For All Time (Nantucket Brides 2)

“I know.” There were tears beginning to come and she knew she was wetting his back. “I know all of it, but …” She didn’t want to say what she felt.

“Tell me you’ll be all right after I leave. Promise me that you’ll be well and healthy.”

“And fall in love with another man?”

For a moment Graydon’s hands tightened on hers, then he turned to pull her into his arms, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. “I’ll send my Royal Guard to execute him.”

She was clasping him hard, her face pressed against his bare chest. “I’ll go to Maine and pick out one of your Montgomery cousins.”

Graydon didn’t laugh, just stroked her hair. “They could not love you as well as I do.” His words of “I do” and not “I could” made her tears fall freely. She wasn’t sobbing, just had tears flowing from her eyes. “You couldn’t stay …?”

She left the rest of the sentence unsaid, but he knew what she meant. He couldn’t abdicate and turn the throne over to his brother, could he? But then, these weeks had proven how bad Rory was at the job—and how much he hated it. Unlike Graydon, Rory had not been trained to survive day after day of protocol and monotony and of being a figurehead rather than a person. And then there was Danna, and her father’s interests in the country. “No,” Graydon whispered. “I cannot stay here. I must return to my home. It’s what I am.”

Graydon knew he couldn’t continue to hold her. The night they’d spent together was becoming more clear by the second. Right now he needed to put something good, something happy into their lives.

Smiling, he held Toby at arm’s length. Her eyes were full of tears and he wanted to kiss them away, but that would defeat the purpose. “Do you realize what we did?”

“You mean that I lost my virginity but I probably still have it?” She took a tissue out of the box on the coffee table. “Maybe it’s an incurable disease. Think there’s a pill for my problem?”

Graydon couldn’t help laughing as he put his hands on her face and kissed her eyelids. “Do you think I’m too old to become a pharmacist?”

“Don’t make me laugh! All this is horrible. You and I—we can’t—” She was about to start crying again.

“Toby, my dear, sweet love, we changed history. Don’t you see that what we did changed everything? Tabby married the man she loved, not the little store clerk but a big, handsome sea captain and—”

“Who was a very bad sailor,” Toby said as she blew her nose. “So what happened to them?”

“I didn’t search their history because I was waiting for you to remember me—which I thought you were never going to do.” Taking her hand, he pulled her up, then started toward the kitchen. “I can’t figure out how you forgot so much.” He took a packet of fish out of the fridge and handed Toby a bag of carrots.

She was beginning to recover herself. He was right to try to lighten the mood between them. She could either cry about their coming separation or she could enjoy every minute of the time they had left. “Oh, well, you know, there was nothing monumental to make me remember.” She was teasing him back, but Graydon didn’t smile.

“Is your mother today like she was then?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” Toby said as she began to run a peeler over the carrots. “I’ve always disappointed her.” She looked at him. “Maybe it all has to do with what happened back then, in the past.”

Graydon put the fish fillets in a baking dish and began to season them. “That’s what’s puzzled me. Garrett was going to give up the sea and stay home to manage the Kingsley future. If he did a good job at that, wouldn’t there be something different now? And if he was able to show your mother that she was wrong, maybe you’d have different memories of her.”

“If I knew they were different,” Toby said. “But my mother has always been frantic, always worried about someone ‘taking care of’ me. She’s never thought I could do that on my own.”

“Just as Lavinia believed,” Garrett said. He put the fish back in the fridge and began to peel potatoes.

“Why are you frowning?” she asked.

He didn’t want to answer her question because he knew in his heart that something was wrong. He didn’t know what it was, but it was there, haunting him. “Maybe it actually was all just a dream and you and I imagined it together.”

Toby was thinking about what he’d said about changing history. “Tomorrow I think we should go see Dr. Huntley and ask him about Tabby and Garrett. If what happened really did change anything, then his story will be different.” She put the cleaned carrots on a cutting board. “Did I tell you what Dr. Huntley was like before Victoria agreed to marry him? He was

a widower and he had a sadness in his eyes, in his whole body, that was heartbreaking to see. He seemed more dead than alive.”

“But the glorious Victoria said yes and now he’s a man whose glance can command a room,” Graydon said, smiling.

Like you, Toby thought but didn’t say. He had his back to her and it was as though she could see through his shirt. She could almost see her face imprinted on his skin. If any of what they remembered actually did happen, that meant they’d been in love for a very long time. Centuries. She thought of when they first met and how Graydon had stared at her. It was almost as though he knew her. When you met someone you felt as though you’d known forever, had you?

“Stop it,” Graydon said quietly, but he didn’t turn around. “If we’re to get through these last days, you can’t think what’s in your mind.” Turning, he looked at her and his eyes were hot with all the desire he felt.

Toby took a step toward him, but the back door opened and Lorcan and Daire came inside.

“We can leave if you want,” Daire said as he looked from one to the other.