Flirting With Forever (18 page)

Mertons watched Stephen bustle into the larder and begin to gather glasses, with the cook, a ful -bosomed Scot with raven hair and sparkling eyes named Morag, directly on his heels. Mertons, who had been rerunning the calculations this last hour, trying to narrow the window of time in which the writer might arrive, found the spare amenities of the Restoration period charming—like camping for time-jump accountants. He clutched his ale with a happy smile.

“How many times can we expect Himself in a day?”

Morag said with a huff of outrage. “I barely got my floors swept from the last visit. Does the king have nothing better to do? Not that one, you great gowk!” She waved Stephen away from an intricately carved decanter. “That’s for special guests.”

“He is the king, madam,” Stephen said.

“Your king. We Scots have set our sights a wee bit higher, thank ’e. He may have that one,” she said, pointing to a far simpler vessel, “and the second-best brandy.”

Mertons dabbed the corner of his mouth with his fist.

“Did Peter finish with that last sitter, then?”

“Finish with her?!” The cook’s eyes darted worriedly to Stephen’s.

“Wel , I hope not, though the king could not have arrived at a worse moment. They had clearly, er, come to some sort of understanding.”

Mertons’s gaze went from Stephen’s private smile to the hand Morag now flung over her heart. He had made no calculation for a love affair, though if this was a continuation of something from the past it would be of little consequence. “Is the woman Peter’s mistress?”

“Mistress?!” Stephen laughed. “I can barely get your cousin to converse with a woman, much less”—he stopped, evidently remembering Morag—“court her. The man is a monk. Has been, ever since Ursula’s death.”

Ursula? Who was Ursula?

Stephen lifted the salver and headed toward the hal .

“Say a prayer the king’s visit is short.”

“The cheese has turned,” cal ed Morag. “Start him on that.”

Mertons tapped a finger. How had the intel igence failed to include any mention of Peter’s wife? Such an oversight undermined an operative’s performance and added significant risk to the plan. The Executive Guild must have known, had to have known. They had probably been too concerned with stopping the tube hole to worry about an operative issue. The specifics of travel-craft were hardly their long suit. It certainly explained Peter’s dourness this past week, and it might also explain his disappearance this afternoon. He might have gone to her grave, for example, or another place important in their relationship—and neither of those were within spec, of that much Mertons was certain.

Neither, of course, was a new love affair, though the log did show Peter holding weekly sittings with a number of women, and who knew what went on in those private rooms. It wasn’t as if the log was that specific. Nonetheless both the wife and lover were of considerable concern to him, especial y if the lover were not from his old life.

Romantic intrigue was one of the hardest factors to forecast in time science. It emerged spontaneously, even in the most control ed environments. It could swamp a smoothly running calculation in a matter of seconds, and it left anywhere from a 3 to 19 percent wobble in even the most airtight forecast.

Which only corroborated what he knew from his own experience, since he’d dropped like a ton of time-tube liners when he’d met dearest Joan, and what a trial by fire that had been.

“This woman upstairs,” he said to Morag. “Is she a new client?”

“So I’m to understand. I haven’t seen her, though Stephen says she’s the saint’s own image of Ursula.”

Mertons had to smile. He himself had a soft spot for a fine ankle, and he understood what it meant to fol ow type, even against reason. “It would be a good diversion for him, I suppose.”

“Oh, aye. A man needs a woman’s touch. Though I could have wished her an Englishwoman.”

Mertons felt a disconcerting twinge. “Oh?”

“Aye. Stephen says she has the oddest accent.”

Oddest accent?

Stephen heaved himself to his feet. It wouldn’t hurt to give this new woman a recheck.

Cam grabbed her purse and flew to the stairs.

She didn’t know where Peter and the king were heading, but when she heard their footsteps fading in one direction, she padded down the hal in the other. Past the staircase, past Mercury and down into the models’ room, which—yes!

—Peter had left unlocked.

She closed the door behind her and ran to the windows.

She pul ed out her magnificent, butler-in-a-pocket iPhone and cal ed up the screen.

“NO SERVICE.”

Her heart fel .

“How do you intend to paint her?”

“Pardon?” Peter rol ed down his sleeves, stil lost in the heady reverie of the sitting. He felt as if he had been transported to the moon and back. With a silent sigh, he brought a hand to his nose and drank deeply of the scent of her hair. A hairpin was tucked safely in his pocket.

“The Spanish countess,” Charles said. “Wil it be mythological?”

“Mythological” was the king’s term for unclothed. The king’s question cleared the fog from Peter’s head like an icy wind. “’Tis a portrait,” Peter said cool y. “For her fiancé.”

The king’s eyebrow lifted, and Peter saw his gaze travel to the gray silk dress hung careful y from a hook on the wal .

“I know the king’s time is valuable,” Peter said, “and Stephen says your need is urgent. How may I serve you?”

“ ’Tis about the paper you asked me to sign today.”

“My solicitor assures me it is a mere matter of your official stamp, and the marriage wil be entered upon the record.”

“And the fact that Ursula is dead and buried is not a deterrent?”

“According to the law, if you make it so, the marriage wil be as if it had existed from the first. It is entirely legal, I assure you.”

“So with a scratch of the quil I make you a widower without your having ever been a groom.”

“Aye.”

“Peter, I don’t know—”

“Your Majesty was most generous to offer to do this for me. As I have explained, it is a wish I hold most dear.”

“It wil not bring her back, you know, my friend.”

“No … but it might let her rest in peace.” And me, he might have added.

The king clasped his hands behind his back and gazed out the window into the street below. “Peter, I should very much like to borrow the countess for the evening.”

Peter felt ice chil his bowels. “She is not mine for the lending. And there is the matter of the fiancé.”

The king smiled.“ ’Tis a minor matter. And you wil explain to her the benefits of befriending the English king.

Why, if she actual y happens to be Spanish, she’d be looked upon as a national hero.”

Peter’s vision darkened. “You are kind to offer your friendship, but this woman wil decline it, I fear.”

“My advisors tel me that this writ you wish me to sign, it is an unusual matter. There is the potential for embarrassment to the crown, the king gratifying the request of a friend.”

Peter thought of the endless series of grants and titles Charles made, and his bile rose. Charles had granted his lovers duchies. He had made their sons dukes.

“What I’m saying, Peter, is that I should feel far more accommodating after a relaxing evening with the countess.”

“It wil not be possible,” he said through gritted teeth. “Not with this woman.”

The king swiveled, the cunning on his face replaced by joyful surprise. “Peter, my dear fel ow! Have you yourself fal en?”

Peter’s face grew hot. Charles had seen him in his darkest despair and had used every resource at his command to divert Peter after he’d emerged, lifeless and wan, from his bed after Ursula’s death. But despite an offer to make any sort of eligible or even ineligible match, Charles had never been able to convince Peter to bury his sorrow in another woman. “I-I—”

“I should never stand between you and such an opportunity, my friend, even if it means dashing my own hopes on the rocks, and I might fairly add that you are the only man for whom that could be said. Do you intend to claim her?”

The king regarded him closely, an uncomfortable mixture of regard and titil ation on his face.

Peter swal owed his disgust at having to reveal so personal a feeling. “Aye.”

“Excel ent. A fine catch. I have only one request, then.”

“What?” Peter had had his fil of the king today.

“I should like a painting of her.”

A dark tide swept over Peter. “Your Majesty?”

“Venus, perhaps. Or Athena.”

Peter’s violent opposition to this suggestion must have been evident on his face.

“I am the king, aye? You acknowledge my supreme authority over you, her and every other soul on this island, do you not?”

Peter gurgled an affirmative.

“I want a painting of her for my col ection—my private col ection. Once you have bedded her, ’twil be no hard rub to get her to pose. Tel her it is how you should like to remember her. Tel her she wil make a sublime Athena with that hair streaming down—and she would, you know, you must admit it.”

Peter could make no reply. It took every ounce of fortitude he possessed to keep from launching his fist into the king’s nose.

“Do you not see her as Athena?”

“I believe her time in London is quite short. We would not have time.”

Charles paced to the window and gazed upon his subjects hurrying through Covent Garden. “The writ makes me uneasy,” he said after a pause. “I am not certain I wil be able to overcome my objections.”

Peter felt a sickening lump in his gut. He saw that headstone in St. Paul’s yard. He knew what he owed Ursula. It was the only reason he’d agreed to return to this place. He also knew what he owed Camil a. But he had no choice. Peter forced himself to lower his chin in a poor substitute for submission.

Stephen returned with a salver overflowing with brandy, cheese and cakes, but the king waved it off. Stephen placed it on the table and, after a word from the king, went to alert the footmen of His Majesty’s momentary approach.

When they were alone, the king, evidently sensing the hint of insubordination in his friend, added as he passed,

“Deliver her, Peter. One way or another.”

When the king’s footsteps receded into the street, Peter picked up the decanter and hurled it against the wal .

“No service?” This had been her only potential lifeline. Her eyes began to sting. She was sunk. She’d only meant to buy a book, and now she was cut off from her friends and loved ones forever. Here, she had one friend and no home.

When Peter put his paints away, she would have nowhere to go, nothing to eat, no way to earn money. It had begun as an adventure—and had turned into an exhilarating one—but now she wanted to go home, or at least know she could go home when she wanted.

Something flickered at the corner of her eye.

It was a bar! A bar appeared on the phone! Bless you, AT&T! She thrust the phone higher and the bar disappeared. Didn’t matter, she thought. When there’s one bar, there’s always another. Why, one time she’d scrabbled d o wn three rows and across seven chairs at the local cineplex to find out how Jeanne’s text stream ending with

“… so embarrassed, but my partner, whom I’d never met before, said not to worry, he could come in spades” began, only to find Jeanne had been recruited into an impromptu bridge tournament at her great-aunt’s house.

Cam held the phone high. No joy, and no matter how close she got to the windows, the bar would flicker and disappear. She pressed. One of the windows moved. It wasn’t just built right into the wal . Up, down, up, down, she looked, then spotted it. A lever to open the last window.

She pul ed it and the window cracked open. Then it was simply a matter of pushing it a little harder …

Ta-da!

She shoved the phone as far outside as she could reach, peering at it through the odd, wavy glass. Stil nothing. Then suddenly one bar, then two.

Peter felt rather than saw Stephen behind him, gazing at the burgundy-stained wal , and Peter was in no mood for questions.

“Sir?”

“One more interruption tonight and ’twil be your job.” He strode out, leaving Stephen openmouthed.

He had no intention, of course, of providing Camil a in any form to the king. Even the thought of painting her head on one of his model’s bodies made him angrier than he thought possible, though if push came to shove he would have to do it.

She was achingly beautiful, of that there was no debate.

And he had seen the fire that ran in those veins. He found himself quite lost in the picture of her, as canty as a jade, lying before him, her breasts shifting with each movement

—

He took the stairs two at a time.

She might not be his, but for the next glorious hour it would be as if she were.

She was gone.

“Camil a?”

Silence.

He hurried to the other side of the fireplace. The space was empty.

“Great,” Cam said. “My hand has two bars’ worth of phone reception, but my mouth is in no-man’s-land.” She pul ed the phone in, and pushed the window again. It probably hadn’t been opened since the last time Isaac Newton visited.

It creaked and groaned, but at last gave way, enough way for Cam to thread her shoulder out and, with a little more effort, one of her breasts. “Sorry,” she said. “I know I’ve put you through a lot today.”