by Gwyn Cready
Her lungs stopped. In one long, horrible second she saw everything exactly as it must have happened. Her father had murdered Bart. She was certain of it, absolutely certain. It explained Hugh’s anger and her mother’s enduring sadness—a sadness Joss had worked so hard and so unsuccessfully to lift. And Joss loved her father, even knowing what she knew, but it broke her heart to think that his unrelenting need for power and control could have led him to such an act. She couldn’t deny it, couldn’t say it wasn’t in his character, and while she wished it weren’t true—though that was like wishing the sun wasn’t in the sky—she wished she had known the truth a long time ago, so she could have helped him atone for what he had done.
She wrapped her arms around her sides and began to mourn the father she had never known.
Hugh studied the map, though he barely saw what he looked at. He could feel the pain in her silence. How horrible it must be to discover your mother had left your father.
“Look at the border here.” He pointed to the cartouche’s edge, hoping to distract her. “It has the same markings, though the dashes and lines and Vs and arcs seem to occur in different places, do you see?”
Her shadow fell across the map and a trembling finger traced the place he indicated. Then a large drop hit the paper and spattered in a circle.
She was crying!
His looked at her and his heart nearly broke. “Joss, what is it?”
“My father,” she said in a choked voice, while two more tears striped her cheeks. “He murdered your brother, didn’t he?”
Hugh pulled her into his arms, heedless of the maps, and her body hitched as he held her. He had no right to keep the truth from her, though he wished he was not the one who would have to say the words.
“Aye. I’m sorry, Joss.”
“Sorry for me?” Her muffled voice rose from his chest. “Oh, Hugh, I’m so sorry for you.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his coat and put it in her hands.
“How did it happen?” she asked.
“’Twas a long time ago.” He patted her back, unwilling to deepen her despair.
“Tell me,” she said. “Please.”
“I came home from a day playing in the fields and found his body lying in the dining room. Shot.”
“Oh, Hugh.”
“I knew when I walked up something was wrong. The cottage seemed empty, lifeless—and ’twas never like that when you and Maggie were there.”
She pulled back, cheeks wet, to look at him, amazed. “We lived with you?”
“You did. In Ashdown Forest. ’Twas the happiest year of my life. I loved Maggie as a mother. And I loved you, too.”
She fell back against him, and he hugged her as if she might disappear.
“I knew he must have taken you back with him.” He did not add that at first he’d feared they might both be dead. “I knew you were sad to leave me because you left a book Maggie had made for you. ’Twas one you loved to hear. When she was too busy to read it to you, I did. You made me tell you once it was my favorite, though it wasn’t—I loved the tales from The Odyssey she told—but ’twas the only way to make you stop asking. You left it under my pillow. I found it that night.
“The Tale of the Beautiful Mapmaker?”
Hugh nodded.
“I have the barest memory of that book.” She touched her heart, incredulous.
“I only know it was your father,” Hugh went on, anticipating the obvious next question and hoping to save her from having to ask it, “because I was there on the islet when he returned to Pittsburgh the first time, map in hand.” Hugh would die before he would tell her Brand had been willing to abandon his daughter in order to ensure his wife would return with him to Pittsburgh. “Your mother said she was staying with Bart, that your father could take his map and make a life for himself without her and you. She would not be a part of it.” That was as close to the truth as he would get, and it was close enough. “Your father told Bart he would come back and find him and kill him.”
She lay perfectly still against his chest. “But it could have been someone else?”
“Aye,” he lied. “It could have been.”
“But it wasn’t.”
She began to cry again. He held her like this for a mile or more. It was a moment he could never have imagined—comforting the daughter of his brother’s murderer and wishing for the first time the awful act had never happened, not for his own happiness, but to save someone else’s. It was as if he could breathe again after a long time underwater. He opened his lungs and savored the sweet, fresh air.
She sat up and wiped her face. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sure it must have been awful.”
He took her hand. “’Tis awful for both of us. I wish it had been otherwise.”
All at once she started. “Hugh, if this map will change what occurred, will your brother be alive?”
How he hated to answer this question, for both their sakes. “No,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “The map will change everything from 1706 onward. My brother was killed in 1685.”
“Oh, Hugh, I’m sorry. Did you think that perhaps it might?”
“Aye. Once.”
She squeezed his hand, then blew her nose and attempted to regain her composure. “I have something for you.” She found the case where it had fallen and uncapped the lid. Wordlessly, she withdrew another wide sheet of paper and unrolled it.
His heart began to pound. It was the map of East Fenwick, the one that would restore each parcel of land to the rightful families. “You found it.”
“No. That’s not it.”
“What do you mean? It says ‘1684.’ It shows the two parcels in question. I saw this map in your father’s hands on board my brother’s ship. This is most certainly the one.” He remembered the repellent greed on the men’s faces—like that of rats feasting on a scrap of garbage.
“I mean it’s a copy. It’s not the original. I don’t know where the original is. Honestly, I don’t. But my mother did—or at least she did once. When I went to my office yesterday, I was reminded of an archive project my mother had started years ago.”
“An archive? Like the one in Alexandria?”
“Yes, only with photos. Photos are like—”
“I know what photos are,” he said, thinking of Reynolds and his blackguardly image of Joss.
“Well, there are ways to store photos in little tiny spaces called bits and bytes, and to make them large again whenever you need them.”
He shook his head. “Your world is an amazing place.”
“So this is a photo of the map my mother stored.”
He gazed at the parchment and the ink. “But it looks so real.”
“That’s only because I happen to have some really old paper in the map room. I mean, I guess it’s not really old to you. Nor should it be if we want the ruse to work, but it’s sure old where I come from. Look closely at the printing, though. Can you see it’s made up of dots? Can you see it looks different from printing of your time?”
He brought the map into the light. She was right: there were bits of the map that didn’t quite ring true. Still, it was so close, and if one wasn’t an expert—especially at twenty-first-century technology . . .
“I think we could risk it,” he said at last.
“Risk it? Risk what?”
“I don’t know how things like this are dealt with in your time. But in 1706, forgery is crime. Punishable by hanging.”
Before she could reply, he pounded on the roof of the chaise. “Driver!” he shouted. “Take the Andover Road. We’re going to London, not Portsmouth.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
It had been a long night in the carriage followed by a long day in London, and Joss was grateful for even a moderately clean bed on the third floor of the Grey Lamb Inn. Hugh’s landlady, Mrs. Kenney, had been surprised to see him, and he had asked for her discretion in keeping his presence in London as quiet as possible. Mrs. Kenney’s gaze had traveled to Joss, and
she’d agreed.
Mrs. Kenney had given Joss the last room available in the inn, a tiny space usually reserved for a surveyor when he was in town, but the man’s rent was three months past due, and Mrs. Kenney said, “If he thinks I’m going to pass up a night of income while I wait for his three crowns ten, he is quite mistaken.”
The carriage had delivered them directly to the door of the Lord Keeper’s office just before noon, and they spent hours waiting for an opportunity to talk to him. None came. At seven, the man’s secretary gave them the news that Sir William had left for the country and suggested they return a week hence.
Dejected, Hugh had brought her to the place he kept rooms. Then he’d excused himself, saying he needed to send a note to a contact who might be of some help, and Joss begged for a fire and a basin of hot water, which Mrs. Kenney promptly provided. She had also promised to bring Joss something to eat.
Joss drew the washcloth along her shoulders, letting the water run down her back as she scrubbed. The warmth felt wonderful on this November night, and she stood by the fire in nothing but her chemise, thinking how differently the last week had turned out compared to what she’d been expecting. Last Monday, she’d awakened fretting as always about work and looking forward to her wedding. A week and a day later, she stood in another country, in another time, on a quest she now shared, and her wedding seemed like something old and forgotten, like a story from a book.
She looked at the bed. Tonight would have been her wedding night. Tonight she and Rogan would have finished what they’d started so many times. When she closed her eyes to try to imagine it, what she saw instead was Hugh—Hugh taking her in his arms; Hugh laying her on a bed of pillows; Hugh pressing his body slowly against hers.
A knock sounded, rousing Joss from her thoughts, and her mouth watered. She hoped Mrs. Kenney was as good a cook as she was a housekeeper. Joss hadn’t eaten anything since this morning, when she had a bun and some cheese for breakfast in the carriage.
She flew to the door and opened it.
Hugh stood before her in his gleaming blue wool coat and shining brass buttons, clutching a black tricorn hat. It was the first time she had seen him in his uniform, and the sight took her breath away. The gold trim made his shoulders look twice as broad as usual.
His eyes widened at the sight of the chemise. “I beg your pardon. Am I interrupting?”
She crossed her arms, hoping the places where the chemise clung were not too revealing. “No, I was just, er, well, perhaps I should get a blanket.” She grabbed the coverlet from the bed and threw it over her shoulders. “There. Is this better?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “If I’m being honest, no. Nevertheless, I bow to propriety.”
She laughed, but a pleasant charge ran through her. “I thought you were trying to be discreet.”
He cocked his head for a moment, then realized what she meant. “Ah, the uniform. Aye, well, instead of writing, I decided to drop by the home of my acquaintance. ’Tis only a five-minute walk. He was not there, though I left my card. I’m afraid my luck today has not changed—that is, unless you would agree to join me for dinner. Mrs. Kenney has anticipated my stratagem, I think, having delivered both of our meals to my room. Come. It’s just across the hall.”
He held out his arm, and she laid her hand on it.
His rooms were not much larger than her own—a small bedroom off a slightly larger sitting room in which a small table and chairs had been placed before the fire—though Joss did notice that, unlike hers, his bed was large enough for two.
The table was set and an enormous roast chicken surrounded by turnips, peas and beets sat like a crown jewel in the center. She was so hungry she could have eaten it without silverware, but she allowed him to help her into the chair and placed the napkin in her lap. The heat from the fire curled pleasantly up her back.
He poured the wine. The red sparkled in the thick-walled goblet like a pool of rubies. He held up his glass. “To forgetting the past.”
She thought of Rogan. She didn’t want to forget him, but she had some misgivings about him, imagined or not, that she was going to have to deal with when she returned. For once, though, she wanted to lose herself in the moment before her, with no worries and no regrets.
“To forgetting the future,” she said, and he laughed. She clinked his outstretched glass and they drank. The wine ran over her tongue like dry velvet, and she could feel his eyes on her as the heat ran down her throat and radiated out to her fingers and toes.
“Would you like to eat?” He gestured to the platter.
The question appeared perfectly innocent, but for some reason she heard an unspoken alternative behind the words.
“I-I—Yes, of course. I’m starving.”
“Good.”
He carved the meat, which smelled delicious. She took another long draft of wine. The fire was growing warmer. “So this is where you live. Are you here a lot?”
“Almost never.” He piled a leg and several slices of breast on her plate. “Though we were forced to spend a number of weeks here preparing for the trip to the islet.”
We. He and Fiona.
“You seem to work well together, you and Fiona.”
He ladled peas on her plate and smiled. “Is there a question there?”
Damn those emerald eyes. “No.”
“Because if there is, there’s no harm in asking.”
“There’s not.”
He laughed and served himself. “Tomorrow, I’ll try my friend again. If he’s not there, perhaps we can press Sir William’s secretary for his whereabouts. I apologize for delaying you further.”
She lifted her fork and paused, thinking of the chiton and simple bouquet of sunflowers. “Today was my wedding day.”
“Aye,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry.”
The vision of Rogan with the gun appeared in her head, and she stole a glance at Hugh. “Perhaps it was not meant to be.”
He touched her arm. “What do you mean?”
His skin was warm and the scars on his hand reminded her of how different his life had been from hers. “I mean,” she said, afraid to meet his eyes, “perhaps I was meant for something else today. This adventure.” She could barely speak. She had never negotiated something that seemed quite as risky as what they seemed to be negotiating now. She thought of the virginity she had protected for so long and the knight for whom she’d saved it. What if the story that had guided her all her life had never been meant to be a guide? She let the spread fall from her shoulders, wishing she had not sat so close to the flames.
His hand lifted, then stopped, a hairsbreadth above hers, and the movement of air seemed to send an explosion of invisible sparks across her skin. He was making an unspoken offer, and she shifted, hoping the wine and the warmth, a different warmth, that had spread through her belly would help her decide. She concentrated on the burnished skin of his arm, where the crisscross of scars and whorls of hair spread out before her like lines on a map. What path would she take?
“This adventure?” He repeated her words but added his own question.
She turned her palm up and threaded her fingers into his. He grasped her hand unhesitatingly, his hold neither demanding nor uncertain. The beating of her heart was as loud as the ticking of his clock. He leaned forward and their lips met. The kiss made her dizzy with longing, and the soft noise she made when they parted made her realize how much she really cared for him.
“You are engaged, milady.”
“I know there are choices I have to make.”
“What we do will be unforgivable in his eyes—and perhaps in your own as well.”
She tugged and his fingers opened. She nearly withdrew her hand, but the steadiness of his own, open-palmed above hers, made her hesitate.
“I have always done what one person or another wants. Shouldn’t I be given one night—one night—when I can do exactly what I want?”
“Aye, you should—though, for my own part, I hope it is mor
e than one.”
“I want this.”
He closed his hand around hers. “Then you shall have it.”
In an instant, their mouths were joined, and Joss felt the explosion of fireworks in her veins.
A sharp knock, and Joss pulled away as the door opened. Standing in the entry was a man in an elegant brocade coat and a pristine ruffled shirt. He was as tall as Hugh but with an air of pleasant but unmistakable entitlement that filled the room like a galleon’s worth of gold. He gazed at them, mortified.
“Good Lord! I beg your pardon. Your landlady told me you were waiting for me.”
Hugh leapt to his feet, and Joss scrambled for the coverlet. “’Tis nothing, Your Grace,” Hugh said. “The lady was seeking my advice.”
The man smiled affably. “I do hope you give it.”
Hugh coughed. “Silverbridge, may I introduce Miss O’Malley. Miss O’Malley, this is His Grace, the Duke of Silverbridge.”
A duke!
Hugh met Joss’s eye and made a low bow. Joss followed his lead, standing to bend a knee just as Lizzy Bennet had done in Pride and Prejudice. She buried herself in the coverlet.
“An honor, Miss O’Malley. How do you know my friend?”
Her eyes shifted. “Um . . .”
Silverbridge lifted his palms, laughing. “Ignore my question. I have clearly interrupted. Let me slink away and leave you to this noble transmission of advice.”
“No, Your Grace, please.” Hugh held up a staying hand. “’Tis but a small favor. I am sorry to have caused you to venture out of your way. I left my card only so that your housekeeper might let you know I would come by tomorrow.”
“She did. But I was making my way in this direction in any case. What favor do you seek?”
“We need to see the Lord Keeper on the matter of a map.”
“A map?”
“A map, aye. It concerns the transfer of property between two families.”
“Yours?”
Hugh shook his head. “No.”
“And why, if I might ask, would a navy captain be concerned about the transfer of property between two families to which he is not related?”