Jenna Starborn (50 page)

“There is another member of the Joester house who seems eager to be upon good terms with the Raineys,” I teased, for Harmon Joester had not been able to keep his eyes off Deborah tonight. Indeed, her gold-and-flame-colored dress, which revealed far more of her bosom and thigh than Deborah was used to exhibiting, was a perfect choice for her. It set off her lustrous auburn hair and her full, inviting figure, and it was so bright that it was almost impossible to look away from.

She laughed, blushed, and lowered her eyes, but she did not seem at all offended. “Well, fine clothes do make a fine lady, no matter what our sermons might try to teach us to the contrary,” she said. “I do feel beautiful enough tonight to attract the attention of any number of Joesters!”

I leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “I do not believe it is your dress that draws him. I believe it is your soul.” And she laughed again, and blushed even more deeply, and I abandoned the topic, but she did not speak a disclaimer. Indeed, rather late in the evening when the larger group had broken into smaller gatherings for more intimate discussion, I saw Deborah and Harmon in close conversation, by turns looking so serious and so merry that I could not imagine they were discussing anything less comprehensive than the idea of a future spent together. I hoped with all my heart that it were so.

If it were, the announcement was not to be made that night. It was so late that it might almost be called early the next day before our party completely dispersed. Our guests made sleepy farewells, and we host and hostesses called out responses through our yawns as we saw them out the door.

“Great Goddess! I have never been so tired!” Maria exclaimed as we climbed wearily up the stairs to our bedrooms. “I believe I will sleep the whole day through—as any leisured lady might be expected to do.”

And being reminded again of the fact that we were all rich made us laugh even as we made our final drowsy good nights. I crawled into my bed and whiled away the minutes between closing my eyes and falling asleep by wondering if Deborah and Harmon Joester might really decide to marry, and soon. Nothing but news of a bridal could top the excitements of the past few weeks, I reasoned, and I had become so addicted to good fortune that I did not want to see the trend reversed.

But talk of a wedding, though it did arise a few days later, came from a most unexpected source, and threw me into much more turmoil than joy.

T
he weather being exceptionally fine for the past few evenings, as Cody melted into a rapturous spring, Sinclair and I had developed the habit of taking our books and studying outdoors on the small rooftop patio that surmounted the Raineys' house. For some reason, though the Raineys used the patio often during the spring and summer months, this rooftop retreat had never been wired for electricity, so if we wanted light to read by, we had to supply our own. I had found a small battery-operated lamp and I usually carried that upstairs, while Sinclair brought an industrial strength flashlight and balanced it on a pile of books so that it shone on the papers before him.

Although there is nothing even remotely romantic about the steady beam of an electronic bulb, somehow the small, private pools of light created an atmosphere of intimacy this night. The soft night wind blew around us, gently ruffling our hair; below us, the city made its muted but purposeful noises, too distant to worry us, but musical enough to add a pleasant counterpart to our quiet conversation. Sinclair's face was imperfectly lit, so I could not watch the play of his features as he spoke. I merely listened to the fluid, hypnotic rhythms of his voice and thought how lovely his speech was. Lovely enough that, from time to time, I lost the sense of his words and only listened to his cadences, measured and confident. He could have been reciting from the PanEquist's Creed or the Nuclear Technician's Field Handbook, and I would have found his voice equally pleasing.

But he did not, for the moment, appear to be reading from either. I had been listening only idly when a change in his tone brought me to complete attention. “But you have heard me speak such praises before, have you not, Jenna?” he said, and it was the serious note that caused me to sit up straighter and comprehend the individual words. “There must be nothing about Cozakee's attractions and advantages that, by now, you are unfamiliar with.”

“No, indeed,” I said, smiling in the dark. “I believe I could recite for you its discovery, exploration, status, and projected population growth in a few succinct sentences.”

“You realize,” he said somberly, “that I intend to emigrate there, though the notion displeases my sisters.”

“I knew you had seriously considered it. I did not know you had decided.”

I saw the shadow of his head nod over the flashlight's unwavering beam. “Yes. I have made my reservations today on a ship that leaves in two months' time, and I will spend the interim buying all the items I will need to take with me on such a life-changing expedition.”

Clearly, his inheritance had speeded up the possibility of his relocation, and for that reason I was a little sorry to have received my legacy; but it was, after all, his money and his life, and he could do with either what to him seemed most urgent and gratifying. “I do not know what to say,” I said a little hesitantly. “Having found a cousin at such an unexpected juncture in my life, I am loath to lose him—but I truly believe you must follow the course designed to bring you the greatest happiness. And you have fixated so firmly on this course that I would not even try to dissuade you from it, but merely wish the Goddess to guard you in all you do and smile on your endeavors.”

Whether or not the Goddess smiled, he did, a ghostly expression in the insufficient light. “You do not have to lose me at all,” he said. “You could come with me to Cozakee and we could homestead together.”

I felt myself jerk backward from surprise, and I am sure my face showed every variety of astonishment, though mercifully the night cloaked at least some of my expressions. “Go with you—to Cozakee?” I stammered. “I have no thought of leaving Appalachia—I have no desire to uproot my life again.”

“But consider it, Jenna, I beg you most sincerely,” he said, though his tone was more commanding than pleading. “It is true that any of the four of us could now buy our citizenships, but think how much more valuable such status would be if we could earn it by honest labor and sheer dedication to a task. Think of the rewards of taking an untracked, untouched planet—an entire world!—and remolding it into the landscape of our dreams. We who have had nothing for so long will have everything. We who have been outcasts in our society will now make our own society—we will become pioneers, leaders, creators. It is intoxicating, Jenna! Does it not make you breathless with excitement?”

Indeed, the ardent conviction of his voice had its own exhilarating effect on me, but I was by nature too cautious to be caught up in any spell of the moment. “You are passionate about your cause, Sinclair, and it moves me to hear you, and so I do not doubt that you should go to Cozakee and immediately,” I said, choosing my words with care. “But I have no reason to believe my place is there. I am happy here with what remains of my family.”

“But I wish you to come with me,” he said stubbornly. “I do not wish to settle Cozakee on my own. I want a lifetime companion to stand beside me—to labor beside me at the selfsame goals—a lover and a wife to fill the loneliness that will inevitably hover around such a strange and unpopulated planet.”

If I had reared back at his first suggestion, these words almost caused me to fall from my chair. “A wife!” I exclaimed in the faintest voice. “But—do you mean—you wish to marry
me
?”

He nodded vigorously. “Yes, of course that is what I mean. Why, what else could you suppose? Two unrelated individuals of the opposite sex, no matter how they might style themselves ‘cousin,' cannot be expected to live unchaperoned together without falling into habits of physical intimacy that can only be sanctioned by the institution of marriage. I wish to sire my own dynasty on Cozakee—it is part of the world I envision creating—one that is stamped with my bloodlines and imprinted with my brand of intelligence through the centuries that follow. Personal achievement can be spectacular, but if it dies with the individual, it has no lasting power. And that, if you have not understood, is what I want—to make an indelible mark on this society that would have seen me live and die without the least acknowledgment.”

“An understandable goal—a laudable goal—but I do not know that I am the bride who can help you accomplish your aim,” I said, stammering again. I was completely in shock. It had never occurred to me that Sinclair would either ask me to accompany him, or require such a commitment from me if he did.

“But I believe you are,” he said rather impatiently, without allowing me time to put forward any formulated objections. “We come from such similar backgrounds that we can be considered absolute equals with no thought of trying to take precedence over each other. Our fortunes are identical, and we inherited them precisely the same way—and we can invest them to their grandest purpose in undertaking this new life. On the personal side, you are everything a man could want in a wife. You are neat, inoffensive, helpful, and quiet—you do not have inexplicable emotional rages, nor do you attempt to punish anyone in your circle through your moods and attitudes.” Who are
you describing here?
I wondered, but did not get an opportunity to ask, as his list of my virtues continued. “You are not materialistic, and would be happy to go years without acquiring fashionable new clothes or furnishings for your home. And you are young enough and sturdy enough to be capable of filling our new house with sons and daughters who will carry on our homestead after us.”

“Flattering as this assessment is,” I said, though I knew he would not detect the edge in my voice, “I cannot help but point out the obvious: You do not love me.”

He shrugged. “That is not important.”

“I disagree,” I said firmly. “A lifetime spent on an unpopulated planet with a woman you do not love may become a sentence of misery more profound than the life you led on Newyer.”

“Love is a popular romantic notion that leads to nothing but its own brand of misery,” he said rather bitterly. “What is important between a man and a woman is respect, affection, and common ground. Those things we have.”

“Indeed we do,” I said cordially. “And those things, perhaps, last longer than the violent romantic emotions which you seem to distrust so greatly. But I do not know that I am prepared to marry for respect and affection, especially if those sentiments will carry me so far from the place I have come to feel is home.”

He had listened carefully, for he seemed to pounce on my words the instant I stopped speaking. “You do not know if you are prepared to marry me,” he said. “Does that mean you will consider my offer?”

“I will consider it.” My own words surprised me. I could not believe I did not reject him out of hand. I knew I did not want to marry Sinclair Rainey; I knew I did not want to leave Appalachia; I knew that the delights that he saw in Cozakee held no appeal for me. And yet there was about his cold-blooded, practical proposal an element of adventure—and even romance, in the most old-fashioned sense. To set off for an unexplored world and make it a place of your very own—! Like Sinclair, I could hear the siren call of that ambition. I could feel the centuries-old desire for ownership stir in my disenfranchised blood.

And once married to Sinclair Rainey—to any man—I would be free forever of the fear of one day succumbing to my attraction for Everett Ravenbeck. Or—dear Goddess—so I would like to believe.

“When will you decide?” Sinclair asked next. “We do not have much leisure to contemplate, for, as I told you, I have reservations on a ship leaving here in two months. If you come with me, we will have much to do to prepare.”

“Give me a week to think about it,” I said.

“So long!”

“A week seems a short period to consider consequences that will last a lifetime.”

He nodded curtly. “Very well. If you do not object, however, I will take my opportunities during that week to discuss with you advantages of the proposed match.”

“I do not imagine that by objecting, I can forestall you from sharing such advantages with me,” I said, unable to resist a smile. He did not smile in return, but merely nodded again.

“Good. We will meet again tomorrow night to finish our studies—for, if you do not come with me, I shall need to know as much as I can. And if you do accompany me, it will still be valuable for me to have such knowledge as you can impart, so that when you are busy with children, I can manage the equipment on the estate.”