by BETH KERY
"I'd best be getting back to the Marlborough Club, then," Mel muttered gruffly.
"I'll escort you to the coach house. It'll only take a moment for the groom to prepare the carriage—"
Ryan never got his protest off his tongue before Mel spoke resolutely.
"No. It's not a far walk, and I'll keep to the shadows just like we did on our way here. I don't want to make any more bother. Please .. ." Mel said when Hope opened her mouth to argue. "You've done far too much for us already."
Hope didn't look happy about the proposal, but Ryan said nothing when she looked to him to intervene. He sensed how difficult it was for Mel to sit in this rich room and accept Hope's lavish act of charity. He wouldn't argue Hope's case in this particular circumstance. Knowing what he knew about Ramiro's character made him even more certain that Mel would feel miserable if she were forced to ride in the grand carriage for the twelve blocks to the Marlborough Club.
"Let me at least get you a coat, then," Hope conceded when she saw that Mel wouldn't waver and Ryan would not plead her cause.
Mel met Ryan's eyes and nodded once in thanks before she followed Hope, off to start a different—hopefully better—life than she'd had under the hands of Diamond Jack Fletcher.
When Hope returned a moment later after showing Mel out, Ryan was waiting for her by the door. He grabbed her hand and spun her into his arms.
"Ryan!" she exclaimed softly, her tone slightly scandalized, before he covered her mouth with his.
"Yes?" he said a moment later when he raised his head. He studied her bemused, shadowed face. "Just because you've donned the clothes of a lady doesn't mean I'm not going to kiss the hell out of you every chance I get, witch. I remember what you look like in that excuse for a nightgown. I know what you look like naked—the knowledge is burned into my brain, in fact. So don't plan on getting all proper and ladylike with me now."
Her dark eyes went wide before a grin curved her lips. Ryan couldn't unglue his eyes from the luscious confection of Hope Stillwater's smile.
"The social proprieties between men and women must be very different in the year 2008
compared to now," she said a tad nervously.
Ryan's brow crinkled in puzzlement when he saw her color deepen. "Hope, are you forgetting the things we've done together?"
Her mouth fell open in disbelief, apparently at the fact that Ryan had just been bold enough to mention that they'd had carnal knowledge of one another in the refined atmosphere of the drawing room.
"Are you referring to .. . to . .." When Ryan just stared at her, his confusion probably writ large on his face, she found it in herself to continue in a nearly inaudible whisper. "Those things happened in the bedroom, Ryan. This is not the bedroom."
He just stared at her in amazement before he grinned. How strange. Hope glanced warily around the room as if she thought
morally upright, scandalized denizens were going to crawl out of the woodwork at any moment, preaching and pointing their fingers at her accusingly. God, it was going to be a bitch of a challenge to take her to the year 2008.
But challenge or not, he needed to get her there.
He nipped at the shell of her ear and felt her shiver.
"I was wondering when you were going to start acting like an early-twentieth-century woman. Is this modest streak the reason you wouldn't allow me to go to your bedroom with you?"
"Ryan, in my day and age, it would be very ungentlemanly for a man to speak of my bedroom. Even to think of my private sanctuary would be considered ... unseemly," Hope murmured as she turned her head and nuzzled his cheek while he kissed her ear and neck.
Her soft sigh and warm breath caused his skin to roughen in excitement.
"I've made love to you in your bedroom, Hope. I live in your bed-oom. Your bedroom is my bedroom," Ryan whispered next to her ear. "Don't you think we might suspend the typical formalities?" The return of the mischievous sparkle to her eyes made him unduly happy. "I suppose so, considering the highly unusual state of circumstances."
He lifted his head and plucked at her upturned lips. "So let's go to your bedroom then."
"Ryan, I can't think about that now! I have to go to my father. should go this moment. I saw his lights on when I snuck up to my room and I heard voices coming from his suite. I think he's conversing with the police. I'm sure the coachman has long ago in-formed him that I never met him at the carriage. My father must be frantic with worry."
"Hope, listen to me. This is important." Ryan tightened his hold on her, feeling her skirt press against his thighs along with layers of other material beneath it. He would have thought he wouldn't like the sensation of so much fabric separating him from her. Instead he found himself getting aroused by knowing that her warm, responsive body resided amidst all those swishy, feminine ruffles.
As if she were a succulent edible carefully wrapped in silk and lace.
And so much more tasty for it—
He dragged his mind off his dirty thoughts when he saw how Hope solemnly regarded him with her huge, dark eyes. He loved all of her moods, but when she turned all somber on him, she was downright irresistible.
"Let's go to your bedroom first. I need to look at the mirror."
He saw the convulsive movement at her elegant throat as she swallowed. "You . . . you're going to leave now, aren't you?"
"Yes. I have to." So do you, he thought privately.
"Would you not like to meet my father first?" she asked hopefully.
Ryan glanced down bemusedly at his bare chest. Addie Sampson had asked one of the men who worked for her to give him his coat, but it was too small for him and he couldn't button it. "I'm hardly dressed for a social call, Hope. And it'd be awkward explaining my presence here. He's likely to believe I had something to do with your kidnapping."
She scowled. "I'd tell him that you saved me, of course! Do you think he wouldn't believe his own daughter? My father and I are very close. We share one mind on most topics."
Ryan ran his hands along her back and side, soothing her pique. "I just don't think it's the ideal time, beauty."
Hope dropped her chin to her chest so that all he could see of her for a moment was the pale part of her hair and the mass of soft, coiling curls pinned to her head. The scent of gardenias wafted up to his appreciative nose.
"No. I don't suppose it is the ideal time. All right, we'll go to the mirror," she whispered weakly.
They extinguished the lights and moved down the darkened
hallway hand in hand, Ryan in the lead. Before they reached the brightly lit entry hall, however, the sounds of men talking reached Ryan's ears.
He pulled Hope back into the shadows.
"You will contact me immediately when you discover anything, won't you, Mr.
O'Rourke? I won't rest until my daughter is returned to me safely."
Ryan's brows crinkled in puzzlement. The man who had just spoken possessed a rich, resonant voice that sounded strangely familiar. He could easily imagine him holding a crowd enthralled with his speeches. The Reverend Stillwater must not only be a fine political orator, but popular among his parishioners for his sermons at his church.
"Indeed, Mr. Stillwater. But as we've told you, missing persons investigations are difficult in the city. Every day people go missing in Chicago and are lost without a trace,"
a man who must have been Detective Connor J. O'Rourke replied, his voice flavored with only a trace of an Irish brogue.
"But my daughter—such a singularly lovely young woman— surely someone must have noticed her when she entered that train station."
"Detective McMannis and I will scout the area first thing in the morning, Mr. Stillwater.
You're right—chances are somebody noticed something. I recommend you place an advertisement with a copy of her likeness in the major newspapers. In the meantime, do me a favor and keep thinking about who might profit from your daughter's abduction. I'm sure you've made some significant enemies with your political agendas."
Ryan wondered from O'Rourke's steely tone of voice if the detective already harbored suspicions toward Diamond Jack Fletcher even if Jacob Stillwater hadn't yet pointed his finger in that direction.
"I will think on it. I can't imagine who would want to harm such a warmhearted, generous young woman."
Ryan felt Hope startle, as though she reacted instinctively to a need to soothe her father's obvious distress. He squeezed her hand in reassurance, however, and she stilled.
"I'm thinking it's just as likely that it's you they want to harm," O'Rourke said before he and the other detective left the house.
"Shall I turn out the lights?" a quiet voice asked a moment later.
"No, Mrs. Abernathy. We'll leave on the entry hall chandelier until my daughter returns home."
"You need to rest, sir. It'll be dawn in a few hours and you've been ill."
"I couldn't sleep if I tried."
"Dr. Walkerton left a sleeping draught and I've had it prepared for you. You'll not do your daughter a bit of good by becoming ill again," Mrs. Abernathy said resolutely.
The sounds of them ascending the stairs followed.
"I think we had better take the main stairs this time," Hope whispered after a moment.
"Mrs. Abernathy will use the back stairs on the way back down, as will the maid getting my father's sleeping draught."
Ryan nodded. They crept up the grand staircase and down the shadowed hallway to Hope's room without incident. When Hope closed the door silently behind them they stood in pitch blackness. He heard Hope fumbling by the mantel and soon a flame hissed and flared. She approached him carrying a single taper, her face looking unusually pale and sober in the flickering light.
"We still keep candles and lanterns about. The electricity is wonderful, but it tends to go out easily, especially in storms. Sometimes it seems like the electricity functions only half the time, but we're quite used to it, so fond are we of the modern conveniences of—"
Ryan reached out and grasped her shoulders, hearing the anguish in her shaking voice as she rambled on about undependable electricity. Her eyes rose to meet his and Ryan saw they glistened with tears.
"What's wrong, honey?"
"I—I don't want you to go, Ryan," she whispered miserably.
SEVENTEEN
Ryan studied her face for a long moment. "I'm not parting from you yet, Hope. There's something I need to explain to you. Something important."
They both started slightly when they heard a thumping noise down the hallway.
"The maid must have dropped something," Hope whispered. "You don't think they'll be able to see the candle, do you?"
Ryan shook his head but used his hand to mute the light, anyway.
"Let's look at the mirror and then I need to talk with you about something.
"It's always this clear?" Ryan asked a moment later as he peered into the gilt mirror.
"Clear?" Hope asked, confused.
"In my time, it's grown foggy. But as we began to see one another, to touch, the fog dissipated. Just before I stepped through into the Sweet Lash, the mirror had gone clear in my time as well," he murmured. He experimentally pushed his hand to the surface. Sure enough, he experienced the unusual but increasingly familiar sensation that he could only describe with words as tactile possibility, like touching a myriad of different potential realities.
"That's so strange," Hope mused. "I wonder .. ."
"What?" he asked when her voice faded.
"According to my father, the man who lived here before us was a very unusual gentleman. His name was Mortimer P. Chase. He built this house. He was quite an idiosyncratic gentleman and was involved in the spiritualist movement. Some called him a magician. He disappeared without a trace several decades ago, leaving no heirs for an apparently vast fortune."
"Are you saying this mirror belonged to Mortimer P. Chase?"
Hope looked puzzled. "To be honest with you, I'm not sure. We moved into this house when I was eight years old. This wardrobe and mirror have been in my room since then, but—now that I think on it—I don't recall it being in my old bedroom on Washington Street."
"I don't know if we'll ever understand the mechanics of how it works, but at this point I wouldn't argue with the idea that it's a magic mirror. God knows I'd believe in stranger things at this point. But there's something more important for us to talk about at the moment, Hope."
He drew her over to an object in front of the fireplace that slowly resolved into a sofa the closer they got with the candle.
"Sit down," he urged. He tore off the constricting coat he wore before he sat down next to her. It felt as if he would burst out of the garment if he took a deep breath and he wanted to be comfortable for this difficult conversation with Hope.
Once he settled next to her on the couch he met her gaze. "I want you to come with me, Hope ... to my time. Through the mirror."
For a moment she didn't speak, just staring at him as though frozen.
"Ryan, I want to," she finally replied in a choked voice. "I'd love to be able to see a whole different world, to—to be with you, even if only a bit longer." She paused awkwardly and glanced down. "It would be like something from a dream. But I can't. You must understand. My father is here. He's been ill. He'll only become sicker if I don't reassure him of my safety very soon."
Ryan sighed heavily. This wasn't going to be easy, but he had to find a way to convince her. He wasn't thrilled with the prospect of what would challenge them in the year 2008
given their vastly different cultures. In truth, he had no idea what he would do with her, their situation was so unprecedented. But in all fairness to Hope, he needed to try and convince her.
Especially since he planned on taking her with him no matter if he succeeded or not.
"Haven't you wondered why I came through the mirror? Why I've been trying to warn you about being in danger?"
"I didn't fully understand in the beginning, but now I assume it was because you somehow knew I was going to be kidnapped by Diamond Jack."
"It was, in part."
"What do you mean, in part? " Hope asked slowly.
Ryan dug his thumb and forefinger into his eyelids, feeling the burn of a physical exhaustion that had been held at bay by adrenaline. Until now, anyway. He wished he had more energy for this, but he plunged ahead, anyway.
He proceeded to tell her about the newspaper articles and police reports concerning her disappearance. He put his arm around her when he explained about her death, glossing over the gruesome details of the decomposed body found in the Chicago River. She listened with a quiet, avid intensity but showed no signs of distress. At first he thought she might be in shock but then he began to suspect that the bizarreness of the circumstances made the whole scenario seem far-fetched and removed from her.
Ryan had to agree in part. Who could imagine that the lovely woman who sat beside him, studying him with solemn midnight eyes, could possibly transform into a lifeless corpse sometime soon? Ryan couldn't fathom it.
In fact, that was the main reason he was here.
"You say that you read documents—newspaper clippings, police reports, things of that nature—that reported the year of my death was 1906?"
Ryan nodded warily. Bizarre or not, it wasn't news even the most strong of heart would ever relish hearing. "That's why I want to bring you back to the year 2008. If you're alive in my time, there's no way you could have died a hundred and two years ago."
Hope's eyelids narrowed thoughtfully. "And did any of these documents you read indicate what happened to my father after my death?"
Ryan resisted an urge to state point-blank that she was not going to die for a very, very long time. Instead he focused on the facts. "Yes. They said that he went on to champion anti-white slavery legislation and eventually successfully closed down the Levee District."
Ryan's sense of alarm grew when Hope merely stared fixedly at the cold hearth. "Tell me what you're thinking."
"There'
s been some sort of mistake, Ryan."
"Honey, I know it must be hard to take in—nobody would want to learn the date of their death—but—"
She shook her head adamantly. "There has been a misunder-standing. Perhaps you successfully changed history by intervening tonight at the Sweet Lash?"
Ryan thought of those black-and-white photos he'd found in the twenty-first century—photos of Hope and him in the year 1906.
"I'm not so sure I've changed anything," he stated grimly. "It seems that history has bent to accommodate me."
But Hope continued as though he'd never spoken.
"I don't mean to place undue importance upon my person, but it is extremely unlikely my father would have flourished as greatly as those reports indicated if I died anytime in the near future. If it were true that I'd been brutally murdered, I would expect my father to be devastated ... diminished, not infused with a sense of purpose in the manner that you describe from the historical record."
"But isn't it possible your death would drive him all the harder in his mission in order to change the circumstances that allowed your death—"
Hope shook her head again resolutely. "I see your point, but no. You don't know my father like I do. He was devastated by my mother's death, almost to the point of giving up all hope. His grief was protracted and intense. If it weren't for the fact that he had me to live for, I have no doubt he would have just given up and soon followed my mother.
Perhaps—"
But Ryan cut her off with a slashing movement of his hand. He abruptly blew out the candle.
"What—" Hope asked, forgetting to whisper in her surprise over his actions.
"Shhhh," Ryan hissed. He heard it again, the rustle of someone moving in the hallway, the sound soft and furtive, as though they'd been leaning in to listen with their ear pressed to the door. The latch clicked open and the door swung silently inward.
"Don't move. I have a gun pointed at you," Mario said in a deep, sinister voice. "You didn't really believe Jack would let you get away that easily, did you?"