by Jo Beverley
Ash gave him the coin. “You’ll think of something. Now, take me to my great-aunts.”
The innkeeper shook his head, but he led the way down a corridor. At a door, he paused. “You said your name was Dash, sir.”
“I said I was here to meet Mrs. Dash, which, as I’m sure you recognize, is an entirely different matter.”
The man’s face stiffened, but he turned to the door and knocked.
Chapter Four
Genova had accepted that they must take care of the baby for the night at least, so she’d requested that a mattress be set up in Thalia’s parlor for the pair. Then she ordered one of the three Trayce maids in the entourage to help the girl bathe. Another was to arrange the laundering of as much of the baby’s and nursemaid’s clothing as possible.
Laundry was difficult in December, but Genova knew anything could be achieved with the promise of generous vails. It was Trayce money she was spending, however, so she went down to explain to Lady Calliope and Thalia.
When she’d finished an edited account, Lady Calliope scowled. “What are we to do with these waifs, Genova?”
She glowered out of shawls and rugs, her bald head covered by a fur-lined cap. Her abundant red wig lay on the floor nearby, looking for all the world like a ginger cat.
“Perhaps the parents will recollect their duty.”
“If those two are married, I’m a stuffed goose!”
Genova had come to the same conclusion. “But if ”Mrs. Dash‘ is trying to foist a bastard on “Mr. Dash,” why would she think he’d take it? And how utterly heartless to dump her child on complete strangers.“
“The world’s full of heartless opportunists. This promises to be a plaguey mess!”
Genova soothed the old lady, knowing how hard this journey was for her. The most luxurious coach couldn’t smooth roads rutted and frozen by the weather, and even with her own sheets and pillows, Lady Calliope hated strange beds.
“I suppose there’s nothing to be done tonight,” Lady Calliope muttered, “but—” She broke off because of a knock on the door. “What now?”
Genova went to open it, praying that by some miracle it was Mrs. Dash, but she found Lynchbold, who looked uneasy.
“Excuse me, ma’am. This gentleman claims to be a relative of the ladies and wishes to be of assistance to them.”
He stepped aside and a man moved forward.
Mr. Dash!
Genova gaped at the man’s gall, and he seemed as shocked to see her. Had she spoiled some new game? She dearly hoped so.
Before she could speak, Thalia said, “A relative? How delightful. Who?” She fluttered over to Genova’s side. “Ashart! My dear boy. Come in, come in!”
Ashart!
The man inclined his head to the gawking innkeeper and obeyed, removing Genova from his path.
She would have loved to block the way again—and more effectively this time—but Thalia couldn’t be doubted. Nor could Lady Calliope, who was greeting the scoundrel with remarkable warmth.
The wolf was the Marquess of Ashart?
This man was owner of that decadently luxurious coach?
That deceiving portrait must date from his youth. Even powdered, patched, and painted for the most formal court event, this man could never look so harmless.
He kissed Thalia’s cheek and moved on to Lady Calliope. “Callie, my darling.”
Callie! Lady Calliope’s sisters sometimes used that girlish name, but on this man’s lips it sounded unnatural.
“What the devil are you doing here?” Lady Calliope asked, not managing to sound severe. “Up to no good, I’ll be damned.”
“Brought by the angels to succor you, dear heart. I happened to halt here and learned you were making an unplanned stop at this inferior hostelry. I assume my people will have an adequate explanation.”
“Don’t bully them. It was our choice. And if you want to cut up sweet with a lady, flirt with someone younger.”
Lady Calliope beckoned, so Genova had to go. What should she do? Spill the truth and break the old ladies’ hearts? Over three months’ acquaintance, she’d learned that they doted on the marquess.
“Permit me to present Miss Smith, Ashart. Genova, this is my devil’s-spawn great-nephew, Ashart.”
He looked at her—a flick up and down that his great-aunts couldn’t see but that made her long for her pistol. “Enchanted, Miss Smith,” he lied, bowing. “Astonishing to meet a real Smith. It is real, I assume?”
“Only an idiot would take Smith as a false name, my lord.”
“Or a cunning villain who expected people to think that way. To add Genova, however, was a touch of brilliance.”
Genova dipped a belated curtsy that was as icy as the air outside. “My lord. For some reason, I expected your name to be Dash.”
“Dash?” He showed not a sign of guilt. “Perhaps you have powers of prognostication, Miss Smith. My intimates call me Ash.”
“Do you have powers, Genova?” Thalia exclaimed. “How exciting! Do you use tea leaves? Cards… ?”
“I think that would be a more lowly form of fortune-telling, Thalia,” the marquess said. “Doubtless Miss Smith simply knows things.”
“Do you, Genova? Do, please, tell me something you know. Will our journey go smoothly? Will our reception be kind?”
Genova wanted to glare at the marquess, but she smiled at Thalia. “Yes to both, but that is because I will make sure the journey goes smoothly, and no one could be anything but kind to you and Lady Calliope.”
“I am compelled to point out,” said the marquess, producing a porcelain snuffbox, “that Miss Smith’s abilities are not precise. She did predict Dash rather than Ash.”
He offered the open box to Lady Calliope, who helped herself. Then he took an elegant pinch himself. “As for your journey, my dears, I will be your escort and protector.”
Thalia clapped her hands. “How wonderful! And, dear me, you’ve just arrived, dear boy? You must be famished! Young men are always hungry. It is time for our supper, I’m sure. Genova, ring the bell, do.”
Genova obeyed, almost gnashing her teeth. She should do something about this, but what? The wolf clearly was the Marquess of Ashart. These were his great-aunts. What’s more, they were traveling in his coaches, with his servants, and quite probably at his expense. Presumably he could even dismiss her if he took a mind to.
And thus, she realized with a chill, he had power over the baby. Was that why he’d returned?
She turned back to find that he’d taken a seat between the two doting old ladies. “I gather your journey has been eventful, my sweets.”
“Mostly it’s been flat tedium,” Lady Calliope stated, “but yes, we had an interesting encounter. Tell the story, Genova!”
Genova obeyed, including the arrival and departure of Mr. Dash. Not a trace of guilt showed on his face.
“And Genova thought you were this Mr. Dash,” Thalia said. “How droll!”
“Very.” The marquess smiled at Genova. She returned it, falsely.
A maid entered and went to get their supper. The Trayce ladies began to hash over possible explanations for the situation, and the marquess took part, as innocent as an angel.
To help her hold her tongue until she’d decided what to do, Genova picked up her embroidery. She was attempting to reproduce the beautiful cloth that went under her presepe, her Nativity scene. The old one was showing wear, but she had only a little more work to do on the replacement. When they arrived at Rothgar Abbey, she would be able to set the presepe up as it had always been at Christmas. It would be in her room rather than in pride of place, but it would suffice.
She kept part of her mind on the discussion, so wasn’t startled when Lord Ashart addressed her. “Wiser, perhaps, not to have intervened, Miss Smith.”
He was lounging insolently—if a marquess could ever be said to be insolent. That and his tone, and the look in his eye, all put Genova’s teeth on edge.
She met his eyes, placing a stitch i
n order to look composed. “You would have passed by on the other side of the road, my lord?”
“I don’t have the reputation of being a Good Samaritan.”
“Or of being a good father, either.”
His brows rose. “I don’t have any kind of reputation as a father, Miss Smith.”
“Surprising for a rake.”
It slipped out, and cold fury flared in his eyes. Genova braced for retaliation, realizing that she hungered for another bout—one that she would win.
But he dismissed her. “I see you know nothing of the world, Miss Smith.”
“Oh, you’re wrong there!” Thalia exclaimed. “Genova has been everywhere and had so many adventures!”
The cold eyes assessed her again. “I am not at all surprised.”
That carried so many insulting implications that Genova stabbed herself with her needle. She hissed and quickly moved her embroidery to suck a finger.
“Pricked yourself, Miss Smith?” the devil said. “And bled? Surprising—for an adventuress.”
Genova inhaled to give him the full weight of her opinion, but the door opened and their food arrived. After a few cooling moments, she knew she’d been saved from disaster, but her anger still seethed.
He thought her a harlot!
Why would he think that?
Because of that kiss? He’d forced it on her!
While two maids laid the meal on the table, Genova put away her needlework and gathered as much composure as she could. She could not afford a battle. This man could get rid of her as if she were a gnat, leaving the baby unprotected. She couldn’t depend on the Trayce ladies taking care of Charlie. Thalia was flighty, and Lady Calliope did not have a tender heart.
Genova thought of the maid upstairs and announced that she would take her some food. Carrying a laden plate upstairs gave her a chance to regroup and assess the situation.
Chapter Five
Lord Ashart’s wolf fur cloak was as good as a warning hung around a villain’s neck, she decided. She didn’t for one moment think his previous visit had been coincidence. Dash, after all, was too close to Ash. He doubtless used the name for rakish assignations—assignations that led to embarrassments like a baby.
What frightened her was the way she was responding. She did have a weakness for a certain sort of man. A bold, virile man who fired her body and challenged her wits.
There’d been an Italian called Casanova, reputed to be fatally attractive to women, and she’d felt that power in him. She’d enjoyed a flirtation, but been in no danger of going further than that.
More strangely, she’d reacted to the bearded leader of some Barbary pirates. An alarming comparison.
Especially as she’d shot him.
She couldn’t shoot this one, but she did have a weapon. She could tell his doting great-aunts that he was Mr. Dash, cruel abandoner of innocents. That would scuttle him.
She paused at the upstairs parlor door, suddenly realizing that he might not have expected to meet her in Lady Calliope’s room. He’d tricked her in one inn parlor, then been taken to another. Oh, she wished she had that encounter at Lady Calliope’s door to live through again and relish.
Genova entered Lady Thalia’s parlor to find it empty, so she continued into the bedroom. The Irish maid was still in the bath in front of the fire, alone except for the baby, sleeping on the bed. Regeanne must be eating in the servants’ area.
The bathwater would be cool, but the fire roared and towels hung ready. The maid would leave the bath when it grew too cold for comfort, or when the baby awoke.
Genova pulled a chair over by the tub and put the food there.
Sheena smiled and presumably thanked her, looking sweetly trusting and surprisingly young. Of course, young women could become mothers, but it was still a shock. She looked as innocent and vulnerable as the baby.
“Everything will be all right,” Genova promised, but she added, “If will and strength can make it so.” She valued a promise, and what could she do to force a marquess to bend to her will?
She returned downstairs to find that the inn servants had been dismissed. The marquess and the Trayce ladies had almost finished their soup, so she sat to hers, listening to chat about fashionable circles. The marquess was sharing risque stories but his great-aunts didn’t appear to mind. In fact they hung on his every word like elderly houris in a harem.
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.
“Wo 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 Beowulfs 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-e
yed, 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?”
