Time for Love (31 page)

“I’m sure he will. Judging by the way he looked at me for that short time when he thought I was you, he’s as much in love with you as you are with him.” Alex smiled. “Thank God you told him about yourself.” She hesitated a moment. “Did he believe you?”

“Yes. Well, not at first, but I had a bag full of modern stuff, so he didn’t have much choice.”

“Nicholas didn’t believe a word I said. He’s infuriating. He never listens. I get so mad at him, but then he turns around and does something wonderful…”

“Is Nicholas your boyfriend?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes,” Alex admitted. “And I’m completely, totally, in love. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.” She lifted her head and shrugged. “Anyway, now’s not the time. Lord Stone could get here any minute. We can’t just sit here and wait; we have to come up with a plan.”

“I’m afraid it is a little late for that, my dear.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

May 29 (Day of Murder)

Alex gasped and swung around just as Lord Stone stepped into view. In her excitement at finally finding Charlotte, she hadn’t noticed the light coming from the tunnel.

How could she have been so stupid, she thought as she saw the gun in his hand and the scrawny old man who followed behind. “Where’s your coachman?” she asked, stalling for time.

“He is watching the horses, of course.” Lord Stone dismissed his coachman as unimportant with a wave of his hand. “He is quite upset with you, Lady Alexandra. I have rarely seen him in such a temper.” The man chuckled. “He is looking forward to dealing with you personally.”

“Your coachman is a pig and should be kept in a sty,” she replied tartly.

Lord Stone frowned. “You are an unusual girl. Your father should have taken a whip to you and taught you to mind your manners.” He shrugged. “Too late now.”

“What are you going to do with us?” she asked.

“What I planned on doing all those years ago. But first, I want to know where the two of you have been hiding all these years and whom you have informed of my involvement with your disappearance.”

“I already told Mr. Timmons. I didn’t tell anyone about you,” Charlotte said angrily. “Until you walked in here, I never saw your face. You had nothing to worry about, you idiot.”

Lord Stone bristled. “As unpleasant as your sister. It will be a pleasure to finally rid the world of the two of you.”

Alex inched closer as he focused his attention on Charlotte. If she could only get close enough, she might have a chance to get the gun out of his hands. He would never expect her to attack and had no idea she could fight.

“Stop right there, if you please.” Lord Stone focused on her and pointed the gun at her chest. “You wouldn’t want your sister to be lonely now would you?”

Alex retreated to Charlotte’s side and clasped her hand. The motion reminded her of the last time they had been in this cave. Could they possibly escape the same way? Sawyer must have this portal cleared by now.

Of course, if what Charlotte said was true, Sawyer might not exactly roll out the red carpet. Still, it might be worth a shot. Staying here wasn’t much of an option.

****

The horses were about to drop. They needed to slow down and give them a rest, but every nerve in Nicholas’s body called out to keep going, to get to Alex as fast as possible. He sighed. It wouldn’t do Alex any good if the horse collapsed, and they had to walk the rest of the way. He signaled Tyndale, and they slowed to a walk.

“We had better let the horses walk.” Nicholas dismounted and threw the reins over the horse’s neck. He proceeded down the road, Tyndale at his side and the horses following, their breath heavy on his neck.

“I can’t bear the thought that something may have happened to Charlotte. Who knows how long he’s had a hold of her.” Tyndale cursed beneath his breath. “We fought the last time I saw her. She refused to marry me.”

“It must run in the family.” Nicholas chuckled. “Alex is refusing to marry me as well, though she will eventually,” he added confidently. “She loves me.”

“Enough to give up her life, everyone and everything she knows and loves back home? Charlotte loves me, as well, but she has family and friends where she came from, and it’s tearing her apart.”

The smile fell from Nicholas’s face. He hadn’t considered that. “Women do it all the time. They leave their father’s home for their husband’s. It’s the natural order. Besides, I own a ship. I could take her to visit any friends she may miss. She knows that.”

“You can’t sail a ship to their home. Besides, it’s different in their time. They can reach out and communicate instantly with loved ones around the world.” He snapped his fingers to emphasize his point. “They can travel distances much more quickly. A trip that would take us a month can be accomplished in less than a day with their technology. They can speak with someone across the ocean, without leaving their home.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. “The advancements science will make in the future are truly amazing.”

Nicholas snorted. “Impossible. Are you talking about this time travel nonsense? How can you believe in such a fairy tale? It is patently ridiculous to believe people can travel through time.”

Alex had simply made up the story to avoid discussing her traumatic youth. It had to be. Nicholas ignored the tiny voice in his mind that asked how Alex and Charlotte had developed the same story though they grew up apart.

Perhaps they had fantasized about time travel when they were children. That was a possible explanation—though he admitted to himself it seemed weak.

“It’s not nonsense. Charlotte proved it to me. She showed me technological inventions that couldn’t possibly exist today. Once you get over the difficulty in believing the concept of time travel, it’s the only logical explanation.”

“Logical!” Nicholas exclaimed. “How can you call time travel logical?”

“I have learned to trust Charlotte. Do you not trust Lady Alexandra?” Tyndale asked. “Her family appears to trust her completely. They didn’t have the evidence I had, and yet they believed her.”

“Her parents are so happy to have her back they would believe anything she told them. They
want
to believe her. They
need
to. So do I.” Nicholas took a deep breath.

Why he was telling this virtual stranger so much, he didn’t know. He was so anxious about Alex, he couldn’t seem to stop talking. At least it kept his mind off what could be happening to her.

“Yet I can’t believe her. She has lied to me from the day I met her, all for good reasons I’ll grant her. This is no different. I just don’t know her reason—yet.”

Tyndale looked at him with pity in his eyes. “You’ll never truly win her if you don’t learn to trust her.”

Nicholas didn’t respond. He resented the younger man’s interference, perhaps because it was a little too close for comfort?

True. He didn’t trust her. He found it hard to trust anyone, and she had never given him a reason to, had she? While he understood some of the reasons behind the lies she had told, it didn’t make it any easier to place his trust in her.

Given her situation, dressing as a man to avoid the advances of every male within view was completely reasonable. It would have made more sense for her to hire a maid and book passage even if it had meant a delay of several weeks. But he could understand her impatience to continue on her journey as quickly as possible. Though her disguise hadn’t held up under scrutiny, he couldn’t fault her for trying. Under normal circumstances her disguise might have gone unnoticed for the duration of the journey. After all, how closely did one normally inspect boys hired on for one short journey?

He had more difficulty with her abandonment upon reaching London. Her betrayal infuriated him. However, if he were honest with himself, she had made a half-hearted attempt to warn him of her intention.

The reasoning behind all her lies had been fairly transparent, except for this one. He couldn’t understand it, and he had given it quite a bit of thought.

But to think it could be true was insane. Alex couldn’t possibly have expected him to believe her. He felt sure she hadn’t, yet he had sensed her disappointment.

Was it some kind of test? Her way of seeing if he would trust her blindly? If so, he had failed miserably.

No. Alex wasn’t the type to play games. She had valid reasons for all her lies. She must have one for this as well. He hadn’t figured it out yet, but he would. He loved her, and there would be no more secrets between them.

Provided he got to her in time.

Nicholas patted the mare’s sweat-soaked neck. She had stopped blowing her oat and hay-laden breath down his neck and showed increased interest in the grass at the side of the road. He pulled on the reins to keep her from stopping for a feast.

“I think the horses are sufficiently recovered, let’s get going.” He mounted and kicked the horse into action. Beside him, Tyndale gripped his reins in white fisted hands, a stony expression on his face. His horse grunted and tossed its head, but burst forward to keep the rapid pace Nicholas set.

They would reach the girls in time. They had to. The alternative was unacceptable. He couldn’t possibly live the rest of his life without Alex; she was too important to him. Though he had known her a relatively short time, she had somehow become a vital part of his life. It appeared as though his new friend, Tyndale, felt the same about Charlotte. That was good.

He could use all the help he could get.

****

Alex shivered as moisture from the damp ground seeped through her gown to her knees. She leaned closer to share warmth with Charlotte huddled beside her.

The knots of Charlotte’s bound hands stubbornly refused to give. Alex forced her chilled fingers to pick at the scratchy bindings.

She struggled in the pitch dark to feel whether she made any headway. One of the ropes gave slightly, so she redoubled her efforts. After several long moments, it slipped free. “Gotcha!” she exclaimed triumphantly. The bonds fell off, and Charlotte flexed her wrists.

“Brilliant, thank you. Give me a second, and I’ll work on yours.” Charlotte’s indrawn breath hissed and she trembled as she shook her hands. “Pins and needles. Ouch. Bastard tied the damn rope so tight I lost circulation in my hands.”

“Mine aren’t that bad, the pig was distracted by my cleavage. He actually drooled on me.” Alex shivered. “Yuck.” She tested her bonds. There was a little play, but she couldn’t quite get it loose. She stopped trying and waited for Charlotte. She didn’t want to risk making them any tighter by struggling with them.

“Okay, give me your hands.” Charlotte worked on the ropes. She had them off within minutes. “There you go.” She paused. “Now what?”

Alex sat back and tried to think. What could they do? Without light they wouldn’t get very far. “Should we try to make it to the portal?”

“I don’t know if we’d be any better off. They might just push us right back. Or shoot us.”

“No, they wouldn’t, would they?” Alex asked in horror. She had a hard time reconciling what she now knew with the story Sawyer had fed her. She had thought it strange he needed her help but had never thought it would have come to force if she’d refused.

“I don’t know,” Charlotte’s voice was thoughtful. “They weren’t about to let me walk out of there; that’s for sure. Would they have shot me if they couldn’t force me back? I just don’t know. They wanted me back here, not dead. Not to mention, I caused a decent amount of damage when I left. I doubt they’d be too happy to see me.”

“Yeah, but we might be able to buy some time. Convince them to let us stay a day or two before they force us back. Lord Stone and his people might think we escaped the same way we did last time and leave. Then we could make our way back and find a way to Lord Tyndale’s house.”

“Or Lord Stone might stumble through the portal.” Charlotte laughed. “That could be fun. Lord Stone and those creepy servants of his at the business end of a couple of machine guns. With any luck the soldiers would shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Humph.” Alex chuckled. Passage through the portal had been a nightmare. And she’d been prepared. She could just imagine what Lord Stone would think. “Why was Sawyer so determined to send us back, anyway? I mean, it’s been fifteen years. It’s not like we just stumbled through the portal yesterday. We grew up there—uh, then—uh, whatever. Did he explain it to you?”

“No, not really.” She sighed. “He said something about
cleaning house
and sending people back to their own time. He tried to tell me everyone was happy to go.” She snorted. “I certainly wasn’t. They had to drug me, and it still took a cave-in to push me through.”

“They were a bit more creative with me. They went full court press to convince me to go willingly. They dangled you as the carrot to lure me here, but of course, I thought I could always come back.” She frowned as she thought about it. “I wonder what they were planning on doing when I returned.”

“Maybe they didn’t expect you to return.”

Alex thought about it and shivered. “He said I could save you, and I believed him. He gave me the creeps. I should have paid attention to my gut and known everything wasn’t what it seemed. I’m an idiot.”

Charlotte clasped her hand tight and rubbed some warmth into her icy fingers. “You wanted to save me. That makes you heroic, not stupid. And if you’d never come, we would never have seen each other again. Nor would you have met your Nicholas and had a chance of living happily ever after with the man of your dreams,” Charlotte said quietly.

“Do you think it’s possible?” Alex asked.

“What?”

“Happily ever after.” It occurred to her that Charlotte would be able to understand what Alex was going through. She was the only person who
could
understand. “Is it possible for us to live here, in this time, and be happy?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Charlotte sighed. “I remember what it was like when we were kids. We were happy, but we didn’t know any better. Had we been raised in this century, we would have accepted that our lot in life was to marry well and become dutiful wives and mothers. We were wealthy, so we wouldn’t have had to face some of the harsher realities of this time. But now, we’ve been exposed to a different way of life. I don’t know if we can go back so easily.”