When she nodded he looked away.
“Snob,” she murmured with distaste.
“Pardon me?”
She decided to no longer speak to him about her life. “Why did you need me to come back?” she asked instead.
“It’s the rule of the watch.”
“What rule of the watch?”
He removed the pocket watch from inside his coat and held it up to her.
When she shook her head, unable to read the inscription, he read it aloud. “Go forward alone or go back together.”
“I traveled to this century with her the first time but I didn’t know she was here.It took me four days to find her, after I began to have my dreams. But when I tried to return us home and wound the crown, the watch began to glow. It took me, alone, to the fifteenth century, the eleventh, eighth, eighteenth, and so on, leaving my wife here. It took me seventeen years to figure out how the watch works.”
She shivered inside at the thought. A wave of pity washed over her. Imagine trying to find Ben for seventeen years? Would she remain as steadfast and devoted to Ben? Yes. She didn’t hesitate.
“Where did the watch come from?” she asked.
“My wife found it in the garden. We think it was dug up when we had the roses planted. It shone from within without flaw, as if it had been cut from a single sapphire. When she brought it to me, it wasn’t working. We believed it was broken. I tried to wind it and took hold of the crown. I began to turn it clockwise. The air blurred. I heard Dorothea call out to me and rush forward, and as I looked upon my wife, she faded like an apparition before my eyes. An instant later I was here in 2024, alone. Dorothea had traveled back two days before me—which proves how dangerous the watch is if one tries to use it and doesn’t know what they’re doing. As I said, I found her and then lost her again. I ended up at the mercy of the watch for almost seventeen years, until I began having dreams that Dorothea was still in this time, and also how to return here.”
Fable still didn’t like him for taking her from Ben but she wanted to help him. “That had to be very difficult for you.”
“It continues.”
“We’ll find her,” she vowed.
He gave her the hint of a smile. “I’d be in your debt.”
She finished her coffee and pushed the cup away. “Tell me, have you killed people with your sword?”
“Of course. I served in the Royal Army. I’ve killed many.”
“Oh,” Her eyes opened wider. “Ben was…is a captain in the army. He saved the king three times!”
“Yes, you mentioned that among his many attributes. His father must be very proud–”
“His father was killed by Jacobites when he was a boy.”
“I see.” He picked up his cup. “How has he fared these many years?”
“Not well,” she let him know. “He has a lot of anger and not much happiness in him.” His handsome face appeared in her mind. He was smiling at her. She remembered what her friend, Edith had told her.But he’s changed since you arrived. He seems less…angry. We all notice it, Miss. “Though I think,” she said in a soft, quiet voice and tears sparkling in her eyes, “he has cheered up some.”
“Because of you?” he asked just as quietly.
“That’s what I’m told.” She wiped her eyes and slapped her hands on her thighs. “Let’s go find your wife so I can go back to him and make him happy.”
He nodded, then waited while she paid, and followed her out.
“Where are we going anyway?”
“Is there such a place called 96th and Madison?” he asked as innocently as a lamb.
“Yes. There’s a great diner there. How do you know it?”
“I dreamed of it.”
