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 twentyand 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 theyoung 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 acarefulnature.”
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 hot have beencarefulat 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.
