“But Miss Ramsey, my father’s wish must be fulfilled. Benjamin loved him as much as I did. He has lived almost his entire life avenging him and our mother. Don’t think for one moment that not granting his father’s one wish won’t eat away at Benjamin.”
“Are…are you telling me to stop seeing him?”
“It’s not even that you come from an average family. You have nothing! Absolutely. Nothing. You are not the best for my brother. I think when your enchantment wears off, he’ll resent you for taking him from fulfilling our father’s last wish.”
Fable’s eyes filled with tears at each word that felt like a hammer to her bones. She stepped back, into a chair but she didn’t let herself fall back or sit. Was his sister right? Would Ben grow to resent or even hate Fable because of his father? It was true, she had nothing, at least nothing his sister or apparently their father would see of value in her.She swiped a tear from her eyes and straightened her spine. “I love him, my lady. I’ve never loved anyone before-not even my mother. I won’t give him up. I can’t. Please, don’t ask it of me.”
Lady Prudence’s eyes glistened with tears, but her lips grew tight against her teeth. “You’re selfish.”
Fable didn’t care if she was selfish. “I’m sorry.”
Lady Prudence pivoted on her heel and left, slamming the door shut on her way out.
Fable didn’t return to bed but dressed herself and then left her rooms. She didn’t believe the women who stuck their noses up at her really wanted to get to know her. She imagined them laughing at her, as Lady Prudence said.She remembered other, “normal” kids laughing at her from their schoolyards as she andher mother passed them with their shopping cart of possessions. It had stopped bothering her years ago–and she'd never been to an English tea before. It seemed like an afternoon of pretend fun. So, why not?
She went directly to the ornate wooden front doors of Colchester House, pulled one open and stepped outside.
Thanks to the villainess, Fable needed something to help her forget the lady’s words.She wasn’t best for Ben. He was merely enchanted, and when that wore off he would resent her.She closed her eyes to stop her tears. That was another thing she hated since being here. She never cried before. Well, to be honest, she hadn’t cried since she was eight and her mother tried to sell her for a night of food and a bed. Fable had had no intention of paying her mother’s bill with her body so when the thug tried to put his hands on her, she stabbed him twice with a knife she’d swiped from her mother’s belongings. She’d run away, her hands covered in his blood. She hid in a dark alley and cried until her heart dried out and there was never another tear to shed until now. Ben stirred her heart and made her cry.
She walked out into the courtyard and looked toward a carriage waiting to drive anyone from the house anywhere they wanted to go. She went to it and climbed inside. “The house of Lady Witham, please,” she called up to the driver.
She closed her eyes and was immediately soaked in memories of his face, a face that had become more expressive over the last few days. Nowadays he smiled at her with tenderness she hadn’t seen him offer anyone else. His gaze warmed on her like coals heated by an inner blaze. Images of his puckered lips and dark, dipped brow swept through her. Was this her punishment for possibly murdering that man when she was eight? To fall in love with a duke and take him from the power and safety of the arms of the king’s niece? Yes, The Ladies Club was right, she did understand why Ben’s sister hated her.Lady Prudence called her selfish, and she was, she admitted to herself while the carriage took the path north. It seemed more remote, Fable noted, unlatching the window and peering out. They rode over brush and bramble for about twenty minutes, in Fable’s estimation, and finally the carriage stopped. She heard the driver leave his perch and jump down, feet on the ground. What was going on?
The door opened and without haste, the driver grabbed her by the collar and pulled her out of the carriage. She fought him with everything she knew and every ounce of strength she had, kicking, elbowing, stomping into his shin, head-butting him, splitting his flesh and sending her reeling.
Despite her best efforts, he dragged her away and pulled something out of his pocket. Fable heard a man shouting her name. Ben! But even as she opened her mouth to scream for him, whatever her captor had pulled from his pocket began to glow with blue light.
“No!” she begged, but it was already too late. The earth shook, the air waxed and waned. “No no no no. She struggled one last time against her captor’s tight hold and saw Ben thundering toward her on his horse– and then the glare of street lights almost blinded her.
“Nooooo! Oh, please Lord, no!” She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t be back. Please, don’t let her be back. She imagined herself wailing her mournful disbelief until they found her dead on the street somewhere.
She turned her tearful gaze on the grimy scum hauling her along. Her heart raced. She hoped it would beat until the moment she killed this man. After that, she didn’t want to live without Ben. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know where she was.Whenshe was. In a place in time where Ben no longer existed. Just like that. No! She wanted to scream, pull her hair from her head and fall to her knees. Nooooo! She couldn’t leaveBen. She opened her eyes and glared at the man holding her by her wrist, the time-traveler who took Ben away from her. “What did you do?” she screamed at him. “Why did you take me and bring me back here?”
“Calm yourself, woman,” his throaty voice reverberated through her.
“If you say that again, after what you’ve done, I willcalmlycut your throat with your own knife first chance I get.”
He stopped pulling her and turned to face her with a surprised look on his face. “You are a curious little hellcat.”
She didn’t wait for him to take his next breath but kneed him in the groin. He went down, but didn’t let her go. She lifted her foot to kick him in the face but he grabbed it and yanked her the rest of the way down. She landed on her backside. Pain shot up her spine and momentarily blinded her, but the instant it ebbed, she scrambled to get back on her feet.
“I thought you would be grateful to me for bringing you back to your home,” he huffed, shackling her ankle in his steel fingers.
She looked around quickly. Were there no people on the street in New York City? It was night. What time? The street looked familiar. She didn’t want anything to look familiar.
“My home is back there,” she cried out, pointing her thumb over her shoulder. She tried to kick him in the teeth with her free foot, and missed. He glared at her and sprang to his feet, as agile as any twenty year old. He yanked her up with him and dragged her into the nearest alley. The alley where she had been trying to sleep the night she first ran into this thorn in her side. She couldn’t help the well of tears that overtook her. This was what she’d feared– being taken from Ben in an instant and being brought back here to the loneliness, the darkness, the constant caution every second of her life. Never being safe. She looked around through her tears. They were on 46th and 9th. “Send meback!” she begged the time-traveler. “What do you even want with me? Wait.” She wrinkled her brow. “How did you get the pocket watch?”
He stared at her and chewed the inside of his cheek. “Very well, I’ll answer your questions. I cannot send you back until I find my wife. I don’t want anything from you. Just do as I say and help me. Lastly, the watch will keep returning to me as long as Dorothea and I are separated.”
What? You mean she didn’t have to hide it and run all the way to Colchester to keep the watch safe from him? She glared at him, but then her expression darkened.
“What do you mean you can’t send me back until you find your wife? I have nothing to do with her. Do you think I can find her because I come from here? You’re nuts! Nuts! Send me back this instant!”
“You are part of this now,” he told her, ignoring her panicked screech and pulling her forward.
“Part of what? Where are you bringing me? Take me back, Mister. Please.”
“We traveled together across time to the past,” he explained calmly while she struggled against his vise-like hold. “Our DNA was imprinted as one. I can no longer get to this time without you, and you can no longer return to that time without me.”
