Chapter 5
Lizzie kept pace with William as they hurried back to the manor house.
“Is Mr. Hallifax all right?” she asked.
She’d used Lew’s supposed ill health as an excuse to get away so many times, she couldn’t help but fear that one day it would be the truth.
He was in fine shape right now, but he wasn’t young by any stretch and she’d seen what passed as medical care in this time.
If he ever really did fall ill, she’d take care of him herself rather than risk some quack butcher bleeding him to death over a fever.
“Yes, miss. Just had a letter for you and said it was of great importance.”
A letter, that was new. Her heart raced as she wondered if it had been left by Lord Ashford.
Could she possibly be going home soon? Quinn Ferguson flashed into her mind, the only thing that could distract her from her anxiety.
Him and his damn muscular thighs. And chest, and arms. And that face.
He was like an archangel or something. More like a demon, she thought bitterly. Sent from Scotland to torment her.
Oh goodness, she had teased him earlier, outside the dress shop.
Had she been flirting? No, certainly not, but would he construe it as flirting?
Someone so handsome had to have women falling at his feet all the time.
No wonder he just stood there and took it all in stride.
She was disgusted with herself for adding to his massive ego.
But his smile seemed so genuine, and not conceited at all.
Hmmph, that was probably how he reeled them in, pretending he wasn’t aware of his effect.
She tumbled into William’s back and nearly knocked him over when they reached the back entrance to the house. She didn’t bother to apologize, he already thought she was addled, and raced past him to find Lew.
She didn’t have to look far. He waited for her, pacing back and forth in the kitchen, a thin sheen of sweat on his brow. Lew never sweated, or paced. What was going on?
“You have a letter?” she asked, taking his arm and leading him to a bench furthest from the roaring kitchen fire. Lew handed her a sealed envelope. “You didn’t read it yet?”
He shook his head. “It’s addressed to you. I don’t know how he got the message through, if he was here or not. As you know, I check that room regularly, and found the letter partially obscured by the rug.”
She turned it over in her hand, and seeing her name scrawled across it, felt oddly elated that Lord Ashford remembered it.
Maybe she was a priority after all. Her heart thudded as she slid her finger under the edge, realizing with shock that it wasn’t sealed with wax, but the slightly gummy adhesive of a modern envelope.
Inside was a piece of notebook paper, with a raggedly torn side edge.
The handwriting looked old-fashioned to her but it was clearly done with a ballpoint pen.
She held it up to her face and smelled the blue lined paper and ink.
A brief wave of nausea hit her, but she recovered.
“This is from my time,” she said, showing Lew the paper and envelope. Lew ran his thumb over the still sticky underside of the flap. “He must have been in my time, or thereabouts.”
“What does it say, Lizzie?” Lew asked, his voice strained.
“Oh! Yes, of course.” She held it so they could both read it at the same time.
Miss Elizabeth Burnet,
My apologies for the delay. If I am correct it is now 1729 and you have been gone from your own time for a year or more.
Rest assured I am doing all that is in my power to recover you.
The portal to that particular time is difficult to project, even with near constant monitoring.
By my calculations, however, I seem to have devised a pattern.
There are two dates that should be in your near future, that I believe I should be able to come through and fetch you.
If my first assumption proves incorrect, please do not fear.
Merely arrange to meet me for the second date.
I am sorry they are so few and far between.
— Ashford
The first date was less than a month away, with a meeting time down to the second, late in the evening.
Her pounding heart sank to see that the second date, should the first one fail, was another year away.
She sat with the paper getting crumpled in her sweaty hands until Lew gently pulled it out of her grasp.
“Let me copy these dates and times, dear,” he said, taking the paper with him. “One moment.”
He left, while she sat trembling on the bench. The times and dates were burned into her brain, the news that she finally had a light at the end of the tunnel not yet sunk in. Lew returned, pressing the neatly folded note into her hand.
“Lock that away, child,” he said, looking unaccountably frightened. “You don’t want anyone to find it.”
She nodded, turning away so she could stuff it down her bodice, worried she’d lose it if she put it in her reticule. Could it be possible that she’d be home in a month? The news finally hit her and she had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from making a noise. Lew squeezed her shoulder.
“This is it,” he said. “The time will be upon us before we know it.” He looked a little sad, as if he would miss her.
She couldn’t think about that right now.
She wanted to run through the streets, tear off her corset, set it on fire in Lady Amberly’s garden and dance on its ashes while she laughed at everyone’s horror at her impropriety.
Then she could use her meager savings to hide out in an inn until the day arrived, drinking and trying to think of a possible explanation for her disappearance and long absence.
“Lizzie, you should get back to your young lady, should you not?” he asked, shaking her out of her dazzling day dream.
“Of course,” she said, getting up and straightening her clothes, patting some life back into her cheeks. “Oh dear, I left Catie and her brother at the dressmaker.”
Of course, she had to get back to the way things were. There would be no corset bonfire and no month-long drunken binge. Not when there was the possibility of the first date not working. She’d have another long year here if that were the case.
“Thank you, Lew,” she said.
He offered to find William or another boy to walk with her, but she waved away the offer, too shaken and excitable to be able to walk primly beside some kid. She needed to stomp off some of her nervous energy before she got back to Catie and Quinn.
Quinn. The thought of him took some of the spring out of her step as she got closer to Miss Juliet’s shop.
The one thing she couldn’t do was lose her grip just because she might only have another month here.
She had to stay on top of things until the last second, until she landed securely back in her own time.
She would take Catie around to the parties, introduce her to a titled gentleman who needed her fortune to fix his roof or settle his gambling debts, and she would stop noticing how well Quinn filled out his clothes.
If only Lady Amberly hadn’t invited him to stay at the townhouse.
How was she going to live with him for the next month?
***
Having Quinn in the house didn’t turn out to be the trauma she thought it would.
She’d thought she’d have to spend all her free time skulking in her room, but Quinn turned out to be surprisingly mellow.
He’d come upon her in the sitting room the first evening, and before she could flee, he merely chose a book from the shelf, and settled his large frame onto one of the couches.
“Please dinna mind me, lass,” he said, as she ogled him like an idiot.
His whole body relaxed into the cushions as he opened the book and began to read. He looked so cozy and inviting, she wanted to curl up in his lap and purr.
“Do you like to read?” she asked, mentally kicking herself for opening her mouth when he seemed content to ignore her.
He glanced up, taking a moment to focus on her. His direct gaze rattled her, so unlike many of the men of the time, who either leered uncomfortably or scanned past her like she was a piece of furniture.
“Aye. Things have been quite eventful of late and I havena had the chance as much as I like. I’m grateful to have a bit of peace.”
Abashed at disturbing him, she left him alone. After a while, she became accustomed to seeing him turn the page of his book out of the corner of her eye, and after an hour or so, he invited her to play chess. She agreed without thinking, she felt so comfortable with him.
She beat him, badly, and suspected he let her, or at least was a very good sport about it.
“What sort of things kept you from having time to read?” she asked as they set up a new game. He raised a brow at her and she blushed, hoping she wasn’t prying.
“Ah, difficulties with a neighboring clan. I was accused of kidnapping. Falsely of course.”
“Of course,” she interjected, trying not to let her jaw drop.
“She was my brother’s wife, and I was escorting her back to our land while he, ah, tended to some other things. I knew the marriage was false from the start, but didna know her father was privy to it as well.”
“Oh dear,” Lizzie said.
He glanced at her with a wry smile. “It mostly worked out in the end.”
She remembered with dismay that his brother had recently died. She opened her mouth to apologize and beg him to say no more on what had to be a distressing subject, but he reached across and tapped her lightly on the hand with his king.
“The board is set, shall we start anew?”
The mood lightened during the second game as he told her about his farm.
Though she was a city girl through and through, he made it sound delightful, even the stories of the harsh Highland winters.
Though his family was every bit as fractured as hers, his mother dead by the time he was three and his father a drunken rabble rouser, he only seemed to have fond memories.