Once Upon a Time Travel

by Sariah Wilson

  “Dude,” I said, stunned. “That’s a lot. I only speak English.”

  “I’m not certain I’d call what you speak English.”

  I nudged him with my shoulder, and he laughed. He totally and completely laughed.

  And it was a glorious sound. Although that may have been the booze talking. Because my tongue was swelling up in my mouth. “I think my numb is tongue,” I informed him. He laughed again, and I loved the way his eyes sparkled in this light. I had really missed electricity, but there was something to be said about sitting in a darkened room with only some candles and the fireplace for light.

  Über-romantic.

  “Did you enjoy your port? Are we equals now?” he asked, the merriment still there in his voice.

  “I feel . . . very calm. Port is nice.”

  “You won’t think so tomorrow.”

  Possibly. But for now, it was nice.

  “Why do you keep touching your gown?” he asked, and I looked down, not aware that I’d been doing it. I was running my fingers back and forth across my dress.

  “Because it’s so soft. I don’t know what material this is, but I think I want to have its baby. You should feel it.”

  I hadn’t meant anything by it, but everything in the room changed when I said it. The air was charged again, and he reached out like he was going to, but then stopped. The tension threatened to drown me.

  Fortunately, I was saved by the snore. Both Charles and Princess had fallen asleep. For some reason this struck me as unbelievably funny, and I started to giggle. “Is that sound coming from the dog or Charles?”

  He wanted to laugh again. I could see it. But he only said, “Of all the impertinent . . .” A sentence he didn’t finish.

  “What was in that port? I feel like I shouldn’t be this drunk. Are you sure it wasn’t liquid crack?”

  “It was a rather potent variety, I’m afraid.” He was still teasing. He’d done this on purpose. Gotten me drunk. Not to have his way with me, which I probably would have liked. Just to prove some idiotic point.

  I decided I was okay with it.

  The warm, loose feeling got stronger, and I sighed. “To think of all the parties I avoided because I didn’t drink.” I leaned back against the couch, letting my head settle. “Do you have parties here?”

  “We do. You’ve been to them.”

  “I don’t mean the dancing kind. I mean the fun kind. Like with balloons and cake or the junior high ones with games. Like spin the bottle.”

  It felt like he had moved closer to me. Or my depth perception was seriously off. “What is spin the bottle?”

  “You take an empty bottle, put it on the ground, and spin it. Whoever it lands on, you have to kiss that person.” I paused, realizing the gravity of this moment, and gasped. “Did I just invent that game? Am I the inventor of spin the bottle?”

  He was definitely closer. Because my drunken warmth got stronger from his body heat. “I don’t think that sounds like an appropriate party game.”

  “You wouldn’t,” I said, closing my eyes. “I need to ask you something. How old are you?”

  “Five and twenty.”

  “You could just say twenty-five. The other way’s confusing. And what is your first name?”

  I expected to be admonished for asking such personal questions. “Jaxon. It was my mother’s maiden name.”

  “Jaxon,” I repeated. “That’s a nice name. But you’re kind of Hartley to me now. I can’t think of you as Jaxon.”

  Mystery solved. I opened my eyes again to look at him. He was staring at the fire, watching the flames. I turned to watch them leap and dance, too. Apparently being drunk made me chatty. “You seem different lately. When I first got here you always seemed grouchy and sad. Now you seem happier.”

  He nodded but didn’t answer.

  “Why did you used to be sad?”

  “Because I was responsible for my fiancée’s death.”

  That made me sit up. I kicked off my shoes and tucked my legs underneath me, facing him. Technically we weren’t alone as per his lounging rules, but I was going to allow it because Charles was passed out. “Would you tell me about it?”

  He turned, and the full force of his gaze did funny things to my nerve endings. Then he did the most surprising thing ever.

  No, he didn’t kiss me (I’d been hoping for that, too). He actually confided in me. “Miss Elizabeth Amesbury and I grew up together. She was from a poor but genteel family in the village. I’d loved her from the time that we were children and had always planned to marry her. When we were of age, she consented. My parents did not approve, but I was determined. Libby wouldn’t marry me until things had been mended with my family. She said she didn’t want to be the cause of any rift between us.”

  Ha. Given the low opinion both Jane and Charles had about her, my guess was that she didn’t want them to fight because she didn’t want Hartley to be cut off.

  “Then my mother died, and my father, and our fortune was gone. I knew Libby was not prepared to stay impoverished for the rest of her life. I promised her that I would get it all back and asked her to wait for me.”

  I didn’t need to be psychic to know how this was going to turn out. Spoiler alert—Libby didn’t wait.

  “I went out into the world, engaging in trade and business. It was rather unthinkable for a man in my position, but I did not want my wife, my sisters, or any future heirs to suffer. When I had accomplished what I set out to do, I returned home to find her a married woman. In my absence she had jilted me to marry George Godwin.” George Godwin was that guy who came up to us at the ball and basically called me a whore. And I totally nailed the her-not-waiting thing. “I did my best to avoid her, but she sought me out. A week after I came back, she confessed that she had made a grave mistake.”

  No doubt. I’d seen both men, and it was like putting a 40-watt light bulb next to the sun. There was no comparison. And since Hartley had become rich again, that probably put him over the top.

  “She told me that he was unkind to her. Had harmed her. I wanted to call him out then and there, but she begged me not to. She wanted to run away. Leave England behind and find somewhere to start over.”

  That would have been asking him to leave behind his family. A family that he clearly adored. Give up his title, which I knew was important to him. Abandon all his responsibilities, and I saw on a daily basis how seriously he took those. She sounded really selfish.

  “And I—” His voice broke. It surprised me. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who got emotional. I put my hand on top of his, holding it. He looked down at our hands, but he didn’t return the embrace. He also didn’t move away. “I agreed.” His voice was little more than whisper. “We arranged to meet and ride for the docks in London. But when I arrived . . . when I arrived she was dead.”

  I gasped in horror. “Did that George guy kill her? Wasn’t that what you said he did?”

  “Not in the way you’re suggesting. When I said he’d killed her, I meant he’d driven her to run away. And the running away was what ended her life. Which makes me even more responsible than him. She’d had an accident. Most likely thrown from her horse. I arrived, and she was dead, lying in a pool of her own blood.” He let out a shaky breath, and I tightened my hold on his hand. “I picked her up, and I carried her to the nearest cottage. It was the last time I ever saw her.”

  I was about to tell him that he shouldn’t have moved her, but stopped. What else could he have done? There were no ambulances. No EMTs, no hospitals that would actually fix you, no medical equipment, and no surgeons.

  A shudder went through me at that realization. I really needed to get back home.

  “It was the most dishonorable, despicable thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, and it cost me what I’d loved most.” His eyes flashed, angry. “And that is why I will never marry. I will never go through something like that ever again.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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

  Hangover cure

  Her hand again tightened on his. Hartley was more tempted than he ought to be to turn his hand over and lace his fingers through hers.

  The desire was strengthened when Emma said, “My deepest condolences on your loss,” just as he had said to her at supper. For a moment, he didn’t have the words to respond. He swallowed back the emotion that was so close to the surface and just sat next to her, watching the fire.

  The grandfather clock in the hallway sounded. “It’s late,” he said. She looked at her left wrist. It was something he often saw her do, usually whenever someone mentioned the time. He didn’t know what concerned him more—that she did something so odd or that he was so aware of her behaviors.

  Either way, it was time to bring this evening to a close. “May I escort you back to your room?” He stood and offered to help her up. She waved away his hands.

  “I’m totally fine. I got this.”

  She did not, however, have it. She immediately listed to one side, and he grabbed her, keeping her upright. He felt the urge to smile but refrained. “What is wrong with me?” she asked.

  “At the moment? Large amounts of port.” When they reached the foyer, he sent two Williams to assist his aunt back to her room.

  He found it necessary to slip one arm around Emma’s waist to maintain their progress. At least, that was what he told himself. It had nothing to do with how she felt pressed against his side, or how soft the skin of her arm felt when it brushed against his hand, or that intoxicating new scent she had taken to wearing.

  He was only being a gentleman and doing what any gentleman would.

  “This might be my first time drinking, but I used to hang out with guys like this back when I’m from. But sober.”

  She spoke so queerly. She often made it sound as if she’d arrived from another planet. He had been to America. To her hometown of Boston, even. Other than the strange accents, he did not see a significant difference in their lifestyles. He wondered if she was trying to shock him again, as she had at dinner. He was finding it to be something he liked about her. That he never quite knew what was going to come out of her mouth, and she somehow managed to constantly surprise him.

  And amuse him.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed or smiled as much as he had since her arrival.

  He also couldn’t believe that he had told her about Libby. It was not a story he shared often, and certainly not with a woman he had known for such a short amount of time. He told himself that it was because of the alcohol or because she would soon be family, but that wasn’t the reason. He had wanted to tell her. For her to understand one of the most significant events of his life.

  And he didn’t know why.

  As if she could intuit his very thoughts, she announced, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Yes, I can smell your thinking from here.”

  She tried to smack him on the chest but missed. “I think. Very deep, serious thoughts. Like I don’t think it’s fair that you called her by her first name, and you won’t call me Emma. Not even once.”

  They had reached her bedroom door. The intelligent thing to do would be to bid her good night and leave. She let go of him, and he found himself feeling the loss. She leaned against her door, looking up at him through her lashes.

  “Emma,” he said, the word low and sounding more like a caress than he had intended it to. A bewitching smile lit up all her features, and she let out a satisfied sigh.

  “Finally,” she breathed. Then she did something totally unexpected. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. He immediately put his hands on her forearms, intending to pull them off, but found he lacked both the strength and the desire to follow through. “You know,” she went on, “sometimes I can’t tell whether you want to strangle me or kiss me.”

  He took a step closer to her as she pulled him in. “I have no wish to strangle you.” His words were husky even to his own ears.

  In that moment, she became his entire world. He forgot that they stood in the darkened hallway of his home where anyone could come across them. Forgot about his brother and forgot about his scheme. He let his hands again slide around her waist, feeling the feminine warmth of her even through layers of clothes. Her scent whispered and flirted with his senses, driving them mad.

  “There was another thing I was thinking,” she said in a breathy tone that made his skin feel too tight for his body. “I was thinking it might be nice to kiss you.”

  And despite the fact that they were positioned perfectly to do exactly that, he said, “Kiss me?” as if it surprised him.

  “You do have that here, right? Kissing?”

  “We have kissing,” he murmured, lifting one hand to trace the outline of her delicate ear. He felt her shiver against his fingers, and he found it hard to remember how to breathe properly. “But we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Yes, why not? his body demanded. There were many reasons why not. He just lacked the ability to recall any of them as she pressed herself against him, all curves and softness that would be his undoing. “You’re foxed,” was all he could manage.

  “Does that mean drunk? I am not as think as you drunk I am,” she insisted.

  “Yes, obviously.”

  She didn’t see the humor, and in that moment, neither did he. If he had not seriously considered kissing her before, he certainly was now. He reached up to capture an escaped tendril of her hair, luxuriating in the discovery that it was as silky as he had hoped it would be.

  “If you’re worried about whether or not I know what I’m doing, I’ve kissed lots of boys before.” She breathed the words against his neck, and shivers of pleasure danced across his skin.

  “I am no boy.”

  Then she ever so softly, ever so sweetly, ever so gently, pressed her lips against his. He was too shocked for a moment to do anything, and she quickly retreated. “Mmm. That was nice.”

  “Nice” had been her favorite word for the evening. Nice was an apt word. It had been nice. Comforting, almost. Like sitting in his favorite armchair on a cold night next to a fireplace.

  This was the moment to take his leave. To walk away and regain control of himself. But then she kissed him again, pressing her delectable lips against his, and he couldn’t help but respond. No man could have withstood such temptation. He heard her breathing catch when he put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her to him, crushing her mouth against his. Her lips were full, delicious, and supple. She tasted of port and, oddly enough, mint. He found that he liked the taste. Craved it. Wanted more.

  It stopped being merely nice.

  She strained against him, holding him tightly, making a sound in her throat that set his blood ablaze. His heart thundered as unleashed lightning shot through him, singeing every part of his being. Then the heat sank into his bones, and he had to place one hand against the doorframe to keep himself vertical. She fit perfectly against him, as if she had been born for that very purpose. Heat and desire coursed through him, accompanied by an intense wanting that threatened to consume his eternal soul.

  Emma had not been mistaken. She did indeed know what she was doing, and it drove him to distraction. Especially when she ran her fingers along his scalp, sending little tingles of ecstasy shooting down his veins. Her fingers moved to the nape of his neck, kneading the skin there, turning his knees hollow. A dizzying hunger unfurled in his gut, urging him on, insisting he take more.

  And everything he wordlessly asked for, she gave.

  The kiss itself became fire, seemingly harmless when it had been small and contained, but now it raged with the potential to burn down the house around him if he set it loose. And that was what he wanted. To lose control. To let it all burn. The muscles in his abdomen clenched and unclenched as she moaned his name against his mouth, the sound echoing in his chest. Trails of wildfire were unleashed as she ran her fingers down his neck, over his shoulders, and down his torso. P
ure, unadulterated desire exploded inside him, overwhelming him.

  His lungs constricted as breathing became nearly impossible. He wanted nothing more than to open her bedroom door and do what his body was screaming for. It would be so easy to do, and the images that flooded his mind made it the only thing in the world he wanted to do.

  But he could not. He would not. Never in his life had he taken advantage of a drunken woman or an untouched maiden, and he was certainly not going to start now. It wasn’t proper. Or right. Taking her to bed went against his own moral code of conduct, not to mention society’s. He had no intention of ruining her.

  There would be no harm done if he stopped. The kiss had been innocent, even if his reaction to it had not been. So, reluctantly, he released her, breaking off their intoxicating embrace. She slumped against the bedroom door. He had kissed other young, unmarried women at balls and parties, and it had been meaningless. Only a bit of fun. This was the same.

  Not even he believed that lie. He stepped back, willing his limbs to stop shaking. Her lips were full and swollen, slightly parted. Several hair pins had fallen. Her breathing was ragged, still excited. She looked as if she had been thoroughly and soundly kissed, and it took every ounce of his self-control to not return to her.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I should not have kissed you.”

  “In case you missed it, it was me who kissed you. And I think I did a pretty good job of it.”

  She certainly had. Without question. “I am not quite myself. I do not enjoy drinking as much as most men do. When I was fourteen, James and I broke into our father’s liquor cabinet and made ourselves sick. I do it when occasion calls for it, but I prefer to stay away from it.”

  Emma understood his meaning, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “So you did only drink that much to make some stupid point?”

  He nodded, agreeing with her assessment. “Which I should not have done, and I apologize. We were both impaired this evening, and that kiss should not have happened. It cannot happen again.”