Chapter 21
September 3rd, 1881
Edinburgh, Scotland
Henry was twelve years of age the last time he’d paid a visit to Elias McKenzie’s home in the countryside near Edinburgh with his mother and brother. As the smoggy grime of the city faded behind him, the mountainous landscape unravelled faint memories of the McKenzie home, a great Scottish relic from another era which dominated the green valley by the Glencorse Burn.
The carriage came to a halt.
Suitcase in hand, Henry opened the door, stepped onto a tuft of grass and looked at the grey limestone wall of the McKenzie property. The whisper of an approaching storm breezed through his unruly curls, cooling the prickling burn of his scalp.
He thanked the driver and entered the courtyard.
From the gate, he scanned the house for signs of life. There were no lights or shadows in the tall rectangular windows. By the stables, a carriage was parked next to a huge pile of hay.
Someone must be here.
He stepped forward, remembering his practised speech. On his way to Scotland, he had thought of what he would say to Eva and Elias. Deep down, he knew his efforts would be futile. All it would take was one glint of Eva’s honey-coloured hair to send his nerves careening out of control.
They had been separated for nearly three months. Granted, it was not as long as the one hundred and thirty-seven years between their lives, but somehow the last few months had felt like an eternity. Much had changed. He had left her in a shameful moment of weakness. He had said and done horrible things to make her leave in an effort to protect her.
She must hate him.
And by appearing unannounced, he was reopening old wounds. It was a necessary evil. There was too much unfinished business between them. At the very least, he wanted to apologize because, by God, he had been given a second chance at life, and he wanted to start it off right.
A flash of tartan caught his eye. From the depths of the stable, Elias emerged and headed toward the front door of his home.
Henry was overwhelmed with the visceral urge to step back, but Elias kept his head down anyway.
The echo of a woman’s laugh followed.
The familiar sound of Eva’s voice clenched Henry’s heart. He imagined it would burst from pressure. Should he turn back and leave her in this moment of happiness? Or should he be the monster to wipe that radiant smile off her face? Coward Henry from months ago would have run, but he had promised himself to discover the strength within him. If he didn’t, he would regret it all the way to his grave.
“Mr. McKenzie, I demand to know where you’re going,” Eva shouted from the stable.
Her clear accent caused a cold sweat to break across Henry’s back. He had badly missed her voice.
“Hold yer blazen horses, ye wee fool. I’m gettin’ another bottle of—”
It happened fast.
Within the second Elias spotted Henry, Eva stumbled from the stable. Wine bottle in hand, she instantly froze as her gaze caught Henry’s.
Henry’s breathing stalled.
Eva was wearing a forest-green tartan shawl pinned to her left breast with a metal thistle pin. Her honeyed hair was styled in a cascade of long waves around her shoulders. Her skin had been dramatically browned by the sun, soft freckles marked the bridge of her nose, and her eyes – oh, her eyes – were large orbs of polished hazel.
His heart squeezed, his knees wobbled, and he almost ran to embrace her. The tartan shawl put a firm stop to that desire. Why was she dressed in the McKenzie colours. Had they married?
His gaze met hers again. He furrowed his brow to understand what he saw.
No, God, anything but that.
Her expression hardened. “You.” She pointed the wine bottle at him. “It’s … you.”
He exhaled a shuddering breath. “Yes, yes, it is I.”
The bottle flew past him, shattering against the limestone gate pillar.
She lunged to the pile of hay and unsheathed a pitchfork. Like a warrior hell-bent on destroying her enemy, she marched toward him.
“Eva,” Elias stepped forward. “Stop!”
Henry dropped his suitcase.
The swinging pitchfork swooshed by him, narrowly missing his stomach. He grabbed the wooden handle and, with one firm tug, pulled her to him. Their chests plummeted against one another. Her breath, smelling of wine, came in a harsh gust to his face.
Their gazes caught.
Between them, all else faded but their ragged breaths. The bittersweet pull was too difficult to ignore. His fingers twitched with the need to reel her into his arms and never let go.
The sleepy effect of alcohol lent a soft edge to her hard expression. A dozen scars across her right cheekbone, some faint and some thicker, were like angry slashes caused by the ridges of a knife.
His brows knit together. “Your face. My God, Eva, what has happened to you?”
She glared at him. Her shaking fists sent vibrations through the pitchfork’s wooden handle.
“Let go, so I can finally stab you to death like I’ve been dreaming of doing since the day you abandoned me,” she sneered.
Abandoned? Is that how she pictured what happened?
He tilted his head, searching for the Eva he remembered. The depths of those hazel eyes gave away only hurt. He had expected anger but not like this. This was hatred. He was no longer convinced his explanation would be well received. He did not want to fight with her, nor did he want to add more fuel to the fire that coursed through her veins. He would try to remain calm.
“It would be a well-deserved jab,” he said quietly. “Although, I ask that you wait to stab me to death until I have given my explanation.”
She blinked. “Your explanation?”
“And my sincere apology.”
“That is … that is the most tone-deaf thing you could ever say.”
“What is?”
With a huff, she released the pitchfork. She paced back and forth like a caged animal, then, without warning, slapped him hard across the face.
He did not move or speak.
“How dare you show your face after everything you’ve done. How dare you come back looking to explain yourself,” she said.
“I thought you had left this world—”
“Liar!”
“Eva,” Elias interjected.
“You’re a damn liar, Henry Asheford.” She poked at his chest. “Always have been, always will be.”
“He speaks the truth,” Elias said.
“No,” Eva said, stepping back. “Neither of you will tell me what to think. You don’t know the hell I’ve been through.”
“I wrote him a letter,” Elias said.
“You did what?” Eva shrieked.
Elias exhaled. “The day I found ye, I sent Henry a letter. I thought it fair he should ken ye were found. Although I dinnae expect the bastard to ever show his face after his abhorrent and disgraceful actions.”
Eva’s face paled. “You can’t be serious. This isn’t happening again. I’m a magnet for betrayal.”
“I did not betray you,” Henry said. “Please, allow me to explain. I want you to know the truth.”
“The truth?” She rushed forward, eyes wild, and shoved his shoulders. “The truth?” she shrieked. “You want to tell the fucking truth now?” She pushed him against the pillar, glass shards crackling beneath his boots. “The truth is that you, Henry Asheford, not only betrayed me but tried to have me killed!”
His breath shot out of him. “Have you killed? I do not understand—”
With an enraged squeal, she walked off.
He dropped the pitchfork and chased after her. “That isn’t what happened. I would never intentionally harm you. Surely, you must know that. Christ, Eva, tell me what you mean, I beg of you!”
She hurried inside the house, grumbling a string of expletives.
He burst through the front door after her. “Please listen to what I have to say. Whatever happened in June, it can be explained. I can tell you my truth. I need to tell you my truth—”
“I don’t want your truth.”
“They told me you had left this world,” he shouted, his voice booming through the hall.
She froze mid-step upon the staircase.
“I sincerely thought you had returned to your home. When Elias wrote to me … when I found out, I … I—”
She spun around and gripped the banister. Her expression was anything but calm. “I couldn’t give a rat’s ass how you felt when you found out your hit job had failed.”
“Hit job? There neverwas a hit job. Tell me what happened, so I can untangle this mess,” he said, his voice breaking. “I would never intentionally harm you. There must be an explanation.”
She shook her head as if trying to drown out his words.
“Please, I want to make amends—”
“It doesn’t matter what you want. You can shove whatever explanation you have up your ass and screw off back to New York. Nobody wants you here, especially not me.”
With that final stab to his heart, she turned and strode up the stairs, two at a time.
Henry retreated through the heavy front doors and descended the wide limestone steps. He rammed Elias’s shoulder on his way to retrieving his suitcase by the gate. After grabbing the handle, he straightened and stared down the dirt road toward the city, breathing out hard puffs.
He had done an incredible amount of running these past few weeks. Dashing around the Five Points district, avoiding his wretched wife in the corridors of their marital home, mailing secret letters at the post office, and jumping onto a ship to Scotland after narrowly avoiding an execution. His masquerade as a quintessential gentleman had been ripped to tattered shreds. When would it end? He was tired of running.
“Ye ken yer a bastard?” Elias said.
Still breathing hard, Henry turned to face him.
Two fiery red spots marked his friend’s cheeks.
Henry nodded. “I do. Alongside every other vulgar name in the book.”
“Why did ye return?”
“I came to make amends.”
Elias raised a brow. “Make amends? Ye couldn’t have made amends by keeping yer arse in New York with yer bloody wife?”
“No, I could not.”
“Why?”
Henry’s muscles were tense; his mind told him to distort the truth, but that would be wrong. He pressed his fingers to the spot where Eva had slapped him. The stinging was a reminder to stop lying in a bid to save others.
No more hiding the truth.
“Because I am on the run,” Henry said.
Elias’s brows lowered. He reached Henry in two strides and punched him hard across the jaw.
Henry staggered back, dropping the suitcase to the grass. “Allow me the chance to explain—”
“I cannae believe it! On the run, and ye had the bollocks to come to my house? Can I expect the bloody gangs to be knocking at my door? Och, I cannae believe yer audacity.”
Another fist barrelled against Henry’s jaw.
Searing heat ignited in his chest. He dug his fingers around Elias’s collar. With a shove, he pushed him hard against the metal gate.
“You want to speak of noble causes?” Henry sneered into Elias’s face. “You bloody lied to me when you said Eva had left.”
“I dinnae lie—”
“Was it not you who said she had returned to her world? Did you not make me believe those words?”
“Aye, but—”
An irrational paranoia took hold of him. “Because you wanted Eva all to yourself, was that it? You could hardly wait to take her to Scotland, marry, and blanket her in your family colours. And when the guilt from your lies became too much, you penned me a letter, claiming to have magically found her, knowing it would be far too late for me to return, and—”
A shoving hand came hard against his chest.
They broke into a scuffle. Elias grabbed his hair, prompting Henry to throw a punch at Elias’s jaw. In one swift motion, Elias brought Henry to the ground, his knee against his opponent’s chest.
“Christ’s sake, Henry. Will ye look at yerself? Yer as mad as a rabid hound again.”
“Because … because …”
Henry struggled to speak. He could not find the words to describe the rush of thoughts. Nothing made sense. Everything confused him.
“I dinnae lie to ye,” Elias said. “Lottie and I assumed Eva had left the day of yer engagement. On that day, she went to her bedchamber and vanished.”
Henry dropped his head against the cobblestone ground. His heart was thudding in his ears and beads of sweat trickled from his forehead. The telltale signs of laudanum withdrawal were starting to rear their ugly monstrous head. He would become violently sick before the night was over.
“If I had known she were still here, God, if I had known—”
“Ye would have done what? Spent yer days roaming England in search of her with yer new bride hangin’ onto yer coattails?”
Henry shook his head. “It was an arranged marriage.”
“And ye dinnae have the bollocks to put a stop to it.”
“You don’t understand, you don’t”—Henry shook his head with a grimace, partly from pain and partly from the shame of what he would confess—“Father killed Albert and Rhys. He had them murdered, Elias. And he would have done the same to Lottie had I not abided by his marriage demand.”
Elias had gone notably still, and Henry wondered whether he had heard him.
Taking his knee from Henry’s chest, Elias sat back on his ankles. His eyes were hard and distant, probing Henry’s face for the sincerity of his confession.
“Edwin killed yer grandfather and brother?” Elias finally said.
“Because Grandfather sought to destroy the time-travelling technology,” Henry choked out. His throat was tightening by the second. “But that isn’t all. The hit was meant for me, not Rhys. I had been labelled a rat because of my closeness with Grandfather.”
Elias’s face paled.
“Do you remember the night you found me brawling at the pub? That was mere hours after Father had told me the truth. It was used against me so I would give in to his demand to marry Fanny. If I hadn’t complied, he would have married Lottie to Angelo, Fanny’s older brother. The things I have seen that man do … the Davenports are another organized crime family, Elias. Could you imagine Lottie— could you blame me for trying to save her from that life? I saw no choice but to comply.”
“And that was the reason ye wanted to die that night?”
Henry’s brows pulled together. Memories of that night were a vague blur, no doubt damaged by his severe reaction to the trauma the news had brought forth.
“I did not want to die per se,” Henry stammered, propping himself on his elbows. “But I suppose I was searching for an escape.”
“And ye didn’t think to tell me? To tell anyone?”
Irritation pulsed through Henry’s veins. “I refused to burden anyone with it. I couldn’t allow more harm to come to those I loved. Do you not understand that?”
“Christ, I dinnae ken anymore whether ye speak the truth or not.”
“I never once lied to you. I simply kept things hidden.”
“But ye lied to her! Ye lied to Eva about the engagement, about the meeting with yer father … ye lied about everything.”
“And I have suffered a thousand and one deaths for my foolishness,” Henry shouted, his voice bellowing throughout the courtyard.
A flock of starlings flew out of a nearby tree.
Bones aching, Henry sat up and lay a palm on his cheek. “God knows I thought it was for the best,” he said, shaking his head. “I needed her to stay away from the hotel that evening, not only because of the engagement announcement but also because my father was attending. I could never have forgiven myself if harm had come to her. Never.”
“What does yer father have to do with Eva?”
“He murdered her father too, several months ago.”
Elias made a choking sound.
Henry looked up at him. “Father was searching for someone in the future. Who that was is still a mystery, but Josiah, my father’s henchman, found it probable Eva may have known something on account of her father’s knowledge regarding my family history. Thus, we have him to thank for her appearance in this world.”
Elias shook his head. “I’m trying to understand, but I cannae grasp it all.”
Henry sighed. “It’s a long, complex story. Did Eva not tell you any of this? I assumed since—”
“Since what?”
“Are you not together?”
“Together?”
“Wife and husband?” Henry said, forcing the words from his mouth.
Elias grumbled. “No, ye daft bastard.”
A flutter of hope grew in Henry’s chest. There was still a chance. If she would have you again…
“She dinnae say a word about any of this,” Elias said. “Christ, the two of ye’s will be the death of me. This Josiah, isn’t he that mangy mutt that trailed ye for years after Albert and Rhys’s deaths?”
“It was, yes.”
“Was? Where is he now?”
“He is dead.”
“How?” Elias said, but the moment the question left his mouth, a flash of regret crossed his face.
“As you can imagine, the confrontation between the three of us did not go smoothly. He tried to strangle Eva, and I put a stop to it. Rather, we put a stop to it together.”
“Ye and Eva?”
“Yes.”
“Ye and Eva murdered a man?”
Henry frowned. “It was necessary, I can assure you.”
Elias’s arms shot up in the air. “I barely ken ye. I barely ken either of youse.”
“We are still the same people—”
“No, yer not. Ye’ve come back a hardened criminal, and she … Christ, something horrific happened, and it wasn’t only yer ridiculous engagement.”
Henry staggered to his feet, swaying. The constant threat of laudanum withdrawal loomed in his mind.
“What happened to her?” Henry said.
Elias fell silent.
That was a bad sign. His friend was not one to keep things hidden.
“Elias?”
“Ye should rather hear it from her,” Elias said.
Henry’s lips set in a line. Eva had been through something so horrific, not even Elias could tell the tale.
“I need to make things right,” Henry muttered.
“I cannae promise she will listen.”
Henry looked at the row of windows on the second storey of the McKenzie house, hoping to glimpse Eva’s figure.
“She’s always been prickly, but I must try,” Henry said.
“Aye,” Elias said lamely. “Prickly.”
“I have rented a room in the city.”
Elias grumbled.
“All I ask is to speak with her–”
“Christ, give me a moment to think,” Elias snapped.
Henry clamped his mouth shut.
Elias paced back and forth. He paused mid-stride and looked at Henry with a crinkled brow. “Why are ye on the run?”
“Because I colluded with the London police to arrange an illegal trade deal to capture my father in the act of smuggling,” Henry said.
Elias looked like he would hit him again. “And Lottie? Where is she?”
“Safe in France.”
“Yer certain she is safe?”
“As certain as I can be,” Henry said. “I await a letter confirming her location. Once received, I shall go to her at once.”
“Then what?”
“Then we disappear until Father is arrested for good.”
“Like in the witness protection program.”
“The what?”
Elias frowned. “It was something Eva mentioned prior to our arrival in London. It was her suggestion. That I help ye and Lottie leave England to start a new life elsewhere. If ye had listened, a lot of pain could have been spared, but ye wanted vengeance, did ye not?”
“I did.”
“Was it worth it?”
Henry glared at Elias, his teeth grinding from nerves. “I do not expect you to understand my actions, for I cannot understand them myself. Yes, I wanted to severely burn it all to the ground. Yes, I wanted to make my father suffer for the pain he’d inflicted upon my family. Call it vengeance or justice. Whatever it was, I was blinded by the relentless pursuit to burn my shackles of duty. And when I speak of duty, I do not mean the burden every gentleman may know; I speak of the vile, evil and dark obligation forced upon me by the constant threats from my father.”
A dark emotion broiled in the depths of Elias’s eyes.
Henry swallowed back the rising anxiety. He couldn’t tell whether Elias believed him. “It had to finally stop. Otherwise, Lottie and I would have never lived a normal life,” Henry said firmly.
“Ye dinnae answer my question.”
“Whether vengeance was worth it?”
“Aye.”
Henry’s right hand trembled. He clenched it into a hard fist, full of resentment and anger. He was tired of feeling this way. So, so tired.
“I do not know,” Henry said. “The path of revenge was a lonely one. It left me with a scorched heart and a cruel view of the world. I lost myself along the way, the consequences of which I am only now starting to understand. But I am alive. I am alive, breathing and still standing, and, by God, all I want to do is apologize to you and Eva. Will you accept it?”
And that was really all he could say.
Elias’s hard expression melted into one of remorse. He drew closer and laid a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “We’ve been friends for a lifetime. I refuse to allow that friendship to be tainted by yer foolishness.”
“Do you accept my apology?”
“Of course I accept, ye idiotic fool.”
Henry was rolled into his friend’s wide arms. His hands unclenched. Slowly, he raised them to Elias’s shoulders. It was a warm, welcoming and forgiving place. For the first time in several months, he felt weightless.