VIscount Besieged by Elizabeth Bailey

attics.
    The groom’s
gruff voice interrupted her mental wander through the house.
‘Hadn’t ye better stop your dreaming, Miss Dora? We’ll be
late.’
    Isadora blinked
hastily and looked round at Totteridge. ‘I was thinking of
Papa.’
    ‘ Oh,
aye?’ uttered the man sceptically. ‘I guessed you was thinking of
yon lord, come to tak’ the place over.’
    ‘ I am
not thinking of him at all,’ stated Isadora crossly. ‘At least, I
wasn’t. Now you have made me do so, and I had as lief
not . ’
    ‘ Aye,’ agreed Totteridge feelingly, ‘Especially if you’re goin’
to stamp about in one o’ your tantrums, Miss Dora.’
    ‘ I do
not have tantrums,’ objected Isadora, urging her mount onward and
heading down the hill alongside the groom.
    ‘ Oh,
aye? And I don’t have no horses to look after neither.’
    Isadora ignored
this heavy sarcasm, reflecting that at least Totteridge had
succeeded in diverting her out of those dangerous memories. She
wondered if that had been his intention. Ever faithful, he rode
with her whenever she wished, night and morning, when either
Rowland or Fanny on the pony did not accompany her instead. The
elder ladies never ventured out on horseback, but would instead
take the air in the only unsold open carriage.
    It was not so
odd, she supposed, that she should be thinking of all this now, on
the brink of change. She had never thought much about home and the
life they all led. Not until now, when everything she knew might be
snatched away from her. It was not the same as if she had married,
or indeed if she had left to become an actress. They were
choices . It was a very different thing to have the place
torn from her by an outsider.
    Unconsciously,
she put spurs to Juliet’s side, and the mare increased her pace to
a canter. It was as well they had already negotiated the steepest
part of the hill. They crossed the greensward that ran past the
orchard at the same speed, and then Totteridge called out to her as
the wall surrounding the back gardens loomed up.
    ‘ Don’t ye put her at that fence, Miss Dora! Hold hard and I’ll
ope’ the gate.’
    Isadora reined
in to wait for the gate to be opened wide. Then she trotted Juliet
through and on to the stables. Totteridge dismounted and gave
Titian into the charge of an under groom, and was just assisting
his mistress to alight when voices caught her attention.
    She turned from
the horse in time to see the entire family coming around the corner
of the house towards the stable-block. With them was
Roborough.
    ‘ Oh,
here’s Dora,’ exclaimed Rowland. ‘I told you she would be out
riding, Cousin Ellen.’
    Mrs Alvescot
threw out her hands. ‘Dora, my love, what a pity you were not with
us. Here we have all been, showing Lord Roborough over his new
property.’
    Something
clutched within Isadora’s heart. Her eyes darkened as they went to
the viscount’s face. How could they? How could
he ?
    Her voice shook.
‘Already? You don’t waste much time, do you?’
     
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    Roborough met
the reproach in those brown eyes and inwardly cursed. He might have
known it. Very well to allow the rest of the family’s persuasions
to prevail, but he should have anticipated this.
    For it had not
been his choice to set off immediately on an inspection of the
place. How indelicate of him it would be to demand it almost upon
his arrival, as if he could not wait to take possession.
Particularly after the length of time he had taken to come here at
all.
    Not that he
could have avoided that. Indeed, if it had not become imperative
that he look over the possibilities at Pusay, he doubted whether
he would have been able to find the time to come here even now. But
the Pusay residents had not given him any choice. He did not know
if he was glad or otherwise when they stated this fact in no
uncertain terms.
    ‘ It
wasn’t his fault,’ protested Rowland.
    ‘ We
decided to take him about,’ said Fanny, adding in a superior