Ours Is Just a Little Sorrow (5 page)

"That must make you the happiest man alive, Gideon," I said dryly. We both knew it wasn't so.

Gideon wasn't happy, despite having no responsibilities or expectations. He may pretend to enjoy his life of debauchery and drunkenness, but here he was,
drinking tea in the kitchen with the governess in the middle of a stormy night.

"You judge me very harshly, Miss Merriweather, and yet you have no idea what I even do away from the walls of this fine, respectable home." He sat back in
his chair. "It's not very charitable of you."

"I have every idea, Gideon. You gamble, drink, womanize, and mock everyone who isn't doing the same."

He chuckled. "So, you do know. Still, until you've walked a mile in my shoes, do you think it's fair to judge me? Perhaps my road leads to the happiness
you can't find here."

"But I am happy here."

"There is a whole world out there that you know nothing of, Violet. As an educator, don't you think you should have some experience with it? This society
is stifling."

I stood, no longer interested in the tea. "There is a whole world out there that
you
know nothing of, Gideon. And if you think this is stifling,
you should try breathing on…"

"Earth?" he finished for me.

"I don't wish to speak of it. Just know that whatever you have in your head about the ills of this society are nothing compared to what some must bear."

"I thought you had no memories of Earth."

"I don't need to remember to understand how awful it must be."

I turned to leave, but Gideon grabbed my hand, pulling me back into the vortex of his dark, shadowed gaze. "We're all children of Earth, Violet. Why is it
that you must live your life as a servant? New Geneva is as much yours as it is mine." He rubbed the pad of his thumb over my skin, and I shivered. "Come
with me some night. See my depravity first hand. I think you'd like it more than you think. There's a fire in your heart, Violet."

"No, thank you. I think I'd prefer to just imagine your depravity." It was the wrong thing to say, I knew immediately by the look in his eyes.

"Do you often imagine me doing depraved things, sprite?" I looked away rather than answer. He let it go. "Come with me."

I shook my head.

"You're not afraid, are you?"

Goodness but his presence was so large. He ate up all the air around me. But I wasn't afraid of him. "No. I just have no desire to accompany you."

"Oh you have the desire, all right. Maybe you're afraid you will like it too much. That once you are free for one night, you will not be satisfied to come
back and be a governess to pay some debt you feel you owe for being allowed to live."

Oh, my proud chin didn't like that. Not at all. I thrust it high. "Are you daring me, Gideon?"

"Perhaps I am. I'll sweeten the pot. You come out with me and let me be your host to the underbelly of New Geneva, and I will stay home one night and play
the part of the gentleman you think I should be."

I thought of Phillip, and of John, and how very much they would enjoy an evening with Gideon. This was blackmail, but how could I deprive his brothers of
the opportunity? "You must be on your best behavior. You promise you'll try to enjoy your evening at home? You'll be pleasant and attentive to your
family?"

"Do you promise to open your mind? That you won't look down on everyone and that you'll try to enjoy an evening with the people I associate with?"

What was I getting myself into? "Fine. But you must make sure I am not found out by the Colonel. I need this job, Gideon."

"Deal."

He kissed my hand, instead of shaking it, and my heart fluttered with a wickedness I'd not known I possessed.

Chapter 4

I
T WAS FOUR nights later that the wall in my bedroom opened up.

The movement caught the corner of my eye first. What I was seeing couldn't possibly be real, but Gideon stepped through the gap holding a body wrapped in
cloth.

"Knock, knock," he said.

I gaped but could form no words. A sick chill overtook me and I thought of the missing servants from the news. What had he done?

"I'm here to collect on your promise." He took a step towards me, and I backed up, searching for anything I could use as a weapon against this intimate
villain. "Relax, Violet, I brought your costume."

"My costume?"

As always, Gideon managed to unnerve me completely.

He set his armload on the back of the chair and began unfurling this
costume
he'd spoken of. "Well, I can hardly bring you out dressed as you are,
though you look fetching in your nightclothes." He held up a satiny concoction of peacock purple. "Hurry, put this on."

"You came through my wall." My senses, addled as they were, began returning. I looked down, astonished to realize I was standing in my nightgown in my
bedroom with a man. Not just any man, but Gideon. "Yes, there are several passageways in the walls of this house. I don't use them often, but you requested
that I not put your job in danger, and so I shan't. No one will know you've left your room." He thrust the garment into my hands. "Now, get dressed."

"I can't wear this. It's-"

"Not gray. Or sturdy. Yes, I know. But you can't wear a serviceable gown where I'm taking you. You'll wear this."

"I couldn't possibly-"

"Violet," he warned.

I sighed, taking my armful behind the changing screen. Removing my nightgown in the same room as Gideon felt illicit, even though he couldn't see me.
Probably because I knew he was imagining he could see me. My entire body flushed hot as I quickly put on my underthings and leaned against the automated
corset lacer. I stepped into the gown but couldn't pull it up all the way. It was then I realized it was up-just cut very low across the bosom.

"I cannot wear this, Gideon. It's indecent."

"You promised you would try to fit in. I can't take you there in one of your servant gowns." He poked his head around the screen. "It looks fine to me."

I gasped and sputtered, but he only stepped further in and began lacing the back of it for me. "Hush," he admonished, breathing the word onto my skin like
paint. "I'm very good at dressing women."

"I should think you're better at undressing them…er…I mean to say that you would rather be known for….oh never mind." I was hopeless.

He chuckled lowly, and my toes curled. Gideon spun me around to look at me. "You're lovely."

I looked down at my chest. "I'm exposed."

"As I said, lovely."

I crossed my arms.

Gideon removed his coat and gestured for me to turn so he could put it on me. "What do you know about the first settlers to New Geneva, sprite?"

I shrugged into the ridiculously large overcoat. "Are we to have a history lesson, Gideon?"

"Perhaps we are." He turned me around and buttoned the coat as if I were a child. "You of course know of Michael Addison."

I frowned, wondering where all this was leading. "He invented liquideous aether and later colonized New Geneva because no one on Earth would legitimize his
substitute for fossil fuels despite the depletion the planet was facing." Not until it was too late anyway. Much, much too late.

He tapped my nose. "Spoken like a true textbook. However, it wasn't just his invention. Addison was considered a lunatic, he and his friends outcasts. They
were part of an alternative community that dabbled in costume play and pretended they were from the Victorian Era on the weekends. It was called steampunk,
and most people thought they were slightly ridiculous."

"Why are we discussing this now?"

"Those are the roots of our society, love. Addison made a lot of money from the aether, even though it wasn't used as much as it should have been. He
bankrolled a crazy plan to settle on a new planet, New Geneva, and modeled it after a theme park from their world called Disney. Only his was a steampunk
theme park. It was as ambitious as it was insane. They were renegades from their own society, Violet. They had raucous parties that lasted for days and
pretended to be airship pirates." Gideon took me to the wall where he pressed a panel to show me how to open and close the secret door. "As time went on,
they just kept their twenty-four-hour-a-day costume party going and built a society that was actually pretty ingenious. We had a woman chancellor, you
know-they like to leave that out of the history books. There were few rules and virtually no social classes, as everyone was pretty much a reject from
their home planet. But as Earth got sicker, more and more people became refugees. New Geneva couldn't handle the influx of population if she didn't want to
suffer the same consequences as her mother planet."

"The Reckoning," I volunteered with a shiver.

He nodded, casting his eyes to his shoes.

Nobody liked talking about The Reckoning. They were dark days in the history of New Geneva. Days in which hard decisions had to be made about who was
worthy of citizenship and who would be forced back to a dying planet. There was violence and the first need for a military regiment.

New Geneva was a small planet just outside of Earth's galaxy. Too small to support all the souls that needed refuge, it was easily defended once the
military disabled Earth's satellites-the crushing blow. Earth's population turned on itself and the citizens of New Geneva could only watch in horror at
the carnage.

"Why are we having this discussion about history?" I asked.

"The society that you defend, Vi, is one that crept up on New Geneva out of fear. We were built on a different spirit-a rebellious one. One of acceptance
of others instead of unnecessary classification. Everyone was treated equally in the first days. A gay man didn't live in fear of being shipped to a barren
land. Women ruled alongside men. Children weren't raised in orphanages to become servants."

I bristled. "I would be dead, Gideon." He didn't reply, so I repeated. "If they hadn't rescued me, I would be dead. Hungry people do very bad things when
there is no food available. Please understand, I would be worse than dead." I closed my eyes, but could still hear the sound of my crying brother as he was
ripped out of my arms. "There isn't any food there. They eat…whatever can be caught." I shook my head. "New Geneva may not be the perfect Utopia you
so desire, but my life is more than I dreamed possible."

When I opened my eyes, Gideon was whiter than a ghost. "I'm so very sorry. I had no idea."

"It's of no consequence."

He grabbed my shoulders firmly. "It is.
You
are of consequence, Violet. If I show you nothing else tonight, let it be that."

And then he led me into his secret world.

The dark alley smelled of standing water and grease. Shadows cast their own shadows as the night drew its fingers over the cobblestone and brick. I
shivered against the recollection of a similar alleyway. The memory blinked across my mind like kinetoscope images in grainy black and white. I remembered
scurrying away from the lights with the vermin whenever I heard the footsteps of men on the pavement. The sound of boots had struck terror into my young
heart.

I pushed away the images. Those days were gone. No longer a helpless street urchin, I was an accomplished young woman now, a governess making my mark on a
new world. I would prove myself beneficial to society.

I clasped Gideon's borrowed coat tighter to my neck and watched as he handed a grimy young boy a few bills, and the lad made off with the
whyrlygig
round the bend, surely never to be seen again.

"Valet service?" I asked, arching my eyebrows.

"Edmund will make sure nothing happens to it," he answered. When I made my opinion plain, he said, "He'll not make off with it, I assure you. Edmund is the
stalwart type." I shook my head, but he ignored my disapproval. "Come on, then. Unless you've changed your mind."

"Another dare, Gideon?"

The slight lift at the corner of his mouth was answer enough.

Gideon knocked a rhythmic pattern on the first door we came to, and a gruff man with hands like ham hocks sized us up before he let us in. Once inside the
door, we still weren't anywhere but a long brick hallway. Gideon bid me to follow him through a labyrinth of brickwork and down more rickety stairs than I
dared count. At last he opened a large, heavy door and I stepped into a new world.