by Nichole Van
He had given up on sleep at precisely one fifty-one.
His talisman cog glittered in the low light, sitting in front of the clock. Reminding him of his exact place in the vastness of the universe. A gear. A small part of the whole.
If fixing the problem with Kinningsley wasn’t his purpose here, as Miss Fleury insisted, then what other options were there? To know everything he valued would be gone within a generation or two?
His hopes. His dreams. His very . . . life . . .
Everything for naught.
That was the message he was supposed to receive?
Your entire existence as a human being is moot, now be off with you.
As a message, it seemed cruel and . . . pointless.
Even worse . . . he had spent the last ninety minutes listening to the damn hum of that clock with its damn bright red numbers—
Chest-tightening, palms sweating, heart pounding . . .
Breathe. He could breathe through this.
Rule #19: A gentleman never loses his temper.
Control. He just needed to regain control.
And still the clock hummed.
That was the price of electricity, he was coming to quickly realize.
An almost constant noise.
The lights buzzed, the refrigerator vibrated, the clock hummed—
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Breathe in. Breathe out.
A glance. Three twenty-six. The gear glowing.
He was not insignificant. He mattered. His existence did have meaning—
He was going . . . going . . .
Something violent wrenched free.
Exploded through his chest.
Roaring.
Acting almost of its own accord, his hand reached out and yanked the clock off its table, tearing it free from its socket. And threw it with every ounce of power in his body against the opposite wall.
It made a satisfyingly loud crash as it disintegrated.
He wasn’t permitted a reprieve, however.
Seconds later, footsteps sounded in the hallway and his bedroom door was thrown open.
Bam!
Miss Fleury stood rimmed in light. The sconces in the hallway perfectly backlighting her slim form dressed in tight trousers and a tight shirt. The woman had no mercy.
Her head swiveled, surely taking in the broken clock.
Dimly, Timothy noted that he was sitting up in bed, lungs-heaving. Shirtless.
“Get out!” he shouted, twisting, looking for something to throw at her. “Just get the bloody hell out!”
Jasmine jumped back with a start, slamming the bedroom door shut.
Well.
Well, well, well.
That had certainly been . . . illustrative.
Muscles. Just lots and lots of . . .
She swallowed.
Were all lords built like that underneath their clothing? Because, if so, no wonder every romance heroine wanted to marry one.
The image of him sitting in that bed, bare-chested, hair rumpled, eyes fierce and snapping—
Yep. It was gonna linger. She wasn’t going to lie.
And as for the shout and crash which had woken her . . .
Looked like the stay in the Duchy of Denial had been brief indeed. Onward and upward to the Empire of Anger.
The Island of Acceptance couldn’t come soon enough.
Duir Cottage
March 23, 2015
Group text message. 12:09 P.M.
Jas: mayday mayday mayday
James: Didn’t we just celebrate the spring equinox, Jas? Mayday isn’t for another 5 weeks.
Emme: Are you planning the festivities already?
Jas: **face palm** international symbol of distress, people
Emme: ????
Jas: timothy linwood
I’m going to kill him
or he might kill me
it could go either way
James: You do realize that feeling is quite normal with Timothy, right?
Jas: the portal won’t let him through but he needs to go home
or at least move on to bargaining as soon as possible
Emme: Bargaining?
Jas: five stages of grief . . . denial anger bargaining depression acceptance
James: Wait? Someone died?
Jas: only his 19th century sense of self
he’s not coping well
there are bits of alarm clock all over his bedroom floor
James: Let me guess. Anger?
Jas: bingo
The kitchen
Duir Cottage
March 24, 2015
Jasmine stared as Timothy neatly lined up the salt and pepper shakers, labels facing toward him. Made a minute adjustment to his fork on its napkin. And then straightened the folded newspaper one more time, aligning it with the slats of the table.
For the fifty-second time.
She gave the eggs she was cooking a stir.
“I am only making you breakfast this one last time. You need to learn to take care of yourself.”
Silence.
She was such a bleeding heart to even be doing this much for him.
Someone needed to cut every mothering tendency from her body.
It was just . . .
She still had yet to brave the British highway system (again) to gather visual references for the King Arthur mural.
Cobra hadn’t come up with anything, though he claimed the police department in Florida was being cooperative. So she was no closer to finding her family.
And as for Rita . . . Jasmine should have anticipated her response to the china. Rita had texted earlier.
Thanks for the china. Breanne is excited.
A pause. And then—
But Breanne was wondering about the old pillowcases you had. Didn’t Great-Grandma Fleury embroider those?
Jasmine had let out a long-suffering sigh. She should have seen this coming. You give an inch . . .
Why was karma playing with her like this? She refused to respond to Rita. Let the woman stew for a little bit.
All in all, her life was stuck in neutral.
And now she had an angry diva of a viscount storming around the house . . . well, more like a cross between angry diva and ice princess.
Generally cold but prone to outbreaks of fiery prima-donna-esque temper.
Timothy nudged the salt shaker infinitesimally to the left. Body hyper-erect. Every inch of him immaculately clean and brushed and pressed.
Except for that chin growth.
Somehow, Jasmine hadn’t quite been able to find a razor for him yet. Oops.
Passive-aggressive, you say? Why, yes. Yes, she was.
How someone could be so arrogant and intimidating and yet so pathetic at the same time was beyond her.
And then there was the anger . . .
She dumped the eggs onto a plate and walked them over to him. Deliberately placing the plate lopsided and half on top of his fork.
He shot her The Look. Straightened the plate. Corrected the displaced fork. “As I have repeatedly told you, I prefer my eggs coddled.”
“And as I have repeatedly replied, I don’t do coddled.”
Neither eggs nor viscounts.
“That is patently obvious, madam.”
“You need to learn to take care of yourself—”
“I can take care of myself!” His eyes snapped. His chest heaved. “I have been taking care of myself and mine own for nearly my entire life, Miss Fleury.”
“Really? Because what I’m seeing here is a grown man who can barely dress himself, much less cook food.”
“My concerns are far greater than the mere cooking of a pair of damn eggs.”
“Sounds like an excuse to me.”
“I govern thousands, madam. People who rely upon me for their very life—”
“And where are these people?” She spread her arms, as if looking around. “Cause all I see here is an angry inconsiderate jerk who’s upset that he has to lift a fi
nger to provide for himself.”
“Thank heavens I do not seek your bloody damn approval—”
“And what’s up with all this swearing? You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
Man, if The Look could kill . . .
“Given that my mother was an opium addict who spent her days alternating between arguing with the Emperor of China and screaming at footmen to capture the flying snakes, we did not find much time to enjoy a cozy bloody damn relationship.” His chest heaved.
Uhmmmm . . . what?
Was he finally losing it entirely?
. . . my mother was an opium addict . . .
She knew from Marmi’s work as a counselor that the children of addicts usually lived in distorted realities. Either seeking out trouble, acting out, emotionally clingy.
Or the exact opposite. Cold, withdrawn, emotionally distant. Add in a generous helping of hyper-rigid societal structure and what was certainly a controlling, distant father . . .
Wow. The perfect recipe for a man like Timothy Linwood.
The blast of empathy shooting up her spine wasn’t quite welcome. Her mothering-self didn’t need any more reason to act out.
“Isn’t a gentleman supposed to refrain from swearing in the presence of a lady?”
“If by lady, you refer to yourself, I have serious doubts as to that. You could not even qualify as a servant in my household.” He flicked a dismissive hand over his breakfast.
Yep. He was still—
“And this, madam,”—he slid the eggs off the plate and onto the newspaper—“is what I think about your eggs!”
—an arrogant, inconsiderate jerk.
The great room
Duir Cottage
March 25, 2015
Timothy trudged downstairs, checked the portal, fetched the newspaper off the stoop, checked the portal, set the newspaper on the kitchen table, checked the portal, considered dismantling Miss Fleury’s bicycle to study its mechanics, checked the portal, successfully resisted the bicycle temptation (again) and then checked the portal once more.
Nothing.
Which then necessitated him standing in the kitchen doorway for a good three minutes, pinching the bridge of his nose as he breathed through another chest-pounding, lung-tightening attack of panic.
Once he felt generally sure he could open his eyes without screaming, he glanced around the great room. Leftover dishes, clothing, books . . . and everywhere those ridiculous pieces of paper with their equally ridiculous perky sayings. Stuck to the walls, the cabinets, the refrigerator.
Why did James hesitate to hire a maid? A gentleman could not live in such squalor.
Though a space had been cleaned on the counter. If pushing back cups and stacking bowls on top of older newspapers counted as ‘cleaned.’
A box with the word ‘Nutri-Grain’ on it stood in the cleared space. A note pasted to its surface, of course.
Here is your breakfast. Enjoy. JF
He stared at the paper, hand tapping. The woman was so—
Maddening? Infuriating? Homicide-inducing?
He lifted the note, tugging it free. There was some sort of mild glue on the back. He refused to find it interesting.
Miss Fleury had to have a supply of these somewhere. Glancing around the kitchen, he finally spotted what appeared to be a pad of the odd notes under a cup.
Excellent.
Jasmine strode into the kitchen two hours later, intent on a cup of tea and some biscuits. Through the open windows, she could see Timothy in the backyard pacing back and forth, hand in his hair, in full-on seething/brooding mode.
Good. Served him right for being such an egotistical, high-handed—
And then she saw the fridge.
Yep.
It was now official.
She was going to have to kill him.
A certain lordly someone had moved all of her sticky notes (the nerve!), neatly stacking them on top of each other in one corner. The rest of the fridge now sported what was basically a sticky note mural, each piece of paper containing a single swooping letter, all together creating the phrase:
Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
Arched in pretty calligraphy across the stainless steel surface.
She stood, hands on hips, foot bouncing up and down.
The man was so dead. Like sleep-with-the-fishes, never-find-the-body dead.
And then she realized every dish in the room also had a sticky note friend:
Clean me.
Help me.
I am drowning in filth.
The notes fluttered in the soft breeze flowing from the open windows. Mocking.
Yup. This was soooooooooo on.
The great room
Duir Cottage
March 28, 2015
She was doing it. Again.
That rhythmic noise which passed for twenty-first century music pounded through the house.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Was it too soon to check the portal again? Had something truly changed in the last five minutes?
Unlikely.
Timothy focused on the newspaper article in front of him.
But sensations kept snapping inside his chest. Pounding around his heart. Kicking against his sternum.
Newspaper. Read. Focus.
The article blabbered on about things called cholesterol and heart health. And yet not one word about balancing bodily humors. Which is what everyone knew to be the actual problem. Had doctors in 2015 forgotten centuries of prior medical learning?
Just as gentlemen of this age had forgotten about the code of honor which made up the bedrock of being a gentleman? Namely, engaging in trade . . .
Why present him with knowledge about Kinningsley and then not allow him to act?
He felt like a sea captain, chained to a cliff face, forced to watch his mighty ship sink. A thousand tools at the ready to save her but unable to do a damned thing about it.
How could Fate be so cruel?
And why was he swearing?
Rule #33: A gentleman should express his thoughts without needing to stoop to the language of a guttersnipe.
A particularly loud chord rattled the windows.
So many problems to ponder, if only he could Hear. Himself. THINK.
He threw down the newspaper and took the stairs in a manner someone else might have described as stomping.
But as a Linwood never stomped (Rule #143), that could hardly be the case.
Miss Fleury was in baby Arthur’s bedroom, back to the door, sketching figures on the long canvas. Music blaring from an apparatus set up in one corner. A chorus of male voices vibrating beneath his feet.
. . . you don’t know you’re beautiful . . .
She was bouncing her head and body around to the beat, swiveling hips clad in another impossibly short dress-ish . . . thing . . . with thick stockings underneath. Hair pulled up but in danger of falling down with each bop of her head.
So impossibly alluring and—
He swallowed.
The woman was a bloody menace to society. James should have her committed. Locked away.
A man should not have to look at her perfection day-after-day clad in such form-revealing clothing, and like the rest of his life, kept from doing anything about it—
“Miss Fleury!” he roared.
She paused. Turned around. Looked him up and down. Blue eyes snapping in challenge.
His face surely looked the same.
“I cannot speak to you with that infernal racket blaring!” A Linwood never shouted. And, yet, here he was—
“Exactly!” she yelled back. “That is entirely the point.” She nodded her head toward the music machine.
And then she did it.
She. Turned. Her. Back.
Dismissing him.
As if he didn’t matter. As if his existence were of no importance to her.
How dare she?!
Hands shaking, Timothy stalked over to the machine. He managed to corral hi
s first impulse, which was to throw the blasted thing out the window. Instead, he pulled its wire out of the wall.
The instant silence was deafeningly glorious.
However, if he had expected a reaction from Miss Fleury, she did not deign to give him one.
She merely glanced in his direction and then went back to sketching.
“I didn’t think you would take Zayn leaving the band so hard. I know I was pretty choked up this morning when I heard the news, but I didn’t say anything because, well, you were busy shouting, yet again, that I needed to find you a valet—”
“Miss Fleury.” He forced the words past his clenched teeth.
“—and you strike me as more a free-form jazz kinda guy anyway. Maybe some Philip Glass if you’re feeling wild and crazy.” She widened her eyes and wiggled her fingers as she spoke.
And then went back to sketching.
“Miss Fleury.” He forcibly told his jaw to relax.
“Not a One Direction fan, I take it?”
His eyes narrowed. Deep breath. One more try.
“Miss Fleury. I feel my requirements are few. Yet vital.” He ticked off his fingers. “Peace. Quiet. A valet. A cook. A maid. And, heaven forfend, people who speak coherent English.”
She raised her head at that. Cocked him a decidedly challenging eyebrow.
And then suddenly frowned, patting down her (absurdly short) dress and hair as if looking for something.
“Nope. Not here.” She looked into the pocket sewn into the front of her skirt. “Yeah. Looks like I’m fresh out of damns to give. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow.”
She shrugged, tossing her dark head. Causing the entire mass of her hair to tumble down her back and curl around her heart-shaped face. Fierce and defiant.
“I would also appreciate a decrease in sharp-tongued, insolent, scantily-dressed shrews.”
Her blue, blue, blue eyes widened at the insult. Pursed her soft, plump lips.
Folded her arms across her chest. Every line of her challenging him.
Had he ever seen a woman so magnificent?
For some reason, the thought stoked his anger higher.
He stalked toward her, intent on doing something, anything, to wipe that mutinous look off her face.