The Geek Girl and the Scandalous Earl (23 page)

When Jamie woke up, she wasn’t dead. That kind of surprised her, so she blinked twice.
Nope. Still here
. She sat up and peered around. The Lemon Room, looking messier than she’d ever seen it, surrounded her. Basins, cloths, bottles of medicine, teacups, glasses, and clothing were scattered throughout the room. It almost made her feel at home—like, back in her time home.

She threw back the covers and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. Her body responded normally. Her jaw was sore, and her nerves jittery, but other than a weird desire to take up jogging, she was back to fighting form. Whatever Collette had used had apparently not panned out like she’d planned.

Even thinking the name of that bitch sent a cold shock down Jamie’s spine.
Collette
. She’d tried to kill Jamie twice now. The first time might have been an accident, but poisoning her? That was pure premeditation. Collette had it out for her, there was no denying that. If not for Mrs. Knightsbridge’s scrying bowl keeping a check on that psychopath, Jamie would be dead by now. Considering she’d only ingested a tiny amount of the poison, and the pain she’d gone through, without the housekeeper’s intervention she’d be pushing up tulips.
Wait, those are from Holland, aren’t they? Lavender. Pushing up lavender. That sounds suitably English
.

Jamie padded across the cream carpeting, avoiding a mound of white cloths, and headed for her old pal the chamber pot. While she was behind the screen, the hinges on the bedroom door squeaked.

“Be right out,” she called. She yanked her nightgown back down, rounded the screen, and headed for the basin to wash her hands. Mike stood by the foot of her bed, face pale and drawn. She half smiled at him, but he didn’t speak until she’d dried her fingers on a soft white towel.

“Jamie.” His strained voice brought her head around. “I cannot tell you the depth of my regret.”

Jamie shook her head, confusion wrinkling her forehead as she closed the gap between them. “Regret? Why…”

He stepped past her, ignoring her outstretched hand. “I have been unable thus far to discover the source of the poisoned sweets. I have hired a Bow Street Runner to assist in the search. I cannot imagine the anger you must feel for my failure. I will discover who sent them. I promise you…”

“But I know who sent them,” Jamie blurted, wondering why he didn’t.

He shook his head as he leaned against the mantel. His knuckles were white as he gripped it. “I know what you are thinking. Collette did threaten you, but she cannot have been responsible. She was with her protector all day yesterday. They were seen together.”

Jamie shook her head, sinking down on the edge of her bed as her knees went curiously weak. “That can’t be. There’s proof it was her! Mrs.…”

Jamie trailed off as Mike turned to face her. She didn’t know why her throat suddenly closed off, but the lack of air gave her a second to collect her wits.
Mrs. Knightsbridge. A witch. Her nervousness about anyone finding out about it
. As much as Jamie wanted Collette to pay for what she’d nearly done, Mrs. K had saved Jamie’s life. It wasn’t her secret to tell.

“I know it was Collette. I can’t tell you how I know, but you have to trust me.”

“What proof is there? Why can you not tell me?”

Jamie looked down at her toes as anxiety twisted her lungs into pretzels. “I just…can’t.”

After a moment of strained silence, Mike straightened his waistcoat. “Collette is being watched, but since you refuse to tell me the truth about your suspicions, I cannot be certain. I need to ask you a very important question.”

His stare speared her, and she took a shuddering breath.

“Do you yet know how to go back to your home?”

She wasn’t sure what made her hesitate to tell him the truth. This was Mike. Her earl. The best man she’d ever met, mule-headedness notwithstanding. He loved her. She’d probably hurt him by refusing to tell him about Mrs. K. She couldn’t hurt him more by lying to him now.

She nodded slowly.

He closed his lids and tipped his chin skyward. She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down above the white froth of lace at his throat.

“I must ask, for your own safety, that you return there.” His deep voice was as serious as his eyes were when they opened.

She stopped breathing. Swallowed hard. An odd prickle started in her eyes as she asked, “Will you be coming with me?”

She anticipated the shake of his head before it even happened. He hesitated, but the answer, when it came, was definite. “No.”

Tiny cracks ran through her heart, spiderwebbing the battered organ. “Oh.”

He took a faltering step toward her but stopped just shy. His voice was strong as he said, “I have failed you. I nearly caused your death.”

She jumped to her feet, indignant that he’d even suggest it. “No, you didn’t…”

He stopped her with a palm in the air. “I did. I should have anticipated the threat. I did not, and you almost paid with your life. It is unforgivable.”

“No,” she whispered, anxiety clogging her throat. “No, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Don’t you see, Jamie?” His voice lowered, roughening. “Seeing you the way I saw Louisa has broken me. I cannot face it again.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” she said, closing the gap between them, grabbing his hands. They were ice cold. “It wasn’t you at all.”

He stepped back, pain clear on his face. “A man who cannot keep you safe is a man who does not deserve you.”

He crossed to the door.

“Mike, please,” she said through her tears. Her voice came out strained, pitiful. “Let’s talk about it.”

He didn’t turn to face her as he turned the knob to leave. So softly she couldn’t really believe that she heard it, he said, “There is nothing that can be done. I have failed you. Please, be safe upon your return journey. Good-bye, Miss Marten.”

He closed the door behind him, the click of the latch finishing the crack in her heart.

She stared at the back of the door, wondering what in the hell she was supposed to do now. She sank down on the edge of the bed and let the tears fall.

It was only a few minutes later when a timid knock sounded.

“Miss Jamie? Are you well?” Mrs. Knightsbridge’s voice floated through the door.

“Not really,” she said, turning as she dashed the moisture on her cheeks away. “But come in anyway.”

Jamie flopped onto her back as the door shut behind the housekeeper. She started picking up the mess in the room, not commenting on the evidence of Jamie’s recent crying jag.

When Jamie was sure her throat had relaxed enough to sound more normal, she spoke. “Mrs. K?”

“Yes?”

Jamie turned her head toward the housekeeper. “What would happen if Mike found out you were a witch?”

Mrs. K paused midstoop, abandoning the basin she’d been about to pick up. She stood and faced Jamie, looking older and more careworn than Jamie had ever seen her. She walked to the bed, sitting softly beside Jamie.

“Micah is like a son to me,” she said, looking down at her hands. “For a man in his position to employ a witch? It would be unthinkable.”

“So, it’s not that someone would throw you in jail or kill you, but you don’t want to disappoint Mike.” Jamie sat up, pinning the housekeeper with a look of complete desperation. She had to tell the truth. It was Jamie’s only shot.

“People still fear the old ways. His lordship has suffered enough without having to bear the shame of a housekeeper that dabbles in witchcraft.”

Jamie swung her legs off the opposite side of the bed, staring at the wall. “So, we can’t prove that Collette tried to kill me because you don’t want Mike disappointed in you. He’s broken our engagement and told me to go home because he can’t keep me safe from whoever’s trying to kill me. He has no proof it’s Collette because the one with the proof is scared to give it to him.”

Jamie stood and rounded the end of the bed. She stared at the old woman, hoping the pain and confusion that boiled inside her was plain in her eyes.

“If you cared about him the way you say you do, then you’d tell the truth. I love him, and I really think he loves me too. But how am I supposed to figure this out now? You are my only shot at happiness with him, and you won’t say a damn word.”

Mrs. K didn’t reply, only shook her head sadly.

Jamie slammed the flat of her hand against the wall, anger and pain overwhelming her control. “You are the whole reason I’m here! You didn’t give a shit about what you took me from, how this little vacation would affect my life, or anything! You claimed you were thinking about him, but what were you really doing, Wilhelmina? Were you thinking about him or about yourself?” Jamie stepped over to her, her voice lowering to a harsh whisper. “Well, congratulations. I’m in love. He’s in love. And now we’re both fucked because you can’t tell the goddamn truth.”

Mrs. Knightsbridge’s cheeks were wet with tears when she got up and left the room. Jamie didn’t apologize.

***

Jamie spent the rest of the day in the garden with Baron. She tossed sticks for him, but he gave up chasing them when she started dropping them right in front of her feet. She didn’t have the energy to hurl them across the yard anymore. She didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. She wanted things to go back to the way they were before Collette had poisoned her. Back to believing that she and Mike could somehow surmount the odds against them. She saw the obstacles way too clearly now. She didn’t like that.

As she slumped against a tree trunk, watching Baron wallow in a patch of sunlight, she thought about doing what Mike had asked her—asking Mrs. Knightsbridge to open the portal, stepping through it, and going back to her lonely existence in her own time. Tears stung her eyes at the thought, and she slammed her lids shut. No. She couldn’t. She’d stay here and fight for it. For them. He loved her, she loved him, and they were worth fighting for. Maybe he’d discover it was Collette on his own, and she wouldn’t have to depend on the housekeeper. Either way, Jamie had to tell him she’d made a decision and hope that he respected it. It wouldn’t be easy to convince him, but she had no other choice if she wanted to keep him.

When the sun fell low in the cloudy sky, Jamie made her way in from the chilly yard. Mike still wasn’t back home. She guessed he was out trying to do detective work to figure out what Jamie already knew. Collette was a psychotic bitch who’d killed Louisa and tried to kill Jamie to have the earl—and his money—for herself. Jamie shook her head as she stomped her way up the stairs.
If
Mrs. K would…No. She won’t.
Jamie would have to do this on her own, without any help from the housekeeper. Jamie shut the bedroom door behind her and rang for Muriel.

The maid helped Jamie dress for dinner, the little maid quieter than usual. Jamie wondered if Mrs. K told her they’d argued. Probably not, as not even Muriel was aware of the housekeeper’s other nature. Jamie was sure her nervousness didn’t help anything. Her one-word answers to Muriel’s questions made it clear she was preoccupied.

Muriel dressed Jamie in the most daring outfit she’d ever put her in—a midnight-blue dress, its wide neckline plunging low, revealing almost as much cleavage as she’d seen in the ballroom a few nights ago. Muriel pinned jewels in the curls she mounded high on Jamie’s head and laid a beautiful necklace around her throat. The deep color made Jamie’s skin and hair highlights glow.

“Thank you,” Jamie said as she pulled on her gloves and stepped to the bedroom door.

“You look beautiful, miss.”

Jamie descended the stairs in hopes that her earl would be home for dinner. Thornton gave her a glass of wine when she reached the sitting room, and she sipped it nervously for half an hour. No Mike.

George escorted her into the dining room, seating her in her normal place. There was a setting for Mike, but he didn’t show.

The lamb was delicious, and she didn’t want to hurt Jean Philippe’s feelings, but she couldn’t eat more than a few bites. She was too nervous. Where was he? What was he doing, thinking, who was he with? Why wouldn’t he come home and let her talk to him?

After poking at her food for a solid hour, Jamie finally gave up and went to the music room. She sank down on the bench, rested her fingers on the keys, and waited.

Nothing.

She rubbed against the ivory, the unique, smooth texture rippling against her fingers, but the music stayed silent inside her. She pressed a few keys, but they came out discordant, wrong. She shook her head, trying to clear it. Where was her muse?

“You should have gone.”

Jamie stood, stumbling over the end of the bench.
Mike.
He stood in the doorway, only the white of his shirt contrasting with the deep black of his waistcoat, jacket, and pants. He looked so severe, his cheeks drawn and eyes almost as black as his coat.

Jamie marshaled her courage and loosed the torpedoes. “I’m not going back.”

He took a step toward her. “You must.”

“No, I mustn’t. We love each other. We can beat this thing together, but if I go back, that’s it. I think we deserve another chance, so I’m not going anywhere.” Jamie lifted her chin, trying to look determined.

He closed his eyes, and his head fell. Half a dozen heartbeats went by before he said anything.

“Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?”

She shook her head, willing her fluttering pulse to even out.

He opened his eyes. His solemn expression seemed to pierce her through. “If you are to stay with me, then I will do what I deem necessary.”

A little ray of hope lit her dark and anxious heart. “I can stay, really?”

He straightened his jacket and looked down on her. That look…that autocratic, forbidding, austere look. He hadn’t used that look on her since, well, since the first days she’d been there.

“I must go and inform the staff of your decision, and their new duties because of it. I bid you good evening.”

His curt bow was followed by a nod, and he turned to go.

“Mike, what does that mean? Wait, come back. Let’s talk about this.”

He paused in the doorway, not turning back. “I will do what is required to keep you safe.”