by Jo Noelle
Reluctant to release her hand, he began a bit of instruction. “Fingers aren’t strong enough to hold back a horse if there are problems, so hold the ribbons tightly against your palm.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
Cora leaned toward him, the bill of her bonnet grazing the top of his head and speaking low enough but close to his right ear so the groom could not overhear her. “I think I’m going to like this lesson. You have my complete attention, sir.”
Was she flirting with him? He thought she might be. Her blue eyes were bright with delight. She knew she had captured his attention, too. When Simon took a breath, hoping to clear his mind, he noticed the slightest pleasant smell—sweet, like cake. He wanted to lean closer to Cora to make sure, but realized his face wore a daffy smile and cleared his throat, leaning away instead.
“This hand will hold the whip, like so.” He placed the handle across her right hand. “Then these fingers are available to hold the tail of the reins beneath your left hand. With a turn of your hand, one side or the other will tighten, signaling the horse to turn.” He pushed her hand toward the horse to loosen the reins, then demonstrated how to turn her hand. “The trick is to ask with your hand and command with your voice.”
“Shall we go?” she asked.
“When you’re ready,” he replied. She nodded, and the groom at the horse’s head stepped away. “Just say, ‘Walk on.’”
Cora repeated the command, and the horse began to pull.
The lane to Everett’s house was long and straight once they rode past where it wound this way and that around the gardens. There were no canals on either side, so if the horse left the trail momentarily, it might get bumpy but not dangerous. Simon noted how relaxed and comfortable Cora seemed as the driver. She sat straight and left some ease in the reins. Her hand gently, discreetly tipped the reins to confirm the horse’s desire to walk down the road. She was gentle with a horse’s mouth.
Nearing the end of the lane, Cora asked, “Right or left?”
He pointed to his left. “This way, between two grassy hills, is a rather lovely pond with a bridge going right through the middle, and that way,” he said, pointing across Cora, “are some mysterious, and some say magical, ruins.”
“The pond today, but I’ll hold you to exploring the ruins another time.”
Simon entertained the daydream he’d had earlier of holding her behind the ruins’ crumbling rock—of her cheek pressed to his chest, her arms around his neck, and stolen kisses.
As they reached the crossroads, Cora looked up and down the road before she turned her shoulders and rolled her hand slightly, sending the horse to the left.
Soon after they topped the hill, Simon saw a farm wagon barreling down the other side of the road toward them. The horse appeared to be out of control by the look of the man desperately pulling at the reins. The wagon pitched from side to side as the horse ran, dust flying up when the wheels veered into the less-packed dirt along the roadside. Simon could see the bed of the wagon tip while the driver, his feet high and spread wide on the dashboard, fought to stay aboard. The horse listed to the side at an unusual angle. Part of the harness must have broken.
The man failed to stop the horse before it could enter the bridge straddling the lake, and in the next wild lurch, the front wheel left the bridge, pulling the wagon and horse after it into the water.
Simon reached to take the reins but he heard Cora yell, “Heya!” and saw her flick the ribbons against the horse’s hindquarters. The animal bolted from a trot to a canter, covering the distance to the accident in seconds. When she reined him back at the lake’s edge, Simon jumped to the ground before their carriage was fully stopped, kicked off his boots, and waded into the water, stripping his coat and vest as he went.
Where was the driver? Simon couldn’t see the man. The horse thrashed, desperately intent on swimming though it was tethered still to the wagon, churning the water into frothy waves and obscuring Simon’s search. He swam around the panicked beast and dove under the water, staying clear of the flailing hooves. Nothing. Again and again. Nothing.
Moments passed. He couldn’t tell how long it had been, but he knew time was running out. If the man hadn’t died in the accident, he would drown. Simon gasped a huge breath and dove. If he couldn’t save the man, he would stay until he pulled him from the depths and returned him to his family. His muscles burned as he continued his hunt, weighted down by his soaked clothes.
Suddenly, the water calmed as the horse swam toward the shore. This time when Simon dove, he saw the driver and reached for him, but couldn’t pull him away from the wreck. Simon surfaced, gulping air and quickly kicking under the water again. He positioned himself at the man’s back, wrapping his arms around the man’s chest, and braced his feet on the side of the wagon. Finally thrusting his legs out, he wrenched the driver away.
When he reached the surface, Simon towed him toward the shore. There was no movement in his arm as Simon swam. It had taken too long. The man was dead. He wondered how he would shelter Cora from the situation, but as he began pulling the body along the muddy bottom, he saw Cora, her hair wet and the skirt torn from her dress and tossed aside. She stood next to the wagon’s horse, their own gig’s reins wrapped around its neck, fooling it into thinking it was haltered.
Simon stood and wrapped his arms under the shoulders of the driver and pulled him closer to their own carriage before laying him on the ground. As he wrestled with what to say to Cora, she ran to the man and stripped away his shirt. She placed her cheek at his mouth and then on his now-bare chest.
“Help me,” she demanded.
Simon didn’t know what help they could now offer the man. His chest didn’t rise with breathing, and the pallor of his lips and skin spoke of death. Simon realized he was a young man from the thin, fuzzy whiskers on his cheeks, dead long before his time. It would be a blow to his family. How could he shelter Cora from realizing the man was dead? He didn’t think she was the fainting type, but what about hysterics? Was she the type to wail?
Before he knelt beside her, Cora had bent to the man’s face, pinched his nose, and kissed his lips several times. It worried him that it was the hysterics.
“Take over when I tell you.” She pointed at the man’s head. The command in her voice was apparent, but he didn’t know what to do. Maybe the stress had been too much for her, causing an irrational state.
A light rain began to fall, but Cora didn’t seem to notice. “Breathe for him.” Her voice was strong. She had moved to the man’s chest and leaned—no, pressed—against it repeatedly. “Do it now. Share your air with him.”
Simon leaned over the man as he had seen her do and exhaled into the dead man. The man’s chest rose with the breaths as Cora leaned back on her heels and watched.
“Stop for a moment.” She began vigorously pushing the man’s chest again. Wisps of her hair had long ago escaped their bun as she worked. “Your turn. Breathe.”
They continued back and forth, stopping occasionally for Cora to check for breath. Then they started again. Simon wondered when she would accept the man’s death and cease the ritual. Could she? Was there truly something imbalanced with her in this situation?
She leaned back after another set of compressions and motioned for Simon to take his turn. Before Simon could comply, the dead man spewed vomit, and Cora rolled him to his side.
“Yes! He might make it.” Cora pressed a wad of her underskirt into his mouth and ran it across his tongue, then rolled him again to his back and listened at the man’s mouth. “He’s breathing. Let’s get him to a doctor.”
Simon realized the young man must be alive. His chest moved on its own, but Simon knelt rooted to the spot, awestruck by the possibility.
“What happened?” Simon gazed at Cora. “What did you do?”
Cora didn’t answer but strode to the wagon and threaded one of the reins of their horse through what was left of the other horse’s bridle She called over her shoulder to Simon. “Pick him up
.” She was quickly at his side. “Where’s a doctor?” Cora grabbed one arm as Simon took the other, the man upright between them.
“I don’t know, but Everett’s staff will begin nursing care until we find one.” They struggled to pull the man up into Simon’s lap before Cora took the reins and turned back the way they came. “Cora, how did you know. . . I don’t even know what that was.”
Cora’s eyes were fixed straight ahead, but Simon recognized that she was thinking. Finally, she answered. “It’s rescue breathing. Sometimes it can save someone’s life.” And as if considering whether or not to say more, she paused, and then added, “I teach children whose health is very fragile, so one of the requirements is that I learn to do breathing for them if there is ever an emergency. I’ve never had to do that until today.”
“I’ve never even heard of that.”
Emotions swelled in Simon’s chest for this woman who would think more of a horse’s safety than she did her own. One who cared for the dying without fear, fainting, or the hint of a swoon. And one who showed great intelligence, strength, and calm in a crisis. Cora Rey was a remarkable woman.
“It seems nothing short of a miracle,” he said.
He saw her bite the corner of her bottom lip. “I’d rather not make a big deal out of it.” Though not a question, it sounded like one, the way she said it. “I feel comfortable saying that he went into the lake, and we pulled him out.” He thought he saw fear in her eyes, pleading with him. “We can talk about what happened later. Please don’t tell anyone.”
Simon nodded but internally questioned the request. They rode in silence to Everett’s home.
A whirl of activity ensued when they reached the estate, and a groom was sent to fetch the doctor. While the servants were busy with the young man, Simon assisted Cora from the gig. She had adjusted the ripped skirt of her dress to be held up by the riding apron and concealed that beneath her cloak. Her arms crisscrossed her stomach, and one could easily think she was having an attack of nerves instead of holding her clothing together.
As they entered the house, May approached with a worried look for Cora, no doubt because of her disheveled appearance and being soaking wet, and a scowl to reprimand Simon for mistreating Cora so.
“Will you help Cora to her room?” Simon said before May asked a question.
Cora added, “Yes, please.” Then she whispered something to her friend.
May placed her arm around Cora’s waist, and the women began to climb together.
How would Cora explain the ruined dress? She probably wouldn’t have to. May was the kind of friend who would help her dispose of the evidence with no one the wiser. The women made slow, measured steps. Only at the top of the stairs did Cora turn around. He saw some sadness to the look in her eyes.
His every nerve and muscle surged with energy. He wanted to charge up the stairs and take her in his arms. He could hold her until the hurt went away. He knew Cora had done the right thing, a heroic thing, yet she seemed pensive. Surely she didn’t regret saving that young man’s life. Maybe she felt the weight of the man’s survival. For a long moment, they gazed at each other. His heart pressed for him to love her, to claim her, to protect her. She smiled at him without the usual sparkle of her real smile, then disappeared down the hall to her room.
Chapter 12
Cora
When Cora turned back at the top of the stairs, Simon was still watching her from below with a worried look. It didn’t surprise her as much as it confirmed to her that he was invested in their relationship as much as she was. Today once again proved to her that she was out of time and place. She had a difficult decision to make, and she questioned whether making that one decision would cause the dam to break that held others away. What was she going to do about Simon?
Inside her room, and as soon as the door shut, Cora threw off her cape and tossed it toward the bed. Before she could remove the driving apron, the entire skirt of her dress fell to the floor.
Behind her she heard May gasp, then chuckle. “Well, there’s got to be a good story to go with whatever made that happen.”
Cora turned her back toward May but didn’t yet answer her unasked question. What could she say? “I can’t get this knot.” The sparkle in May’s eyes told Cora she was busy making up a tale of her own to go with it. May wasn’t typical of the Victorian period, having lived part of her life out of it. Her mother’s twentieth-century background brought a progressive element to May’s upbringing.
As the strings of the apron left Cora’s hips, she turned toward May. “I had to rip it off to swim into the lake and retrieve the horse while Simon rescued the driver of the wagon.”
“Wait. Rescue? What wagon? Start at the beginning.”
Cora recounted the driving lesson, the accident, the rescue, and CPR. “I didn’t think what might happen if I used it, but, well, it’s a hundred years early.” Cora sat heavily on the side of the bed and dropped her face to her hands. “Have I messed up the future, changed something enough to alter what should be?” Cora paused and exhaled loudly. “I don’t belong here.”
She felt the weight of the mattress shift as May’s arm curved around her shoulders. “No.” Cora looked up to see May shaking her head as she continued. “Aunt Nellie says ‘time is a fuzzball.’ My mother thought time was a line that ordered the world and constrained everyone and everything to a specific point.” May pulled Cora up.
“Let’s get you out of these clothes and into something dry.” May turned Cora’s back to her and began unlacing the bodice. “Time isn’t what you think it is. There isn’t one time—there are billions. We each have our own thread of time. Our threads start and stop, but they are all mixed up in the fuzzball, too. Your thread has touched this time, so you’re here. Everything that you do is part of your thread. That wagon driver has his own thread. Even though your threads touched, you didn’t change his thread. You can’t. It’s his.”
Cora hoped that was true. It was hard to imagine what May described, but May was living it, and so was Cora. And she had never felt more alive than she did here.
“Get behind the partition and step out of the rest of those sodden clothes.”
Cora pulled the wet fabric from her body and legs and threw them over the top. A rap on the bedroom door stopped their conversation.
May opened it, and the thin voice of a maid said, “His Grace asked that we deliver these. Can I help the miss?”
May replied, “No, thank you. We’re doing fine, but put the buckets on the floor by the dressing screen.” Cora heard several sets of footfalls. Then the door closed again, and May approached the screen. “Are you done?”
“Yes.” Cora peeked around the partition to see what had been delivered.
“Simon sent up some warm water and towels.” Cora noticed a suggestive quality about the smile May wore. “That’s very thoughtful, isn’t it?” May handed Cora a towel, which she wrapped around herself. “Let’s clean your hair first.”
Cora sat on a chair and leaned forward over an empty bucket while May poured some water over her head, then washed Cora’s hair. When she finished, May wrapped another towel around Cora’s head and pointed her back to the screen.
“You wash now, and I’ll … get rid of your clothes.”
Later, another rap on the door sounded, and Cora heard May say, “Thank you.”
“What is it?” Cora asked, still giving herself a sponge bath.
“His Grace asked that a letter be delivered.”
Cora looked around the screen.
“I’ll just set this right here for you to read later.” She placed the note on the table. “Seems important, doesn’t it?”
Cora nodded but couldn’t answer. Her heart and mind were overflowing with thoughts of how she felt about Simon. That was part of the problem. Not part—it was the whole thing. She dropped the towel from around her and stood on it as she sponged off her feet.
She knew she was way beyond curious about Simon. Her interest had sta
rted with that, but it had moved on to admiring his determination. Lately, she had added the qualities of loyalty, graciousness, and honesty to her growing list of all-the-things-I-like-about-him. And today she had added trusting. He had followed her lead and performed rescue breathing without questioning her. Warmth and caring sparkled in her stomach.
She didn’t think she’d fallen in love—yet. Nor had he, but left unchecked, these feelings would get there fast. Since she would be going back to her century on the next full moon when the mural was completed, Cora wouldn’t play with Simon’s feelings. She liked him too much.
When she was with him, he eclipsed everyone and everything else that was happening. When he wasn’t around, her thoughts strayed to him with great frequency. What could she do? She had to go back, but how could she leave him? Would he consider going with her? Would that be possible? Aunt Nellie was trying to figure that out. It seemed insane. For sure, he would think she was if she were to ask. In her time, he might be able to choose if he wanted to be able to hear. If this wasn’t some cruel trick of the universe, maybe it was an opportunity for Simon to change his life.
Although to the rest of society, he didn’t seem to be looking for a wife, even dodging several women’s embarrassing attempts, she was certain that his feelings for her had grown beyond friendship as well. Spending their lives together was beginning to make sense to her.
No. She would stop this now. She gave a determined nod to herself. A little hurt now would save heartbreak later. But deep down, she knew it wouldn’t be a little hurt now to leave him.
A new chemise and drawers flicked over the dressing screen. Cora dried off and tugged them on, then she stepped out from behind the screen to a chair where she could pull the stockings over her feet, tying them above her knees. Next, she pulled the corset down, but knew she’d need May’s help for this part. May crossed the room. Tossing a new dress across a chair, she stepped behind Cora to begin pulling the ties. With the corset in place, May gathered the dress on her arms and pulled it over Cora’s head.
