Page 46 of Echoes of the Sea (Storm Tide #2)

“ Are you a complete imbecile?” She asked the question a touch dryly, and just as she’d hoped, he laughed. She would always love the sound of his laugh and would remember it long after they parted ways.

She began eating, just as he wished her to, but he had her full attention regardless.

“I was attempting to explain to you today, out on the path, before everything happened, that I’m something of an idiot.”

It was such an unexpected thing for him to say that she smiled despite herself. He did briefly as well.

“Before that day in my room, when I—” He looked self-conscious, maybe even embarrassed.

Feeling an odd surge of boldness, she said, “Kissed me?”

He tossed her a pointed and theatrically arrogant look. “Kissed you rather expertly is probably the phrase I would use.”

She shrugged as if it were nothing. It absolutely had not been nothing. But humor, she was finding, helped him when he was overset, and it was easing her mind as well.

“You’ve said you realize that in my time people are more affectionate on far less grounds than now, and that’s true.

But it doesn’t mean that kiss wasn’t powerful or revealing or didn’t have depth or meaning behind it.

I—” He shook his head and paced away. “I realized in that moment how quickly and entirely I—I had—” He ran a hand through his hair, which proved a rather mesmerizing thing.

He turned back to look at her. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Amelia Archibald. ”

She pulled in a swift breath. Love. He was in love with her?

“I’ve had my head turned now and then over my life,” he said, “but I’ve never ... I’ve never felt like this, and that made me panic.”

“Panic?” She managed the two syllables despite the pounding of her heart making words difficult.

He held his hands up in a pose of supplication.

“I don’t know who I am now. So much of who I was in the future revolved around my profession and who people perceived me to be.

I knew my place in that time and in that world.

But now?” He dropped his hands and resumed his pacing.

“Falling in love is a foolish thing to do when I don’t know if my fate here is as a poverty-stricken member of the lower classes, which means I have no right to even imagine a place in your life, or as a counterfeit member of the upper classes, inventing a life for myself and trying to make enough friends who would be willing to give me a place to stay and food to eat, which is also unworthy of you.

” The look of deep humiliation in his eyes undid her.

She rose with some difficulty from her seat. He was near enough that she needed to take only one step to reach him. She set her hand over his heart, though she didn’t know what to say. He set his hand over hers and held gently to it.

“I had intended on the path today to simply tell you that I hadn’t meant to hurt you or cause confusion or make things worse.

I’d meant to tell you that I was determined to sort out what I could be in this time so that I would know what I could offer you, so you could decide if there was a place for me in your life. ”

With his free hand, he brushed a strand of hair from her face.

“The sea took away everyone I cared about,” he said.

“For a horrifying moment today, I thought it was about to again.” His voice broke.

“I don’t know where our paths will take us, Amelia, but I’m asking if you’ll let me be part of your life while I sort out everything.

” Emotion abruptly cut off his words, and he dropped his gaze.

“In the end, circumstances might tear us apart regardless, but I’m hoping you’ll let me stay until then. ”

“We don’t have to have all the answers right now,” she whispered.

He looked at her once more, uncertainty warring with hope in the depths of his beautiful eyes.

“We know we want to find the answers,” she said, “and maybe that’s answer enough.”

“One step at a time,” he said quietly.

“As long as that one step is headed in the opposite direction of a crumbling seaside cliff,” she said.

His smile inched back. Did he realize how wonderful it was that they could speak of difficult things, could be worried and sorrowful but still lighten each other? She meant to hold fast to this connection, trusting it wouldn’t be severed in the end.

“While I’m sorting out my path, we’ll find a way to convince your uncle of the brilliance of your plan for Guilford. And we’ll sort out what’s to be done about Mr. Winthrop.”

She studied Kipling. “There’s uncertainty in your voice when you speak of Mr. Winthrop. That’s new.”

“I think he might be my friend Malcolm’s however-many--greats grandfather.” Kipling didn’t appear to like that he’d discovered that. “Same surname. Malcolm’s family has lived in this area of the country for centuries. I feel like I’m playing with fire every time I interact with the man.”

“The villagers have warned you about changing the future.”

Kipling nodded. “Changing Mr. Winthrop’s future feels especially dangerous. Malcolm is part of that future. I don’t want to change who he is or, worse yet, do something that means he’ll never exist.”

Amelia hadn’t thought of that. He would never return to that future he had been part of, but the possibility of erasing it must be horrifying.

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “We will sort all this out, Amelia. I’m certain of it.”

“So am I.” Questions hung over everything, but she wasn’t feeling crushed by them.

“I will leave you to eat.” He stepped back but kept hold of her hand, walking back with her to her chair and seeing her settled at the table again. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it softly and tenderly. “Please rest.”

“I will.”

He made his way back toward the door leading to her dressing room and would, no doubt, make his way through the labyrinth again so no one would disturb her.

“Kipling?”

He turned back from the threshold. “Yes, my dear?”

My dear . She very much liked that.

“Promise me you’ll rest as well.”

He dipped his head in a bow that no one could ever mistake for anything but the gesture of a gentleman. “I give you my word.”

He didn’t entirely know where he belonged, but she knew one thing for certain: They belonged together.