Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) (18 page)

He stroked her dark curls and dropped a kiss
on her forehead. “No, my sweet love. It isn’t anything like that.
It isn’t anything remotely like that.”

“But I did lead you on, Marcus,” she said,
grimacing. “Let’s not kid each other here. I’ve been flirting and
teasing you every chance. I could for the past three weeks,
although until today I didn’t think I was getting anywhere. Face
it, Marcus. I chased you until you caught me.” She buried her head
against his chest. “God, Marcus, I’m so ashamed.”

He was getting himself back under control. It
wasn’t easy, for Cassandra’s body seemed to touch him in every
vulnerable place—her hip still very much in contact with his
manhood, her breasts burning against his chest, “Stop it,
Cassandra,” he ordered quietly but firmly. “I’m no green-as-grass
boy. I know what you were about. I’ve known from the beginning, and
I was—and remain—flattered. You are an engaging minx, you know.
Extremely engaging. And—and I’ve grown quite fond of you.”

His last statement seemed to return the spark
to her bewitching violet eyes. Leaning back so that she could smile
up at him, she said, “Really, Marcus? How fond?”

“Don’t push the matter, imp,” he responded,
stepping away from her, putting a bit of distance between himself
and the temptation she presented. “I am also fond of
Shakespeare.”

She took a single step toward him, her smile
wide and unaffected—although its effect on him was proving to be
nothing short of extraordinary. “Yes, Marcus, of course. But did
you ever want to kiss a copy of
Romeo and Juliet?
Have you
ever struggled with the temptation of making mad, passionate love
to
Macbeth?
”

“Cassandra,” he intoned warningly, “we have
to be reasonable here. Obviously we are drawn to each other. Quite
drawn to each other. But you may not be here much longer. There are
considerations that must be—er—that must be
considered,
and
possible consequences of our feelings that could complicate
matters. If we were to do anything momentous, anything that might
commit us irrevocably to each other, we
could—
Cassandra!
”

He caught her just as her eyes rolled up in
her head and she fainted.

As he had been talking, taking more backward
steps, and as she had been smiling, and matching each of his
backward steps with a forward step of her own, her expression had
begun to change. At first he thought he had insulted her again, so
that he had kept on speaking, digging himself a figurative hole
that had grown wider and deeper with each ridiculous word.

But, he realized as he carried her to a
nearby couch and gently laid her down, she probably hadn’t heard
anything he’d said. She hadn’t even been listening. She had been
lost in her own world, her eyes wide and unblinking, her complexion
starkly white.

“Cassandra?” he prompted, kneeling beside her
and stroking her cheek. She was so still, so motionless, so small
and vulnerable. Were there rules to this business of time
traveling, boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed? Had he taken the
chance of emotional involvement, only to stumble blindly into one
of those boundaries, causing Cassandra irreparable harm?
“Cassandra? Oh, God, what has happened? What have I done?”

Marcus was torn between wanting to stay with
her and knowing that he should be summoning assistance, calling for
hartshorn and burnt feathers in the hope of reviving her. If she
could be revived.

Just as he had decided that he could leave
her long enough to summon Goodfellow, Cassandra rolled her head
from side to side and moaned.

“Cassandra? Darling? Come back to me. Please,
come back to me!”

“Marcus?” Cassandra opened her eyes and
looked up at him questioningly. Her voice was weak, her tone
puzzled. “What happened? How did I get here? Why am I lying on this
couch?”

He took her hand, rubbing it against his
cheek. “You fainted, my dear. One minute we were talking, and the
next—but it is of no real importance. It will all come back to you
in a moment.”

“
Fainted?”
Cassandra pushed his hands
away and struggled to sit up, holding a hand to her head as if she
had the headache. “Well, how about that. I knew you were good,
Marcus, but I never expected to—oh, no! Now I remember. Marcus—the
stairs!”

She launched herself into his arms and he
could feel her tremble as she squeezed him so tightly his stickpin
dug into his chest. “The stairs? What stairs?” he asked, his heart
sinking. He knew what she was talking about. She was talking about
the staircase in the White Tower.

Damn it! He never should have kissed her! To
kiss her, to love her, was to take the chance of losing her. Why
did this one theory, of all the theories he had toyed with in the
past three weeks, have to be correct? He had worried whether or not
Cassandra’s physical presence in his time could withstand an
emotional involvement. Obviously not. She had to remain detached in
order to exist in his time. To fall in love with her, to have her
fall in love with him, was to lose her.

“I don’t know how it happened,” she was
telling him, so that he brought himself back to attention,
listening closely. “One minute you were talking—preaching,
actually, as I remember it—and the next all I could see was that
twisting staircase. I was standing at the bottom step, looking up.
All I wanted to do was climb those stairs. I wanted it so badly I
could taste it. Oh, Marcus, what does it mean?”

Marcus stilled his hands in their soothing
motion of gently stroking her back as he was struck by a swift
shaft of clarity. A blinding ray of hope. “
Up,
Cassandra?
You were looking up? Not down? Are you sure? Are you quite
sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I kept looking up, straining
to see past the first curve in the staircase, longing to see
something, feeling as if something completely unknown yet
absolutely wonderful was waiting for me just around the first
turning, out of sight. I was overcome with this terrible
longing,
Marcus, and then... and then—”

Marcus caught her face between his hands.
“Cassandra! Darling! You were going
up!
”

She was looking at him strangely, almost as
if he had slipped his wits, a thought that had occurred to him on
many occasions since discovering Cassandra in the White Tower.

“Yes, Marcus.
Up.
And I don’t see why
it’s anything to laugh about. It probably means I’m going to travel
back to my own time soon. The staircase was a symbol, Marcus. I’ve
seen it in books, in movies. Sometimes people lose strength, or
they have weird dreams—but it all means the same thing. I’m getting
ready to travel through time again.” Her bottom lip quivered and
tears sparkled in her eyes. “Oh, Marcus. It isn’t fair. All I’ve
been thinking of for weeks is how much I wanted to get back to my
own time. But now everything has changed. I don’t want to leave
you. Not now. Not ever.”

He leaned forward and kissed her, not
passionately, but tenderly, as if she were made of fragile
porcelain. “You aren’t going to leave me, Cassandra. I thought so,
but I was wrong. Thank God, I was wrong! If you had said you saw
the top of the staircase, I would have to say that you were being
given a sign that you must go back to the White Tower and go down
the stairs, back into your own time. But you were still at the
bottom of the staircase, my love, climbing upward, toward
adventure—toward me—just as I was drawn to those same stairs,
needing to travel down them, in order to find you. Cassandra,
nothing is ending. We have only just embarked upon this adventure.
Today, this moment, is our real beginning.”

She covered his hands with her own, tears now
running freely down her face. “Do you think so? Do you
really
think so?”

Marcus sobered, remembering what he had read
in Cassandra’s guidebook. It wouldn’t do to go into any of that
now. She was already frightened. “Yes, my love, I really think
so.”

Her smile nearly destroyed him. “‘My love,’”
she repeated. “What a wonderful expression, Marcus.” Then she
frowned. “But for how long?” she remarked vaguely as Marcus helped
her to her feet. He kept a supporting hand beneath her elbow as he
led her toward the doorway. She was obviously still feeling the
effects of her swoon, or he wouldn’t have been able to fob her off
so quickly with only a few kisses and a general explanation. Later,
however, when she had totally recovered her strength, he was sure
she would bombard him with questions.

But it was time they left the solitude of the
music room, and the temptation that solitude offered them, behind.
“I don’t know, my love,” he said as they walked toward the foyer
and passed by the butler, Goodfellow’s silent censure making him
want to laugh, or weep. “But we should do our utmost to make the
most of whatever time we have, don’t you think? Now why don’t you
go upstairs and lie down for a while, and then, as Perry seems to
have deserted us, I shall treat you to a ride through the
park.”

Cassandra’s smile was weak and slightly
forced, but then, bless her, she rallied. Her strength of will, one
of the first things that had attracted him to her, was coming to
the forefront. “Hyde Park? For the Promenade? Do you mean it? Am I
finally going to be allowed out in public? Aunt Cornelia said Beau
Brummell has come back to town. I’m dying to see that guy. Gosh,
Marcus, maybe I ought to faint more often.” Before he could stop
her, she stood on tiptoe, wrapped her arms about his neck, and
planted a firm kiss on his lips. “Five o’clock, my lord? I wouldn’t
want to miss a moment of the Promenade!”

And then she was gone, running up the
staircase, her skirts indelicately raised above her ankles, and he
was free to retire to his study, to read through more of the
guidebook on London, searching for the answer to a question he
still did not know how to ask.

~ ~ ~

As Aunt Cornelia had already put in her bid
for the closed carriage, Cassandra and Marcus were reduced to
riding in his high-perch phaeton, which exposed them to a damp
breeze that was only partly dispelled by a thin, watery English
sun.

But Cassandra didn’t mind, not when she had
the chance to show off her new navy-blue pelisse and cossack hat.
Her lap was covered by a carriage wrap, but she didn’t really need
it to keep her cozy as long as Marcus continued to sit beside her
on the high seat, his warm gaze mentally transporting her to the
height of summertime.

She was falling in love. There was no denying
the feeling. She was falling in love with Marcus Pendelton,
Marquess of Eastbourne. And he was falling in love with her. Life
was strange but wonderful.

Marcus looked marvelous as he tooled the
reins, handling his horses with a sure hand and understated
elegance that told Cassandra that she was in no danger of becoming
one of the major parties in a road accident. Marcus, she believed,
also looked marvelous—simply because he
was
marvelous.
Wonderful. Kind. Sweet. Protective. And sexy as hell!

No modern-day cover artist had ever
successfully captured the real Regency hero, not if “her” marquess
could be an example of the species. He wore his curly-brimmed
beaver at a rakish angle over his ebony curls, and his many-caped
driving coat was not only flattering, it was a minor sensation: it
accentuated his broad shoulders yet revealed just enough of his
fawn pantaloons and high-top Hessians to allow him to cut a dashing
figure. He looked authentic enough to grace a Currier and Ives
print, handsome enough to pose for a centerfold in
Playgirl,
and sexy enough to have her looking forward to the evening, and the
moment Aunt Cornelia bade the rest of them good night, so that she
and Marcus could be alone.

Not that she told Marcus any of this, for he
would only ask her to explain the first two thoughts, totally
breaking the mood—and the last thought might make her appear just a
mite calculating. But that didn’t mean a girl couldn’t hope, did
it?

They had traveled only a little over three
blocks when Cassandra saw Hyde Park, which reminded her vaguely of
the nicer areas of Central Park—minus the muggers. “Are we in time
for the Promenade?” she asked Marcus, turning about on the plank
seat to see that they were now making up what seemed to be a small
traffic jam of curricles, coaches, phaetons, and other
yellow-wheeled, high-sided vehicles, all of which appeared to be
heading in the same direction.

“Cassandra,” Marcus said, his tone low but,
thankfully, amused, “much as I am sure you are wont to do so, I
must point out that it is not considered polite to goggle. Remember
our lessons? Rather than make a spectacle of yourself, like some
green country girl in town for her first Season, you are to sit
very still, your chin raised, and your expression faintly bored.
You will nod to passersby, but only enough to acknowledge them, and
not enough to encourage them to stop, for it plays the devil with
the horses. We are here, my love, only to see and be seen.
Understood?”

Cassandra giggled. “I’ve got it, Marcus. It’s
sort of like we used to do back home in New Jersey when I was in
high school—only we called it ‘cruising.’ There were nights we put
seventy or eighty miles on my dad’s car, just cruising up one
street and down the other, checking out the kids in the other cars.
Funny, I thought we were so original, yet you guys were doing the
same thing more than a century before any of us were born. I could
have used that argument on my dad after I put eighty miles on his
Buick one night before Jimmy Marino admitted he really couldn’t
turn back the odometer.”

“Seventy or eighty miles,” Marcus repeated in
an awed tone. “No matter how often you tell me these things, my
dear, I still have difficulty believing them. I should like very
much to see these cars you speak of, and the airplanes. Yes, I
would very much like to see a jet. Tell me again about this one you
call the Concorde.”