by Gloria Gay
“There are tears in your eyes, again, Kate,” he said.
“I’m just so happy to be here with you, Michael. I wish we could freeze time.”
She felt the heat of his body warming her side and she got closer, putting her arm over his chest. His body filled her with elation and warmed her soul and heart, as well, and she could not help the tears that slid down as she was unable to stop them.
They remained thus for some time, in silence, neither wanting to break the magic moment. Occasionally, Michael would kiss her temple or head, but they stayed quiet.
Then after a while, Kate realized they had very little time before people would start wondering where they were, she turned her head and kissed him. His kiss in return exploded within her and a primal hurt shot out through her body as the unfairness of it wracked her body. Michael pressed her close to him and kissed her.
How unfair that she should meet the love of her life in another dimension, in another world that did not belong to her and where she did not belong.
“Help me to unbutton my stays, Michael,” she whispered.
He smiled and helped her loosen her layered clothing and they were soon embracing, covered by his cape.
Their love-making became a tender whirlpool into which they fell readily and she knew that they both were certain this was their last time together and her heart cried tears.
***.
After their stolen few minutes, they fastened their clothes again and walked back to the place where they had left their horses and remounted.
They resumed their walk and when they reached a clearing Michael urged Blue to a canter and Kate followed. When their horses looked like they needed a break, Michael led them to a small clearing and halted his horse and after he dismounted he helped Kate down from her horse.
“Tell me what you think how the tattoo will matter,” he asked, as they again sat on sweet smelling new grass in the meadow, their backs against the trunk of a wide tree.
Kate sighed and shook her head. “It will not matter if I don’t recall Madame Enlia’s words. I’ve tried and tried and cannot remember what she said.
“I’m hopeful it may just come suddenly to me when I’m least expecting it. It has happened before. I seem to register phrases verbatim even if at the time they were said to me I did not even seem to be listening.”
“What did she say, I mean the words you do remember,” Michael said. “Maybe I can help you. Sometimes, two minds are better than one.”
Kate closed her eyes for a few moments, then opened them. “She said:
“You must touch the monkey tattoo once reflected on the mirror… and then it’s a blank in my head. That’s all I remember. And believe me, it’s a miracle I even remember those words because I just wasn’t attending to what she was saying. I was trying to absorb all that was going on and everything was strange.”
“Once reflected on the mirror and…” Lanquest repeated. “Those words appear to be the words you must concentrate on. I believe Madame Enlia knew that you might not be listening carefully. I think that’s what holds the clue:
“I already reflected him on the mirror once, when I found it on the back of my knee.”
“When you figure out the second action it will then allow you to return to your time.”
“They looked deeply into each other’s eyes as tears pooled in them.
“I promise to wait until you return, even if I figure it out.” Kate’s words were laced with sadness.
CHAPTER 18
Kate had fallen asleep shortly after she came back from her ride with Michael, tension making her seek oblivion in sleep. As she reluctantly awakened from her nap, her first thought was that dinner with Lady Bunright would not be a pleasant meal.
She suppressed the thought and determined she would enjoy her evening with Michael, no matter that Augusta would try to make everyone’s dinner as uncomfortable as Kate felt in her presence.
Romy stirred in the room, filling the cupboards of the small washroom with clean folded towels and soap, then pulled back the drapes in the bedroom to admit the waning light of dusk.
“It be getting a bit late, mum, she said.
Kate sighed and went and sat at the vanity.
She looked into the mirror while Romy arranged her hair and a heaviness at the thought that Michael would leave next morning fell on her.
Romy hurriedly finished her hair, pinning it up and leaving a swirl of long curls to fall to her back.
***
“There be three dinner gowns among the clothes in the wardrobe, miss,” Romy said eagerly. Kate could see that Romy was always excited when she talked about clothes. She wondered what Romy would have thought of her leaf dress had she been the one to encounter her in the forest.
“All right, Romy, spread the gowns on the bed and I’ll see about it.” Inwardly Kate was jumping with joy at the thought that she would spend one more evening with Michael before he left in the morning. Exhilaration made her pulse rate increase and a warmth spread through her veins so that she would have gone out to the gardens and made some cartwheels.
Yet there was no future for their love. They lived in two different worlds in more ways than one. Augusta made certain to drill it in Kate’s head every chance she got.
But the black widow spider was right. Even had she been of his time, English lords did not marry below their class in Regency times, much less did they marry an American. Even if he wanted it, she could not in good conscience accept him. She did not belong to his world and she did not belong in his time.
She looked out the window and she sighed at her silly determination for she realized she had as much control over what her heart felt as the robin that was flying about the garden had itself of the air about it.
Kate chose a sapphire blue silk Empire evening gown that had a high bodice that reached the base of her neck, for she did not intend to remove the diamond necklace. Michael’s words that she might suddenly be blasted away from the present made her determined that at least she would have the jewels with her to subsist wherever she was sent to by the magic.
She remembered how she had disdained magic.
Well, she believed in magic now. She might again transfer in the nude but maybe the jewels would transfer with her. Her gold ring had.
What a unique life she was living, trapped in another time. She sighed as Romy spread the gown over the bed.
“The color matches your eyes, miss,” Romy broke into her thoughts, and Kate wondered if Michael would think the same as Romy did.
She recalled the color of Michael’s eyes, a dark expressive blue rimmed with thick dark lashes. A pleasant shudder swirled in her belly and made her suddenly light-headed at the thought that she was to see him soon.
How ironic that the rainbow she had sought all her life existed in another time dimension. She wondered if she would disappear into another time era not her own. A shudder ran through her at the thought.
Lost in her troubled thoughts Kate was hardly aware as Romy tied her stays and buttoned the back of her evening gown.
“Oh, mum, ‘jis see yerself in the glass!”
Kate went to the full-length mirror and winced at her reflection. She had not looked at herself in the mirror since that day Lanquest had told her she looked more nineteen than thirty. She had forgotten—or suppressed what he had said, and was startled once again to see herself as she had been at nineteen.
She felt like a fraud. Like she had come by the rejuvenation through illegal means. She felt like she had run up and crashed ahead in the line and people around her were giving her dirty looks and yelling at her to get in her rightful place at the line.
She knew this was silly but there it was, an accusing presence pointing a finger at her.
Would she age normally from now on or remain nineteen forever? The thought sent a swirl of nausea throughout her body, ruining the effect the beautiful gown had at first given her.
She turned away from the mirror and sat at the edge of
the bed.
Any woman would be thrilled to be nineteen forever.
Wouldn’t they? Or would they be, as her mother had been, heart-broken to see her husband age before her eyes while she retained the youth of nineteen?
And yet she had not hesitated in plunging right into her mother’s same path, even when she had gone through what her family had gone through with her mother’s inability to age on par with Kate’s dad. Impulsiveness was in Kate’s nature—shy with bold, impulsive moments, that was she. She had grown out of her shyness but the impulsiveness had remained.
Had she learned nothing from her mother’s experience? Of how her mother was always excusing the apparent difference between her and Kate and Stacy’s father by saying that her family had always looked younger than their years? And of how her mother had piled on makeup to lessen the look of youth?
Yet would she give back having met Michael for anything in the world?
“What is it, mum what did you see in the glass that upset you so?” asked Romy with concern.
Kate sighed as she realized tears had pooled in her eyes. Everything was just too much for her, but she mustn’t upset Romy, who was one of her anchors to this shimmering changing world she could not get a handle on.
“Nothing, Romy,” I guess I’m just not completely awake. The gown is beautiful. Thank you so much for your help.” Kate stood up and hugged her.
“Oh, mum,” Romy was overcome with emotion and her eyes also filled with tears.
A footman tapped the bedroom door. After a few hurried words with him Romy came back to where Kate sat.
“Yer wanted downstairs, mum, his lor’ship is already there, waiting for you. Everyone else is there too,” she said, almost in a whisper.
“A bad habit, woolgathering, Romy,” Kate said. Kate glanced at her hair and was sure it would pass muster. “You’re an artist with the comb, Romy,” she said.
Romy blushed and handed Kate her handkerchief.
“I better hurry downstairs. Lady Bunright will not pass up the chance to make a fuss if I’m late.”
Kate thanked Romy and followed her downstairs. As usual, Romy would stay in the servant area around the kitchen in case Kate should need her.
A footman of the two who stood by the massive drawing-room doors opened the door for her and as Kate walked in her eyes sought Michael. He was looking toward the door and his smile on seeing her come in sent a pleasant shiver through Kate that pooled in the lower part of her stomach. She realized they had a connection that made them seek each other first thing on entering a room.
Kate curtsied to him, returned his smile and then curtsied toward Augusta in the briefest curtsy she could manage. Let Lady Bunright say what she would about Kate not curtsying to her. It was against Kate’s principles to be nice to someone who was consistently rude toward her and who had managed to insult her several times in the few times they had been in the same room.
“As usual, Lanquest, your guest displays abhorrent manners.”
“Let us have a peaceful evening, Augusta,” Lanquest said, and added, “Dinner has been announced, shall we proceed?”
“There are whispers among the ton about this girl you are harboring in your household, Lanquest,” Lady Bunright insisted, even though she had been admonished, and as though ‘the girl’ she referred to was not sitting at the table with them.
Kate forced herself not to shake her head. She had promised Michael she would not react to Augusta’s baiting and she would try to keep her promise, however hard the awful woman made it.
“Probably,” said Michael, serving himself from the first course a footman had offered to him, “as a result of your letters, Augusta. “I wish you would stop giving out information about what goes on at Arcadia, as if you were one of those French spies we had such an abundance of during the war.”
“Your words are insulting to me, Lanquest. You can be sure Cory will hear about them,” Augusta said this as she served herself a generous helping of the first course the footman then offered to her.
Had she been in 2017, thought Kate, she would be texting her sister about the awful woman’s behavior.
“Something amusing, Miss Shallot? Asked Lanquest with a warm smile, leaning a bit toward her.
“I’ll tell you about smartphones, later, my lord.”
If anyone thought the slight that Lady Bunright considered a major breach would keep her silent they had another thought coming. She was non-stop critical of everything Lanquest or Kate had done in the past few days and accused them of dragging the family name through the mud.
“If everything in Arcadia upsets you, Augusta,” said Lanquest, “I wonder that you are so often an extended visitor.”
“I must protect my son’s inheritance, Lanquest, by bringing some dignity to this house with my presence, since you do little enough in that respect. You have absolutely no sense of propriety. Having this woman as your guest is an outrage.”
“As I have said several times already, Miss Shallot is my aunt’s guest, not mine. And should I marry, and have a son, Cort would pass on to be second in line. And should I have other sons, Cort’s hope of inheriting would shrink to nothingness. Have you thought of that late at night when you cannot sleep for fear I am too healthy by half?”
“You are insufferable.”
As the meal progressed, Amy spoke quietly to Kate about garden matters and asked if she would accompany her to the village the following day to pick up some seedlings.
Lady Bunright ate her meal as if it were a penance, now and then casting glances to either Lanquest or Kate that dripped with disdain while her daughters ate their meals in embarrassed silence.
Course after course was served and Kate wondered if she had ever attended a more unpleasant dinner than this one as she felt Lady Bunright’s dirty looks and charged barbs.
Finally, the meal came to its end.
“Well, ladies,” said Lanquest, “since our meal is concluded, shall we repair to the drawing-room? I shall accompany you there, of course, since there is not another male to keep company with me while I drink my brandy.”
Kate wondered if every evening meal was to be as unpleasant as this one had been.
She suppressed a grimace and concentrated her thoughts on the bath she would take in the morning. while the uncomfortable evening progressed.
Bathing in this era was such a production and so much work for the servants, that she was grateful for the effort. They had to haul hot water in pails that were heavy even before they were filled, up several flights. By the time all the pails were collected the large hip tub the water might be merely warm, not hot as she liked her bath.
How sad that the last evening before Michael’s journey the following morning should be spent listening to Augusta’s constant complaints and admonitions.
CHAPTER 19
Kate woke up early and spent an hour reading. She then sent Romy to Amy’s rooms, to ask if she would join her for breakfast.
Michael had left at dawn and she had a hallowed feeling in her chest, as if she was missing a vital part of her body.
After breakfast, which she and Amy thankfully enjoyed without any of their other guests, Kate stayed close to her rooms and the library and at mid-morning, during their luncheon with Amy she asked her if she would like to stroll around the gardens with her.
It was a mild day. There seemed a slight promise that the sun would come out from behind the clouds but as yet it remained hidden, teasing now and then with an escaping ray.
Kate and Amy walked along the winding lanes of the gardens and orchard, sitting on the comfortable benches when they needed to rest. The older woman with her kindly face and soothing voice filled Kate in about all the latest gossip concerning Lady Bunright.
Two hours later, when they were ready to return to the house, Amy directed Kate to the servants’ stairs in the back of the house, so that they could avoid Augusta and her daughters at least until the lunch hour.
“I’ll see you at the dinin
g room at eleven, my dear,” Amy said as she kissed Kate with affection, “I hope Augusta doesn’t say something that will give me indigestion. I need you by my side to help me with her barbs, for she does become a bit vicious when I am the only target within her range.
“She is fond of replaying a sad episode in my nephew’s life. While he was away at war his fiancé, Lady Lorraine, ran off to Gretna Green with another man. Augusta brings up something we all would rather bury in the past. She doesn’t want him to forget it for it soured him toward marriage and the last thing Augusta wants is for him to become interested in another woman.”
Kate shook her head at Augusta’s viciousness as she left Amy at her bedroom door and went on to her own room.
Before she settled with her book on the cozy window seat, Kate made sure her bedroom door was locked. Romy knew to knock with their agreed-on code if she found the door locked.
After reading a couple of paragraphs over and over without her brain registering them, Kate tossed the book aside, leaned on the cushions and surrendered instead to her thoughts—worries, if she would be honest.
Would she be unable to return to her place in the future? She just didn’t see any way she would be able to do it without Madame Enlia’s help.
She had thought that the woman had played a trick on her but now she thought otherwise. Had Madame Enlia meant for Kate to meet Michael? And Madame Enlia had given her the way back, Kate had just not listened carefully.
If Madame Enlia had meant to play cupid, she had an uphill battle. Kate belonged to her age. She was now sure she loved Michael, but their love had no chance in his world. She belonged to the age she had come from and she could never belong in his age. Instead, she would disrupt his life to the point that if he loved her now, that love would erode as she fought an uphill battle for rights that would never be granted to her in the age he lived in.
* * *
Although Lady Bunright promised to become a major problem, Kate wouldn’t allow her to get to her. She had assured Michael she would remain until he returned even if she found the way to return and that was exactly what she intended to do.
