***
For the third time in as many nights, Adam again lingered at Maggie's bedside, watching her sleep. He no longer worried about the impropriety of his presence. Lord knew, she probably would not care. Last night she had been an intrigue, a mystery. Tonight, she was infuriating, annoying, irritating, and, he had to admit, at least to himself, irresistible.
"Good lord, woman." He glared at the peaceful, sleeping figure. "What in God's name am I going to do with you?"
Chapter Four
In those fragile first moments of awareness, in a place somewhere between deep sleep and consciousness, Maggie mulled over the strange things she dreamed. Dreams of a handsome, arrogant man and a visit to a far-distant time. Wait till Kiki heard about this one. Maggie smiled and her eyes fluttered open. She gazed around the room. A charming room with a high, ornately plastered ceiling, a four-poster bed, and beautiful antique furniture. Just the right blend—
"No!" Maggie bolted upright.
Her gaze flew around the room. This was no dream; this was real. All of it. The period costumes that weren't costumes at all, the missing cars, street signs, phone and electric wires, the lack of outlets in the house. All the things so familiar through her entire life she rarely paid them any attention, now took on a significance far beyond their everyday role in the twentieth century. They all pointed to the truth.
Somehow she had actually traveled through time.
"Oh, damn." She groaned and flung herself back on the bed, pulling the blankets over her head. How could something like this happen? She took a deep breath and in one last grasping at straws, peeked out from under the covers. Nothing had changed. Reluctantly, she accepted what she could no longer deny.
Fear and panic subsided under a wave of anger and indignation. Who the hell did this to her?
With a muttered curse, Maggie tossed the bedclothes aside and tumbled out of bed. She stalked to the wardrobe and hastily flipped through the clothes. Realistically, she'd need help to get into any of these things and she didn't want to waste time finding a maid.
"Waste time? Ha, that's a laugh."
Impatient to get going, she caught sight of a robe lying on a nearby chair. Maggie threw it on, raced out of her chamber and downstairs to the library. She flung open the doors and burst into the room, spotting Adam again at the desk where she'd first met him.
“Okay, Coleridge," she said in her most demanding tone. "What the hell are we supposed to do now?"
Adam quirked an eyebrow, his gaze drifting over her in an infuriating but definitely sexy, calm, and thorough manner. "Do you ever feel it necessary to be properly dressed?"
"Clothes," she said, "are the very least of my worries right now. In case you haven't noticed, we have a major-league problem on our hands. Or"—she gave him a challenging look—“should I say I?"
Maggie glared, her defiance a shield hiding the fear inside. What if he said she was on her own? She was an intelligent, independent twentieth-century woman but could she function in an early nineteenth-century world?
Alone?
Maggie didn't particularly want to find out.
The beginnings of a smile played across his lips. "I rather think ‘we’ is appropriate."
Relief flooded through her, followed by annoyance. She resented being dependent on anyone—correction—any man, especially this arrogant, self-righteous snob. But as much as she hated to admit it, she really couldn't go this one alone.
"Great. Thanks," she said, a hint of embarrassment in her voice. "I just needed to know where I stood. I mean, after all, I guess I kind of fell into your life here. And I'd understand if you wanted to dump me and this whole mess."
Throughout her rambling speech, Adam stared from behind the desk. Leaning back, elbows resting on the arms of his chair, he steepled his long fingers lightly at chest level. His face, however, betrayed his feelings, astonishment mingling with more than a little indignation.
"My dear Miss Masterson." He leapt from his chair and circled the desk to approach her. "I know not how things are done in your day, but here and now when a gentleman finds a lady in serious distress he is honor bound to provide assistance. I could not possibly let you cope with this ordeal alone. Why, even if I found a man in this unique situation I would feel compelled to help."
"But," Maggie said slowly, choosing her words carefully, "you don't think a man would need as much help as, oh, say, a woman. Women being so . . . oh, let's see, helpless?"
He smiled warmly, obviously pleased she understood his rationale and completely oblivious to the sparks Maggie couldn't keep from her eyes. "Precisely."
"Why you—“ She struggled for the right words, grasping a phrase from her sister's feminist past. "Male chauvinist pig!"
Adam's smile faltered.
"You have the nerve, the audacity to think a man could handle this situation better than a woman? I'll have you know in my time, women do everything men do. We have careers. We manage our own money. We own property. We've been voting for more than seventy years. In my day, some men even work for women. Your country's even had a woman prime minister."
Adam paled. "Are you quite through?" She nodded smugly. He continued, his voice controlled, his words clipped and curt. "Then do me the courtesy of listening."
Maggie opened her mouth.
"Keep still," he said. "It is my turn."
Maggie stared at him, a towering pillar of barely controlled rage. Maybe she had misjudged him.
"I am well aware of the many accomplishments of women in your time. I have thoroughly read your magazines and while I do not understand everything, the status of women in your society cannot be denied. I do not know if women go through some remarkable change in the next one hundred and seventy-seven years or if we have given them less than their due today, but know this, Miss Masterson." He stood within inches of her, glaring down at her upturned face. "I do not mean to insult you and tender my apology if I have done so. Your manner of behavior and way of speaking are foreign to me. Women I know do not act as you do, and I cannot think of one who could cope with the dilemma you find yourself in. I have certain expectations about women that you simply do not fit. It is not easy for me to reconcile long-held beliefs with the reality of you. I would that you show the same sort of patience with me that I will attempt to show to you.
"Although,"—he fixed her face with a steady glare—“you make it extremely difficult."
He stalked to his chair. Once seated, he leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, hands clasped together. “I don't know what a male chauvinist pig is, although it is not hard to determine that the phrase is not a compliment. I suggest you bear in mind the differing standards of our respective societies before making further pronouncements about my character."
He looked so stern sitting there, Maggie almost thought she was twelve years old and in the principal's office again. Funny, but his obvious anger didn't increase her fear. Instead, it calmed her down. This head-on clash of two distinctly different cultures might turn out to be pretty funny. Maggie could use all the laughter she could get. Until she figured out how to get out of this mess, anyway.
"Okay." She pulled a chair up to the desk and smiled sweetly. "Your apology is accepted."
Adam sputtered and Maggie held up a hand to silence him.
"And I apologize too but if we're going to survive this relationship without killing each other, I think we need to drop this particular discussion right here and now. What do ya say? Okay?"
She gave him a questioning look. He sighed and Maggie thought he rolled his eyes a bit.
“Agreed." His tone signaled agreement and resignation to the terms of the cease-fire.
“Great." She grinned and plopped into the chair she'd positioned by the desk. "So, as I was saying, what the hell are we supposed to do now?"
“Miss Masterson." He shot to his feet. "You simply cannot continue to use such unseemly language. It is not acceptable for well-bred young ladies to curse."
"Oh, sit down
, Coleridge." She waved him to his chair with an impatient flick of her hand. "You're right, of course." She wrinkled her nose at his look of shock that she actually agreed with him. "While I'm here I need to act like a native and I promise to try. Okay? Good enough?"
He nodded.
"Great, but you need to keep some things in mind, too. First of all, I'm not a young lady. I'm an adult."
"I assumed you to be at least one and twenty."
"Actually, I'm twenty-six." She noted his surprised look. "Is that a problem?"
“No, of course not." He seemed uncomfortable, possibly even disappointed. "I had simply assumed you were unmarried."
“I am unmarried. I mean single."
"Well then, surely you have been widowed?”
"No," she said slowly. "What's the matter?"
"The matter, Miss Masterson, is very probably with me.” He ran his fingers absently through his hair. "Regardless of what I say I have certain preconceived notions about women and what is and is not expected of them. In this world, a twenty-six year old unmarried woman is generally considered on the shelf, too old to make a good match." His gaze probed deeply into hers. "Therefore, I naturally assumed you were much younger or had been married. You are so very lovely."
The compliment lingered in the air. Heat flamed in Maggie's face. Aware of her own churning feelings, she marveled at his brown eyes growing darker with. . . what? Passion? Desire? The look they shared, the charged moment, was more than enough to turn Maggie's legs to rubber. She didn't get it. Even when this man drove her up a wall there was something about him that made her want to melt into his arms, and more.
"Why have you not wed?" His quiet voice was thick with barely controlled emotion.
“I don't know," she replied just as softly. Was it getting hard to breathe in here? Her gaze was still locked with his. What had she been saying? Oh, yeah. Marriage.
"I guess I never found the right person.” Her response was barely a whisper. For a moment, Maggie ached to throw caution to the winds and fling herself into his arms. What would it feel like to share his embrace? His kiss? His bed? And looking in his eyes she knew the same thoughts, desires, and possibilities surged through him as well.
"Well. Ah." Adam cleared his throat, destroying the moment that had grown too intimate for comfort.
"Yeah. Right." Maggie sighed, torn between relief and disappointment. She'd have plenty of time to sort through her feelings later. And she really didn't need to complicate an already complex situation with a relationship. Even if the man in question made her senses reel and her knees grow mushy.
"Shall we start at the beginning, Miss Masterson?" He was abruptly all business.
Not quite sure why she found that more than a little annoying, Maggie interrupted. “Before we get going, please don't call me Miss Masterson. It makes me feel like an old lady schoolteacher. And since my age is already going to be a problem here, let's not compound it."
"It shan't be a problem. You certainly do not look your age, and if anyone is so rude as to ask, we shall simply lie."
"Great," she said under her breath, "lying about a birth date that hasn’t happened yet."
He waved aside her words. "It doesn't signify, Miss—Margaret?"
"Maggie."
"Fine then, Maggie. Now, how did you arrive here?"
“If I knew that we wouldn't have a problem, would we?" Sarcasm dripped off her words.
"Miss Mas—Maggie,” Adam said crisply. “We shall not accomplish a thing if you do not cooperate."
"I know, I know, I'm sorry. It's just that . . . Well. Damn it." Maggie ignored Adam's wince. “I'm scared. I am really, really scared."
Maggie pushed out of her chair and, wrapping her arms around herself, paced the room. She tried to put her confusing thoughts into words, for Adam and, even more, for herself.
"I don't understand what's happened. Why I'm here. It feels like some kind of joke, a giant cosmic mistake. I'm a displaced person. A temporal refugee. I'm not supposed to be here!"
Her voice suspiciously close to a scream, Maggie took a deep breath, fighting to regain control. And losing.
“Don't you get it?" She whirled to face Adam. "Do you realize technically I'm not even born yet! Do you have any idea how that feels? I have no past. No history. Everything I know, everything I grew up with, everything I'm familiar with, doesn't exist! I don't know anybody. I have no one here, no friends, no family. Oh my God, Her eyes widened with horror. "My sister. She'll be frantic with worry. She must have the cops combing London by now. And I don't even have a way to let her know I'm okay!"
On the edge of full-fledged hysteria, Maggie's vision blurred with tears, her breath coming fast and choppy.
Immediately, Adam was at her side, grasping her shoulders, looking down into her face. "Miss Masterson. Maggie. Please calm yourself. I have every confidence this will all be resolved."
She stared up at him, battling to maintain control, struggling to keep a lid on the panic threatening to explode within her. She blinked back hot tears. Adam pulled her closer. Her head lay on his chest and he stroked her hair.
Wrapped in his arms, without thinking she matched her breathing to the stroke of his hand. Maggie's fear and panic ebbed away, replaced by the now familiar feeling of safety and security. And a growing need for this man to do more than simply hold her.
She turned her head toward his, a single tear slipping down her cheek. "Adam?"
The desire they'd suppressed from the moment they met could no longer be denied.
"Maggie." With a groan he swiftly brought his lips down to meet hers. Her welcoming mouth opened under the pressure of his and his tongue swept inside. Only the light robe and night rail separated her straining body from his hard, strong length. Their mouths explored each other's in a mating ritual as old as man, as eternal as time itself. Never had Maggie been kissed like this. He ripped the breath out of her, replacing it with his own. His tongue teased and fenced and danced, leaving her knees again unable to support her. She dissolved in his arms, reveling in an awakening passion she never dreamed possible.
Dimly she struggled to think. This was getting them nowhere. Or maybe they were headed someplace she'd rather not go, at least not now.
"Adam." She gasped, dragging her lips from his. Her head dropped back and tilted to the side, giving his mouth access to a particularly sensitive spot just below her ear. He ran a flurry of devastatingly light kisses down to the point where her neck met her shoulder. A tremor of passion shivered through her and she wanted nothing more than to release herself to him completely.
But this had to stop. Marshaling her last ounce of control, she pulled away.
"Adam, stop." Her breath rasped through her lips.
"Why?” He bent back to feather another shower of kisses on her now achingly sensitive neck.
"Because." She wrenched out of his grasp and fought for breath. "Coleridge, this isn't the time or the place. I don't even know you. I don't know what impression you got from those magazines of mine but I don't make love with men I don't know. Granted, the moral standards of my time aren't as strict or uptight as yours, but I am not promiscuous."
Adam stared at her a long second, unfulfilled passion still smoldering in his eyes. Only his fists clenched by his side gave any real indication as to his true feelings.
"Of course. Once again, I apologize if my actions have insulted you." His voice was so cold and controlled she wanted to smack him. He wanted her as much as she wanted him, but it wasn't right. Not yet. Even so, she resented his treating her like a stranger.
"Now then, Miss Masterson . . ."
Maggie ignored his deliberate reversion to the formal title. Adam took his place behind the desk and, dipping a pen in an inkwell, sat poised to write. He leveled a cool gaze at her. “What do you remember?"
"You're going to take notes?" She ignored the faint trembling in her hands and, trying to appear firmly under control, dropped back in her chair.
"Inde
ed." He nodded. “It may help."
"Okay." She sighed. If he wanted to be all stuffy and businesslike, she could deal with that. It wasn’t what she wanted in their relationship, but at this point she wasn't sure what she did want so she'd play it his way. For now. "What do I remember? I was visiting London with my sister, Kiki. She's a freelance photographer."
"A what?" Adam asked.
"A photographer," Maggie said impatiently. "You know, she takes pictures?"
Realization of where—and more importantly, when—she was dawned on her. “Sorry, I forgot. All this hasn't been invented yet. Pictures, photographs, how to explain . . ."
Maggie jumped up from her chair and leaned over the desk. The items from her bag were still neatly arranged in precise piles.
"Here." Triumphantly she found the photo envelope and pulled out the pictures. "These are photographs, images captured on film." She searched for the right words. "That's a special kind of, well, I guess paper is the best way to describe it. It's very sensitive to light. You put the film, the paper, in this."
Maggie grabbed the camera and handed it to him. "This is a camera. The film goes here. The lens opens for just a fraction of a second, letting in the light and recording the image on film."
She smiled with satisfaction at her explanation until she noticed Adam's frown of concentration. Complete and utter confusion was scrawled across his face.
"Oh jeez, I'm sorry. I'm not explaining this well. I've lived with this stuff all my life and never really thought about how it worked and never really cared. I just take it for granted that it will work when I need it." She drew a deep breath and wondered how best to explain.
She moved to Adam's side of the desk and took the camera from his hands. "See this window?" She pointed to the viewfinder. "Look through it."
Yesterday and Forever Page 6
