Some Enchanted Waltz, A Time Trave Romance

by Lily Silver

  Adrian’s eyes widened as he pulled himself forward from his easy recline.

  “You don’t believe me. Sometimes I don’t believe me either. I can’t understand how I could know such things.” Tara exhaled, wishing she hadn’t been so open with him regarding the future. Suppose he thought her mad?

  “My darling,” His voice had a sweet timbre to it. “Is it not 1798? How can you talk of an event over one hundred and twenty years in the future as if it is in the past?”

  “I don’t know.” She burst forth with exasperation. “It’s just here, in my head.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “It’s a part of history, as real to me as the dinner was this evening. I cannot explain how I know these things.”

  He was looking at her with the same frightened desperation she felt inside, the same stilted breathing came from his lips. “History, whose history? The Tuatha an Danaan’s history? Did they send you across time to warn me?”

  Tara shrugged. She had no idea of what he was referring to.

  “No, don’t look at me so. I’m not mad.” Adrian insisted, with a frightening vehemence considering she’d not uttered a word of doubt regarding his mental state. “I’ve always honored the Tuath an Danaan, never failed to have the servants leave milk and food for your kind at the back door. I always speak of the fairies with respect, I’ve kept the ancient customs … the same as my mother and grandmother before me.”

  Crap. He was about to go on about The Fairies again? Tara rolled her eyes. She glanced quickly at him and was taken aback by his sudden pallor. A fine mist coated his brow and he seemed to be a little shaky. “Adrian, are you feeling well?”

  “Did you know that you are named after …” He continued in a detached tone, having dismissed her inquiry or didn’t hear it. “… The High Place of Tara, a sacred place where Kings were sworn in … and given … the Tara Brooch, a legendary symbol the High King wore, signifying his exalted position.”

  “No. I didn’t.” She admitted, pleased by his story. It made her name sound important. Indeed, it made her feel pretty damn good. Tara was just an Irish name to her, she had no idea where the name originated or what it meant.

  “Tara.” He said her name again. “Does it not seem strange to you that you recall nothing before you awoke in my castle?” He stared at her, his eyes aglow with a belief that bordered on fanaticism.

  That was fine, as long as he saw her as a goddess, a fairy queen. Not so great if his delusion switched gears to make her out to be some sort of demon and act accordingly. Sure, the Salem Witch trials might be a century and a half past … and yet, history had a way of repeating itself.

  “I remember someone shouting at me.” Tara explained, “Telling me not to touch something. And then I remember Pain. Excruciating pain as blue and white light surrounded me. Adrian, I believe I was struck by lightning on that ship. I might have been trying to clutch the mast. Remember, my hands were burned severely. I remember I was paralyzed for a time. I somehow drifted to shore, the British Soldiers found me …”

  “You remember the soldiers?” He was aghast at her confession. “I hoped you would not.”

  “I have been having nightmares about that night in the barn. The soldiers were arguing about whether to rape me or tie me to the triangle and rip the skin from my hide with their cat-o-nines. And then a masked hero named Captain Midnight dropped down from the rafters of the barn and rescued me. He took me to a cave, and in the darkness he kissed me. I thought it was a stupid dream, dredged up from some silly romance novel I read. Until tonight, Jasper called you Captain Midnight and you didn’t deny it. That’s when I realized it wasn’t a dream at all.”

  Adrian remained silent. She was sent from the fairy people. How else could she have survived a shipwreck when the entire crew as well as the passengers had been lost? She didn’t remember any family because there wasn’t one, not among mortals. She knew things about the future that only an enchanted one could know. It was not uncommon among them. Many had the gift of being able to peer into the future. And yet Tara had no schooling in the simple things of everyday life among the mortals.

  He married her without a thought of the consequences … she was his link to the little people… .Offending her—in any way—would mean offending them … bringing disaster upon his family if they felt he had abused her.

  “Why do you look at me as if I’m about to disappear?”

  That dream haunted him now. She danced in her spirit form, those enticing green eyes drawing him to her as a magnet draws a piece of iron, calling him to lay with her in the enchanted forest on a bed of moss … she was his soul-mate.

  “Tara, my sweet lass.” He whispered, as his face swam with sweat and his stomach roiled and lurched. “I-I think I should lie down …” The room was spinning. A frightening thought came as his temples throbbed and his mouth went dry. Had he been poisoned this evening? He glanced at her, fear rimming his distorted vision.

  Surely she wouldn’t? No—not Tara.

  Perhaps someone else wanted him dead.

  Tara was frightened. Adrian was babbling on incoherently about the fairy people sending her to him. He leaned back on the sofa and clutched his abdomen. Abruptly, his eyes closed and he went limp on the sofa.

  She reached over to feel his brow. No fever. On closer inspection, she recoiled at the odor of pungent, stale beer on his breath. So much for his delusions.

  “Fairies!” She scorned his prostrate figure on the sofa and sighed with relief as the butler entered. “Have someone help you carry his lordship upstairs. He’s drunk. Let Rupert attend him.” She left the butler to stare after her as she ascended the stairs.

  What is wrong with me? The question begged an answer, still none came.

  Tara sat before the mirror, studying her reflection.

  Why can’t I remember where I belong?

  Her inexplicable sense of not truly belonging here was exacerbated by Adrian’s drunken ramblings. In a moment of weakness, he too, was admitting she didn’t fit in, that she belonged someplace else.

  Did the Fairies send you across time to warn me? … across time …

  An image flitted across her mind like a meandering butterfly through a tangled garden. A teenage boy on a skateboard rose in her memory. She knew him. His name was Marty. He was talking with a wide eyed scientist with tousled white hair. The scientist kept muttering something about the time space continuum and flux capacitors … there was a machine they used to move through time …

  Just as quickly another man, tall, handsome and young appeared in her mind. The Doctor? Tara couldn’t remember his name. He was a Time Lord. He traveled through time in a closet like box called a Tardis.

  Adrian kept referring to the Tuath an Danaan. Were they Time Lords like the doctor and people here just thought they were fairy folk? People in primitive cultures had a habit of bestowing those of more advanced cultures with deity status. Did they send her as Adrian said, to warn him?

  “Oh, God.” Tara chided her reflection, “I’m just as delusional as he is.”

  Adrian woke the next morning with a raging headache. He recalled little of his conversation the night before in the drawing room with Tara, short of a few angry words. He wanted to go to her and apologize, and at the same time he was afraid to face her, afraid of what he might have said while he was under the influence of Jasper’s home brewed poteen. He shouldn’t have indulged in the potent drink. It was outlawed because of its unstable properties and that was why Jasper distilled it; because it was illegal.

  “Oooh, Phew.” The sour taste in his mouth greeted him as he exhaled a breath. Rupert was in his chamber, puttering about with his clothes.

  “Rupert, my good man, a hot bath.”

  The servant nodded and left his chamber to carry out his orders.

  Adrian dropped the sheets he’d wrapped about his nude form and grimaced as he tried to stand. The door opened at that moment and who should appear but Lady Tara, to find him naked and foul smelling as he stood in t
he middle of his bedchamber.

  “Good morning.” Tara did not look away with maidenly embarrassment. Instead, she gazed long and hard at him, with obvious appreciation.

  Now was not the time for such things, as he was hardly presentable. Adrian shuffled to the bed on stiff legs and retrieved his morning robe. He wrapped it about him with clumsy movements.

  “Are you feeling better?”

  She seemed too damned cheerful on such a foul morning.

  “Not so loud.” He grumbled. “What do you want? Did I offend you last night? Did I say something … do something …?”

  The elfin face merely looked back at him with a pert smile as her green eyes lifted mysteriously. “We didn’t do anything, if that’s what you’re alluding to.” She glanced to the bed quickly and then back at Adrian again.

  “Disappointed?” He couldn’t resist. She was definitely too cheerful as she pirouetted about his chamber while he was suffering the blue devils. “Or relieved?”

  “A little of both.”

  Her response grated on his tortured ear drums. He turned about to glare at her.

  “Relieved, as I had a very real fear you were going to ‘ralph’ all over me.” She made nasty a face. “Oh, you probably don’t get that one, either, it means—“

  With a groan Adrian waved her explanation away. “I believe I get the gist of your speech.” He never felt so low. A woman feared being near him because she thought he might retch on her? His cock shriveled at the mortifying imagine.

  “I find it hard to believe you lack the drive to consummate our vows.” Tara went on in a true harridan tone that every man loathed and a talent every girl must have been born with, no matter how sweet. “Hey, maybe fairies don’t really have sex with mortals. Maybe you made that up. What do I know?”

  “I have to use the pot.” He grumbled, hoping the suggestion would send her on her merry way and leave him to suffer his hangover in blessed peace.

  She stood with her arms crossed, not allowing him a modicum of privacy by turning around. He was too much of a gentleman to piss in front of her, so he merely stared at her. Tara stared back, unaffected by his glower.

  Adrian turned away from her. He stretched out both arms, pumping them to ease the kinks, and then rubbed his sleep laden eyes with the heels of his hands. “I did offer an apology, did I not?” Whatever I said or did, it was the poteen, I was drunk, I’m sorry. Now go away. I’m not presentable.”

  “Yes, I figured that out, after you passed out on the couch.”

  “Couch?”

  “Settee, divan, whatever you call the damned thing here.”

  Oh, she was in a nasty mood today. One would come to believe she was the one with the hangover. “Why don’t you go downstairs and have some tea while I get dressed. We can talk about what is bothering you then.”

  “Yes, little wifey, go sew by the fire while I play superhero and get myself hanged, we’ve done that scene already. You scared me half to death babbling about me being sent to you from the fairies.”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Well, join the party. I don’t recall much of anything these days. How did I come to be here?” She stood with her arms crossed, her eyes flashing with danger. “Tell me. I want to know every detail of our courtship, every detail—“

  Adrian shuffled to the bed, sat down with his head in his hands, feeling the world spinning about him as he grabbed the chamber pot and leaned his head over it.

  The next thing he knew, he was staring at the contents of his stomach in the polished white-bottomed urn.

  “Are you sick?” The green eyed tyrant softened, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  At her ridiculous question, Adrian lifted his head to look at her.

  “Oh, you smell wretched.” the dainty nose lifted.

  “I ordered a bath.” He grumbled. “You could at least wait until I’m reclaimed a bit before barging into my chamber and demanding answers.”

  “Did the poteen turn bad?” She seemed genuinely worried about him. It was a small triumph, considering he felt like half-thawed horse shit. “Oh, God. I hope you don’t have E-coli or salmonella!”

  “I have the blue devils, and if you don’t get out of my chamber they will leave my body to torment yours.” Oh, the pain of his voice hurt him more than hers. He grimaced.

  “Lie down. I’ll have some peppermint tea brought up to soothe your stomach.”

  She was suddenly accommodating as she pushed him back on the bed and pulled the covers over his body. “There, rest. I’m sorry I lost my temper. We’ll talk later.”

  Adrian closed his eyes to shut out the pain in his head.

  With any luck, later wouldn’t come.

  When Adrian awakened again it was dark outside. He rose to find his bathtub still empty. The fire had been stoked throughout the day.

  His first thought was Tara. She seemed to have taken on a very strong, demanding temperament of late. Or did it merely seem that way with his head pounding and his stomach churning?

  She wanted answers.

  God help him, he didn’t have them.

  After summoning Rupert and ordering a bath. He shaved, waited for her to come as requested, only to learn she was not at home. “Where is she?” He snapped at the valet.

  “Lord Fitzgerald dropped by early this afternoon, and she went out with him to the Park. Your mother is visiting a friend this evening, and will not be home until very late.”

  Were all the females under his roof abandoning him in his illness?

  Before he could ask about his mother Rupert answered tactfully. “Lady Blakely, sir. She and Lady Fiona were going to the theater together.”

  Relief filled him at the mention of Lady Blakely, another widow who visited Glengarra Castle this past winter to console his mother. With mother out of the way for the evening, he would have time to deal with Tara and her probing questions without interruption. He hurriedly bathed, dressed, and went downstairs to await her return.

  After an hour, panic set in. Why did they not return? What if they had an accident? Edward was not the most careful of drivers. He loved to race in the open country roads.

  What if Lord Edward Fitzgerald seduced Tara? He had been enchanted by her last night. Edward gave Tara more attention than Adrian cared for.

  The fear gnawing inside of him was unbearable. He sat at the table with his head in his hand, pouring another drink as his imagination ran rampant. He was only getting what he deserved. Who would have thought that having his grand scheme come true would hurt so much? Tara was not a French actress. He had planned to hire an actress to play the part of Lady Dillon, if need be. Instead, Tara conveniently arrived on his doorstep. Tara was every man’s dream, a fairy princess, a woman worth dying for.

  A woman who deserved more attention than he had given her, his conscience chided. A woman he’d kept shut up in a dreary castle with little companionship and no real romance in the weeks since she agreed to become his wife.

  And now, she was out riding with Lord Edward, a charming rake by all accounts.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lord Edward Fitzgerald was quite the dashing beau. He was polite, attentive, and extremely pleasant to be with. He had dark hair and glittering, blue, mysterious eyes. His easy manner and ready smiles were contagious. Tara found his companionship exhilarating. The man could sweep a girl off her feet without even trying.

  “And that old tart over there is the esteemed Lady McManus, a veritable shrew. ‘Tis rumored her husband suffered a nervous disposition since the day he was wed twenty years ago, and that before his nuptials, Lord McManus had nerves of granite. Now he’s afraid of his own shadow.” Lord Edward laughed as he regaled her with the scandals of the gentry who were showing off their mounts and their fine clothing in Cork Park.

  “She does look frightening.” Tara returned with a giggle as she took in the sour faced harridan who rode in the carriage coming toward them. “She looks like she sucks lemons rather than squeezing the juice
into her tea. Why would someone marry such an old crone, she looks to be eighty and you say she was wed only twenty years ago?”

  “Money, my dear. Lord McManus was in desperate straits, lost everything due to his gaming debts. He played the charming rogue for the dour faced spinster. She inherited all of her father’s wealth, you see, adding greatly to her attractiveness. Worse for it, McManus is forty-six, young enough to be her grandchild, yet, her husband is he. More her puppet, to be sure. That was one wager the poor bloke didn’t count on, winning her hand won him a veritable hell on earth.”

  “How awful.” Tara found herself pitying the object of Lord Edward’s gossip.

  “On the positive side, Lady McManus cannot live forever, so you see, my dear, a few years in Purgatory and Lord McManus will someday be richer than King George.”

  “I could never marry someone I didn’t love.” Tara mused.

  “Nor I.” Edward agreed. “Yet desperate circumstances can change the noblest heart. In our land as in England such alliances for the accumulations of wealth and power are the common denominator, at least among the gentry. Oh, look.” He gestured discreetly to the young lady coming toward them in an open carriage. The girl looked to be barely eighteen, yet she wore heavy makeup and clothing that was designed to show off her generous endowments, despite the cool March air. “That, my dear, is Cork’s equivalent to London’s demi-reps. You’ve heard of such women, surely? Indeed, you must have their counterpart, even in far away America.”

  “No.” Tara nodded politely to the passing coach as the girl smiled pleasantly at her.

  “Well then, I shan’t have your husband upset with me for corrupting his bride.”

  “Oh, please. I’m not that innocent.” She chuckled, and then blushed at her telling outburst. Damn. She really had to be more careful about her speech and her behavior. She needed to try to fit in, as Adrian had said, at least so as not to draw attention to herself. It was difficult with Edward, as he was such good company she forgot herself around him.

  “Coffee, My Lady Dillon?” Lord Edward offered with a generous smile, ignoring her faux pas. Tara felt her heart do a flip-flop as his dimpled smile wrought havoc with her senses. She nodded, unwilling to return yet to that dreary townhouse and face her surly spouse. Lord Edward moved the horses with amazing speed toward the park exit. They wound through the streets at a quick pace, until Lord Edward pulled up the reins at the Coffee Shop he had mentioned to her at dinner the other night.