“Your wife—the other Caroline. Yes, I know,” Caroline said quickly. “The point I’m trying to make is, I wasn’t just playing with your heart for the fun of it. I actually felt for you. Felt so much that I sort of…couldn’t help myself. I didn’t mean to lie to you and I never dreamed of hurting you. I got caught up in what for me were very real and extremely new emotions and I just…got carried away.” She sighed. “For that, I’m truly sorry. It was selfish of me not to think how you’d feel if you found out I wasn’t really your wife.”
Richard frowned. “So…you had no intention of telling me you weren’t my Caroline?”
Caroline bit her lip and shook her head shamefacedly.
“I thought you’d think I was crazy if I told you. So I made up my mind to just stay in your universe with you and keep on pretending to be her. I…I thought it would be okay, since we had been Dream Sharing with each other,” she admitted in a low voice.
Richard shook his head. “I was not Dream Sharing with you. It was Caroline—my Caroline, I dreamed of.”
“No, it was me!” Caroline insisted. “Don’t you remember? You told me that you’d dreamed of me in a strange setting, where all the women wore trousers. And you saw me working with machinery you didn’t understand.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “So I did.”
“Look around you.” Caroline made a gesture that included her whole world. “That couldn’t have been the other Caroline—it was me. You were Dream Sharing with me. That’s why I felt the instant connection to you—felt like I already knew you and trusted you. Because we had been in each others’ dreams for years. You were never meant to be with her—you were dreaming of me and I was dreaming of you all that time.”
Richard looked stunned. She saw the dawning light of comprehension on his face and for just a moment, she dared to let herself hope that he might see the truth—that they belonged together. Then his face, which had begun to open up, closed down just as quickly.
“What you say may well be true,” he said stiffly. “But it does not negate the events that transpired between us. Or change the fact that I must return to my own world.”
Caroline felt tears rising like a hot lump in her throat. She had finally gotten a chance to talk to him—a chance to explain everything. Richard had heard her out—he even believed her.
But it didn’t change a thing.
“Did you ever feel anything for me at all?” she asked, fighting hard to keep her voice from trembling. “I mean, you came back to save me…you took a bullet for me! Was all of that nothing?”
He looked away, his jaw working as a muscle jumped there. His hands were clenched into fists.
“It was not nothing,” he admitted in a low voice. “But it was not enough to keep me here, either. I am sorry, Dr. Lambert, but I cannot stay.”
It was a moment before Caroline could answer him. She had to take some deep breaths and get control of herself. At last, however, she felt able to speak without crying.
“All right—I never expected you to stay,” she said, which was true. She had only hoped desperately that he would. But it had never been a foregone conclusion. “I just wanted to explain my actions and motivations to you,” she went on, lifting her chin and refusing to let the tears she felt stinging her eyes fall. “And to tell you that…that I’m going to make a fresh start.”
He frowned. “A fresh start? What do you mean?”
“I mean, no more working with the PORTAL—no more living here aboard the Mother Ship,” Caroline said firmly. “I need to do something completely different. Something to take my mind off…well, you see what I mean.”
“I suppose.” He sighed heavily. “Truthfully, it will be some time before I can forget the events of the past several days myself.”
“Right.” Caroline nodded jerkily. “So I’m going back down to Earth to do something new with my life. I’m thinking seriously about joining the Peace Corps and going to help out in a third world country somewhere.”
“What?” Richard looked startled. “You plan to go to the wild and undiscovered countries of Africus or Indo-Chin?”
Caroline suppressed a small, sad smile.
“Well, they’re not nearly so undiscovered in my time,” she told him. “But yes, I might. I have a meeting about it set up. And…” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to move on in other ways too. I’m going to try dating again.”
“Dating? You mean courting, correct?” Richard asked. When she nodded, his face grew dark. “You’re not going to use one of those applications on your telephone, are you?” he demanded. “The ones that expect you to act like an unpaid prostitute?”
“I’m not using a hook-up app, no—not that it’s any of your business,” Caroline told him sharply. “But apps are pretty much the easiest way to meet people in my world. So I’ll probably use one of the relationship ones—I’ll try anyway.”
Richard frowned. “I don’t like this! This idea of you meeting up with a strange man who might have nefarious purposes in mind is terrible! You could be attacked again, as you were in the alley behind Mother Griffith’s—do you not remember?”
“Of course I remember!” Caroline shot back, her grief turning to irritation. “But if there was one thing our time together taught me, it’s that I don’t want to spend my life alone! Before I met you, I thought I could just stay married to my work. Now I understand that I need more that that!” She took a deep breath. “I might…never meet anyone like you again or feel that same connection, but I have to try. I can’t just give up on life because I can’t have everything I want.”
“I suppose it is none of my business,” Richard growled unhappily. “But I cannot help fearing for your safety! I will not be here to protect you next time a strange male has designs on you.”
“I know—because you’re going back to your own world,” Caroline snapped. “Who knows—maybe you can meet someone there you can love and protect. Someone who won’t ruin your trust in her by trying to save her own skin.” She took a deep breath, searching for control. At last she went on in a calmer tone. “What I’m trying to say is, maybe you can start again too. I guess…I guess that’s all either of us can do.”
“I suppose.” But Richard looked extremely unhappy at the prospect.
Well, let him be unhappy then, Caroline thought. He couldn’t have things both ways. He couldn’t decide to leave her and then tell her how to live her life. Abruptly, she decided she was done here.
“Well, that’s all I have to say,” she said coolly. “Thank you for the courtesy of listening. I hope…” her breath hitched in her throat and for a moment she almost couldn’t force the words out. “I hope that you have a very long and happy life in your own world.”
“Caroline—” Richard began. There was an unreadable look on his face, his pale blue eyes filled with something like regret. But Caroline couldn’t stay any longer—not if she was going to keep her promise to herself not to cry.
“Goodbye,” she blurted and ran out the door before he could say another word.
* * * * *
Richard sat there, stunned and strangely bereft. She was gone—truly gone—and he had just let her go.
Don’t be foolish—she was an imposter. None of what you felt for her was real, he tried to tell himself, but this time, the words rang hollow and false.
He couldn’t help remembering the way he’d felt when Caroline had first reacted favorably to his touch. It had been during his first examination of her—when he believed she had been the one struck by lightning. Her body had lit up for him, her breathing quick and light, her whole being yearning towards his as he stroked her lovely breasts and gently teased her nipples.
She had begged him to touch her, told him she longed to feel his hands on her.
And I, like a fool, thought it was my own wife who was begging for my touch, he thought. The anger that accompanied the thought wasn’t directed at Caroline but at himself.
How could he have been so self-deluded? No
t once in their entire marriage or courtship had his wife ever asked him to touch her. In fact, she had actively avoided him and refused to even be near him. She teased him cruelly with a few glimpses of her body—a bare shoulder here, an exposed ankle there—but never had she warmed to him the way the Caroline from this world had.
She begged me to Bond her to me—that last night we were together at Mother Griffith’s, he remembered. Reliving her soft sighs and moans of pleasure…the delicious salty flavor of her honey…the feeling of her slender fingers in his hair and her trembling thighs pressed to the sides of his face, he wondered if he would have felt differently about her deception if he had acceded to her request.
God, how beautiful she was! And how much he still wanted her, he finally admitted to himself. That was why he had been keeping her at bay all this time—because he didn’t trust himself around the curvy little imposter—didn’t trust his heart not to melt and give her everything she was begging for the moment he saw her.
Why not give her everything, then? a traitorous little voice whispered in his head. Why not stay with her here and love her as she wants you to?
But he knew the answer to that—it was his cousin Emmeline. Their entire family had cast her off—they refused to even speak her name. If he left his own universe for good, she would be wholly alone in the world, without anyone to protect her.
Of course, Emmeline declared that she could manage on her own but look at where she was living! Though she had assured Richard she did not have to “service” the clientele of Mrs. Griffith’s in the usual way, he was well aware that she was still doing something which was distasteful to her and which was considered morally reprehensible in order to make her way in the world.
He had not given up hope of getting her to leave her life in the brothel and come with him to the Mother Ship. But if he agreed to stay here now, he was as much as abandoning his cousin, who was more like a little sister to him, to a life of poverty and uncertainty.
Maybe you could ask Caroline to come with you—to come live in your world as she had intended to do before her secret was exposed, the little voice whispered. But, no—he could not do that. Though there were certain things about this world and time which seemed very wrong, there was also much that was right—at least from a female’s perspective.
Richard knew he couldn’t ask her to give up her work and the rights that made her equal to men to go back and live in a time and place where women were treated as mentally inferior to their male counterparts. Of course, he could bring her up to the Kindred Mother Ship of his own world, as she had asked him to, but that would also entail abandoning Emmeline, since she refused to leave while her baby was still on Terra.
No, he must not abandon his cousin, he decided with a deep stab of regret. He was the only one who cared if Emmeline lived or died and the life of a whore—even one who did not sell sexual favors along with the other services she offered—was notoriously short and violent. As bizarre as this world seemed to him, he thought that Caroline had a better chance of surviving here unmolested than Emmeline did back home, alone.
At least Caroline was allowed to have a profession as a respected scientist whereas Emmeline—though she was sharply intelligent—could aspire to no such career. Or any career, really, other than the one she already held.
I’m sorry, Caroline—sorry I hurt you. Sorry I cannot stay, he thought, feeling sick. But my duty must be to my blood. Maybe if I can get Emmeline to agree to move to the Mother Ship, I might be able to return to you here.
But no—there was no point in such a thought. Caroline had informed him she intended to move to a distant place and find another man to Join with.
Now that he had admitted to himself that he wanted her, the very thought of Caroline with another male made Richard grit his teeth and clench his fists in jealous fury. But he had given up his right to be jealous—given up his right to be possessive of her in any way. He would just have to learn to let her go.
Though, Goddess—he had no idea how in the Seven Hells he could manage to do that.
Chapter Thirty-four
“So you’re really going? Even after you talked to Caroline?” Olivia sounded extremely disapproving. But she had never much approved of Richard after he had come through the window the second time and refused to see Caroline after his surgery.
“I am,” he said shortly. No point in trying to explain things to her—and it was none of her business, anyway. Richard was an intensely private person. He liked to keep his personal business confidential and that was what he intended to do.
Olivia frowned. “Come on, then. Sylvan has the PORTAL all warmed up and it’s showing your universe.”
“Thank you.” Richard nodded. He was dressed in another finely tailored dark suit, complete with a watered silk waistcoat, a matching cravat, and a dark frock coat that Kat had manufactured for him. The clothing was really too grand for everyday attire and wearing it meant he looked quite out of place here aboard the Mother Ship. But it signified little since he would be back in his own world and time very soon.
Olivia led the way from the med center down a long and twisting dull silver hallway back to Caroline’s lab. Richard half expected to see her there, waiting to say goodbye once more, but she was nowhere in sight. Sylvan and his wife Sophia were waiting to see him off and, as promised, the large brass frame of the PORTAL was displaying a scene which was quite clearly his own world. A busy thoroughfare with wind-up carriages, women in wide skirts, and men wearing dark suits much like his own greeted his eyes.
“Richard, it’s been an honor.” Sylvan stepped forward and held out his arm for a warrior’s clasp. Richard took it and squeezed.
“Thank you for saving my life,” he said. “And for all you have done for me.”
“You’re more than welcome.” Sylvan stepped back and it was Sophia’s turn to take his hand.
“Are you sure you won’t change your mind?” she asked earnestly, looking up into his face. “Caroline loves you, you know. Are you sure you couldn’t learn to love her too, the way you loved the other Caroline?”
Richard was quite sure that he could—and moreover, that he was already more than half in love with the curvy little Earth woman. But he preferred to keep that fact to himself, since there was nothing he could honorably do about it.
“I am sorry,” he said instead. “I…wish things could be different.”
“I do too.” Sophia looked like she was about to cry as she released his hand and stepped back. “Goodbye, Richard.”
He cleared his throat. “I had thought that maybe…Caroline might be here. To, ah, say farewell once more?” He knew he was stalling and that he should step through the window and return to his own world at once, but his strong desire to see her one more time wouldn’t let him.
“Oh no—she’s already gone,” Olivia said, answering for her sister. “Didn’t you know? She took a shuttle down to Earth earlier today, right after she left your room. My husband Baird flew her.”
“She did? She is already gone?” Richard blurted, before he could stop himself.
“Oh yes.” Olivia nodded matter-of-factly. “She said she couldn’t wait to make a fresh start.”
“I…see,” Richard muttered. He couldn’t help feeling shocked. Had she really started the new life she’d talked about so quickly? Where was she now? Was she safe? He had a brief mental image of the huge, drunken assailant accosting her in the alley behind Mother Griffith’s and had to suppress the urge to go and find her at once.
No, he told himself firmly. No, this world is safer than the one you left behind. She will be more able to take care of herself on Earth during this time than Emmeline will be on Terra during your own time. You must go—duty calls. You cannot break the bonds of blood.
Acknowledging this to be so, Richard turned with a heavy heart towards the brass frame of the PORTAL and stepped through it.
Or tried to, anyway.
This time he didn’t feel the sucking wind pulli
ng him through, as he had on every other journey he had made through the mysterious window. Instead, it was as though he had hit a pane of clear glass. Reaching up, he felt it pressing cool and smooth and completely impenetrable against his seeking fingertips.
“What is this?” He looked over to Sylvan, who was standing at the PORTAL’s controls. “What is in the way? Why can I not get through?”
“I don’t know.” Sylvan shook his head, a look of confusion on his face. “Maybe—”
But just then, the smooth invisible barrier between Richard and his world began to vibrate. And then it lost its coolness and became hot—so hot he had to pull his fingertips away with a hiss of pain and step quickly back.
“What’s happening?” Sophia sounded frightened. “Why has it gone that strange purple and gold color?”
Indeed, Richard saw, the brass fame of the PORTAL’s window no longer showed a busy street in his own world—instead its view was obscured, filled with a swirling pattern of royal purple shot through with the purest veins of gold. It was beautiful but it felt as though it might be dangerous as well. The vibration had turned into a long, sweet, low-pitched hum that felt as though it might drive him mad if he listened to it for too long.
“What in the Seven Hells?” he demanded. “What is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Sylvan exclaimed. “It’s never done this before!”
Suddenly, the window spoke—or something inside it did, anyway.
“Richard Vii.” It was a powerful feminine voice and suddenly the window showed a dark, graceful silhouette belonging unmistakably to a woman.
“Richard Vii,” it said again. “This way and this world are closed to you now.”
“What?” Richard was beyond startled. Who or what was speaking to him?
“Do you not know me?” the voice asked. “I am she who remains the same in all worlds, all universes. Though other details may differ, I am the one constant. I am also the one who arranged for you to meet your one true love, though it violated the rules of space and time for you to do so.”
Trapped in Time Page 29