Bitter Oath (New Atlantis)(8)

‘Livy, this is all frightfully fascinating, but dinner is getting cold, and cook will be furious,’ Portia interrupted impatiently.

Liv allowed herself to be drawn to her feet. Then, candelabra in hand, she followed her sister from the library, talking all the while.

‘I have not reached the intriguing part yet, Miss Impatience. The young man travelled with them throughout the spring and early summer of the following year. He proved exceptionally useful with the natives, in several dangerous situations. And then, out of the blue, he separated from the party.’

‘And so?’ Portia sighed heavily, as they entered the dining room to find their father already seated with a glass of wine in front of him.

‘He left the party shortly after they discovered a giant earthworm, which so fascinated grandfather that he drew a detailed drawing of it.’ Liv finished with a flourish.

‘The same giant earthworm that the gentleman you met in London was so interested in?’ Portia asked, starting to put the pieces together.

‘Exactly. Now, does that seem beyond the bounds of coincidence?’

‘Ladies, can we leave the discussion of earthworms until after the meal? I am exceedingly hungry this evening. I do not want to find myself too indisposed to consume the magnificent repast Cook has prepared for us because of talk of earthworms.’ Hugo Mulgrave, serious as always, looked pointedly at his daughters, before motioning for them to sit.

The ladies allowed themselves to be seated without another word, took up their damask table napkins, and waited patiently while James, their footman, poured them each a glass of wine.

‘How is it possible?’ Portia said after several minutes of comfortable silence.

‘That is what I am asking myself. If the Frenchman grandfather met is a relative of the one I met several weeks past, then surely he would have told my Frenchman where to find the ea…. item he was so captivated by at the Museum.’ Liv took a serving of vegetables from the porcelain trencher James now held out to her.

‘Certainly. Unless that family member never returned home. Mayhap your gentleman was not so interested in the ear… item mentioned, as in the location where his relative was last seen.’

Liv stared across at her baby sister, who, at just nineteen had recently become engaged to the local curate. Portia had an excellent mind, and Liv had seen to it that she received a superior education. It was at moments like this that she appreciated just how much her hard work had paid off. Portia’s mind was superbly analytical, with superior, logical thought processes that few women her age and gender could match. Even if they cared to.

‘That is it! It has to be! A perfectly sensible answer to this mystery. I wish I had seen it myself.’

‘Your mind has been rather like porridge of late, dear sister. Since you met the gentleman in question, to be exact. It is understandable that you would miss the obvious,’ Portia replied with a smug, little smile.

‘Now daughters, can we change the subject to something that is not connected in any way to the item you were both alluding to?’ Hector looked disgruntled as he poured gravy over the slices of roasted lamb he’d just been served.

‘What item was that father dear?’ Liv asked with mock innocence.

‘Giant earthworms, if I understood you correctly. Oh, now, there goes my appetite.’ He put down his utensils, and took up his glass of wine again, a look of exaggerated disgust written all over his face. But his tall, thin body vibrated with a carefully concealed chuckle.

Liv and Portia laughed.

‘Will he visit as he planned, do you think?’ Portia continued, knowing full well her father was not put off his meal in the least. ‘I am so thrilled at the possibility of meeting the gentleman that has finally won my spinster sister’s heart.’

‘Won? Won? What’s this, Livianna? Who has won you?’ Her father’s brown eyes contained serious interest for the first time.

Liv sighed heartily, and glowered at her young sister. ‘No one has won my heart, Papa. It will always belong to you.’

‘Just so, my dear, just so. But if there is a possible match on the horizon, I would like to be made aware of it, before I’m asked to pay for another wedding.’ Their father wiped his mouth with his napkin and took up his utensils again, cutting off a sizable piece of meat and slipping it elegantly into his mouth.

‘There is no match. I met an exceptionally young man, little older than Portia here, at the exhibit. He wished to read grandfather’s journals, and I invited him to visit, so he could do so. He will probably have thought better of it by now. We are rather distant from London for a passing interest in a … an item, no matter how giant.’ She sniggered in a most unladylike fashion, and covered it with a sip of wine.

‘If he is only interested in said item, maybe so,’ Portia said, unwilling to let the subject go. ‘But if he is as smitten with you, as you so obviously are with him, I imagine we shall soon be receiving word of his imminent arrival.’

Later that night, as Liv climbed into her four poster bed, she wondered whether Portia could be right. Would the mysterious Frenchman, with those surprisingly blue eyes, come to visit them as promised in the coming weeks? Blue eyes…

Blue eyes!

Quickly scrambling out of bed, and hurried to the dresser where she had left the Journals. She selected the 1750 one and quickly skimmed through it until she came to the entry she was looking for. They had been traversing the western plains for a week by that time, and her grandfather had noted, as an aside, that Devereux’s eyes set against his dark skin, were the same colour as the sky above the dark earth they traversed.

That was all he said. The next entry gave the account of the discovery of the lush oasis they had come upon, and the giant earthworm the Frenchman had uncovered, when he started digging deep into the soil.

Could L’Angley’s ancestor have had her Rene’s eyes too? Family resemblance could be compelling, her sisters’ similarity in appearance was tribute to that. But each sibling in her family was different in some distinct fashion from the seven others of her kind. The older girls had hazel eyes, the younger girls – grey, like their mother’s. She and Augusta had brown eyes like their father. And although they were all fair haired, each was a slightly different shade, ranging from dark golden to almost ginger, in Portia’s case.

It would be an anomaly for a dark-skinned man to have blue eyes. It was unlikely such a phenomenon would be a family trait. Portia’s rational solution to the mystery was starting to appear less than perfect now.

Who are you Rene L’Angley, and who was the man who accompanied grandfather on his expedition, sixty years ago?





CHAPTER FIVE





Autumn 2334, New Atlantis GAIAN CONFEDERACY



‘My god, that’s amazing!’ Jane cried with more enthusiasm than Rene would have expected from the girl who had no interest in entomology.

She was staring at the ceiling to floor glassed in terrarium, which stretched the length of the large laboratory, and had been specifically designed to replicate their giant earthworm’s natural habitat. The room was darkened, except for the carefully regulated light that bombarded the surface of the habitat. This was designed to replicate the prairie sun. Inside the containment unit hundreds of pale, wriggling earthworms were burrowing down through the dry topsoil, some eight feet, to the water table below.

‘How many did you bring back with you?’

‘Five.’

‘And after only six months you have what… a hundred? There looks to be a hundred or more!’ Her stunned amazement lifted his heavy heart, and he gave her a sad smile.

‘The nearest we have been able to estimate, without disrupting the habitat, is eighty seven. We’ve reached optimal density, and will be moving a selection of the mature worms to a biosphere just outside the city for the next stage in the study.’ He knew his voice sounded flat and unenthused. This should be the happiest and most fulfilling stage in his life – the Nature Retrieval Program was streaking ahead, and his own experiments with the giant earthworms were producing spectacular results. It was all falling into place.

Jane turned to study him in the gloom. ‘Rene, you have to go see her.’

‘Who?’ He moved away, uncomfortable with her close scrutiny. Being around Jane was becoming harder and harder in the last months. Her silent concern only made his tumultuous emotions worse.

‘Your spinster. There is time now. Everything is going so well at this end. Go and visit her, as you planned.’

‘It isn’t necessary. I was able to connect with her grandfather without the assistance of the journals she has.’ He tried to keep his tone serious and unaffected, but the mere mention of Livianna Mulgrave sent his system into chaos. Already, he could feel his heart rate accelerating, and his breath becoming harder to find. In a few moments, his hands would start to shake. These symptoms had been his since he’d discovered the news about her early death. The only thing that had kept him sane was his work.