Timeless Desire

by Cready, Gwyn

  Bridgewater swayed slightly as he buckled the belt but otherwise ignored her question.

  “Will they hurt him?”

  The look he gave her through his one good eye was answer enough.

  “A boy?” she said. “They’d hurt a little boy?”

  He reached back into the satchel and pulled out a pistol.

  A cannon explosion shook the room. The ball left a trail of smoke and gunpowder in the reddening sky.

  “They’ve begun the attack.” She gazed at the castle set high in the rolling hills across the water.

  “Demonstration,” he corrected as another cannon let loose. He slipped the pistol into the belt. “They have not a flea’s chance of taking the place.” He unhooked a square panel of wood on the floor and lifted it. A narrow circular staircase came into view.

  “Where are you going?”

  “We are going.”

  “No, I can’t.” She thought of Marie waiting for her.

  “I’m afraid you have no choice. I can hardly let you return to the people who employ you at this point.” He gave her gown a disapproving look and muttered, “Though I could certainly wish for a less conspicuously clothed companion.” He grabbed a pencil from the wall and began to fiddle with a sheet of paper on the desk.

  “I’m not a spy. You have to believe me.”

  “The woman who just told me she came from the future? I don’t think so. Tell me, if you come from the future, who is monarch after Queen Anne?”

  She froze. Was it one of those Georges?

  His mouth formed a thin line. “As I suspected.”

  “No. I’m telling the truth. I’m a librarian, not a historian. And the questions you’re asking are from a long time ago. But I can tell you this much: England conquers France. A hundred years from now, England is the world’s first superpower. Your colonies stretch from one end of the globe to the other. You are ruled by a queen who sits on her throne for more than sixty years—longer than any monarch in England’s history.”

  He gazed down the length of his noble nose at her. “A queen? A queen conquers the world?”

  “Yes. Her name is Victoria. She’s married to a prince named Albert. After he dies, she never recovers. She wears black the rest of her life.” And Panna, who knew too well the abyss of grief, understood why.

  “Queen Victoria?” he repeated, incredulous.

  “Yes. And later she falls in love with a Scotsman, a man who takes care of her horses and—”

  “A groom?”

  “And Victoria and Albert’s daughters—they had, like, ten kids—marry into practically every dynasty in Europe as a way to try to unify the countries, but it didn’t really work. And in the end it didn’t matter, because by the twenty-first century the countries are united. Well, at least they share a parliament and courts and a common currency.”

  Bridgewater fell back a step, as if he’d taken a blow. “That’s lunacy.”

  “It’s not lunacy. It’s what happens. I can tell you whatever you want to know. I’m not a spy. I came here by accident.”

  He regarded her closely, and she considered how hard it was to prove one was from another time. If she knew what happened an hour from now—or had a better handle on all those Georges—perhaps he’d believe her. Unfortunately, what she knew of the future sounded like the ravings of a madwoman, and that wasn’t helping her much.

  He shook his head. “No. You’re coming with me.”

  “Let me tell you about iPods.”

  “Eye-whats?”

  “Music can be captured and played back without the original musicians. And you can carry thousands of hours of it in your pockets.”

  His eyes darkened. He wasn’t buying it—any of it.

  “Gatorade,” she cried. “Cheez Whiz. Reverse mortgages. QVC. ‘I’m a Mac.’ Hot yoga. Lolcats. Sexting. Dijonnaise. Lady Gaga. Toaster Strudel. Jeggings. Eight-minute dating. Tofu turkey. Google Street View. Botox. Breakfast Burritos. I can go on like this all day. Boca Burgers. Odor-Eaters. Krispy Kr—”

  “Stop!” His face was a mixture of astonishment, confusion and fear. He stared at her as if he were sizing up a flaming thunderbolt that had landed in front of him. “Never speak in such a manner again. You’ll be hanged.”

  “Then you believe me?”

  “How can anyone believe something like that?” He was angry now, and she knew that meant he was beginning to embrace the possibility.

  “Do you at least believe I’m not a spy?”

  “You want to convince me?” He folded the paper he’d been hunched over and dripped the candle’s wax onto it. Then he pressed his thumb into the wax. “Take this to the home of my servant, Clare. The house is a mile past the inn, along the water, in the shadow of two large oaks.”

  She thought of the distance she’d be from the only portal back to her own world. She didn’t know how to get out of the castle with the army guarding it, and she had no confidence that she’d be able to return to the chapel once she was out. This wasn’t her life, her war, her country, her time. And Marie and Steve were waiting. “I can’t, Bridgewater. I can’t. I have to return to my own time. Isn’t there anything else I could do to prove it to you? Anything? You have to believe me. I’m not a spy.”

  He let out a long sigh, and the contentiousness seemed to drain out of him. “I can hardly accuse you of spying when you’ve turned down the perfect opportunity to read my note.” He returned the paper to his pocket.

  “Then you’ll let me go?”

  After a beat, he said, “I don’t know what you are, Mrs. Kennedy. But if you tell anyone about this place or what I’m doing, my life will be forfeit. And if mine is, there’s a good chance yours will be, too.”

  Had he meant the last as a threat or an entreaty to use caution? She couldn’t untangle the emotion behind those hooded eyes. “I won’t. I swear it.”

  He returned to the satchel, searching for something.

  “Can you deliver it yourself?” she asked softly. “The note, I mean.”

  He withdrew a pair of dark, loose-fitting trousers. “I have less than an hour before the guard returns. I have something else to take care of.”

  “The boy?”

  Bridgewater didn’t answer. He pulled the trousers over his boots and britches and buttoned them. What was he involved in? Were the army’s accusations true?

  “Tell me, Mrs. Kennedy, how does one return to the future? Is there a spell involved? Do you rise up like mists from a primeval lake and disappear into the sky?”

  Was he mocking her? The look on his face revealed only polite but seemingly genuine curiosity.

  “Get me back to the hallway,” she said. “I can take care of it from there.” It had struck her that revealing the location of the portal might not be wise for her or for Bridgewater.

  She waited for him to ask more questions, but he didn’t.

  “The things you talked about . . .” His forehead creased.

  “I could tell you more.”

  “Don’t.” He pointed to the stairs. “One flight down is the library, though there’s no door there. Two more flights after that is a door that leads out of the castle and across the ruins in the back. That’s the door I’ll be taking. But on the landing in-between is a door to a passage under the library that leads to another stairway. Take that stairway up a flight and you’ll be at a door that leads into the hallway outside the library. The bolt is on the inside. There’s a peephole. Make sure you don’t open the door until the hall is empty.”

  As she was about to descend, he caught her arm.

  “Not yet. There is a change of guard at a quarter past eight both outside and at the guard station at the end of the hallway beyond the library. While it should be a time of utmost attention, the soldiers use it as an opportunity to converse about the day’s events.” He turned the telescope toward the drawbridge and gazed through the eyepiece. “Privates Swenson, Baker, Thorpe, and Coyne will walk through the courtyard. Swenson has white-blond hair, visible eve
n on the darkest night. They will split at the path there.” He pointed to a light stripe in the distance. “Swenson and Baker will dismiss the men at the gate. That’s when I will go down the stairs. Approximately three minutes later, Thorpe and Coyne will arrive at the guard station in the hallway outside the chapel to dismiss the men there. That’s when you’ll go down.”

  “How do you know this?”

  He released the telescope. “They were my men until this morning. I signed off on the duty roster.”

  What a change twelve hours had wrought. “And what time is it now?”

  “It was just eight o’clock when I entered the passageway.”

  She gasped. Eight was the time she had agreed to meet Marie’s husband’s cousin, Steve, at the library. Almost an hour had passed since she’d left Marie in the stacks. Time certainly moved at a terrifying speed here.

  Bridgewater saw her face. “Another appointment?”

  She flushed. “I—I—”

  He looked away. “I see.”

  “No, you don’t. I’m a widow, and my friend has arranged a dinner engagement for me with her husband’s brother, a man named Steve. It would be inconsiderate of me to abandon him.”

  Bridgewater fiddled with one of the ribboned pencils. “I will endeavor to ensure that you can keep your appointment,” he said at last, lifting his eyes.

  She wanted to say she had no desire to keep the appointment—that she’d rather linger here with him in the charged confines of this room, sharing the thrill of his covert plans— but when she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out.

  Eight or ten short minutes. That was the time she had left with him, and an hour in total was all they would ever share. It had been a fine hour—an amazing hour—and she found herself feeling quite sorry it would end.

  “Count for me, will you?”

  “Pardon?” she said.

  “To three hundred. Slow and steady. That’s the way we teach soldiers to mark time. Three hundred is about five minutes. I need to organize my pack.”

  There was something about the way he’d said “slow and steady” that made her heart skip a beat. She began. “One, two, three—”

  “Slower.”

  He patted her wrist in the dark, measuring the beat. The light scent of spiced soap hung on him along with the sweeter notes of brandy. She inhaled. Eleven, twelve, thirteen.

  Charlie had always had a joke: What’s good in twenty minutes, but even better in five?

  Oh, Charlie.

  She’d laughed every time he’d said it. Unsophisticated it might be, but there was something oh, so right about taking the express train home while you hung onto the hand straps for dear life.

  She looked at Bridgewater, intently rearranging his supplies. Did he like the express train? Or was he more of an Orient Express, make-the-journey-part-of-the-trip sort of guy? Not that there was anything wrong with a nice slow trip on the Orient Express, mind you, and Bridgewater looked as if he knew how to pass the time on a leisurely journey. But there was something about the way his eyes had lingered on her as they’d drunk their brandies that made her think he had a fiery five-minute express train in him as well.

  God, where was she? Let’s say forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty . . .

  She looked down at the surveying seat, visible through the next window, and a wicked tingle went through her. No, I bet Bridgewater would have no trouble at all making good use of those five minutes.

  She imagined him freeing a handful of her hair and bringing it to his nose.

  “Lilacs,” he would say. “You have come to seek a donation, have you not?”

  “Yes,” she’d reply. “For my library.”

  Ah, if only real fund-raising were like this.

  He would pour a brandy and hand it to her. Some of that impeccable Don Alfonso vintage that even now was making her head spin. His eyes would play an enigmatic game with hers.

  “I am willing to make the donation you seek.”

  “Excellent.”

  “And in exchange, I should very much like to bed you.”

  She would feel a peremptory shock. “Here?”

  “Aye. Now.”

  “Are you not worried about your servants?” she would ask lightly, trying to quell her quaking nerves.

  “Reeves has his orders for this evening.”

  A premeditated act. Yes, that would be Bridgewater.

  Her legs would turn to jelly. “Have you considered simply seducing me?”

  “I have. Though I doubt it would be simple.”

  He was right. It wouldn’t be. Not with Charlie standing in the shadows. And that’s what she liked about Bridgewater. He saw her complexity and wasn’t put off by it.

  He would take a deep draft of the brandy and gaze longingly at her. “Sometimes a man just wants to feel he has purchased his pleasure.”

  “Sometimes,” she would say, “a woman just wants to feel she has been purchased.”

  “Then it is settled?”

  “Everything but the price.”

  God, this was better than the stuff she sneaked off into the back of the stacks to read.

  He would reach for a chest on his desk and unlock it. It would be filled with gold and silver coins, some large, some small. He would pick half a dozen from inside and rattle them in his palm.

  “I believe this is what you requested.” He would slip his coin-filled hand into her bodice and cup her breast.

  Oh, dear! The booms of the army’s cannons outside . . . matched the pounding in her veins. It must be the brandy. I would never . . . or would I?

  He would smile, and his thumb would trace the tender outline of her nipple.

  “That was the price when you were making a gift,” she would say. “Now you are making a purchase.”

  His brows would rise, and the light in those sapphire eyes would sparkle approvingly. He would bring his mouth to her ear. “Double? Triple?”

  She would point to the chest on the desk and smile.

  His hand would jerk away if he’d been burned. “Are you mad?”

  “What would you call a woman who risks her reputation to bed a man in an unlocked room?”

  His mouth would crook into a smile. “The mistress of her own library.”

  A happy charge ran all the way to Panna’s toes, and she wiggled them inside her shoes, smiling.

  “Did you finish?”

  She jumped. The flesh-and-blood Bridgewater was looking at her curiously. “Finish?” she repeated.

  “Counting? Did you finish?”

  “Er, yes. Two hundred ninety-eight, two hundred ninety-nine, three hundred,” she said quickly.

  He frowned. “That seemed a little fast.”

  “Did it? It seemed just right to me.”

  Of course, that’s only how it happens in books or in the minds of highly imaginative librarians. In her experience, there was usually a kernel of corn in someone’s teeth, an uncooperative corselet of Spanx, a condom past its use-by date or some other sort of humbling horror meant to remind the parties involved that nothing good ever comes from too much pleasure. But, oh, were it only so.

  He fiddled with the telescope, checking the path below.

  “Are they there?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “A few more minutes.”

  The evening had grown dark, save for the occasional punctuation of crimson and orange from the cannons. Without the lights of the industrial world to compete with them, the stars in the Cumbrian night sparkled like a tray of million-dollar diamonds. She marveled at the number of them.

  “Would you care to look?” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “At the stars?” He swung the telescope’s eyepiece toward her.

  She had never used a telescope before, and her lack of knowledge must have been apparent. He pushed a crate in her direction and said, “It’s exceedingly straightforward. Just put your eye there,” he said, pointing to the end, “and adjust here.”

  Standing on the crate made
her a little too tall to look through the eyepiece comfortably, so she stooped, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. Against the deep blue-black, she saw spots of light, some large, some small, some even appearing to her overexcited imagination to be the color of a robin’s egg or a peach.

  Bridgewater touched her cheek and she started.

  “Open your eye,” he said.

  She had shut the one she wasn’t using.

  “Your mind will let you see what you need with the one at the scope,” he said. “In any case, a good soldier always wants to have an eye on what’s going on around him.”

  The problem was there was too much going on around her. Her blood was still racing from her daydream, the brandy’s delicious warmth seemed to have turned her arms and legs to rubber, and the touch of Bridgewater’s coat on her arm was making her self-conscious almost to the point of light-headedness.

  She moved a foot to better support herself on the crate and nearly tumbled off. He caught her by the waist, steadying her easily, and when she straightened, she was looking directly into his eyes.

  “What’s that?”

  The voice had come from the rampart outside—a guard speaking to his companion. The guard pointed to their window.

  “Don’t move,” Bridgewater said.

  “Do you see that?” the man said. “There, in that window. I thought I saw something move.”

  “It’s my hair,” she said, panicked. “They can see it.”

  “They cannot see beyond the reflections of the firepots on the glass.” Bridgewater’s caramel-scented breath came in waves across her cheek. His chest was reassuringly solid under her fingertips.

  “It’s just the fire,” the other guard said. “There’s been nothing in that wing since the place burned in ’86.”

  The men walked on, but Panna didn’t move. Bridgewater’s hands tightened on her waist, and his eyes sought in hers the answer to an unspoken question. He held her until the last echo of the soldiers’ footsteps died away.

  She clasped the rough wool of his lapels, intensely aware of the dampness of her palms and the beating of his heart against her chest. The answer she wished to give was such a complicated mixture of attraction, desire, and the pain of letting go of Charlie, she couldn’t speak.