My Captive Duchess (The Reeves of Reeves Hall #1)

Chapter 33

Jane

I hear the words my heart has been yearning for. Broek holds me close, a hand splayed to my chest while he murmurs into my ear. My heart swells. When he told me we needed to talk, I had prepared myself for the worst. But this is unexpected in the best of ways.

I turn in his embrace, suddenly longing to see his face. I place my hands to his cheeks and search his eyes which glitter with the force of his desire. “I have said the words, Jane,” he growls.

I smile lovingly. “Yes, you have.”

“You promised to reciprocate,” he prompts, brows knitting into a fierce scowl.

“So I did.”

He waits impatiently. “Well?”

I press a kiss to his lips. How I love to do that. A quick thought flashes through my mind that from here on, I shall be privileged enough to do this every day of our lives. At least I hope so. I kiss him again for good measure. “Jane,” he rumbles.

“Yes, Broek, I am getting to that,” I say placatingly. Placing both hands to his chest, feeling the springy hair beneath my palms, I tell him what he wishes to hear. “I love you with all my heart, Broek, and wish to spend the rest of my days with you.”

He sighs in relief, yet his next words bring a fresh bout of apprehension. “Good, but there is more I need to tell you.”

I take a moment to settle myself in a straddling position above him, keeping my palms pressed to his chest. “Tell me,” I say quietly.

“You may have gathered that we have received a pardon and have been invited to return to Uvon,” he begins. I nod encouragingly. “Liora, Horis, Simor and I took it to a vote,” he continues. “Before doing so, we all agreed that we would abide by the majority decision. Either we all go back to Uvon or we all stay.”

Now I know my doom is come. He means to leave me behind. “The majority decision was to stay,” he states matter-of-factly.

I let out the breath I have been holding. Yet I am still filled with doubt. “Do you not wish to return to your home?”

“My home is here, with you.”

“So, it is not just your siblings? You too elected to stay?” I ask uncertainly.

He kisses me softly. “I voted to stay—with you. We are going to be married.”

I nod in relief. He searches my face intently. “If my siblings had elected to go,” he asks, “would you have come with me to Uvon?”

“Yes,” I say with no hesitation. I have been pondering it the whole of today. I have prayed and reflected. I have dwelt on the reverend’s words. It is at those times when we feel forsaken and alone that we must remember Jesus’s eternal love shines for us bright and strong . In this moment, I know that even in a distant land foreign to me, I would not be alone as long as I keep my faith strong. And looking into Broek’s eyes, I realise also that I would not be alone as long as I have his love. “Yes,” I say again. “If you ever wish to return to Uvon, then I shall go with you.”

He releases a breath, but I see we are not done. There is more. “What is it?” I ask quickly.

“Where do you think Uvon is, Jane, and how do you think we would be getting there were we to go?” he queries.

I stare at him in confusion. Slowly, I say, “I am not sure exactly where it is, but I know it is far away across the seas.”

He huffs and draws me close so my head rests on his shoulder. “It is much further than you can imagine,” he says softly, “and it is not across the seas.”

I pull back to look at him. “But Liora said a ship will arrive tomorrow.”

“A ship yes, but not one that travels by sea.”

My brain is sluggish today, for I cannot think what he means. “I—I do not understand.”

He strokes a wayward strand of hair back from my face. “It is a ship that travels in space,” he says, watching me intently.

“In space?” Still I do not understand.

“Up above in the sky.”

I am trying to picture what he says in my mind. A scientifically advanced society must have developed means of travel more rapid than we have here at present. My brow clears. “A ship that flies in the air like a bird?”

He laughs gently. “We have those too, but the ship I am talking about is not quite like a bird. It flies even higher than a bird, beyond our atmosphere, and travels through space to other planets.”

He sees my continuing confusion and kisses me softly on the lips. “I believe it is best if I show you what I mean on the screen,” he says. Then, speaking in his tongue, he raps out a series of instructions. A moment later, the screen behind me lights up. He turns me in the water so my back rests on his chest and I can see what is being displayed. The screen shows a night sky of a dark blue and in the midst of it, a blue and green dappled sphere. “What you are seeing,” he murmurs above me, “is planet Earth from space.” He points with his finger and a small red arrow appears on the screen. “See there, is the Atlantic Ocean and there—” his arrow points to a thin area of green, “there is Britain.”

I gaze in marvel. “So this is what our world looks like from the heavens,” I say wonderingly.

“This is what it looked like from the ship I was on seven years ago, when we arrived here.”

“And Uvon,” I whisper in wonder. “Where is it?”

He kisses the top of my head. “I am about to show you on the screen the journey to Uvon. Bear in mind that it is greatly speeded up, for in reality, it takes up to three years to reach my world.”

Three years? Lord almighty where is this homeland? Hoarsely, I say, “Show me.”

So, he shows me a journey through the heavens, passing by countless constellations, some bright, some a dark red, some with rings around them, then a long stretch of black sky, then more celestial bodies in fiery colours. It is a very long time, long enough for the bath water to cool though miraculously it does not, before the voyage ends at a sphere that looks remarkably like the one where this journey began, almost a twin of planet Earth. “That is Uvon,” says Broek speaking very softly. He points with the arrow to a green mass of land beside a large ocean. “And there is Luxzuc, my home city.”

He goes on to show me pictures of a fantastical city with tall buildings that kiss the sky, surrounded by sloping valleys through which winds a long river. It is beautiful, magical even, and oh so foreign. I always suspected that Broek came from a country much different to mine, but I had not known just how different. And there is something else that I am beginning to realise. “You are not from my world, Broek,” I say shakily.

“No, Jane, I am not. I come from a very distant planet in a different galaxy.”

I breathe deeply, trying to calm my racing mind. “You are from an alien world,” I breathe, “yet you look the same as us.”

He laughs softly. “You were ever the perceptive one, sweet duchess. Yes, we look the same for we are all of the same human race. Will you believe me if I tell you that my family was not the first from my planet to visit Earth? Many hundreds of thousands of years ago, my people discovered your planet. They gave it the name Strahmek 2 and decided it would be a fitting colony to ship off our criminals to. There was talk also of creating a high-speed corridor between our two planets, but it came to naught when my world became embroiled in a long period of war, during which time that colony of criminals was forgotten.”

I wrinkle my brow. “What happened to them?”

He chuckles. “Eventually, after a very, very long time, they formed civilisations, then nation states. You, my dear, and every other human on Earth, are direct descendants of those men and women that we shipped here all those centuries ago.”

I turn to face him in horror. “Do you mean we are descended from criminals?”

“It was a very long time ago, Jane,” he reminds me gently.

“What you say is unbelievable,” I state firmly.

“Perhaps so, yet it is the truth.” With a sigh, he adds, “We had best come out of this bath before your skin wrinkles like a prune.”

He pushes me up gently and we both step out of the bath. I stand docilely as he fetches a towel and dries my body, then quickly does the same for himself. “Come, Jane,” he says. “Time to dress for dinner.” He leads me to my chamber, where I set about getting dressed. He disappears out the door and comes back a few moments later holding forth a pile of clothes in his hands, then begins to dress in company with me.

I sit on the edge of the bed and pull up my stockings, attaching them with a garter. As I do so, I mutter, “I am not the descendant of criminals.”

“Have it your own way,” he humours me.

I pull a chemise over my head. He helps me with my stays. Then I march to my wardrobe to take out a gown to wear. “Not black,” Broek says firmly.

My fingers hover over the black muslin then pass it to reach a gown at the far end of the wardrobe, in pale blue silk. I take it out with hands that shake. Broek nods approvingly as he finishes fastening his trousers. He comes to me and helps me with my petticoat, then the gown. “Very pretty,” he says admiringly, patting the folds down.

As he goes to put on his shirt, I stand in front of the mirror and examine myself. There is relief, finally, in divesting myself of the black. A symbolism too. I will always remember Giles fondly, but my time of mourning is over. Now is the time to start anew. I go to my dressing table and pick up the brush. Broek takes it from me and begins to dress my hair, running the brush through my locks then expertly pinning them as if he has been doing it all his life. Once he is done, he raises a brow in enquiry, as if demanding praise.

I merely stand and fetch the cravat, tying it expertly for him, then raise my own brow. “Excellent work,” he murmurs. As he pulls on his tailcoat, he asks casually, though I know the question is anything but casual, “So, Jane. Now that you know that I come from a distant planet, that I am not from Earth, will you still marry me?”

There is not a shred of doubt left in my mind. I place both hands on his chest, close to his heart. “Yes, Broek. I will marry you.” He draws me to him, and we both take comfort in the closeness of our bodies. Then he releases me, and we go down to dinner.