His hands were warm and strong on her back, his kisses reached deep inside her, turning her to liquid. She could melt away right here. She didn’t even know what was keeping her upright except for Sam’s arms. She clung to him like a lifeline. He was all that was real and solid and here and nothing else mattered as long as he was touching her like this.
A small portion of her brain kept its grip on reality and was able to think straight. It sounded alarm bells in her head. This was wrong. On lots of levels. Not least of which was Dinah.
She pulled away from the kiss and put both hands against his chest and pushed away, forgetting that there was nothing holding the towel up. It fell to the ground, pooling around their feet. What was she doing? Naked with a practical stranger.
She bent and grabbed the towel, wrapping it around herself even as she ducked back behind the screen.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice shook, betraying her emotions. “We shouldn’t have done that. You are getting married. We shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” His voice was so soft that at first she didn’t know if she really heard him say that.
“You’re not what?” She peeked out from behind the screen. She really needed the dry shift, so she could get dressed.
He seemed to divine this, for he handed it to her.
“I’m not sorry.”
He wasn’t sorry? Neither was she. But shouldn’t they be? She dropped the towel and slipped the shift on over her head. Shouldn’t they be concerned about Dinah? Wasn’t that only right and proper? Though, she got rather a thrill out of thinking of the possibilities of not observing the proprieties. There were no dry bloomers, but she figured that didn’t matter too much right now. At least she was covered again. So much for being a rebel.
“And I’m not marrying Dinah.”
Her breath caught in her throat and she steadied herself against the flimsy screen. “You’re not?” She came out from behind the screen. Had she misunderstood? She was certain she’d been told he was getting married. If he wasn’t…well she still couldn’t jump into bed with a practical stranger, but it gave them room to become less strange to each other.
“I don’t think I can.” Sam’s gray eyes bored into her. “Not when I’m not in love with her.”
Her heart soared at these words. Was he saying that he was in love with her instead? But she didn’t belong here, she had to go home. And he was going to war. He was going to die in the war. There were no happy endings here.
“You can’t be in love with me.” She tried to keep her voice light and flippant even as that formerly sane part of her brain chanted ‘He loves me! He loves me!’ “We’ve only just met.”
The shocked look in his eyes told her more than she wanted to know.
“Oh, you’re not in love with me.” She suddenly felt two inches tall. Her cheeks burned and she couldn’t bear to meet his eyes. “Do you think you can get me back into this corset, or should we call Beck,” she rambled on, trying desperately to change the subject.
“Emily,” he said, his voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Miss Parks. I think perhaps in time I could love you. You are right that we don’t know each other. But the fact that I think I could love you tells me that I do not love Dinah.” He cleared his throat. “Come here, I’ll tie your corset for you.”
She did as she was bid, her whole brain such a mix of emotions she wasn’t even sure which direction to let her thoughts run anymore.
“Why did you agree to marry Dinah if you are not in love with her?” She finally settled on a question as Sam tied her corset tight.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and twined his fingers together in his lap, staring at the ground. She stood and watched him for a minute, but he seemed to be getting his thoughts together and maybe it was better not to rush him. She settled in the rocking chair, it looked like she wasn’t going to finish getting dressed any time soon.
“Have you ever been in love?” he asked, finally looking up from the ground. The pain in those gray eyes made her want to rush to him and hold him, but instead she clutched the arms of the chair and rocked gently.
“I thought I was a time or two.” She didn’t want to think about Mark or James right now. Mark, her first real boyfriend in college, and James, the one she thought would give her the kind of happiness that Johnson brought to Dayna. It hadn’t worked out that way. Mark had gotten drunk one night and hit her. That was all it took for her to know there was no future with him. James had cheated on her with a woman he worked with. If it weren’t for the fact that Dayna and Johnson had found true love, she would think it didn’t really exist.
“I was in love once.” He got up and walked over to the window, staring out at his land.
His voice was so sad that Emily would have known the story didn’t have a happy ending, even without the use of past tense.
“What happened?” She kept her voice soft and non-demanding. What she wanted to do was to go to him and wrap him in her arms and take away whatever pain he was in. She didn’t think that was really what he wanted right now, though, so she stayed in the chair, barely rocking.
“She died.” He turned from the window and she saw his eyes were bright with unshed tears. He came back across the room and sat on the bed again, placing his hands on his knees and taking a deep breath before continuing. “Five years ago. She got a fever and died. We were going to be married, and I was the happiest man in the world. And then she was gone, and the light left the world.”
“Tell me about her.” She pleated the shift with her fingers, trying to release nervous energy. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to hear about the person who gave Sam’s life light, but he needed to talk about her, and she did want to understand him more.
“She made me happy.” He touched his fist to his chest. “Deep down in here. We knew each other as children, but when we were sixteen I fell in love. She was beautiful, but that wasn’t why I fell in love with her. And maybe she wasn’t even beautiful, objectively speaking. George told me that her teeth were crooked and she had freckles, but I never really noticed. She could make me laugh and…I can’t even describe her.”
“You don’t have to, I get it. I’m sorry.” Tears came to her own eyes. To have loved that deeply and lost, how does one get over that pain? Or maybe one doesn’t, as evidenced by Sam, so clearly hurting even five years later.
He shook his head as if coming out of a trance. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“Whyever not?” She affected the matter of fact tone of a school teacher. It was the only way to keep from being overwhelmed with emotion herself. “You were in love with her. You should feel free to talk about her.” She watched his fingers play with the crease in his trousers, and she softened her tone. “What was her name?”
“Anna. She was Anna.”
“And why were going to marry Dinah?” That was the million dollar question.
He took a deep breath and gave her a sad half-smile. “My family and friends said I needed to move on with life, and I suppose they’re right. And Dinah is a lovely girl, she really is. It’s not like with Anna, it never could be, but I thought perhaps that wasn’t possible. That I couldn’t have that kind of love again, so I agreed. Only a few days ago, mind you, I agreed to marry her. But now, I’m not sure.”
“Why?” She didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
“Because now I think the kind of love I had is still possible.”
Oh! A flock of butterflies took flight in her belly and her heart pounded as if it were growing too big for her chest. He had the best kind of love possible and he thought he could have it again. With her. It was what she had always dreamed of and it might be happening.
Sam gazed at her in a way that made her uncomfortably aware that she was only wearing her shift and corset. Should she go and sit beside him? Should she have him loosen the corset and get naked with him? No. She still didn’t really know him. And that a wonderful love was possible was not the sa
me thing as saying he was in love with her.
And she was going home.
And he was going to die in the war.
She couldn’t do this.
She stood up and she wanted to go to him, to hold him, but instead she picked the hoops up from the bed next to him. “Maybe you can help me into the dress.” She tried to keep her voice even. “People may start wondering where we are.”
This broke Sam out of his trance. “Yes. Happily.”
She managed to get her hoops buttoned on and he helped get the dress over her head. Sun glinted off the ring he had given her. “You should take this back.”
“You may need it later.” His eyes stayed glued to the ring. It had to have special meaning for him, she shouldn’t keep it.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded, but his lips were pressed into a straight line.
“Was it Anna’s?” She touched the ring as if it had some magic power.
“It was.” His voice was tight.
She wanted to refuse it, to give it back, but yet, if he was willing for her to have it, who was she to throw that kind of a gift back at him? She looked into his eyes and smiled. “Then, thank you. I’ll take good care of it.”
He bowed to her and took his leave. She sank down on her bed. What had happened? Was she falling in love with him? Of course she was. Was he falling in love with her? She glanced at the ring on her finger. Possibly. She wanted true love, had dreamed about it for years. Now after all those years of wishing, her wish had finally come true.
Maybe the pond wasn’t a time portal, but a wishing well?
She sat up straighter, then slumped as much as her corset would let her when she realized that it probably wouldn’t matter at all. Either way, it had brought her here and didn’t seem inclined to let her go home.
Chapter Sixteen
Sam
Sam paced the length of the study, hands behind his back. Was he falling in love with Emily? He could still feel her soft skin beneath his fingers. He’d longed to touch her all over. It had taken almost inhuman strength to stop himself. But was that love or lust? He’d never seen that much of Dinah; would he feel the same way about her if he had? He’d also never seen that much of Anna, and he’d known he’d loved her. How does one tell these things anyway?
And from the future? Was it true? He doubted it. Which maybe made her crazy, which wasn’t really the best quality in a mate, come to think of it.
She didn’t act crazy though, that was the thing. A little out of the ordinary, but that could easily be explained by being from the future.
Damn, did he actually believe her? If he believed her, did that make him crazy too?
Then there was the war. It would be long. It would be bad. He didn’t want to believe her on that, but deep down, he did. And he wanted to see her naked again.
He stopped behind his desk and poured himself a few fingers of whiskey. He needed something to settle his mind. He needed to be logical about this. Moses might have answers to some of the questions, and it was time to ask him. He drained the glass and went out in search of the old groom.
He found him raking out the stables, the late afternoon sun making stripes of light in the dim barn.
“You need a horse this afternoon, Mister Sam?” He stopped raking and gave a differential tip of his head.
“No, I need to talk to you.” There was no use beating about the bush. He took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh sweet scent of hay and the earthy smell of horses.
“Anything wrong, Mister Sam?” The old groom leaned on his rake and a worried look came into his eye. “Something wrong with one of the horses?”
“No, nothing like that.” Sam rested his hand on the rough wood of the stable enclosure. The mare he’d taken out earlier with the chaise was stabled. With a start he realized he’d left her by the fish pond when he had escorted a dripping Miss Parks back inside. Luckily someone had been on top of things and taken care of the horse. Probably Tobias. He’d have to thank him later. He took a deep breath and turned to Moses. “I need you to tell me everything you know about the fish pond.”
Moses rubbed his chin. “Well. there’s catfish and some trout in there. Snapping turtles, too, like I told you when you was a boy.”
Sam slapped his hand against the stall, causing Moses and the horse to start. “The legend, Moses. Tell me the legend.”
“That’s a fairy story to tell the children.” Moses reached toward his rake, ready to go back to work.
Sam was not done with this conversation. “What about Elsbeth and DayJon? Elsbeth was real. What about DayJon?”
Moses dropped his hands to his side and sighed. “Oh, he was real enough, Mister Sam.”
“And you said the faeries used the pond to take people to other places…or times.”
“DayJon told us he was not from this time.” Moses stared over Sam’s head as if looking into the far distant past.
“Did he say how he get here?”
Moses sighed. “Mind if I sits down Mister Sam? This might take awhile.”
“Fine, sit.” Sam waved a hand toward an upturned barrel.
“You might want to sit as well,” Moses said, settling onto the barrel. Sam nodded, bowing to the inevitable and sat on a conveniently placed bale of hay. “I was but a boy, you have to remember,” Moses began. “I only know DayJon appeared around the same time Elsbeth disappeared. I saw the two of them together once and crept into a place I shouldn’t have been and listened. They were repeating something over and over, magic words, it sounded like. I had a good head for remembering, so I learnt those words well. Then later, over the campfire after Elsbeth disappeared he told those words to us young uns, and said they held the key to getting free when the time was right. He said he’d explained more to the elders, and they’d tell us when they thought we were ready to know. Then…well, what happened happened, and they never did tell us.” Moses cleared his throat before continuing. “I’ve gone to the pond and said those words, and I’m still here. If there was more to it, I don’t know it. They was stories, Mister Sam, that’s all. Stories. DayJon probably was a free black captured up north. It happens. And he wanted to sound more interesting. Elsbeth probably didn’t want to get married. There’s always a logical explanation.”
Was there? Then what was the logical explanation for Emily’s appearance and insistence she was from the future. Right now, he tended to believe that DayJon wasn’t captured up north, but from the same time as Emily. They told the same details of this future world. But how to get back to it? That’s what he needed to find out.
“Did DayJon use the magic words to leave?” He rubbed his palms on his knees, he was getting close to an answer, but he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted one.
Moses shook his head. “No, sir. He was done made a slave, since he couldn’t prove he was free. And he weren’t used to working like a field hand. He died of a whipping.”
A feeling of shame washed over him. He had never met DayJon or done anything to him, but apparently his own grandfather had taken this man who said he was from the future and decided he owned him. And then killed him.
“What are the magic words?” He knew he was being cowardly by not acknowledging the horror that Moses had exposed, but there was nothing he could do about it now anyway.
Moses closed his eyes and very carefully enunciated.
“Lorska la loon romp leet le tong, Fair John, A March ee sur lee face der lumier, a un otre mo mant.”
“What does that even mean?” It was a bunch of nonsense syllables. Though maybe all magic spells sounded like that to the uninitiated.
“I don’t know as they mean anything, sir.” Moses shifted in his seat and a horse nickered as if looking for attention.
“I won’t keep you much longer,” he assured him. “Do you know anything about silver?”
“No, sir.” Moses’s eyes opened wide at the question, and Sam suspected he’d never associated silver with the legend. Did it have anything to do with
it then, or was Emily wrong about that?
“Do you know of anyone who has come or gone that way, since DayJon and Elsbeth?”
“Nothing I can swear to,” Moses said and he believed him. “The young ones always want to try the spell when they hears of it. They want to be free.”
The dissatisfaction in Moses’s voice was obvious. And why shouldn’t he be dissatisfied. He was a slave. There was no honor in that.
“I’m sorry,” he heard himself saying. “I don’t like slavery any more than you do, but I don’t see a way to fix it.”
“Then you ain’t looking hard enough, boy.” Moses stood up, ready to get back to work
His eyebrows shot up at the blatant disrespect. But this was an old man, a man who had known him since he was born. He would let it go.
“That girl,” Moses asked suddenly as Sam stood, ready to leave. “She come from the same place as DayJon?”
His mouth dropped open, but why should he be surprised that Moses had figured it out? He knew the secrets of the fish pond after all.
“I think so, yes.” He let out a weary breath. Why couldn’t life be uncomplicated? “Maybe you better tell me those magic words again.”
So once again the old man repeated the string of nonsense syllables.
“Lorska la loon romp leet le tong, Fair John, A March ee sur lee face der lumier, a un otre mo mant”
Sam repeated them to himself a few times before he felt fairly certain he remembered them.
He left the stable. One thing was clear, even if nothing else was. Emily might be here for a while as they figured out the mystery, and she would need dresses and other things. And Dinah. What should he do about Dinah? It made no sense to cut her free when Emily would be gone before long. But it wasn’t really because of Emily he was thinking of letting her go, at all, was it? If he had to be honest with himself, he had to admit that he was pretty sure he didn’t love Dinah the way she deserved to be loved, and so many things could change during a war, he needed to free her from their commitment, so she could find someone who could give her what he couldn’t. That sounded reasonable. Would Dinah see it the same way?
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