She’d not been living with the Trayce ladies, but she’d often escaped her stepmother’s house by visiting them, so she’d been part of the long, wandering discussions about whether they should accept or not.
There was another Trayce sister, Lady Urania, but she was a widow and always spent Christmas at the home of her oldest son. She, however, thought the other two should go if they were up to the journey. Lady Calliope thought it would be madness. Thalia fluttered between longings and vague murmurs about “poor Augusta.”
Genova had longed to know more about “poor Augusta” but felt unable to ask. In the end, the sisters had decided to decline, but then their sister-in-law, the Dowager Marchioness of Ashart, had written forbidding them to go. That had changed everything. In naval parlance, the Trayce ladies hated the woman’s putrefying guts.
Presumably the marquess was in agreement with the dowager, but if he tried to enforce her orders, Genova would make sure he failed. She placed a pie in the center of the table, and a ham directly in front of him.
“I dosolook forward to seeing dear Beowulf again,” Thalia was saying. “Whatever happened in thepast, those involved are long dead. Genova pointed that out.”
Genova placed two more dishes on the table, prickling under the marquess’s grim gaze. She remembered making that comment, but it had been casual.
As she sat down, Lord Ashart said, “A forgiving nature, Miss Smith?”
“That is the Christian way, is it not, my lord? Pie?”
He ignored the offer. “Forgive so that we shall be forgiven?”
She cut into it and placed a piece on Thalia’s raised plate. “I hope not to be so self-serving, my lord. It is possible to forgive simply because it is right.”
“But. I’m sure you have sins that require forgiveness.”
She served Lady Calliope. “None of us are without sin, my lord.” Silently, she added,Especially you.
“Anyone who is not a total bore, certainly.”
Genova cut pie for herself and accepted potatoes from Thalia. “You think virtue dull, my lord?”
“You don’t? Ah, but then, you admitted to requiring forgiveness. All that…er…pricking.”
Genova almost dropped her plate. “That is not—!”
She bit off her reaction, which he was surely goading for. She glanced at the others to find Thalia watching, bright-eyed, as if at an amusing play, and Lady Calliope stolidly eating. Genova put a slice of pie on the marquess’s empty plate, whether he wanted it or not.
“Ah, pigeon. You have a taste for it, Miss Smith?”
Sincepigeonwas slang fordupe, it was another insult.
Addressing no one in particular, Genova said, “I hope the weather will be warmer tomorrow. The poor men suffered so today, and it slowed us.”
“Weather,” the marquess murmured. “Refuge of the dull…or the nervous.”
She knew she shouldn’t, but she looked straight at him. “I am not nervous of you, Lord Ashart.”
“But you should be, Miss Smith. You definitely should be.”
Genova raised her plate. “May I have someham, my lord?”
He served her. “You think I act? Don’t.”
Genova felt the danger, as if a storm raged or enemy guns blasted, and her blood sang. “I don’t question that you are a marquess, my lord, a character of great power and influence.”
“Character? And what are you in this play?”
She cut into her meat. “Merely the poor companion, my lord.”
“Then you need acting lessons.”
Genova felt a very real temptation to jab her fork into his elegant hand, which lay on the tablecloth so close to her, displaying an emerald that could support little Charles for life.
