Chapter Sixteen #2
“How honest of a man to admit such a thing,” she remarked dryly.
Caleb’s jaw dropped. He demanded a smart comeback from his brain, but all the fresh air had emptied it of wit. Amelia smiled a little triumphantly, then squatted down to brush at the ground beneath the hydrangea shrub.
“It looks like someone’s been digging here,” she said.
“Be careful.”
“Thaumaturgic minerals aren’t usually close to the surface,” she assured him. “I’m not going to make anything explode.”
“I meant, be careful of breaking a fingernail,” he said. Squatting beside her, he peered at the ground. “It was probably just some animal.”
“No, listen.” She paused, her head tilted to the side. “Can you hear it? Ticking.”
Caleb did indeed hear a faint mechanical clicking from within the ground, and his pulse shouted in answer. When Amelia started to dig, he caught her hand, pulling it away from the dirt to set it on her thigh.
“Cale—” she began chidingly.
“Sh,” he said, and continued the work himself.
Amelia went quiet, watching him, and Caleb felt all tingly at the realization that he’d actually charmed her with his mediocre heroism.
Immediately increasing his efforts so as to appear even more impressive, he soon felt something cold and smooth beneath his fingers.
“What the…?” he murmured, and with some tugging, some ruination of an expensive manicure, he pulled a small circular object from the ground. It fit in his palm, ticking with all the contentment of a cat come in from the weather.
“It’s a pocket watch,” Amelia said, taking it from him.
“I can see that,” he said, taking it back. They stood, and Caleb turned the watch over in his hand, brushing dirt from the gold case to reveal an etching of a double-headed eagle inlaid with what appeared to be rubies.
“Didn’t Sir Nigel say something about owning Peter the Great’s pocket watch?” Amelia asked, running a fingertip over the design. Caleb tingled as if it were his bare skin that she’d stroked.
“God knows. I stopped listening to the man several days ago.” He turned the watch over again, noting further details. “I would guess a Russian provenance myself, but Dummersby could probably say better on the subject. I can confirm, though, that it’s magical.”
“On what evidence?” Amelia asked.
He raised his eyebrows at her. “You mean apart from the summer flowers above its burial site? And the fact the ground is now glowing blue?”
Looking down, Amelia grimaced with alarm. Without further discussion, they beat a cautious retreat to the nearby oak tree. Beneath the shelter of its vibrant autumnal foliage, Amelia once again took the pocket watch from Caleb, opening the case to inspect its interior.
“Gilt champlevé,” she reported. “The hands are not moving, despite the tick.”
“That’ll be thaumaturgic discharge,” Caleb said.
“Could this be what caused the temporal disruption the other day, when I got caught in a pocket of memories, rather than the teaspoon?”
“From all the way out here?” Caleb shook his head. “Unlikely. Nevertheless, let’s not mess around with it. If there’s going to be an explosion, I want it to happen in Throckmorton’s vicinity.” Retrieving the watch from her and closing its case with a snap, he slipped it into his trouser pocket.
“I wonder how such a valuable piece came to be buried in a field,” Amelia mused.
“Maybe it ran away from Sir Nigel to get a little peace and quiet.”
Ignoring this brilliant witticism, Amelia frowned at his pocket as if she were still regarding the watch within it. “Do you think it’s the cause of all the nature anomalies out here?”
“Uh,” was the best Caleb could say, on the grounds that his respiratory system had suspended operations in response to her gaze being focused right there.
His pulse stepped into the breach by working double time, and for an interesting moment he seriously contemplated fainting, the benefit of which being that Amelia might attempt to resuscitate him.
But one glance at the dirty, root-gnarled ground advised against this, and Caleb told himself to man up (not literally, please, he added with considerable urgency to his body).
“Let’s go back to the house,” he said.
Amelia looked at him with mild concern. “Are you all right? Your voice sounds a little rough. I really don’t want you to catch a cold, you know.
We should have remembered to wear coats.
” Stepping closer to him, she began fussing with his shirt buttons, intent on closing the upper two as if that would warm him up and protect him from the evening’s weather.
And as a scheme, it did work, although not for the reasons she supposed.
“Amelia. Sweetheart.” Caleb clamped his hands over hers, which stopped the buttoning up, but at the same time had the effect of pressing her fingers against the base of his throat, where a hard, hot pulse throbbed for her.
“Oh,” she said, obviously comprehending the truth, clever woman that she was.
Caleb waited, helpless, for her to step away from him and tidy the situation until they were both professional and polite once again.
But she did not. She lowered her hands, and his along with them, holding them instead against his heart.
Then she bent her head and kissed him so, so gently upon that vulnerable place above his collar, like a fairy bestowing a wish.
Caleb closed his eyes, sinking into the beautiful sensation of her lips against his skin.
People asked him sometimes why he’d chosen to become a historian specializing in antiques, and he always answered with a crooked smile, “Because of magic.” And it was true.
Because of her. She was his magic; she had enchanted his life from the moment he first met her.
One smile from her and the day brightened.
One touch of her finger transported him into a dream.
And one slow, soft kiss at his throat sent glitter cascading through his entire body, like the atoms of poems, or the stars that waited just behind Cumbria’s sunset and now seemed to light within him instead.
When she eased back, Caleb released one of his hands from her gentle clasp so he could catch her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, tilting it until she met his silent gaze.
They stood like that for a timeless moment, and then somehow, with that strange force that worked between them lately, their own private gravity, they were kissing.
Long, warm kissing, while the wind sang through oak leaves and the sky burned with delight.
It was as sweet as a fairy tale. At least for a while.
Slowly, it darkened. The warmth became a smoldering heat that made them restless, breaking the kiss, staring a little wild at each other while their hands moved instead.
At Caleb’s waist, trouser fastenings opened beneath Amelia’s nimble fingers.
Her skirts rustled as he lifted them. (Then her drawers rustled some more—good God, he thought rather impatiently, it was like trying to break into a headmaster’s office.) He moaned as she slid her hand beneath his underwear. She gasped as he did the same.
And then they were grinning, like a pair of youths thrilled to find themselves playing a daring new game.
Amelia giggled—her eyes widened at the sound—and before her brain could start analyzing the situation and bringing in reinforcements for her good senses, Caleb hurriedly cupped his free hand against the back of her head and kissed her thoroughly, deeply, in the best argument he could make against rational behavior.
Meanwhile, his fingers provided extensive supplementary clauses.
And he must have persuaded her, for she drew his own supplementary clause out from his trousers, and she created an irrefutable counterargument with her touch.
Caleb felt then the aching joys and dizzy raptures that Wordsworth had experienced too in Cumbria (although almost certainly not for the same reason).
They made him want, with all his heart and soul, to ensure Amelia felt them also.
He watched her face closely as his fingers experimented, and his heart swelled with every tremor of her eyelashes, every stumbling breath.
His pleasure wove through her pleasure and back again, binding them together in new ways, adding texture to the gloss of their friendship.
Amelia began to blush redder, her eyes shining brighter, and Caleb desperately controlled himself so that she would reach the pinnacle before he did.
Never before had he attempted an endeavor more difficult.
He felt like he would come just looking at her.
And then—and then—
“Professors!”
At the distant call…but nowhere near distant enough…
Caleb and Amelia froze, staring at each other in horror.
Then all at once they were moving—hands withdrawing, skirts lowering, things being returned to place.
Caleb peered around the oak’s trunk while he buttoned his trousers and saw two figures out with lanterns, evidently searching for them.
He was willing to bet neither was a poet, but also could not believe that anyone in the house had been so concerned as to dispatch servants to the rescue.
“Did they see us?” Amelia asked tautly.
“Professors!” came the call again.
“Apparently not,” Caleb said. He gave her a weary, regretful look, and she smiled a little sadly in response.
“It’s for the best,” she told him. “Those clouds look like rain. We’d have got wet.”
“Hm,” Caleb murmured darkly. But Amelia was too busy attacking invisible creases on her skirts to notice the ribald insinuation, and Caleb had to acknowledge that the mood for teasing—or for anything interesting at all—had well and truly passed. “Let’s get back, then,” he said.
“Let’s,” she agreed.
Their fingers, warm, damp, met briefly, like a conversation they otherwise dared not have.
Then they relinquished even that and left the tree’s shelter, allowing themselves to be found by footmen who, surprisingly, had been sent by Lady Ruperta.
Two shillings got them safely back to Ravenscroft Manor, where the lady herself met them in the entrance hall, looking so formidable Caleb wondered if they were about to be evicted.
“You must not wander around outside!” she remonstrated.
Caleb and Amelia waited for her to explain that doing so was dangerous, or that it distracted her staff, or that she feared they would expire from a chill. But the only thing furthered was her angry frown.
“We apologize,” Caleb said with a polite bow of his head.
“Hm,” Lady Ruperta replied, which managed to convey in its brusque syllable how much she disliked them and how dearly she wanted them gone, but alas how she was forced to tolerate their presence until they’d rid her house of its junk.
For a moment all three stood in grim silence, contemplating the certainty of them being in each other’s company for quite some time yet, considering how many trinkets and artworks still awaited assessment in the entrance hall around them.
Then Caleb brought out the pocket watch.
“We found this,” he said, handing it to Lady Ruperta. She backed away, looking aghast.
“What was that doing outside?” Her voice was so rigid, it sounded like it might crack at any moment. “Sir Nigel is going to be furious.” Whipping around, she glared at the nearest footman. “Are you responsible for this?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied at once. And then his eyes seemed to lose focus, as if he were catching up with his words. “I—I—took it—uh—”
“Dreadful behavior!” Lady Ruperta interrupted him, the very picture of aristocratic outrage (which is the same as everyone else’s outrage, except that the clutched pearls are real).
“Go at once and make me some tea! As for you—” She turned her glare to Caleb and Amelia.
“Stay indoors, if you please. One would hope you’ll concentrate on your work so it might eventually be concluded. ”
She swept away, and Caleb and Amelia exchanged the same grimace—abashed yet relieved—that they’d expressed after various close calls with authority figures in the past, from Ottersock to the groundskeeper who’d found them behind the dormitory, the first day they met, and had suspected them of that ultimate crime: playing with marbles during school hours.
Without further discussion beyond a brush of hands that was more eloquent than a Shakespeare sonnet, they hurried to wash and change for dinner.
At the table, Sir Nigel was delighted to be reunited with his pocket watch, and rambled on from the fish entree to the custard pudding about its various features.
Caleb tuned him out. He had more important things to do than listen; namely, glancing repeatedly at Amelia through the thicket of serving dishes and hothouse flowers, no matter how unwise that might be.
She, for her part, was more restrained. Nothing existed in her countenance but calm, good manners.
Caleb began to question his memory as to whether she really had blushed like wild roses, just one hour earlier, while his fingers glided through her most private place.
It was as though magic had never happened, only the purposeless tick of an old watch.
And so things went on, same as before. And perhaps Sir Nigel’s antiques had broken time as Vanity feared they might, so that each day echoed the others, trapping Caleb and Amelia interminably in their secrets, until Caleb began to believe he would never see the sunlight of London again, its loveliness a dreamy faint blur of gold behind the city’s smog.