“Baroness.” She nodded, offering her hand. “Baron, delighted, so pleased that you could come.”
“Chahming gull,” said the Baron to her father, with a sidelong leer down her decolletage. “Chahming.”
“Old goat,” whispered Aufors, behind her.
“Don’t,” she whispered behind her hand. “If I giggle, I’m lost.” The Prince arrived, with his guards, who showed considerable interest in areas behind draperies and shadowed corners but mercifully did not search any of the guests. When dinner was served, they stood straight as lances in the corners, their eyes on Yugh Delganor, who was seated at the Marshal’s right. Prince Thumsort of Tansay was at Genevieve’s right. The Prince was a talkative, elderly man with strong opinions about fish, which was his business, though, as he was quick to say, his business was kept at arm’s length. “Don’t handle them. Can’t abide handling them. Slimy things. Know all about them, though. From the golden talking fish of Merdune Lagoon to the slippery silver elvers of the Randor Isles, I know every blessed thing from egg to fin. Tansay’s fortune is in fish!”
The Duchess of Bellser-Bar was on Genevieve’s other side, a tall, voluptuous women with smooth black hair twisted into a complicated bun at the nape of her neck and creamy skin like thick matte velvet on which her separate features stood out as though painted: dark feathered eyes, dark swooping brows, scarlet recurved lips. Before Genevieve could ask about the talking fish, she spoke in a throaty, amused voice, saying:
“Don’t listen to Tansy, my dear. His province knows only Havenpool and its fresh-water fish, but for salt-water fish, you must ask someone from my province of Merdune. We call all those Sealand people puddle jumpers, don’t you know?”
“Oh, now, Alicia,” said Prince Thumsort.
“Oh, now, Tansy,” she retorted with a laugh. “Don’t bore the girl to death with fish. Tell her about your son Edoard. That’s what girls like hearing about. Young men.” And she leered at Genevieve, a look of enormous and totally spurious complicity.
“That’s him,” the Prince retorted, pointing vaguely with his elbow. “Halfway down on your left. The one in the wine-colored coat, with the puffy front to his shirt. I can’t see why the young ones like those puffy fronts. Always dropping food on them.” And the Prince subsided into his soup.
“Duke Edoard is perfectly charming,” murmured the Duchess, “He is third in line of succession, after Yugh Delganor and his father.”
“What is he Duke of?” asked Genevieve.
“Not much so long as Thumsort is alive, though he dances beautifully, and he sings in a supercilious way that all the young ladies find absorbing. Shall you be absorbed?”
Genevieve smiled. “I doubt it, Your Grace, though if it is customary, I shall try.”
“So do I doubt it, looking at you. Not the usual thing at all, are you?”
“What is the usual thing, Your Grace?”
“Please, don’t Your Grace me. Call me Alicia. And I shall call you Genevieve. No, it’s quite all right, don’t blush. You are the daughter of a Duke, just as I am, though I rather gave the rank away for a time. The fact I eventually married another Duke, or one married me, is just part of the clutter. I read books, so I know it’s clutter. Other worlds have not retained all these titles and castes, and they seem to get along quite well.” She took a mouthful of soup, nodding at Genevieve to do the same. “You must keep eating, dear. Little nibbles, little spoonfuls, so your mouth won’t be too full if someone asks a question, but always a tiny bit. Otherwise the whole dinner will be over, and you’ll have had nothing. Now, the usual thing with girls is that they are rather silly.”
“Mrs. Blessingham tries very hard to keep us from being silly,” murmured Genevieve. “She says even though our roles are somewhat restrictive, we must not compensate by dramatizing ourselves, for there is nothing we can experience that generations of women before us have not experienced, nothing is new, not our lusts, not our hopes, not even our despair. She says that with few exceptions, nothing is as tragic as it seems, nor is anything quite as joyous as we dream it will be, and of all disasters, romantic notions are responsible for most.”