Divine (4 page)

[ . . . ]

[ . . . ]ber [ . . . ] 1813

Beloved keeper of my soul,

Oh, my darling love! [ . . . ] my own affections. You and only you rule my heart. [ . . . ] forgive me? [ . . . ] hole in my heart the shape and size of you. Your beating heart might as well be my own.

I came [ . . . ] Wretched, wretched fool [ . . . ] your love. [ . . . ] comfort me with the warmth of your embrace. Whisper those words of adoration [ . . . ] profound love that comes from deep within a woman’s soul. Darling, suffer me no more to pine [ . . . ] Wrap me in the light of your love.

[ . . . ] heart ever your own,

  Georgiana Knight

Georgiana swallowed hard, feeling the shock of it again.

And then she giggled. Gleefully.

The letter gave her
goosebumps
. Every. Single. Time.

Smiling, she sank back into the couch, letting the wonder of it fizzle through her blood, tucking her bare toes under herself.

She
loved
someone! Or had? Would?

And quite passionately too.
Beloved keeper of my soul . . . a hole in my heart the size and shape of you . . .

Who knew she could be so poetic?

But what did this portend? Was she to return to 1813?

Well, the letter implied that she
did
actually return. She most certainly couldn’t write the love letter from her couch here and now. She had to
be
in the nineteenth century to write it.

She shook her head. Wasn’t this one of those space-time conundrums that Emme talked about? If she chose not to pass back through the portal, time would unravel? Or, at the very least, history would alter and she would wake one morning to find the world ruled by knife-wielding sharks?

Which meant she
had
to return, didn’t she? For the good of
humanity
, if nothing else?

Just the thought caused her heart to simultaneously climb into her throat and sink to her feet.

How impossible!

But for a chance to truly love like this . . .

Her emotions were a cacophony of conflicting thoughts. Like bickering children, each demanding attention.

She was twenty-four years old and had kissed six men. Five of those kisses had been stolen during her three London seasons—and, yes, she did still count the one from that excessively drunk dandy, even if his kiss had been more of an accidental stumble into her lips.

A kiss was a kiss, right?

Though none of those kisses had been of the toe-tingling, knee-melting variety one read about in novels.

She also tallied four proposals of marriage. Well, at least what she considered to be marriage proposals. It was astonishing how vague men could be about it.

But she had not experienced fierce romantic love, not enough to commit her life to another’s, not as this love letter described.

Though, now she did have Shatner.

Shatner. Kisser number six. Her twenty-first century boyfriend of several months—the man of Intense Stares and Brooding Charm, despite his odd name. His parents were huge fans, apparently (
Star Trek
not Priceline). Whatever that meant.

She did care deeply for Shatner. Or, at least, her heart beat a faster when he touched a hand to her back. And she did enjoy his kisses. She liked the
thought
of him, of who she could be with him.

Was that love?

Bing. Chirp. Whip-woo.

Seriously, Georgie! Are you kissing Shatner or something? Talk to me.

Giving a decidedly unladylike grunt, Georgiana grabbed her phone, and laying the letter on the couch, snapped a photo of it.

This came in the mail today
. She attached the image.

Sitting back, she debated how quickly James would reply. What would he make of it?

As with any letter written in the early nineteenth century, it wasn’t in an envelope but was instead a single sheet of paper, folded and tucked to create its own enclosure, the address written on one side, the message on the other. The single sheet had been unfolded and pressed flat in the plastic.

So achingly familiar, a poignant reminder of the simplicities of home.

Of course, there was a particularly pesky moth hole right where the addressee’s name would have been, preventing her from knowing to
whom
she had written the letter. Frustrating that. But
Haldon Manor, Herefordshire
was clearly legible. Holding the letter up to the light didn’t reveal anything more.

She turned the letter around in her hands and then noticed something odd on the outside edge.

A small squiggle. More than just a stray pen mark. Clear and deliberate.

♃

She brought it closer to her eyes, examining. It resembled a rather stylized number four, swooping and open on top. Or was it the number twenty-one, where the two and the one were overlapping each other in such a way as to resemble a four, the two a little higher than the one?

It was in an odd place, on a part of the paper that would have been tucked and folded away. Unseen.

It was unusual . . . unexpected.

Georgiana flipped the letter over and reread it. Again.

And then leaned (slouched) against the back of the sofa, curled her legs in their loose pajama bottoms up against her tight t-shirt and stared at the beamed ceiling.

Why, oh why,
knowing
that she would read this letter, did she not leave herself a clue? Or at the very least, have written the name of her supposed beloved on the existing part of the letter?

It was utterly maddening. Or was it? Maybe that small symbol
was
the clue that she left for herself.

She pondered it for a moment.

No, it was still maddening.
Fascinating
. But maddening.

Who was he, the man who inspired such devotion from her? Shatner?

Or was it someone else? Scouring her memories, she couldn’t recall any gentleman from the nineteenth century who had garnered her interest, particularly as she had been so sick. Was the mystery man someone she had yet to meet? An enigmatic man whose brooding gaze promised hidden secrets.

Briefly, Georgiana imagined it all too clearly.

Going through the portal in her cellar and entering the front door of Haldon Manor. Arthur—her stodgy, but still beloved, middle brother left behind in 1813—gasps in astonishment to see her whole and healthy. Marianne, his wife, runs to her, sobbing into her shoulder. Arthur draws them across the great hall and into the drawing room, Marianne still weeping.

And there, rising from the sofa, an unknown man. Dark maybe, tall definitely, dressed in tight breeches and an immaculately cut coat. All worn with a devil-may-care attitude and intense smile. Looking a little bit like Shatner. She smiles back at him, curtsies, and extends her hand in greeting. He grasps it, raises her knuckles to his warm lips—

—her phone buzzed, loudly.

It had taken James less than five minutes to call.

“So, is there anything in your past you would like to share with me?” Exasperation laced his voice. “A hidden love interest of which I have been unaware?”

“Heavens, James! What a thing to say. You know that there is no such person—”

“Really? Because this letter would indicate otherwise.”

“Truly! Did you even note the date, James?”

A pause.

“The date alone should tell you that I have not written this letter. At least not yet.”

“Georgie, you cannot seriously be considering returning to the nineteenth century.” His tone a mix of frustration and weariness.

“Well, the existence of this letter definitely implies that I
do
actually go home, at least for a while.”

“Georgie—”

“Which is precisely what makes it so . . . so fascinating, do you not agree?”

“I am inclined to call this letter many things.
Fascinating
is not one of them. My list consists of words like
worrisome
,
impulsive, alarming
.”

She could practically
hear
him shaking his head.

“James, I haven’t done anything yet, so please leave off scolding me.”

“Consider this scolding preemptive. I know how obsessive you are about mysteries, particularly romantic ones. You can’t let them go. And then it’s all any of us can do to rein you in—”

“Pardon? I am hardly a flighty mare in need of a firm hand on the
reins
—”

“Georgie, if you didn’t go running off helter-skelter at the first sign of something mysterious—”

“Honestly, James, you are starting to sound a little bit like Arthur.”

Silence. And then . . .

“That was a low blow, Georgie.”

“Stop, James. Arthur isn’t that horrid. You must admit that the letter is, at a minimum,
intriguing
.”

Another pause.

“Perhaps,” he conceded, “but there is no guarantee this letter means anything at all. It is just as likely to be a lark from your over-fertile imagination.”

“Of course, I realize that.”

She hadn’t.

It was a stinging slap to think that the letter might not reflect actual emotions.

Drat!
Would she write a fake love note?

She grimaced. Yes, yes she would.

“Georgiana, I thought that you had adjusted to being in this century. You have Shatner now. You have seemed excited about him, about his work and what you could do together.”

She and Shatner had met several months ago at the annual show of the Gooseberry Lovers International Brotherhood, which went by the incongruous acronym GLIB, where he had been the keynote speaker. Attending the gooseberry shows had become a bit of an obsession for Georgiana as they reminded her of the simplicities of home.

She had been admiring the gooseberry trophy—a large silver bowl on a pedestal which was said to have been in use since 1798—when Shatner approached and introduced himself. She made some wry comment about GLIB; he chuckled appreciatively and had said something, well . . . glib. She laughed and the rest was history.

A solicitor turned philanthropist, Shatner helped establish and oversee orphanages in impoverished areas of the world, always running off at an hour’s notice to help those in need.

Which reminded her.

“Shatner! Oh dear, what time is it? I think I’m late!”

“You look so lovely tonight,” Shatner D’Avery said for the fifth time. He leaned forward in his chair and took Georgiana’s hands in his across the table. A waiter hovered nearby, filling their wine glasses. “I always love that color of blue on you, darling.”

Georgiana smiled at the compliment. After getting off the phone with James, she had loosely curled her long hair and dressed in her favorite cream lace maxi skirt with a shimmery aqua blouse.

They had driven down to Bristol for the evening and were seated front and center in one of
those
restaurants. The kind where people went to see and be seen. Where atmosphere and energy were more the centerpiece than the food served. The room hummed.

Shatner matched her smile and brought her hand up to his lips for a slow kiss. He had very nice lips.

He looked particularly smart tonight: dark brown hair worn a little long and stylishly mussed, attractive stubble on his face, Italian suit immaculately cut to his frame with a crisp white shirt underneath, open at the collar. Lean and confident, he fixed her with his gray eyes.

Their fingers twined together. She studied them on the table, interlaced. His hands were the only part of him that didn’t quite match. Belying his suave persona, his hands were small, thin and often clammy. It was an odd contrast.

For her part, Georgiana was determined to stay focused on him. No mental side-trips to the Land of Fascinating Old Letters where Sherlock Holmes himself would appear—a la Benedict Cumberbatch with that divine coat—and take the letter from her trembling fingers, stare at the moth-eaten words, assess the odd number four shape, look her intensely in the eye and bend in even closer to her . . .

. . . aaaaaaaaand she was doing it again. Sigh.

Focus
. She could focus.

“How fare your gooseberries?” she asked.

“Thriving. Now that the shows for the year are over, the next meeting of GLIB isn’t until October.”

He smiled again. That consumingly confident smile that fixated all his energy on
her
.

That smile which said,
You matter to me
.

It
nearly
made her toes tingle.

And clammy hands were a small price to pay for such intense smiles, right? No one was perfect.

“And when do you leave on your next trip?” she asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Jakarta?”

“No, Namibia.”

Georgiana blinked. She hadn’t a clue where Namibia was located.

He noticed her puzzled look. “It’s just north of South Africa.”

Ah, South Africa. That helped a little. As it was Africa and, well . . . south.

As usual, she always felt a little out of her depth with Shatner, somewhat unsure. Maybe because Shatner always seemed so sure about what
he
wanted.

Which was what she loved best about him. A man of action, of purpose.

“Will you be working with orphans there too?” she asked, pulling her hand back from his moist caresses.

Keeping her squarely in the center of his Intense Look, he leaned in and talked to her about adoption and schools and clean water—his gray eyes boring steadily into hers, ignoring the crowded room, the eyes watching them. All that drive and energy focused down to a single pinpoint of purpose.

Georgiana found it incredibly attractive. Loved that she was the center of it, too.

“I would love to join you sometime. The work sounds so rewarding,” Georgiana said as the waiter laid her dinner plate in front of her.

“Perhaps.” Shatner shook his dark head. “Though it would mean taking a break from your Bosom Companions of the English Regency reenactment group, and I know how much you adore
pretending
to be a Regency lady.” He gave a rueful, teasing smile.