Chapter 18 #3
Not knowing how she found the strength, she wriggled her hands out of his grasp and stepped back. “I have to get the thread for Lady Amberly,” she said in a stranger’s voice, and took another step away.
“Lizzie.”
“I can’t,” she said, trying to convey how sorry she felt. “Please let me go. I’ll see you later, at the house.”
She turned and walked away, not looking back, but knowing he didn’t follow her. She knew he wouldn’t because she’d asked him not to. He’d respect her wishes, because he was a good man, kind. The best she’d ever known.
She got to the notions shop and stood outside, straightening her hair and trying to lose the crazy from her eyes, which had to be there, she felt so flustered.
It hit her again all at once, the thing she’d fled in terror from a few minutes before.
Longing. To be with Quinn, see his home, make it hers, just as he’d asked.
He’d said he loved her, and in so many words, had asked her to marry him. Hadn’t he?
She walked further down the street, trying to sort her thoughts and reliving the last moments with Quinn.
The look on his face, she’d never seen anyone look that way at her.
She wanted to see it again, but this time, throw her arms around his neck.
He’d pick her up by the waist and twirl her around, laughing into her hair and telling her again and again that he loved her. And she would…
“Oh, no.” She stopped dead, causing an elderly gentleman to shake his walking stick at her.
Hurriedly getting out of the way, she huddled under a pub sign.
“Oh, no,” she repeated, frowning at a lady who looked like she might offer some help.
There was no help for her now. She’d fallen in love with Quinn Ferguson.
She bought the thread and took a winding route back to the house, muttering to herself the whole way.
Once she realized the awful truth, realized how deeply Quinn had made his way into her heart, the thought of leaving him kept jabbing at her like poison darts.
Every time she thought of something she missed about her old life— jab, the thought of Quinn countered it.
She didn’t know how she could leave him.
Wait a damn minute, she thought. What if you don’t leave?
What if she stayed in this time and made a life with Quinn? The idea was so intoxicating, she had to sit down. She found a bench and collapsed onto it to twist and prod the notion of spending her life in the eighteenth century, on a farm, with Quinn.
He would do anything for her, she knew. And she’d never want for fantastic sex again. He probably wouldn’t mind if she left off wearing a corset. All selfish reasons to stay. Quinn’s good qualities and the things she loved about him were too many to list. Really, he was much too good for her.
She could barely mend a hem, had never gone faster than a trot on a horse, didn’t know the first thing about farming save the little herb garden she used to have on her kitchen windowsill back home.
That had died from lack of water. She felt confident she could deal with chickens and ducks, but pigs or cows? Bulls? She wasn’t so sure.
Being an actress, she felt she could certainly play the part of a farmer’s wife until she actually lived and breathed it.
After all, she’d become a paid companion well enough.
But that only involved going on errands and sitting around at parties, getting to know people.
There wasn’t any real labor involved. Loads different from herding and harrowing, planting and peeling, or whatever they did every day.
She didn’t even know proper farming terms.
Quinn knew she was from the city, and would help her with everything, and she knew he’d be patient and only laugh at her a little.
She did love his laugh. Spending every evening curled up with Quinn and a book, talking and snuggling and laughing …
oh, those were selfish reasons again. She had to figure out what was in it for Quinn if she stayed.
She liked children fine, but didn’t have much experience with them except for teaching them dance an hour or two every week.
And for this time, she was getting up there in age for sure.
If they were going to have children, she’d need to start squeezing them out straight away, and if she was going to stay here to be with Quinn, she didn’t want to share him, not even with her own baby.
Had she really gone so far as thinking about babies? She kicked at the pebbles near her feet and rolled her shoulders, realizing she’d been sitting hunched over, breathlessly going over her options.
It was all so foolish. There were no options. She couldn’t stay, no matter how much it hurt to leave. This wasn’t her time. She’d never really fit in and eventually Quinn would come to see how useless she was.
Making her sadness a small, tight ball, she got up and went to the house. She’d find a way to get through the next few days, then if she made it home, she’d find a way to get through the rest of her life without Quinn.