“Oh, fie on that! What could be more important than a wedding?”
Genova looked to Lady Calliope for help.
“Now, now, Thalia. We know your concerns, but you mustn’t press Genova so fiercely. She and Ashart have only just met.”
Thalia looked at her sister, appearing very young. “I only want them to be happy, Callie.”
“Yes, dear, I know. But you mustn’t meddle any further just yet.”
Genova relaxed, but she hadn’t missed thatjust yet.
Surely Lady Calliope could no more want such a misalliance than Ashart—but then, who could understand the Trayce family?
The head of the family rode in the bitterest weather. It was so cold that he’d pulled up the hood of his cloak, but he could have commanded a place inside this coach with a snap of his fingers. Sheena could be with the servants, or he could even have hired an additional vehicle.
It wasn’t natural. Hooded, she noted with a shiver, he looked positively ominous. Was that why she kept an eye on him all day between reading to the old ladies and playing whist?
No.
He rode ahead at one point. When they stopped shortly afterward to change horses and hot bricks, she realized that he’d taken the place of the running footman who usually went ahead to alert the next hostelry to be ready for them.
The same thing happened at the next stop, where they halted long enough for everyone to leave the coach and use the chamber pots. They lingered over cups of hot tea, in part to give the outside servantstime to warm themselves. And the marquess, if he needed such human comforts.
She remembered her own words when Lynchbold had fretted about him. “The devil looks after his own.”
Hyperbole, but still, he was extraordinary. He dismounted at each stop as smoothly as he mounted, as if frigid air was nectar to him.
When they returned to the coach, Genova was alarmed to see him on the box, complex reins in hand. She halted, thinking to protest, but could imagine how much good that would do. She settled in the coach braced for disaster. Men often fancied themselves as coachmen, but managing a coach and six was a challenging business.
She recognized his type now. For all his lazy sophistication, the Marquess of Ashart flared with excess energy. In battle such men were generally magnificent, but in dull times they could be a menace.
She prayed for a smooth road free of unexpected hazards. Whatever the cause, the party came to no harm, and stopped at the Sun at Mull Green for midday dinner no worse for noble steering.
Ashart dropped lightly down from the driving seat and escorted them into the inn. “Relieved to find yourself safe from the ditch, my dear?”
It was as if he could read her mind. Genova hurried after Thalia into a warm parlor and shed her cloak into waiting hands. As soon as Lady Calliope was carried in and settled at the table, they all set to, starting with oxtail soup.
“How much longer to our destination?” Lady Calliope asked, sounding weary. If she was letting it show, she must be feeling it deeply.
“Two hours if all goes well. We should arrive before dark, love.” Ashart sounded concerned, too.
He was genuinely fond of the old ladies, which was to his credit, but Genova knew that people could divide the world into boxes—some to love, some to hate, some to cherish, some to kill.
Ashart apparently put the Mallorens in the hate box, or at least into the category of those he would harm if he could. The story of Lady Augusta was very sad, but it should not be causing such bitterness a generation later. She disliked seeing lives disrupted by such a thing.
At a break in the conversation, she probed a little. “Since your families are so at odds, my lord, how do you think Lord Rothgar will react to your arrival? I hope there will be no unpleasantness.”
“Banish dull care, beloved. The nobility are trained in self-control. It is frowned upon to even sneeze in the royal presence.”
“It’s possible not to?” Genova asked, rising to get the main course.
“Oh, yes,” said Thalia. “It’s not easy, however. I remember Lady Millicent Ffoulks. She had a cold, but Queen Anne would not excuse her. She stuffed lumps of wool up her nose in the hope they would suppress a sneeze, but instead, when a sneeze overtook her, they shot across the room like pistol balls! Poor Millicent was banished from court—though I think perhaps she didn’t mind.”
Genova put down a chicken fricassee, then a dish of stewed peas. “I’m surprised that any but the desperate are willing to serve.”
Ashart raised a brow at her. “What if your father’s rise to admiral depended upon it?”
“Rank isn’t purchased in the navy as it is in the army.”
