Jenna Starborn (51 page)

I had a sudden disquieting vision of myself overseeing a household of ten or fifteen children, stairstepped in ages and sizes, while Sinclair gravely studied technical manuals and went off to repair broken cables. I had to shake my head to dispel the image, and then I had to speak up quickly so Sinclair did not think I was giving a negative response to his last statement.

“Yes, indeed, I believe it is best that you continue to learn what you can,” I said. “We will resume our studies tomorrow. In the meantime, I am tired and I have much to think about. It is time for me to retire to my bed.”

We stood simultaneously and gathered our books, papers, and electrical lights. With more ostentatious concern than he was wont to show me, Sinclair ushered me through the rooftop door and down the winding steps to the story where all the bedrooms were located. He even accompanied me to my own door, something that he had done only rarely in the past.

“Good night, Jenna,” he said gravely, looking down at me for a long, unblinking moment. I could not tell if he were debating making another observation or merely attempting to read my face for any signs of reaction to the evening's central conversation. In any case, he did not speak again, but leaned down to plant a kiss very deliberately on my left cheek.

The feel of his mouth was warm and heavy and entirely pleasurable. I was astonished at the way my nerves leaped to attention, frantic to assess the texture and placement of his lips. I had forgotten what a kiss felt like, even such a chaste one; I had forgotten how much promise was implicit in the remotest physical contact with a man. Or I thought I had forgotten—my body all too clearly remembered its elemental rhythms and most primitive desires.

Covered with confusion, I did not speak again, but rushed inside my room and closed the door too hurriedly behind me. I was shaken and distressed, not so much by the kiss but by the memories the kiss had evoked. Oh, Goddess, if a man were to touch me, I knew the man I wanted! Loving Everett Ravenbeck, could I ever marry Sinclair Rainey? Would Sinclair's kisses always remind me of another man's? Or did the body, after all, really care who stirred its senses and caused its brief, glorious moments of madness? The body could be tricked—this I knew instinctively—but I was not so sure about the gullibility of the heart.

I stood in the middle of my room, and I trembled.

 

 

T
he next six days passed for me in a sort of tightening noose of apprehension. I had made several momentous decisions in my life, some of them quite painful, but few of them had involved a step that literally was irreversible. And so I viewed the prospect of marriage to Sinclair Rainey, for I was not the kind of woman to undertake such a task and then, if it became too onerous to me, shirk it. If I gave the man my word, plighted my troth to him, I would become his wife and I would stay his wife though hell itself awaited us in our life together. I did not expect hell, of course. I did expect, on Cozakee, long hours of labor and many high-caliber frustrations; I expected setbacks and disappointments and worries. But I envisioned triumphs as well—first crops, first neighbors, first exports, first babies—a parallel line of joys to march alongside the unending difficulties.

I must admit that many of Sinclair's arguments carried great weight with me. I understood his dream of proprietorship, and it reverberated against my own desolate memories; I too would like to create a place of my very own that would be inviolate and completely imprinted with my desires. And to pass that along to the heirs I had never allowed myself to believe I might have.

And yet such a life, such an estate, might be abandoned if the conditions eventually proved too intolerable or if my own wants materially changed. Now that I had what for me amounted to unlimited credit, I could walk away from any failed venture and start anew; my life would not be ruined by a single bad investment. I could attempt Cozakee and, if it did not suit me, I could leave it. But I could not so easily dissolve a marriage to Sinclair Rainey.

Once or twice, late at night as I mulled over my opportunity, I considered giving Sinclair this answer: “I will homestead with you on Cozakee, but I will not marry you. I will be your fellow laborer, and I will be your best friend, but I will not be your wife.” But then I remembered the kiss in the corridor, and I knew he would not accept that compromise, and I knew that his refusal would be the safer course.

But could I marry Sinclair Rainey?

My thoughts were so taken up with this question during the next six days that I grew a little withdrawn from all three of my so-called cousins. Sinclair, who knew the reason for my abstraction, made no comment on my behavior, but Maria and Deborah more than once asked me if something was amiss.

“For I worry about you, Jenna, I truly do,” Deborah said to me one morning as we worked together in the kitchen. “You are so strong and solitary! I believe, if you thought it necessary, you could tear yourself away from your closest friends without a word of good-bye, and then we would be left wondering forever after what had caused you to leave and what had become of you.”

I smiled rather sadly, for this truth struck too close to home, but I shook my head. “I shall make you this promise, Deborah, that when I do leave your household, you shall know why I go and what my destination is.”

“But, Jenna, are you contemplating leaving us?” she cried. “You must not! Wherever could you be thinking of going?”

I was sorely tempted to confide in her, because, of the three Rainey siblings, I felt the deepest bond of affection with Deborah, but I did not like to betray her brother's confidence or let her know that I might reject him. Sinclair could share that information if he wished; I did not like to be so careless.

“It is you who might leave me,” I said, managing another smile. “For if I am not mistaken, Harmon Joester was here again just last night, and it was you alone he cared to speak to.”

Now Deborah was the one who looked as if she had news she could not contain—and she was finally unable to suppress it. “Oh, Jenna, he asked me to marry him, and I accepted! I am so happy, but I am in such turmoil! It changes everything—and who will run this house?—and I know Sinclair is making plans to emigrate—and I do not want you to think you will not have a home with me forever, no matter if or when I marry—”

I laughed at this, though my first reaction had been to take her into a delighted embrace. “Oh, no, you don't! Don't you even consider turning down such an offer because you worry about my well-being!” I teased her. “I would be very happy renting a small house of my own, or sharing it with Maria if she finds herself at loose ends, and finding some useful employment to pass the time. That is, if I was not up at your house at all hours of the day and night, helping you raise the children I am sure you plan to have immediately—”

She blushed and disclaimed, but the rosy red of her cheeks was more credible than her disjointed statements about “intending to wait.”

I added, “And if you fear I will be lonely in any solitary home of my own, let me tell you what a pleasure it will be to have an entire house to myself and not be sharing it with whatever unfortunates have disembarked off the latest starship, disoriented and stupefied, who consider themselves free to wander the hallways at will.”

“Yes! I confess that I am looking forward to a little privacy as well! But then what becomes of the Public Aid Office? For it is very useful, you must agree, and I would hate to see it disbanded altogether once Sinclair is gone and I am out of the house.”

“You and Leopold Joester and your other high city officials will hire someone to replace Sinclair and everything will go on as before,” I said. “Your kindness and good nature will be hard to duplicate, but your physical presence will be easily replaced, I promise you.”

“Yes—that is what Maria says—but I do worry—”

I reiterated my belief that all would be well, then pressed her for details on her betrothal. She was happy enough to talk of Harmon Joester, and their plans to move outside the Cody city limits and homestead a small tract of farmland. Once again, I saw that my inheritance had made a long-held dream shape up into a practical reality, and I rejoiced for her. If ever anyone deserved good fortune, it was Deborah Rainey.

But later that night, as Sinclair and I studied after dinner, I reflected that Deborah's marriage made my own more plausible. It gave me one more reason to accept Sinclair, for it gave me one less reason to stay in Cody, attempting to continue living the life that I found so agreeable. True, it would be hard on Maria to lose me and both of her siblings in a few short weeks—but Maria too had her suitors, and I did not see her living for long alone.

Did I not want to marry too, with everyone I loved stepping into the bonds of matrimony?

I was quieter than usual this night, which was obvious to Sinclair, and I had declined the opportunity to resume our studies outdoors on the grounds that a spring storm was moving in and the winds were too disruptive. So we sat in the library, while his sisters read, and we went over a few tangled equations. The last five nights, once our lessons were over, he had spent some time outlining for me again the various attractions of Cozakee, but this night I was not prepared to hear one more word in praise of that distant world. When Deborah and Maria rose to seek their bedrooms, I came to my feet with alacrity and proclaimed my own exhaustion. Sinclair nodded to me with his usual somberness.

“I will read a few minutes longer on my own,” he said. “But we will talk again tomorrow, Jenna, will we not?”

Tomorrow, of course, was the deadline I had fashioned for my decision, and so I knew what he referred to. “Yes, Sinclair, we will talk then,” I said, and followed his sisters from the room.

But once I was in my own bedchamber, I found myself too restless to sleep, or think, or pray. In less than a day, I must announce my intentions, and I was not much closer to certainty now than I had been the night Sinclair first made his proposal. I knew that I was inclined to accept him, but for reasons that did not bear close examination—not because I loved him, not because I was interested in the life he had to offer, but because such a course would free me forever from any need to think again about my own future. I would have to work, but I would not have to worry and wonder. My choice made, I would have no options but to go forward. Such inevitability appealed to me; I felt my battered heart could use some constancy.

But still I was not sure I could bring myself to marry him.

“Goddess, I need a little guidance from you this night,” I whispered under my breath. But my small, comfortable room seemed too close and confining to admit of her expansive presence; I thought I might have a better chance of hearing her whispers of wisdom if I stepped outside and stood in the windy dark. Accordingly—fervently hoping that I did not inadvertently encounter Sinclair on his way to bed—I crept from my room and up the back stairs to emerge on the rooftop patio.

A storm was indeed building up from the plains that lay west of the city. Against the blackness of the heavens, I could see a more forbidding darkness mounting in that direction. It was as if Night herself had drawn her features together in a scowl and, like a distempered baby, was about to vent her ill humor on us in one long howling wail. The wind was even stronger than I had anticipated, and it whipped around me with such force that I staggered back against the door once I had shut it behind me. The very air smelled of sulphur and fury—it crossed my mind that it might not be the Goddess who communed with me this night, but something altogether darker and more devilish.

Nonetheless, she was the one I had come here to consult, and I pushed myself away from the door with some determination. Fighting the bickering wind, I made my way to the center of the patio, and lifted my face to the manic skies. A few angry drops of cold rain splashed across my cheek and were scrubbed away by the wind. I did not mind; I almost hoped the heavens opened up, a great shower of purification, washing me clean of my cluttered thoughts and leaving me empty, scoured, and serene.

“Goddess!” I cried, flinging my hands out as wide as they would go and appealing to that faceless, furious sky. “Goddess, command me! I am your obedient child, I am your willing daughter—where would you send me that I might do the most good in your name?”

A distant roll of thunder answered me, and a spray of rain for a moment blinded me, but there was no clearer directive. I shook the water from my face and asked again.

“You have spoken to me twice in the past—you have shown your love for me, you have not allowed me to set a foot wrong. I am lost now, I am confused. Tell me what you would have me do—show me what I should know.”

The wind blew so fiercely for a moment that the door rattled violently on its hinges; I dropped to my knees on the hard stone of the roof to be somewhat out of its way. There was a live quality to that wind, a sentience. I felt it palpitate with the hands or heartbeats of all the creatures it had whistled past on its blistering journey to me. There was sound in it too, mutters and whispers and muffled cries, and I strained to separate out a single voice, a single sentence, of sense and coherence.

And I heard one word, in that voice I had heard twice before in my life, and that voice said, “
Listen
.”

“Listen for what?” I cried, but the wind answered only with its indistinguishable moans. “Listen for whom?” But this time there were no human voices at all, just the rough shrieking passage of the wind.

I stayed where I was, now folding my arms about me and settling back on my heels, and prepared to wait. The night grew blacker; the clouds piled in the west drew closer and closer, gradually obliterating the shaken stars overhead. Rain began to fall in good earnest, soaking me through in a matter of minutes, and not for a moment did the wind cease its game of chase and follow. And still I knelt, and still I waited, and still I strained with all my senses to hear what the Goddess bade.