The Titan Drowns: Time Travel Romance by Nhys Glover (highly recommended books .txt) 📕

xml:lang="en-AU">Eilish had her own room as part of a suite she shared with Bedford, so he had discovered. It made him uncomfortable to know they shared such close quarters. But, from all that he had been told, it appeared that London was home to neither of them and they were staying here for a specific purpose – the duty that Eilish had alluded to on their first night.

What that duty was, he was still no closer to knowing. That she was different to any woman he had ever met went without saying. And it wasn’t just because she aroused feelings in him he hadn’t thought possible. It was more that something about her didn’t fit. She would say the strangest things, like that first night when she’d talked about the coming war. Maybe it was the way she spoke, as if she knew what was going to happen – not as some possible event in the future, but as a fact that could not be disputed or avoided.

When they had taken a picnic basket down onto the Thames Embankment on Sunday, Luke had come along too. Max hadn’t wanted the man there, but politeness had dictated that he ask him to join them when he was inviting Eilish out for the day.

They had shared a blanket on the grassy slope of the embankment and listened to the brass band entertaining the crowds on the unusually sunny, spring afternoon. A discussion of popular culture had led Eilish and Luke into a heated debate about the influence the arts had on the thoughts of the common man.

‘Look at propaganda,’ Eilish had said heatedly, ‘portraying Germans as monsters eating children. It only serves to spur on the animosity.’

‘You saw that train carriage. Are you saying monsters didn’t commit that atrocity? They didn’t eat ‘em but they sure slaughtered ‘em.’

‘But that was another war.’

‘Same people.’

‘No, not the same. Those that followed Hitler were simply looking for a way to survive, initially. The Reparations crippled the country…’

‘Who is Hitler and what is this train you refer to?’ Max had interrupted the flow long enough to get his question in.

Both Luke and Eilish had turned to him, as if realising he was there for the first time. Their faces betrayed their confusion and guilt, as if they’d been caught talking out of school.

‘Do not worry about it. Luke and I disagree like this quite often. It was rude of us to exclude you.’

‘But I am interested. It is as if you are aware of events of which I am ignorant.’

Luke and Eilish had exchanged looks, as if trying to decide what to tell him. For not the first time, he’d felt as if they were spinning him a tale, just as Agnes had done before their marriage. However, this tale was not to dupe him in anyway. It was as if they were covering up a state secret. Eilish’s next comment seemed to solidify that view.

‘You know I told you that there were things about me I would need to tell you? To explain about Hitler and the train we alluded to would require me sharing that information with you. When that day comes… well, let me say that after that we may need to go our separate ways.’

‘I do not understand. Are you suggesting you are involved in something illegal or contrary to the good of the British Empire?’

‘No, no of course not. And as I said that first night, you could make guesses about the nature of our situation until the cows came home and you would not come close. Leave it, Max, just for now. There is time yet, and I do not want to spoil these days we have.’

He had reluctantly given in and the conversation had turned on to more familiar ground. However, Max was still left with a sense of disquiet, as if the three of them sat squarely in the eye of a storm. Any moment now the peace and tranquillity they shared would be blown away, and what would be left, he didn’t have a hope of predicting.

During the following week, he found that he was postponing or cancelling appointments with clients, so he could take Eilish to lunch or to Covent Garden. Luke came with them less and less often and then he disappeared completely. Eilish said he had gone to Southampton, but gave away no more information than that. Max found he didn’t care. With Luke away, he had Eilish to himself.

Toward the end of the second week he had known her, Max accompanied Eilish back to Claridges after dinner at the club. Luke was still away. When she invited him up, every alarm bell inside him activated. He wanted to be alone with her more than anything else, but he was still a married man and she was still an innocent, young woman. The old Max would have been a perfectly safe companion, no matter how private their situation. The new Max was not such a certain bet.

Even so, despite his misgivings, he soon found himself accompanying her up to her suite and seated beside the fire with a glass of whisky in his hands. She sat opposite sipping a sherry, as she stared into the languid flames. He was struck anew by how beautiful he found her.

He knew that many people would consider her too plump for beauty, but he found her lush shape infinitely appealing. There had been sleepless nights when he spent hour after tortured hour imagining what lay beneath the layers of her women’s clothing. They were ungentlemanly thoughts, but he could not label them dirty or evil as his parents might have. No thought he could hold about Eilish could be anything but loving and natural. More than ever, he was sure that he had found his other half. No matter what his legal status, he now knew that he belonged to no one but her.

‘What would you think if H G Wells was right and that there really was a way to travel through time… back to Ancient Athens or forward to… whatever?’ Her voice was soft and held a faraway lilt, as if she was lost in her dreams. In moments like this, her slight Irish accent was more apparent and it soothed him with its melody.

‘I would enjoy visiting Ancient Athens and Rome, but I believe I would stand out rather like a sore thumb. And, as there are no historical records of men dressed in outlandish costumes standing out like sore thumbs, I must assume that the likelihood of being able to time travel is small.’

‘You would not dress as you are now. You would wear the costume of the era and speak their language. History is filled with mention of strangers from strange lands. Who is to say their land was not the future?’

‘This subject fascinates you, doesn’t it?’ He felt urged by some powerful force to leave his place and sit on the floor at her feet. He followed that urging and moved so he could rest his head on her knee. The silky softness of her blood-red evening gown sent his senses into overdrive. When she reached down and stroked his hair, he felt as if he had died and gone to Heaven. And until he heard the contented masculine sound, he wasn’t even aware he’d sighed.

‘Yes, it fascinates me. It has for a very long time. It offers the only hope for our world.’

He found it difficult to focus on her words because his full attention was on the hypnotic affect her stroking hand was having on him. Such a simple act of affection was unknown to him. Not entirely, he had to admit. There had been nannies when he was young who would stroke his head when he was sick or in pain. However, none did it from love. And such a touch never came from his mother; her only physical contact was a slap.

He pushed thoughts of his mother away and focused on Eilish and what she was saying now. ‘When I was a little girl my mother died and, as I had never known my father, I was left alone. They put me into homes, orphanages you would call them. That is where I learned how hard life could be. And as I grew older, it only got harder.

‘Sometimes I think back to that time and I wonder how I survived, how I learned to be happy. Because I believe happiness is a learned behaviour and I’d had no experience with it after the age of five.

‘Then, when I grew up, the idea of travelling through time became like a Holy Grail to me. I thought, if I could travel through time, I could be happy. I could find what I have been searching for all my life.’ Her voice petered out and for a moment, the only sound was the crackle of the fire in the shadowy room.

‘For me, the Holy Grail was education,’ he found himself sharing. ‘I thought – if I could be top of my class at Eton, if I could get First Class Honours at Cambridge, the world would be my oyster. I would be a learned man and have the power to change the world into something better.’

‘And you have,’ whispered Eilish gently.

‘Not enough, not nearly enough. And it has never brought me what I most desired. It never made me happy. You make me happy, Eilish. Only you.’

He felt her lean down and place a gentle kiss on his brow. As if in a dream, he sat up so that he could meet her eye. He needed to see the affection he felt for her mirrored back at him. The room was dark. Only the fire lit the space with its red and gold flickering flames. The air was warm and heavy with wood smoke and violets.

‘Travelling through time has made me happy, only because it has led me to you,’ she whispered, almost too softly for him to hear. And before he could process her words, she was leaning down and letting her lips graze his. The little mewling sound she made electrified him.

Terrified of scaring her off or breaking the strange spell that had spun itself around them, he drew himself up so he could get closer to her. He let his fingers stroke the soft warmth of her cheek. Like a cat, she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, almost purring. Then, before he could think better of it, he let his instincts have their way and he leaned in to claim her mouth.

Nothing could have prepared him for that kiss. It was so different from anything he had experienced before. Her lips were soft and giving, and instead of pulling away in disgust, they opened under his, offering more of herself to him.

When her tongue stroked at his closed lips, it was he who almost drew back in shock. However, it felt so good he invited more and found his own mouth opening to give access to her gentle exploration. When her tongue entered his mouth, his arousal kicked hard against the restraints of his clothes and he sought to shift it into a more comfortable position without breaking their contact. Embarrassed that she might guess what was happening to his body, he tried to keep her focus on their joined mouths.

The kiss seemed to go on forever. He followed her lead and sent his tongue to explore and invade her soft, moist mouth. She let him, and he could hear her breath become gasps and realised that his was doing the same. He drew away from her mouth and began to rain soft, ardent kisses across her cheek and down her neck. Little gasping sobs greeted his every touch and she arched against him asking for more.

Her soft, silky hair touched the side of his face and he could smell the sweet scent of violets in it. This was what he had been dreaming of, imagining for so long, and now that it was here – it was so much better than he could have envisaged. She was so much more than he could have envisaged.

He had kissed a few experienced women in his past and Eilish