Chapter Six

O liver's gaze blazed over the contours of Miss Montgomery's face while she slept in his old room, in his bed.

A delicate snore escaped her and he sighed, straddling a chair and staring at her with dreamy eyes. She wore her hair loose to bed and it stole around her body like vines on a garden wall. Stray tendrils splayed out over her cheeks. He reached to move them away. But he couldn't feel anything, nor could she.

It shouldn't matter. It hadn't mattered in six hundred years. But all of a sudden, it did. He shouldn't have made the bet with her. He was going to lose. He wanted to run his finger along her jaw, her lips. The need saturated him like a cloud, making him feel lightheaded.

He thought about earlier in the evening, sitting with her on the bed, listening to her story about her mother abandoning her.

"She said I was trouble and kicked me out, shutting the door in my face. I didn't try to get back inside. I was young, and I remember thinking that if I was trouble then I should leave and keep my mother safe. I never saw her again after that. Life was hard," she'd told him, "but I fought my way to my place."

Yes, he imagined her now, kicking, clawing, and punching her way through life, the prize. "Your victory," he pined while she slept, "resounds and beckons me to follow you."

He forgot that she could hear him, even when he whispered. Her eyes fluttered open, making what he fancied was his heart, pound.

When she focused her sleepy gaze on him, she smiled. "Hi. Everything okay?"

He tried to swallow but it felt impossible. He nodded then rose from the chair.

"Where are you going?" she asked, moving her arm to block him.

"I…ehm…"

"Please stay."

What was she stirring within him that was making him miss living? He should go, leave the room, and her. But he found himself sitting back in the chair.

"I had a dream about you," she threw at him without mercy. She sat up and tucked her wild locks behind her ears. "I can't stop thinking of it. You were in terrible trouble, and I couldn't help you."

His gaze on her warmed. He couldn't help it. "No one has ever sought to help me."

"I wish I could have helped, Lord Harwich."

"Oliver," he corrected with traces of his smile still intact. Then, "What if I was falling and you were there instead of Eleanor?"

Her eyes widened. "You mean from…?"

He nodded, knowing she meant the wall but didn't want to say.

"I wouldn't have let you fall," she said quietly.

He felt a foolishly merry grin trying to break out of his face. After a half dozen centuries of not feeling happy in any way, he fought the unfamiliar emotion. "I must tell you, Miss Montgomery—"

"Maggie," she corrected.

Studying her as nonchalantly as he could, he thought of flowers swaying in the sun.

"Magnolia, actually," she murmured, breaking the spell she cast over him.

His treasonous grin ignored every alarm in his head and in his heart and shone full force on her. "Magnolia," he intoned on an almost silent breath. "I think you are more of a sunflower."

He noted that deepening blush across her cheeks, a sign of the life flowing within her. He'd felt it when he'd gone through her.

She smiled shyly and tucked her untamed locks behind her ear again. "I told you my mother was a monster." Her hushed burst of laughter went through him like flames, filling him with life. "Who names their child Magnolia?"

"I think it's beautiful," he remarked, staring at her.

"You are nothing like I expected."

"For a Montgomery," she guessed out loud.

He nodded. "You're nothing like her."

"That's a good thing," she reasoned with a quirk of her brow. "But how do you know what I'm like?"

Yes, it was soon, he admitted inwardly. He found it disturbing that he would put aside this woman's bloodline and let her into the place only one woman had gone before her.

"I have eyes that see and ears that hear," he told her. "I think if you were going to kill me, you wouldn't plan it. It would be more of an act of passion."

She tossed him a short mocking laugh. "You're wrong," she challenged, softening her voice. "I would never kill you, even if I could. I wouldn't do it."

Nothing like Eleanor's blood. She was completely innocent. He could never cause her harm. In fact, he hadn't thought of revenge all day.

She was quiet long enough for him to wonder if she was upset.

"Oliver?" she said in her dulcet voice.

"Yes?"

"I wanted to tell you this sooner, but I'm not sure what it was. Seeing it all before my eyes…I told myself it was a dream. And I told you the same."

"The dream you had before you woke up? Where I was in danger and you couldn't help me?"

"Yes," she breathed out. When she inhaled again, she appeared as if breathing was painful. He wanted to go to her, hold her, offer her comfort from whatever made it so difficult for her to breathe properly.

"I touched the gauntlet and…something happened."

"What? What are you saying?"

"I was transported. I…I…was brought to the past. To the night she killed you."

Oliver sat still—but if he had blood rushing through his veins, his body would have shaken. "I don't understand. You were dreaming."

"At first, I told myself that, but it was real, Oliver. I went back, but I was a vapor, as you are."

"You went back?"

She nodded. "I saw what she did. I saw you fall and I couldn't stop it." She swiped her eyes and looked away.

He could hear her crying. He moved closer to where she sat on the bed. He moved close enough to hear her breathing with sniffles in between. He lifted his hand to her hair, but he felt nothing. He traced his fingertips over the creamy softness of her cheeks, but they were creamy soft only in his mind. He couldn't feel her, comfort her with a caress.

"Seeing someone die is a harrowing thing," he said softly. "I'm sorry you saw my death—" He paused when she let out a little sob at his words. "There was nothing you could do because, though it likely felt very real, it had to be a dream. That's why you were a vapor."

"I looked into your eyes, Oliver," she wept, hiding her face in her hands, as if she had invaded a moment of his life when only fear existed. "I hate her for doing that to you."

"It's in the past, Magnolia." Long forgotten by everyone but him. He existed with the torment of remembering. But not today.

He smiled at her like some poor, captivated sod. Was he mad to let another woman stir his heart? And a Montgomery at that!

"Oliver?" her voice rang in his ears with a longing sigh. "I wish I could touch you."