Read Online Timeless Desire by Gwyn Cready - Free Book Online Page B

Approximately three minutes later, Thorpe and Coyne will arrive at the guard station in the hallway outside the chapel to dismiss the men there. That’s when you’ll go down.”
    “How do you know this?”
    He released the telescope. “They were my men until this morning. I signed off on the duty roster.”
    What a change twelve hours had wrought. “And what time is it now?”
    “It was just eight o’clock when I entered the passageway.”
    She gasped. Eight was the time she had agreed to meet Marie’s husband’s cousin, Steve, at the library. Almost an hour had passed since she’d left Marie in the stacks. Time certainly moved at a terrifying speed here.
    Bridgewater saw her face. “Another appointment?”
    She flushed. “I—I—”
    He looked away. “I see.”
    “No, you don’t. I’m a widow, and my friend has arranged a dinner engagement for me with her husband’s brother, a man named Steve. It would be inconsiderate of me to abandon him.”
    Bridgewater fiddled with one of the ribboned pencils. “I will endeavor to ensure that you can keep your appointment,” he said at last, lifting his eyes.
    She wanted to say she had no desire to keep the appointment—that she’d rather linger here with him in the charged confines of this room, sharing the thrill of his covert plans— but when she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out.
    Eight or ten short minutes. That was the time she had left with him, and an hour in total was all they would ever share. It had been a fine hour—an amazing hour—and she found herself feeling quite sorry it would end.
    “Count for me, will you?”
    “Pardon?” she said.
    “To three hundred. Slow and steady. That’s the way we teach soldiers to mark time. Three hundred is about five minutes. I need to organize my pack.”
    There was something about the way he’d said “slow and steady” that made her heart skip a beat. She began. “One, two, three—”
    “Slower.”
    He patted her wrist in the dark, measuring the beat. The light scent of spiced soap hung on him along with the sweeter notes of brandy. She inhaled. Eleven, twelve, thirteen.
    Charlie had always had a joke: What’s good in twenty minutes, but even better in five?
    Oh, Charlie.
    She’d laughed every time he’d said it. Unsophisticated it might be, but there was something oh, so right about taking the express train home while you hung onto the hand straps for dear life.
    She looked at Bridgewater, intently rearranging his supplies. Did he like the express train? Or was he more of an Orient Express, make-the-journey-part-of-the-trip sort of guy? Not that there was anything wrong with a nice slow trip on the Orient Express, mind you, and Bridgewater looked as if he knew how to pass the time on a leisurely journey. But there was something about the way his eyes had lingered on her as they’d drunk their brandies that made her think he had a fiery five-minute express train in him as well.
    God, where was she? Let’s say forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty . . .
    She looked down at the surveying seat, visible through the next window, and a wicked tingle went through her. No, I bet Bridgewater would have no trouble at all making good use of those five minutes.
    She imagined him freeing a handful of her hair and bringing it to his nose.
    “Lilacs,” he would say. “You have come to seek a donation, have you not?”
    “Yes,” she’d reply. “For my library.”
    Ah, if only real fund-raising were like this.
    He would pour a brandy and hand it to her. Some of that impeccable Don Alfonso vintage that even now was making her head spin. His eyes would play an enigmatic game with hers.
    “I am willing to make the donation you seek.”
    “Excellent.”
    “And in exchange, I should very much like to bed you.”
    She would feel a peremptory shock. “Here?”
    “Aye. Now.”
    “Are you not worried about your servants?” she would ask lightly, trying to quell her quaking nerves.
    “Reeves has his orders