Time After Time

by Elizabeth Boyce

  Del looked down, overwhelmed by his love and acceptance of her. He put a hand under her chin and nudged her to look at him. “I mean it,” he said.

  Del nodded and kissed him, relief flooding her. “I love you too,” she said.

  She laid her head back on his chest, and they relaxed, enjoying the feel of each other.

  “Since we are disclosing awkward conversations,” Camden said after some time, “I spoke with my father this evening.”

  Del’s breath hitched. “You told him of our engagement? What was his reaction?”

  Camden’s breathing quickened slightly, almost imperceptibly, but Del still noticed. He didn’t answer her immediately. She gathered the sheets around her and sat up. “I take from your silence he did not react positively.”

  “It wasn’t exactly positive, but nor was it overtly negative.”

  “Will he approve the marriage?”

  “I’m not sure,” Camden said. “I am as confused as you are,” he added quickly, and Del knew her frustrated emotions were showing plainly on her face.

  “What did he say, exactly?”

  “He said very little, actually. I went into his office and told him I had asked you to marry me. He stared at me, looking not completely surprised, and then said, ‘I see.’”

  “That’s all he said?”

  “Yes, at first. He tensed a bit and it seemed as though he wanted to say more, but he did not. I said I knew he had been skeptical of our relationship in the past, but he only needed to see us together, to spend time with you, and he would know how much we loved each other and how right this marriage is.”

  “Do you think he was convinced?” Del asked. Not knowing the elder Camden, she wasn’t in a position to interpret his reactions. It frustrated her immensely, that this cruel and overbearing man who did not know her held so much of her happiness in his hands.

  Camden reflected on her question for a moment. “I cannot say with certainty. He didn’t say outright that he disapproved or would attempt to halt the marriage. But he did not give me his blessing, either. He merely asked — admittedly rather tersely — if I was sure this was what I wanted, and when I told him it was, he said he needed to return to his work and motioned me out of his office.”

  “What does this mean? Do you think he will not object?”

  “I think he just needs time to accustom himself to the idea. He did not become immediately angry, or declare that he forbade our match, or shout, or throw me bodily from his office, so we must conclude he is not outright opposed to our match. In time, he may fully embrace us.”

  “And if he does not? What will we do if he doesn’t consent to our marriage?” Del tried to remain calm, but she heard the note of panic in her voice. Now that she knew, without reservation, what she wanted, now that she had finally admitted to herself what Camden meant to her, she was terrified that outside forces would conspire to keep them apart.

  Camden sat up and took her face in his hands. “It wouldn’t matter. My father might want to choose my spouse based on who would best serve his aims to move up in society, but I am of age and can marry whom I love. I do not actually need him to approve.” He spoke confidently, reassuringly, but Del still heard the barest hint of doubt in his words.

  “Could you really do that? Could you really go against your father, risk your livelihood and inheritance?” She knew what this meant to Camden. It was one thing to declare in the abstract that he cared nothing for the financial riches his position in the shipping company afforded, that he would walk away from it all on principle; it was quite another to entertain the cold reality of it. And no matter how complicated and fraught his relationship with his father was, no matter how grievous the man’s abuses against his son, Del knew it was no simple matter to defy a parent and potentially fracture the relationship beyond repair.

  “You are what matters to me now,” Camden said. “Of course I would rather proceed with his blessing, but I will marry you no matter what.” He bent down and kissed her forehead. “I will do whatever necessary to ensure we spend the rest of our lives together.”

  “Even if it means defying your father?”

  “No matter what it means.”

  Del sank back into the bed. Camden followed, gathering her into his arms. They lay together, talking and touching until the first rays of dawn began to lighten Del’s bedroom.

  “I must go,” Camden said reluctantly. “I am expected at the shipping office shortly.”

  “Stay,” Del said.

  “I wish I could, but I’m expected at the offices and I’m trying to stay in my father’s good graces. I want to speak with him again, as well.”

  Del gave him a playful pout. She put her hand behind his neck and pulled him to her, kissing him hungrily while she pressed her naked body against his. “Stay,” she whispered.

  Camden groaned. “Have mercy, woman.” He rolled on top of her, supporting his weight with one hand while he slid the other underneath her. He kissed her, hard, and slowly let more of his weight rest upon her.

  “I thought you were leaving,” Del teased between kisses. Satisfied that she was the victor — she had enticed him into staying — she would magnanimously release him to his duty.

  “You are going to be the death of me,” Camden said. He leaned down to kiss her again, clearly loath to let her go.

  Del pushed lightly against him. “You mustn’t be late,” she said.

  Camden rose from the bed and went to collect his clothes from downstairs. He returned with them heaped in his arms and Del watched as he dressed, admiring the way his naked body moved in the cool light of dawn. His muscles rippled and flexed as he stepped into his trousers, and Del liked the way the fabric clung to his narrow hips. He was all long, lean lines and hard angles, and the mere sight of him sent waves of desire through Del. He glanced at her and gave her a wolfish smile, and Del knew her lust was visible.

  Once dressed, Camden knelt on the bed to kiss her goodbye. Del grabbed a fistful of his shirt and contemplated seducing him again.

  “See you this evening?” Camden asked.

  Del nodded, lips swollen, lids heavy. Camden gave her a look that suggested he too was considering ravishing her again, and Del knew she must shoo him away before they both gave in to temptation.

  “Yes, I will see you evening,” she said. She pulled him in for one last kiss and then released him, motioning him to hurry out the door. She heard his heavy footsteps going down the stairs, and then heard the front door opening and closing. She was alone and acutely aware of the empty space beside her.

  She used to revel in it, that notion of unattached independence.

  Now she felt bereft.

  She rose from the bed and stretched, wondering what she should do with day. She reflected on this as she dressed, how unusual it was to have so many free hours before her and so little sense of obligation in how to fill them. She decided to eat a decadent and leisurely breakfast and then go visit Jane. She had had precious little interaction with her friend in the past few days, and Del missed her fiercely. They had so much to catch up on, with the betrothal and wedding details and the conundrum of Camden’s father.

  She was padding across the downstairs foyer, dressed but still barefoot, when she heard the clank of the brass knocker on her front door hitting the strike plate.

  “Unable to stay away, Camden?” Del asked as she swung the door open.

  Neither of the men who stood on her stoop were Camden, however, and Del froze in surprise for a moment when she realized it. They were, in fact, the physical opposites of him, short and squat, with the physiques of a scruffy bulldog. They both had lined, weathered faces sporting hardened expressions, and they looked and moved so much alike Del knew they were brothers, if not twins. Their clothes were simple yet clean and serviceable, but they looked strange and uncomfortable i
n their outfits, as though they had been forced to look presentable when they would much rather be dirty and unkempt.

  “May I help you?” Del asked, politely yet firmly, finally overcoming her shock and finding her voice. Though not exactly fearful, Del was uneasy about the situation. The men, while not overtly hostile, had a sufficiently strange out-of-place aura about them that made Del nervous.

  “Adele Beaumont?” one of them asked, though his voice suggested he had no doubts as to her identity.

  “Yes?”

  “Have a message from George Camden. We come in?” The man’s gruff tone of voice added to his use of truncated sentences gave the impression he had little patience for interpersonal communications of the speaking sort.

  “I — it’s not really a good time. I was just on my way out.” Del took a step back, retreating a fraction further into her townhouse. She wasn’t sure what kind of message the elder Camden had for her that necessitated sending two men who looked like barely tamed brutes to deliver it, but Del felt, with rising certainty, that it wasn’t pleasant. There was still no overt threat, but every instinct Del possessed, honed over years of vulnerability and hardship, told her to dispatch the men from her doorstep immediately.

  “Again, it is not a good time. Perhaps I will stop round the shipping offices this afternoon to speak with him, and he can deliver his message himself.” She began to close the door on them, and even though she felt justified in heeding her instincts, she couldn’t completely squelch the sense of guilt she felt over her horrific manners.

  The man who spoke, the apparent leader, stuck his foot in the doorway, preventing its closure. “’fraid not,” the leader said, and Del gulped, unease bursting suddenly into full-fledged fear. He pushed the door open in a violent burst, sending her reeling backwards. “Mr. Camden wants it dealt with now.” The two men were in her foyer now, and the silent one shut the door behind them.

  Del’s heart pounded and she felt dizzy. She expected the men to fly at her in a full-blown assault, but they stood where they were, just inside the door.

  “What is it you want?” Del took several slow steps back, her mind racing. Were they really sent her by Camden’s father, or were they here to rob her? Or did they have more nefarious plots in mind? She tried to tamp down the abject panic; she would be no good to herself if she completely lost her head. “I-I have money, if that’s what you’re after.” She continued to back up until she was pressed up against the mahogany side table at the far end of her foyer.

  “Ain’t why we’re ’ere,” Leader said.

  “But the Mister didn’t say we couldn’t take an extra nicker or two,” the other said. Leader looked annoyed he had spoken.

  “I’ll go get money,” Del said, trying to keep the men calm and appeased.

  “Not going nowhere,” Leader said as he took a few steps toward her.

  Del fumbled her hands along the table behind her, trying to keep her movements discreet, until she felt the smooth, cool hardness of a candlestick. It was large and heavy, and would do considerable damage to any skull it cracked against — at least enough to let Del make her escape, she hoped.

  “Not going to ’urt you,” Leader said as he continued to move toward her, his actions doing little to assuage her fear. “Mr. Camden just wants to make a few things clear. ’e wants you to stay away from ’is son.”

  Del’s blood was pounding in her ears, and she heard little of what the man was saying. Behind her, she curled her fingers around the candlestick, her sweating palms making the grip difficult.

  “Says you got your whore claws into ’im, bewitched ’im, and it’s time for you to let ’im go.”

  He was close to her now, so close she could smell the smoke and liquor and other remnants of a night of who-knows-what kind of debauchery. She knew she couldn’t hesitate. She would have to swing the candlestick hard and fast, and if she managed to hit the man squarely on the temple, she might have enough time to run up the stairs and lock herself in her room. She could only hope his brother wouldn’t be able to react in time to stop her.

  Before she could think anymore about it, she tightened her grip on the candlestick and swung it as hard as she could at the man’s head. It connected soundly, hitting his skull with a dull thud while he cried out in surprise and pain. He staggered back, his hand at his temple, and Del could see blood seeping through his fingers. Del stood rooted for the briefest moment before she dropped the candlestick, picked up her skirts, and bolted for the stairs.

  “You fuckin’ bloody bitch,” the man roared as he lunged for her. He caught one of her arms and swung her around. “Fuckin’ bitch,” he yelled again as he cocked his fist and punched her, snapping her head back. Pain rocked her skull and she saw bursts of light in her cloudy vision. She dropped to her knees, and then collapsed into a disoriented heap on the floor. She couldn’t hear or see properly, and she knew she was in danger of losing consciousness. She only dimly sensed the brothers standing over her, arguing.

  “Bloody ’ell!”

  “Did you kill ’er?”

  “No! I don’t know!”

  “What do we do now? Leave ’er? Jesus, blood’s everywhere.”

  “Most of it’s mine.”

  “An’ you always said I was the cock-up.”

  “Will you shut up? I can’t think. Grab ’er.”

  “What?”

  “Grab ’er, we’ll take ’er to Mr. Camden. ’e’ll know what to do.”

  Then there were hands on each of her limbs and Del was hoisted up, the movement causing her head to pound even more fiercely and her stomach to roil. She was vaguely aware of the men carrying her out of her townhouse and placing her in a carriage, and then the world went dark and she was aware of nothing more.

  Chapter Nine

  Del came to consciousness slowly and painfully. Her head was pounding and her mouth felt dry and raspy. She opened her eyes, trying to remember where she was and what had happened. Her vision adjusted to the dim light of the room and she scanned it for any clues to her location. Shelves lined the wall from floor to ceiling and they were crammed with books and ledgers. There were crates in the corner, though she couldn’t see what they contained. There were no windows and only one door. Del was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room and her wrists were bound to it by thick rope. She strained against the bindings, but the knots were tight and the rope dug into her skin. Wincing, she relaxed her arms.

  She was afraid, very afraid, but she willfully slowed her breathing and tried to calm down. She needed to remember what happened, to figure out where she was and how she could escape. Panicking would do nothing but cloud her mind and worsen her circumstances. She must be calm and logical.

  She tried to reconstruct the events leading up to her present predicament. She remembered Camden coming to her in the evening. She remembered him leaving at dawn. She was having difficulty remembering what happened after that. And then her hazy thoughts cleared and she remembered the two men standing at her doorstep, brutish and sinister and full of cryptic warnings. What had they said to her? What had they wanted? Del strained to remember, but it was hard to cut through all the panic — from then and now.

  And then it came to her, what they had said. They had a message from Camden’s father; he wanted Del away from his son. The elder Camden had actually sent men to her to warn her away from his son, to threaten her, and they had knocked her unconscious and dragged her — here. But where was “here,” she wondered.

  She looked around the dusty room again.

  They were Camden’s men. She was in a room full of legers and crates.

  She must be at the Camden shipping offices.

  She felt slightly calmer now that she could remember what happened and could guess at her location. Still, though, she was trapped with no ready means of escape. She pulled at the ropes again but the heav
y bindings only tore at her wrists, breaking skin and causing small droplets of blood to well at the injuries. She would not be able to break free.

  Her mind raced with conflicting desires. She wanted to call out to someone, cry for help, but she knew in doing so she ran the risk of alerting the men who had brought her here — men who clearly meant her harm. She wanted to scream and cry in panic, but knew there was absolutely nothing to be gained by such histrionics.

  Think, Del, she commanded herself. She scanned the room again, this time slowly and methodically, looking for something — anything — that would help her. She spotted a small table in the corner to her right. It was littered with various things common to an office: papers, writing implements, books and ledgers. The table was too cluttered to clearly make out everything upon it, but it didn’t seem entirely improbable that there could be something there to help her, scissors or a letter opener or something. The room was small and the table was only a few feet from her — so tantalizingly close and yet so frustratingly difficult to get to when one was bound to a chair. Her feet were free, at least, and that would have to do.

  She tried to move her weight onto her feet, thinking she could shuffle over to the table while still strapped to the chair. The seat of the chair was too deep, however, and she couldn’t quite manage it. She gripped the arms of the chair and tried to “hop” it over a few inches. At first she merely bounced impotently in place, but then it finally budged. The chair legs scraped against the wood floor as it moved. The sound seemed deafening to Del in her frightened state. She froze in place, breath held, and strained to pick up the sounds of anyone coming near. After several beats of her pounding heart, she decided no one had heard her and she carried on.

  It was a difficult, torturously slow process. Each time she moved the chair, the ropes gouged at her wrists and soon they were bruised and bloody. She was desperately trying to keep quiet, but the chair creaked and scraped against the floor no matter how careful she was. All in all, it was a great effort for minimal gains, and she despaired at ever reaching her goal.