Twin Flames (Twin Flames #1)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

L ondon, 1536

Cara awoke in bed, at her modest London tavern lodgings. It was as if she’d not left. Except for one thing: an ominous warning echoed in the chambers of her mind.

Sylvia said that the Angel Gabriel warned her that all was not as it seemed. Or could it have been only a dream on this occasion? Perhaps she hadn’t time travelled at all. She pulled her legs up towards her chest and curled up into a ball as she willed herself back to sleep. She wanted to shut out reality. Her mind was foggy, and she couldn’t think clearly. Sleep wasn’t to be. A few minutes later, there was a gentle tap on the door.

‘Yes, who’s there?’

‘Lady Cara, it’s me, Edward. I must speak with you.’

‘Yes, of course. Please enter.’

Cara shot up in bed and pulled the sheet over her nightdress.

‘Good morning Edward. Is everything all right? Judging by the light, it’s barely dawn.’

‘Yes, it’s not much more, my lady. But I thought I should come and tell you the news immediately I heard it.’

‘Heard what? Whatever did you hear?’

‘Swifty brought me word just a few moments ago that yesterday evening they began building a new scaffold on Tower Green. He couldn’t get away last night. He said he overheard that it’s similar to the one they used for poor Queen Anne. The lad’s terrified; white as a ghoul. Raced here to warn us.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Cara. A tremor shot through her body, and she began to shake. ‘We’re running out of time. We must put our plan into motion today. There’s no time to waste.’

‘But surely they must allow George to be heard by the privy council to sentence him before they take such action?’

‘Well, you know how quickly that can happen. It was merely a formality for the queen. They’d decided on the verdict before she had a chance to speak up in her own defence.’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Edward. His brow was furrowed and he looked as though he’d had a long night. ‘What do we need to do to execute the plan?’

‘We must get word to George, so he’s ready to escape. Is it possible for Swifty to pass on a secret message?’

‘It’s possible to give him a message but whether it will remain secret depends on how closely George is watched. The boy is downstairs in the kitchen being fattened up like a yuletide goose, by the cook, who’s taken a shine to him. She says the waif looks like he hasn’t eaten a good meal in weeks. He’s filling his face as fast as she fills his bowl.’

‘Oh, thank goodness. That is fortunate. We must catch him before he leaves.’

She talked Edward through precisely what they would need to do, and he rushed to the kitchen to give Swifty instructions.

Cara dressed and pondered over how she and Edward used modern expressions. She would guess that ‘filling his face’ wasn’t an expression used in 1536. They would have to watch their tongues or people would become suspicious.

She hurried down to the parlour to meet Edward and the children. Who knew when she’d see them again?

‘Are we all set?’ she asked Edward.

He nodded and gave her a thumbs up. The children laughed and mimicked the movement with their small thumbs.

When they were alone, she would need to remind him to keep his language and behaviour appropriate for the times.

She glanced out of the window, not tasting a morsel of her breakfast. Her stomach was tight with nerves. First light pushed through the dark, rain-filled sky and she wondered what this new day would bring.

‘One of your grandfather’s men will arrive shortly, and he’ll escort you both home in the carriage. Please do your best to stay out of mischief and do what he tells you. It’s for your own safety.’

Cara’s business-like manner was met by May’s teary eyes. Cara softened, unable to steel herself against her daughter’s anguish. She relented, pulled her onto her lap and stroked the little girl’s hair, which seemed to have the desired calming effect.

‘Can’t we stay here with you, Mother? Please? We don’t want to go home alone. We’ll be as quiet as mice if you let us stay here in our room. We promise, don’t we Thomas?’ She looked up at Cara, her face appealing.

A small smile played over Thomas’s mouth as he shrugged his shoulders in a helpless gesture. He’d long since stopped trying to tell May what to do. His sister had been strong-willed since birth. He knew she was more likely to comply with his mother’s wishes when he didn’t interfere. Thomas didn’t know exactly what was at stake, but he sensed his parents were in terrible danger. He feared for his father’s life and didn’t wish to make things worse.

‘No, I’m afraid not, May. All I can say is that it’s critical that you return to Willow Manor with as little fuss as possible, please,’ added Cara.

‘What about Father? When will you both come home to Willow Manor?’ asked May. Her deep brown eyes were so reminiscent of George’s, they plucked at Cara’s heartstrings.

‘You need to trust that I know best and not ask any more questions. I promise I’ll explain everything when we return home. In the meantime, please be on your best behaviour for your grandparents. And stay close to your brother.’

‘Will Nutmeg be there when we get home?’ May brightened at the mention of her beloved pony.

‘Yes, of course. I will miss my little girl terribly, but Nutmeg will be overjoyed at your return.’

May nodded. Cara breathed a sigh of relief. For everyone’s safety, she didn’t want to tell the children more than they needed to know.

She’d made a habit of talking to them freely about the realities of life. But this was one of those occasions when the less said, the better.

Cara longed to return to York with her family and to live a peaceful life in the country. She’d had enough drama to last her a lifetime and wouldn’t mind if she never saw London again. But the drama wasn’t over yet. She must be strong.

They heard noises in the courtyard as they finished eating, and Cara dashed outside.

‘How wonderful that you made it. I can’t thank you enough,’ said Cara.

‘My lady,’ Hancock, the steward from Willow Manor, bowed his head. ‘I’m under orders to escort the children home, and I’d like for us to be on our way without delay.’

Ten minutes later, Cara stopped waving as the carriage disappeared from view, and she could no longer glimpse her children’s faces.

‘Right, let’s make haste,’ she said, turning to Edward.

‘We must go to the nearest church. I have no idea what the protocol is for borrowing a priest’s garb, but we’re about to find out. We must not dally.’

York, present day

Cara had lost her bearings; recently, she was flitting back and forth, daily, between the present day and Tudorville. She struggled to keep track of time as she careered between her two lives. Surely this couldn’t go on indefinitely. It was becoming impossible to act appropriately and not give herself away. Five hundred years of cultural change was a great deal to have missed. She was well-schooled in the Tudor and modern eras, but large chunks of the years in between were a blank.

Visions of George in the Tower terrorised her thoughts, and she found it increasingly difficult to focus. What was happening back then? Had Swifty succeeded in returning to Cradle Tower to ready George for their plan? Her body was here, but her head was consumed by the past.

‘Cara, Cara. Are you with me? I was asking what you think.’

‘Oh, yes. My apologies, please excuse me while I grab a glass of water and I’ll be back with you in a moment. Would you like one?’

She had a client meeting this morning and must try to be present, or she’d soon have no business left. She opened the kitchen door and stuck her head out for a blast of fresh air.

She’d been surprised to see that the new lawyer representing one of her client’s agencies, looked almost identical to Sir John in Tudorville. It was uncanny. She wondered how many doppelgangers lived parallel lives and were liable to pop up at any moment to startle her. Returning to wrap up the meeting, she escorted the doppelganger to the door, turned the key in the lock behind him and breathed a sigh of relief.

The hardest thing about her double life was pretending everything was normal and that she was like everyone else. The only person she could fully relax with since George disappeared, was Eddie, and even he gave her blank stares when he lost track of what was going on. Her existence had become a tangled web of lies, and she didn’t like it.

A seed of an idea had been niggling at her. The Angel Gabriel warning had reactivated the thought. What if George was alive after all? What if in the same way she’d disrupted the timeline sufficiently to change the trajectory of her life with Daniel, something similar had occurred with George?

Sitting at her desk, she typed George Cavendish into the search bar of her computer. A plethora of results flicked up. His was a common name, so it was no surprise. She began to click on the links and follow some of the threads. It was a Pandora’s box, and she was about to give up when an image caught her eye. She enlarged the photo, and there he was: George. Her George. Or he looked like George. The image wasn’t clear. Maybe she was mistaken. There was something slightly different about him; he was a little heavier in the face. But no. His brown eyes were the same. She would know them anywhere. Her breath caught in her throat and she felt giddy.

Could it really be him or was this man simply another lookalike? Was it possible that George didn’t die at the Tower even if they hadn’t intervened and saved him? Was he perfectly okay, living another life, oblivious to the life he had missed? Was she about to risk messing things up yet again, by insisting on rescuing him? Perhaps he didn’t need rescuing at all. One question led to another, and her head began to spin.

‘Perhaps he doesn’t need rescuing at all.’ The revelation hung in the air as she said the words aloud. She could barely believe it herself. The implications were huge. If he was living a different life, perhaps he was single. If he was single, they could be together without any of the conflict. If they rescued him, they would reset things to the old timeline.

She’d searched for George online soon after they’d first met, but he wasn’t much of a one for social media, and apart from the standard business listings, there wasn’t much to see. There were a couple of articles about his business background and a mention of his marital status, but that was about it.

When she’d returned to find he wasn’t in the same house with Joanna, she’d jumped to the conclusion he must have died in 1536, and that unless they saved him, it was the end of his lineage. But now it seemed possible she was mistaken.

Her researcher’s analytical brain processed the data in her mental fog. She needed to remove herself from the emotional whirlpool so she could think clearly.

The questions competed for attention in her head. She scanned the newspaper article that accompanied the photo. George Cavendish was on the board of directors of an import-export company, and he had several homes but was said to spend most of his time in Seville, Spain. There was no mention of a wife, although that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. She cautioned herself to slow down and not get her hopes up.

He was alive. It was incredible. She would get the first flight out there and go and see him for herself. It was the only way she could know for sure.

‘Eddie, Eddie?’ She drummed her fingers on the desk with one hand as she hit his name on her phone with the other.

‘Hi. You sound a bit frantic. What’s going on?’

‘I am frantic. I’ve discovered George is alive! We mustn’t save him from the Tower. We would risk messing things up again. He’s alive Eddie!’

‘I see. So we mustn’t save him from the Tower. . .because?’

‘Don’t you see? The timeline has recalibrated itself without our interference. We didn’t have to do anything to make it happen. In Tudorville the scene is set for George to be executed, which is why I thought he wasn’t alive in the present day unless we save him. But now we know he is alive even before we’ve saved him, we risk losing him all over again if we meddle. If our rescue attempt doesn’t work and we’re caught, or if it works, but the future compound effect is one we can’t possibly understand now, we could do more harm than good. Do you see?’ Cara ran out of steam as her words rushed out.

‘Steady on. I don’t think we can know for sure, based on what you’ve said. It’s all supposition. I’d say it’s sixty-seven to thirty-three percent in favour of us messing it up if we rescue him,’ said Eddie.

‘How on earth did you calculate that?’ asked Cara. ‘It seems rather exact.’

‘I am exact, my dear. I’m a quantum physicist. They pay me to be exact.’

‘Ah, yes. Haha. That’s true.’

‘The real question is, are you willing to take a chance on the thirty-three percent? It could quite well be that in another time formation, he’s still only alive today because we did save him from execution. Have you considered the consequences of not saving him?’

‘Yes I have, but I can’t take the chance of losing him again when he’s alive, and he may even be free. Eddie, please try and get back to Tudorville to stop the rescue going ahead. At least until I get in touch and tell you otherwise.’

‘But you know we have no control over our comings and goings. That’s the reason we got into this mess in the first place.’

‘Please Eddie, please. Remember your certainty about when you think of the place and time you want to travel to; you will get there? Please try again. Try for me, for George, for Thomas and May. We need to delay the rescue and reevaluate once I’ve been to Seville and met this version of George. We can still implement our plan at the last minute if we need to. It’s too much of a coincidence to ignore, and I didn’t tell you that I had a warning from Angel Gabriel when I went to Sylvia for a reading.’

She imagined Eddie rolling his eyes. He was sceptical of anything that he couldn’t at least attempt to prove with the power of numbers.

Eddie coughed. ‘Okay, okay. I’ll have a go, but I’m not promising anything.’

He shook his head. He found it impossible to say no to Cara.

‘Thank you. You’re the best.’