This night was one of them. Matilda in her green dress, the dancing, the stars, her belief and trust in him. She trusted in him.
Their hastily put together wedding. When they found out she was with child. Ariana’s birth. Seeing her holding that squalling, bright red bundle of tiny human nearly killed him. He knew then he’d never have another restful night’s sleep. It had been easy to dismiss what they learned of that far off future before Ariana was born, but when he saw her, held her— there was no dismissing anything anymore. They did everything they could to prevent that horrible future, or at least Tilly believed so. Ashford knew from the moment he agreed to let Nick Kerr live that he hadn’t done enough.
That was remedied now.
He wiped his burning eyes. It really would be remedied now. Nick was strolling his way. He wasn’t humming anymore, and instead of going back toward the terrace he ambled along toward the opposite side of the house which led off toward the stables and eventually the woods. Ashford smiled, though it made his face hurt. The further Nick got from the house, the less dragging he would have to do.
Again, he felt a twinge of something that warred with his crystal clear intention of ridding the world of one Nicholas Kerr. A voice deep inside him. No, it was outside him, and not too far away.
“Father,” it hissed.
He shook it off, picking up his pace in following Nick. Of course he should be hearing Ariana’s voice at this moment. She was the reason he was doing this. Wasn’t she? God, he hated time travel.
He stopped when Nick paused at the edge of the garden path. Would he keep going further into the woods? Nick turned slightly and Ashford shrank back into the shadows of an olive tree so he wouldn’t be noticed. It turned out Nick only wanted to gaze pensively at the stars, the prat. Did the lout think he ever stood a chance with Matilda? It made his stomach turn to think said lout had been close to his daughter in another time. Not this time, though.
“Father,” Ariana’s voice hissed again in his head. It really did sound like she was somewhere off to the side of him, but that couldn’t be possible. He was slowly but surely going mad from being so close to himself and sick from his stupid spell. It had to have been in his head. Except, Nick seemed to hear it too, turning sharply toward the voice.
Ashford swore softly. He must have moved, shaken an olive branch. He stood stock still until Nick sighed, shook his head and continued to wend his way down the path to the stables. After he deemed it safe to move, Ashford followed.
As soon as Nick was behind the stables, out of sight of anyone who might have been looking out a window from the house, he crouched and aimed the gun.
“Right where your heart would be if you had one,” he whispered.
He almost laughed at that ridiculous sentiment. He needed Nick to have a heart so he could put a bullet through it. He needed to hurry up and finish this before his vision grew as cloudy as his thinking.
“Uncle Julian!” Another voice slipped out from some vague recesses of his mind. It was barely audible past the music that drifted down from the house.
Owen? Well, it stood to reason. The lad and Ariana were practically inseparable. He should have worked out an arranged marriage for the two of them with Kostya when they were born. Perhaps then he wouldn’t be here, muzzily hearing voices and continuing to forget what he was supposed to do.
Nick was now almost out of range of a comfortable shot. Still crouched over, he ran along behind him, intending to shout and get his attention if he got too far away. Also, he was such a bloody rake, he might have a dalliance planned in the small copse of trees that was just ahead. Ashford didn’t want to involve someone who might recognize him and make trouble for his past self, nor did he want a witness. He had to just shoot. It felt so wrong, deep in his roiling guts it felt wrong, but he lifted his arm, and curled his finger around the trigger.
“No!” A flurry of pale green fabric flew out in front of him just as he finally made himself squeeze.
The silencer wasn’t completely silent, but was quiet enough for Ashford to see Nick continuing to ramble along the path, enjoying the evening without knowing he’d just slipped free from certain death. Or without hearing the pained thud of someone hitting the ground behind of him. Ashford felt like he was being doused in icy river water. It was heavy enough to bring him to his knees in front of the small, crumpled figure in the green gown.
“Matilda?” he gasped, trying to sweep some hair from her face. “Oh, God, what have I done?” Someone else shoved him out of the way. “Owen?” The fog in his mind lifted enough to let him see that the person on the ground wasn’t Matilda. He felt more than heard a moan rising from his throat. “What have I done?” he repeated.
“You bloody shot Ariana,” Owen said, pressing his hands against a spot on her dress that was impossibly red.
He bloody shot Ariana. He tried to do something, say something to make things different, but a fist came flying toward his face. After the initial jolt of pain, everything disappeared and he mercifully felt nothing.
Chapter 26
Tilly paced from one side of Ashford’s study to the other, pushing off the walls with her hands each time she reached one. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in the middle of a full blown panic attack. She breathed in through her nose and gusted it out of her mouth, pushing off the wall, turning on her heel and starting the short trek to the other side. The last time she’d been anywhere near this out of control was probably shortly after Kostya faced off with his wife and her zombified lover. He’d shot her moments before poor, dead Donal could tear the frozen Ashford to pieces, then turned the gun on himself in despair.
Oh dear, could this situation be worse than that one? It felt like it.
As much as she didn’t want anyone to see her in this worked up state, she wished she wasn’t alone. Kostya and Serena had stayed up the better part of the night trying to reassure her but it was clear they weren’t believing their own lines. Sick of it, she’d promised she would go to bed if they did. She had paced in her room until the sun came up then moved to Ashford’s study. It had a nice, calming view and was sunny in the mornings and smelled of leather and ink with an undertone of roses wafting in from outside. It did the opposite of calming her, only made her question her sanity in sending off Ariana and Owen.
She oscillated between such rage at Ashford that she thought he should be left to rot in the past or make his way back and deal with the consequences of his actions on his own and breaking down into tears that he might be lying dead from the spell going wrong. Or having Nick get the drop on him. Or meeting his younger self and falling into madness like she’d witnessed happen to Emma Saito so many years ago.
Or so many years in the future. God, she hated magic.
Thinking about Dexter and Emma distracted her enough that she could sit down. She wished she could see them again and hoped they were all right. She was soon calm enough that she was about to ring for tea when she heard a frantic shout far out in the garden. She propelled herself out of the chair and to the window, but of course she couldn’t see anything but a curious servant making his way toward the noise.
“Can you see anything?” she asked, trying to act a normal amount of concerned, not the heart shattering level that she felt.
“Not yet, ma’am.”
“Bugger.” She nodded to him to keep going, wanting to shout at him to run, damn it!
Her heart couldn’t take another second of waiting and the door to the study seemed a mile away, let alone having to get down the hall, through the kitchen and out the back. She hoisted her skirts and climbed out the window, jetting past the stunned servant and looking in every direction for the source of the noise.
“Owen?” she yelled. It had been a man who shouted, but not definitely Ashford.
“Here,” came a reply. Yes, it was Owen. “Help, hurry!”
His agonized plea had come from behind the olive trees near the stables and she jumped a small fence, heading that way.
The servant had caught up with her, having heard the cry for help.
In the field behind the barn, Owen knelt over Ariana, with Ashford in an alarming heap beside them. All she could see of Ariana was the green dress, now crumpled and soaked with red. She skidded to her knees beside Owen, who had his jacket pressed against Ariana’s side. His jacket was also stained with blood and her daughter’s face was pale, her lips almost blue.
It had been nearly twenty years since she’d lived in her own time and still her hand went to her side where a phone should have been nestled conveniently in her pocket. Where qualified medical help would be minutes away. She sobbed as she felt for a pulse in Ariana’s neck. She couldn’t tell! Her own heart beat too fast and her fingers trembled too badly.
She shrieked at the servant to run and get more help. She pushed Owen aside and pressed against the sodden jacket herself. Forcing her mouth to work properly, she turned to him and said, “Follow him. Make sure someone goes for the physician. Get your mother and father and tell the housekeeper to bring her cleanest linens.” She had to pause for a gasping breath. “Uh, something like a stretcher to bring her up to the house and—”
Ariana moaned softly, the barest sound. But she hadn’t imagined it because Owen jumped and leaned over her again, trying to get her to answer him. It was then that Tilly really took in the fact that her husband lay unmoving as well, only a few feet away.
“What happened?” she asked, quickly shaking her head to negate that question. There was no time. “Is he injured too?”
Owen blanched and bit his lip. “Yes, but only because I knocked him out to get him back more easily. He wasn’t acting right. He wasn’t himself.”
She nodded, already concentrating on Ariana again. “Go,” she urged. Owen ran toward the house like his own life depended on it.
“Mum?” Ariana rasped. Her eyes fluttered open, but she didn’t seem to be focusing on anything.
Tilly leaned low so she could hear. “I’m here, darling. Don’t wear yourself out. We’re getting help for you. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry, mum. I don’t think I was in time.” She closed her eyes and sighed, her body going limp.
Tilly screamed for someone, anyone to hurry. Still pressing the jacket against Ariana’s wound, she promised her daughter over and over that everything would be all right. She prayed this wasn’t yet another lie to add to all the other ones that had helped get them to this point.
***
Tilly was beyond pacing. She sat huddled in a deep armchair directly outside the ballroom doors. The ballroom, of all places, had been deemed the best spot for the village physician to set up his operating room. He was someone Tilly didn’t recognize. Younger than the old, crotchety man who usually treated people’s gout and coughs, but not so young he seemed like he wouldn’t have any experience.
“Gunshot,” he said almost immediately after he’d removed the once pristine white sheet from Ariana’s wound. They’d managed to get her to the house without too much jostling and had replaced the jacket with something cleaner. Other than that, Tilly was afraid to do much. When she saw the seeping, red mess, she knew it was beyond her first aid capabilities. “Get a lot of those this time of year. Funny outfit to wear hunting, though. That a London thing?”
She was vaguely pleased that the doctor had given them a perfect excuse for why Ariana was injured but she didn’t remember if she answered. She didn’t remember how she ended up in this chair. Her fingers were so tightly intertwined that her left hand was asleep and she slowly peeled them apart. It might have been hours since she sat there staring at the doors. Time moved in fits and starts. One second Serena would be in front of her offering a cup of tea, the next she’d be alone. Finally, the doors opened and she stood. Her right foot was asleep and she limped forward to meet the doctor, trying to peer over his shoulder.
“Not so bad, but a lot of blood loss. It’ll take her a while to come round. I’ll stay and keep a close eye on her.” The doctor held open his hand and Tilly sagged with relief until she looked at what he held out. “Never seen a ball like this before. That from a newfangled London gun?”
Newfangled indeed. Tilly had been a fingerprint analyst in her former life and had seen plenty of forensic reports. She also knew that Ashford had always kept the modern gun he used to carry with him when he regularly had to rescue people from the portal.
“What in the hell?” she said, immediately apologizing to the doctor for swearing.
He seemed unfazed. “Not a hunter yourself, then?”
“No. Nor will Ariana be after this.” She grasped his wrist and thanked him before hurrying around him to see Ariana.
She lay peacefully enough under a clean sheet, though there were bloody rags and bits everywhere. The physician’s assistant bobbed his head as he cleaned up around her. Tilly rested her palm gently on Ariana’s forehead, knowing keeping fever down would be an issue. She watched her chest rise and fall for a few moments, unable to get the sight of that bullet the doctor had shown her out of her mind.
“What in the hell?” she repeated. She ignored the questioning look of the assistant and spun out of the room.
Ashford had been laid out on a couch in a sitting room with Serena, Kostya, and Owen watching over him while anxiously awaiting news about Ariana.
“She’s going to be all right,” Tilly snapped. She barely registered their sighs of relief as she shook Ashford’s shoulders, trying to rouse him.
“He’s really sick,” Owen said. “I don’t know if it was the spell he did or what, but maybe you better let him sleep it off.”
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
Serena patted the chair next to hers and Owen sat on the edge, hands gripping his knees. “We were almost too late. We saw Uncle Julian following that Nick blackguard toward the woods. The trees were a lot closer to the stables back then.”
“We remember,” Tilly cut in.
“Er, of course. We tried calling him and he seemed like he might have heard us but he was acting almost as if he was drunk.” Owen held up his hands. “I know he wasn’t, mind. But he was staggering a bit and kept clutching at his head.”
“He was too close to himself,” Kostya explained. “It’s very dangerous to go back in your own timeline.”
“Well, someone really should have told him that,” Owen said bitterly. “Might have saved—”
“He knew,” Tilly said, equally bitterly.
“We did see you both, Aunt Tilly. And you two as well,” he said, smiling tremulously at his mother and father. “Anyway, I guess he thought he had a pretty good shot at Nick but he was still ignoring us. We didn’t want to outright holler and have Nick look back, but we thought we could distract Uncle Julian enough so Nick could get out of range. I was looking around for a stick or a rock to chuck at his back when Ariana…” He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes. “Foolish lass jumped out and got right in the way of the gunshot. As if that bastard’s life was worth more than hers.”
“That’s not why she did it,” Serena said, patting his shoulder and handing him a handkerchief. “She did it to save her father.”
“But he wasn’t in any danger.”
Kostya sighed. “She wanted to save his soul.”
“You’re sure Ariana’s going to be all right?” Owen asked. He nodded toward Ashford. “I’m sorry I hit him. When I saw all the- all the blood, I panicked. I didn’t dare try any healing spell on my own and he was so unruly… I’m awfully sorry but it seemed the easiest way to get him back.”
“How did you get back?” Tilly asked, staring at Ashford. Her anger was dribbling away, being replaced with fear. Why was he still unconscious? “Not Ashford’s spell?” If that was the case, it was no wonder he was so ill. Fool, stupid fool for leaving her in the first place.
Owen patted his overly embellished waistcoat that was now spotted with Ariana’s blood and pulled out a small velvet pouch. She recognized it as one of a set she made for Ariana years ago. He sp
rinkled out a few bits of dried herbs into his palm and showed them.
“It was Ariana’s spell. Or maybe one she learned from someone in her coven.” He paused when he saw her eyes widening in shock. So, it had happened like the future she’d seen. Or close. Far too close for comfort, but that was over now once and for all. She hoped. When she didn’t interject, Owen went on. “I watched her while she did it to get us back and it worked a treat. I barely felt anything, just an odd whooshing sensation.” He swept his hand over his head as if wind was passing him by. “Or maybe like getting dunked in water. At any rate, it was nothing like the first time we—” He stopped, his face reddening.
Kostya groaned. “It sounds like we have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Aye, Father.”
Tilly stood up and stretched to work out some more of the kinks she’d accumulated while waiting for the doctor to operate on Ariana. “Do you three mind sitting with Ariana while I wait for Julian to wake up?” she asked.
Owen was out the door almost before her question was complete. Kostya followed and Serena gave her a hug before going.
“You know how stubborn Ashford is. He’ll come through.”
Tilly waited until the door was closed behind them and then knelt by Ashford’s side. She took his cold hand in hers and put her head on his chest and cried.
As her tears wound down she felt a very faint pressure against her hand. She turned her cheek so she could see where she still gripped Ashford’s fingers and sure enough, they twitched.
“Julian?” She kept her voice low, but shook his shoulder. “Come back now, Julian. Please. I need you. We all need you.”
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