She sighed. “Oh, Aufors, many different things. Little things, mostly. A cat hiding her kittens in the hen house. A neighbor losing a chicken coop in a spring flood. Once I saw the roof blowing off the kitchen at school, and that same winter it did. Mostly they’re just feelings of things that will go awry, choices that are mistaken . . .”
“And your own future?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything about my own future, at least, nothing that I know of.”
“Except you will be on the deck of a ship . . .”
“No. I think that already happened. Long ago. And the one just now, if I’m in it. I guess I am in it, for I saw my own hands. That’s the only one that includes myself.”
He sat down, pulling his chair close to hers. “It would be dangerous for you to get yourself involved in the court, Jenny. Somehow we’ve got to keep you out of that!”
“We can’t.” She smiled, rather wearily. “I thought there might be some way I could stay away, but there isn’t. Father needs me here—this first dinner party made that very obvious, Aufors. He’d have been in a dreadful mess without me. Besides, the Lord Paramount asked me to be here.”
“You need someone, surely.” He rose, striding to and fro, agitatedly. “The Duchess of Merdune, perhaps she could be . . .”
“You’re thinking she might help me? Well, perhaps. She said she would call on me, and since we really are kinswomen, she may actually do so.”
“Your father asked me to take an apartment here, in the house. So far, for various reasons, I’ve delayed, but I could be here tomorrow if it would help you . . .”
“If it would help me?” she asked. “Of course it would help me, but you shouldn’t do it for that reason.”
“Genevieve . . .” he cried, the word breaking from him uncontrollably, all his feelings in his face. “For what other reason would I?”
He reached for her hand, ready to go on, but she gasped, as though breathing hurt her. Her eyes filled as she held up her hand, palm out, forbidding him.
“Itwould help me, provided you understand … we must stop this familiarity of ours. I know I asked you to call me Genevieve or even Jenny, but I’m afraid it’s likely to be … misunderstood. Father has already . . . misunderstood it. From now on, you must be Colonel Leys to me, and I must be My Lady to you, and you must not say whatever you just started to say. It is not fair to you, I know, and it is no more fair to me.”
“You have a right to be happy!”
She shook her head, her lips trembling. “I am a daughter of the covenant, Colonel Leys. The covenant allows us our youth, but that is about all it allows us. Iwas happy, at school. I didn’t realize until I came here how happy I was there. I knew my way, there, and who my friends were. I had my niche and was comfortable in it. I didn’t ask to be brought here, and the people here are strangers … no, not merely strangers but strange! As though … as though they are not made of the same stuff that you are. As though all their words are paint. Do you understand?”
“Paint?” He frowned. “You mean, painting over, covering up, hiding something.”
“Yes. Covering up something. Exactly. As though they all know a secret. Or some of them do, and the others pretend to. I don’t know what it is, but it distresses me. Delia says I’m merely tired out, and perhaps she’s right, but I cannot . . . cannot deal with anythingcomplicated just now. Not until I’ve watched this play, and caught onto it, and learned what the plot is, you see? If I don’t know how it’s going, I might get dragged into it. If I were once to be caught in it … oh, maybe I could never go back to being what I am.”
“What you are?” he whispered, amazed. “You’re as real as the earth itself. What do you think you are?”