Now Playing on Outworld 5730

by R. T. W. Lipkin

  “I knew those two wouldn’t stay mad for long,” said Cook.

  “You know them?” Jewel said. She’d have to take Cook aside and pump her for information when the rest of the kitchen staff wasn’t around.

  “Yes, Mrs. Allman. They’re never any different, they aren’t. Arguing like two warring generals, then making up for days at a time. Without restraint at either extreme.”

  “They’ve already destroyed the study,” Jewel said.

  “Try to keep them out of the kitchen, then,” Cook said.

  “Perhaps I should lock the study door from the outside,” Jewel said. “Try the study again in an hour,” she said to the crew she’d sent upstairs.

  “Two hours is more like it,” said Cook. “Or two days.”

  Chapter 21

  Trevelton finally ran into Saybrook out by the lake, on the very path where he’d tortured Violet three nights ago. He could still feel her straining to keep up with him, her skip-steps stuttering across the overgrown mossy path.

  That frightening fever, which he feared was recurring. Her lips had been both bitter and sweet.

  He’d planned to put Violet out of his mind the moment he saw Saybrook, but he’d often found his thoughts—and emotions—gravitating toward her since their first meeting, and he knew he’d have to discipline himself with greater rigor. Ephraim Croft might have many failings, but a lack of discipline wasn’t among them.

  He straightened further as he approached Saybrook, who’d always affected a careless half slump and still did, Trevelton saw.

  Rafe had to stop himself from calling Saybrook by his real name, Wyatt Conroy, the name he’d known for over two decades. But he figured Saybrook would have a similar difficulty saying Trevelton, since Wyatt and Ephraim had been roommates at the Acres for their entire stay there.

  Their entire carrying-on, dead serious, wildly frivolous, deeply concentrated, beloved stay. Back when they were the closest of friends, confidants, and occasional study partners, although Wyatt’s interests were far different from Ephraim’s. But not in women, or at least in Charlotte.

  “Saybrook, old man,” said Trevelton. “Glad you could stop by.”

  The light reflected from the lake waters glinted off Saybrook’s shoe buckles, which he really should have known better than to wear. Completely out of fashion. Although at least he wasn’t wearing a wig. They were totally passé. All according to Etterly, who seemed to know such things.

  “Trevelton,” Saybrook said. The two former friends stared at each other, inspecting each other’s haircuts, clothes, and demeanors.

  Trevelton was especially looking for any cracks he could find in Saybrook’s persona, but his ruddy complexion looked the same as ever, and his dark blond hair had always been cut Regency style, since there’d been a fad for it during their second year at the Acres, and Saybrook had never changed to something more up-to-date as most everyone else, including Ephraim, had done.

  Trevelton refused to look up, but the half inch Saybrook had on him, even in his perpetual slump, rankled Trevelton anew.

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” Saybrook said rather coldly.

  “Not I,” said Rafe, smiling.

  “Oh?” Saybrook eyed Trevelton with his best put-down gaze.

  “I was hoping to run into you,” said Trevelton. He congratulated himself for not immediately breaking Saybrook’s neck. Better to let him wonder for a while, as he himself had done.

  Or, better yet, live in vain hope, waiting, waiting endlessly. That was truly the worst he could wish for him.

  “Going riding this afternoon?” said Saybrook. The two of them had spent many convivial afternoons riding together back on Earth, even at the Acres, where hardly anyone else engaged in that most ancient pastime. Although not recently. Not since Charlotte.

  “That’s the very reason I’m at Hollyhock,” Trevelton said.

  It was only a partial lie. He loved riding, and since his adored Arabian, Hyperion, had died—shortly after Wyatt had seduced Charlotte—his enthusiasm for horsemanship had dwindled. Besides, half his property had been sold off to finance this trip, and most of what remained was planted. Hardly suitable for the kind of riding Trevelton enjoyed most.

  “The hunting’s good as well,” Saybrook said. “Bedford and I had a decent haul these last few days.”

  “So I heard,” Trevelton said. But guns had only one purpose, and it definitely wasn’t to kill pheasants. Trevelton much preferred his sword anyway.

  Perhaps he belonged in Regency England, he thought. Between his love of horsemanship, his expertise with the smallsword, and his nineteenth-century romantic notions, Ephraim Croft was far more suited to be Rafe Blackstone, Lord Trevelton, than he was to being himself, a man lost in the world of modern-day treachery and unreliable, disloyal comrades.

  “Good friends with the duke, are we, Saybrook?” He half expected to hear Saybrook call Bedford by some unfortunate nickname, like Bunny or Fizz.

  “He’s . . .” Saybrook stopped himself, making it plain that he and whoever the Duke of Bedford really were, were more than casual acquaintances back on Earth.

  “I see,” said Trevelton. “One of your new contacts.”

  “No, you don’t see, Trevelton,” said Saybrook with tremendous annoyance. “You don’t see at all.”

  “My vision has always been exquisitely clear,” said Trevelton, who’d always had remarkably clear vision. Yet he hadn’t seen Wyatt taking Charlotte away from him, even though it’d happened right in front of him in his own damn house.

  “Still proud of your imagined prowess, aren’t you?” Saybrook said. The two knew how to cut each other down better than any enemy ever could.

  “Still unashamed of yours,” Trevelton said. “Good day, sir.”

  Trevelton gave Saybrook his most insincere bow and strode back up the rise toward the manor house.

  On the way, Ephraim congratulated himself for not having thought of Violet Aldrich once during the time he’d been sparring with Saybrook. With Wyatt Conroy, the man who’d taken away the only woman Ephraim Croft had ever loved, the woman he’d been planning his life, his future, his happiness, with.

  Charlotte Churchill, who’d pledged Ephraim her love, her life, her very soul, and who’d given it all away in an instant, victim to Wyatt Conroy’s deceivingly clumsy seduction techniques.

  Chapter 22

  Everything had really been set in motion years ago, Trevelton thought.

  He skirted the manor house and walked toward the extensive woodlands at the southwest corner of Hollyhock Manor, his pace even faster than the one he’d tortured Violet with that night.

  He hadn’t explored this part of the estate yet and wondered if the woods were anything like the dense forest just outside the main campus of the Acres. He and Wyatt had spent many contemplative afternoons exploring that forest, talking, discussing, philosophizing, arguing. Cementing their friendship.

  In his youth, Ephraim had wanted nothing more than to attend the Acres, the most venerable, most ancient, most lauded academic institution on the planet. A schoolmate of his had committed suicide when he’d been denied admittance, but everyone had said he should’ve known better than to’ve applied at all, since the Acres took only the most exceptional applicants.

  Yet Ephraim had applied, although he’d thought he had very little to recommend himself. But when he’d gone for the personal interview—the only extant institution that required an in-person meeting in order to be considered for matriculation—he and the interviewer had found an instant common ground and had spent the hour laughing and telling stories and trading hopes and dreams and plans and ideals.

  Ideals, Trevelton thought bitterly. They’d disintegrated, and perhaps everything he thought was tinged with bitterness now. Since Charlotte.

  As he walked toward the Hollyhock woodlands, he could feel the slight weight of Violet Aldrich still on his shoulder, could feel her sagging in to him, could taste the bittersweet tea on her lips, could f
eel her fevered cheek.

  In accordance with the Acres’ centuries-old tradition, Ephraim and Wyatt had been paired as roommates through a convoluted, secret lottery system. Despite both speculation and outright spying, no one not directly involved in the secret lottery was quite sure how it was done, but it invariably produced exactly the right roommates in precisely the right room, which the mates would occupy during their entire tenure at the Acres.

  Change was allowed only if one of the occupants died, dropped out, was expelled—a rare occurrence—or appeared before the personal tribunal and demanded a switch. No one Ephraim had known in his seven-year stay had ever attended such a tribunal, so perhaps that was merely rumor and not fact.

  He and Wyatt had hit it off immediately, both of them thrilled with the plum room assignment they’d gotten—the high northwest corner overlooking the science complex. The room, because it was in the corner, was twice the size of the average dorm room in the massive antediluvian sandstone structure.

  How lucky they were. How lucky he’d thought he was, Ephraim reminded himself as he entered the woods, which were nothing like the forest near the Acres. The trees were completely different here at Hollyhock, here on Outworld 5730, much taller, and they were more closely spaced together. More forbidding.

  He increased his pace and left the open grounds and gardens of Hollyhock behind him.

  Ephraim had been accepted to the Acres, he’d drawn the finest room in the most desired dorm, and his roommate was none other than the exciting, energetic, curious, brilliant Wyatt Conroy, who would tear through the higher sciences curriculum with the speed and force of the creation of a new galaxy.

  Life was grand. Every day was a new adventure. Arguments were all well meant and invariably dissolved into epic carousals. If there were hints of love, they were hints only, and none were equal to the power and endurance of true friendship and the free exchange of ideas.

  The women Ephraim had known at the Acres had been brilliant, fascinating, sexy, and he’d had his share of their minds and bodies, but none had caused him to fall in love, a subject there was no class for.

  His friendship with Wyatt had been his bulwark for seven years, commencing with the day of their first meeting, and Ephraim had always treasured that relationship, unlike any he’d known either before or after the Acres. It surpassed even family and certainly every childhood acquaintance.

  When he’d returned home to Northumberland, to the family estate and the business of agriculture, which he’d studied extensively in those seven years, he felt a part of him had been excised. The part that was still at the Acres, that was still up late nights with Wyatt and their other friends.

  The part that missed his dearest, lifelong friend, Wyatt Conroy, who’d returned to his home in New Zealand, where he too would take over the family business, Conroy Aerospace.

  Nevertheless, Ephraim had quickly fallen into a routine, and started to deeply appreciate what his family had dedicated their efforts to for the previous fifty generations. He developed a new love for the fields he’d known since his birth, and after a year, when his father presented him with Hyperion, a jet-black Arabian stallion, it was as though he were being restored to his complete self.

  Six months later, he met Charlotte Churchill.

  Chapter 23

  “That’s the third time they’ve knocked,” said the duchess. She and the duke were leaning up against the rear wall of the study. Sophia’s legs were splayed out in front of her. The duke was resting his forearms on his bent knees. Both of their clothes were in disarray and the duke’s shirt was permeated with sweat. His jacket was hanging off the edge of the chair he’d pushed aside earlier.

  “Ignore them, dearest,” said the duke, who traced his hand down the inside of Sophia’s arm. “It’s not like the wreckage is going to get worse.”

  “It’s not?” said the duchess. “Oh, Edgar. I still feel like I could break every single thing in this room. In this house.”

  What she meant was she wanted to break everything inside her grand showplace home on Outworld 75, where she lived with her husband, Clive Idrest, known as an investment strategist.

  Clive was, by her estimation, the coldest, most distant, most severe, most exacting, cruelest human being. Ever. She prayed there was no one else with half his characteristics. If there were, she pitied their wives and families and employees.

  “I’ll help you, then, dearest,” the duke said. “But I think that bronze objet on the windowsill will be a challenge.”

  “I can’t resist a challenge,” Sophia said.

  “Come home with me, Marguerite,” the duke said, breaking out of his role and shocking the duchess. He turned to face her.

  “Sophia,” she said, correcting him. It broke her heart when he called her Marguerite. Clive never called her anything, as though she were undeserving of such niceties.

  “Husbands are so forgetful,” she said, then barked out a laugh.

  Clive forgot nothing—and never let her forget either. And wouldn’t. His hold over her would be broken only by death. On the off years, she often wished for it—either his or hers.

  She could never truly be with Edgar. She could only engage in play with him. Two players, a duke and a duchess. Their false home, Hollyhock Manor.

  She didn’t dare let herself think Edgar’s real name. To think it even once would be stepping off into territory she was forbidden to enter. It was enough that Clive allowed her these biennial majestics, although before she’d left last week he’d threatened to delay the next until five years from this one, not the usual two. And next time, he would pick the destination.

  Since he was paying, she had no say. She had no assets of her own.

  “Sophia, come back,” said the duke. “You’ve gone off somewhere. Behind the Sophia Wall.”

  “You know me too well, Edgar,” she said as she reached over and stroked the soft hairs on his chest. To be able to freely touch someone else, someone you loved. A great privilege, although Edgar didn’t realize that. But she did, and that was enough. This was enough. She rested her head on his shoulder.

  “There’s a ball next weekend,” she said to him. She eyed the still-intact green globe of the handblown lampshade on the desk.

  “I’ve been studying my dancing,” the duke said, pulling Sophia closer to him.

  “I too,” said Sophia. She was suddenly immensely tired. It was exhausting living a pretend life. So much so that being a player in a majestic was a vacation. Here the pretense was well delineated and defined, everyone was playing along and knew it, and she had but to obey certain rules and all would work out as intended.

  On her Outworld 75, though, the limits were continually being reset, often without her knowledge but never without her having to pay the price of every infraction.

  Edgar was the only person she could be herself with, yet each time they saw each other they played different roles, with new names, in yet another historical period. She smiled as she thought of the last majestic, when she’d played the commander of a starship, home on leave, and Edgar—he’d been Bertram that time—was an infamous playboy who gave it all up the moment they met. He’d been extraordinarily romantic as Bertram.

  She sighed. Her love for this man who was now playing the Duke of Bedford was constant, and she knew that his love for her was as well.

  “Don’t make me spend too much time tearing the wall down,” the duke said as another set of knocks sounded on the outside of the oak-paneled door.

  Sophia got up then, readjusted her dress, hastily repinned her hair, and, sidestepping and hopping over the broken glass, answered the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Your Grace,” said Nell, curtsying. “Mrs. Allman sent us to see to . . .”

  “I understand,” said Sophia. “You are?”

  “Nell, Your Grace,” said Nell. “At your service.”

  The duke stayed seated on the floor, invisible from the doorway.

  “Nell, you and your helpers can
return in fifteen minutes. Until then, please cease your knocking.”

  “Oh yes, Your Grace,” said Nell. “Ceasing immediate-like.”

  Nell carefully backed out of the room, her dustpan and brush hidden behind her, and Sophia closed and relocked the door, then started laughing.

  On her tiptoes she worked her way back across the broken glass and jumble of books, pushing past the chair with the duke’s coat on it. She held her hand out to the duke.

  “I suppose we’d better let them tend to things,” the duchess said as the duke took her hand.

  “There are more important things to tend to, my love,” the duke said as he squeezed her hand and tugged her back down onto the floor with him.

  “Like this,” he said.

  Three hours later the door to the study was finally unlocked, and the formerly intact handblown glass lampshade was on the floor not far from its companion, shattered and beyond repair.

  Chapter 24

  It was as though she’d been sent to the twenty-seventh century instead of the nineteenth. Although the plague was probably much worse than mere outworld sickness, which she’d been told was her condition. Cook had whispered it to her during one of the lulls between the fevers and the chills.

  Yet if she’d had the plague, she could die now, find a new role, go somewhere else. Far far extremely very far away from the troublesome Lord Trevelton, the irritating Lady Patience, and the life of a servant.

  Violet looked around her small room, which she could see every micron of from her perch on the narrow bedstead. Bed, table, chair, high dresser, door, hooks on the wall, a low table with a pitcher and basin. A small window.

  At least her room overlooked the back gardens, unlike some rooms in the servants’ quarters, which looked out onto the dark walls opposite or into the sliver of a corridor between building wings.

  Today was the end of not being LP’s lady’s maid. The end of lying abed, of being sick, of being picked up and carried about by Lord Trevelton.