The countess parried his sultry look with one declaring that he was talking nonsense. Lord Rothgar seemed oblivious.
“A marriage license!” declared Thalia. “We’ll need one for a Christmas wedding. How is that done?”
“We’re in no hurry,” Ashart said quickly, calm cracking, “and Genova prefers banns.”
“You do, dear? Why?”
Genova thought of giving him the lie, but it wouldn’t serve. “I believe in traditional ways, Thalia.”
“Then we share that interest, Miss Smith,” Lord Rothgar said. “We celebrate Christmas here with all the old customs, as you will see. As for the missing mother, the weather is sharp and Christmas approaches. I will not send servants on an errand that isn’t urgent. Later will be soon enough to hunt her down.”
It was said pleasantly, but an image of baying hounds cracked the elegant hospitality.
“Miss Smith. Your cup is empty.” Lady Arradale smiled at Ashart. “Please bring Miss Smith’s cup to be refilled.”
Tense from the previous exchange, Genova expected Ashart to refuse the command. After a moment he obeyed, but she was sure this noble informality seemed as strange to him as it did to her. Probably in his own home he never lifted a finger to do anything.
Lady Arradale poured. “It would help to be able to communicate with the maid. Do we have any Gaelic speakers, Bey?”
“Not to my knowledge, but I’ll inquire.”
Genova paused in the act of taking back her cup. Extraordinary that a highborn lady call her husband by a familiar name in public, but no one here seemed surprised.
“That does strike me as strange, however,” Lord Rothgar added. “Ashart, does Lady Booth speak Gaelic?”
“I’ve seen no sign of it. I gather the Anglo-Irish can get by without.”
“So why hire a wet nurse with whom she couldn’t communicate? Would she have lacked choice? Was there perhaps another servant who could interpret?”
“Or,” Ashart said, “with this plan in mind, did she want a servant who could tell no tales?”
A connection clicked between the cousins, but Genova couldn’t tell if it was a meeting of minds or the tap of steel blades.
“Precisely.” Lord Rothgar almost purred it. “We must find a translator. Alas, that truth will probably have to wait a few days.”
Ashart took out his snuffbox. “Alas, indeed, but truth, like gold, never decays. Thus it lurks, like a keg of gunpowder beneath a house.”
Genova heard her cup rattle and held it to stop the noise. Her sudden tremble wasn’t because of the words, which meant nothing to her, but because of the reaction she’d glimpsed on Lord Rothgar’s face.
Ashart had said something crucial, and Lord Rothgar had moveden garde.What? Guy Fawkes had attempted to blow up King James I using gunpowder stored below Parliament, but that was ancient history now.
The fleeting disturbance was gone without a trace. Lord Rothgar accepted a pinch of snuff from his cousin. “Marcus Aurelius was predictably naive when he claimed that no one was ever hurt by the truth.”
Ash offered snuff to Lord Bryght, who declined. “Doesn’t the Bible say that truth will set us free?”
“But is it worth the price?” Rothgar asked. “Freedom is never free. We must be willing to pay everything for it.”
“Seneca.” Ashart inclined his head, as if acknowledging a point scored. “He also said there is no genius without madness.”
Madness.
Instead of showing alarm, Lord Rothgar smiled. “Iam merely Daedalus, creator of mazes. Are we somewhat lost?”
“A maze?” interrupted Thalia. “Do you have a maze here, Beowulf? How delightful! I should love to try it.”
The ice of danger shattered.
“Alas, my dear, I do not. How could I have been so thoughtless?”
