Jenna Starborn (33 page)

T
he next few days were strange ones for me—fun of more love and happiness than I had ever expected to experience, but also limned with an odd sense of displacement and apology. The morning after the storm, I waited in my room as long as I reasonably could, hoping by this stratagem to allow Mr. Ravenbeck plenty of time to tell Mrs. Farraday our news. When I finally descended to breakfast, I found that he had indeed had a chance to speak with her, but the conversation did not appear to have allayed all her fears.

“Oh—my goodness—Jenna, there you are,” she greeted me with more than her usual look of distraction. “I have just heard—the master has told me—this really does explain what I just happened to observe last night, though of course it is no place of mine—”

I smiled, though I felt a certain painfulness around my heart. I suppose I had been expecting her to welcome me effusively, exclaim at how well I suited Mr. Ravenbeck, and wish me joy. But she seemed nervous and ill at ease, and I could only suppose she disapproved of the union. “Yes—Mr. Ravenbeck and I are to be married,” I said, for I wanted to say the words aloud to someone, no matter how displeased she might be.

“It is very sudden,” she observed. “For only recently—well, of course, you were here also—and he has known Bianca Ingersoll so long—”

“It might appear sudden,” I said, determinedly ignoring this reference to the woman I despised. “But I have felt a great affection for Mr. Ravenbeck since the day I first met him, and that affection has only grown over time. And he has felt the same way about me. And so we have decided to marry.”

“Your stations in life are very different,” she said. “And I am not sure—it is possible you might not understand—it might be hard on you,” she ended in a rush.

Only then did it occur to me that some of her unease might be on my behalf, and I felt my heart leap up in gratitude. “Yes—I fear I might be exposed to the mockery of some society people who do not believe I deserve this good fortune,” I said. “My hope is to avoid those people as much as I can.”

She looked even more worried. “But you can't, Jenna. You are used to the company of servants and cooks and workers from all walks of life, and those are the people you like,” she said, and her sentences became more coherent as she tried to explain. “Now those people will be beneath your notice—or only noticeable when you have an order to give them, or a report to hear. They will not be your friends. You will draw
friends
from the ranks of the Ingersolls and the Taffs and the Fulsomes—and I do not know that you will find them much to your taste.”

“It will be a challenge, I know,” I said.

“And you are a strong woman who has faced many challenges,” she said, though her expression did not lighten. “And yet I fear for you. But I am so happy to know that you are not following the path poor Janet went down. That was a relief to learn when Mr. Ravenbeck came to me this morning.”

“I am sorry to have worried you,” I said. “I did not know what to say.”

“No, nor I. What kind of household would people say I preside over, if my two young women both ran off scandalously with men?” she exclaimed. I had not previously considered this point of view, and I have to admit it made me chuckle.

“I at least will not do so,” I promised her, patting her arm. “I do not say I would not have been tempted, but I am safe from all blandishments now.”

She covered my hand with hers and attempted a smile. “I am happy for you, Jenna, truly I am,” she said, though the tears starting in her eyes somewhat belied this assertion. “I just hope your life does not change in ways you did not expect.”

I wanted to ask who among us could ever anticipate the changes that would be wrought in our lives, but I merely accepted her weak congratulations and went about making up a breakfast plate.

I thought the worst of it was gotten through with that interview, but I soon found out I was wrong. Mary, Rinda, and Genevieve, with whom I had been on cordial terms in the past, began instantly treating me with a distant courtesy while addressing me from rigid, masklike faces. They knew I was to be the new mistress of Thorrastone Park, and they knew they were no longer my equals—though
I
did not know such a thing and made every attempt to treat them with the friendliness I had shown before. Their remoteness hurt me, but I knew it was only a precursor to the other cool receptions I would encounter.

Well, I had courage and, as Mrs. Farraday had pointed out, I had faced many challenges in the past. I could endure the iciness of friends and the hauteur of acquaintances as long as I did not lose the one thing that really mattered—the affection of the man I loved.

 

 

B
ut Mr. Ravenbecks behavior, it turned out, was much different than I had anticipated as well, and somewhat troublesome. Whereas he had formerly treated me with a rather avuncular humor, teasing me and trying me but always offering me dignity and respect, now he seemed to think I had become some kind of delightful doll that had been designed expressly for his entertainment. He wanted me to sit with him over lunch and read from a book of romantic poetry he had unearthed; he wanted me to perform duets with him on the music-sim machine because, he declared, my singing voice must be among the most beautiful instruments in the galaxy. (It was not.) He wanted me to go for long walks with him around the manor grounds, so he could hold my hand and whisper nonsense in my ear without the fear of Ameletta or Mrs. Farraday bursting in on us unexpectedly. I was content enough to do that, but I insisted on combining the exercise with a basic inspection of the fences, and this displeased him greatly.

“I told you, Jenna, you are done with such work,” he said, pulling me back from the forcefield when I would have taken a closer look at a suspiciously pulsating link. I calmly pried his fingers from my wrist and approached the fence again, bending down to examine the problem.

“And I told you, Mr. Ravenbeck, I will be done with it when there is someone here to take my position,” I said. “As of yet—”

“Everett,” he corrected.

“You have not—what?” I ended up confused.

“Everett. You are to marry me—I would assume that gives you liberty to address me by my proper name.”

I was silent a moment, frozen in my stance by the glowing fence. “I suppose it does. Yes, of course it does. It's just that—you see—many times, even the half-cits do not address one another by their given names. I am not used to such a privilege.”

“A right, in this case. And one I am eager to see you exercise. Call me Everett—say the name now. ‘Everett, I will leave off this foolish desire to slave in your basement facility and inspect your precious forcenelds—' ”

I smiled and turned away from him, once more gazing down at the questionable section. “Everett, I will continue to work at my assigned duties until you have replaced me, which I cannot imagine will be any time soon. Meanwhile, there is work to be done, and I am the most qualified candidate. I need to get a GRC conductor out here to see if this link is failing. It looks sturdy enough, but I do not like the way it flickers.”

“I will bring over someone from the mines to handle such details,” he said, catching at the waistband of my coveralls and trying to drag me backward. I dug my feet into the soil and continued with my examination.

“You will not,” I said. “I came to Thorrastone Park to be useful, and useful I will be, no matter how my situation alters.”

Satisfied that I could learn no more by observation, I straightened and allowed Mr. Ravenbeck—Everett—to tow me back from the fence and onto our former course. “Ah, but that is the trick of it, Jenna,” he said, slipping an arm about my waist, which I decided to permit. “Your ‘usefulness,' as you call it, is about to change drastically. You must learn the new skills of entertaining company and advising me on investments and being my lovely, empty-headed escort at vacuous shareholder dinners, one of which is coming up in the not too distant future—”

“What? Shareholder dinner? What's that?” I demanded, instantly alarmed, for it sounded quite formal.

“The one we will be attending in a few weeks will be held on Salvie Major,” he said, naming a planet so close to Fieldstar that many residents traveled there frequently for recreation. “Others are farther afield. Most of the companies in which I own an interest hold annual meetings which turn out to be more play than work. There are sumptuous dinners and lavish balls and all sorts of entertainments. Very crème de la crème, my dear,” he added, allowing his voice to take on an exaggeratedly haughty tone. “You will mingle with the finest—or at least, the richest—members of society.”

“I have no wish to do so,” I said firmly, though my voice was underscored by panic. “I will not attend.”

“But you must. As my wife, you will need to appear beside me and give me consequence.”

“I am not the type whose presence confers consequence on anyone. I shall not go.”

“But you must, Jenna,” he said, more seriously this time. “For—again, as my wife—you immediately become my heir. If I die before you, my property and my investments will fall into your hands, and you must have an understanding of how to administer them. You must be conversant with the people to whom your financial fate is tied.”

I stared at him, for this had never previously occurred to me—none of it, not the financial nor the social obligations. “I become your heir?” I repeated. “But Ameletta is your heir.”

He shrugged. “She will inherit some of my property, that is true. But my wife—and, if I have them, the children of my body—will inherit the bulk of it. You
must
learn to oversee my business concerns. It is a responsibility you cannot walk away from.”

On the words, however, I did walk away from him. I was highly perturbed and had trouble seeing myself in this new light. “I am not prepared for this—I had not thought this far ahead,” I said, striding very fast and brushing away his hands when he would have reached for me again. “I thought only of how my heart would be richer, not my purse.”

He laughed and managed to catch hold of my hand, which he then refused to let go. “Yes, and that is one of the many things I love about you, that you gave no consideration to improving your station in life when you agreed to marry me,” he said. “By the way, Jenna, when are we to be married? I thought next week sometime.”

I scarcely heard what he said; I was still thinking about this dreadful dinner. “I have no dress,” I said abruptly. “Nothing at all suitable to wear.”

“To be married in? Wear your working clothes, for all I care. This outfit, for instance. I like it very much,” he said, tugging again at the elastic waist and laughing aloud.

“Stop it. No, I have nothing to be married in
either,
but what I was talking about was your threatened dinner! With all your society peers in attendance! I cannot wear my gray pants to
that.”

“We will go on a shopping trip,” he said, suddenly inspired. “Right now! To the spaceport! And if nothing there is suitable, we will take a quick jaunt to Salvie Major and stay until we have amassed for you an entire wardrobe of silk and gauze and sequins.”

“No—do not speak of such extravagances for me,” I exclaimed, backing away. “A nice dress or two, these will see me through many wretched evenings, but I cannot be acquiring a whole closetful of fancy clothes. I would feel strange and foolish—I would feel like I was pretending to be some exotic creature, when I am really a very ordinary one. It would make me behave oddly, you will see—I would not be the woman you have fallen in love with, but some tricked out, tarted up Virtual Jenna for whom you could feel no affection at all.”

“I think I am not so easily beguiled or blinded by outward accoutrements,” he said, in no way impressed. “But we will start with an outfit or two, and work our way up to a wardrobe. I look forward to seeing you tricked out and tarted up! Thus will one of my many fantasies be coming true.”

It took a moment for the meaning of this to sink in, and then I blushed a deep red as bright as the dress I hoped to buy in town. “What! Oh—you debased creature—see if I go to the spaceport with you after all! Or anywhere! Clearly it is not safe to be alone with you, even meekly dressed as I am. I do not know that I wish, by my ensemble alone, to incite you to further indiscretions.”

He laughed aloud at this and we did, I confess, spend a little time trying out a few of the milder indiscretions an affianced couple might be expected to indulge in. Usually I was the one to call these sessions to a halt, but this time he pulled back most unexpectedly, leaving me feeling rather deprived and somewhat surprised.

“No time for this if we're to have any time at all for shopping,” he said. “Quick, let's go find the Vandeventer and be off.”

But this I could not allow, since I first had to continue my circuit of the yard, and if I were to leave, I would want to apprise both Mrs. Farraday and Ameletta of my intentions. These conditions made Everett somewhat impatient—and he grew even more so when Mrs. Farraday asked for time to put together a list of things she would like from the shops and Ameletta begged to be allowed to accompany us.

“For it has been ever so long since I have had a chance to sit in the Mayfair Shop and eat pastries!” Ameletta said pathetically. “And I have not worn my pretty dress in days and days and I am feeling so sad about that.”

“This is not an excursion for little girls,” Everett said with what appeared to be a real frown. “This is for adults—engaged adults, at that, and they do not need the chaperonage of children.”