A Stitch in Time

by Kelley Armstrong

Ghosts? No, I haven’t seen a ghost in . . . Oh, it’s just been so long.

  Freya offers to discuss methods for dealing with the black-veiled ghost, should she return. I should take her up on this. Rejecting her offer is like rejecting insomnia remedies after one solid sleep. Yet I’ve had two excellent days in row, and I’m desperate not to jinx it. I’m enjoying the house and determined not to imagine anything that could make me leave it. I’m pretending I’m fine with how things ended with William . . . while subconsciously hoping I’ll see him again, which requires staying at Thorne Manor.

  Night two passes without incident, probably because, again, I keep myself so busy during the day that by sundown I’m in bed, where I remain until morning.

  At dawn, I rise, and my feet hit that board, and it squeaks.

  This time, I stop myself from looking. There won’t be another note, no matter how much I might ache for one. I want a third good day, and I won’t have that after I’ve lifted that board and found nothing.

  Yes, deciding not to look is about as sensible as telling Freya I didn’t need her ghost-banishing tips. It’s whistling past the graveyard. I’m happy, more than I’ve been in a very long time, and I’m bubble-wrapping that fragile happiness.

  My resolve lasts all morning, mostly because I’m helping Ronnie in the garage. The Austin-Healey is running now, enough to get me to town and back, with only a small likelihood of stalling at the roadside. One wonderful thing about living out here is that if the car does die, I can walk home and call Ronnie to fetch it. You can’t do that in Toronto.

  Once Ronnie’s gone, I clean the car, feeling like one of those sorority girls, dressed in shorts and a tank top, sudsing up for a charity car wash. Neither the tank nor the shorts are particularly flattering—I brought them for around the house—but no one’s within a kilometer radius to see me.

  I’ve never been car-proud. I don’t even own one in Toronto. When the debt-noose tightened anew after Mom’s death, my little Prius was the first thing I sold. Still, even I can’t resist the fantasy of tooling around the countryside in a shiny antique convertible.

  Yet scrubbing the tires and polishing the chrome gives me too much time to think . . . about one thing in particular. Finally, I throw down my polishing rag, stalk into the house and head straight to my bedroom, Enigma trotting after me. I stride into my room and pull up the board.

  There is another note.

  My heart thuds as I unfold it. What if he says something that undoes his apology? What if—?

  Bronwyn,

  I realize you may not wish to visit again after the other evening, but I would appreciate like another chance to speak to you.

  William

  I touch that crossed-off appreciate. Despite the yellowed paper and faded ink, there’s a clear blotch before the strike, as if he hesitated there, pen dripping before he sliced through the word. Another blotch appears just before like, and I picture him sitting at his desk, pen poised, ready to strike it through as well, returning to the more formal appreciate.

  I run my finger over the words, feeling the indent of them in the paper, and I don’t see uncertainty or indecision. I see pride. Not “Would I like her to return?” but “Do I dare say it?”

  Twenty-three years ago, I said I’d return, and I didn’t. There is no way, in such a circumstance, that he could have shrugged and said, “Oh, well.”

  The wound may have healed, but the memory of it still stings his pride. It took effort to write like. It probably took effort to pen the note at all. He has taken a chance, and the next move is mine.

  There’s no question of what that move will be. This is a door I’ve been hovering at for three days. I close my eyes, as I used to, and I think of William, and even before I open them, I smell his room—sandalwood and smoke and stable—and I look to see . . .

  An empty bedchamber. Which isn’t at all surprising, given that it’s the middle of the afternoon. As I hesitate, hooves pound over hard earth, the windows rattling with it.

  I hurry to the window just as William passes astride the black stallion. He’s bent forward, the horse flying at a gallop. As I lift my hand to get his attention, I see his face, all grim lines and thunder, and I hesitate. He whips past toward the moors, his expression saying he’s in no mood for company.

  Did he change his mind?

  No. I won’t fret and second-guess. Over the course of the day, something annoyed or frustrated him, and he’s riding it off, as he always used to. I’ll wait, and he’ll return in a better mood.

  I step into the hall, and the clatter of dishes below stops me.

  Mrs. Shaw.

  I could sneak past and wait in the stables, but her footsteps suggest she’s zipping about, and I don’t dare be spotted.

  As I withdraw, I hear the kittens. I ease open the master bedroom door to see two tumbling kittens and no momma cat.

  I’m about to retreat when a squeak alerts me to trouble. I glance in to see the black kitten hanging from the drapes. I hurry over and grab her, then extricate her claws from the fabric.

  I return the kitten to her box . . . and one of her littermates promptly begins scaling Mount Drape only to find himself in the same predicament. I sigh, and instead of taking him down, I boost him up and let him find his grip again. He does and climbs a little farther before deciding to descend.

  I spend the next while playing kitten tutor, watching all three of them climb and showing them how to find their grip when they lose it. I suspect William won’t appreciate the lessons, but it’s better than coming home to find a broken kitten on the floor.

  After an hour, they decide they’re ready for a more interesting climbing tree: me. I sit on the floor, adjusting my cell phone in my back pocket, and let them climb, wincing as the tiny claws dig in. Soon they tire and cuddle on my lap, purring, and I lie down to let all three curl up against me. When sleep comes, it claims all four of us.

  10

  “Bronwyn.” The voice slides through my dream, and I chase it, abandoning a lovely fantasy of driving with the convertible top down. A hand strokes my hair, the touch gentle, the fingertips rough, callused when they brush my cheek. The scent of horse and hay wafts over me.

  “Bronwyn.”

  My eyes flutter open to see William crouched beside me, his hand tucking hair away from my face. He pulls back and hunkers there, a smile tentatively touching his eyes, as if uncertain of its welcome.

  “Come to steal my kittens?” he says.

  I blink and rise, and three kittens squeak indignantly as they slide off me. I look at them and blink harder. Pandora appears, her tail flicking as she watches me.

  “I think I already did,” I say, “unintentionally.”

  “Hmm?”

  “One of your kittens came through my bedroom a couple of days ago. I opened the door, and there she was. Then, the other day, I heard you talking about missing a kitten. I think it’s her. She’s a calico with white paws.”

  A pause, as if he’s processing. Then a half smile as he looks at the cat. “Your missing baby has found a new home, Pandora.”

  “I’ll bring her back,” I say quickly. “I didn’t mean to take her.”

  “You didn’t take her, and you are quite welcome to keep her. She’s a proper nuisance, that one. From the time she could toddle, even Pandora couldn’t keep her in the box. Always poking about, getting herself into scrapes. She had a particular propensity for wandering in my room, usually in the dead of night, clawing her way onto my bed and demanding petting. I’m quite happy to be rid of her. I have homes for all the others. No one would take her.”

  His tone is light, jaunty even, but the lie shadows his eyes. There’s a reason no one claimed Enigma from the litter—because he’d planned to keep her for himself.

  “I’ll return—” I begin.

  “No,” he says, firmer, and the shadow solidifies into resolve. “If you want her, she’s yours.”

  I hesitate.

  “Have you named her?” he asks.
>
  “Enigma. Though that hardly fits since I now know where she came from.”

  His lips twitch in a smile. “And where is her box?”

  “One’s beside my bed, and one is in the kitchen.”

  “She has a name, and two boxes, one at your bedside. That answers my question, Bronwyn. You want her, and therefore, I would like you to have her. It’s a fair trade for her mother, who I believe came from your side.”

  My brows rise.

  He settles back. “There’s a chest at the foot of my bed, one that I presume doesn’t exist in your version of the room. Five years ago, I heard a squeak and opened it to find a calico kitten.”

  “Pandora,” I say, smiling. “A fitting name.”

  “I thought so.”

  With that, silence falls, and it lies there, heavy between us. I’m searching for something to say when he asks, “How long have you been in here?”

  “A while. I saw you ride out, but you didn’t look happy. I trust that had nothing to do with me.”

  “Of course not. You’d said you were having trouble crossing, so I knew it might take a while. Also, you have your own obligations. I hardly expected . . .”

  He slides me a sidelong glance and a rueful half smile. “No, that is a blatant lie, and I’ve resolved to be honest, should you return. I placed the note under the floorboard last night, and I know you’ve been receiving them because they disappear. But you weren’t taking this one, and my patience wore out faster than I care to admit. In the span of an hour after lunch, I went from telling myself you were simply occupied to being utterly convinced you’d read and returned the note, proof that you’d given up on me.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  He nods, his gaze down, and silence settles between us again. I start to rise and realize I’m wrapped in a blanket. When I look down at it, William says, “Yes. I wrapped you. You seem to have crossed in a state of undress.”

  With some alarm, I peek under the blanket to see that I’m wearing exactly what I had been—shorts and a tank top.

  I laugh. “I’m fully dressed.”

  “In your undergarments, perhaps.”

  “Nope, this is a twenty-first-century outfit, suitable for public display.”

  “Display is indeed the word,” he murmurs under his breath. “And I say that while quietly lamenting the fact I wasn’t born two centuries later if that is proper public costuming for ladies.”

  “I was thinking earlier that it’s relatively demure,” I say, “and not particularly flattering.”

  His brows rise. “Do mirrors not work in your world? I cannot quite imagine a more flattering outfit. Although, that shift you wore the other night would be strong competition.”

  He pauses, as if recalling it, and I do the same, thrown back into that moment of being in his bed, seeing him in his own state of undress.

  “My apologies,” he says, pulling back as my cheeks must flame bright scarlet at the memory. “That was inappropriate.”

  “Not at all,” I say. “I’d forgotten that I used to change into dresses before I crossed over. I knew if anyone here saw me in shorts and a T-shirt, it’d be a dead giveaway that I didn’t belong.”

  He chuckles. “Well, at the risk of being inappropriate again, I must admit that I would not have objected. Even those dresses, as demure as they are in your time, were quite . . . flattering.”

  I laugh. I’d never considered how he might react to my very un-Victorian summerwear. Which is probably a good thing because if I had thought of it, even at fifteen, I’d have been very tempted to “forget” to change out of my shorts and tanks just to get his reaction.

  Even now, I do consider abandoning the blanket, but the thought only lasts a heartbeat. We’re still on uneven ground, and I want him to be comfortable.

  “I can offer you some hospitality,” he says. “Mrs. Shaw has left for the day, and there’s hot tea or a cold supper, whichever you’d prefer.”

  “Does the tea include Mrs. Shaw’s scones?”

  The corners of his eyes crinkle in a smile. “It does. Come, and we’ll see whether we can find you something to wear.”

  As I walk with a blanket clutched around me, William explains that his mother passed nearly sixteen years ago. She’d been bedridden when I was here at fifteen, and while she’d recovered from that, she’d never truly regained her health.

  After her death, he’d told Mrs. Shaw to do as she wished with his mother’s dresses. With William’s permission, the housekeeper had refitted them for members of the local minor gentry, women whose budget sensibilities overcame any aversion to secondhand finery. Lady Thorne’s gowns were long gone, but since then, Mrs. Shaw had made a side business buying and reselling dresses, and William let her store her stock in his mother’s old bedroom. That’s where he takes me—to two wardrobes bursting with finery.

  It’s like opening a door into another world, a Victorian Narnia through the wardrobe. One peek, and I become the girl who would crack open her mother’s historical romances, too young to appreciate the actual romance part—much less the sex parts—but leafing through to devour the inevitable ball scene. It didn’t matter if I’d read a hundred of them, all of a sameness. A young woman transformed into a society debutante, squeezed into a corset, layered with finery, adorned with jewels, her hair twisted into a masterpiece of soft curls and smooth sweeps. She’d step from the dressing room like Cinderella, whisked off in a coach-and-four to the ball, where she’d meet her dashing prince—or brooding earl or rakish lord—and dance the night away, belle of the ball, twirling effortlessly to the string quartet, slipping out to a convenient parapet for a clandestine kiss. Even my eight-year-old heart would pitter-patter at that kiss.

  Now I’m opening a wardrobe to the core of that romantic fantasy. Dresses. So many dresses. It doesn’t matter how many gowns I’ve seen in museums—these are a revelation. The smell of muslin and potpourri. The jewel colors and shimmering waterfalls of fabric undimmed by age. My fingers stroke the silk bodice of a breathtaking gown. It’s wine-red paisley on white, its long sleeves bedecked with enough ribbons to make my inner tween squeal.

  “That one?”

  William’s voice jolts me, and I glance over only to be plunged straight into the heart of the fantasy. August called William “not unattractive.” While he may not be conventionally handsome, his face is the ideal blend of the boy I knew and the man I’d like to know better, familiar and mysterious, every edge and curve making my fingers ache to reach out and touch. Freya teased that William had to be real because a fantasy lover would be perfect in every way. He is perfect, though. To me. As swoon-worthy as any man who ever stepped out of a novel.

  And of course, even thinking that, my face heats, and I stammer a non-reply that has his brows knitting in confusion.

  I force a laugh. “This dress is not exactly tea-time wear.”

  “As I am the only person here, I don’t believe that’s a concern.” He glances down at his own outfit—the loose white shirt and coarse trousers better suited to a stable boy than a lord. “I will need to dress as well, and I shall choose my attire to complement yours.”

  “You don’t need to change, and I’m too hungry to spend a half-hour lacing myself into that gown, as lovely as it is.” I flip through and tug out a full-skirted green dress with short puffed sleeves. “This will be perfect.”

  As I shake it out, he says, “Do you remember when we planned to sneak you into a ball?”

  I laugh. “I confessed my completely unrealistic fantasies, and while you warned me the reality would be a disappointment, you vowed to sneak me into one. Find me a dress and give me a mask and present me as your mystery companion for the evening.” I shake my head. “We were very young, weren’t we?”

  “We were, indeed. I take it you no longer yearn for a ballgown and a coach-and-four?”

  “Oh, no. I totally do. But I can just imagine what a disaster that would have been. Masked mystery companion works very well in romance novel
s. Reality is something else entirely.” I turn, gown raised. “Now, if you will excuse me . . .”

  He quarter-bows. “I will leave you to it as I change into something more appropriate.”

  I protest again, but he strides off with a wave of his hand and a cat at his heels. I watch him go as I grin like a schoolgirl. Then I take a deep breath and turn my attention to the task at hand.

  * * *

  I do not wear the green dress. It’s made for a woman with a significantly smaller chest. Or, perhaps, a woman with a proper corset that would push that chest up into a veritable shelf of bosom. William might have found my mid-thigh shorts and tank top scandalous, but having half your boobs on display is perfectly acceptable in this time period. Victorians were an odd lot.

  The dress I do wear still shows off more décolletage than I’m accustomed to, but the stays ensure I don’t need to dig for a corset. Without, alas, I lack the ideal Victorian wasp waist, one a man could encompass with his hands. The thought makes me chuckle—no corset in the world could do that for me, not unless the man has the hands of an eight-foot giant.

  While I might not be the romance heroine of my mother’s novels, I’m not displeased by what I see in the mirror. It’s a three-tiered blue-and-white confection of a dress, but actually quite simple for the time with a minimum of flounces and ribbons. It fits oddly until I remember this is the era of crinolines. I find one, and with it on, the dress drapes properly though it looks rather ridiculous for a casual tea at home.

  In Lady Thorne’s old dressing table, I find hairpins needing only a quick dusting. I arrange my hair in an artistically messy bun, curls dangling over my shoulders, and while I notice strands of white shot through the dark, it isn’t as if William hasn’t seen me makeup free and messy haired already. He knows exactly how old I am, being the same age himself with even more silver in his hair. Also, I’m dressing for tea with an old friend, not a ball with a potential lover. Or that’s what I tell myself though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for at least a lingering look of approval.