“Oh, dear, no! Do you think I would have stood by, young as I was?”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry. It is all just so terrible to contemplate.”
“That it is. It still bothers me in the night sometimes, to think that if I’d returned with some excuse, I might have saved the precious child. Mrs. Leigh, who was nursery governess at the time, blamed herselfmost bitterly. She left her position shortly after and I heard she drank herself to death. But what could she have done when her ladyship wanted to be alone with her children?”
Genova wished she hadn’t stirred all this pain. “I’m sure no one could have expected such a terrible outcome.” She had one important question. “Unless the marchioness had always been…unbalanced?”
“Shewaswild,” Mrs. Harbinger said, beginning to show discomfort with the conversation, “but not in a lunatic way. She was just young. Young in her ways. She doted on little Lord Grafton—the marquess now. Dressed him in fine clothes. Played hide-and-seek with him. Carelessly, though. Enough to say, Miss Smith,” she added with a return to starchy briskness, “that she was the sort of mother who needs a nursery staff if her children are to thrive. This Mrs. Dash sounds like another of the same. But anyone would have expected that the innocents would suffer from carelessness, not…”
She broke off there, unable to say the wordmurder.“Now we have a new marchioness, and in time, we’ll have a full nursery. That will chase the ghosts away.”
Genova agreed, smiling, but something jangled in her mind. “You said the marchioness wanted to be with her children. Was her son present when she killed her daughter?”
Mrs. Harbinger’s mouth pursed as if to hold back words, but then they escaped. “Ran screaming for help, poor mite, but we couldn’t tell what he was saying. We went to him, not her….” She shook her head. “The crying of a tiny babe upsets the marquess still, Miss Smith. It’s better, but it still bothers him. I tell you that only because Charlie must stay out of his sight, since nothing can stop a baby crying.”
Nothing, thought Genova, except a hand cutting off all breath.
What a terrible legacy. What would happen when Lord Rothgar had children of his own? It was impossible to convey to Sheena that she must avoid him, butit didn’t matter. There would be no reason for her and Charlie to mingle with the family again.
Genova left the room weighed down by the old tragedy and unable to see how to tear away the tendrils that poisoned the present. Had the young mother’s wits truly been turned by cruelty?
She sighed and shook her head. She would try to find out more, but her true concerns were the Trayce ladies and Sheena and the baby. For the moment, they seemed well taken care of, and it was Christmas Eve.
Chapter Twenty-two
Genova headed back toward activities, but where to go?
She peeped into her own room, but Thalia was up and away. She knocked on Lady Calliope’s door but found that she, too, was elsewhere.
Genova was still nervous in this house where she knew hardly anyone. That realization was enough to stiffen her spine. She wasn’t going to skulk, so the Tapestry Room seemed the most likely place to mingle.
She was approaching the door when someone called, “Miss Smith!”
She turned to see Lady Bryght coming into the hall, her arms full of a tangle of green and red. “Could I impose upon you to help me untangle all this?”
Genova could hardly refuse, and she would enjoy being useful. That was another problem, she realized. Before her father’s retirement, and even in Portsmouth, she’d been busy, active, and productive.
Lady Bryght looked around, wrinkling her brow. “I think I’ll take it up to the library to spread on one of the big tables there. Come along.”
They went up to a magnificent room. Lit by tall windows, the long room gleamed with gilded wood, flaunted elaborate carvings, and clasped thousands of leather-bound books behind glass-paneled doors.
Down the center, three long oak tables were set with chairs and held branches of candles ready for use, each with polished reflectors to focus the light on the page. Newspapers and magazines were spread invitingly,and in the center of each table a book lay open on a book stand.
She noted a tall lectern chair beneath each window—the sort seen in medieval illustrations. These chairs could well date from that time, especially as they each had an ancient book chained in place. She’d heard that was the practice when books were handwritten and precious.
A fireplace blazed at one end of the room and a rich carpet covered the floor, but there were no upholstered chairs. This was a room intended for study, not napping or chatter. She wondered if the scribes and philosophers painted on the ceiling disapproved of Lady Bryght’s invasion with a mundane task.
Lady Bryght spilled the mess of green and red at one end of the center table without apparent concern. She sat in one chair and Genova took another, eying the mess dubiously.
“This was used to tie bundles of greenery last year,” Lady Bryght said, “but it wasn’t put away properly. Diana wants to reuse it, but I don’t know how much will be salvageable.”
Genova poked at the ribbons. “It’s astonishing how things can become so thoroughly tangled.”
“If there were merchants nearby, it would be easier to buy new.” Then Lady Bryght looked up with a smile. “That’s a very Malloren way of thinking. I was raised to be frugal.”
Genova chuckled, relaxing. “So was I. I’ve unpicked trimmings, unstrung beads, and made useful items out of scraps. Let’s try, at least.” She chose a green end and began to trace it back to free more of the ribbon.
Lady Bryght started on a piece of red. “Tell me more about life with the navy, Miss Smith. It must be fascinating.”
