Bitter Oath (New Atlantis)(9)
‘Not necessary to your work, but necessary to your emotional state. Rene, I’m worried about you. You’ve lost weight, you’re edgy as a cat on a hot tin roof, to quote a famous play, and you are utterly miserable. I know the signs…’ She had come to his side as she spoke, resting her hand on his bowed shoulder. Her warm touch amped up his symptoms, and he drew away.
‘You are mistaken Jane, there’s nothing wrong with me, other than overwork. Once the next stage in this experiment is complete, I plan to take some time off…’ The desperation in his voice was apparent, even to his own ears.
‘Rene, you are not all right. You’re suffering what all the Old Timers suffer when they fall in love. Your emotions are overwhelming you.’
‘In love? Don’t be such a childish romantic! I am nearly eight hundred years old, living inside a sexless clone. I have never been in love. And I am certainly not in love now, with a woman I met for a total of ten minutes. Let it go, little friend. It is overwork, nothing more.’
‘Love at first sight is the way it happens. Talk to Julio or Jac… even Faith will tell you. And rationalising it away doesn’t help. It will just get worse. You have to go see her.’
Rene swore in French, several of the Objewe dialects and English. Jane stood her ground like the fighter she was. He knew her history – the child of an aggressive drunk, a victim of molestation, a martial arts exponent who could beat even their resident commando, and a woman who rode out her Latino partner’s flashes of temper with affable acceptance. Anything he threw at her couldn’t compare.
In the end, he admitted defeat. He slid down the wall next to the containment unit until he was sitting on the floor; his knees up against his chest, his heavy head drooped forward. Jane knelt beside him, but didn’t attempt to touch him.
‘She’s going to die, Janey! And I don’t mean at the end of a long and fulfilling life. I mean she is going to die four months after I met her, at the ridiculous age of thirty.’ There were tears in his voice, and they embarrassed him. A man did not cry.
‘So she has a D Day. That can be a good thing. You Retrieve her! She might be a little out of the optimal era for Retrieval, but love will get her through the risk of Crash and Burn.’
‘Shut up, Jane! You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he barked. ‘She doesn’t just go missing. She dies in a highly public riding accident. I’ve seen the records. There is no way I can Retrieve her.’
Jane sat down on the floor beside him, and rested her head against his shaking shoulder. ‘Then I guess you have to make the most of the time you’ve got with her. And who knows, once you get to know her, you might find that all that glitters isn’t gold. She might be a total fishwife.’
He grunted with amusement at the idea of the very proper Regency Miss yelling and screeching like a fishwife. It made him feel a little better, and more willing to share.
‘You told me some time ago that I have walls around me. You were right. The Last Great Plague affected me, like it affected all of us, I think. And living in-situ for ninety years at a time, watching the people I cared about age quickly and die, generation after generation… I learned to keep them at a distance, so when I lost them it didn’t devastate me. It was the only way I survived as long as I did. You are the only one I have ever let in, Janey. And that is only because you stubbornly burrowed your way under the wall.’ They both gave a little laugh. ‘But also, I know you are not going to die. And you belong to that flashy South American.’
For a long time, they sat in the darkness together, not saying a word. Then finally Jane found her voice. ‘When Julio used to Jump without me in the early days, I used to get myself into such a state. I was terrified he’d die in-situ. It got so bad sometimes that I wondered if it might be better not to love him as desperately as I did. If I didn’t feel so much for him, I wouldn’t be hurt so much if anything happened to him. But I couldn’t turn my feelings off. And in the end, I learned to take the bad with the good, making the most of whatever time we have together.’
She fell silent for several more minutes, and then she continued in her soft, gentle voice. ‘And it seems that you can’t turn your feelings off for Livianna Mulgrave, this time. So maybe you have to take the good with the bad, and make the most of the time you can have together.’
The silence fell once more, as Rene mulled over the wisdom of his Medicine Woman.
‘What excuse could I give to the Committee to go back there? It is an unnecessary Jump, now that I have found Hugo Mulgrave and my giant worms.’ He liked calling them that, around Jane, rather than using their scientific name. It made them more ‘user friendly’.
‘Didn’t you say you were not sure what Mulgrave wrote in his personal journals? What if he mentioned you? Such an anomaly would need to be checked out.’
Rene sat up straighter as he considered the possibility. Yes, those journals might contain information on him that could be contentious. If he read them, at least he could be sure. His heart lifted with the first real hope he’d experienced in months. The idea of seeing Livianna again filled him with such painful joy it threatened to overwhelm him.
‘You’ll go?’ she asked, as she watched him processing the possibilities.
‘Yes, I will go. You never know, she might be a fishwife, and I have pined over her death all this time for nothing.’
Scrambling to his feet, he offered Jane his hand to draw her up. When they were standing, Jane wrapped her arms around him, her head resting against his neck. She was a tall woman, but he was a tall man, like her Julio, so he was still more than half a head taller. Livianna was tall for her generation too, but would barely reach his shoulder. What would it be like to hold her against his chest?
Maybe now he would have the opportunity to find out.
1 July 1810, Foxmoor Manor, Yorkshire ENGLAND
‘There’s a coach in the drive!’ Portia announced breathlessly, scampering into the library just as the sun climbed to its zenith. Liv looked up from the book she was reading with a frown.
‘Are we expecting visitors?’ she asked.
‘No, not while our aunt is away. Well, except for the mysterious Frenchman.’ Portia grinned impishly.
Liv felt her heart miss a beat. She had told him July, but it was only the first day of July. Surely he wouldn’t be that socially inept as to call so early in the month. But even as she condemned him for rashness, if it did prove to be him, she was also thrilled that he would be in such a hurry to visit.
If it was him.
‘It is probably old Miss Chambers from the village. Word has it that she has recovered from the ague and is now visiting again.’
Portia groaned loudly and indelicately. ‘Please, no. I do not wish anyone harm, but that bout of ague was a blessing in disguise. It quite saved my sanity. That woman will talk me into an early grave.’
Liv stood up and gave a little laugh, as she put her dusty tome back onto the reading table. ‘Poor Portia! Unless your Harry gets a rectory away from Harrogate, you will have to see far more of Miss Chambers, and all the other spinster ladies like myself, as a regular part of your role as rector’s wife.’
Portia shuddered dramatically. ‘If I run away on my wedding day, I shall blame you when Harry asks me why. He will then rain Almighty Retribution on you for your interference.’
At that moment, a head appeared around the open door. It was the second footman, young George. He smiled at them. Then, thinking better of it, he adopted a more sombre demeanour. He was still in training, and as a child who had grown up on the Manor, he treated it and its denizens as home and family. The sisters didn’t mind his informal ways, but the staff were hard on him for his liberties.
‘Sorry to interrupt, Misses Livy and Portia, but there’s a gentleman at the door who says he’s been invited to see your grandda’s books.’ He handed over the calling card with Rene L’Angley’s name and London residence on it.
Liv felt her heart kick up a beat. So he had come early. Portia would be delighted by this exhibition of untimely haste.
‘Show Lord L’Angley into the morning room, George. We will be there directly. Then go and announce his arrival to father. He will want to formally greet our visitor.’
‘Yes ’m!’ And, like a shot, George was off back to the front door, his sombre demeanour forgotten.
‘I have been beside myself with impatience to meet this young man. If he is as handsome, rich and mysterious as you and Augusta say, then I might throw over Harry, and marry him myself.’
Liv felt an uncharacteristic flash of jealousy. What if Rene did find her younger, prettier sister more to his taste? He would be a far better catch than Harry.
‘Oh Livy, don’t be a goose. He will have eyes only for you. Even if I didn’t love Harry to distraction, your young gentleman will not even notice I am in the room.’