Chapter Eleven
Eleven
Henry’s heart pounded, and his body felt unsteady, as though gravity itself had relinquished some of its grip. In the notebook was written, several times over, the lines from Shakespeare that Charlotte had been fond of:
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
She’d written the words as part of a letter to him, soon after she’d accepted his proposal of marriage. In the note she’d given him along with the astrolabe, she’d written the lines out again. Given his obsession with the stars and the truth, it had naturally seemed appropriate to both of them.
Rose had been writing those words again and again in this notebook. And that wasn’t even the most alarming part of it.
She’d written them in Charlotte’s handwriting.
The rounded, easy-to-read letters. The long crosses of t’s that sheltered letters that came after it. The pen was different, but the loops on the lowercase s’s, the flourish on the lower loop of the f…it was all Charlotte’s writing, exactly.
“It’s a quote from Shakespeare,” Rose said, sounding a bit uncertain. “I was memorizing it for my speech at Emily and Griffin’s reception, so I wrote it out a bunch of times.”
His breaths were coming faster. “Has your handwriting always looked like this?” he asked, straining to keep his voice calm.
“Like what?” She looked down at the page in the notebook. “Yeah. My teachers always thought I had good penmanship.”
“Yes,” he said. “You do.”
“Hey, are you all right?” she asked, studying his face. “You look a little freaked out.”
She’d used that expression once before. As far as he knew, the word freak referred to a sudden, inexplicable change of place.
That, or a capricious prank. Both meanings seemed to apply.
Something inside him had leaped with joy when he’d first laid eyes on those words in her hand…
but that was all the more reason to fear that this prank might be monstrous.
“Yes,” he said slowly. He placed both his palms on the table as if to steady himself. “I am freaked out.”
She gave a sympathetic little sigh. “It’s like we were saying before.
You’ve had so much to take in. Do you want to take a walk to the dog park with me and Andy?
Or have you walked enough for one day?” Andy put his paws up on her thigh, dismayed that the walk had been delayed this long, and she scratched the top of one of his ears.
“I would very much like to go,” he said. Some fresh air would do him good.
It was a strange coincidence, the handwriting, and the quote. What else could it be?
Once outside, Rose led him in the opposite direction of the way they’d gone before.
Two-story brick houses, rather than shops and restaurants, occupied these blocks, along with some trees; mulberry and ash, mostly, but here and there a dogwood or cherry tree showed off its elegant blossoms. More than one resident had planted bright tulips in the tiny strips of land in front of their houses, behind short wrought iron fences.
An old man sitting on the front steps of his home called Andy War-Howl a handsome pup.
The hound lifted his head a little higher and had more of a spring in his step upon hearing the compliment.
When he craned his neck to sniff the base of a tree, Rose indulged him by stopping.
She told Henry, “You’ve actually handled all this pretty well, under the circumstances. I mean, can you imagine if I lived in your time?” She laughed, and he could tell she was hoping to lighten his spirits, too. “Although I do like the dresses.”
“Yes, you might take pleasure in wearing a fine silk ball gown,” Henry found himself saying.
It wasn’t the first time he’d imagined her wearing one that draped over her soft curves and set off her bosom with a rounded neckline.
Her curly hair would be put up in a chignon, adorned with jeweled combs or a filigree headband.
“But everyone else would look better in them than I did,” she said good-naturedly.
Was this false modesty on her part? He’d thought she was more honest than that. Since no subject was apparently taboo with her, he said, “You would look very well indeed, with your figure inclined to the luscious.”
Rose’s eyes sparkled and a fine blush rose on her cheeks—both reactions that gentlemen also greatly admired. “No one in your time would want a wife like me, though.”
“Some gentlemen would hesitate to pursue you,” he admitted. “Men who wanted a demure mother for their children.”
“One who doesn’t play with witchcraft or hang out on rooftops,” she suggested.
They reached the park and she headed toward a fenced-in area where several dogs, large and small, not all of them breeds Henry recognized, cavorted with one another or sniffed around the perimeter.
They went through the gate, blocking the attempts of two dogs to escape. Once Rose had latched it behind them, she unclipped the leash from Andy’s collar and he bounded across the field more quickly than Henry would’ve thought possible, having seen the dog laze about at the apartment.
Henry still regretted saying that Rose had small charms, and he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea now. He said, “Were you to be introduced at a ball in Mayfair, you would’ve fixed a few gentlemen’s attentions.”
“Is that right?” she said, feigning coquettishness. “Would they all be worthy gentlemen?”
He snorted, momentarily jealous of these gentlemen who did not exist. “Hardly. Some would look at you like a horse to be tamed.”
“Eww.”
“Yes, I have seen it before. There are men who pursue a lighthearted girl for their wife, and then with admonishments and tones of contempt, day after day, they subdue her into an anxious and resentful matron. And then they complain to their fellows that she is no longer the lively girl they married, and they take a young mistress.”
Rose wrinkled her nose. “Did all the men take mistresses? I mean, I know some people think that’s fine, but it’s not for me.”
“Or for me,” Henry said, as their hands accidentally grazed.
They watched Andy War-Howl bow to the ground, his rear end wiggling in the air, expressing his desire to play. A ginger-colored dog with a curly coat obliged, chasing him.
“There must’ve been some better men in your time, too,” she said.
“Marginally better,” Henry allowed. “Some would see courting a lady like you as an act of rebellion, a statement that he could not be forced to play by everyone’s rules.
” There had been a little of that in Henry when he’d courted Charlotte.
But before long, what he felt for Charlotte had nothing to do with anyone’s censure or approval.
“I better stay here then, I guess,” she said lightly. “I want to be liked for me.”
They had been speaking hypothetically, but now, Henry couldn’t help but wonder: What if Rose could come back with him in time?
He dismissed the thought immediately. True, he had developed a tendre for her, and despite his displeasing words on more than one occasion, he believed those feelings were returned. But they had only just met.
Besides, she had a full life here. A brother she loved dearly and who, if he wasn’t mistaken, still relied heavily on her encouragement and support. She apparently did not mind having to work at the museum. In fact, he’d gathered that she quite enjoyed it.
“I bet a lot of ladies in your time want to marry you,” Rose mused. “Being a duke and all.”
“Yes. Whereas you have no use for titles. If you lived in my era, you would no doubt try to persuade me to turn Everly Park into a boardinghouse.”
She laughed. “Affordable housing, yes. That’s a great idea.”
He’d never before met someone who was not only indifferent to his status and wealth, but actually disapproving of them.
Without them, and without much knowledge of the world he found himself in, he did not have much to offer.
He was tolerably good-looking, he supposed, but also a too-serious, often awkward man who preferred a lot of time for solitary study.
Clearly, her spell should have brought her a charming doctor, professor, or solicitor—though there could be no shortage of these in her own city.
A strain of music had Rose reaching for her phone in her purse. Once she pulled it out, she exclaimed, “Oh! It’s Emily.” She put it to her ear. “Hi! How’s everything?”
After a long pause, she cooed, “Ohh, that’s amazing. I’m so happy for you guys. So listen—”
Apparently, Emily had interrupted her, because she fell silent. She frowned, and in a few moments, she said, “Yeah, hang on a sec.” She held the phone away and whispered, “She read about the portrait in the news.”
“Ah.” How strange to think that the portrait he’d never posed for was public knowledge.
Rose brought the phone back to her face. “Ugh, I’m so sorry…” Another pause. “Okay, but listen—it didn’t get vandalized. I did this spell and the duke in the painting time traveled to my apartment—No! Why would that be a joke?—Yeah, I’m with him right now.”
There was a pause, in which Henry could faintly hear an excited, high-pitched voice emanating from the phone, though he could not make out the words. Then Rose said, “I’ll call you later and tell you more, okay?”
Henry took a step away from her and pretended to be absorbed in the inspection of the flag flapping from a pole on one of the houses—white, with a bold blue W.
He could well imagine what Rose might want to talk to her good friend about.
This Emily and her husband from the Dark Ages would hear how Henry had declared that he and Rose could not consider a romantic entanglement—after he’d kissed her passionately.
Henry ground his teeth. There was no explanation that put him in a good light.
“Don’t be silly. I love having him stay with me,” he heard Rose say. Pleased, he took an involuntary step closer. “He hasn’t even barked that much.” Ah. She was talking about the dog.
“Okay, see you! Love you!” Rose said. Putting her phone back in her purse, she bounced over to Henry. “They’re coming over Tuesday night to pick up Andy and meet you. They would come sooner, but Griffin’s got work.”
Once again, she had not asked him whether he wanted to meet them. But the dog had to be returned, and since it was her apartment, he could hardly object to her receiving her friends.
“Very well,” he said. Perhaps if he talked to them, they would have some clue to offer about time travel.
Andy and a new arrival to the park became acquainted in the usual canine fashion, by sniffing each other’s posteriors, which Henry always found distasteful.
After Andy and this dog had roughhoused for a while, Rose decided that they should be heading back home.
As they walked back up the sidewalk, she discussed this Griffin again.
“I am so excited that you get to meet him. You guys are going to have so much in common! He’s from the early 1400s, and he was an actual knight in shining armor.”
“It sounds as though we will have little in common,” Henry said.
“But you’re both in the wrong era! Although, he loves this era. He’s super friendly. He can talk to anybody.” The exact opposite of Henry, then. “You’re going to love him.”
Henry felt quite sure that he was going to loathe the man, though it would be impolite to say so. The breeze picked up, and not far ahead of them, a cherry tree discarded a few of its petals.
Mostly to change the subject from the wonderful Griffin, he said, “It always seems a little melancholy to me when the trees lose their blossoms.”
She gave him a disbelieving look. “Melancholy? It’s celebratory! It’s like nature’s confetti.”
She ran a couple of steps ahead of him and raised her arms—just as a stronger gust blew a veritable rain of cherry blossom petals down on her. Laughing at the magic of the timing, she twirled.
His breath caught. He’d never seen anyone lovelier. No, it wasn’t only that…he’d never seen anyone more natural, more alive. It made him feel more alive, too: as if all the youthful dreams and impulses he’d discarded had come rushing back to him, more vital and vivid than ever.
He imagined advancing in a few strides and grabbing her around her waist. She would give a little gasp of surprise, perhaps.
Maybe she would gaze up at him, joy shining in her eyes.
Her lips, as pink and soft as the petals, would part.
She would wrap her arms around his shoulders, and he would smell that rose-and-incense perfume of hers that stayed close to her skin.
He’d bring his mouth down on hers in another kiss.
But none of that happened. She laughed and jogged a few steps back to his side. In his agitated state, her mere proximity was a torment to him.
Had he been wrong to draw back from an affair? Had he really needed to do it in such indelicate terms? He’d told Rose plainly that there could be no romance between them, so there was no way for either of them, by word or action, to revive the possibility again.
And any fool could’ve seen that she was not much troubled by the matter.
She’d responded to his kiss in the planetarium, yes, but that had been an impulse of pleasure, like twirling amid the spring blossoms. She shared some predilections with Charlotte, and even wrote in the same hand, but she was herself, a wild and enchanting nymph, and he had no claim on her heart.