“She’s not here, and she hasn’t gone home, either. You’re not in the time you first left from.” He ran his hand over his face and continued. “It’s ten years in the future from then. Emma’s time, remember?”
“Ah, so you didn’t return,” Ashford mused, then it hit him what he’d been told. “But why am I here? The spell was working so well. I thought I was following Matilda.”
“If the condition you were in is any indication of whatever spell you were using working, then I’d have to disagree with you,” Dexter said. “Was it the one Liam used to get Emma back all those years ago?” He squeezed Emma’s hand and they exchanged a look as if they shared a secret, but Ashford didn’t have time for their gooey displays.
“Liam!” he burst out. “Can you contact him or is he off traveling? He can figure out what went wrong with my spell. I swear she’d been to the last two times it took me to. I thought I was on the right track.”
Dexter looked down and shook his head. He dropped Miss Saito’s hand and moved closer. “Liam passed on last year.” He blinked a few times and perked up. “Wait, what years have you been to?”
“The first was some time in the 1920s, and the second was 1644, why?” He felt he should take a moment to mourn Liam’s passing, but he’d seen the man a few days ago, and if he ever got home, he was quite sure he’d still be there to plague him for using the untested spell.
Ashford wanted out of this place and time, clearly a wrong turn of some sort. If he had to start fresh, at the beginning of the maddening cycle, he would. He only had to figure out what had gone wrong.
“If that’s what you mean by your spell working, then it isn’t broken, mate. You are still following her. She was here up until a week ago.”
Before anyone could stop him, he yanked the tubes out of his arms again, and thrust his legs from beneath the blankets. He didn’t bother to think about Miss Saito’s modesty as he strode across the room in search of his clothes. Or, at least he attempted to stride. He hobbled three feet and nearly blacked out. He stood still, trying to pretend he was fine, but Dexter took him by the arm and shoved him back to the bed.
“Will you stop that?” he cried. “It only makes extra work for the nurses, and doesn’t do you a lick of good.”
“A week ago?” Ashford asked, his equilibrium returning as his heart sank. He’d been so close. “You saw her? Why did you let her leave?”
Miss Saito’s face paled. “She wanted to try and get back to you, and, well, the situation seemed dire, so I helped her.”
“But she was safe here,” he said pitifully. “She must have thought I wouldn’t look for her. I sent Thomas out the moment I realized what she’d done—”
“We saw him too,” Dexter told him. “Just a few days before Tilly came through. She had this theory the portal was on a new schedule and that she might catch up with him.”
“That portal is well and truly buggered,” Ashford said. At that moment the nurse scurried in, about to scold him, but he gave her such a glare that she retreated. He knew she’d be back with reinforcements and now that he had proof his spell did what he wanted it to, he needed to try again. “Find me my clothes,” he begged. “Or give me yours, but I must get back to the house and go again.”
“Are you mad, Ashford? You had internal bleeding, but no one could figure out why. Your blood pressure was less than half what it should have been. At least seven doctors from different hospitals came to check you out, just out of curiosity. That right there says something is seriously wrong with you.”
“The spell has side effects,” he grumbled, finally locating his clothes in a rumpled plastic bag.
It looked like they’d been laundered, but not well, and there were brown blotches where the blood hadn’t washed out. No matter. In this time they were as far out of style as to make everyone think he was a bit touched, so what were a few stains added to it?
“It damn near killed you,” Dexter hissed. “Emma, run and get the doctor before he escapes.”
Ashford snaked out his hand and grabbed Miss Saito’s wrist, bobbing his head in apology. He looked hard at Dexter. “Can you tell me with all certainty that Matilda is in no danger?” he asked. He didn’t want to worry him with the visions he’d seen from the scrying spell.
Dexter swallowed and shook his head. “I don’t know that,” he admitted.
“Then I must go.”
Miss Saito make a sad squeak, and he squeezed her hand.
“Ah, bloody hell,” Dexter grumbled. “Em, go distract them, if you can. I’ll help Sir Stubborn Arse get dressed.”
“Lord,” Ashford corrected as he pulled on his shirt. “Lord Stubborn Arse.”
Chapter 24
The suite of rooms Tilly was led to was nicely furnished, though a little dusty, with plush armchairs, a large bed dressed in a soft, satiny cover, thick rugs, and an ornately carved fireplace, all set up with logs and ready to be lit. She burned with further rage that she’d waltzed right into this trap. The man who’d shown her to her new abode was polite enough, but she could tell he was one of Nick’s new recruits to the order. He was burly and dressed rather showily, gold winking off his neckcloth and cuffs, and she wondered if he’d come from another time as well, swayed by Nick’s charisma and looking to gain riches from the powers he had.
“We’re finding you a maid, Your Majesty,” he said, the honorific dripping with sarcasm. Yes, he was clearly in on the scheme, and knew she wasn’t the real deal. “Unfortunately, when you disappeared, your old servant went back to her family.”
Tilly imagined Ariana’s previous maid would know instantly she wasn’t her, and should have been grateful for someone to help her, but she knew the girl would only be a spy for Nick and impede her escape plan. If she could come up with one.
“I want to see Thomas Adkins,” she said. “I don’t care about a maid.”
“I shall inform Sir Amos of your wishes, Your Majesty,” he told her, all but rolling his eyes.
She ran to the door as soon as he was gone, but as she’d expected it was locked tight. She managed to pry a window open but it was over a thirty foot drop onto what looked like some extremely thorny bushes and the nearest tree branch was further away than she could ever hope to jump. Still, not wanting to lapse into despair, she kept the window open and paced around, inspecting the two room suite for anything that might be useful.
There wasn’t anything that would make a good weapon, but she found a drawer full of ribbons and a few brooches, and she sat down hard on the small vanity bench.
Had these things been Ariana’s? She rummaged around in the drawer, also pulling out a small silver hand mirror and a clam shell. She turned the nobbly shell over in her hand, thinking what an odd thing it was to keep, but it reminded her of California. The inside was gilded and a tiny pearl was embedded near the top, and she gasped at its loveliness. So plain and dull on one side and decadently pretty on the other. If it truly had been Ariana’s, her daughter’s, she wondered where she’d found such a thing.
She had the oddest sensation holding it, and prayed she’d get to know the as yet unborn girl. A tear trickled down her nose and landed with a splat on the rich, burnished gilding, as she thought of her unfair demise.
Swiping away the tear, she dug deep for her anger. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let Nick get away with murder. Not her child, not anyone. A sharp knock at the door made her nearly topple off the dainty bench, and she took a quick look in the mirror to make sure she didn’t look as desolate as she felt.
The jerk who’d brought her to these rooms stuck his head in before she called out and she wanted to reprimand him, do something queenly to take him down a peg, but he merely shoved Thomas through the door and barked that they should keep it short.
As soon as he retreated, she flew at Thomas, twisting his head between her hands and inspecting for injuries. “What have they done to you?” she demanded, finding a fresh bruise near his eye.
“It’s of no consequence,” he whis
pered, then raised his voice to say loudly, “It’s terrible, Miss Jacobs. I’m so scared.” He made a face and pulled her far from the door. “I think that Rugbert out there, or whatever he’s called, is listening,” he told her in a low voice, once again raising it to practically holler, “You must do what they say, please.”
“What’s going on?” she whispered, not sure if she was supposed to yell out anything, having zero clue what to yell if she was.
Thomas grinned so broadly, his glasses went askew. “When I learned yesterday that you’d found this place and were coming here, at first I thought all was lost, but then I had this brilliant idea.” He sighed and motioned for her to wait a second, moving closer to the door to wail, “Miss Jacobs, if you’ll only pretend to be the queen a bit longer …” He tiptoed back over to her and continued in a hushed tone. “I’m a double agent.”
“Yes, I can see that,” she whispered, throwing herself into the fray and saying in a blustery voice, “How can you be saying these things to me, Thomas?” She shrugged at him and he gave her an approving nod. “They think you’re working with them now?” she asked low.
“Yes, I made them think I was sick and tired of the way Lord Ashford treated me, and it seems I might have had a bit of pent-up frustration about it, because I was quite convincing.”
She stifled a laugh, and made a mental promise to make Ashford be nicer to this sweet and innocent boy if they got out of here and managed to find their way home again. The thought that she might be killed by the same man who murdered her daughter, the daughter she hadn’t yet had, made her queasy and weak at the knees.
“Why, Thomas?”
“That Nicholas Kerr is a bad person, Miss Jacobs. He needs to be stopped.”
She nodded grimly. “Yes, he all but admitted to killing the real queen. And all for a bit of riches.” She clenched her fists at her sides, but Thomas shook his head.
“It’s not just for money, he wants to try and change history. He wants to put himself in a powerful position. I guess being consort to the ruler of a small order like this gave him a taste for it.”
“I do want to stop him, but I think we should concentrate on getting out first of all.”
Once again he shook his head. “There’s no way of it, believe me. There’s not only guards at all times, but there’s hexes, too. The original members of the order don’t think Mr. Kerr should be their ruler, but his minions outnumber them, and they’re violent and cruel. They know the truth about the real queen but don’t care at all. The ones who were faithful to her won’t leave the order because they believed in her vision, which was to help people.” He took a breath. He was whispering so fast, his lips were drying out. “So, he’s been having trouble with the original members, who aren’t greedy criminals and blackhearted rogues. But they’re still powerful witches, and they’re hindering his efforts. He thinks if their queen is back and suddenly has a change of heart, wants to do things his way, they’ll either come around or lose faith and finally leave. He doesn’t care which.”
“I don’t know, Thomas, this seems wrong,” she bellowed toward the door, worried they didn’t have much time left. He loudly begged her some more to be agreeable, and then fake sobbed that he was afraid they’d hurt him if she wasn’t.
He pointed to the bruise near his eye. “This was meant to help convince you,” he told her.
“But what’s the point of me pretending?” Her throat was getting sore from all the whispering.
“I need to find a way to speak privately with one of the faithful members, tell them the truth about the queen’s murder, and Kerr’s true intentions to tamper with history. They’re against using their magic to harm anyone but I think that might make them angry enough to do it.”
“It would only be justice,” Tilly hissed vehemently. “Okay, I’ll go along with things, and buy you some time, but you need to hustle. I didn’t like the way Nick looked at me earlier, like I was a nice braised lamb chop.”
Thomas shuddered. “I’ll do my best, I swear it. Now that they trust me, at least a little, I should have a bit more freedom to move around the manor. I know who I want to speak with, so let us hope I can get near him, and that he’ll believe me.”
“Yes, let us hope,” she muttered.
They argued loudly for another moment before the jerk threw open the door. He grabbed Thomas by the arm and yanked him out, pushing him roughly ahead of him.
“Don’t you hurt him,” she shouted, wishing she had something solid and heavy to throw. She made a mental note to search under the bed for a chamber pot for next time.
“No harm will come to him, if you do what you’re told,” he said, slamming the door on his way out.
She paced a bit to shake off her nerves and anger, then sat back down at the vanity table. She wrapped her fingers around the golden shell, finding it helped calm her, and waited to see what her first order of queenly business would be.
Chapter 25
Ashford slumped across the bed and gusted out a surprised proclamation at how hard it was. It looked so luxurious, covered in layers of rich blankets and pillows that he was shocked that there was little more than a board under it all. Miss Saito apologized awkwardly.
“We decorated the room to be able to show VIP patrons because the board of directors refused to understand why it needed to stay unused. But we mostly just used old junk we didn’t have another place for and tarted it up to look nice.”
“It’s wise to keep people out of it as much as you can,” he agreed tiredly.
Dexter had gone round to find him the items he needed for his spell. He supposed when they’d taken him to hospital they’d thrown away the remaining bits and bobs he’d still had left. It was going to take a while to find some of the things, and as impatient as he was, Ashford knew he could still use some rest. Apparently three solid days of sleeping hadn’t been enough.
He didn’t want to admit, even to himself, that it wasn’t only the effects of the spell that were wearing him down. It was the supreme effort it took to be able to do it in the first place. The scrying spells had made him feel like he’d run for hours uphill, and this one was far more difficult. The exhaustion and residual pain made him feel close to hopeless, and since he didn’t have anything to do for the moment but wait, he gave himself over to it.
Miss Saito chatted nervously, but he barely heard her. A few agreeable sounding grunts here and there seemed to appease her and he found himself drifting off into a waking dream interspersed with dark bursts of color and Matilda marching regally down a hall, holding a sceptre of all things. It made his head ache terribly but he was happy to see glimpses of her, even though he knew in the part of his mind that still worked properly that it wasn’t real.
It could have been minutes or hours later when Miss Saito pushed a foil wrapped bar at him, urging him to try and eat it. His stomach rebelled at the thought of good tasting food, and it positively recoiled at the grainy vanilla flavored hunk, but he forced down a few bites. It actually made him feel a bit better and he managed to sit up.
“Is this going to work?” she asked, her eyes anxiously inspecting him.
“Yes,” he said simply. To his great surprise, a relieved smile spread over her face.
“Very well.” She nodded, looking more relieved when Dexter slid into the room, his arms loaded with packages.
“I got you a lot of choices since I forgot to ask if the herbs were dried or fresh,” he said. “You probably won’t need half this stuff, but when I finally found goat hearts I had to buy in bulk.” He looked at Miss Saito and grinned sheepishly. “They gave me a recipe that doesn’t sound half bad for the extras.”
“Thank you for helping me,” Ashford said, feeling a tightness in his throat. If they did something forward like hug him, he didn’t know what he would do. Fortunately, they held themselves in check, but tears welled in their eyes.
“We’re going to need to see you again,” Dexter said, with a false edge of threat to his voice. “You an
d Tilly both. Godspeed.”
At that speech, Miss Saito burst into tears, gave him a quick squeeze on the shoulder and fled the room. Dexter looked after her fondly and Ashford felt a pang of fear that he may never get to look fondly at Matilda again.
“I will continue until I find her,” Ashford told him. “Or until it kills me.”
“I vote for finding her,” Dexter said. “But do be careful. You really were quite close to shuffling off this mortal coil.”
“Go on, then.” Ashford shooed him toward the door. “Let’s not say goodbye, shall we?”
Dexter nodded, looked pained, and finally left. Ashford heard the click of the bolt turning and his muffled footsteps as as he strode down the hall.
He dreaded doing the spell. Already his muscles ached and he felt weary to his bones. Besides the items he needed, there was a foul looking green drink that promised energy renewal, and a small pile of the protein bars people in Matilda’s time couldn’t seem to live without. He cracked open the drink and drained the can, grimacing at the taste, which was just as bad as he assumed it would be. He needed all the help he could get to succeed. Each time it had got a little harder, wearing him down a little more. If he ended up in the same condition as when he’d arrived in this time, but no one to help him, would he die alone on this very bedroom floor?
“Good God, man,” he told himself, disgusted at his hysterical musings. Matilda had always been brave, ridiculously so, and he needed to think of her now. Only her.
He started the spell, and within moments he felt the grinding pain that seemed to want to obliterate his insides. A few drops of blood fell from his nose onto the herbs and he shrugged, thinking it was rather funny that he needed blood at that precise moment anyway. He spoke the words without having to refer to his crumpled paper, ignoring the fact that it got harder to breathe. He wheezed out the last of the incantation, clutching at his chest, but unable to get a breath.
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