Intertwine (5 page)

“Ugh! You and your Broncos! And you think my Fabio/Finn thing is annoying.”

“Whatever. At least my obsessions are socially acceptable.”

The rain slanted against the back windows of the room, making a grating rat-a-tat sound.

“Fine,” said Emme. “You can watch your Bronco games while you’re here as long as you promise to still go to the Jane Austen Festival in Bath. It’s been what? Five years since we’ve been? I brought your outfit, breeches and all.”

“Oh, please,” Marc said, his voice pained, “it’s embarrassing how much you geek out on that. I’m not sure my manhood is up to dressing in fancy clothes and prancing around like Mr. Darcy. My self-respect does have boundaries.”

Emme rolled her eyes. “I think Mr. Darcy would take serious offense over being told that he pranced.”

“Any grown man who wears a satin vest thingy—”

“Waistcoat.”

“—and wraps his neck in a long strip of fabric—”

“A neckcloth.”

“—and drinks tea with his pinky elevated can most certainly be said to prance. I think it’s actually something they used to teach, . . . prancing.” There was a smirk in his voice.

“For the record, you wouldn’t have to be Mr. Darcy. He would bore me to tears in about five minutes. I mean, take away all his money and what are you left with? An uptight, socially awkward guy who can’t relate to people.”

“You know, somewhere a Jane Austen angel just lost her wings over you saying that.”
Marc’s good-natured laugh was buttery warm.
“I really think that people have been lynched for less.”

“Now you’re imagining an angry mob of bespectacled ladies brandishing pitchforks and battered copies of
Pride and Prejudice
chasing me through the streets of Bath.”

“Perhaps,” Marc chuckled. “And given your bad travel luck, I wouldn’t rule it out. Though I could choreograph a crazy fight scene to protect you. It would definitely require some ninjas.”

Emme laughed. “I think you’ve read
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
one too many times.”

“Hey, gotta stay up on all the classics.”

Suddenly, a large bolt of lightning flashed. Thunder cracked loudly and then boomed, rattling the house. The low noise reverberated, pounding against Emme’s sternum.

“What was that?” Marc exclaimed.

“A bad storm. And it’s Beltane today—that’s gotta be bad luck.”

“Beltane?”

“It’s like Halloween,” explained Emme, “only on the opposite side of the calendar, in the spring instead of the fall. They’re exactly six months apart, actually.”

“Sounds like something Jasmine made up. Listen, I gotta go, but you need to promise me one thing—”

“What?”

“No catastrophes this summer.” And then, whether because of the storm or Marc’s underdeveloped attention span, the phone call dropped.

A crash outside reminded Emme she was in the middle of the closest thing she’d known to a tornado—not a comforting thought given her history. She pulled the blankets tighter around her.

Tonight the cottage seemed oppressive and breathless. Nothing like how it’d felt a week earlier when she’d seen it in person for the first time, with its golden stone and ivy growing up over the peaked front door and paned windows. To the right of the cottage an oak tree wrinkled and stooped with age drew it protectively under its branches. The words Duir Cottage were carved into a board to the left of the front door,
duir
meaning oak in ancient Celt. Indeed, honey-colored oak covered the house’s interior, most walls boasting wood paneling.

The house epitomized the romanticized American notion of a quaint English cottage. It was beyond postcard perfect, like Emme could reach out and touch the paper it was printed on. From the first time she’d seen it on the internet, the place had seemed to be . . .

. . . waiting for her.

Lightning flashed again. Emme tried to ignore the clap of thunder that followed. But it was useless. The house was tense, air heavy and laden. She absorbed all the apprehension of the wind, the furor of the pounding rain. It hammered against her chest, jittery.

Trying for a distraction, Emme walked to the large stainless steel fridge. The unknown owners had recently renovated the house with an open kitchen/dining/sitting room at the back. An enormous stone fireplace dominated the space, flanked by high back chairs, flat screen TV and comfy sofa. A rough hewn antique dining table finished off the look. The whole house looked like it had been staged for a Restoration Hardware catalog photoshoot. Pulling out leftover Indian takeaway, Emme watched the rain pelt against the kitchen window as her food rotated in the microwave.

Sitting at the large table, she decided she needed company. Emme looped the oval locket off her neck and opened it gently, noting the familiar pop of the catch. She then propped the opened locket next to her plate of naan and tikka masala.

And looked at
him
.

As usual, she felt the familiar shock of recognition. That disorienting sense of deja vu. Over the years, it had never changed.

He still stared out at her in his blue-green jacket and neckcloth. Blond hair stylishly disheveled as was
a la mode
for any gentleman around 1812. Sun-bleached and tousled. Begging to run her fingers through it.

Emme stopped and then shook the thought out of her brain.

Honestly.

The tiny portrait carefully rendered minute fine details, showing strands of hair and subtle laughter lines around his mouth. His blue eyes looked kind with a dash of devil-may-care, like he laughed at himself as much as he laughed at the world.

More than just eye-candy, he seemed larger than life, beckoning, his smile always just out of reach.

Even now as she gazed at Finn propped on the table—rain pounding the roof overhead—the inscription jarred her.

To E

throughout all time

heart of my soul

your F

As usual, the words rushed unbidden through her mind:

You. He means you. Emry.

Emme brutally repressed them. She was in Marfield to overcome this sense of connection, not wallow in it.

It didn’t help that Jasmine relentlessly insisted the connection was real, not just imaginings in her head.

“Look, Jaz,” Emme had said on one particularly exasperating occasion. “I know you think it’s something significant, but it’s impossible for my life to be connected with someone who died two hundred years ago.”

“Well, you can believe that with all your heart,” Jasmine replied. “But as I keep telling you, belief alone can’t change the nature of reality. It is what it is and no amount of wishing reality were different will actually change it.”

Emme shook her head. There was no arguing with Jasmine when she got like this.

“What do you think his name is?” Jasmine speculated. “Obviously, E stands for Emry. Don’t look at me like that,” she insisted. “E is you. Definitely. But who is F?”

Emme shrugged. “E is not me. And I’m sure that they had sensible names for the time period. Probably something simple like Elizabeth and Frank. Or Eleanor and Freddie.”

Jasmine pursed her lips and thought for a minute. “No, I’m voting more for Eversly and Faxxon. Total hipsters.”

Emme rolled her eyes with a smile. “No, they were literary snobs: Emerson and Faulkner. Oh, or a Jane Austen character mash-up. Emma and Fitzwilliam.”

“Elsbeth and Fergus. Star-crossed Scottish lovers.” Jasmine grinned. “But seriously, Emme, E is you. Not letting you distract me. The real question is the mysterious Mr. F. What is his name?”

Emme couldn’t decide. Neither could Jasmine.

And so they never settled on a permanent name for F, his name changing on a regular basis. One day he was Francis, the next he was Ford. Once he spent six months as Felix. But nothing ever stuck. Nothing ever felt exactly right.

Emme picked up the locket, turned it over to look at the plaited hair and brushed her fingers over the stylized combined initials. Why take the initials and turn them into a design on top of the crystal, almost like a modern logo, with the F looping and nestling into the curvy shaped E? Such a puzzle.

Wind again rattled the house, banging against the doors and windows, pounding for entrance. It’s violence mimicking Emme’s increasingly maudlin mood.

She had tried hard to keep her obsession over the locket to a low simmer. But that hadn’t really worked. It was too easy to turn Finn into the perfect boyfriend. He was a fantastic listener and was always happy to see her. His welcoming smile on the edge of bursting into actual laughter. Sometimes she found herself straining to hear his voice, as if the connection she felt could will him into being.

Which really had been the problem. Particularly as she had watched relationship after relationship fizzle. She had struggled with dating before Finn. She often felt attracted to a guy. But that attraction just never seemed to move beyond a physical sense. There was never that deep, soul-nourishing emotional spark that books, movies and friends assured her did exist.

Since finding the mysterious Mr. F, her longest relationship had been with Carl. Web programmer by day, uber-Trekkie by night. At least, he had understood her obsession with the locket. The problem had come when she realized that he took his own obsession just a little too seriously. How could she
not
tease him when he tried to teach her Klingon? A person was born with only so much self-restraint. And he had gotten way too into her zombie apocalypse question. He had even drawn up multiple Star Fleet Command evasive maneuver charts in preparation. And hadn’t once seen the humor in the whole exercise.

And then she had had the temerity to question his choice of forehead prosthetic for an upcoming Trekkie convention. Well, not really questioned. More like giggled. Which had led to a huge fight where he had insisted she give back his “Keep Calm and Klingon” coffee mug. And that had led to more giggling. Quirky, yes. Self-deprecating sense of humor, not so much.

Then there had been Steve. The accountant. Her mom had particularly liked him. And he did have wonderful hair. Emme and Steve had really clicked because she loved to create lists, and he was a whiz with spreadsheets. They had had many a planning session together.

Emme found his obsessive need for order rather endearing. Not annoying at all. At least, not at first. But when she’d had The Talk, he had gotten the crazy eyes. And zombies? That hadn’t gone over well either.

This had led to Steve’s polar opposite: Forrest. Forrest was a photographer. And a wannabe poet who adored knitting. He cried over beauty. And sappy love songs. And internet memes. He had wanted to discuss the metaphysics of zombies for hours on end. To the point that Emme was sorry she had brought it up.

And then there had been the locket. At first, Emme had been excited that Forrest didn’t mind her obsession. In fact, he had gotten into it with her. It was one of their best bonding moments. But then he had started to refer to the guy in the locket as Forrest too. And she got jealous. Things became awkward, and so she broke up with him.

All of this left Emme alone with Finn and his enigmatic half smile—her perfect fantasy man. Dead men didn’t really make for good boyfriend material. Why couldn’t she connect with actual living, breathing human males? Sometimes she felt helplessly paralyzed. Unable to let go of Finn and the pull she felt to him, but equally unable to forge a bond with someone else. She feared something inside her had been broken long ago.

Emme had come to Marfield to find Finn. The real F. She would pull him from the realm of myth down to reality. Assign real names to the initials. Real people.

Screeeeeee!
A branch scraped against the window opposite the dining table. Loud and shrill.

Emme jumped, her heart suddenly clawing its way up her throat.

Seriously. This storm would be the death of her—

No wait. Given her track record, that wasn’t even funny to think about.

Chapter 4

In the village of Marfield

Beltane

April 30, 1812

B
y the time James reached Marfield, he considered taking shelter for the night. The wind still beat ferociously. Thunder boomed. But he was so close to home and his own bed. It seemed a shame to disturb anyone so late at night.