AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gideon smiled at me. “Yes, but look at it this way: there are a few positive things as well.” He carefully ran his thumb under my eyes, probably wiping up a huge puddle full of mascara. “I think you’re very brave. And … and I do love you!”
That washed the dull pain out of my heart. I put my arms around his neck. “Could you say that again, please? And then kiss me? So hard that I forget everything else?”
Gideon let his eyes wander down from my eyes to my lips. “I can always try,” he murmured.
* * *
GIDEON’S EFFORTS were crowned by success, if you like to put it that way. At least, I for one wouldn’t have minded spending the rest of the day or maybe my whole life here in his arms on the green sofa in 1953.
But after a while, he moved a little way away from me, propped himself on his elbows, and looked down at me. “I guess we’d better stop this now, or I can’t answer for myself,” he said rather breathlessly.
I didn’t say anything. Why would he feel any different from me? Except that I couldn’t have stopped just like that. I wondered whether I ought to feel slightly offended that he did. But I didn’t have long to think about it, because Gideon glanced at the time and suddenly sat up very straight. “Hey, Gwen,” he said hastily, “time’s nearly up. You’d better do something to your hair. They’re probably all gathered around the chronograph in a circle, waiting to haul us over the coals when we travel back.”
I sighed. “Oh, God,” I said unhappily. “But first we must discuss what to do next.”
Gideon frowned. “They’ll have to postpone the operation, of course, but maybe I can persuade them at least to send me back to 1912 for the two hours left of my time quota. We really do urgently need to talk to Lucy and Paul!”
“We could visit them together this evening,” I said, although for a moment my stomach churned at the idea. Hi, nice to meet you, Mum and Dad.
“Forget it, Gwen. They’re never going to let you go to 1912 with me again, not unless it’s on the count’s express orders.” Gideon put his hand out, pulled me to my feet, and then rather clumsily tried smoothing down the hair at the back of my head. He’d got it into that untidy state himself.
“What a good thing that I just happen to have a chronograph of my own hidden at home, then,” I said as casually as I could. “And by the way, it works perfectly.”
Gideon stared at me. “You what?”
“Oh, come on! Surely you knew! How else could I have met Lucas so often?” I put one hand on my stomach. It was already beginning to give me that roller-coaster feeling.
o;Change of plan,” said Gideon briefly, and squeezed my hand.
“I don’t know anything about any change of plan. And I don’t believe you.” Mr. Marley’s mouth twisted in annoyance. “My last orders say clearly that—”
“Call them upstairs, then, and find out for yourself,” Gideon interrupted him, pointing to the telephone on the wall.
“I’ll do just that!” With his ears scarlet, Mr. Marley made for the phone. Gideon let go of me and bent over the chronograph, while I stood by the door like a store-window dummy. Now that we were here, I was rooted to the spot, feeling like a music box that had run down. I seemed to be slowly turning to stone. The thoughts ought really to have been going around and around in my head, but they weren’t. I felt nothing but a dull pain.
“Gwenny, it’s already set for you. Come over here.” Gideon didn’t wait for me to do as he said, and he took no notice of Mr. Marley’s protests (“Stop that! That’s my job!”), but drew me to him, took my limp hand, and placed one finger carefully in the little compartment under the ruby. “I’ll be right there with you in a moment.”
“You don’t have permission to use the chronograph on your own,” said Mr. Marley angrily, picking up the receiver of the phone. “I’m going to tell your uncle, this minute, about your high-handed disregard for the rules.” I just had time to see him dial a number, and then I was floating away in a flurry of red light.
I landed in pitch-darkness and automatically groped my way toward the place where I thought I’d find the light switch.
“Let me do that,” I heard Gideon say. He had landed behind me without a sound. Two seconds later, the electric lightbulb hanging from the ceiling flickered on.
“That was quick,” I murmured.
Gideon turned to me. “Oh, Gwenny,” he said gently. “I’m so sorry about all that.”
When I neither moved nor answered him, he was beside me in two long strides, taking me in his arms. He drew my head down to rest on his shoulder, laid his chin on my hair, and whispered, “It will be all right. I promise you. Everything will be all right again.”
I don’t know how long we stood there like that. Maybe it was his words, and the way he kept repeating them, or maybe the warmth of his body, but gradually I began to thaw out. At least, I finally managed to whisper something. “My mum … isn’t my mum,” I said helplessly.
Gideon steered me over to the green sofa in the middle of the room and sat down beside me. “I wish I’d known,” he said, distressed. “Then I could have warned you. Are you cold? Your teeth are chattering.”
I shook my head, leaned against him, and closed my eyes. For a moment, I wished that time would stand still, here in 1953 on this green sofa, where there were no problems, no questions, no lies, only Gideon and his comforting presence beside me, enveloping me.
But unfortunately, as I knew from bitter experience, my wishes didn’t usually come true.
I opened my eyes again and looked sideways at Gideon. “You were right,” I said miserably. “This is probably the only place where they can’t bother us. But you’re going to be in trouble!”
