Chapter 22
As it turned out, Adeline was more understanding of the situation than Nancy had expected. The not-so-missing woman had seemed disappointed, perhaps, but not judgmental.
Naturally, Nancy had neglected to mention that there had been… an event between her and Hunter, fearing that might encourage Adeline’s idea that every time-traveler should fall hopelessly in love with a sexy Highland laird. Or worse, that it might encourage her own tangled-up thoughts of Hunter.
Perhaps it was the sea air that drifted in through the windows or the exhausting journey from Castle Lochlann or some latent effect of being in the wrong era, but by the time Nancy awoke, it was pitch black outside.
She looked around for a clock but couldn’t find one, though someone had clearly come in while she was sleeping to light the fire. Puzzled, she caught sight of a piece of paper that had been pushed under the door, and went to pick it up.
Didn’t want to disturb you. You’ve missed dinner, but if you’re hungry, just ask the guard outside for something to eat. If you’d like a bath, ask him, and he’ll arrange that too. Looking forward to meeting you; I’ve heard so much! Jane.
Rubbing her bleary eyes, Nancy set the note down on her bed and paused, unable to decide if she was hungry or not. Her stomach gave a quiet rumble of encouragement.
“Why did no one wake me?” she mumbled, thinking more of Hunter than the Clark sisters.
The cèilidh was tomorrow, so she knew she hadn’t missed that, but she’d assumed—perhaps wrongly—that Hunter would at least stop by to check on her. After all, he’d been so staunchly protective in the courtyard.
Shaking off her disappointment, she padded over to the door and slowly eased it open.
Sure enough, there were two guards stationed outside her bedroom, on the opposite side of the hallway.
One looked like he might be asleep on his feet, but the other raised his head at the creak of the hinges.
A flicker of surprise crossed his face, as if he hadn’t expected to be called upon tonight.
“Miss Kane.” He bowed his head. “Are ye well? Can I fetch ye somethin’?”
Nancy felt a little bit bad, sending him off to get her some dinner, but Jane had told her to if she was hungry.
“Would it be possible to get something to eat? It’s fine if not. I guess everyone in the kitchen is probably asleep by now.”
“I’ll wake the cook,” the guard said, and made to walk off.
“No! No, there’s really no need to do that. I can just wait until breakfast,” Nancy gasped, horrified by the idea of someone being dragged out of bed to make her dinner.
The guard smiled. “It’s nay bother, Miss Kane. And Her Ladyship willnae be pleased if she finds out ye were hungry and ye werenae fed. Ye stay in yer room, Miss Kane. I’ll nae be long.”
He walked off before she could protest again.
With some reluctance, she withdrew back into her room, feeling awful.
The poor cook…
No more than half an hour later, a light knock sounded at the door, startling her out of her renewed sleepiness.
About to call out, the door opened anyway, and in walked a woman whom she had only seen in photographs.
As beautiful as her sister, but so very different.
Her features were stronger, more like the classical beauties in art galleries and museums, with a thick mane of golden hair and kind green eyes, and cheekbones to die for.
“I was up, so I thought I’d bring you dinner myself,” Jane Clark said, closing the door behind her, a silver tray elegantly balanced on one hand. A sure sign that in a past life—or, more precisely, a future one—she’d been a waitress.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Nancy gushed. “I tried to stop the guard from waking up the cook, but he said you’d be angry with him if he didn’t.”
Jane chuckled. “I like to take care of my guests.”
She walked over and set the tray down on the low table by the fireplace. With impeccable grace, she sank down into the opposite armchair.
“I thought we could get to know each other while you ate,” she explained. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to greet you at the gates. Sylvia had decided it was the perfect time to play with paints. Couldn’t have covered herself more if she’d tried. So, I needed to give her a bath.”
“You don’t have to explain,” Nancy assured her as the scent of rustic, hearty stew wafted up from the bowl on the tray.
Jane looked intently at her for a moment. “Adeline had a lot to say about you when she got back. You made a heck of an impression.”
“The good kind?” Nancy picked up the spoon.
“The good kind.” Jane smiled. “She mentioned we might have something in common.”
Nancy paused.
“A tapestry?” Jane prompted, raising a pointed eyebrow.
With an eager nod, Nancy quickly told her the tale of the note at Adeline’s apartment and the fateful trip to the Scottish Heritage Museum, and the earthquake that had brought her here.
“It was a tapestry that led me here, too,” Jane said.
“Although it didn’t bring me here. I was searching the ruins of this castle in 2024, and I went down a staircase.
There was a door… and the sound of the sea, and I had my phone flashlight shining at it.
I had the phone in my mouth so I could pull back the bolt on this ancient door, but the phone slipped, and when I picked it back up, everything had changed. I’d been transported back in time.”
“No earthquake?” Nancy asked, wishing she had a pen and paper.
Jane shook her head. “No earthquake for me. It was a kind of storm for Adeline, after the snow globe broke.”
“So… it’s different every time?” Nancy frowned as she tried to find some connection between the three instances.
By the sounds of it, Jane had had the smoothest journey.
Jane tilted her head to the side. “Yes and no. There is a commonality. It’s…
a wish, as I think Adeline told you, but it’s not always something you speak aloud.
” She furrowed her brow, clearly struggling to find a way to explain.
“Adeline did make a wish out loud. My wish was more of a feeling: to see these ruins as they used to be and to learn more about ‘the Beast.’ And my sister said you called out, ‘Help someone,’ before you were transported with that note in your pocket.”
“I said, ‘Help, someone,’” Nancy corrected, leaving a pause where the comma would have been. “I told Adeline that. She thinks whatever force is responsible for this misunderstood and sent me back to help Freya. I assume you know about the bee sting?”
Jane nodded. “I do, but I’ve been thinking since Adeline spoke to me about it.
It sounds a little too… small for the energy that’s at play here.
I’ve learned a lot about the—let’s call it—magic of all of this since my arrival, and it doesn’t deal in small things.
Unless Freya has some profound alternate destiny, the magic wouldn’t send you back to jab her with an Epi-Pen. ”
“Then why am I here?” Nancy asked, her head beginning to ache, as it had when she’d spoken to Adeline at Castle Lochlann.
A bright grin spread across Jane’s face. “Now, that is the big question, and it’s only you who can figure it out. But I can help.” She leaned forward. “First, I need you to tell me what was on that tapestry.”
Nancy quickly spooned up some of the stew and popped it into her mouth to buy herself some time.
She hadn’t told anyone what was on the tapestry, not properly, and she still wasn’t sure if she should. With Adeline’s warning about changing the world and possibly shattering the fabric of the universe, she feared that even mentioning what she’d seen might be too dangerous.
“Maybe it was purely to find you,” she said, swallowing. “That’s what I wanted. That’s what I wished for: to find you and Adeline and… You know, I didn’t hold out much hope of finding the two of you at all, but you’re both alive and well. Thriving, actually. The 1700s look good on the pair of you.”
Jane furrowed her brow, nodding her head just a little as if something was ticking over in her mind.
“I guess that could be it. The note about the painting came from me, so that connects the dots a little. And I guess solving the mystery of two sisters going missing is kind of big, in the grand scheme of things. It was big for you, certainly.”
Now that Nancy thought about it, that did make a lot of sense. If time travel stemmed from wishing, then finding the Clark sisters had been her second greatest wish, just one step down from finding her mother.
“But you know you can’t write that story, don’t you?” Jane added, her tone apologetic.
Nancy ate another mouthful of the delicious, rich stew, thick with carrots and leeks and chunks of beef. “Adeline said the universe might blow up.”
Jane’s green eyes twinkled with amusement.
“Well, I don’t know about that, but it would alter the world in a way that couldn’t be undone.
You see, there are certain things that are always meant to happen, and there are things that can be changed without…
blowing anything up. It’s a delicate balance. ”
“This is going to hurt my head again, isn’t it?” Nancy moaned before wolfing down some bread dipped in the tasty stew.
“Take Adeline, for instance. I was writing about her tomb, her skeleton, without knowing it was her, back when both of us were still in the twenty-first century. She was always supposed to go back in time and fall in love with Logan,” Jane explained slowly.
A chill ran down Nancy’s spine, losing her appetite as she imagined Emily researching some old books and finding a mention of her within their pages, but not knowing it was her.