by Bess McBride
They parted ways, and William hurried to the library, opening the door quietly to find Mattie asleep in one of the large chairs. He cursed himself for having left her so long and hoped she would understand he’d had no recourse, as one did not simply walk away from one’s mother on announcement of her engagement.
He sat down in a chair across from Mattie and studied her to his heart’s content. He loved the cinnamon color of her hair and the way the curls fell across her cheeks and onto her neck. Pale cheeks underscored her long, dark lashes, and she tucked a small hand under her cheek. The lilac gown she wore reminded him of the soft purple hue of early-morning clouds as the rising sun lightened them.
He returned his gaze to her face to find her watching him with a smile. He went down on one knee in front of her and took her hand in his. Though he had dreamed often of such a gesture, of falling to a knee and begging for the honor of her hand, his promise to himself prevented him from asking her yet again.
“Dearest, you looked so peaceful. I hated to wake you. I did not intend to leave you here alone so long.”
She straightened and covered his hand with her own.
“That’s all right. So, your mother…” She let the words hang.
“Quite the surprise,” William said with a wry smile. “I thought she had dedicated herself to enjoying her freedom as a widow.”
“Are you upset? Happy? Thoughts?”
“I am happy for her. She seems to genuinely care for Lord Hamilton. I do not think I realized that, so involved have I been in my own affairs.”
Mattie smiled.
“It is my pleasure to inform you that your matchmaking efforts have once again been successful. Sylvie announced her engagement to Thomas this night.”
“Really? Wow! That was fast! I’m so happy for her, though I’m not sure I had much to do with it. I went to talk to her this afternoon, but she raised the subject first. I think she’d already decided. She just wanted to know more about the United States. And she was worried about leaving your mother, but that seems to have resolved itself very conveniently, hasn’t it?”
William nodded. “Yes, it does. I must admit I will miss her, though.”
Though it was not his intent, Mattie’s smile faded. Tentatively, she put her hands on either side of his face, and he covered them with his own. He struggled to keep the misery he felt from his eyes—that Mattie too would soon be gone.
“I know, William, I know,” she murmured. “But the passage doesn’t really take that long, does it?”
Let Mattie think he mourned Sylvie’s departure.
“No, dearest, the passage does not take more than seven days.”
Mattie’s eyes narrowed.
“This isn’t about Sylvie, is it? You’re talking about me.”
William leaned in to kiss her. “I vowed not to press you further to stay, Mattie, and I shall not. But I must admit to experiencing some grief at your pending departure. I cannot deny it. Please believe that I attempt to hide it from you.”
Mattie pressed her lips against his, and he wrapped his arms around her, desiring nothing more than to hold her to him forever. He tasted salt, and pulled back. Tears spilled down Mattie’s face.
“There, there, my love. Do not cry. I am a beast. I promised you I would not add to your grief, and yet here I am again reducing you to tears.”
“It’s not your fault, William. It’s me. I don’t want to go either. I want to stay with you forever.”
William stiffened and studied her face. “Are you saying…?”
Mattie shook her head, and his heart dropped to his stomach. “No, I can’t stay. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to. I love you. I will always love you. I can’t imagine a day when I won’t love you. I don’t know what strange power brought me to you, to the hero in my book, but I don’t regret one minute of it.”
William lowered his face to her hands and kissed them.
“I just don’t know how I can give up everything I’ve ever known, all the things that keep us alive, the safety, the security of life in my time. I’m not saying it’s perfect or even particularly safe, but it’s a lot safer for a woman in my time than it is now.”
“I can protect you, my love.” Even as he breathed the words, he cursed himself. No pleading. He must let her go.
Mattie smiled at him, love softening her eyes.
“I know you can, William, and I trust you with my life. But there is a limit to what you can protect me from. You can’t protect me from illness that is curable in my time. You can’t protect me from cancer, from infections, from complications of childbirth. You can’t give me the right to vote, to drive a car, to fly to the States, to turn on a tap of hot water.”
William rose to his feet, his body feeling suddenly old.
“No, you are correct. I cannot do any of these things for you.”
Mattie jumped up and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face against his chest.
“I’m sorry, William, that sounded awful! I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m just trying to explain.”
William put his arms around her, resisting the urge to pull her tightly against his body lest she think he meant to bind her to him.
“I understand, Mattie,” he whispered against the top of her head. “I understand.”
Mattie raised wet eyes to his.
“I worry about you here in the house by yourself. Your mom will be gone and so will Sylvie. I can’t bear the thought of you living alone.”
William smiled, though he did not feel happy. “Perhaps I shall travel more,” he said. “Perhaps I shall visit Sylvie in America.”
Mattie smiled. “Maybe you should,” she whispered. “I’d like to think of you there when I return. To think that you had been there.”
“Shall I visit your Seattle?” William asked.
“Can you? Is there transportation to Seattle in the early 1800s?”
“I do not know. I shall make inquiries,” William said. He looked at the clock on the mantle. “It is late, my love. You must get some sleep.”
Mattie’s arms around him tightened. “I don’t want to. Can’t we take a walk or something?”
“I thought of that myself earlier, but was concerned the moon might be nearing full.” He gave a short, discomfited laugh. “I worried the moon might snatch you from me early.”
“Not likely.” Mattie chuckled. “Besides, don’t we both have to wish on the same thing at the same time? Didn’t we decide that might have been the catalyst for the time travel?”
William nodded, and took her hand. “Let us walk.” He pushed back the curtains and opened a door from the library leading onto a terrace with the garden beyond. He looked up and paused. His throat tightened. The moon loomed large above them in the sky.
Mattie looked up, her grip tightened on his hand. “It can’t be full yet. It hasn’t been thirty days. We still have three more days. We’ll be okay if we just don’t wish. Right?”
William took a deep breath. “Yes, of course, you are right. It has not been thirty days. We are only at the twenty-seventh day. I have been counting.”
“I promise not to wish to go home,” Mattie said with a weak chuckle.
“And I promise not to wish you will stay, as difficult as that may be for me.”
They stepped down from the terrace and moved across the lawn toward one of the gardens. William tucked Mattie’s hand in his arm as he tried to ignore the large silver orb overhead. The lights, still on in the house as the servants cleared from the dinner party, illuminated the gardens just enough to be able to see.
They strolled along the rectangular pond, one of William’s favorite spots in the garden. The moon, ever omnipresent, reflected in the still waters, its image broken only by the occasional clump of lily pads.
William absentmindedly covered Mattie’s hand with his own.
“As long as we are joined like this, the moon cannot separate us, I think.”
“Even if the moon has anything to
do with it at all,” Mattie said in a quiet voice. “I still have no real idea how I got here.”
William looked down at her. “I believe with all my heart that you are here because I wished for you, though I did not know it at the time.”
Mattie’s step faltered. “Oh, William,” she breathed.
He paused and pulled her into his arms. “I love you, Matilda Crockwell. I shall never love another as I love you. I would do anything I can to help you return home as I know it to be your heart’s desire, but I cannot reverse my love to help send you back.” He bent his head to kiss her, folding her to him. “I wish only for your happiness,” he whispered against her lips.
Mattie froze. “Don’t wish,” she whispered. But it was too late.
His arms were empty.
Chapter Sixteen
Mattie opened her eyes. She lay on the balcony of her apartment in Seattle, her head pressed against the wooden railing. Lights from the surrounding apartments broke the darkness—those and the moon overhead.
She attempted to scramble to her feet, her skirts twisted about her ankles. Her skirts! She still wore Sylvie’s lilac dress. It hadn’t been a dream. She’d really been there in the Georgian era!
“No, no,” she moaned as she managed to right herself. She stared at the moon. Was it full? What had happened? Had she wished? She gripped the railing tightly, her nails digging into the resistant wood.
William! Where was William? She’d been holding on to him. He’d been holding on to her. Did he travel with her? She yanked open the balcony sliding door and yelled his name, uncaring of the neighbors.
“William,” she shouted. “William.” She tried to remember where the lights were, so long ago, and yet only a month. Switching the living room light on, she scanned the room, scanned the kitchen then ran down the hall to her bedroom. Please, please, let him be sitting in her chair, holding her book and wondering how on earth he got there!
But the bedroom was empty. The adjoining bathroom was empty. William wasn’t there.
Mattie spied the book on the small TV tray by her chair. She grabbed it, sank into what had once been her favorite place in the world and pressed the book she had once loved so much to her aching chest while she cried. The power of her sobs frightened her as she gasped for breath. Could one survive such pain, such heart-wrenching grief? How could she find William again?
Wish again! She held onto her book and ran back to the living room to burst onto the balcony. She kissed the cover of the book and held it up as an offering to the moon.
“Please let me get back there! I wasn’t ready. We didn’t say goodbye. I don’t want to say goodbye. He wished for my happiness. Was that what did this? His wish? You weren’t even full. How could you let this happen? Is this my happiness? Wasn’t I supposed to wish, too? Please send me back. He must be so worried about me. Please, please, please…” Mattie’s trembling legs gave out, and she sagged to the balcony floor. Several lights from neighboring apartments had come on, but she didn’t care.
“Please don’t do this to me,” she begged. “Please let me go back. I wish to go back.”
Nothing happened. She remained where she was, kneeling on the balcony, embracing the book as if it were William himself.
She waited and wished all night, hoping the moon would relent and send her back. Certain no one had ever stared at the moon so long; she thought she must have memorized every crater and valley on it. The sky lightened, dark purple turning into lavender and then a soft mauve. She stayed with the moon until she could see it no longer as the sun rose.
Stiff from sitting in a rigid position in the cool air all night, she rose slowly and entered the apartment. She returned to her bedroom and dropped into her chair, wondering vaguely how long she had been gone. Running her hand along her dress, she told herself that she had indeed been gone though because she didn’t remember buying an empire-waist satin gown to traipse about the house in.
She slipped off her black satin slippers—Sylvie’s slippers—and pulled her feet up under her. With the book pressed to her chest, she closed her eyes and willed herself to dream. To dream of William.
Her last thought before she slept was that she would try again that night. And every night while the moon was full. And every night that it wasn’t full.
*****
A month later, Mattie still retreated to her balcony every night to wish on the moon, even when she couldn’t see it. She knew it was there. In the intervening weeks, she had tried desperately to bury herself in her book again, to find William within its pages, but she couldn’t find the courage to do more than stare at the cover without opening the book. Somewhat numb at the moment, she dreaded any return to the pain she’d experienced when she had first returned.
She’d been let go from her job, having truly been gone for almost a month without giving notice, but she hardly cared. Savings helped her pay long-overdue bills, and she resisted looking for another position until she found out what would happen on the next full moon.
“What happened to you?” Renee, her coworker, had asked over the phone. “When you didn’t come to work the next week, I came to your apartment looking for you, I called your landlord, I even called the police. I tried to cover for you at work, but they only believed the dead grandmother story for about two days.”
“I wish I could explain, Renee. I really wish I could, but I can’t,” Mattie said. Of course, she wouldn’t have explained. Her time with William, in 1825, had been hers and hers alone. She couldn’t share that with anyone. Even in modern times, they still locked people up for being crazy.
“Can I come see you, Mattie? I’m worried about you.”
“Not right now, Renee. I’m so sorry. I just need to be alone. I think I had a nervous breakdown, and I need to be alone now. The doctor said it’s best for me.” Her story didn’t feel far off the truth.
“Mattie! Were you in the hospital? Because you can get your job back if you were in the hospital! Are you all right? Oh, Mattie, I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m fine. I’m not coming back to work for a while. Doctor’s orders,” Mattie murmured.
“Oh! I see.” Renee paused as if waiting for Mattie to fill in more details, but Mattie had exhausted her thought processes with the few lies she’d dreamed up. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually been honest with anyone, either in this century or the nineteenth century. She wondered what it would feel like to be totally truthful with someone, anyone. Well, perhaps she had been more open with William than with anyone else.
“Okay, well, call me if you need anything, Mattie. And let me know when I can come see you.”
“Okay, Renee. Thanks.” Mattie hung the phone up and set it on the table beside her chair.
She looked at the book once again, running gentle fingers across the cover, allowing them to pause on William’s face. No, Lord Ashton’s face, she corrected herself. She looked at her bedside clock. She still had an hour before moonrise. She’d become quite the expert at the different phases of the moon over the past month.
Tentatively, she lifted the book and settled it on her lap. She toyed with the edge of the cover, noting that the pounding of her pulse grew louder in her ears, sometimes erratically, as if skipping a beat. She dragged in a deep breath and opened the book, the pages falling to a well-worn spot in the book.
“The moon shines for us because it has given me my heart’s desire.”
Rather than cry, she surprised herself by smiling. So hokey. She hadn’t been in any danger at all, had she? Not from men who wanted to kidnap her for her fortune or her virtue, not from stagecoach robbers, not from French or American spies.
The name of the author, at the top of every other page, caught her attention once again. I. C. Moon. Mattie blinked and stared at it again. She closed the cover and looked at the large print. I. C. Moon. Good gravy! Was that a play on the words “I see moon”? Her heart thudded even louder. She remembered, though, that no author biography was included i
n the book.
With shaking fingers, she riffled through the book until she found the copyright page. The book was out of print, that much she knew because she would have bought it to keep rather than worry about having to return it to the library.
Original work by I. C. Moon first published 1859 by Sinclair Publishers Limited, London, England. Twenty-sixth printing 1950, Sinclair Publishers International, New York, New York.
“Sinclair Publishers,” Mattie said aloud. “Sinclair.”
William’s company? To think otherwise was too much of a coincidence. Had William begun a publishing house? She noted again the New York address and the word International. The company appeared to be prosperous.
Who was I. C. Moon? Mattie bit her lower lip, waves of excitement coursing through her body. It could only be one of two people. William or her—the only two who “saw the moon.” She tried to imagine William writing a romance in 1859. It hardly seemed likely that he would write a romance novel. Had he survived until 1859? That would make…would have made him sixty-four at the time of the first publishing of this book.
The internet! Why hadn’t she looked the author up on the internet before? Were there other books by the same author? None were shown in her book. She could look up Sinclair Publishing and see what its history was as well.
She tucked the book under her arm and dashed into the living room to find her laptop. Perched on the dining room table, she turned it on and waited for what seemed like hours for it to warm up. Finally, her browser came up, and she keyed in I. C. Moon, which prompted a myriad of sites regarding the moon, some she’d already been researching over the past month. She scrolled through the pages looking for any references to the author. Several links to web pages came up, and she clicked into them.
I. C. Moon, pseudonym for Georgian- and Victorian-era American romance author rumored to be Matilda Sinclair, wife of William Sinclair, member of the landed gentry and owner of Sinclair Publishing. Mrs. Sinclair published an impressive forty-two romance novels in her lifetime, all published under the umbrella of her husband’s company. Her novels, featuring paranormal elements of time travel often involving the moon, continue to be read today but most are out of print. A list of the books followed.
