He shook her. She came awake, eyes wide, mouth open, and he put a hand across it at once. “Shhh.”
“Where have you been?” she whispered.
“Hiring passage on the packet that goes down the Reusel at dawn.”
“That’ll take me along Wantresse. I’m well known there.”
“If you were going, you’d be known, yes. But you’re not going.”
“I thought you said . . .”
“I bought passage as I’d already planned to do. I made quite a fuss about the young lady who was going to Reusel-on-mere. No doubt someone will discover her there, but it’ll be another woman who’s meeting her new husband, an old friend of mine, for a bit of a honeymoon. He’s from Sealand and she from Upland. I’m paying for the trip as a present, they’ve never heard your name, and making such a project of it is a bit of legerdemain, a red herring.”
“And I?” she asked, getting up to brush the hay from her cloak.
“We’ll know better after the Duchess tells us what she has in mind.”
They rode double on Aufors’s horse, Genevieve behind him, holding him tightly, wondering at the feeling this embrace caused within her. She had no time to reflect on it. The Duchess was waiting for them, together with a tall, bulky man, middle-aged and half-bearded, who regarded Genevieve with grave curiosity.
“I’m not sure this is right,” Genevieve murmured. “Father told me not to concern myself for my care or safety, that it was his concern. Perhaps if I told him . . .”
“Your telling would have precisely the same effect that it has had heretofore,” said the Duchess, in a bleak voice. “Aufors, go into the stable, there’s a good boy, my dear. For your own safety, I don’t want you to hear what’s said here.”
When he had gone, Genevieve whispered, “Alicia. Mother told me . . . she told me my way would be hard. She had the gift. The one Lyndafal and I share. Perhaps I am meant to stay here and . . .”
“Do you, yourself, know this is true?”
“No,” she cried. “Not surely!”
“Then wait until you know it!” She turned to her companion. “This is Garth Sentith, a friend of mine from Merdune. and you are now Imogene Sentith, his daughter. The two of you are riding east tonight, to slip across the border into the Tail of Merdune, and thence down the canyons to the shore. From there you will sail southward across the Lagoon to the town of Weirmills, beside the Potcherwater, where Garth has a perfumery business I have long patronized.
“Now, Genevieve, here is pen and paper. Write me a brief note telling me that you are running away because Yugh Delganor frightened you half to death at dinner this evening. Write that you must leave before your father makes any compromising promises you might be unable to fulfill. Say you must have time to think on this. No, don’t look at me all witless! I must have a reason to speak to your father before he does anything imprudent. I will say I found your note on my door, and this will give me an excuse to let a little reality into his head. I know what I am doing, so write it!”
Genevieve wrote, scribbling, the Duchess prompting. When the Duchess read it over, the penmanship needed no change to appear frantic and panicky.
Alicia went to the stable door and summoned Aufors out once more: “You are to return to the Marshal’s house, Aufors, where you will pretend you have been all night, deeply asleep. For the time being, you are not to think about Genevieve. Her safety depends on your not knowing where she is. Also, try not to show that you are worried over where she might be, though I realize you may be unable to do that. She, meantime, will be sitting quiet, being helpful and safe, so we all hope, far from here. Now say your farewells, for Genevieve must be well out of High Haven by morning.”
She turned away, the bulky man beside her, and Aufors, with a gasp that had as much pain as ardor in it, drew Genevieve into a close embrace, laid his lips on hers, and held her there while the night spun around them both. Neither of them were conscious of time. The kiss could have lasted either a little moment or forever, and it was only his awareness of her danger that made him thrust her away, holding her tightly by the shoulders.