Chapter 35
“Leo. Hi.”
Those are the only words I can get out. Not Why the hell are you here? What are you doing here? Do you know how hard it was to say goodbye to you once? Then why are you making me do it again?
Those words would have been way more helpful.
Leo moves toward me, rushing from his own carriage.
He stops just short of me, like he was going to hug me before he remembered we’re in public.
And in a sexual repressive nightmare where people can’t hug, because heaven forbid men and women touch genitals through a combined eleven layers of clothing.
The absolute scandal.
“I am so glad to have found you.”
I firmly tell the part of me that lights up at the words to stuff it.
We are not supposed to be seeing him again; this is not part of the plan, nebulous though it may be.
“What are you doing here?” I don’t even try to infuse my voice with the warmth or excitement at seeing him.
I’m not going to encourage the perfect man who’s hurting me right now. Even if it’s not intentional.
“I received your letter from the footman. I wanted to see you again before you...” Leo looks at Anne. “Well, I wanted to see you again.”
Anne is giggling off to the side, like this is the most romantic thing she’s seen. The hero tracking down his heroine when she’s dragged away by a forceful guardian who doesn’t care that she’s interfering with true love.
Only the heroine is from the future and the guardian is trying her hardest to matchmake us.
I quickly change plans from the nice, quiet bookstore day to deal with this. “Let’s take a walk on the beach.”
Anne leads the way, and then falls back so she can chaperone from a distance, giving us some privacy.
I don’t want privacy! The last time we had privacy, we fucked on a balcony.
Privacy gives me leave to make terrible, wonderful, bad-for-me decisions that I enjoy a lot in the moment, but only make it harder for me in the long run.
“What are you doing here?” I ask again when we’re firmly on the sand, the water and seagulls I heard earlier much louder now and giving our conversation further privacy from Anne.
“You said goodbye, Meera. Did you expect me to accept that?” His voice is uncharacteristically sharp and I look up at him over the rebuke.
I glare back at him, immediately in defensive mode.
“You knew this was always going to end. Whether it’s in a letter while I’m swept away by a head of state, or I disappear into time, or I watch you get married to your rich heiress from afar.
This was always going to end. So I don’t know why you’re here right now, doing inadvisable things to change the inevitable.
” I slap him on the chest with my small purse.
He’s lucky this isn’t the future when I carry around my huge work tote, with laptop and books and a spare sandwich, just in case.
“Damn the rich heiress!”
“What’s your plan here? We’re going to get married?
” I lay on as much sarcasm to the question as I can, so at least one of us will believe this is a bad idea.
“You’re going to lose your home and your sister will be carted away to relations, or she’ll get a job as a governess, which she’ll hate because you rich kids are terrible.
Or she’ll get married to some monster. And Queen Victoria will probably pay for our wedding, but I don’t know where we’re going to live after that.
And while owning all the land and making people work on it while you steal the majority of the profits isn’t great, you’re probably better than a lot of the alternatives of this time, so all your tenants will be screwed with a new landowner.
And then, when everyone finds out I’m a liar, we can both go to jail.
Is that what you want? A honeymoon in Newgate? ”
Leo, to his credit, lets me get all that out without interrupting. And then he waits a little longer.
“Well? Do you have something to say to that?”
“I love you.”
“No.” A tear leaks out of the corner of my eye. “I disallow it.”
“You disallow my love for you?” Leo smiles tenderly, not at all affected by my edict.
“Yes. It is forbidden. I have forbidden it. You can’t.”
“But I do.”
“Shut up!” I cover my ears. It works for toddlers, right? The if-I-can’t-hear-it-it-isn’t-true method of approaching life.
He gently takes my hands and tugs them down from my ears, then doesn’t let them go. “I love you,” he says again.
“Why?”
“Why? We’ve gone from ‘You can’t’ to ‘why’?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Because you challenge me and make me better. Because you are fun and genuine and intelligent and unlike any woman I have ever met, in the best way. I cannot imagine being with anyone else.”
I sigh.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
“No.” I scowl at him for emphasis.
“Anything at all?”
“No. Well, there is one thing. You can’t love me.” But my voice isn’t as sure as it was before.
“Anything else you would like to say to me?” His voice is patient, like he has all the time in the world. But time has always been our issue.
“I can’t love you either. Especially because you’re such an irritating, problematic person.
You have benefited from unearned privilege and it’s infuriating.
And you both don’t take things seriously, and also sometimes are too responsible and it really interferes with me putting you in the box of useless hedonist. And you’re also kind of considerate, remembering what I like and using that to make me happy.
Who does that? I don’t like it even a little bit. ”
Leo opens and closes his mouth. “I must admit, I was not expecting that response.”
But I’m still on a roll. “And you haven’t let go of my hands.
And I can’t stop thinking about you when we aren’t together.
I shouldn’t be here, and at any time I may have to leave.
But I don’t even know if I even want to.
I’m thinking about giving up the internet and air conditioning and planes, just to be with you.
And you don’t even know what those things are.
It’s confusing. And I don’t like being confused. ”
“I have never told a woman that I love her, but I do not think this is the usual response.”
“This is what you get!” I’m yelling now. I finally snatch my hands back. “And you only like me because I’m different, but if you were able to come back with me, you would see I’m not special. Then you’d regret telling me you love me.”
“Impossible.”
“How would you know? You’ve never met anyone like me, remember. I’m curious.”
“I do not know that there is anything I could say to sway you right now. You would have to trust that I know my feelings; you would have to trust me. And over time, you would see that your trust was rightly placed.”
“I don’t have time!”
“You have now. I am not asking you to stay here for me; I do not know if that is even possible. I do not understand time travel. And I do not know if it is fair to ask you to give up such wonders even if it were a choice. But at the very least, I would like to spend every moment you are here, with you.”
“I’m not marrying you.”
He smiles at me tenderly. “That is all right. Because I have not actually asked you to marry me.”
I cringe at that reminder. “Fine. Just so we’re on the same page. I guess you can stay.”
Leo grabs my hands again, and this time pulls me into a hug. “Kind of you to let me stay on this public beach.”
I breathe in his scent while I wrap my arms around him, because he’s here now, and so am I, and I’m savoring every moment of it. “Oh, shut up.” But there’s no heat there now. “Aren’t you supposed to be all in love with me and in too much awe to sass me?”
“I am in love. I have not received a hard hit to the head.”
“Great.” But I’m not mad. I wouldn’t have given up sassy Leo for anything.
Anne clears her throat behind us, closer than she’s been during our conversation.
She closes the rest of the distance until she’s standing next to us.
We break apart, still too close for propriety, but less likely to shock any delicate Victorians who walk by.
“We should get back to Her Majesty. It’s almost dinner and she’ll wonder where we’ve gone. Lord Basildon, will you be joining us?”
I don’t take my eyes off Leo while Anne is talking, so I catch him look at me in question.
“Yes.” I deflate. “Leo, er, Lord Basildon will be joining us. As long as that’s all right with Her Majesty, of course.”
“I’m sure it will be. You know what a romantic Her Majesty is.”
We walk back to the carriages, where Leo gives his coachman instructions and then gets in our carriage.
I still haven’t told him that I love him, too. He’s taking the lack of news well, smiling at me tenderly on the ride back to Osborne while I scowl at him. Stubborn lord of the manor.
Doesn’t he know what’s best for him? Living an uncomplicated life with the beer heiress, for one. Ignoring women who lie to monarchs and say they’re from the future, even if they do happen to be telling the truth, for another.
We get to Osborne House and head to the drawing room to wait for Victoria. She doesn’t take long, lighting up when she sees Leo.
“Basildon! I was not expecting this.” Victoria greets Leo warmly, offering her hand for him to bow over as her eyes sparkle in matchmaking success.
Anne was right; the queen is a romantic.
“Albert would have done exactly the same thing.” She pats his cheek when he stands up out of the bow.
Then she turns her eyes on me. “It’s quite the suitor you have here. ”
“See? Her Majesty, bestowed with a higher-than-average intelligence, knows I am an exemplary specimen.”
I’ve seen peacocks during the height of mating season, with full plumes of shimmering feathers, that strut less than this. His ego is going to be impossible to live with now.
Not that I’m going to be living with him.
“For an equally exemplary lady.” Victoria, mother of nine children, tries to keep the peace between us. I lean around the voluminous skirts of the monarch and stick my tongue out at Leo from behind Victoria’s back.
“Did you hear that? I’m equally exemplary. Her Majesty says so.”
“Yes. I agree,” Leo stage whispers at me.
Victoria giggles like an elementary school student who just found out there’s going to be a field trip to the zoo, instead of a woman who’s buried two loves of her life. “Come on, children. It’s time for dinner.”
We make the procession to the dining room, slightly ridiculous when there are so few of us, but the British do enjoy their traditions.
I can’t pay attention to the luxurious dinner, my eyes repeatedly wandering to Leo.
So much that I almost spill soup all over my borrowed dress, but save it at the last minute.
It takes everything in me to stop myself from telling Leo that I love him.
I don’t know if that will make it easier or harder for him when I leave, but now that I’ve accepted that Leo loves me, I want him to know that he’s loved too.
By the end of the dinner, I’ve succumbed to the fantasy that it can always be like this: being with Leo, enjoying his company, laughing with him.
Maybe I won’t be leaving at all. Maybe we can do this.
Victoria and Leo are talking animatedly about something, and I might just want him so bad that I’m willing to justify anything, especially after he told me he loved me, but we can make this work.
He’s close to the queen; she’ll help us.
I know about the past. I can help him make money, and a title will still shield both of us from a lot, after a marriage.
Maybe we won’t be living in London, but we can be happy in the countryside.
Or have a perfectly happy life in London, just not invited to pointless balls, which is also fine.
We can start a charity for the lascars that actually understands their needs and helps them, and Leo can use his position in Parliament to make life better for people here.
We can figure this out. If we work hard enough, we can do this.
And staying away clearly isn’t working; I keep dragging my feet on leaving and he keeps following wherever I go, making us both miserable in the process.
There isn’t really a good time to tell him about my epiphany (and about my love), though. Not when Victoria is talking about India. What would I say, Actually, a lot of people there are being mistreated and they aren’t that happy to be colonized, and also Leo, I love you?
That seems like a lot.
I can’t when dessert comes out and it’s a strange and slightly terrifying jelly mold that is five layers tall and jiggles in a precarious manner. Please pass me a piece of the jelly dessert that moves as no food should, and also, I love you. No, that won’t work.
Not during our after-dinner entertainment, either. Victoria is quite the…interesting singer. I love you more than she loves India. That’s not the best comparison.
Having something I need to tell him, but not being able to find an appropriate time to do it, is putting me on edge.
I’m going to burst, like a balloon that was already full at the beginning of dinner, but that keeps getting air pumped into it whenever Leo does something that makes me love him more.
I need to release some of that air, or love, in his direction before I burst.
Aside from being an overfilled balloon, the evening is nice. Pleasant. Calmly enjoyable.
So I’m not prepared for the interruption that plows into the drawing room just as Victoria starts singing her third song.
“I have it!”