Aching for Always (30 page)

His steely-eyed gaze made her unwilling to continue the argument, let alone test the proposition. Even in his weakened state, he seemed entirely able to prove his thesis. She took a small step back. “What do you want?”

“Tell me about the missing map.”

The map was no longer missing. One of the voice mails she had listened to in Pittsburgh was from Marty, the map tech. He'd looked it up in the assets register. Rogan had signed the map of Manchester out three days ago with the notation “Personal.” There was no reason why he shouldn't take it. Though it had hung on the wall of the Brand O'Malley map room, it was a Brand Industries asset, and Rogan and his investors owned the company. She herself had brought more than one particularly beautiful map to her office or condo over the years. She refused to let herself believe Rogan's by-the-book borrowing was an issue, though added to the odd visions she'd had in the dome, it was unsettling.

“What about it?” she said.

“You say it has the same cartouche?”

“I
think
it has the same cartouche. I don't know. I haven't looked at it for a while.”

“And where do you think it is?”

She hated that he had zeroed in on the one topic she wanted to avoid. “I think it might have been taken out on loan.”

“By whom?” He gave her a look. “Reynolds?”

“Yes.” She waited for a witty reply or an accusation, but he face remained emotionless.

“To his office?”

“No,” she said, “I don't think so. At least, it wasn't there yesterday.”

“Then his house?”

She hated to answer. “I guess. I don't know.”

“When did the two of you begin courting?”

She narrowed her eyes. “August. Why?”

“I . . . I thought there might be a connection to something else. 'Tis of no import. Can you get me in there?”

“His house?

Hugh nodded.

“I can,” she said. “I live there, too.”

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-TWO
 

P
ITTSBURGH
, P
RESENT
D
AY

Joss paced the familiar length of Grant Street, furious. She felt like she'd been led around like an ox with a nose ring since she met the man who trailed two steps behind her. She'd been tricked, stripped, manhandled, robbed and forced to lie. All that remained was being forced to walk the plank and doing his laundry. If this was sexual adventure, she'd stick with late nights at the office.

“You're unusually quiet, Joss.”

She made an indeterminate noise and continued along the darkened sidewalk. Worse than the things he made her do, though, were the things he seemed to know, about her mother, about her father, about the maps—things he wouldn't share. She felt like a kid, too young to be let in on the secret. It made her feel frustrated and powerless.

He said, “I only ask because—”

“I hope you remembered to bring your pills.”

“I did,” he said. “And I thank you for your efforts on my behalf. Mr. Lytle says they may have saved my life.”

“
May
have?” She snorted.

He caught her with his good arm. “Joss, please. I hope you do not think—”

She shook herself free. “I want you to answer some of my questions.”

His face flickered. “I will answer what I can.”

“How do you know my mother?”

The question seemed to shock him. “I-I—”

“Look, my mother died when I was eight. My memories of her are almost all good. Of course, I didn't know her as an adult. I wish I had. But when you act like you know something about her, but keep me in the dark, it's like you're holding back something that belongs to
me.
Maybe you don't understand that, but it hurts.”

“I do understand, Joss. I told you I lost my brother when I was a boy.”

“If that's not a lie.”

“It's
not.
”

“Fine. Okay. Then you know what I mean.”

He shifted. She could see him considering. He said, “You're asking me to tell you things I'd prefer not to tell.”

“You're asking me to violate a trust I have with the man I'm going to marry. I'd prefer not to do that, either.”

He sighed. “Your mother and father were in the past.”

She felt like she'd had the wind knocked out of her. Her parents? In the past? Were they denizens of the past, or had they visited it like she just did? And why did they go? And why didn't they ever mention it to her? “Did they come through the same place we did?”

“They returned that way. I don't know how they arrived.”

There was more. He was holding something back.
Would he force her to chip this story out like bits of silver in a mine? “Why?”

Hugh plucked at his thumb. “Your father wanted a map.”

A map. Just like Hugh. There was more he wasn't saying. She could see it in the hazy gray of his eyes. If he was going to treat her like a child, she was going to damn well act like one. “Why? Why did my father want a map?”

“You're asking me to guess his motive, Joss. I didn't know what he was thinking.”

“You and your bloody companions have been acting like you've known it since this whole mess began. Tell me. Dammit, Hugh, tell me.”

“He wanted to change the future.”

She felt the impact of his words like a blow. “Don't be ridiculous,” she said. “You can't change the future.”

“Of course you can,” Hugh said gently. “We do it every time we cross a street or help a friend or ignore a wrong. 'Tis the easiest thing in the world.”

“But you're talking about something else, something bigger.”

“Am I? The impact of a small change grows over time. Think of a sum of money accruing interest. A ha'penny now may look very different than the fortune of a sultan in a hundred years, but that does not mean it can't produce it.”

Her father had wanted a map so that he could change the future. She felt dizzy thinking about it. It would certainly be in the range of her father's ambition. But her father had never shown any interest in maps. In fact, he'd seemed to belittle her mother's love for them.

“I take it he found it, then?” she said. “The map, I mean.”

Hugh nodded grimly.

“Of course he did. He failed at very few things. And what did he change with the discovery of this map?”

“He prevented the transfer of a small parcel of land out of his family.”

“When?” Her brain was whirring like one of Di's calculators.

“Sixteen eighty-five. Does ‘Edgemore Cut' mean anything to you?”

She gazed at him with suspicion. “Sir James Brand, one of my forebears, lived on an estate called Edgemore. He's the one that made us rich.”

Hugh nodded. “Do you know how?”

“Quite by accident, a laborer discovered a huge vein of tin on a piece of his land in England, and tin was almost as valuable as silver then, used in every sort of manufacturing.”

“That's right.”

She began to sway. She could see the workings of her father's brain, felt his objective like it was her own. “On a piece of his land whose transfer my father prevented.”

“Aye. The map we seek redrew the border between two neighbors in East Fenwick who each sought something the other's land offered. The neighbors were James Brand and Fiona's grandfather, Jonathan McPherson. It was a fair trade, a good trade. It satisfied both men, and the vein was discovered on your forebear's land after it had been traded away.”

She felt a wave of relief that left her breathless. “Then my father didn't stop the transfer.”

“Your father did stop it. In the world the way it should
be, the transfer took place, and for several hundred years, until your father went back to change things, Fiona's family, the McPhersons, enjoyed the same wealth you enjoy now.”

“No.” Joss shook her head. What he said violated every principle she had ever understood about the world. “That's impossible to know.”

“It's not if you lived it. I met someone like us—like you and me, Joss—who was lost in a different time for fifteen years. He had come from Fiona's grandfather's time and knew Fiona's grandfather. When you leave you take your memories with you, just as you did when you landed on the islet with me. The first time he tried to return, he landed in 1718 and saw that everything had changed for the McPhersons. The McPhersons didn't know it, but he did. The second time he tried to return, he landed in 1706 and told Fiona what he knew.”

“But that was a long, long time ago.”

“Not for Fiona. Not for her grandfather. He's not been knighted like your forebear, though the tin was found on land that was rightfully his. He rots in prison. Right now. In the time we traveled to. When I sail back to England, Fiona will go once again to the magistrate to beg for his release. He is very ill, Joss. And he will die there if we can't help. He will die there without having seen his family once in the last ten years.”

“But the map . . .”

“If we find it, the map, along with the deed of intent that we already have, can be filed. It should have been filed in 1685, the year the transfer was intended to have—and did once—take place. But the best we can do
is file it in the year that exists when we reach the islet, the year 1706. It must be accepted by the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, a man named Sir William Cowper. I think your mother's maps may hold a clue. None of the three is the map of East Fenwick we seek, but together they may tell us something about where to look.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Two reasons. The first is something your mother told me.”

Her jaw dropped. “You knew my mother?”

“I did, Joss. She told me a tale about a woman who made maps.”

It was more than she could believe. That story was the reason she'd held on to her virginity until now, though she'd never told anyone except Di and Rogan. The girl who lived like a princess waited for the knight who saved her. And the dark, handsome man who sought the map so he could find the gold—
he
was the sort of man from whom the girl had to guard herself against.

“My mother told me the same story.”

Even in the dark, she could see the flush on Hugh's cheeks. Was it because he knew she'd just recognized him as the dark, handsome man? And how could he have known her mother?

He cleared his throat. “I can see you are surprised. I-I think your mother may have known the story of Fiona's grandfather and may have foreseen the day when the map would need to be found. I think she may have hidden clues. In her tale, the heroine says to the dark, handsome man, ‘The maps are the same. Three to one. Follow the path of the maps. Words can hide so much.' Well, you
said the cartouche can hold the legend. Do you see? ‘The maps are the same.' The map of London I took from the map room and the map of Edinburgh you found in Fiona's room share the same cartouche. You think the third one, the one of Manchester that Reynolds borrowed, does as well. ‘Three to one. Follow the path of the maps.' I think the three maps will lead us to the one.”

Joss didn't know what to believe anymore. Had her mother foreseen this? She remembered how often her mother had told her the story. “You said there were two reasons for you to think the three maps will lead you to the one you seek. What's the other?”

His jaw flexed. “Your mother drew the East Fenwick map we seek. She was the mapmaker Jonathan McPherson and James Brand used.”

“But that would mean . . .”

“That she came from the past. I think your father met her there and fell in love.”

Her mother came from the past? Joss was dazed by this upending of everything she had known.

“How long were my parents in the past?”

“I don't know.”

“And you think my father met her there?”

“It's possible. In fact, I think it's probable.”

Then a sickening thought came into her head. “Do you think my mother—”

“No, Joss. I don't. I don't believe your mother had a part in the plan. I think she found out after the fact, and I believe she decided to do what she could to stop it.” His eyes were clear green. He believed what he was saying, even if Joss hardly could.

“And if the three maps lead you to the one?”

He met her eyes. “Then the future will change. James Brand will be stripped of the land on which the vein is found. The vein will be discovered on land that is rightfully the McPhersons', and Fiona will be able to buy her grandfather out of prison.”

“And the McPhersons will be wealthy.”

“And the Brands will not.”

“Just like that?”

He nodded. “Just like that.”

She looked at him, shocked—shocked and angry. “Okay, first, I don't believe you. And second, even if I did believe you, why do you think I'd help you do something like that?”