Page 16 of The Gods Time Forgot

Sixteen

When she was sure Flossie was asleep, Rua left her bedchamber.

Flossie had been on the warpath after Finn canceled dinner. No one was safe. To spare the servants, Ned had poured her three glasses of wine and taken her up to bed.

Per usual, Rua had eaten by herself, only this time she was sore about it. It was one thing for Finn to sneak around and avoid her, another to lie to her face about why he was canceling dinner.

If there was a wedding announcement in the papers tomorrow, she would toss him from the Harringtons’ residence herself.

She pushed open the doors to the library. The lights were off, but the room was warm and smelled of firewood. Her favorite chair was pushed directly in front of the fireplace. She untied her robe and bent down to take the books from their hiding place.

She lit another candle, rested a cushion in her lap, and nestled into the armchair. She started with the small leather journal. The pages were almost translucent, and they were filled with symbols and words she couldn’t understand.

She wondered if this was Emma’s handiwork. Or had this been passed down to her, perhaps from Mara?

The sound of glass clanking on a shelf pulled her face from the pages. She snapped the book shut.

There across the room, stood Finn, leaning against one of the bookshelves, his gaze fixed on her.

Her heart came to a stop.

She stuffed the journal into the cushion behind her and kicked the rest of the books under the chair, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

He stepped forward, his massive frame blocking the light. He was untidy, relaxed, and assertive all at once. Enough to turn her into a puddle on the floor.

“Good evening, Miss Harrington,” he said as he swirled the golden contents of his glass.

“What are you doing in here?” She hadn’t quite caught her breath yet.

“I like it in here.” He shrugged.

His casual manner was as rousing as it was unnerving.

“So, you’d rather hide in the library than sit for dinner with me?”

Amusement flickered across his face. “I hardly thought you’d mind, Miss Harrington.”

“I don’t.” She glanced out the window at the street below and back to him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it,” he said, moving closer.

“Are you?” She looked back at him, accusing.

“More than you know.” His voice was earnest.

It was the last thing she’d expected and the only thing she wanted to hear. But she couldn’t take the chance that he was just placating her. Her pride couldn’t stand the blow.

“Didn’t we agree that you would call me Rua when there was no one around?” Her words came out more delicate than she’d intended.

“Mmm.” Finn nodded, placing his drink on the table. “And here we are again, with no one around … Rua Harrington.” Her name rolled sweetly off his lips, like he was sampling the syllables. And there she was hanging, on to every last one of them.

The effect he had on her in the dwindling firelight was baffling. She couldn’t think; she couldn’t breathe. She needed to get herself together. But how could she when he was staring at her like that?

She opened her mouth, but she was unable to think of anything clever.

“Would you like to play a game?” He disappeared back into the darkness, not waiting for her answer.

“What kind of game?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice even.

Her heart raced as her eyes searched for him. She would have done anything he asked.

“Draughts,” he said, reemerging with a box.

“I don’t know how to play.” And she had no interest in learning.

“How curious,” he said as he put the box set down and dragged the armchair directly across from her. Next, he lifted the round wooden side table and set it down between them. He sat down, his size overpowering the suddenly tiny-looking chair.

“What?” she asked, watching the long fingers of his hand set up the black-and-cream checkered board with ease. They were rough and covered in little cuts, remnants of his heroics at the Madison Hotel.

“You freely admit that you don’t know something. I’d have wagered you’d fake your way through the entire game.” He looked up then, giving her a roguish grin.

Her heart gave a little squeeze. That smile was going to kill her.

“There are a number of things I have to fake my way through these days. I’m not interested in adding another to my list.”

“Care to explain?” he asked, sliding a draught into the next square.

“Not particularly.” She kept her eyes focused on the board. They were so close to each other. Inches apart, hovering over the game.

“Tell me, then, what books are so scandalous that you’ve hidden them all away on a dusty shelf where no one else would bother to look?”

Rua looked up slowly, eyes narrowed. “Why?”

She didn’t know how long he’d been in the library before she entered. For all she knew, he’d been standing over her shoulder, reading the pages with her.

“Merely curious. I imagine a woman like you has scintillating taste in literature.”

She smiled, hoping that’s all it was. Regardless, she saw an opportunity to pivot. “Are you wondering if it’s a naughty romance novel, my lord? Filled with notorious rakes bedding timid wallflowers?”

He remained stone faced, but she saw the lump form in his throat.

“You’re very bold,” he said, more of an observation than an insult.

“And I’m bored,” she said, needing to get herself and that little journal with all its sacrilegious symbols out of the library before anyone else got their hands on it.

If anyone saw it, they would immediately assume it belonged to Rua. They would see the repetitive scribbles and illegible words and believe it proof that she was a deranged sinner.

Rua rose from her seat, taking the journal from its hiding place behind the cushion.

Finn watched her closely. “Read me the first page.” He nodded toward the journal.

“What?” She gaped.

“Read it.”

“Why?” Her eyes narrowed.

“I want to know what keeps you up at night,” he said in a low voice that made her whole body warm. She met his eyes. If only he knew.

Willing to play along, she cleared her throat and opened to the first page.

Folding his arms across his chest, he waited with a smirk.

Pretending to read, she started, “Once upon a time, there was a man who fell in love with a woman who was his better in more ways than one. She was beautiful, of course, but also whip smart and cunning, with a keen eye for nonsense.”

Peeking up from the page, she found Finn on the verge of laughter.

“As much as he wished it so, she did not return his affections. He tried and tried. So insistent was he, he even moved into her home. Eventually …” She trailed off, her fiction teetering too close to truth.

“Eventually, what?” he asked.

The air in the room shifted, so thick with desire she couldn’t breathe.

“Eventually, nothing,” she whispered, closing the book.

Unsatisfied with her answer, he stepped closer.

“Eventually,” he said, his gaze moving to her lips, then back to her eyes, “his efforts paid off.”

She sucked in a breath, unsure of what to say, and surprised at how she felt.

A silent prayer passed between them as they stood, wistful and wanting.

With a heady gaze, he reached toward her face. Cautious and deliberate, his knuckles glided across her cheek. She leaned into his caress, fearful of ever being without it. His touch was unhurried as his fingers left a scorching trail atop her skin, not stopping until they found her mouth.

And with the smallest amount of pressure, he let his thumb linger against her bottom lip, pulling gently until her lips parted, releasing a debauched shallow breath.

And then he pulled back, imploding her fragile existence.

Flushed with need, she’d gotten caught in her own web. A glistening maze of invisible strings, twisting and tangling, until she’d relinquished control and succumbed to the temptation.

Needing to regain her composure, she took a devastating step away from him.

“If there’s something you wanted to tell me, Finn”—her words were a breathy whisper—“you only need say it.” She was tired of waiting, and desperate for more, but she needed to hear that he wanted her. Her pride demanded it and wouldn’t settle for less.

She had enough to deal with, never mind a man who wouldn’t make up his mind. A man who so clearly wanted her but would never admit it. Not to himself and certainly not to their peers, because she was, according to them, a heathen.

“Rua,” he said, his voice breaking, burdened with lust. He was the only one she wanted to hear say it. That name was his.

She swallowed hard, refusing to get sucked in again.

“Tread carefully, Finn,” she said with all the nerve she could muster.

Confusion registered on his face.

“I know.” She offered a pitying frown. “It must be confusing for someone like you to have fallen so easily for someone like me—the heathen Harrington girl.”

Shock and anger waged war on Finn’s face.

“Good night, my lord,” she said, hurrying out of the library, book in hand. She stopped behind the door, out of breath, and more conflicted than ever. What was she thinking?

Rua shook her head and returned to her bedchamber.

Finn hadn’t slept a wink last night. Another strange dream kept him up, though it didn’t feel like a dream at all.

He raised his sword, blind with rage, and landed it down on his opponent’s neck. One by one they came to him, and one by one they died.

He never tired, never weakened. There was no man on earth who could defeat him.

Sword gripped, he watched as a woman approached the ford. A great beauty with raven hair and the look of an angel.

Surely she could not mean to fight him.

“Halt!” he warned her.

She stilled, a smile creeping up her lips. “I’ve only come to declare my fealty and my love to the fearsome warrior.”

“I’ve no interest in your charms, woman. I am in the midst of a war.”

She resumed her approach. “Let me help you.”

He bristled, mistrustful of her intentions. “I have no need of your assistance, pernicious woman.”

The woman’s face darkened, but her eyes glowed brighter. Warning bells rang in his head. He raised his sword, feeling her malice.

Before his very eyes, the woman disappeared. Upon the branch above his head sat a crow, and he realized his mistake.

Finn stood in front of the mirror, staring at the man in front of him. The man from his dream looked like him, felt like him, but that man wasn’t a man at all. He closed his eyes, feeling the thrill of battle coursing through his veins.

He shook his head, moving from the mirror. It was nothing more than a fantasy.

But the conflict with the woman, the pernicious one—that part of the dream reminded him of a story he’d once heard, though he couldn’t recall which.

There was a knock at his door.

“The carriage is ready, my lord.”

“Thank you,” Finn said, “but I won’t be needing it.”

“Of course, my lord,” the groomsmen said before taking his leave.

Finn paced around his room a few more minutes before deciding to go downstairs to have breakfast. He’d sent the carriage away, after all. Wasn’t that his intention? A chance to see Rua?

He made his way down, second-guessing himself every step of the way. A glutton for punishment, he thought back to those final moments in the library before Rua walked out, leaving him gasping.

Their chemistry was undeniable. A perfect combination of attraction and curiosity; he’d never experienced anything like it. A desire so raw, he’d let the world burn for the chance he might satiate it.

He ran his hand through his hair, trying to collect himself, wishing he could read Rua’s mind. She’d pulled away to prove a point, but he’d wager it had taken everything she had to do it.

He entered the breakfast room, disappointed to find it empty.

He let out a deep breath. This was his sign to let this go. He and Rua, whatever connection they might have, was nothing more than a spark. There was no need to let it kindle.

He sat down at the table while breakfast food was laid out before him along with the morning paper.

As he read about the advance of the crown prince of Prussia, he couldn’t help but feel detached from such affairs.

“What are you doing in here?”

Finn looked up from the paper to find a surprised Rua standing in the doorway. Her face was scrunched, eyes still sleepy. Bloody adorable.

A sweet smell drifted upward, almonds and wintergreen. The familiar meadowsweet scent caught hold of him and upended every last one of his senses.

He folded the paper and set it on the table. “Good morning, Rua.”

“Shouldn’t you be at the Fitzgeralds’ or somewhere else that isn’t here?” she asked, sitting in the seat across from him, letting out a yawn.

“On the contrary.” He leaned forward. “I have no plans and thought I might spend the entirety of the day with you.”

“You’re not serious.” Her eyes widened.

“No,” he said regretfully, wondering what it might be like to spend time with Rua that wasn’t stolen or tainted by society’s harsh glare.

“Good,” she said, buttering a scone. “I wouldn’t want you getting any ideas about me. I have a reputation to uphold. Unmanageable and dangerous, as you well know.” She waved the butter knife at him.

Finn let out a laugh, and she smiled as she set down the utensil. A rare armistice. After the way they’d left things in the library, he wasn’t sure where they stood.

“Your reputation is well intact, I can assure you,” he said, watching her take a bite of the pastry, mesmerized by her mouth. He cleared his throat. She raised a quizzical brow. “At any rate, I have things to do downtown today. I’m building a hospital.” As he said the words, he realized how much of a braggart he sounded. All in a bid to impress Rua? Christ. He busied his hands, folding the napkin in front of him.

“A hospital and a hotel?” Rua asked in a mocking tone. She might as well have rolled her eyes.

“What?” he asked, feeling self-conscious.

“You’re a walking contradiction, my lord.”

“How so?”

“You want into their world, yet you can’t let go of your own.”

“My own?” The implication that he belonged anywhere else was unwelcome.

“I’m merely suggesting that you don’t behave like the other men of your rank. Running into burning buildings and building hospitals for the poor. The rich don’t care for the downtrodden.”

“That’s not true,” he said.

“Yes it is. They think the poor are responsible for their squalor.” She took a sip of her tea. “And I have it on good authority that the upper tens don’t take kindly to things that go against the status quo. Soon they’ll start to wonder about you and where you came from.” Her eyes narrowed.

“Where I came from? What are you getting at?” he asked, feeling exposed, as though she’d taken his very thoughts from his head and used them against him.

Everything he wanted boiled down to the acceptance of the wealthy New Yorkers. He wanted to continue his charity on a grander scale, but to do that, he needed income that would grow. Real estate was the way he sought to achieve that goal. But he couldn’t deny that his charitable pursuits were dwindling the deeper he fell into high society. He was spending fewer days at the Battery and more in the clubs uptown, rubbing shoulders with the wealthy elite and the entrepreneurs.

Rua watched him as he worked all this out, and he got the stark sense she was baiting him. Saying all of that just to garner a reaction, and he didn’t know why.

“What about you, then?” He turned the conversation on her. She’d spoken as though she weren’t a member of the upper class all her life. “You’re hardly one to talk about the status quo.”

“The difference between you and me, Finn, is that you want to fit in. I, on the other hand, need to.”

“What do you mean, need to?” he asked.

“It’s just harder for women,” she said, before moving on to her hot cakes.

He wasn’t buying it. This had to do with the rumors and her mother’s constant attempts at pushing them together. Rua couldn’t win New York over on her own, and Mrs. Harrington wasn’t receiving the social adulation she sought.

He’d heard the way women spoke of them when they weren’t around, seen the way they whispered when they were. Mrs. Harrington wanted to use his lordship as a shield for Rua’s conduct and a loophole to gain entrance into the higher reaches of society.

Before he could answer, an out-of-breath Mrs. Harrington rushed into the breakfast room. “Did I hear you are spending the day with Emma, my lord?”

He looked around at the staff lingering by the wall, wondering which of them had slipped out and alerted Mrs. Harrington to their conversation.

“You heard no such thing, Mother,” Rua said quickly.

He wondered if he was the only one who called her Rua. She’d said it was her middle name: Emma Rua Harrington. It certainly didn’t roll off the tongue.

“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Harrington, you heard correctly.” Rua’s mouth fell open as he spoke. “I apologize for the lack of notice, but my schedule just cleared,” he said.

“Don’t be silly!” Mrs. Harrington beamed. “Well, I’ll let you two finish your breakfast. Do let me know of your plans.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Rua asked.

“Helping you fit in.”

Rua’s face softened. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“I know,” he said.