Elizabeth Moon - Hunting Party

“I feel silly, that’s all. My red dress, and the boys in skimps?”

Cecelia chuckled in spite of herself. “If you’re going to feel silly just because some lummox doesn’t live up to your expectations, you’ll have a miserable life. Wear what you want and ignore them.”

Another shared glance. One of the girls might have been more tactful, but Ronnie burst out first. “That’s what you do—and that’s why you never married and live by yourself in a miserable little ship!”

Cecelia stared him down. “That’s why I have the money and position I do—independent of any alliance—to do what I want—and that’s why I was available to help you when you got yourself into this mess. Or perhaps you don’t know that the first suggestion given your father was that you be packed off on an ore-hauler to Versteen?”

“They wouldn’t have!” Ronnie looked almost horrified enough.

Cecelia shrugged. “They didn’t, but largely because I was available, and could be talked into it. If your mother—well, never mind. But my point is, that if I had been a conventional member of this family, and married to some appropriate spouse, I would hardly have been free to take you on. You persist in regarding this as some kind of lark, but I assure you that most men—grown men, such as your father and his friends—consider your breach of the lady’s confidence a disgrace, even apart from its political implications.” Ronnie reddened. “Now,” she went on. “Go make yourself fit for civilized company at dinner, all of you. That includes you young women. I do not consider the sort of clothes you wear to parties with your own set adequate.” She actually had very little idea what kind of clothes they wore to parties with their own set, but had a clear memory of herself at nineteen to twenty-three.

When they had left, Cecelia felt the cushions of the massage lounger and shuddered. Entirely too clammy; she aimed a blow-dryer at it, and decided on a short swim. The pool’s privacy screen, a liquid crystal switchable only from within, closed her into a frosted dome, onto which she projected a visual of overhanging forest. She set the pool’s sound system, and eased over the edge to the opening bars of Delisande’s Moon Tide . A choice others would consider trite, but she needed those long rolling phrases, those delicate shadings of strings to ease her tension. The water enfolded her; she let her body and mind merge with water and music, swimming languidly to the music’s rhythm, just enough to counter the gentle current.

Just as she felt herself relaxing, the pool’s timer beeped, and Myrtis’s voice reminded her that it was time to dress.

“Bad words, bad words, bad words.” She had gotten away with that in childhood, even before she learned any. Her stomach burned. . . . If it hadn’t been for Ronnie and his gang, she could have had dinner held until she was ready—and she’d have been ready, because she wouldn’t have been interrupted. And her massage lounger wouldn’t have been sweaty. She hauled herself out of the pool with a great splash, hit the privacy control without thinking—and only then realized that with guests aboard she would have to be more careful. Luckily they were all off dressing—none of them had straggled back to ask a stupid question. Not that they didn’t swim bare, but she had no desire to have them compare her body to their young ones.

She walked into the warmed towelling robe that Myrtis held, and stood still while Myrtis rubbed her hair almost dry. Then she stepped into the warm fleece slippers, took another warmed towel, and headed for her own suite still rubbing at her damp hair. It dried faster these days, being thinner; she hated the blow-dryers and would rather go to dinner a bit damp than use one.

In her cabin, Myrtis had laid out her favorite dinner dress, a rich golden-brown shi-silk accented with ivory lace. Cecelia let herself be dried, oiled, powdered, and helped into the clothes without thinking about it. Myrtis, unlike Aublice, her first maid, had never seen her young body; she treated Cecelia with professional correctness and the mild affection of someone who has worked for the same employer fifteen years and hopes to retire in the same position. Cecelia sat, allowed Myrtis to fluff her short hair, with its odd spatchings of red and gray, and fastened on the elaborate necklace of amber and enamelled copper that made the lace look even more delicate. Those girls might be fifty years younger, but they would know a Marice Limited design when they saw it, and it would have its effect. They would not know it had been designed for her, by the original Marice, or why—but that didn’t matter.

The plump roast fowl sent up a fragrance that made Cecelia’s stomach subside from its tension. She glanced around the table and nodded to Bates. Service proceeded, a blend of human and robotic. A human handed her breast slices of roast, and the gravy boat, but crumbs vanished without the need of a crumb-brush.

“Do you eat like this all the time, Lady Cecelia?” asked Bubbles. Sober, cured of her hangover, she was reasonably pretty, Cecelia thought, except that her gown looked as if it would burst with her next mouthful. She was not so plump; the gown was that tight. She wore a warm bright green; it showed off her white skin and blonde curls although it clashed with the dark Raffaele’s red dress. The other girl, Sarah, wore a blue that would have been plain had it not been silk brocade, a design of fishes: d’Albinian work.

“Yes,” said Cecelia. “Why not? Cook is a genius, and I can afford it, so . . .”

“Tell us about your new captain. Why’d you choose a spacefleet officer?”

“Why was she available?” added the odious George. Less handsome than Ronnie, which Cecelia might have approved, but he had the sort of gloss she distrusted, as if he’d been coated with varnish.

“I wasn’t satisfied with my former captain’s performance,” Cecelia said, as if they had a right to ask. She knew she mellowed with good food; it was one reason she made sure to have it. She wasn’t going to admit that if Captain Olin had held to her schedule, she’d have been safely distant and unavailable when Ronnie was exiled. Why waste good ammunition? “I wanted more efficiency,” she said between bites, making them wait for it. “Better leadership. Before, they were always coming to me complaining about this and that, or getting crossways with staff. I thought an officer from the Regular Space Service”—she made the emphasis very distinct—“would know how to maintain discipline and follow my orders.”

“The Regs are crazy for discipline,” George said, in the tone of someone who found that ridiculous. “Remember when Currier transferred, Ronnie? He didn’t last six weeks. It was all nonsense—it’s not as if all that spit and polish and saluting accomplishes anything.”

“I don’t know . . .” Buttons, Bunny’s middle son, looked surprisingly like his father as he ran a thumb down the side of his nose. Gesture, decided Cecelia, and not features; he had his mother’s narrow beaky nose and her caramel-colored hair. “You can’t get along with no discipline. . . .” And his mother’s penchant for taking the other side of any argument, Cecelia told herself. In the girl, it had been fun to watch, but as Bunny’s wife she had caused any number of social ruptures by choosing exactly the wrong moment to point out that not everyone agreed. The incident of the fish knives still rankled in Cecelia’s memory. She wondered which parent Bubbles took after.

“We’re not talking about no discipline.” George interrupted as if he had the right, and Buttons shrugged as if he were used to it. “We’re talking about the ridiculous iron-fisted excuse for discipline in the Regs. I don’t mind fitness tests and qualifying exams—even with modern techniques, the best family can throw an occasional brainless wonder.” Cecelia thought that he himself could furnish proof of that. “But,” George went on, in blissful ignorance of his hostess’ opinion, she being too polite to express it, “I really do not see any reason for archaic forms of military courtesy that have no relevance to modern warfare.”