Winter Fire - Malloran 06

by Jo Beverley

  Genova felt a chill. “Does she explain the cause?”

  “Clearly. He scolds if she overspends her pin money. He spends too much time on estate matters. He expects her to read to his boring mother.”

  “Oh.”

  He stood. “She was a child. Why the devil did he marry her?”

  “Perhaps he saw the girl in the sketch in the portrait gallery.”

  “I wonder how quickly he regretted it. And,” he added, “how he behaved then.”

  Genova wanted to argue, but she could imagine Augusta driving a sensible man to distraction. To violence, even. But to persistent cruelty that would break her mind?

  The bell was still ringing, clearly being carried about the house to catch everyone’s attention.

  “We are summoned to celebrate,” Ash said. “I’ll take everything to my room for further study.”

  Genova felt some reluctance in giving over the letters with some unread, but she bridled her nosiness. She gave back his coat, and they left the room.

  They detoured to his bedchamber so he could leave the papers there. Genova insisted on waiting outside. She still had some willpower.

  He emerged moments later with his blond friend who had arrived yesterday. So, she would have been safe from weakness anyway.

  Genova was trying to remember the name when Ash provided it. “Do you remember Fitzroger, Genova?”

  Ash’s friend bowed, she curtsied, and she walked down the corridor between them, but with a feeling of being studied. Did Mr. Fitzroger not approve? Perhaps he, too, thought Ash should marry money, and didn’t know the betrothal was sham.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  They had just reached the bottom of the grand staircase when people began to look upward. Genova turned and saw Lord Rothgar on the landing.

  “My friends, rejoice! I have the best possible Christmas news. My sister is safely delivered of a son, and all is well.”

  Cheers and applause carried everyone toward the glittering dining room, but Genova was mostly struck by the true joy she’d seen on Lord Rothgar’s face. As he’d talked of clockworks, as he’d worked for peace, he must have been pressingly aware that some human events could not be made to work perfectly, no matter how hard one tried.

  She sent up a prayer of thanks, and another that the baby thrive, and went on with the rest to the dining room. The table was now long enough for the whole company, and was spread with a splendid feast on platters of china, silver, and even gold.

  Lord Rothgar and Lady Arradale sat together this time, in the middle of one side, with the great-aunts bracketing them. Ash and Genova were seated opposite. Unfortunately Miss Myddleton was on Ash’s other side, doubtless ready to try to monopolize his attention, but Genova felt that was a minor threat.

  Except that she did envy the heiress’s emerald necklace, probably chosen to match Ash’s ring. Pearls were all very well, but they were unfortunately demure.

  Music started, and she realized the musicians, including singers now, were performing in the hall to provide a background for this. Again, the music selected seemed old, more ethereal than modern compositions, as if designed to carry them all away from reality.

  It was still daylight but on a dull day, and hundreds of candles lit the room, sparkling off crystal, gold, and flashing jewelry. Finger bowls by each person stirred perfumes when used.

  Genova balanced her attention between Ash and Lord Henry Malloren on her other side. He was a gruff, sinewy man with little to say, though at one point he grumbled that he’d hoped to get Damaris off his hands by now.

  “Regular golden peach, she is,” he said, tucking into goose. “Father was a merchant captain. Bit of a privateer, if you ask me. Fell afoul of some pirates in the South China Sea and left me guardian. Imposition, but I’ve done my duty by her.”

  “I’m sure you have,” Genova said, feeling a little sorry for Miss Myddleton. She didn’t miss that the heiress was also a sea captain’s daughter. It really was a shame that a man had come between them.

  “Thought things might be settled,” Lord Henry added with a scowl at Genova.

  “Really?” she said, angling her hand to show the large ring.

  He made a sound like a growl and settled back to food.

  Poor Damaris, who must have lost both parents, not just one, and found herself in the power of this unpleasant, resentful man. How had that come about? When Genova found herself trying to think of ways to rearrange Miss Myddleton’s life, she suppressed a laugh and attended to her dinner and light conversation all around.

  Rich course followed rich course until Genova found herself unable to eat another bite. She contented herself with sipping wine, even though she’d done that too much as well.

  As the meal flowed merrily toward its end, darkness fell and she realized there were no lights in the room except firelight and the candles on and above the table. It made the gathering like a bright island in a dark ocean.

  Some of the diners were drunk, but no one had slid under the table yet. Conveniences had been arranged in adjoining rooms for ladies and gentlemen. Genova used the ladies’ room at one point, startled to find her balance unreliable when she stood. No more wine, she decided, or heaven knew what she might do.

  When she returned, Ash’s fingers twined with hers beneath the table. It seemed completely natural, though she did check that he wasn’t fondling Miss Myddleton’s at the same time. No, his other lay near his glass.

  Ash raised her hand and kissed it. “We could probably slide under the table and make love there with no one the wiser.”

  She could imagine it so vividly, she tingled. “Have you ever?”

  “Yes.”

  She giggled, and then she couldn’t stop. He swallowed her laughter in a kiss, a kiss that went on far too long. She knew that when they separated to laughter and bawdy jokes.

  Ash broke into song.

  Oh, I gave her cakes and I gave her ale,

  And I gave her sack and sherry!

  I kissed her once and I kissed her twice,

  And we were wondrous merry.

  Knowing the song, Genova clapped her hand over his mouth, but others took it up and finished it in a grand chorus that had her blushing.

  It was all in high spirits, however, and song followed song, many of them cause for a blush. She’d heard them all before, though, and could have contributed a few far bawdier if she’d been even drunker and lost to all shame.

  At last the meal was over and dancing was announced. They all poured out and up the stairs to the ballroom. Or most.

  Genova looked back and saw some guests snoring, including Lady Calliope, her red wig, topped with a diamond tiara, askew. Servants were beginning to take care of them. Genova supposed, with suppressed laughter, that one sleeper in a chair designed to be carried would make the work easier.

  The ballroom was at its magical best, and music started up immediately. Lady Arradale called the first dance with her husband as partner, and Ash led out Genova.

  The evening spun on like magic, even including a kissing dance where the couples progressed through a mistletoe arch. As the couples changed during the dance Genova ended up kissing Lord Rothgar, his chaplain, Dr. Egan, and Ash.

  After that playful kiss, Ash snared her into a “snow-covered” bower designed to shield lovers from sight.

  “How pretty this is,” she said.

  “Rothgar has a gift for entertainments.”

  She recognized the pull of the chains. “Peace, Ash.”

  He stroked her brow with a finger. “I feel like one of those hapless victims caught in a fairy circle. How do I know what is real and what is false? If I succumb, am I lost forever?”

  “Quite likely, yes. But think what you’ll have lost.”

  He laughed. “You give no quarter, do you?”

  “No.”

  He played with her hand, then raised it to his lips. “Will you come up with me, then, and finish the reading of those papers?”

  Time s
topped, it seemed, giving Genova infinity to understand the likely outcome. But then she rose with him. “Of course.”

  They slipped out of the ballroom and upstairs, Genova’s heart pounding with desire and alarm. If she hadn’t drunk so much she might not be doing this, but in her present insane state, that only meant that she was glad to have drunk.

  A victim of a fairy circle. Like such a victim, she could only surrender. She halted in a corridor and drew him to her for a kiss, an unwise kiss that threatened their reaching his room at all, but he ended it, shaking his head, eyes deep and dark.

  He looked ahead, and his expression changed.

  Genova turned. “What?” The corridor was empty.

  “Stay here,” he said.

  She watched, braced to act if necessary, as he walked down the apparently deserted corridor to a junction. She’d left her shawl somewhere and was growing chilled, and this was not how she’d expected this adventure to go.

  He looked around, then shook his head. “No one here, and this corridor is a cul-de-sac. I could have sworn I saw someone.”

  She joined him, aware of her footfalls on carpet, and the whisper of her skirts. “Someone like us?”

  “No, a poorly dressed man.”

  “A servant?”

  “The upstairs male servants are all in livery.”

  She looked down the empty corridor. “A thief?”

  “A clever one, to invade tonight when most of the household is the worse for drink.”

  Then she realized where they were. “This leads to the nurseries.”

  “Kidnapping?”

  A figure leaped up from behind a table and rushed at them.

  Ash caught him, but was bowled over. They were tussling on the floor when Genova grabbed a queue of dirty hair and yanked the man’s head back hard. He cried out and stopped struggling. Ash dragged him to his feet in a strong hold.

  “Who are you, and what are you up to?”

  The grubby young man, who looked hardly twenty and ill nourished, shook his head in numb terror. Ash’s scintillating garments were probably enough to strike the lad dumb on their own.

  Genova remembered she was in fine clothes herself and resisted the need to wipe her hand on her skirts. Grease was the devil to get out of silk.

  “You’ll get nowhere by silence,” she said, trying to sound reassuring. “If you’ve a reason to be here, tell us.”

  He looked between them again, then burst out in a heavy Irish accent, “You’ve my Sheena here! I know you do. You shan’t keep her, you shan’t!”

  Ash must have relaxed his grip, for the man almost broke free and he had to tighten his hold to restrain him. The Irishman cried out.

  “Don’t hurt him!”

  “I won’t if he’ll stop fighting,” Ash snapped back. “Have done, man. If you know anything about Sheena O’Leary, we want to hear it.”

  “Where is she, then? What have you done with her?”

  Genova saw the door to the nurseries crack open and Sheena peep out. The girl gasped, “Lawrence!” But then she shut the door and Genova heard footsteps pounding up the stairs.

  She dashed to open the door. “Sheena, come back down here!”

  Tone or words worked. The girl turned and crept back down, muttering something in Gaelic. Lawrence answered her and they started a rapid conversation.

  “Silence!” Genova commanded. To Ash, she said, “We can’t let them sort out their story before we’ve heard it. Bring him along.”

  “Aye, aye, captain, but where?”

  She grinned at his reaction. “Your room is closest.”

  Where they’d been going.

  This had broken the spell that had allowed her to surrender. In time she’d be glad of it, and perhaps at last there’d be a key to Ash’s problems.

  Genova thought of something and addressed the young man. “Ask Sheena if someone else is taking care of the nurseries.”

  His question was quick, and Sheena’s reply clearly included Harbinger.

  “You take them to your room,” Genova said to Ash. “I’ll come when I’ve made some sort of explanation to the ruler of the nursery domain. Don’t start until I join you!”

  He looked amused. “A definitely musty tyrant.”

  Genova blushed, but she had a commanding disposition and he might as well know it.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  She hurried up the plain stairs, having to squeeze her hoops a little, and found Mrs. Harbinger looking for “that girl.” Clearly Sheena was not a perfect servant. Genova simply said that a relative of Sheena’s had arrived and they were allowing a meeting.

  “Very well, Miss Smith, but I’ll not have her loose in the house tonight. She’s clearly not of a careful nature.”

  Genova had to agree. She hurried back down to Ash’s bedchamber, then paused outside the door thinking of what might have been. It would not have been careful at all, but it hadn’t seemed to matter at the time. She had no right to look down on Sheena’s fall.

  She went in to find Sheena sitting warily in an armchair and the young Irishman standing on guard by her side. He was short and thin, but wiry and well made.

  Ash stood by the fireplace, his eye on them. He indicated the other chair for Genova and she took it, giving Sheena an encouraging smile because the girl was wringing her hands now.

  “Now,” Ash said, “tell us who you are, man, and the whole of this story.”

  The young man glanced at Sheena, then faced them. “M’name’s Lawrence Carr, m’lord. I know Sheena from back in Annaghdown.” Then he raised his chin. “I’m the father of her child, m’lord, and have the right to protect her.”

  The child that died. The poor couple. “Sheena’s safe,” Genova assured him. “She’s only here because her employer appears to have abandoned her.”

  “Lady Booth Carew.” Lawrence almost spat it. “I tracked them across Ireland and almost to London, then realized Sheena wasn’t with her anymore. I’ve been frantic since, but then heard that a lord here was seeking an Irish speaker, and that it was to do with a baby.”

  “Wiser to have presented yourself openly as the translator, wouldn’t you say?” Ash remarked.

  “I don’t trust the big houses! When I found I could get in, I did. I’m not a housebreaker, m’lord. I’m not!”

  He was standing bold, but shaking. It wasn’t surprising. He could end up transported for that.

  “That’s all right,” Genova soothed. “But we need you to ask Sheena about Lady Booth. We need to know why Lady Booth abandoned her and Charlie with us.”

  Lawrence Carr took Sheena’s hand and asked her the questions.

  Sheena looked around almost furtively, or perhaps like a trapped animal, then spilled a stream of Gaelic. There was an exchange that rose rapidly to an argument. Then Sheena burst into tears.

  Genova was ready to shake the English out of the man. “What did she say?”

  Lawrence Carr looked at them, angry and perhaps bewildered. “M’lord, ma’am, I can hardly make sense of it m’self. She tried to tell me our child died, but when I returned to Annaghdown, me own mam told me Sheena’d had a baby, and it was a fine boy. Boxed me ears, she did, for not writing so I’d know.”

  “You didn’t know?” But then it sank in. “Charlie is Sheena’s own baby?”

  Of course, of course. So much made sense now. But some things, many things, still didn’t.

  “And Lady Booth’s plan?” Ash asked, not showing any reaction.

  “She doesn’t know, m’lord. But Lady Booth promised her money if she’d come to England with her baby, and that the boy’d grow up to be a fine lord. The silly biddy to believe such a thing. But it was hard for her with an unwed babe and me being away. I was trying to make money so we could marry, m’lord! I don’t have the writing, and I didn’t want to spend money on someone to write for me when I’d nothing to say.”

  Nothing to say to the girl he’d made love to. How very like a man, and yet Lawrence Carr had been trying to
do the right thing, to earn enough to marry his sweetheart.

  “So the baby died,” Ash said to no one in particular, “and Molly found a substitute.”

  “Or,” Genova suggested, “there was never a baby at all.”

  “What?”

  Ash looked dumbfounded. Genova wondered if it took a woman to follow a tangle that deep into the knot. “Mr. Carr, I gather your village is close to Lady Booth Carew’s home?”

  “That it is, ma’am. She was left her husband’s place there, though she takes no care of it.”

  “So ask Sheena, if you please, whether Lady Booth carried and birthed a child there.”

  After an exchange he looked back, but Genova was already smiling, having understood Sheena’s tone and some gestures.

  “She says not, ma’am. Apparently Lady Booth went about with a growing belly, complaining of her ill-usage, which was a strange thing to everyone, for you’d think she’d want to hide in shame. But her maid laundered her cloths every month, and hung them out to dry.”

  She laughed aloud at that. “Never think anything can be hidden.”

  Ash was shaking his head.

  “Swear if you want,” Genova said, rising and going to his side to speak confidentially.

  He laughed at that as he had once before.

  “It should have occurred to me,” he said. “She’d been married to Carew for eight years without sign. But she risked her reputation.”

  “Or used it to try to force you. I suppose if you’d married her, she would have conveniently miscarried and hoped to truly quicken soon.”

  “Optimistic, given her history, and it would assume I could bring myself to… swive her.” He smiled as he chose that word.

  “Not necessarily,” Genova pointed out.

  “Zeus,” he said. “She might not have cared. She’d have had what she wanted, a marchioness’s coronet.”

  “And worn it in a cage with a wolf.”

  He raised a brow but seemed to catch her meaning. “I might well be tempted to bite in that situation, yes.”

  “But why the end play?” Genova asked. “Did she think evidence of a baby would change your mind at such a late date? He was born out of wedlock, so he could never be your heir.”