Divine (36 page)

They had managed to do some internet research yesterday. The Tangert family line had died out in the early twentieth century, so there was little there to help them. Returning to 1813 would probably be the best way to continue the investigation. At least in the nineteenth century, Sebastian had hopes the universe would no longer put obstacles in his way.

After their bit of research, he and Georgiana had stayed up late talking with James and Emme. The affection and closeness between Georgiana and her brother were obvious.

If the portal would allow him to return, would she consider going with him? Could he ask her to give up James and this modern world? Would her deepening affection for him be enough?

Sebastian couldn’t even imagine summoning the words. Deciding she cared for him as more than just a brother, that he turned her insides melty, didn’t mean she was ready to walk away from her life here, from the people she loved most in the entire world.

It didn’t mean that she chose
him
.

The more he thought about it, the more glum he became.

How could he stay here with her? How could he leave the earldom and everyone in 1813 who depended on him? Sure, another distant relative would take over, but what about his mother and stepfather? His sisters? What about his own sense of satisfaction in making a difference?

But after having had the barest taste of Georgiana, the shattering vibrance that her love would be, how could he ever walk away from it?

He stood, watching the sun rise higher. The yard itself wasn’t too large, an overgrown space with raised flower beds that had once functioned as a kitchen garden. A worn picket fence ran behind. But the fence backed the golf course of the Haldon Manor Hotel and Spa, so the garden seemed to stretch into the endless green behind Duir Cottage. Golden light spilled through the trees beyond the back gate, only marginally warming the autumn crisp air.

“Mmmmm, I looked out my window this morning and thought, who is that
dashing
man standing in my back garden . . .”

Turning, Sebastian chuckled as Georgiana shut the kitchen door, wrapping a shawl more tightly about her shoulders and knotting its long length in front.

Smiling, she joined him overlooking the trees, slipping her smaller, colder hand into his. He clasped his fingers around hers possessively.

It wasn’t enough.

He drew his hand, still entwined with hers, around the small of her back and pulled her to him, snugging her body firmly against his chest. With a sigh, she twisted her hand free and wrapped her arms around him, returning the tightness of his embrace, measure for measure, pressing her head into his shoulder.

Sebastian slid a hand into her silky hair, threading his fingers, letting the morning light filter through it. Gold on gold.

“It was a morning just like this, you know,” he said after a moment.

She pulled back slightly, eyes questioning.

“When I first met you. It was a crisp sunrise and you rose like a nymph out of the mist. You were twirling, your hair down . . .”

She continued to gaze at him, brow furrowed.

“The first time we met? When I was thirteen?”

“Yes. You laughed. I thought it was the most amazing sound I had ever heard.”

She laughed.

“Exactly,” he smiled. “Just like that. You were so lovely. I
had
to get to know you.”

She blinked, obviously somewhat taken aback. And then smiled.

“Why are you telling me this, Seb?”

He shrugged.

“I’ve been standing out here trying not to think about what the future may hold,” he said. “Which, of course, means I have been thinking nonstop about the past.”

She sighed and cuddled back into his chest.

He breathed in deeply, letting the smell of roses wrap around him.

“I don’t want to live without you, Georgiana,” he murmured against her hair. “The timing may be difficult but, without you, I have no hope—”

With a small grunt, she pulled away from him, hugging her arms across her chest.

The abrupt withdrawal surprised him.

“Whatever is the matter?”

She regarded him for a second.

“This is back to that stupid clause in the stupid old earl’s stupid, stupid will, isn’t it?”

The
will
!

He had totally forgotten about that. The shock must have shown on his face.

“Seb, I know you need to get married and all—”

He laughed, a short, quick sound. Felt the emotion of her words jolt through him.

How could she doubt his love? But, then, he had never completely confessed his adoration either.

So he did the only thing he could do. The only thing he wanted to do.

He kissed her.

Hard.

Fierce and demanding. Pouring a decade of fruitless hoping and yearning and despair into that one kiss.

No mere touching of lips. But a siege.

She didn’t stand a chance.

Her knees buckled—he held her tightly. Kissing her over and over.

“Enough, Georgiana,” he murmured against her mouth, both of them breathing hard. “I could care less about that blasted will. I haven’t thought about it even once in the past week. It doesn’t matter—”

“But, Sebastian, you
have
to marry, we have been through this—”

“I do not
have
to do anything. The only thing I have ever wanted to do is marry
you
, you maddening wretch.”

“Oh!” Her small gasp puffed against his lips.

He pulled back to cradle her wide-eyed face in his hands. Gazed into those blue, blue eyes.

“I love—” His voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. “I—I love you, Georgiana . . .”

She traced his face with a hand, soft, wondering.

“Truly? It seems terribly convenient that you—”

He gave a bitter laugh. Stared at her with all the intensity of his soul.

“You are not hearing me, my love. I have always—
always—
loved you. From the first moment I saw you standing in that meadow, I have loved you.”

He gave her head a little shake, just to emphasize his point. Like a burst dam, he couldn’t stop the tidal rush of emotion.

“I love your curiosity. I love your laugh. I even, yes, love your absurd obsession with mysteries.”

“Oh Seb!”

“As a soldier, I would hold the image of you at the ball at Stratton Hall all those years ago. Do you remember that night? Your golden head shimmering in the candlelight. It was your name on my lips as I charged into battle.”

Her eyes shimmered in the morning light.

“I swear there were times when I felt I would give up my immortal soul just to spare you a moment’s grief—”

He slid his arms down her back, pulling her closer to him.

“I never dared hope—I was the stepson of the vicar with supposedly distant ties to the Earl of Stratton. I knew you only ever saw me as a brother. I told myself it was enough. Enough to have your friendship. Enough to hear your voice, to know we both lived and breathed on this planet. I was such a liar. It was
never
enough.”

He kissed her forehead.

“But then my fortunes changed and that dratted will gave me the perfect excuse to hunt you down. To find you and do what I could to ease your illness. I loved you so much—so very much—I wanted to give you whatever bit of happiness I could. To claim even the smallest part of your life as my own.”

Chest heaving, she wrapped her arms around him again, holding him tight. Sebastian wrapped his hands into her hair, trying somehow to close the infinitesimal space that still remained between them.

“Do you think if I spend every day between now and eternity worshipping you that you will finally understand? Believe it deep in your soul that I
adore
you?” he whispered into her ear.

She pulled back to look at him.

“Seb, I—”

He stopped her with a finger to her lips.

“Hush. I know you don’t love me as I love you. It is enough to think you might try. I am not going to ask you to marry me. Not now. I intend to have you for forever and do not want you to ever doubt
why
I begged you to marry me. I know the will stipulates I must marry before my birthday in less than two weeks, but I will not jeopardize your future happiness for a little money. The earldom will survive. The only thing I want—the only thing I have
ever
wanted—is you at my side.”

She took another step back. Dazed. Blinking.

He ran a thumb along her cheek, so soft. So beloved. “My darling, I have waited ten years for you to finally
see
me. I will wait another ten if I must. If it means, in the end, that you spend the rest of your life with me.”

“I—I don’t know what to say,” she whispered. “I adore you, Seb. Truly I do. But moving from adoration to love to marriage is still quite a series of steps. And just
thinking
about marriage brings its own set of problems. Where would we live? In which century?”

She gazed past him to the garden beyond. “It’s just that with James here . . . Would you be willing to stay here? To give up on trying to force the portal to allow you to return?”

The very question he had been dreading. He dropped his hands to her waist, keeping her close to him.

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “So many people depend on me back in 1813 . . . I made a commitment to God and country when I became an earl . . . Besides, what would I do here? I have no money—”

“James has money—”

“Yes, but I could hardly live the rest of my life on your brother’s largess.”

They contemplated each other for a minute.

“I am not sure this century is right for me,” he confessed.

“But think of all the advantages. The medicines, the amazing machines . . .”

He smiled. “Yes, but I keep coming back to all the people who depend upon me. As an earl, I touch so many lives. I am a direct participant in government. I have influence. I have spent my entire life in anonymity, watching others have a purpose. I feel I have been given this amazing opportunity to make a difference, to live a life that truly matters . . .”

“Yes—but to live knowing that your child could die of an easily preventable disease, dealing with so many horrid things that aren’t a factor in modern—”

“True, Georgie, but . . . how do I explain this? Every generation, every time and period in history, has its good and bad. Its highs and lows. Yes, this century offers distance from death. It offers equality unheard of in 1813. But those things only have come about because people in 1813 wanted change. Someone had to care first, someone had to fight in order for the world of 2013 to exist. And you know me. I have never been afraid of being on the front lines.”

She chewed on her cheek, regarding him thoughtfully.

He ran a finger along her jaw and continued. “I was born and raised in the nineteenth century. I accept the reality of life then. Death will come to us all, regardless of when we live. I am sure people in 2213 will be appalled by the risks and squalor of life in 2013. And yet people here seem to get along just fine with the lot they have been dealt. That is the nature of each generation. Each time has limitations. We accept those we cannot change and fight to right those we can.”

Sighing, she leaned into him. “True, but Seb—”

“Just a moment. Let me finish. When it comes to change, my reach is so vastly larger in 1813 than it is here. I want to live my life with you, but please consider living it with me in the nineteenth century. Come. Be my countess. Use your imagination and creativity to better the lives of the thousands who depend on me. Make the world—then
and
now—a much better place for your having passed through it.”

His eyes pleaded, begging her to see.

Confusion warred within her.

“But James . . .” she whispered. “It would kill him to have me leave. And though he could maybe one day know what my life had been, I would never know his. I don’t know, Seb. I do adore you, truly I do. It actually terrifies me. I recognize I could come to care for you with such an intense passion—”

Her voice broke. Shaking her head, she buried her face in his chest.

“There is time yet,” he murmured, stroking his hands up her back. “The portal hasn’t allowed me to return and who knows when that will change. Besides, I don’t need to return home today or even tomorrow. We can wait it out. Talk with James. Examine everything. Besides, with Lord Zeus in 1813 perhaps looking for you, it’s probably best if we lay low here for a while anyway.”

He held her, letting the happiness of her affection run through him. The
hope
of her love.

Time. He would give her time. All the space she needed to chose him. He had already spent a decade being patient. Another month or two hardly mattered.

He bent down and kissed the top of her head. Her forehead. Her eyes.

She let out a soft little breath. What else was he to do?

He kissed her mouth.

Like sinking into a feather bed, an infinity of give. Where he just kept falling and falling and falling.

Every hope, every longing focused down to that one solitary point.

How
had he survived this long without her kiss?

As usual, when kissing her, time stilled. When he finally pulled his head back, the sun had risen considerably higher in the sky. She shivered and he hugged her to him.

She sighed contentedly into his chest. Dressed in those same loose pajama bottoms with the shawl drawn over her t-shirt for warmth, her feet—

“Georgiana Elizabeth Augusta Knight!”

She looked up at him.

“Do you
ever
wear stockings?”

She looked down at her extremely bare, decidedly purple toes. Wriggled them. Laughed.

“They don’t feel cold. Someone has been doing an excessively good job keeping them tingly and warm.” She gave him an arch look.

“Impossible woman,” he muttered against her mouth and then, quite literally, swept her up in his arms, carrying her back into the house.

Georgiana laughed as Sebastian set her down in the kitchen of Duir Cottage. She did not know what the future would hold for them, but for now, it was enough to just
be
.