“Ah, indeed, poor Mary,” Henry said in a tender tone, cupping my cheek. On the other side of me, Liam’s hand went away; I heard the rustle of fabric as he stood up and moved off. “How hard you have been driving yourself! Cassandra has written to tell me of all you have done.” There was a pause before he went on: “But we should get her home. It is not good to lie in the damp. Let me help her sit up at least—”
He came from behind to pull me up by the shoulders. I felt his hot breath on my neck and knew it was time to stop feigning unconsciousness. I had to get through this moment, and to whatever lay beyond it. Yet I could not seem to make myself open my eyes.
“Do not elevate her head too suddenly or she will faint again,” Liam said, an edge to his voice. “Just let her be. She will be—”
“We must get her home, sir. She cannot lie here in a field like this. It is not only damp, it is improper. And I think it is about to rain.” A pause. “Do you not think—”
Henry, putting one arm under my knees and the other under my back, lifted me with a faint grunt of exertion. As he took a few tottering steps, I opened my eyes to find his face next to mine, aglow with excitement. But if he was aroused by the idea of carrying me off like a trophy, I wasn’t. I shied and stretched, falling out of his arms and to my feet in one graceless motion, stumbling into him. He took the opportunity to kiss me on the forehead and furtively squeeze my left breast before he stepped back and twined his arm in mine.
“Mary, what a turn you have given us!” he said. “Are you truly able to walk?”
“I am quite well, I assure you.” I was focused on standing, not ready to attempt another step; this was a faster return to upright than I would have chosen.
Liam stood watching us with his arms folded, expressionless.
“We must get you home,” Henry said, looking down at me, a hungry gleam still in his eyes. “Are you able to make it there, do you think? Here, lean on this stile for a moment. Perhaps you should go get your carriage to fetch her,” he suggested to Liam. “I will stay here.” He squeezed my arm. “She will be quite safe.”
“I assure you, I am well able to walk.” I pushed myself off the stile and started back the way we had come, not waiting for either man’s arm, although Henry caught up to me and insisted on giving me his. “I am entirely recovered.”
I held out my free arm, hoping Liam would take it, but he did not, walking alongside me and looking at the ground. We continued back, this time in silence; my temporary insanity had passed, and I no longer had the heart for flirting or chatter.
Getting caught by Jane now seemed absorbed into the fabric of reality; whether she would tell Henry was not something I could control. I wanted to go home and quietly think all this over: what had happened, what I would do next. More than that, I wanted to get away from Henry and stop playing the ridiculous role of fainting fiancée. And most of all, I wanted it to be night, so I could lie next to Liam, smelling his skin, feeling the gentle rhythm of his breath.
“SO I TOLD HER—” I PAUSED. WHAT, EXACTLY? “THAT WE WERE NOT who we claim to be. That we were from another world.”
It was later, finally almost dusk. We’d gotten rid of Henry politely and staggered into Ivy Cottage, where we’d called for tea. What I had to say seemed too explosive for indoors, where we could be overheard, but Liam had rejected my proposal of another walk.
“You’d better rest,” he’d said, running a quick eye over me and then resuming his study of the floorboards. “Are you really all right?”
I assured him that an isolated presentation of syncope in response to a stressful event was normal and probably not the symptom of any serious ailment. That it was also annoyingly clichéd, like I was turning into the languishing heroine of a nineteenth-century romance, seemed too obvious to mention. I managed to persuade him to come outside, behind the house, to a little bench at the far end of the kitchen garden. There, I told him what had happened.
Liam listened without comment or show of emotion, other than a deepening of his gloomy expression. “So,” he said finally. “So.”
“We’re toast,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t seem like you could have done anything different than you did.” His words were reassuring, but his manner was remote. As chilly as he’d been when we first met, tone formal, eyes refusing to meet mine.
“I could have not gotten caught.”
“That would have been ideal, true.”
I resisted my urge to lean in and smell him, to take hold of his head and pull him down for a kiss. The wish to be close was like a physical pain, but if we were safe from being overheard, we could not assume we were invisible. I contented myself with sliding a little nearer on the bench so our thighs brushed; with an almost imperceptible movement, he shifted away again so they did not.
“I’m sorry about Henry, too,” I said. Liam sat up straighter.
“Sorry?” he muttered. “For what?”
“That brazen flirting? I don’t know, what had just happened with Jane made me lose my head. I wasn’t . . .”
“No, no, you need Henry in your corner.” He paused, looking around the garden, off at the pink light of sunset at the horizon, anywhere but at me.
“I don’t want Henry in my corner. Or in any other part of me.” I meant it as a joke, but Liam winced. “She’s going to tell him what I told her, and neither of them will ever speak to us again.”
“I don’t think she will tell.” He paused. “Did you mention time travel? Or you just said we were from somewhere else?”
“I said we knew the future. How would we, unless we were from it?”
“How would an intelligent, educated person in 1816 understand this, assuming she did not immediately dismiss it as a lie, or insanity?” His gaze landed on me, and this time he did not look away. “Something biographers have always wondered about, too, is her religiosity. Might she imagine us angels, who chose to take human form? What is the Church of England’s position on angels?” Seeming entertained by his own idea, he looked slightly less gloomy. “Or demons, come to tempt her, could we be now?”
“I’m having trouble fitting this in with my idea of Jane Austen. I give you points for creativity, though.”
“When we go back there tomorrow—”
“We might well be refused entry.”
“—let me talk to her first.”
“Without me there, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I’ll think of something.”