by A. Faris
Giving the T-shirt in her hand a final stroke, Elizabeth folded it and put it in a chest. She tucked it under her old dolls, hoping the scent would be smothered by the weight of other childish mementos. She shut the chest and resolutely turned away from it.
She had a life to live, one that did not include impossible dreams.
The knock on her door gave her the distraction she wished for. Anything but the pain in her heart for turning away from her mate.
“Enter.”
Papa opened the door. “Come to the library, Lisbeth. You have a visitor.”
“Papa?”
“Come along.”
She trailed after her father, wondering about the mysterious summons. Papa did not often look cross, but there was a tiny frown on his forehead now.
With a hand on the door to the library, Papa broke his silence. “It might have been easier if I had him removed with you none the wiser, but I know you'd consider the concealment unforgivable.”
He opened the door before she could reply.
And there, deep in the armchair facing the door, sat Damien, at ease as if he had come for a morning call or to take tea. But for Bennett standing over him like a gaoler and Damien's apparel, it made a credible picture.
She flew to him and flung her arms around his neck. She could not believe she held him once again. He rested his cheek against her temple and tried to embrace her. The clink of the chains drew a resigned sigh from him. She eased away from him, with great regret.
“What are you doing here?”
“I told you, Elizabeth, I travel a lot,” he said, with a nonchalance unsuited to a man in shackles.
“How did you get here?” With no Pack, he could not be authorised to travel through time, even on a tourist permit.
“I know people.” He shrugged.
“Outlaws and brigands?” Papa interjected.
“I had no other way, sir.”
Elizabeth appreciated how difficult it must be to maintain his respectful tone. She turned to her brother. “Oh, Bennett, do release him.”
Bennett sighed and held up the key. “Are you certain you want to let him go?”
“Yes!”
He knelt to unshackle Damien.
“Brother?” Damien mouthed, over Bennett's head.
Elizabeth nodded.
“Sorry for hitting you, man.”
“You hit Bennett?”
Damien gave a sheepish smile. “He jumped me.” Absently, he rubbed at his wrists.
“Apology accepted.” Bennett stood, unperturbed. No marks marred his skin. “Fortunately for him, he desisted before I could retaliate.”
“Yeah, well. I thought you might be her brother. Couldn't keep whaling on a man defending his keep.”
Bennett smirked in response and she knew that Damien had not hurt him. How hurt Damien was gave her concern. She took Damien's hands to inspect them. Only faint red welts circled his wrists.
“It's okay, Lisbeth.” His voice was soft. “I am not hurt.”
“Why did you come?” She bowed her head to hide her dejection. His presence only served to remind her of what she could not have. And what she had decided not to hope to have.
He forced her chin up with a finger. His smile was crooked. “Isn't it obvious?” He glanced up at Bennett and Papa. “I need to talk to you.”
She stood and put a distance between them, sense reasserting itself.
“Whatever you have to say to me, you may say in their presence.”
His gaze encompassed them all.
“Okay.” He shrugged, standing as well. “I came to claim Elizabeth Ruth Wentworth as my mate.”
“Oh, Damien.”
“You need not have come then.”
His clenched fist was the only indication of Damien's annoyance at Papa's interruption. “I'm here to claim Elizabeth. If she doesn't want me, then I’ll leave.”
“Surely you do not think to bring her into your time?”
An impossibility. Yet, her heart gave a curious lurch at her father's words.
“And leaving that quagmire aside, you have no Pack, no position to speak of even when you were amongst them. Without your Pack's support, you dare hope to care for my daughter in the manner she is accustomed to? On your uncertain income from your artistic ventures supplemented by ad-hoc projects restoring artworks?”
Elizabeth stared at Papa, surprised at how much information he had on Damien. She should not have been, perhaps, after all these years, but she was.
Uncowed, he narrowed his eyes at her father in a way that unnerved her. She did not expect Damien, of all people, to look savage. “I won't let her starve.”
Papa was unimpressed. “Indeed.”
Damien crossed his arms but his expression had softened into its usual lines. A laugh lurking in his voice, he added, “I can even keep her in the silks she is so fond of.”
“Damien!” She glanced nervously at Papa, hoping he had not read Damien's mind. He would not be thinking of silk dresses, if she knew him at all. She grimaced at Papa's shuttered gaze. At that moment, she dearly wished to wrap her hands around Damien's neck.
He looked at her in true bafflement, and she had to forgive him. Of course, he could not have known about Papa's little-publicized ability at mind reading. And one could hardly hope for Damien to be circumspect.
Face impassive, Papa said, “Go back, and we'll overlook this. I will not call the time agents to haul you back. I will even have a word with the Foreign Office for you.”
“The security at the Foreign Office is laughable. I did them a favour, really.” He whistled a tune under his breath, untroubled and carefree.
Elizabeth sighed. It was too much to expect Damien to tread lightly.
“Papa—”
“There is no place for you in her life.” Despite Papa's obvious irritation, his voice remained soft. “I suggest you take my offer.”
Damien did not move. “I think you should let her speak for herself.”
Papa looked at her expectantly. “Lisbeth?”
She took a deep breath. “I cannot, Damien. We cannot. It is impossible. They would never allow it.”
“There, you have your answer, Monsieur Chassange. Please leave.”
“All I hear is can't. Tell me, mon ange, that you don't want me.”
“That is unfair, Damien.”
“It took me a year and a half to locate when you were. What is a month to you was eighteen months and two weeks of torture for me. Don't give me that can't crap. You want me gone? Simple as, Damien, I don't want you. Not allowed and can't cut no dice.”
Elizabeth covered her face with a hand, not wanting to see the expressions on both Damien's and Papa's faces. She wanted to tell him to go. She was done being a slave to folly. But how could she when every part of her rejoiced at his arrival? He had dedicated time and effort, to find her, to cross time and space for her. He wanted her as much as she did him. She could not give up on so precious a gift as that. He had managed to come to her.
Perhaps dreams did not always have to be folly.
She took her hand away and walked to him. Placing her hands on his chest, she looked him in the eye. “Damien, I want you. I accept you as my mate.”
He took her face between his hands and kissed her hard. “You scared me there for a moment.”
“I'm sorry.” She turned to face her father, her smile dying. “I'm sorry, Papa.”
“It is not I whom you have to contend with, Elizabeth.” Papa flicked a hand at Damien, dismissively. “He is better than your previous choices, I suppose.”
Damien put an arm around her shoulders. “Verily, such is my acclaim.”
Papa looked amused at his muttered comment. “However, your resourceful young man has to figure out a way to bring you into his life, without a whole slew of time injunctions.”
Damien did look worried. “I know. The whole fluttering of the wings of a butterfly can cause a tornado theory. This is like an elephant stampeding through time.
”
“Hyperbolic and inaccurate,” her father murmured.
“Papa?”
“Much as it pains me to say this, my dear, displacing either of you does not have the same effect as displacing, say, me.”
Elizabeth could feel Damien shaking with suppressed laughter. She supposed it was better than having him take offence at Papa's at times inappropriate humour.
“But, the rest of the House of Lords are more cautious than I. And, I'm afraid my influence extends only so far. What you need is leverage and I believe Chassange knows people, or rather, has information about them.”
She wondered what type of people Damien associated with.
“I'm not going to be a stool pigeon.” Damien was finally insulted. “No.”
“Not even for Elizabeth?”
“Nope.” He pulled her closer against him, a move that declared more than words. “I believe she'd understand.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand in silent agreement.
“You cannot afford scruples. Nor protect those criminals you call friends.”
“They are good people, who just happen to have a different point of view.”
“Even the demons?”
“Especially the demons.”
Papa gave an inscrutable smile. “I believe your Conseil has approached you for something quite different?”
Elizabeth looked to Damien for an explanation, but he merely gazed at her with a pained expression. “I can't believe I'm doing this.”
“Damien, I do not want you to do anything you are not comfortable with.”
“It's okay.” He ruffled her hair. “I can't be antiestablishment when your father's in the House of Lords. I'll just have to reconcile myself with being—dear God—un feuk.” At everyone's blank looks, he clarified, “Un flic.” He growled. “A bleedin' cop.”
Her giggles came, unbidden. “Damien, they want you to be an homme d'armes?”
The shadowy gendarmerie policed the French other-world, keeping the law through whispers of fear. Elizabeth tried to rein in her amusement, but the idea of Damien as one of the cadre made her dissolve into bellyaching laughs.
Disgruntled, he crossed his arms. “It's not the first time they've tried to recruit me.”
Elizabeth wiped at her tears.
“It is not that funny.” His mouth twitched, however. “All right. Everything's good? Do you want to pack anything?”
Papa cleared his throat. “Perhaps you should make all the arrangements first?”
Irritation then consternation settled on Damien's face as he realized Papa was right.
“By the book. I have to do things by the book now. I can do this.” A wild look entered his eyes. He shook his head. “I can't do this, Lisbeth.”
“You can, my love.”
He calmed. Sounding awed, he said, “You called me love.”
“With deliberate intent.” Mindful of her family, she gave him a peck on the cheek.
Damien, of course, hauled her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly in their presence.
Epilogue
“You know, I thought one perk of getting a mate from another time would be no in-laws popping by. I was sadly mistaken.”
Elizabeth poked him in the stomach with her toe. “You did not think that when Papa was here, did you?”
Damien shrugged, unconcerned. “The thought might have crossed my mind. Look, it's the third time in a month, no, three weeks, since we told him about the baby that he has come to visit you.” He resumed his massage of her foot. “I told you we should have waited until after the baby was born.”
“He'd have been hurt, Damien, if we did not inform him as soon as we knew.”
He snorted. “Your father?”
“He has feelings. You, of all people, should look beyond someone's facade.”
“Huh. I suppose.” In a casual tone, he added, “He offered the baby a place in the Stafford Pack.”
“In this time?” Elizabeth's drowsy eyes flew open. “Our present time? Can he do that?”
“He wouldn't have put it on the table if he cannot.” He sounded odd as he spoke of her father. She pulled her feet from his grasp and sat up. “What is it? You do not disapprove of the idea, do you?”
“I am considering it. I have to remain outside the bounds of Pack Law but I don't think our child should.” Damien tapped a beat on his knee. “And your Pack is more tolerant than the rest when it comes to mongrel blood.”
“Do not use that word to refer to my child or mate.”
“Our child will hear it often enough.”
As he had. Elizabeth knew those words hovered in his mind. She leaned forward and bit his lip gently. “Not from your lips.”
“Surely you do not relish the prospect of having a child with tainted bl—”
She bit him again, harder, and drew back, smiling in satisfaction at his growl.
“Shit, Lisbeth, that hurt.” He licked away the blood from his lip, glaring at her.
“Speak that way and I will do it again.”
He looked away. “But, Lisbeth, you mated so beneath you. Sure, you think that's okay now. You will tire of living in this small flat, one day, and of me. You'll leave with our child to return to your Pack.”
Elizabeth became alarmed at his graveness. Was there a suggestion of tears? She reached out and yanked at his shoulder to make him face her.
“You wretch! To think I worried for you!” She pummelled his heaving body.
“Ow. You don't hit like a girl, you know.” He put up a hand, still laughing. “Pax.” He shook his head. “No more going to the dojo for you, darling, even after the baby is born.”
She did not for a second believe him, since it had been at his insistence that she enrolled in the first place, calling her a cosseted little princess before marching her around Paris to sign up for various classes.
She leaned against him and his arms went around her. She sighed with contentment. “You do not have to concern yourself about that. I'm sure you can bypass any security systems should that unlikely event occur.”
“So that I can drag your sorry ass back home? You know me better than that. I like my woman willing and biddable.”
She closed her eyes. “So says the man who broke into the Home Office and the Foreign Office to find me and got a demon to bring him through time. Incidentally, did the Home Office ever realize you'd broken in?”
“No. It's a good thing, too. Quai d’Orsay is not too fond of me, right now. Another Anglo-French incident because of me, and they'll demote me again.” His arms tightened around her. “And you are right. I will drag your sorry ass back home, kid in tow.”
“Good.” She patted his arm. “I am glad you came for me.”
“Glad? Lisbeth, you have to stop using such lukewarm words.”
Still piqued over lovely, then. She forbore to remind him that it had been two years—three to him—since she had written that note. She turned around and kissed him. “You have made me the happiest woman of all time.”
“See, is that so difficult?”
She caressed his beautiful mouth with a finger. Her sweet, caring mate who took away her loneliness and gave her the most precious gift—unstinting and unconditional love.
“No, not when every word is true.”
~ABOUT THE AUTHOR~
A. Faris spent her formative years at libraries and scribbling odd tales that somehow always end up romantic. She currently lives in Oxford, where she writes in between running after her son.
Visit her online at: http://www.afariswrites.wordpress.com
Read more about Elizabeth and the Wentworth family in A. Faris' book,
Out of Joint
Rebecca Guthrie is a governess in the Wentworth house. In love with Bennett Wentworth, brother to her young charge, she does not realize the family harbours a secret, well beyond the scope of her imaginings. Ashamed of the family curse, Bennett, a werewolf, has vowed never to marry, denying the very real attraction he feels for Reb
ecca.
It takes a tangle in time to uncover their secret passions and bring the two together. The same glitch in time, however, threatens to tear them asunder.
Table of Contents
Title page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Epilogue
