Jenna Starborn

by Sharon Shinn

  “Home and safe,” Mr. Ravenbeck said into my hair, the words part observation and part kiss. “Though I almost expect the sirens to sound at any moment.”

  I closed my eyes and experienced fresh marvel at the feel of his arms casually about me. “I will go downstairs and check the systems.”

  “You will do no such thing. You will immediately haul yourself upstairs to dream of your future life—which will involve no such drudgery as monitoring generators and securing the house from radioactive trash.”

  I smiled against his coat. “Well, I hope to make myself useful no matter what other role I may take on in your household,” I said. “I may as well employ the skills I already have.”

  He pulled back and I reluctantly straightened to a normal posture. “I can see this argument will take more time than I have at present,” he said. “But I warn you now—your life is about to change in all its small details, for you have been visited with an unexpected glamour. I know much more about this life than you do, so you should resign yourself now to being entirely guided by me.”

  I smiled up at him. “I am willing to be guided by you in some things, but I do not trust your judgment completely, no matter how much I love you,” I said. “We may join our lives together, but I will still choose my own course.”

  He sighed theatrically. “Stubborn, obstinate, intractable Jenna Starborn!” he exclaimed. “I will yet see you melting in my arms.”

  “Ah, but your arms were made for melting,” I said, and leaned forward again for one quick kiss. This was bold of me, yet the moment seemed to call for such action, and he obliged quite heartily.

  “No more, Jenna, not tonight, anyway,” he said, pulling away with no real enthusiasm. “Now you must go to your room and fill your head with dreams of incredible sweetness—while I go to mine and try to learn the ways of patience.”

  “I think I am like to have more success than you are,” I said saucily, and earned myself another quick kiss.

  “Good night, then,” he said, and ushered me toward the stairwell. “In the morning we will talk again.”

  And so we parted, though from the corner of my eye I watched him head to the library where I thought he might indulge in a celebratory glass of liqueur. I hurried up the stairs, practically humming to myself—till I reached the first landing, where a figure stood half cloaked in darkness. I stopped short, not for an instant recognizing Mrs. Farraday—who, by the horrified expression on her face, appeared not to have recognized me. Or—no—I suddenly understood. She had witnessed my last interlude in the hall with the master of Thorrastone Park, and she feared my fate would be as dreadful as Janet Ayerson’s.

  It was not up to me, a half-cit, to claim to have been offered marriage by a full citizen. There was nothing I could say to reassure her. I merely paused a moment before her and tried to sustain a look of purity and conscience on my face. “Good night, Mrs. Farraday,” I said gently. “All will seem much better in the morning.”

  And with those words I ran away to hide myself in my room till dawn might arrive.

  Soon enough, however, I was beginning to think that hour might never come. The intermittent thunder had grown nearly continuous, accented at jarring moments by loud spats of crackling light. These jagged flares always struck somewhere along the forcefield, making me worry about its ability to withstand the stress. It was possible we would all, like the Ingersolls, be cast into a vacuum before night’s end, and I made sure my oxygen canister was nearby and ready for use. Then I began fretting about Ameletta, small and solitary in her room, and wondered if I would make it to her side soon enough to save her if something happened to compromise the walls. So, after changing into my nightclothes, I hefted my oxygen tank over my shoulder and took the short trip down the hall to the little girl’s room.

  Not to my surprise, I found her still awake. “Miss Starborn!” she greeted me in a penetrating whisper. “Have you found my ribbons? Have you rescued them from the squirrels?”

  “Yes, I have found them, but I did not come merely to return them to you,” I said. “I thought you might be afraid of the storm.”

  Give her credit for her good points, she was quick to capitalize on any situation. “Yes, so afraid—the very loud noise is keeping me awake,” she said instantly. “I am frightened and do not want to stay in my room all alone.”

  I smiled in the dark. “No, I thought you might not. Shall I stay with you, then? Would you promise to go to sleep right away and not chatter all night?”

  “Oh, yes, I will be the quietest thing in the house,” she vowed.

  “Very well, I shall stay with you. But first I must find your oxygen container and make sure it is primed. You lie down—I will climb in beside you shortly.”

  During the five minutes it took me to locate and review the safety device in her room, Ameletta talked without ceasing. I thought it unlikely she would ever sleep this night—then again, sometimes it was hard to imagine the little bundle of energy ever closing her eyes, relaxing, and drifting off to dreamland, and surely she must sleep sometime. I answered her absently, situated the two canisters close to my hand at the side of the bed, and then climbed in under the covers beside her.

  She gave a long sigh of pure satisfaction and curled up beside me. “Now I am no longer afraid,” she said. “I wish it would thunder every night!”

  I smiled at this disingenuous remark. “Go to sleep, Ameletta. No more talking.”

  “But I have stopped talking!”

  “Yes, well, you shall prove that by not saying another word.”

  Naturally, this request elicited a few more protestations of innocence, but gradually, as the night grew later, she grew quieter, and eventually did drop off to sleep.

  I lay awake longer, listening to the grumble and mutter of the storm—which at one point was punctuated by the loudest thunderclap yet. This was followed by a slow, ominous groaning as if some structure was suffering an agonizing dissolution. I stifled a gasp and slipped from the bed to run to the window. But I could see nothing on the lawn outside, for the power surge had shorted out the circuits that controlled the artificial lights. From this distance, I could not tell if the fence itself was still intact, and I balanced on my feet a good fifteen minutes, awaiting the alarm.

  But all was quiet; the sirens did not rise and whine. Even the storm seemed to have completely expended itself with that last ferocious attack, for the thunder abated and, within that quarter hour, ceased altogether. Some damage seemed to have been done, but it did not look as though we would suffer for it, and so I climbed back into bed beside Ameletta, and let myself fall asleep.

  In the morning I learned what the storm had destroyed, and I could not help feeling a deep though perhaps overstated grief: Some fireball of energy had ripped past the forcefield and across the lawn, exploding in the very center of the oxenheart tree. And that mighty entity, resistant to all malice and misadventure for so many years, had cracked in two and lay dying on the lawn.

  Chapter 12

  The 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.

  But 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 a
nd 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.”