Asher's Dilemma

by Coleen Kwan

  Asher’s Dilemma

  By Coleen Kwan

  Ever since he awoke one day on the floor of his workshop with a brain-splitting headache, Asher Quigley has been haunted by fleeting visions of a beautiful woman everywhere he looks—a woman he’s sure he knows, but can’t recall. In spite of this he has finished his most wondrous invention yet, one that will literally make history: a time machine. But before he can complete his exacting calculations a bizarre accident causes the device to be activated, with him inside! He awakes to find himself in his lab, eight months in the past, and suddenly he remembers her…

  Asher knows that something in the near future causes Minerva Lambkin, the woman who turned down his marriage proposal, to be erased from existence. And he’s sure it has something to do with his device. Alone in a familiar world where he doesn’t belong, he’ll have to find a way to destroy the time machine to save the woman he loves from extinction. Even if that means erasing his own future.

  33,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  In the world of publishing, January is an intimidating month. Mostly because we’re thinking about 2013 long before we want to be. In fact, conversations about 2014 have long since started. How’s that for intimidating? January is also intimidating because we’re expected to set goals and promise great things for the year ahead. That, Carina Press can handle.

  This year, our goal is not only to continue to provide readers with excellent editorial, but also to add a new category of New Adult to our romance line, in order to increase the number of mystery, science-fiction and fantasy titles we publish; to publish returning authors with connected books; and to grow our romance subgenres such as historical romance, GLBT, romantic suspense and erotic romance. You can look forward to all of that happening in 2013!

  In January, we start the year by finishing up Shannon Stacey’s second Kowalski family trilogy with the highly anticipated story of Josh and Katie’s romance, All He Ever Dreamed. If you haven’t read Shannon’s books, you can check out the original Kowalski trilogy for only $4.99 per novel. We also enter 2013 with the paperback release of Fiona Lowe’s 2012 RITA® award-winning contemporary romance, Boomerang Bride.

  Other contemporary romance authors joining Shannon in January include Rachael Johns, kicking off a new contemporary series set in Hollywood with Stand-In Star, and Liz Flaherty with Jar of Dreams. Liz’s debut romance, One More Summer, was described by reviewers as “compelling and addictive” and “one incredible story.”

  On the other end of the romance spectrum are several paranormal, urban fantasy and steampunk romance releases this month. Coleen Kwan returns with the sequel to her fun steampunk romance Asher’s Invention. Asher’s Dilemma brings you the continued romance of Asher and Minerva in a clockwork world.

  Two other continuing series return with fantastic installments. Claws Bared by Sheryl Nantus is the next story in her Blood of the Pride series. And Sandy James offers up The Impetuous Amazon, the second book in the Alliance of the Amazons series. Meanwhile, a new paranormal trilogy begins with Stacy Gail’s Nobody’s Angel, which brings us a tale of Nephilim and sassy heroines. Look for the second book, Savage Angel, in February.

  Cathy Pegau takes us into space with her newest science-fiction romance, Caught in Amber, while Eleri Stone takes us to a world steeped in fantasy and wrapped with pleasure in Threads of Desire, her erotic fantasy romance. Keeping us in the here and now, with more erotic sexy-times, is Callie Croix’s newest erotic contemporary romance, Covert Seduction.

  We’re pleased to welcome mystery author Wendy Roberts to Carina Press with her newest mystery, Grounds to Kill. We’re also pleased that Julie Moffett has chosen to reissue her Scottish historical romance, The Thorn & the Thistle, with us in January.

  Last, to start off 2013, I’m excited to introduce you to our two debut authors. JL Merrow offers up a compelling tale of love through the ages with the male/male historical time travel Trick of Time. Romantic suspense author Ana Barrons will blow away fans of suspense and romance with her debut novel, Wrongfully Accused. Please join me in giving these two authors a warm welcome to Carina Press (by buying their books, of course!).

  I hope you’ll join me for another excellent year of books at Carina Press. Our 2013 schedule is shaping up to be full of books our team loves and can’t wait to get into readers’ hands, including a new trilogy from Fiona Lowe; a compulsively readable new adult romance, Rush Me, from debut author Alison Parr; the last two parts of Jax Garren’s dark Beauty and the Beast retelling; more contemporary romance novels from up-and-coming author Christi Barth; the kickoff of a thrilling urban fantasy series from debut author Steve Vera; more erotic romance compliments of Lynda Aicher; a series of erotic Love Letters from a collection of authors; noir historical mystery Die on Your Feet by debut author S.G. Wong; and another installment of Marie Force’s romantic suspense series.

  This is only a small portion of the amazing books we have coming up in 2013, so please look for these and more from the awesomely talented Carina Press authors.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to generalinquiries@carinapress.com. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication

  To Dad and Mum.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  England, 1870s

  In the witching hour of the night Asher Quigley fell out of bed, sweating profusely, his head thrumming from a thousand drumbeats. The treacly August heat pressed down on his heaving chest. He’d fallen asleep fully clothed, and now his shirt and britches were soaked through and clinging to his skin. Groaning, he pulled himself to his feet and kneaded his forehead.

  God’s teeth! It wasn’t just his head that ached. His entire body felt as if he’d gone thirty rounds with a bare-knuckled pugilist. Staggering to the wash stand, he emptied the pitcher over himself, but the tepid water did little to revive him. He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs of the dream he’d just started awake from. A week ago he’d collapsed in his workshop and woken up with the most debilitating migraine he’d ever experienced. Since then his every night had been dogged by the same fevered dreams of oppression and pain.

  Lifting his head from the basin, he caught sight of his pallid reflection in the mirror above…and a glimpse of someone else, a young woman with fair hair and eyes of cerulean blue, drifting through the shadows behind him.

  He whipped round, but she was gone. As always.

  For the past week it seemed he’d seen her everywhere—walking down a crowded street, riding by in an omnibus, sailing down the Thames on a ferry, and now even in his own bedchamber. Everywhere out of nowhere he caught glimpses of her slender figure and oval face, causing him to start in surprise and pleasure. And every time he saw her, he opened his mouth to call out her name. He knew he knew her name. It was on the tip of his tongue but somehow he couldn’t form the sound. And every time she disappeared before he could get any closer, leaving him inexplicably bereft.

  Now she had begun to invade his dreams too, like tonight, when she had beamed a smile at him which had flooded him with sunshine. In his
dream he’d run towards her, lured by her mermaid hair and dimpled smile, but she had disappeared into a thick mist. And then she reappeared. Only it wasn’t her this time. This woman was fair-haired and blue-eyed too, but it wasn’t her. This was someone serpentine and sinister, someone who made him back away, his skin crawling with animosity.

  That was when he’d jerked awake to find himself a tangled mess, punching at his pillows.

  Who was this enticing young woman who tormented him day and night? In his bones he knew she was of vital importance to him, so why the devil couldn’t he remember her?

  Zounds! If he didn’t take more care, he’d start sounding like an addle-pated mystic. That would never do. He was Asher Quigley, the renowned inventor who revered science and technology above religion, much to his clergyman father’s continued disapproval. He did not put stock in visions and dreams, even if these nightly visitations were more disturbing than any opium-fuelled delirium. He must be coming down with an ague. That would explain the headaches, the muscular pains, the nocturnal sweats. He was just working too hard, that was all.

  Frustrated, he flung open his bedroom window and sucked the thick night air deep into his lungs. From his window he could see the bulky outline of his workshop at the bottom of his garden. On the horizon, sheet lightning flickered like distant explosions. Bruised, swollen clouds all but obscured the waning moon. All was sullenly quiet down below, the padlocks on the doors of the workshop undisturbed.

  Behind him, a faint trilling sound caught his attention. Frowning, he walked across to his commode and picked up the source of the noise. It was his stalking compass. The round brass object fit neatly in his palm and resembled an ordinary compass but for the thin wire antenna extending from it. The instrument was designed to work with a separate stalking device. The antenna would pick up the radio waves emitted by the stalking device if it was within a hundred-foot radius and the compass needle would swing towards its location. For the past week the stalking compass had been turning itself on at random and emitting that humming noise. He’d searched high and low for the stalking device, but it had mysteriously disappeared.

  Now, exasperated by his headache and his malfunctioning invention, he snatched up the stalking compass and marched towards the open window, ready to hurl the infernal thing out. As he raised his arm, the instrument began to beep louder, and a pulsing pain leaped through his arm.

  “Argh!” he yowled. Some invisible force pushed his arm out the window and pointed it squarely at his workshop. He tried to let go of the stalking compass, but the brass fob chain it was attached to wrapped itself around his forearm and squeezed his flesh. Asher blinked in disbelief. It was almost as if the stalking compass wanted him to go in that direction. Complete poppycock, of course, but strange things had been happening all week. All year in fact. The compass whined, his arm tingled and jerked. Setting aside logic, he left the bedroom and trudged downstairs. Perhaps a walk to his workshop would soothe his nerves.

  Outside, the air was only marginally fresher. The summer had been the hottest in living memory. Crops had shriveled, rivers had dried, birds had fallen from the trees and men had run amok with knives, driven mad by the oppressive heat. He fumbled with the new padlocks of his workshop, decrying the need for them. He hadn’t needed this much security until the break-ins had started. Once inside, he shut the doors and lit the gas lamp nearest to him.

  As always he couldn’t help pausing in awe as he caught sight of the large object dominating the center of his workshop. His heart swelled with pride as he walked towards it. If pushed to describe his device, he would have said it looked like a sedan chair, because it had a chair with an instrument console in front of it, all this enclosed inside a hexagonal shell made of beaten copper and studded with black promethium magnets. Yet this was no ordinary sedan chair. This was his crowning achievement. This was the masterpiece which would catapult him to unheard-of fame and acclaim. This was, quite simply, the greatest invention of all time. An invention which could change time itself.

  “Ow!” The sting in his hand cut off his self-congratulatory musings. “Blasted thing.”

  He glared at the stalking compass in his grasp. It felt hot and heavy, the antenna quivering like a frenzied moth. It tugged at his hand, yanking him forward until he stood right in front of his invention.

  “What now?” The compass needle pointed unswervingly at the chair inside his contraption.

  Asher sighed. No, not yet. His invention wasn’t ready for human trial yet. Only last week had he finally completed his calculations. The laborious task had taken him several months of mind-numbing mathematical computations. He’d even been forced to consult with Schick about the correct algorithms to use. He’d been reluctant to approach the German mathematician, but he’d had no choice. It was vital to know the exact amount of electricity to run through his machine in order to calibrate it correctly. Any miscalculation would result in unknown catastrophe.

  So he wasn’t about to risk his skin, no matter how much his damned stalking compass shrieked. The instrument continued to shrill, and his palm was beginning to burn. Well, it would do no harm to merely sit in the chair, if that would satisfy the infernal compass. He heaved himself into the seat. An acrid, alien smell of tobacco assaulted his nostrils.

  “Faugh!” The odor made him gag. He surged to his feet, his one thought to get away from the seat. The stalking compass fell from his grip.

  What happened next seemed to take minutes, yet only one or two seconds could have passed. He saw the compass falling yet was powerless to move. The compass fell on one of the many buttons embedded in the console in front of him. The button clicked several times, the compass bounced onto a second button, which also clicked randomly, and then it started to roll off the instrument console. It would have fallen to the floor, except for the fob chain. The chain caught around the most important lever, the start-stop lever, and wrapped itself tight. The weight of the compass and chain was nothing, a mere few ounces, certainly not enough to shift the stiffly geared lever. But as Asher watched on, frozen in horrified fascination, the lever started to grind down as though a ten-ton force was being applied.

  Sweat sprang from every pore. “The devil take it! No—”

  The air was sucked out of his lungs, and a great roaring filled his head. Fierce winds straight from Hades blasted him from all directions. Excruciating pain as fine as desert sand penetrated his skin, breaking him apart, cell by cell. He felt as if he were on fire. He heard himself grunting and groaning, the shuddering inside him fit to explode his skull as spasm after spasm racked his body.

  And then, just as suddenly, it was over.

  The fiery winds disappeared. The tornado in his head subsided to a dull ache.

  Asher peeled open his eyes to find himself lying face down. The uneven brick floor beneath him struck cold through his sketchy clothing. Frosty air licked at his cheek, frilling his skin with goose bumps. He dragged himself up to a sitting position, and almost vomited as his brain spun like a top.

  He was still in his workshop, but instead of sultry August it was now the depths of winter. His breath hung in the air in vaporous clouds, and he had begun to shiver uncontrollably. Frisking his arms, he forced himself to ignore his violent nausea and take in his surroundings.

  His invention was still there. Yet, it wasn’t quite the same masterpiece he’d built. This contraption was still a prototype, incomplete, the tarry black promethium magnets incorrectly placed on the copper shell. He remembered how long it had taken him to work out the correct position of each magnet. This machine exactly resembled one of his earlier attempts.

  Which meant…his calculations were correct, and his invention had worked! He’d done it.

  He, Asher Quigley, had travelled back in time.

  Cold sweat trickled down his spine as his success sank in. He’d made the impossible possible. He’d broken the time barrier. He’d discovered a way of traversing the once-immutable dimension.

  But where i
n time had he landed?

  Lifting his hand to massage his forehead, he saw he was still clutching the stalking compass, though he had no memory of picking it up. He tucked the object into the pocket of his trousers and rubbed his eyes as he concentrated all his fractured thoughts on the buttons his stalking compass had bounced over. What parameters had been set before the lever had been pulled? Think, man, think.

  Out of his brain haze memory came teetering back like a gin-soaked drunk. Eight months. He’d been flung back in time eight months, which explained the teeth-chattering cold.

  And then from the mist more memories began to pour out. Only, these came screaming out at him like banshees, and the howling cut him to ribbons. He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain.

  Eventually the shrieking disappeared, but the anguish inside him coalesced into a suffocating lump.

  Finally he knew who the woman was who teased him day and night. She was no figment of his imagination. Not here, not now, eight months earlier. Here she was real. She was living flesh and blood.

  She was Minerva Lambkin. She had captured and fragmented his heart twice over. Yet in the future she did not exist at all. The realization made him break out into a cold, gut-clenching sweat, and the torment only intensified as instinct told him he was responsible. The details eluded him, but he knew he was right. He had somehow caused Minerva’s extinction.

  * * *

  On the train trip to Manchester Asher had ample opportunity to think through all the implications of what had occurred, and the conclusions made his stomach froth with trepidation and awe. From a newspaper hastily purchased at the station he’d obtained the precise date and thereby confirmed the truth of his journey through time. His chronometrical conveyance, for that was the name he’d given his invention, had catapulted him eight months back into the past, but a past which was different from what he remembered. Prior to his time trip he had no memory of a Miss Minerva Lambkin residing in Salford, Manchester, but here, eight months ago, she played a very important role in his life.