Aching for Always (37 page)

“No. That's not it.”

“What do you mean? It says ‘1684.' It shows the two parcels in question. I saw this map in your father's hands on board my brother's ship. This is most certainly the one.” He remembered the repellent greed on the men's faces—like that of rats feasting on a scrap of garbage.

“I mean it's a copy. It's not the original. I don't know where the original is. Honestly, I don't. But my mother did—or at least she did once. When I went to my office yesterday, I was reminded of an archive project my mother had started years ago.”

“An archive? Like the one in Alexandria?”

“Yes, only with photos. Photos are like—”

“I know what photos are,” he said, thinking of Reynolds and his blackguardly image of Joss.

“Well, there are ways to store photos in little tiny spaces called bits and bytes, and to make them large again whenever you need them.”

He shook his head. “Your world is an amazing place.”

“So this is a photo of the map my mother stored.”

He gazed at the parchment and the ink. “But it looks so real.”

“That's only because I happen to have some really old paper in the map room. I mean, I guess it's not really old
to you. Nor should it be if we want the ruse to work, but it's sure old where I come from. Look closely at the printing, though. Can you see it's made up of dots? Can you see it looks different from printing of your time?”

He brought the map into the light. She was right: there were bits of the map that didn't quite ring true. Still, it was so close, and if one wasn't an expert—especially at twenty-first-century technology . . .

“I think we could risk it,” he said at last.

“Risk it? Risk what?”

“I don't know how things like this are dealt with in your time. But in 1706, forgery is crime. Punishable by hanging.”

Before she could reply, he pounded on the roof of the chaise. “Driver!” he shouted. “Take the Andover Road. We're going to London, not Portsmouth.”

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-ONE
 

It had been a long night in the carriage followed by a long day in London, and Joss was grateful for even a moderately clean bed on the third floor of the Grey Lamb Inn. Hugh's landlady, Mrs. Kenney, had been surprised to see him, and he had asked for her discretion in keeping his presence in London as quiet as possible. Mrs. Kenney's gaze had traveled to Joss, and she'd agreed.

Mrs. Kenney had given Joss the last room available in the inn, a tiny space usually reserved for a surveyor when he was in town, but the man's rent was three months past due, and Mrs. Kenney said, “If he thinks I'm going to pass up a night of income while I wait for his three crowns ten, he is quite mistaken.”

The carriage had delivered them directly to the door of the Lord Keeper's office just before noon, and they spent hours waiting for an opportunity to talk to him. None came. At seven, the man's secretary gave them the news that Sir William had left for the country and suggested they return a week hence.

Dejected, Hugh had brought her to the place he kept
rooms. Then he'd excused himself, saying he needed to send a note to a contact who might be of some help, and Joss begged for a fire and a basin of hot water, which Mrs. Kenney promptly provided. She had also promised to bring Joss something to eat.

Joss drew the washcloth along her shoulders, letting the water run down her back as she scrubbed. The warmth felt wonderful on this November night, and she stood by the fire in nothing but her chemise, thinking how differently the last week had turned out compared to what she'd been expecting. Last Monday, she'd awakened fretting as always about work and looking forward to her wedding. A week and a day later, she stood in another country, in another time, on a quest she now shared, and her wedding seemed like something old and forgotten, like a story from a book.

She looked at the bed. Tonight would have been her wedding night. Tonight she and Rogan would have finished what they'd started so many times. When she closed her eyes to try to imagine it, what she saw instead was Hugh—Hugh taking her in his arms; Hugh laying her on a bed of pillows; Hugh pressing his body slowly against hers.

A knock sounded, rousing Joss from her thoughts, and her mouth watered. She hoped Mrs. Kenney was as good a cook as she was a housekeeper. Joss hadn't eaten anything since this morning, when she had a bun and some cheese for breakfast in the carriage.

She flew to the door and opened it.

Hugh stood before her in his gleaming blue wool coat and shining brass buttons, clutching a black tricorn hat.
It was the first time she had seen him in his uniform, and the sight took her breath away. The gold trim made his shoulders look twice as broad as usual.

His eyes widened at the sight of the chemise. “I beg your pardon. Am I interrupting?”

She crossed her arms, hoping the places where the chemise clung were not too revealing. “No, I was just, er, well, perhaps I should get a blanket.” She grabbed the coverlet from the bed and threw it over her shoulders. “There. Is this better?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “If I'm being honest, no. Nevertheless, I bow to propriety.”

She laughed, but a pleasant charge ran through her. “I thought you were trying to be discreet.”

He cocked his head for a moment, then realized what she meant. “Ah, the uniform. Aye, well, instead of writing, I decided to drop by the home of my acquaintance. 'Tis only a five-minute walk. He was not there, though I left my card. I'm afraid my luck today has not changed—that is, unless you would agree to join me for dinner. Mrs. Kenney has anticipated my stratagem, I think, having delivered both of our meals to my room. Come. It's just across the hall.”

He held out his arm, and she laid her hand on it.

His rooms were not much larger than her own—a small bedroom off a slightly larger sitting room in which a small table and chairs had been placed before the fire—though Joss did notice that, unlike hers, his bed was large enough for two.

The table was set and an enormous roast chicken surrounded by turnips, peas and beets sat like a crown jewel
in the center. She was so hungry she could have eaten it without silverware, but she allowed him to help her into the chair and placed the napkin in her lap. The heat from the fire curled pleasantly up her back.

He poured the wine. The red sparkled in the thick-walled goblet like a pool of rubies. He held up his glass. “To forgetting the past.”

She thought of Rogan. She didn't want to forget him, but she had some misgivings about him, imagined or not, that she was going to have to deal with when she returned. For once, though, she wanted to lose herself in the moment before her, with no worries and no regrets.

“To forgetting the future,” she said, and he laughed. She clinked his outstretched glass and they drank. The wine ran over her tongue like dry velvet, and she could feel his eyes on her as the heat ran down her throat and radiated out to her fingers and toes.

“Would you like to eat?” He gestured to the platter.

The question appeared perfectly innocent, but for some reason she heard an unspoken alternative behind the words.

“I-I—Yes, of course. I'm starving.”

“Good.”

He carved the meat, which smelled delicious. She took another long draft of wine. The fire was growing warmer. “So this is where you live. Are you here a lot?”

“Almost never.” He piled a leg and several slices of breast on her plate. “Though we were forced to spend a number of weeks here preparing for the trip to the islet.”

We.
He and Fiona.

“You seem to work well together, you and Fiona.”

He ladled peas on her plate and smiled. “Is there a question there?”

Damn those emerald eyes. “No.”

“Because if there is, there's no harm in asking.”

“There's not.”

He laughed and served himself. “Tomorrow, I'll try my friend again. If he's not there, perhaps we can press Sir William's secretary for his whereabouts. I apologize for delaying you further.”

She lifted her fork and paused, thinking of the chiton and simple bouquet of sunflowers. “Today was my wedding day.”

“Aye,” he said sadly. “I'm sorry.”

The vision of Rogan with the gun appeared in her head, and she stole a glance at Hugh. “Perhaps it was not meant to be.”

He touched her arm. “What do you mean?”

His skin was warm and the scars on his hand reminded her of how different his life had been from hers. “I mean,” she said, afraid to meet his eyes, “perhaps I was meant for something else today. This adventure.” She could barely speak. She had never negotiated something that seemed quite as risky as what they seemed to be negotiating now. She thought of the virginity she had protected for so long and the knight for whom she'd saved it. What if the story that had guided her all her life had never been meant to be a guide? She let the spread fall from her shoulders, wishing she had not sat so close to the flames.

His hand lifted, then stopped, a hairsbreadth above hers, and the movement of air seemed to send an explosion of invisible sparks across her skin. He was making
an unspoken offer, and she shifted, hoping the wine and the warmth, a different warmth, that had spread through her belly would help her decide. She concentrated on the burnished skin of his arm, where the crisscross of scars and whorls of hair spread out before her like lines on a map. What path would she take?

“This adventure?” He repeated her words but added his own question.

She turned her palm up and threaded her fingers into his. He grasped her hand unhesitatingly, his hold neither demanding nor uncertain. The beating of her heart was as loud as the ticking of his clock. He leaned forward and their lips met. The kiss made her dizzy with longing, and the soft noise she made when they parted made her realize how much she really cared for him.

“You are engaged, milady.”

“I know there are choices I have to make.”

“What we do will be unforgivable in his eyes—and perhaps in your own as well.”

She tugged and his fingers opened. She nearly withdrew her hand, but the steadiness of his own, open-palmed above hers, made her hesitate.

“I have always done what one person or another wants. Shouldn't I be given one night—one night—when I can do exactly what
I
want?”

“Aye, you should—though, for my own part, I hope it is more than one.”

“I want this.”

He closed his hand around hers. “Then you shall have it.”

In an instant, their mouths were joined, and Joss felt the explosion of fireworks in her veins.

A sharp knock, and Joss pulled away as the door opened. Standing in the entry was a man in an elegant brocade coat and a pristine ruffled shirt. He was as tall as Hugh but with an air of pleasant but unmistakable entitlement that filled the room like a galleon's worth of gold. He gazed at them, mortified.

“Good Lord! I beg your pardon. Your landlady told me you were waiting for me.”

Hugh leapt to his feet, and Joss scrambled for the coverlet. “'Tis nothing, Your Grace,” Hugh said. “The lady was seeking my advice.”

The man smiled affably. “I do hope you give it.”

Hugh coughed. “Silverbridge, may I introduce Miss O'Malley. Miss O'Malley, this is His Grace, the Duke of Silverbridge.”

A duke!

Hugh met Joss's eye and made a low bow. Joss followed his lead, standing to bend a knee just as Lizzy Bennet had done in
Pride and Prejudice.
She buried herself in the coverlet.

“An honor, Miss O'Malley. How do you know my friend?”

Her eyes shifted. “Um . . .”

Silverbridge lifted his palms, laughing. “Ignore my question. I have clearly interrupted. Let me slink away and leave you to this noble transmission of advice.”

“No, Your Grace, please.” Hugh held up a staying hand. “'Tis but a small favor. I am sorry to have caused you to venture out of your way. I left my card only so that your housekeeper might let you know I would come by tomorrow.”

“She did. But I was making my way in this direction in any case. What favor do you seek?”

“We need to see the Lord Keeper on the matter of a map.”

“A map?”

“A map, aye. It concerns the transfer of property between two families.”

“Yours?”

Hugh shook his head. “No.”

“And why, if I might ask, would a navy captain be concerned about the transfer of property between two families to which he is not related?”

“One family is mine,” Joss said, she hoped helpfully.

“Ah, the plot thickens.”

Hugh said, “But Sir William won't be back for a week. He has left London for—”

“Cambridgeshire, aye. He's gone to the Quarley estate. Why?”

“We would dearly love a chance to sit down with him to plead our case.”