Now Playing on Outworld 5730

by R. T. W. Lipkin

  Earlier this morning he’d been watching Jewel and Lady Patience strolling off somewhere, their heads bent close to each other’s, no doubt discussing what could be done to raise the mood of everyone at this gloomier-by-the-minute majestic, which was quickly turning into a disaster.

  Calvert knew why the duke—Nicholas Coburn, that is—had had to go back to Earth, and he was skeptical that the man would ever return.

  No matter how much someone might be enjoying their dalliance with a beautiful woman—and the duchess was nothing if not extraordinarily beautiful—there was real life to attend to, for those who had a real life.

  Calvert himself had no real life. He had only this, and he had to cling to it, stay in it, dedicate himself to it, and embody it. Like a meditation, he thought. The thoughts could pass into his consciousness, but they could also pass out. He could see the fire that had killed his beloved wife and daughter, but he could also see it leaving his field of thought.

  He could hear their cries, but those cries had always been imagined, since he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t seen the fire either. Only the aftermath.

  Such fires were common on Outworld 217, he’d been told. Afterward. The toxic building materials everyone was forced to use, since that’s all that was available, the overabundance of oxygen in the atmosphere—which had at first made Outworld 217 seem like a paradise—and the unpredictable lightning storms formed a deadly combination.

  Yet the other workers in the encampment had stayed. Their houses hadn’t been affected, their wives and daughters hadn’t died, and they needed the work. Monte Rice decided he didn’t need the work anymore, spent his remaining funds for passage back to Earth, and had almost immediately decided that from now on he’d work only at majestics, where he could bury himself in a role that would obliterate his past.

  Jewel Allman had hired him at his very first audition, and he thanked his wife and daughter for having roped him into acting in the community theater production that they’d both been so involved with, because without that experience, he wasn’t sure he’d know how to be someone else.

  Yet now he was expert at being someone else. Being not Monte Rice, devastated widower, but Mr. Calvert—did he even have a first name?—the butler of Hollyhock Manor, one of Regency England’s grandest estates.

  He drank some of Cook’s exceptionally good coffee and looked out the window. He was certainly not waiting for Jewel and Lady Patience to come back from their walk. Even though he’d like another glimpse of Lady Patience’s hairdo, which had been quite beautiful that morning, the sun showing off her dyed blond glory, her neck tantalizingly bare.

  He laughed at himself. A black man playing a butler in Regency England. It was too absurd, yet everyone seemed to accept him in his role. Even he accepted himself in his role—the first of many he intended to play for the rest of his life.

  Yes, this was how to do it. How to overcome grief. How to separate yourself from the past. Be someone else.

  He nodded to himself and got up. There were matters to attend to. He pulled down his coat and decided his first name was Eli. A man needed a first name. Even a butler.

  Chapter 38

  Violet ran down the servants’ staircase, rushed through the kitchen, brushed by Mr. Calvert, and bolted out the back door. Lady Patience, returning from her morning walk, had looked up at Violet’s window at the exact moment that Violet had been looking into the garden, and LP had waved her closed fan at Violet, summoning her in that unmistakably commanding way she had.

  Probably not part of proper fan etiquette, Violet thought, but she got the message. She had to attend to LP before LP got back to the house.

  If things had gone as she’d expected this morning, she wouldn’t’ve been in her room. She would’ve been in Trevelton’s arms, or perhaps he would’ve been in hers, and maybe they would’ve been making love for the second time by now.

  When Violet got to the garden, LP was nowhere in evidence. Where had she gone to?

  “Slow down,” said Saybrook as Violet scampered by.

  “Yes, my lord,” Violet said over her shoulder. She had to find LP. Hadn’t she been in the garden just moments ago?

  “No rest for the wicked,” Saybrook said to her back.

  Violet stopped. “What, my lord?”

  “At the least,” Saybrook said.

  “I can’t know what you mean, my lord,” Violet said. Had she done something wrong? Was she supposed to be calling him Your Royal High God or something? Damn these Regency manners.

  “Everyone knows about you and Trevelton,” Saybrook said. He pushed his dark blond hair away from his face, smudging his cheek with mud in the process.

  Violet turned to face him. Saybrook, unlike Trevelton, was a rumpled mess, replete with filthy boots, a shirt that looked as though it hadn’t been washed in days, an inexpertly tied cravat, and a rifle, cracked open, slung through his arm, as though he were either on his way to or from a hunt.

  Yet despite all this, despite his poor posture and careless manner, he was an incredibly attractive man. Maybe even more attractive than the pale-skinned, dark-haired Trevelton, if that were possible.

  “There’s nothing to know,” Violet said. It’s over.

  Maybe she’d have Saybrook next. As long as she was going to bed inappropriate men, she might as well pick the next one right now and get it over with. After all, what could he do? Break up with her? Die on her and leave her with a galaxyful of debts?

  “I rather think your coyness is uncalled for in the face of all the evidence.”

  “There’s no evidence. My lord,” Violet said. What evidence could there possibly be?

  “You mean that hut in the woods where the two of you fornicate every day wouldn’t be considered evidence?” Saybrook was smirking now. A smirk even more adept than Trevelton’s practiced expression, the one Violet had grown to both love and hate. Yet similar in an eerie way.

  “How would you know about that?” Violet said, regretting her words the moment they’d left her mouth. “My lord,” she added.

  The two of them faced each other. Violet, with her arms folded across her chest, and Saybrook, in his usual slouch, one hand cradled around the break-action rifle and the other on his hip.

  “I wouldn’t think you’d be his type,” Saybrook said.

  “Trevelton and I have nothing to do with each other!” Violet said, shouting. A window on the third floor opened slightly—both Violet and Saybrook heard its groan—but neither of them looked up to see who’d raised it.

  “He prefers blondes,” Saybrook said.

  “Let him,” Violet said.

  “He couldn’t possibly appreciate you,” Saybrook said. “But I, on the other hand . . .”

  “Oh, Lettie, there you are,” said Lady Patience. “I thought you were going to meet me on the hillside.”

  “Sorry, my lady,” Violet said, thanking the fates that LP had finally appeared. She had to get away from Saybrook before . . . although hadn’t she been planning to take up with him? Show Trevelton she couldn’t be discarded like a broken toy? And wasn’t Saybrook flirting with her?

  “Lady Patience,” Saybrook said, bowing slightly.

  “Lord Saybrook,” Lady Patience said, nodding. “Lovely day. Except for the rain, of course. But the sun’s almost shining now.”

  “Ah yes,” Saybrook said. “Almost.” He repositioned the rifle and shifted his weight to his other hip. “I was just telling your lady’s maid here that everyone knows about her and Trevelton.”

  “Oh my,” Lady Patience said, looking back and forth between Violet and Saybrook.

  Violet dropped her arms and stared at the far corner of the garden, a place where neither LP nor Saybrook was located. If she were back in Los Angeles, she’d simply tell off this oaf and be done with it. If she were back in Los Angeles, she wouldn’t be a lady’s maid. If . . . But here . . . what could she do and not get fired?

  “That little hut in the woods,” Saybrook said.

 
“Really?” Lady Patience said. “I hadn’t heard about that part.”

  So everyone really did know, Violet thought, horrified.

  “Absolutely,” Saybrook said. “Their love nest. Quite cozy. You really should see it.”

  Lady Patience put her hand up to her hair and looked away from Saybrook. “Lettie, I think we should go in now.”

  “I could take you there,” Saybrook said.

  “Really, Lord Saybrook,” Lady Patience said. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Seducing both of them?” Lord Trevelton’s sarcastic words scalded the gathering.

  Chapter 39

  “Just like you to turn up at the wrong moment,” Saybrook said, straightening up slightly.

  “You would say that, wouldn’t you?” Trevelton said.

  Violet and Lady Patience both stepped back slightly, sensing the nearly lethal combustion accumulating between the two men.

  “Some of us don’t need to get a hut in the woods in order to satisfy our needs,” Saybrook said, sneering down at his former best friend and roommate.

  “No,” said Trevelton. “Some of us can merely wait around and steal their lovers from other men.”

  “Yet this lovely lady’s maid has as much as told me that she and you have nothing to do with each other,” Saybrook said, grinning as he pointed his rifle-holding arm in Violet’s direction. “So I’m within my rights.”

  “You have no rights, you bloody coward,” said Trevelton.

  “Now, now, boys. It’s turning out to be such a pretty day,” said Lady Patience. “Don’t go spoiling it.” She’d grabbed Violet by the arm and hugged her close.

  “Going to have a threesome, were you?” Trevelton said.

  “Rafe!” Violet shouted, forgetting herself. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I hadn’t considered that, Rafe,” Saybrook said. “But now that you mention it . . .”

  Trevelton, his face hot with rage, lunged for Saybrook’s throat, but Saybrook had quickly closed the breech, lifted up his rifle, and was now pressing the muzzle into Trevelton’s gut.

  “When are you going to learn that what I do isn’t in your jurisdiction?” Saybrook pushed the rifle further into Trevelton, who was fuming but stock-still.

  Violet disengaged herself from the trembling Lady Patience and walked hesitantly toward the two men, neither of them aware of her advance.

  “You should both stop this now,” Violet said, “before it gets any worse.” She reached up to put her hand on Trevelton’s arm, but he brushed her aside and pushed her away from him. She stumbled backward.

  “Stay out of this, you fool,” he said without looking at her.

  “So now she’s a fool, is she?” Saybrook said. “Then you won’t mind if I have her, will you?”

  “Is this how you take your women? At gunpoint?” If Trevelton’s gaze had been capable of such a thing, it would’ve disintegrated Saybrook on the spot.

  “An advancement over sneaking around, I’m sure,” Saybrook said. He was grinning now, straight at Violet, who’d gone back to Lady Patience’s side.

  “Shoot me, why don’t you? Isn’t that what a gun’s for?” Trevelton’s usually pale face was crimson with fury, and he stood up taller, yet he was still not as tall as the slightly stooped Saybrook.

  “Why should I waste a bullet when this is so much more amusing?” Saybrook said. He winked at Violet, and Lady Patience whispered something to her. Violet nodded.

  “Ah, yes. Your amusement. I’d almost forgotten,” Trevelton said. “Your exalted, supreme amusement. Your sacred amusement. Far outranking anything else.”

  “You do understand me, then, Trevelton.” Saybrook winked at Violet again, and she cringed, then pulled Lady Patience back another step.

  “I understand you, Saybrook.” Trevelton hadn’t taken his eyes off him. “I understand that you care for no one and nothing. That you took one look at Charlotte and me and decided nothing would give you more amusement than taking away what we had. That nothing would be more amusing than seducing the most innocent girl you’d ever known.”

  At that, the Earl of Saybrook started laughing.

  “You would think this is funny,” Trevelton said, even more red-faced than he’d been.

  “Rafe Blackstone,” Saybrook said between fits of laughter. “You’re an even bigger idiot than I’d thought possible.”

  The earl dropped his rifle then and laughed so loudly that the partially open window on the third floor was flung open.

  Trevelton kicked the rifle aside and took his former dear friend by the shoulders.

  “I won’t have you laughing at me,” Trevelton said as Saybrook bent over, trying to restrain his unrestrainable fits of laughter.

  “I loved her, damn you,” Trevelton said, and Saybrook finally looked up and stopped laughing.

  “Your insults can no longer be suffered,” Trevelton said. “Tomorrow at dawn?”

  “No!” Violet and Lady Patience said together.

  “It’s time you forgot her, old friend,” Saybrook said. The laughter was gone, replaced by a mask of stony indifference.

  “Dueling’s forbidden,” Lady Patience said. “It’s against the law.”

  “You just can’t,” Violet said.

  “Swords or pistols?” Trevelton stared through Saybrook, burning his fury into the other man’s spirit.

  “Ephraim . . .” Saybrook said.

  “Answer me, man,” Trevelton said. He was still holding Saybrook by his shoulders, and the two of them were trembling.

  “It’s forbidden,” Lady Patience said again. “I won’t allow it.”

  “Pistols,” Saybrook said.

  Chapter 40

  Word spread so quickly that twenty minutes after the scene in the garden had played out, there wasn’t anyone at Hollyhock Manor who didn’t know that the earl and the marquess were planning to have a duel the next morning.

  Johnny had been cleaning the floors in the third-storey rooms and had witnessed the entire confrontation, flying downstairs to tell the staff everything he’d seen and heard.

  “Johnny, really. You do know how to make up a story,” said Rosie.

  Cook, who’d been fussing over the lunch preparations, said, “Did he really have his rifle jammed into the marquess?”

  “Just like I said, Cook. Pushed right into him. I thought the two of them were going to come to blows right then.”

  “You don’t mean it, Johnny.” Rosie was doing her best to clean out the gigantic stove, but it was a hopeless task. “Especially not with Violet right there. And Lady Patience.”

  “What’s all this?” Jewel Allman said. She’d been in her office all morning, not coming out even for breakfast.

  “They’re going to have a duel, Mrs. Allman,” Johnny said.

  “Who is?”

  “Lord Saybrook and Lord Trevelton, Mrs. Allman.” Johnny was grinning with pride, as though he’d brought news of a great treasure he’d just found on the estate grounds.

  “He doesn’t mean it, Mrs. Allman,” said Rosie.

  “He saw them,” Cook said. “God help us.”

  “Tell me everything. From the beginning,” Jewel said. She sat at the table, and Cook brought her over a cup of fresh coffee and a plate of bread and cheeses. Jewel’s favorites.

  “Well, Mrs. Allman, I was upstairs, doing the floors, and I heard this commotion out in the garden.”

  “Eavesdropping,” Rosie said. “It’ll only get you in trouble.”

  “That’s when I saw everything,” Johnny said. “The two of them started arguing, the earl stuck his rifle into the marquess’s middle, and before you can say ham and eggs they were arranging for the duel. Tomorrow morning. At dawn.”

  “Absolutely not,” Jewel Allman said. “This has all gone far enough. While it was just Trevelton having his way with the lady’s maid—that was one thing. A bit of scandal to keep everyone interested. But a duel? Not on my watch.”

  “I’m sure Johnny’s just embellishin
g,” Rosie said.

  “I am not,” Johnny said with defiance.

  “You mean Violet was standing there the whole time?” Rosie looked pleadingly at her brother.

  “She tried to stop it, Rosie,” Johnny said. “You should’ve seen her. I would’ve applauded if I’d been there.”

  “And Lady Patience as well?” Jewel Allman said. “This is just too much to take in.”

  “The two of them—Violet and Lady Patience—they were both magnificent,” Johnny said as though he were giving a review of a theatrical performance. “But the men—now, that was thrilling.”

  Jewel Allman stared at Johnny, who smartly stopped himself before saying, Not the sort of thing you’d ever see in real life.

  “What’s going on out here?” Mr. Calvert came into the kitchen, his almost regal bearing immediately taking over the proceedings.

  “I’m afraid Lord Trevelton and Lord Saybrook are planning on having a duel tomorrow morning,” Jewel Allman said, sighing. “I shall have to stop it immediately.”

  “On the contrary, Mrs. Allman,” said Calvert. “Cook, make sure to lay out extra helpings for breakfast tomorrow. And for dinner tonight, I think we should have a feast. Your pheasant pie will be just the thing—and I believe Lord Saybrook himself is responsible for most of the pheasants, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, Mr. Calvert,” said Cook. “A fine bunch he brought me. But you can’t mean to just let them kill each other. Can you?”

  “I’m going to speak to them right now,” Jewel Allman said as she stood from the table, her coffee and food untouched.

  “They will kill each other,” Johnny said. “I saw it in their eyes. Both of them. Never seen two men so fired up.”

  “Johnny, really. How could you see their eyes?” Rosie was sitting on the floor, one arm as far back into the oven as she could reach. She didn’t turn to look at him.

  “I have perfect vision,” Johnny said, and Rosie couldn’t argue with that. He did have perfect vision. Perhaps he had seen their eyes. But they wouldn’t kill each. They couldn’t. This was a majestic, not reality. Everything was part of a play, part of a fantasy.