Once Upon a Time Travel

by Sariah Wilson

  After a ton more fake and superficial visits from fake and superficial people, we were finally done. We moved into Hartley’s study. Sometimes, while he was out doing whatever, we would practice and go over stuff in the library. It killed me to have to sit still, posture correct, not able to search for the magic book that had a spell in it to return me home.

  And yes, even thinking the words “magic book” and “spell” made me feel like somebody should find a nice, white, stretchy straitjacket and wrap me up in it.

  Crazy or not, today, I finally had my chance. Hartley was gone, doing whatever it was that guys like him did, and a note arrived for Charles. Apparently, her corgi dogs were missing her, especially one named Princess. She left immediately to visit her fur babies, and I was alone. Alone in the library. I could hardly contain my giddy excitement.

  At first I just darted all over the place, hoping something would jump out at me. I looked at the oldest books I could find but saw nothing that resembled a spell book. It didn’t help that apparently no one here had ever heard of the Dewey decimal system, and I couldn’t figure out how things were organized. I decided to be more methodical about it and start on the south side of the room and work my way over, going book by book. It would take forever, but what other choice did I have?

  Problem was, I ran across a copy of Grimms’ fairy tales. I opened it. First edition, published in 1812. I so loved fairy tales. Especially ones where the evil witch got hers. I knew I probably shouldn’t stop looking for the spell book, as I didn’t know when an opportunity like this would come along again, but . . .

  There was a soft chaise lounge next to the fireplace. The idea of relaxing and getting lost in these stories was so appealing that I couldn’t help it. I kicked off my shoes and got comfortable on the chaise, propping my legs up. Letting out as deep of a sigh as I could given that I was still wearing that infernal corset, I smiled.

  As I began the tale of “The Frog King,” I realized that for the first time in a long time, I felt really and truly at peace. Happy, even.

  Right until the moment Hartley walked in and caught me.

  * * *

  Of all the things that Hartley had imagined might happen that day, not once did he consider the possibility that he would come into his study and find Miss Blythe with her shapely legs exposed, lost in a book. His steps faltered.

  He should have demanded to know what she thought she was doing. What if someone else had found her in this state? He should have ordered her to leave the room. But the words that came out of his mouth were, “You read?”

  Miss Blythe started, her hand going to her heart, drawing his eye there. She quickly sat up, spreading her skirts over her legs. Which was both a relief and a pity. At first he thought she might apologize, but he saw the moment when she decided to fight back against his implication. “Why do you sound so surprised? Do you not know any women who read?”

  “I suppose some do, of the bluestocking variety. But I’ve found women like that to be insufferable.” Let her do with that what she would.

  “Do you think I’m insufferable?” Her inflection had changed, and she no longer sounded angry. She sounded sad. Wounded.

  It did something to him that he couldn’t have explained. There was a desire to protect her, to admonish and punish himself for causing her any kind of pain.

  But he couldn’t let her know that. “Not at the moment. Fortunately, you are the sort of woman who improves upon acquaintance.”

  That made her smile, and he suddenly understood her desire to make him smile. He liked being the reason for her happiness.

  “What are you reading?” he found himself asking as he walked to his desk. He had intended to come in here and get some work done. He’d been spending far more time away from home than he usually did. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but Miss Blythe was a distraction.

  She held up her book. “Grimms’ fairy tales. Or Children’s and Household Tales. But these stories are all completely wrong. They’re supposed to all begin with ‘once upon a time’ and end with ‘and they all lived happily ever after.’ Not one of them has that. I’m guessing it was probably a translation problem.”

  Miss Blythe shifted in her seat, and he forced himself to look down at his books. “I’m sorry they’re not to your liking.”

  “Not only that, but they’re pretty gruesome. People get their eyes plucked out by birds or tear off their own sea-foam legs. I prefer the Disney versions.”

  A scent wafted over to him, one he’d never detected before. It smelled vaguely of citrus and vanilla. It was Miss Blythe. He closed his eyes and realized that, for the rest of his life, if he ever smelled that particular combination again, he would always think of her.

  “Can I, I mean, may I ask you for a favor?”

  He opened his eyes slowly, perturbed by the fact that in that moment, he would have given her anything.

  “When Charles isn’t around, and it’s just us, can I not sit like someone stuck a rod up my . . . like the way I’m supposed to? I get tired and sore. Where I’m from people don’t sit like that. Okay, maybe some people do, but I don’t.”

  “And how do you normally sit?”

  “I lounge. And you have all these fantastic lounging chairs that I can’t even use, but more than anything I just want to relax. I promise to keep it a secret.”

  At that word, “secret,” something shifted in her body. Miss Blythe had a secret. He knew it to be true from the way her gaze darted down, how she looked around as if she feared discovery, the way her arms wrapped around her torso. And it wasn’t the lounging. It was something else.

  He hated that she kept something from him. Logically, he knew she was entitled to her privacy and whatever secrets she wished to keep. He shouldn’t be upset. He had no cause to be. He didn’t know what was more maddening—that she had a secret or that he cared.

  Ordering himself away from that line of thinking, he noticed that in addition to her nervousness, she had sounded so weary. Upset or not, Hartley didn’t have the ability to deny her request. “You have my permission to . . . lounge when we are alone. But only when it is just the two of us. You mustn’t let my Aunt Charles see you. You will give her heart palpitations.” Which he was certain of, because she was giving him a different sort of heart palpitations.

  His reward was her happy smile. He ruminated on his use of the words “we” and “us” and how he liked it far more than he should have. He had the impression that Miss Blythe was unaware of how attractive she was, how distracting she could be. To the extent that he was unable to complete another mathematical equation the rest of the afternoon.

  And instead of returning to her book and her lounging, she got up and began to peruse his collection of books. This went on for several minutes, and he was aware of every time her long, tapered fingers brushed against a book’s spine, every time her skirts swished softly against the shelves, and every time some loose tendrils of hair brushed against her shoulder as she paused to consider. He heard a deep intake of breath.

  “Were you smelling that book?”

  She looked embarrassed. “No.” Even though they both knew she had.

  “Could you please select one and sit?” he asked in a tight voice. “You are quite . . . distracting.”

  “Is that an original Shakespeare?” She pointed at a manuscript near her waist.

  “I would certainly hope so considering what I paid for it.”

  “You bought this?”

  That caused him to stop pretending to work. “You say that with such a discouraging amount of surprise.”

  Miss Blythe finally dared to touch the manuscript, running one finger along the length of it, lovingly. “You just don’t seem the type. I thought you didn’t like to read.”

  He even put his quill down. “What gave you the impression that I do not like reading?”

  “Um, that I’ve never actually seen you do it?”

  “I am a very busy man.”

  “So I noticed.
I’m surprised the whole world doesn’t wait every morning for you to wake up and bless it with your presence.”

  It was easier to be angry. He didn’t want to acknowledge what she stirred up in him, so he got mad instead. “Is that what you think? That I imagine myself lord of the entire world and believe it exists only to do my bidding?”

  Miss Blythe turned to him, her green eyes alit with fire. “I was being facetious.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you knew any words with that many syllables.”

  Her gaze narrowed, her chest rising rapidly, and even he was aware that he had gone too far. He relaxed his shoulders and began to apologize. He got as far as her name when she grabbed a pillow from the couch and threw it at him.

  It just barely missed his head.

  “Did you . . . did you just throw a pillow at me?” he asked in shock.

  “I don’t know. Was it like this?” Then she had the audacity to throw another pillow at him. This one he fended off with his hands. She threw more pillows and emphasized each word she was saying with a throw. “Stop. Being. A. Jerk!”

  “What is a jerk?”

  “You are! So stop being one! Because it is so . . .” Her eyes rolled back in her head, and he was glad she was situated next to the sofa, as she collapsed toward it and not the small table. Shaking his head, he lifted her onto the sofa to make her more comfortable, trying very hard not to think about how her soft, pliant, feminine form felt in his arms, and waited.

  Only a few minutes passed before she came back to herself, trying to suck in a deep breath.

  “It is very difficult to have a rational discussion with you when you keep swooning,” he pointed out.

  “I didn’t swoon. I inadvertently passed out. You would too if somebody strapped your lungs into a corset.”

  “Every woman of my acquaintance manages to wear one without your proclivity for fainting.” He didn’t know why he kept provoking her. Why he liked her angry gaze, the flush on her cheeks and her chest. He should behave like a gentleman but found it difficult to remember when he was with Miss Blythe.

  “Until you start wearing one, you don’t get to have an opinion about how somebody should react to it.” She reached for her slippers and slammed them onto her feet. “I’m pretty sure I’m misshaping my kidney and my pancreas just to wear what stupid men think is hot.”

  While wondering what the weather had to do with anything, he found himself disappointed when she stormed out. He should have chased after her and apologized but reminded himself that she was to be James’s bride. He shouldn’t push her to anger and tease her. Hartley simply had to stop his behavior.

  As he resolved to be kinder and more of a gentleman toward her, Aunt Charles entered the room with one of her dogs. “Princess will be staying here with us. She is not able to live without me.”

  He refrained from any commentary about the corgi being just an animal, as he felt that he had used up his rudeness quotient for one day.

  “Why are there pillows on the floor?”

  The only response was the honest one. “Miss Blythe threw them at me.”

  That seemed to please his aunt. “How delightful. Why, may I ask?”

  “Apparently, I was being a ‘jerk.’”

  “Were you?”

  Her question confused him. “Was I what?”

  “Being a jerk?”

  “You don’t even know what that means,” he said.

  The dog wiggled in Aunt Charles’s arms, wanting to be put down. Hartley wondered how many rugs he would have to replace when this was all over. “No, I don’t know what it means, but I’m sure you were being one and Emma was well within her rights to assault you with the décor.”

  The corgi trotted out of the room on its stubby legs. His aunt followed her dog but stopped at the threshold of the room. “You know that you fight with her because you are attracted to her.”

  His heart slammed hard against his chest, and his stomach clenched. “What a ridiculous . . .”

  Aunt Charles held up a single hand to his protest. “Please don’t insult me by denying it. We both know it to be true.” Then she left with her corgi, and Hartley walked over to the shelves where Miss Blythe had stood, willing himself to calm down. He wouldn’t even entertain Aunt Charles’s ludicrous suggestion. That he fought with Miss Blythe because—he cut off his thought and chose a book. After a moment he held it up to his nose and smelled it before shoving it back into place with a curse.

  Perhaps his aunt had been right about one thing. Perhaps he should take on a secretary.

  Because he worried that as long as Miss Blythe was in this house, he might never be able to add up sums again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THINGS I’M GOING TO INVENT IF I GET STUCK IN 1816

  Sewing machines

  I paced in my room for hours after that fight, refusing to change and go down for dinner. Part of me didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I was hiding out in my room, but the pissed-off part of me didn’t care. I was too angry to sit next to him and eat.

  Because I had the distinct impression that after he said something stupid and sexist, I would have to stab him in the neck with a fork, and then Aunt Charles would lecture me about proper table etiquette.

  Which might lead to more fork stabbing.

  And I knew for a fact that homicide was definitely against the rules.

  Rosemary brought me a tray, but I didn’t want to eat. I wanted to clean. It was what I did at home when I was this mad. I never normally cleaned. Only when I was furious. I suspected this led Bex to deliberately pick fights with me when she didn’t want to wash the dishes.

  But I had nothing to clean. Everything was already done. So pacing would have to do. I pressed a hand against my stomach, warning myself to not get too worked up. Because I had discovered a pattern—whenever I got close to a major tantrum, the stays and subsequent lack of oxygen made me faint.

  It didn’t help matters that as I remembered my quasi-altercation with Hartley, what I remembered was not necessarily how angry I was, but how sexy and imposing he had been. How throwing pillows had been not only out of spite but necessity. To keep him away from me. That even when the most idiotic things spewed out of his mouth like word vomit, I still wanted to climb onto his lap. When I’d woken up after passing out, having him so close did funny things to my stomach. And my heartbeat. And my knees.

  I was pretty sure even my elbows had been affected by him.

  Letting out an impatient groan, I wondered how many times I had hit my head against a hard surface as a child. How else could I possibly explain wanting to be close to him but still wanting to wring his neck?

  This was what happened when your dress was too tight. It stopped the flow of blood to your brain, and you were attracted to annoying know-it-all men. Somebody must have figured out that corsets and blood restriction were the only ways to keep the human species going while men acted like Hartley.

  There was a knock at my door, which was unusual. I assumed Rosemary had come to help me undress. But she didn’t knock. She scratched. Instead of yelling for her to come in, I decided to answer the door.

  I couldn’t have been more surprised to find Hartley waiting in my doorway.

  Because this was breaking about a thousand of their rules. Not that he seemed really intent on following them, but I knew he expected me to. Good old sexist double standard. Regardless of his hypocrisy, this was highly inappropriate.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed. I was torn between wanting to slam the door in his face and yanking him into my room so that no one saw him. Which would be worse. And would lead to one of Aunt Charles’s “don’t be compromised and/or ruined” speeches. I wasn’t sure yet what all that entailed, as she was too embarrassed to give me any details, but I had my suspicions.

  “Miss Blythe, I have come to apologize for my behavior earlier today. I behaved childishly and have no excuse for failing to act as a gentleman ought. I wanted to beg your forgivenes
s at supper this evening, but you did not come down. I thought it best to seek you out and make my apologies right away.”

  Yes, before the fork-stabbing massacre began. Good plan. Because I deflated at his sincere apology, like a balloon that had been full of fiery, hot steam until Hartley’s words had poked a hole and all the anger gushed out, leaving me flat and too tired to resist.

  If he was faking his apology out of some sense of obligation, he was a much better liar and actor than I could have imagined. Or I was a bigger sucker than I’d hoped.

  That I was so quick to believe him and accept his apology made me wonder if it said something about me. Or about him.

  Or about us.

  Caught up in that new and scary train of thought, I couldn’t think of anything to say. He took a step forward, causing my pulse to skitter and my breathing to hitch. “Stop!” I said, holding up both of my hands, panicked. “I have personal space issues.”

  “Personal what?”

  “Personal space issues,” I repeated, indicating the area around me with my hands. He was still standing too close, making my heartbeat thunder in my ears. “And you are encroaching on my bubble. Just, you know, stay there.”

  He raised that one eyebrow at me, letting me know I’d said something that had no translation. And then I saw that flicker of amusement, as if he understood that my nervousness had nothing to do with my bubble and more to do with him almost coming into my bedroom.

  Which was a little bit right.

  And while he didn’t come in, he didn’t exactly move back, either. I wondered what that meant.

  “I would not want to encroach on anyone’s ‘bubble,’ Miss Blythe. I only wanted to say that I was—”

  “Being a jerk?” I offered.

  Another smile that made my skin feel tight. “I am sorry for that. Even Aunt Charles agrees that I was most likely being a ‘jerk.’ But I was going to say that I was hopeful you could forgive me and we could continue on.”

  Some happy-puppy-leaping part of me jumped to attention. Continue on? Had something happened? Was that why he was standing so close to me that I could feel the warmth of him on my own skin? Did he think of me . . . that way?