Timeless Desire (40 page)

“I know this hasn’t been a great spell for you,” he said, unwrapping the tacos. “I just wanted to say, if you need a friend . . . well, I’m here.”

“Thank you, Steve. I . . . I could use a friend.”

He handed her a taco and a napkin. “Say, that is quite a statue you have there. Is he some kind of hero or something?”

She put her head on his shoulder and started to cry.

Andrew Carnegie Library, Carnegie, Pennsylvania Eight months later: May 1, 8:03 p.m.

Panna clicked
SHUT DOWN
on her computer and turned off the monitor. “Done!”

Marie, who had already put on her coat, said, “I am so ready to hit the bar.”

“You and me both, sister, even though I am relegated to club soda.”

Marie looked toward the entryway. “Do you ever miss sitting in the shadow of a really great eighteenth-century package?”

The statue had fetched nearly two hundred grand at auction. It turned out that Adderly had commissioned the statue from Lorado Taft, a famous sculptor at the turn of the century, though nobody had known it. Panna hoped visitors to the Art Institute of Chicago would enjoy spending their days staring in awe at the future Earl of Bridgewater. She knew she’d had enough of it.

“Remember, you can’t always believe what you see,” Panna said, smiling. “Statues lie.”

“Well, let me tell you, that was a pretty big lie.” Marie grabbed her umbrella. The sky was clear now, but it had been raining on and off all day. “Are you ready?”

“You go ahead. I’ll lock up here. Steve’s picking me up. Save us seats.”

“All right. See you at PaPa J’s.” Marie lifted the barrier and headed out.

Panna reached for her bag—not as easy as it used to be, with her belly resembling a bowling ball—and changed from her flats to her rain boots. When she sat up, Jamie Bridgewater was standing in front of the entryway stairs, looking at her.

She felt as if she had turned to glass. No part of her would move. She could scarcely breathe.

He took a halting step toward her, and a boundless joy billowed in her chest like the sails of great ship. He was
alive
.

In half a dozen steps he was standing at the circulation desk, his face a canvas of gratitude and disbelief. He took the hand she held out toward him, choked back the moan of one who has evaded utter devastation, and began to cry.

So did she.

For both of them, the only thing in the universe was the warmth of their clasped hands and the realization that they were finally together.

“I tried, Panna. I tried.”

“I know.”

“This was my third trip. If I hadn’t found you . . .” He couldn’t finish.

“But you did. I’m here, and you’re here. That’s all that matters.”

“Twice I found myself in Clementina’s time and twice I returned, devastated.”

He looked thinner, his face more drawn, and her heart trembled. “Have you been well?”

“Well enough, if you can call a life without you even living. I left the army. Was living with the rebels. The castle is gone. Collapsed.”

“How did you . . .”

“The passageway survived. I dug through the rubble for days to find it. Undine wanted to take me to Paris, to show me a passageway there, but I would only trust this one to take me to you.” He shook his head, trying to find the words. “I was so afraid I would never find you. After the second time I returned from the future, I walked from Bowness to Newcastle and back, praying in every church along the way. I was terrified to try again, knowing it would be my last attempt. Undine said I must wait until Beltane to try it again.”

“Beltane?”

“The first of May. Tis the time when the earth’s magic is most potent.”

“And it worked.” Panna said a quiet prayer of thanks to Undine. “How is she?”

“Undine? She’s well . . . quite well.” He smiled. “She has joined the rebels, too.”

“I’m not surprised. And St. Cadoc?” Panna asked, almost afraid.

“Saved,” he said. “Thomas helped. The rebels were magnificent.”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m so glad.”

“Losing you and them in the same night would have been too much to bear. As it was, I damned myself many nights for my foolish determination to save them.”

“And I praised it.”

There was a knock at the front door. Steve waved, and then he saw Jamie and stopped.

Jamie had seen her eyes. “Who is that?”

“Steve.” She said the word as softly as she could. She knew Jamie would receive it as a blow.

“Oh.” His hand fell free.

“I have to unlock it.” She wiped her eyes and, with a pounding heart, opened the barrier and came around the desk.

Jamie’s face twitched, first in happiness, then in pain.

“You’re with
child
?” Considering her size, the question was clearly rhetorical.

“It’s yours,” she said, smiling through the tears.

He pulled her into his arms, hugging her so tightly that she could barely breathe. She clutched his neck and held him fast.

“Oh, Panna,” he whispered, “what if I had missed this?”

She pulled away. “Please. Let me say something to Steve.”

Jamie caught her hand. “Did he . . . Have you . . . married him?”

“No.” She shook her head. “He wanted me to. I told him I couldn’t. We’re just friends. He’s been very good to me. But, Jamie, I told him about you. He knows.”

She went through the entryway and Jamie straightened, hoping to present himself as well as he could to someone who meant so much to Panna.

When she opened the outside door, Steve met her eyes. “That’s him, isn’t it?

“Yes.”

He gazed at Jamie. “I’m Steve. Steve Trexler.”

Jamie gave him a courtly bow, the deepest she had ever seen him make. “I owe you a great debt for taking care of Panna.”

“It was my pleasure. Are you really from 1706?”

Jamie looked at Panna. “Aye. I am.”

The look in Steve’s eyes was one of amazement and disappointment. “She wasn’t sure you were coming. I wasn’t, either.”

“He tried, Steve,” Panna said. “Twice.”

“It took me a good deal longer than I was expecting. I am most grateful to have found her.”

“I would have married her,” Steve said, the faintest hint of challenge in his voice, “and made her happy, I think.”

Jamie nodded solemnly. “I can see that you would have. Panna is lucky to have a friend like you.”

Steve’s jaw muscle flexed for a moment. After a long pause, he stuck out his hand. Jamie shook it.

“I’m going to just head out, okay?” Steve pointed to his car.

“Yeah, okay,” Panna said. “I think we’ll . . . I mean—”

“I’ll tell Marie you’re not coming.”

“Thank you.” She stood on her toes and kissed Steve’s cheek. Then she hugged him. “Really. Thank you.”

Steve paused at the door and looked back at Jamie. “You take care of her.”

Jamie said, “I give you my word.”

Steve nodded. He took a step then stopped. “I’m a big fan of
Highlander
. We need to talk.”

Jamie bowed his head, clearly uncertain what he was agreeing to, and then he and Panna were alone. Her life had stopped and started so many times. She could hardly believe her happiness. She leaned against the stair railing, smiling at him.

He extended a hand toward her stomach. “May I?”

He laid his palm on top of her wriggling flesh and shook his head, amazed. “I can hardly believe my good fortune.”

“There’s more—though I’m almost afraid to tell you.”

“What is it?” He took her hand.

“Part of my reluctance comes from fear of hurting you. But the other, Jamie, comes from fear of hurting me.”

“Don’t fear, Panna. I will never let anything hurt you again.”

She bit her lip. “Your father told me he took Adderly from your mother as she lay dying. He wanted an infant whom he and his wife could raise as their own. But he left you with the priest.”

Jamie rocked on his feet, hurt apparent on his face. “I came to the same conclusion myself, though I couldn’t be certain. Father Giles told me what I didn’t know. He had begged my father to take us both, but my father’s wife wouldn’t allow it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Our child will never know a want of affection or constancy.”

“No.”

“The irony in all this is that Adderly finds himself a bastard, too,” Jamie said. “And though he is my father’s heir, I have seen the sorrow in his eyes. It pains me.”

“He’s not a bastard, Jamie—and neither are you.”

A cloud of confusion rose in his eyes.

“I sold the statue of Adderly,” she said. “I couldn’t bear to look at it, and the sale provided the library with the funds we needed to operate. But the movers discovered a box in the base. Adderly had hidden it there when he had the statue built. When I opened it, I found your parents’ signed wedding license. They were married in Gretna, a year before you were born.”

“But how . . .”

“I don’t know. Maybe your father convinced her that the marriage wasn’t legal. Maybe when she heard the Bridgewater family was having money troubles, she agreed to step aside and let him marry another. Maybe she was angry at him and wouldn’t acknowledge the marriage herself. We may never know the reason your mother chose not to go public with the license. All I know is I called the church in Gretna when I found it, and the record is there—has been there since the day they married. It’s still there, Jamie.”

He shook his head as if trying to remove cobwebs from it. Everything he’d known had just been swept away—well, almost everything.

She let go of his hand and looked him in the eye. “Jamie, you are the heir of the Bridgewater title. Your father’s marriage to his other wife wasn’t binding. It couldn’t be, since he’d married Sorcha first. Even if they claimed Adderly as their son, it doesn’t matter. You are the eldest son of your father’s only legal marriage. You are the earl.”

He sank onto a step. “My God.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to keep herself from shaking. She knew she wouldn’t be done until she’d told him everything.

“You can go back,” she said. “You can go to the church in Gretna, find the record and claim your rightful place.”

Though if he did, the trip back to 1706 would be his last.

The idea of a future of wealth and position swam for an instant across his face then he looked at her, aghast. “My
rightful
place? Do you think for one moment I would give up what I’ve struggled so hard for the past year to find?” He swept her into his arms. “You could offer me the kingdom of Genghis Khan and I would turn it down. Indeed, you offer me more. You offer your hand, your bed, and your child. Could any man be richer?”

Allegheny Observatory, Pittsburgh Saturday, August 5, 8:55 p.m.

“It’s
astonishing
,” Jamie said when they’d reached the top of the stairs.

“Forty-seven glorious feet.”

He gave her a look and she giggled.

“C’mon,” she said. “You have to admit it does have a certain . . . look to it.”

The telescope, angled majestically skyward, stretched from the wooden floor to the domed ceiling high over their heads. The night sky was visible through a narrow opening in the dome.

“Certainly reminds a man that caliber is in the eye of the beholder. Tell me, are all library keepers like you?”

“We have a reputation of being prim—”

Jamie snorted.

“—but the truth is, it’s a handy disguise. We’re pretty wild about anything that goes on between the covers.”

Jamie caught the gleam in her eye and laughed. His gaze returned to the telescope. “The workmanship is amazing. Could the lens really be that large? It’s beyond belief.”

Poor Jamie. So much had been beyond belief for him in the last three months, but nothing more than their perfect miracle of a daughter, Marie Clare. Panna found herself pretty in awe, too.

“My friend Alan is one of the astronomers here. He watches the place on the weekends. He’s lecturing to some academics downstairs. He says the place is ours for the next hour. There’s something I wanted to show you.”