The Youngest Dowager_A Regency romance Read online

  No doubt it was because she was so used to having a man ordering affairs. She would soon become accustomed to his absence when he left for Jamaica. Her little household of ladies would by then be settled in the Dower House and she would be so busy she would not notice. And, finally, I will be in control of my life.

  After luncheon Jane declared her intention to rest a little in her room and took her leave of Marcus. As they exchanged a few words about the route Marissa wandered across to the windows. The grey, dripping parkland echoed her mood all too well. It was so strange to feel like this. Always before she had been happy to be left alone, left to her own thoughts and devices and she was more than capable of planning the move and sorting out her new life, she knew that. But still, she did not want Marcus to go.

  As the door closed behind Jane Marissa turned, put a bright smile on her lips and held out her hand. ‘I trust you have a safe journey, my lord. Please assure your sister of the warm welcome that awaits her here.’

  ‘You are very formal, Marissa,’ he said, with something suspiciously like a twinkle in his eyes. ‘But I will give Nicci your message.’ He took her hand in his firm, warm grasp and bent to give her a cousinly salute on the cheek.

  Which of them moved? She had no idea, but suddenly she was in his arms and his lips had fastened on her mouth in a deep kiss that held a wordless question. Marissa found her hands were grasping his lapels to draw him deeper in, her senses were drowning in the realisation of his strength, his warmth, his power.

  And then he broke away, his face darkened with anger, his fist slamming hard down onto the dining table sending the china jumping and a fork bouncing onto the floor.

  ‘Damn it. I must have lost my senses.’ And he was gone, the heavy door slamming behind him, cutting off the sound of his booted feet on the boards.

  ‘I do think we could begin to move into half-mourning now, my dear.’ Jane remarked as she buttered her breakfast roll. ‘It has been thirteen months, after all, since the third Earl’s death and this lovely weather makes one dream of summer and light gowns.’

  ‘And here we sit like three moulting crows in our sad blacks,’ Nicci interrupted her. She jumped to her feet and pulled back the drapes at the breakfast room window even farther to let the sunshine stream in.

  ‘Nicci, dear,’ Marissa protested, although more out of habit than any real expectation of being heeded. Thirteen months in the company of Lady Nicole had left both Marissa and Jane inordinately fond of the young woman, but they still struggled with the natural high spirits which her unconventional upbringing had fostered. Sometimes Marissa had nightmares at the thought of her introduction to London Society.

  Nicci was charming, polite and warmly affectionate but also headstrong, outspoken and still struggling with the social mores of English country society. Fresh, pretty, blonde and spirited, she was a favourite with the daughters of the surrounding gentry and had a coterie of friends, all, like her, seventeen and on the verge of their come-out.

  They had spent a quiet year, only attending the most private gatherings, constrained by the rules of mourning. But time had still flown. The Dower House had been refurbished to their liking and, if pretty dress silks had been missing from their lives, there had still been the excitement of choosing furnishing fabrics and arguing amiably over colour schemes.

  ‘This morning you are joining the Vicar’s daughters for your dancing class, aren’t you?’ Marissa said as she stirred her breakfast chocolate. Nicci was learning dance and deportment with the two Misses Woodruffe the Vicar’s daughters, and Miss Catherine Ollard, the Squire’s youngest. Jane had taken the rest of her education in hand, declaring Nicci to be woefully ignorant of most of the knowledge required of a fashionable young lady.

  ‘Yes, but when I get back, please may we write to the silk warehouse in Norwich for some samples of dress fabrics?’

  ‘I think we could go as far as fawn, pearl-grey and violet,’ Marissa said as the door opened.

  ‘This morning’s postal delivery, my lady,’ Whiting said, offering a salver of letters to Marissa, who began to sort through them.

  ‘Aunt Augusta… yet another account… the oddest handwriting on this one… two for you, Jane dear. Nicci, here is one for you, a little battered from its travels.’

  Nicci reached for the package eagerly. ‘It is from Marcus.’ She slit the seals with her butter knife and tore open the wrapper. ‘He is coming back. Oh, Marissa, Jane – Marcus is coming back at last.’

  ‘Where was it posted, dear?’ Jane enquired. ‘Do take care, you are getting butter on your cuffs.’

  ‘When?’ Marissa demanded abruptly. ‘I mean, when was it posted?’ Her heart was beating erratically and she felt breathless.

  ‘It was posted in Kingston, and he says he expects to be in London…’ Nicci was reading rapidly. ‘Why, by this week!’

  ‘My goodness.’ Jane stood up, her napkin dropping unheeded at her feet. ‘There will be so much to do at the Hall. All the rooms under Holland covers and nothing is aired. Matthews must be apprised of this immediately… Marissa, dear, are you quite well?’

  ‘Er… what?’ Marissa pulled her scattered wits together and focused her attention on her cousin. ‘Yes, everything you say is eminently sensible, Jane. Perhaps we should ask the Whitings to lend a hand. Matthews has managed admirably, but there is all the difference in the world between Southwood Hall without the family at home and what his lordship will require.’

  She got up, leaving her unopened letters unheeded on the table. ‘Nicci, we will travel in the gig with you and drop you at the Vicarage before we call at the Hall. Pull the bell for Whiting, please, and then we must fetch our bonnets and wraps and be off.’

  Nicole, as usual, took up the reins of the gig, but was soon relieved of them by Jane. ‘Really, Nicci, you will have us in a ditch and that poor pony does not know whether it is coming or going.’

  ‘Oh, but I am so excited!’ Nicci surrendered the reins without demur, but sat jigging on the seat. ‘Must I go to my lesson? How can I concentrate on dancing and deportment when Marcus may even now be within sight of shore?’

  ‘Even if he is landing in Bristol as we speak,’ Jane said repressively, ‘it will still take him at least three days to accomplish his journey. And surely he will want to spend at least one day in London on his way?’

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ Nicci wailed. ‘He could not be so cruel as not to come to me at once.’

  Marissa sat silent, her feelings alternating between dread and excitement. She had spent the last year imagining the moment when Marcus would return, yet thirteen months from their parting she was still no clearer as to what she felt for him.

  At night her lips burned with the guilty remembrance of his kisses. But by day she remembered all too clearly the anger in his voice and the sound of his fist crashing onto the breakfast table when they parted. She had behaved shamelessly, no better than a hussy, and she had disgusted him.

  It was in their nature that men had carnal desires. but it was unthinkable that a woman of breeding should exhibit the slightest longing, incite caresses, offer warmth and passion in return. Her lord had made it perfectly plain early in their marital relations exactly what was required of her, and she had learned quickly that any attempt on her part to change that would be met with swift retribution.

  Perhaps the passage of time had erased the memory of her behaviour from Marcus’s mind. None the less, she must guard against ever letting him see the yearning, passionate woman inside her well-modulated exterior.

  She made herself concentrate on the present, on what had to be done. They were bowling briskly up the Vicarage drive now and Jane, who had an unexpectedly dashing driving style, was clearly enjoying herself, her sallow cheeks tinged with pink and her eyes shining.

  A tall figure was walking slowly towards them, and Jane drew up as they came abreast of him. ‘Mr Ashforde, good day to you. A lovely morning, is it not?’

  The Honourable Reverend Crispin Ashforde was p
robably one of the most beautiful young men any of the ladies had ever seen. The second son of Viscount Bassingbourn had scandalised his noble papa by choosing the church over the army or government office and was currently setting every susceptible heart in the surrounding parishes aflutter.

  Black-haired, white-skinned, with a perfect classical profile, he looked as though he had stepped from a plinth in Southwood Hall. Yet the patent adoration of young ladies seemed lost on Mr Ashforde. Serious, studious – and, in Jane’s expressed opinion, thoroughly boring – he was regarded by all the matchmaking mothers as a perfect catch. Nicole, however, possibly the least eligible female for an earnest cleric that could be imagined, had caught his attention. And she, dazzled by his looks and piqued by his serious nature, had fallen head over heels in love.

  Jane knew puppy love when she saw it and was tolerantly inclined to ignore it. As she told Marissa, giving it too much importance would be fatal.

  ‘My lady, Miss Venables, Lady Nicole.’ Mr Ashforde raised his hat and bowed. ‘A very clement morning. One is put in mind of the words of Horace in the Odes, is one not?’

  ‘Frequently.’ Jane was dry. ‘But you must excuse us, Lady Nicole is already late for her class.’

  ‘But wait.’ Nicci was blushing prettily. ‘We must tell Mr Ashforde our news.’ She turned her radiant face to him and blurted out, ‘My brother is expected home from the West Indies at any day.’

  ‘What marvellous news. I shall look forward to calling upon the Earl at the earliest opportunity,’ Mr Ashforde assured her earnestly. ‘Good morning, ladies.’

  They dropped Nicci at the Rectory gates and regained the coast road. Jane sighed heavily. ‘Oh, dear, I do believe the young idiot will be asking his lordship for Nicci’s hand as soon as he sets foot over the threshold of the Hall. I fear the Earl will be displeased with us for allowing such an attachment to develop.’

  ‘But Mr Ashforde is not ineligible, Jane. After all, his father is Lord Bassingbourn and, although he is the second son, I believe he has a not inconsiderable fortune from his late great-aunt. And he is such a nice young man, so gentle and serious.’

  ‘Marissa, you sound as if you approve of the match! I had not felt any anxiety, assuming that it was merely youthful flirtation, but I am made uneasy by the speed with which Mr Ashforde announced his intention to call. Nicci is far too young to think of marriage and her upbringing has left her immature and sheltered from Society. You cannot wish her away on an earnest young curate, however well connected. She has her whole life before her. And,’ she added tartly, ‘you cannot wish her on him. What a dance she would lead him, poor boy.’

  Marissa did not argue, but whatever Jane said, she couldn’t help feeling that Mr Ashforde was a safe choice for Nicci and she was determined to favour the curate’s suit. She knew the girl must marry, but if she could help it Nicci would never know what marriage to a sophisticated, demanding older man could bring, the heartache and the loneliness that such a disparity in ages and temperament would mean.

  Thinking about marriage had recalled all the early memories of her lord’s courtship, if it could be described as that. The Earl had asked her to dance twice at Almack’s and at first she had been flattered that the eligible, wealthy and handsome Earl of Longminster should show her such attention. But formal observance had been all he ever shown and, after two months of impersonal conversations when they met, she had been stunned when her father informed her that he had accepted an offer of marriage for her from the Earl. Marissa, as a dutiful daughter, had had no say in the matter and in a matter of weeks had found herself the Countess of Longminster.

  She was aware that Jane kept glancing at her face and when they reached the gates of the Hall she reined in. ‘There is no necessity for you to be cooped up talking to Matthews about setting the house to rights, Marissa. Why not walk down to the beach? It is a lovely morning and the sea air will do you good.’

  ‘If it wouldn’t make too much work for you I would love to walk, thank you. Fortunately I put on stout walking shoes this morning. I will be back in time for luncheon.’

  An unseasonably warm breeze blew over the salt grazings on either side of the track. Marissa flicked back the fronts of her pelisse and strode out, breathing in deeply. After a few minutes the megrims had left her and she was filled with the promise of spring and the excitement of Marcus’s return.

  He would have forgotten that disgraceful encounter the day that he had left, she told herself. He would settle at the Hall with Nicci and the estate would come to life once more. From his letters to his sister she had a vivid picture of his life in Jamaica, of the warmth and the vibrancy, of his energy... She gave herself a little shake. She and Jane would continue their comfortable life in the Dower House, gradually mixing more in Society as the mourning period came to an end: there would be no need to be much in the new Earl’s company.

  The saltings were cut off from the sea by a ridge of old sand dunes, now covered in tufty grass and gorse bushes and crowned by a ridge of Corsican pines, bent and gnarled by the wind. Marissa scrambled up the steep landward side, the sand slipping and shifting under her boots. She was panting by the time she gained the summit and stood there, one hand on the rough red bark of a tree, the other shading her eyes as she looked out across the wide beach to the glitter of the sea beyond.

  The dunes swept down in a low shallow slope to the sand, an almost irresistible invitation to run, to swoop down like a bird, free in the spring sunshine. Marissa cast a swift glance around but there was no one in sight, not even a fishing boat. She untied her bonnet strings, unbuttoned her pelisse, set both under a gorse bush and then, gathering up her skirts, she began to run down the long slope.

  Almost immediately her foot caught in a twisting root, half covered by the shifting sands. She fell, rolling on the slippery turf. After one startled moment Marissa let her body go with the movement, eyes closed, rolling down the dune as she had seen small boys do many a time in this very spot.

  Her eyes were tight shut, pins were falling from her hair and sand was getting everywhere, but she did not care as she laughed aloud with the sheer exhilaration.

  At last, with a gentle bump, she landed at the bottom, resting against a tree trunk. She lay panting on her back, her eyes still tightly shut as the vanilla scent of the gorse blossom filled her nostrils.

  Her breathing steadied and she relaxed, the sunlight red through her closed lids. Gradually a small incongruity dawned on her: there were no trees below the point where she had started to run…

  Cautiously she opened her eyes and found herself looking at a pair of travel-stained leather boots. Her gaze moved upwards to take in buckskin breeches covering long, strong legs. Marissa snapped her eyes shut, then, hardly daring to do so, she opened them again and looked up into the man’s face.

  Chapter Seven

  It was Marcus. His eyes were vivid against a deep tan, his teeth showed in a wide, white grin of amusement. With perfect formality, as though he were meeting her in the drawing room, he bowed. ‘Good morning, Lady Longminster. I trust I find you in good health.’

  The lilting accent of the West Indies was back in his voice. Marissa found she could not move, or speak, could hardly breathe in fact, she was so overwhelmed by his unexpected appearance. Somehow, in thirteen months, she had forgotten the sheer physical impact of his presence, the force of his personality.

  Marcus’s amused gaze was travelling down the length of her dark brown walking dress. Marissa could feel it was twisted tightly around her body and, with the brush of the breeze, she realised with horror that her legs were exposed to the knee. She dared not look, but she had a horrible fear that her garters were showing.

  She struggled to sit upright, knowing that the very action was causing her bosom to heave and the dress to cling more tightly.

  ‘Allow me.’ Warm hands grasped both of hers and pulled her to her feet in one easy motion.

  ‘My lord…’ She found her voice with an effort. ‘Thank yo
u. I lost my footing at the top of the dune. I could not stop.’

  He smiled without speaking and Marissa’s voice trailed away as she stood looking up at him. His hair was overlong again, shot through by the sun with gilt. Around his eyes the tiny laughter lines were paler against the tanned skin and she noticed for the first time how his dark lashes were tipped with gold.

  He must have set out that morning early and in a hurry, because he had not shaved. She had to fight down the urge to trace the stubble above his upper lip with her forefinger to discover whether it was rough or soft to the touch.

  It was like being enmeshed in a feverish dream, although not a nightmare. Even her feet felt trapped by the soft sand. With an effort she took a step away from him and stumbled.

  ‘Are you hurt? Have you twisted your ankle?’ Marcus was at her side again, she could feel his hand, even through the twilled cotton of her sleeve.

  ‘No, not at all. It is this soft sand, makes it hard to balance. My goodness.’ She laughed, despising herself for the shake she could hear in it. ‘I must look a regular fright. Whatever will you think of me?’

  ‘I think you look utterly – ’ He broke off, the laughter gone from his eyes, his expression strangely intent.

  The silence was unbearable. ‘What are you looking at?’

  ‘You.’ Then he laughed. ‘And the twigs in your hair.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Marissa ran her fingers through her dishevelled curls, realising that virtually all the pins had gone. Twigs showered out and fine sand ran down her neck. With an impatient slap she brushed at her skirts, shaking what seemed to be a pound of sand out of her petticoats.

  Tactfully Marcus turned his back, striding up the slope to rescue her bonnet and pelisse from the bush where she had left them. Flushed, but feeling more in command of herself, Marissa buttoned the pelisse and pulled on her bonnet, doing the best she could to bundle up her loose hair inside it.