‘I found your letter, from before…. When I was here in 1755.’ I wanted to tell her everything, but I didn’t know where to begin. ‘Aunt Bill. How are you here?’ I squealed. ‘It’s so good to see you!’ I hugged her again. Part of me had given up on the idea that I’d ever see my aunt again and the reality of seeing her, fully three-dimensional, in front of me, was almost too much to take in. She grinned and hugged me back.
‘Time traveller, just like you. You got my letter?’ My aunt grinned. ‘Aha! The system works!’
‘What system?’ I lowered my voice.
‘I ’ad the inkling you were goin’ to discover the rose garden; I’d never said anythin’ to you about all o’ this. I promised your mum, an’ I know it’s dangerous. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to travelthrough time, like I ’ave. Takes a toll.’ She sighed. ‘However, I thought, if you make it ’ere of your own account, an’ I leave you somethin’ – if you find it, then it’s meant to be. So I wrote you that letter an’ hid it. Took a chance.’
‘That was a pretty big gamble. Of all the places in the house, you hid it in the room that was my bedroom, as a lady’s maid,’ I said. ‘How did you know to leave it there?’
‘I didn’t, maid. That was my bedroom.’ Aunt Bill gave me a knowing smile.
‘Your bedroom?’ I echoed. ‘You stayed there?’
‘I did. When I came to Trevarron the second time, I was a ’ousekeeper. They gave me that room.’ She chuckled at my expression. ‘’Tis true! ’Ousekeeper, in a place like this, it’s quite a senior role. This was before your time, milord,’ she added, to William, who looked totally mystified. ‘This time, I’m a governess for young Violet.’ She nodded. ‘Havin’ an education, as a woman, that’s quite useful in the past, as it turns out.’
‘You’re… Violet Trevarron’s governess?’ I was aware that I was repeating more or less everything that my aunt said, but it was a lot to take in. My heart was starting to return to its normal rhythm, but I felt as though it wouldn’t take much for it to race again.
‘That’s right, maid. I learnt after my first travel that I should ’ave a backstory for when I’m comin’ to the ’ouse. Best thing to do is pose as the ’elp, like you did.’ She nodded. ‘I tried passin’ myself off as a visitin’ noblewoman, but it didn’t work. My accent, the way I am.’ She shrugged. ‘Works best if act like staff. Probably you could pose as a lady, though. You ’ave, in a way.’ She looked at me sharply. Aunt Bill had always been a friendly, open person. But she was shrewd, too.
‘Why’re you posin’ as singers, anyway, maid?’ Aunt Bill straightened her dress; her unruly grey-blond curly hair had been pinned up into a neat-ish bun and she wore a severe grey dress with a high neck. However, even the grey and the boned corset I suspected was underneath couldn’t disguise Aunt Bill’s voluptuous figureor herjoie de vivre.
‘We needed an excuse to get back into Trevarron to use the portal. Nancy – that’s Nancy Willcock, the pellar? She lives in your cottage now – she said that there was a party due, up here. We volunteered as entertainers.’
‘Goodness, maid. I can see there’s so much to catch up on.’ Aunt Bill looked me square in the eyes, and laid both of her hands on my shoulders. ‘Now, we’ve got to go back to the party. But we’ll need to speak, again, before you disappear through the portal. Now you’re ’ere, you can both ’elp me with my plan.’ Her expression darkened.
‘What plan?’ William asked.
‘I got to get Miss Violet and Lady Trevarron out of ’ere.’ Aunt Bill lowered her voice. ‘They’re in terrible danger.’
SIXTEEN
Aunt Bill surveyed the gatehouse. ‘Now, this is adorable, ain’t it? I ain’t never been ’ere before. I can’t leave Miss Violet for long, but the master went up to London straight after the party, so we ’ave a little bit more freedom than usual.’
It was a few hours after we’d sung at Violet’s birthday party and William and I had gone back to the gatehouse, arranging to meet Aunt Bill there when she could get away. It was more private than trying to hide in the main house. Mrs Feathers had allotted us accommodation for the evening as a thank-you for the performance, and since we hadn’t asked for payment. She’d found us after we’d snuck away from the little library room where we’d spoken to Aunt Bill, and congratulated us on a good show.
I could tell that she was surprised we’d been so good, but she said,milord enjoyed the performance greatly, and told her that we should be allowed to enjoy the party for the rest of the evening and be put up at the gatehouse. Apparently, Lord Albert hadn’t been upset enough by my questions to deny us accommodation for the night.
‘Arrogant bastard,’ William had muttered, once Mrs Feathers was out of earshot. ‘Lord Albert, that is. Like I care what he thinks.’ He was still bristling about Albert’s assumption that William mighthave been an illegitimate ‘by-blow’ of his father’s. ‘It’s my house. My estate. My property. He doesn’t get to condescend to me, to tell me we can stay here.’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know who you are, and we need to keep it that way,’ I reminded William.
Not for the first time, I wondered why it was that there seemed to be certain places that held a particular resonance through time; places that I was continually drawn back to.
Aunt Bill’s cottage. This place. Trevarron House itself. Even the bedroom that I had slept in when I’d been a lady’s maid in 1755 had also been Aunt Bill’s room, years before. Why? It was like an echo through time.
However, I wasn’t going to tell my aunt that William and I had made love in the gatehouse before, when we were together in 1755.
‘Please, take a seat, Miss Penrose.’ William pulled out one of the dark wooden chairs at the table; Aunt Bill settled into it with a sigh.
‘Thank you, milord,’ she said; I was amused at her deferential word.
‘You can call him William,’ I said. William nodded.
‘I am not a lord here,’ he commented dryly.
‘William, then.’ She nodded. ‘Old ’abits. I been in service for so long in my life, in different ways. It just comes natural to call a lord a lord.’ My aunt shook her head in wonder. ‘Though I been travellin’ time for many years now, it never fails to amaze me what ’appens in the past. Fact is, I’ve ’eard about you for so long, an’ ’ere you are.’ She chuckled softly. ‘Lord William De Vere Trevarron, thank you very much.’
‘Heard about me?’ He smiled quizzically.
