Aching for Always

by Gwyn Cready

  She debated whether she should head to the tailor shop or back to the house, where she’d last seen him, and decided the house was the more likely candidate, which immediately made her flush, bringing to mind Rogan and the unjust suspicions that had made their last conversation so awkward. She supposed there would be a fair number of awkward conversations before she figured things out.

  She trotted across Grant and walked south. She’d gotten nearly to Fourth when the back of her neck prickled. She turned around, but the sidewalk was empty. She went a few more steps and swung around again. Hugh stepped behind a bus shelter, but he knew he’d been spotted and he stepped out. Her relief at seeing him was lessened by the obscure irritation she felt at him hiding while she worried, and by the odd, guarded look on his face.

  She waited as he jogged across Grant’s wide, empty lanes.

  “Were you following me?” she said. “I was looking for you.”

  “Aye. I have reason to believe someone might wish you harm.”

  It was a lie. She had no doubt. His manner was almost cold—completely different from that of the man who’d run up the stairs to save her the night before.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Though I feel bad we had to do what we did behind Rogan’s back.”

  “I’m certain you do.” The gray in his eyes was as hard as iron and the scar in his brow seemed to pulse red. “Why were you looking for me?”

  “I-I wanted to see if you were well, for one thing.”

  He began to walk. “Tired—but well enough, aye.”

  Another lie, she thought as she followed. He looked like hell. She decided not to ask if he was taking his pills.

  “Is that all?” he asked.

  “Well, I—” She stopped herself. If that’s the way he was going to be, he could stuff the tube she had for him right up his annoying British backside. “Yep, that was it.”

  “What about the Trojan Horse?

  “What about it?”

  “Did you look at the excerpt? Was it the same?”

  “Yes,” she said hotly. “It was the same. What you wrote and what I remember seeing matches the text exactly.”

  He gazed briefly into the distance, digesting this. “And what do you think it means?”

  “I guess it means we should watch out for Greeks bearing gifts.”

  He growled but said nothing.

  She turned down Fourth and he followed her in silence. When she reached Smithfield, she found a construction crew blocking the sidewalk. Joss remembered they were preparing a building here for demolition. One man worked a jackhammer, another a torch. When the jackhammer started again, and she crossed to the far side with Hugh on her heels.

  “Where are you going?” he asked over the sound.

  It seemed more like an accusation than a question. “Back to the house.”

  “Not the tailor shop?”

  “No. Why?” It wasn’t even in this direction. Joss reached the great lions that guard the grand façade of Dollar Bank, one of Pittsburgh’s oldest banks.

  “The dark, handsome man and the mapmaker had a beautiful daughter, and they gave her everything she could want—toys, dolls and even a magical place guarded by a pair of lions.”

  The looming Corinthian columns and massive polished brass doors gave the building the look of a Greek temple. Supporting the pediment were a pair of beautiful, naked women—caryatids, she remembered from college art class—who, like Joss, accepted their fate with unblinking stoicism.

  “Someone broke the lock on the shop,” Hugh said. “Tore the place apart.”

  She felt her anxiety grow. “Was it the same person who tried to shoot you?”

  “He didn’t try, Joss. He succeeded. And aye, it’s a possibility.”

  There was something in his tone. Something unpleasant and exploratory. Then it hit her, and she wheeled around. “You think I had something to do with it.”

  His face didn’t change. “Did you?”

  “How could I be involved?” she cried. “I’m the one who’s sacrificed everything to help.”

  “‘Sacrificed everything’?” He snorted. “What have you sacrificed? Your business? Your home? The family fortune that brought you your every desire? So far, you have sacrificed nothing. The only thing you’ve lost is a map, and I took that myself.”

  “I nearly sacrificed my relationship with Rogan.” With Hugh like this, she had no desire to share the news of her now delayed wedding with him.

  “How?” he demanded, and the jackhammers stopped before he lowered his voice. “Did you not take him to your bed last night?”

  A few passersby turned, and she led him back from the busiest part of the sidewalk. “Christ, you have some effing nerve. I didn’t, as you so quaintly say, ‘take him to my bed,’ though by all rights I should have—he is my fiancé, you know, not that that’s ever seemed to matter to you.”

  “I was not the only person on the balcony at that party.” The sparks from the torch were visible behind him like some dark angel’s halo.

  “I was drunk.”

  “You might have been, but that doesn’t change what was in that kiss.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Don’t make something out of it that wasn’t there. It was a reflex.”

  His nostrils widened. “What, pray, is your meaning?”

  “My meaning is that the tingle you get when you kiss is the equivalent of coughing when your throat tickles. It means nothing.”

  “Reflex, is it? Like this?”

  He drew a finger across her breastbone, and she gasped.

  “Yes,” she hissed.

  “Or this?” He kissed the place where he had touched, and she bent her head back without thinking.

  “Yes.” This was a dangerous game.

  He inserted his bulk like a shield between her and the workers and teased a nipple. “And this?”

  His boldness shocked her, and the warmth he fanned in her was like a drug. When the jackhammer pulsed to life amid the falling sparks, she imagined it as him, between her thighs. “Yes,” she lied. “Any man can do it.”

  “Reynolds?”

  “Of course Reynolds.”

  His hand fell away, and he cradled it as if he’d been wounded, which only churned her whirlpool of emotions higher. She could defend herself from his carnality; his vulnerability was more challenging. For a long moment he said nothing, and the sidewalk-jarring sounds of the work crew again filled the silence between them.

  “What reflex was it, then,” he asked, his face emptied of hardness, “that brought you to the islet with those pills?”

  She made a small noise. The memory of the fear she’d had for him came back with a wallop, and he pulled her softly into his arms. She hated that his height made her feel safe. She hated that his quest made her feel like she might one day deserve the advantages she’d been given. But most of all she hated that the way his heart beat as he held her made her want to forget everything she knew about Rogan. It was a betrayal and a damned ugly one. Treason raged in her and so did guilt. Her blissful, easy happiness had been destroyed because of Hugh, and she hated him—hated him—at this moment for making it happen.

  “Tell me you didn’t betray me, Joss,” he said into her hair. “Tell me you had nothing to do with the break-in.”

  Betray him? There was only one person she’d betrayed, and that was Rogan—because of him. She shoved Hugh away. “You miserable prick.”

  Something in his eyes changed. She could almost hear a snap, like the sound of an I-beam as a building collapses, and the vibrations at their feet easily could have been the aftershock.

  “‘Miserable’ is the last word to describe it,” he said with cold fire, “and if you had the courage to discover the extent of your reflexes, milady, you might find out.”

  He brought his mouth down on hers in a bruising insult of a kiss. She struggled against the desire, but when he backed her against the lion’s plinth, she gave way, and—with a boom that nearly deafened her—so did the ground bene
ath them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Joss was catapulted into cold, rushing water that sucked the wind out of her and flung her instantly out of Hugh’s arms. The dark water covered her head like a grave, and every move she made seemed to carry her lower. Lungs screaming for air, she clawed at the water but found no purchase. She was moving fast, but didn’t know where. With a painful clunk, her body hit something solid, and the force threw her for an instant over the water’s surface, long enough to scream, “Hugh!” before liquid filled her nose and mouth. One rock smashed her foot and another her shoulder. She was tumbling down a hill of water.

  Flailing helplessly, she tried to find her way upward but couldn’t. She was sinking. She could feel the weight of her clothes dragging her down. Terror jerked her limbs like a marionette’s. She kicked and pumped as she was thrown side to side. She had to breathe, had to.

  She heard Hugh’s muffled voice. “Joss!” he screamed, and she reached but couldn’t find him.

  Her elbow bumped something, and she grabbed with all her might. It was an arm. Hugh’s. She got a handful of his hair and a death grasp around his neck. But instead of helping, he was fighting to free himself. He broke her hold and pulled away.

  She surfaced and snorted a gulp of air. The next instant her head smashed against something, and she tasted blood. She was falling, falling . . .

  Something jerked her hard. An arm around her throat was choking her. No strength to struggle.

  All at once her face was in the air. The arm wasn’t choking her. It was towing her, guiding her. The water was still hurtling them somewhere, but she could breathe. They were in a river, and it was raining, a torrential downpour that turned the sky black. She would never be warm again.

  Hugh reached for a branch overhanging the water and caught it, but it tore from its roots. The river raced on, clipping stones and bouncing them off ledges.

  “Bloody hell!” he cried. “It’s the Tarr Steps!”

  The words meant nothing to her, but she could feel Hugh’s panic and hers rose accordingly.

  “Can you grab it?” he asked her.

  “What?”

  “There’s a bridge ahead. Can you catch it and hold on?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll try.” She wanted to cry.

  He careened off another stone with his legs and for an instant she saw the bridge. It wasn’t like any bridge she had ever seen. It barely rose above the water. In fact, water was spraying over it. And it was made of long, flat stones perched on more than a dozen stone piers. No rails. No wood.

  They would hit in a matter of seconds. She could see the only choice was to go between the piers or be smashed against one, but going between would require her face to be underwater, and she knew she couldn’t do that willingly.

  Hugh relaxed his grip and turned her so she was beside him, not behind.

  “Take that one! There!”

  The water raced faster and the noise rose in a roar. Joss spotted an overhanging branch and grabbed it. Hugh clung to a pier. They were apart now, which terrified Joss. She pulled herself slowly out of the water, the weight of her clothes almost impossible to overcome. She got a knee on the shore and used the branch to pull herself upright.

  “Joss!”

  Something bumped her as she stood, and she fell back in the water, hitting her head hard.

  In an instant, her body disappeared under the bridge.

  “Joss!” It was that awful night on the islet again, and he felt the same paralyzing responsibility.

  A log had slammed against two piers between him and the shore. If he could get to it, he could use it to get to land, but that meant letting go and, even for an instant, that didn’t seem possible.

  He drew himself along the stones laid across the piers. Could he hold them while he kicked across? He moved slowly, turning sideways so the force of the current could pass on either side.

  A little more. A little more.

  He caught the log and wrapped his arms around it. Kicking hard, he made his way down its slippery surface to shore and crawled, shivering, onto the bank. With a wrenching groan, he pulled himself to his feet and raced around the bridge. His heart nearly stopped. Joss was facedown in the water ten feet from shore, her body limp, and she was held in place only by an overhanging branch that had snagged her clothing.

  He ran along the water’s edge, looking for something he could use to grab her. Finding nothing, he edged his way to the branches, found the one holding her and pulled slowly.

  He managed to move her slightly. He was terrified she’d slip free and go downstream, though he was far more afraid it wouldn’t matter because she was already dead. At last, she was close enough for him to catch her sleeve and he pulled her to shore.

  He put his ear near her mouth. She wasn’t breathing. He banged her chest with his fist. Once. Twice. Water trailed out of her mouth. He did it again. More water.

  “Joss!” he cried, as if she were asleep instead of not breathing.

  One more time, he brought his fist down.

  She coughed.

  “Joss, Joss,” he said, shaking her shoulders. “Joss.”

  She turned on her side to cough up more water, and he collapsed with relief. He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. He nearly cried. So much had been taken from him. He couldn’t lose her, too.

  “I hate the water,” she said.

  “I know.”

  He released her reluctantly and put a hand to her temple, where an open gash bled freely.

  “Thank God you’re all right,” he said.

  She looked at the crimson on his fingers. “You have a pretty broad notion of ‘all right.’”

  She was shivering, and he pulled off his wet coat and put it on her. It was wet but he knew it would warm her. The rain was still sheeting down, and it was cold. He knew exposure was a real risk. They needed to do something and do it quickly.

  He scanned the fields and road beyond the river for signs of civilization.

  “Any thoughts on next steps?” she asked, rubbing her head.

  “Aye. Watch out for the lions.”

  “I take it we found the other passageway, the one used by the man with the gun.”

  “That seems likely. So now we know of two. One in the alley that leads to the islet, and one behind the lion statue that leads here.” He watched the water gnash its furious path under the bridge. “The passageways seem to be put in places that make their use rather self-limiting.”

  A glimpse of orange caught his eye. “What is that?”

  She turned. “Oh my God! It’s my tote.” He jumped to his feet and rescued the thing from where it had lodged in a tangle of vines.

  “What is it?” he asked, but before she could answer, a noise pulled his attention from her.

  “What? What do you hear?”

  It was carriage wheels, and he ran to where he hoped he could intercept the vehicle.

  * * *

  A carriage, then, she thought. Well, that narrows the year down to somewhere between, say, 1400 and the nineteenth century. She wrapped the coat more tightly around her. No need to expose mid-millennial mores to any more flesh than absolutely required.

  The carriage had stopped and she could see Hugh gesturing to a clearly uncertain driver. She couldn’t imagine what story would explain a drenched man in twenty-first-century trousers with a bullet hole in his shoulder and a bleeding woman wearing trousers. Nonetheless, she hoped whatever he said worked. She couldn’t feel her fingers or her feet, and she knew that was a bad sign.

  Hugh trotted back. “Come. Let me carry you. He’ll take us to Dulverton.”

  She grabbed the tote and let him lift her. It was as if she weighed nothing. “Then we are in . . .?”

  “Exmoor,” he said. “In 1706.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Joss thanked the servant for helping her into the gown of her host’s dead wife, said she would be down to breakfast in a few moments and closed the bedroom door with a
click. This was her first solitary moment in the light of day since they’d arrived, and she needed to find out if the precious contents of her case had survived.

  The generous and apparently lonely owner of the carriage had insisted they spend the night at his estate and had provided blankets, bandages, food, wine and fire in large supply. He was a widower and utterly charmed by Hugh’s story that he had absconded with Joss and had been on his way to Gretna Green to marry her when their horse had stumbled and fallen on Tarr Steps—charmed enough, at least, to agree not to insist on sending a message to Joss’s parents or the local magistrate.

  Of course, Hugh’s story had meant they were deposited for the night at opposite ends of the house, with two footmen and a locked conservatory between them, for which Joss was grateful, given her strongly conflicting feelings about her traveling companion. She was thankful he had saved her, but she had not forgotten the bitter ending to the events in front of Dollar Bank, nor that tomorrow was to have been her wedding day. She looked guiltily at her hand. Rogan’s diamond still sparkled there. It had not been swept away in the freezing river, and she thought perhaps that was more fate than chance.

  She removed the tote from under the bed. Her hands shook as she unsealed the plastic tube. Would everything be ruined so that, guilt-free, she could say to Hugh his quest would go unfulfilled, or would the maps she’d so carefully gathered at work a day ago have survived?

  She slipped her hand in. The paper was dry. She removed the sheets carefully and unrolled them on the bed. First, the map of London that Hugh had taken from the map room. Next, the map of Edinburgh that Joss had found under Fiona’s chest on the ship. Third, a full-size color copy of the Manchester map she’d found yesterday in the electronic archives, matching the map they’d seen in Rogan’s study in all aspects except one: there was no hand-lettered excerpt from the Aeneid on it, though she had found the excerpt online and slipped a printout of that in the tube, too.