A Ripple In Time | Captain James Nicholls

Chapter Twenty

How rare and beautiful it is to even exist.

The Brighton Estate, London; July 29, 1914

Europe was at war. The Archduke of Austria-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand, had been assassinated and within the following hours all the tension that had been building up over decades finally boiled over a filled pot and all hell broke loose. Murder of the Austrian Heir and his Wife. It was the headline of the Daily Mail. Izabella looked at James uncertainly as he read the paper. She waited for a reaction but what she got was the more unsettling than she could have ever anticipated. He calmly refolded the paper, setting it back on the breakfast tray and stood, moving to the wardrobe to pull out his uniform.

"James?" Izabella pulled the cotton sheet around her, watching as he dressed her bottom lip eternally caught between her teeth. She could see his hands shaking, nerves she supposed and she too stood to begin buttoning the khaki colored shirt. In haste, he adjusted the suspenders and Belle tightened the knot of the dull green tie. The colors only made his eyes look bluer.

"I'll return soon, darling, but I must speak with the other officers about this." He kissed her forehead but she held onto his tie, straightening for a second time before pressing the lapels of his coat down as well. The Captain touched her cheek, the action was filled with longing and remorse but he quickly decided to lean forward and kiss her upon her lips, if only so she would not remember the troubled look in his eyes.

She could not forget what she had seen in his blue eyes and with a sadness lingering in the air he left from her room and down the stairs to head out to the stables. Leaving Belle to watch from the window as he rode down her drive at a mad pace. The vampiress ventured down the hall to one of the spare rooms and knocked, despite knowing that Adam would be asleep. There was no reply and with a heavy sigh she opened the door anyway, he was lying in the center of the bed, curled into the surrounding blankets and fast asleep.

Izabella stepped closer the bed, her step light enough that even the old floor did not creak under her foot and with the same nimbleness she sat on the bed and laid next to him, her cheek pressed into his back. Before she knew it sleep had engulfed her body and had it not been for Adam's movements she would have likely slept until James's return. "Belle, what are you doing?" When she opened her eyes it was dull green ones that stared back at her, piercing through her being. Her mouth opened to speak but she closed it back, her teeth grinding together.

"He had to go and speak with the others, war is nearly upon us." The way Adam's jaw clenched at the mention of war did not go unnoticed but Belle could not bring herself to question what he may know. He stood before she could place her hand upon his, jerking away from her touch in a way that made her brows furrow.

"I got these for you." He plundered around in the old desk in the corner of the room, withdrawing a stack of four books. Adam sat the books in front of Izabella, watching her curiously as she opened the first one to see the contents, and then the second one as well. She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked up.

"Medical books?" Silence hung in the air and suddenly she realized, or thought she did. "Is this because of your dream? Is that why you have been giving me these books?" When he did not answer she took his silence as a yes. "Tell me Adam, please." He searched her face, contemplating if he should tell her, if she should know now what he had seen in his dream. He couldn't tell her now, even the tears glistening in her golden eyes could not make him tell.

Gathering the books close to her chest she left the room and retreated to a room she rarely used anymore. The door had likely not been open in three decades and she knew that dust would have gathered on nearly every surface imaginable. It was her father's old study and she had left it as such, nothing had been moved. She pushed the door open and quickly moved to the Rococo bureau plat, dropping down the stack of books before retreating to her room and picking up the ones he had previously left her as well.