Overseas (50 page)

“No,
no
! Not about this. This was beautiful, wonderful.” I let out a breath of laughter. “Julian. As if I could ever regret
this
. No, it’s the whole
mission
. All this time I’ve been trying to convince you not to go on the raid. Not to go to my time. But that’s the safest place for you, isn’t it?”

“But I’m going to be killed there. You said so yourself.”

“But you’re probably just as likely to be killed here. And much sooner. So what I ought to do, what I should have done from the beginning if I’d really thought it through—if I hadn’t been so selfish, wanting to keep you with me—is let you go, and tell you everything.” I rolled over and spread my hands over his chest. “Tell you what to do, to keep them from killing you.”

“
No!
No, Kate.”

“No? But it’s easy, Julian. I can tell you exactly how the time thing works, so you’ll know…”

“Hush, sweetheart. I’m not going. I can’t leave my company. My family, my home. You.”

“Oh please. What possible use will you be, getting blown up by a shell in the next few months?”

“And what kind of man would I be, walking away from it? Abandoning my men, my fellow officers, for some comfortable future? Leaving you stranded here, utterly alone in the world?”

I pressed my fingers into his skin. “Please, just listen! I can
save
you!”

“Kate, my charming goose, have a little faith in me.” He laid his hands on mine, trapping them against him, and smiled in perfect confidence. “You’ve done the right thing, coming here to warn me. I’ll lead the raid along a different route. I’ll start at a different time, avoid this magical time-travel window of yours. I won’t leave you here.”

I searched his face: his head propped against the dull metal rails of the bed frame, his hair ruffled about his forehead. “You’re just so sure of yourself, aren’t you? Infallible Julian. So positive you’re doing the right thing. That you can manage everything.”

“In this case, I can, Kate. I know it.” His smile grew tender, and he lifted his hand to brush against my cheek. “Leave you here by yourself? Wait for years to see you again? I’d never do that.”

“Julian, you’re like… like a puppy with a new toy. This is serious.”

“I’m perfectly serious. You’re the one vacillating. First you want me to stay, now you want me to go.”

“I’m just trying to figure out what’s best. What’s even possible.” I paused in frustration. “At least let me tell you, in case you change your mind…”

His finger pressed against my lips. “I won’t. Trust me, Kate.”

“Julian, you pigheaded…” I kissed his skin and breathed in his scent, still himself somehow, and yet laced with something unfamiliar—a different soap, probably. And his chest, nearly hairless now, perfectly
smooth, but rounded with that lean well-used muscle I knew and loved: the shape of it so exactly right, curving so gracefully into his broad shoulders. “Trusting you is what got us into this mess in the first place.”

He laughed at that. “Sweet Kate. You can’t win this, you know. I know where my duty lies, and I shan’t be swayed by your pleading.”

I frowned up at him, prepared to argue, and then the nausea, never fully absent, waved through my belly like a warning.

How could I send Julian away, into the future, from his own child, his single legacy? And yet what would happen to me, to the baby inside me, if I didn’t? Would it no longer exist? How could I do that, take even a
chance
of doing that? Lines of conjecture began to collide in my head, scattering, until I couldn’t tell them apart. Nothing I could do would make everything all right again, would it? I’d already done too much, interfered too much. I’d acted in terror, in cowardice, unable to face a world without Julian, unwilling to examine the consequences of what I was doing; now, through the flotsam of broken logic, I could no longer see a certain path to redemption.

He went on cheerfully, not even noticing. “No, I’ll stay here, instead. Fight for old Blighty. Worship my alluring new bride. A fine life.”

I swallowed. “What about going on Staff? That’s much safer, isn’t it? And you could do it, with your connections.”

“
Staff?
You’re
joking
, Kate. Let another officer fight in my place?”

I returned his look steadily, and he rolled his eyes. “Oh, Kate,
really
.” He moved like a cat, flipping me over and poising above me, beautiful as an archangel in the frail candlelight. “Look here, my foolish darling,” he said, between kisses, “did I ever tell you, in this future life of ours, that you worry altogether too much?”

“Julian, stop. Really. You have to listen… We have to figure this out, find the best possible option…”

“Enough talking. I shan’t change my mind.” He moved down my chin to my neck, his lips soft and inquisitive against my skin. “Darling girl. Haven’t you done enough already? Disturbed the mysteries of the universe
and whatnot? Let’s hang up our time-traveling hats, shall we?
You
settle for life as my adored wife, as Mrs. Julian Ashford… how absolutely smashing that sounds, dearest”—he bent down greedily to my breasts—“and
I
shall do my very best… Good
Lord
, darling, you’re so awfully delicious, I should like to feast on you forever…”

“Julian, be serious!”

“What’s that? Yes, and
I
shall endeavor, as I said, not to get hit by something in the meantime. Everything will work out splendidly.”

My fingers curled into his hair, feeling its texture with wonder, finer and silkier than the crisp waves I remembered with such clarity. I closed my eyes. “You silly boy. You’ll get yourself killed, for no reason, and you
know
it. You’re only trying to placate me, the way you always do.”

“Oh, you’re far too pessimistic.” He raised his head at last and grinned at me. “I might simply be injured, you know. Sent home with a Blighty one.”

“What’s that?”

“A Blighty one. A lucky wound. Losing a finger, perhaps, or mucking up your knee. Gets you sent back home to Blighty, to England, without being too much nuisance.”

“Losing a
finger
? That’s
lucky
?”

“Luckier than being killed.”

“All right. A Blighty one. Get a Blighty one.” I smiled, despite myself. “Only no pretty nurses.”

“I wouldn’t even notice,” he said virtuously.

“Ha. They’ll notice
you
.”

“A jealous disposition, have you?” He kissed the tip of my nose.

“It isn’t easy, being married to the most devastatingly handsome man on the face of the earth.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Such sweet rot. What a delightful little wife you are.”

“Little wife?”
I groaned. “Good grief, Julian. You Neanderthal. I’m going to have to
train
you, aren’t I? On top of everything else.”

He settled his arms on either side of me, thick and warm, enclosing us. “You mustn’t worry, Kate. All this—it can’t be for nothing. No merciful God would allow it.”

“I hope so,” I said, capitulating, because I really had no choice; because I was held fast by the thick moral knots in which I’d tangled myself; because his beloved face was just inches away, golden and glowing and irresistible, making me believe in him against all reason. “Since I don’t want this to be the last time we lie together like this.”

“It won’t, darling,” he assured me, running his hand languorously—the damned precocious prodigy—down my neck and chest to circle my breast. “Thank you. I… I never dreamed such a thing was possible.”

“Oh, come on. I’ve seen your reading material.
Fanny Hill
, for the love of God. You know a thing or two.”

He blushed deeply. “I don’t mean the mechanics of it, darling. I mean
this
. The closeness, the feel of you. The joy of it.” He tucked his face into the curve of my throat. “Do you feel it too?”

“Julian,” I whispered, “I can’t even begin to describe it. I never could.”

He kissed me, a long heavy kiss, and then raised his head and gazed at me, his thumbs smoothing the hair at my temples. “Would you really send me away from you, into the future, just to keep me off the battlefield? Knowing you’d never see me again?”

“Yes. Yes! I’d tell you exactly…”

“No.” He laughed. “You splendid thing. I’m not going anywhere. I shall keep you and your love next to me, my dearest Kate, my wife, my
wife
; what a gorgeous, marvelous word; I’d like to shout it from the ramparts… Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, good
grief
,” I muttered.

“What is it?”

I scooted out of bed and made it to the washstand just in time to heave into the bowl. He was behind me in an instant. “Kate, my God!”

“No, I’m fine,” I said, shaking, burning. I felt the coarse wool blanket
settle around my shoulders, Julian’s arms guiding me to the edge of the bed.

“Sit. Let me get you some water.” He poured out a glass from the open Perrier bottle on the nightstand. “Here.”

I took a sip, just to please him, but my stomach recoiled. “Maybe in a moment.”

“Darling, what’s
wrong
with you? I’ll go mad!”

“I’m fine, really! It’s nothing, it’s just a little illness, these old-fashioned germs…” I turned to him. “See? Better already.”

He grasped my arms and looked into my face. “You’re not telling me the truth, are you?”

I gathered the ends of the blanket and bent my head. My hair fell forward in long dark waves, shielding me from the penetration of his gaze; I could see his fingers surrounding my elbows, curving into the wool. “No,” I said.

“But you won’t tell me what’s wrong, either, will you?”

“No.”

He took me by the shoulders and dragged me back into the thin pillows at the head of the bed. The blanket slid downward, exposing my skin. “Will you let me guess?”

“No.”

“Is it an illness?”

I paused miserably. “No.”

“Something you ate?”

Another pause. “No.”

“Oh, Kate,” he said. We were silent a long moment, listening to the creaking of the house, the odd thump from some other room. The coals gasped from the fireplace, nearly exhausted; I felt the chill air on my bare arms and the damp glow of Julian’s body against mine. His hand slipped to rest above my navel. “Tell me one thing: did I know?”

My voice cracked. “Yes.”

“We’ll be married,” he said, “on my next leave. I’ll get a pass as soon as
I can. Not that I don’t consider you already my wife, but I want no question of it, no question at all, if something
should
happen to me.”

I nodded. How could I argue anymore?

“My parents will look after you,” he went on, settling the blankets around us with one agile arm. “You can’t stay here in France; it’s too dangerous.”

“Your parents. I don’t even know your parents. They’ll think I’m… some American hussy,
trapping
you…”

“I’ll tell them, in no uncertain terms, who you are. And they’ll adore you. My father particularly. You’re exactly the sort of woman he likes.” He kissed my temple.

I shifted to face him, small and fragile in the hard circle of his arms. The candle flickered behind him, casting restless shadows along the side of his head. “How can you have so much faith in me?” I whispered. “I show up on your doorstep, claiming to be your wife, pregnant, for God’s sake, and you don’t even
question
me?”

“I did question you. Thoroughly.” He kissed me again, to demonstrate his thoroughness.

“But a
baby
, Julian. I could be trying to pin it on you. You! The most eligible bachelor in England, probably.” My voice strained along the walls of my throat. “Aren’t you afraid this is all some elaborate trick?”

“Kate,” he said, urging my head to his shoulder, “if you were going to trick me into owning a child that wasn’t mine, don’t you think you’d have come up with something a little more plausible than
time travel
?”

“But it hardly seems fair. Until an hour or so ago, you were a blushing virgin. You…”

I stopped. My words echoed back in my ears.

A virgin
.

Yes,
he’d confessed, that long-ago day in the library.
Once. During the war
.

“Julian,” I said, against his shoulder, hearing my own voice from a great distance, “what was that inscription, on the ring?”

“Do you want to read it?”

“Yes. Very much.” I couldn’t move. He took my hand, eased the ring off my finger, reached for the sputtering candle behind him.

I bent over the band. The letters, in tiny elegant script, were difficult to read at first. I had to squint and turn the inside to the wavering light, and even then I could only just make out the words.

By this ring, you shall know
her.

A chill crept upward from my fingers, spreading up my limbs and into my chest. He’d known. For God’s sake, he’d
known
.

This had already happened; all of it. I’d already been here. Julian, my Julian, my modern Julian, had lain in this bed with me. Had known me long before that December morning at Sterling Bates, when he’d stared at me so searchingly, fumbled for words at the sight of me. Scraps began whirling through my head: things he’d said that seemed strange at the time. His paranoia about my safety. That odd sadness, after our wedding ceremony. The empty waiting closets. The way he’d fallen in love with me, the work of an instant.

“Kate,” I heard him say, “are you all right? Can you read it?”

I looked up at his beautiful young face, gilded by the candlelight, so earnest and concerned and guileless. The walls of the tiny room seemed to press around us, wrapping our bodies in faded fleur-de-lis against the lonely future outside, the disastrous century ahead. “Yes,” I said.

“You see? It’s all right. I wanted this.” He set the candle back on the nightstand and slid the ring back on my finger and kissed it. His lips burnt my numb skin. “Obviously I wanted to be sure I would recognize you when you came back for me. So it’s quite all right. I’m supposed to stay behind with you. I’m supposed to marry you, darling.” His voice was low and confident. He kissed my hand again, and then my lips. A coal popped in the fireplace, interrupting the even hiss.