The Duty and the Gone (The Fertility Plague Book 1) Read online

  “It rather did,” Mom agreed. “But it was a huge risk. I’m astonished Mrs. Drakensburg allowed it.”

  “A life lived without any risk isn’t a life lived at all,” I said, parroting Jenna from last night, surprised to discover her philosophy still resonated with a tingle of excitement within me.

  Mom’s lips pursed as she looked at me, a long, serious look that seemed to be searching inside me for hidden, risk-taking related secrets.

  I shifted uncomfortably.

  Finally, she relented with a small nod. “Just don’t be fooled by unworthy causes.”

  “Since when is fashion unworthy?” I said lightly to misdirect, in case she harbored any suspicions.

  Her smile returned. “Touché.”

  And that was that, I sincerely hoped. My brief flirtation with misadventure in the shape of a silver flask— Oh, okay. How paranoid was I? Mom didn’t suspect anything about last night. That had been a subtle warning about my future in the Sisterhood, I was sure of it. I would need to take risks, but I shouldn’t be a reckless risk-taker…or something like that. But what did she really mean? Were some of the Sisterhood’s causes less worthy than others?

  I stowed that away, to be discussed in detail at a later date, and looked for Daniel again. He’d mingled deeper into the mass of bodies, chatting with his father and some dark-haired guy. I stared at his profile, willing him to turn and give me one last reassuring grin, but gave up when another server bringing sparkling wine blocked my view.

  “Any chance of a whiskey?” my father asked.

  “No problem, Sir,” the server said and went off to fetch it.

  Ignoring the wine, I nibbled on a selection of miniature savory tarts as the tables around us filled up with my classmates. Lisa, looking gorgeous in a skimpy dress that made my cleavage problem look positively meek by comparison. Carolyn was a breath of fresh air in an off-white dress with a modest square bodice and layered skirts that suited her curvy figure.

  It was only when Jenna entered the reception hall with her parents that I suddenly remembered her outlandish proclamation yesterday about not graduating. She’d just been messing with us, obviously. Thank goodness! She’d actually made some effort tonight. Her red hair had been tamed into a sleek shine and while her dress was nothing eye-shattering, she looked rather pretty.

  A short while later, Councilman Thorpe stepped into the aisle and raised a hand to get our attention. Once the room fell silent, he beamed a smile from one side of the aisle to the other as he officially opened the ceremony with what was no doubt an eloquent welcome. The actual words trickled in my one ear and out the other. My nerves grew tight again. My stomach seemed to cramp around that last tart I’d eaten.

  This was it.

  It didn’t matter if Daniel made me feel warm and fuzzy, he was still practically a stranger. Tonight I’d be living in a strange home. Tonight I’d be sleeping in a strange bed.

  “Gentlemen,” Councilman Thorpe’s voice droned into my frenzied thoughts, “If you haven’t deposited your offer yet, there’s less than five minutes on the clock.”

  He waited a beat, as if expecting a tide of over-eager boys to rush the basket with their last-minute offers. No one did. That side of the aisle was far more packed than ours, but it was hard to tell how many offers there’d be. Some boys were there with their parents. The older ones might have come alone. Guys ranging anywhere from 17 to 25, some newly graduated, others who’d taken their time to settle down, still others who’d maybe lost a wife and were trying a second time around. Not everyone who’d registered had attended the preceding balls—it wasn’t mandatory. Not everyone who’d registered would put in an offer—that wasn’t mandatory either.

  Looking out over the sea of potential grooms now, I realized what a circus this whole affair was. The only certainty was that there’d be eleven brides tonight. If you didn’t get an offer, there was a waiting list of men over the age of 25 who’d be assigned to the unlucky girl/s. But that was incredibly rare. There was never any shortage of offers or men of eligible age. The male to female birth ratio was 7-4, had been for as long as Capra stood. The plague had rotted our ovaries and ever since, it seemed the universe was trying to slowly stamp out our gender altogether. As if it sensed we’d outwitted its grand extinction scheme and moved onto Plan B.

  Councilman Thorpe introduced Pastor Newbury, who’d be performing the wedding rites. The pastor rattled on about the sanctity of families until the basket was collected, taken to a back office where the offers would be sorted into eleven envelopes.

  With the welcome speech and sermon over, my father exchanged his whiskey glass for the flute of sparkling wine and raised it to me. “I wish I could keep you with me a little longer, even if it is selfish. You are beautiful, kind, strong and dutiful, and you’ll make some fortunate young man very happy tonight. Choose well, Georga, choose with your head and your gut, and your heart will follow.”

  Tears stung my eyes as I lifted my glass to his. My father always had so much faith in me. I didn’t have to be perfect to be perfect. I didn’t have to prove myself to be worthy.

  Mom placed a hand on my knee and squeezed gently. She didn’t need to say a word. I was still her daughter, now and always. She wasn’t going anywhere. It might feel like I was about to be cast out into the big, bad world, but I’d never be alone while she breathed air.

  I sent her a smile and took a long, slow sip of the bubbly wine for courage. It didn’t really help.

  Time slipped through my fingers like quicksilver and before I knew it, I was alone at the table with Mom and a fancy cream envelope. My father had been escorted to the staging area where he’d wait to walk me down the aisle. Removing our relevant male guardians was deliberate. The council was serious about their non-interference rule. While a mother’s presence counted as support, a father’s word commanded obedience.

  The council wanted us to take sole responsibility for our choice. No crying, he made me do it, if we landed up with a dud husband. My interpretation.

  Although since meeting Daniel, I was willing to concede there might be some merit in the official interpretation: A happy marriage bears healthy fruit and they expected us to take full advantage of the balls to sort ourselves into a happy match.

  Turning the envelope over and over between my fingers, I glanced around the tables. Jessie was already opening hers. Carolyn clasped hers to her breast. Brenda tapped the edge of hers on the table. Every table had received an envelope. As expected, no St. Ives girls without an offer this year—I’d only been nervous about Jenna with her lackluster attitude and scores, but yes, she had an envelope as well.

  I stopped twirling my envelope and looked at Mom. “Here goes.”

  She smiled, a warm smile that fed into her eyes. “Take your time, darling, savor every moment.”

  Sucking down a deep breath, I unsealed the envelope and withdrew the thin stack of embossed cards.

  Paul Summers. The name on the top card twitched my lips. Go figure, Paul was one of the boys my father had warned me against. We’d danced at the first ball and it had all been rather mechanical. I didn’t even remember if we’d talked during the dance, certainly not after.

  Flipping through the corners of the stack without looking at the names, I counted four cards. Four offers.

  My eyes lifted to Mom.

  She was still smiling. She didn’t ask, didn’t even try to peek.

  My stomach hollowed out as I lowered my eyes and slowly, ever so slowly, peeled away the top card to reveal the name beneath.

  Roman West. I cast my mind back, but the name meant nothing. If I’d met him, even danced with him, he had obviously been totally unmemorable.

  I peeled the card away.

  George Evans. A skinny guy. He’d towered above me on the dance floor. A long face that I hadn’t really found attractive. But I had liked looking into his eyes. They were kind. He was a shy guy, from what I’d seen.

  My nerves pinched, my fingers tensing as I prepa
red myself for the final card. What if it didn’t read Daniel Edgar? That was silly! Of course it would. But what…? No, who else could it be?

  I blinked long as I slid George Evans away, opened my eyes on the name beneath. My nerves un-pinched. Everything in me, from my skin to my bones to my mind, felt suddenly loose.

  5

  Jacob Brimley.

  How?

  What?

  I stacked the cards again and shuffled them.

  “Georga?” my mom said, sounding slightly less than confident.

  I ignored her, intent on flipping through the cards again, positive I’d seen wrong.

  Paul Summers.

  Jacob Brimley.

  Roman West.

  George Evans.

  “I don’t understand,” I whispered hoarsely.

  Mom tugged the cards from my hand, as if she needed to see for herself, as if my sagged shoulders and stricken whisper didn’t tell the whole story.

  Silence hung over our table as the truth sank in. My eyes searched out Daniel, found him standing with his father and that dark haired guy. My gaze bored into his back, willing him to turn around, to look at me, to make sense of this chaos.

  He didn’t turn and I gave up.

  I didn’t understand, but that didn’t matter. I didn’t want to believe, but I was living it. Apparently everything I’d said last night was a load of crap. This didn’t feel like a lucky escape. This felt like the walls closing in on me, squeezing the air from my lungs. This felt like a boulder strapped to my back, pressing me into a smaller and smaller person.

  “Georga, listen to me,” Mom’s urgent voice reached me. “You still have good prospects. Daniel Edgar isn’t—”

  “But he is,” I cut in, staring at her in confusion. Mom saw everything. How could she not see this? “He was…to me. I wasn’t making it up, Mom. I thought he genuinely liked me. All those hours we spent together, walking through the gardens—he picked a flower for me, stuck it into my hair—we talked so easily, I could tell him anything, everything, he never thought I was being stupid, he listened, really listened, as if I had something to say—I don’t understand, what did I do? The last time we danced, I thought he’d kiss me, he wanted to, I saw it in his eyes, he said he couldn’t resist me, I was irresistible, he said—”

  “That’s enough!” Mom said sharply, her voice low and more firm than I’d ever heard from her. “I don’t know what happened, if he was leading you on or if he changed his mind or had it changed for him, but it’s done and I know you are stronger than this. I raised you to be stronger than this. You still have an important decision to make that will affect the rest of your life.”

  I blinked at her, chewed on my lower lip, suddenly ashamed of rambling like a love-sick puppy. Daniel didn’t want me. He’d singled me out, he’d made me feel things, and he’d discarded me liked a worn-out rag.

  I should be angry, furious, and as I thought about it, the crushing confusion hardened into something resembling anger. I couldn’t altogether shake the shock and despair. He didn’t want me. But now I had the anger as well and I could build on it. I hadn’t imagined the whole thing. Daniel had courted me. He’d sought me out, time and time again. And again, only a short while ago. Caught my gaze across a crowded room and pierced with me that warm intensity.

  “Here.” Mom shoved the crystal flute of sparkling wine into my hands. “Shoulders back, and a smile wouldn’t hurt,” she said, her voice softening. “You don’t want pity from the others, darling, that will only make it worse.”

  The others? I hadn’t even thought about the pitiful looks and sniggers from my classmates when they found out. I thought about it now, and found I didn’t care. This wasn’t about appearances or my ego. This was personal. This was between me and Daniel. This was between me and myself. How could I have been such a fool?

  I threw back half the glass of wine for fortitude. It didn’t help. What I need is half a flask of Jenna’s white rum. My heart skipped a beat. Was that what had changed? Had Daniel heard about my misadventures with alcohol last night? Lisa wouldn’t have reported me. But her father was the head guard and her mother had access to the council wives. A word whispered into the right ear could easily have made it through to Daniel.

  Is that what happened?

  The fledgling anger stewed in my breast. I’d spent my life trying to be darn near perfect and one little thing, one moment of indiscretion, one tiny spark of rebellion, ruins it all? That wasn’t just unfair, it was a cruel, bitter joke.

  I plonked my glass down and took the stack of cards from Mom with a determined grimace. “Okay, let’s see what I have.”

  Paul Summers.

  I showed her the card. “Dad warned me off him.”

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  I gave her a curious look. “Did he tell you why?”

  “No, but we should trust his judgement in this.”

  Since I agreed, I slapped the card face down and considered the next one.

  Jacob Brimley.

  Mom gently plucked Jacob off the stack and added him to the discarded pile.

  “Jacob’s not too bad,” I said. “We never danced, but we did talk a bit and he seemed pleasant.”

  In response, Mom tapped her finger on the next card. “I don’t know the West family, but I’ve heard about Roman West. He’s a warden.”

  “A warden?” I repeated dumbly.

  Wardens were a rare breed inside the town. In fact, everything about wardens were mysterious and elusive. I guess they were something like the Guard and the council rolled into one, but their power and operation base lay mainly outside the walls. There, they ruled alongside the council, not under it. Inside the walls the lines were a little more blurred: their status ranked above the Guard although, as far as I knew, they actually had less authority. As always, when it came to wardens, one never really knew what was what.

  “What’s he doing here?” I asked. “Is he even allowed to offer?”

  Mom held a hand up to shoosh me. “How long has it been now? About eighteen months? Yes, so about eighteen months ago he took a position at the Warden Head Quarters in town. No one really knows anything about him before that, so it’s likely he was promoted from one of the Warden Stations outside the wall. So, in answer to your question, he is definitely eligible to make an offer. He would also need to be under twenty-five, so he likely has a junior position but oh…” Her eyes glinted with excitement. “I almost forgot, he’s friendly with Daniel Edgar, so that’s a definite plus. And remember, darling, there’s only a handful of wardens based at the Head Quarters inside town, so even junior roles are prestigious.”

  I struggled to share Mom’s enthusiasm. “He sounds scary.”

  “Don’t be silly.” She waved my concern aside with a smile. “He’s just a young man with powerful connections and a bright future. Not unlike Daniel Edgar and you didn’t find that prospect scary.”

  Yeah, except Daniel wouldn’t have had any real power for many years. We could have grown into it together.

  I sighed, unconvinced, and glanced over to the groom’s side of the aisle. “What does he look like? Can you point him out?”

  “Um, I’ve never met him…” Mom turned in her seat to look behind her. “But give me a minute.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see her exchange a look with Mrs. Bickens, Lisa’s mom. A moment later Mom excused herself to go to the restroom. It wasn’t long before Mrs. Bickens stood and made her way out the same door. I was pretty sure they were breaking some unwritten rule.

  Putting an elbow on the table to rest my chin upon, I bent my head as if studying the cards. My gaze slanted to the doorway and stayed there, watching as my mom and Mrs. Bickens returned from their restroom visit. They didn’t pause on the threshold, but their eyes were across the aisle and their lips were moving as they walked. Needless to say, when Mom sat down again, she had the information I needed.

  Roman West was Daniel’s dark-haired friend. They were still a
ll standing together, Daniel and his father and Roman West. I couldn’t see a whole lot from this angle, just a slice of side profile. His hair was dark, clippered short with a little more length on the top. He stood about a head taller than Daniel and he wore a black suit, the jacket tailored to fit those broad shoulders.

  Unease gripped me. Whereas Daniel was a boy, it was clear even from this distance that Roman was a man.

  “I don’t remember him at all,” I said. “He wasn’t at any of the balls.”

  “It’s not mandatory to attend,” Mom said.

  “It isn’t, but what does that say about him?” I murmured, my gaze rooted to the tall, dark-haired man. “He has no interest in his bride beyond scorecards and what’s written in the dossiers?”

  “Perhaps his duties kept him away.”

  “Maybe…” I brought my eyes back to the table. “Mom, I don’t know.”

  “Don’t be hasty, Georga.”

  I gave her a look. It wasn’t like I had a day and a night to think it over. “He’s too much.”

  “Too much what?”

  Too much man? Too much mystery? I shrugged.

  Mom leant in. “You need to consider this very carefully, Georga, and not just for…” Her eyes dipped, her voice lowered, “…you know.”

  The Sisters of Capra. Of course, if they weren’t getting a councilman’s wife, a warden’s wife was quite literally the next best thing. I looked over at Roman West again. He hadn’t moved, but I knew seeing his face wouldn’t change my mind. It wasn’t his physical features as such that rattled me, it was his entire presence. His job. The whole warden aspect and his promotion to Head Quarters. The way he stood, so tall and broad, so at ease chatting to Councilman Edgar.

  “Did they say something to you?” I asked Mom. “About Daniel, I mean. Did they order you to make sure I accepted him if he offered?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “They wouldn’t do that.”

  “Then they wouldn’t order this, either.” They wouldn’t kick me out because I turned down a powerful husband and their inside track to a warden. I placed Roman West on the growing discarded pile. “Dad told me to go with my head and my gut, and both are popping up red flags.”