Belmary House Book One Read online

  For the week since Tilly had disappeared to another time, he’d alternated between frazzled denial and morbid lack of hope at ever seeing her again. He tried to concentrate, doing whatever Emma told him to do. She spent the days secretly trying to find ways to fight the demolition, begging for new funding and trying to whip anyone who had any kind of historical feeling into a frenzy of outrage, then came to the house after hours to try to find her own way back if Lord Ashford didn’t show up in time.

  He’d found a few books about witchcraft and magic, plenty of books on time travel, and loads and loads of bollocks on the internet. They spent each night poring through it all, hoping to find a solution for themselves without having to rely on that damnably unreliable portal and a long dead previous owner of the house.

  “He’s not dead, Dexter,” Emma would remind him when he was on the brink of losing it from the absurdity of it all. “Nor is he a ghost. He’s very much alive in his own time, and he jumps around to different ones. I think the reason we’ve never been able to get any concrete proof about his life is because he’s not done living it yet.”

  It was enough to make anyone quite batty.

  She’d showed him the two letters she’d got from Ashford during the time she’d been stuck here, ten years into her own past. They hadn’t offered much insight or hope. Dex struggled with actively disliking the man, knowing as he did that Tilly was in his care. Emma forcefully assured him that he was a man of honor, and he knew it was the only thing keeping her from giving up.

  Try as they might to find answers on their own, they kept coming up with nothing. If there was a way to travel through the ages that didn’t involve the mysterious upstairs bedroom, they weren’t having any luck finding it. He could see it taking a toll on Emma and he was beginning to worry about her health.

  The one time he asked her what would happen if she couldn’t get back, she stared at him with such bleak despair that he dropped it without getting an answer. Of course, he wouldn’t want to have to relive the past ten years, but while she wasn’t curator of a prestigious museum, she’d done all right for herself this time around as well.

  Using everything she knew about the house, and tweaking her actual experience to fit into this time, she’d finagled a job where she could keep tabs on the portal. It was actually an impressive position. Even after the house was closed for good, she’d still be head of a department, and probably end up curator somewhere else eventually.

  She was his boss, and three years older than him, so he didn’t think he stood a chance in hell with her, but he’d always been teased for being mature for his age, always one to put a damper on idiotic plans that might end up in broken bones or trips to the headmaster’s office. He knew he was blinded by his desire to have her stay, even if he could only continue on the way they were.

  Whenever he was greedy enough to hope their plan failed, he was reminded that Tilly was trapped in the past, and it was like an axe coming down on his already shredded nerves. He tortured himself wondering what she’d had on her when she disappeared.

  She’d been wearing that ridiculously bad Regency costume, and he’d found her phone on the work table. That had nearly killed him, thinking about her without her phone, until Emma had knocked some sense into his addled brain. Of course it wouldn’t work even if she had it. If she had money it wouldn’t be any good. He worried if she had a headache, the awful medicines of that time wouldn’t work. The thought of her getting a serious illness or injury made his lungs seize up with fear. She was so modern, even if properly garbed, he knew she’d stick out like a sore thumb.

  And yet, when he sat alone like this with Emma, he wanted things to stay this way. He’d never felt so torn in his life.

  She looked up and blinked at him, then rolled her shoulders. He looked down, embarrassed to be caught staring at her.

  “I have a group ready to picket,” she said. “I hate for it to come to that, but we need publicity. Be prepared to get hollered at when you come to work tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ve always wanted to get hollered at by picketers,” he said.

  “You’re welcome, then.” She smiled at him and he felt a little dip in his stomach.

  “I’ll wear my raincoat in case they’re chucking rotten vegetables,” he added, desperate to keep the smile on her face. Perhaps she was too tired, or he just wasn’t funny, because her smile disappeared.

  “As it turns out, I’ve found that there’s no solid contract for building. The shopping center is just speculation on the developer’s part. The place might stand as an empty lot for a long time, and the neighbors were pretty unhappy to learn that.”

  “Good sleuthing.” He got another smile before she went back to work as if he didn’t exist at all, and he took a moment to stare at her again, before going back to his own stack of books.

  “The thing is, Dexter,” she said suddenly, causing him to jump. “Belmary House is fine in my time. Either something changed since I got sent back, or we end up changing it with what we’re doing now. But I lived through this time once already and know the history of the house. I worked here for four years. As far as I remember, it was never in any danger.” She rubbed her eyes and groaned. “It makes my head pound thinking about it.” Staring off into space, she sighed deeply. “Are they still looking for me in my time, or have they given up by now?”

  Dex got up to finish making the tea. “You look beat, let’s take a break. Are you sleeping at all? Eating? I can call out for something if you like.”

  She left the work table and stretched out on the crimson velvet settee they’d recently dragged from the attic. As tired as she was, he still found her so beautiful she looked like she could be in a painting.

  “I’ll sleep when I get back,” she said, waving at her bag. “And I’ve got a protein bar in there. I’ll eat it later.”

  “That sounds terrible. I’m ordering curry. You can have some if you like.” He made the call, then handed her a cup of tea.

  “You’ve been really good through this,” she told him, holding the cup near her face for warmth, but not taking a sip. He couldn’t blame her and wished he’d gone to the kitchen and boiled water properly. “After I get back, you come looking for me in ten years. I’ll hire you in an instant.”

  She’d never know the impact those words had on him. She was probably joking, but if she did go back, that was exactly what he’d do. He squinted, trying to calculate.

  “I’ll actually be older than you then,” he said. “I’ll be thirty-five and you’ll still be twenty-eight.”

  “Strange, that.” She gave him a long look. “You’ll probably be even more devilishly handsome, maybe have a bit of grey at your temples.”

  “No, I’m far too vain for that. I’d definitely dye it.”

  She laughed, almost spilling her tea. “Dexter, I’m so sorry your cousin got pulled into all this, but I have to say I’m grateful to have someone to speak to about such things. The last year has been …” she trailed off, finally taking a sip.

  He noticed her hands shaking. She could put on a brave front all she wanted, but he could see how she suffered.

  “I’m glad I can be a comfort,” he said. “I do worry about Tilly, though. We don’t know a damn thing about that Lord Ashford and she’s going to be completely reliant on him. What if he’s some sort of—”

  “He’s not any sort of anything, I’m sure of it. He’s probably set her up as a guest in the house. She could be upstairs right now for all we know, just in a different year, but still safe and sound. You saw in his letters that he wants to help. He could have abandoned me here, but he’s gone out of his way to try and get me back.”

  “And he buggered that quite nicely,” Dex couldn’t help but bitterly add, then felt ashamed since Tilly had been the one to go upstairs even though she’d been asked not to. Emma made a face telling him she hadn’t forgotten that fact either. “The thing about Til is, she’s kind of a mess right now. She’s smart and capable as all hell,
but she doesn’t realize it. She’s never really known what she wanted, just goes along with what she thinks she’s supposed to do. She’s … susceptible.”

  “You’re quite charming when you act so protective,” she said, causing his face to flare with heat. She shook her head and to his dismay, quickly got back to business. “Did you happen to check the room today?”

  He hated to disappoint her, but he didn’t have good news. He checked the room that contained the portal several times a day, looking for a letter Lord Ashford might have been able to leave for Emma. She used to do it herself, but had admitted to being scared of going in the room, afraid to end up in yet another time if the portal happened to be open. He instantly volunteered to take over and she warned him if it ever felt oddly cold, to get the hell out of there.

  “Nothing,” he said. Her expression didn’t change, but she already looked fairly bleak. Irritation at Lord Ashford flared in him. “If he can get here to leave a message, why can’t he come and find one of us? Surely that would be easier.”

  She shrugged. “I only met him once, when he came through to tell me he was looking for a path back to my time. He seemed a bit harried. I think it works on a very strict schedule. He probably could stay, but then he’d be trapped as well. It all depends on when the portal opens and what time it’s going to. He did say that it’s harder for him to go forward than backward, and there aren’t that many openings to our time.” She sighed. “He also told me that people rarely get sent back during their own life, either. It’s always well before or well after.”

  “Can you imagine coming here from the seventeenth century?” Dexter shuddered. “You’d think you’d gone mad.”

  “Yeah, or poor Tilly. Stuck with no running water.”

  He felt the familiar stab of fear and his breath caught. She patted his hand and assured him for the hundredth time that Lord Ashford would take care of her, though he did not feel assured.

  “At least this is familiar to you,” he said hopefully. “It’s probably pretty much the same, right?” He couldn’t help but drop little hints now and then, about things not being so very bad, in case she couldn’t get back.

  “Ha. Just you wait and see.” Her words were teasing, but her voice was desolate.

  She got up and settled herself back in front of her computer, rolling the kinks out of her neck. He wanted to protest that she hadn’t eaten yet, but behind the steely determination in her red-rimmed eyes, he saw raw desperation. For her, staying wasn’t an option.

  ***

  Emma started her car and looked bleakly at the glowing digital time display. She and Dexter had worked until almost eleven, and she finally told him she was going home so he would as well. It was sweet how he worked so doggedly to try and find answers, and the level of caring he showed for his cousin plucked at her heartstrings.

  Besides her mother, who was a traditional, hardworking, and blunt woman, Emma had never had anyone care about her like that. Her father had died when she was too young to remember anything about him, and her ill-fated marriage hadn’t lasted three months.

  As tired as she was, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep if she went to her flat. She fiddled with the leather tassel on her bag before taking out the cellphone she’d had on her when she came through from her own time. She could keep it charged but there was no way to get a plan for it. She was afraid to let anyone have a good look at it for fear of questions. She thought of Dexter trying to cheer her up by saying ten years couldn’t make much difference, but technologically, things had advanced by leaps, and she was constantly annoyed by the slowness of everything now.

  Counting to ten to try and talk herself out of it, she ended up turning on the phone anyway. And there she was. It tore at her insides that the picture she looked at every day, every hour, probably looked nothing like her anymore.

  Did she still demand having her hair plaited every morning? Surely that bottom tooth had grown fully in by now. Emma was glad she hadn’t eaten any of Dexter’s curry, certain she’d throw up from the agony the picture brought her. How sad had her daughter been when she never came home?

  Already anticipating the stabbing pain in her temple, and the muscle spasms she knew she’d get from going too close, she headed toward Oxford. A little more than an hour later, she parked a few streets away and crept along the quiet lane toward her old house. Just seeing the house she grew up in with her mother made her breath hitch, and she lurked along the neighbor’s hedge, watching the dark windows. She’d lived this once before, and knew her earlier self would be awake in a few hours to feed the baby, then tuck her in bed with her mum before heading out to one of the many jobs she kept while putting herself through school.

  Compulsively, she crept closer, until she could see her reflection in the side bedroom window. If any of the neighbors saw her, no alarm would be raised. It was too dark to see the slight differences ten years had brought. This was her home. Had been her home.

  The headache started. She still came here for holidays and long weekends, but in her own time, and the minor differences between then and now often disoriented her. They’d replaced the windows, so they no longer had small square panes, and the tree they’d planted when Emma was first born was as tall as the roof, but still a spindly sapling now.

  She longed to speak to her mother on these occasions she staked out the house, but the pain kept her from getting too close. Hunkering down below the window level, she wrapped her cardigan closer around her and waited, fighting the waves of nausea and cramps that attacked her limbs.

  There was no use in stretching or moving around. She’d learned it was a strange side effect of being too close to her old self. It quickly abated as soon as she moved far enough away. The pain was often excruciating, but only outright death could have kept her away. The need to see her child was too strong. For too many long hours during the last year she’d waited around outside this house, breathing through the pain and counting the days until she’d be back where she belonged.

  Now the countdown had run out and she still found herself swallowing bile outside the window while she waited. Instead of fighting the pain, she had to fight anger and confusion. Finally, the light snapped on above her head and she waited a few minutes before slowly peeking in under the half-raised blind. She was usually too wrapped up in the sickness to feel much of anything towards her former self, but now she felt a dark rage at that other woman holding her baby.

  Which one of them was real? This wasn’t her time anymore, so it certainly wasn’t her. If she couldn’t get back, what would become of her? Emma watched with despair until she was almost blind with pain, then hurried back to her car, not thinking about the long day of work ahead of her with no sleep. Not thinking about anything.

  Chapter 14

  Dex walked to work, nervous and excited to see the picketers. He imagined getting pelted with paint or eggs, the worst obscenities screamed at him. Like the nerd that he was, he couldn’t wait. He knew as he grew closer that it would probably be a small group of well-behaved neighbors who might nod at him as he hurried past. Maybe he could let them know he was on their side somehow, without endangering his job.

  When he turned into the long driveway and didn’t see any signs or hear any chants, he began to fear they were too well-behaved, and nowhere near close enough to the street to get them the publicity they needed. He would tell them they couldn’t be on the actual property, and shoo them to the curb. That would get the desired result and he wouldn’t get in trouble. He made it past the long row of potted hydrangeas to find there wasn’t a single protester. Perhaps it was too early for them?

  He opened the house and got to work, continuously making passes in front of the windows to see if anyone had gathered yet. The other researchers all arrived and got to their own chores, and it was ten o’clock before he knew it, and still no one appeared wielding a sign or shouting at the unfairness of destroying this beautiful, historic mansion. Someone ran out for snacks, and he asked if anything wa
s going on at the street.

  “Just someone walking a poodle,” she said, handing him a bag of crisps.

  Had he heard Emma wrong and the protesters weren’t coming today? As if in answer, his phone buzzed in his pocket, making him jump. Everything made him jump these past few days. Emma cut him off before he could finish saying hello.

  “Can you meet me somewhere?” she asked, her voice tight and scratchy. He hoped she hadn’t been crying.

  “Of course,” he answered, already grabbing his jacket. “Just tell me where.”

  He took down the place and told the others he had to meet with Miss Saito, not even needing a story since she was their boss. Still, his stomach rolled with nerves, suspecting everyone was looking at him funny.

  He ran the four blocks to the coffee shop, throwing open the door and startling the one other patron besides Emma, an elderly lady who was halfway through her scone. She scowled at him as he made his way past her, pointedly wrapped her leftovers in a napkin, and left.

  “Good job,” Emma said grimly, her face pale and drawn. He was certain she’d been crying.

  “Let me get you something,” he said, noticing she only had a water glass in front of her.

  Her shoulders slumped but she didn’t protest and he ordered them lemon bars and herbal tea, hoping it would calm the panic he saw in her eyes.

  “They’re not coming,” she said as soon as he sat across from her. “Someone got cold feet and called the contractor, demanding to know more about the specifics of the shopping center. That information was something I wasn’t supposed to know. I had to dig for it, so when he gave my name as the source, you can imagine they weren’t too pleased. They called Henry, told him his team was conspiring against the construction.” She rubbed her eyes like a little child, and breathed out hard.

  “Ah, crap.” Dex picked up his cup, then set it down, knowing the mint tea would be about as soothing as acid at that moment.