Seduction In Silk: A Novel of the Malloren World (Malloran) by Jo Beverley

restitution?
    Possible, but why would she marry him?
    The vicious harpy. The angry, tumultuous woman. Old Matt’s musings about the heaving earth over her grave could make the hair stand on end. Harpy Mallow had approached Giles, offering to lift the curse if he’d pledge to marry her daughter, who was a mere child. Her mother hadn’t considered her happiness. She’d been obsessed to the point of insanity.
    Witchcraft on both sides of the family, and insanity as well. All that was needed was a giant helmet falling from the sky for his life to be a piece of nonsense to rival Horace Walpole’s
Castle of Otranto
.
    He gave thanks that he was a guest at Cheynings. The Marquess of Ashart was a rational man, a scientist with a particular interest in the study of the skies. Perhaps he could refocus this mess into normality.
    *  *  *
    Claris wore herself out with work, waiting desperately for her grandmother’s return so she could discuss the situation. But a short time after Athena returned, the twins came home from their lessons in the next village. Unusually, they were arguing.
    “You did,” Peter yelled.
    “I didn’t!” Tom yelled back.
    “You are such a dunce!”
    “Stop.” At their grandmother’s voice, they paused. “Or you will get none of the honey Mistress Trueby gave me.”
    They turned into eleven-year-old angels. Truly they could look angelic, with their clear eyes and skin and tumbling brown curls, but no angel would ever be so noisy. Despite that, Claris would miss her brothers when they left for school, which they must do soon if their education was to progress as it should.
    They all sat to rabbit stew followed by bread and honey, talking of their day. Claris didn’t mention the visitor in front of the boys and was grateful when Ellie didn’t either.
    When they’d all finished, she rose to clear the table. “Off to your tasks,” she told the twins. “There’s a weak spot in the chicken coop and water to bring from the well.”
    They went willingly enough, still full of energy after a long day. They were probably hoping for encounters with some village lads that might lead to a game. They rubbed along well with the local boys, whereas Claris had never made friends in the village. Her mother had kept her too close for that, and after her mother died she’d had the twins to care for.
    Her mother would have allowed her to have friends from the local gentry, but those families had avoided the Mallows as much as possible. Claris couldn’t blame them.
    “Let’s sit outside,” she said. “It’s a lovely evening.”
    Only Athena took up the invitation. She sat on the bench and said, “Who was this visitor to have you all on end? Gideon Barnett finally plucking up courage to propose? Or some other suitor?”
    Claris laughed but then realized that in a way her grandmother was right. “A threatener, more like.” She described the encounter, then asked, “What am I to do?”
    “Marry him? It would be a better life than this.”
    So she
did
want Claris to marry them into comfort!
    “I’m sure your life with your husband was ‘better’ in those terms,” Claris pointed out, “but you couldn’t bear it.”
    “A point. A salient point. Let me amend my advice. If this Mr. Perriam is a decent, kindly man, which my husband wasn’t, you could marry him.”
    “If he were a saint from heaven I’d not marry him, so take heed of that.”
    “Very wise,” Athena said, undisturbed. “Saints make poor husbands, quite apart from their having to be dead to be canonized. What of this curse? Do you know anything about that?”
    “Of course not. I know nothing of Perriams other than the occasional mention by my father. Do you not know anything?”
    Athena stared at her. “I paid no attention to my husband or Henry after I left, but I assume it’s possible Henry’s mad guilt has some connection to the Perriam curse.”
    “Even if so, it’s not for me to expiate their sins. Yet that man is going