THE WAYFARER
Jennifer L. Hayes
Dormer House Press
Copyright © 2016 Jennifer L. Hayes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any material resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Acknowledgments
While I had lots of fun writing this book, I certainly had lots of help along the way. At the very top of my list of people to thank is R.C. Had it not been for his encouragement I would never have started it in the first place. His knowledge and insights were invaluable. Let’s face it, writing a novel can be daunting, not to mention plagued with moments of self-doubt. On that note, my very dear friend Elizabeth Ross comes to mind. Every time I felt ready to throw myself off the proverbial cliff, she was always there to pull me back.
A special thanks to all those who read an early draft of the book: Leslie Blake-Cote, Ellie Lawther and Nikki Lewis to name a few. Your feedback was much appreciated. Ellie’s tech skills also came in handy more than once. Last but not least, thanks to my husband and beautiful daughters for putting up with me while I stumbled along trying to do it all.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Picture Perfect
Chapter 2 Dormer House
Chapter 3 The White Hart
Chapter 4 The Storm
Chapter 5 A Ghost
Chapter 6 Ruffled Feathers
Chapter 7 Angus
Chapter 8 The Greaslys
Chapter 9 A Birth
Chapter 10 The Earl
Chapter 11 A Thief
Chapter 12 Wildflowers
Chapter 13 Down the Rabbit Hole
Chapter 14 A Gift
Chapter 15 Electricity
Chapter 16 Talking Walls
Chapter 17 Kiss and Tell
Chapter 18 A Distraction
Chapter 19 Ladies Do Lunch
Chapter 20 The Wayfarer
Chapter 21 The Tunnel
Chapter 22 The Ball
Chapter 23 A Fight
Chapter 24 A Little Bird Told Me
Chapter 25 More Time
Chapter 26 The Letter
Chapter 27 Claustrophobic
Chapter 28 Life or Death
Chapter 29 Too Late?
Chapter 30 The Whole Truth
Chapter 31 Despair
Chapter 32 Déjà Vu
Chapter 33 Belong
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost
Chapter 1
Picture Perfect
The muscles in my legs seized violently and I knew I wouldn’t make it. I wasn’t strong enough. The fire burned in my lungs, the contents of my stomach churned in my belly. I was on the verge of collapse. Maybe even death.
“Faster!” bellowed a female commando-type in a rough English accent. Her hair was cropped short like a boy’s and her arms heavily tatted. “Go, go, go, go! Move it, they’re catchin’ up!”
Who was catching up? My body responded to the panic this woman instilled but I knew I couldn’t keep going. I reached for the tension knob on my bike.
“Don’t even think of touchin’ that!” she yelled at the class. My hand hovered as I contemplated whether I was bound by some sacred spinning rule. “We’re almost there, keep up the pace, don’t get left behind.”
Left behind? We’re on stationary bikes, for Christ’s sake. I dared a glimpse of the clock on the wall. How much time was left of this torture? We were only five minutes in. Holy shit! I’d never make it.
“Eyes off the clocks, ladies, it doesn’t make time go faster!”
How did she keep doing that? She had me on her radar. She must have sensed my resolve weakening. I just wasn’t cut out for this.
The woman next to me pedaled like her life depended on it. Sweat poured off her face. How could she keep at it like that? That wasn’t me. I was better at coasting than pushing myself. With shaky hands, I rearranged my thick blonde hair in a large bun on the top of my head. Even the slightest touch of it on my shoulders made me too hot.
Mentally I cursed Ben for making me join the gym. He’d said he was worried I’d become depressed by the English weather, coming from Southern California where the only fluctuation in temperature was from sun to more sun.
The real reason, I thought, was that he wanted me to meet people so that I wouldn’t be sitting around waiting for him to come home from work every day, calling on the hour to see if he was on his way.
Maybe I was a bit dependent these days. At twenty-four, I was now officially an orphan and that had put my life off balance. He didn’t understand that. His parents were alive and well and doting, giving him that sense of belonging you had when you were part of a family, the one you only realized you even had after it was gone. Now I was a drifter. Somehow I needed to find where I could belong again.
I felt a lot of anger towards my parents for dying on me, my mom when I was eight and then my father six months ago. If I had to be honest with myself, he’d died when my mom had and from that day on it had been one tiny death every day. He drank to forget, he drank to be happy, he drank to pass out. I’d tucked him into bed more times than he had me.
It should not have come as a big surprise when he was diagnosed with stage-four liver cirrhosis. He’d died rather swiftly. Apparently, he was lucky to go quickly because those who lingered suffered a great deal, or so I was told. Selfishly, I’d wished for more time. Time to make repairs to our fragile relationship. Time to say goodbye. Time to wrap my head around the idea of being alone. I’ve come to realize that no amount of time could have helped any of those things.
At least I had Ben. He’d been very supportive in the aftermath as I found myself overwhelmed by funeral arrangements and the daunting task of settling my dad’s estate.
Ben’s big promotion had come as a surprise. Perhaps even a welcome change of focus from the dreariness of grief. He’d always been eager to return to his family and birthplace. I supposed I needed a fresh start too.
“Increase the tension, people, we’re going to climb. It’s going to be long and hard.”
Sweat dripped off the instructor’s toned shoulders as she barked at the class. What a contrast to my own wiry frame. I was relatively tall at five eight and slim, but lacked definition.
Maybe this move to England would be a good time to make some improvements in my life. A makeover of sorts.
Coming back to the cottage, I took in the fairytale cuteness of its thatched roof and small wooden front door. I wondered if seven dwarfs were somewhere inside sleeping. The real estate woman, Miss Evans, hadn’t found that funny when I’d asked.
Clearly it wasn’t built for someone six two. Ben had to crouch to avoid banging his head. This will do nicely, I had thought to myself at the time. The plumbing, we were told, would leave a little to be desired but what could one expect from a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old cottage?
Ben had grown up in a much larger old home like this, only twenty miles away in the beautiful town of Oxwich. His parents still lived there.
It had been an important market town in the seventeenth
century and a main route for anyone heading southwest from London towards Portsmouth. During the railway boom of the 1840’s, a train station had been built and tourism had quickly turned the small country town into a popular destination for Londoners.
Our small cottage was part of the Dormer House estate, which sat on a hundred-acre parcel in East Sussex. The stately home, which was only steps from the cottage, sat perched above the chalk hills of the South Downs in the district of Pembrooke. It was idyllic.
The cottage was littered with boxes in various stages of emptiness. I had struggled with what to bring. Coming from southern California, I had very little experience with rain or “weather”, so I’d needed a whole new wardrobe.
On a good day I hated packing but boxing up ones entire life proved to be an emotional nightmare. What did you do with all those pointless things that you’d collected over the years, each one saddled with its own memory? I remembered taking out my box of old ribbons and trophies from my days as a competitive horse jumper. I’d nearly forgotten that I still had the stuff. Recounting every exhilarating ride when I’d won the blue ribbons, I’d had to take everything out and organize it in colors. They felt silky in my fingers, but some were faded from the late afternoon sun that used to bathe my bedroom walls. My ribbons had continued to hang in my childhood room long after I moved out. It was only when my father had remarried that my old room had been converted into a guest room and the ribbons had been carefully entombed in a cardboard box.
Most of my books had made the long journey overseas. Ben and I had argued about that. He felt that they were unnecessary to bring as they were so cumbersome and I’d already read most of them. He thought I should sell them or give them away on Craigslist.
“Really, Emma, we don’t even know if we’ll have room for them,” he’d pleaded.
“I don’t care if I have to stack them against a wall, they’re coming.” Tears had stung my eyes. Many of the books had been my mother’s. She had been an avid reader who always had a book in her hand. When I’d snuggle up to her on the couch she’d often start reading out loud to me. I really hadn’t cared what the story was about—I’d simply loved how her voice sounded when she read. Maybe that was why books had become a passion for me as well. They were all I had left of her.
Now, surveying the mountain of boxes stacked in the cottage’s cramped confines, I wondered if Ben had a point. Where on earth would they go?
As if on cue, Ben materialized from the bedroom with his laptop in hand and shot me a knowing smile. Could he really know what I’d been thinking?
The roses he’d given me when I’d first arrived lay parched on the coffee table like limp lettuce. “I knew these were your favorites,” he’d said when he’d picked me up from the airport, and all I could think was, Why on earth would you think that? I preferred wildflowers. Roses were generic and predictable. I hated their velvety petals. Why after three years didn’t he know this?
April, my best friend in L.A., would have told me I was difficult to please. We’d been inseparable since our first day of high school when I’d asked for directions to my math class. After walking in circles she finally admitted she didn’t know where to go. For some reason, I found it hilarious and that was the beginning of our friendship.
Maybe she was right. Maybe I did have a problem. As all this went through my mind I’d turned and said, “They’re beautiful, thank you.”
Now Ben reached me in three long strides and wrapped me in his arms.
“Hey, doll, how was the gym?” he asked as he nuzzled my neck.
“Brutal.” The truth was, I really did feel better.
“How are you feeling?” His lips brushed against my neck, the bristle from his stubble sending me squirming out of his arms.
“Still a little foggy, but good,” I said, planting a token peck on his lips. He turned from me and walked the short distance to the dining table where he started rifling through a large stack of papers.
Ben was built more like a football player, with his thick, sturdy limbs and wide neck. Not the kind of physique that benefited from his many hours at a desk. Over the last year he’d started to develop a middle-aged paunch around the waist from the lack of exercise. All too premature given the fact he was only twenty-seven.
Ben and I had met in college, dated for two years and then took the next obvious step and moved in together. He was perfect for me. That was what everyone said. By everyone, I specifically meant April, who had introduced us and seemed to be the voice of many.
According to April, he was a ten out of ten compared to anything she’d found on any of her online dating sites. Ben was everything I could have imagined for myself: handsome, relatively sporty, smart and very organized. He even sorted his CD’s alphabetically. Some might think it was anal but I thought it was clever. He never had to search for what he wanted because it was right where it should be. That was how he liked everything, in its right place.
I had nursed far too many of my heartbroken friends who got hung up on the wrong man. I felt lucky never to have shared that fate. Ben was the type of guy everyone wanted, that was what April always said. “What more could a girl ask for?” she loved to say whenever I questioned my own happiness. “Really, Em, you are impossible.” That was the little voice I heard whenever I felt that something was missing.
So when Ben had decided to move back to England for work, I couldn’t say no. I’d finished my undergrad in English Lit and was now at my own crossroads.
“Will you be okay if I check in at the office for a bit?” he asked now, biting his lower lip, the way he always did when he hoped to get his way or anticipated my disapproval.
“Do you have to? Couldn’t you just wait another day?” He’d already taken more days than he’d planned for the move, but I felt sick at the thought of him leaving me here all alone to deal with everything.
“Em, we talked about this. You need to start thinking about what you’re going to do. When we decided to move here…”
“I know. I know.” I held up my hands in surrender. I didn’t want to get into this conversation again. What was I going to do?
“You need to figure out what you want to do with your life. I’m not going to be around a whole lot. My hours will be long.” He lost patience with me quickly these days. I was sure the move had been stressful for him. His parents were thrilled to have their golden child close by once again, but now he felt the pressure to live up to their expectations, not least of which was their very large investment in his education.
“Okay, okay. I don’t need you sounding like my dad. I’ve been here less than a week.”
“Fine.” He turned away to put his laptop back in his briefcase. “How about we check out one of the local pubs tonight for dinner when I get back?” He pulled on his coat and straightened his shirt.
“Sounds good.” I softened at the prospect of beer in my near future.
I must have inherited that from my mother, who had been English. She’d grown up near Manchester and what was left of her family still lived in the North, or so I was told. Sadly, I’d never really known her well. She’d died in a car accident when I was eight, but I’d always attributed my love of beer to her.
“You really should give the roses some water. They are looking a little worse for wear,” he said as he headed out the door.
Chapter 2
Dormer House
With all my clothes put away and half of the kitchen boxes unpacked, I decided to take a break. I peeked out the window, watching the rain falling in a gentle mist. With a quick snip of the scissors, the tags fell from my North Face jacket and my shiny new Hunter boots were about to experience their first taste of English weather.
The dilapidated stables up the lane looked ready to topple over. Ivy clung to the walls and windows, and plants had sprouted up between the cobblestones inside. At one time this had served as the main Dormer House stables. I couldn’t help but imagine all the majestic horses that had gone through those doors. A m
uch bigger, more modern stables had been built up closer to the stately home. Sadly, there were no longer horses boarding there—I’d asked Miss Evans—only gardening equipment used for mowing and pruning the vast grounds of the estate.
My father had often said I was born in the wrong time. Horses were a luxury now but at one time they had been a necessity. My mother, who was quite an accomplished equestrian herself, had started me in lessons when I was only five. That was the end of Barbies for me. All I’d cared about was horses.
The air smelled of wet leaves and mulch as I made my way up the gravel road towards Dormer House. It was a welcome smell, being conditioned as I was to fear the dry seasons in L.A. because of the risk of forest fires. Beads of water rolled down my hood and dampened my loose strands of unruly blonde hair. As I rounded the thick hedge Dormer House came into view, a sight that instantly took my breath away.
It was the perfect example of a country house, with both symmetry and simplicity. It had a hipped roof with a deep cornice, dormer windows and tall chimneystacks; a central three-bay frontispiece was set slightly forward, with steps up to a pedimented doorway. According to Ben, it had been built in the eighteenth century by the first Earl of Pembrooke. Its use of red brick with stone dressings looked Dutch. The two-story stately home sat above a semi-basement with two rows of four large windows extending on either side of the main entrance. An impressive building even now, it was used mostly as a museum and for special gatherings and elite functions, at least according to Miss Evans, who had filled us in when we’d decided to rent the cottage. It was said to house an extensive library of rare books and first-edition novels. At least a dozen cars were parked in the lot near the front.
Once inside I followed a few tourists to a small table with a donation box. If you wanted the guided tour that set you back ten pounds. I dug out a five-pound note from my jeans, the only money I had on hand, and reluctantly slid it into the box, making a mental note to keep pound coins on hand, as I would be visiting often.
The Wayfarer: A Time Travel Romance (The Wayfarer Series Book 1) Page 1
