Before any further animosity could flare between the two men, Adeline Duvall stepped past the director to give Lucy a motherly look that would make lesser folk weep and beg for mercy.
Lucy had already decided she didn’t have any regrets, so her mother staring at her like she was a felon caught on the run from a gulag wasn’t going to work this time.
Her mother didn’t say a word. She simply shifted her gaze to Axel and gave him a death stare as she made a single motion of her hand for Lucy to join her.
Axel squeezed her fingers once more before releasing her. He leaned in and whispered, “Sorry if you’re in trouble, but I’m afraid I still have no regrets.”
Lucy giggled. She kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Axel. I had the best time ever.”
She stepped toward her mother.
“When can I see you again?” She turned to him with a shy smile as heat filled her cheeks. She was about to tell him she’d send a note, but her mother interrupted.
“Never again,” Adeline Duvall said in a quietly hostile tone. “She is not meant for someone like you.” Lucy frowned.
“Isn’t that up to her?” Axel asked, his level of amusement having dipped considerably.
“No, it is not up to her.” To Director Patmore, the older woman said, “I assume you will apprise this man of the consequences of his actions.”
“Yes, Mrs. Duvall. I’ll take care of it.”
Lucy gave him one last long angsty look before the door shut behind her and they were back inside the way station.
“What has gotten in to you, Lucinda? I was worried sick when you didn’t come back with the items from the store.” Lucy tried to keep pace with her mother’s long-legged stride across the vast basement area as she headed for the luxury entrance to theRoyal Caldera Forte.
“Sorry, Mother. I was invited on a date to see Earth and I wanted to go. So, I did.”
Her mother stopped dead in her tracks half a dozen steps from the gangplank leading to the airship. “Young lady, you are in an arranged marriage.”
“But the paperwork hasn’t even been started yet and I still get to decide whether I accept the man you’ve arranged for me, isn’t that correct?”
Her mother stared at her silently. Shaking her head a couple of times with an expression of disbelief, she finally said, “Of all my daughters, I expectedyouto be the least trouble where the arranged marriages were concerned. You’ve never said a word against it.”
Maybe that had been true before meeting Axel, but no more. Now she had plenty to say against her future arranged marriage. It felt like small circus animals were doing acrobatics in her belly, but she wanted to let her mother know that things had changed regarding those arranged marriages her parents were so proud of.
Her mother continued, “Then the moment I turn my back on this strange backwater planet, you run off on an illicit assignation with some stranger? I certainly hope your father never finds out. He will not be pleased.”
Lucy sort of hoped that, too, until Axel’s face came to her mind. Her knees went weak, but her lovelorn heart roared forward. She shrugged as if she didn’t care what her father thought. Her mother’s lips parted in surprise.
Lucy squared her shoulders. “About that. You didn’t answer before, but I really need to know. Do I truly have to marry the person you chose for me days after I was born, or is there some path where I’m allowed to choose my own groom?”
“Lucinda! What in the world are you talking about? Of course you have to marry the young man we selected for you. That’s the very definition of an arranged marriage. You marry and if not immediately infatuated you will learn to love the young man we’ve specially selected for you.”
“Well, what if I don’t want to marry some stranger you picked out over twenty years ago? What if I want to spend my life with someone else? Someone better.”
“Another stranger?” her mother railed with righteous indignation.
A few passengers walked by them on a trajectory to the ship’s gangplank. One elderly woman’s eyebrows lifted all the way to her perfectly coifed gray-blue hair as she watched them with interest.
Her mother suddenly went on high alert as if only now realizing they were not at home on Alpha-Prime or in any sort of private place for a delicate discussion.
“We shall discuss this subject once we’re aboard and in our private quarters.”
“No.”
“No? What’s gotten into you that you’d be so disrespectful?”
Lucy pushed out a long sigh. “I’m not trying to be disrespectful, Mother. I’m trying to tell you that unless Axel Grey is the person you’ve named to be my future husband, I’m not interested.”
