22. Chapter 22
Chapter 22
F abienne woke up with a smile on her face and her hand on the empty adjacent pillow. She wiggled her toes and stretched with a satisfied yawn as she took in the room. Her nightclothes were neatly folded on the chair; her cheeks grew warm at the thought of Brayden touching them.
Well, he’d touched much more last night.
A simple breakfast had been laid out in the dining room—also empty. Fabienne sat down and helped herself to a cup of still-steaming coffee, some eggs and bacon. Halfway through it, Brayden came in from the hallway and brushed the snowflakes off the sleeve of his topcoat.
“Fabienne.”
“Brayden,” she replied carefully. What should she do, say, on a morning like this? This would’ve been much easier if they’d woken up in bed together.
Or maybe more awkward.
But she would’ve wanted it. Even now, she yearned to snuggle back into his arms.
“I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you with breakfast,” Brayden said. “I wasn’t sure how long you’d sleep.”
“You ate already?”
“I took a few bites. I have business to conduct today, and I have to get going.”
“Oh.” The disappointment lasted until she remembered she, too, had business. She had to meet Robbins.
Brayden came to stand by her chair. “Have you read the letter yet?”
The letter! She’d completely forgotten. “Not yet. I’ll do it after breakfast.”
“Saving the best for last?” he teased.
“I know she’s fine. Last night I wasn’t exactly in the mood.” At least not for reading letters.
“Listen.” Brayden kneeled and took her hand. “If you want to write back, I can try to get a letter to New Orleans.”
Her heart squeezed from joy, and she gave him a wide smile. “That would be wonderful.”
“I have to go. I told Mrs. Tatham she shouldn’t wait with supper. I’ll be late. But I expect to be mostly free tomorrow.” He absently played with her fingers. “We can go for a walk or… whatever you’d like.”
She looked at their joined hands. “A walk would be nice.”
He smiled, then, almost as an impulse, leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss. He moved past her mouth, his breath teasing her cheek before he paused by her ear. “There’s nothing to be done about the day,” he whispered, “but would you like me to come by your room tonight?”
A pleasant, fluttering feeling stirred in her belly. “I’ll be waiting.”
Tiny snowflakes drifted through the air, in absolutely no hurry to meet the ground, as Fabienne set out for the cottage. Robbins waited for her, and a typical exchange of “Happy holidays” and “Good health” ensued while Fabienne positioned by the window, absentmindedly looking at the fairytale-like forest.
“Your watch?”
Twitching, she turned around. Robbins had his arm extended, the watch dangling on the chain.
“Right.” She took it.
“You’ll also be happy to hear we’re ready to move on to the next phase.”
“Is that so,” she said in a flat voice, her gaze drifting back to the frozen trees. A walk would be nice, indeed. Then maybe a cozy evening by the fireplace… or somewhere else…
“However, it won’t be as easy as this one. We’ll require you to freeze time.”
“Free— what ?”
“Ah, so you are listening.” He came to stand by her. “Freeze it, or stop it—no matter the terminology, the effect is the same. The technique relies on the same abilities, but it is much more difficult—which is why we required so much time travel practice first.”
“You mean I can stop time?”
“The correct term is ‘accelerating oneself’, but it doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? You use the substance in your body to manipulate yourself into a state where you’re able to move and work much faster than the rest of us—not only people, everything. It’s like attuning yourself to time in such a manner that you’re able to manipulate its flow. To put it plainly.”
Plainly, indeed. “How do I do it?”
“Unlike regular time travel, there’s no set procedure. Each traveler needs to find their own way to activate it, a trigger. We’re having perfect weather today—it might help.” He nodded at the window. “Look at a slowly moving object. Try to focus on a single snowflake. Focus on it, and it only. You might feel as if everything else slows down, even stops for a moment.”
She squinted, picking out a snowflake and zooming in on it. She followed its waving trajectory, but nothing happened.
She’d heard people liked to ice skate on the river in the winter. If it was anything like rollerskating, it should be fun. Maybe Brayden would like to go—
“Have you done it?” Robbins asked.
“Uh… no. I don’t think so.” Why did he have to pick today of all days to teach her new techniques? “Can’t you show me how you do it?”
He cleared his throat. A slight blush spread on his cheeks. “I do not, myself, possess the knowledge. What I have are accounts from other people. Very few of us know it. Some of us don’t even know of it.”
“Then how am I going to learn?”
“Time. Patience. Practice. Oh, and your watch!” He flashed her a smile. “You’re also lucky in that regard. Top of the line. See this?” He pointed at a slight, oval-shaped indentation on one side of the casing. “It connects to the almonite part in the watch. Press it while you’re focusing, and it will help you channel your energy—the almonite in your body.”
“That’s it? I press it and focus hard?”
“Well, we can discuss some other tips I’ve dug up…”
Even though she didn’t feel much like it, Fabienne sat down with Robbins, and they reviewed his notes. She soon pushed his droning into the background.
What was Brayden doing right now?
If she had some time left, maybe she could go to Hartford, buy him a belated Christmas present—
“Mrs. Marshall.” Robbins’ voice, sharper than usual, brought her back to the present. “You appear rather distracted today. Please, do focus. We’re covering an important aspect.”
“Yes. Sorry.”
Fabienne pushed through the lecture, but her attention didn’t last long. As soon as they said their goodbyes, the thoughts of stopping time were overtaken by other, much more pleasant ones.
***
While Brayden was supposed to check on the Watchers’ offices in Hartford, he didn’t have to do it today. But he needed time away to think things through—and allow Fabienne to do the same. Perhaps the solution for her not turning cold was not to overwhelm her. Proceed slowly.
He grinned like an idiot, daydreaming about things to come, as he skipped up the steps to the offices on the second floor, only to be delayed by two workers hauling a fancy, darkwood desk. An office door at the end of the hallway was open. Brayden lingered, watching the men drag the desk toward it, then rapped energetically on Caldwell’s door. He was already several steps in when he realized the dark-haired man behind the desk was not his old college professor.
“Ah! Marshall, is it?” The man stepped around the desk, offering his hand. “Gideon Henson. Don’t worry, I’m not taking over anything.” The lips under his neatly trimmed mustache curled up. “Caldwell is still at home, snoring. I was sorting out a few things while my office is aired out. The previous owner smoked like a chimney.”
Henson. The name bounced around Brayden’s mind until it fell into place: he was the supervisor on the science project, the one where they’d falsified the measurements for Lincoln’s watch.
Cautiously, Brayden shook his hand. “Office? Aren’t you stationed in Washington?”
“Transferred.” Henson shrugged in displeasure. “Ah, well. What can we do?” He gestured for them to step out. “Tough times for Science. Endless quarrels in the Approval Committee.”
Brayden followed him down the hallway. “Because of the Edict?” Conducting time travel projects and experiments wasn’t easy when one wasn’t allowed to do time travel.
“That, and they mix politics into everything. Barely anything gets past the testing phase without someone yelling, ‘Sabotage!’ Then they cancel the project because they don’t want to risk a rift between members.”
Regardless of how casually he spoke, something about Henson’s tone irritated Brayden. “Can they do that? Even if the project is done according to the rules?”
Henson let out a low laugh. “Good men follow the rules. Successful men circumvent them. Important lessons from my father. I’m sure yours taught you as much, though the lectures might’ve been different.”
“Slightly more traditional.”
“Tradition.” Henson tasted the word. “Never liked that. It’s so restricting. Antithetical to progress, don’t you think? Tradition demands we observe the customs of the past and hold on to them, and look where it’s brought us. Three bloody years of war.” Henson quickened his pace until he stopped at the door to his office. “Have a good day, Marshall.”
“You haven’t mentioned your job here.”
“Oh, that. Boring old paperwork. You know, typical Watchers’ things. Observing people.” Henson smiled before he disappeared into his office.
“We can’t just open an investigation on a member without solid proof of wrongdoing.” Lowe paced the office. “And Henson knowing about Lincoln’s missing watch isn’t a wrongdoing. Besides, he was ordered to falsify the report by someone else.”
But something about Henson rubbed Brayden the wrong way. He was too smooth, too carefree. And he just happened to be transferred here? He kept that last part to himself, though—he couldn’t connect how Henson’s malpractice would be connected to Hartford, and Lowe would be even less suspicious.
“There was something else in his project,” Brayden said. “During the experiments, five vials of almonite were destroyed. Don’t you find that strange? That they’d allow an experiment like this, when we’re so mindful of every drop? And almonite doesn’t get destroyed that easily.”
“Accidents happen. That’s why they’re called experiments. And what does that have to do with falsifying data?”
“It’s more about the cumulative suspicious behavior. No one outside the Watchers could do any harm with Lincoln’s watch, but what about inside our organization? The watch disappeared fourteen years ago. The regulators that monitor travels have only been activated five years ago.” When the Edict was enacted, each member had a tiny piece inside his watch—the regulator—set so it could easily be discovered if they used the watch for traveling, and where to. “Which means Lincoln’s watch is the only one that isn’t controlled, if it’s still unharmed.”
And if it fell into the wrong hands—wrong hands of a Watcher—it could be used to break all the rules, unnoticed.
Lowe took a seat across the desk from Brayden. “Look, Marshall. Under normal circumstances, I’d consider it. But even with the election won, we’re on thin ice. Henson is a Democrat, and enjoys enormous support of our other members who also belong to the party. Going after him with so little proof—no proof, practically!—would look like we’re going after the party, trying to undermine their stance. Add to it the fact we’d have to reveal Lincoln’s watch is missing, and we get chaos. Collapse. Our whole branch could fall apart.”
“What about the collapse that could happen if we do nothing? What use are rules if we don’t check if members follow them?”
“All right.” Lowe leaned in. “Here’s the deal. I’ll allow you to investigate this independently, within the legal limits. No spying, no manipulating. If you can find solid proof Henson is doing something wrong, I’ll check it. But this will be on you, and you bear the full responsibility, should anything go wrong. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I would, however, still prefer if you didn’t put yourself into needless trouble. And I hope you’ll be more busy with the project.”
“The—” Brayden lifted from the chair.
Lowe chuckled. “Thanks to a very persistent member of our European branch, SP-59-02 is back on the schedule. More research and preparations will be needed, but if everything goes according to plan, you and the other team members will meet in Washington in a few months. You can properly start working on it in our labs. Until then, you can stay here or return to the army, but you know what we’d prefer.”
Brayden nodded, the trouble with Henson forgotten for the moment. Stay here. Have his dream job. Be with Fabienne. The real, proper—as amusing as the word was to describe her—Fabienne.
Lowe headed for the door and paused there. “Oh, and Marshall? I’ve been told you’ve been here for the entire day. Go home, for God’s sake.”
Brayden smiled. His thoughts exactly.
He found Fabienne in her room, bent over her desk, concentrating on writing. Several sheets of paper, some crumpled, lay around her. In the dark, a candle cast a soft glow upon her features. Still in her day dress—a simple gray one with a small floral print—and with her hair pulled back tightly, she looked like the perfect picture of domesticity.
He coughed to announce his presence, and she lifted her head. Their eyes met, frozen in a moment where all would be decided. She’d had the entire day on her own, to think things over—would she pull back now?
She smiled and put down her pen. “Good evening.”
“Good evening to you.” He stepped forward. “What are you doing?”
“Would you believe I’ve spent most of the day trying to get this letter done?”
“Just how long is it going to be?”
“It’s not about the length. The contents are giving me trouble.” Her smile turned from happy to mischievous. “I’m trying to find the right words to explain to my aunt that I wasn’t kidnapped, ravished, and forced into marriage.”
“How about saying exactly that?”
“That won’t convince her. It would also be much too short.” She stood and brushed the papers aside. “I’ll do it tomorrow. My mind’s all jumbled.”
“Nice to see I have that effect on you.”
“It’s not that bad yet.” She put her arms around his neck. “How was your day?”
Brayden was on the verge of saying “Wonderful”, when the image of Henson, slyly disappearing into his new office, crossed his mind. “Could’ve been better. But that’s not important.”
“Your work is not important?”
“Not at the moment.” He turned her around and leaned down to kiss the side of her neck. “You know, I was hoping by the time I got back, you’d be wearing a little less clothing.”
“I don’t think the servants would appreciate me attending to duties in my nightclothes. It’s not very practical.”
“Neither are all these layers. How many are there, ten?”
She laughed and led his hand to the topmost button of her bodice. “You’re welcome to find out.”
***
Henson ran his fingers along the freshly polished wood of his brand new desk. It was perfect—he’d already safely stashed his most important files within the secret compartment. He gave the surface an approving knock and strode to the window, catching the last of the pale purple light of the winter sky.
At last, he was in Hartford. And it seemed he had arrived just in time to take control. Mrs. Marshall had dilly-dallied with the basics long enough. Even though he had until April, he was growing restless. Nervous. The coming assassination was his one chance; a golden opportunity he’d had incredible luck to discover. He couldn’t mess it up.
He went back to the desk, grabbed a pen, and tapped it rapidly. Today’s news still bothered him. Robbins had begun the next phase, but he said Mrs. Marshall had been distracted—strange, since she’d been so keen on learning time travel earlier.
He’d have to keep an eye on that. Make sure she stayed on course.
As for her husband… Henson had nothing against the man personally, but he knew the type, and held no admiration for people like him. People who always obeyed. Followed the rules. Never stepped out of line for their beliefs.
People who stuck to tradition.
He’d make the perfect scapegoat. What would the Watchers do if one of their loyal rule-followers had a wife who’d caused the death of their Leader?
They would tear each other apart. And then Henson would stroll right in and glue them back together according to his terms. Forget their traditions. This country needed something else. A new era.
His.