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"Nay, I cannot. The cost—"
"I paid less than ten dollars for it, Matthew."
"Ten Continentals or an Eagle?" he said, his face a study in amazement.
"Ten dollars, American. I'm sure ten dollars means a lot less now than it did in your day."
"Things have changed, aye, but surely ten dollars is still—"
"It wouldn't have paid for the groceries I bought in town this morning." She looked at him, her expression one of complete innocence. "And all I bought was some bread, some cheese, some fresh fish, fruits and vegetables... and oh yes. Some ale."
Matthew sighed and carefully pulled the shirt on over his head.
"Everyone in your world must be as rich as Midas, or..." His head popped through the neck of the shirt. "Did you say you'd bought ale?"
"Uh huh. I thought... well, what little I know of your time... I mean..."
She laughed as Matthew plucked her from the bed and whirled her around in a circle.
"Stop trying to be diplomatic, woman. Aye, we drank ale. And aye, I have longed for the taste of it, cool and sharp, slipping down my throat." He kissed her, deposited her on the floor, and gave her a light pat on the bottom. "Lead me to it, then, and I will tell you what a nineteenth-century man thinks of twentieth-century lager."
He smiled and Kathryn smiled in return, even though there was a sudden tightness in her throat.
Nineteenth-century he might be, but he looked every bit a man of the 1990s. It was easy to picture him holding her hand as they strolled along the streets of Greenwich Village on a cold winter evening, their breath streaming out in white plumes as they headed home for cups of rich hot chocolate and a sinful assortment of those wonderful cookies you could get at the little Italian bakery just off Fourth; so easy to imagine him at her side on a drowsy June Sunday in Central Park, sprawled in the sun on the Great Lawn while they ate lemon ices and tried to decide what movie to go to see in the evening and, in the end, deciding they'd be happier going home and making slow, tender love in their own bed.
It was all so easy... and all impossible.
None of it could ever happen, not without a miracle. Her century had produced everything from heart transplants to men on the moon, but it was woefully short of the kind of miracle she needed.
"Kathryn?"
She blinked to keep back the tears that threatened and looked towards the bedroom door where Matthew stood, holding out his hand.
"Come with me," he said, and it took all her self-control to keep from saying that she would go with him anywhere, even into that dark world of his, if she could only be certain it meant they could be together always.
* * *
The ale, he said, was excellent. Perhaps not quite as good as what was served in a little pub down by the wharfs in New York, but excellent nevertheless.
But it was the books and the magazines that made his eyes go wide.
"Is this true?" he said, as he turned the pages. "And this? By God are such things possible?"
Kathryn smiled as she watched him, his fair head bent over an illustration of how jet engines worked. They hadn't even gotten to the television set, which still squatted in its box in the foyer.
An hour or so later, Matthew looked up at her, his eyes shining, and held out his arms. She went to him and he sighed as he drew her down on his lap.
"Thank you, sweetheart, for all these wonderful gifts."
"I hoped they'd please you. I know how eager you are to learn all you can about what's happened in the world since... I'm just happy you like the books."
"The books, the clothing..." He kissed her. "I love it all. But didn't you buy anything for yourself?"
She thought of the black and white bikini, lying unwrapped in the bedroom. Who had she bought it for, Matthew or herself? Not that it mattered. It seemed silly now, even embarrassing.
"You did get yourself something," he said, "I can see it in your eyes."
Kathryn laughed and shook her head. "No. I mean, I did, but—"
