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 toAsh.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 Irishmaid 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 risqué 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.
“No 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 Beowulf’s 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.
