Page 119 of Flirting with Forever

She pulled him into the British paintings room, one gallery over. She knew he would ask her about the Van Dyck shortly, but for one cherished moment she wanted to forget everything.

“You may recognize the woman,” she said.

“As one recognizes an oncoming storm at sea.” Peter’s face lit in a grin. “It’s my old friend, the Duchess of Portsmouth. Yet I see no telltale marks of newsprint upon her nose.”

“Snout, I think you mean. It’s not one of your best.”

“How you flatter. I don’t suppose your opinion is in any way colored by your opinion of the subject?”

“Hello, I’m an art expert. Where my opinions come from is nobody’s damn business.”

“I see nothing’s changed in three hundred years. I want to talk with you about the Van Dyck.”

She let go of his sleeve.

“Cam.” He pulled her around so she was looking at him. “I’m responsible for the letter your master received.”

As a child, she’d once had the wind knocked completely out of her when she fell from a tree. She’d been lucky nothing worse had happened. Nonetheless, she remembered being shocked by the violence of it. Peter’s confession gave her the same sense of having been throttled to her core. “I wondered if that’s what happened,” she said, finding her breath. “And you mailed it to Packard?”

“No. No, no, no. Though I can certainly understand why you would think me capable of it. I met with Van Dyck in the Afterlife and had him write it. I brought it with me to stop you, and then realized even I couldn’t stoop to such villainy. Oh, Cam, but I was fool enough to carry it in my sketchbook, and it was stolen.”

“By whom?”

“I-I don’t know.”

But he did know. And she knew with whom he’d met and who would be capable of such an act. “My sister.”

“Cam…”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m glad it wasn’t you.”

“It does matter, Cam, it does,” he said. “And I think I can help.”

“Peter, there’s no help for it.” She hated to add to his burden by telling him about her resignation, but she refused to be untruthful. “I’m going to take some time off. I think I’m going to concentrate on my writing. The people here are great, but I need to work on the book—well, whatever the book turns out to be.”

Peter raised his brow.

“I’m dropping the Lely book.”

“Campbell—”

“Hey, you know how shy I am. I mean, look at Wednesday Afternoons, right? There’s no way I’m writing any book about a man that would eventually have to get to that scene of me on that chaise.”

His mouth rose at her jest, but his eyes remained clouded. “You know as well as I do you can alter any fact you please. Why are you doing this? Please don’t say it’s for me. I should like to think you could tell the story in such a way that Ursula—”

“Oh, Peter, stop. I am not going to profit from your dead lover. It makes me sick to think I was ever planning to. I’m sorry. The people we lose leave something sacred behind. I see that now. A person shouldn’t be allowed to rummage through the past like it’s a chest of toys put there for her pleasure.”

“Or the future,” he said sadly. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth. “Thank you. I think…I think I could bear it for me, but not for her.”

She squeezed his hand.

“Campbell, I should like to ask you a favor. I told you I did a terrible thing by not marrying her. Would you be willing to go to London, to St. Paul’s in Covent Garden, and see to her headstone and that of my son? I don’t know if the rules have changed in the last three centuries, but if there’s a way you could arrange to have my name put on their stones, I would appreciate it. I did love her as a husband would. It is not the same as marrying, but it would mean so much to me.”

“Of course, Peter. I give you my word.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”

“All right, that’s just about all the sadness I can take in an evening. I want to get this evening over with and go back to your place. I want you to hold me.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, cripes. I have to find Ball—”