Flirting with Forever

by Gwyn Cready

  His shoulders hitched, and he lowered his head. Cam returned the cup to the saucer, hand shaking, and the tinkle of china was like the blast of a trumpet in the silent studio.

  He brought both hands to his mouth, cupping them as if to catch the outpouring of sorrow. But he could neither catch nor stop it.

  “—and he would bring our baby into the world and leave Ursula…”

  “Oh, Peter, it’s all right.”

  “I held her, until the end, until her hand relaxed and her eyes lost their fear, but I couldn’t watch that. I couldn’t. I told him I didn’t care about the child, that he should save her, but he said he couldn’t. He could only save the child, and only if he were very, very lucky.”

  Cam thought of her brother and how he’d had to tell the story over and over, and how the words had become a potion for him, a way to organize something that couldn’t be organized.

  “The swaddled child—my son—was placed in my arms a quarter hour later.” Peter wiped the wetness from his cheeks. “I-I wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t. He was beautiful. He was her. But he was so small.”

  And he was named for his father, she thought, for that was what the author’s research had uncovered in the records of the Covent Garden church called St. Paul’s. Nell had said “Old Pauly” had taken Ursula. Cam assumed “Old Pauly” was a man, but it was the church where Ursula had been buried.

  Cam knew where the story would lead, but she also knew Peter needed to tell it.

  “We did everything. Nursemaids, salves, whatever bolus the doctor could get down his tiny throat. But nothing could save him.” Peter made a long, low howl, like a wolf. “Ursula,” he said, “was buried on Tuesday and my son, on Saturday. Side by side, forever. And neither have a name to be buried under because I never thought to marry her.”

  His head dropped into his hand, and Cam slid onto the couch next to him, putting her arms around him.

  “Oh, Peter. They didn’t need your name. They had you.” She knew the churches then had very strict rules about burial. It was entirely possible an unmarried woman and her son would be granted nothing more than their Christian names on the headstones. They were probably lucky to have been buried in consecrated ground at all.

  “Campbell,” he said, his voice choked with tears, “I have robbed them of the one thing that even the poorest honorable man can give.”

  “Listen to me. That didn’t matter to Ursula. All that mattered to her was that you were there, holding her hand, helping her to the other side. Do you think something as trivial as a name can make a difference to a woman who knows she’s loved and protected?”

  After a long moment he steadied himself. She let her arm slide down his shoulder and locked her hand into his. He clutched it as if it were a life preserver.

  “I lived eight more years, more dead than alive, and I thought dying would free me, but it didn’t. By the time death arrived, it was too late. Ursula had been reborn into her new life and so had my son.” He caught himself and looked at Cam. “Forgive me. You do not know of what I speak, do you?”

  “I know. Mertons came to me. He told me about the Afterlife. Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry.”

  “And I too. I’ve spent a decade sorry. I don’t know what it has won me, though.”

  She didn’t reply, just held his hand.

  There was something wonderful about the warm ease with which their palms rested together. She gazed at the patternless swirl of bristle across his cheek and the way his earlobe seemed to glide off his jawline like a wing off Mercury’s foot, but nothing made her happier than the soft, dry pillow of flesh on which her hand rested.

  He lifted her hand and brought it to his mouth. The kiss was neither intrusive nor leading, but Cam felt the breath pressed out of her as if by a cinch around her waist.

  “Thank you for listening,” he said. “I’ve never been able to tell it before. Never wanted to.”

  “Of course.”

  She could feel his breath on her skin, feel the pulse in his fingers.

  “I did a terrible thing,” he said, “exposing you in those paintings.”

  “I did the exposing, and I have a sense that the world was rebalancing things. You can’t decide you’ll tear the covering off other people’s lives without expecting a little defrocking yourself. You know, if I’m so enamored of Jake Ryan, I might try modeling a little Samantha Baker behavior myself.”

  “Jake Ryan? Samantha Baker?”

  “Oh, it’s an old movie. Do you know movies?”

  “‘This could be the start of a beautiful friendship,’ aye?” When he saw the look of surprise on her face, he added, “Mertons said it once. I made him explain. From what I could understand, movies are stories told in the form of pictures that move. It sounds interesting, especially this Casablanca story, which he went into in some very great detail. Why did Ilsa leave Rick, by the way? Mertons prides himself on being a romantic, but it was very hard to get the nuance from him.”

  “Hell if I know. Conventional wisdom is she loved Victor Laszlo, and Rick knew it.”

  Peter nodded. “And Jake?”

  “Oh.” She chuckled. “Jake. Jake Ryan is the boyfriend every girl dreams about. He’s beautiful and wise and popular and rich, and Samantha is turning sixteen and kind of a nerd—” In response to Peter’s raised brow, Cam added, “Smart but not standardly beautiful.”

  His eyes flickered across Cam’s face. “I see.”

  “Samantha is turning sixteen, but because her self-centered older sister is getting married, no one remembers—no one, that is, except Jake, who recognizes her for the worthy woman she is, and the movie ends with them sitting on a table with a cake with sixteen flaming candles between them, and Samantha blows them out and they kiss. It’s totally romantic.”

  “Jake, is it?”

  “Yes, Jake. And the really amazing part is the actor who played Jake pretty much disappeared after that movie. Oh, he did a few more—you’d have to understand that being an actor in a movie is considered a really great job, like one of the best in the world—but he decided he didn’t want to be an actor anymore, and he gave up all the pinnings of success in order to just live a quiet life with his family.”

  “It sounds quite wonderful, to be truthful.”

  For a long moment, Peter was silent, and Cam gazed around the small apartment he occupied. He had already made the space his own. At the front, near the windows overlooking Washington Road, he’d placed his paints and easel. The couch on which they sat was a wide, rich brocade, the likes of which she had not seen outside of Versailles or Architectural Digest, and beside it stood a gleaming mahogany secretary that reached nearly to the ceiling. On the shelves over the secretary’s intricate warren of cubbies were art books covering topics ranging from Romanticism to Cubism to Op Art. An armchair education, she thought. Then she saw the lone silver hairpin in a low black bowl.

  He caught the direction of her gaze and flushed.

  “’Tis yours,” he admitted.

  “It is?”

  “I-I have carried it with me since that day.”

  She felt her heart skip a beat. It was a stirring tribute, one that she did not take lightly. She didn’t know what to say.

  “I didn’t tell Mertons,” he said. “It seemed the least of my transgressions.”

  “Where is Mertons?” she asked.

  Peter’s thumb, which had been gently brushing her knuckle, stopped.

  “Mertons is where I need to be,” he answered carefully.

  Cam hadn’t forgotten what Mertons had said to her—that the Peter here was not the Peter of 1673. The Peter here was a man from the Afterlife who’d been broken by sadness and now awaited release in the form of a new life in which he could forget all that he had lost. “What do you mean?” she said.

  “I mean I shouldn’t be here. Apart from the foolish pride
that informed this misadventure, my being here is, as Mertons has advised, something akin to yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. My actions here, in a time that is not my own, will play Old Harry with variables I can’t begin to understand.”

  “So what?” Her belligerence surprised her. She didn’t want him to leave.

  “Like a cursed billiard ball, I may force people into directions they shouldn’t be moved. I may force you down a road you should not travel. I’ve already hurt you in a way I couldn’t have foreseen.”

  “I am entirely capable of making my own bad decisions. Believe me. I don’t need you shouldering any of the responsibility for them.”

  He laughed, but she could see he was unmoved.

  “How long can you stay?” The petulance in her voice made her sound like a child.

  “In truth, not as long as I wish.”

  Their eyes met and he reached for her. The kiss was hungry and sorrowful and told her everything she already knew.

  “How long?” she whispered. “How long?”

  “Cam, I cannot—”

  “I’m leaving the museum.”

  “What?”

  “I may have to anyway. You probably don’t know this, but I’m in line for the directorship. If I don’t get it, I’ll leave.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  “You don’t know my competition. Oh, wait, you do.” She met his eyes. “Anastasia.”

  His brow lifted. “She mentioned our meeting?”

  His deliberately vague reply made her uneasy. “Yes. She’s the other candidate.”

  “She’s also your sister.”

  “She has excellent credentials.”

  “Credentials cannot replace rectitude. She is unkind to you. The electors will see that.”

  Cam flushed at his protectiveness, and he gazed at her, unblinking.

  “Unfortunately my extracurricular activities aren’t exactly what the electors are looking for—especially the hundred and sixteen acres of canvas activity about to break on Monday—” She caught herself. He felt bad enough about the paintings, and the fault had been hers.

  “Nonsense,” he said. “Do you think my portrait of the Duchess of Portsmouth made her any less a dynast of society? Do you think the nude of Nell diminished her influence? Self-confidence breeds power, Cam. Frank, unapologetic self-confidence is the ultimate currency.”

  “Really?”

  “The electors’ concerns are beneath you. Show courage in the face of judgment and you’ll have them in the palm of your hand.”

  His eyes shone with the same sort of undemanding admiration they’d had when he was painting her. Her spine straightened. He was right. What the museum needed was a leader. Leaders rise above distractions. Leaders make things happen.

  “Well, I still have that Van Dyck acquisition coming in, you know. Two-point-one million.”

  “There. You see? Though for the record I must add that two million dollars for a Van Dyck is beyond my understanding.” He shook his head in mock disdain. “So, ’tis settled, aye? You will stay and fight.” And when Cam threw her chin up then down, he added, “In any case, what would you have done if you’d left?”

  Had she really thought she would go with Jacket? To London? Away from the town she loved so much? But clearly she had, for why else would she be so sure that leaving was the right thing to do?

  Peter saw the calculation in her eyes and must have guessed the reason for it as well.

  “What is Jacket to you?” he asked softly. A muscle in his jaw flexed.

  “He’s nothing.”

  “Cam.”

  He lifted her chin, and she hooded her eyes, unwilling to let him see. He brushed the top of her sweater and she flushed. The necklace was gone. She had moved the ring to her finger.

  For an instant Peter swayed, but he found his composure.

  “He’s a good man, aye? I need to know that much, at least.”

  “He asked me to marry him,” she said.

  “There is a certain inarguable goodness in that, I suppose,” Peter said, smiling, though the smile died away when he added, “And you will?”

  “No,” she said. “I want you.”

  “I am not to be had,” he said sadly. “I must return. I have pleased myself here far too long.”

  “Stay.”

  “Oh, my dearest.”

  She brought her mouth to his. She could feel the sense of his body change from sorrow to desire.

  “Campbell,” he warned when they parted.

  She drew her fingers along his jaw and the sleek groove of his ear.

  He made a whimpering noise, which Cam heightened with a flick of her tongue. She wanted to chase the sadness from his heart like a wildfire clearing fields, and she’d use every tool at her command.

  She brought herself against him, feeling the long bones of his legs and girded steel of his hips, and pressed herself closer.

  He stood to free himself. She followed, and he ensnared her in his arms.

  “Stop,” he begged.

  She leaned back, and he buried himself in the expanse of her collarbone. With the barest twist, she brought the fullness of her bosom to his lips.

  He shifted his arm, unbalancing her, and took the jutting peak of cashmere between his teeth. He pulled the nub of flesh slowly, to the furthest reach of pleasure, then let go.

  “I want you,” she whispered.

  “I want you in ways I should not.”

  Two more tugs, and she made a long, soft cry.

  He jerked her to her feet, caught the flap of her sweater, and pulled. The pearl buttons opened, except the last, which snapped its thread and skittered across the floor. His eyes glittered. The bra she had put on for Jacket’s sake had Peter’s full attention. See-through and made of lace the color of flushed skin, its cups were embroidered with seed pearls and the spark of crystal in a scant, twining vine that curved invitingly around her aureoles. The boning held her breasts as high as they had ever reached, and the narrow straps of matching silk that ran from her shoulders around the bottom of her breasts met in a tiny bow over the perilously fastened front clasp. Panties of a similar design stretched hip to hip. It was the sort of lingerie a woman wore for one purpose and one purpose only. For Cam, who’d faced the prospect of giving Jacket a long-overdue answer to his question, choosing such immodest garments had been a matter of hoping the semblance of enthusiasm would inspire the substance.

  But now, with Peter, they were the most fitting complement to her feelings.

  He gazed at her, awestruck. His heart beat in the hollow of his throat. He opened his hand as if to ask her permission. She nodded, and his fingertips came to rest on her stomach. Shell-shocked, he stepped around her to take in the view.

  “What is this?” he asked in a choked whisper.

  “A bra.”

  “Such fearlessness,” he marveled as he paced. “Such damn-it-all harlotry.”

  She lifted the fabric of her skirt, pooling it over her arm at her waist.

  “Holy Mother of God.”

  “Panties,” she said.

  Ruffles covered the back like a skirt—flutters of translucent fabric weighted by tiny swaying crystals at the hem.

  “I think,” he said, “I must sit down.”

  He sunk onto the arm of the couch, elbows on his knees, cupping his hands at his chin. He lifted his gaze to hers. The admiration shone strong, but the desire had been replaced by something more somber.

  “All of this,” he said, “for Jacket.”

  She couldn’t lie. She let the skirt drop. “It’s all I had to give him.”

  Peter took her hand and pressed it to his mouth. “I do not wish to let you go.”

  “You won’t.” She combed a hand through the dark waves of his hair. “We’ll hold each other forever.”
>
  “Campbell”—his voice lost its certainty—“I-I must go.”

  “No.”

  “Aye. I can stay for a bit, but not forever.”

  “How long is ‘a bit’?”

  “Weeks. A month. No more. Every day is riskier.”

  “No. Forever. Please.”

  “I don’t choose it, Campbell. My time here is over.”

  Her new happiness was slipping away. “Then I’ll come with you.” She slipped her hand under his jacket, looking for reassurance in the muscular warmth of his chest.

  His face turned gray. “You can’t come with me, either.”

  “Why, Peter? Why?”

  “The Guild won’t allow it. And in any case, the me you know will be placed in a new life, never to return to these old bones.”

  She struggled for air. “I-I’ll never see you again.”

  He shook his head sadly.

  “No. No! I’ll go to them. I’ll—”

  “No, Campbell, no. You’ll do exactly this. You’ll go home to Jacket. It would be best for all of us. You’ll wear his ring. You’ll take him to your bed, and you’ll help him learn to make you happy. That is the best gift you can give me.”

  “Is that what you want?” The blood began to ring in her ears.

  “Campbell, you know it’s true. His art is good, that much I can tell you truly, and you saw the goodness in him once. You’ll see it again. I’m the only obstacle.”

  “You have a damned high opinion of yourself.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “My heart is the obstacle,” she said. “I can’t love him. Not now.”

  “Campbell…”

  “I choose you, Peter. Now.”

  Before she could think, his arms were around her, clutching her tightly. The heady scent of his skin—soap and paint—filled her head.

  “This is so selfish,” he said into her hair. “God, forgive me.”

  “And me as well.”

  His grip grew so tight Cam felt her breath gather in her chest. It was as if he were trying to hold the seconds time was tearing from them.

  “We can’t stop them,” she whispered. “The moments will go. But we can master them. We can hold each in our arms until it surrenders itself to us.”