of course it would! If you were married, your wife would take charge of these things.” She broke away as they reached the herb garden, saying over her shoulder, “My presence would seem a trifling thing to a governess, since I’d no longer be mistress of the house. There’s every chance I could avoid her altogether.” She snipped some chives from a bushy clump. “And, of course, looking ahead to when Hetty and then the other girls must make their debut in the ton.” She blinked rapidly. “Dom, just the thought of having to chaperone them makes me want to die.” Her flush deepened as she spoke.
Again, Serena Somerton came to his mind. She had already considered these issues, ones that ought to have occurred to him.
“You think I should find a wife.” He tugged at his cravat, loosening it.
“Not at all,” Marianne said, as they started back toward the house. “I know Emily was the only woman for you. I would never suggest... It’s just—” she smiled faintly “—if you were the more fickle sort, it might be more convenient for us all.”
Convenient. A convenient marriage.
People do that kind of thing. It’s perfectly acceptable. Perhaps it wasn’t the biblical ideal of marriage...but wasn’t the Bible full of people in arranged marriages that prospered? The instruction for a husband to love his wife didn’t specify a romantic love. Presumably it could as easily refer to more of a responsible kind of love, a sacrificial kind of love. He could do that.
And yet...he had a sudden urge to make a run for the stables, and ride his horse up into the hills for a very long time. Decades.
“Dom, I didn’t mean it.” Marianne shook his arm, jerking him back to the present. “We’ll find a solution. Perhaps by the time Hetty comes out there’ll be a new treatment. Maybe my aloe vera will do the trick.”
He would love to believe that. But the doctors said her condition was incurable. Indeed, it seemed to have worsened in the past couple of years.
If he married again, his new wife would need to understand that Marianne would likely always live with them. As he’d told Serena, his sister was unlikely to marry.
He shuddered. He wouldn’t think about the possibility of remarriage now. Besides, he had another unpleasant revelation for Marianne, one that the day’s events had driven temporarily from his mind.
“I have more bad news, my dear,” he said.
“More?” Marianne said, aghast. “Beyond Serena’s departure?”
“My groom met the groom from Farley Hall when he was out exercising the bay mare this morning.”
“It’s been far too long since I called on Sir Charles.” Their neighbor at Farley Hall, Sir Charles Ramsay, had lost his son in a carriage accident nearly a year ago. Marianne’s brow wrinkled. “Is he unwell?”
“Not at all. In fact, it’s good news for Ramsay, though not so pleasant for you,” Dominic said. “His new heir, a Mr. Geoffrey Beaumont, has arrived to stay for a month or two, to acquaint himself with the property. I’ll have to call on him next week.”
Marianne groaned. “If he has any manners at all, he’ll return the call.” Meeting strangers was torment for her.
Dominic nodded.
“And we, as owners of the largest home in the district—”
“Farley Hall is as large.” But she was right, the Granvilles were the incumbent gentry.
“—we’ll have to host a dinner to welcome him to the area,” she said miserably.
“I’m afraid so.”
“And I, as always, will be your hostess.” She swallowed. “It won’t be so bad. If we invite enough of our friends from around here, Mr. Beaumont will barely notice me, let alone feel compelled to stare at me as if I’m a freak.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s our duty,” Dominic said. “It may be scant comfort, but I always think you look lovely, Marianne, you know that.”
“I know, and I thank God daily for your delusion.” She squeezed his arm, then walked ahead of him through a side door into the house. “I wish I had a friend nearby, someone my own age, that I could invite to dinner. Someone I could laugh with, in whose company I wouldn’t care about others’ opinions. Or at least, would care less.”
Marianne’s secluded life meant she corresponded energetically by letter with a few girls from the seminary for female education she’d attended. But she didn’t like to travel, or to invite guests to stay. Her local friends were older women. Not close confidantes. Dominic could understand her need for a friend nearer her own age.
If he remarried, his children would gain a stepmother. Might his sister gain a friend?
Even if that were so, he could hardly marry in time for dinner with Mr. Beaumont.
* * *
Serena had asked a footman to set up quoits on the lawn for the children. Although it was only late April, the sun shone warm and the fresh air would do them good.
Thomas had brought Captain Emerald out from the stable, still in his jar, and had replenished the lizard’s stock of leaves, grasses and a few unfortunate insects. He and Hetty had given the younger children a fighting chance at quoits by setting the juniors’ throwing mark some ten paces in front of theirs. Dominic’s two dogs were wreaking havoc by chasing the rings as they sailed through the air.
Louisa wasn’t playing; she was content to cling to Serena’s skirts. Serena was referee...and though the children were good sports, there were sufficient squabbles to require regular intervention.
She was mediating a dispute between William and Charlotte when a shadow fell across her. She turned to see Dominic Granville.
He smiled.
How unexpected.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Granville,” Serena said. She hadn’t seen him since she’d left the library two days ago, but she imagined he was still railing against her impertinent interference—yes, she could acknowledge she’d taken unfair advantage of her change in status, had breached courtesy even among equals.
And yet he was smiling. Though, on closer inspection, his smile was not one of unadulterated joy. It was, in fact, rather tense.
Charlotte and William ceased their dispute immediately and straightened up in front of their father. “Hello, Papa,” they chorused. Louisa echoed them. The two older children were picking up the quoits at the other end of their pitch. They waved to their father, but knew to finish the job before they stopped to talk.
“Have you come to play quoits?” Serena asked. He’d never yet accepted one of her invitations to play with the children, but she lived in hope.
“No, thank you.” Today was obviously not to be the exception. “Miss Somerton, I wish to talk. Would you care to walk around the lawn with me?”
William and Charlotte had taken a few stealthy steps backward; as soon as they were out of their father’s line of sight, they trotted toward the twins.
“If
