“You curse Genevieve where you shouldn’t and deny her credit she has earned,” she murmured, bringing her lips close to him once more. “Her going has not harmed you, but her staying here might well have! If you value your life, Marshal, you will attend to what I say!I heard the exchange at dinner last night, every word of it. So long as you remember that Yugh Delganor had not actually asked you for your daughter’s hand, no matter how he may have hinted at or alluded to or implied an interest, so long as you did not certainly know what he intended, so long as you had not agreed to any such intention, so long as you had not told Genevieve of his intentions,you are not at fault, nor isshe.”
He stared at her, chewing on his lower lip, his face only very gradually losing its flush as his icy lizard’s mind disengaged from its choleric tantrum to survey the battlefield.
“On the other hand,” she went on icily, “if she had stayed here, and if you had promised her to Yugh Delganor, and if she had been physically or mentally unable to fulfil that promise, then your life might well have been at risk.”
“She would not have been unable,” he snarled.
“Marshal, you may command men into battle. You cannot command them not to die in battle. The same is true here. She might well have died of it.”
He frowned. “This is hysteria!”
“Am I to infer you wish to see her dead?”
He made a gesture of disdain. “Bah, they’re fragile things, women. Few of them live long. One or two children, they fade like flowers, which is why we give them their youth. We never wish to see them dead, and yet they die. It’s their nature.”
She drew herself up, like a tower. “Don’t talk foolishness, sir. I deny your judgment of women. The village women I meet are often in their eighties or nineties, outliving their husbands by many years. They are not fragile. They do not fade. Why is it not their nature?”
He fumed, chewing at the inside of his cheek as at a cud. “We’re inbred, I suppose. We of the nobility.”
“If you do not wish to consider Genevieve, consider this,” she murmured icily. “Though a royal wife may spread ephemeral favor among her relatives, once she is dead, the favor rots with her.”
He stared. “Nonsense.”
“I do not argue nonsense,” she said. “You may check for yourself. Find out what has happened to previously favored families of royal or noble wives who are now dead! If you are more concerned for yourself than for your daughter, then consider yourself.” She lowered her voice once more. “Those close to the Prince do not last long, nor do their kin. Your best future will be found in service to theLord Paramount; your best chance at survival will be to keep the Prince at arm’s length.”
“He’ll ask for her. The Lord Paramount. Or the Prince.”
“Until one of them does, you wouldn’t think her departure important enough to concern either of them, would you? You certainly wouldn’tlend it importance by bringing the matter to their attention.”
He stared, glared, shook his head. “Suppose not, no. Though His Majesty did ask me to bring her here.”
“But you wouldn’t trouble His Majesty if she were indisposed, or if she went home to Langmarsh for a few weeks. She hasn’t taken up her duties yet, and after all, we don’t know where she went or when she may return, so you have no real information to give them. If they ask you about her, why then you tell them what happened. The silly girl was frightened by something that happened at dinner last night, and she ran away, leaving a note with her friend, the Duchess.”
“When I brought Delganor to her, back at school, she didn’t mention to me she was in love.”
“I doubt she was, then.”
Behind them, in the dining room, the door opened and Aufors Leys came in. Hearing this, the Marshal and the Duchess reentered the room, closing the tall window behind them.
Aufors’s eyes widened when he saw the Duchess. He bowed. “Sir, you sent for me?”