Page 12 of The Austen Affair

He ignores my jab, continuing, “These people in this house are my ancestors. My historical antecedents. The record books tell us that Hugh Balfour died at Waterloo, and thus, the estate ended up being inherited by his younger brother, George. George, that little boy, is my great-great-great- great -grandfather. What happens, Miss Bright, if I stay here, where everyone thinks I am the heir, and he never comes into his inheritance? Does he still marry the same woman, have the same children? Do I end up canceling out my own existence? My father ’s existence? My sister’s?”

“Jesus,” I say, dumbfounded. “That’s bleak.”

“What, have you never seen Back to the Future ?” he asks me. “It’s a 1980s classic.”

“No, as previously established, I was popular in high school.”

The look that flashes across Hugh’s face promises murder, so I backpedal, raising my hands in surrender.

“All right, all right. No more jokes. Obviously, we can’t stay here.

So what do we do? Leave in the middle of the night, with no clothes, no money?

You’ve done the research. You tell me how two penniless weirdos with no connections will do in a time before women’s rights, air-conditioning, or Zyrtec. ”

Hugh buries his face in his hands—very melodramatic, again—mussing his dark hair as he does so. “The answer is ‘not well,’ I’m sure. I’m not even confident I could navigate anywhere without GPS.”

Not only has he drooped downward, but he stays down, so I give him another comforting pat on the shoulder. Still, I can’t resist getting in another dig. “There, there, Lord Byron. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

He lifts his head, an idea sparking behind his eyes that illuminates his whole face, like the floodlights coming on. “Lord Byron,” he says, turning over the words in wonder. “ Mary Shelley. ”

“Yes,” I say, not sure where this is going, but willing to be sarcastic until we get there, “she’s also from this time period.”

But Hugh is too excited to properly communicate his train of thought. He jabs his hand downward repeatedly in a sort of karate-chop motion. “Lord Byron. Mary Shelley. Frankenstein. Galvani. Electricity. ”

I stare at him like he’s had a stroke, so he stands up and shakes me by the shoulders.

Sparks—though not the kind that we’re looking for—erupt where his fingers press down through the sheer muslin of my gown.

I feel myself getting hot. I insist to myself I’m not actually attracted to Hugh—it’s just that with his hair disheveled and a flush in his cheek, he’s almost handsomely deranged in this moment.

His robotically calm exterior has momentarily fractured to reveal the frenzied human being beneath.

“ Tess, ” he says, and the sound of my name falling from his lips again makes my own lips part almost unconsciously, “the year is 1815. Electrical fixtures aren’t in the home but Luigi Galvani inspired a trend of electrical machines that the rich used for parlor entertainment. They’d shock themselves for fun!”

I shoot out from under the blankets and grip Hugh’s arms right back, breathless. “So if we can get our hands on one of those machines…”

Hugh licks his lips, and I can’t help but let my eyes linger on their surprising fullness. “Yes. We could go home.”

It isn’t exactly a perfect plan, but there’s nothing to do but try.

Hugh and I agree that for now, we’ll feign acceptance and go along with the plans for a wedding one month from now.

And in the process of planning, we’ll find a discreet way to suggest our guests might be amused by presenting one of those “interesting little electrical machines” at the festivities.

“But how are we going to pay for it?” I ask, feeling a little queasy.

As someone who grew up in a one-parent, single-income household, I feel…

existentially uncomfy with the idea of dipping into the Balfour family’s coffers for a long-shot purchase to try to get home.

“It’s not like we can earn money. Being an actor has never felt less like a marketable skill! ”

Hugh looks as seasick as I feel as he rationalizes his way to the answer he wants.

“I suppose we must hope that the price of an electrical machine is ultimately of less cost than that of our accidentally disrupting the time stream and stealing George’s inheritance.

Jeremy Bentham would call it utilitarianism. ”

I snort. Hugh doesn’t have a single clue how to read a room. Never have I met a person less equipped to adapt his expressions for his audience.

“And we must remember,” he adds, with the air of someone convincing himself, “that my family is nowhere near the poorhouse.”

He explains that his great-aunt on his father’s side—with some horrifically British name like Agatha or Agnes or Araminta—had been the one to sell their ancestral home to the hotel corporation in the first place.

But before moving out, she’d collected a number of family artifacts, heirlooms, etc.

, relating to their long history in the county and put them in storage.

Apparently he’d rustled through them for his research into the role of Henry Tilney and even come across a few ledgers.

He estimates that the family’s expendable income has to be something in the range of nine thousand pounds a year.

For those Austen fanatics keeping score at home, that would make the Balfours rather more well off than the Bingleys and just a bit short of the Darcys.

I try my best to shove my qualms aside and agree with him. This must be what the universe wants. “I guess… what’s the point of being mistaken for your dead great-great-great-great-uncle and heir of the estate if you can’t use any of the considerable yearly income to solve a time-travel emergency?”

That seems to ease Hugh’s conscience a little, combined with the fact that he’s eager to leave no trace of ourselves on history.

But in theory, if we stay discreet, zap ourselves back home when no one’s watching, and disappear from his ancestors’ lives forever, what impact on history could we really be leaving?

Like, let’s not be ridiculous here. It’s just one month in the country.

And by the time little George grows up, he’ll inherit the estate just like he’s supposed to, and Hugh’s family line should stay totally intact!

So long as the electrical-machine plan actually works. Which, of course, we have no proof it will. Perhaps we’ll get our hands on one and it won’t do anything. But I don’t point that out right now—because we both know this is a wild, desperate, impractical hope we’re clinging to.

“So we have marching orders,” Hugh says, giving me a somewhat skeptical once-over. “We inquire. ‘Discretion’ being the operative word. If that word is indeed anywhere in your vocabulary.”

I give Hugh a mocking expression, then rise from the bed, stretching my arms and yawning.

I think that his eyes flick momentarily again toward my breasts, pushed upward in this borrowed evening gown, but it’s so brief that I quickly decide I imagined it.

Besides, it’s not like I’m exactly my hottest right now.

My eyes are heavy-lidded with exhaustion, and I’m not in the mood to be performing attractiveness.

“I need to brush my teeth,” I mumble. “My mouth tastes like roadkill.”

Hugh winces. “Disgusting expression. Good God, your impropriety is uniquely American, isn’t it?”

I arch a brow. “Oh really? I’m disgusting? Earlier tonight, you spat out turtle soup like a broken water fountain.”

He bristles, straightening up in his chair. “Green sea turtles actually became endangered because of that repulsive culinary trend! If anything, I’m the only one at that table who didn’t commit an inhumane act tonight. It’s barbarism.”

I start digging at the pins in my hair, pulling them out to allow my signature black waves to escape the confines of Regency curls, which tumble down my back.

“If you ever spoke to your costars, or even passed a single meal with us, I might’ve known you were vegetarian and given you a heads-up before you put that spoon in your mouth. ”

“Or you might have stood back and laughed while I choked on an endangered species,” he replies.

I pause, genuinely hurt for a moment that he thinks so little of me. It’s one thing to think I’m annoying. It’s another to think I’m completely callous. “You really think I’d do that?”

He can’t maintain eye contact with me. “No,” he concedes. “I don’t think that. We haven’t exactly gotten along since being cast together, but you’ve never been deliberately malicious. Well, give or take a few physical blows.”

“Then why’d you say it?” I demand.

Hugh shrugs, giving me the most restrained of hesitant smiles. “Being a bit of a prick, I suppose. We were arguing, and I wanted to win.”

I grant him a tiny smile in return. “At least you’re man enough to admit it. But seriously: you’re the one who did all that research. How am I supposed to brush my teeth around here? Or are we still firmly in the wooden-teeth era? I can’t pull off the George Washington look.”

He closes his eyes, like he’s reaching back into his mind palace as he tries to remember. “Not wooden teeth, exactly. Waterloo teeth. They created dentures from the teeth of dead soldiers.”

My hand flies up to cover my mouth. “You’re joking.”

“But they did have toothbrushes,” he assures me. “And tooth powder. But I think sometimes that powder actually wore away enamel more than it cleaned anything, so it might be counterproductive.”

Tension actually leeches from my shoulders at the promise of a toothbrush. “That’s fine,” I say. “Some studies say that dry-brushing is equally effective for removing plaque, though not so great for breath maintenance.”

He blinks at me, almost amused. “And how do you know that?”

I’ve already started searching the drawers of my nightstand for the promised toothbrush. “My mom was a dental hygienist,” I admit. “It’d kill her to know I let my teeth rot after all those years of dedicated flossing. Not to mention the money she shelled out for my braces.”

A vein ticks in Hugh’s jaw as he seems to clock the past tense. She was a dental hygienist. “I reckon you bought your mom a house first chance you got.”

“I did,” I say, my face glowing with pride. It’s a little gratifying that even this man who can’t stand me knows that I’m the sort of person who would do right by Mom.

“Did she retire after that?”

Oh, God. He did note the past tense but jumped to the wrong conclusion. I hate this part. The correction. The inevitable awkwardness that follows.

“No,” I tell him. My tone is even, utterly without inflection. I don’t want his pity. “My mom died about a year and a half ago.”

The smile falls from Hugh’s face. He looks absolutely mortified. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”

I press my hands to my chest with a gasp of faux horror. “My God, you bastard. You gave her the cancer.”

Hugh rolls his eyes, giving the dry, forced chuckle I was gunning for. “Infuriating woman,” he mutters.

I cross my arms tight across my chest, fighting to keep my tone upbeat. “There’s nothing to apologize for. It’s just something that happened and sucked and continues to suck.” For a moment, I refuse to blink. My eyes are glazing with unshed tears, and under no circumstances will I let them fall.

Hugh doesn’t seem to know what to say. His mouth is open like he’s on the precipice of a thought—but I have mercy on him, pivoting the subject to something slightly less bleak.

“My mom loved Jane Austen,” I add, returning to my search of the nightstand.

“Like, really loved her. Northanger Abbey was her second-favorite book. That’s why I fought for the part. ”

“Second favorite?”

“Aha!” I pull my hand out from the back of the drawer, waving a small ivory brush toward Hugh. “Victory is mine!”

“Second favorite?” he presses me again.

I give Hugh a flashing smile, showing off the perfect teeth my mother fought so hard to give me. “ Pride and Prejudice was her favorite, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he teases.

“It’s the most famous for a reason,” I say. “No one can resist enemies-to-lovers.”