Dram Good Love: A McGowan's Millions Romance
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I'll Be on
New London
for Christmas
Margo Bond Collins
Chapter One
"NEW LONDON? SERIOUSLY?"
Lieutenant Gabbi Esser worked to keep the horror she felt off her face. "That is… seriously, sir?" she added, after a too-long pause.
Her commanding officer bit back a grin, managing to keep from showing more than the barest dimples on her cheeks. "Yes, New London. Seriously," Captain Schmidt confirmed. After a momentary silence of her own, she relented and gave Gabbi more information.
"The Achilles is set to rendezvous with the Odysseus. You'll transfer over to liaise with Kiara Sadana, a diplomat from the Coriolis Quadrant who has, if I understand correctly, agreed to … um … marry one of New London's ruling caste members to cement the treaty against the Drovek." Even Gabbi's captain couldn't keep the slight tinge of disgust from shading her voice at the thought—whether of the possibility of the Drovek aliens invading a human world, or the prospect of someone marrying into the New London nobility, the lieutenant wasn't sure.
Still, Gabbi had to say something. "She's selling herself to one of those backward misogynists? That's …" She groped for a word terrible enough to describe it. "Well, it's barbaric."
Schmidt visibly bit the inside of her lips to hold her mouth closed. The plasti-screen she held crumpled slightly in her fisted hand, causing the photonic display hovering in the air above it to shiver.
"It's a big universe, Lieutenant," the captain finally said. "We must accept that human cultural norms will vary widely among planetary settlements. New London was colonized specifically to reinstate the values of a civilization that relied upon a monarchy supported by a moneyed and landed nobility."
"I have completed the cultural sensitivity course, sir," Gabbi said, her tone more than a little defensive. "I didn't memorize the damn thing, though," she muttered, just far enough under her breath that Schmidt could pretend not to hear it.
"In that case, I suggest you take—or re-take, if necessary—the New London module. I've heard that the nobles can be pretty sensitive about how you address them. Worse than a ship's captain, even," Schmidt added dryly, catching a glimpse of the expression that flitted across Gabbi's face.
"Anything else, sir?" Gabbi asked.
"You have forty-eight hours before you transfer to the Achilles. After that, it will take almost seven Standard Solar Days to reach New London."
The place really was at the back-end of nowhere.
"Use the time to get to know Sadana," Schmidt continued. "Figure out what she expects from you. The Coriolis Quadrant is going to be important in the upcoming Coalition negotiations with some of the other outlying areas, and their alliance with New London has more to do with a consolidation of Quadrant power than with any real threat of Drovek attack. Our superiors want to know exactly how much more. We need clear, precise, detailed information—always keeping in mind that despite our concerns, this treaty is, we believe, ultimately for the good of the Coalition."
Gabbi nodded, and, distracted by thoughts of her new assignment, absently returned the captain's salute of dismissal. As the lieutenant moved toward the door to the corridor, Schmidt said, "Oh, and Esser? I expect you to do us proud. No matter how backwards the planet might be."
This time, Gabbi's salute was sharp and defined.
This wouldn't be so bad. New London might be the most backward planet in the entire Galactic Coalition, but Gabbi Esser was an officer in the Fleet.
There wasn't anything she couldn't handle.
***
"My intended is lovely, is she not, Wiltshire?"
"Yes, your majesty." While his king gazed adoringly on an image treated to look like an oil painting in miniature, Edward Sullivan, Duke of New Wiltshire, grimaced. Despite the cheery fire crackling in the fireplace and the intimate, familial setting of the third blue drawing-room in New Buckingham Palace, Edward felt distinctly uncomfortable.
I'm not cut out to be a yes-man.
Not that it was difficult to agree with the king on this issue—the woman in the image was, indeed, lovely. At least in terms of appearance.
But while King George XIV, monarch of New London, might be content to choose a wife based on a pretty face and good political connections, Edward wanted more.
He wanted an actual partner in his marriage. The only women he ever met, though, were New London's elite, and although they were all well-educated—the Coalition would never allow a member planet to keep half its population in ignorance—the New London marriage market seemed to sap every ounce of good sense out of them.
"…don't you think, Wiltshire?" the king said, snapping Edward's attention back to his monarch.
"Yes, your majesty," he replied automatically.
The king laughed. "I knew you weren't listening."
Edward scrabbled through his memory, trying to determine what he had agreed to.
Finally, George took pity on him. "I know you have a number of progressive ideas," he began, and Edward schooled his face to show nothing.
"I simply think we can find a way to join the rest of the Coalition in the twenty-eighth century without losing our own values." At the king's upraised hand, Edward stopped speaking instantly, his obedience to the monarchy having been drilled into him all his life. They might be cousins, but George was the king. The many liberties he granted Edward as a family member only went so far.
"As I was saying," George continued, raising one eyebrow in mild irritation at Edward's faux pas in practically interrupting him. "We are not opposed to some of the changes you propose. And We agree with you that Our alliance with the Coriolis Quadrant is much to be desired.
"However, We do not believe that you can convince Parliament to agree with you—not, that is, without a show of faith that you truly believe in New London's core values. And We very much want Parliament to agree to this alliance."
Edward didn't miss the shift from the more informal use of I to the royal We. Whatever George was about to say to him came with the force of a royal edict, no matter how casual the setting might be.
And he was afraid he knew exactly what that not-quite-edict might be.
Oh, damnation.
"We expect you to make a real effort to find a proper wife before the end of this Season, Wiltshire. In fact, it would be best if you could do so before Boxing Day."
Boxing Day?
That means I have … Edward calculated. Not nearly enough time to find what I'm looking for.
Even as he was preparing to respond, his mind was scrambling for any possible way out. "My mother has been talking to you again, hasn't she?"
His monarch gave him a sidelong glance. "Her intervention does not make the need for your marriage any less acute."
I should have known she'd exert auntly pressure on him eventually.
Still, there was really only one answer he could possibly give.
Like a rat in a maze—only one possible exit.
With a gulp, he gathered his courage, and replied.
"Yes, your majesty."
Chapter Two
"THEY MURDER TREES FOR DECORATION?"
Gabbi gaped at the display in the shop window as the carriage—an actual carriage, drawn by a live horse—made its tortuously slow way through the cobblestone streets.
"Apparently." Kiara Sadana, seated across from Gabbi, managed to contain her own wide-eyed staring to the occasional slow blink at something incongruous. Like the row of horse-drawn carriages that had been lined up outside the spaceport when they arrived, while air-shuttles whizzed by overhead.
Kiara had not said anything about her
own feelings on the matter when they stepped out into the cold air planet-side, but Gabbi spared a longing glance for the fast-moving shuttles before she allowed herself to be herded into one of the carriages.
That's why she's the diplomat, and I'm the bodyguard.
In the end, those were the roles they had fallen into, anyway. Whatever their individual assignments might be, each woman had a part to play in what Gabbi was beginning to fear might end up being some strange, politically motivated farce.
Having completed the New London module of the cultural sensitivity course, as ordered, Gabbi now knew that the nobility of the planet aimed for what they called "authenticity" with a fervor that sometimes seemed to verge on religious zeal. Mostly, authenticity seemed to consist of avoiding the overt consumption of technology—and flaunting the consumption of anything that required human handicraft to create.
The detailed knowledge required to participate in their society ended up being more nuanced than she'd expected, so Gabbi had downloaded a cultural dictionary to bring with her.
The New Londoners disapproved of visible tech, however. Not even the most basic of photonic displays were accepted for public use, whether through plasti-screens or virtual reality implants, though there were rumors that the planet's elite all used much of the Coalition's tech privately. Since she'd be discouraged from using her VR implants in public—the CS course had shown New Londoners describing people engaged in VR retrieval as gauche and déclassé—Gabbi had also brought a copy of the information she thought she might need downloaded to a practically ancient tablet, disguised to look like a book.
She ran her fingers across the oddly textured covering for it.
"It's apparently designed to look like actual animal skin," she confided to Kiara, when she realized the other woman had been watching her.
"What does it say about the worship of dead trees?" the ambassador asked.
Gabbi keyed in the request. "Huh. Actually one of the approved anachronisms—it's called a Christmas Tree, and is from about a hundred years later than the time-period New Londoners consider authentic. One of the early planetary monarchs created a special dispensation for its inclusion in their annual winter holiday." She set the display to hover above the book, and the women admired it for a moment.
Outside the window, the cityscape changed at the rate of the clip-clop of the horses' hooves, shifting from sleek, modern buildings around the spaceport, to standard Galactic housing that even included some high-rises, to the inner circle of New London Town, where the most powerful of the planet's elite nobility resided.
Without, even the most basic of amenities, at least on the surface. The streetlamps glowed with actual fire—and how that isn't a health hazard, I can't even begin to imagine. Gabbi shook her head in dismay.
The dead trees in the shop windows were similarly lit with candles, and festooned with long strands of what looked like food on strings. Some sort of red berries, and possibly—she checked the display—popcorn? A grain heated until it exploded, according to her tablet.
As the carriage left the commercial portion of the inner city, the streets grew darker and the buildings farther apart.
"This can't possibly be safe," Gabbi murmured. Despite all the assurances she and Kiara had received to the contrary, the lieutenant was beginning to think it might have been wise to bring a whole squad of bodyguards.
Safety stats be damned.
"Have you ever seen anyplace planet-side so dark?" Kiara asked, finally giving into the urge to gawk now that no one but Gabbi was likely to see her.
"Not on a planet that's been inhabited as long as this one has." The carriage made a turn onto a private drive, passing through two tall, stone gates.
"Even from a ship's viewport, there's light. You can see the stars." Kiara tilted her head against the window glass to look at the sky. "Too many clouds here."
For the first time, it occurred to Gabbi that Kiara might actually be anxious about her upcoming marriage to the ruler of this planet. The other woman seemed so self-assured, so calm and unruffled, that it seemed a foregone conclusion she'd do what was right for the Coalition without ever looking back.
"What would happen if you backed out of this arrangement?" Gabbi asked quietly.
Kiara raised startled brown eyes to meet her bodyguard's. After a long moment, her full lips tightened, and she shook her head. "Not possible," she said shortly. She turned away again to the stare out the window, her long, brown hair falling down around her face and covering her expression.
With a nod, Gabbi squared her own shoulders.
If this had to happen, she would do everything she possibly could to make it go smoothly.
***
Inside Greystone Park Manor, Edward took another swig of brandy before setting the cut crystal glass on the sideboard to continue pacing the length of the receiving room closest to the front entrance, where he was most likely to hear his future queen's arrival. He might not be able to openly track the new ambassadoress's progress toward the Manor, but his staff had alerted him when she left the spaceport, and he trusted Graves, his valet-turned-butler, to pass word to him from below-stairs when her carriage made the turn onto the grounds.
Not for the first time, he considered how much easier this would all be if his ancestors hadn't decided to eschew modern technology in favor of recreating a lifestyle that hadn't actually existed in centuries.
Not that they had been willing to actually regress to a pre-technological era.
Oh, no.
New London was all about appearances.
Like my need to appear invested in our traditions by finding a bride by Boxing Day.
Edward sneered as he picked up the glass again. With a sigh, he threw himself into a wingback chair near the fireplace and downed the rest of the drink. Getting good and drunk before meeting the king's own bride might not be the best idea he'd ever had—but the longer he paced and drank, the better the plan seemed.
When he originally suggested to his king that it might be beneficial to consider a marriage merger between New London and one of the more powerful planets in the Coriolis Quadrant, the duke had been mostly joking—he'd meant it as a lead-in to some of his more realistic, progressive ideas.
But his cousin had taken the idea and run with it. So far, and in general, the rest of New London society had also been enamored of the idea—it played into all their overly traditional, romanticized ideas about arranged marriages for royalty, even if such marriages had never actually been the norm on New London.
Now the entire planet is gearing up to celebrate a royal Christmas wedding, and George is determined to drag me down the aisle with him.
The duke would have liked to damn his sovereign's eyes, but he couldn't quite overcome his own training to that degree, even in his imagination.
With more notice, Edward might have been able to import his own wife.
Boxing Day.
Curse it.
Outside the windows, he heard the clop of horses' hooves and the rattle of carriage wheels. Right on time, Graves opened the door. "Your Grace, the ambassadoress's carriage has arrived. Shall we show her in?"
The Duke stood up and tugged at the bottom of his waistcoat. "No. I'll greet them in the foyer."
"Very good, sir." Graves paused, then stepped up to carefully straighten Edward's cravat. "There you are, sir."
"Thank you, Graves." Edward moved toward the door, then paused. "Has my mother arrived yet?"
"No, Your Grace."
Knowing his audible sigh violated about twelve rules of New London etiquette, the Duke of New Wiltshire pulled his mother's training around him like invisible armor, and went to meet the guests whose behavior he would ultimately be held responsible for.
Chapter Three
"AND THIS IS LIEUTENANT GABBI ESSER, my bodyguard." In the wide space of the manor's foyer, the ambassadoress gestured to the attentive figure hovering behind her.
"Welcome to New London." The duke offered an elega
nt bow.
The young woman—surely too young to be in the military? Small, anyway—stepped forward and bobbed a slight, ungainly curtsey in his direction. He couldn't tell much about her under her ill-fitting dress and mismatched bonnet, but she seemed attentive enough for a bodyguard, at least.
Their clothing would have to be dealt with, Edward reflected. If his mother were here, she already would have spirited them away to some women's enclave in the manor, where all the difficulties of their appearance and manners would be swept aside under her guidance.
His head was already beginning to hurt as he considered how to best deal with them until the Dowager Duchess arrived.
I shouldn't have had the brandy.
After all, this was why King George had arranged for them to stay with Edward, at least initially. As one of the realm's most travelled Peers, he was unlikely to find anything the women did shocking. And his mother could be trusted to step in to train them to act in ways that wouldn't alarm the rest of the peerage.
I'll simply need to offer a model of behavior.
God knew he had the training for it.
No better time to begin than the present, he decided. With a new determination to make the best of what he was beginning to realize might be a difficult, bizarre situation, he stepped forward to take the ambassadoress's traveling cloak from her.
As he moved to circle around slightly behind Kiara Sadana, his king's bride stiffened, and her bodyguard spun into action.
In that instant, Edward realized he'd made a mistake, but it was too late to stop his forward motion.
Before his hands could land on the ambassadoress's shoulders, the lieutenant had dropped into a crouch and used one foot to sweep his legs out from under him. By the time he hit the marble floor, she had him in a chokehold, a small dagger—and where had that come from?—at his throat.
Her own cloak swirled to a halt, floating down to settle over his prone form. She crouched over him like some wild creature, her blond curls billowing out around her now that she had thrown off the hideous bonnet. Her blue-grey eyes snapped an implicit threat as his household staff froze, uncertain how to deal with an actual, physical attack on their duke.
Baby, it's Cold in Space: Eight Science Fiction Romances Page 47
