Page 22 of Watch For Me By Candlelight

Chapter Eight

Kate watched Theo disappear over the fields and vanish into the dark. A few minutes later she heard a car door slam and an engine start. The car drove off and the headlamps arced over the fields briefly, driving away towards the campsite.

He’d called her “Cat”. A strange slip of the tongue, given her current dual situation . . . But not unexpected — Kate, Cat. Whatever. It was an easy mistake to make. And yet, it made her uncomfortable. It was just too much of a coincidence. That and all the other things. Something seriously freaky was going on here and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Her thoughts returned to Theo himself. She wondered whether she’d ever see him again or whether he’d just hover on the edge of her consciousness forever, nudging her every time she thought about horses or blacksmiths. Or even cheese on toast. She really felt as if she knew him, as if they’d known each other for years — either that or she had a slight obsession with him that had manifested itself into those bizarre episodes with Cat Tredegar. Kate didn’t even know who she was. She certainly didn’t know why her brain was making up visitations to what she oddly thought was Cat’s life. She might be spending too much time in the environs of the Folk Museum, she supposed. Immersed as she was, living and working amongst things steeped in the lives of other people, it was only natural that sometimes the imagined past would intrude on the present. She’d taken on a lot more after Maeve had left, so it was just as well she loved her job really.

Putting all that aside, though, her mind told her it was highly unlikely she’d see Theo Kent again.

Her heart, however, had her daring to hope otherwise; it took a lot for Kate to admit that to herself, but it was true. So she thought it best if she buried that idea rather quickly and tried not to think about Theo any more.

Instead, she would head upstairs, wake up that laptop and do a little research. The thought of Blacksmith Will and Cat Tredegar wasn’t going to leave her in peace anytime soon. She swept the crumbs from the plates onto the grass, and picked up the cups and crockery. Another quick trip down to the garden had her collecting the glass and the wine bottle. There was a peculiar sort of atmosphere to her little garden when she went down the second time — it seemed almost too still and too peaceful, and her senses tingled as she stood on the lawn and looked around her. She half-expected to see a Bath chair trundling down from the Hall; the sound of hammering from the forge and the whinny of a horse. She shivered and decided not to linger down there.

She hurried back upstairs and sat down at the laptop. She took a deep breath and started trawling around any resources she could find. She must have searched for about half an hour, getting distracted by all sorts of interesting information — but then she saw it. A newspaper report in a local paper about a heavy freeze in February 1885. It must have been a slow news day, but she was unutterably grateful for that; because within the report was a snippet that made her shake and her palms sweat:

“It is our unfortunate duty to report that Miss Catriona Tredegar, a relative of the Countess of Hartsford, was today seriously injured in a fall on the ice during her stay at the Hall. Miss Tredegar, the only daughter of eminent traveller and historian Andrew Tredegar and his botanist wife, Matilda, is expected to convalesce at the Hall for the foreseeable future. Please be aware that the River Hartsford is not usually prone to freezing and this demonstrates that reckless behaviour and challenging the laws of nature do not meld well together.”

Despite the rather pompous tone of the article, Kate was mesmerised by an illustration of the River, all frozen and beautiful and a figure sprawled face down on the ice. It was an artists’ impression, that was all, but the Faerie Bridge was in the background and it was, in its own weird way, magical. At least it proved Cat had stayed at the Hall. Kate’s head was pleased she had found something solid to back her experiences up in some way — but her heart knew she didn’t need back-up. Not really.

Her eyes drifted outside and she imagined Theo snuggling down in his sleeping bag, perhaps just in his t-shirt and boxers. She imagined his arm resting on the top of the cover, the muscles firm and well-defined and his dark brown eyes closed as he slept, his lashes dark against his tanned cheeks—

‘Shut up!’ she told herself angrily. She looked back at the laptop and wondered if she’d be able to trace Blacksmith Will at all. He might be more difficult — but she had resources in the museum, didn’t she? Maeve had told her the cottage was the Blacksmith’s, but it had never really seemed that important before to see it written down and to see his name in front of her.

Kate sat back in the chair and thought hard. Had Maeve ever told her this story? This legend about the family? Might it be that she knew it all subconsciously? It was a thought, but she didn’t know why Cat and Will’s situation had suddenly started haunting her.

Because the stars are aligning and it’s time again.

The words were whispered somewhere very close to her ear and she jumped. There was, of course, nobody near her and she stood up, scraping the chair back across the floor, looking around. She wasn’t even sure if it was a man’s voice or a woman’s.

Whatever it was, the words sent her hurtling downstairs, straight into the room that held the ice-skates. There were, she knew, some records of estate staff and handwritten notes there, amongst some other little exhibits from the Hall. If she searched through them, she might be able to see his name . . .

Kate unlocked the cabinet with shaking hands and riffled through the documents — notes about dinner parties, guest lists and menus jostled for space next to orders for fabric from London and cheerful letters from guests thanking the Aldrichs for their hospitality. Kate was just beginning to despair, when she picked up a letter from Henry Aldrich, Earl of Hartsford. He was apparently writing to a friend within the horse-racing fraternity, raving with delight at the fact one of his horses had won at Newmarket in 1884:

“If Vane-Tempest can get George Stubbs to paint Hambletonian after his win, I say it is not outside the realms of possibility that I engage Heywood Hardy to paint Rowland after his win, what say you? I suspected the animal may have injured itself after the run, but young William Haddon, the estate blacksmith, checked and the steed is, thankfully, no worse for wear!”

Kate sank down onto the floor, holding the letter. George Stubbs had been a famous artist and she had seen that very portrait of Hambletonian, a beautiful, big brown race-horse, in Ireland.

‘You really did work here, Will,’ she whispered and looked up, along towards his cottage. And Cat — Miss Catriona Tredegar had been a guest here at the same time, and had an accident on the River, after ‘reckless behaviour’ on the ice.

Part of her was thankful that she’d discovered all that. But another part, the bigger part of her, was absolutely terrified. The cottages didn’t feel sinister in the slightest, far from it. In fact, as she sat on the floor and clutched the letter, she had never felt more as if she belonged there.

But she was terrified because she didn’t know how things were going to progress for Cat and Will, two people who should never get together, never be allowed to fall in love; and she had a feeling that she was going to find out.

* * *

It had been a couple of weeks since her discoveries, and Kate hadn’t shared any more incidents in Cat’s life. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but her real life had to continue and was continuing, and as such she was heading down to London.

Chris had ended up working weekends, as he’d intimated, and it wasn’t intolerable as such, it was just more difficult. Fortunately, with the museum being closed Mondays and Tuesdays, she had the chance to pop down to Chiswick, more than he had the chance to come up to Suffolk; but considering he often worked those days in the office, or was out and about seeing clients — sometimes not even in this country — it was by no means a regular arrangement.

However, Kate was going to London not just to see Chris, this time, but to see her brother. Tom was a historian too; his speciality was the Tudors, surprise, surprise, and he was always off doing learned things. Just like their parents, who were academics, Professors at Cambridge University and archaeologists first and foremost. Their children had been an inconvenience they had to suffer to keep the family name going — or so it had always seemed to Kate, who sometimes felt like the odd one out in her family. She was happy to settle in Suffolk and didn’t really want to go anywhere else. She didn’t have that Howard wanderlust, but Tom did.

‘I’ve got a couple of days in London,’ he had told her via a crackly Skype call. The museum Wi-Fi had a horrible habit of dipping in and out as well as the mobile signal. ‘I’m staying over before I head to France. You fancy joining me?’ He was on the trail of Mary Queen of Scots apparently, going off on one of his Tudor tangents. He’d been to Scotland and was working his way down the country in her footsteps or something.

‘Don’t mind if I do. And the parents?’

He’d rolled his eyes. ‘Busy on a dig. Can’t make it.’

That had made Kate think of Maeve, and then almost immediately of Theo Kent — as it always did. She’d tried to put him to one side, in a little box in her mind labelled ‘Theo’, but sometimes she couldn’t help taking the lid off and peeking into it. Today, however, she squashed the Theo thoughts down firmly. It seemed extremely disloyal to be thinking of him when she was planning to see Chris, but it was something that just seemed to happen without her being conscious of it.