Free Ashworth Hall by Anne Perry Page B

white and fragile. Charlotte had been told Iona was a poetess, and looking at her now she could well believe it. She seemed a figment of some romantic dream herself, and a curious, faraway smile played about her lips as though she were more often dreaming than thinking of the mundane politeness of a dinner party.
    Piers Greville sat in his own little island of happiness. His parents were both fully occupied trying to behave as if the company were at ease and making small talk about innocuous matters.
    Kezia also looked very fine in an utterly different manner. It would have been difficult to find two women more wildly in contrast than she and Iona McGinley. She wore a shimmering aquamarine gown with delicate embroidery asymmetrically down one side. Her shoulders were rich and milky smooth, her bosom very handsome. Her fair hair caught the light, and she seemed almost to glow with the richness of her coloring. Charlotte saw a flicker of appreciation on Ainsley Greville’s face, and on Padraig Doyle’s, and was not surprised.
    Charlotte had dressed with Gracie’s help. She wore one of Aunt Vespasia’s gowns, not the oyster satin—she was keeping that for the most important occasion—but one in a deep forest green, very severely cut, which was a great deal more flattering than she would have supposed. It all lay in the cut of the bosom, the waist, and the way the skirt draped over the hips and under the tiny bustle, most fashionably reduced from previous years. She saw a flash of admiration in the eyes of more than one of the men, but more satisfying than that, a swift glance of envy from the women.
    Fergal spoke to Iona, some trivial politeness, then Lorcan interrupted. Padraig Doyle smoothed over the situation with an anecdote about an adventure on the western frontiers of America and set everyone laughing, if somewhat nervously.
    The next course was served.
    Emily introduced some harmless subject, but she was obliged to work very hard to keep it so. Charlotte did all she could to help.
    After the last course was completed the ladies adjourned to the withdrawing room, but were very soon followed by the gentlemen, and someone suggested a little music. Possibly it was intended to flatter Iona.
    She did indeed sing beautifully. She had a haunting voice, far deeper than one might have expected from such a fragile figure. Eudora played the piano for her, with a surprisingly lyrical touch, and seeming at ease even with old Irish folk tunes which fell in unusual cadences, quite different from English music.
    At first Charlotte enjoyed it very much, and after half an hour began to find herself relaxing. She looked across at Pitt and caught his eye. He smiled back at her, but she saw he was still sitting upright and every now and again his eyes would wander around the room from face to face, as if he expected some unpleasantness.
    It came from the one quarter she had not foreseen. Iona’s songs became more emotional, more filled with the tragedy of Ireland, the lost peace, the lovers parted by betrayal and death, the fallen heroes of battle.
    Ainsley shifted uncomfortably, his jaw tightening.
    Kezia was growing more flushed in the face, her mouth set in a thinning line.
    Fergal never took his eyes from Iona, as if the music’s beauty had entered his soul and both the pain of it and the accusations against his own people were inextricably mixed, paralyzing his protest.
    Then Emily moved as though to speak, but Eudora kept on playing, and Lorcan McGinley stood between her and Iona, his fair face transfixed with the old stories of love betrayed and death at British hands.
    It was Padraig Doyle who intervened.
    “Sure an’ that’s a lovely sad song,” he said with a smile. “All about a relative o’ mine too. The heroine, Neassa Doyle, was an aunt o’ mine, on my mother’s side.” He looked across at Carson O’Day, who so far had said nothing, his expression impossible to read. “And the hero, poor man, could be a