Baby, it's Cold in Space: Eight Science Fiction Romances

by Margo Bond Collins

  She was absolutely stunning.

  Oh, some voice inside Edward breathed. I must have her.

  New London tradition be damned.

  Oh, yes. Either Edward was even drunker than he had anticipated, or he had just found his bride.

  Now he simply had to convince her.

  ***

  Kiara's horrified stare was Gabbi's first real clue that she had misstepped.

  Badly.

  Everything about this house had set her on edge, from the moment she had set foot inside the enormous entryway. She'd joined the Galactic Coalition Marines to broaden her horizons—there weren't many other options for a plebe on Niven 6 who wasn't willing to work the mines. She was good at her job, too—she got along with her coworkers, no matter their planet of origin, she'd been to seven different planets since she joined up, and for all that she'd resisted it at first, this assignment proved that her superiors knew her strengths and her value.

  But this place—Greystone Manor—flummoxed her, with its slick stone flooring and useless ornamental wall flourishes.

  This entire structure belonged to one man?

  It could house a whole familial compound in the city where she'd grown up. All she'd been able to think of as they stood in an entryway of completely wasted space was the single bed she'd shared with her true-sib until they were sixteen, and therefore old enough to enroll in youth training for military enlistment. The first time she'd been assigned her very own bunk on a ship, she'd felt almost wasteful.

  So when the Duke of Wiltshire had moved toward Kiara, Gabbi had been rattled. Still, that was no excuse to attack the man.

  And now she had to figure out how to extricate all of them from this situation.

  All she could manage to do, however, was stare wide-eyed at the duke's servants, whose gazes matched hers.

  Gabbi muttered a curse under her breath. The duke snorted, and that seemed to break the spell.

  Kiara dropped down to kneel beside them and gently peeled the dagger out of Gabbi's hand. "It's okay, Lieutenant," she murmured. "I believe the duke was merely trying to take my outerwear from me."

  Gabbi glanced from Kiara down to the duke, who was still lying on the floor, his gaze glued to her face.

  A heated flush raced up her chest and across her face.

  "I am so sorry—" She searched her memory for the correct address to a New London duke.

  Especially one I've just taken down to the ground in his own home.

  "Quite all right," the duke said, allowing Gabbi to help him sit up. "No harm done." His comment seemed to spur his staff into action to help him up, a flurry of activity covering, for a moment, the opening and closing of the outer door.

  "Edward," a strident female voice called out. "Please do tell: what on New London is going on here?"

  ***

  If Gabbi thought everyone had been stiff and formal before the Dowager Duchess of Wiltshire arrived, it was nothing compared to how everyone acted after she showed up.

  Once the duke had scrambled to his feet, the dowager duchess—also maybe Lady Victoria? These New Londoner titles were so damned confusing in real life, though they had seemed straightforward enough in the manual—had, in one grand, circular arm motion, like a conductor beginning a symphony, gained everyone's attention. Then, with only a few words, she sent everyone else in the foyer spinning off in a dozen different directions to complete some arcane tasks, leaving behind only Gabbi, Kiara, the duke, the dowager duchess, and one maidservant.

  "Now, my dear," she said to the duke, "what have you done to welcome these young women?"

  The duke, who only moments before had seemed dangerous and threatening, now stifled a grin. "Well, I began with a welcoming pratfall here in the foyer."

  "A pratfall?" The dowager duchess, on the other hand, did not show any signs of amusement at all.

  "Yes. For everyone's amusement, and much to my own humiliation, I slipped and fell on my—"

  "Edward." The dowager duchess raised one eyebrow.

  "—and the lieutenant here was kindly assisting me back to my feet when you arrived," the duke finished smoothly.

  "I see." His mother's tone suggested she didn't believe anything he had to say, but was accepting it for the sake of convenience.

  Amazing how much she can pack into two words. I need to study that.

  But not until this current mess was straightened out. Gabbi glanced at Kiara, only to discover that the dowager duchess held the ambassador's gaze, too—everyone else in the room was held captive by the older woman's mere presence.

  Gabbi had seen a few other people with that kind of charisma—mostly admirals, and a few officers on the fast-track up the career ladder. She was surprised to find a woman commanding that kind of attention and respect here, on a planet where traditionally, men held all the power.

  "So you've done nothing to see to their comfort, then." The duchess rolled her eyes, and said to the two off-worlders, "Please do allow Millie to show you to your suite, and I shall join you shortly." She gestured to the maidservant who'd remained behind. "Assuming the household hasn't entirely collapsed, your luggage should have been delivered by now."

  The comment was clearly a dismissal, as well as something of a dig at her son. Gabbi and Kiara fell in behind the maidservant, and followed her meekly up a wide center staircase, down several hallways, and to a door that Gabbi didn't think she'd be able to find again without a guide.

  When the maid had finished showing them through the suite—literally, an entire suite of rooms for just the two of them, including not one, but two bathing rooms and another space designated for nothing more than merely sitting—Kiara collapsed onto a chair and stared at Gabbi, wide-eyed.

  "What have I gotten myself into?" she whispered.

  Although the two women had spent a Standard week together, going over what they might need to know of New London, Gabbi didn't think either of them had fully comprehended what it might be like to actually live on the planet, to interact with the people who were part of the culture that had seemed bizarre and slightly quaint when encountered through the photons of a cultural sensitivity course.

  But, as the saying went, out of the air and onto the ground was a different matter altogether.

  "What's Coriolis Moon IX like?" The women hadn't discussed their home worlds much during the trip, and Gabbi hadn't done a CS course on Kiara's planet of origin.

  Maybe I should.

  "Oh, I don't know," the ambassador sighed. "Bright. Lots of sunshine and flowers and colors. Everything here seems so drab."

  Gabbi glanced around the rooms—all with different colored paint on the walls, and framed images hanging at almost every level—and stifled a slightly hysterical laugh.

  "Almost everything on Niven 6 is gray," she said. "The buildings, the sky, the clothes."

  Kiara blinked at her, then sat up straight. "We've both trained for this," she said.

  Gabbi followed her lead, stiffening her spine and raising her chin, as if standing in formation. "Yes," she agreed, nodding. "We know what we're doing."

  "We're here to do a job," the ambassador continued. "We've encountered cultural differences before. We can do this."

  "Of course you can," the dowager duchess's voice echoed from the doorway. "And I am here to make certain you manage it with grace and style."

  Well. Good frickin' luck with that part. We might be doing well to manage it without causing an interplanetary incident.

  Chapter Four

  WELL, THAT WAS A BARELY AVERTED DISASTER.

  Edward rubbed his hands across his eyes and considered the astrological etymology of the word disaster.

  Leave it to Mother to swoop in like an avenging angel and save us all.

  And now he was mixing his metaphors.

  Definitely no more brandy for me tonight.

  Not that he would need it, given how he felt after the intoxicating exchange with the glorious Lieutenant Esser.

  Who didn't say a single wor
d, a wry internal voice pointed out.

  Well, he could take care of that. He had weeks to work on her before his Boxing Day deadline.

  "Graves," he called out, knowing that his butler had keyed the manor's voice-activated bell system to alert him to the duke's requests. "Please meet me in the library."

  Once there, he continued the pacing he had begun in the front parlor earlier, albeit for a different reason.

  "Your Grace?" Graves inquired as he entered, carefully shutting the door behind him.

  "I want you to find out everything you can about the ambassadoress's bodyguard." Edward's words were clipped. "Planet of origin, age, genetic enhancements, family background. Everything."

  "Very well, Your Grace." Graves hesitated, just enough to let Edward know he had a question that might be considered indelicate.

  "Ask." He waved his hand in a circle to speed the butler along.

  "Most of that information will be available in His Majesty's report."

  "Of course. Get what you can there, then go deeper. Use any source you can. I want to know everything about this woman." He continued pacing, his brows drawn down in thought. She was a soldier. He would have to woo her like a general. It wouldn't be a seduction, but a campaign.

  Yes. That felt right.

  "Should I alert the household, Your Grace?"

  Alert the household? To his romantic affairs? "I should imagine not," he said, affronted.

  "Do you believe she is a danger to His Majesty? Or the future queen? Should we have her removed from the manor?"

  "A danger?" Edward repeated. "Good God, no, man." He blinked at his servant for a long moment, then burst out laughing. "No, no, Graves. She's no threat to the king."

  He moved to the nearest window and stared out into the darkness.

  "In fact, if I have my way, she's my future duchess. She'll be here forever."

  ***

  I don't think I can stay on this gods-awful planet for one more minute.

  Gabbi took a deep breath—or rather, tried to. The dress the dowager duchess had arranged to have her strapped into was bulky and constricting, and it was all Gabbi could do to stand up straight in it, much less move.

  "What's wrong with the one I was wearing?" she'd asked. She'd been able to move well enough in that one to knock the duke over—even if thinking about it now still made her blush.

  "It's at least three seasons out of date," the duke's mother had proclaimed with a sniff.

  That had been half an hour ago, when Gabbi had been willing to listen to the duchess's advice.

  Now, she had decided she loathed the woman, whose every other word served as another criticism of Gabbi's clothing, speech, or movement.

  The rest of her words were designed to criticize Kiara, whose expression had moved from pleasant, through neutral, and was now verging on openly rebellious.

  "If you are going to be queen, you will need to not only know these things, but embody them," the dowager duchess was now saying to the ambassador.

  "I suspect, however, that it will be acceptable if I don't embody 'walking in an uncomfortable dress' within an hour of my arrival on the planet," Kiara snapped, in the first open show of ill temper Gabbi had ever seen from her.

  "Mm. Perhaps we could all use some tea. Millie, could you please ring for service?" The duchess's response was milder than Gabbi would have anticipated on first meeting the woman.

  Or second or third meeting, possibly.

  Maybe she wasn't quite the hardened battle-ax Gabbi had been envisioning her as.

  The maidservant stepped out of the room, presumably to do whatever it took to "ring for service." Gabbi started to follow her, in case she ever needed to call for assistance while they were here, but the duchess stopped her.

  "Please don't. Millie would be … embarrassed."

  So many rules.

  "Why?" If she was going to follow all the rules, she needed to know the reasoning behind at least some of them.

  "It's considered bad manners." The duchess seemed prepared to leave it at that, but it wasn't enough.

  Gabbi drew a frustrated breath.

  Luckily, Kiara intervened for her. "What about it is unmannerly?"

  The duchess blinked, surprised to have to explain it further. "Oh. She'll be using the house intercom system." She gestured them all to a small table in the corner of the room, and continued speaking when they had all taken a seat. "That's a job the servant class takes very seriously—and guards jealously—so we members of the peerage and nobility do our best to leave it to them."

  "I see," Kiara murmured. "What started as a tradition becomes a guarded right?"

  "Indeed," the duchess agreed.

  "But I'm neither a peer nor nobility," Gabbi argued. "I'm technically Kiara's bodyguard, so I should be able to use the house system just in case."

  The dowager duchess regarded her with hooded eyes. "Traditionally, as a guest of the house, you fall under His Grace's protection, and should therefore have no need to protect Lady Kiara." Gabbi didn’t' miss the slight emphasis on Kiara's new honorific.

  "That doesn't change my obligation to Lady Kiara," she pressed.

  "Perhaps not." The duchess continued to regard her seriously, tapping the wooden tabletop. "If you learn the system, could you give up access to it when the time comes?"

  Gabbi blinked at her. "'When the time comes?' What does that even mean?"

  "Maybe nothing." The older woman shook her head, as if throwing off an unwanted thought. "After tea, I'll have Millie instruct you in the use of the system." She paused. "Please do tell my son that you requested it."

  "Of course." Gabbi nodded, satisfied, and Kiara dropped one eyelid in a shiver of a wink in her direction, which Gabbi took as a sign of approval.

  Just then the tea arrived, served on ornate dishes with ridiculously tiny pastries. "Thank you, Millie," the dowager duchess said, before turning back to the off-worlder women. "This is perhaps a good time to teach you the art of serving at the tea-table."

  Having gained her point about the house electronics system, Gabbi bit back her irritation now.

  I can be polite. Even if I will never, in a billion years, have to serve anyone tea.

  Chapter Five

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Edward poured himself a cup of tea, giving himself leave to imagine, for a moment, Gabbi Esser's golden halo of curls across the table from him, falling over her face as she poured their tea.

  Rein it in, man. You haven't yet gained her affections.

  But in his thirty-five years on this planet, he had never once failed to gain an objective—not once he'd set his mind on it.

  Granted, none of the women he had pursued had been the sort he'd wanted to marry. And none of the ones who had set their caps at him had gotten anywhere close. So he didn't have any actual experience in the marriage market.

  Then again, neither did Miss Esser.

  Or is it Miss Gabbi? I don't even know what to call her.

  He really needed to get his hands on that report he'd ordered Graves to compile. Perhaps his butler would have it ready before this evening's Winter Ball, the opening of the Christmas holiday festivities and the official introduction of King George to his betrothed.

  Not to mention, Edward's first real chance to begin wooing his own intended.

  Graves had obviously told his wife, the head housekeeper, about Edward's marriage plans, and the news had spread through the staff like a New London blue-fire, one of the semi-annual wildfires that shot through the planet's indigenous plants, stripping them of all signs of life within hours.

  In the case of his household servants, the shock of the news that he planned to marry the woman who had attacked him, thereby making a crazy off-worlder their duchess, had shown in their overly careful movements around him.

  Their tip-toeing might have made him angry under other circumstances. Right now, though, it set off a wild desire to laugh aloud.

  The whole situation was ridiculous. He knew it. But it didn't m
atter.

  For once, I'm going after what I want. The realm be damned.

  Lucky for New London, though, he suspected his personal desires were in this case exactly in line with what the planet needed—much like the blue-fire itself, which made way for new growth, he anticipated his marriage to an off-worlder would spur his society to positive change.

  I can always hope.

  ***

  Dear gods, I hope we're allowed to take a break before we actually leave for the Winter Ball.

  Gabbi carefully sat up straight and took one tiny, genteel sip from her miniature teacup, certain that one unintended twitch would cause it to shatter it in her hand. Gingerly, she set it back down on the saucer.

  I may need to avoid food and drink altogether tonight.

  The duchess—one of the servants, after flinching several times, had finally whispered to Gabbi that (for some reason not covered in the manual) the duchess wasn't referred to as "dowager" until her son married—had finally allowed the off-worlder women to collapse sometime after midnight local time the night before, and arrived again with breakfast to coach them on the proper use of far too many utensils during meals.

  I applied for diplomatic duty, she reminded herself.

  In her imagination, though, she was always stationed on a major planet, like Coriolis Prime, or Retah's Envy. Someplace with normal cultural values, where she didn't have to undergo grueling training sessions merely to eat.

  Of all the planets in the universe, she ended up on New London.

  Kiara continued to appear calm and unruffled, taking in the duchess's lessons with those serious, dark eyes. If they hadn't spent the last week in close quarters, Gabbi might not have noticed the tense, determined line of the other woman's jaw.