From Pemberley to Manhattan [COMPLETED]

Chapter 86

ELEVEN HOURS IN LONDON

ANOTHER SECRET LOCATION

Nat

We'd had what Darcy liked to call "husband and wife intimacies" three times last night. And two other that morning. Altogether, they had been the best dot-dot-dot experiences in my life.

I should be ecstatic. I should be happily exhausted. I should be thankful my skin would be awesome for at least a month. I should be bragging to Fanny about my sexapade. Instead, I felt miserable.

Darcy and I were having brunch that morning when the phone rang. Darcy freaked out, believing it meant there was an emergency. He took me in his arms and left our-slash-his room yelling "FIRE!!!" before I could explain what was going on.

Back home, we didn't have a landline, since we all had cell phones and the bookstore phone drove us mad during the day. There weren't any phones in the Parisian apartment neither, considering the Professor didn't want us calling anyone. He knew that, had we wanted to, we could have used a pay phone on the street. He didn't want us to feel tempted, though.

So, Darcy had experienced many weeks in our century without ever listening to the irritating sound of a big phone machine blasting noise against our eardrums. The result was no different from the one back in the Louvre: Darcy got desperate to save me. He broke two vases and knocked out a poor maid in order to do that.

Funny as it may sound, it was during our "escape" that I noticed, for the first time, where we were. When we'd arrived at the Professor's townhouse in London, I was so tired and so worried about the whole Darcy-going-back-home situation, I didn't really notice what everything looked like. Now, I realized this Professor guy was even richer than I'd anticipated: his townhouse was actually a four-store building, with marble floors, elegant antique furniture, and rare art.

In his desperation to leave the house immediately, believing we were in imminent danger, Darcy passed through many rooms I'd like to have explored; a library that smelled of old books, a smoking room that looked like it was furnished with pieces from Darcy's time, and an eighteenth-century French style golden and pink drawing room. He stopped abruptly in the hall, right in front of the main door.

"Mr. Darcy, Miss Estevez Brown. Good morning", the Professor wished us merrily, as if I was not in my underwear and Darcy was not shirtless and holding me with scary eyes. He was holding his cell phone against his ear, and a cigar between his fingers. He was standing in front of the door casually, in black sweatpants and red T-shirt. "I am truly sorry you didn't sleep well, but we need to–"

"Good morning to you too, sir", Darcy was already flushed, and his tone was colder than anytime he'd spoken to the Professor in the past. "Might I inquire how exactly you know we have not slept well?"

Had he seriously just asked the guy that? "The entire household heard how unwell you and Miss Estevez Brown slept, Mr. Darcy." Darcy had totally deserved that one from the Professor.

"I must ask you to be discreet, sir." He was as red as pepper now. How could Darcy be such a hypocrite?

"Darcy, are you serious?" I had to intervene. "Look at us! We're not in the position of demanding any discretion from the Professor!"

That's when Darcy realized what we were wearing. "Don't worry, lad", the Professor assured him. "You still have about half an hour to have a shower and get ready."

"Get ready?", I answered.

"Yes", He said calmly. "Travis has finally finished rebuilding the time travel machine. We're taking you there now, Mr. Darcy."

I could swear I felt a piece of my heart being ripped out.

♥

"Mr. Ethan Brown instructed us to give you letters for you to read once you were safely in the lab, Mr. Darcy", the Professor said from the front seat.

Darcy's head was somewhere else, and his heart was focused on the woman whose hand was enveloped in his. How could he go back to Pemberley, to his friends, to Georgiana, after everything he'd lived and done? How could he meet a woman now, get engaged with her, marry her, have children with her, if the woman he wanted to do all those things with was right by his side, in this century?

"Darcy?", Nat was looking at him with concern in her eyes. The first thing he saw that morning were those beautiful green eyes. He wished he could see them every morning. "Are you alright?" He shook his head at her; he was everything but fine.

"Do not worry, Mr. Darcy", the Professor was staring at him too from the front seat. His tone was much softer now. Darcy noticed the car had stopped in front of a mirrored building. "Ethan's instructions are very precise; they'll guide you through the process."

"Where are we?", Nathalie wanted to know. Two men in black and holding rifles approached their vehicle, and each opened a door.

"We're in one of my facilities. We're fifteen kilometers out of London. Or, to you Miss Nathalie, about ten miles." The Professor then left the car, and so did Nathalie, but Darcy remained where he was.

"Darcy?" Nathalie was holding back tears. It was clear she was hurting as much as he was. No. He could not do it.

"Mr. Darcy", the Professor took Nathalie's place by the backseat door. "I know you are having second guesses now, but you must return. You must go to February 13th, 1813."

The date got Darcy's attention. "1813? But when I left the nineteenth century, it was 1811. And I have been here for a couple of months only. How is it that I must return to 1813?"

Instead of answering right away, the Professor put something in Darcy's hand. Darcy stared at it and saw it was a letter. From Ethan. "Read it now", the Professor ordered, and closed the door of the vehicle.

Darcy observed him say something to Nathalie, then both of them walked toward the building, while their driver stood outside the car.

He read the letter and, as the Professor had promised, it did explain what he must do in great detail. He would have to leave Nathalie. He would have to go back to the nineteenth century.

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