Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) (32 page)

Cassandra snatched the coat from Peregrine’s
hands, quickly looking at the marquess. “Marcus will buy you
another one—won’t you, darling? I mean, it’s the least you can do
for our hero. But, Perry, you could have been killed! The bullet
went straight through your open coat and into Perceval. The darned
thing must have taken nearly as many turns as that “magic bullet”
that supposedly killed Kennedy and then went on to hit Governor
Connally. How about that! Why, if Marcus hadn’t thought fast enough
to tackle you at the last moment, we all could be sitting here
right now, sadly toasting your memory for the sacrifice you made to
your country.”

Peregrine’s eyes shifted from Marcus, to
Cassandra, and lastly to Aunt Cornelia, who nodded solemnly.
“Killed? Really?” he asked, taking back his coat, only to let it
dangle from his fingertips, as if unwilling to really touch it. “My
God! Marcus! I could have been killed! I
am
a hero, stap me
if I ain’t!” And then his complexion turned a sickly gray. “I don’t
think I feel so well, Cousin Cassie. I think I’ll go lie down.”

Cassandra kissed his pale cheek. “You do
that, Perry. And then later, when you’re feeling more up to it,
perhaps you’ll tell us again how you threw yourself in front of the
Prime Minister, willingly sacrificing your own safety for the sake
of the nation.”

He looked at her queerly, as if she had lost
her grip on reality. “Talk about it? I don’t ever want to talk
about it. I don’t even want to
think
about it. Honestly,
Cousin, you say the strangest things. Now, if you’ll all excuse
me?”

Marcus noticed that Cassandra was biting her
bottom lip as she watched Peregrine depart the drawing room, but
she waited until he was out of earshot before breaking into
delighted laughter. “Marcus, did you see Perry’s
face
when
he finally realized he had nearly been shot? I thought he was going
to faint. I think it’s finally hit him that he
is
a hero,
and now he doesn’t know what to do about it.”

“He will by this evening,” Aunt Cornelia
said, sniffing inelegantly. “And then we’ll never hear the end of
it. Although I must say, I shouldn’t have liked it if he had been
shot. I’ve grown rather fond of the young nincompoop, although only
the good Lord knows why.” She rose from her chair near the
fireplace and kissed Cassandra’s cheek before heading for the
foyer. “You were very brave today, my dear, what with seeing a
bloody body and all. I should have swooned, I am sure. But now that
you are home again, I suggest you rid yourself of those breeches.
It isn’t seemly. Besides,” she added, already halfway to the
doorway, “your legs are entirely too attractive. Marcus, behave
yourself after I am gone, I beg you. The servants talk enough as it
is.”

Marcus bowed in Aunt Cornelia’s direction. “I
promise I shall do my best to control my animal instincts, dear
lady,” he said, delighting in the manner in which her rigidly erect
spine slumped for only a second, then became ramrod straight once
more as she exited the room. “However,” he added once he believed
Aunt Cornelia to be out of earshot, “I fear I cannot vouch for
dearest Cassandra’s powers of discretion.”

“I
heard
that!” Aunt Cornelia called
back to him as she disappeared down the hallway.

Cassandra collapsed against Marcus, giggling.
“One of these days, darling, Corny is going to box your ears. She
told me so just last week, when you teased her about showing a
distinct preference for Goodfellow’s companionship.”

“Then you don’t smell a romance in the air,
my dear? Oh, you do. I can see your answer in that extremely
self-satisfied smile.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head,
then stepped away from her, knowing that they had to talk, but
wishing to prolong this moment of happiness. “But back to business,
for a moment, please, before you start planning their nuptials. Do
you think should compose a letter to the newspapers, recounting
Perry’s bravery? He will insist upon having his coat preserved
inside a glass dome, of course, once he realizes its worth. Oh,
yes, he might be feeling a trifle upset now, but he’ll soon see
this entire episode in another light and begin dining out on his
story. Why, I suppose—”

“That’s enough, Marcus.”

Cassandra retired to a nearby chair, to sit
clutching at the arms with one slim leg tucked beneath her. She
suddenly looked so alert, so alive, that he knew that he was going
to have to keep his wits about him now or else lose control of this
very important interview.

“All right, let’s get on with it, shall we?”
she said challengingly. “I tried to get rid of Perry and Corny
earlier, and would have, if Perry hadn’t seen that bullet hole. And
I know you were hoping I would be so involved with Perry’s lucky
escape that I’d forget about what this all means—what Perceval’s
death means—but you’re not going to get off that easy. We tried to
change history today, Marcus, and we blew it. Your theory is shot
to hell. So,
now
what do we do?”

Marcus picked up the snifter, not bothering
to take a drink, but only held it in front of him, as a shield, if
that indeed was the proper word. “You don’t have to remind me of
the obvious, Cassandra,” he, said wearily. “Although I suppose we
might have changed history. But I could not allow Perry to make
that sacrifice. I simply couldn’t.”

“Of course you couldn’t, darling,” Cassandra
agreed quickly, “and I wouldn’t have expected you to do anything
differently. Perceval was meant to die today. It was fate—or
history
—if you look at it from my angle, my own time. But
now we know we can’t change
your
history, Marcus.” She took
a deep, shuddering breath. “We can’t change your history, Marcus,”
she repeated, her violet eyes suddenly shimmering with tears. “You
say you’re destined to die on the last day of May. You also say I’m
going to go back to my own time on that same day—although it’s only
one of your theories, and we’ve all just seen another of your
theories go straight to hell. I’m sorry, Marcus, but I can’t fight
it anymore. I’m scared. I’m really, really scared. It’s already
almost May twelfth. God! I feel like we’re both trapped on a
runaway bus, and the bridge is out up ahead!”

Marcus rubbed a hand across his forehead. He
hadn’t really been relying on saving Perceval—in fact, he had given
their chances to do it short shrift ever since coming up with the
idea. But it had been worth a try. Perhaps now it was time to tell
Cassandra everything—although he was loath to raise her hopes
again, in the fear his most important theory would come to nothing.
But she looked so small, tucked up on that chair, so vulnerable—so
lovely.

“Cassandra—darling girl—” he began
hesitantly. “I must tell you something now. I didn’t quite hang all
my hopes on saving the Prime Minister. You see, I haven’t been
entirely honest with you about this dying business—” He broke off
as Aunt Cornelia’s scream echoed loudly in the foyer and both he
and Cassandra raced to see what was wrong.

“Marcus, look here!
Marcus!
” Aunt
Cornelia called in near hysterics as she ran into the room, one
hand holding her skirts above her bony ankles, her other hand
frantically waving what looked to be a letter over her head. “This
just arrived by messenger while I was in the foyer, speaking with
Goodfellow. We were just talking, passing the time, but now he’s
dead, Marcus. Dead!”

The marquess frowned. “Goodfellow is
dead?”

“Goodfellow?” Aunt Cornelia stopped in her
tracks, frowning as she mentally reviewed what she had said. She
shook her head. “No, no. Goodfellow isn’t dead.
Richard
is
dead. It says so right here in this letter. You have no heir! It’s
happening—it’s
all coming true!
”

“Sweet Jesus,” Cassandra mumbled just before
she fainted into Marcus’s arms.

C
assandra awoke in
her own bedchamber, Marcus’s face hovering just above her head.
“What happened?” she asked, struggling to sit up, only to find
herself unpleasantly surprised by a roiling wave of nausea. “Oh,
God,” she groaned, one hand to her mouth as she slowly sank back
against the pillows and willed her stomach to behave.

“You fainted,” Aunt Cornelia trilled happily,
appearing at Cassandra’s left. “I wonder why.”

“Of course you do, dear Aunt,” Cassandra
heard Marcus say. His voice sounded slightly fuzzy, as if she were
on a trans-Atlantic call and the connection was bad. “You run
screaming into the drawing room, announce that Richard broke his
neck fox hunting, and you can’t understand why Cassandra fainted?
Perhaps I should take you downstairs and explain, but I fear I
haven’t the time right now. You will forgive me this lapse, won’t
you?”

Cassandra sliced a look toward Marcus,
surprised at his sarcasm, and saw the telltale tic working in his
cheek. Suddenly she remembered everything. Richard, Marcus’s
little-known and obviously not-very-much-lamented heir, was dead.
The guidebook had been correct. Marcus’s title, Marcus’s entailed
estates, and everything he had that he could not dispose of through
his will would revert to the Crown at the time of his death—May
31—exactly twenty days from now. In less than three weeks, Marcus
would die. They didn’t know how, they didn’t know where, and they
didn’t know why. But they surely did know when. And there was
nothing anybody could do to change it.

She reached up, clutching his forearm.
“Marcus,” she pleaded, “could we be alone? Just you and me?
Please.”

Aunt Cornelia sniffed indelicately, turned,
and stomped toward the door. Cassandra smiled, realizing that if
nothing else, Aunt Cornelia really knew how to make an exit. Her
smile faded, however, as the older woman turned around just as her
hand touched the doorpull and announced flatly, “I don’t require a
red brick to fall on
my
head. I know when I’m not wanted.
Very well, children, I will leave you alone for a while. Heaven
only knows you can’t cause any more damage, nephew. But you’ll have
to marry her now, to give that child a name.”

“
Child?”
Marcus and Cassandra asked
together, exchanging startled looks.

“Oh, the innocence of the pair,” Aunt
Cornelia lamented theatrically, raising her gaze to the ceiling as
she opened the door and addressed only she knew (or cared) whom. “I
never before saw the like.”

“Precisely what is Aunt Cornelia talking
about, Cassandra?” Marcus asked once the door had closed behind the
older woman. He seated himself on the side of the bed and took her
hand in his. He looked at her searchingly, as if seeking outward
signs of impending motherhood, as he might search for spots if
Corny had mentioned the word
measles.
“You’re pregnant?”

Cassandra fought down a sudden rising panic.
“I don’t know. Let me think.”

“You’re pregnant?” he repeated, his tone one
of mingled amazement, and what else? Surely it couldn’t be anger.
Could it?

Cassandra’s mind was whirling—rather like her
stomach. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she performed some
simple mathematics in her head. She had entered Regency England on
March 12 while she was in the placebo cycle of her birth control
pills. Okay, so she’d take it from there. Her fingers moved in
Marcus’s grasp as she mentally counted out the weeks from her last
menstrual period until the night Marcus had first come to her
bedchamber. The dates matched. Then she counted the days since her
last period and discovered that that was exactly what it had
been—her
last
period.

“
Uh,
Marcus?” she said after a few
moments, wincing as she opened her eyes to look up at him. She took
a deep breath and said quickly, “Do you remember those pills I was
taking, but I’m not taking anymore because I didn’t have them to
take anymore even if I wanted to take them? Well, by rights I’m not
supposed to be able to get pregnant right after. I stop taking the
pills, but I think I might have made a liar out of whoever wrote
that package insert you read—at least if tossing my cookies this
morning and fainting this afternoon mean anything, which I guess
they do, if Aunt Cornelia thinks they do, although how she found
out about any of this I’ll never know. Wait a minute!
Yes,
I
do. Rose told her. It’s just like Rose to tell her. Well, how about
that? Marcus—do you remember the first night you—
um
—you,
well, you know what I mean—that first night? As close as I can
figure, I was ovulating that night. Damn. It looks as if we might
have had that earthquake after all.”

“You’re pregnant?”

Couldn’t he think of anything else to ask?
You’re pregnant? You’re pregnant?
God, he sounded like a
broken record. Bristling, she pulled her hand away from him
“Maybe,” she said forcefully. “But I didn’t do it alone—so stop
looking at me as if I never warned you. I told you that all hell
breaks loose every time I try to bend the rules.”

And then she smiled. “Like I said—how about
that?
A baby.
” She looked up at him, her heart melting,
happy tears stinging her eyes as she saw that he was smiling
too—even if he did look as if someone had just told him his
pantaloons were on fire. “Marcus, we’re going to have a
baby!
”

~ ~ ~

A baby.

Cassandra lay awake in the half-light that
marked the imminent approach of night, Marcus lying beside her, as
he had been all the rest of that fateful afternoon. Both of them
were sans shoes but still dressed in their street clothes. She
couldn’t sleep; and she was fairly certain that Marcus wasn’t
sleeping either. Not that they had spoken much since he took her
into his arms and held her, telling her how proud and happy he was
that she carried his child.

Yet what else could they say to each other?
There was nothing to be said. They were going to have a baby.