Now Playing on Outworld 5730

by R. T. W. Lipkin

  Mrs. Allman tilted her head and looked straight at Violet. “You don’t have to say. Do you?”

  Violet couldn’t speak.

  “There’s only one possible choice,” Mrs. Allman said as she fondled the letter opener. Violet was afraid Mrs. Allman might hurt herself and wanted to reach out and take the sharp-edged weapon away from her, but she put her hands under her legs.

  “Yes, Mrs. Allman,” Violet said.

  There was only one possible choice. Leave the majestic. Take the job she’d dreamed of, the one she’d so passionately wanted, and wanted for so long. Leave Rafe Blackstone, Lord Trevelton, and the farmer Ephraim Croft. Both of them, neither of them someone she really knew. Treat him as though he were as dead as Booker. And as unreliable.

  She’d never see Rafe again once the majestic was over anyway. So what if it all ended a few weeks earlier than she’d expected? And he’d broken it off with her. And didn’t love her. And couldn’t love her. And still loved Charlotte Churchill.

  “I’ll have Harriette work with you starting tomorrow.”

  Violet remembered the way his beautiful hand had been resting on the tabletop. His words. How foolish everything was. Including us.

  “Yes, Mrs. Allman.”

  Maybe it would be better for everyone, especially for her, if she didn’t see Trevelton at all before she left. She could just avoid him. She knew where he liked to go, what he liked to do. She’d stay away.

  Yes, my lady. No, my lord. She’d spend the rest of her time at the majestic saying only the lines that’d been given her. As she should have done from the beginning.

  She was getting the chance of a lifetime. A part that would launch a brilliant career. The opportunity to work with the best in the business. Mirage. She shook her head in disbelief. So unexpected.

  “You may go now, Violet.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Allman,” said Violet, congratulating herself for sticking to the script. She needed to practice that very skill, since no doubt the director of Mirage would demand this of the cast, and Violet had a tendency to want to improve her lines.

  “Ten days, Violet. Please behave yourself while you’re still here.”

  Violet had no doubt what Mrs. Allman meant. Stay out of Trevelton’s bed. “Yes, Mrs. Allman,” she said as she left the room and went back out into the kitchen.

  Since she wouldn’t go over to the stables, Violet no longer needed the oilskin coat, but she had to have the letter. Yet when she got to the row of pegs on the wall, both the coat and the letter in its pocket were gone.

  Chapter 78

  Calvert had been masterfully both clear and vague. A very useful skill, Nicholas thought even as he was speaking with him. Maybe he could get Calvert to give him some pointers when he got back to 5730, which he was preparing to do.

  He’d accomplished all he could here anyway, the reconstruction was under way, and the ache he was experiencing, the familiar sensation he always got when he’d been apart from Marguerite for too long, had already appeared, even though it usually didn’t arise until he’d been home from a majestic for at least a month.

  But this was different. He’d hardly had his fill of her—making love with her, arguing with her, just being with her, breathing the same air she breathed, as thin as the atmosphere on 5730 was—before he’d had to leave.

  The families of the three victims would be well provided for, although that could never make up for the losses they’d suffered. The Parsons had lost both a sister and a brother. He’d cried with them when he went to their house, and they’d had to console him. He’d left there feeling a sense of shame he hadn’t experienced since childhood.

  The investigators were working hard to determine who’d set the blaze. Nicholas had let them know that he had at least one enemy, who he described as a ruthless business competitor, hoping that Idrest owned at least one company that could be seen as such. He had to be careful to leave Marguerite out of it, not daring to expose her to any of this.

  And if the investigators were unable to come up with anything against Idrest, Nicholas would have to resort to other solutions.

  He had a vast network of connections, but the outworld transports ran on a schedule, and Nicholas would have to wait several days for the next one headed anywhere near 5730. Calvert had known this and was prepared with travel arrangements.

  The man was really being underused, playing the part of a butler in a Regency-era majestic. He should be running his own business instead, Nicholas thought, and wondered why he wasn’t.

  Calvert hadn’t said, but there was something in between the words, inherent in the pauses, that led Nicholas to believe that Marguerite might not be well and that it was serious. She couldn’t possibly have outworld sickness, which he’d heard was occasionally fatal. She’d taken all the proper precautions.

  Although hadn’t that lady’s maid come down with it? Was it contagious? Were the actors not inoculated? And what if that hadn’t been outworld sickness but something else, something more severe, and now Marguerite had it too? She hadn’t seemed like herself the day he’d left. Her face pale. Her stomach upset.

  Going back would be helpful in other ways, since he’d get to talk with Wyatt Conroy. He’d already been in contact with the plant manager in New Zealand, but something about Abel Fulton always gave Nicholas pause. He wasn’t a Conroy and couldn’t possibly care about the business as much as one of the family did.

  Of course it was different with Beau. He was family, more than Nicholas’s actual family was. Beau didn’t trust Fulton either, and had said that Fulton had recently eloped with Wyatt’s fiancée on the very morning Wyatt and she were supposed to’ve gotten married.

  What was so easy for other men, it seemed was nearly impossible for Nicholas. He had to convince Marguerite to leave Clive Idrest.

  This had gone on long enough, seeing her only at majestics, only when they were pretending to be someone else.

  If Marguerite needed him, as Calvert had implied that she did, then how could she continue to stay married to Idrest? He’d have it out with her once and for all when he got back. The very day he got back. He didn’t want to wait. He’d waited long enough.

  But at least Marguerite had asked for him and not for her husband.

  Why did she stay with him? Was it because she lived such a lush lifestyle? Surely she must have realized that he was also quite wealthy. Not like Idrest, certainly, but wealthy enough to afford endless majestics.

  Marguerite, though, didn’t seem like the kind of person whose need for money would keep her with someone she didn’t love. So perhaps she did love Idrest, as hard as that was to stomach. The most notorious weapons dealer in this part of the galaxy, a hard-hearted businessman known to stop at nothing to get what he wanted, all deftly hidden under the guise of investment strategist.

  There’d even been a rumor that he’d killed a former business rival during one of the plague-century majestics. The cause of Eliana Havens’s death had never been determined, and everyone knew that years earlier she’d outbid Idrest for a company they’d been vying for. And that Idrest had been at that majestic.

  If a man could kill someone over a business deal. Or for any reason. Yet Marguerite stayed with Idrest and stopped every discussion Nicholas had initiated on the subject before he had a chance to argue his cause.

  Up until this majestic, though, Idrest had left them alone. Allowing Marguerite to attend, certainly knowing that Nicholas would be there as well. What had changed? Why did Idrest suddenly want to destroy Nicholas’s business and take him away from the majestic and from Marguerite?

  Did Idrest love her?

  “Nicholas, they’re ready for us now.” Beau was at the opening of the tent Nicholas was using. There were several tents set up on the site where the factory used to be. In some ways, Nicholas preferred this to his old office. It was outdoors and he felt freer here. Maybe he’d keep this permanently.

  Nicholas got up and followed Beau. They were going to meet with the archi
tect who was working on the plans for rebuilding the factory.

  “Beau, let me ask you something. If you were in love with your wife”—Beau was a die-hard bachelor so this was quite theoretical—“and she wanted to attend majestics all the time—and she could afford it—would you let her go?”

  “Nick, I know why you’re asking me this.”

  “He can’t love her, can he?”

  “There’s no explanation for love. No definition for it.” Beau’s limp seemed worse today.

  “If only you weren’t right.”

  Chapter 79

  Violet got on her hands and knees and searched every inch of the kitchen anywhere near the coat pegs. As though an envelope could hide on the spotlessly clean floor—Cook kept a nearly sterile kitchen—or slip behind a cabinet or magically relocate itself behind a door.

  “Vi, what on earth are you doing?” Rosie said.

  “I’ve lost something, Rosie.” The image of Booker’s corpse appeared in Violet’s mind’s eye and she couldn’t shake it off. She sat back right where she was, up against the wall.

  “You can’t sit there, Vi. Cook will have a fit.” Rosie reached down and Violet took her hand and stood.

  “Did you see anyone go out in one of those coats?” Violet pointed to the row of empty coat pegs.

  “Vi, sometimes I wonder about you. Everyone is wearing those coats. It’s the only way to protect yourself. It’s been raining for hours. Like it does nearly every day.”

  “I hope no one finds it.”

  “Now I really don’t understand you. You’ve lost something but you hope no one finds it? What could you be thinking? How will you get it back if no one finds it?”

  “No one can find it, Rosie. Not ever.”

  “Johnny said that you were in Mrs. Allman’s office for a long time. I was looking for you.”

  “It’s unbelievable.”

  “Sit down and eat something, Vi. Have you eaten at all since breakfast? You’re talking nonsense.”

  Rosie steered Violet over to the center table and sat her down. They were the only two people in the kitchen, despite the late-afternoon hour and the usual dinner preparation. But Cook had gone up to her room to change, since the hem of her dress had gotten soaked and muddied the last time she went out to the stables, and everyone else had scattered, taking advantage of Cook’s absence.

  Rosie plunked a plate of bread and cheese in front of Violet.

  “Eat. Of course you can’t think. You’re starving.”

  Violet pushed the plate away. “I can’t think about food right now, Rosie. They want me for Mirage.”

  Rosie grabbed Violet’s arm and shook it. “You don’t mean it!”

  “I do, Rosie.” Her eyes blurred with tears.

  “Vi, this is the chance you’ve been waiting for!”

  “I know.” Violet rubbed her eyes, but the tears wouldn’t stop.

  “But you look awful, Vi, if you don’t mind my saying it.”

  “Rosie? What do you want? I mean, really want, more than anything?”

  Rosie answered without hesitation. “My freedom. Freedom to be and do and have anything and everything there might possibly be.”

  “Not love?”

  “Love is part of that freedom, Vi. Everything is part of it.”

  “All I wanted was a part in Mirage. And now that I have it, I feel like dying. Maybe if I’d wanted my freedom instead.”

  “You’re just in shock, Vi. And hungry. Please eat something.”

  Violet picked up a piece of bread and looked at it, then put a slice of cheese on it and looked at it again.

  “Rosie, can you get what you want? Your freedom? Is it even possible?”

  “I will get it, Vi. I have to.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “I have a plan and I have a no-plan.”

  “Rosie. Now you’re confusing me.” Rosie nodded at her and Violet took a bite of the bread and cheese, which tasted sublime. She took another bite.

  “The thing is, Vi, you can’t know what the future holds. So I have a plan and a contingency plan but I also have a no-plan, which is to stay alert and act when the time’s right, even if it isn’t part of the plan.”

  “Why is it that now that I have the very thing I wanted so much—the very thing I would’ve given anything for a few months ago—why is it that now I feel so sad?”

  Violet put another slice of cheese on a piece of bread and ate it quickly while she assembled a proper cheese sandwich, this time using the mustard that Rosie had brought over to the table.

  “I don’t know, Vi, but I have a terrible feeling it has something to do with Lord Trevelton.”

  “He broke up with me.” Violet started in on the sandwich.

  “I know, Vi.”

  “He said he could never love me.” Violet cried while she ate. “This is so good, Rosie. Thank you.” Tears streamed down her face, but Violet was smiling.

  “He’s no good for you, Vi. Anyone can see that.” Rosie got up to get water and some more food for Violet.

  “I can’t see that.”

  “You got the part you were dreaming of, Vi.”

  Chapter 80

  Even though it simply wasn’t done, Lord Saybrook didn’t have a valet. Wyatt had told Jewel Allman long before the majestic started that he didn’t want to have anyone fussing about him. He was here to hunt and fish and ride, not get trussed up like a dandy and affect some set of antique manners and mannerisms.

  If his cravat didn’t look right, then the hell with it. It’d be crooked or wrong or unfashionable. Just pretend he was that kind of earl. They must’ve had noblemen like that back in the days of the Prince Regent. If not, he’d just invented such a person. The kind who didn’t care.

  The kind whose lover had left him for his personalityless plant manager on their wedding day.

  Like the fool that he was, he’d waited for her. Even more foolish, he’d thought of contacting Ephraim, the one person he’d always turned to when he was distressed.

  That was the very thing that had been wrong from the beginning. Right when Charlotte had first started telling him how Ephraim had lied to her, had cheated on her, had told her that he’d never be faithful even after they married, since he was incapable of such ludicrous behavior, behavior that was suitable for someone from centuries ago, but not now.

  That had sounded like Eph. After what he’d done to Becky, who’d been so in love with him. Seven years at the Acres and yet Eph had never had one serious girlfriend despite the innumerable wonderfully, passionately brilliant women there.

  Although Wyatt hadn’t had a serious girlfriend either. He and Ephraim had had each other. That was their serious relationship—a relationship of unbreakable friendship, of inherent trust and loyalty.

  Destroyed in the very moment Charlotte Churchill came between them.

  Wyatt had believed her every word, told to him with her sincere deep blue eyes. Told to him while she stood so close to him, luring him into her trap.

  Ephraim didn’t love her, she’d said, and she’d known the very second she first laid eyes on Wyatt that he was her true love and that the only reason she’d met Ephraim was so that she could find Wyatt. Ephraim had been good for at least that much. She’d laughed her marvelously joyous laugh when she said that.

  He’d sat there, waiting for her. His father was pacing about, but Wyatt himself couldn’t move.

  It was the perfect day for a wedding: sunny, bright, slightly cool. The Hauraki Gulf had never been so exquisite. When he proposed to Charlotte—he’d done it on Ephraim’s grounds in Northumberland after he and Charlotte had gone for a morning ride—he’d known that this was where they’d get married. He’d pictured the scene in his head. The serene calm, the endless vistas, one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand.

  But the scene he’d envisioned never materialized. The guests were assembled—he’d acceded to his father and invited many of their business friends and of course everyone from the factor
y—the setting was perfect, but Charlotte was absent.

  Charlotte loved taking risks. He pictured her by the side of the road, run over in a freak accident, mortally wounded, needing help but unable to summon it. Her left hand, the greenstone ring he’d gotten for her covered in blood, reaching out for assistance that would never arrive.

  He’d imagined her at the bottom of the gulf, drowned after swimming out too far, although she was a tremendously proficient swimmer. But she’d been caught, unaware, in a rip current and pulled to her death.

  By the late afternoon he started picturing her back with Ephraim, the two of them laughing about how they’d tricked gullible Wyatt into believing that Charlotte loved him and wanted to marry him.

  In that picture, Charlotte and Ephraim were racing through Northumberland on their horses, wildly pleased with themselves and their cruel plan. Charlotte with her secret smile locked on her exultant face, and Eph urging on Hyperion, his stunning Arabian, as they flew through the countryside.

  Wyatt would murder Ephraim, burn his body, and Charlotte would come back to him, ravaged by grief but finally able to love him.

  By early evening Wyatt was thoroughly convinced Charlotte was dead and that the agency would arrive anytime now and tell them the horrific news—accident, murder, suicide, struck down by a new virus, dead of the terminal illness she’d kept hidden from him. Wyatt braced himself for it, dreading it while also wishing for it, wishing for an end to this endless wait.

  By the middle of the evening, Wyatt joined his father, methodically pacing through the lodge, alert for any sign of Charlotte, thinking she’d appear just now. She had to. It was their wedding day.

  She loved him, and he needed her. Since the break with Ephraim, she was the only true connection to another human being that Wyatt had, or wanted. She would be there with him in a minute, soon, another hour at most. Or just when he’d given up—the time when things often happened. But she refused to appear.

  The guests dispersed after Wyatt told them that Charlotte had been unavoidably detained, even though neither he nor any of the guests believed that. But he couldn’t say more. He could barely say as much as he did.