Timeless (A Time Travel Romance)

by Jasmine Cresswell

  “I assume that you chose to identify the rebel,” Captain Bretton said.

  “You assume far too much, Captain.” William strolled across the nursery and took up a position near the fire before turning around.

  “The Jacobite rebel has died,” he said, his voice flat. “Your men wish for instructions on where they should take the body.”

  “You did not identify him?” The captain spoke sharply.

  “Alas, he had been tortured and flayed well past the point of recognition.” William drew out his snuffbox and inhaled briefly. “You should encourage the men under your command to moderate their enthusiasm for brutality, Captain. With more finesse and less savagery, you might have been able to coerce from me the identification that you apparently crave.

  Robyn didn’t fully understand the conversation, but she saw Captain Bretton’s nostrils flare in anger, and knew he had badly wanted William to identify the prisoner. He spoke stiffly. “Bravely spoken, my lord, but I am not deceived by your pretense of indifference. I know that the presence of my troops strikes fear into the depths of your soul—”

  William yawned. “Forgive me, Captain. It is late, and I am sure your... eloquence... has a point?”

  Captain Bretton flushed. “Indeed it has. I know that your brother has not yet made good his escape to France and I offer you a warning, my lord. Do not be tempted into assisting him to a safe harbor, for he cannot succeed in escaping my grasp. And if you are caught aiding and abetting a traitor, not only will your brother lose his head, but you will risk imprisonment, and your estates will be forfeit to the Crown.”

  William looked up from contemplation of the design on his snuffbox. He spoke softly. “Do you dare to threaten me, Captain Bretton?”

  The captain swung on his heel. “No, my lord, I make a simple statement of fact. The law is on my side, and this time, I shall win.”

  “Ah.” William closed his snuffbox with a single, elegant flick of his left hand. “So that is what this is all about, Captain. I have long suspected as much. Alas, I believe you will discover that some battles cannot be refought. Once lost, they are lost forever.”

  “I do not understand you, my lord.”

  William’s lips twisted into a small, tight smile. “The Lady Arabella is my wife,” he said.

  Giving the captain no opportunity to reply, William turned to Robyn and inclined his head in a slight bow. “My lady, I will return to you shortly, as soon as I have escorted Captain Bretton and his minions off the premises.”

  “I will eagerly await your return, my lord.” Robyn looked straight into William’s eyes, offering him reassurance that she sensed he needed. He returned her gaze with apparent coolness. Then, for a moment, his composure cracked, and she saw the roiling volcano of emotions seething behind his calm facade.

  She had always suspected that William was a man of tightly controlled emotions rather than a man immune to passion. Nevertheless, the glimpse behind the mask was almost shocking in the intensity of feeling it revealed. Captain Bretton would consider such intensity a weakness to be exploited, and she realized that William was desperate to get rid of the man before his composure finally unraveled.

  She turned quickly to the captain and sketched a perfunctory curtsy. “Good-bye, Captain Bretton. I am sure you must be anxious to report your triumph in capturing a Jacobite rebel. What a pity you did not manage to preserve him alive, in all his ferocity.”

  Her sarcasm did not sit well with the captain. He swept her an elaborate bow, his cheeks mottled with suppressed anger. “Let us say au revoir rather than good-bye, my lady. We shall meet again in the very near future, I promise you.”

  “Shall we? Oh, dear, I do hope not.” She smiled sweetly, then turned her back with ostentatious disdain, busying herself with picking up the covers from Zach’s cradle. She didn’t turn around again until the sounds of the captain’s departure had faded completely from earshot.

  Annie emerged from the dark corner where she had been cowering during the entire search. She held out her hands for the baby, shaking her head as she took him. “‘Tweren’t wise to taunt the captain, my lady. He do be a cruel, hard man. I’m afeared you have made yourself a right dangerous enemy.”

  “Perhaps. But friend or foe, I don’t think Captain Bretton can be trusted.”

  “Mebbe not, but ‘tis best not to annoy him, my lady. There’s no knowing what he might do if he gets angry. Beats his own men something horrible, he does, if they doesn’t jump to his orders the minute he gives ‘em. And Lord knows what terrible things he does to those poor hungry Jacobites he chases up hill and down dale. Hates Jacobites does Captain Bretton, hates them something fierce.”

  Clemmie started to cry. “I don’t want the captain to hurt my uncle Zachary. You is not a Jackbite, Mamma, is you?”

  “No, sweetheart, I promise you I am not a Jacobite, nor will I ever be. Their cause is entirely lost, anyway.”

  “Is Uncle Zachary a Jackbite?”

  “He is in France, sweetheart.” Robyn spoke with spurious confidence. “We don’t have to worry about Uncle Zachary.”

  With the lightning swiftness typical of a three-year-old, Clemmie decided to be consoled. She stopped crying and snuggled down beneath her thick wool blankets and starched linen counterpane. She wriggled around for a few minutes, then her eyes closed and she gave a few little snuffling snorts as she drifted off to sleep.

  The twins, more scared by the soldiers’ invasion than they cared to admit, volunteered to sleep in the nursery where they could “protect” Clemmie and baby Zach. Realizing that they wanted the comfort of Annie’s presence, not to mention the reassuring light of the coal fire and the oil lamp that burned permanently on the nursery mantel, Robyn helped them to bring the feather mattress from their bed, and set up a makeshift sleeping arrangement on the floor. Burrowing into the plump mattress, the twins curled up top to tail in front of the fire.

  George gave her a grateful smile as she knelt to tuck them in. “Thank you, Mamma. Freddie and me will take good care of Clemmie and Zach.”

  “That’s wonderful news, I’m grateful for your help.” Robyn patted his cheek, then leaned across to pull Freddie’s nightcap down over his ears. The bitter drafts slicing in around the window and beneath the door meant that nightcaps were almost a necessity. If the fire went out during the night, the air would be cold and damp enough to give the children frostbite. Robyn was beginning to appreciate why Annie and the other servants were always so anxious to have Zach swaddled in multiple layers of silk and wool. The danger of a newborn dying of hypothermia in the vast, drafty rooms of Starke must be significant.

  William returned to the nursery just as Robyn was getting up from the floor. He walked over to her side and, without speaking, extended his hands. Unaccountably self-conscious, she accepted his silent offer of help and got quickly to her feet.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. “With these hoops and petticoats, kneeling down is much easier than standing back up. Have the soldiers gone?”

  “Yes, but I have no doubt Captain Bretton will return as soon as he can think up an acceptable excuse.”

  “He is a brutal, cruel man.”

  “You did not always think so.”

  “But we have agreed, haven’t we, that my opinions about a lot of things have changed since the accident.”

  He didn’t answer her directly. His gaze flicked from the twins to Clemmie to Zach and the nurse. Anywhere, in fact, save toward her. “You indicated that you wished to speak with me, my lady,” he said at last.

  “Yes, I think we have a lot to discuss. Shall we go to my bedroom?”

  “Why not?” His gaze finally met hers. The vulnerability he had let her see earlier was entirely gone. Now she saw only cynicism, tinged with weariness.

  She was frustrated by his determination to keep the barriers so firmly in place between them, and she hastened to correct any mistaken impression he might have gleaned. “I suggested my room because it will be warm. Mary always
keeps the fire burning in there, and it seems especially cold tonight.”

  “There is a hard frost,” he agreed, his voice as chilly as the temperature.

  Robyn recognized that William was desperately backtracking from his moment of self-revelation, so she restrained her irritation. Nodding to Annie, she walked briskly out of the nursery. “Good night, Annie. Please bring Zach to me as soon as he wakes up in the morning.”

  “Aye, my lady. Like always. Good night, my lady.”

  William followed her into the corridor, closing the door behind him. “You must have spent more time in the nursery in the weeks since your accident than you had spent in our entire marriage prior to that time.”

  “You sound as if you are making an accusation,” she said. “What are you condemning? The fact that I now spend too much time in the nursery, or the fact that I previously spent too little?”

  There was an infinitesimal pause, and then she saw William’s mouth curve into a wry, self-mocking smile. “You underestimate my perversity, my lady. In my present mood, I am quite capable of condemning you for both.”

  She answered his smile. “How provoking of you to be so honest. You make it absurdly difficult for me to quarrel with you.”

  “For tonight I believe I would be grateful not to quarrel.”

  Robyn looked up at him. “The soldiers... in the barn... was it very bad what they were doing?” She hadn’t known what she was going to ask until the words were spoken, but she had sensed some time ago that William was being rubbed raw by the events of the night.

  His reply seemed to come from a great distance. “I realized at once who it was they had captured,” he said. “I recognized the crest on his signet ring.” His mouth tightened. “God knows, his face had long since been beaten past recognition.”

  “Was it... was it someone you knew well?”

  “Yes, an old friend.” William stopped, then swung around so that they were face-to-face. “It was Harry Dalrymple.”

  “Harry Dalrymple?” She repeated the name, trying to place it. Then she remembered that on the night of her attempted escape from Starke she had heard the stablehands discussing the Dalrymple family and their ill-fated support of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Putting a name to the Jacobite rebel added poignancy to the horror of his end.

  “But how can that be?” she asked, shocked. “I thought he had already died on the battlefields of Culloden!”

  William stopped in midstride. He turned and grabbed her arm, dragging her out of the hallway and into the nearest room, which she realized was his bedroom. But he gave her no chance to look around this previously forbidden stretch of territory. He frog-marched her to the fire and held her tightly by the shoulders, staring deep into her eyes.

  “Enough is enough, Arabella. We have played foolish games for too long. I demand that you tell me the truth. What led you to suppose that Harry Dalrymple had died at Culloden, when the rest of the world believed that he had escaped safely to the Stuart court in France?”

  “There is no need for you to sound so accusatory,” she said hotly. “Why do you always leap to the worst possible conclusion? I simply overheard two of the grooms talking about the Dalrymple family, that’s all. They were trying to decide who had paid a fine levied on the Dalrymple family—” She broke off. “Good Lord, that was you, wasn’t it? You paid the Dalrymples’ fine.”

  He avoided her eyes. “That is absurd. You know I have no patience for the Stuart cause. For good or ill, the Hanoverians are in control of our government. If we do not like their manner of governing, we must compel them to change, not chase after romantic princelings who promise the moon and cannot deliver a lump of cheese.”

  “You’re very clever at changing the subject,” she said. “But your opinion of Charles Stuart has got nothing to do with paying the Dalrymples’ fine. They’re your friends and you consider friendship far more important than politics.”

  “Now it is you who leaps to conclusions,” he said, but she noticed that he hadn’t denied her statement. He looked down at her, his gaze opaque. “Are you going to tell Captain Bretton that his prisoner was Harry Dalrymple?”

  “Of course not,” she said, revolted. “Good heavens, it is insulting that you would even ask me the question.”

  He studied her for another long moment, then allowed his hands to drop to his side. He gave a short, grim laugh. “That is another change since the accident,” he said. “I no longer know when you are lying.”

  “That’s because I don’t lie to you,” Robyn said quietly, but she blushed when she spoke because her whole life as Arabella was, in essence, a colossal lie.

  Either the fire concealed the flare of guilty color in her cheeks, or else William chose to make no comment. He stared deep into the flames, the brilliant blue of his eyes shadowed. “Captain Bretton’s soldiers are well trained in the art of torture,” he said. “They didn’t dare to lay hands on me, so they asked me if I knew Harry’s name, and each time I denied any knowledge of him, they broke another of his fingers.”

  “Oh, my God!” Robyn’s stomach lurched.

  “Fortunately, Harry died before I was compelled to admit that I knew him.” William smiled bitterly. “Do you note what I said, my lady? I found it fortunate that my good friend died tonight. Fortunate because his death meant that I was no longer constrained to wrestle with the horror of watching him suffer while I refused to name him.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself, William. Presumably you had a good and important reason for keeping silent.”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps. I told myself that Harry was destined to die whatever I did or did not do. By keeping his identity secret, I may—possibly—have saved his family from being forced into even greater poverty and hardship than they currently endure.”

  Rationally, he had done the only possible thing, but emotionally, Robyn could see that he blamed himself for Harry’s death. She couldn’t find any words to offer him the consolation he needed. If he had been one of the children, she would have held him close and murmured soothing nonsense until the pain eased. But her relationship with William was too fraught with strain to allow her to offer him that sort of comfort, so she touched him lightly on the arm, stroking his sleeve as she expressed her sympathy.

  “Some choices are so horrible we should never be expected to make them,” she said softly. “Instead of berating yourself for moral cowardice, perhaps you should simply be grateful that Harry is at peace, and his family saved from the consequences of his actions.”

  He looked down at her hands, then up at her, and she saw that he had allowed his protective mask to drop once again. His face revealed a confused mixture of bewilderment and longing. “Who are you?” he muttered. “Where have you learned such gentleness?”

  He crooked his finger under her chin and dragged her around so that her face reflected the full light of the fire. “You look the same,” he said. “And yet, I sense the difference, feel it in the marrow of my bones. What manner of woman have you become since your accident?”

  “A different woman,” she said. “I may have Arabella’s face and body, but my mind and soul have nothing in common with the woman she used to be. The accident changed everything.”

  William reached out his hand, touching the tips of his fingers to her cheek. “So soft, so smooth, so familiar,” he said. “And yet, when you look at me thus sweetly I can almost believe that you speak the truth.” He smiled savagely, as if mocking his own gullibility. “You have Arabella’s luscious lips, but your mouth never forms one of her jaded pouts. You have Arabella’s sapphire-blue eyes, but they gaze at me with fire and intelligence, instead of cold disdain. The timbre of your voice is Arabella’s, and yet your speech is strange, and your conversation is threaded through with the richness of laughter.” He cradled her face in his hands, gazing at her as if willing himself to find the truth hidden behind the perfection of Arabella’s features.

  Robyn returned his searching gaze openly, and for a moment the strength and inte
grity she saw in William’s eyes reminded her so strongly of Zach that she was pierced by an aching, bitter sense of loss.

  “What makes you sad?” William asked quietly. “Is it something I said? The light is quite gone from your eyes.”

  Unless she wanted to convince him that she was crazy, she couldn’t tell him that she grieved for her lover, a descendant of his living two hundred fifty years in the future. And yet she was reluctant to answer him with a flat-out lie. There had obviously been far too many lies between Arabella and William in the past and she didn’t want to add to them. She hesitated for a moment, then found the partial truth she was searching for.

  “I was feeling regret for love lost,” she said.

  His expression shuttered, and he touched his forefinger to her lips. “Do not speak of love,” he said. “We have used the word too freely in the past and it is debased currency between us.”

  “Is it? But I don’t remember Arabella’s past and I would like to think that we could find some... affection... for each other.”

  He lifted one of her luxuriant curls, artfully set by Mary, and then let it fall, watching with a brooding, heated gaze as the golden tress tumbled forward over her shoulder. “It is a beguiling fantasy that you offer,” he said, his voice thickening. “A new start to our lives, the past unwritten, the stained and blotted pages of our marriage wiped clean. But then you have ever been a mistress of beguilement, have you not? What would happen, I wonder, if I showed myself willing to succumb to your lures?”

  Robyn was experiencing difficulty in breathing, and for once she didn’t think it had anything to do with her stays. When William’s long, supple fingers played with her hair, they wreaked havoc with the functioning of her lungs.

  “I wasn’t casting out lures,” she said. She smiled at him in what she hoped was a frank and honest fashion. “I was simply trying to find some basis for a new, friendly relationship between the two of us.”

  “Abandon your efforts,” William said, his grip on her shoulders tightening. “This has always been the only real basis for our relationship.” He bent his head and covered her mouth in a hard, aggressive kiss.