Jo Beverly (5 page)

When Genova had finished, she collected the soup plates, put them on the sideboard, then brought the other dishes across.

“So,” she heard Ashart say, “time to tell me what you’re about, my dears. Where are you jaunting off to in late December?”

She shook her head, remembered Lady Calliope’s reaction when Genova had said how kind the marquess was to provide for their journey so well.

“
No need to credit him with kindness. Doubtless tossed the letter to his secretary and went back to his wenches and wild living
.”

How right she had been.

“Why, to Rothgar Abbey, of course!” Thalia exclaimed.
“We’re going to dear Beowulf’s Christmas gathering.”

“
What?
”

Genova was watching the marquess, so got to enjoy his shock. She placed dishes on the table, trying not to smirk.

“There could be no question,” Lady Calliope said. “Not with Sophia issuing orders.”

Three weeks ago, the Trayce ladies had received a startling invitation to spend Christmas at Rothgar Abbey, the country home of their other great-nephew, the Marquess of Rothgar. In the subsequent flurry, Genova had learned that they’d not seen him for over thirty years because of some unspecified family disagreement.

She’d not been living with the Trayce ladies, but she’d often escaped her stepmother’s house by visiting them, so she’d been part of the long, wandering discussions about whether they should accept or not.

There was another Trayce sister, Lady Urania, but she was a widow and always spent Christmas at the home of her oldest son. She, however, thought the other two should go if they were up to the journey. Lady Calliope thought it would be madness. Thalia fluttered between longings and vague murmurs about “poor Augusta.”

Genova had longed to know more about “poor Augusta” but felt unable to ask. In the end, the sisters had decided to decline, but then their sister-in-law, the Dowager Marchioness of Ashart, had written forbidding them to go. That had changed everything. In naval parlance, the Trayce ladies hated the woman’s putrefying guts.

Presumably the marquess was in agreement with the dowager, but if he tried to enforce her orders, Genova would make sure he failed. She placed a pie in the center of the table, and a ham directly in front of him.

“I do
so
look forward to seeing dear Beowulf again,” Thalia was saying. “Whatever happened in the
past, those involved are long dead. Genova pointed that out.”

Genova placed two more dishes on the table, prickling under the marquess’s grim gaze. She remembered making that comment, but it had been casual.

As she sat down, Lord Ashart said, “A forgiving nature, Miss Smith?”

“That is the Christian way, is it not, my lord? Pie?”

He ignored the offer. “Forgive so that we shall be forgiven?”

She cut into it and placed a piece on Thalia’s raised plate. “I hope not to be so self-serving, my lord. It is possible to forgive simply because it is right.”

“But. I’m sure you have sins that require forgiveness.”

She served Lady Calliope. “None of us are without sin, my lord.” Silently, she added,
Especially you.

“Anyone who is not a total bore, certainly.”

Genova cut pie for herself and accepted potatoes from Thalia. “You think virtue dull, my lord?”

“You don’t? Ah, but then, you admitted to requiring forgiveness. All that…er…pricking.”

Genova almost dropped her plate. “That is not—!”

She bit off her reaction, which he was surely goading for. She glanced at the others to find Thalia watching, bright-eyed, as if at an amusing play, and Lady Calliope stolidly eating. Genova put a slice of pie on the marquess’s empty plate, whether he wanted it or not.

“Ah, pigeon. You have a taste for it, Miss Smith?”

Since
pigeon
was slang for
dupe
, it was another insult.

Addressing no one in particular, Genova said, “I hope the weather will be warmer tomorrow. The poor men suffered so today, and it slowed us.”

“Weather,” the marquess murmured. “Refuge of the dull…or the nervous.”

She knew she shouldn’t, but she looked straight at him. “I am not nervous of you, Lord Ashart.”

“But you should be, Miss Smith. You definitely should be.”

Genova raised her plate. “May I have some
ham
, my lord?”

He served her. “You think I act? Don’t.”

Genova felt the danger, as if a storm raged or enemy guns blasted, and her blood sang. “I don’t question that you are a marquess, my lord, a character of great power and influence.”

“Character? And what are you in this play?”

She cut into her meat. “Merely the poor companion, my lord.”

“Then you need acting lessons.”

Genova felt a very real temptation to jab her fork into his elegant hand, which lay on the tablecloth so close to her, displaying an emerald that could support little Charles for life.

“My lord, you must be very bored to be amusing yourself with me. I’m merely a naval officer’s daughter, and companion to two elderly ladies.”

“I can vouch for that,” Lady Calliope said, seeming amused. “Turn your agile mind to the problem of Mr. and Mrs. Dash’s misbegotten babe, Ashart. What are we to do with him, eh?”

“Put him on the parish.” He finally began to eat.

“The baby needs the wet nurse,” Genova pointed out.

“Then put both of them on the parish.”

The heartless wretch! “And what do you think would happen to them?”

He gave her a bored look that did finally remind her of that portrait. “They would be fed and housed while the errant Mrs. Dash is tracked down.”

“To the meanest degree. No parish wants the poor and desperate from elsewhere. And who will fund that search? You?”

“Why the devil should I?”

“Language, sir!”

“No one else minds.”

“And Genova, dear,” interrupted Thalia, “you said that you’d heard everything when on board ship.”

Lord Ashart gave her a look as if he’d scored a winning point. Genova seethed as she forced herself to eat the excessive amount of food she seemed to have acquired. Pistol point it would have to be.

As she ate and the others gossiped, she regretfully concluded that even gunpoint wouldn’t work. She recognized stiff-necked pride when she saw it, and she doubted the marquess would back down at death’s door. Would persuasion do any good? Surely there must be a scrap of Christian charity in him. He was kind to his great-aunts.

At a gap in the conversation, she returned to the subject. “What are we to do about the baby? To be put on the parish would likely be death for him.”

Ashart sighed. “I’ll leave funds, Miss Smith. Will that suffice?”

“And when the money runs out?”

“If this Mrs. Dash isn’t found by then, she likely never will be. I can hardly be expected to provide for the child for life.”

Why not?
she silently demanded.

He met her eyes, daring her to insist.

So be it.

Genova turned to the two old ladies. “The marquess is the man who came here as ‘Mr. Dash.’ He is the baby’s father.”

S
 
o the weapons are finally unsheathed
, Ash thought.

“I most certainly am not.”

The brazen hussy stood her ground. “You are, at least, the man the mother came to meet. You can’t deny that, my lord.”

“No.”

“So you know who she is. You can return the baby to her.”

Now where was that supposed to lead? He raised his wineglass and took a sip, but could see no reason not to tell the truth.

“I assume that the lady you met was Molly Carew. Lady Booth Carew, widow.” He addressed his great-aunts, who would know the scandal. “I am not the father of that child.”

“’Course not,” Great-aunt Calliope said. “A gentleman takes care of his bastards.”

“If he can keep count of them.” Miss Smith muttered it, but she intended him to hear.

She was outrageous, but that could be spice of its own.

“I pay a clerk to record the tally, Miss Smith.”

She flashed him a startled look, clearly unsure what to believe of a “rake.”

“Then it will make little difference to add another to the total, will it?”

“It would set a disastrous precedent. My doorstep would be crowded with hopeful bundles.”

“True,” said Great-aunt Calliope.

Ash managed not to grin as the hussy regrouped. “My lord, this Lady Molly—”

“Lady Booth,” he corrected.

“Lady Booth, then. She left the baby for
you.
There had to be a reason.”

“Stubbornness, which as Sophocles pointed out, is sister to stupidity.”

“
Stubbornness?
”

“Precisely.” She must know the details, but he would play by her rules—for a while, at least. “Lady Booth Carew, widow, has been trying to foist a baby onto me for nearly a year. Or, to be precise, she’s been trying to force a wedding. This, I assume, is her final cat scratch—unless there were twins and she has one in reserve.”

“I don’t believe this absurd saga!”

“You doubt my word?”

Her look flamed him, but of course, she retreated. To accuse him of lying would be to overstep a fatal line.

“No, my lord,” she said without a scrap of sincerity. “So, the baby is not yours?”

“It is not mine.”

“Can you prove it?”

Damn the woman!
“My word is sufficient, Miss Smith.”

“It might be if any man could be sure of such a thing.”

He used the tone that could make strong men tremble. “You go too far, Miss Smith. Especially when you must know the truth, being Molly’s confidante.”

Her shock was brilliant. “
What?
I never met the woman before today!”

“Can
you
prove
that?
”

She stared at him, then turned to the great-aunts. “Thalia?”

The old dears were observing as if at a play. Thalia cocked her head. “I’m sure you’re honest, dear, but in strict fact I cannot swear that you’ve not known Lady Booth before. We only met three months ago,
don’t you remember? When you gave that talk about life with the navy?”

Ash turned the blade. “You see? It is entirely possible that you wormed your way into my great-aunts’ confidence with exactly this plan in mind.”

“No, it isn’t! I moved to Tunbridge Wells when my father retired from the navy and married a widow from there. Lady Calliope and Lady Thalia are on this journey because of the Marquess of Rothgar’s invitation and Lady Ashart’s ban on attending. I had no control over any of this!”

“A point, Ashart,” Lady Calliope said, like a judge at a fencing match.

She, however, would not suspect Rothgar’s hand behind all of this.

Could Rothgar have insinuated Miss Smith into the great-aunts’ house, then sent the invitation to get them on the road? It would have been child’s play to track their journey and arrange for Molly to intercept them.

Ash had taken Molly’s bait and turned up here on cue. Yes, it was possible, but what was the purpose? When would the blade fall?

Miss Smith interrupted his thoughts. “Perhaps we could make some provision for the baby and debate these improbabilities later.”

“Such an admirably tenacious mind,” Ash said, playing with his snuffbox. “What, pray, do you suggest?”

This, presumably, would be when he heard the true plan.

“You could send them to one of your estates, my lord.”

That brat wasn’t ending up under any roof of his, but he offered around the snuff as he considered. “The nearest is Cheynings, which is ruled over by my grandmother. I doubt she would be welcoming.”

“She would hardly murder an innocent child.”

He snapped the box shut, suppressing a smile of satisfaction. “A mistake, Miss Smith. You clearly don’t know the cause of our family discord.”

She looked around. “No, my lord.”

“The murder of an innocent child,” he told her, watching her every reaction. “Nearly forty years ago, my aunt, Lady Augusta Trayce, a sweet and lively young lady of sixteen, married Lord Grafton, heir to the Marquess of Rothgar.”

He saw no start of guilt.

“Four years later, surely as a result of extreme cruelty, she went mad and murdered her newborn babe. She died herself not long after—which was convenient for her husband, who could marry again.”

Miss Smith looked to the old ladies for confirmation. Surely even the greatest actress could not turn pale on command.

“Such a bright and beautiful girl,” Lady Thalia sighed.

“Too pretty by far, and a wild piece,” Lady Calliope said, “but she didn’t deserve such treatment.”

“But if Lord Rothgar is your great-nephew,” Miss Smith said, “he must be this Lady Augusta’s child.”

Thalia answered that. “Augusta’s firstborn, dear.
Such
a sweet child, and so very clever! I remember that he enjoyed apricot crisps, so I have brought some for him.”

Ash almost laughed. He’d give a fortune to see Rothgar’s face then!

“But surely,” Miss Smith said, in battle order again, “if there was wrongdoing, the Marquess of Rothgar would be as keen for justice for his mother as her own family.”

“Yet the matter gives him no obvious unease,” Ashart replied. “True, he put around a rumor that he would not marry because of the madness in his blood—his Trayce blood. That helped protect his father’s memory for years. But behold, he is now married without a qualm. Proof, wouldn’t you say?”

“No. What of love?”

“What of it?”

“Come, come, my lord. History is full of crowns and even lives lost for love.”

“Lust, perhaps, Miss Smith, not love. And lust, of course, does not require marriage.”

She flinched. Devil take it, could she be telling the truth? Could she be an innocent Samaritan?

“About the baby,” she said, rather desperately.

Thalia sat up straighter. “I know. We will take him to Rothgar Abbey!”

He wasn’t the only one struck dumb by the notion. “Arrive at Rothgar Abbey with a misbegotten infant in train?” But then Ash laughed. “Well, why not? It is Christmas, after all. Do I need to provide an ass?”