Glimpse Time Travel: Enemy Of Mine Part 4

And nowhere had she seen any doc.u.ments that Paul was anything other than a manservant. "You bought him?"

Will grimaced for a moment, but kept talking. "His father was selling him at a wharf. He needed to pay off a gambling debt. Paul was eleven at the time, and his father promised me he'd be a good worker. I didn't care about that. I just wanted someone to practice fencing with."

"A buddy."

"Pardon?"

"You wanted a buddy. Um, sorry." Erva thought fast of the etymology of the word buddy that yet was to be spoken. "A booty fellow, a b.u.t.ty."

"Aye, I did! A booty fellow to share my secrets to. I like this word buddy. Is it German? You know, I really should learn more German with all the mercenaries under my command."

Erva shook her head. "No, it's a word that I picked up as time went by."

He nodded and smiled again. "I've never told anyone about my father either, reproving me the way he did." Staring at her, his smile waned. He swallowed, then a muscle in his jaw twitched. His nose flared, as if he were frustrated.

But Erva liked how he shared so much with her. "I'm honored, so honored." And she was. As every pa.s.sing second swept by, she thought more and more about his death. She was beginning to care about him. She liked him more than she thought she would.

She didn't know why, but she kept thinking of her father, to when she was a little girl and her father had scooped her in his arms and paraded her around his troops. Her father had been so proud to introduce her to his own general. She remembered the salute she'd received from the graying dignified man, and even a high-five for knowing all the parts of the AK-47. Her father had beamed down at her, as if she were the sun, moon, and stars in one little girl.

She'd always wondered if her studies had more to do with her father or her. While watching the man at her side, she suddenly realized how she'd tried to compare the two, but Will was not like her father in so many ways. He was, well, she had to face it. He was hot. Nervous. And so complicated. In the ways he did remind Erva of her father, he was brave. Intelligent.

Then Will did the oddest thing. He flexed his fingers out on his thighs again, which she caught from the corner of her eye, and looking back up at his handsome face, she saw his gaze flick down to her lips. She finally realized he wasn't frustrated. His tense face wasn't irritation.

His chest rose and fell at a quicker pace. His lids hooded just slightly.

He was...he was going to kiss her.

Erva had thought many things about the man in her sights, but for him to be attracted to her. To her? She wasn't even wearing mascara, although the maids had powdered her a bit and even given her blush, which she hadn't needed much of since the afternoon's sun was evident in her glowing countenance.

The carriage decelerated with the driver's loud, "Whoa!"

Will turned his head and gazed out the window. He sighed. "We've arrived at our destination." His voice cracked.

The sun was still setting, illuminating an elaborate and spread wide mansion with several torches lit around the house. The manicured lawn and sculptured bushes were astonishing. How did they do that without power tools? Servants holding amber-glowing lamps dotted the walkway to a huge black door. Yeesh, they did have some bling houses back then. Back now, she reminded herself.

Further, Erva could hardly believe what had just happened. Or had it? Will had appeared as if he wanted to kiss her. Well, it could have been her imagination, right? All of this was in her head anyhow. That part was obvious, since she'd gone crazy. And something in her brain had decided that the man she'd had a weird crush on for a decade should reciprocate her affections. It was her mind playing tricks on her.

It had to be.

The carriage finally came to a stop, and Erva kept thinking about how crazy she had become. Or stuck in a coma. But if she was insane or this was some hallucination because of brain trauma, why did this feel so real?

A footman opened the door, and Will held onto Erva's hand to escort her from the landau. As soon as both her feet landed on the stone walkway, she winced. G.o.d, her knee really hurt now. And why did that feel so freaking real?

"My lady?" Will stood before her. As if knowing the problem, he was already trying to take her weight into his hands by holding her arms.

"Ow," she quietly grunted, not wanting to make a scene, but she let him step closer and hold her by her waist.

"'Tis your knee, isn't it?"

She couldn't help herself. He was there, and it hurt more than she wanted it to. So she leaned her forehead against his chest. G.o.d, he smelled good, so clean and spicy male. "Yes," she murmured.

"We'll go back home immediately. I'll get-"

"But I want to be at the banquet." She finally looked up at him.

His black brows cast down. "They are terrible, these parties. All of them. You won't miss a thing. I promise you."

"Terrible? Then why do you go to them?" She smiled.

As if fighting himself, he finally cracked a lopsided grin too. "I have to. As a general I'm supposed to keep up appearances, which, honestly, I'm not too sure what that means. But with your broken knee-"

"It's not broken." She snorted. "It's just sore."

"Still, it's the perfect excuse not to join."

"I want to go." She nodded. "I do. Just...will you walk with me slowly? I'm sure once I start moving again, it'll be better, like at camp with your men."

His jaw line kicked, and his hands tightened their hold. His face again was tense, but this time, she was pretty sure he was frustrated with her.

"Are you certain?"

She nodded again.

"I shall carry you then."

As he bent to do as he'd said, some women spilled out of the mansion who were decidedly not servants. Erva smacked Will's shoulder a few times as he hooked an arm around her knees.

"No, no, no...there are people staring."

Will straightened. "You struck me."

Erva laughed. "I'm sorry."

"You look it."

She giggled more but saw around Will that three women in gigantic skirts and even bigger hair were marching toward them. "Oh G.o.d, they're coming."

"Is that Lord General Hill? Out there?" said a nasal sounding woman.

Erva looked up at Will who merely squinted down at her. "I don't think I've ever been hit before."

"Shh, the women are coming." Erva couldn't help but giggle again.

"Even when I talk Paul into pugilism, he's never really taken a jab at me."

"I'll smack you around if that's what you want, but the ladies are coming." She fastened her hands around his red coat, over his chest, and gently shook him.

"My lord, is that you?" the grating voice hollered.

Will actually rolled his eyes, then looked down at Erva playfully. "Are you scared of the ladies approaching, is that why you act desperate?"

"No, I'm trying to help you with your appearance, as you said." That was partly the reason. She didn't have time or the words to share with him that she'd been trained thoroughly to keep up appearances too. She'd been taught to smile through pain, smile through grief, for G.o.d's sake to smile through intense loss, because a girl is nothing without a smile. That was her mother's saying. And although Erva knew it was self-destructive, it was still drilled into her to follow. She panicked and balled her fists into Will's chest again. "Aren't you supposed to turn around and-and bow and salute or something?"

"You wish me to behave? Is that right?"

His smile turned wicked, and through her anxiety something warm and wet zinged through her body, straight for the apex of her legs.

"Yes," she said too breathily.

One of his dark brows arched. "What will you give me in return?"

"I'll box you."

He chuckled.

"My lord!" A pet.i.te hand familiarly wrapped itself around one of Will's biceps, and he turned in the direction he was pulled.

"That is you. Didn't you hear me calling you, my lord?" The woman was actually quite pretty, Erva realized, even if her voice resonated like someone grinding her nails against a chalkboard. Two other women cl.u.s.tered behind the one who still held Will. They giggled in unison, and Erva immediately thought of the movie, "Mean Girls." They were lovely-perfect skin, great hair, even if it was huge, and plastic smiles that didn't convey a true human emotion. Oh, Erva knew these kinds of girls. They were the young women who would whine in her office about getting a D on a test and why didn't she understand that they didn't have time to study. They had a life, and the implication was Erva didn't. In other words in the eighteenth century, these were the b.i.t.c.hes to avoid.

"Sorry, no," Will said nonchalantly. "My ears are shot. I've been around a very talented marksman all day." He looked at Erva with a pointed smile.

"Oh, poor man," Nasal girl flirted. "Shall I kiss your ears and make them better?" The duo behind her giggled as one.

Oh G.o.d. So the rumors were right, Erva thought in a panic-stricken haze. Will was a rake of a man. He was a cad who seduced with his quiet charms. And she'd nearly fallen for it too.

Will took a step closer to Erva. "Miss Whinny-"

"It's Winny, my lord. My name is Winny."

"Miss Winny, have you met my guest, Lady Ferguson?"

Erva glanced at Will. He seemed collected and not at all interested in the gorgeous, albeit young, trio.

Winny held her hand out limply in the air. "Pleasure," she said as snottily as possible as she curtsied.

Erva couldn't help but snicker. She reined it in though as she tried to shake the other woman's hand, but ended up holding onto her fingers in an odd greeting. "Yes, the pleasure's all mine."

"Well, Miss Whinny, Lady Ferguson and I shall take our time walking. Why don't you run along? We'll meet up with you soon enough inside."

Winny let a soft, staccato tone out of her agape lips, a shocked protest. But then pursed her lips, curtsied, and rushed away in a flurry of white skirts, too much rose water, with her two friends immediately chirping like gossiping birds in her wake.

When the big black door had slammed shut, Erva turned to Will. "You did that on purpose."

"Of course I did. I told you, these banquets are terrible."

"You didn't even give the girl a chance." Erva couldn't believe she was saying as much, especially because if he had, then it might have proven he was a rake.

Will coughed an affronted sound. "Give that child a chance? Why?"

"Don't most men want a woman that age?" She'd meant to say something about men of his time, but it hadn't come out. The fact that she'd asked at all surprised her too, especially the way her voice had dropped and rasped.

G.o.d, she hated it, but she really had wondered if this was the norm of men in all eras, including her own. Her now ex-husband had run off with one of her students.

Will's brows furrowed. "As it is, the woman I want-I'm talking to a woman who's already-what are you ten years younger than I?"

Erva bit her lip and shook her head.

Will looked to the murky sky, turning a dark blue already. "I know I'm not to ask your age, but I'm just saying, already I'm talking to a young-"

"You're thirty-four, right?"

He blinked and nodded.

"I'm thirty-five."

"No."

She nodded.

Now his mouth was ajar. He finally closed his lips and smiled sheepishly. "You don't look it. At all."

"Thanks." Erva glanced down at his gold frog b.u.t.tons on his red coat. Then recalled what he had said. "Did you just say something about the women you want-"

"Let's go inside. You've decided we're to attend the party, so let's just go inside." The man, who if it weren't so dark Erva could have sworn was blushing, scooped her up and rushed down the walkway to the black door.

She giggled again, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. It felt so...good. Oh G.o.d, why did he have to die? Then again, why was she so freaking crazy?

Chapter 6.

Will released Erva from his arms once inside. Walking slowly beside her, he was so attentive, always holding her hand on his arm. Erva couldn't help but adore this gesture. It felt old fashioned, sure, but it wasn't as though the man was guiding her around like she was a show pony. The way he held her felt protective, a.s.suring, and s.e.xy as h.e.l.l.

It was while Erva struggled with her desire for Will, long dead by the time she was born, she surmised that her insane hallucination was...well, whatever it was didn't matter, because here she could do whatever she wanted. She didn't have to smear on the smile her mother had forced her to wear at her father's funeral and ever after. She didn't have to put on her "good girl" mask. She didn't have to be quiet or hide what she liked, how she thought, or even the fact that she did have a brain. She didn't need secrets here. She could be whoever she wanted to be. She could be herself.

It wasn't just the fact that inside this illusion she felt free, but it was who was standing beside her that made her long to let her hair down and give in to her instincts, give in to the long held craving to feel the dark and wild within her.

In high school she'd been drawn to the Goth kids, although her mother had forbidden it. Not pretty, Judith, Erva's mother, had told her, those freaks are not pretty. They'll never land a man.

Ironically enough, Erva had landed Ben Redding almost instantly. He'd sat behind her in trigonometry cla.s.s, had black streaks in his blond hair and wore black shredded clothes that she wished she'd been brave enough to wear herself. They'd partnered up multiple times for cla.s.s a.s.signments. Within minutes of working together, they'd started laughing as if they'd known each other all their lives. He was a military brat too. Being two loners for so long, they instantly attached to each other, hanging out every spare moment. Ben had shown her his paintings, where he openly dived into different worlds of color and style. He'd also confessed he was gay. She'd been so honored, she told him all her secrets too, but she could have suspected his secret. The whole school had, in fact, which meant regular bullying for Ben. To protect him, Erva had gone out on a date with one of his bullies. She'd thought if she could talk to Jared Johnston then he'd stop calling her beloved friend names and shoving him against the lockers. Instead, Jared had tried to feel her up. She'd broken his nose for it. When telling her mother of the incident, not of protecting Ben, but of the necessity of protecting herself, her mother had threatened to call the cops on Erva. She'd said that Erva had a.s.saulted an innocent young man, and boys will be boys, and the sooner she realized that the better. Also, Erva would never marry if she didn't go along with what a boy wanted.

Erva had been beyond startled at her mother's reaction. She was certain that had her father still been alive, he would have threatened to go to Jared's house with a hunting knife and cut the boy's b.a.l.l.s off. Then, she wondered how her father and mother had ever fallen in love. They were so different. Her mother wanted compliance, while her father had delighted in her, in who she was becoming. She'd been thirteen when her father had died, so similar to when Will's father had pa.s.sed away. Every year after her father's death her mother had whittled away more and more of the young woman Erva had started to become. As if she were a majestic mountain that the cold, harsh wind had carved into a mound of terrified cravings.

The fact that Erva had become an academic was wrong to her mother, especially becoming a military historian. What Erva wanted to wear was wrong. Erva had to keep her hair natural, otherwise that was wrong. Makeup had to be at a minimum. It was an odd mask of lies. For many others, natural hair and lack of makeup would be considered more authentic. But it wasn't for Judith. It was a weapon she used, to make others think she was younger, and so much more vulnerable than she really was. She tried to teach Erva the same tricks. Words were to be spoken quietly, wispily. Leave only evidence that she was a delicate female. No tattoos. No black toenails. No. No. Wrong. And no.