Clockwork Memories, Page 2

  I hesitated. There wasn’t any doubt of his sincerity. If anything, I felt unworthy of his affection. I was about as coarse as a star sailor after having lived on Aynu-Mosir amongst the crew of the Santa Maria and then the native Jomon people for so many years. Scars from burns crisscrossed over half my face, down my neck and across my arm, but he didn’t act as though he cared. For all his shows of vanity, I suspected I was the shallower out of the two of us. Tears filled my eyes when I thought of the way he had forgiven me for trying to kill him on the planet. I truly didn’t deserve anyone so kind.

  I took too long to answer. He must have mistaken my hesitation for uncertainty. He squeezed me tighter. “Is there any doubt in your mind you love me? That you can love me?”

  “My heart isn’t the problem. It’s everything else. My sense of propriety for one.”

  “Is that all that troubles you? Then let us marry at once. We have a captain and a witness. I suppose two would be ideal, but I don’t expect Charbonneau to be a sport about all this after confining him in the brig. Perhaps I should make a hyperspeed call and get someone on the screen to serve as an additional witness to the marriage, so that it might be legally binding. We can, of course, still have a more traditional wedding when we arrive on Earth.”

  My heart swelled with joy at the idea. “Meriwether—”

  “Oh, dear! I’m rambling again. Quite sorry.”

  I kissed him.

  “I daresay that’s one way to make me shut up.”

  I laughed and blinked the tears away from my eyes. This had to be the happiest moment of my life.

  He went on. “Will you agree to it then? You will marry me?”

  “We’re engaged. I already said yes.”

  “Indeed, but you didn’t really mean it when you accepted. You said yes, but your eyes said ‘we’ll see.’ I want you to mean it.”

  I circled my arms around his neck and laid my head on his shoulder. “Maybe it would help if you asked me in the light this time, and then you could see my eyes better.”

  He leaned away, pulling the chain of a lamp on his nightstand. I blinked at the brightness. I could see the pained earnestness in his expression. He took my hands in his. “Please make me the happiest man in the galaxy. Marry me and I will take care of you and love you until the end of my days. And then when the end of my days have come, I will turn into a ghost so I can keep on loving you.”

  I smoothed my hand over the rough prickle of his jaw. This time when I said yes, I meant it.

  A chime rang.

  “Capital! Just who I wanted to speak with!” Meriwether leapt out of bed, stumbling on the covers and tripped over to his desk. He flipped on a button. The mirror above Meriwether’s desk changed to an image of Captain Ford.

  The old man chewed on his gray mustache. “Pardon the interruption.” His gaze raked over Meriwether’s green-stained nightshirt. I prayed I wasn’t visible and pulled the covers over my head just in case. “I need you to get dressed and come down to engineering right away. We’re slowing and the hyperspeed engine seems to be out of sorts.”

  “Dear me! I’ll be there in a moment.” Meriwether planted a kiss on my head through the covers and hurriedly dashed across the room to find clean clothes. “I’m terribly sorry about this. You go back to sleep. I’ll repair the ship and then we’ll get married in a jiffy.”

  Married. I could only imagine what Sumiko would say when I broke the news to her. She already hated Meriwether. I hoped I wasn’t about to gain a husband and lose a best friend.

  Chapter Two

  New London Times Space Gazette

  Arts and Entertainment, 1882

  Whether you wish to curl up with a good novel before a holo-fire in the comfort of your space station or you are looking for an entertaining book for star travel, consider purchasing a babbage card with one of these bestsellers hot off the press from Earth:

  The Prince and the Automaton by Mark Twain

  Eight Million Light Years Across the Galaxy by Jules Verne

  The New Sumerian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson

  History of Alien Suffrage by a collection of authors including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

  A Century of Dishonor: The Treatment of the Meso-American Colonists in the Western Arm of the Milky Way by Helen Hunt Jackson

  I must have been more tired than I realized because I fell back into the slumber of happy dreams moments after Meriwether left. I woke again, groggy but less troubled. Meriwether’s voice was a hushed whisper, as distant as a dream. “Weld the doors closed with the aid of the robots when they come.”

  I rolled over and snuggled into the warmth of the blankets. However much sleep I’d gotten, it hadn’t been enough. I lay there listening to Meriwether open and close drawers. I was sticky with the remnants of memory exchange evident on my skin. Even in my exhausted state, I noticed something was out of place. The ticking of clockwork mechanisms in the ship were oddly silent.

  I blinked the sleep from my eyes. At least I’d had the sense to throw on my chemise before falling asleep again, stiff and stained green as it was.

  Meriwether scooped up my clothes from the floor. “You should dress. I have set a new pattern to be made for Miss Sumiko. If you’d be a dear and fetch it for her, I’m certain she’d be most grateful.”

  “Five more minutes,” I groaned.

  He shook my shoulder. “Faith, my love, we’re about to be boarded, and I should think you would like to be dressed more modestly for it.”

  “Boarded? By who?” I thought back to the ship that had been chasing us the day before. Was it his father?

  Another tremor shook the ship and this time, the screeching of metal echoed from somewhere above. I looked up to the ceiling, but all remained intact.

  “It’s my hope the captain might tell me. If we’re lucky, it won’t be my father’s ship. In any case, you should make yourself presentable.” Meriwether planted a peck on my cheek and hastened out. He left me to wash in his basin. I dressed myself. After how quick he’d been to assist me in undressing, it would have been nice for him to help with the opposite. But I supposed one couldn’t ask for everything.

  I made do on my own, feeling frumpy and out of sorts. I trusted he had some greater reasoning to send me to fetch a new robe for Sumiko, which was why I went to the sewing room and gathered up a silk robe from the fabrication machine for her. At least I suspected it was silk. I’d never felt such smooth fabric before. It was red with beautiful flowers that resembled sakura blossoms and came with a pair of yellow drawers that reminded me of the bloomers my mother had once warn under her traveling dress.

  A long length of fabric came out of the machine with the robe. The picture on the monitor showed it was a belt. When I took the new attire to Sumiko in our own room, she was still asleep. The black silk of her hair was spread across the pillow like a long fan. The V-shaped collar of her woven attush-style robe had loosened enough in her sleep to reveal a length of sculpted collarbone and the hint of cleavage. She couldn’t have arranged herself in a more perfect pose for being painted if she had tried.

  I laid the clothes across her. “This is a gift from my future husband. He bade us to dress.”

  I would have said more, but she blinked open her eyes and squealed at the sight of a new robe. Apparently I wasn’t the only vain and shallow woman in the room who was impressed by new clothes, as much as she pretended otherwise.

  She pushed herself from the bed and held up the Oriental-style robe to herself in the mirror. With her olive complexion and almond-shaped eyes, she resembled a Japanese woman.

  Her words came out in a rapid succession in the Jomon tongue. “Iya! He’s given me a dress? After last night, what about you?” She looked me up and down. A smile curled to her lips. “Oh, I see. How about you dress me and I dress you?”

  Metal screeched from above and the ship lurched so hard I fell back onto my bustle. I hadn’t tied it very well and it twisted around my waist, tangling with my pettico
ats. Sumiko toppled into the vanity and knocked an assortment of hair accessories on the floor.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  “No. You?”

  I shook my head. “Meriwether said we’re to dress and that the ship is about to be boarded.” I thought back to the wreckage of the ship we’d encountered days before. From the bits of conversation I’d overheard between Meriwether and the captain, as well as my betrothed’s former insinuations, I suspected these attacks were the work of the French. I’d also gathered that these were neither allies of Meriwether, nor his father. It was hard to say which would be worse: to be boarded by the French or by his father’s ship.

  Sumiko slipped out of her robe with her normal lack of shyness. She stood in front of my mirror, giving me multiple angles to view her perfectly unblemished skin. I tried not to stare, lest my jealousy show.

  I held up her new robe. “There have been a number of hyperjump points and ships destroyed. I can only hope we aren’t in danger as well.”

  Of course, if it was Lord Klark who’d found us, Sumiko and I would be in a different kind of danger. I knew I would have to face Meriwether’s father eventually, but I wasn’t ready for that. I hadn’t yet hatched a plan to bring his downfall.

  Metal clunked against the side of the ship. The hull screeched below as though we were landing on a metal surface. We were rocked this way and that. I tripped over the hem of my petticoats and stumbled into Sumiko. Considering she was as sturdy as a tree, I was surprised I toppled her over. We landed in a heap on the floor, my face buried in her naked bosom.

  I cried out in absolute horror and attempted to extricate myself from her.

  “Iya!” she said. “Don’t move. You’ve broken my back.” She groaned a little too dramatically to be serious and pulled a jewelry box out from under her derriere before tossing it aside. “Did I break your fall at least? I’m afraid there isn’t any cushion on my body to do much good.” She poked her small bosom and flashed a self-deprecating smile.

  “How can you make jokes at a time like this?”

  “I might as well. I can’t make them when I’m dead.”

  I rolled off her. “Don’t speak like that. No one is going to die.”

  “Not while I’m here to protect you.” She sprang to her feet and helped me up. Considering how constricted I was in a corset and petticoats, I daresay I needed the assistance more than she did.

  Another shudder coursed throw the ship. My eyes met Sumiko’s. I swallowed.

  I held up her new robe and helped her into it. “We shall be such beautiful and charming ladies, we will give Lord Klark’s men no reason to think ill of us,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel.

  I tried to tie the long sash around Sumiko in a way that vaguely resembled what had been on the computer monitor. The sleeves to the kimono were long and hung down from her wrists so that she looked like a nose bird when she spread her arms from her body. Upon my second attempt to wrap the sash around her, I bound her sleeves to her sides in an unintended restraint.

  “Why would your future husband give me such an impractical gift?” She held up one arm. “Are these sleeves pockets or frivolous decorations?”

  The door hissed open. Meriwether burst through, not even bothering to knock. As much as he blamed my crudeness on being American, surely he was far worse at times. I opened my mouth, about to blame his impulsiveness on being British, but I stopped. Perspiration dotted his brow and his face was flushed such a shade of red I forgot to be cross.

  He bowed. “Miss Sumiko, I hate to impose upon you, but I must ask you to step into the water closet.”

  She used English, speaking slowly and carefully so her accent wouldn’t overpower her words. “You wish a private word with Faith-chan?”

  “Indeed.”

  Sumiko started toward the closet. My eyes were drawn to the laser pistol in his hand. She must have seen it too. She froze.

  I wanted to trust him. Even after the pleasantness of the memory exchange and all we had shared with each other it was hard for me to do so. The gun in his hand didn’t help.

  “I will remain with Faith-chan,” Sumiko said.

  Meriwether sighed in exasperation. “Fine, then both of you in the closet. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  Meriwether grabbed my arm and ushered me toward the water closet. He flung open the door. Sumiko stepped inside, not looking the least perturbed. He shoved me in after her.

  “Don’t leave this closet until I come for you, do you understand me? Make no noise and don’t turn on the lights. They might overlook you until help has time to arrive and rescue us.”

  “Who is they? Do you—” I began.

  Sumiko spoke at the same time. “Iya! Why? What—”

  “Who?” I repeated.

  “Oh, and if my father finds you, be sure to say we were married by the captain. In fact, tell him you carry my unborn child. It’s the only way to ensure your safety. You must insist Sumiko is your maid, no one of consequence. And don’t let her speak English, as he might see that as a threat. He isn’t going to want anyone Jomon to share the way he’s tried to annihilate their people.”

  My next question was cut off when Meriwether pressed his lips to mine. His voice was serious and I knew he wasn’t putting on one of his acts. “It’s imperative you stay hidden. We’re about to be boarded by pirates. Charbonneau messaged them from a hollow in his leg where he kept a communication device.”

  I gasped.

  Sumiko spoke in Jomon. “See, I told you his leg was unnatural.” She lifted her chin in as haughty a manner as any British lady, though the effect was quite ruined a second later when she asked in English. “What are pirates?”

  “Well, they might not be pirates. They could be the French military.” Meriwether added. “It’s hard to tell at the moment. Stay quiet.”

  He turned off the lights and closed the door.

  Sumiko whispered. “What’s happening?”

  He opened the door and pushed something cold and metallic into my hands. “Oh, yes, and I nearly forgot. Take the pistol.” He grabbed my face and kissed me with a fierce promise that made me miss him before he was gone.

  He closed the door, leaving us in darkness.

  “Faith-chan?” Sumiko asked. Her voice sounded young and scared.

  I found her hand. “There are some things I must tell you about Meriwether Klark.”

  So much for getting started with my happy ending.

  Chapter Three

  Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

  —Ancient Jomon proverb

  I leaned against the sink, giving Sumiko a turn at the only seat in the cramped quarters which happened to be the closed lid of the toilet cistern. Her knees pushed into my petticoats and I had to lift my bustle higher than it was intended so that it rested on the sink basin and I could fit in the space beside her. My other option would have been the shower, but it was wet and we had no towels. The floor wasn’t much better.

  “I’m sure he meant well, but it would have been nice if he had confided in me sooner,” I said. Though, I supposed he’d been obsessed with the notion I was some kind of French spy. Which I wasn’t.

  Sumiko spoke in a hushed whisper. “So he didn’t have you once, anata?” She used the informal pet name she only called me when we were alone.

  “As I said, he was a gentleman. More or less.” I was glad the darkness didn’t give away the flush that crept over my neck and cheeks when I thought of the night before. Though I wouldn’t exactly call our actions chaste, he had kept his trousers on. It was hard not to smile when I thought about his caresses. As much as I would have liked to be as accepting of sexuality outside of wedlock as Sumiko was, I doubted I could ever think that way. If I was ever to be a respectable lady like my mother, I would have to act it.

  Metal screeched below us. The ship lurched forward, and I stumbled into the wall. Sumiko tumbled into me. We both righted ourselves. I found my place at the sink and readj
usted my bustle again. It felt slightly misshapen.

  “Do you think he really loves you?” Sumiko asked. Though I couldn’t see her expression, I could hear the doubt, as if she feared I was no more than a silly child.

  I pressed a hand to my corset. Breathing the stuffy air was a struggle in the little room. “Perhaps. In any case, I think you’re missing the point. He had a different agenda than giving me back my memories or courting me. He wanted to know more about me. At first I thought—well—” I reflected back on the memories he’d given me. “I thought he meant to show me that he knew of his father’s dishonorable actions. Yet now I wonder if it was to show me his own character was trustworthy and honorable.”

  Sumiko snorted. “Or he might want you to think he’s to be trusted so that he can use you, ne?”

  It was hard to imagine he was only pretending after the way he’d kissed me with such passion. My own desire had been equal to his. I had lost my self-control, and he’d been too much of a gentleman to go further. Surely if he was an unscrupulous rake, he wouldn’t have had any qualms against using me. My heart sped up as I remembered the way he’d stroked me between my legs and pleasured me. Again, I was glad for the darkness to hide the flush that surely colored my cheeks.

  I focused on the first memory he’d given me dealing with the Alien Suffrage group. “I think he knows his father is a scoundrel and it pains him, but he feels a deep loyalty to him. And he’s made some choices his father doesn’t approve of. Something about him thwarting a deal with the French, though it wasn’t clear in his memory. Perhaps French mining? French attacks on the British? I think I’ve gotten him all wrong. And he sees he had me all wrong—I was never involved with aiding any French colonists.”

  “Are you sure about Meriwether? Or is the memory moss clouding your opinion of him?”

  I didn’t answer. In truth, I didn’t know. I had no precise memory to base this on, only inklings of thoughts he’d had from the memories he’d given me. And I knew from my sister’s experience with memory exchange how wrong hints of memories—and even whole ones out of context—could be.