The Bride of Time (19 page)

“I have no right to ask you to trust me when I can’t even trust myself in this damnable mess,” he said. “I know I was too bold on the moor, though I cannot remember how bold. That was not me, not the real me. It was the wolf inside me, Tessa. It’s evil…and insidious, and afterward I cannot remember much of what occurs when the wolf takes over, only snippets. I’m almost grateful for that, because I don’t believe I could live with it…”

“Giles—”

“No, you must let me finish,” he said. “Whatever I did…if I frightened you, took liberties I wasn’t allowed…I want you to know the real me would rather throw himself from the battlements than cause you harm. It is safe now that the moon has waned, but when it waxes full again, for a day before, during, and a day or two after, you will not be safe with me after dark…after moonrise. Then you must lock yourself out of harm’s way. This is not a request. This is what must be, Tessa. In this one thing alone, you must not oppose me.”

Tessa wanted to tell him that it might already be too late. The hellish thing was, she wouldn’t be certain until the moon waxed full again. A whole month! How would she ever bear it? Instead, she nodded acquiescence and fisted her hand in his damp hair, bringing his head down until their lips touched.

It was a gentle kiss, sensuous and deep, concentrated upon her un-bruised upper lip, that wrenched a soft moan from them both as their tongues entwined. Giles was almost as wet as she was. His poet’s shirt was soaked, plastered to his hard-muscled chest, the full rolled-back
sleeves trailing suds. When his hand slipped beneath the water and settled upon the V of soft curls between her thighs, Tessa’s breath caught in her throat.

Slowly at first, with the lightest touch, he began to stroke her, probing beneath the curls to the virgin skin beneath. Tessa leaned into the probing fingers that spread shock waves of drenching fire through her loins. The delicious sensation radiated outward over her belly and thighs, like ripples in a quiet pond when a skimming stone breaks the surface of still water.

Giles looked her in the eyes and murmured, “Tessa…are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she replied.

Giles took her lips in another smoldering kiss as his fingers deftly stroked her sex faster, deeper, causing sensations to rush at her very core until she arched her spine against the friction causing the ecstasy, then groaned as release washed over her like waves of liquid fire. It was then, while she was in the throes of deep orgasmic contractions, that his fingers slipped inside her, first one and then another, gliding on the silk of her inner wetness.

Tessa scarcely felt the pain as he made her his. She clung to him as he lifted her out of the water. Setting her on her feet, he wrapped her in the soft towels from the chiffonier, scooped her up in his arms, and carried her into the bedroom. The featherbed and counterpane were cool against her damp skin as she burrowed between them.

“No, don’t,” Giles said, yanking off his top boots. “I want to look at you.”

Tessa lay still, watching while he stripped off his wet shirt and buckskins and padded to the bed. He was aroused, and the sight of him took her breath away. He was perfectly formed and strongly made, from his broad
shoulders and narrow waist, to those well turned corded thighs. Tessa’s fingers itched to touch him. It was scandalous to feel this way. It had to be. But the minute he climbed in beside her, she reached to stroke his strong back, following the curve of his spine to the narrow waist and firm buttocks.

His hands roaming over her body brought her to the brink of ecstasy again. His fiery kiss, blazing a searing trail from the base of her throat to the hardened buds of her nipples, seemed to set her very soul ablaze. She was malleable in his hands, and everywhere he touched, every line and curve of her body palpated with an inner fire as if her very bones were melting.

“I have no right to take you,” he said, his voice husky and deep. “What can I possibly offer you as I am?”

“Your love,” Tessa murmured. “Your love.”

Giles crushed her close, his strong arms molding her body to his. Easing himself between her legs, he guided those around his waist, lifting the rounds of her buttocks as he penetrated her in one long, tantalizing thrust that molded her to him, like a sword in its scabbard. Tessa moved to the rhythm of his thrusts, taking him deeper as he plunged and swayed and undulated inside her. All the while, his hooded gaze was riveted to her face, his dark eyes catching glints from the fire. Tessa couldn’t keep her hands from riding up and down his spine, from gripping his buttocks as he filled her.

All at once he rolled over, taking her with him. On his back now, she straddled him, her long hair teasing his thighs as she moved to his pistoning thrusts. His eyes still devoured her. She could almost see the wolf in them, ravenous, hungering; but there was no fear. She was driven to love him as he was never loved before, her innocence notwithstanding. And she met his gaze as he cupped her breasts, crushing her tender hardened nipples
against the thick, roughened cushion of his palms until she feared she would faint for the firestorm of sensation.

Giles pulled her forward until his lips closed around one turgid nipple, laving it with his tongue. The tug resonated at Tessa’s very core, triggering a release that all but drained her sense. He gripped her waist and took her deeper still, riding her wetness, raising her up and down, his rapid thrusts hammering into her, until he groaned and held her down upon his hard shaft as his climax pumped him dry.

Tessa felt the pulse of him, the very beat of his life force palpating inside her as his seed filled her. Her hands splayed out over his taut, heaving chest, felt the pounding beat of his heart. It shuddered against her soft skin so violently she feared it would burst from his chest. His breath coming short, he rolled her on her side and gathered her to him greedily, like a starving beggar at a banquet, his eyes—those dark, mysterious, feral eyes—ravishing her still.

“You are mine,” he murmured huskily. “You are. I saw it in your eyes…and I have no right to you, no business taking you. Whatever alchemy is afoot here…what ever twist of fickle fate has brought you to me has damned us both, but if you ever were to leave me—”

Her fingers on his lips silenced him. That mouth was scorching to the touch, as if a raging fever boiled his blood. “I fell in love with you before I ever came here,” she said. “Fate, as you say, did the rest. I still do not completely understand it, though I lived it, and am still living it. All I know is that somehow this—
we
—were meant to be…”

“You never told me how you did come here. Will you tell me now? Do you trust me enough to share it with me, since it compels us both?”

Tessa hesitated. She was still afraid to tell him, but now she knew she had to, for he was right: what ever alchemy indeed had brought their very souls together in their separate desperation, it compelled them both.

“I was employed as a scullery maid, as I told you. Giles, you would have had to live my life to fully understand what that entails in such a house in my time. Scullions are the lowest form of servant life, and often take cruel abuse from the others. For what ever reason, jealousy surely was part of it, because I was given my own room, the others set out to get shot of me.”

“Things are no different in my time, Tessa,” Giles said, soothing her with gentle hands as she spoke. “Some things never change.”

“I was accused of stealing the mistress’s brooch. I did not take it. I had never been above stairs in that house. One of the others stole it and put it in my room so I would be accused. I ran, and the police pursued me. It would have been my day off…and this is the part I was afraid to tell you, the bit I feared you wouldn’t believe, but it’s true. I used to visit the galleries on my days off, one in particular in Cheapside, off Threadneedle Street, where I became fascinated with a particular painting…
your
painting, Giles, ‘The Bride of Time.’”

Giles stiffened against her and raised himself on one elbow. That had gotten his attention and blunted the edges of the theft. His eyes were riveting now, but not with passion. They were blazing toward her with a look she could not identify.

“
My painting?
” he breathed. “You saw ‘The Bride of Time’ in a London gallery? How is that possible? How did it get there?”

“I cannot answer that. I do not know. But I went there for many weeks to gaze at it, at the beautiful patchwork hills and the moors. All of your paintings were there,
even a portrait you’d done of yourself. I think I fell in love with it before I ever met you.”

“That self-portrait is in the collection of the Prince Regent, Tessa. He bought it with several others after I did the miniature for his watchcase, in hopes it would stimulate sales for me. My work impressed him, and he wanted others to flock to my door to buy from an artist who had the favor of England’s future king.”

“That may be, but I saw it in that gallery with other works of yours. You were wearing a shirt like the one you had on earlier, and buckskin breeches, holding brush and pallet. There was an open window behind you with a view of the hills, and—”

“Zeus! You have it utterly!” he interrupted.

“When I ran that day, I went to the gallery for one last look at your work before I fled Town, only to find that your paintings had been sold to a young couple from Yorkshire. The police followed me there and I ran into the mist. I was thinking of the beautiful patchwork hills in your paintings. I called them that because from a distance they looked like a patchwork quilt I remember from my childhood. I ran, wishing I were there…anywhere but running through those London streets with naught but the clothes on my back and the police nipping at my heels. Then the fog thickened and a carriage emerged from it—your carriage! Able was driving. He mistook me for the governess you’d advertised for and, God help me, I climbed inside knowing he would bring me here.”

“So that is how you came to be in that carriage.”

“I cannot explain it, unless it is as Moraiva told me, that I had stumbled upon one of the lay lines that crosshatch these moors. I didn’t believe it then…but I do now, Giles. I also believe I was meant to be here with you.”

“There are many untoward elements afoot here,” Giles observed, grazing her temple with his lips. “I wish you’d told me this before.”

“I was afraid you would think I was mad!”

He laughed.

“And…after seeing you in a rage over thievery, I was afraid you wouldn’t believe I was innocent.”

“I paid that bawd handsomely to model for me, nothing more. She abused my generosity and stole from me. That was different. I am a fair man, Tessa, but I do not tolerate persons who take advantage of me.”

“I didn’t know you well enough to make that distinction,” Tessa defended. “You have to realize, I was in a strange place in a strange time. Where would I have gone if you turned me out…or worse?”

“Where did you go when you ran from me on the moor—back to London, to your own time?”

Tessa hesitated. Should she tell him the caretaker’s tale? Should she divulge how it all would end? The child was gone, but when he returned…No! She could not tell him about the fire, not now, not while he was basking in the euphoria of their embrace, and the knowledge that his precious “Bride of Time” had survived him at least until the turn of the twentieth century.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I honestly don’t. I was only there for a brief time. A horse-drawn bus driver found me by the side of the lane—”

“A horse-drawn bus?” he cut in. “What sort of conveyance is that?”

“Oh dear,” Tessa lamented. “If you think those a funnyosity, what ever would you think of our horseless carriages?”

“Horseless…? How is that possible?”

Tessa giggled in spite of herself and the gravity of the situation. She had completely disarmed the poor man. “Carriages that run on fuel instead of horse power,” she
explained. “They are quite elegant, though we still have horse-drawn carriages as well. Some say horseless carriages are just a fad that will pass in time. Of course, they are quite popular amongst the upper classes.”

“This bus, where did it take you?” Giles asked.

“I…I’m not certain. I was trying to come here. When the driver said I was near, I got out. I didn’t dare ask him what year it was; he would have had me straight to Bedlam! I stopped to rest beside the lane. That’s when Moraiva found me….” It was as far as she dared go by way of explanation, and she was greatly relieved when he didn’t press her further.

Instead, Giles pulled her closer and kissed her gently. “You will never work as a scullion again,” he said, “and you will never leave me. Promise me….”

“I promise,” she murmured.

“You know what you must do now, don’t you?” he said playfully, toying with a lock of her hair.

“What is that?” she asked.

“You must model for me, Tessa. I must finish the painting, now that I know it has a future. Once the boy is found, I shall find another governess.”

“You want me to be your model?”

“I want you to be my wife!” he said, as if she should have known. “Though I have no right to ask it as I am. All that aside…will you? I know I’m doing this badly, Tessa, and selfishly to boot, but I could never live without you now.”

But Tessa’s mind was somewhere else, somewhere dark and frightening. “Let the boy go, Giles,” she said. “Discontinue the search. He chose to go; let him stay wherever he’s gone! If he does return, send him packing off to school—anywhere. I beg you, do not let him back into this house!”

Chapter Fifteen

A sennight passed and the boy did not return. While the search went on, Tessa knew they would not find him. She was certain he had left 1811, found one of the lay lines, and accessed a time corridor. There was no other explanation. They were at his mercy, for as sure as she drew breath, Tessa knew he would return in his own time to seal their destiny—the destiny of all three of them.

Moraiva returned to her encampment, though she remained at the ready. Whatever she knew or didn’t know of the Abbey from her time travels through the corridor, she kept to herself, just as Tessa held her peace. For the first time since she’d arrived at Longhollow Abbey, Giles seemed happy. She would not take that from him.