Several moments passed in silence before James replied. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even Godwin’s fault. It was an accident. You can’t spend your life blaming yourself or wondering what might have been.”
“Perhaps not, but I can stop myself from being weak again.”
“It isn’t weakness to love. It strengthens. It builds you up. It makes you happy. A reason to get out of bed in the morning and deal with the dreariness of this world. It makes everything else worthwhile. It is the greatest thing we can hope for in our lives.”
Anger bloomed inside his chest again. “That’s a pretty speech from a man who is encouraging me to chase after the woman he loves.”
James looked thoroughly confused. “I beg your pardon?”
“I saw you today.” Hartley gripped the arms of his chair, forcing his fists to stay away from his brother’s face. “I saw you with her, practicing archery. She loves you. She barely tolerates me.” Speaking the words aloud for the first time caused both relief and sadness.
“You blistering fool. I knew you were there. I was trying to make you jealous. Everything that has passed between me and Miss Blythe has been with the sole intent of making you jealous so that you would finally admit that you are desperately in love with her. And I know it worked because I still have the loveliest of bruises to prove that you are a man in love.”
So many thoughts and emotions flooded Hartley in that moment that he didn’t know what to think. Nothing had happened between Emma and James? It had all been a ruse designed to force him into admitting his feelings? It had worked most effectively, but Hartley thought his brother might be owed another facer for such a scheme.
There was a sound of James scooting his chair back as he stood. “Your honor will be all you have left if you don’t tell Miss Blythe how you feel. Even she will tire of your moodiness. She deserves better. As do you. Don’t choose loneliness when such love is available to you.”
Then James was gone, leaving Hartley to his thoughts and swirling emotions. Needing to do something, he stood up and headed outside. The night air was cool and heavy with an impending rainstorm, thunder rolling in the distance. Without thinking, his steps led him to the family cemetery.
Libby had been buried at her husband’s estate, but Hartley had constructed a small memorial to her here. He ran his hands over the smooth marble, sinking to the ground. He had always imagined her to be the perfect woman. Had he truly loved her? How could he have when he’d never really known her?
His family had been right. The Libby he loved would never have married Godwin. She would never have considered running away with one man while married to another. He thought of her cruel jibes that he had overlooked or ignored.
Libby had planned on using him for his title and fortune. She had been selfish and manipulative and uncaring of who she hurt. He had refused to see her as she truly was, so convinced that they would live a charmed life together. He’d held on to that dream for far too long. No, not a dream. A lie.
Hartley had been in love with the woman he wanted her to be rather than the woman she was. Not like Emma, who was nothing that he wanted her to be but instead was everything that he needed.
Emma. He had set such thick bars around his heart. But like some determined wood sprite, she had darted in and out of that cage, touching his heart here and there, refusing to stay out as she was meant to.
He loved her. Loved her in a way he hadn’t known was possible. He had thought his world had ended when he found Libby’s body, but it paled in comparison to how he felt when he thought Emma would not live. He had wanted to die alongside her.
There was no one moment that made him love her. No gigantic gesture, no single act. Instead, it was a compilation of so many little things. The way she laughed. The way she seemed to sway while supposedly standing still as if moving to music only she could hear. The way she challenged him, confused him, and intrigued him all at the same time. The way she smiled at him from across the table. Her intelligence. Her kindness. Her wit. Even the way she argued with him.
There was not one part of her he didn’t love completely.
“I am saying goodbye, Libby.” He let his hand rest upon the stone one last time. “I will no longer allow you to have any hold over my heart. Because it belongs to another.” In the morning he would ask Mr. Green to have the memorial removed. He didn’t want it here any longer.
He also offered his apologies to God for his foolish sentiments and mistaken belief that he could actually put Emma’s life in danger just by loving her. “I hope you will allow the retraction, as I plan to make her my wife. In a church, of course.”
Rain began to pour down then, thick and heavy, and it felt like an answer. It felt cleansing, as if the world was being washed anew, and Hartley was being given the chance to start over. Thunder boomed overhead, while lightning lit up the black sky. Emma was probably inside, cowering under a piece of furniture and inventing curse words to yell at the storm. That made him smile. She made him smile. And she made him happy. How had he been so blind?
He had to return to the house. Now. He would tell her that he loved her, and if she didn’t feel the same, he would spend the rest of his life trying to win her over.
* * *
I had found inventing headaches to be incredibly useful. I told Charles how unwell I felt, and our hosts had insisted we return home immediately, especially since it seemed a storm was on its way.
Charles had seen through the ruse, but we had said our goodbyes and returned back to Rosewood. Even though it was dark, I knew when we had arrived because the scent of roses filled the air, making everything seem more romantic. It wasn’t just the incoming storm that made me nervous. It was what I was about to do. I wasn’t going to let Hartley run away from me anymore.
The butler took our hats and coats. Charles turned to me with a wink and said, “I am feeling rather tired. Tell James when you see him that he is feeling tired as well and should also retire. And good luck.”
I hugged her tightly. I hadn’t even said anything about talking to Hartley, but she knew. I didn’t have a plan. I still wanted to show him that I hadn’t been hurt, and then somehow everything would just magically work out.
It was easy to find Hartley and James. They sounded as if they were yelling in the dining room. When I got to the partially closed door, something made me stop. The anger in Hartley’s voice.
“I don’t love Emma! I will not marry her!”
White noise howled in my ear, and it felt like a bomb of pain exploded inside my lungs, making my chest constrict. I backed away with my knees wobbling, as if I could get clear from the shrapnel of his words. Hartley didn’t love me. He didn’t want to marry me.
I was the stupidest person who had ever lived.
I had been so incredibly naïve. And so, so stupid.
There was only one thing to do now. I turned and tried to walk upstairs to my room. My feet felt like they were encased in concrete, making it difficult to put one foot in front of the other. I just kept hearing his words over and over again in my mind. I don’t love Emma. I don’t love Emma.
I grabbed onto the bannister, using it to climb the stairs. It was like wading through a pool of syrup. The air sucked at me, taking little happy pieces of my heart and peeling them away with each heavy step. It was so hard to breathe, so hard to move.
When I finally reached the guest room I’d been staying in, I sat down at the writing desk. It was laughable that I had intended to find a way to make Hartley stay with me.
Because now I was the one who was going to run away. I wanted to get as far away from him as possible. I’d put a couple of centuries between us.
But I couldn’t say goodbye to anyone. They’d all try and make me stay. Charles would tell me to just talk to him. Which would be pointless. Hartley had just made his stance on our potential relationship pretty clear. As far as he was concerned, it was nonexistent.
Instead I wrote a letter to Charles, thanking her for ev
erything she’d done for me and for making me feel a part of her family. I asked her to write Rosemary a good reference letter. While my writing had gotten better, and I didn’t make blots as often, the ink was still running because I couldn’t stop crying. Hot tears burned their way down my face, my throat so raw with pain that I thought I was going to throw up. My whole body felt pressed down, as if the crushing sadness and regret were physical objects being shoved on top of me.
I wrote her name on the envelope. She would explain my absence to everyone—to her family, to the Duchess of Warfield. Anybody who would remember or care about what happened to me, I knew she’d find a way to explain it.
Maybe she’d just tell them that I went back to America. I pulled the bell for the maid and walked over to the window to wait, watching as tiny raindrops made serpentine trails down the panes. Like the skies were crying with me.
Because it wouldn’t be a lie. Much as I loved Bex, the first thing I’d do when I got back to my own time was get out of this waterlogged country and return home.
Home. Not that I had a home to go back to. I thought I had found it here. I thought this was going to be where I belonged for the rest of my life, and I had grown to love the idea of it just as I had grown to love Hartley.
It would never be my home now. The Portwoods would never be my family. I had been so incredibly, painfully wrong.
The maid arrived, and I asked her to arrange for a carriage to take me back to London.
“Do you need me to pack for you, miss?”
“No.” The words were stuck in my throat, making it difficult to speak. “There’s nothing I need from here. I just want to leave as fast as possible.”
She said she would fetch me when the carriage was ready. Thunder burst overhead, and I squeezed my eyelids shut. It wasn’t enough that Hartley just pulled my still-beating heart from my chest. Now I got to be terrified the entire way back to London. Hopefully Mrs. Farnsworth hadn’t jimmied open my desk drawer yet and I could grab my stuff, read the spell, and someday this would all be like a bad dream. A forgotten memory.
Even if the stabbing pains in my heart reminded me that I would never be able to forget.
The maid came back, saying the carriage waited at the front door for me. As I walked down the stairs I realized the yelling had stopped. I didn’t know where Hartley or James were, and that was not good. Since the universe seemed hell-bent on wrecking my life, I asked it for one favor: to not let me run into Hartley.
I didn’t think I could bear seeing him one last time.
The butler, whose name I didn’t remember, helped me with my coat and offered me an umbrella as he walked me to the carriage. “Do you have a message for Lord Hartley, Miss Blythe?”
I was going to suggest anatomically improbable things that Hartley could do with himself. I thought it would be better to just say nothing. But mixed in with the heart-wrenching sadness was a sliver of rage. “You can tell Mr. High-and-Mighty that I heard every word he said, loud and clear. And he’ll never have to worry about seeing me ever again.”
The butler, clearly confused and probably not willing to risk his job by passing on the message, settled for shutting the carriage door, plunging me into darkness.
The universe had granted my request. I was safely on my way and hadn’t run into Hartley. I remembered the last time I had seen him and spoken to him was when we had danced at his townhome in London. My heart squeezed painfully as I thought of how in love I had been in that moment. When there was still a possibility of us. When I thought we might get our happily ever after.
Instead, I had been left with shattered hopes and a destroyed heart.
* * *
“You’re dripping water all over Mother’s Aubusson carpet. She’d have your head,” James remarked as Hartley entered the billiard room.
Hartley ran a hand through his wet hair, flinging droplets everywhere. “I’m going to tell her.”
James had bent over the table, queuing up to take a shot, but his brother’s words made him freeze. “So you have finally come to your senses?”
“Yes. And you were right.”
That made James straighten up. “I beg your pardon. Could you repeat that, please? And slowly, so that I might savor every syllable?”
To both of their surprise, Hartley began to laugh. “I suppose I deserve that.”
James grinned back. “Why are you wasting time with me? Go find your intended and declare your undying devotion!”
There was a soft sound in the hallway, and Hartley turned to see one of the underbutlers, the one running the household while Stephens was in London. He knew Emma would want him to remember the servant’s name, but he couldn’t recall it. “Yes?”
“My lord, I have a message for you. From Miss Blythe.”
James let out a laugh from his corner of the billiards table. “Someone should tell that poor girl that no more game playing is necessary. Her quarry has been sufficiently caught.”
“What is the message?”
The underbutler’s ears turned a bright shade of pink. “I do not think it necessary to repeat the entire message verbatim, but she said she heard your words loud and clear. And that you would never have to worry about seeing her again. Then she took a carriage to London. I spoke with the maid assigned to Miss Blythe’s care, and she said Miss Blythe planned to go home.”
A sharp pain stabbed into Hartley’s belly, making him feel as if he would cast up his accounts all over his mother’s favorite rug.
The underbutler excused himself, and James said, “She heard you. Earlier. When you said . . .”
“When I said I didn’t love her,” Hartley finished, his voice mangled with fear and loss. And he quickly realized what her message actually meant. “I must go after her.” He started for the stables, determined to find her before she did something irrevocable.
“In this storm?” James said incredulously, fast on his heels. “You’ll catch your death.”
“You don’t understand,” Hartley ground the words out, desperate to be on his way. “She knows how to go home.”
“Back to America, you mean? I would certainly hope she knows how to go home. I would hate to think I’m going to have a sister-in-law who didn’t understand how to get on a boat.”
Not bothering to explain the seriousness of the situation, Hartley dashed out into the rain, running for Neptune. The stableboys tried to help him, but he practically roared at them like some wounded lion that he could saddle his own horse. He begrudged every moment of preparation.
Finally finished, he yelled and slapped Neptune’s hindquarter, urging the massive steed forward. Neptune ran quickly, obediently, his hooves eating up the ground beneath them, keeping time to Hartley’s frantic heartbeat. He prayed that they would be fast enough to catch her. Or that she would be slowed down in some way. That the carriage would lose a wheel. Or break an axle. Something, anything. He didn’t know how much of a head start she had.
Had it been only two days since he had begged God to let her stay with him? How could he have come so close to having everything he ever wanted only to lose it because of one idiotic moment of false pride?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THINGS I’M GOING TO INVENT IF I GET STUCK IN 1816
A version of Grimms’ fairy tales with actual happy endings
I heard the coachman say, “Whoa!” and we came to a stop so sudden I was thrown from my seat. I sat on the floor for a moment, my heart pounding in my ears. Even though the rain was beating down hard on the roof, I could make out a man’s voice, yelling, and the coachman yelling back.
Of course. The universe had figured it had done me a solid by letting me escape Hartley but now had to balance out the karmic scales by sending robbers after me. Or highway guys or whatever they were called.
As if it wasn’t enough that I had already lost my shot at true love and happiness, now I was probably going to lose my actual life.
A sense of defeat and resignation overwhelmed me. I wanted t
o curl up in the fetal position and just sleep forever. It was too much.
The carriage door was flung open, and the person silhouetted by a flash of lightning looked like Hartley. I had to be hallucinating. Why would he be here? He didn’t love me. There was no reason for him to come after me. I tried to stand up and immediately hit my head on the top of the carriage before collapsing back onto my seat. “Ow!”
The man entered the carriage, dripping water everywhere, closed the door, and sat down across from me. Even though I couldn’t see him clearly, there was no question that it was Hartley. I would know the feel of him, his smell, his presence, anywhere. Even if I were blind and deaf, I would still know him.
The missing half of my heart.
Tears rose up in my throat, making it ache, but I was done crying over him. “Are you serious right now?”
“Why are you always questioning my intent? Do you think I would be here were I not serious?”
I didn’t feel like explaining. And what kind of answer was that? “What do think you’re doing?”
No response.
“Is something wrong?”
Still, quiet.
“Do I have to ask you seventeen more of these before you answer?” Now I was getting annoyed.
“I wanted to tell you a story.”
What?
“Once upon a time there was a dark earl suffering from a spell of sadness, an enchantment that he didn’t know how to break. He searched the kingdom high and low, looking for a way to laugh and feel joy again. Wise witches told him that a dragon had stolen his heart and kept it for a treasure. A magic spell sent a beautiful maiden to him, and he didn’t recognize the gift he had been given. He thought her meant for another, but she was always meant for him. To be his. She traveled through time to rescue the dark earl from himself, to single-handedly slay the dragon that guarded his heart. The dark earl discovered that he didn’t need a spell to feel joy again. He only needed to give the maiden his heart once she had set it free.”
Once Upon a Time Travel Page 30
