“I get that I’m all stubborn — what was it? — incivility to your polished charm.” She looked up at him, so close the heat emanating from his body warmed her. “But aren’t you at least going to say goodbye?”
“As I said, it’s been a pleasure,” he said, his brogue huskier than normal. “A true pleasure, Miss Hughes.”
He reached for the doorknob.
“I’m leaving in the morning.”
The throaty reminder stayed his hand. “Your cousins will be sad to see you go.”
“And you?” She tugged off her gloves, ready to go to the mats to get into his head. And his bed.
Tris turned, his eyes shifting from her face down to her hands as she peeled off the second glove. The muscle in his jaw twitched and he met her gaze again. She swore she could see a flash of desire there, but he said only, “And me?”
“Wouldn’t you...” She swallowed hard, her heart pounding with nauseating anxiety and lust against her ribs. Her breath shallow. “Wouldn’t you like to...?”
She let the invitation trail off and cocked her head toward the staircase, waiting.
“To what?”
Come shag me, you thick-brained dunderhead, she wanted to scream. Make love to me. Let me know the feel of your body against mine before I leave you behind forever.
The invitation couldn’t work its way past her lips. Brontë’s shoulders slumped with a sigh as she hung her head. Innuendo wasn’t going to cut it. And as much as she wanted him, she couldn’t bring herself to flat out ask. It would be too humiliating if he turned her down. Perhaps a direct request was what he was waiting for. Perhaps he didn’t have a clue what she was thinking any more than she knew his mind.
She’d never know. She’d tried, thought it might work, and failed. She had no one to blame but herself. All she was going to get was a good bye and the sight of his broad back as he walked out the door.
“Stupid, stupid,” she muttered under her breath. “Alrighty then.”
With a wistful sigh, she stretched up on her toes and kissed him. The merest whisper of her lips across his, yet she couldn’t stop herself from taking her consolation prize. His breath dispelled, his body tensed even more. Time stopped for a heartbeat. Long enough to engrave the moment in Brontë’s soul. The smell of him. The taste of him, champagne and moonlight. The firm shape of his lips but with a touch of softness there, too. The restrained power of his brawny body so close to her.
At last, she backed away with a regretful smile and walked to the foot of the stairs, allowing herself one last look back.
“Goodbye, Tris.”
Chapter 12
Present Day
“THE CONQUERING HERO returns,” Aila called as Brontë walked into the green room of the Lyceum a mere hour after she’d left. Her friend rose to hug her whispering in her ear, “I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
“Not much to tell.” She dropped her bag containing the purple dress into a chair and took one of the chairs. After a sleepless night, she’d joined Hazel and Henry for breakfast before leaving. Leaving despite their invitation to stay for an extended visit and to join them for a house party the MacKintoshes were holding at their ancestral estate in Glenrothes for the next two weeks.
She’d declined with true regret.
After the meal, she dressed again in the purple dress and departed alone on foot despite their offer to send a car for her. Staying meant interfering with their lives more than she already had, she reminded herself. It also meant she’d have to see Tris MacKintosh again and be reminded of her humiliating failure.
Instead of making her way straight to the theater, she slipped behind the rowhouses, hoping none of the residents above — one in particular — spotted her. A footpath led down the steep embankment to the Waters of Leith, a stream weaving through a deep valley bisecting the city. St Bernard’s Well, a rotunda of Roman pillars supporting a frescoed dome, perched on the bank. It wasn’t gated off in 1914, so she climbed up inside to the marble statue of Hygeia, the Goddess of Health to change into her leggings and tee shirt before hitting the center button on the device that would return her to her own time.
Her rash choice left her in a quandary of how to escape the gated structure in the middle of a modern-day afternoon. She huddled behind the statue breathing in the dull, metallic odor of the well’s water and wondering if the mythical healing powers of the water could cure stupid. Getting locked inside an iron gate was the least of the bad choices she’d made.
Finally, between spurts of joggers and dog walkers following the trails along the Leith, she was able to climb the fence and walk back to the theater. Along the way she marked the differences between past and present. Both bustled in their own fashion, but the elegance of an early 20th century New Town had been shadowed by the grime and technology of the modern age, by billboards and lights. Even the exterior of the Lyceum had been subjected to updates. Once a standard neoclassical façade with four Ionic pillars and six standard sized windows, the ground floor had been completely opened up with plate glass windows to display the lobby and souvenir shop inside. The world gone commercial. By the time she made her way to the green room, she’d almost forgotten about Aila waiting for her and the work she had waiting.
“I saved Henry, obviously,” she said to her friend. “And spent the day with Hazel and the kids in the nursery. It was wonderful actually. I’ve made memories of them to remember forever.”
“And?”
“We went to see Cyrano de Bergerac last night,” Brontë answered, studiously avoiding the topic she knew Aila was hinting at.
“Like we do every night?” Aila puckered her lips. “Oh, joy.”
“No, it was rather interesting,” she went on. “So different from what we’re doing here. The costumes were far more flamboyant and the acting a bit over the top but well done.”
Aila rolled her eyes. “And? What about him? Was he there?”
“You do remember, he was not the reason I went, right? But yes, he was and before you ask, that’s it,” Brontë told her. “Nothing more to report.”
“Aye, right! Gi’ over. What happened?” she insisted. Then she frowned studying Brontë’s face. “Are ye a’right?”
“Just a little queasy.”
There was a miniscule ounce of truth to the excuse. The repeated use of the time machine had a way of compounding in her gut. The mental repercussions of her journeys had far more reaching effects though.
To cut the interrogation short, Brontë provided a rundown of the evening, laying on thick Tris’s overly solicitous habits. As the words came out of her mouth, they rang false to her ears.
“Och, sounds like a proper ass to me.” Precisely what Brontë had been hoping for but she found herself defending him with her next breath.
“I don’t know. There’s something kind of nice about being treated —”
“Like a helpless female?” Aila cut in.
Brontë shrugged. “No. With kindness. Consideration. That’s something we miss out on in a world where people care about themselves first and foremost. Knowing the reasons a true gentleman acts as he does rather than assuming he does it because he thinks us incapable makes all the difference.”
In fact, that innate kindness and thoughtfulness might be precisely what she liked about him most. He cared. Openly. There was something heartwarming in being taken under that umbrella of gallantry. It chipped away at her overall contempt of the male persuasion.
“My God.” Wide-eyed, Aila blinked hard. “Ye shagged him, didn’t ye? I didn’t think ye had it in ye.”
Heads from around the room swiveled in their direction with her vocal allegation and Brontë shushed her. “No, I did not.” She looked around the room, face flaming. “I did not shag him, but if I had, not one of you would blame me. He was damned hot.”
Several of her co-workers laughed aloud. “How hot was he?” The actor playing Christian — she still didn’t know his name — lifted his coffee cup. “Here, here!”
<
br /> “So ye didn’t shag him?” Aila asked as if in need of further clarification.
“No,” she insisted, the tips of her ears on fire.
“Because of some misplaced moral argument?”
“No, I simply didn’t get the chance,” Brontë presented the lie as blandly as she could manage. “It’s for the best. You know I’m not a one night stand kind of girl and that’s all it could have been, right? Better to move on to my next task than dwell on it.”
Aila stared at her, deadpan. “Is that yer plan then? To remember him fondly?”
“What other choice do I have?”
“Was he married? Engaged?”
“No.”
“Then I say ye have plenty more choices.” She pointed to the door. “Go back and bag yerself a hot Scotsman if only to prove they can out-tup an Englishman. And I want pictures this time. Of him, obviously. Not the other.”
“That’s not how it works. I can’t keep going back.”
“Why? Because ye’ll change history? News flash. Ye already have.” Aila crossed her arms over her chest with a scowl of disappointment. “Ye ken what yer problem is?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
Her friend snorted indelicately. “Ye’re so afraid of getting smacked down again, ye can’t even put yerself out there anymore. Not even when ye’re forced into it.”
There it was. Out loud. Where she couldn’t deny it. True, her failure with Jake had left her wary of rejection. The scars ran deep.
“In my defense, I did try.”
“How hard?” Aila pursed her lips and shook her head. “I ken ye think ye dinnae need a man, but why deny yerself one when he’s tossed in yer path like a juicy bone?”
“I should screw the first guy who comes around then?”
“He isn’t the first. Not by a long shot,” Aila said. “Och, Brontë, I ken ye’ve been lonely even if ye haven’t realized it yet. Ye dinnae like what this time had to offer and look what happened. Fate has a way of putting ye places exactly when ye’re supposed to be there. Take what it’s offering ye. I dinnae think the whole reason ye’re getting this chance is to save Henry’s life alone. It’s to save yer own.”
Though her statement hit Brontë with all the force of a hurricane, she said only, “How prosaic. You should be writing Hallmark cards.”
“I’d make a bloody fortune.” Aila set her mug aside and slouched back in her chair. “Gah, so depressing. Give me something up beat. How did Henry and Hazel’s story end up this time?”
“Fine, I suppose.” Grateful for the subject change, she relaxed in her seat as well. “I haven’t read it. I just got here.”
They stared at each other for a moment before Aila’s eyes shifted.
“Oh no, you don’t! I get to read it first!”
But the other woman had already scrambled away from the table and was sprinting down the hall toward the costume shop.
“ARE YE FECKIN’ KIDDING me?”
“Give it to me!” Brontë forcibly tugged the journal away from Aila and scanned the page. “’A lovely visit from my distant cousin...’”
As much as she wanted to read more about that, she skimmed the page searching for the source of Aila’s outburst.
“There.” Aila jabbed a finger at the bottom of the opposite page. “Read that.”
Brontë scanned the words in disbelief then read them aloud more slowly, “‘My darling Henry is dead. The guiding light of my life extinguished so cruelly. I still cannot comprehend how this came to be though it has been days since my love was so abruptly whisked from my life. Perhaps I will never understand...’”
“What. The. Fuck,” Brontë cursed in disbelief and read on silently before flipping back to read the few entries leading up to that day.
“I’ll say,” her friend agreed. “There’s something awfully karmic about all of this, wouldn’t you say? As if ye’re not meant to —”
“Don’t say that!” Brontë protested. “Don’t even think it. Henry is a charming, wonderful man. A devoted husband and father. If there’s anyone who deserves to live a long fruitful life, it’s him. But...”
She went back and re-read the entries about her brief visit with them and the days that followed at the MacKintosh house party. There was so much joy in the pages. Optimism and anticipation for the days and years ahead. How could something like this have happened again?
“Ye’ll have to go back and try again obviously.”
Brontë looked up from the pages to her friend’s knowing smirk. “This isn’t funny, Aila. This is life and death.”
Aila flicked her fingers dismissively. “That I ken ye’ll fix. I love the notion that ye’ll be having the chance to fix a few other things as well.”
“Nope, not going to happen.”
“Why not? Ye said before ye’d be tempted by a man if they knew how to do it well,” she reminded. “Does this Tris strike ye as an utter dunderhead?”
In many ways, yes, but not in the way her friend meant. There was little doubt in Brontë’s mind, regardless of the evidence to back up the belief, that Tris would excel in lovemaking. “No, but I’m telling you, it doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?” Arms akimbo, Aila stared her down. Expression set and resolute. She’d never let it go without an explanation so Brontë gave her the truth.
“He didn’t want me. That’s why.”
Chapter 13
BRONTË JOGGED ALONG the streets near Granny’s house with the dulcet tones of Panic! At The Disco blaring through her headphones, loud enough it should have driven away all conscious thought. The heavy bass and wicked electric guitar riffs couldn’t manage to drown out the rhythmic thought that had been pounding in her head since she’d left 1914 and returned home.
He’s just not that into you. There was a powerful lesson to be learned in the phrase.
She should have seen it coming. The way he kept a polite distance between them when they walked, despite the way she canted toward him. The way he looked at her as though she were an alien when she rejected the fur. She’d thought he felt some attraction toward her. Either she’d misread him, or he simply wasn’t going to act on it.
Denying herself that one kiss though had been impossible. One kiss to carry home with her, to remember. God, her head buzzed, and her knees twanged like rubber bands after that simple kiss, she’d hardly been able to walk away and climb those stairs.
For the first time, she understood the difference between lust and undeniable desire. One you could fight and dismiss.
The other...
The impact of that simple kiss lingered on her lips even now, a week later. She could’ve sworn he experienced it, too. His heart had thudded hard against his chest, his breath as ragged as hers as she stepped away. He’d wanted her.
But he watched her leave.
That was it. The end.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t ended for her when she left the past behind. Somehow, Tris had put a chink in the armor of cynicism that protected her from further heartbreak. He’d made her want him. Worse, he’d made her like him. With every genteel bend of his elbow, he’d surmounted her barriers and made her yearn for something more. That was where rash impulses tended to lead her. To regret and disappointment.
And now she was supposed to go through it all again?
Be constantly in the company of a man who’d shut her down? To know her defenses would likely crumble to dust the longer she was with him?
It would be too much to bear. Too much of a risk. Not that she had a choice in the matter. She couldn’t let Henry die. Again.
Slowing the last block as a cool down, Brontë arrived at her front door panting and sweaty. The solid oak portal reminiscent of the one she’d stood at that night, where all the failure she’d felt as a woman when Jake had left her had been reborn. With a sigh of disgust, she went inside and into the kitchen for some water.
“How was your run, dear?” Violet asked from the kitchen table while Brontë chugged a liter of
water at the sink. She nodded while she drank and gave a thumbs up that made her grandmother smile. “A few more weeks and I’ll be able to join you again.”
She lowered the bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Doctor said to take it slow.”
Violet wrinkled her nose and sipped her tea. “Doctors are a nuisance.”
“Remember that next time you feel like falling down the stairs and breaking both legs,” Brontë retorted.
“One ankle, one foot,” her granny corrected, swiveling in her seat to stick her legs out pointedly. “Lest ye forget.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
Both legs were now in walking casts. Since her grandmother could do for herself as long as they kept her bedroom on the ground floor, they’d both been glad to see their day nurse retired for the time being. The atmosphere of oppression gone, their home was once again a happy one.
Too bad her inner cheer couldn’t be reinstated as easily.
“You got a message while you were out.” Violet gestured to Brontë’s open laptop. “I heard the ping.”
“Who was it from?” If Aila had been trying to reach her, she would have texted and Brontë had her phone with her.
“What makes you think I looked?”
“You always look,” she said. “You’re a compulsive busybody.”
“We share a computer.” Her grandmother bit back a grin. “And it’s called looking out for my favorite granddaughter.”
Rolling her eyes, Brontë bent to kiss her granny’s cheek before sitting at the table across from the older woman and looked at her Facebook messenger.
Del. She frowned in confusion before it hit her. Oh, that Del.
Ugh.
“Are you going to go?” Violet asked, eyes glued innocently to the magazine in front of her.
“Hell, no. I’m not getting my ear talked off twice in a lifetime.”
A Scot to Remember Page 12