Chapter 8
She would not be returning home today, or the next day, or quite possibly in the following weeks. In fact, Henry did not know when she would ever return because the device that had brought her to his time was broken.
After she stormed out of his bedchamber last night, he had decided not to take any further interest in her identity or responsibility for her well-being and made an immediate plan for her return. However, upon examining the time-travelling device more closely, he made the grim discovery that not only was the blasted Breguet key bent but there was evidence of an explosion of soot and a shatter of glass beneath the gimballed brass bowl.
It was fortunate that he had his grandfather’s notes from Cooper’s briefcase. It was unfortunate that not only did he not have the tools required to study the broken object in closer detail, but it would also require time to fix it. With the fast-approaching Asheford Rose event in three weeks, time was in short supply. Worse yet, he had to break the news to her today and he was dreading the task.
Henry paced before the fireplace. With a frown, he checked his watch. It was nearly noon and she was still in his bedroom. The thought of her being in his private quarters made his face go as red as a beet. But what choice did he have? Bondieux House did not have a guest room and she had expressed the desire to wash. He could not deny her right to do so.
He smelled the lilacs before she entered the room.
Strong and sweet like the first welcoming days of spring, the scent lingered. So contradictory to her unfeminine demeanour.
She sidled into the room and his stomach flipped.
Her locks had been swept into a band at the crown of her head, falling in wavy strands of honey. Although her expression remained guarded, her delicate features painted the portrait of a beautiful woman. Sharp hazel eyes, a round nose, plush pink lips, a tight, white, short-sleeved shirt that showed off her ample … Good God, avert your eyes now.
“Thank you for letting me use your toilet table,” she said, sitting on a sofa.
A faint pulse began beating in his ears. “It is of little bother.”
“In case you’re wondering, I didn’t peek around your room.”
“I could not imagine you of all people would ever do such a thing.”
She flashed him a glance. He saw a faint redness in those mysterious eyes, an indication that she had cried. “And thank you for brunch.” She picked up an apple slice from the silver platter before her and smelled it before taking a bite. “Well, at least it tastes the same.”
“It’s an apple,” he stated. “Did you expect something vastly different from the century of time between us?”
“One hundred and thirty-seven years, to be exact,” she said. “And you’d be surprised how many things have changed in that short timeframe, including food.”
He went to his liquor cabinet to pour himself a glass of whisky. He was not in the mood to talk about their time differences. “Would you like a whisky?”
“What kind?”
“Scotch.”
“Make it a double, please,” she said. “Or is that improper for a lady?”
“You consider yourself a lady?” He took out a second glass. “I was nearly of mind to ask if you wanted to smoke the pipe, given your affinity for wearing trousers, rough-housing and cursing up a storm.”
He brought the glasses to the living-room table and sat on the sofa opposite her. She watched him carefully, a sly smile tugging at her lips.
“Nothing to say?” He tilted his head as he studied her curious expression. “I thought surely those words would antagonize the fighting spirit in you.”
“I’ve got plenty to say,” she said. “But it’s not worth the trouble since I’ll be leaving today.”
To stifle his rising anxiety, he brought a glass to his lips.
“How do you know about time travel?” she asked.
He choked on the whisky.
“Maybe I should start with an easier question,” she said.
“No … no, it’s quite all right,” he said, tapping his chest. “I only hesitate because no one has ever asked me that question before.”
“I’m the first person you’ve ever spoken about it with?”
“The first outside my immediate family.”
Her gaze dropped and she fell silent.
Despite his apprehension, he jumped at the chance of delaying his news, and since he knew that they were stuck with one another, he decided to tell her the truth. At least as much of the truth as his broken heart permitted. The problem was he had never divulged his secrets, not least to a stranger, and he wondered if he would struggle to draw up all the things he kept hidden.
“If it makes things easier, I can tell you how I came to be at Asheford Hall,” she said.
A shudder of relief ran through him. “If you wish to do so.”
“I’m sure you’re dying to know.”
“Yes, dying.”
“Sorry,” she winced. “Bad word choice.”
She began with her father.
He was a popular author who wrote true-crime books and was found dead of a supposed heart attack in his St. Austell home nearly two months earlier. As the story progressed, he learned that she came from Canada to take care of her father’s home and had discovered hidden documents behind a board; documents that indicated her father’s last project involved unearthing the criminal secrets of the Asheford family. She also made it clear that there was no indication her father knew about time travel or that he had been murdered for it. Only that Josiah had been searching for the person who had given her father those documents.
“That’s what he said, wasn’t it? ‘Damn you, wench, I want the person who gave your father those documents’,” she muttered with a mockery of Josiah’s accent as she chewed on a piece of bread.
“Something to that effect, yes,” he said.
“So, that means the person he’s looking for is like me, an alien from the future. It’s probably a cop. How else would Dad get police reports from 1881?” Wide-eyed, she straightened and brought a palm to her forehead. “Or maybe it’s a professor or a historian who discovered the documents in some dusty basement and gave them to Dad.”
Henry shook his head. “I am quite certain that Josiah would have known the person. Think about it. One must set the dial on the device to a specific year. If he were searching for someone who lived in the future, how would he know on which day, at which hour and location?”
“Is that how it works? All you need to do is set the dial to the year?”
“I believe so.”
“Speaking of—”
A sour feeling twisted in his gut. Change the topic before she asks. “What we know for certain is that Josiah thought you would have known where to find the person he was looking for. Hence, he followed you to Asheford Hall, where he attacked and—”
“And I fought back because that bastard wasn’t gonna get the upper hand on me.” She tapped her finger on the table. “Then I kicked him in the chest, the device was activated and there you were.”
“There I was.”
“Honestly, thank God for that.” She exhaled and leaned back into the sofa. “You know I never thanked you for doing what you did.”
Henry was taken aback. “Thank me? I was under the impression you thought me a monster for it.”
“If you’re a monster, then so am I,” she murmured. “His blood is equally on my hands as it is on yours. Besides, if he really did kill Dad … I would not hesitate to do what we did again. At least it gives me solace to know that Dad got some form of justice.”
He had expected her to have cried by now, but she remained stoic. He wondered why the act of killing had not left a deeper impression of sorrow on her. Was it because there were greater concerns like time travel on her mind? Or maybe she was a master at concealing her emotions. Unlike him, whose nervous afflictions usually took precedence.
“Okay, your turn, Henry Asheford.” She picked up her glass of whisky. “Tell me your great tale of woe.”
“I’m afraid it’s a terrible tale of woe,” he murmured. “And one not so easily told in just a few hours. Before we get to that, however, I have one more question. What brought you to Bondieux House in the first place? It is quite a walk from Asheford Hall.”
A subtle redness crept into her cheek. “I … I stumbled across it.”
“Stumbled across it? I am sure my descendants would not allow just anyone to wander around the property…” His voice faded as he watched her expression grow grim.
A restlessness gripped him. “There are descendants caring for my home?” he said.
“Henry…”
“Answer the question.”
“You told me to keep the oddities of my world to myself.”
Huffing through clenched teeth, he rose, walked to a window and glouted at the sea. “Has my home been left to ruin?”
“Do you want the truth?”
“Always,” he said quietly.
“The world’s changed,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He knew the vagueness in her words was not to hide a secret or a lie; it was to protect him against things he should never know – like the loss of Asheford Hall.
A weight settled in his chest. “When does it happen?”
“I don’t know—”
“Am I the last known heir?”
“Let’s focus on the time-travelling device instead so you can get rid of me. That would already make things easier for you—”
“No, no, it would not.” He turned, simmering in an anger he could not understand. “Because the damned thing is broken!”
Her eyes widened. “Broken?”
“The device Josiah had is broken, probably beyond repair. I do not know what to do or where to go from here … and … and I do not have a well-rested mind capable of thinking of a plan…”
Panic gripped him. Unable to bear her gaze, he spun around and focused on the rising waves below his windows. His breathing came quick and shallow. A sudden unravelling of his mind overwhelmed him to the point of light-headedness. Surely, he would faint and before a woman of all things. Why must he be predisposed to such unmanly fragility?
“Sit,” she commanded.
He realized that she had pushed up a chair behind him. Softly, her hand urged him down and he fell onto the padded seat.
“Breathe,” she said.
“I am,” he sneered.
“Don’t be saucy with me.” She sat in the chair next to him. “You’re having an anxiety attack, that’s all. Concentrate on breathing, slowly.”
“I do not have a nervous disposition,” he lied.
“Anxiety is perfectly normal—”
Something inside Henry went cold. “For God’s sake … I am not mentally ill!”
“I never said you were,” she said quietly.
He took in her large hazel eyes. The warmth and calmness they exuded seeped into his bones, easing the hammering of his heart.
“I don’t … I don’t understand you,” he said. “I was expecting hell’s fire to swallow me whole after telling you the device was broken.”
“Wow, I certainly made a great impression.” She gave a choked laugh. “My dad used to say, there’s no use in crying over spilled milk and I’m not about to defy those words of wisdom.”
His heart lurched. “My mother used to say the same.”
Her expression softened. “She’d be disappointed to know you haven’t been listening to her brilliant advice.”
“I’m sure she would.” He cracked a smile. A bloody smile. “You’re an odd one.”
“Says Mr. Rochester over here.” She playfully pounded his knee with her fist.
“Did you just … did you just compare me to the miserable bastard from Jane Eyre?”
“If it makes you feel better, Mr. Rochester has become quite the stud in my time.”
“Impossible.”
“Oh, yes, women love to fantasize about miserable rich bastards from the nineteenth century. I’m sure you would make quite the catch,” she said. “How is your breathing now?”
“You’re distracting me with insults.”
“And is it working?”
“It is.” He exhaled slowly. “Are you a witch or a wicked little imp?”
She laughed. It was like music to his ears.
How odd.
“A wicked little imp, that’s a good one,” she said. “Okay, Henry Asheford, show me where the device is and let’s see if I can fix it.”
***
Eva kept her eyes on the strange-looking object, knowing that Henry was watching from his chair before the fire.
It was weird to be in a room with him like it was a normal Friday evening at the Golden Lion Inn with Gerry. There she would drink an ice-cold beer from the tap while the television blared like white noise in the background. With a gasp, she dropped her flashlight and it landed with a hard thud against the table. Damn.
“What is it?” Henry said.
“Nothing.”
“That did not sound like nothing.”
She glanced at Henry, who was staring at her quizzically, tapping the bundle of notebooks in his lap. He was making her nervous. And she was sure as hell not going to tell him about Gerry at the pub with his blaring televisions.
“What do you have there?” she said, changing the subject.
“The answers to our questions,” he replied. “My grandfather’s research on how the device was created.”
She shot him a look. “Your grandfather made this?”
“Indeed, he did,” he said. “You asked me how I knew about time travel, well, there is your answer. Through my maternal grandfather.”
That was a surprise.
She sank back in her chair, observing his face for a sign of panic. If there’s anything she had learned about Henry in the past twenty-four hours, it was that he was highly sensitive and anxious when stressed. It didn’t bother her too much. She knew how it was with Dad. She just needed to tread lightly, go with the flow, and keep the mood light when necessary.
“His name was Albert Corbyn,” he said.
Oh good, he wants to talk about it. She gave him a tiny smile. “Tell me about him.”
He leaned back in his chair. “He was a brilliant man of great wit and character with a mind for science. His favourite thing to do was tinker around in his study with objects, inventing useless things out of scrap metal.”
Her smile widened. “I like him already.”
“You like to tinker too?”
“Fixing things is all I was ever good at.” She gestured to her Swiss Army knife. “You probably think that’s unladylike too, right? I mean, what kind of woman carries her own tools around?”
“I think it’s admirable.”
Her lips quirked at that. “Admirable,” she said. “Most men are intimidated by the fact that I can take machines apart faster than they can say ‘Jack Robinson’.”
He rested a finger between his lips and studied her for a moment. If what she said amused him, he did not show or say it.
“How did Albert invent time travel?” she said.
“He didn’t,” Henry replied, placing the stack of notebooks onto the living-room table. “He happened to discover the technology tucked away in our cellar while overseeing construction to expand Asheford Hall.”
“Huh? Tucked away … like it was an antique or something?
“May I ask what you know about Asheford Sons?” Henry said.
“Other than you being a band of smuggling pirates, nothing.”
He snorted. “Pirates. Good God, do not romanticize it.”
“You’re not pirates?” She frowned. “Bummer, thought I could cross off meeting a real-life pirate from my bucket list.”
“Bucket list? What the devil does a bucket have to do with this?”
“It’s a figure of speech,” she said, her voice faltering due to Henry’s souring expression. He doesn’t understand you. “It means to have a list of things to do before one dies.”
Henry tapped his finger against the armrest, eyeing her with blatant irritation.
“There is absolutely no humour in my father’s activities,” he said curtly. “That bastard has desecrated the family trading company into a lucrative smuggling ring for the wealthy.”
Note to self: Don’t joke about the family business.
She focused on the device. Having already tried turning the key but without success, she now selected her Phillips screwdriver from her Swiss Army knife and began to apply it to the tiny screws along the edges of the wooden box.
“What does the company smuggle?” she asked softly.
Henry made a strangled sound. “If I told you that, your opinion of me would surely change drastically.”
“Do you play a part in the company business?”
“No,” he said firmly.
“Then there’s no reason for you to assume that my opinion of you would deteriorate.”
“Opium mostly,” he said. “Furthermore, the company regularly pillages crypts in foreign lands to steal treasures and mummified corpses.”
She looked at him. Grave robbing and body snatching.
Oh … oh, God.
His expression was challenging her. Why are you not screaming and running away in horror? asked his steely blue eyes. There was also a touch of resentment in his voice, and she knew that it had probably taken a great deal for him to admit his family’s activities to a stranger, but she wasn’t about to ruin that by showing how shocked she was by the revelation. Besides, she had heard worse after countless years of listening to Dad’s stories about organized crime.
“Let me guess, the time-travelling technology was one of those stolen treasures from a mysterious tomb in a foreign land?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Seriously?”
“My ancestors were simple merchants, trading in silks, spices and teas, mostly. As the years passed, the family company diversified, shall we say? Illicit liquor, untaxed goods, tobacco, and then came the opium trade, into which my paternal grandfather dug his claws. It was a lucrative business. Together with his son, Edwin, they established a trade with Chinese smugglers around 1840. China was not particularly fond of the sudden influx of opium in their country, so they declared war with Britain … twice.”
“Over opium?”
“Yes. Although for Britain, war against the Chinese was mostly a political statement.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Can you believe such nonsense? My country fought to legalize the opium trade in a country that did not want it. It’s been twenty years since the second war and reports indicate that opium addiction has doubled within the Chinese population. Knowing that my father deliberately profited from the unjust acts of aggression makes me quite literally sick.” He reached for a wooden box on the living-room table. “Do you mind if I smoke my pipe?”
“Not at all.”
As he fixed his pipe with tobacco, she averted her eyes to the time-travelling device. So, the technology was stolen from a tomb? From which land, she wondered? Could it be alien technology like in one of those cheesy History channel documentaries? The thought made her head spin. But the device looked too modern to be an artifact from an ancient civilization. There had to be more to the story.
She eyed him again.
Henry’s lips grasped the tail-end of the pipe. He brought a burning match to the pipe’s bowl and inhaled. The tobacco caught in a wave of red embers. He looked tense, as though he would break from the pressure of divulging any more family secrets. He leaned back in his chair and exhaled. The sweet scent of tobacco wafted in her direction. There was something distinctively calming in the aroma.
“Of course, my father would not be the devil if he were only in the opium trade. Despite my boyhood fantasies of believing that my ancestors were simple merchants, I’m afraid thievery has run deep within my family for generations. A few decades ago, it became quite fashionable to desecrate foreign tombs, loot highly prized archeological artifacts and steal the dead for unwrapping parties. It’s still done today. And with his band of mercenaries, my father continues to profit from the trade of illegal black-market goods beneath the guise of legal foreign trade. It’s utterly despicable.”
He brought the pipe to his lips. After a few seconds of silence, he gently exhaled a puff of smoke. “When I was a boy, there were hushed whispers of a fantastical treasure stolen on a trade route sometime in the early eighteenth century. It was a legend passed down the Asheford generations; like one of those tales in a child’s book of adventure. Well, eighteen years ago, my grandfather stumbled across such a treasure, buried within a wall in my cellar as he made room to expand the company’s storage. Whoever stole the treasure had tried to hide it beneath a layer of thick brick, as if they wanted to protect it by a fortress wall.”
“And the treasure was this?” She held up the device.
“No. It was something bigger, made centuries ago. An ancient artifact of metal and glass, powered by the stars.”
“I don’t understand.”
“To be quite frank, neither do I. It’s how Albert described it to me many years back,” he said, staring into the fire. “Upon the discovery, my grandfather informed my father, who convinced him to study the technology’s properties. Since my grandfather loved to tinker, he jumped at the opportunity and soon discovered that not only could the ancient object bend time, but a fraction of the power could be replicated into miniature devices. The likes of which you hold now.”
He was staring at her. “It was around my mother’s death sixteen years back that three duplications were finished and thus started the quick descent of my father into madness.”
She swallowed hard. It was difficult to hide her shock now. Suddenly it made sense why he was so panicked about having a nervous disposition.
“Your father is…”
“Mentally ill?” Henry finished the sentence for her. “I’m afraid so. He has grand delusions that he can bring back my mother from the dead.”
She exhaled. “With the time-travelling device.”
“Precisely,” he muttered. “Upon the eve of her death, he attempted a dozen times to do so. He had one of the duplications and continued to try but to no avail. By the time my grandfather managed to take away the device, not only was the device broken but so was my father’s mind.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
“Just a boy,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
He looked away. “Do not pity me.”
“Hey, don’t confuse my sympathy with pity,” she shot back.
His eyes darted to her face, probing the sincerity of her comment. There was genuine hurt in his wary expression. At that moment, she understood that compassion had been a rarity in Henry Asheford’s life.
“What happened to your father after the device was taken away?” she asked.
He was silent for a long moment. “How does it look? The device, I mean.”
“Oh.” She viewed the object on the desk. She had only managed to remove one screw from the casing. “I haven’t been able to open it yet.”
“I suppose it is best we focus on that for the rest of the evening,” he said.
His look told her he was exhausted, and she knew it was her cue to stop asking questions. That was fine. She had got plenty of information out of him. There was no need to push it further. But to ease his troubled mind, she would say one last thing.
“You know, I don’t judge you,” she said. “Especially for the things you’ve told me today.”
“Does the look on my face imply that I worry about your judgment?”
“Maybe.”
“Well,” he said reluctantly. “I suppose it helps to hear.”
He turned to peer at the fireplace as he took a drag on his pipe. In the light of the fire, his profile was stoic, and his cheek dimples were accentuated. Eva felt the urge to poke them like little buttons.
She wondered how many more stories he had to tell. What other heartache had he experienced? The way he spoke about his grandfather made her assume that he, too, had passed. A dead mother, a crazy father. Did he have siblings? If he did, he would be the eldest since he mentioned he was the heir to Asheford Hall. And what about a wife? There was no ring on his finger or mention of a woman in his life. He was alone on the cliffside by the sea.
With some hesitation, she forced herself to resume her work on the box. Henry Asheford’s life was none of her business and she had bigger things to worry about.
Her fingers twisted the last screw from its place, freeing the brass bowl from the case. Using the small blade of her Swiss Army knife, she pried the chronometer’s bulky watch from the brass bowl. Slowly, it came free. With two fingers, she lifted the watch and turned it over. The underside had a container … or what used to be a container. Jagged glass stuck out; its remnants lay at the bottom of the sooty box. Whatever used to be inside had exploded.
Her stomach dropped.
“Right.” She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “How many duplications did you say were made?”
“Three.”
“Apart from this one, where are the other two?”
“One was rendered useless after Father’s attempt to bring back Mother and the second, well, I do not quite know. I suppose we can assume it missing.” He paused and straightened in his chair. “Do you believe the one we have to be truly broken beyond repair?”
“I’m not an expert on time-travelling devices, but this gaping black hole tells me whatever power source it had is gone.” She held up the backside of the watch to show Henry. “It’s like it exploded from the force of…”
“Carrying two people across the threshold of time.”
She exhaled sharply. “Do you think?”
He fell back against the chair and his fingers tightened around his armrest. “It was a theory I read in Grandfather’s notes.”
“What about the original device?” she said, her voice sounding small.
His jaw set in a hard line. “That, too, is missing.” He sounded defeated.
She stared at him unblinking. No, they couldn’t be defeated. Not yet. There had to be a way. There was always a way, wasn’t there? She looked at the dissected device on the table.
Parts lay scattered about, each more mysterious than the last.
It did not look promising.
With another exasperated sigh, she dropped her Swiss Army knife onto the table. It fell with a loud thud of defeat. “I guess if we’re to be roommates, you might as well know that my name is Evaline Quinn, but you can call me Eva.”