Some small gibbering thing inside her laughed in hysteria, drawing her attention to what was obviously meant by a “twitch of the loins!” Good heavens! Was this lust? Was this what Carlotta felt for Willum, or Barbara felt for almost anyone? This incapacitating need? This wanting to be near, to be held, to be … well,that, yes, the act she had been instructed in then taught to unthink but which she found herself thinking of all too clearly! This wouldn’t do! It couldn’t do. Not now. Not here!
By evening, several hours’ struggle plus a good deal of determination had somewhat restored her poise, which was essential, for at this dinner Yugh Delganor was again a guest, and tonight, he would be seated at Genevieve’s right. Despairingly, she had asked Alicia to sit once again at her left.
“My dear, I shall be glad to be there. Are we to have entertainment?”
Genevieve nodded. “A play. A repertory company is traveling up from Merdune, and Father has arranged for them to do a comedy for us.”
“No doubt Prince Yugh will want to know when you’ll be ready to start your duties here at the palace. We’ve done the gardens, the greenhouses, the stables, and one gallery, and you’ve learned it all, leaving us only the other galleries to do.”
“I’ll try to learn quickly,” Genevieve replied, mimicking the Duchess’s meaningless public voice and inconsequential words, designed to put any listener to sleep through sheer vacuity. “We wouldn’t want the Prince to become impatient with me.”
She hurried as she dressed, realizing with a pang that she wanted to get downstairs as quickly as possible, for that was where Aufors was undoubtedly striding about, arranging last minute details. She forced herself to slow down, taking several deep breaths and assuring herself that she was still only a mouse in the wings, a watcher of all the confusions and entanglements that were going on among other people. Soon she would observe Yugh Delganor’s play, and she would remember to crouch very small in a corner if she were to avoid being drawn into the story and made a central part of it.
The attempt to drag her onto center stage was not long in coming. The Duchess faced Yugh Delganor across the table. She attempted conversation, only to have each attempt quashed by a chill monosyllable or two. Even her conversation with Genevieve was stifled by the Prince’s manner.
Finally, just before dessert, the Prince spoke. “You are looking well.”
Though the words were complimentary, he was looking at the Duchess as though he had discovered a fly in his soup.
“I?” said the Duchess, surprised.
“I was speaking of the Most Honorable Marchioness, Lady Genevieve,” he replied, turning his face toward her and continuing in a measured and utterly toneless voice, “You are a very good addition to our company here at court, my lady. Everyone speaks your praises. I am so greatly moved by your beauty and grace and modesty that I shall obtain from your father permission to ask your hand in marriage.”
At that moment a small silence fell, one of those that occurs intermittently in even large gatherings. The words, “. . . to ask your hand in marriage . . .” hung in that silence like the last reverberations of a bell. Genevieve did not reply. She sat in gelid paralysis, her wineglass held halfway to her mouth, her eyes fixed on the red shiver of its contents. The only thought she had was of her mother’s voice: the hard road. Her whole being rejected it. It could not be this road. Not possibly. This she could not do!
The silence stretched, then broke into chatter, through which the Duchess Alicia could be heard to say with a tinkling laugh, “Your Highness, surely this is neither the time nor the place. If you are jesting, it is unkind, and if you are not, it is inappropriate to make such a statement in the midst of dinner, when the Most Honorable Marchioness cannot so ignore her duties of hospitality as to give your announcement the consideration it deserves.”
Genevieve found her tongue and forced herself to laugh in her turn, lightly, dismissively. “I’m afraid the Duchess is right, Your Highness. This would be an extremely awkward time for me to pay attention to any such very surprising flattery.”