“So what are you going to do there? You need to marry, and soon.”
“Dammit, I know. It’s only been three days since this exploded, Fitz! And things have become…complicated.”
From the way Fitz looked, Ash suspected his friend knew the complication he meant. “Look, draw off Damaris Myddleton for a few days. She’s stalking me like a lynx, and if I give in to my irritation, it won’t pave the way to a good marriage.”
“If she has any spirit, it won’t pave the way to marriage at all. Which might be a good thing.”
“Title for wealth is a fair trade. I mean her no harm.”
Fitz shook his head. “Go to bed. You must have been having a trying time. It will look different in the morning.”
Ash drained his glass. “I’m not sure that would be a blessing.”
He was weary, however, he who sometimes danced or gamed through the night. He rose and began to undress.
“By the way,” said Fitz, “what happened to Molly’s baby?”
“Oh, it’s here. In the Malloren nurseries. We’re all one big happy family.”
Fitz slid lower in his chair, laughing.
Chapter Thirty-five
Genova spent long hours of the night reliving kisses and trying to think of ways to sort out Ash’s problems. She tried to be objective, but monkeylike, her mind took its own ways, throwing up scenarios in which the solution was to marry him.
She woke, poorly rested, trying to remember the folly of locking herself in a cage with a wolf. He wasn’t unwilling, though—that was the frustrating part.
He believed he needed to marry money to carry out his duties. How true was that? She lay there, going round and round this. The reality was that poverty bred poverty, and wealth bred wealth. But hard work and talents succeeded, too.
Did she have any talents to put against a fortune? She still winced at the memory of talking about sheep’s eyes.
She thought at first that the noise was a dream. Then she realized there really was loud singing and bell ringing outside the window.
“What…?”
Grumbling, she climbed out of bed, thankful that Thalia was a little deaf and hadn’t been disturbed. She pulled her robe around her and peered around the edge of the window curtains. Countrypeople, some in strange costumes, seemed to be marching around the house in a long procession, ringing bells and singing. As she made but the words, she realized they were wishing the household a merry Christmas—and begging for pennies.
“Oh, wassailers,” said Thalia amid a rattling of curtainrings. “How splendid!” She poked her head out, yawning, cap lopsided.
Genova had heard of wassailing. It was a custom more charming in the telling than in the experience, waking people up at the crack of dawn. Well—she glanced at the clock—at nine o’clock.
Her eye was startled by a flash and she looked at the huge diamond with distaste. She couldn’t connect the showy stone with the rich, deep warmth of her emotions.
Like lava, she thought, remembering Vesuvius—no cooler for being deep. Quite the opposite.
She put another piece of wood on the fading fire, watched it flame in a merry, careless way. She could no longer tell what was selfish and what was noble.
Ash must feel the same way, unsure whether his impulse toward peace was strength or weakness. Whether his intention to marry money was noble self-sacrifice or foolish greed.
Thalia rang the little bell by the bed and Regeanne came to ask what they wished to wear for Christmas Day.
Genova remembered Lady Elf. “The baby?”
“He is well, Miss Smith.”
“No, I mean Lady Walgrave.”
“Ah, not yet. But there seems no deep concern.” Eight hours was not so long, but Genova sent up a sincere prayer.
