The Bride of Time (36 page)

Tessa smiled. “You will have to do something about your 1811 expressions,” she said.

“You got used to them,” Giles pointed out.

“Yes, but I am in love with you,” she shot back, giving his hand another squeeze.

“I should certainly hope so,” Giles said through a wry chuckle. “As soon as we finalize the sale, I shall take you back to the little jewelers where I bought your wedding ring, and buy you another—and decent hairpins.”

“You needn’t do that, Giles,” Tessa said.

“Oh, yes I shall,” he replied. “I saw the dubious look the innkeeper shot you during dinner yesterday. I’m sure they think we are quite the scandal. Your reputation is at stake, and I shall rise to the occasion.”

“If you must,” Tessa said, “but I am quite content with the lovely whalebone pins Foster found.”

“Perhaps something with pearls…”

“Oh, no! I want nothing to do with pearl, not after the pearl brooch that started all this.”

“Ahhhh, but if it wasn’t for that brooch, we never would have met,” he reminded her.

“I shall have to think about that,” Tessa remarked, and said no more as the cab tooled through the London streets, sidling out of the way of motorcars, which Giles had been taken with from the moment he first set eyes upon one.

“I must have one of those!” he said now, leaning his head over the side of the cab until the car in question rattled on and disappeared in the fog.

“Well, you had best hurry and buy one,” Tessa said. “The novelty won’t last long. Motor carriages will never replace the horse. Horses have been too reliable for too long to be replaced by such an expensive conveyance.”

“You could be wrong, my love,” Giles remarked. “You don’t have to feed those carriages like you do horses, or muck out stalls. Who knows but that they could be the coming thing. I wonder what Prinny would have thought of them….”

“He would have probably thought them the figment of one of his elbow-bending bouts, and sworn off the stuff he drank,” Tessa replied.

“Mayhap, but I guarantee you he would have been the first to own one.”

He would have carried the argument farther, but the cab had pulled to the curb before Tatum’s Gallery. Bidding the driver wait, Giles took Tessa’s arm and stepped inside. His eyes were riveted to the little alcove where his painting stood sporting tags that read SOLD in bold red letters. The familiar smell of linseed oil and paints that hadn’t yet dried rushed up his nostrils. He had almost forgotten the way those smells invited him, charging his imagination. He needed to paint again. Oh, how he needed to paint.

“Justin Phillips, Mr. Tatum’s partner, at your service, Mr. Lang,” the man introduced himself. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.”

“Likewise,” Giles said, taking the tall, thin man’s measure. Other than the fact that his clothes fit him poorly, Giles found nothing remarkable about him.

“Your man is quite the shrewd negotiator,” Phillips said. “Do you mean to sell the paintings…at auction possibly?

“No,” said Giles. “I am a collector of sorts.”

“Well, sir, you’ve bought a curiosity here,” said Phillips.

“How so?” Giles said.

The man took up a pointer and strode to the large easel that held “The Bride of Time.” He pointed toward the mansion in the background. “The artist’s home was the model for this,” he said. “It was consumed by fire shortly after the painting was sold to the Prince Regent in 1811. The fire was set by Longworth’s nine-year-old nephew—”

“His ward,” Giles corrected him.

“Oh, you know the history, then? You’ve saved me the trouble of giving a demonstration.”

“Yes,” Giles said. “We visited the site and spoke with the tour guide there. The boy was no blood relation to Longworth. He was the offspring of his sister’s husband.”

“Quite so,” said Phillips. “Where would you like the paintings sent?”

“Sent?” Giles said, unsure of the procedure. He glanced at Tessa for some help, but she evidently didn’t know what was expected, either. Boarding horses was one thing. He certainly wasn’t going to let the paintings out of his sight ever again. “Eh, what would you suggest, sir?” he finally said. “What is customary?”

“We will crate the paintings, and deliver them by rail to your Yorkshire home, if you wish.”

“I prefer to take them north with me,” Giles said. “Could you crate them and deliver them to…”

“Crate them, please,” Tessa said as his words trailed off. “And have your deliveryman bring them to Victoria Station at two-thirty this afternoon. Northbound trains leave at three. Have him wait with them. We shall pick them up from him there.”

“That will be quite impossible, madam,” the man said. “My carpenter won’t be in until the morning, and there will be an extra fee.”

“That is of no consequence,” Giles said. He turned to Tessa. “One more night in Town won’t matter, will it?”

“No,” she replied.

“Done!” he said to Phillips and moved off to pay the man, while Tessa lingered before “The Bride of Time.”

Once the transaction had taken place, Giles went to Tessa’s side and slipped his arm about her waist—shocking behavior in public. It would have even been worse in his time.
His time
. Could he really belong in her time? The alternative, to live without her, wasn’t an option.

“You will have a lifetime to gaze at it,” he murmured in her ear. “But now, we have a ring to buy.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just…I wish…”

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” he said wistfully.

“Are you resigned?” she probed him.

He nodded. “I love you, Tessa,” he said. “My home is where you are. Come.”

Giles whisked her into the waiting hackney cab and directed the driver to the little jeweler’s where he’d long ago purchased Tessa’s iolite and diamond wedding ring. It wasn’t far from the gallery, and it was still there, and he ushered Tessa inside, where a confrontation was taking place between the clerk and a young woman.

Giles hung back, steering Tessa to a ring display case on the opposite side of the shop, not wanting to be rude and stare. It was a small establishment, however, and they couldn’t help but overhear.

“Where did you get this?” the clerk was saying. “According to our records you aren’t the woman who—”

“It
was
purchased for me,” the woman interrupted, “and I want me money back! It don’t suit,” she snapped.

“Why doesn’t it suit, miss?”

“It don’t fit proper, and the iolite stones is all set crooked.”

The clerk examined the ring in question through a jeweler’s loop placed against his eye. “This piece is not flawed, miss,” he said. “Let me see you try it on for fit.”

“I will not! If I say it don’t fit, it don’t fit,” the girl insisted. “If I say it ain’t comfortable, it ain’t comfortable. Look here, I don’t want the ring. Are ya goin’ ta give me me money back, or not?”

“It is not our policy to refund a customer’s purchase price, miss,” the clerk said loftily, handing the ring back to her. “All sales are final. I’m sorry. And it’s not your money. You did not purchase this ring. It was originally
bought…Well, besides; even if you had purchased it, without a receipt—”

“Is this your merchandise or not?” the girl persisted.

“It is, yes, but you didn’t buy it.”

“ ’Twas my sister what bought it,” the girl shrilled. “How many times do I have ta tell ya that? That’s why it don’t fit. Her fingers are fatter than mine. She come in here with me intended, Mr. High and Mighty Jewelry Store Clerk. ’Twas supposed ta be a surprise for me, and it sure was, cause it don’t fit!”

They argued on, and Tessa gripped Giles’s arm. “That voice,” she murmured. “I would know it anywhere! It’s Bessie, the scullery maid from Poole House. I believe she’s the one who planted that pearl brooch in my chamber.”

“Did they say it was an iolite ring?” Giles asked her.

“They did. Oh, Giles! How could
she
have gotten hold of it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, unless the jail returned your belongings to Poole House after you disappeared. But you can bet your blunt I’m going to find out.”

Giles stalked toward the two still arguing at the other end of the counter. “Excuse me,” he said. “I believe I can shed some light upon this coil. May I see that ring, please?”

“Certainly sir,” said the clerk. “Although—”

Giles flashed him a quelling glance. “Yes,” he interrupted, glancing at the woman. “Where did you come by this ring, miss?” he asked. The girl had suddenly gone white as mist.

“Yes, Bessie,” Tessa spoke up, strolling close. She removed her veil. “Where did you get my ring? The Longworth ring,” she added, giving a knowing glance at the jeweler.

Bessie gasped. “
You!
”

“Is this your sister, then?” the clerk put in.

“No,” Tessa said. “This is Bessie Harper, a scullery maid in a house where I worked before I was married. I thought I’d lost that ring, but now I see something more sinister has occurred.”

“Wait!” Bessie cried. “They said you was a…they said you…!” Spinning on her heels, the maid darted out into the street, screaming, and ran west through the mews into the deserted alley, with Tessa on her heels.

“I shall fetch the bobbies!” the clerk cried, skirting the counter.

“No, don’t,” Giles said. “Let us handle this. I shall explain later. Hold on to that ring for me. I shall return to collect it straightaway.”

Dashing out into the street, he scanned the milling vapors for some sign of Tessa. The fog was drifting past St. Michael’s Church. It was heavier there. The bell tower was scarcely visible. All at once he knew what Tessa was doing. She was driving Bessie straight for the corridor that would take the maid back in time—back to
his
time. But it might also take Tessa back, too, and his heart rose in his throat as he sprang after them.

“No, Tessa!” he thundered. “It could take you with her, and I would never see you again! Let her go!”

“No!” Tessa called over her shoulder. “She shan’t get away—not again!”

Running upon legs pumping wildly, Giles finally reached her and jerked her to a standstill, taking her in his arms. “Let…her…go…!” he panted.

The fog drifted then, and they both watched as, in a blink, Bessie Harper disappeared in it.

Tessa strained against his grip. “Let me go, Giles!” she cried. “I have to know! I have to be sure she shan’t threaten me again!”

“Look around you. I’m new at this, but even
I
can see it. The mist is fading everywhere but that one spot. Go into that fog and you are lost to me. I know it—I
feel
it.
She is gone, Tessa…she is gone. It doesn’t matter where. Come…before that clerk back there calls your bobbies. We are not out of this yet.”

Tessa lay curled in Giles’s arm in their bed at the inn, her beautiful iolite ring sparkling on her finger. They’d had no difficulty convincing the shop keep er that the ring was theirs.

“Giles, do you think…?”

“I do not want to think, not about anything but you,” he replied. “Tomorrow we begin our new lives. It will be easier for you than it will be for me, but in the north—in the country—given time—”

Her finger across his lips silenced him, and he gathered her close and kissed her deeply. He tasted sweet, of the wine he’d drunk at supper and traces of mellow tobacco from one of the cheroots he’d purchased at the tobacconist’s shop before they left the shopping district. How handsome he was, all dreamy-eyed, gazing toward her now, that look alone a seduction.

This was yet another facet of the inimitable Giles Longworth, the fiery passion that gripped him now. It was a dangerous passion, as yet untapped, she sensed, for there was a feral gleam in those bottomless, fathomless eyes that devoured her so shamelessly that she lowered her own. Knowing her bridegroom was like peeling away the many layers of a tasty onion, bittersweet and mildly salty, one by one, only to find another more mysterious layer beneath. Would she ever discover them all? Whether yes or no, she was prepared for an exciting future of attempting to explore each and every one as it surfaced. The Giles Longworth with her now, lying naked with her, skin to skin, took her breath away.

“What?” he said through a throaty chuckle.

“I do not think I yet know you, sir,” she managed, for
his closeness had tied her tongue. “You are so many men all rolled into one, I hardly know which one is holding me now.”

He laughed. “The one who loves you,” he murmured.

“And the others do not?” she teased playfully.

“We all worship you, my love, but to night…oh,
tonight
…” He silenced her with another kiss and spread her legs, climbing between.

Just the sinuous motion was a seduction. The touch of his hands upon her body, revering every inch of her, was more than she could bear. She reached for him, tracing the knife-straight indentation of his spine to the firm, taut buttocks beneath, wrenching a guttural groan from so deep within him she scarcely recognized it as his voice.

His aroused sex leapt against her thigh, and she could not resist touching it, to close her fingers around it and feel the shudder of its response. How warm it was in her cool hand, how hard and silky-smooth to the touch, its pulse beating just for her, as if it had a will of its own.

He groaned again as her hand spiraled down along his shaft. Gripping her buttocks, he coaxed her legs around his waist and plunged into her deeply, filling her in one pulsating thrust that sent ripples of drenching fire coursing through her loins.

He took her slowly at first, then faster, deeper, and she matched his rhythm thrust for thrust, soft moans ringing in her ears that she scarcely realized came from her own throat. Bewitched by his passion, she clung to him, lost in the excruciating ecstasy of her release.

Cradled in his arms, she breathed a deep, contented sigh. How he had loved her. How he pleasured her in ways she never knew existed. How very much she loved this enigmatic man she’d crossed the threshold of time to surrender her heart to what seemed like a lifetime ago.

They would love again before dawn, and again, and
again. The night was young, so young. The moon had just risen, silvery-white beaming down round and full…