Always and Forever (18 page)

"And then there was the production of
Macbeth
that I thought was rather brilliant."

He leaned over to rest his hand on top of Quinn's, as his blood-shot eyes sought hers. "Perhaps you and I should take in a show while we're in London?"

Quinn tried to pull her hand away but he tightened his grasp with enough force that Quinn involuntarily gasped from the pain. In a flash of movement, Archer was up and pulling Edwyn from his chair. Her focus was completely on Edwyn and in that moment, before Archer physically removed him from the table, she saw two things that he was wordlessly communicating to her. One, he was Derek and he knew that she knew it and two; he was giving her a silent warning to back off.

"I think perhaps it's time for you to retire for the evening." Archer's voice was so very soft but there was rage burning through his words just as the butler, Finley, appeared in the dining room.

"Call for the coach, Lord Danvers was just leaving." Archer met Katherine's glare levelly before he added, "It would probably be best that you and your mother accompany him home since he isn't in full use of his facilities. My men will ensure you all arrive safely at your residence. And for the sake of propriety we shouldn't be living under the same roof until we're married. I'll have your things brought over to you first thing in the morning."

Katherine's face had turned such a shade of red that Quinn wouldn't have been at all surprised to see steam coming from her ears. With the dignity of royalty, Katherine pushed back from the table and when she spoke her voice was even, not at all betraying the fury she was clearly feeling.

"Perhaps that is for the best. After all, we certainly don't want to find ourselves in the midst of a scandal."

There was no mistaking that veiled threat but Archer didn't even blink as he held her gaze. Maybe she was imagining it but for just a second, Quinn thought she saw fear on the other woman's face. Katherine started from the room with her head held high but then turned back and shot Quinn such a look of malevolence that it leveled her. There was a promise of retribution in that glare but there was something else there, too, something that looked very much like insanity. A moment later she was gone, her mother following behind her.

Quinn remembered the warnings issued by the staff declaring that Katherine wasn't right in the head and that caused a shiver of dread to skirt along her nerve endings. She could handle bitchy babes but insane ones were another story altogether. Since no one else seemed to notice the look, Quinn pushed it from her thoughts but a seed of fear planted itself firmly in her gut.

Everyone was silent until they heard the coach pulling away and then Thaddeus called for champagne. "Well done, Arch, well done."

"Why did you do that? Not that I didn't enjoy watching you throw them from the house, but why?" Lady Scarcliff worried.

Archer walked over to his mother and hunched down before her gently taking her hands into his.

"We're not convinced the Danvers are who they say they are."

"What?!" Her shock couldn't have been any more evident.

"They aren't staying in the Danvers' residence. Well, they are but the place is closed up and there is no staff to attend them. They're using it as their base while in London and with the real Danvers off continent no one is the wiser."

"But even if what you say is true, they could still ruin Cecilia with one word," Lady Scarcliff said with despair.

"Yes, but if they have been lying about who they are, and we can certainly prove that, then their credibility is ruined and no one will be inclined to believe anything they say," Archer revealed.

"Why would they lie? What are they after?" Rosalind asked.

Archer shrugged. "We haven't figured that out yet."

"I've been thinking and, though Katherine and Edwyn are working together, I don't think they're after the same thing." Quinn's comment captured everyone's attention. She focused on Archer as she continued. "We told you about Edwyn stealing from you. There is something you have that he wants, he picked you specifically, but he needed a way to get near you. And what better way than to get you engaged to someone of his choosing like Katherine, the stunning beauty with ice for blood. Your wife dies unexpectedly and right on the cusp of that Katherine sets her cap on you sight unseen. They blackmail you and he's got his in. For Katherine, I think she truly wants you and your money. She's vindictive, and possibly a killer, but her motivation is passion and greed, pure and simple."

"And Edwyn?" Thaddeus asked.

Quinn looked up at him before she replied, "Presumably to steal something but what that something is, I don't know." She hesitated with sharing the rest of her theory, since it was a rather hard theory to swallow, but they all believed her to be from the future and had taken that shocking news rather well so she continued on. "In my time there's a man I sometimes work with," Quinn saw as Arch speared her with his glare from across the room.

"He's a fool, Archer, so whatever you're thinking, don't. Anyway, his name is Derek Blake and he's an archaeologist like me but he is always looking for the big score and has, on more occasions than is statistically possible, found very rare treasures."

"You think he's somehow moving through time hiding treasure and digging them back up in the future?" Archer asked incredulously.

"I do. Edwyn and Derek could be twins."

Thaddeus looked intrigued. "Seriously?"

"Yes. Edwyn is squatting on Danvers' land, we already saw him burying treasure, and his counterpart in the 21st century has the uncanny ability of finding treasures that no one else even knows exists. So play it out. He needs to get closer to you so he hires someone with ambition. They blackmail you into marriage and as the brother, he gets into Whispering Winds."

"But what is he after?"

"I don't know and, more, how did he learn of whatever it is when there is so little documented about Whispering Winds and you in the future?"

Quinn let that sink in for a minute before she asked, "You mentioned at dinner one night about how Edwyn handled his estate. Does he personally have an estate?"

"That night I was referring to Lord and Lady Danvers who when on continent split their time between their London townhouse and their estate that is not too far from Whispering Winds. I just assumed that Edwyn shared in his family's beliefs when it comes to tenant farming. As it turns out, he isn't even a Danvers."

"That's what I thought. I am sure he is Derek and he knows I know. We are running out of time."

Archer was very quiet for a minute and when he spoke his voice was very soft. "Why do you suppose there is nothing of our legacy in the future?"

She reached for his hand. "I think Derek came back and orchestrated a con that led to your and Nickie's deaths and, more than likely, people witnessed his disappearing act as he slipped back into the future. Even in my time, seeing someone disappearing into thin air would create chaos and fear because the unexplainable always does. That fear and uncertainty can turn into rumors of curses and magic and I believe that is what happened to Whispering Winds."

"This is all rather overwhelming but, oddly, I find it all plausible." Lady Scarcliff said from her spot across the table.

"If Edwyn is this Derek character then who is Katherine?" Cecilia's voice had Quinn looking over at her and smiling as a plan started to form.

"I don't know who she is but I have a fairly good idea of what she is." Quinn looked to Archer and Thaddeus before she added, "We're going to have to go undercover."

Archer's eyebrow rose at that, "Meaning?"

Her grin was razor sharp as she replied, "You'll see."

Later that night Archer and Quinn strolled through the small garden in the back of the townhouse and though Archer wanted to know what Quinn was up to, he didn't want to take up their time together with talk of Derek/Edwyn and the Danvers. In truth, he was still trying to understand it. What did the world become that made time travel possible? The thought was daunting and a bit frightening.

He pulled his mind from such things and promised himself he'd stay in the here and now by reaching for Quinn's hand and letting complete and utter contentment fill him. She spoke his name and when he looked down at her he knew what he was feeling was clearly seen in his expression because of the small hitch in her breathing. In response, he couldn't help leaning over and lightly brushing his lips over hers. "Yes?"

It seemed to take her a minute to remember what she was going to ask.

"Could you tell me about your wife?"

He knew his grin faded at the mention of that woman but he didn't release his hold on her hand as he answered.

"I remember very little about her. She was vain and arrogant, hand-picked for me by my father."

Quinn could feel the anger rolling off him so she stopped and reached for his other hand. "She gave you Nickie."

"That's just it, Quinn, I'm not convinced that she was Nickie's mother."

Quinn didn't have to feign shock at that announcement. "What do you mean?"

He reached up and touched her cheek. "There are a few things in a man's life that he never forgets: the first time he mounts a horse, his first fisticuffs..." he grinned, "...the first time he takes a woman to his bed, falling in love, becoming a father. I remember falling in love, I remember when Nickie was born, but somehow I also remember hating her and I don't even remember marrying her or bedding her."

Quinn wasn't sure what emotion was stronger, confusion over Archer's words or the jealousy that he had loved another with such fierce intensity: an intensity that even now caused his jaw to tense and his shoulders to square. She pushed herself past her own issues to ask, "How is that possible, you not remembering?"

"I suppose for you to truly understand, you need to understand about my father. He was an evil man. As soon as I was born, I was pulled from my mother's arms and whisked away to the old ancestral home of the Scarcliffs and there my training began. Every day, from the time I could walk, I was trained to become the next great Earl of Scarcliff. He didn't want a son, he wanted immortality and I was his means. He did everything in his power to bend me to his will but somehow I survived it and eventually, and with great reluctance and pressure from his peers, I was sent off to University."

"I came home after I graduated and with the money left for me from my mother's side of the family, I immediately started building Whispering Winds. I no longer lived in fear of my father and went so far as to renounce his legacy which included the threat of closing up the Scarcliff ancestral home as soon as I assumed the title. He was livid that I would defy him but I was also a full grown man who would no longer tolerate the beatings he so loved to mete out."

"Six years later Nickie was born and this is the time that gets confusing for me because shortly after his birth I became gravely ill. Apparently, I was delirious with fever for over a week and when the fever finally broke, I was weak for months afterwards. The fever had affected my brain because not all of my memories were there and though I remembered Nickie and my wife, it was more impressions than actually memories. The doctors and my father kept me from them for fear that I would pass to them my illness but I remember the day I was allowed to see them again."

"I was beside myself with joy when Nickie was brought to me and I knew him instantly. But the woman who was holding him, the one they claimed was my wife, the mother of my child, I didn't recognize her at all. In my heart I remembered my wife as a beauty with a wonderful wit. Her name was Morgan," he was silent a moment as a wistful smile touched his lips before he continued, "But the woman who stood before me, Connie they called her, was nothing like what I remembered. My father, the doctor, even some of the villagers, tried to convince me that I was mistaken about my wife, still confused from my illness. My mother and sisters had never met Morgan because I met her after I returned from University and they were staying in London. I wish that they had met her but they stayed away because they feared my father, specifically how I might suffer if they reached out to me because my father liked to keep me apart from the rest of the family. He wanted to make me feel dependent on only him."

"I began to believe what I was being told when my dream wife never appeared to claim her son or me. At least in my waking hours. In sleep I dreamt of her, every time I closed my eyes she was there, the wife of my dreams. I thought I was going insane and that's why I kept myself from Nickie. I wasn't sure that I had come out of my illness with my sanity completely intact and, in truth every time I saw him I thought of her, the one who wasn't real."

"For the past six years I have dreamt and longed for a woman who doesn't exist." He reached up and framed Quinn's face, his voice gravelly when he added, "When I saw you that first time in my great hall, I thought I really had gone mad because there you were standing before me."

Quinn went very still. "What do you mean?"

His gaze was like a soft caress as it swept over her features before he whispered, "You, Quinn, are the woman I have always dreamt about."