The Claiming (12 page)

Vin, a stocky gentleman of medium height with light brown hair and merry eyes, apparently quite as good natured as he looked, instantly took the hint. He and Alain turned at once and sauntered out onto the terrace and apparently became immediately engrossed in a discussion of the breeding and care of Zells.

No sooner were they out of hearing than Val-risa informed Jana that some strange man had been making inquiries about her.

Jana turned so deathly pale that Alain, who'd carefully positioned himself to observe even if he couldn't hear the discussion taking place in the parlor, was sufficiently alarmed to break off his conversation abruptly and cross the room in several swift strides to her side. "Are you ill?" he asked tersely, though his brows were knit in concern.

Jana glanced up quickly, thinking how very odd it was that the room had suddenly grown so very dim. In point of fact, she felt very ill indeed. "Oh no! It ... it's just so very warm," she said, then keeled over in a dead faint.

Alain caught her as she tumbled sideways. Carefully removing her hat, he eased her down on the couch and lifted her legs so that she might lie more comfortably.

"Well, I'll be damned!" exclaimed Vin, who'd come to stand behind Alain as he knelt beside the couch.

"For heaven's sake, Vin!" Val-risa snapped. "Do make yourself useful or go away! I'll fetch my smelling salts and a cool cloth. That should do the trick." She hurried from the room.

"I should loosen her stays if I were you, old boy," Vin suggested helpfully. He flushed beet red as Alain threw him a sardonic look. Hastily excusing himself, he left in search of a bottle of liquor and a tumbler.

Alain eased himself onto the couch beside her and carefully smoothed the tendrils of hair from her cheeks and forehead that had escaped her chignon. His hand, he saw in some irritation, was shaking. He muttered a curse under his breath, wondering what had caused her sudden faint. He didn’t believe her suggestion that it was the heat for a moment. The temperatures were relatively mild and it was comfortably cool in the house at any rate.

It was then that he recalled her agitation outside the inn, but, try as he might, he could recall nothing that had happened during that time that could account for her distress, and he felt a surge of frustrated anger.

Had it something to do with a lover as he'd suspected earlier? He felt his anger mount at the thought. But, as he gazed down at her, he couldn't help but think how very young and vulnerable she looked, how very innocent and untouched. The idea of Jana's sweet innocence being a mere facade for a woman as wanton and deceitful as his first wife made him feel almost physically ill. He couldn't credit that such a thing was possible, but then he knew that was largely because he simply didn't want to credit it.

He had hoped when he had decided to contract an alliance that he would find a companion that would hold him in some affection, and that he would be able to share that affection. He realized now that he would simply have to see to it that their contract remained a business arrangement and nothing more even if he decided to hold to the agreement, but he had every intention of discovering what Jana was up to before he finalized. He had bargained for a woman who would be an asset to his interests. He had no intention of tying himself to a woman who, like Caro, would delight in humiliating him by blatantly taking lovers, and saddling him with the responsibility of rearing some other man’s offspring.

She sighed at that moment, her eyelids fluttering against her cheeks. Alain released her hand, which he'd taken unconsciously into his own, and stood up. In the next moment he was sorry he had, however. She awoke with a name upon her lips that was little more than a sigh and he didn't catch it. Unfortunately, it was too late for regrets for in the next moment she was fully conscious and looking up at him in bewilderment.

"What happened?" she asked, surprised to discover that she lay on the couch and struggling to rise.

"Oh! you mustn't try to get up yet," Val-risa said quickly, returning in time to hear the question. Hurrying across the room she took the seat Alain had just vacated, laying a dampened cloth across Jana's brow. "Honestly, Jana, you did give us a fright! Said something about the heat and just swooned dead away! You're not … well, you know," Val-risa suggested, looking slightly embarrassed, "increasing?"

"Increasing?" Jana echoed, dumbfounded.

"In the family way," Val-risa pressed. "It's entirely possible you know. After all you have been married a while now."

Jana stared at the woman blankly, still grappling with the terms she’d uttered. At first, neither made any sense to her, but after some moments she began to wonder if this might have something to do with that strange tale the servant, Lill, had told her. She’d dismissed it as a wild concoction meant to frighten the careless, but this was a primitive world. Everything was done differently here, after all. Was there even a remote possibility that women here actually incubated infants inside of them? Was her friend suggesting she was?

It was impossible, of course. She had not only not been careless, she had had no contact that could have resulted in such a thing, but she could scarcely answer the question when she wasn’t altogether certain she knew what Val-risa was asking.

And she had not had the opportunity to discover if Val-risa was of Orleans, or an outworlder. She couldn’t simply ask and possibly betray her ignorance of an Orleans custom she would be expected to know and understand.

Hopeful that Alain would come to her aid, she glanced at him. He was, she saw in dismay, regarding her through narrowed, assessing eyes, his expression stony, his complexion downright pasty.

Obviously, he suspected whatever it was Val-risa suspected, and the suspicion did not please him at all. She still found it very difficult to believe that she’d correctly interpreted Val-risa’s comments, but it occurred to her that she must have. Alain had suggested, more than once, that he suspected she was not behaving as a virtuous woman. He must think that she had been careless and ‘the worst’ had happened.

Unfortunately, even if she was fairly certain she had correctly interpreted both Val-risa’s comments, and Alain’s reaction to it, she was in no position to defend herself.

"Fainting is one of the very first symptoms. People are bound to suspect it if you go about swooning. I've fainted several times myself," Val-risa finished with a touch of satisfaction.

Jana stared at the woman, her gaze automatically traveling down to examine the woman’s belly, where she saw what she had failed to notice before. Despite the clothing that the women of Orleans wore, which covered them from neck to ankle, the dresses were made to fit snugly over their breasts and waists. Val-risa’s waist not only looked far thicker than Jana remembered, but there was a noticeable bulge where before had been a flat belly.

Appalled to see the visible evidence that she’d understood Val-risa’s remarks, Jana found it difficult to drag her eyes from the horrible swelling. How long, she wondered, did they allow the creatures to dwell there? And how did they remove them?

“You’re saying you…?”

"Yes, I am," Val-risa averred proudly.

"You're ... you're happy about it then?"

"Of course, goose!" Val-risa said with a laugh.

"You're not … you aren't … afraid?" Jana asked hesitantly.

"Why should I be afraid? I'm perfectly healthy," Val-risa added, slightly defensive.

Alain, who'd tactfully withdrawn, but not so far he couldn't hear the exchange quite easily, frowned thoughtfully and allowed his gaze to wander down to Jana's slender waist, curbing his anger only by a severe effort. Was it possible that he'd been duped again? Was that the reason Jana had insisted they contract at once, because she was not the virtuous woman she claimed? That she carried another man's child?

"Well," said Vin, entering the room at that moment and interrupting Alain's dark thoughts. "I see she's come around. Guess she won't be needing this after all?" he added jovially. Gesturing with the decanter he held in his hand, he moved toward a table where he carefully set down the tumblers he had cradled in his other arm. "I believe I could use a spot of this myself though. How about you, old boy?" he asked Alain. "I don't mind telling you, it gave me a severe turn. Don't have much stamina for that sort of thing."

Alain forbore comment, but moved forward to accept the proffered glass absently as he studied Jana. She had sat up and was engaged in a low voiced conversation now with Val-risa, the gist of which he couldn't make out. He wondered whether it was as inconsequential as their earlier conversation or if Jana had seized the opportunity to enlighten her friend as to her real reason for coming.

Jana had not seized the opportunity so much as it had been jolted from her by the day’s experiences. She had left Alain’s plantation with no more than a vague sense of alarm, thinking it would be better to be safe than sorry, and that she should try to see if she could arrange an escape route for herself in case of need. After Alain had kissed her and she’d recognized him, she’d realized it was only a matter of time before he recognized her, which only gave her one more reason to make sure she could leave quickly if the need arose.

But she had spotted Marty, in town, and Val-risa had met her with the intelligence that it was not mere chance. He knew she was here. He just hadn’t figured out where yet. If not for the fact that technology of any description was forbidden on Orleans, he would have located her already with her IT.

Val-risa’s horrifying revelation regarding breeding on the world of Orleans was icing on the cake. Jana could live with the primitive conditions she’d encountered so far. It was a small price, she’d thought, to pay for freedom. But there was no way she was going to allow her body to be used as an incubator!

She had to leave and she did not have time for finesse. The moment Alain moved beyond hearing distance, Jana grasped Val-risa’s wrist. “Are you an outworlder?” she whispered urgently.

To her relief, instead of staring at her without comprehension, Val-risa glanced toward Vin, then nodded ever so slightly.

“I need to arrange passage from Orleans.”

Val-risa glanced at Alain.

“I can’t ask him. I can’t ask anyone else.”

“To what destination?”

Jana hadn’t thought that far in advance. “Dosstal if possible. Anywhere but Earth.”

Val-risa tried to contain the look of shock mention of Dosstal had sent through her. She shook her head fractionally. “This has to do with the man looking for you?”

Jana nodded.

Val-risa bit her lip, studying Jana for a long moment. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll see what I can come up with,” she said finally.

* * *

One aspect of that never to be sufficiently regretted trip with Alain that ranked with Jana's worst anxieties was Val-risa's comment that Jana must be increasing. For some reason Jana had not been able to fathom, Alain seemed to have no interest in taking her as his sexual partner … but she was not certain she could trust that that would remain the case. On a primitive world like Orleans, there was no birth control available, and Jana had not been able to bring birth control with her, which meant that if she managed to avoid Marty and his men, she might still have to contend with the horror of having a live thing growing inside her.

She shuddered at the thought. Who would have thought such a thing possible? And that was only the beginning of the horror. There was also the fact that she had no idea how long it was allowed to grow there, or how it was removed once it was decided it was developed enough to be removed.

Practices, she knew, varied. In the lab where she had been developed, some were allowed to grow to full maturity before being de-canted. She had been grown through pubescence. Others, those designed for child sex, were de-canted well before that.

The infants Alain had were small, and Blane had said they were ‘born’ many months earlier, but just how large had they been at that time?

Half the size they now were would rip her apart. She could not endure that and live, she knew. Perhaps that was what had happened to Alain’s previous companion? Perhaps that was what Lill had meant when she’d told Jana about the miscarriage.

It was also possible that the women of Orleans were designed differently, designed for use as incubators, and therefore designed to safely de-cant the infants at the correct time.

That seemed plausible until she recalled that Val-risa was not of Orleans, and yet she had seemed very proud of the fact that she was breeding and not at all frightened.

Maybe all women, except bound women, had been designed for this use?

She was certain that she had not been. She had examined herself very carefully. There was no opening on her body large enough to de-cant something that big.

After thoroughly terrorizing herself for days with her imaginings, she finally dismissed it when it occurred to her that that was the very least of her worries. Marty was searching for her. That could only mean that Marty had finally pieced together her route of escape and followed her to Orleans.

The message Blane had mentioned before, which she had optimistically put down to a universe wide search, had been far more focused than she had realized before. If not for the prohibition of the use of technological devices, he would have found her already. But even so, she had to accept that she was running out of time and it had been born upon her that her chances of convincing Alain to keep her were practically nil.

She had thought to begin with that it would be easy enough to make her companion want her sexually, perhaps even to become attached to her services to a point where he would be very reluctant to give her up to Marty, even if Marty were to find her.

Alain had dispelled her assumptions the moment he had arrived. She had seen, more than once, a look that told her that he was not immune to her, but he was apparently able to control his urges without much difficulty. He had looked upon her from the first with patent suspicion, and had made it very clear that the woman she was impersonating was a woman of virtue, a woman not designed to pleasure men, but conditioned to reserve herself for only one.