“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 predictDashrather thanAsh.”
He offered the open box to Lady Calliope, who helped herself. Then he took an elegant pinch himself. “As for your journey, my dears,Iwill 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 explanationsfor 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 herpresepe, 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 thepresepeup 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 Geneva’s teeth on edge.
She met his eyes, placing a stitch in 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 goodfather, 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.”
