Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) (33 page)

No.
She corrected her own thinking.
She
was going to have a baby. And Marcus?
Nobody
knew
what was going to happen to Marcus.

She and her unborn child would travel back to
her own time on the last day of May, or if not then, sometime soon.
She had to believe that. She just had to. There was no record of
Marcus’s heir in that guidebook. Just that afternoon, as Spencer
Perceval had lain dying on the floor of the foyer of the House of
Commons, they had learned once and for all that they couldn’t alter
history. And if they couldn’t change history, their child could not
survive in Regency England.

Their baby would have no future.

Oh, sure, the baby could be a girl, and that
way there would be no mention of her in the guidebook, as she
couldn’t inherit. But this baby was a boy. She just knew it! She
was carrying Marcus’s son.

Cassandra stuffed a corner of the pillow into
her mouth to stifle a sob.
Marcus’s son. Oh, God. What happens
now? Where’s all that happy ending stuff that miraculously comes
together in the last chapter of romance novels? This isn’t fair.
Love is supposed to conquer all, damn it!

“Cassandra? Darling, are you awake?”

She turned on the bed to face him. He was so
wonderful, so gloriously handsome, so caring. And she loved him so
much her heart ached. “I’m awake, Marcus. Would you like me to ring
for something to eat? We haven’t had much of anything all day. Rose
is probably hovering outside right now, wringing her hands and
worrying. And, to tell you the truth, I think I’m hungry. You
haven’t invented peanut butter and marshmallow yet, have you? Pity.
I know it’s only psychological, but I think I’m having my first
craving. Thank God you guys have pickles and ice cream.”

She bit her bottom lip, realizing that she
was babbling. Again. She shouldn’t be babbling. She was going to be
a mother. Mothers didn’t babble.
Her
mother didn’t babble.
Nagged, maybe—but she never babbled. “Oh, God, Marcus,” she howled,
throwing herself into his arms, giving in to her mounting hysteria,
“this is too much for one person—especially if that one person is
me. I can’t do this alone. I just can’t!”

He made soothing sounds while she wept, while
she hated herself for falling apart. But she seemed to have
absolutely no control over her emotions. It was as if a
sappy-switch had been flipped on in her brain, turning her into a
mass of conflicting feelings. She wanted this baby, truly wanted
it. But she wanted Marcus too. She wanted the life they had begun
to build together, wanted the happiness they shared to go on and
on, wanted the marriage she knew would be a happy one.

“
Hic!
Oh, damn,” she wailed, sitting
up and wiping her tears with the back of one hand. “Now I have the
hiccups. It,
hic,
it figures. I never was an eloquent crier.
Sheila’s
a great crier. She has tears the size of quarters,
and looks adorable; her eyes are all sparkling and sympathetic. My
nose runs and,
hic,
I get the hiccups.” Her chin began to
wobble again as Marcus smiled and handed her his handkerchief.
“I’m,
hic
—oh, I’m a
mess!
”

“You’re going to have my child, Cassandra,”
Marcus said in a teasing voice, interrupting her runaway train of
self-pity just as she was getting up a full head of steam.
“Therefore, I forbid you to be a mess.”

She lustily blew her nose in the
handkerchief, not caring if she didn’t seem delicate or even
particularly feminine. How dare Marcus interrupt her pity party?
She had every right to feel sorry for herself, and he wasn’t
helping. And she had thought he was
sensitive?
Hah! Where
was
Alan Alda when a girl needed him?

“Oh, yeah, sure,” she countered. “That’s easy
for you to say. You’re not the one having this baby. What if I’m
trapped back here in Regency England? I told you all about that
breathing business to help control labor pains, but I’ve never
really bought that theory. Nope. Not for a minute. I want
drugs,
Marcus—painkillers! And I want an obstetrician, and a
first-rate hospital, and a million nurses, and—and Blue Cross and
Blue Shield! What happens if something goes wrong? Is some ignorant
Regency quack going to tell me to bite on a stick? Well, fat
chance, buster!”

Cassandra slipped from his embrace and then
from the bed itself. Jamming her hands on her hips, she confronted
him, her tears replaced by a nearly white-hot anger. “I know I’m
being unreasonable here, Marcus, but humor me, okay? I’m pregnant.
You may have donned your damned English stiff upper lip now that we
couldn’t save Perceval, and accepted your fate, but I’m an
American, and we Americans never give up. There’s got to be some
way to save you, to save this baby, to save
us.
There just
has to be!”

Marcus slid from the bed on the far side and
stood some distance from her, a small smile playing around his
lips. She longed to hit him. Boy, being pregnant sure brought out
the bitch in her, as well as the tears! But she didn’t care. She
had something to say, and she was going to say it. He opened his
mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

“See this hand?” she challenged, raising her
right hand and wiggling her fingers. “It’s not just a hand, you
know. I can teach ‘hand.’ That’s simple. But how do I teach hand,
palm, finger, thumb, nail, knuckle? And eyes!” she continued,
nearly jabbing out one of her own. “What about eyes, Marcus?
They’ve got upper lids, and lower lids, and lashes, and an iris,
and a cornea—how in God’s name am I supposed to teach a child all
of that alone?
Sesame Street
doesn’t cover everything, you
know. And I haven’t even gotten to mouths yet, with teeth, and
gums, and a tongue, and lips and—”

“Cassandra, I think I have a plan—” Marcus
began, taking a step toward her, but she didn’t hear him. She was
too involved in her own thoughts.

“And what if it’s a boy? I love baseball, but
I can’t play second base. I don’t want him to be a sissy. A boy
needs a father, Marcus, he needs—what
did you say?
”

He stepped even closer. “I said, I think I
have a plan that will solve all our problems.” He smiled, adding,
“Except this business about
Sesame Street
and second base.
Much as I love you, my pet, I haven’t the faintest idea what you
are talking about.”

Cassandra, immediately suspicious, narrowed
her eyes and glared at him, glared at his gorgeous yet faintly
mocking smile. “Never mind all that now, Marcus. You said you have
a plan. What plan? When did you form it? Why don’t I know anything
about it? Damn it, Marcus—if you’ve been keeping secrets from
me—”

He took hold of her elbow and steered her
back to the bed, helping her to boost herself up onto the high
mattress. “I was planning to tell you about it—eventually,” he
explained, his calm rationality making her ache to punch him.

“Go on,” she said from between clenched
teeth. And she loved this man? This man was going to be the father
of her child? She might have been making great inroads with Marcus
since she’d landed in Regency England, but she sure had a long way
to go. “Tell me about this plan you didn’t want me to know about.
I’m all ears, my lord. Truly, I am.”

He sat down beside her, nodding his
agreement, openly humoring her—and innocently setting her teeth on
edge. “Very well, Cassandra,” he said, “but I will have to preface
my plan with some explanation.”

“You’ve got that in one,” she retorted
belligerently, folding her arms under her breasts. “And you’d
better make it good.”

He kissed her cheek lightly, then retreated
when she held out her hands and glared at him, warning him off.
“You remember what I read in one of your guidebooks?”

She grimaced at the memory, the damning
evidence that had set them off to change history by saving the
Prime Minister. Only they hadn’t saved him, and now those words in
the guidebook hovered over them all like a sentence of death. “You
told me that you read that the fifth Marquess of Eastbourne died on
the last day of May in 1812. How could you think I’d forget?”

Marcus smiled, sheepishly. “I hadn’t thought
that you did, my sweet,” he said, taking hold of her hands as if
she might want to slap him. “However, if you remember, I did not
show you the page in the guidebook.”

Cassandra frowned for a moment, then raised
her eyebrows as she looked at him searchingly. “That’s right. You
never did show me the book. I remember thinking about that at the
time. Are you trying to tell me that the guidebook did spell out
how you’re supposed to die? Is that your plan? To try again to
change history?” Her heart sank to her toes. It wouldn’t work. It
hadn’t worked today. What on earth made him believe it would work
on the last day of May? Marcus had admitted he knew nothing about
baseball. Obviously he also knew nothing about football. This
wasn’t the time to try what had already failed. It was time to drop
back ten and punt! “Marcus—”

“I don’t die, Cassandra, I disappear,” he
said quickly, so that her mouth remained open as she gaped at him,
suddenly speechless. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up earlier,
which was why I tried to save Perceval—for Perceval’s sake, yes,
but mostly to keep you occupied—but I may not die on the last day
of May I think—I hope—that I, you and I both, travel through time
on that day.”

“Travel—travel through time?” Cassandra’s
head was spinning. So was her stomach, but she ignored it. This was
too important a moment to interrupt simply because of a little
nausea. Her mind still slightly muzzy, she opened her mouth and
asked the obvious. “Marcus? Are you telling me that you’re about to
become a time traveler too?”

He released her hands and slipped an arm
around her shoulders, drawing her against him. “If my theories are
correct, yes, that’s precisely what I’m telling you. As you might
recall, I had been investigating time travel for nearly a year, and
had finally centered my research on that room in the White Tower
just weeks before you arrived so conveniently to prove my theory. I
believe—and again, this is only another theory—that I was about to
make an important breakthrough when you came to England
unexpectedly.”

“Well, it wasn’t my idea,” Cassandra
interrupted him, beginning to hope. “All I was looking for that day
was the way out of the place. But go on. I’m all ears.”

“And quite lovely ears they are, imp. I have
always been partial to them. But to continue. If you’ll remember,
you’ve already told me that you planned to be in England at the end
of May. But you arrived early, upsetting all the preset schedules,
and we were drawn to each other out-of time. Using your calculator,
I attempted to ascertain whether the intervening one hundred and
eighty years affected the calendar, but the figures didn’t quite
add up. Rather than science, I believe our
fates
drew us
together, our combined destinies, if you will, if you don’t mind a
descent into the poetic. And so, again, if I am correct, rather
than to travel through time alone, madam, I will have the pleasure
of my affianced wife and unborn child as my companions for the
trip.”

Cassandra was quiet for a long time, although
she could feel Marcus’s eyes boring into her.

He was waiting for her answer.

So was she.

She was numb. Completely and absolutely
numb.
She couldn’t move—although her mind was racing at the
speed of light. Marcus wasn’t going to die on the last day of May.
He was going to travel through time. To where? Would he travel to
1992 with her and their baby, or was his destination some other
time, some other era? What if he were to zoom forward to 2057 or
something, and meet her again when she was old enough to be his
mother and his son was older than he?
No.
That wouldn’t
happen. Marcus appeared to be convinced their fates were
intertwined. He would come back to 1992 with her. He had to.

But there were other questions.

Had they made love for the first time before
or after he had told her about his impending death? And if it was
after, wasn’t he guilty of playing with her mind, her emotions?
No.
She had been falling in love with Marcus almost from the
moment she’d first opened her eyes to see him standing in front of
her, looking at her as if she was everything he’d always wanted for
Christmas.

But he had lied to her, the rat! She wasn’t
going to forget that in a hurry. He had told her that he was going
to die, then laughed when she immediately began making plans to
save his life. No wonder he had thought she was so funny—he already
knew he wasn’t really going to die. Unless she killed him. That
seemed like a pretty reasonable option at the moment—and she felt
sure that there wouldn’t be a jury in the world who’d convict
her.

And then there was all that business about
the Reverend Mr. Austin and Lady Blakewell, and that pompous nerd,
Reginald Hawtrey. Had Marcus really been worried about her, or had
he been scared that they might stumble onto his own secret, his own
plans to experiment with time travel?

She was so confused! What did a person do
when confronted with such a confounding mixture of righteous anger,
astonished bewilderment, and blessed relief? On the one hand, she
could kill Marcus for having kept a secret from her, while on the
other hand, she had just been given new hope that they could have
their “happily ever after” after all. Was she going to look a gift
horse in the mouth—good Lord, but she was using a lot of trite
sayings to examine her emotions—or was she going to grab at this
new chance with both hands (yes, yet another cliche, but she was
past editing herself), and the hell with placing blame or holding
grudges?

Silly question, Kelley,
she told
herself, peeking through her lashes at Marcus. He was still staring
at her, awaiting her reaction. Perceval was dead; her London
guidebook’s report of his demise had been neither faulty nor
premature. Marcus’s cousin Richard was dead, as implied by the
second guidebook. And Marcus was going to disappear on the last day
of May.