Genova realized she’d been humming the song she and her parents had always sung as they set up thepresepe.She hesitated because she didn’t have a strong voice, but then began to sing.
In the stable, in the wild,
Came the mother, Mary mild.
Came the star as bright as day,
Came the angels, lutes to play.
Lutes to play, joy a-ringing,
At the sound of angels singing.
Joy, joy, joy, joy….
She smiled at Thalia. “It’s a round that works well with three voices.”
“Teach it to me.”
Genova had never heard Thalia sing before, but she had a sweet if thin voice. She soon learned the song and they wove their voices together as they put in more animals. Genova and her father had sung it with just two voices last year, missing the third voice, her mother’s….
Thalia stopped singing and took her hand. “My poor dear. Sad memories?”
Genova couldn’t deny it. Tears were blurring her vision. “Just two Christmases ago, we were all together. Now everything is changed.”
She managed not to say that she was alone, which might offend, but that’s how she felt. Thalia was a dear, but she wasn’t family. Genova’s only real family was her father, and he wasn’t hers anymore now that he’d remarried.
Thalia patted her hand. “There, there, dear. We all miss a mother’s love, but soon you’ll be a mother yourself. That will fill the void, and Ashart needs that, too.”
Create a child with Lord Ashart? Horror collided with something else.
Thalia opened the locket that she always wore pinned to her gown. “I understand loss, dear.”
Genova looked at the miniature of a gentleman in the age of the long, full wig. He was upside-down toher, but he would be right side up to Thalia whenever she opened it. Thalia’s Richard looked young and merry. Genova had known a number of young, merry men who were now dead.
“I’m very sorry, Thalia.”
“It’s long ago now, dear, and Richard did so enjoy going to war. He idolized the Duke of Marlborough. Such a splendid man he was. Marlborough, I mean, though Richard would have been, too, had he lived. Twenty-six,” she sighed. “At the very beginning of life. The same age as Ashart.”
Genova hadn’t known the marquess’s age, and would have thought him a little older. The price of a wicked life.
Thalia looked at the picture again, then snapped the locket closed. “You probably both feel old enough to be past folly, but you’re not. You have your lives before you. Please don’t take the wrong path.”
Genova guessed what Thalia meant and distracted her with more figures. What would Thalia do to promote her scheme, though? Genova told herself she couldn’t be trapped. All she needed to escape was open disagreements, and judging from their exchange downstairs, that would be easy.
Soon thepresepewas at the stage her family had always created on December 13—an ordinary, ramshackle stable with farmyard animals in and around. At the far end of the mantelpiece, Joseph and Mary-on-the-donkey were on their way to Bethlehem.
That had been another problem for Hester. Thepresepehad two Marys. One was the heavily pregnant figure on the donkey. The other was slender and formed to kneel by the manger. Genova had always loved that magical transformation on Christmas Eve, but Hester had pursed her lips and said that such an obviouslyfruitfulMother of God was not suitable for her grandchildren.
And Genova’s father had not said a word.
Thalia, blessed Thalia, only said, “How hard it must have been to travel in that condition. I have always been thankful not to be a saint. So demanding.”
Genova chuckled.
“There are still some figures to unwrap.” Thalia was hovering near the box and Genova remembered how she, too, had always found it hard to ration out this treat. This time there was no need. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve.
“If you unwrap the rest,” she said, “we can set them along the mantelpiece, waiting.”
