Page 38 of The Invisible Hour

There were two carriage men rather than the usual one. Robert recognized the regular fellow as the one who’d brought them to the Berkshires a few days earlier, a young man named Tyler, who explained that he was showing the new man the ropes. The new fellow had gone up to Nathaniel’s room and brought down his bags while Nathaniel was in the bath. Robert threw a keen glance at the dark figure, who was expressionless as he loaded the baggage into the rear of the carriage.

“He’s a bit old to be new, isn’t he?” Robert said with a laugh. The man looked somewhat undesirable, in strange clothes with close-clipped gray hair.

“He’s working hard,” Tyler said. “And he barely says a word. I suppose that’s good enough.”

Robert’s bags and his fishing gear were already on board when his nephew came out of the inn to reclaim his luggage. He’d left Mia in his room in order to explain his situation to his uncle and reclaim his luggage. His hair was wet. There was something wild in his eyes.

“Are you ill?” Robert wanted to know.

“Not at all,” Nathaniel said. “Or perhaps I am. If so, it’s an illness that affects the heart, one people beg to have, even if there is no cure. Uncle, I think you understand the one thing that would keep me here.”

All at once Robert knew. Nathaniel was besotted. “Is it her?” his uncle asked. “The mythological creature?”

Nathaniel laughed. “She’s real enough. Believe me.”

Robert’s keen gaze was drawn toward the second story of the inn, and there, in the window of his nephew’s room, he spied a woman with pale red hair. She wore Nathaniel’s dressing gown with nothing underneath. Robert felt a wave of sadness, for he understood that he would be returning to Salem alone. He had failed in his mission to wake Nathaniel from his dreams and fantasies and was unable to drag him back to real life. He could quarrel with his nephew, but Nathaniel was stubborn, he always had been, a man who followed his own path and intended to do away with the rules of the past.

Robert stood in the shade of a twisted apple tree and listened to his nephew’s explanation of why he wished to stay on in Berkshire County, a tale about needing time to write and think, excuses that didn’t ring true. “Be honest, man,” Robert said. “Isn’t she the reason?”

Nathaniel lifted his eyes to see Mia at the window. He’d been showing her where the bath was, so they’d both been out of his room when his luggage was brought down. Robert laughed when he saw the expression on his nephew’s face. He knew a lovestruck man when he saw one. “You answered the question.” Robert shook his head. “I’m quite convinced you have no intention of returning to Salem with me.”

“Not today. That much is certain.”

Robert clapped his nephew on the back. “Take my advice. Do not get married.”

“That is an unlikely outcome, as I have no ring,” Nathaniel joked wryly.

Nathaniel embraced his uncle, who had indeed been a father to him. He wished he could tell Robert more, but it was best not to, for surely the truth would alarm Robert and make him question Nathaniel’s sanity.

“No rash actions,” Robert reminded him.

“What I want more than anything is some time, Uncle. I’ll stay here and write.”

“I’ll have them place three more nights on my bill,” Robert granted. “Should that be enough?”

It would never be enough, but Nathaniel thanked his uncle. Three nights to do their best to figure out the rest of their lives.

“Just a warning,” Robert said. “Love can be dangerous.”

Nathaniel softened to his uncle, who always wanted the best for him. “Is there anything worthwhile that is not?”

Nathaniel remained outside to watch the carriage disappear down the road, past a stand of beech trees. When he turned, he noticed that one of the carriage men was still standing there, leaning against the wall of the inn, as if he had all the time in the world.

“They’ve gone without you,” Nathaniel said, confused.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” the man said brazenly. “I don’t work for them. I’ll do as I please.”

“Will you?” Nathaniel eyed this character with suspicion.

“I’ve got a farm here,” the fellow replied. “The biggest in Berkshire County.”

“Do you now?” This man certainly didn’t look like the other prosperous farmers in the area.

“She’s mine as well,” the carriage man said with a grin as he gazed upward.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Nathaniel answered, but he saw the way the fellow was staring up at the window of his room. Nathaniel had such an intense reaction to this man, mistrust he supposed it was, that when the fellow turned to leave, Nathaniel waited to make certain the stranger was headed off before he went back inside the inn.

“Who were you speaking with?” Mia asked when at last Nathaniel came upstairs. She’d spied him in conversation with a man who stood in the shadows so that she could not make him out.