Jenna Starborn

by Sharon Shinn

  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.

  Chapter 19

  The 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 a
sk, 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.”

  I had a sudden disquieting vision of myself overseeing a household of ten or fifteen children, stairstepped in ages and sizes, while Sinclair gravely studied technical manuals and went off to repair broken cables. I had to shake my head to dispel the image, and then I had to speak up quickly so Sinclair did not think I was giving a negative response to his last statement.

  “Yes, indeed, I believe it is best that you continue to learn what you can,” I said. “We will resume our studies tomorrow. In the meantime, I am tired and I have much to think about. It is time for me to retire to my bed.”

  We stood simultaneously and gathered our books, papers, and electrical lights. With more ostentatious concern than he was wont to show me, Sinclair ushered me through the rooftop door and down the winding steps to the story where all the bedrooms were located. He even accompanied me to my own door, something that he had done only rarely in the past.

  “Good night, Jenna,” he said gravely, looking down at me for a long, unblinking moment. I could not tell if he were debating making another observation or merely attempting to read my face for any signs of reaction to the evening’s central conversation. In any case, he did not speak again, but leaned down to plant a kiss very deliberately on my left cheek.

  The feel of his mouth was warm and heavy and entirely pleasurable. I was astonished at the way my nerves leaped to attention, frantic to assess the texture and placement of his lips. I had forgotten what a kiss felt like, even such a chaste one; I had forgotten how much promise was implicit in the remotest physical contact with a man. Or I thought I had forgotten—my body all too clearly remembered its elemental rhythms and most primitive desires.

  Covered with confusion, I did not speak again, but rushed inside my room and closed the door too hurriedly behind me. I was shaken and distressed, not so much by the kiss but by the memories the kiss had evoked. Oh, Goddess, if a man were to touch me, I knew the man I wanted! Loving Everett Ravenbeck, could I ever marry Sinclair Rainey? Would Sinclair’s kisses always remind me of another man’s? Or did the body, after all, really care who stirred its senses and caused its brief, glorious moments of madness? The body could be tricked—this I knew instinctively—but I was not so sure about the gullibility of the heart.

  I stood in the middle of my room, and I trembled.

  The next six days passed for me in a sort of tightening noose of apprehension. I had made several momentous decisions in my life, some of them quite painful, but few of them had involved a step that literally was irreversible. And so I viewed the prospect of marriage to Sinclair Rainey, for I was not the kind of woman to undertake such a task and then, if it became too onerous to me, shirk it. If I gave the man my word, plighted my troth to him, I would become his wife and I would stay his wife though hell itself awaited us in our life together. I did not expect hell, of course. I did expect, on Cozakee, long hours of labor and many high-caliber frustrations; I expected setbacks and disappointments and worries. But I envisioned triumphs as well—first crops, first neighbors, first exports, first babies—a parallel line of joys to march alongside the unending difficulties.

  I must admit that many of Sinclair’s arguments carried great weight with me. I understood his dream of proprietorship, and it reverberated against my own desolate memories; I too would like to create a place of my very own that would be inviolate and completely imprinted with my desires. And to pass that along to the heirs I had never allowed myself to believe I might have.

  And yet such a life, such an estate, might be abandoned if the conditions eventually proved too intolerable or if my own wants materially changed. Now that I had what for me amounted to unlimited credit, I could walk away from any failed venture and start anew; my life would not be ruined by a single bad investment. I could attempt Cozakee and, if it did not suit me, I could leave it. But I could not so easily dissolve a marriage to Sinclair Rainey.

  Once or twice, late at night as I mulled over my opportunity, I considered giving Sinclair this answer: “I will homestead with you on Cozakee, but I will not marry you. I will be your fellow laborer, and I will be your best friend, but I will not be your wife.” But then I remembered the kiss in the corridor, and I knew he would not accept that compromise, and I knew that his refusal would be the safer course.

  But could I marry Sinclair Rainey?

  My thoughts were so taken up with this question during the next six days that I grew a little withdrawn from all three of my so-called cousins. Sinclair, who knew the reason for my abstraction, made no comment on my behavior, but Maria and Deborah more than once asked me if something was amiss.

  “For I worry about you, Jenna, I truly do,” Deborah said to me one morning as we worked together in the kitchen. “You are so strong and s
olitary! I believe, if you thought it necessary, you could tear yourself away from your closest friends without a word of good-bye, and then we would be left wondering forever after what had caused you to leave and what had become of you.”

  I smiled rather sadly, for this truth struck too close to home, but I shook my head. “I shall make you this promise, Deborah, that when I do leave your household, you shall know why I go and what my destination is.”

  “But, Jenna, are you contemplating leaving us?” she cried. “You must not! Wherever could you be thinking of going?”

  I was sorely tempted to confide in her, because, of the three Rainey siblings, I felt the deepest bond of affection with Deborah, but I did not like to betray her brother’s confidence or let her know that I might reject him. Sinclair could share that information if he wished; I did not like to be so careless.

  “It is you who might leave me,” I said, managing another smile. “For if I am not mistaken, Harmon Joester was here again just last night, and it was you alone he cared to speak to.”

  Now Deborah was the one who looked as if she had news she could not contain—and she was finally unable to suppress it. “Oh, Jenna, he asked me to marry him, and I accepted! I am so happy, but I am in such turmoil! It changes everything—and who will run this house?—and I know Sinclair is making plans to emigrate—and I do not want you to think you will not have a home with me forever, no matter if or when I marry—”

  I laughed at this, though my first reaction had been to take her into a delighted embrace. “Oh, no, you don’t! Don’t you even consider turning down such an offer because you worry about my well-being!” I teased her. “I would be very happy renting a small house of my own, or sharing it with Maria if she finds herself at loose ends, and finding some useful employment to pass the time. That is, if I was not up at your house at all hours of the day and night, helping you raise the children I am sure you plan to have immediately—”