"You don't... you can't think," she began, barely above a whisper. But then her voice firmed. "You can force me to marry you?"
"We'll hold the ceremony," he said.
She shook her head, disbelievingly. "No Dorsai chaplain would marry me against my will!"
"My regimental chaplain will - if I order it," Cletus said.
"Marry the daughter of Eachan Khan?" she blazed, suddenly. "And I suppose my father's simply going to stand still and watch this happen?"
"I hope so - sincerely," answered Cletus, with such a slow and meaningful emphasis on the words that color leaped into her face for a second and then drained away to leave her as pale as a woman in shock.
"You... " Her voice faltered and stopped. Child of a mercenary officer, she could not have failed to notice that, among those present for the wedding, those bound to Cletus by emotional or other ties outnumbered those bound to her father by two to one. But her eyes on him were still incredulous. They searched his face for some indication that what she saw there was somehow not the true Cletus.
"But you're not like that. You wouldn't... " Her voice failed again. "Dad's your friend!"
"And you're going to be my wife," Cletus answered.
Her eyes fell for the first time to the sidearm in the uncapped holster at his waist.
"Oh, God!" She put a slim hand to each side of her face. "And I thought Dow was cruel - I won't answer. When the chaplain asks me if I'll take you for my husband, I'll say no!"
"For Eachan's sake," said Cletus, "I hope not."
Her hands fell from her face. She stood like a sleepwalker, with her arms at her sides.
Cletus stepped up to her, took her arm and led her, unresisting, out of the summer house up through the garden, through a hedge and back in through the french doors to the dining room. Eachan was still there, and he turned to face them quickly as they came in, putting down the glass he held and stepping quickly forward to meet them.
"Here you are!" he said. His gaze sharpened suddenly on his daughter. "Melly! What's the matter?"
"Nothing," Cletus answered. "There's no problem, after all. We're going to get married."
Eachan's gaze switched sharply to Cletus. "You are?" His eyes locked with Cletus' for a second, then went back to Melissa. "Is this right, Melly? Is everything all right?"
"Everything's fine," said Cletus. "You'd better tell the chaplain we're ready now."
Eachan did not move. His eyes raked downward and stared deliberately at the weapon in its holster on Cletus' hip. He looked back up at Cletus, and then at Melissa.
"I'm waiting to hear from you, Melly," Eachan said slowly. His eyes were as gray as weathered granite. "You haven't told me yet that everything's all right."
"It's all right," she said between stiff, colorless lips. "It was your idea I marry Cletus in the first place, wasn't it, Dad?"
"Yes," said Eachan. There was no noticeable change in his expression, but all at once a change seemed to pass over him, sweeping away all emotion and leaving him quiet, settled and purposeful. He took a step forward, so that he stood now almost between them, looking directly up into Cletus' face from a few inches away. "But perhaps I was making a mistake."
His right hand dropped, seemingly in a casual way, to cover Cletus' hand where it held Melissa's wrist. His fingers curled lightly about Cletus' thumb in a grip that could be used to break the thumb if Cletus did not release his hold.
Cletus dropped his other hand lightly upon the belt of the weapon at his side.
"Let go," he said softly to Eachan.
The same deadly quietness held them both. For a second there was no movement in the room, and then Melissa gasped.
"No!" She forced herself between them, facing her father, her back toward Cletus, his hand still holding her wrist, now behind her back. "Dad! What's the matter with you? I'd think you'd be happy we've decided to get married after all!"
Behind her, Cletus let go of her wrist and she brought the formerly imprisoned arm around before her. Her shoulders lifted sharply with the depth of her breathing. For a moment Eachan stared at her blankly, and then a little touch of puzzlement and dismay crept into his eyes.
"Melly, I thought... " His voice stumbled and fell silent.
"Thought?" cried Melissa, sharply. "What, Dad?"
He stared at her, distractedly. "I don't know!" he exploded, all at once. "I don't understand you, girl! I don't understand you at all."
He turned away and stamped back to the table where he had put his drink down. He picked it up and swallowed heavily from it.
Melissa went to him and for a second put her arm around his shoulders, laying her head against the side of his head. Then she turned back to Cletus and placed a cold hand on his wrist. She looked at him with eyes that were strangely deep and free of anger or resentment.
"Come along, then, Cletus," she said, quietly. "We'd better be getting started."
It was some hours later before they were able to be alone together. The wedding guests had seen them to the door of the master bedroom in newly built Grahame House, and it was only when the door was shut in their faces that they finally left the building, the echo of their laughter and cheerful voices fading behind them.
Wearily, Melissa dropped into a sitting position on the edge of the large bed. She looked up at Cletus, who was still standing.
"Now, will you tell me what's wrong?" she asked.
He looked at her. The moment he had foreseen when he had asked her to marry him was upon him now. He summoned up courage to face it.
"It'll be a marriage in name only," he said. "In a couple of years you can get an annulment."
"Then why marry me at all?" she said, her voice still empty of blame or rancor.
"DeCastries will be back out among the new worlds within another twelve months," he said. "Before he came, he'd be asking you to come to Earth. With your marriage to me, you lost your Earth citizenship. You're a Dorsai, now. You can't go - until you've had the marriage annulled and reapplied for Earth citizenship. And you can't annul the marriage right away without letting Eachan know I forced you to marry me - with the results you know, the same results you agreed to marry me to avoid, right now."
"I would never let you two kill each other," she said. Her voice was strange.
"No," he said. "So you'll wait two years. After that, you'll be free."
"But why?" she said. "Why did you do it?"
"Eachan would have followed you to Earth," said Cletus. "That's what Dow counted on. That's what I couldn't allow. I need Eachan Khan for what I've got to do."
He had been looking at her as he talked, but now his eyes had moved away from her. He was looking out the high, curtained window at one end of the bedroom, at the mountain peaks, now just beginning to be clouded with the afternoon rains that would in a few months turn to the first of autumn snows.
She did not speak for a long time. "Then," she said, at last "you never did love me?"
He opened his mouth to answer, for the moment was upon him. But at the last minute, in spite of his determination, the words changed on his lips.
"Did I ever say I did?" he answered, and, turning, went out of the room before she could say more.
Behind him, as he closed the door, there was only silence.
20
The next morning Cletus got busy readying the expeditionary contingent of new-trained and not yet new-trained Dorsais he would be taking with him to Newton. Several days later, as he sat in his private office at the Foralie training grounds, Arvid stepped in to say that there was a new emigrant to the Dorsai, an officer-recruit, who wanted to speak to him.
"You remember him, I think, sir," said Arvid, looking at Cletus a little grimly. "Lieutenant William Athyer - formerly of the Alliance Expeditionary Force on Bakhalla."