Джейн Кренц: Orchid

"Get to the point, Batt."

"The point," Hobart said carefully, "is that you have chosen not to involve yourself with Stonebraker Shipping. You have not followed in your grandfather's footsteps. You did not even pursue a career in academia as your parents did. Instead, you have completely disassociated yourself from the source of the family fortune."

"Ah." Rafe closed his eyes in brief resignation. "I think I see the problem."

Hobart's mouth tightened with disapproval. "Matters would be greatly simplified if you had taken your place in the Stonebraker empire."

Hobart was right, Rafe thought. As challenges went, this one was probably among the more difficult for a professional matchmaker. Any woman who could be persuaded to overcome her aversion to marrying a strat-talent who happened to be a Stonebraker would naturally expect to move in the same elite social circles as the rest of the clan. He had turned his back on those circles and the family fortune at the age of nineteen.

Rafe considered the problem from a hunter's viewpoint. In a sense he was a victim of his own strategy.

As Hobart had just said, virtually everyone, at least everyone who had even the smallest connection to the business community, had heard of Stonebraker Shipping. Fortunately, Rafe thought, almost no one was aware of the current, highly precarious condition of the shipping dynasty his great-grandfather had founded.

There was still time to save the company and the livelihoods of the two thousand people, including the many members of his extended clan, who depended upon the firm. Rafe had been working night and day on the problem for weeks. He had only three more months to get all of the necessary duck-puffins in a row.

One of the most crucial duck-puffins was a wife. He needed one to present to the board of directors of Stonebraker Shipping at the annual board meeting when he made his bid to grab the C.E.O. position.

A wife was not merely a matter of window dressing in his case. Corporate tradition as well as the usual St. Helens social bias in favor of marriage dictated that only a married or seriously engaged person would be elected president and C.E.O. of Stonebraker Shipping.

His chief competition for the job was his ambitious cousin, Selby Culverthorpe, who had been respectably married for six years and had two kids to show for it. Selby's status as a family man as well as his long-term loyalty to the family business gave him a strong edge in the eyes of the conservative Stonebraker board. Selby fairly radiated trustworthiness, maturity, steadiness, and loyalty. All the characteristics of a good little Founders' scout.

Rafe, on the other hand, was all too aware that he had a reputation as the mysterious, unpredictable renegade of the clan. Although he was the great-grandson of old Stonefaced Stonebraker, himself, and the grandson of the present C.E.O., Alfred G. Stonebraker, he could not deny that he had walked away from his heritage a long time ago. Everyone in the clan had strongly disapproved of his decision to go his own way.

Alfred G.'s fury had been truly monumental. The battle between grandfather and grandson had assumed the proportions of family legend. Alfred G. had cut Rafe off without a penny. The two had not spoken for years following the explosive rift that had shattered what had been, until then, a close relationship.

Everyone who knew anything about Stonebraker family history knew that Rafe did not have access to the family fortune or social circles.

That was about to change. Unfortunately, Rafe could not advertise the fact. To do so would be to sacrifice his one edge in the coming war for the control of Stonebraker he needed the element of surprise for several more weeks.

He also needed a wife or, at the very least, a fiancée to help him reshape his image.

But since marriage was for life on St. Helens, he intended to make his selection as carefully and as rationally as possible. He had assumed that meant using a good matchmaking agency, the way most intelligent people did. On the whole, everyone agreed, the first generation Founders had been right when they had established the matchmaking system and reinforced it with all the weight and force of law, custom, and social pressure at their disposal.

Occasionally marriages were contracted without the assistance of professional agencies, but those alliances were rare and generally frowned upon.

Theoretically, marriage agencies such as Synergistic Connections, with their scientific techniques and synergistic psychological tests gave individuals the best possible chance of contracting satisfactory marriages. Unfortunately, it looked as if the best agency in New Seattle was failing in his case, Rafe thought.

He had the sinking feeling that he had wasted the past three weeks concentrating on his other duck-puffins while he left the wife-hunting problem to Synergistic Connections.

He realized that Hobart was watching him with an expectant expression. But he could hardly announce that he fully intended to become the next C.E.O. of Stonebraker Shipping. Secrecy was critical at this juncture. His entire plan to save the family firm depended on it. If Selby were to discover too soon that Rafe was maneuvering to take control of the company, he would have three months to take action to prevent the coup.

Selby was only a tech-talent, Rafe thought, but lately the sneaky little bastard had shown a surprising flair for business strategy.

"It's not as if I'm not gainfully employed, Batt." Rafe unfolded his arms, straightened and walked across the room to a low, heavily carved table. He plucked a small white card from the pile he kept in an ornate glass bowl. The embossed black letters read The Synergy Fund.

With a flick of his wrist Rafe sent the crisp business card sailing toward Hobart.

It landed on the immaculately pressed pleat of Hobart's pale gray trousers. He gingerly picked up the card and glanced at it. "Yes, yes, I'm well aware that you manage a very successful stock market mutual fund. I, myself, own some shares in it. I understand that your personal financial picture is extremely sound. That is not my point."

Hobart was obviously not impressed. Rafe decided not to make things worse by mentioning his evening hobby. After all, he only indulged himself in the off-the-books private investigation stuff when he was especially bored or restless.

"What is your point, Batt?"

Hobart cleared his throat. "Surely you understand that some of the image challenges we face could be greatly mitigated if you were employed in the executive branch of your family's firm."

Rafe smiled coldly. "You mean if it looked as though I'd finally seen the light, decided to join Stonebraker Shipping and henceforth start moving in the right social circles, some of your clients might be willing to overlook my strat-talent?"

"Frankly, yes." Hobart reddened but his expression remained professionally determined. "It would make my job a good deal easier if you gave the impression of being a, shall we say, more conventional Stonebraker."

Such an impression was exactly what he could not afford to give at this point, Rafe thought. "Let's try this from another angle, Batt. Perhaps you should introduce me to some less than ideal candidates. Who knows? I might be able to change my image in their eyes."

Hobart's eyes widened in alarm. "See here, I'm a professional, Mr. Stonebraker. I'm not about to allow you the opportunity to try to intimidate any of my clients."

"I wasn't talking about intimidation," Rafe said smoothly. "I was talking about persuasion."

"Persuasion?" Hobart looked skeptical.

"Give me the chance to convince some potential spouses that their preconceptions about people with my kind of talent are wrong."

A surprisingly steely gleam appeared in Hobart's eyes. "Before you consider trying to talk a lady out of her preconceptions about strat-talents, there is another course of action you might wish to consider. One that would greatly simplify things."