Timeless (A Time Travel Romance)

by Jasmine Cresswell

  “Thank you.” Despite his nonchalant greeting, Robyn sensed an underlying tension in William. He looked pale and tautly controlled, no doubt because he was trying not to show his anger at Captain Bretton’s intrusion. She wondered where he had been all morning, but she wasn’t going to play into the captain’s hands by asking, and William volunteered no information. With a quick squeeze of her fingers, he flung himself down in the chair by the hearth, and glanced with bored mockery at the captain.

  “Do not, I pray, remain here on our account, sir. I am sure there must be many useful tasks still awaiting your attention. At least three of our housemaids have not yet fainted. Should you not fire off some more muskets and terrify them into proper submission?”

  “You are pleased to jest,” Captain Bretton said, his cheeks flushing with anger. “But you will soon learn that the time for ridicule is over. My men shot and wounded your brother, that is indisputable—”

  “Alas, sir, I must dispute with you. Your soldiers are doubtless great warriors, but even they cannot fire their bullets from here to France. Which is where my brother resides.”

  The captain spoke through clenched teeth. “We shall find your brother’s hiding place today, my lord, and then you will not be quite so arrogant and I will be making the jests.”

  William closed his eyes, as if the prospect of Captain Bretton’s jokes was too horrible to contemplate. He set his hat on his lap, then yawned. “Excuse me,” he apologized. “My land agent insisted on dragging me over every turnip field in Starke this morning. He is quite determined to make me as devoted to the concept of crop rotation as he is. What is your opinion of turnips as a soil refresher, Captain Bretton?”

  Except for an annoyed tsk, the captain didn’t reply and William stretched out his legs, resting one elegantly booted foot on the brass fender and leaning down to admire the silver buckle. He polished it languidly with his pocket handkerchief, and straightened only when Captain Bretton spoke angrily.

  “Good God, my lord, have you nothing better to do at a time like this than clean your shoe buckles?”

  “There is rarely anything more important to do than insure one’s boot buckles are correctly polished,” William said mildly.

  “You do not seem to have grasped the fact that your brother’s life hangs in the balance! He has been identified by a score of rebel prisoners as the man who took possession of Charles Stuart’s treasure chest after the Battle of Culloden. You are much mistaken if you believe King George will allow your brother to escape to France carrying enough money to pay for the next invasion by the Pretender’s army of malcontents.”

  His hat held at his side, William rose slowly to his feet, his face whiter than before. With rage, Robyn assumed, since his voice was cold enough to have frosted an entire field of turnips.

  “I have grasped very well the hatred you hold for my brother and me, Captain Bretton, just as I am aware of your misguided conviction that Zachary is hiding Prince Charles Stuart’s treasure. Fortunately, I do not have to worry either about your misinformation or about your vicious intentions, since my brother has been safely removed from your jurisdiction for many months.”

  “So you would have me believe, my lord. Our informants insist otherwise.”

  “Has it never occurred to you that torture will induce a man to say whatever his tormentor wishes to hear?” William sat down again, turning away in a clear gesture of dismissal. “I wish you all possible speed in your search, Captain. Pray do not bother to return and bid me farewell. I am willing to consider your apologies and excuses already spoken.”

  “You will receive no apologies from me, my lord. I do not ask pardon for acting zealously on the King’s business.”

  William raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Lud, how admirably fierce. But I would remind you, sir, that my uncle, Lord Pevensy, bears an inexplicable fondness for me, and he is privy counsellor to His Majesty. I think King George would be annoyed to hear from Lord Pevensy of the unhealthy obsession you have developed for searching my property at all hours of the day and night.”

  The captain appeared momentarily taken aback by the threat. Then, remembering that he was secure in the protection of the Duke of Cumberland, the King’s own son, prepared to continue the argument. He had scarcely opened his mouth, however, when a breathless young lieutenant arrived bearing a message. Captain Bretton acknowledged his subordinate’s salute. “Yes, what is it?”

  “We have captured the ship, sir. The Bon Voyage has been secured in Poole harbor.”

  Captain Bretton’s frowns turned at once into a cruel smile. “That is good news. And the crew? They are in jail?”

  The lieutenant stared straight ahead. “Er... no, sir. The ship was... um... abandoned when our men boarded her.”

  “What!” The captain let out a bellow of rage. “How can that be? Where the hell did the crew go? The ship carried a full complement of men last night, and that I know for a fact. My informant was still on board, for God’s sake!”

  The lieutenant flushed, not from anger or embarrassment, Robyn suspected, but from fear. “It seems that the crew was warned of your intentions, sir. It also appears that they could all swim.”

  “Swim? Good God, sailors can never swim! They think it is tempting destiny.”

  “True, sir, but this crew apparently defied tradition. They must have dived into the water from one of the lower decks whilst we were guarding the shore.” The lieutenant cleared his throat, sweat beading in a line along his forehead. “We were never ordered to patrol the waters, sir, only the quayside, which we did.”

  “Idiots! Buffoons! I’ll have you cashiered and the men whipped!” The captain stormed out of the room, yelling for his sergeant, so overwrought that he forgot to bow to Robyn. The lieutenant, clumsy with dread, snapped his heels in Robyn’s direction and hurried out after the captain.

  Robyn waited until all sounds of their descent down the stairs had died away. Then she walked quickly to the door of the sitting room and quietly shut it, throwing home the bolt.

  “Thank you,” William said, sounding somewhat stiff. “Forgive me, my dear, but I need to go to my room for a few minutes—”

  Robyn interposed herself between William and the connecting door into his bedroom. The strain of the previous few minutes broke in an eruption of furious, body-shaking rage. “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve given me some explanations,” she said as soon as she could speak without screaming. “Where have you been? And don’t you dare tell me one of your lies about turnips!”

  “I went... for a ride,” William said.

  She stamped her foot. Arabella’s body, she reflected ruefully, still seemed to have some built-in reactions that she couldn’t control. “Did you go to Poole?” she demanded. “Is Captain Bretton fight—have you been aiding and abetting the Jacobites? And is Zachary truly safe in France?”

  “My dear Arabella, you know quite well that I have not been absent from your side long enough to ride to Poole and back.”

  “My name is Robyn, and I don’t know any such thing. How in the world would I know how long it takes to get somewhere by horse, for heaven’s sake? And I’m not entirely stupid, you know. I’m perfectly well aware of the fact that you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Which question, my dear?”

  “Any of the important ones,” she retorted. She lowered her voice. “William, please tell me what’s going on. If you’re in trouble, let me help you.”

  He looked at her consideringly for several silent moments. Then, still without saying a word, he tossed his hat onto the chair. In a spot directly beneath where he had been holding the hat, his riding coat was stained with damp circles of red. Robyn blinked, momentarily unable to grasp the significance of the stains. Then she leaned forward and pulled back the concealing skirt of his riding coat.

  She found herself staring at a blackened, bloody mess of ripped riding breeches and torn flesh. She gulped, swallowing several times to conquer a surge of nausea. Dear God, Will
iam had been shot! This was the reason for his pallor, for his rigid self-control. Not rage, as she had assumed, but pain. Excruciating pain. She pressed her hand against her mouth, forcing back an instinctive cry. It would be disastrous if she did anything to attract Captain Bretton’s attention.

  William gripped her hand. “Pray do not faint, my love, for if you fell, I fear ‘twould be beyond my powers to pick you up again.”

  “I’m not going to faint.” She drew in a deep, steadying breath. “Tell me what I must do.”

  “Bandage the wound—and quickly. We cannot count on Captain Bretton slinking away from Starke without an apology. He is likely to return any minute.”

  “You seem very sure that his men will find no rebels,” she said.

  “I am quite sure that they will not.”

  She looked at him steadily. “Zachary’s hiding place is that good? How can you be certain none of the servants will betray you?”

  “My dear, you mistake my meaning—”

  “I’ve asked you before not to lie to me,” she said, turning away in frustration. “I believe I have earned something more than your lies, William.”

  A pounding at the door cut short their incipient argument. With a quick glance of silent pleading, William slipped through the connecting door, out of her sitting room and into his bedroom. After a hurried check that he had left no bloodstains on the carpet, Robyn crossed to the door and unbarred it. Captain Bretton stood in the hallway, flanked by the inevitable escort of blank-faced soldiers.

  “Yes?” She was getting rather good at sounding imperious when her stomach was roiling with fright.

  Captain Bretton spoke curtly. “I am come to bid you farewell, my lady, and to remind you that aiding a traitor is itself an act of treason.”

  “Good-bye, and thank you so much for the kind warning. It is, of course, completely unnecessary.”

  “And yet you had chosen to lock your door,” the captain pointed out. “I must ask myself why, if neither you nor Lord Bowleigh has anything to hide.”

  Robyn’s heart thumped so hard she was actually grateful for the stays that stiffened her bodice and disguised her physical reactions. She forced her mouth into a coy smirk. “A husband and wife may have many reasons for wishing to be private, sir.” She tittered, another skill of Arabella’s that she seemed to have inherited. “I can assure you my husband and I were much too busy to waste our time discussing Jacobite traitors.”

  The captain scowled, then suddenly pushed past her and crossed the room, throwing open the connecting doors first to her bedroom and then to William’s. Robyn noticed William’s hat still lay on the floor by the hearth. She knew there hadn’t been enough time for him to bandage his thigh, let alone change into fresh clothes, and panic set in. Without his concealing hat, could William position himself so that the blood on his coat wasn’t visible? She followed the captain into William’s bedroom, trying frantically to think of some excuse—any excuse—that they might offer for the incriminating bloodstains.

  She needn’t have worried. William’s bedroom was empty. So were his dressing room and his closet. Robyn, far more astonished than the captain, stared at the empty rooms in disbelief.

  “Where is he?” Captain Bretton demanded. “Where did he go when he left you?”

  Robyn felt giddy with relief. “I believe you have already asked that question several times today, sir. As a mark of my willingness to cooperate with the King’s servants, I will answer you this once, although why I should account to you for the Baron of Starke’s movements I cannot imagine. Lord Bowleigh’s plan was to ride out to meet again with his agent.”

  “Lord Bowleigh planned to meet with his agent at this hour of the day?”

  The captain sounded so genuinely incredulous that Robyn realized she had invented an unlikely excuse. She took refuge in aristocratic hauteur. She swung around in a rustle of silk, satin, and velvet, posing dead center of the hearth, in such a way that the Bowleigh crest, carved in dark, solid oak, rose majestically behind her. Sometimes, she decided, there were real psychological advantages to be derived from the trappings that came with being rich and aristocratic in the eighteenth century.

  “Your discourse becomes wearisome, Captain Bretton. You have searched Starke repeatedly and found nothing—”

  “On the contrary, Lady Arabella. Each time I search, my men discover another rebel.”

  “In the grounds, Captain, never in the house. My husband’s property is extensive. He cannot be held responsible for desperate men who take refuge in his woods and outbuildings under the cover of darkness. I ask that you leave Starke, and that you do not return again on these repeated wild goose chases. Whomever, or whatever, your men shot this morning, it was clearly no one from Starke.”

  He bowed, acknowledging defeat, fury barely contained. “This time we may have found nothing,” he admitted, “but the chase is by no means over, and at the finish, I am confident I will capture my geese. You are warned, Lady Arabella.”

  He didn’t wait for her to reply, but strode out of the room, spurs jingling. The soldiers trooped out after him.

  Robyn’s knees were feeling distinctly wobbly. She sank into the nearest chair.

  “Odious man,” she muttered. “Slimy, creeping reptile. Right now, I can think of only one man who’s worse.”

  She raised her voice and leaned toward the paneling at the side of the fireplace. “And he will undoubtedly die of gangrene because he won’t trust me, so I shall soon be a happy and contented widow.”

  She got up and thumped her fist on the paneled wall. “Can you hear me in there? If I’d known how to get at your hiding place, I’d have let Captain Bretton find you. That’s what you obviously expect me to do, isn’t it? Betray you to that buffoon Captain Bretton. Why else would you refuse to confide in me?”

  “My lady! Begging your ladyship’s pardon, I did not know you was in here.”

  She swung around and found William’s valet hovering in the bedroom doorway, a burgundy velvet jacket draped over his arm. He eyed Robyn with evident wariness, which wasn’t surprising considering that he had found her talking to the walls. He coughed delicately. “Er... is there something I could bring for your ladyship? Mayhap Mary could prepare your ladyship a soothing tisane...”

  She could feel a blush flame all the way from her neck to the roots of her hair. Good grief, the valet was going to have a field day reporting this latest example of her ladyship’s craziness back in the servants’ quarters. But maybe it was better to be called crazy, she realized. Much better than having the servants wondering if Captain Bretton was right, and Zachary Bowleigh truly was hidden in a half-forgotten priest’s hole.

  “No, thank you, I don’t need Mary or a tisane,” she said, trying to look dignified, or at least like a lunatic who was only intermittently mad. She stood up and fixed herself center hearth, once again making sure the Bowleigh crest soared above her head in flamboyant splendor. “You may put his lordship’s coat in the dressing room, Jackson. That is all. You may go.”

  “Yes, my lady.” The valet crept on silent feet into the dressing room and emerged minus the jacket. He hesitated, clearly not sure if he dared to speak. Robyn gave him another glacial stare, which she hated to do since he seemed a well-meaning man. “Yes, Jackson, what is it now?”

  “Humbly begging your ladyship’s pardon, but it is past time for his lordship to dress for dinner. Does your ladyship know if his lordship is at home?”

  Robyn sent the valet a withering glance. “He will send for you when he needs you,” she said loftily. “You may tell Jean-Luc that we shall be eating dinner an hour later this afternoon.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Head bent almost to his knees, the valet bowed himself out of the room. Robyn barely restrained herself from running after him and apologizing. Now she had another complaint to lay at William’s door, she reflected ruefully. Being rude and arrogant with Captain Bretton was one thing, intimidating hapless servants quite another.

  But s
he had no time to indulge her grouchy mood. There were three different entrances to William’s bedroom, one connecting through his dressing room, another through Robyn’s sitting room, and the last directly from the upstairs hallway. Robyn swiftly barred all the entrances, except the one leading into her sitting room. From there, she was able to retrieve several of baby Zach’s stomach binders—ideal thigh bandages—and a kettle of hot water that was simmering on the hob. At least she would be able to sterilize the cloths she used to clean William’s wounds, although she was afraid that so much time had passed since he was shot, infection could well have set in already.

  Hanging the kettle over the fire in William’s bedroom, she locked the door to her sitting room and softly called his name.

  Nothing happened. She walked around the bedroom, stopping every yard or so to press her mouth to the wall and say his name. She received not a glimmer of response.

  Baffled, she completed the circle. Why was William refusing to acknowledge her? Surely he must be able to see what was going on in the bedroom? The priest’s hole—and she was certain that was where he must be hiding—had been built during a time of bitter civil war, when Cromwell’s self-righteous fanatics had imposed their own harsh brand of religious salvation on an unwilling British populace. Citizens who refused to conform often ended up as fugitives from the law. Hidden in the tiny cubbyholes, their lives literally depended on knowing when enemies were in the outer rooms. As a consequence, almost all priest’s holes were equipped with peepholes. Sometimes an exquisitely carved flower would have a petal that glided to one side. Sometimes exotic animals would have eyes that slid away, to be replaced by a human eye, peering out at its hostile pursuers. The priest’s hole at Starke was likely to follow the traditional pattern. So the question remained. If William could see that Robyn was alone, why didn’t he come out and let her tend his wound?

  The answer came with frightening certainty. He didn’t acknowledge her calls because he was unconscious.