by Nichole Van
Why did he have to care about the responsibilities of his birth?
Why, why, why could he not find a solution to his situation?
His hand sought the gear in his pocket, wanting to crush it into dust.
The painting she had done of Kinningsley was prescient.
He was a cog in the ship Linwood, buffeted by storms on every side. In danger of sinking altogether. Taking all hands down with her.
And the only ray of light keeping him afloat right now was Jasmine.
The sunshine of his soul.
But he could not see a way to keep her.
All he could do was pray.
Please. Please don’t take my sunshine away.
Chapter 26
As soon as she entered the house, Jasmine thanked Marianne and then practically dashed up the stairs, down the hall and into her bedroom, throwing herself across the canopied bed.
Face down. Chest heaving. Hands over her head, as if she could undo the last hour.
Timothy’s face!
She had read his shock. His horror.
How could she ever have entertained the idea that she, Jasmine Fleury, could become a viscountess? That she could learn to navigate this century?
Forget having to memorize rules.
How about simply learning to keep thoughts firmly as thoughts?
Stupid. She was just so, so, so stupid.
Like stupid royalty. They should give her a crown. Let her ride the float in the parade with a Miss Stupid sash across her chest.
The entire afternoon had shown her exactly how delusional she had been. How much she had been holding onto hope.
She hated Hope sooooooo much.
Why did she always do this? Wish for an outcome that would never be. Wanting the knight in shining armor and the happily ever after ending.
But fairy tales would never be her lot. She would forever be the unwanted, unknown child in the background. The orphaned nobody without name or people. Never the princess claiming her chevalier.
How did Jasmine think this was going to end? With hugs all around and a rousing chorus of love triumphs all? Dizzy kisses in the rain after a romantic midnight proposal?
He had never been hers. He was never going to be hers. Too many lives were riding on his decisions right now.
She couldn’t see a path forward.
She pressed her face into her pillow, trying to quiet her gasping sobs. Her poor pillow had been doing that a lot over the past few days. The nineteenth century seemed made for weeping.
Nope. Not going to work.
It was going to be ugliest of ugly crying.
Wounded animal crying.
Which pretty much described how she felt.
How could she ever let Timothy go? But, seeing the enormous height of the barriers between them, was there a ladder tall enough to cross them?
Eventually, her tears subsided into sleep.
And that same dream.
Golden ribbons pulling her through fog and mist. Urgent.
Dragging her to the cottage, down to the portal, dancing in the design of her pendant.
“Come home.” The scent of lavender. “Come home.”
The tendrils pushed her toward the portal. She could feel the swirling energy, taste the metallic buzz of electricity.
She just needed to go home . . .
She woke with a start, blinking for a moment in her dark bedroom. Disoriented. The fire burned low in the grate, casting the room in shadows.
That dream . . . so vivid.
Come home.
Was this it, then? She knew Timothy felt as trapped as she did.
But, tellingly, he had not come after her today.
She heard Marianne and Arthur on the stairs, bidding Uncle Linwood goodnight. Ah. It was late. All the house guests were retiring.
Maybe . . . maybe it was time to have a more in-depth talk with Timothy. How did he see this situation playing out? He said he had a plan, but that had been days ago . . .
Waiting until all was quiet, Jasmine slipped from her room, still wearing the pale blue muslin gown she had on earlier. Determined to find Timothy.
She followed candlelight to his study. She pushed open the door to find him sitting behind his desk, head in his hands. She closed the door behind her.
He raised his head at the sound.
He was a mess. Untied. Cravat hanging limp around his neck. His shirt open at the collar. His waistcoat unbuttoned and askew. He had no coat on.
Entirely undone.
And in that instant, she knew.
The gutted look in his bloodshot eyes. The hopelessness. The emptiness of his soul.
There was no solution. No them.
Never to be.
She fisted her hands into her skirts.
“Will you not fight for me?” Always lead with your strongest material.
He closed his eyes. Knew exactly what she meant.
His voice so quiet when he did speak.
“I cannot find a way—”
“No. You’re doing it wrong. You jump straight to the heart of it. Be honest. Do you think to set me up as your mistress? Emme, Part Two?”
Now he flinched. Hard and sharp.
“That was beneath you.” He met her eyes.
He was right. It was beneath her.
But at least there was some fire in him now.
Good.
She wanted him mad. As hurt and hurting as she was.
“I have never once considered you as simply my paramour—”
“Then I ask you, again, will you fight for me? For us?”
“I c-cannot find a plan. I am trapped, Jasmine. Too many depend on me, too many lives are at stake—” His voice cracked.
“Then who am I to you?”
The question hung between them. His shoulders slumped.
He touched a finger to the neatly aligned papers in front of him, ensuring they weren’t a hair out of line.
That small gesture nearly breaking her heart.
“The woman I love”—voice breaking on a gasp—“the love I cannot have.”
It was her turn to flinch. Tears instantly stinging.
The love I cannot have.
She folded her arms across her chest, as if she could stop the words from reaching her heart.
He stood up from the desk, coming to her. Grasped her upper arms.
“But you must know, Jasmine Fleury, you are the woman I will always want.”
She refused to lift her head to his eyes, staring at his bare throat instead. “You don’t have to be noble like this, Timothy—”
“But I do. It is everything I have been raised to be. I cannot be the kind of man who allows others to suffer . . .”
No . . . selfishness had never been his way.
“Why?” She hiccupped the words. “Why must things be like this? Why must we impose a ridiculous rigid morality on this situation? Station? Honor? Those are things that will be obsolete within fifty years. A hundred years tops. The portal has drawn us together . . .”
He rested his forehead against hers, heavy breaths coming against her lips.
“It is hardly that simple, Jasmine. You are imposing your morality on me. This is my world. Like it or not”—he gulped—“the world right here, right now, cares about personal honor and status. Rigid social hierarchy. Unbending cultural rules. When those rules are broken, innocent people suffer. I probably will not be around to see the world fifty years from now, much less a hundred. This is my reality, and if I choose to live here, I need to abide by it.”
She raised her hands to his chest, feeling the heat of his body underneath her palms. The rapid beat of his heart.
Its frantic thump mimicking her own.
“Timothy.” Her voice an agony.
“Jasmine. Darling Jasmine.” A husky whisper of sound. He pulled her the last inch to him, tilting her neck with one hand.
Devouring her with his kiss.
A kiss that branded. Seared. Marked her
as forever his.
Her knees melted into the floor, but it did not matter. He held her weight easily with one hand around her waist.
She arched into him, clasping his face with her hands. Breaking away to scatter kisses on his cheeks, his dimples, his chin. Back to his mouth.
Soft. Hungry. Desperate.
Each touch of her lips telling him how right she was for him. How perfectly they fit together.
How much love she held back in her heart.
She did nothing to stop the tears hitting her cheeks.
“So that’s it then?” she finally whispered, pecking his lips. “Us. Done. Gone.”
Another harsh breath. “I have yet to find a path, Jasmine. Not without causing harm to my family and abandoning responsibilities that have been mine from birth. That is my reality.”
“What happens to me now? Do I just return home without you? Assuming the portal even allows it?”
“Darling . . . darling . . . you destroy me”—an agonized whisper—“At this moment, I am nothing more than a cog. A gear in the gigantic wheel of time. Nothing more. Whatever happens in the future will happen. But here and now, for the people who rely on me this year and the next and the next, I must play my part.”
A particularly violent sob escaped her mouth.
The portal had practically begged her to return with him.
Why? To break her heart anew? To show her how pointless optimism really was?
What else could be stripped from her? She had lost everything, everyone. Centuries away from friends. The only family who had ever loved her dead or vanished.
And Timothy . . .
To now lose him too . . .
And what was left.
Just herself.
The vast emptiness consumed her.
Come home.
She couldn’t stay here. She was causing too much trouble for Timothy. And, for herself, she couldn’t bear to watch him marry someone he didn’t love.
No. That she would not do.
His life was a shipwreck waiting to happen.
And she wasn’t strong enough to play witness to it.
Lord Linwood’s private study
Kinningsley
May 22, 1815
Jasmine was gone.
Timothy had known she would go. Had nobly all but told her to leave the night before.
Sacrificing everything for duty and honor.
But still . . . the sheer shock of it left him breathless.
The starkness of her note, scrawled in pencil on a sheet of her sketching paper, perched on his desk:
I cannot bear to watch you go through with this. Forgive me, my love. I care too much, and you know how impossible it is for me to keep my mouth closed. I would turn murderish and stabby, remember? If you are reading this, then the portal has allowed me to return. I sincerely wish you happiness in the path you have chosen. You, of anyone I have ever known, deserve to smile at life. Know that you will always hold my heart. I love you, now and forever. JF
He clenched and unclenched his fists, sucking in great gulps of air.
He could do this. He could fight his way free. Just as Sir Robert Linwood had at the Battle of Agincourt.
Somehow . . . someway . . .
The bitter irony of it. He stood in his study, facing Sir Robert’s armor and chain mail, perched proud and gleaming in the corner. Judging.
That forceful reminder of everything honor required.
He closed his eyes against the sight.
Took another ragged breath.
The air smelled of ash. Of devastation.
Jasmine. Gone.
Never to be seen again.
Never to hear her laughter. See her crazy smile. The taste of her lips.
Allow the blazing sunshine of her soul to burn away his darkness.
Even worse, what was she returning to? A broken family and unknown future?
How he had failed her . . .
Timothy glanced down at his desk. Everything on it neat. Precise.
Rule #104: Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
Order. Control.
He was so bloody damn tired of control. Of honor. Of responsibility—
Something snapped. The sound nearly audible.
His arm swept the desk. One strong slice and papers, inkwell, blotter, quills, ledgers . . . everything scattered.
Crashing to the floor.
The candelabra followed, hurled straight at the mirror over the fireplace mantle. Shattered glass exploded into the room, littering the floor.
If anyone heard the noise, they stayed wisely away.
Books were next. Ripped off their shelves, thrown into a corner. A vase of flowers fragmented against the fire irons.
Timothy grabbed a fire poker and turned toward Sir Robert Linwood’s armor, intent on reducing that damned symbol of honor to scrap metal.
But he froze before swinging, arm raised. Seeing himself reflected fifty different ways in the bits of mirror carpeting the floor.
Every angle the same.
Broken. Fractured. Feral. Snarling.
He was mangled metal.
Like that ship so very, very long ago. Blown to smithereens. Useless. Lifeless.
Everything rushing up and out.
But just as quickly, everything rushed inward. Sucked back into the vacuum of the explosion.
Imploding.
A sound broke through the room. Low and keening. Wounded.
His heart savaged his chest. The pain suffocating.
The poker slumped from his hands.
He stuffed a fist against his mouth, but it was like attempting to stop the ocean with his bare hands.
His knees buckled—he felt himself falling.
Falling, falling, falling.
Down to the floor, back up against the bookcase. Elbows on his knees, head hung between his shoulders. Hands pressing into either side of his head.
The gasping noise continued. Heaving. Choking.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
Arghhhhhhhhh. The agony threatened to consume him.
He reached for the cog in his pocket. That talisman which had always grounded him.
He clenched it in his fist, feeling it cut into his skin. Harder. Focusing on the pain.
It wasn’t enough.
Alone. He was just so utterly . . . alone.
He couldn’t breathe. No matter how hard his lungs worked, no matter how fast his heart beat, the air wouldn’t go in.
How could he go on—
His future stretched before him. So barren. So pointless.
Why? Whywhywhywhywhy should he live this life?
He was just so tired. So tired of fighting, of trying to be and do and say the perfect thing.
Tired of a mother who had retreated from him. Tired of a father who forced him into a narrow mold.
A life without . . . her.
Without his brilliant, vibrant, spunky, caring, buoyant Jasmine . . .
Was such a life even worth living?
He was crying. Sobs cut through him. Wrenching. Squeezing. Tearing.
That shocking moment of clarity.
Grinding . . . refining his soul to the hardest, purest core. Down to the few things that matter above all else.
Until there was only one left.
Jasmine.
She was it.
The one thing he refused to give up.
How long did the process take? An hour? Two?
All he knew was that he raised his head and the shadows in the room had changed. But, then, without Jasmine, nothing would ever look the same.
He wasn’t alone.
Someone had sat down beside him, resting a head on his shoulder. A warm hand on his arm.
He breathed in her soft scent. Knew it as well as his own beating heart.
Marianne.
She stirred, wrapping a free arm around his shoulders.
He turned his head toward her. Her eyes brimming pearls.
“She is gone.” Hi
s words a husky rasp.
There was no need to clarify who he meant.
Marianne brushed back his hair. “Oh, Timothy. You bear too much and let yourself”—gasp—“live too little.”
A pause. She traced the path of his tears with her thumb.
“There should be more happiness in your life.” She kissed him on the cheek, lips gentle. “I like her—your Miss Fleury. Surely there is a way for you to be together.”
Your Miss Fleury.
The pain twisted deeper. He swiped under both his eyes with his thumbs.
Marianne didn’t quite understand the situation.
“There is no easy way to say this, Marianne. It is something Arthur should have told you years ago. There is a time portal in the basement of Duir Cottage. Miss Fleury is not from our era. The chasm between us is insurmountably large.”
Marianne’s eyes went so very wide, but she didn’t look jaw-droppingly shocked. Timothy told her his tale from meeting Jasmine to seeing James and Emme to driving a car to their decision to return together.
All throughout, Marianne’s gaze remained surprised, but understanding.
When Timothy finished, she smiled at him. Soft and forlorn, but a smile nonetheless. “Well, that certainly explains everything. The goings on at Duir Cottage have always puzzled me. I am actually grateful for the explanation. It’s much more satisfactory than Arthur running a smuggling ring or keeping a secret paramour.”
“Marianne!”
They still sat on the floor, golden sunlight flooding the room.
“You need to go after her.” A hushed whisper. “You are more . . . you when she is around. More Timothy and less Lord Linwood.”
“Timothy.” A harsh laugh. “I have never had the luxury of being Timothy.”
More silence.
“Perhaps. But you deserve to be Timothy.”
Another brittle laugh. He hung his head. “Sister, too many depend on me. The price is too high—”
“Listen to me, brother mine.” Her voice suddenly edged with steel. “I do not give a damn about your family responsibilities.”
The rawness of her words shocked his head upright. Staring.
“There. I have said it.” She sat back, jaw firm and unyielding. “You have allowed yourself to be controlled by Uncle Linwood. And father before him. And peers and supposed friends and needy aunts, uncles, cousins all desperately looking to you with their hands outstretched. You. Are. Not. Their. Salvation.