“Forgery!” she snapped, but she gripped the book written by her youngest child.
“Book, writing, and style match the earlier journals at Cheynings.”
“And it paints a picture of an idyllic marriage?” The curl of the dowager’s lip showed that she knew better.
“It paints a picture of a girl too young to be married, too young to be a mother. Perhaps in time she would have been ready, but she wasn’t when she wrote that.”
“You’re speaking of a person you never knew. She was sweet, innocent, unspoiled.”
Ash didn’t contradict her.
“It was the perfect match!” the dowager protested. “He was handsome and good-humored, and would be a marquess. She wanted it.”
Again Ash didn’t speak, and Genova gripped her hands to force her own silence. She recognized that the dowager would listen to no one but might come to express the truth herself.
“Are you saying I was wrong to arrange it?” the old woman demanded, lines seeming deeper in her face. “How could I have known how it would be? I married at seventeen…”
“Perhaps you couldn’t have known,” Ash said gently, “but she did write pleas for help.”
So he’d read the letters.
“Megrims and moods. The next letter, she’d be like a lark.”
“Perhaps you read into her words what you wanted to.”
The dowager’s jaw set and she glared at him. “It is all my fault, then? Everyone else is a saint?”
He went down on one knee and took a clenched hand. “No one was a saint, but no one was a devil, either. Cry peace, my dear, and as Genova says, let us build.”
My dear. Only the worst families have no happy memories, and this was not the worst family. There must have been many happy times.
“You expect me to turn my gown and dig potatoes?” the dowager grumbled.
“An unlikely picture,” he said, laughter in his voice, “though you are equal to it. As I said, I have the offer of help and advice from the Mallorens, and I intend to take it. I intend to claim the rights of kinship.”
Genova winced at the ruthlessness of that, and the dowager’s nostrils flared. One hand formed a claw on the arm of her chair.
Perhaps she mellowed, or perhaps she recognized a will even stronger than her own, but she snapped, “I’m old! I’ve rattled through the night in our second-best carriage. I want hot tea and a warm bed!”
Ash looked up. “Genova?”
Grateful for escape, Genova left the room, wondering how a suitable room could be found in this full house, and what would happen next. She didn’t believe that the dowager would give up the fight so easily, and there were true grievances on the other side. The old woman had done her best to hurt the Mallorens.
Genova found Rothgar and Lady Arradale in the hall.
Hovering, one might even say.
“It’s going to be all right, I think,” Genova said, rather breathlessly. Reaction and bliss were taking their toll. She realized that she was also damp, sticky, and smelling of spiced plums.
She brushed at her bodice, but then gave up. “Shewants tea and a bed. The dowager, I mean. I think she intends to stay!”
Instead of looking shocked, they both smiled. The old lady was Lord Rothgar’s grandmother, but all the same, he and Lady Arradale showed noble forgiveness.
“She can have my room,” Lady Arradale said. “I’ll suffer in the cause and sleep with my husband.”
The look she shared with Lord Rothgar before hurrying away indicated that one or the other bed was often empty anyway.
Genova blew out a breath and looked around. “I’m sorry. We made rather a mess, and it’s the servants’ holiday.”
