She smoothed back her hair, settled her collar, and said firmly, “You know, I have to get back to Papa.”
“He’s not your papa,” said Zebulon. “And you don’t need to get back to him just yet. Why, you’re the only amusement that’s come along in ten or twelve years.”
Jeorfy gave Zebulon a puzzled look before turning to Genevieve once more. “So, tell us your real name, pretty girl.”
“Henrietta Hazelbine,” she said. “Daughter of the Count of Ob.” There was a county Ob in Frangia, but so far as she knew, there was no Count of Ob, nor had there been for many years. Still, it was worth a try.
“And who are you running from?” asked Zeb.
“A nobleman who wants to marry me, but I don’t like him.”
“Aha!” said Jeorfy. “There! It’s the Prince, I’ll wager. Didn’t I say! He’s after another wife, isn’t he? That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Why do you assume so?” she asked, astonished.
“Because all the oldies, every so often, they seem to get remarried, or they adopt a niece, or they take on a mistress. He’s only had three wives, so maybe he needs another one. He hasn’t had one for fifty years or more.”
“Fifty years?” she faltered. “How old is he?”
“A hundred eighty, a hundred ninety, somewhere in there,” said Jeorfy. “You’d be the fourth.”
“They all died, I know that,” she said, remembering her father’s anger when she had asked about Delganor’s wives. “I only heard about two of them.”
“It was probably the first one you didn’t hear about. She was the only one who got away, I have no doubt.”
“Jeorfy!” threatened Zebulon. “Talk like a sensible person!”
“Got away?” asked Genevieve.
“Ran away, eluded, absconded, disappeared,” said Jeorfy, making a face at his companion. “Felt that she’d be safer in a wig and a false beard!” He nodded slowly. “That’s merely a guess. At any rate, he never found her.”
“Where did you find out all this?” she asked.
Jeorfy cocked his head impudently, “A man came to the archives, with very charming ways. I learned after he’d left me his name was Aufors Leys. I let him use the archives to look up some history, and what he didn’t say about it spurred my curiosity.”
“Enough. One more and I’m leaving you here alone!” shouted Zebulon, his face red with fury.
Jeorfy mimed apology, bowing, wringing his hands in pretend-distress, then turned to say cheerfully to Genevieve, “The Colonel was far better at dissimulation than I. When I tried it, they caught me at it. I’m down here as punishment.”
Keeping a blank face, she asked, “How did you know I was up there?”
Jeorfy said, “Zebulon was just showing me around and we happened to be there. That grille is the back gate to this cavern, so to speak . . .”
“Among others,” muttered Zeb.
Jeorfy paid no attention to the interruption. “Of course, the current powers that be, up there, don’t know there’s any way out except the locked gate they put me through. They think we’re cut off from the world down here, incommunicado. Which is why I’m here. I know too much. Or they think I do.”
Zeb mused, as though talking to himself, “I like that particular way out. There’s lots of travelers come by there. I can come out at night and listen to them. I hear all kinds of interesting things.”
Genevieve rubbed her forehead wearily, trying to decide whether she should insist they let her go or simply go along for a while longer. Jeorfy accurately read her expression.
“Don’t worry, girl,” said Jeorfy. “Your so-called papa isn’t up there anymore. He’s been escorted to the border. You agreed to meet in Midling Wells, and that’s where we’ll take you. We can, can’t we, Zeb?”
“Near to there,” said the other, reluctantly.
Jeorfy nodded. “Your so-called papa isn’t fool enough to wander around in the wilderness just hoping you’ll show up, and with the number of men on the roads, he won’t have a chance to come back here.”
“Is this where you live?” she asked, looking around the small room with something like dismay. She didn’t want to stay for a long time, and it would be very crowded with all three of them in it.