Listening to the clatter, Brittany prayed the ground would open before any of them looked up and saw it bumping down the incline towards them. She must get out of here, the way Morte said, only the way Morte said wasn’t an option right now.
Silence fell. She peered out from behind the tree trunk. The case had bobbed to a halt about three feet away. A panic over nothing but she couldn’t leave it here. The second he saw the contents Mitchell Killgower would know she’d come sneaking back.
“I do insist. Mitchell. Dainty and I don’t care. You just want to be left alone. And yes, you have your brandy flask for company but you’ve been out here for hours.”
Felicia’s voice was faint as it carried up the slope. It was followed by Mitchell Killgower’s assured, velvety growl.
“I don’t know what you use to tell the time with but it’s only two hours by my watch. Anyway, I’ve told you, I’m busy and when I’m busy I’ll stay out here as long as I want. Now, I’ve played your little game, you can go in now, both of you.”
Brittany felt sick. As a writer, she could make that sound more poetic—nausea churned in her gut, whatever. The fact? The simple fact? She wanted to spew. Pure and simple. She couldn’t do that here. Not without the case. She needed to get it first. Felicia’s voice sailed back up the slope.
“Very well, we’ll go. But we warn you, we’ll be back if you don’t come in and the next time we’ll kidnap your cigars and hold them to ransom until you do.”
This was Brittany’s chance. She dashed down the slope. A branch snapped, the ground shifted beneath her as she grasped the handle. Her one wish? No one would see her suddenly yanking the case off the ground. All right, it was two wishes. She couldn’t bear anyone to see her bumming up the bank, lugging the case towards the tree, because she’d toppled backwards and landed on her backside in her lovely new coat.
Find true love or be doomed forever, Morte had said.
Had this happened to him? Was this her punishment for leaving Morte to his fate? When she hadn’t. She’d stepped outside the bookshop that night. She’d found him in that lonely alleyway. She’d waited, she’d watched everything, him kneel there, his hands outstretched, holding the paper heavenwards, jumped as the bolt of lightning, struck the ground. Only at the last as the flames struck had she closed her eyes. When she’d opened them, he was gone. What kind of person would she have been if she hadn’t done that?
Despite that, despite everything, above all else, the lump coming up in her throat threatening to choke her, Dainty and that woman had gone, she must get out of here.
Rough bark scraped her back as she pushed herself to her feet against the tree trunk. To think she’d thought fondly of Mitchell Killgower, imagining herself a tiny baby bit in love. That he’d fallen for her. She should laugh.
“Would you mind moving two feet to the left?”
Mitchell Killgower. She glanced sideways, tore a breath.
“You’re standing in my light.”
She swallowed. If it was his heart she was standing in, that would be different. But his bloody light? Of all she had imagined, herself sauntering down the slope, trundling her little case, as if she’d never been away, him picking things up exactly where they’d left off, them sharing a fag, even him sitting there with his best drawbridge look, the epitome of cool arrogance and control, stony composure and stony composure, she’d never imagined another woman, or being told to get out of his bloody light, as if she didn’t exist. Her little case either.
She gathered her coolest expression. While it was unfortunate he’d seen her, the fact was he had. So now she needed to concentrate on keeping her dignity intact, ignoring everything that rose.
“Do forgive me.”
She’d never imagined him sprawling on a battered armchair, sucking on a fag as if it was the sweetest thing while he contemplated her as one might an insect.
“That thing there . . .”
“What . . .?” She glanced down. He had noticed the case. “Oh that? What about it?”
“Do you think you can you move it?”
“Well, yes. I can. I just . . .”
Didn’t want to think where. The contents might all fall out if she picked it up and clattered him. Imagine the embarrassment, not just of having condoms dotted about the hillside, of him seeing the condoms that were dotted about the hillside. But, it wasn’t just the condoms that made her grasp the handle and bump the case over a withered clump of bracken, with her best enigmatic smile attached to her face, it was the other bits of her life that would be naked and exposed. The silly, stupid bits she’d thought she’d make here.
“For you, the world, darling. There.”
Another drag. Another impertinent stare. “What’s in it anyway?”
“Not what you think, if that’s why you’re asking although I daresay you could have done with some of these with Felicia. But, I suppose you had to guarantee your future. If not with me, then with her.”
The way his eyes glazed was exquisitely unbearable as if he thought she’d lost her sanity.
“So you saw her then?”
“I did. And it’s actually why I called. A little bird told me. You know what these little birds are like. They can’t shut up when the news is good.”
“How do you make that out?”
The drag he took on the fag was almost indecent and so long, she thought she’d wither. Still she faced him, the things that could have been, hanging like pale ghosts in the sunshine. Typical of her life that the day should be so nice when everything else had collapsed in deafening ruins.
“Oh Mitchell, darling, you were always one for twenty questions when you know the answer. For you, for me, to say other, would be stupid now. What’s done is done, darling. All I wanted, coming here today was to let you know there’s no hard feelings.”
“That’s good of you.”
“And how delighted I am that you’ve finally secured what’s yours. You’ve no idea how happy that makes me.”
“Hallelujah.”
Her gaze trailed the toss of the burning fag end onto the ground, the scrunch of it beneath his boot.
“And here was me thinking nothing ever did. Well, that’s good of you, Brittany.” He picked up his paintbrush. “After eight months, and the way you left me, I’d ask where you’ve been but as I know you won’t tell me, I won’t waste your time, or mine.”
“No. You’d probably just rather smoke my bloody fags, you plainly stole.”
“Says who?”
She shrugged, reached in her coat pocket. A fag might just spread a layer of calm over her trembling veins. “Says me, darling.” She flicked the lighter, took a drag. “Well, it’s been nice seeing you Mitchell, for old time’s sake. I’d obviously have come to the wedding but that could have been a baby bit awkward even if we were never actually married.”
“True.”
“Well—”
He dipped the brush in the jar of water and she shrugged. What was there to say after all? To stay for either?
“Especially as I’m not actually married to her either.”
“Mitchell . . . For God’s sake. Does Christian…Oh, never mind.”
She reached her trembling hand in her pocket and pulled her fag packet back out. She should go but would she manage up the slope right now? Her legs were like water.
“Here.”
It took every shred of concentration she possessed to stop her hands from shaking as she reached to light it for him. To be so near and yet so far, in every way.
“So?” She stepped back beneath the shade of the tree, took another drag, anything to effect an effortless pose. “Is that a cushion she’s got up her dress?”
His look was his stony one, he reserved for special occasions. “I only wish.”
“Well, d
arling.”
There was no point saying she wished too. No point in doing anything except fixing on her most enigmatic expression, taking another drag. To do more would be foolish now. After all, he may have seen Brittany, his moods said that was only in his rakish dreams.
“You always were a fast mover. Christian will be pleased though.”
He spoke through the cigarette dangling from his lips. “She held a ball to celebrate.”
“Well then. She was always a great one for balls. I mean, holding balls. And at least you secured Killaine—”
“If I did, that’s the first I’ve heard.”
“Congratulat—”
Her lips trembled so badly she struggled to frame the word. Christian held a ball, Felicia was pregnant and he hadn’t secured Killaine? Was he playing with her? Walking barefoot to the South Pole was probably easier than knowing what this man was thinking. But, there was the tiniest baby glint in the gaze he didn’t turn on her— she wouldn’t say it was more than that. In fact she’d say it wasn’t there at all.
“That’s right. Felicia’s not mine. She’s Fleming’s.”
“F-Fleming’s? Fleming’s? Are you—?”
“Serious? A chip off certain blocks that boy. Met her at the dance that night. I think we can leave the rest to the imagination.”
“But, Fleming’s only—”
“Before you say more, he’s as old as I was—older actually—when I married his mother.”
“But, that was a disaster. Mitchell, how could you let him?”
“He’s a better man than me. And at least no one forced him, despite the fact Felicia was well . . . You saw what Felicia was. Needless to say, it all made Christian very happy.”
“Christ, Mitchell, you make yourself sound like the perfect father.”
“And you sound just as you always did.”
She took another drag of her fag. None of it was what she meant to say. But Mitchell Killgower was playing with her.
“Well, darling, is it any wonder—”
“What? That Fleming’s finally done what half the county, if not the country has before him at his age? Got married. I don’t know how it is in Sort of Newport but here in this world, he’s far older than you see him. As for the house? It’s theirs. Fair and square. I can’t compete with that.”
Her throat dried. “You never let me finish. I was going to say, when I came here today especially to see you.”
“Be careful, Brittany, in another moment you’ll have me believing you care.”
“Another moment? Is that all? Look, Mitchell, you once told me you knew me and you could find me. But, the fact is you couldn’t. Where I’m from, you’ve already been dead for a few hundred years. I know I made a mistake in leaving you. Probably the biggest of my life. But, it was a mistake I needed to make. I thought staying here was death to me. I had to learn it’s not. You didn’t want me really at your side in 1765. I think you felt you’d sooner be poor. Where I was, I was too rich to want you. My situation is unusual to say the least. But I know you must feel something for me, or I wouldn’t be here. I couldn’t.”
There. She’d said it. Calmly. Rationally as her heroines wouldn’t, although her heart beat so hard she thought it might fell her. He didn’t move, just sat there in the brown coat, toying with the fag she’d given him, staring at her. She’d left him badly, she’d left him twice. In fact she’d wiped her feet on him the second time. And all the time that one word in the vision Morte had shown her hammered at her brain. Ladyship. It meant she must have married him at least, although she needed to do much more than that.
He tilted his jaw. “I paint you, you know. Why I’ve no bloody idea. It just happens.”
His voice, as always, like growling velvet had such a power, she nearly sprawled on the ground.
“But as it also happens, after I lost Killaine and knowing the business of being a father has always been hard enough, I decided to go to London, try my hand there with what I paint, even though what I paint is you in every mood, since you left. Laughing—you did do it sometimes—dancing—”
“Me? You paint me?”
“I think mostly I’ve been trying not to forget your face. Other times I’m not so sure what I’m trying to do.”
“Mitchell . . .”
“He came to see me, you know?”
“Who?”
“Your friend.”
“I don’t have any—”
“He said as much.”
“Are you meaning Morte?”
“I think that was his name. He gave me these fags.”
“Morte’s not my friend. He’s our—” She bit her lip. “Well—Is this why you don’t really seem all that surprised to see me?”
“I am surprised to see you. He told me some things are just a matter of time but he couldn’t give me any guarantees where you were concerned.”
“What? Well, he was wrong. He was—”
She swept forward. Of course, the painting could be awful but she’d sooner look at it than start about Morte if he was going to be their several times great grandson. She hadn’t exactly looked at it when she’d lit Mitchell Killgower’s cigarette. She lowered her gaze.
God, was this her? Her face turned to the sun, her hair blowing everywhere? Her arms clasped around herself? Naked—of course, what else? Naked except for the field of flowers?
I know you and I will find you.
Her breath caught.
He pushed the chair back. “I don’t know I wanted you to see that.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“You don’t have to say.”
She raised her head, pressed her lips to his. It was the longest, sweetest, most sensuous kiss she’d even given him. How the hell had she managed without the taste of him on her tongue? Managed without him? Now she felt his hands on her back, the press of his body against hers, she knew the truth of the words, ‘if you love something let it go’. What was it she loved him for? She could name his shuttered expression, youthful smile, unfortunate candour. She could even say that he kissed her now like he never had. Probably, above everything else it was the fact that he’d saved her from the wreckage of her life.
She didn’t need to go home. Home was where he was. She just needed him to know it had been her choice to leave him, as it was her choice now to come back.
His gaze met hers. “You should come with a warning.”
“Me?”
“In some ways you broke my heart, you know? I might as well tell you. But, maybe that’s what hearts are for. I don’t know. I didn’t know I had one till then.”
“Well, darling, that makes two of us.”
“Do you know what you’ve already cost me?”
“Oh . . . about that? Open the case. Please. Then, you might see I am more unusual than you think.”
He lowered his gaze.
“Oh, go on, before I turn into sand. You know you want to and it might surprise you. Oh fine, why don’t I do it?” She bent down and unzipped the lid. Her books—she’d had to put them in—were probably nothing like anything he’d ever seen. She knew that as she handed them to him. It was the reason she’d chosen them. Then there were the jewels, the things she knew they could sell. A fresh start. Away from Christian and Clarence, the whole damn lot of them. It was his greatest wish to tell Christian where to put it. It was also hers. Now they could sell the jewels, start again somewhere not as grand as this but certainly better than Sebastian’s. She watched as he fingered each item, the books especially because her name was on them. It wasn’t just the books, he fingered. He fingered her soul.
“So?” He set the book down on the table, looked at her quizzically. “Are these all the rage in London?”
“In the future they will be. Well, sort of . . .
I can always write here you know.”
“Brittany, I think it’s fair to say—”
“Please, don’t say.” She pressed her hand over his lips. “I can’t let this be over. This, from the man who said he knew me and would find me? No. You need to understand these things here, these books, they’ve yet to be written in your time. And in mine, these were the things I had to go back for that night. Understand that while I have cost you everything, I can sort this. I can free you. We can sell these jewels. We may not be able to stay here but we can start again. I say that because despite everything, despite having no control over this strange curse . . . well, I do actually. I love you. I love you as I never thought I would. I understand we will actually found a dynasty.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Morte told me. I’m your future. I’m from the life you haven’t led yet, the places you’ve not been. And I won’t go away again so long as you love me.”
“That’s a long explanation. I was just going to say I’d never seen a thing like that case.”
“Liar. God Almighty, I have no control over this. Do you know how bloody awful it’s been for me here? It’s not exactly a picnic. You’ve short rations, never enough food to eat and no contraception for a start and the shoes are so badly made they kill my feet. I don’t expect you to understand. I only need your love. I must have that to be here. If I don’t, I won’t. And that is the way, the only way we can be together. Sometimes I may disappear. I have disappeared. If you can be with me like that, then, I’ve not come back here for nothing. But if you can’t, then I really do need you to hate me again. It’s that simple and that complicated. Can you do this, Mitchell?”
~ ~ ~
His mind reeled. Despite what Morte had said, he never expected to see her again not in his wildest dreams. He’d nearly fallen off the chair to see her there five minutes ago, standing at the edge of his vision as if she’d just been away for a stroll. But, then she was the woman who had gone to instruct the servants and vanished for days. At least, she didn’t have a stool stuck on her heel this time.
The Writer and the Rake Page 28