The Stubborn Lord (17 page)

“I couldn’t find the control panel.” Alek thought of his grandfather’s treasure, but said nothing about it. He wasn’t in the mood to brag or reminisce. The liquor would still be there after he dropped off his wife. “Isn’t it in the walls somewhere?”

“No, I don’t think so. Isn’t it in the forest? Or buried underground?” Mirek frowned. “There should be plans somewhere.”

“One would imagine.”

Mirek waved a dismissing hand. “The ship you take is not needed here. Cenek has the ceffyls well in hand. I will handle the communication repairs by getting the workers started on it. While they are there, I will have men listening to the forest for changes. There is no reason for you to rush back. I cannot make the ship fly slower and risk the others guessing as to the reason for it, but I can make it unnecessary for you to come back too quickly. The crew will not expect you to be in a hurry to leave a meeting with her family.”

“I did defy the duke’s order,” Alek said, slightly sarcastically.

Mirek chuckled, the first real expression of amusement Alek had seen since coming home. “Best not to tell him. If he does find out, all the more reason for you to be in deep space.”

“If I come back with Kendall, it will be worth it. If I come back alone, nothing he can do to me will match the pain I will be feeling.” Alek slowly stood.

Mirek eyed him in shock. “That is the most I have ever heard you admit about your… Did you say as much to your wife?”

Alek stiffened, not knowing how to answer. Instead, he diverted the subject. “If you have Riona’s medical records uploaded to the ship computer, I will see what I can find out about your wife’s illness. Someone in the high skies must know what it is.”

Alek was almost sorry he’d mentioned it. His brother’s eyes moved to the couch and the light went out of them. Mirek lacked patience, and having to wait for his bride to wake up would be the worst kind of torture. His expression and his manners tightened. “Thank you, but I have already sent the necessary inquiries.”

Alek touched his brother’s shoulder briefly. There was nothing he could say to ease Mirek’s suffering. Riona was ill. No words, no professing of love or emotions could help change that fact. The lack of such brotherly professions wouldn’t bother Mirek.

Mirek grabbed Alek’s hand when he would pull it away. “I smell the nef on you, brother. I don’t know where you got it, or how, but don’t take it. Don’t numb yourself to your bride while she stands before you. Perhaps that is why the gods send you into space. There are reasons for things, though I do know claim to know them.”

Alek reached into his pocket and took out the small bottle of nef he’d taken from the treasure trove of liquor at the cabin. He set it on the table before Mirek. There was no point in denying his shame in having contemplated taking the drug to ease his burden. “I only tasted it. I didn’t drink it.”

“A taste is enough, I’ve heard,” Mirek said. “I can smell it on you so some must have gotten into your system. Go find your bride and work it out.”

Alek left Mirek’s home to search out his own. He knew he should heed his brother’s advice and say something to Kendall, but he wasn’t sure how to start. Blurting out something like, “I need you so you can’t leave me or I will die,” seemed a bit dramatic, and yet that is how he felt. Ceffyls seemed to sense his emotions and he theirs. With a woman? Alek thought he sensed her. The overwhelming pain he’d felt inside her had been very, very real. Surely she could sense how strongly he felt for her?

When Alek entered his home it was to find Kendall standing near the kitchen door holding her sleeve over her nose. She breathed hard. Her eyes met his in a near panic.

“What is it?” he asked, hurrying inside. He partially shifted but couldn’t sense anything wrong.

“I’m cooking,” she mumbled against her shirt.

Alek went to the kitchen. Meat was laid out on the counter with a few uneven strips cut off and thrown into a pan. The pan smoked and the food was almost to the point of burning.

“The smell.” She backed away from the door. “I can’t take the smell. It’s too…” As if to prove her point, she coughed and gagged into her sleeve. “That can’t be what cooking food is supposed to smell like.”

Alek hurriedly took the pan off the fire and set it aside.

“I thought I could handle it this time, but I don’t know why it is. I had the same reaction when Aeron prepared meat. It’s so potent.” She didn’t move her sleeve. “I’m sorry. I know it’s your custom to prepare meals yourself, but would you happen to have a food simulator hidden somewhere?”

Alek came out of the kitchen and went to a wall next to the table. “Mirek had them installed in case we had visiting dignitaries to entertain with special diet requirements. I never actually used it.” He ran his hand over the panel. The unit was set into the wall. “He sends someone in to update the menus, but I can barely remember how it works. There should be a menu code list somewhere with programming directions.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this model, but they’re all pretty standard,” Kendall said, dropping her arm. She sighed in relief as the smell dissipated. “I had one similar to this on the fueling dock.” He watched as she activated it and began typing on the panel without instructions. Within seconds she was pulling out a plate of steaming food and a pronged utensil. She took a deep breath and gave a slight smile. “I can’t believe you still have this menu code in there. They took tomato basil pasta out of the newer units and our old one was hawked for parts to pay—it doesn’t matter. Apparently old Earth menus are no longer fashionable.” She took a deep breath, having no problem with the smell of the simulator’s cooked dish. He sniffed. It lacked the freshness he was used to and the scent was light, barely there.

“I haven’t had this since I was a kid. My father told me that it was my mother’s favorite, so it’s all I would eat.”

“You don’t remember your mother for yourself?” This was the first time she’d offered information about her parents. Usually she would try to change the topic whenever her father came up. He’d let her, assuming she would tell him what she wanted him to know.

“She died when I was born. I’m told I look nothing like her.” She gave a small shrug. “It’s sad, but I’m used to it. All I have are the stories my father told me about her. She was a traveling saleswoman who lived a very ordinary life. They met on the fueling dock. She never left. It’s the same way he met Margot’s mother.”

“I’ve heard you say this name before, Margot.” Alek moved his papers aside on the tabletop to make room for her, then looked at the food simulator and frowned.

“Do you want to try this?”

He really didn’t. The plate of pale string and red chunks hardly looked appealing and the smell was bland. Alek found himself politely answering, “Yes, thank you,” if only to please her by taking the offered dish that meant so much to her. The gesture was out of character for him and took him a bit by surprise. When he was seated across from her, he watched her stab and twirl the dining utensil so that the strings wrapped around it. He mimicked her movements, trying a small bite. It tasted strange, not horrible, but strange enough to make him take a second bite. He tried to place the moist texture but it was unlike anything he’d eaten before. “Margot? She is your sister?”

She nodded. “Yes. Her mother also died in childbirth. It’s not as suspicious as it sounds, two women dying in childbirth in this star era, at least not when you don’t have access to a medical unit. I helped raise Margot. My father didn’t have the mind to remember feeding times and schoolwork.”

Instead of taking a third bite, he set the utensil down. The pain of her leaving did not lessen, but he now saw the honor in it. “I understand.”

Kendall gave him a quizzical look. “What do you understand?”

“That is why you must go back. You are this girl’s mother and you are concerned she is not being fed as often as a child should. I respect your privacy, but I wish you would have told me sooner so that I might have understood the true urgency of your situation. I take it she young?”

“Yes.” Kendall nodded. “About twelve years by the tempastas time chart. From what I understand, most alien calendars track age by roughly the same cycle. But I would not say I am her mother. I am simply her sister.”

“A sister who acts in place of her mother. The feelings in that situation are much the same, I would imagine.” Alek didn’t touch the stringy food again. Kendall toyed with her meal, pushing the red chunks around to form a smiling face before mixing them into the pasta. “Will your father not watch out for her? In your absence, will he not take on his proper duties?”

“My father is ill.”

“And you must care for him as well? Does he have long?”

“My father suffers from…” She paused and stabbed a red piece a little too hard. “He gambles. Quite a bit. He also loses quite a bit. Some call that an illness. Some call it a weakness. I call it reality.” Bitterness seeped into her tone. “He once lost part of our security camera circuitry. He lost six months’ worth of food simulator cells. He lost an entire fuel shipment, which is just as bad as losing the cells as we had no money to buy more food with no fuel to sell. He lost most of my mother’s jewels and Margot’s mother’s valuables. He lost my inheritance from my mother, meager as it was. He once lost an entire length of catwalk grating and we were unable to rent half of our private rooms to travelers until I bartered for a replacement. If it can be gambled, he will lose it.”

“And you,” Alek said quietly, everything coming together. “He lost you. That is what the repossession was all about, wasn’t it?”

Kendall nodded, not meeting his gaze. He felt her pain wash over him again. “Yes. Apparently, it wasn’t the first time he used me as collateral. Only this time he was unable to turn his losing streak back around. They collected me to pay for his debts and I was sold to Galaxy Brides as cargo. I barely remember anything between the repossession agents coming to claim me and waking on the Galaxy Brides ship. I was kept as cargo in stasis. There were moments when I would wake up between containers, or when they put me in medical booths. The time blurs together like a hazy dream I can’t quite pick apart.”

“Your father did not act honorably.” He was unsure how to comfort her, but he desperately wanted to. What did a husband say to such a thing?

“Thank you.” She nodded, seeming to understand his sentiment and take some comfort from it.

This was a sense of obligation Alek could understand and respect, even if he couldn’t relate to it. He nodded. “You are right, of course. Helping him is the honorable thing.”

“I know you don’t think my worrying is very honorable, but I have to go back before he loses Margot, before he loses the fueling dock, before he has nothing left to give them and they put him in debtors’ prison or take his life. Flawed as he is, he is my father and I must help him.”

“What do you mean that is what I think?” The very thought of her believing that left him cold.

“At the cabin. You said worrying wasn’t honorable.”

“About your husband’s worth, not all worries,” he corrected. “I apologize if you misunderstood me. Is that how you really think of me? That hard?”

She didn’t meet his gaze.

Alek was unsure how to explain himself better. “Would your father consider coming here to live?”

Kendall shook her head in denial. “No. I wouldn’t want to do that to you or your family, and there is no way he will leave that fueling dock. Thank you, though, for listening and for the offer.”

As much as Alek wanted to force her father to come back to Qurilixen, he understood well the stubbornness that could drive people. His own father would never have left his home world had the situation been reversed. Short of kidnapping the man and keeping him under constant guard for the rest of his life, there was little Alek could do but try to convince him to move. In light of her words, Kendall did not seem so unwilling to be with him, but rather it was her duty that called her away. As a man of honor, he understood duty. His duty to his family kept him where he lived. So, instead of convincing Kendall to stay, he would convince her father to leave the fueling dock.

“I wish I could abandon him,” she whispered. “But if I do I might as well kill him myself. It would amount to the same thing. I know I shouldn’t care after all he’s done, but he’s not all bad. There is some good mixed in with the flaws.”

“These matters are complicated.” Alek nodded in agreement. “The ship is being readied and we will board in the morning.”

“Thank you.” She pushed her plate forward and stood from the table. He watched her as she came to stand by him. For a moment, her hand hesitated before reaching to touch his face. “I looked at your artwork. You’re very talented.”

Alek glanced over to the stack of parchment on the table. The top page was blank but he knew the drawings she spoke of. “It eases the boredom.”

“You’re very talented,” she repeated.

“Thank you.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed you were an artist. I wonder what else you do that I wouldn’t have guessed at.” Kendall trailed the tip of her finger down the slope of his nose. “You are a very hard man to read, Alek.” She traced his eyebrows. “With Bron and Mirek it is easy to guess what they are thinking.” She moved her finger to his lips. The light touch held his attention. He didn’t move to touch her, merely looked up at her as she stood next to his seat. “What happened to you growing up that make you so different from your brothers?”

“I don’t know that anything happened. As children, Bron was the spoiled future high duke. Mirek was the baby. I somehow became the quiet one stuck between them. My mother used to tell me that I didn’t even cry when I was born. Then Vladan was adopted into our family after his parents died in a mining accident. He was the wild one, raised outside our nobility.”

“What happened to your parents?” She ran her fingers over his lips as she spoke, tracing the edges.

“An alien illness stole their years. They went on an ambassadorial mission. The aliens naturally carried a plague virus we are susceptible to. It was one of those strange and unexplainable accidents. The aliens meant no harm. Now all Draig are inoculated against it when they are born. My parents died quickly and together.”