Chapter Seven
G enova returned the toast, but she recognized malicious enjoyment behind it. She should be wary, if not afraid, yet something was firing her blood as it had not been in an age.
Not something. Someone. The Marquess of Ashart. In the year since her father’s retirement, she’d learned that she missed action and adventure. Now she was engaged in a duel with a formidable opponent, and the zest of it sparkled in her blood.
She was determined that he support his child, and he was determined to resist. It would be a glorious battle.
Thalia broke the moment. “Good, that’s settled! Now we can have a nice game of whist. Genova, dear, ring for the servants to clear the table.”
Genova did so. This hardly seemed the moment for a game, but Thalia adored whist and went after what she adored with the purpose of a willful child.
As they waited for the servants, Genova tried again to pin down practical details. “How are we to transport the baby and his maid? We can’t fit five adults in the main coach, and the secondary ones are packed.”
“Five?” asked Thalia, already with her cards in hand. “Oh, Ashart will ride. Won’t you, dear?”
“Always,” said the marquess.
Genova remembered his arrival in that ominous cloak. The outriders had ridden all day for two days, but that a marquess should choose to do so in such bitter weather seemed…unnatural.
The essential problem in the Trayce family was a woman who’d murdered her baby. Did insanity, or at least instability, run in the blood? Thalia, dear though she was, was dotty.
Now that Genova thought of it, wasn’t the madwoman’s son, Lord Rothgar, sometimes called the Dark Marquess?
She seemed to remember reading of a duel not long ago in which he’d killed his opponent.
The Portsmouth paper had regarded it as scandalous, and hinted that only royal favor had saved the marquess from dire consequences.
Caution chilled excitement. What was she blindly sailing into? What was she blindly carrying two innocents into? As the servants arrived and set to work, she said, “Perhaps we should think of some other plan—”
“Stop fussing, Genova,” Lady Calliope growled. “We have space in the coach, and you’ve arranged for a bed.”
“Which I haven’t.” Ashart caught the attention of one of the servants. “Tell the innkeeper I wish to see him.”
The man bowed and left.
As soon as the table was clear, Thalia sat and dealt the cards. They had finished the first hand when the innkeeper arrived, looking distressed.
“Milord, milord, I spoke the truth. This close to Christmas, many are on the roads, and with the weather so bad many stopped early. The arrival of such a large party as this…”
“So? Do you expect me to turn holy and sleep in the stables?”
Lynchbold winced at the tone. “No, no, milord! If you would be so gracious, there is a mattress already set up in the lady’s parlor upstairs. I gather it was for a maid, but it’s a good thick mattress, milord, and a maid can sleep in the kitchens.”
Genova braced herself for a tantrum, but the marquess sighed. “It will have to do.”
The innkeeper left, almost quaking with relief. Genova was weary of battle but had to make one more foray. “Would it be possible for Sheena to sleep with us, Thalia? With her speaking no English, it would be frightening for her to be put among strangers.”
“She’s already among strangers,” Lady Calliope snapped. “Stop pampering her. She probably sleeps in an earth-floor hovel in Ireland.”
Lord Ashart looked wry. “You truly do think I should sleep in the stables, don’t you, Miss Smith?”
“No, my lord, but…”
“But the girl can share the trundle bed with Regeanne,” said Thalia with a careless flutter of her hand. “Enough interruptions. Back to the game!”
The trundle bed was almost as big as the one it fit under, but Regeanne would not like it. It was the better option, however, so Genova dealt the next hand.
Ashart, however, rose. “Your indulgence, my dears, but I must check tomorrow’s arrangements. I’ll be back shortly.”
Thalia didn’t pout. Instead she beamed after him. “Isn’t he the dearest boy?”
Genova couldn’t stop herself. “He’s a rake, and he’s Charlie’s father, and he plans to abandon him like a worn-out shoe!”
Thalia looked at her, eyes wide and serious. “Oh, no, dear. A Trayce would never abandon his responsibilities.”
“And you said yourself that the supposed Mrs. Dash was not a reliable woman,” Lady Calliope pointed out. “Why believe her?”
“A point,” Genova conceded, frowning, “but what mother would abandon her child to strangers in this way?”
“It’s exactly what she has done, though, isn’t it? Whatever the truth behind this story, Lady Booth Carew is not here.”
Genova couldn’t argue with that.
Thalia gathered in the cards and laid out a game of patience, though her manner could not be called patient. She twitched for whist like a whippet eager for a walk. Genova felt more like a ship caught in a maelstrom, spinning out of control.
They would arrive at Rothgar Abbey, home of the possibly deranged and murderous Dark Marquess, with a mysterious, misbegotten baby in the party. And, she now realized, with Lord Rothgar’s cousin Ashart, who was apparently his mortal enemy!
She looked at the two old ladies, wishing she could see their unconcern as reassuring. Instead, it seemed like further evidence of family insanity.
Ashart returned and the game resumed. Seeing no alternative, Genova focused her mind on the cards. The one thing guaranteed to irritate was careless play. After a while, Ashart ordered rum punch. It was delicious but Genova only sipped at it. She had no intention of growing tipsy in this company.
Both old ladies drank deeply, but it had no noticeable effect until Lady Calliope slipped into sleep between one trick and the next. Genova sent for her menservants to carry her chair into her bedroom, relieved that the evening was finally over.
But then she recalled that Ashart would be coming upstairs with her and Thalia. Could he not sleep in this parlor? A question revealed that Lady Calliope’s two menservants slept here in order to be to hand.
That left no choice. A nobleman would not deign to sleep with lowly servants. While Ashart helped tipsy Thalia up the stairs, Genova followed with assorted items.
They entered the parlor, which was now a bedroom. A plain mattress was made up with sheets and blankets. A punch bowl and glasses sat on the hearth. Lynchbold was doing his best to make up for the inadequate room, but Genova didn’t think anyone needed more spirits.
The table had been turned into a washstand, with bowl, mirror, and towels. Leather saddlebags lay nearby, and the great cloak was spread over a chair, damp fur giving a predatory presence.
Thalia wove toward the table. “Three-handed whist?”
Oh, no. Genova dumped the things in her hands in order to steer Thalia into the bedchamber. When she finally shut the door, she sagged against it in relief.
Ridiculous to think she was in danger. Be he wicked as Lucifer, the marquess would not try to rape her in his great-aunt’s bed.
But that wasn’t the peril, and she knew it.
The danger came from the sizzle in her blood, from the way she responded to even a look, from the way she lusted for another fight.
Regeanne came over to help Thalia to bed and, thank heavens, didn’t look too put out over the baby. When the Frenchwoman whispered to be quiet, so as not to disturb the petit ange, Genova decided there might be hope of peace there, at least.
Sheena O’Leary and Charlie Carew were already fast asleep on the trundle, looking like innocent angels. But, Genova realized, a wet nurse could hardly be innocent. Sheena must have borne a child—and that baby had almost certainly died.
Some wet nurses fed two. Some gave their child to another mother’s care in order to earn the higher wages given to a nurse who devoted herself to her employer’s baby. Neither seemed likely here, and Genova’s heart clenched with pity.
It seemed unlikely that Sheena was married, so the poor girl must have suffered the shame of carrying an illegitimate baby, then the grief of losing it.
No wonder she’d seized the chance to escape and earn her keep this way. Poor, poor Sheena, especially as she seemed to have transferred all her mother love to little Charlie.
That left Genova no choice. She vowed that Lord Ashart’s innocent son and Sheena would be safe and together, even if she had to use her pistol.