For Darkness Shows the Stars Part 23

"But I'm sure you don't want to go through all that trouble. So you can just sign the estate over to your sister."

For years, Elliot had dreaded her father's wrath. For years, she had acquiesced to all manner of unreasonable demands and wasteful plans. For years, if she disobeyed him, she did it in secret. She might have been a Luddite, but until today, he'd been her lord and master.

She was done.

"No."

His unpleasantly pleasant smile grew even wider. "Yes."

He'd bullied her this morning. He never would again. "You can't threaten me anymore, Father. You've nothing to threaten me with." The words burst forth with each new realization, impossible vistas of opportunity that spread wide as the sea. "I've my own lands. If you mistreat any of your Reduced or Post laborers, I'll invite them to the Boatwright estate. Our holdings aren't as large as yours, but we can survive. The Luddite tribunal will support me."

"I'll tell them about the wheat." There it was. Out in the open. He knew exactly what he'd plowed under last summer.

This gave her pause but only for a moment. For Elliot had learned things since then, too. About what people thought elsewhere in the islands. About what they thought of her.

"Tell them." Tell a host of Luddite lords who welcomed Post clothes and Post horses and Posts themselves. "Tell them how on your farm, which you supposedly control, your daughter planted a crop of illegal wheat. Who would be in trouble for that?"

Her hands were shaking, so she clenched them together under the desk. She could do this. She had to. "Tell them and see if they put me in prison, or if they come to me to buy my grain."

The smile faded, replaced by a tight-lipped line. "Do you really wish to challenge me on this, Elliot?"

Elliot would not blink. He was just trying to scare her. But if the Boatwright estate was hers, hers to do with as she wished, then all her troubles were over. With the additional productivity of her wheat, they'd manage despite the smaller size of the Boatwright farm. She could liberate Dee from the birthing house and bring her and Jef somewhere safe. She could plant whatever she wanted. She could let Ro graft as many flowers as she chose. She could make a sea of string-boxes.

Her lands. Hers. All she had to do was stand up to her father right now.

"Then you leave me no choice," the baron said. "I hereby ban you from my lands. You want the Boatwright estate? It's all you'll have, at least until I challenge the will and gain it back for Tatiana. And then, my dear child, you'll have nothing."

"Father!" she cried. The Boatwright's funeral was this evening. There was no way he would provoke a public family squabble before they laid her grandfather to rest. "You don't want to do this!" But of course he did. It was how he'd responded to the threat of Benedict taking land he thought belonged to him. Why wouldn't it be the same for Elliot?

"I don't want to lay eyes on you again," he replied. "You are a grasping, ungrateful daughter. An embarra.s.sment to this family. To all Luddites."

Elliot took a deep breath. He was trying to scare her. She would not give in. "You won't get the estate back, no matter what you tell the tribunal."

"It's a pity you're so sure of yourself," he replied. "You're like that silly compa.s.s the Boatwright gave you-eternally heading down the wrong path."

A YOUNGER ELLIOT MIGHT have spent time mourning for the loss of the only home she'd ever known. A more inexperienced Elliot might have been conciliatory, squandering valuable minutes trying to get her father to see reason.

This Elliot wasted no time at all.

She had no leisure for second thoughts. Her father had backed her into a corner and forced her to make a sudden decision. And what good were second thoughts? Once, she'd listened to them, and then spent four years regretting it.

She had no time to seek out advice, either from friends like Horatio Grove or impartial but well-meaning strangers like Baroness Channel. Or from Kai, who was neither friend nor stranger, but something more than both. And yet what would any of them have told her that she didn't already know? Baroness Channel was her grandfather's executor-naturally she agreed with the bequest. And Horatio would support her as well.

As for Kai . . . Yesterday, he'd admitted he'd hoped she approved of his sun-carts, and told her he was proud of her for defying her father over the wheat. If she knew him at all, she was already well aware of what he'd say.

For four years she'd contented herself with sc.r.a.ps of a life, convinced herself not to fight, not to even want to fight. For four years she'd resigned herself to a reality in which she could not decide her own fate, let alone the destiny of those she loved.

Kai had been right. It was no life at all. And though she'd never have him, by G.o.d she would take whatever else she could get.

Within twenty minutes she'd packed her clothes, the few books she knew were hers, and the portion of her mother's jewelry that Tatiana hadn't claimed. On the way out of the house, she stopped Mags and asked her to send Jef to her in the barn. She didn't tell her why. Mags and Gill would be fine for the time being, and she wanted to make this as smooth a transition as possible.

Jef, Dee, and Ro. The rest would come in time.

It was insane. It was radical. The very idea would have seemed ludicrous to her a few days ago. But Luddites were luring skilled Posts to other estates all the time now, and no one was preventing them. She would make the Boatwright estate the most attractive one on the island, and there was enough precedent that she was certain there was no way for her father to stop her.

Elliot made short work of packing up her materials and the bundles of notes she'd taken on the wheat. The gliders, however, gave her pause. If she were smart, she'd burn them. She couldn't leave them here, in the barn. But the only place she had to go was the Boatwright house. Her house.

Where Kai lived.

She should burn them. They were nothing but old letters, and besides, she'd memorized their contents ages ago. She should burn them, lest they fall into the wrong hands-which could be her father's or Kai's, as far as she was concerned. She should burn them, because she knew they were a part of something long gone. She should burn them, and be brave.

But she'd already used up all her reserves of bravery. She stuffed the gliders into the bottom of her bag, crus.h.i.+ng their papery wings beneath her sweater. They'd likely never fly again, just like Elliot. But that didn't matter. The memories remained intact.

There was a knock at the door. At last, Jef. She shot across the room to pull it open.

"h.e.l.lo, cousin," said Benedict. "So this is where you hide."

Thirty-eight.

BENEDICT'S GAZE ROVED THE room-from the hooks in the ceilings that once held the gliders to the beakers and shears on the desk. "I always wondered where you went all the time." He stepped into the room and continued his survey, hands in his pockets. Elliot backed up until she stood before her bag, s.h.i.+elding it from his prying eyes with the edge of her black mourning skirt. "Your sister thinks you're working whenever you're gone from the house-either that or in the cottage of that Reduced girl. But I knew that wasn't the case."

"How?" Elliot couldn't help but ask.

"I looked for you there, of course." He circled back around to face her. "So."

"So?"

"This changes things significantly. Your inheritance, I mean."

"Yes," she said. "It does."

He whistled through his teeth. "I don't think I understood the reality of the arrangement that the Boatwright had with your father. I thought the land was his already."

"And therefore yours," Elliot volunteered.

"Exactly." Benedict gave a sheepish shrug. "Though of course, this makes more sense. Why would the Boatwright let Uncle Zachariah have it, knowing that it wouldn't stay in his family?"

Benedict tapped his foot on the floor. Elliot watched him warily, as one might a spider in the corner. But what could Benedict do to her that her own father hadn't already threatened? Did he even know of her father's banishment? Perhaps he'd sympathize, having been through something similar.

"You looked pretty shocked at the reading, cousin. I take it you didn't know the terms of your grandfather's will."

"You'd be correct." This was not the time to chat with Benedict. Where was Jef? He'd better not be dawdling. She wasn't leaving this property until she had all three servants with her, just in case her father decided to take her defection out on his laborers.

"And what are your plans now?" He c.o.c.ked his head at her. "Are you going to leave the North estate? Go live at the Boatwright house?"

She hesitated. So her father hadn't said anything. "Why do you want to know?"

"Self-interest." His tone was even, open. "I have good reason to suspect that if you leave, many of the people here would follow. All my land isn't going to be much good to me unless I have a workforce to run it."

"I see."

"I don't think they have any particular loyalty to your father, but I know they do to you. Which is why I am here."

"What?"

He took a few steps closer to her. "I like the Boatwright estate. I like it more, even, than the North one. Farming is dead. The Cloud Fleet knows where the future lies. s.h.i.+pbuilding. They are going to get off this island, and soon other Posts with money will want to, too. Your estate is the one with the future, Elliot."

She raised her eyebrows. "You're saying you want to switch?"

"No, I'm saying I want to join. I have every right to the North estate, and I'm going to take it." The anger in his tone left Elliot with no doubt that his primary motivation in doing so would be to revenge himself on her father. "And the Boatwright lands, according to the terms of your grandfather's will, should be yours. But we both know your family will fight those terms. They have to. Right now, neither your father nor your sister has anything. They are backed into a corner. That's why Uncle Zachariah has brought me home. He's hoping that if he makes nice now, I won't turn him out the second the land is mine. He's hoping to throw Tatiana at me. But I don't want her."

"No?"

Benedict took another step, until they were face to face. "I want you."

When she tried to move back, he caught her by the arms. "Benedict, I-"

"I know," he said. "You're filled with newfangled Post sensibilities. You aren't interested in your cousin. Perhaps you even find it creepy. That doesn't bother me."

Her eyes widened.

"You're not the first woman in your family to marry for something other than love, Elliot. You're not the first Boatwright heiress to marry a North for the good of both estates, either."

She moved back another step, but she hit the wall. He pressed even closer. "You can't be serious," she said.

"I find you very . . . pleasant," he offered halfheartedly. "I think we would do well together. And consider how it could help both of us. As Baron North, I would help you advocate for your inheritance against your father. He would have much less leverage to stop you once he's stripped of his land, t.i.tle, money . . ."

And her father would have similarly little leverage or credibility if he tried to bring charges against her for the wheat. She hated to admit it, but Benedict was right. If she married him, he could protect her.

But . . . marry? Benedict? Some other Elliot might have laughed at the idea, but today she just wanted to put an end to the conversation and find Ro.

"And you could help me. You could help me bring the North estate back to what it could be. If you were my baroness, the workers would stay here. There's less and less holding Posts to their ancestral lands every year. But they would stay, for you."

Would they? Dee insisted on staying even when Elliot tried to shove her out the door. But Kai had left, despite everything they shared. Benedict was wrong. It wasn't for her. It was for the same reasons she herself had stayed four years earlier: the benefit of those on the estate who had no choice.

"They would accept me," he went on. "And together we could turn your grandfather's s.h.i.+pyard into something truly spectacular."

She stared at him, mouth gaping. Ever since his return, she'd wondered why Benedict had chosen now to come home. It wasn't that he needed the money-whatever job he'd had in the Post enclave had made him wealthy. He didn't seem to care at all for Luddite prestige. And despite appearances, he had no interest in reconciling with his uncle.

Now she knew. It was the reopening of the s.h.i.+pyard. Benedict had come for that. He'd pressed her to take a tour of the Boatwright estate the day of her grandfather's stroke, and now that it was clear the Boatwright estate was not automatically his, he'd come to stake a claim to it-through her.

"Marry me, Elliot." He leaned in to kiss her.

"Stop!" she shouted, raising her hands to block him.

"Not on my account, surely," said a voice by the door. They turned to find Tatiana standing on the landing, her face a mask of disgust. She was still clad in her blue dress, but her ribbons had drooped significantly. "You have to have everything, don't you, Elliot?"

"Tatiana," Elliot said, pus.h.i.+ng Benedict aside. She'd deal with him later. "Did Father tell you? He's making me leave the estate."

"If you don't give your inheritance to me, yes." Tatiana nodded, and shot a withering glare at Benedict. "I think it's rather silly, myself. Did he really expect you to take that offer? What do you care if you leave here, if you have an estate of your own? You're better off."

Elliot was surprised by Tatiana's frank a.s.sessment. She said it with no malice. It was a simple statement of fact. Benedict had moved away from her and was standing by the desk, glancing back and forth between the two sisters.

"And you'll certainly be happy there now with your Post friends," Tatiana added. She looked out the window. "You should be leaving now, I think?"

"I'm waiting," Elliot said.

"For what?"

"Nothing."

Tatiana smiled. "For your little Reduced friend? Or that pregnant foreman and her son? Or both?"

Elliot took a breath. What was the point in lying? "All of them, yes."

Tatiana gave her a pitying smile. "That's not going to happen, Elliot."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you know our father at all?" Tatiana asked. "They're leverage." She pointed out the window.

Elliot rushed over. Outside on the lawn, Baron North stood by the gate. In one hand, he held a pistol. In the other hand, he held tight to Ro's arm. "No," she whispered. "What is he doing?"

It was a foolish question. She knew the answer.

A few moments later, she was out on the lawn. She didn't see Jef anywhere, but wasn't sure if it meant that the baron didn't have him, or if he'd just chosen Ro to make an example of. "Let her go."

"Oh, I don't think so," said her father. "I have provided for this laborer her entire life. I have provided for all of them. Too many have walked off my lands with no repercussions. It ends here. Today."

With Ro. Elliot shook with a rage she hadn't known she'd possessed. Ro was Reduced, but she was a person, not a p.a.w.n. "Let go of her, Father."

"Happily. She's so dusty. Simply sign over the Boatwright lands to your sister."

He'd always controlled Elliot by threatening the Reduced and the Posts. If she gave in this time, she'd never be able to help them again. "No."

The baron shrugged. "You will not take her with you. You will never see her again. I will establish myself on the border of our lands and shoot any servant who tries to cross."

Elliot's heart constricted. He wouldn't. Would he? Ro wasn't even squirming in his grip. Just standing dejected, limp, flinching a bit every time he spoke. Her face was turned to the ground. Elliot longed to call her name, but she was afraid it would give her hope.

Tatiana and Benedict emerged from the barn and met them by the gate. Tatiana carried Elliot's bag. "Are you taking this, Sister?"

"Tatiana," said Elliot, gesturing at Ro. "You know this is wrong."