Time Travel 02 Nothing but Time

by Angeline Fortin

Resolved, she turned her back on the earl and walked to the door. “You know, Brand, you might think me brazen or forward. Maybe I do too. This whole thing is unlike me, monumentally out of character. You make me do things I’ve never done before. Maybe I’m just mistaken in thinking that I do the same thing to you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Harrowby did his best to avoid Kate following that disturbing conversation, convincing himself that it was best that he nip their inappropriate relationship in the bud. Her words haunted him though. Was he living his life to the fullest? True, his own dreams had fallen to the wayside when he’d been recognized as the heir to Harrowby, but still he enjoyed his life.

  Didn’t he?

  It troubled Harrowby that he could not recall the last time he’d spontaneously acted on his desires and it bothered him even more when he realized that he’d taken to living his life by rote. He was utterly detached from the goings on of his own life as he were nothing but a spectator, as if he’d been handed a script on the proper life of a peer of the realm and had performed the role superbly with nary an ad lib.

  He was an earl, a gentleman. He’d lived his entire life confined and bound by its canon.

  And that life was positively moribund, he realized, wondering how Kate could have so quickly seen it when she hardly knew him at all.

  Riddled with newfound discontent, for the next few days Harrowby consciously avoided her… or at least made her think he was ignoring her, determined to regain control of his life without her aid. Still he was unable to stop himself from surreptitiously following her through her day, curious to see how a woman in Kate’s position made the most of her own life. He made a point of passing by the nursery periodically. His desire to check up on Nate and his progress was a reasonable excuse if anyone were to dare question his presence there.

  What he quickly discovered was that Kate and Nathan spent their day unbound from a schedule of any sort. Whereas Mr. Scott, Nathan’s former tutor, had set up specific periods for daily activities – mathematics at nine each morning, for example – there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the pair’s daily routine.

  He’d had it from one of Nathan’s nannies that Kate had referred to their lack of a scheduled day as ‘going with the flow’ since it was ‘technically summer vacation’ and Kate didn’t believe in ‘year-round’ schooling. Once again, as occurred so often when listening to Kate, the sayings were new to Harrowby but he appreciated the connotations.

  Happy smiles wreathed Nathan’s face as he went about his day, lightening Harrowby’s spirit. Oh, he knew Kate wasn’t lax in her true responsibilities. Harrowby had caught the pair hard at work on simple algebraic equations one day. It was an area of mathematics that Harrowby thought much too advanced for a lad of such tender years, but Nathan explained that Kate made it fun and it wasn’t too hard for him at all. He told Harrowby that children younger than he, in a class called kindergarten, were being introduced to algebra in the United States and if they could do it, so could he.

  Another day, he had stood around the corner listening to them reading Nathan’s history lesson together. Kate had sounded as amazed as Nathan had upon learning that the Hundred Years War had actually lasted one hundred and sixteen years. Harrowby had assumed most people were aware of this, yet Kate claimed that it was ‘idiotic’ to name a war in such a misleading way.

  He had been hard pressed not to laugh when he heard it.

  Harrowby never caught them studying in the little classroom that was set up adjacent to the nursery, however. Nathan was never seated at a desk while Kate taught or lectured before him as any other tutor might. Instead, they sat side-by-side on a settee or sometimes at a table to work academically. It was an arrangement Harrowby and most of the nursery staff thought most peculiar.

  Other times he found them in the midst of random amusements. He had leaned against the wall in the hallway listening to Kate play the guitar – Geoffrey had informed him that Kate asked for one to be obtained – and sing all sorts of silly songs to his nephew. One was a quite awful tune regarding great, green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts. Though Harrowby found the whole thing quite appalling, he could understand Nathan’s amusement. Any young lad would find the gruesome ditty hilarious.

  Another was a song about a farmer who owned a dog named Bingo. While Harrowby had been entertained at the time, the tune refused to leave his head for the remainder of the day driving him quite mad.

  After that, Harrowby was almost hesitant to listen to Kate’s songs until he overheard her one afternoon singing in her soft contralto a more sentimental piece she said was called ‘Imagine’. Its message of peace, compassion and understanding was more heartfelt than any tune Harrowby had ever heard and he wondered if he might be able to hear her play again some time.

  Encouraged, he had stayed to listen to more only to be confounded by a song about a bullfrog named Jeremiah. What that had to do with bringing joy to the world, Harrowby simply could not fathom.

  Americans! Surely, the whole lot of them could not be so difficult to comprehend!

  Kate also produced sounds from the guitar of which Harrowby had never thought the instrument capable. Though he was amazed by the speed in which her fingers moved over the strings, it wailed and screeched in a most raucous manner tempting Harrowby to cover his ears. Once again, Nate enjoyed it, clapping enthusiastically when Kate finished what she called her ‘riff’.

  In the afternoons, the pair took to the kitchens for what Kate called ‘snacks’. These usually turned out to be little treats that Nate and Kate would create together to the dismay of the kitchen staff. They made bars – though Timson had told him that Cook wondered how Miss Kallastad could make such a variety of dishes all labeled with the same name – and something called a cheeseburger for luncheon one afternoon.

  Timson had told Harrowby about the dish while shaving him the following morning but Harrowby thought the combination of ground meat, cheese with a handful of other vegetables and bacon had sounded appalling. However when his valet had insisted that the earl try it as many of the staff had, Harrowby had to admit it had been unusually tasty.

  Kate and Nathan fished together or hiked about the countryside in the mornings, studied through the afternoons and played games in the evenings. Every day Nathan smiled a little more, talked a lot more and improved in an overall manner.

  Harrowby knew he had to be pleased by their progress.

  He might have been if he hadn’t missed her so much himself.

  Kate captivated him. Everything she represented was like a flame to him and he was but a helpless moth. He wanted her physically but, more than that, he wanted to be within range of her easy affection and relaxed demeanor. It hadn’t taken more than a few days beyond realizing that life had become absolutely mundane for him to also understand that Kate was correct in assuming that there was more he wanted from life.

  There were things he wanted to do that he’d never done before… and nearly every one of them involved his nephew’s new tutor. Kate made him want to eschew the rules in a way he hadn’t dared his entire life. How could he think to just push it all to the wayside? Better yet, why hadn’t he done so long ago? He’d been unhappy with his life for an age, long before the earldom had descended upon him. He’d thought himself caged by the responsibility with no chance for escape.

  His life was routine, offensively so. The only things he took for himself were the Leander Club and his private passion, both which he kept a veritable secret from Society… as if he were ashamed to have interests other than those approved for a man of his station. Gentleman of the ton did not wean physical exercise from sculling. They boxed or fenced for sport. Gentlemen had their clubs, their horses available when diversions were needed. He had even kept a high-class mistress for some time, as that was the acceptable standard for men of his rank. For a decade, Harrowby had relented to Society’s credo, setting his own interests aside in favor of socially acceptable amusements.

  He’d lived thir
ty years under the yoke of Society, so thoroughly bridled that he’d never even felt the true sting of the bit. Thirty years of living in a haze. To break free and do as he wished would be a bold move, one that would surely see him ostracized if he went to lengths beyond what the ton could bear, but Kate was right. He wasn’t living his life. It was drifting by without his participation and perhaps it truly was time for him to take control.

  The idea was appealing to him, a man who’d been bound by structure and rules his entire life, but where did one begin? How would Kate suggest he combat the rot of his routine life? Did he dare ask?

  ***

  “Come on, into bed, buddy,” Kate said to Nathan as she put him to bed one night about a week after beginning her duties as his tutor. It wasn’t strictly a part of her official duties but she enjoyed doing it.

  Usually. On this night, sleep was far from Nate’s mind. “Did you see all the guests in the garden today?”

  “Wasn’t I with you in the garden as well?” she answered his question with one of her own.

  “Mother never had so many guests at one time before,” he went on, bouncing onto the bed.

  “There were a lot of people.” Mrs. Ryder’s modest gathering of guests for her house party had blown Kate’s mind and Brand’s as well from what she had seen. There must have been close to forty people staying in the mansion and, over dinner, Marta, Mary and Nan had gone on and on about this baron or that countess or some duchess and their demands for their rooms or special needs. There were guests everywhere she went, turning the mammoth mausoleum of a mansion into a bustling downtown hotel.

  Amid it all, she had watched from the nursery windows as the guests had gathered on the lawns the previous afternoon to play croquet. The dozens of ladies present had competed for Brand’s attention with furled parasols and batting lashes. They were so obvious that Kate hadn’t known whether to be ill or envious as Brand smiled down at them. Her only consolation was that, despite the smiles, Brand didn’t truly seem to be enjoying himself.

  There was that at least.

  Nate bounced on the bed again reclaiming her attention and Kate sighed for an entirely different reason. Being trotted out for introductions to the guests had left Nathan wired and restless. Getting him to calm down from the excitement to go to bed was a trial. “Come on now, let me tuck you in.”

  “You mean ‘tuck up’,” Nate corrected with one last bounce before he finally snuggled down under the covers.

  “You’re right.” She nodded and pulled the quilts up to his chin bending over to kiss him goodnight. “I keep getting that one wrong.”

  “You get a lot of things wrong.” He delivered the blow with sweet honesty.

  Kate bit back a smile. “Thank you so much for noticing.”

  “I think it’s funny,” he admitted.

  “I know you do.” Kate ruffled his hair playfully.

  “It was funny watching you try to button your shoes,” he added, making Kate wince. She had taken them off to wade into the pond to free the hook from the weeds the day before. It was a hard enough task with a button-hook. Almost impossible without one.

  “I’m glad I can keep you amused.” She smiled and shook her head. “Buttons on shoes. Who knew, right? Crazy.”

  “Or how you keep tripping on your skirts all the time…”

  “Let’s not get carried away listing my many failings, all right?”

  Kate finished tucking Nate in or up or both before giving him a kiss on his forehead and turning down the flame in the oil lamp before leaving his room. Despite the boy’s cultured British tones, Nathan did remind Kate oh, so much of her nephew of the same name. It twisted her heart to think again of her family.

  That thought that she might never see them – any of them – again caused her pain each time she was reminded of it. It was a truth that pulled and prodded at her heart so continually that Kate became determined not to dwell on things she could not change.

  There was that denial thing again, she thought ruefully.

  At least the week had been mentally stimulating enough to keep those thoughts from haunting her where the monotonous work of the week previous had only provided more hours than she needed to dwell in misery. Part of the distraction was in worrying over Nathan and his grief process. Though he had found his voice once more, the boy was still prone to long, moody silences. She knew he cried nightly in his bed when he was alone. His loss was overwhelming him and he had few outlets for his grief.

  There lay the other major distraction factor of her days – finding things to keep all her ‘teaching’ hours filled.

  The lessons themselves were easy enough. Mr. Scott had thoughtfully provided his lesson plans before he left giving Kate a general overview of what should be covered on a daily basis. She had upped the stakes somewhat, considering the math and sciences he suggested too simple and had pushed Nate into more advanced work. At first, she had been afraid that she might be pushing him too fast but, much as she had as a child, he had seemed to embrace the challenge she presented him.

  No, the basic lessons weren’t the problem, it was filling all the hours that remained that fell under her role as tutor, which seemed to be most hours that Nathan wasn’t eating, sleeping or bathing. He was happiest when his time was too busy to dwell on his loss and Kate did her best to keep him distracted.

  Fishing could only take them so far, though Nathan possessed what Kate’s father would consider the truest soul of the fisherman in that strange ability to sit for hours in silence, waiting ever so patiently for the next bite at the line. In those moments of silence, Kate somehow knew that thoughts of grief weren’t on his mind, that there was peace where turmoil normally reigned and she wanted to give him more moments like those.

  It had taken a careful review of every childhood moment and those she had spent with her nephew for Kate to fill in all the blanks that remained. With no TV, video games, internet, skateboards or hockey rinks to be had, there really hadn’t been much left to draw from. In the end, she had resorted to stray leftovers from Girl Scout camp for simple sing-along songs and games to amuse him. Her own Nathan might have called them all ‘lame’ but, luckily, this Nathan wasn’t jaded by the constant amusements that over stimulated a child in the twenty-first century. He thought everything she came up with to be funnier or more interesting than the idea that preceded it.

  Still it was a struggle to come up with new ideas that Kate thought wouldn’t stretch her determination not to give away the future. It would be incredibly easy to wow Nate into wide-eyed awe with tales of what was to come but she was determined not to go there. These were simple times, with simple amusements and Kate wanted to keep it that way. Surely, the early introduction of a children’s song or board game wasn’t going to change anything in the big picture along the way.

  Tucking a small notebook and pencil under her arm, Kate carried them – along with a glass of wine Janice had been kind enough to bring up for her – to a large, comfortable wingback chair near the fireplace in the playroom that was attached to Nathan’s bedroom. She curled up, tucking her feet beneath her and set about brainstorming new ideas and activities for the days ahead. Activities that could be worked around the house party and its guests, she amended. Mrs. Ryder had thoroughly scolded her for playing with Nathan on the lawns or near the pond while her guests were present.

  Camping? Possibly. There might be equipment handy, but Kate shook her head scratching off the idea. It would be an impossible task in the wardrobe she had available.

  Basketball? Probably not. The few balls she had seen so far didn’t have the necessary degree of bounciness to dribble.

  Guitar lessons? Maybe, she thought with a thoughtful shrug, writing it down.

  Ice skating might be nice in the months to come, but right now it wasn’t cold enough. Did they even have ice skates yet? Kate’s brow wrinkled as she remembered the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder she had read as a girl. Laura and Mary had skated, hadn’t they? She chewed on the end o
f the pencil trying to remember.

  Horseback riding? It had been awhile, but surely, she could remember how to drive a horse. Kate chuckled inwardly jotting it down.

  There was the regatta, of course. There would be two days of racing along with a small fair in Henley. That would something fun. Kate added it to the list.

  Maybe they could do something with Nathan’s mother or even Brand, she thought feeling her heart skip a bit at the mere thought of the earl and was immediately distracted from the task at hand.

  Mountain, why won’t you come to me? Kate laughed to herself. Sticking to her resolve, Kate had tried to corner him at least once a day, but it seemed that every time she’d gone looking for him, he’d been nowhere to be found. He was good at avoidance. Or, perhaps he was as good at denial as she was.

  For the past two days, Kate’s closest contact with him had been walking past him with Nate as they walked down to the pond to fish. Other than seeing him on the lawns or in the gardens with his guests, the only other time she’d spotted him was in waking early that morning to find him walking down to the river with a long scull hefted over one shoulder. She’d watched as he reached the water and dropped the boat off his short dock before he’d climbed in and quickly rowed out of sight.

  Kate sighed. Too bad he’d been too far away to really see. What a sight he’d be!

  What was it about that guy? she wondered. Why did the very thought or sight of him set her aflame? She had known guys just as handsome, just as well-built… Kate laughed, certainly she had known men just as dour as Brand could sometimes be. Never before, however, had she met someone with the whole package the earl represented. Brand was all those things and more. Gorgeous, brawny and austere but commanding, self-assured and simply funny as well. There was depth to Brand that Kate knew went layers deeper than she had delved so far. She wanted to pick away each layer until she got to the core of Brand.

  She wanted to know him. All of him. She wanted to feel that flush of excitement that raced through her when she wheedled a smile from him or when he touched her hand or cheek.