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‘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…
