Divine (27 page)

He kept looking for something, some reason why Georgiana should be dissatisfied with her life here. Any glimmer of hope to which he could cling and convince himself there might still be a way for them to be together.

Yet every minute he spent here, the more utterly futile it became.

She would never be his. Not now. Why would she return to a life in 1813 with him, assuming that were even possible? And if he were stuck in the twenty-first century with her, how could he even begin to create a life for them here? What could he possibly offer her that was
more
than what she already had?

The sooner he accepted that fact, the better off he would be.

Of course, convincing his wayward heart of the reality of his situation . . .
That
might take some time.

“Tell me your story,” he said, handing the phone back to her. “I want to understand everything you have been through.”

He expected her to move away. To retreat from him, just as she seemed to have retreated from her childhood and the world to which she was born.

But she didn’t. Instead, she snuggled into him even more, wrapping her hands around his arm and resting her head on his shoulder, her body soft and heated through his thin linen shirt. She smelled of sunshine and roses and Georgiana.

Sebastian nearly laughed at the irony of it.

To have her here, so close, relaxed and nestled against him.

How many lonely evenings had he had this very dream? Sitting with her curled up against him, talking and laughing together?

And now—
now!
—it happened.

When events had destroyed his understanding of her and the world.

She only held him out of pity. To console him when everything had turned upside down.

She sighed into his arm. Or had she breathed him in?

And did he want to know the difference?

“Yes, let me explain.” In her soft voice, she told her story. The time portal and how it worked. Her miraculous recovery in a hospital, the joy of being whole again. And then a new world to discover.

She described traveling with James and his wife, Emme. There were impossible seeming things in her story. Flying through the air above the clouds in a machine called an airplane. Riding in and then actually driving a car—a carriage which didn’t use horses and instead was self-propelled through a fuel called gasoline.

Through it all, she stayed tucked up against him. Knees folded into her chest, bare feet peeping out.

Had he ever seen her toes before today? He didn’t think so—even frolicking together at Lyndenbrooke as children, she never went barefoot.

But now he found himself fixated on her toes. Watching them bounce as she animatedly described thieving monkeys in India. Curling up as she described buildings in New York City which stretched to touch the clouds.

How could he not have known her toes were long and slender, like her fingers, with her second toe extending farther than all the rest? Each little nail a symmetrical half moon. The pinky toe on each foot shyly ducking underneath its neighbor.

They
offended
him—those treacherous little toes.

In their innocence, they represented everything he
didn’t
know about her.

Like a fool, he had believed himself in his own house but then walked through a familiar door and found an entirely different world lay on the other side.

Everything changed.

Her toes stilled as she recounted meeting Shatner D’Avery and gave a brief outline of their history. D’Avery wanted to move their relationship into something more serious. He seemed like a decent sort: charitable, devoted, nice.

Sebastian loathed him.

Ridiculous D’Avery probably knew all about her toes.

“So what prompted you to return to 1813? It seems like your life here has been quite settled.”

Sebastian gave his brave smile. The one that didn’t touch his eyes.

Georgiana pulled away and looked at him.

Pityingly
.

Sebastian swallowed. What else did he expect?

He
was
pitiful.

“Let me show you,” she murmured, unfolding herself off the couch and wandering into the front parlor. The sudden loss of her body heat startled him. He missed it immediately.

She returned and sat down away from him—unfortunately—handing him a letter inside some sort of clear protective covering.

“This arrived via post about the middle of August.”

Sebastian looked at the letter and examined the signature first, hissing in a breath, head rearing back in surprise.

“How—What—this seems to be your own handwriting, Georgie. But the date . . . How is this even—”

“Exactly!” Georgiana studied him with a rueful look. “I got this letter—which I
still
have not written, might I add—with a date and the mysterious content. How could I not be curious? You know me.”

Did he?

Sebastian gave a weak smile and then actually read the letter.

The words ambushed him, jumping out . . .
a hole in my heart the shape and size of you
. . . gutting whatever shreds of hope he had clung to . . .
Comfort me with the warmth of your embrace
. . .

She
loved
someone. Enough to plead:
Wrap me in the light of your love.

A gasp echoed in the room. He was embarrassingly sure it had been his.

Who could she love like this? Surely it would never be himself.

Pitiful.

“I know—it was a shock for me too. It’s just so enigmatic, don’t you think?” Georgiana patted his arm.

“Who?” was all Sebastian could manage to say.

“I honestly don’t know. I don’t feel these things for anyone. At least, not right now. But once I received this letter, I realized I must return to the past this autumn. It seemed like a sign that I needed to go home, at least for a visit.” She gave a lost little laugh and shrugged her shoulders.

He shook his head. “Visit? You found yourself in the center of a real-life two hundred year old mystery and jumped at the chance to solve it, more like. Visit, indeed.”

Only Georgiana.

“Can you blame me, Seb? How could I resist such a letter? I’m fairly certain it’s not an actual love letter. I probably made . . . will make? . . . the whole thing up. I don’t feel this way about Shatner, at least not yet. Besides, he doesn’t even live in the right century to receive the letter.”

He should have felt at least a
flicker
of hope at her statement. But despair had firmly settled in, determined to build a fine house in his soul and stay a while.

He had known a girl. A girl who smiled sunshine and lived laughter.

But this person curled up on the end of the sofa was now a woman, full of complexity and ambiguity and love that the girl could never have understood.

With
toes
he did not know.

What was he to do? Was his love for her nothing more than affection born of long habit?

Without Georgiana Elizabeth Augusta Knight as his guiding star, what would his life become?

Chapter 17

S
ebastian stared at the letter. Georgiana felt like snapping her fingers in his face to break the tension.

He was not dealing well with any of the events of the last couple hours. Granted, few could travel two hundred years with aplomb and grace.

He sucked in a deep breath and then handed the letter back to her with a faint smile.

“Intriguing,” was all he said, his deep aristocratic voice blending with the hushed pop of the fire.

He held her gaze for a moment, liquid pools of chocolate night. Now shuttered. Asking everything and revealing nothing.

He seemed to be coming undone, nonessential bits of him being stripped away. First his coat and cravat and now his charm and endless good humor.

Unraveled.

What had she expected? The old Sebastian she knew?

She liked old Sebastian. He was uncomplicated and charming and simple to understand.

But now she found herself building him anew, reconstructing him from the ashes of the boy.

A somber stranger—so large and powerful—who fascinated her.

The boy had been a cherished friend. Nothing more. But this new man . . .

He held her spellbound. And she was honest enough with herself to admit there was nothing platonic about it.

The thought both excited and frightened her.

He turned to stare at the fire and relaxed back into the sofa. The sun had set and the room deepened into gloom. Firelight flickered across his face, casting all the crags and crevices of its surface into sharp relief: the strong line of his nose, the darkening stubble on his chin, the angular cut of his side whiskers. Muscles moved underneath his fine linen shirt.

Vividly, she recalled the warmth of him, wrapping her hands around his arm and tucking herself against his side. Feeling the flex and subtle movements of his tendons under her cheek. Some unknown part of her desperate to learn everything about him.

How could she not
long
to curl into his strength?

A series of beeps broke the silence. Georgiana grabbed her phone.

A Skype call.

“Georgie!” James greeted her, holding his own phone between his hands. He shook his head, hair tousled and still sleepy.

Hearing her brother’s voice, Sebastian turned, raising his eyebrows.

“Good morning to you too, James,” Georgiana said. James smiled at her and ran a hand through his golden hair, making it stand even more on end.

“I didn’t expect to see you for weeks, maybe even months. It was wonderful to wake to your text.” James stifled a yawn and adjusted the loose white shirt he wore, his eyes remarkably blue in his tanned face. “
Please
tell me you are back for good.”

“I don’t know. I still haven’t written that letter.” Georgiana shrugged. “You look like you’ve been spending time on the beach. I don’t remember your hair ever being quite so blond. Where are you?”

James smiled wryly and swiveled his phone camera round, slowly panning the scene. He sat on the edge of a bed, draped in white netting. On every side, the building opened up to reveal crystalline turquoise waters, ocean waves lapping.

“Fiji.” James sighed the word. “It’s the most unreal place. Did you know you can rent a cottage
on
the ocean? I don’t think Emme will ever leave.”

“That’s true,” Emme called from somewhere out of the frame. “This place is uh-mazing!”

“It looks warm.” Georgiana flexed her bare toes, which were starting to feel the nip of the brisk autumn evening.

“It is,” James said with a laugh. “You should join us. You could be here in just a day or two.”

Georgiana sighed. “Maybe, but things are a little problematic and—”

“Ah, Georgie. How did I know you were going to say that? So what’s up?”

With a rueful look, Georgiana tapped her phone screen and switched from the front to the back facing camera, showing James the man sitting on the sofa next to her.

For his part, Sebastian merely inched his eyebrows upward and folded his arms across his chest. The sidelight from the fire bathed him in moody, golden light.

He looked dashingly impressive.

“What the devil? Who—?!” James exclaimed and then sat up straighter, suddenly becoming less a beach bum and more a nineteenth century gentleman.

Sebastian somehow managed to raise his eyebrows even higher.

“You can see me then, Knight?” he asked.

“Georgie, turn the dashed phone around so I can speak face-to-face with your gentleman caller.”

Sighing, Georgiana switched back to the front facing camera and handed Sebastian the phone, scooting to sit next to him again, hips touching. She had been looking for an excuse to do so anyway. The man made an excellent heater.

At least, that is what she told herself.

Sebastian stared at the phone screen, obviously trying to merge the image of a rumpled, half-dressed James with the man he had met in the nineteenth century.

James gave Sebastian the same assessing look. “You look familiar, sir,” he said.

“Yes, we have met once or twice. Lord Stratton, at your service.” Sebastian nodded his head.

Poor Sebastian. Georgiana was quite sure it was the oddest introduction of his life. What was the expected protocol? Did one bow to a smart phone?

“Stratton?” James’ forehead wrinkled. “But—what of the earl and Lord Harward—I don’t remember—”

“James, this is my friend, Sebastian Carew. You remember, the vicar’s stepson who lived near Lyndenbrooke.” Georgiana leaned into Sebastian so her face showed on the screen too. “Well, Lord Harward and his family were killed in a carriage accident which caused the poor old earl to expire from shock. All resulting in Sebastian inheriting the earldom.”

James nodded, as if trying to piece it all together. And then he gave them both a decidedly arch look.

“And why are you
here
, Stratton, if I may ask?”

Georgiana felt Sebastian’s lungs deflate, air rushing out. “I . . . experienced some confusion and accidentally went through the time portal. Georgiana—uh, Miss Knight—was kind enough to follow me.”