Now Playing on Outworld 5730

by R. T. W. Lipkin

  “The good wine tonight,” Calvert said. “And, Cook, can you make that dessert with all the layers? But I think a light lunch today. There won’t be time to eat with all the gossip.”

  “They most certainly will not kill each other,” Jewel Allman said on her way out of the kitchen, praying that she was right.

  Chapter 41

  Violet tried to follow Trevelton after Saybrook picked up his rifle and left the garden, but Lady Patience held her back.

  “Leave him alone, Lettie,” Lady Patience said. “I’ve never seen a man so angry.” Even her own nasty father, a man of frequent angry outbursts, had never seemed so angry to her as Lord Trevelton had seemed. But even more disturbing was the icy calm that’d settled over Lord Saybrook.

  “But they’re going to kill each other,” Violet said, pleading.

  “They might, Lettie,” said Lady Patience. “But there’s naught we can do about it.”

  “You don’t understand, my lady,” said Violet.

  “But I do, Lettie. I do,” said Lady Patience. “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”

  Lady Patience started walking toward the pastures behind the manor house, congratulating herself for remembering that perhaps Lettie might not want to walk around the lake, which was the favored route of nearly everyone at Hollyhock. Violet followed Lady Patience, a step behind.

  “Come on, Lettie. We need to walk this off.” Lady Patience waited for Violet to catch up with her.

  “Just this morning,” Violet said, then started crying. “I’m sorry, my lady.”

  “He broke up with you, didn’t he?” Lady Patience said.

  “I thought no one knew about us,” Violet said through her tears.

  “Everyone knows,” Lady Patience said. “Neither of you is very good at hiding it. And the way both of you would disappear at the exact same moment. Not very creative, really.”

  “I’m sorry, my lady,” Violet said.

  “No need to be sorry. Look what a lovely do you gave me this morning! I’ve had many compliments.” Lady Patience turned her head to one side, then the other, showing Violet her elegant hairdo, patting it in appreciation.

  “Thank you, my lady.” Violet sniffled, then started crying again.

  “He’s clearly no good for you, Lettie,” Lady Patience said. “Too arrogant by far. Just move on. That’s what I always do.”

  “You do, my lady?”

  “Absolutely,” Lady Patience said.

  Lying was always a comfort to the other person, Lady Patience knew, and this kind of lie always worked best. That it had taken her five years to recover from her last failed relationship was not something she felt would help Lettie at this moment. Or ever.

  “Thank you, my lady,” said Violet.

  “You know Lord Trevelton pretty well by now,” Lady Patience said. “Does he talk about this Charlotte a lot?” She was dying to know who Charlotte was, since she seemed to be the cause of the proceedings in the garden.

  “Never, my lady.” Violet was no longer crying.

  “Never?” Lady Patience and Violet both stopped walking.

  They’d come to the gate of the maze, where neither of them had been before. Lady Patience hadn’t known a maze existed at Hollyhock, although it made sense. They were all the rage in Regency England. Maybe. Or were they in decline by then? She should’ve paid better attention at the orientations, but she’d had other things on her mind.

  At any rate, she and Lettie were here now. There was the maze. And it was very tempting.

  “Let’s go inside, shall we?” Lady Patience said. “Nothing like a maze to take one’s mind off the idiocy of men.”

  “If you say so, my lady,” Violet said.

  “I say so,” Lady Patience said as she opened the gate. The hinges screeched as the door opened.

  “Ouch,” Lady Patience said. “What a noise.”

  The two women walked into the maze, which was overgrown with weeds, and the hedges all needing trimming and pruning. Yet it was still eerily beautiful, and Lady Patience and Violet both gasped in delighted surprise.

  “What a hidden treasure!” Lady Patience said. “I don’t think I knew it was here.”

  “Neither did I, my lady,” Violet said.

  “Is Calvert easy to work for?” Lady Patience said as the two women stepped carefully onto a gravel path threaded through with weeds and grasses.

  “Yes, my lady,” said Violet as a slithery creature worked its way under a bush.

  “Looks like a lizard,” said Lady Patience. “I didn’t know they had them here.”

  “No, my lady,” Violet said. “Nor I.”

  They reached a dead end and had to retrace their steps, although Lady Patience wasn’t sure they weren’t now going in an entirely different direction.

  In places the vegetation formed a canopy, obstructing the sunlight and making the maze seem even eerier and also more mysteriously beautiful.

  “It’s unusual for a black man to be a butler, isn’t it?” Lady Patience said.

  “I wouldn’t know, my lady,” Violet said.

  “Don’t cry again, Lettie. Please.”

  “No, my lady,” Violet said as the tears ran down her cheeks.

  “He’s simply not worth it, you know,” Lady Patience said. She herself had come to the majestic hoping to find a mate, something she hadn’t been able to accomplish as Pamela Hyland on Outworld 75. She’d be just as happy to never see the place for the rest of her life.

  They reached another dead end and turned back yet again. Would they ever find the center? And if they did, could they manage to get out? The maze was far larger and more complex than Lady Patience had suspected.

  “I love him so,” Violet said, sobbing now, and Lady Patience embraced Violet, who held on to her.

  “They’ll kill each other, my lady,” Violet said.

  “Then we must stop them,” Lady Patience said. But she had no idea how.

  Chapter 42

  Jewel Allman, after an hour of searching, finally found Lord Saybrook in the stables. He’d just thrown the saddle over a gray speckled horse and was tightening the cinch.

  “My lord,” Jewel said when what she wanted to say was Listen here, Wyatt Conroy, I’ve had just about enough of your antics. You’re ruining the majestic for everyone.

  “Mrs. Allman,” the earl said, checking out the saddle, the bridle, and then patting the horse on his flank.

  “There’s a rumor going about . . .” she started.

  “Not a rumor,” Saybrook said. “Excuse me.” He led the horse past Jewel and toward the stable door.

  “It simply cannot happen,” Jewel said.

  “Can’t it?” Saybrook said, raising an eyebrow at Jewel.

  As much as she’d grown to dislike Trevelton—the one man she’d had such great hopes for before the majestic had begun—she was starting to absolutely despise Saybrook and couldn’t figure out why he’d bothered to come to Hollyhock when he was hardly ever present for anything and seemed disinterested in all the women she’d been so anxious for him to meet and in all the activities that she’d arranged.

  She’d never known a player to make such a great expenditure and then piss it all away on hunting, fishing, and riding. You could do all that at one of the mountain resorts on Outworld 35, and for a much smaller outlay.

  That Saybrook seemed to know the duke had been advantageous at first, she’d thought, but now, with the duke back on Earth and his return in question, Saybrook was becoming more and more of a cipher and, with the upcoming threatened duel, an absolute liability.

  “Lord Saybrook,” Jewel said.

  Saybrook and his horse both ignored Jewel and exited the stables. Outside, Saybrook mounted the speckled gray with practiced ease, turned toward the outer pastures, and rode off without another word.

  I’ve wondered how Claude Sims could bear up, she thought. After that player died. That she could have the same problem herself in eighteen hours sent a chill through her heart. Foolish of he
r to have been so relieved when Violet Aldrich finally recovered from outworld sickness. She should’ve known right then that this majestic was massively tainted, if not totally doomed.

  This was supposed to have been the most elegant, the best attended, the most richly in-depth majestic she’d ever produced. How had it turned into this?

  The duke gone, the duchess in her rooms most of the time, the worst case of outworld sickness she’d ever encountered, her main hope having a singularly public affair with a woman who’d turned out to be the most disobedient actor she’d ever hired, Lady Patience dissatisfied with Calvert, who Jewel had thought was perhaps her only reliable staff member, and now a duel.

  In the future, if she had a future as a majestic producer, which future she was doubting more by the minute, she’d have to run more thorough investigations on all the participants—players and actors alike.

  Obviously, Saybrook and Trevelton knew each other in life, and she was suspecting that one or both of them had come to the majestic just so they could have this duel, an activity that would get them both permanently exiled from Earth but that would go unnoticed here on Outworld 5730.

  Short of murder, no one cared what anyone did at a majestic. That was one of their great and most enduring attractions. A majestic was something you engaged in as an indulgence. A place to go to be the self you wished you were, to have liaisons that were never expected to last, to feel free of duty, obligation, and the daily demands of actual life.

  Jewel worked hard to make sure that all the players were happy, were enjoying themselves, had everything they wanted and needed, and were suitably entertained. She had several enticing events planned to keep things going and had actually become glad that Trevelton was fucking that naïve lady’s maid, because it’d given everyone something else to focus on after the duke had had to go back to Earth.

  Gossip was as essential to a majestic as the clothing, the manners, the rituals, the food, the décor, the grounds, the titles, the atmosphere, and the activities. Maybe gossip was the most essential element of a majestic, keeping everyone interested, helping people to forget that there was another world out there, one that they’d deliberately cut themselves off from.

  Jewel didn’t need to remind herself of any of these things as she trudged into the woods on her way to the outkeeper’s house. If Saybrook was going to ignore her, riding off at a gallop, then she’d have to find Trevelton and have him stop the duel.

  It could not happen. It would not happen.

  The idea of the duel was one thing. This would keep everyone in a scintillatingly expectant state for the afternoon and evening, and this majestic needed some excitement, needed the level of interpersonal tension to froth up, get sexier.

  But that would be the end of it. Tomorrow morning at dawn, there would be no duel.

  When she got to the outkeeper’s house, however, Trevelton wasn’t there, even though she’d been certain he would be.

  Damn him and damn Saybrook. She thought of riding over to Brixton to have a chat with their historitor, Thalia Rivers, see if perhaps she’d have a brilliant idea, but she didn’t want to admit to anyone, not even her friend Thalia, that she was in over her head.

  Had she gone to Brixton, though, she would’ve found Thalia Rivers overseeing the exuberant chaos as the staff there ran about preparing for an early-morning trip to Hollyhock, replete with an elaborate breakfast picnic. Everyone was charged up with the thrill of seeing the upcoming duel, the topic of the day.

  Thalia couldn’t believe her extraordinary good luck. After the outbreak of the virus and the cancellation of the ball at Hollyhock, she’d been grasping for something to liven up her majestic. And now, without having thought or planned or done anything, this duel had just been handed to her.

  It was perfect—an event she had no direct involvement in, that could never blow back to harm her, but that her players and staff could thrill to. Utterly perfect.

  Chapter 43

  Of course Saybrook had chosen pistols. Trevelton worked this enraging thought around in his mind as he sat between the roots of a huge tree, just out of sight of the hut, waiting for Jewel Allman to return to the manor house so he could get back inside.

  The ground and the tree bark were chillingly damp, as was everything on Outworld 5730 pretty much all the time since he’d gotten here.

  Did Jewel Allman really think she could stop the duel? She might be the historitor, the producer of the majestic, but she had no control over its participants. He watched as she knocked on the door, then peered into the windows, then gave up and walked back the way she’d come.

  He waited a few more minutes, then got up and went into the hut. He refused to think of it as the tree house.

  Of course the bastard had chosen pistols. Damn him to perdition.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to’ve played out. Not in Trevelton’s imagination, where the duel had been executed with swords, as any proper duel should be. And not with pistols, which he had scant experience and even less skill with.

  And that the traitorous predator had called him Ephraim, right in front of the two women. What fantastic gall. How had he not murdered him where he stood? The rifle was on the ground. Trevelton could have picked it up and smashed Wyatt’s brains in with it. Or shot him, if he could’ve figured out how to work the damn thing.

  Why had he bothered to bring two smallswords with him? Had he really thought that he’d get to have this duel the way he’d planned it?

  Still, he could outshoot Wyatt, couldn’t he? It wasn’t like they were going to have an accuracy competition, pointing at targets or birds. This was a onetime event—and either of them could win out. Rain, wind, the thin atmosphere on this godforsaken outworld—surely even the disloyal bastard’s aim would be affected.

  Damn him.

  Damn Violet as well. What had she been doing there in the garden, flirting so outrageously? Hadn’t she been in love with him just hours earlier?

  But that would have made her all that much more appealing to Saybrook, Trevelton realized. Because Wyatt was interested only in women who were in love with his good friend.

  Seven years at the Acres, thinking that Wyatt Conroy was his trusted friend, his fellow idealist. Someone you could count on not just now but into the infinite future. Someone solid and steady and dependable.

  The selfsame things he’d thought about Charlotte Churchill, that her affections were for only him, that her word was truth itself, that they would spend their lives together. He could still sense the weight of her mass of thick flaxen hair blowing behind her as they raced their horses along the path they always took, past the neighbor’s thicket and into the open fields.

  Back inside the hut, Trevelton stared at the remains of the breakfast, involuntarily smiling when he thought of how Violet had eaten that buttered bread, as though she were ingesting heaven itself.

  Then, hardly two hours later, she was ready to give herself to Saybrook.

  But, unlike Charlotte Churchill, Violet Aldrich had made no promises to Trevelton, nor he to her. He congratulated himself for at least that and for having broken up with her that morning, finally giving himself the impetus he needed to have it out with Saybrook. With Wyatt Conroy.

  Because even though tomorrow morning the marquess and the earl would pace off the distance before taking aim, it would be Ephraim Croft and Wyatt Conroy who would put a fitting end to their once-glorious friendship, not two ersatz nineteenth-century noblemen.

  Trevelton sat at the table, brushed aside the last traces of breakfast, and put his head down on his arms.

  If only Violet were there with him now, he thought. He’d make love to her as he never had before, as he’d never dared to before, forgetting both the past and the future.

  But he’d lost Violet too, as he’d lost Charlotte. He lifted his head from his arms and leaned back in his chair. His upcoming, planned-for revenge wasn’t having the salubrious effect that he’d always known it would.

  Instead, h
e watched the door, hoping Violet would return, hoping she’d come back to him despite everything he’d said and not said. Thinking for moments at a time that his wishes were strong enough, passionate enough, to reach her awareness, to bring her to him.

  Wishing he could change everything that had happened so far on this ill-fated day.

  But the door remained closed and the rains started up again, the fiercest they’d been.

  Chapter 44

  Vernie Dalston and Baron North sat in their usual seats at dinner, leaving the chair between them—Trevelton’s place—empty, even though no one thought he’d put in an appearance tonight. As much as everyone might have wanted to see either one, or both, of tomorrow’s duelers, it was much better that neither was present, since the table talk could flow freely.

  Vernie leaned over, behind the absent Trevelton’s chair, and whispered to the baron. “I heard she tried all afternoon to stop them.”

  “And end our fun?”

  Vernie laughed a bit too loudly, then turned to the gentleman on her right, a viscount who’d arrived at Hollyhock a week after the other players.

  “Lord Fitzmore, what do you think?” she said after she swallowed a rather too-large hunk of pheasant pie.

  “I think Cook’s outdone herself tonight,” he said, still chewing.

  “Oh yes, she has,” Vernie said. “But I meant about the . . . you know. The marquess and the earl.”

  “They make a very fine couple,” the viscount said without looking at Vernie.

  “Didn’t you hear?” Vernie said.

  “They broke up?” The viscount looked over his shoulder, away from Vernie. His plate was empty, and a footman soon arrived to see if he required any further food, which he did.

  Vernie leaned over and whispered to the viscount as the footman expertly transferred another wedge of pheasant pie to his plate. “They’re having a duel tomorrow morning. At dawn,” she whispered.

  “Are they, now?” The viscount looked up from the pie and looked past Vernie, spearing Baron North with his gaze.