* * *
They came home just after dark, after dinner. When Ravenna went to the window she saw their silhouettes in the stable door—the horses, James’s two-cornered hat, and Paul’s stocky figure sliding off the stallion.
She watched as they disappeared inside the stable; she waited fifteen whole minutes before deciding they weren’t coming out. Remembering James’s curtness with Paul, she found herself worrying that something might have happened between them, that James had learned Paul’s true identity and accused him of lying, attacked him, now cornered him in a horse’s stall…so she went down to see what had really gone on.
She was a little anxious when she ran into James in the stable corridor.
By the lantern’s light, he seemed gentle enough. He stood with a long, thin bundle under his arm, probably the guns Sarah had spoken of, and with a slip of paper in his large, brown hand, he didn’t insult Ravenna or shout at her the way she’d feared. He merely gave her a casual glance, then went on reading.
“If it’s Killiney you want, he’s in with his pet. Tell him there’s business yet to be discussed before the night is out.”
He didn’t even look at her when he said these things. His attention remained fixed on the missive in his hand, so Ravenna skirted him and followed the sound of buckles rattling further down the passage.
Paul stopped what he was doing when Ravenna came in. “Am I glad t’see you,” he said, but it wasn’t relief that flushed his pale features; it was excitement, astonishment. “I’m tellin’ you, you’re never, ever gonna believe the things going on out there.”
“Really?” she asked.
“The whole world’s like this huge motion picture set, and I keep waitin’ t’catch somebody out of character, but everyone’s goin’ about their business, y’know, walkin’ along, lugging their carts, herding their cattle through the streets—”
“Can we go in the house?” When Paul looked at her quizzically, she lifted her hand high in the air to indicate James’s immense stature; she pointed back the way she’d come, made a gruff face, and Paul understood immediately. James might have been just around that corner, reading in silence, and what would happen if they attracted his attention?
Ravenna wasn’t about to find out. As the stable was arranged around a central courtyard, she led Paul out by a different route, avoided James’s presence entirely and hurried toward the house. When they got to her chambers, she took no chances. She turned the key in the bedroom door, locked them in as Paul made a beeline for hearth and warmth.
With prodding he gave up his coat and hat, both soaked from the storm, and Ravenna tossed them over a chair while Paul moved the fire screen aside from the mantel.
“So where did you go today?” she asked, knowing the answer, yet craving the enthusiasm she’d heard in his voice. “Did you go to Dartmouth?”
“Listen, you’re never gonna believe me, so I’m just gonna tell you: We went sailin’.”
“On a merchant ship?”
“It was a big galleon-looking thing like the Golden Hinde or Nelson’s Victory, like yer man Vancouver’s ship, I’ll bet, and the captain of it? He actually let James steer the thing! I’m telling you, it was like Disneyland come t’life. Like Captain Hook’s ship or ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’ or whatever. The America’s Cup, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been on motor boats before, but you can’t imagine how cool this was.”
“And they let James man the helm?”
“Y’know, even the fellahs were impressed with yer man? We had our supper in a pub, and these laborers, these big, surly, docker-type fellahs, they came in and walked right up to James, and I thought, this is it, this is the end of it. But y’know he gets on with these guys?”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “From what the maid’s told me, James likes working-class people. He takes care of his tenants and feeds the poor, just like you do.”
“Yeah, but the poor people I’m used t’dealing with aren’t likely to cut your throat.”
With a grin, he turned back to the fire, holding up his hands to the flames, and in the absence of that continuous chatter, she found herself thinking again of the problem they would eventually have to discuss—the voyage, his death at the hands of Indians. She didn’t know what to expect, how he would take this alarming news. She had no idea how to even bring up the subject, so she decided to approach the matter cautiously at first. “While you were gone today,” she said, watching him rub his palms together, “I spoke with Sarah, the maid from last night. I think it might help if we told her about us.”
Paul’s hands stopped moving. Whatever enthusiasm he’d so briefly enjoyed was now lost completely as he lifted his eyes. I’ve said the wrong thing, she realized. Us was not a term he’d approve of.
“Makes it sound like we’re engaged or something.”
“Well, we have to have some help, Paul. There’s too much you need to learn.”
His expression grew more serious still. “Such as?”
She hesitated. That look of caution building in his brow was not what she’d intended at all. “Marksmanship, for one,” she said. “Things like fencing, maybe even diplomacy with non-English-speaking people. I know Sarah’s only a girl, that she can’t teach you any of those things, but she might help us find someone who can.”
Paul stared at her gravely. “This is a joke? We’re in England, everyone here speaks English.”
“They don’t where you’ll be going soon.”
“And where am I going?”
She gathered her courage and fought back the urge to touch him, to soften the severity of her words. “You’re going to the Pacific Northwest,” she said. “In two months, you’ll be sailing with Vancouver on board Discovery. I don’t think you can get out of it, Paul. You’d have to go back to Ireland alone, because James would never let me go there with you.”
Paul’s mouth dipped in an even deeper frown.
“You will have James to help you,” she said. “He knows all those things, guns and swords, and he learned about native peoples from Vancouver. He’ll protect you, you’ll be fine.”
“I’m supposed to die, yeah?”
Paul had heard nothing of her assurances.
Knowing the way he preferred the truth, she nodded then, confirmed his fears. He dropped that listless gaze altogether. Bowing his head, for a moment he stared at the arm of her chair. When finally he looked up, he tried to appear unruffled by the news, but still Ravenna felt his misery.
“So I’m the last Killiney,” he said.
“But you’re not Killiney. History won’t be the same now that you’re here. It doesn’t have to end that way.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “no, it does. You don’t understand.” He stood up, and turning toward the mantel, he leaned against it with a heavy sigh. For the longest time he didn’t speak, merely traced the designs etched in the marble. She’d expected him to be a little frightened by the prospect of history predicting his death, but she hadn’t foreseen a reaction like this.
She was about to stand up, to touch him regardless, but his voice came low. “I’m dreaming,” he said. “I’ve got to be. That has t’be what it is, y’know?” The fire crackled. His hair fell in his eyes and he didn’t bother to brush it away, only followed the curve of the rococo pattern until it drove Ravenna mad with waiting.
She leaned closer, forward in her seat. “Maybe I can go with you,” she whispered. “History says I’m supposed to go, and if you want to get back to your wife in the future, it’s the only way to get more of the potion.”
Hunched over the mantle, still not looking at her, he made a little sound like a grunt. “You’re saying I have to die t’get home?”
“You won’t die,” and she couldn’t help it, she reached for his hand. Cold and unresponsive in hers, he didn’t move as she tried to reassure him. “It’ll be OK. I don’t know how you’ll protect yourself, but you will, you’ll be fine, and we’ll have at least an entire year
to figure this whole thing out between us.”
“Sounds like challenging God to me.”
“Think of it as taking control of your destiny. You want to get back to the woman, don’t you?”
With a gentle tug, he took his fingers out of hers. Slowly, he ran a hand through his hair, scratched at the back of his neck with a wince. “Her name’s Fiona, and how do you even know it’ll work a second time?”
“It’s the only shot we have, isn’t it?”
“So we’re going t’risk my life on the basis of that?”
“If you don’t go, then you’ll let James down. He’ll be angry with you. He’ll keep us apart. I’d have to send you the potion by messenger when James brings it back at the end of the voyage. Do you think you’d be all right by yourself, living in Dublin for four and a half years?”
With the look on his face then, she might have said he’d never see his wife again. Paul’s eyes melted into total despondency, hopeless emotion overwhelming any efforts he made to seem calm. Four and a half years! Without his wife, stuck there with Ravenna and every day another sin against his marriage, every moment another chance for Fiona to find love…how could he bear it? Killiney was with her, he knew that, couldn’t stand that, Ravenna saw it in the way his fingers unconsciously fidgeted with the emptiness of where his wedding band had been.
He stood there for what seemed like forever, eyes lowered, head down, and she just knew he had to be praying. Whatever bleak thoughts he entertained, he kept them to himself, didn’t say a word, until finally he turned and shuffled toward the door.
“You don’t have to leave,” she said, trying to take his arm as he passed.
He skirted her reach. “That guy’ll kill me if I don’t,” he grumbled, “never mind the voyage. He’s downstairs waiting, isn’t that what you told me?”
“James won’t hurt you. He’s your best friend.”
But even though Paul stood across the room, she still saw the grief in his eyes. “He’d have to go a long way before he’d be anything like Aidan O’Sullivan,” he said, and opening the door, he turned his back and left her there.