by Elisa Braden
“Drat.” She tossed a lace cap beside the handkerchiefs Maureen had embroidered for her and eyed the pink bonnet she often wore with her rose carriage dress.
“That one might be easiest to remake, my lady,” Bess commented while tucking Genie’s gloves into the crevices of a bulging valise. “It has fewer adornments.”
“Mmm.” Genie tapped her lips. “But the color is an unusual shade. Who can say whether I shall ever achieve it again?”
Behind her, she heard Harry huffing as he entered. She glanced over her shoulder then grinned her delight as she saw what he delivered. “Oh, how marvelous!” She rushed forward to throw open the small trunk. At least now, she’d be able to take her pink bonnet. The rose carriage dress was simply less lovely without it. “I would kiss you, but that might start rumors neither of us want.”
The footman flushed.
Genie patted his arm and laughed. “A jest, Harry. Thank you. This is precisely what I needed.”
“It has been five hours, Eugenia,” came a frigid snap from the doorway. “Why are you not yet ready?”
She spun to see Holstoke looking as though a blizzard had turned him into ice-encrusted stone. She blinked, unsure what had changed in the few minutes since she’d felt that strange charge of heat flash up three stories and melt her through paned glass. Despite the freeze, she planted her hands on her hips and answered, “Packing takes time, Holstoke.”
“You have had a week.”
“Not to plan for Dorsetshire. Have you any idea how many trunks are required to—”
“Haul whatever trunks are ready down to the carriage. We depart in ten minutes.”
For a moment, she thought the icy command was meant for her. But Harry snapped his heels together and uttered, “Yes, my lord,” before Genie could muster a reply. The footman left carrying one of the smaller packed trunks.
“Ten minutes, Eugenia. Whatever is not loaded onto the coach will remain here.”
She snorted. “Including me?”
He took two steps into the room as though propelled by a force beyond his control. Then, he stopped and rolled his shoulders. “You go where I go. Whether you are ready or not.” His gaze flickered to her gown. “Is that your carriage dress?”
She looked down at the blue bias silk. Inside, a sharp pain stabbed between her heart and stomach. “This is my wedding gown, Holstoke.” She’d been reluctant to remove it, wanting to hold on to the memory of their kiss for as long as possible. Every breathless, tingling, shivery moment. For him, by contrast, the encounter had clearly been a trifle, meaningless and forgettable. “Perhaps if I were a plant, you would find these details of greater interest.”
Frowning fiercely, he took another step forward. “There is only one detail I am concerned with—that is putting distance between you and a murderer. You do recall the murderer lurking about and poisoning housekeepers, do you not?”
“I am not a halfwit, Holstoke, despite what you seem to think of me—”
“We must leave. Now, Eugenia.”
“I am nearly finished. Miraculous when you consider how little warning you gave me.”
Another step closer. His shoulders were rigid with tension. “You are done,” he said softly. “Fetch a wrap. We are leaving.” Those pale eyes bored into her as though he could glare her into compliance.
She sniffed. “An hour here or there will make no—”
“Ten minutes. Delay any longer, and I shall haul you outside myself.”
She opened her mouth to reply.
“Do not try my patience, Eugenia. This has been a bloody wretched day.”
She flinched. Blinked away a sudden sting in her eyes. Swallowed a sudden tightness in her throat. Wretched? That was how he regarded the day of their wedding, their first kiss? Wretched.
“Leave,” she said quietly, breathing away the hurt.
He did not move, his eyes on her mouth.
“I’ll be down shortly.” She brushed past him to hold open the door. “Leave me to finish.”
He did as she asked, but his movements were stiff and reluctant. He glanced back at her, a furrow between his brows.
She closed the door on him and stiffened her spine. “We have ten minutes,” she said to a wide-eyed Bess. “Let us make them count.”
Precisely ten minutes later, Genie climbed into Holstoke’s plain, black traveling coach and nodded to Holstoke’s still, silent sister. Inside, the carriage was plush and roomy. Genie took the seat opposite Hannah’s, piling her blanket and basket of supplies beside her.
Holstoke could sit elsewhere, as far as she was concerned.
“Phineas asked me to inform you he will ride separately,” Hannah said in her customary serene tone. “He suggested you try to rest, as our first stop will be hours from now, and we shall depart again at dawn.”
Examining the girl, Genie frowned. They were of an age, she and Hannah, both two-and-twenty. And yet, the other girl seemed both much younger and much older.
Innocent and ancient. That was Hannah Gray.
Of course, her life had been horrid until she’d discovered her half-brother. Maureen had changed that—given Holstoke his beloved sister, given Hannah a family with whom she felt safe. Maureen had been a friend to them both.
Genie, on the other hand, was a virtual stranger. Now, seated across from Hannah, she felt it more keenly than ever. The girl was her sister by marriage, and yet her expression was closed. Composed. Cold.
Even if Holstoke and Hannah had not inherited those distinctive eyes, she would have seen a resemblance. They both had a gift for wearing winter as a mask.
The coach jerked into motion. The late-evening sun angled low and red through the window. It shone on Hannah’s bonnet.
Her unremarkable straw bonnet.
“Have you considered adding flowers to your hats?” Genie inquired, hoping to pass the time in a way that might be useful and perhaps induce a thaw.
Pale, familiar eyes blinked and examined her like an insect. A loathsome insect. “No.”
“You should.”
Silence.
“Nothing too bold, mind you. Daisies, perhaps. A touch of ribbon to match—”
“I like my hats as they are.” Winter had clearly set in with no thaw in sight. “I like most things as they are.” The girl turned her head to watch out the window. “Or were.”
The last two words were a whisper.
But Genie heard quite clearly.
She sat back and folded her arms. Narrowed her eyes and tapped her lip. “Things rarely stay the same, you know. We are all like toads riding in a decrepit old cart. Just when we settle in to live our comfortable little toad lives, the cart runs out of a rut and into a hedge, and we all go flying.” She’d used the same analogy with her nieces and nephews, who had subsequently demanded to know what became of the toads, whether they’d found new homes beside a lovely pond or in a grove of trees. Children were quite literal, she’d found. “One is well advised to learn how to leap and how to land, however predictable the road appears.”
Again, silence.
“Now, about your hats. I have some ideas, but I concede you may have to see them in practice before you agree they are brilliant.” Genie tapped her finger against her lips again. “Which they are.”
Hannah’s gently sloped jaw tightened. Otherwise, she did not respond.
Genie dug through her basket and withdrew her sketchbook and pencil. “Your gowns are exquisite. It will not take much to improve the overall ensemble. Flowers or greenery here and there, perhaps. I am fond of feathers, but”—she squinted at Hannah’s soft features and pale skin—“not for you, I think.”
She began sketching, letting the girl sit and stare and sulk because life was changing more than she liked.
“I prefer my hats as they are,” Hannah repeated, keeping her eyes to the window.
It was going to be a long night, Genie thought as she sketched the beginnings of a new creation. A long night, indeed.
*~*~*<
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He did not claim his wife the first night. The inn was rough, and he spent the few hours of their stay speaking with Dunston’s men. There were seven, and all had a similar look to Dunston and Hawthorn and Drayton—hard and vigilant.
Their presence eased his mind perhaps ten percent.
Neither did he claim his wife the second night, for they pushed on, traveling straight through.
Mid-morning, they stopped at a coaching inn twenty miles from Primvale. Caballus was exhausted. Phineas could scarcely see, his vision weary and blurred. He needed a bath and a shave.
He needed to claim his wife.
By God, that blackness had grown thorns. It wound around his insides and infected his mind. If he’d understood it, he might have some chance of controlling it. But he did not. So it grew.
And it wanted certain things. It wanted to kill the man who threatened her. It wanted to punish footmen and hatters upon whom she bestowed her smile. It wanted to lay her out upon a bed or a bench or the blasted grass and thrust until she looked at him the way she had in the library.
With wonder. Desire. Discovery.
The lust was vaguely familiar, though it was a bit like comparing a tuft of grass to a towering oak. He’d had mistresses. He’d made a study of them, in fact. He liked exploring a woman’s pleasures and textures and idiosyncrasies until the mystery disappeared. That often took years. So, he’d had four mistresses in his life, the most recent lasting the shortest duration at two years.
All of them had been lovely women and pleasant companions. None had evoked the kind of need he felt for Eugenia. It clawed and demanded. It dug in and cut deep.
Likewise, he’d never contemplated physically attacking other men over a woman. The very notion was primal nonsense. Irrational.
But the blackness was defined by its irrationality. And although he’d used his time on the journey to Primvale to work at the problem, those bloody wants had only hardened.
Now, as he patted Caballus’s neck and dismounted in front of the inn’s stable, he stretched weary legs and glanced back at the two coaches pulling into the small courtyard. One entire carriage had been required to haul Eugenia’s load of trunks. Fortunately, he’d anticipated the necessity. He hadn’t realized quite how many new gowns Hannah had purchased during the season, but that, too, made him glad to have arranged it.
The lead coach rolled to a stop near the inn’s door. Hannah exited first. She looked as exhausted as Caballus, with dark rings beneath her eyes and pale, pinched lips.
Phineas crossed the small courtyard and approached his sister. “Go inside, little one,” he said, gently cupping her elbow as she navigated piles of muck. “Purchase something to eat. It is a couple of hours yet to Primvale.”
She sighed and leaned against him briefly. “I shall. Would you care for anything, Phineas?”
He began to answer, but his attention wandered. Riveted. To the woman climbing out of the coach. Her bonnet appeared first—it was delicate pink, like the inside of a seashell. Next, he could see her bodice, a deeper, redder shade of the same color. He’d produced a rose that hue once. She emerged from the coach like a painting of Venus—at least, that was how it felt to him, for she glowed like a goddess.
“Phineas?”
Her skin was ivory and her eyes sherry in a shaft of sunlight. What would she say if he simply lifted her back into the coach and showed her what pleasure could be?
“Phineas.” A tug at his arm.
He looked down.
Hannah appeared annoyed. “Do you want anything?”
Yes. He wanted a bed and Eugenia. Or merely Eugenia. The bed was preferable, but secondary. He could take her standing up in a stable, if necessary.
Swallowing, he watched his wife step down and wrinkle her nose. She settled her skirts, tilted her chin, and wove her way to the inn’s door without once glancing in his direction. Meanwhile, his heart thundered. His vision sharpened upon her perfectly confounding hips.
“Phineas!”
“Nothing,” he answered, his voice down to a thread. “I’ll be along in a moment.”
He heard what sounded like a snort or a huff, but thought it must be one of the horses. Hannah did not make such noises.
No, that was more of a Eugenia trait.
He nearly smiled at the thought. When she was vexed or dubious or simply impatient, Eugenia made all sorts of little sounds. She rolled her eyes and delivered sharp rebukes. She shoved and swatted and breathed fire. He never had to wonder whether she was angry. Eugenia did not mince words.
Regrettably, he’d upset her on their wedding day by cutting short her packing, and she hadn’t spoken to him for the entire journey. Good God, the woman had more hats than sense. Didn’t she realize how dangerous the situation was?
Perhaps he’d been abrupt. But what did she expect? She’d been jesting about kissing a footman, of all things, then had touched that same footman and flashed a grin dazzling enough to turn a man inside out.
Eugenia needed barriers. She needed a firm hand and clear rules. She needed to cease touching other males.
“Eh! You, there. Make way!”
Phineas blinked and glanced behind him. An old man glowered down from atop a crate-loaded wagon. The man’s wife, tucking her knitting into a basket at her feet, also frowned.
Damn and blast. He’d been standing in the middle of the inn’s courtyard staring at the door through which his wife had disappeared. This blackness had muddled his mind.
He rubbed his neck and went inside the inn, wondering whether she would speak to him if he bought her some ham.
Eugenia sat beside a weary Hannah, drinking from a wooden cup with a hearty appetite. She plunked down her cup and chattered at his sister, who glared down at the scarred tabletop with a stony expression.
Phineas searched out the innkeeper and requested some ale for himself, then approached the ladies and sat on the bench opposite them.
“Feathers add height, you know. Now, for some, that is a crucial feature. Lady Wallingham, for example, never goes about without a feather or two. I also enjoy their grandeur.”
Hannah heaved a great sigh and turned her glare to the filthy courtyard window.
Phineas looked from one lady to the other and frowned. Something was amiss, but he could not be certain what it was. “I assume the discussion is hats,” he ventured.
Eugenia pretended he hadn’t spoken. “Ordinarily, I would not recommend feathers for you, but in the case of a riding habit—”
“I do not ride,” Hannah snapped.
His frown deepened. What the devil?
Sniffing, Eugenia took another drink of her ale. “You should,” she told Hannah. “It helps clear the mind.”
“My mind is perfectly clear.”
“Improves one’s disposition.”
This time, Phineas heard the snort clearly. Fancy that. Hannah snorting.
“I daresay riding might well be the cure for an intractable sulk. In my experience, it is far more enjoyable than stewing in self-pity.” She took another drink. “Though, that does have its merits.”
Phineas cleared his throat.
“I shall teach you,” Eugenia continued. “Assuming Primvale possesses an adequate stable, and you possess a modicum of capability, I would guess you’ll be riding for pleasure at least once every day. Mornings are best.”
“I do not ride.”
The seething hostility in those words stunned him. He’d never seen his fragile, gentle sister behave this way.
Blithely, Eugenia retorted, “You do not ride now. That is why I must teach you.”
“I don’t wish to learn.”
“Well, that much is evident.” Eugenia’s wry utterance was accompanied by an eye-roll.
The innkeeper set a large tankard of ale in front of him, but Phineas could not look away from the bizarre interchange between his wife and sister, neither of whom had yet bothered to acknowledge his presence.
“Many wishes go unfulfilled, sadly,
” Eugenia continued. “I wished to bring along four additional capotes and three bonnets, for example. Yet I was forced to leave them behind. Now, I shall require twice the allowance Holstoke originally planned.” She tsked. “Remaking hats is costly, as some designs require specialized materials.”
His frown deepened. At last, she was speaking to him, albeit indirectly. He elected to answer her charge with a helpful explanation. “We had to leave when we did, Eugenia. Delays would have increased the chances of the poisoner—”
“So, how much does Holstoke grant for your allowance, Hannah?”
“That is none of your concern,” came Hannah’s reply.
“Perhaps not, but I should like to know. Come now, tell me honestly. It is astonishingly generous, is it not? Yes, it must be. Those gowns of yours are divine. Madame Legrande’s work, if I am not mistaken. An unparalleled talent—grand, indeed.” She chuckled again at her own pun. “I have several of her creations. Papa was not as generous as Holstoke.” Eugenia blinked and tapped her lips with her finger. “Now that I think upon it, even Holstoke is not as generous as he is going to be.” This time, Eugenia’s message was sharpened and aimed exclusively for him.
Bloody hell.
He made an attempt to intervene. “Eugenia, this is a topic best reserved for—”
“Now, then. Once we arrive at Holstoke’s little castle, and we’ve had a chance to settle into our comfortable little routines, we shall assess your skill in the saddle.”
“I prefer walking.”
“Hmm. Yes. Oddly, preferences are much like wishes. Another excellent example: Holstoke prefers not being accused of murder. And yet, that is precisely what happened. Had it not been for certain timely interventions, he might yet stand accused with nary an alibi in sight.”
He sighed and drank his ale. It was weak and flat. Perhaps he should return to the stables.
“In the end, one would assume a bit of gratitude might be in order. Timely interventions do not come along every day.” Eugenia tipped back the last of her own ale and thudded her cup onto the table with some force. “Alas, whilst one might expect gratitude, one may never receive the merest jot. And whilst that is dreadfully rude and disappointing, it is not unexpected.”
