He remembered his coarse, appalling words and groaned. When had he last said anything so clumsy?
Perhaps never.
Why? Why had those words escaped?
Because he’d been thinking them. Thinking them in his mind, in his blood, in his throbbing cock. Hades! She could inflame him like spark to tinder. He pushedhis hands against his temples. Once was enough. No other woman was going to rip his life apart with rich curves and wicked, knowing eyes.
His fingers touched his hair and he realized the destruction the woman had wrought. He pulled the loosened ribbon free, memory rippling through him. If Genova Smith had been insinuated into the great-aunts’ household with this in mind, Rothgar had chosen his weapon well.
He walked to confront his cousin’s austere portrait. “My bane, as always,” he said under his breath. “Are you behind Molly’s plot? Is Genova Smith your tool? This time you won’t win, not even with a siren on your side.”
A siren that didn’t sing but argued.
Havoc.
A good word. The ancient battle cry that swept away all rules of war and set free rape, slaughter, and destruction. “Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.”
Dogs. A Persian gazelle hound that had been trained not to go after the quarry it had been bred to kill.
There hadn’t been a single word between him and Rothgar without meaning.
“You should not let her ride and spur you.”
Ash cursed at the portrait and strode out of the room.
Genova entered her bedchamber quietly. Three candles and firelight made it welcoming, but the bed-curtains were open and the bed was empty. For a moment her overwrought nerves threw up wild scenarios of murder or kidnapping.
By the next breath she knew what had happened. Thalia had rested a little, then realized that a game of whist was possible and that had been enough.
Regeanne helped Genova out of her gown, hoops, and stays, but then Genova said she would do the rest herself. She wasn’t used to a lady’s maid.
She washed and put on her nightgown, which was warm from hanging before the fire. The bed would be cozy, too, for the handles of two warming pans stuck out of the covers. She moved one over to Thalia’s side, drew the heavy curtains all around, then settled into the haven.
Warmth, however, did not soothe unwelcome heat.
Was it truly unwelcome?
How was it even possible that she feel this way? She and the marquess were strangers in every way.
She might as well protest that rock cannot burn. She’d seen lava flow, as hot and molten as the desire that had erupted between her and a stranger on a moonlit window seat.
Chapter Twenty
Sleep came slowly, so that exhaustion caused Genova to wake later than usual. When she emerged from the bed in the morning, the fire was well established and the room warm. The gilded clock said nearly nine, but Thalia was still asleep, each breath a soft whistle, her frilly bed cap over one eye.
With a smile, Genova quietly redrew the bed-curtains, then added another piece of wood to the fire. She tenderly rearranged some of the figures in thepresepe.It was Christmas Eve—both her birthday and the beginning of her favorite season. She wouldn’t let other events steal that from her.
Here, at last, she would experience a true English Christmas.
On ships and in ports around the world, English people tried to re-create Christmas, but it was never quite right. Hot climates did not suit the food, and the mounding snow of Canada or the Baltic seemed too lush. Last Christmas had been shadowed by grief.
Traveling here, she’d realized the truth. An English Christmas needed cold but a starker setting and the afternoon death of the light.
She went to the window and looked through frost feathers at the right sort of setting. The frosted grass of the park became in the distance black fields streaked with white. Old trees made crooked skeletons against a steely sky.
In this setting rich foods and evergreens would be carols of hope, and the Yule log would promise the return of long sunny days.
Contrasts and necessities. Winter darkness could make fire precious. Starvation made a dry crust taste likepandolce.
