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HERO WORSHIP
by Dawn Calvert
ISBN: 082178059X

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CHAPTER ONE

In the lonely hours of a Saturday night, with worn pink bunny slippers on her feet and a musty nineteenth-century book clutched in her hands, Andi found the man of her dreams.

True, Nathaniel Chamberlain, the hero of Wedgfeld Hall, existed only in fiction written almost two centuries in the past. But he beat every man she’d ever dated by a long shot.

She closed her eyes, picturing him. Nathaniel, standing with his arms crossed, snowy white cravat a stark contrast to his thick black hair and deep blue of the sky behind him. Breeches straining against well-honed, powerful leg muscles. Dark eyes, with flecks of green, that locked a woman in their commanding gaze, flickering with just a hint of vulnerability. 

Just the idea, the thought of him, caused her heart to skip a beat. The men she knew not only paled in comparison, they disappeared altogether.

But he wasn’t real. And she, gripping the book’s fragile pages until her knuckles whitened, was losing faith she’d ever find a living, breathing man who could come close to the fictional Nathaniel.

But that couldn’t be true…could it? She believed everyone had a soul mate, a perfect match. Somewhere. Waiting. Without the kind of love that would set her heart on fire, the world would be an ugly place. With it, there was hope for a life that really, truly mattered.

So if she believed so passionately in its possibilities, why in the hell did a loving, committed relationship fly past her like light rail running two hours late?

Heaving a sigh, Andi reached for another tissue, blowing her nose with a honk that made her cat blink with annoyance. Had to be a leftover reaction from Romeo and Juliet. She shouldn’t have watched that video again. Always made her cry.

She ran a reverent finger down the cover of the book. It had been a find. An 1810 first edition that had joined Andi’s fledgling rare book collection last week. So far, it had been worth every cent. In fantasy, if nothing else.

She stretched her body the full length of the couch and pulled the book onto her chest. Two chapters into the book and she already wanted nothing more than for Nathaniel Chamberlain, with the eyes that smoldered with promise and the heart that beat with the strength of beliefs fiercely held, to materialize in person. Sweep her into his arms. And spirit her far away.

A gentleman. Thrown into a desperate situation by the order of his birth and a responsibility he would not turn away from. Determined to do the right thing, no matter what it cost him. Ancestral home and family, above all else. Throw in manners, noble breeding, the hint of a rakish past and a barely-contained sexuality that leapt from the page and Andi’s heart was lost.

Her mother’s voice crept unbidden into her head. There you go, over-dramatizing again, Alexandra. Any minute now, you’ll take your bow and wait for the applause.

She punched a pillow and stuffed it behind her head. Right. Just like she’d “over-dramatized” when Tristan, the man of her mother’s dreams, left Andi, gowned in a Vera Wang to-die-for dress, standing at the altar after he’d whispered in her ear. And left. The pungent smell of roses still made her nauseous.

Quiet, mother. With a long, cleansing breath, Andi cleared all thoughts of that day from her mind and turned to the beginning of the third chapter.

When his eyes landed upon her, Catherine knew she should cast her own demurely down, but her gaze remained steadily upon him. He began to move toward her, weaving his way through ball guests with little regard for the meaningless courtesies required. Whispers followed him, though he turned not. He moved with a confidence she envied. At last he stood rigidly before her, proud chin defiantly high.

In that moment, she wanted very much to know if the rumors swirling about Mr. Chamberlain were true. Should they be proven accurate, she would be wise to disregard the thoroughly pleasing look of his face and the grave formality with which he bowed upon introduction to her. Much, it seemed, could drive even a reluctant man to make the offer she sensed hovering at his lips. Yet much could drive a woman, most particularly one in her position, to accept.

As if a woman would even have to think about it. Andi mentally elbowed the book’s heroine aside to imagine herself standing before Nathaniel, casting a seductive glance that would cause his eyes to widen and all thoughts of Catherine Havington to disappear.

She flung an arm across the back of the couch, fingers brushing a small object on the table. Tearing her eyes from the page, she picked it up, examining its opaque sheen by the light of the lamp. A wishing stone, the dealer had called it. He had thrown it in with the price of the book, admitting that he didn’t know what else to do with it.

A wishing stone. Just what every truly frustrated woman needed.

It felt smooth, except for one rough spot, which she rubbed against the tender side of her thumb as she turned back to read further. Nathaniel Chamberlain was being introduced to other guests.

“Mrs. Lofton-Hale,” Horatio Havington said, “and her daughter Alexandra.”

Mrs. Lofton–…and her daughter Alexan– Andi froze, staring at the page as the significance of the names began to sink in. Then she gasped and bolted upright. Read the words twice, and then three times. The black print blurred as she strained to read it again. It couldn’t be.

But there it was, her name. Alexandra Lofton-Hale. In a book written some 200 years ago. She laid her fingertips across her forehead, pressing hard.

She’d stayed up too long. Fantasized too much, until she could no longer separate reality from fiction. That had to be it. She looked sidelong at her watch. Midnight. She’d drifted half off to sleep and her imagination had taken over. Again.

She inhaled, sucking air through her nose until it stung, and stared at the page again.

“Mrs. Lofton-Hale,” Horatio Havington said, “and her daughter Alexandra.”

“Aahgggh!” Despite the empty wine glass next to her, she wasn’t anywhere near sleep. Maybe that was the problem. Her name, right there. Strange. Really strange.

No, scratch strange. It was bizarre. Freakish.

Andi juggled the book between hands before flinging both it and the stone to the other end of the couch. They hit the wooden arm, landing with a thud and then a ping.

“Coincidence,” she announced. “Happens all the time.” Blinking hard, she launched into the relaxation breathing she’d learned last year when she’d been called to the principal’s office for veering from the established high school English curriculum to have her students read Wuthering Heights. The breathing exercises hadn’t worked, but there was always a first time.

In. Count to four. Out. Count to four.

Her cat, Mr. Rochester, raised his head and blinked a question, while making it clear he didn’t care to know the answer. The clock in the kitchen ticked out a steady beat and outside, a siren wailed in the distance. After minutes that went on forever, Andi felt her heartbeat slow to a pace somewhere near normal. “Nothing to get worked up about.” She narrowed her eyes and, after a minute, snapped her fingers. “My mother!”

Hattie Hale, for as long as Andi could remember, had complained about the name birth and marriage had stuck her with. “Sounds like a woman with a single-wide and a washboard,” she’d say. “I made sure my daughter didn’t have the same problem.”

Her mother could have read Wedgfeld Hall before Andi’s birth. Decided that Alexandra Lofton-Hale sounded like a magnificent name. Of course, she’d never seen her mother, whose attention could barely be held by a short magazine article, pick up any novel, much less one from Jane Austen’s era. But nothing else made sense.

Andi sat down again, crossing and uncrossing her arms and tapping her toe, until, unable to stand it any longer, she made a grab for the book.

As she did, a piece of paper slipped from the back and fluttered to the floor. She picked it up, the touch of her hand on the thin surface revealing it was likely as old as the book. She caught her breath in anticipation, remembering the century-old love letter she’d found in the back of another of her rare finds. With great care, she turned the paper over and read, The sport of wishing in a precise, sloped handwriting. A guide for those so disposed.

If wishing were a sport, she’d take the gold medal. When Andi wished, she did it from the hair Joaquin cut to trendy perfection every month to the Pink Tanqini polish on her toes. No point in going halfway. All or nothing kept dreams alive.

The paper listed instructions. She threw her body across the couch, scooped up the stone and held it in the center of her right palm, as instructed. Next, it said, form a wish.

Could she ever.

Following the steps written in faded handwriting, she began to rub the stone with her left forefinger, in a circular motion, repeating the words a posse ad esse over and over again. Even though it seemed silly, a pinprick of hope began to push upward. She shook her head, trying to suppress it. A game, that’s all. But wouldn’t it be amazing if it actually could…

She’d begun formulating the wish deep into the first few pages of Wedgfeld Hall, even before she could give it words. Please. Let me meet a man like this, one I can love with every piece of my heart and soul. One who will love me back.

She rubbed harder.

Glancing down, she read the next step, which told her to voice her wish aloud and close her eyes when the stone began to heat. No problem there. This wish was coming from deep in her wounded heart, with all the passion of the awkward, bookish 15-year-old she’d once been, and the woman she wasn’t sure she’d ever become.

She could only hope that, when she’d given voice to the words and the stone again went cold in her hand, the letdown, irrational as it was, wouldn’t send a bad night spiraling downward. Her mother had told her twice today there was no sadder sight than a woman her age with no grandchildren. The eyes of Andi’s male students had glazed over during her discussion of Pride and Prejudice and she’d had to stop pretending they were actually reading the book and not finding summaries on the Internet.

And her blind date for the evening, not that she’d ever speak to that friend again, had shown up late, bored and expecting her to drool over him and his Lexus. Not exactly Prince Charming.

She closed her eyes and lifted her chin, saying the words again, a posse ad esse, this time in a singsong chant. “I wish,” she said aloud, with all the projection and articulation she’d been taught by her high school drama teacher, “to become Alexandra Lofton-Hale in the book Wedgfeld Hall. To, for once in my life, meet a man like Nathaniel Chamberlain.” Then she held her breath.

Nothing. The sound of muffled voices in the hallway, a door closing. But in her apartment, nothing but the familiar ache of disappointment. She let go of her breath, squeezed her eyes tight and forced her eyes open, where they landed on the stack of ungraded papers she’d been ignoring all evening. Come on. Even she knew better than to pin her hopes on something called a wishing stone.

In the next instant, a loud pop sounded on her right, accompanied by a deafening, whirring rush of air. Her head jerked backward. A second later, she was knocked off the couch and sent flying through the air, feet first. Darkness, streaked with razors of light, surrounded her. She couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

Earthquake? End of the world? The rush of noise knotted her stomach in fear and panic shot through her with a fury as she hurtled into the blackness. She tried to stretch her arms to find something to hang onto, anything that could stop the missile her body had turned into, but they remained glued to her side, as helpless as every other part of her. Once again, her eyes closed.

And then, just as suddenly, quiet. Followed by the silvery strain of music in her ears. Her body righted itself. She heard people’s voices. Not frightened, not worried, but… conversational. Feminine, against a background of…violins?

She was standing, her feet pinched, as though they were shoved into shoes a size too small. Andi opened one eye slowly, carefully, terrified of what she might see. Her apartment in shambles? An alien demanding to be taken to her master?

Ummm…not quite. Instead, voices, strings playing and the swish of elegant fabrics surrounding her in a dimly lit room. She opened the other eye. Candles everywhere, warm and glowing, their wicks leaping with flame.

This isn’t happening, isn’t real. You’re dreaming, Andi.

Her eyes widened at the sight of the man standing before her. Tall. Muscular. Thick, black hair with a hint of a wave. A gaze so heart-stoppingly sensual, she’d know him anywhere. Nathaniel Chamberlain.

Right then, she was pretty certain, her heart did stop. Or at least stumbled and skipped a few beats.

“Miss Lofton-Hale, are you unwell?” he asked in the most formal of clipped tones.

Unwell? Her chin dropped and her shoulders pulled themselves into a hunched, submissive position. “Not at all, sir. Thank you.” The words weren’t hers, but they came from her mouth, spoken straight to the floor.

She wanted to fawn wordlessly all over him, to drape her arms across him and revel in how much she loved this dream, but her tightly held body seemed to prevent any such movement. Not only that, but where had those words come from? Not at all, sir? Spoken with an accent that didn’t come from growing up in the Northwest.

Heat rose in her cheeks. With difficulty, Andi raised a hand to touch her face and felt a tendril of hair curling against it. But her hair, stick straight from birth, didn’t curl. Not even the time Joaquin had tried his hardest to give her a Sarah Jessica Parker look. This soft, apparently obedient hair didn’t belong on her head. She gave the tendril a yank, which turned out to be a mistake when her scalp reacted in pain and her head flew up.

“Miss Lofton-Hale?” He leaned in.

His voice. Low and utterly masculine. Each syllable perfectly placed. Yes. This was a dream to hold onto. With any luck, she’d sleep right through the sound of the morning paperboy and keep on going. Forget her class, her students. She’d be late.

“One moment, sir.” Again with the accent. She raised a forefinger to ask for his patience while she worked up the courage to glance down. A dress of gold, made of silk, so long that it draped in folds from her body to sweep the floor. Cut so high that it flowed from under her breasts, but so low it left her cleavage clearly visible. A graceful, elegant gown, just as she imagined herself wearing every night she became so immersed in a Regency-era book, she lost all track of time. Hold on. Something wasn’t quite right. Cleavage? This dress must come with a Wonder bra.

Her eyes moved to the gloves covering her elbows. Like the smoothest of suede, but lighter. Wrapping her arms in gentle softness, they made her feel delicate, dainty, as though she were a lady of refinement, a–

A subtle clearing of a masculine throat from above her. Her eyes darted back up to Nathaniel and then to her right, where she met the clearly displeased gaze of an older woman. “Alexandra,” the woman said, dragging the last syllable between clenched teeth.

“Please,” Andi said, “Forgive me. I fear I did feel a bit unwell, for a moment.” Her face smiled all by itself, though she could feel the corners of her mouth twitching nervously. If this kept up, she might collapse in a heap at Nathaniel’s feet, which wouldn’t be the best way to make a first impression.

Unless, of course….he knew CPR.

In. Count to four. Out. Count to five. No, four. Um…five. So much for the breathing.

Whose words kept falling out of her mouth? And there went her shoulders again, drawn in so tight that her breath began to come in gasps. Much more of this and she’d have a permanent hunch.

“Perhaps you wish to be seated.” Sensuously full lips parted to show white, even teeth. Those details hadn’t been mentioned in the book, at least so far. She must be adding them in as the dream progressed. And doing a fairly good job of it.

“No need. Thank you, sir,” she whispered. Interesting response, Andi thought, as though observing from a distance. Now when do I get to talk?

The woman at her side piped in. “My daughter has not yet had the chance to dance, sir. It would most assuredly be a welcome diversion.”

Daughter? Andi’s head whipped around in surprise. How odd that she would dream a different mother for herself. Hattie had her moments, but she was at least a known quantity. She stared at the woman, who quirked an eyebrow at her in some unknown, but seemingly obvious, signal. Andi tried to frown, but her face wouldn’t cooperate.

Well, that’s how it goes with dreams, she decided. No control. And she was bound to wake up again soon, this great fantasy fading into her unconsciousness, the details frustratingly unreachable by day. She turned back to the man, straining with every part of her being to throw him the innocent, but mischievous gaze that had first caught the attention of Carlos, the espresso stand barista with the beautiful eyes.

Of course, Carlos had turned out to be gay, dashing that hope. About the luck she had when she tried to get dates on her own, which was something Carlos loved to tease her about every time he’d seen her since.

After some effort and an exorcist-like battle with her face muscles, she succeeded in throwing him some kind of gaze.

Nathaniel Chamberlain’s skeptical expression began to fade, replaced by a slow smile that more than hinted at interest.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Anticipation began rippling up her spine.

Then he froze in place.

The music stopped, dancers halting mid-step and all conversation grinding to a stop. Andi wrenched her gaze from Nathaniel to lift an eyebrow at the woman claiming to be her mother. “Again,” the woman said in a low voice, rolling her eyes.

“What’s happening?” Andi whispered. She pulled her shoulders up straight, relief flowing through her body as her muscles unlocked.

Nathaniel shot her a look. “She is wrapped in thought.”

She. He said it as though she should know. Andi allowed a beat to pass before venturing, “Who?”

“Louisa,” he said with an edge to his voice. “We must remain quiet.”

“Quiet,” Andi repeated. Everyone appeared to be obeying that dictate, though she thought she heard a toe or two tap against the floor. From across the dance floor, someone coughed. This Louisa must carry a lot of weight, she thought. Louisa? Wait a minute. Did he mean…?

“Louisa Rawlings?” she hissed. The author of Wedgfeld Hall? Now she wasn’t speaking with a British accent and her facial muscles had relaxed. She tried smiling, just to be sure. Much better.

Instead of answering, he raised one hand in the air in a signal everyone seemed to understand, even before he spoke. “She has closed her desk.” Heads nodded all around. “Until tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow?” Andi’s voice came out with a squeak. This dream looked like it might be ending. Not without her okay, thank you very much. One hand shot up to jam itself on her hip as she prepared to demand an explanation. From the woman, though, not Nathaniel, whose very presence, so close to her, had her stomach doing somersaults.

“When she resumes her writing.” His hand reached out to touch Andi’s gloved arm, his gaze intrigued, as though she were a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out. “Then we shall see what events transpire.”

She struggled for a response, hurtling herself into his strong arms not seeming entirely appropriate under the circumstances. What would that body of his feel like with her legs wrapped around his waist, what would those lips feel like on her–?

Eyes glued to his face, she watched as amusement played around his mouth. Then he dropped his hand back to his side and turned away.

The brush of his fingers on her arm had been so quick. Not even skin to skin. Yet, it set off a reaction that had every one of her nerve endings standing up and paying attention. She flushed with embarrassment, right before fear shot through her that he might be leaving her dream. For good. “Wait!” She couldn’t let him get away.

He had already begun to stride across the hall. The woman at Andi’s side laid a firm hand on her elbow, pulling her back. “Come. We must retire to our rooms.” She pointed across the emptying ballroom. “Our bedchambers are in this wing.”

“But I– He–” She broke off, taking in the woman’s arched brow and the cool steel of her expression. A warm motherly type, she wasn’t. All right. So Andi would play along for now, but just until she could make a break for it and finish this dream up right.

The woman gave a small jerk of her chin and moved away, clearly expecting Andi to follow. After a moment, she did so, her chin high, dress swishing pleasantly around her ankles. People who had been dancing only moments ago spoke quietly to each other as they put on wraps and disappeared through the hallways. Plates of food were whisked away by servants, their heads bowed. In a corner of the vast room, musicians put away their instruments.

An invisible curtain had dropped in the middle of a scene, to a silent theater. And no one appeared to think it at all strange. Through an open door, she could hear the whinnying of horses and the sound of carriage wheels crunching on a road. The chill of night air floated in from a doorway, sending goosebumps up the exposed parts of her arms.

The woman led her through the door and down a darkened corridor before walking quickly up a flight of stairs. Andi had to grab a fistful of dress to lift the hem high enough that she could follow. On they went, through a series of twists and turns.  Just when Andi decided she should have grabbed some bread to scatter crumbs, the woman stopped, midway down a narrow hall. “This is where you shall sleep,” she announced, pointing at a wooden door.

Enough, already. She didn’t even let her real mother order her around. Well, most of the time, anyway. “Who are you?” Andi longed to wrap her arms around Nathaniel, instead of wasting valuable dream time on a mom wannabe.

The woman frowned. “Annabelle Lofton-Hale. Your mother.”

“Right.” Annabelle was a fairly melodic name for someone who looked as though she spent her spare time sucking lemons.

“Be certain you have your rest,” Annabelle advised. “Tomorrow may be most tiring.”

Tomorrow. Interesting concept. Andi drew her brows together. “Why?”

“She writes extraordinarily fast in the mornings. Or that has been my experience previously. It can be quite taxing to keep up.” She shook her head. “And the changes.” Eyes turning heavenward, she added, “They can come just as quickly.”

“I see.” She didn’t. But hey, it was a dream. “Guess I’ll just…” She pointed at the door. “…get some rest, then.”

The woman nodded approval and turned away, moving down the hall with a grace that defied her rigid bearing. She disappeared around a turn without even a glance back.

Alone. Andi turned her gaze to the floor, the door and then down the hallway. She had only one thing to do. Find Nathaniel Chamberlain. Just once before she left this dream, she wanted that man to kiss her. In a heart-stopping embrace that would tell her there was nothing wrong with holding out for a man who would make her toes curl. That such a man really could exist. If she had to end up an old lady surrounded by cats, she wanted a memory, even one she invented herself, to hang on to.

Of course, it might not actually be a dream. There was that wishing stone. She had made a wish. A big one. What if that stone really could…

Who was she kidding. Even she wouldn’t be so dramatic as to think something called a wishing stone could transport her back some 200 years, dropping her in the middle of the story of a relatively obscure author.

Drama, she knew. Tragedy, she had at least a passing acquaintance with. Fantasy that smacked of science fiction? Not so much.

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