Geneva firmed her voice. “Everyone understands. The new earl and Mr. Oshea, er, Noah just lost their own father in a grisly manner.Myfather is dead too. Not so long ago as yours, perhaps. But…”
Docia rolled to her back and blew her nose. “How did he die? Your father, I mean.”
Obviously, bringing up that night and the knife would open Pandora’s Box. Geneva was already teetering on the sharp edge of that blade. “He was a sailor. Gone for months on end.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Gads, no. He was a horrid father. The times he was home, he lived in a tavern in Seven Dials, or so I’d heard.”
“I don’t wish to return to Stonemare. You can stay here. With me.”
How generous she was. “No. Mr. Oshea will be returning for us in the morning. Miss Isabelle wishes to host a musicale. We cannot possibly disappoint her.”
Docia rolled back to her side facing Geneva, her reddened eyes flashing. “I want my blue chamber back,” she said, sounding like a petulant child rather than a woman who’d reached her advancement at the age of thirty. In other words—more like herself.
“Bah. You’ll do fine in the Brimstone. It’s yellow. Youlikeyellow.” She waved out her hand at the pale-gold curtains, the yellow chintz counterpane, the dress Docia had been wearing the morning Abra and Geneva had arrived at Stonemare that was now draped over the settee. “It’s everywhere.”
“I’m not going, I tell you.”
Geneva smiled, and it did not feel pleasant on her face. “Yes, you will. Let me tell you why. You are a bold woman, Docia. We are alike in that way, I think.”
“I am nothing like you.”
“Not in all ways,” Geneva conceded, considering her words. “It’s true you haven’t bested drunkards calling out the most appalling epithets, or boys with nimble fingersattemptingto relieve you of your purse, or been subjected to bawdy remarks from corner-street prostitutes when you happen by.”
Docia bolted upright. “You haven’t!”
“I haveandI survived. And, my dear, so shall you.”
Docia flopped back down, slamming her hands and kicking her feet on the mattress with a screech worthy of one of those prostitutes. “You’re a horrible person, Miss Wimbley.”
“Perhaps so. By the way, I give you leave to call me ‘Geneva,’” she said, grinning and laying her hand atop Docia’s. She squeezed her fingers. “As we are about to sleep together.”
Docia growled. “Dear heavens.”
A good sign. “Now, get some sleep. You look terrible. Note that I’m only telling you that out of the goodness of my heart.”
“What heart?” Docia muttered, her fingers squeezing back.
Interestingly, she didn’t retrieve her hand, drawing a smile from Geneva.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Good morning, Noah,”Isabelle called from the door of Noah’s laboratory.
He glanced up and saw her arms full of boxes, nearly giving him an apoplexy. He hurried over. “Tell me you did not come down those stairs so burdened,” he demanded crossly, relieving her of the load.
“I didn’t realize you were working. I thought you were to Chaston for Miss Wimbley.” She followed him to the far corner he’d allotted her for her entomology studies.
“I sent your parents after them.”
“Them?”
Noah bit back an oath. Isabelle’s curiosity could drive a man to a lunatic asylum. The news that the former viscount’s body had been discovered in the caves had not yet reached his young cousin and he hoped to keep the information from her a bit longer. “How many times have I told you not to carry things down those stairs? One misstep and you’ll break that stubborn skull of yours.”
She clasped her hands in front of her, the perfection of a Michelangelo angelic pictorial—afalsepictorial for anyone who knew the true Isabelle. “Apologies, Noah.” Her contriteness wouldn’t fool a flea. But berating her after the fact… well, if anything did happen to Isabelle, Verda would drag Noah to a makeshift guillotine and cut loose the blade herself.WithSander’s blessing and help, of course.
“Will Docia be accompanying Miss Wimbley, then?”
