Now Playing on Outworld 5730

by R. T. W. Lipkin

  There was no word he could put there. They hadn’t been a couple, although they had been together.

  When they’d been the main object of gossip at Hollyhock? When he was using her the same way he’d used Becky when he was at the Acres? To assure himself that he was a great lover without having to actually love anyone?

  Of course when Wyatt brought Becky up, Ephraim adamantly insisted that he’d never bedded her and that her ideas of love were mere wishful thinking and delusions. At any rate, Becky had gone off with the fellow who was poised to take over the company that produced the big-deal fabulas. Hadn’t she?

  Was this the very man who was now the producer of the show that Violet was going back to be in? The universe couldn’t possibly be that small, Ephraim thought.

  Johnny was standing at his elbow, holding the wine bottle, and Trevelton nodded at him as he refilled his glass.

  Becky would be instantly obscured anywhere in the vicinity of Violet’s firmament. Trevelton drained his glass and gestured to Johnny, who refilled it again before Trevelton took the bottle out of his hands and set it on the table next to his glass.

  This wasn’t done, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t done for a marquess to attend to a sick lady’s maid either, but he’d done that as well. He was paying for this majestic, wasn’t he? He could do whatever he damn well pleased.

  If he wanted to have a carefree affair with one of the players who’d been crawling over him since the day of the duel, he could do that. He could go over to Brixton and have his choice of any of the women there. Or the men, if he’d been so inclined. The historitor there, Thalia Rivers, had practically thrown herself at him the afternoon they’d had the Hollyhock group over for a picnic.

  He’d thought Violet would have been helping out that day. Couldn’t Cook use all the workers she could corral? Wasn’t that the sort of thing Violet did when she wasn’t doing whatever the hell it was that a lady’s maid did? What Etterly did, he supposed, and then he thought that Etterly would never stoop to helping out in the kitchen. So perhaps Violet didn’t either.

  And she had to make preparations for returning for that idiot fabula, didn’t she? Mirage was the name of the thing. Everyone talked about it in terms that made it seem as though it were a high art form as well as a depiction of something real and deeply true. Yet its very name told you it was nothing. How ridiculous the entire enterprise was.

  But Violet would be extraordinary in it. That much was unquestionable. Her iridescent green eyes, that gorgeous mane of chestnut hair. He knew she had to be an exceptionally good actor despite his never having seen her act.

  He restrained himself from picking up the bottle and drinking directly from it and poured himself another glass.

  The duke was having a lively conversation with the tallest woman at Hollyhock, who was sitting to his right. Trevelton had never found out her name, even on any of the nights she’d offered herself to him.

  He’d go home on the next transport. He needed to see the fields again, to regain his connection to the land, to return to being Ephraim Croft, a Northumberland farmer. To stop thinking about Violet Aldrich and how much he wanted her.

  Chapter 85

  Dinner, after dinner, the talking, the flirting, the alcohol consumption—every bit of it at an all-time high. It would never end. Nicholas had traveled halfway across the galaxy to get back to 5730 to be with Marguerite, who needed him, yet he’d hardly spoken a word to her since his arrival.

  She’d been in her rooms with her lady’s maid, Allene, a woman so unobtrusive as to be nearly invisible, yet Nicholas was aware of her presence and couldn’t say any of the things he’d wanted to, except how glad he was to be back. That and “I love you, darling” were all he’d had a chance to utter.

  Marguerite looked especially beautiful tonight, he thought. Her auburn hair swept up, her skin glowing with a radiance that seemed possible only in daylight. Yet here in the candlelit dining room of the manor, she herself was the daylight.

  But she was separated from him by several people, including the very tall, very nosy Lady Katherine, whose conversational range was startlingly narrow for someone who was able to hold forth for fifteen minutes at a stretch without taking a breath.

  After dinner, in the lounge, he’d been anxious to talk with Wyatt, who seemed to have become a different person in the duke’s absence, no longer shunning the starchy and arrogant Lord Trevelton but instead having what seemed to be a serious conversation with him.

  When he’d approached them, Wyatt had said he’d better fill him in on the duel, and Nicholas braced himself for more of the usual majestic nonsense but was instead fascinated by what had happened between the two men.

  And when he heard that it was Calvert who’d engineered the outcome, he reminded himself again that he really had to do something for this man who was inexplicably playing the part of a butler in a frivolous Regency-era majestic instead of taking his place in the real world, where he obviously belonged.

  Although Nicholas himself might not belong there. Had he lost his grip on his business while he was busy romancing Marguerite at these high-toned frolics? And the oddest thing had happened immediately as he’d stepped off the transport—he’d become Edgar Thomas Samuelson, the Duke of Bedford.

  He wasn’t Nicholas Coburn playing the part of the duke, he was the duke. He felt like he was home. Hollyhock Manor embraced him somehow. He hadn’t had this experience at any other majestic he attended, and he had no clue why this was happening now. Nicholas Coburn plunged into an unseen background, letting the duke take over.

  How were the estate’s tenants doing? He hadn’t visited them recently, if he ever had done. What were his plans for modernizing the manor house, the agriculture, the attitudes of the community? He’d discuss all this with Saybrook and even with the insufferable Trevelton, who was more clever than he’d thought.

  Tonight he’d make love to the duchess and they’d talk about the future.

  But when the dinner and the after-dinner activities wound down and he went up to Sophia’s rooms with her, the sham fell away. He wasn’t a duke. There were probably no tenants at Hollyhock—how could there be?

  He had to confront Marguerite right now.

  “Your Grace, will this be to your liking?” said Allene Dickens, who seemed to be glued to Marguerite. The lady’s maid was displaying a filmy nightgown, laid out over her arms like she were a salesclerk showing it off.

  “That’s fine, Allene,” said Sophia as she sat at her vanity and waited for her lady’s maid to fix her hair for bedtime.

  Allene started taking out the pins and had nearly undone one of the elaborate braids at Sophia’s nape when Nicholas couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “You may go now,” he said to Allene, whose name he couldn’t remember. He’d barely recognized her earlier. She was a chameleon, he thought. A cipher.

  “But, Edgar,” Sophia said, looking at her reflection and his. He was standing off to the side, and they were looking at each other in the mirror.

  “Immediately,” he said to Allene, who’d hesitated before leaving, but swiftly left now.

  Nicholas locked the door behind her.

  “Talk to me,” he said to Marguerite.

  Marguerite didn’t turn around, but continued the job that Allene had started, unpinning her braids, taking them out, brushing her hair. She took off her necklace, and Nicholas noticed her hand lingering at her throat. But she said nothing.

  “You’re very quiet for someone who sent for me from halfway across the galaxy,” he said.

  “I never sent for you.”

  “I suppose that Calvert took it upon himself to contact me?”

  “I never sent for you.” She finally turned around to look at him directly instead of at his reflection in the mirror.

  “You think I just returned on my own? After what’s happened?”

  “If I’d sent for you it would be to tell you in person how despicable you are. How low. How untrustworthy and d
evious. How I despise you.”

  Chapter 86

  From his vantage point at the far end of the corridor, Johnny studied Allene. She’d been standing by the door to the duchess’s rooms for quite a while, and he was certain she was listening in.

  Something odd was going on with her, the least-appealing woman at the majestic. The most boring.

  How anyone could be that boring was beyond Johnny. Everything and everyone interested him. It was the only way to keep going, especially if you were stuck being a footman in a Regency-era majestic. You had to find interest where you could.

  So, in a way, Allene was the most interesting woman at the majestic, since she was the most boring. Johnny had been determined to get to the bottom of her personality, yet it remained forever on its gray, even surface, never admitting even a glimpse of what lay beneath.

  He wished Rosie would let go a little, live it up. Sure, they were servants, but the pay was good and they were here on Outworld 5730 and not toiling underground somewhere or slaving away on fiery 217. And there was fun to be had at Hollyhock.

  If he couldn’t have Violet—and he’d tried many times—he’d settle for Harriette, who did have a set of skills that were unknown to Mrs. Allman. Quite a set. Johnny smiled, thinking about their planned meeting tonight.

  But Rosie had no one, and she’d said too many times how if their sister couldn’t have anyone, neither could she. They were twins, after all, and they’d shared everything until Samantha had succumbed to the rush flu and was now paralyzed and unable to speak or move or care for herself.

  Working majestics was the only way Johnny and Rosie were able to come up with enough money for Samantha’s care, and all their money was spent for just that. Even more of a reason to find amusement where you could, Johnny reasoned, and had said as much to Rosie on a thousand occasions.

  Why was Allene Dickens still standing there?

  Johnny had come upstairs to deliver yet another bottle of wine to the seemingly insatiable Lord Trevelton. How he never seemed to get drunk was a trick Johnny wished he could learn, along with the trick of how to interest Violet Aldrich in you.

  Although Violet was leaving now. He’d get to see her in Mirage, which would be exciting, although there was no way to see a fabula when you were in a majestic. That was one of the reasons the pay was so good—you were working all the time, in whatever supposed century or era they put you in, cut off from your own world all the time, and in character all the time. All the time.

  What was the character of a footman? Useful, jovial, and mischievous. At least that’s how Johnny played it. Back before Samantha’s illness, he’d been even more jovial and mischievous, and he remembered it vividly and could play it expertly. He’d wanted to be an actor himself, but had never had the training or the opportunity.

  It wasn’t so bad being Johnny the footman, though. And he’d get to see Harriette again tonight, which he was looking forward to.

  He was far down the corridor, still watching the unmoving Allene, stationed at the doorway, when he heard the shouts coming from the duchess’s rooms. Johnny ran down the corridor. If help were needed, he’d be there. And if not, he’d find out what the commotion was about.

  “Don’t scare me like that,” Allene said under her breath as Johnny came up behind her.

  “What’s so interesting in there?” said Johnny as he pointed to the door. The shouting had stopped by the time he arrived.

  “I have to protect the duchess,” Allene said. “It’s my duty.”

  “The hell it is,” Johnny said. “You’re a plain old snoop.”

  “When I want to send for you halfway across the galaxy, I’ll do it myself!” came the shout from the other side of the door.

  “Calm down, Sophia,” said the duke, whose voice was somewhat softer than the duchess’s, yet loud enough to hear.

  “This is rich,” Johnny whispered into Allene’s ear. She flinched at the contact and swatted at him.

  “This is your fault!” shouted the duchess. Johnny was pretty sure everyone in this wing of Hollyhock would be able to hear her, which would make his reporting of the incident somewhat less fun. Yet he was practically an eyewitness, so his account of what was going on would have some extra weight.

  Johnny and Allene both reflexively jumped back as something crashed against the inside of the door.

  “How dare you do this to me!” The duchess’s accusation was punctuated by the sounds of more breaking glass and what seemed to be the crack of a mirror’s surface.

  “This isn’t something you play around with!”

  This time, instead of breaking something else, the duchess merely screamed, but it was so loud it brought Trevelton out of his room several doors away, and other doors in the corridor opened as well.

  Chapter 87

  “Sophia, try to calm yourself,” the duke said as he heard the knock on the door.

  “I’m going to open it, so collect yourself,” he said. The duke unlocked the door, then stood in its part-open frame, hiding the duchess from the sight of anyone in the corridor.

  “Just making sure you wouldn’t need some assistance, Your Grace,” Johnny said before Trevelton made it to his side.

  “It’s always like this when I come back from a trip,” the duke said. He and Sophia had had an epic fight at the start of the majestic and everyone knew about it, so he hoped that explanation would be sufficient to keep the onlookers—and the resulting gossip—to a minimum.

  Trevelton was there now, not just some who-cares servant or Jewel Allman, and the marquess had his eyebrow cocked in an expression of total disbelief. But when Trevelton said, “Let’s leave them to it, Johnny,” the duke was quite relieved and gave him an appreciative nod, then closed and relocked the door.

  Nicholas took advantage of the break in the argument to urge Marguerite to go into her dressing room with him. Because it was far enough from the corridor and protected on both sides by her own rooms he thought it more than likely that no one would hear them there.

  She fought him all the way, but seemed more relaxed by the time he’d urged her to sit on the sole chair in the narrow, windowless room. He sat on the floor in front of her.

  “Just tell me what it is I’m supposed to have done.” He still had no idea. She’d been ranting continuously about how he’d deceived her and lied to her and betrayed her and—this seemed to be the worst of his crimes—tricked her. At what? At returning home when she wanted him there with her? At deserting her during the only time they could be together?

  “Marguerite, you know I had to go back or I never would have left you,” he said. Yet that seemed to further infuriate her.

  “You know exactly why you left me. That supposed fire at your factory was just an excuse to get away so you wouldn’t have to face my wrath.”

  Nicholas stood up. “Marguerite, stop it. Three people died in that fire. Do you think I would make up something like that? Be reasonable for once.”

  “I’m reasonable,” she said, fuming. “I’m reasonable enough for two people. In fact, I am two people.”

  “Marguerite, don’t. Let’s just be ourselves and forget this majestic. You’re not two people—Sophia and Marguerite. You’re just Marguerite Idrest. The woman I love. Talk to me.”

  “Stop playing stupid, Edgar,” Marguerite said. She’d deliberately used the duke’s name instead of his. Why was she so furious with him?

  “You have precisely what you wanted,” Marguerite said, “and now you’ve decided to not just deceive me but to torture me as well.”

  Nicholas punched his fist into the wall. “I have nothing that I wanted. My main factory’s burnt to the ground, three people are dead, and the only woman I’ve ever loved won’t leave her despicable husband to be with me. Damn you, Marguerite, tell me what’s going on before I go mad.”

  “This is what’s going on,” Marguerite said. She stood up then, pulled her gown off over her head, and stripped off her underclothes. Nicholas undid his cravat and moved
toward her, sure she was showing him that it was time to stop arguing and start making love, but she pushed him aside.

  “This is what’s going on,” Marguerite said again as she turned to the side and showed Nicholas her bulging abdomen. “You damned sneaky bastard.”

  “My God, Marguerite.” Nicholas stared at Marguerite’s gorgeous body, at the swelling at her waist that could mean only one thing. “You’re pregnant?”

  “No need to act surprised. It can only be your fault.”

  “Then it’s not Idrest’s?” He reached out his hand to touch her belly, but she brushed it aside.

  “Nicholas Coburn! You did this. You wanted an heir!”

  “But, Marguerite.” He ran his hand through his wavy brown hair and told himself to be calm when what he wanted was nothing more than to shout to the heavens that Marguerite was calling him by his real name and that she was pregnant with their child.

  “How could you possibly be so underhanded? I always thought you loved me.”

  “Of course I love you. Never doubt that.” He said the last with venom. If Marguerite Idrest didn’t know that he loved her, then he’d give up all hope in anything and everything else.

  “Then how could you do this to me?”

  Chapter 88

  Violet could hear the commotion from her room on the fourth floor. The duke and duchess were at it again, she supposed. They’d argued like that when he’d shown up late for the majestic, and now that he was back, they’d picked up where they left off.

  It must be marvelous to be able to scream and yell at your lover, she thought. How she’d love to let Booker Holm know what she thought of him. Stand him up—wouldn’t the rigor help with that?—force him to listen, break some of his precious objects—none of which had been worth a halfpenny at the death auction—and let him know how his lies had nearly felled her.