with the full curves of her breast and those lushly feminine hips to take much note of the animal she was chasing. He had never seen a finer female figure in a so-called classical painting or naked in his bed and he urgently wanted this one in there right now. Except her accent had sounded refined and ladylike, despite her vocabulary, and she must have looked like a modest young lady when she set out on a country walk. That was before it went so badly wrong, as she had clearly been chasing the busy little terrier now darting away from her for hours.

And he was behaving like a satyr. He should be ashamed of himself. Even if she was a relatively innocent country wife and not the single lady he fervently hoped she was, he owed her more respect than this. He would rather not lust after another man’s wife and he could not afford to keep one of his own on his current income and so many responsibilities to worry about already. Disgusted with himself for even thinking that if she was a country wife she might be fair game, he remembered the terrible violence against women he had seen the aftermath of in Spain. For a moment he hated his own sex—himself included—for lusting after a woman who had no idea he was watching her with all sorts of wrongheaded masculine needs and desires torturing his unruly body.

Serve you right to burn, he told himself sternly as he turned his eyes from the tempting spectacle of a female so intent on the nimble little beast she was chasing she had no idea he was standing here watching her with such greedy eyes.

Which is just as well, Captain Yelverton told Darius sternly. You won’t be fit to be seen until you put those ridiculous fantasies to bed. And that was not the right place to try to bury them, now was it?

Darius argued with himself. By thinking hard of somewhere very cold and unpleasant and adding in how furious he would be if any rogue stared at either of his sisters so lustily, he overcame the worst of his animal impulses and decided to intervene before she woke up his inner devils again. Best take dog and woman by surprise, he decided, and calculated distances and obstacles like an artilleryman. Satisfied it was his best chance of success he made a dive for the dog next time it was taking evasive action and luckily he was right and he got close enough for him to catch it.

‘Got you, you little demon,’ he told the muscular little terrier now squirming in his arms in its desperation to get away from a complete stranger. He braced himself to be bitten and held the animal out by the scruff to keep its teeth as far away from his skin as possible until it calmed down. He had to respect whoever had taught it not to bite when seized by unknown humans and risked holding it closer so it would feel more secure as a reward. It settled into the crook of his elbow as if it was tired after a demanding morning and did a fine imitation of a docile lapdog.

‘Who the deuce are you?’ the muddy young woman demanded with no sign of gratitude. If she knew how much she had to be grateful for, she might be more wary about waking his inner devil while she glared at him as if she was wearing layers of respectable finery and he was intruding on her solitude.

‘Does this wolf in lapdog clothing have a collar and lead, or did you rely on...’ he hesitated for a moment and held the animal at arm’s length again. The dog squirmed around to lick his cheek as he tucked it back into the crook of his arm and a fine watchdog she was ‘...her ladylike instincts to keep her in check? If so, they seem to have failed you both rather badly.’

‘She didn’t bite you, though, did she?’

‘Well, no, but I dare say she would have liked to.’

‘Out of shock, not nastiness,’ she defended the little creature she had been cursing only seconds ago.

‘And unless you keep her under control she will be shot by an irate farmer. She upset my livestock with her wild barking, so you should either learn how to keep her under control in future or stay at home.’

‘I know she should be on a lead,’ she said, not very apologetically. He could practically hear her fighting with an urge to argue, then snatch her dog back and flounce away. For her to even know the language he had heard before she knew he was listening she could not be anywhere near as proper as she was now trying to pretend. There had even been a few choice phrases in French and something that sounded like very low Dutch to him, so perhaps the rebel under her skin was as fiery as her hair. That idea was too arousing for his own rebel body so he forced it to the back of his mind and tried to look coolly sceptical while he waited for a better explanation.

‘She is not mine,’ she admitted, looking a bit shamefaced now the shock of his words had finally hit home. ‘And of course she was wearing her collar and lead when we set out for a walk in the country. Maybe I did not fasten the collar tightly enough since she found it too easy to slip out of it when I was not paying her enough attention. Then she was off and away before I could grab her and I have no idea how many miles we are now from where we began. First she got on one scent, then another and here we are,’ she explained as if the full force of her situation had only just hit home. ‘Where is that, by the way?’ she asked almost casually, eyeing him warily as if she had just realised he was a man and they were alone together in the middle of nowhere. His legs were longer than hers and unfettered by sodden skirts so he would have a lot of unfair advantages in a chase, if he was that sort of ruthless, opportunistic predator. Lucky for her he was not, but she did not know that. No wonder she was looking at him so warily now it had finally occurred to her he was a healthy male with all the needs and urges of his kind in full working order.

‘Brock Wood,’ he told her shortly, after an unwary glance at her, then a hasty glare at the nearest bramble thicket. She had no idea her delicious feminine figure was lovingly outlined by dirty water and Herefordshire mud. Even where the finely woven stuff was drying out it threatened to plaster earth-heavy cloth against her body and mould it lovingly as a sculptor. ‘On the edge of Owlet Manor’s Home Farm,’ he added a bit more informatively.

‘I have not the least idea where that is,’ she said with a trace of despair in her voice that made him pity her situation instead of worrying about his own reaction to her delightfully outlined body. Somehow he had to persuade her she could trust him far enough to come back to the house with him so she could be fussed over and cleaned up by his sister Marianne before they took her home. Meanwhile he could fetch one of the farm horses in from the fields and have it harnessed to the gig, then he supposed he would have to drive her and her borrowed dog back to wherever she came from and try to pretend he was made of stone all the way there.

He was not quite sure he had enough stone in him when he risked a glance at her again and she was still deliciously curved and utterly feminine, despite her unusual garnish of smelly mud and pond slime. Marianne could drive better than he could and she would get this goddess in sheep’s clothing home before she had been away too long for anyone to send out a search party. Whoever she was and however innocent she was of blame for her current state, he still refused to marry a passing stranger to save her reputation. He had to marry money so that his sisters would have a better future than the ones they could expect if things went on as they were.

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.

‘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.

‘Darius has always been as grumpy as a bear whenever he feels he might be in danger of being thanked for some kindness he has carried out,’ Marianne told Fliss after her brother left as if he was impatient to be done with Fliss so he could get on with more important matters, such as his sheep and fences.

‘Darius,’ Fliss said thoughtfully, trying to divert herself from his brusqueness when he really must be very busy with several farms to get back in profit and this old house to rescue from neglect and decay, ‘what an unusual name.’

‘My father admired Herodotus’s description of Darius the Great as a man with great courage in battle and determined to pursue justice for all under his rule. My brother was mad for the army as a boy and hates injustice to this day.’

‘He told me he had seen enough of soldiering in the late wars,’ Fliss said a little bit too quickly to be truly uninterested in dashing Captain Darius or intriguing Farmer Yelverton and his sister was sure to notice her eagerness to talk about him if she wasn’t more careful.

She tried not to think about the terrible dangers and appalling sights he must have suffered from and seen. Now he was out of the way the horrid notion he could so easily have been killed on one of those far-away battlefields was haunting her like a bad smell and she shuddered and felt the pull of dry mud all over her skin. She had her own bad smell to worry about, now she came to think about it; the strong aroma of stagnant mud she had brought into her new friend’s otherwise immaculate kitchen would carry into the shady and shuttered room on the other side of the oak-panelled hallway as soon as she could nerve herself to spoil that pristine tiled floor and run towards that bath. Despite her shame at making her new friend’s home so noxious, she could hardly wait to get as much of the mud and stench off her person as possible.

‘As well he might,’ Marianne said with a sad shake of her honey-blonde head. Fliss hoped she had not reminded her new friend of her own hardships and loss when she followed the drum, but of course she must have done. Such a deep and desperate grief must always be with her now she had lost the husband she had clearly adored. ‘The water will be too cold to get all the dirt off if you don’t hurry up and get into your bath,’ Marianne said bracingly, as if that was enough of that sad subject and they had the here and now to worry about. ‘As there are no men about to see you it might be best if you stripped off in here so you don’t have to smell your filthy clothes while you bathe. I can put them in the copper to boil once everyone has had their baths and washes and maybe something can be saved from the wreckage.’

‘I doubt it,’ Fliss said as she looked down at the mud and green slime and knew all too well it had soaked right through to her skin underneath. She felt shy of stripping naked even in front of another woman, but Marianne was right. And it took her new friend’s help and encouragement to prise her out of her stiff-with-dirt clothes and never mind worrying about maidenly modesty. By the time they peeled away Fliss’s stiff and filthy cambric gown, the no-longer-fine lawn petticoat underneath it and her ruined corset and chemise, she was so glad to be rid of them she forgot to care she was all but naked as the blessedly cool and fresh air from the half-shuttered windows caressed her muddy and overheated skin. It even seemed funny when Marianne had to steel herself to cut through the knots of her mud-tightened and already ruined garters and Fliss’s torn and no-longer-in-the-least-bit-white-cotton stockings could finally come off.

‘Now I will have to try to scrub myself clean,’ Fliss said with a rueful glance down her mud-streaked and filthy legs.

Luckily Marianne’s tales of her own misadventures in Portugal and Spain when she was following her husband on the march made this feel almost run of the mill, but Fliss still felt vulnerable and a little bit sinful when they crossed the hall to that shadowy parlour. The muted sunlight inside the house made the shadows seem inquisitive, as if the ghosts of the past were curious about this filthy and scandalously nude visitor to their ancient home. ‘My uncle said I was not to be pampered with help dressing or undressing when I was growing up as I would have to earn my own living one day,’ she explained to Marianne. ‘So I am not used to being stark naked in company.’

‘And our maids would have looked startled and asked what was wrong with our hands if we had expected them to dress or undress us, but at least I had a sister to help me if I needed it, when she was not being an annoying little brat.’

‘I would have loved a sister. My cousin is only a month or two older than I am, but she was always so jealous of her position as the daughter of the house that she all but ignored me while we were growing up under the same roof.’

‘Are you an orphan, then?’

‘Yes, my parents died in an explosion on board ship when I was nine. An unlucky shot at the powder magazine or some mistake or dreadful accident, I suppose. I never wanted to know all the details since nothing was ever going to bring them back.’

‘Best not to know,’ Marianne said dourly.

Losing her parents had been terrible enough, but to find your husband’s corpse after such a notoriously bloody siege must have been appalling. There were no right words to say about a loss like that. And at least worrying about Marianne’s grieving heart had got Fliss inside the little parlour and that blissful bath without worrying about being in a state of nature and she was very glad of the other woman’s help with scrubbing every last speck of mud off her filthy feet. Thank goodness the rest came off more easily or she might be bright red all over before the stench was finally off her wincing skin. Marianne insisted on more gentle treatment for her grazed hands and knees and even stayed to help her wash her hair. She worked the mud out of it far more patiently than Fliss would have done. Then they rinsed it and the rest of her with cold water, since the bath water was far too dirty to be any help by then. Shivering, but feeling clean again at long last, Fliss was almost her old self again as she stepped out of the now-filthy bath water. Once she had dried herself off as best she could and wrapped a towel around her soaking wet hair Marianne passed her a fine linen shift that looked ancient but spotless and she shrugged it on with a blissful sigh. Marianne must have resurrected it from a long-forgotten chest at some point over the last few weeks and she was very grateful for its clean softness, even if all the washing and hanging out in the sun could not quite get the beautifully embroidered undergarment white again.

‘Were you planning on making it into something for yourself?’ she asked.

‘No, I simply could not bring myself to throw it away. There is so much here that was cast aside and forgotten it seems criminal not to use anything that could be useful again and at least this time I was right. I must remember to tell Darius so when he teases me about hoarding things nobody has had a use for in all the decades it has been sitting here forgotten.’

‘In this instance he is quite wrong,’ Fliss said. ‘I am very glad you rescued this and had it laundered. I feel gloriously clean and almost decent again.’

‘You are very welcome to it then, Miss Grantham.’

‘Please do not call me so after you have helped me rid myself of so much mud and grime and been so kind. I hope we can consider ourselves friends now, even if we have only just met. You have seen me naked and not even my former governess has done that and she has been my friend for years. And my given name is Felicity, but my parents and now my friends call me Fliss.’

‘Fliss is a pretty name, but are you sure?’

Fliss nodded, sad that her new friend must have been slighted by far too many narrow-minded ladies after her unequal marriage for her to be so diffident about an offer of friendship. ‘I should not have said so otherwise,’ she said.

‘Very well, I will call you that as well then. I always thought the name Felicity sounded like a reproach to those of us who are not quite so felicitous. Was your father the son of a preacher to give you such a virtuous name?’

‘No, it was his mother’s name. He asked my mother to have me christened with it if he was still away from home when I was born, since she did consent to be left behind when he sailed just that one time since she was expecting me. She used to tease him that she wanted to call me Titania after the Queen of the Fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream as I was born on Midsummer Day, but a promise was a promise. At least I think she was joking, but I am glad he got his way in case she was serious for once.’

‘She sounds like fun,’ Marianne said rather wistfully.

Fliss supposed Mrs Yelverton was not and felt blessed to have such happy memories of her own mother, even if she had lost her far too young. ‘She was; they both were. They had to elope together because my grandfather had a very grand marriage planned for her and Papa was an orphan as well, but we were all very happy on shore and aboard ship.’

‘You went with them?’

‘Yes, at first I was too young to be left behind and apparently I travelled the oceans before I was old enough to know a midden from a topsail. Papa always used to say I was born with sea legs.’

‘All I recall of the sea is being tossed about on it like a cork through the Bay of Biscay. It was rough all the way to Portugal and back again and I doubt if I would ever grow used to it if I had to stay aboard ship for years.’

‘You would in the end; Lord Nelson used to suffer from seasickness until he got his sea legs again and look what a great admiral he was. I expect troop ships are lubberly sort of craft and not a bit like the fine frigates we used to sail on. They would seem to dance over the water as much as sail it when there was a fair wind. Flying before the wind was something I missed so badly when I had to be quiet and good in my uncle’s house after my parents decided I was too old to go to sea and needed an education. They were killed soon after that and I sometimes used to wish they had taken me with them when my uncle made it clear what a burden I was to him and life seemed so grim, until Miss Donne made me realise I was not alone after all. I suppose she has been my family ever since.’

‘And I am very glad you are still here, even if I cannot quite understand how anyone could love being at sea,’ Marianne said with a shake of the head.

‘Never mind my odd ways now, do you have anything else I could borrow for our trip to Broadley?’ Fliss asked wryly, waving a hand at her barely covered body.

‘Nothing of mine would fit you. I suppose we could cut the skirts of one of my gowns down and try to stretch out the bodice with the bottom six inches we had to cut off,’ Marianne said, gesturing at her own tall and rather willowy figure. She shot Fliss a measuring glance and shook her head. ‘We could not make it work without a lot more time to fit it to your figure,’ she added regretfully.

‘No,’ Fliss said, comparing Marianne’s elegant figure with her own and wishing she was tall and gracefully curved rather than full-figured and dumpy.

‘My sister Viola is much more petite than me and she left two of her best muslins with me for safekeeping, since she thinks them much too fine for a governess to wear even on high days and holidays. If she had left them in Bath with our mother, she would be sure to cut them up to make christening gowns for the poor. Mama cannot put aside thirty years as a vicar’s wife even now my father has had to retire for the sake of his health and never mind what Viola would wear at the Upper Rooms when she came home. I have the gowns stored in the bedchamber I have finally managed to get clean and ready for her to use if she can ever manage to come and stay. She would be the first to insist you wear one of them rather than go about in a flour sack or wrapped in my cloak to hide your nakedness on such a hot day.’

‘My very sincere thanks to both of you then, since I really do not want to arrive back at my friend’s house in a shift or a sack and I would roast in your cloak by the time we got to Broadley as well as looking like a figure of fun. I promise I will take great care of your sister’s good gown and I am sure that my friend Miss Donne will stand over her long-suffering maid and see that it is laundered very carefully indeed before we return it. I am sorry your father had to give up his living, by the way.’

‘So is he; my parents were very well suited to their busy lives at the centre of a wide parish, but they do not go on half so well now they have not got much to do or much of a pension to do it with. It seems that middling folk who go to live in Bath for the benefit of their health must amuse themselves with gossip, tea drinking and taking the waters if they are not to be run off their feet and land in the sponging house. Mama seems to have taken to it all like a duck to water, but I know my father misses his parishioners and our rambling old vicarage as well as his study full of books and the pupils he used to take in to supplement his income.’

‘Idleness can seem far harder to endure than being too busy at times,’ Fliss said. Her own doubts about her new life, if she did not marry and have Lord Stratford’s heirs and spares to keep her occupied, resurfaced. But never mind her personal dilemmas, Marianne must have felt even more grief stricken for her husband once she was back with her parents and living such a confined life, especially since her mother and father had not approved of her choice of a husband in the first place.

‘That sounds like the voice of experience,’ Marianne said lightly.

Fliss concluded she did not want to talk about that dark time in her life now she was busy again and from the state of this old house looked as if she would be so for a very long time. ‘Perhaps, although I doubt I was as busy as you are here. I am having a holiday from being a governess. I am between positions and it feels very odd not to be busy teaching my former pupil or planning lessons and activities to keep such an acute young lady out of mischief,’ she said with a shrug and felt guilty about hiding her good fortune from most of the world. She had resolved to keep it secret until she was certain what she wanted to do about Lord Stratford’s proposal, since news of her inheritance would attract fortune hunters and she was not quite free to be courted by anyone until she had given him an answer one way or the other.

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