they don’t know where to look. Older ladies are blatant in their pity.” Both reactions only caused her skin to flare up more violently. “It’s hard to say if I or they are the more miserable,” she said.
“It’s been a while since we consulted a physician...” Dominic said.
Marianne grimaced. “You know I would be only too happy to try a new treatment. But I haven’t heard of one, and to subject myself to those same examinations to no purpose...”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said. “But if your condition didn’t deter Miss Somerton, perhaps others won’t be deterred, either.”
“Serena is a parson’s daughter,” Marianne said. “I think she saw this position, this family, as an opportunity to exercise her Christian compassion.”
“Has she condescended to you?” Dominic said sharply. It was all very well Miss Somerton spouting her nonsense to him, but if she’d hurt Marianne’s feelings he would go upstairs right now and throw her out of the nursery on her pretty ear. He’d been close to that ear, thanks to that blasted lizard, and it was indeed attractive.
“Of course she hasn’t,” Marianne said. “She asked me about my condition the first day we met—a directness I appreciated—and accepted it with equanimity. She would never presume to condescend.”
She presumed to tell me I should marry again. Outrageous. And yet, when he remembered his mistake in imagining she was proposing marriage, amusement blended with his outrage.
“Dominic,” his sister said, “we were lucky to have had Miss Potter—” the governess from their own childhood “—for so long, but you must remember the string of substandard governesses we had before Serena. The few who considered your money worth putting up with my oddness. I got so sick of feeling as if I didn’t belong in my own home.”
“You should never have to feel like that,” he said gruffly.
“In a perfect world...” Marianne spread her hands. “But we live in this world, and there’s no point complaining about something neither you nor I can fix. I will advertise for a governess, and we will pray for a smooth path.”
Miss Somerton’s outrageous suggestion floated through Dominic’s mind.
“Would it be easier—” he studied the glossy toe of his right boot as they walked “—if I were married?”
Marianne turned her head to eye him as if he were a simpleton. “Dominic, 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