Aching for Always

by Gwyn Cready

  “My mother told me the same story.”

  Even in the dark, she could see the flush on Hugh’s cheeks. Was it because he knew she’d just recognized him as the dark, handsome man? And how could he have known her mother?

  He cleared his throat. “I can see you are surprised. I-I think your mother may have known the story of Fiona’s grandfather and may have foreseen the day when the map would need to be found. I think she may have hidden clues. In her tale, the heroine says to the dark, handsome man, ‘The maps are the same. Three to one. Follow the path of the maps. Words can hide so much.’ Well, you said the cartouche can hold the legend. Do you see? ‘The maps are the same.’ The map of London I took from the map room and the map of Edinburgh you found in Fiona’s room share the same cartouche. You think the third one, the one of Manchester that Reynolds borrowed, does as well. ‘Three to one. Follow the path of the maps.’ I think the three maps will lead us to the one.”

  Joss didn’t know what to believe anymore. Had her mother foreseen this? She remembered how often her mother had told her the story. “You said there were two reasons for you to think the three maps will lead you to the one you seek. What’s the other?”

  His jaw flexed. “Your mother drew the East Fenwick map we seek. She was the mapmaker Jonathan McPherson and James Brand used.”

  “But that would mean . . .”

  “That she came from the past. I think your father met her there and fell in love.”

  Her mother came from the past? Joss was dazed by this upending of everything she had known.

  “How long were my parents in the past?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And you think my father met her there?”

  “It’s possible. In fact, I think it’s probable.”

  Then a sickening thought came into her head. “Do you think my mother—”

  “No, Joss. I don’t. I don’t believe your mother had a part in the plan. I think she found out after the fact, and I believe she decided to do what she could to stop it.” His eyes were clear green. He believed what he was saying, even if Joss hardly could.

  “And if the three maps lead you to the one?”

  He met her eyes. “Then the future will change. James Brand will be stripped of the land on which the vein is found. The vein will be discovered on land that is rightfully the McPhersons’, and Fiona will be able to buy her grandfather out of prison.”

  “And the McPhersons will be wealthy.”

  “And the Brands will not.”

  “Just like that?”

  He nodded. “Just like that.”

  She looked at him, shocked—shocked and angry. “Okay, first, I don’t believe you. And second, even if I did believe you, why do you think I’d help you do something like that?”

  “I think you do believe me, Joss. I think that’s why you’re so upset.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I’ll help.”

  “Your father was a bad man, Joss. He cheated thousands of people out of what was rightfully theirs. He did it without regard to anyone but himself.”

  His words stirred the cauldron of shame and guilt that she, as the heir of a wealthy and ruthless man like Alfred Brand, had always carried with her. It felt like such a betrayal of her father to feel the shame she did. She had been raised to love and respect her parents, and she had loved her father. Yet she’d known the sort of man he was, in business and toward her mother. Could she love the man and hate the deeds?

  “That doesn’t mean I’m willing to strip him of everything he held dear,” she said.

  He caught her again, this time far less gently. “He didn’t mind stripping others of what they held dear. He was brutal to your mother. I think she hated him, Joss, and I’d be very surprised if you didn’t think so, too.”

  She struggled in his grasp. She wanted him to leave her mother out of this. Being hated was not enough evidence to convict her father of the crime Hugh described.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking me to give up,” she said, growing desperate.

  “Perhaps I don’t. I never had the advantages you’ve had. Few have.”

  “It’s not the advantages. Dammit, it’s the memories that come with them. I had a life. Full of holidays and jokes and arguments and birthdays. You’re asking me to give all that up.”

  “Your father will still travel back in time. Your parents will still marry. Only this time we’ve made sure he won’t find the map. You’ll still have your life, but it will be different.”

  “No.” She was terrified now. He was backing her into a corner.

  “Joss, a man rots in prison because of your father. Right now. He will die without having seen his family. Can you live with that?”

  She couldn’t, but she wasn’t ready to give up. Not quite yet. “Why do you hate him so much?”

  “He lied, Joss. He bullied, and he cheated almost every man with whom he had dealings.”

  “He was no worse a manipulator than you. What reasons do you have for coming here? What parts aren’t you telling me?”

  The wild anger in his eyes told her she’d hit home.

  “Your mother hated him for his crime,” he said. “I believe she did whatever she could to undo it. You bear the stain of his crime, whether you want to or not. You must undo it. And if the bald theft of hundreds of people’s rightful futures is not enough to interest you in atonement, perhaps this will be: your father murdered a man in cold blood who tried to stop him, while I watched—and I have excellent reason to believe that man was not your father’s only victim.”

  She slapped Hugh.

  He stepped back out of reflex more than surprise. The accusation, however, never left his face.

  Furious over what he’d driven her to and what more he still expected, and unable to begin to comprehend the heinous charges he’d just laid at her father’s feet, Joss muscled past him and set out for Rogan’s house. She would do it, had known in her heart she had no other choice. She didn’t need Hugh to tell her what her duty was. She’d grown up knowing her duty, and somewhere deep inside she’d always known that someday, somehow, she’d be called upon to make amends for her father’s sins.

  When she heard Hugh’s measured footsteps behind her, she was glad he had the good grace to keep his distance. She had no intention of sharing her tears with anyone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  He watched her slim, aristocratic back, damning him with its rigidity as she turned down Fourth. He had perhaps been overly hard on her, but he had precious little time to convince her. Reynolds had already tried to kill him once, and Hugh couldn’t count on his luck a second time.

  He tried concentrating on the pain in his shoulder to keep his mind off what might happen when Joss saw Rogan. He’d gleaned from what little she’d said as they made their way to the islet that she hadn’t seen Rogan on her foray back to Pittsburgh to collect the medicine. Thus, this would be her first meeting with him since the attack. He knew she hadn’t recognized Reynolds that night; nonetheless, he wondered if trusting his instinct that Reynolds would not hurt her was too great a gamble.

  She stopped in front of a massive three-storey house with a columned portico and gleaming red double doors. It was easily ten times the size of the house Hugh had shared with his brother and Maggie. It reminded him of the London home of a moneylender he’d had to visit once when his first lieutenant got himself into trouble in a card game.

  Apart from a single light in what appeared to be the drawing room, there were no signs of anyone being at home. The moon had just risen, which meant it was near ten.

  “Is he there?” Hugh felt a wave of shame when he saw the remnants of tears in her eyes, which she hastily wiped away.

  With a frosty look, she pulled out her phone, pressed the console and held it up to her ear. After a moment, she pressed the console again and slipped it into her pocket.

  “No,” she said. “And it’s a good thing he’s not. I’m supposed to be in Vegas. I’m not sure what
excuse I’d use to be home sooner.”

  He considered asking where her fiancé might be this late at night, but decided against it. “And you have the key?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is the house secured?”

  “I told you, I have a key.”

  “Once you go in,” he said. “In case I need to follow.”

  He had tried to say it as casually as possible, but he saw the way her face changed. She reached in her bag and pulled out her key. “I’ll leave the door unlocked. Is there something I need to be concerned about?”

  He struggled to hold his expression in check. He wanted to warn her without directly implicating Reynolds. “You saw what happened to me, did you not?”

  “Whoever did that wouldn’t hurt me, would they?”

  Lord, he hoped not. “I have no reason to believe it. Nonetheless, it never hurts to be on your guard.”

  “I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me.”

  “If I can.”

  “Is there any reason, any reason at all, for me to be afraid of Rogan?”

  It pained him to see how much asking that simple question had cost her. It would be so easy to say aye and take her in his arms. But he knew in his heart Reynolds wouldn’t hurt her.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Relief streamed into her face. “Why don’t you come in with me?”

  “I need to keep watch out here.” In truth, he felt things would be worse for her if there was any record of him being in the house with her, and he remembered clearly how the eye in her office had allowed her to see him. For all he knew, Reynolds had the same sort of device here. He also wanted to watch in case Reynolds returned while she was inside.

  Her hands shook as she inserted the key into the lock. “If you’re trying to scare me, it’s working.”

  He longed to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but he knew the gesture would not be appreciated. “I don’t mean to scare you, but I do mean to make you conscious of your safety. If you feel or sense anything unusual, I want you to trust your instincts.”

  It was the most he could say. He hoped it would be enough.

  She unlocked the door and went in but stopped, as if a new thought had come to her. “You know,” she said, turning, “even if you’re right about my father changing the past, which I don’t believe, all that would do is start the loop over. The McPhersons will be rich until the time my father first goes back, and it will all change again.”

  “It won’t, Joss. Your father stumbled into the past through a hole we haven’t identified. Somehow, perhaps with the unintentional help of your mother, he got the map upon which the transfer depended and returned to the future with it, which instantly changed all the years in between. Later, he met a man who knew of your father because he was a time traveler himself. It was Phillip Belkin, the same man who eventually contacted Fiona. Your father had drunk too much and didn’t hold his tongue about how he’d come into his wealth. Soon Belkin had the map in his hands and pulled a gun on your father. Your father promised him a huge sum to give it back, which he did—and your father knocked him on the head and shoved him into a time passage. Belkin came to in a raging river and barely survived.”

  “Where is this other time passage?”

  “We don’t know.” Hugh rubbed his neck. He wondered if she believed him. He wondered if anyone could believe anything so preposterous.

  “Fiona has offered to give him a share of her family’s fortune when it’s returned,” he said, picking up where he’d left off. “And unlike your father, she’s actually made a down payment on that promise. So the loop will not start over. Your father will go back to the past, marry your mother, conceive you and take the map to Pittsburgh, but when he relives the incident with Belkin, Belkin will not be so foolish. He will pocket the map and return it to Fiona, ignoring your father’s generous offer. That will reverse the changes Brand wrought forever. Fiona, Nathaniel and I won’t have to go hunting for it. I’ll never return to Pittsburgh. And you and I will never meet.”

  What Hugh hadn’t included in his explanation was that the incident with Belkin and the gun happened after Brand had returned to the past a second time, in order to kill Bart.

  She looked at him as if he’d just pulled a gun on her himself. “Just like that, the life I lived will be erased? I’ll still live, but everything I know will be different?”

  There was no way to make it sound any better or easier than it was. “Aye.”

  Joss closed the door without saying another word. Hugh felt the click of the latch like the slash of a blade and took his place among the shadows.

  Joss listened to the whir of the ancient boiler in the basement as it worked to heat the house’s interior. Built in the early nineteenth century, the house was one of the largest and grandest residences in the heart of downtown. The first time Rogan had brought her here, she asked if he thought he should call a repairman, and Rogan laughed. He said he found the noise charming.

  Rogan.

  How differently she felt about him now than she had a mere twenty-four hours ago. She wanted to blame Hugh for planting the seeds of doubt in her mind, but she knew he wasn’t entirely to blame.

  She didn’t know what she thought anymore. How much of the doubt she felt came from the snippets of visions? How much came from the truth she’d discovered on that balcony at the History Center—that she’d enjoyed another man’s kiss, even if the other man was the loathsome Hugh Hawksmoor? For the first time in her life, she’d lost confidence in her chosen path.

  She’d always understood her path, always followed it. Joss had run the house after her mother’s death because her father needed his home life not to be a distraction. Joss had worked hard to ensure the map company survived because that’s what her mother would have wanted. She had fallen in love with Rogan because he loved her father and could save her mother’s company, and because somewhere in the back of her mind Joss had heard the line from her mother’s tale: “And the girl knew the knight was the man she would marry because, among all her many suitors, he was the only one who had offered to help her put things to right.”

  She dried her eyes and tried to clear her head. If the map was here it was most likely in the den on the second floor. She started up the stairs.

  Hugh ducked into the shadows across the street, every sense in him straining to anticipate what might happen next and be prepared to act. A light came on in a window on the upper floor. His heart began to beat faster. He waited—one moment, then two. The fact that there had been no screams or calls or noise of any kind reduced his worry. He wished he could be there with her.

  Someone turned onto Fourth. Hugh watched from his hiding place until the man’s face came into view. It was not Reynolds. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  When he turned back, the light was out. What did it mean? Had she found the map? He listened for the sound of the door opening. Nothing came. His eyes returned to the upper floor.

  Where was she? How could he endure this terrible wait?

  The sound of the water being turned on nearly made her jump out of her skin. Rogan was here. He was in the master suite on the top floor. He liked to read the Economist in the tub. He should have been expecting her usual end-of-the-day call from Vegas. She wondered why he hadn’t picked up when she rang.

  She turned off the light and stood in the doorway of the den, where she hadn’t found the map, uncertain about ascending. You’re being ridiculous, she thought. It’s Rogan, for God’s sake. Nonetheless, she paused a full minute before continuing up the stairs.

  The water was still running when she entered the bedroom. The door to the bathroom was shut, and his clothes were on the floor. His phone was on the bedside table. He must have forgotten to take it in with him. He had been working in bed. His laptop was open and running. His wallet and pen were on the bed next to it.

  She knew where she wanted to look next—in Rogan’s tiny study off the bedroom, a room he usual
ly kept locked because it contained the safe and a number of confidential files. She ran to the door to try it and was lucky. It was open. The ancient desk, polished and holding nothing but a blotter and a charger for his phone, stood beside a low wooden file cabinet. And there it was, just above the file cabinet—the map of Manchester, the third of the trio. Though he’d signed it out, the sight of it here, in his locked study, was enough to stop her in her tracks.

  It was hung on a spot on the wall that had formerly been blank. The frame in which it had been displayed in the map room had been plain and black. The frame it was in now was ornate, intricately carved wood and at least three times as thick as the former one.

  The only lamp turned on, the one between the bed and the bath, cast a small circle of veiled light. She could see the cartouche, but not clearly. There was another lamp on the file cabinet. She reached up and lit it with a faint click.

  The file cabinet was fairly deep, however, and the map was hung high enough to make examining it from where she stood difficult. She cleared a path on top of the file cabinet, pushing two heavy Chinese lion-dog bookends closer to the lamp and a tray that held paper clips in the other direction. Then she kicked off her shoes. She hoisted herself up on top of the cabinet and twisted herself around so that she faced the map. She wanted to pull it off the wall so she could lay it flat to look at it. She grabbed the lower corners and discovered, to her surprise, that they were bolted to the wall. Then she saw the wire extending from the frame at the far edge and fastened at regular intervals down the wall.

  Jesus Christ, it’s set with an alarm!

  She ignored for a moment what this said about Rogan and decided to do her examining while it was on the wall. She was finally close enough to the cartouche to see it. In most aspects, it was like the other two, with the same design and odd dashes. But there were several extremely fine lines of Latin around the outside, drawn in a different ink. She’d taken four years of Latin in high school, and she caught a few of the words, but she needed to get closer. She brought a foot underneath her and braced it against the dog bookends to leverage herself into a slightly higher position. She stretched and stretched. She needed just a couple more inches—