‘This feels like a terrible dream,’ he said, into the stillness between us.
It was more than strange, having him here in the room I had slept in as a child. It was hundreds of years in the future that I would be a child here, and that was if you believed that timelines were straight, running seamlessly from the past to the future. I knew that they weren’t. Time, for me, existed in loops, and I didn’t know if I would ever get back to what I thought of as reality.
‘I… I don’t know what to say to you. Do you want me to explain? The time portal?’ I stammered. ‘You should rest?—’
‘I should be at Trevarron,’ he replied, brusquely. ‘I do not belong here, in some pellar’s cottage. I do not belong in another time. I am Lord William De Vere Trevarron. I have an estate to manage. I have a house to look after. Grounds. Horses.’
‘I know,’ I said, softly. ‘But you have to understand, William. Those things… they aren’t there anymore. Not in the way that you remember.’
‘I… I closed my eyes for a few moments, and I was in the same place, but everything was wrong.’ He opened his eyes, meeting my gaze with his. There was such a deep sadness in his expression that my heart broke for him.
‘I know. I was trying to tell you. To bring you through with me – I thought, because the constables were chasing you, it was the best way to keep you safe. They would have put you in gaol in your time.’
‘You saw where I was, just hours ago!’ He raised his voice suddenly and stood up. He had to stoop because the ceiling was so low on both sides, sloping up to the highest point in the middle. The only way that he could stand upright at all was to stand in the middle of the room.
‘I know,’ I placated him. ‘But we got you out. You’re here. You’re safe.’
‘I am not safe!’ William growled. His hand went to his side,where Nancy had dressed his wound. ‘This is not where I belong! I would have preferred to stay in my own time and take my chances, rather than be… summoned here by you!’
‘I didn’tsummonyou here, William. I didn’t know I would end up here either. I was trying to get home. You being here is an accident.’ I tried to keep my voice from hitching, but I wanted to cry. I couldn’t bear for William to be angry with me.
‘How delightful. An accident.’ His tone was ice cold; I couldn’t stand it.
We had been so close, so intimate. I had got to know William, who he was beneath the lordship and his gruff exterior, and I had come to know how warm he was, how kind, how nurturing and loving he was. I knew he was hurting. I knew that all of this was a huge shock; but I, too, had found it desperately difficult to deal with being in William’s world, unexpectedly and without warning.
‘William, please. I’m trying my best here,’ I pleaded, taking his hand in mine. He didn’t pull away, but he stared at me blankly. I knew that he was fighting his feelings for me. He was angry with me. He didn’t want to feel tenderness for me.
When we had been together in 1755, I was a servant. There was a gigantic power imbalance between us, and part of me struggled with the fact that I had allowed us to be intimate at all.
But I couldn’t resist William, and he had never seemed to be able to resist me.
‘Tegan. I appreciate you and Miss Willcock coming to find me. Without you, I know that I would be mouldering in that cell,’ he said, slowly. His voice was still icy cold. ‘But I am furious with you. You lied to me. You betrayed me. After everything that we did.’
‘I know, William. But how could I tell you the truth? You wouldn’t have believed me.’ I could feel tears brimming in my eyes; I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to make William feel any more terrible than he probably already did. I wanted to remain calm. But I couldn’t. My heart was breaking.
‘I told you things that were intolerably hard for me to say!’ he yelled. ‘I told you things I have never and would never tell anyoneelse! I trusted you, Tegan! I lov—’ He stopped himself from saying the words.I loved you.
My heart thrummed like a trapped bird.Love?We had never said it. Our relationship so far had been one of deep intimacy and even deeper desire, but neither of us had ever spoken of love. How could love have been possible, in his world? In 1755, I would forever have been a lady’s maid, and he would have been the lord of the manor. We could have loved each other – emotions were ungovernable, disobedient to everything apart from feeling. But, over time, kissing in shadows, stolen moments – they would have lost their appeal.
I had no idea what would have had to change for us to be together; he would have had to leave his whole life behind, and I knew that William would never leave Trevarron. It was who he was, even though there was a darkness that ran through it like the shadows that had followed Nancy and I down that narrow, dank alley.
‘Please, William… Please forgive me. I was wrong not to tell you. But I felt… trapped. There was nowhere for me to go if I wasn’t welcome at Trevarron. I had to…’ I trailed off.
‘What? You had to what? Lie, to stay under my roof? Become my lover, so that you could ensure your room and board?’ he stared at me, fury lit in his eyes.
‘No!’ I sobbed, tears freely coursing down my cheeks now. ‘William, please!’ It felt as if he had ripped my heart out of my chest.
‘You must understand how I feel. I cannot…’ He lowered his voice again and removed his hand from mine. ‘I cannot just… pick up where we left off. This is all too complicated. And, Tegan… I don’t know if you truly understand how humiliated I was… ending up at the gaol. I came to in the grounds of Trevarron. All I knew was that I had been chased by the constables, but they had suddenly disappeared. I walked back into the house. A footman – afootman,Tegan – stopped me in the hallway. He asked me what on earth I was doing, trespassing, and that he would have me whippedif I didn’t leave immediately. Whipped! As if I was some common tramp!’ He paused for a moment, wiping blood from his lip, which had been split, presumably when the three policemen had had to subdue him. I could well understand that it would have taken three of them; William was huge, made of muscle, and he could fight. He had been the boxing champion in the Navy before he’d begun bare-knuckle fighting, anonymously, in taverns, to assuage the guilt he felt about his wife Elspeth’s death.
‘William… I’m so sorry, I?—’
‘I berated him, of course. How dare a footman speak to me like that? But I realised that I did not recognise this man, and that his uniform was not one that I had approved.’ He frowned, painfully. ‘He argued back, and tried to pinion my arm behind me. Of course, I resisted.’ He ran a hand through his black hair; his knuckles were cut. ‘Then, two butlers appeared and I didn’t recognise them either. I am Lord of Trevarron. I make a point of knowing all the staff. I appoint the butlers and the footmen. I was so confused. How could I not know who any of these men were?’ he appealed to me, and my heart broke for him.
‘They weren’t your staff,’ I said, quietly. ‘You aren’t the Lord of Trevarron. Not here.’
William stared at me, hostile.
‘I know that, now. They ran me off the grounds. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine what that felt like? To be treated like a common criminal in my ancestral home? With my feet on the pathways that I had run on as a child? Just yards from my childhood bedroom?’
