Page 39 of Echoes of the Sea (Storm Tide #2)

“Neither, I’m guessing, are looked down on in your time.”

He shook his head. “But I need to hide my tattoo and abandon the idea of being an actor in this time.” The frustration rolling off him was palpable.

“Your friend Malcolm was also an actor?” Perhaps speaking of his friend would give him some comfort.

Kipling nodded. “We became the very best of friends not long after we met. Malcolm has felt like a brother to me ever since. Over the last five years, we’ve worked on the same show.”

Show? Did he mean a play?

“Do theater productions often run for five years?” She hadn’t ever heard of such a thing.

His face turned ponderous. “It isn’t really a theater show, but that’s probably the closet comparison in this time.”

If she was this confused simply having a conversation with him, he must be overwhelmingly befuddled most of the time.

“I’m the one who introduced Malcolm and Jen, which I, without question, consider one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. They’re very happy, and that makes me happy.”

A question occurred to her that she likely ought to have asked quite some time earlier. And asking it made her undeniably nervous. “Are you married?”

He laughed. It wasn’t at all the reaction she’d expected, yet it somehow set her mind more at ease than a simple denial would have.

“I am absolutely not married, Amelia Archibald. There was, for a time, a lady I was courting, but fortunately for me, that did not amount to anything.”

“Did you discover you two didn’t suit?”

“She discovered I wasn’t ‘good enough’ for her.”

“If she was bacon-brained enough to toss you aside,” Amelia said fiercely, “then she most certainly wasn’t good enough for you .”

He bent and kissed her temple. “That is one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.”

She was walking on clouds. Only by reminding herself that he was struggling did she prevent herself from simply floating away. “Will you tell me about Malcolm and Jen while you’re here at Guil-ford? I would like to know more about the people who are family to you.”

“It might help to talk about it. I don’t think it’ll make me miss them less, but maybe I’ll feel less like I’ve lost them entirely.”

There was a deep, aching loneliness in his voice, and it broke her heart. Every person he’d ever known was lost to him. That was, she didn’t doubt, the reality crashing in on him. And she couldn’t change that.

In contrast, his arrival had given her companionship and hope. She had gained a friend. She had gained someone wonderful in her life, someone she had begun to love.

But could he ever be truly happy in 1803—knowing he had lost Malcolm, who was like a brother to him, and Jen, who, though he hadn’t said it, was no doubt family to him as well? Even if he learned to care for Amelia as much as she cared for him, would it ever be enough?

“I would love to hear all about your life,” she said. “Whatever part of it you’d like to tell me.” She truly did want to know more about him. And she hoped it would help.

“I’ve been warned by just about every person from Guilford Village that I have to be careful what I say about the future and what I tell people. There will likely be things I can’t tell you.”

“But surely there’ll be some things you can.” She wanted to give him hope that he wouldn’t be entirely alone or have no one he could ever talk to.

“Eventually, I’ll get the knack of it,” he said. “But I’ll probably always have to be careful and moderately guarded.” That added a degree of exhaustion to his existing sorrow.

She hated seeing him this way. She didn’t know how to ease the heartbreak that he couldn’t escape. She turned, looking up at him. “I don’t want you to be alone,” she said softly.

“That’s part of what’s been difficult about this.” Kipling dropped his voice as well. “I’m beginning to realize I will always be alone to a degree.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered, closing her eyes against the tears that stung.

“Amelia.” He too whispered. She felt him take gentle hold of her face. “Amelia.” With the second whisper of her name, his lips brushed over hers. It was the softest kiss, the most delicate of touches. She returned it with one of her own.

He abruptly pulled back. So abruptly, in fact, that she thought for a moment that someone had yanked him away. But opening her eyes, she could see that wasn’t the case at all. He had moved several arms’ lengths away from her.

He jumped to his feet. There was a stiffness in his posture that felt unwelcoming.

“It’ll be time for dinner before we know it,” he said.

“Best go get ready, or Mrs. Finch will scold the two of us for being late.” He crossed to the door and pulled it fully open once more, though it had never been entirely closed.

He stood beside it much the way a footman did when holding the door for people to pass through.

The message was not difficult to decipher.

Amelia took hold of her cane and managed to get to her feet, despite her confusion. Every inch of her was tense, the thrill in her heart at his kiss had evaporated. Her thoughts were in complete disarray as his rejection wrapped ice-cold around her chest.

She didn’t know what had caused the sudden change in him, but she couldn’t ignore that it had happened. The connection she’d felt between them had gone from something she had simply hoped for to something so real and tangible and undeniable.

He’d kissed her, but the moment she had returned that kiss, he’d pulled away, and not just physically.

She couldn’t look him in the eye as she stepped from the room and into the corridor.

Her cane thunked against the wood as she moved with what speed she could to her own room.

Only when she stood on the other side of her closed door did she let herself name what she’d seen in his face after having laid bare her heart to him: disappointment.