The Youngest Dowager: A Regency romance(15)

For two years she had longed for freedom, longed to wake up and find, not that he was dead – never that – but that he had gone, vanished from her life by some miracle. For two years he had dominated her by his will, controlled her every act, wrung out every drop of spontaneity and warmth from her, given her only wealth and status, demanded only perfection – and an heir.

She had married him determined to be a loving and dutiful wife, but she had found that only duty was expected of her. And, however hard she’d tried. she had never been able to please his exacting standards, by day or by night.

The vault seemed to be full of his personality as Marissa stood there, relief and a dreadful guilt that she should feel like this flooding through her. Then there was a step behind her and the door, which she had left ajar, swung open with a thud.

Marissa whirled round, and for one hideous moment believed she saw him standing in the doorway. ‘My lord!’

Then she saw it was Marcus, his breath curling warm on the cold air.



Marcus saw Marissa drew in one difficult breath and then burst into tears. After a horrified moment he strode across and gathered her in his arms, holding her tight while she sobbed, cursing himself under his breath. He had done it again, scared the poor woman by coming on her unawares, reminding her at the worst possible moment of what she had lost.

He had seen the chapel door standing ajar as he rode back from the Home Farm and had come to secure it. He should have realised it might be Marissa, visiting her husband’s grave to mourn in peace. He had broken in on her grief and by doing so had broken her composure and the control that had been helping her to cope with her loss.

Trying to explain and apologise would only make things worse. Gently Marcus urged her towards the door and out into the open, where the sun was at last penetrating the fog in fitful rays. He closed the door firmly behind them and found a handkerchief.

She spoke, her voice muffled against his greatcoat. ‘He has really gone, has he not? He will not be coming back?’

It stuck him as an odd choice of words, but then, there was no accounting for the mental turmoil of loss. He patted Marissa lightly on the back until the sobs subsided and she took his handkerchief with a watery smile.

He offered her his arm. ‘Come, Cousin. Shall we walk back slowly past the lake? The sun is finally beginning to warm that east-facing bank.’ And it would give her time to regain her composure before facing the servants.

They walked on in silence, Marissa’s hand tucked warmly into the crook of his arm, his horse ambling behind them. The fog was curling up off the surface of the lake like smoke, and the fringing reeds stood brittle and dead in the still water. Flocks of duck were dotted across the lake and rose in panic at the sight of them.

Marissa blew her nose and he could almost feel her struggling to find a suitable topic of conversation. She must feel awkward, weeping in front of him, but having a sister had made him adept at soothing tears.

A pheasant suddenly flew out of the tussocks around the lake with a strident alarm call and across the meadow the plaintive bleat of sheep carried clearly on the still air.

‘Did you see all you wished at the Home Farm, Cousin?’ Agriculture was clearly a safe topic.

‘Thank you, yes. Everything appears to be in excellent order. My late cousin was obviously a good landlord.’ If not a well-liked one, he added to himself. Everyone he’d spoken to had been as one in agreeing that this was a well-managed estate, run to the highest standards. No one had spoken to him of a sense of loss, or with any warmth of the late Earl. Yet every one of the estate workers he had encountered had enquired anxiously, and with obvious respect, after the welfare of the Countess.

Marcus glanced down, but the edge of her hood hid Marissa’s face from him. Her hand rested trustingly on his arm, the kid-gloved fingers surprisingly firm. It seemed as though she was the only person who had found something in his cousin to mourn: there was no mistaking the genuineness of that flood of tears or the stark hurt in her eyes. This was no rich young widow weeping for form’s sake.

They discussed the estate and its workers as the great house loomed into view. Marcus was impressed again by Marissa’s depth of knowledge of the families at Longminster: who was related to who, who had a daughter in service in London, which of the pensioners suffered from arthritis and needed help in his garden.

‘If you want to know more about sheep husbandry, then Reuben Childs is your man. I imagine that sheep are not common in the West Indies? He is the grandfather of Mary, my maid. Oh, look, another carriage. Perhaps it is Miss Venables arrived at last. Poor thing, what a cold and long journey she must have endured.’



Jane Venables was standing in the front hall as they reached the house. Her modest pelisse and bonnet were matched by the few items of luggage which stood beside her yet, to Marissa’s eyes, she did not appear overawed by the splendour of her surroundings, which she was regarding quizzically, nor by the host of superior servants who were bustling around her.

Her spinster cousin Jane was the daughter of her father’s elder sister who had made a most regrettable marriage to an impoverished curate. She had compounded the offence this had given her brother by living happily in their rambling Cumbrian vicarage and producing a bevy of equally happy and unambitious children.

Despite Sir George Kempe refusing to acknowledge the existence of his sister or her family, Jane, the eldest of five girls, had written to congratulate her young cousin on her marriage and they had fallen into the habit of exchanging greetings on birthdays and at Christmas. Miss Venables, in her early forties, had been earning her own modest living as a governess, but had confessed to Marissa that she did not find it a congenial existence and was hoping to find a position as a companion.