Outshine (House of Oak Book 5)

by Nichole Van

  She quickened her steps to catch up.

  “I did make a list,” she offered as she drew alongside him again. “A list of things I wanted to do. After our conversation in London, I realized that I could demand more from my life.”

  He nodded, shooting her a sideways glance. “What are the items on your list?”

  She clasped her hands in front of her. “They were silly things, like buying shoes for family members and repairing Faith’s cottage.”

  “But if your family doesn’t know your whereabouts, then you haven’t sent them money for those items.”

  “Correct. I was hoping your solicitor could help and perhaps send some money anonymously.”

  “Of course. That can be easily arranged.” He switched at some grass with his walking stick. “Giving to others is admirable, but please tell me there was something on your list for yourself?”

  “A few things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Simple things. Taste a pineapple, own a Kashmir shawl, receive a gift, dance at a ball . . .”

  “You have never received a gift?” His eyes flared wide.

  “You mustn’t be so horrified,” she smiled. “Gifts were not part of my father’s religious beliefs, even if there had been the money for them. I cannot miss what I have never known.”

  “A gift.” He snorted, a gentle puff of a laugh. “Trust you, Foster Lovejoy, to have such manageable dreams.”

  He came to a full stop and bowed, low and proper.

  “Along with that, would you do me the honor of saving me the first waltz at the harvest ball next week?”

  “Gracious! N-no, my lo—Daniel.” Fossi blinked and then flushed a vividly painful red. “I did not say that to prompt you to ask me—”

  “It would be my honor to dance with you, Foster Lovejoy.” He smiled a smile that said he found her flustered response delightful.

  She bit the inside of her cheek. “I cannot accept, Daniel. I feel ashamed.”

  “Nonsense. It is settled.” He gave a gentle laugh and motioned them along, ignoring her spluttering. “But I’m not going to let you off so easily. Aside from a dance with myself—”

  “My lord.” Surely her cheeks would ignite the surrounding grass.

  “—deep in your soul, what do you want?”

  She barely stopped the honest answer from escaping.

  You.

  She wanted him. The fierce heart that wept over his son’s little treasures. His intelligent insights. His gentle humor. The warmth of his smile.

  As impossible as walking on the moon, those things.

  So she went with, “I simply want what others have.”

  Vague. A non-answer really.

  “Like marriage?” He persisted.

  Yes. Exactly like marriage. A best friend. Someone to love, to serve . . . to cherish and be cherished in return.

  Silence hung between them, a damning answer in its own right.

  She dodged a direct reply.

  “As I hinted earlier, sometimes dreams are impossible,” she finally said. “So why waste energy wishing for impossibilities?”

  He deflated a little. As if her dreams were . . . disappointing.

  Which she allowed, in the harsh light of day, they were. Pathetic, dreary things.

  So she said the next thing that popped into her head.

  “Marriage might be beyond my grasp but”—she paused—“I would like . . . a witness. A witness for my life.”

  “Ah.” Such a deep sound. Profound.

  Of course, he understood exactly what she meant. They were two halves of a whole, after all.

  A witness. Someone to walk beside her through life. To say, I see you. I understand you. I want to experience life with you.

  It was a painful acknowledgment. Because life did not always grant one’s greatest desires.

  It was what made life poignant—that distance between one’s current position and where one wished to be. Measured in dreams lost and reality accepted.

  Daniel, she was sure, understood this better than most.

  “What of you?” she asked. “What is your heart’s desire?”

  He swung his walking stick again, switching the tops off errant strands of wheat. “That is simple.”

  He fixed her with bleak eyes that blazed with almost unholy determination.

  Voice fierce. “I want Simon back.”

  Chapter 17

  The ferocity of his statement surprised even Daniel.

  “I want Simon back,” he repeated.

  Fossi radiated pity.

  “I would give just about anything to see my mother again.” She placed a gentle hand on his arm. “Even one day with her.”

  Daniel nodded but didn’t clarify the sincerity of his statement.

  “You encouraged me to state more than impossible dreams, so I am now going to press you,” she said, shooting him a faint smile. “What is your heart’s desire?”

  He had stated his truth.

  He wanted Simon back.

  Literally.

  Completely.

  He had made a mistake. A terrible, anachronistic mistake that set in motion a series of catastrophic events.

  He had visited Kit for an afternoon in the twenty-first century and, on a whim, had returned home to Whitmoor House with a small bag of hard candy for Simon to experience.

  Just a little taste of Daniel’s own upbringing.

  But Daniel had forgotten about his own father’s allergic sensitivity to synthetic red food dyes. Simon had eaten half the bag one day without a problem. It was only the next day when he ate the rest . . .

  Simon went into anaphylactic shock almost instantly, suffocating within precious minutes.

  Fossi would restore the portal. Daniel would use it to prevent Simon’s premature death.

  That was the only answer to their current problem.

  “I want a son.” He gave her a partial truth.

  He wanted Simon.

  Simon was his heir. His future.

  Daniel truly was his own eighth great-grandfather. As such, he needed to have a son and he had one . . . in Simon.

  When Daniel had introduced the twenty-first century candy which caused Simon’s untimely death, he had unleashed a series of catastrophic events, perhaps even the earthquake itself.

  Daniel had to right this wrong.

  Simon’s death was an aberration that had to be corrected.

  Guilt reared its head again . . . whispering that Fossi was a complication and distraction. That his affection for her threatened his goal.

  No. Daniel would not deviate from his path. He loved his boy too much.

  “So you will remarry?”

  No. “Eventually. Perhaps.”

  She angled her head, as if his answer didn’t make much sense.

  Which, from her point of view, it obviously didn’t.

  He was deflecting.

  Marriage to Alice had been . . . difficult. Daniel was not eager to embrace the institution again. Besides, once he returned to the past and restored Simon, he would have no need of a wife.

  Based on his understanding of the space/time continuum and Einstein’s predictions regarding time travel, this current timeline was an aberration.

  Daniel had disrupted the timeline when he inadvertently caused Simon’s early death. This, in turn, had led to things happening that never should have—namely, the earthquake.

  Daniel’s father—the seventh Lord Whitmoor—had been a history professor at the University of Gloucester. The man had extensive knowledge of the area and its history.

  Nowhere had Daniel ever heard or read about an 1820s-era earthquake.

  Certainly earthquakes did happen on occasion—there had been a similar one in the area in 1990, for example—but Daniel was convinced the earthquake of 1826 was a deviation. Something that should never have occurred. An outward manifestation of the cosmic chaos Simon’s death had caused.

  Simon’s death had thrown them on to an incorrect timel
ine. A world where an earthquake in Hereford did occur, breaking the portal, causing Jasmine to fall ill . . . and who knew how many other incorrect things.

  Surely Fossi isn’t one of those incorrect things, his conscience whispered.

  He shook off the thought. No distractions.

  The error of Simon’s death had to be fixed. Daniel would return to the past and ensure that Simon never touched those damn modern candies. Everything would continue on as it should have from that point.

  Simon would live.

  The earthquake would never happen.

  Jasmine would never become ill.

  Daniel and Fossi would never meet—

  He shook away the jarring pang that accompanied the thought.

  But Fossi . . .

  She should marry.

  A witness for my life.

  That is what she had said. Not marriage. Not a partnership. Nothing so grand for Foster Lovejoy.

  She deemed those things . . . impossibilities.

  Simply a witness. Someone to testify that you had come and gone. An observer of the trace of your life.

  Daniel’s throat tightened for about the twentieth time that day. He hated the thought of Fossi settling for merely a witness to her life.

  He dreamed too big.

  She dreamed far too small.

  She deserved grand dreams. Enormous dreams. Dreams so large they overwhelmed.

  But he couldn’t say that to her.

  And, worse, would he be the source of her not achieving even the modest dreams she did have, returning her to life in 1826?

  The thought . . . hurt. He mentally shied from it, shoving it away.

  “Tell me how your research goes,” he said, effectively changing the subject. Moving them firmly back into employer and employee.

  “Yes!” Her face lit in excitement. “I did have a remarkable insight just yesterday. I overheard Mrs. Evans-Clark asking the footman to stop clinking the silverware as they polished it for the ball. But the tonality of the sound gave me another insight into the tuning forks. I may have landed on a way to meld the two theorems using frequency heights.”

  She chattered on, outlining her ideas.

  It was a brilliant observation. She was brilliant.

  She burned so bright. So captivating. Part of him retreated in fear. Worried that she would bewitch him into giving up his goal.

  He intended to right the mistakes of his own past and forge a different future. A future where they would never meet.

  Where Foster Lovejoy would not be a part of his life.

  And he had to accept that.

  The next few days flew by in a flurry of activity. Footmen hung bows of wheat sheaves and maids polished every surface. The kitchen was a hum of activity.

  Daniel left Fossi to her sums as he worked with his housekeeper and steward to coordinate the festivities.

  Which meant it wasn’t until the afternoon before the ball that he found time to visit Simon’s room again.

  Daylight drifted through the windows, casting the room in long shadows and highlighting the dust hanging in the air. It was a cheery space, abounding in energy and hope.

  Which somehow made its silence all the more terrible.

  The rocking horse in the corner stood motionless. The blocks and toy soldiers were stacked in precise formation on shelves. School books rested on the child-size desk. The bed drapes were neatly pressed and stretched tight.

  A heaven waiting to be restored.

  Shutting the door, Daniel opened the windows and set to dusting the space.

  Nothing could be amiss.

  He worked for an hour or so and then finally just sat at the tiny desk chair and stared over the landscape. Too many emotions chased him. Too many memories.

  Simon racing with his dog across the lawn.

  Simon tumbling with laughter into Daniel’s arms.

  Simon snuggled against his chest, fast asleep.

  Ah, Simon. My bright, beautiful boy.

  That ever-present guilt reared its ugly head, choking, suffocating.

  He had to fix his mistake. Find redemption and absolution.

  The snick of the door opening only registered once Jasmine perched next to him on the desk. She glanced around the room.

  “Simon always loved this space.” Her voice was tentative, uncertain of her welcome.

  Wise woman.

  “He did.” No. “He does. He loves his room.”

  Jasmine did not miss his change in verb tense.

  She sighed.

  “Daniel . . .” So weary.

  “No, Jasmine. I don’t want to argue with you—”

  “I am the portal’s Keeper.” She placed a caring hand on his shoulder. “I see this situation in ways you cannot.”

  “You’re wrong. I am central to this problem. I caused it. It is mine to solve. This is my son we are talking about. My heir. My future in every possible way, both literal and figurative.”

  “I know. We all loved Simon and miss him but—”

  “Imagine if this were Charles or James. You would be singing a different tune.”

  “No. I wouldn’t.” Her blue eyes sparked. “I have imagined it being one of my children, and I can absolutely empathize with losing a child. But you assume too much—”

  “Jasmine—”

  “Enough, Daniel.” She sliced a hand through the air. “I’m only going to say this one last time. I am nearly certain that the portal—and, by extension, the universe itself—will not allow you to do this. Sometimes, we just have to accept that accidents happen.”

  Daniel shook his head. Guilt pounded. There was no forgiveness for this sin.

  “The portal is broken, Jas” he said. “So until it’s fixed, how can you say that with any certainty?”

  A beat.

  “You’re not accounting for one critical fact: I am a unique member of the cosmic ocean.” Daniel pressed his case, angling his body toward her. “I am my own great-whatever grandfather. I form a sort of pivotal loop. I was born in the twentieth century. If I am to be my own grandfather then, then I must have a child here. Simon was that child and his death broke the loop, throwing us onto a different timeline and causing new events with disastrous consequences. To fix everything, I must restore Simon as my heir—”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Are you certain the heir was Simon?”

  Daniel paused. He wasn’t certain, but any other explanation meant giving up Simon. And that was simply unacceptable.

  “You don’t know who your heir is, Daniel,” Jasmine continued. “It’s a mystery. The universe has never allowed us to see it. Something always happens to interfere when we’ve tried to look. Which, I might add, is evidence for my case. You’re only thirty-seven. That’s plenty of time to have a dozen more children.”

  Daniel lurched to his feet, the walls of the room closing in on him. Blame and regret crushed his lungs with brutal force. He paced to the window and then braced his hands on either side of the open window frame.

  He shook his head. Left. Right. “No.”

  “Daniel, please. Think about this rationally. It is a paradox of such magnitude . . .” Jasmine sighed. “So let’s play this forward.”

  “Jas, we have already been over this—”

  “I know but humor me. You fix the portal and it what? Sends you back two years? You know how fickle it can be. The portal might send you back a millennium or forward three months—”

  “True, but you are its Keeper and it tends to listen to you when you prompt it to go somewhere.”

  Another pause.

  “Fine. I will grant you that,” she shrugged, “but the portal is still more of a cat than a dog. It’s not eager to do my bidding, per se. It will do something I ask if it feels it’s important or in everyone’s best interest.”

  “Exactly.” He turned around, lacing his fingers through his hair. “As I’ve repeatedly said, I introduced the modern candies which killed Simon. H
is death was a cosmic aberration which launched a series of new events, like the earthquake which caused the portal to stop working—”

  “It’s still your assumption that the earthquake is an aberration.”

  “Jasmine, as I’ve said, I don’t remember any modern mention of it. And given my father’s studies, I would have known—”

  “That’s thin circumstantial evidence at best. Not proof.”

  She held up a staying hand.

  “So returning to my point,” she continued. “Let’s say you’re correct. Fossi fixes the portal, you travel back two years and save Simon’s life. Then what? You still exist in 1826, which means that there will be two of you, which is an enormous contradiction—”

  “I don’t think it will go like that, Jasmine. Again, we’ve talked about this.” He shook his head and turned to look out the window again. “I’ve spent absurd amounts of time mentally reviewing what I know of Einstein’s theories of Time. Time doesn’t like paradoxes. Therefore, when I return to the past, my two selves will resolve. Once I correct the mistake of Simon’s death, the ocean of Time will settle down and oscillate in harmony again. My two selves will merge into one and our current history will cease to exist. Time will revert to what it should have been.”

  “Are you willing to take the risk?” she asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “If things go down as you seem think they will, none of us will remember that this timeline ever existed. That could include you, as well.”

  Silence.

  “It is entirely likely you will forget Fossi.” Jasmine connected the dots for him. “I would not go forward assuming that you will remember her enough to track her down. You might gain Simon only to lose Fossi.”

  More silence.

  Typically Jasmine. She had already understood the depth of his attachment to Fossi.

  But . . .

  That was the deal, wasn’t it?

  When he corrected his mistake, this slice of history would cease to exist. The world would turn back to November 1826.

  Fossi would forget that she had ever met him. He would revert to being a stranger. He alone would retain the memory of this time.

  And, perhaps, not even him. Who knew what would happen when Time realigned itself? If this offshoot of time were truly erased as if it had never existed . . .