The Youngest Dowager: A Regency romance(12)
‘I find it hard to believe it could be possible to be any colder,’ Marcus said with a grimace as the avenue of holm oaks widened out to reveal the neat little Queen Anne Dower House. Marissa always thought it sat like a doll’s house in its hollow, surrounded by walled gardens.
The Bishops, the elderly caretakers, were watching out for them and hurried the chilly party into a snug hall with a fire burning in the grate and cheerful brocade hangings shutting out the draughts.
Mrs Bishop soon took Mrs Whiting off to discuss the vexed question of the kitchen range and its persistently smoking chimney, leaving her husband to conduct Marissa and the Earl around the house.
‘I had forgotten how charming this house is,’ Marissa exclaimed in delight as they entered the drawing room. She walked across to look out of long windows which opened onto what would be a flourishing rose garden in the summer. ‘How nicely you and Mrs Bishop have kept everything.’
Bishop, clearly much flattered by the attention, proudly conducted them round every one of the three reception rooms, the little library and the six bedrooms.
‘This will suit me very well,’ Marissa declared as they climbed the back stairs to check that the servants’ accommodation was in good order.
‘I agree it is a charming house and very home-like and comfortable,’ Marcus agreed. ‘But, Lady Longminster, do you not feel it is perhaps a little old-fashioned, especially in contrast to the Hall? Shall I order a complete redecoration and refurnishing to be set in train? I have to confess I find it delightful and don’t find the worn fabrics or faded paint objectionable. It is welcoming, a house that has been home to happy people. But you are used Southwood Hall, in all its Palladian magnificence. It is showpiece and it will take me a while to feel at home in it, I fear.’
‘Oh no, leave this as it is, please.’ Marissa spoke vehemently, and then saw the quickly suppressed look of surprise on Marcus’s face at her warmth. ‘I mean I would prefer to live here a while and get to know the house before I decide on any changes.’
Marcus was still regarding her quizzically so Marissa fell back upon a tactic she had always fund mollified Charles. She dropped her eyes and murmured, ‘I will be guided by you, my lord, but at the moment I feel too shaken to make any decisions.’
There was a pregnant pause. Marissa kept her eyes down, sensing that this man was not convinced by a show of feminine weakness from a woman who had only hours before been most decided in her plans to leave the Hall, engage a companion and arrange her own domestic staff. However, he merely said, ‘It will be as you wish, Lady Longminster. You have only to command the steward when you have decided what you want to do.’
Mrs Bishop bustled in, bobbed a curtsey and turned briskly to her husband. ‘Now then, Bishop. What are you about, keeping my lady and his lordship up here in these attics? Come you down, ma’am. I’ve laid tea out in the little parlour.’ She led the way, chattering as she negotiated the winding stairs, and pushed open the baize door into the main house. ‘Not that the little parlour is the right room for afternoon tea, I knows that, but it is the cosiest on a day like today, there’s no denying that…’
As the door closed behind her Marcus laughed. ‘Does that woman ever stop talking?’
‘Probably not, but Mrs Whiting knows how to manage her. Tea, my lord?’
‘Thank you.’ He leaned across to take it, his fingertips just brushing hers on the rim of the saucer. ‘I thought we had agreed that you would call me Marcus when we are alone.’
Marissa met his gaze across the tea table. ‘And I thought I had consented to call you Cousin.’ She really could not afford to be sent into a fluster every time she found herself in his company. It was the informal manners of the West Indies, of course; that was why he seemed so warm, why his conversation felt so intimate. But underneath it all he was a man, and they all had the same expectations, the same demands. On the surface Marcus Southwood simply had a different style.
They fell silent, sipping tea in the comfort of the parlour and gradually Marissa relaxed, apparently letting her mind fall to wool-gathering. Marcus could not tell what she was thinking, but he thought he had never seen her look so… so… He groped for the word in his mind… So real. When he’d first seen her she had seemed another marble statue in the gallery, or one of the portraits come to life. Everything about her had been constrained and stiff. Now, in this cosy little parlour, he felt he was with a flesh and blood woman.
The fire had brought a glow to her cheeks, her shoulders were no longer set as she leaned back against the faded chintz and one tendril of hair had worked loose and hung behind her left ear.
‘Will you not be lonely?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Lonely? Living here?’ Marissa seemed taken aback. ‘Why, no more than usual.’ Her lashes fluttered down, hiding the wide hazel eyes. ‘I mean, I will have Miss Venables, and Mrs Whiting, of course. And Lady Augusta will visit, even though we are in mourning.’
‘No, I mean – Forgive me, but do you not have any friends of your own age?’
‘No, Cousin,’ she said simply. ‘I came straight from my father’s house in Hampshire. I met my lord at the start of my first Season, so I had no opportunity to make close friends amongst the others making their come-out. And my lord, being older than myself, had his own circle of friends, which of course became mine.’