A Stitch in Time

by Kelley Armstrong

  I picture the fair-haired woman walking out my front door. She’s a handspan shorter than the other woman and much smaller in build. She’s wearing a shawl over her shoulders, but I catch a glimpse of a skirt. The figures had been opaque, making her dress color indistinct, but it’d been heavily flounced and ribboned.

  I remember what William said about Rosalind.

  She loved to walk, and she loved to ride, and the moors gave her plenty of opportunity for both.

  Cold fingers trail down my spine.

  No, that can’t be right. The vision doesn’t fit with the circumstances of Rosalind’s disappearance. She’d gone riding at night, not walking into the midday moors with a friend.

  They’d visited here that very day, and we’d departed together, as I needed to return to London.

  So Rosalind and August visit William earlier that day. She brings a companion to try catching the bachelor lord’s eye. The two women walk into the moors together. Late that night she returns to the moors—had she seen something?—and meets her death.

  Rosalind had been staying at the family’s country estate, which means she’d likely be riding an unfamiliar horse. What if something in the moors spooked it, and it threw her? What if her killer spooked it, and it threw her? The horse panics and bolts, later tumbling off a cliff on its mad gallop home.

  “William?” I say.

  His gaze rises above his novel with a “Hmm?”

  “May I ask you a silly question?”

  “Please do. I’m at a rather bleak part of this novel, and a silly question would be a welcome diversion.”

  “You wouldn’t have a picture or portrait of Rosalind here?”

  His brows shoot up. “A picture of my friend’s dead wife?”

  “I said it was a silly question, and it’s really just a segue to an even sillier notion.” I inwardly apologize to him for the lie I’m about to spin. “There’s a legend in High Thornesbury about a woman’s ghost that’s said to be seen in the moors. I’m wondering whether it arises from the old rumors that Rosalind died near here.”

  As soon as I see his stricken expression, I curse myself for my insensitivity. For him, this isn’t ancient history. It’s the recent death of a friend.

  I hurry on with, “She’s a full-figured brunette. I don’t suppose that described Rosalind.”

  He relaxes and chuckles. “No, it most certainly does not. Rosalind was light haired. As for full-figured? I used to tease that she was terrible advertising for her bakery, looking as if she never sampled her own wares.”

  “Rosalind was a baker? I thought August was the son of an earl.”

  “He is, and Rosalind had the lineage to match, but her family name didn’t put food on the table. She caused quite the scandal by opening a bakery in London. That’s where August met her. He went in to buy sweets for a paramour and walked out forgetting both the sweets and the paramour.” William chuckles. “Rosalind led him on a merry chase, but when she finally capitulated, she came with a dowry she’d earned herself.”

  I remember at breakfast, when I’d made a comment about women and business, August said I sounded like someone. He meant Rosalind.

  An ache wells inside me. William isn’t the only one who’d have found a kindred spirit in August’s wife.

  That’s when I realize that William has just described the woman in my vision. And the ghost on the moors. Light haired. Slight of build. Rosalind.

  My gut clenches.

  William doesn’t notice my expression—he’s on his feet and heading for a bottle of brandy perched precariously on a shelf.

  “I’m sorry for bringing up the ghost,” I say. “That was insensitive of me.”

  “Not at all,” he says. “I am amused to think they’re still talking of ghosts on the moors even in your day. I thought they’d be past that nonsense.” He stops, then turns, wincing. “And that was insensitive, wasn’t it? Obviously, they still believe in ghosts, given your own experience.”

  His expression is kind, no hint of mockery. This is my chance. Seize the moment and confide—

  “I would have thought people would be more enlightened,” he says as he pours brandy into two tumblers. “It is bad enough that they believe in ghosts themselves, but to have convinced a child that she was seeing them? Irresponsible.”

  “I’m the one who thought I saw ghosts, William,” I say quietly. “And I wasn’t a child.”

  He turns, wincing again as he brings the brandy over. “I know. I’ve put my foot down my throat, and now I keep shoving it in deeper. I only meant that I do not blame you one whit for thinking me a ghost. You’d suffered the loss of your uncle, and you were young, and at that age, I half believed in fairies.” He smiles and hands me a glass.

  I take it and drink a bigger mouthful than I should, gasping as it burns.

  He chuckles. “That’s stronger than the port. I should have warned you.”

  He settles in beside me and boosts me onto his lap, and I’m grateful for it, so he doesn’t see the disappointment that made me chug my drink. As he nudges my hair aside to kiss my neck, I’m actually glad I didn’t tell him about the ghosts. Would I really unburden my secret by telling him that his friend has been trapped on the moors for two hundred years?

  I sip the brandy and let it burn away a lick of shame. Someday, I’ll tell him. First, though, I need to set Rosalind free.

  His lips move up the side of my neck. “I’ll wager I know who that ghost on the moor really is.” He whispers in my ear. “You.”

  I give a start. “What?”

  He sets his chin on my shoulder. “Those old stories about my mysterious girl of the moors. A voluptuous beauty with sable hair.”

  “Sable?” When I twist to look at him, my smile is genuine. “That is positively poetic of you, Lord Thorne. I might, er, point out, though, that I suspect you’ve never seen an actual sable.”

  When his brows knit, I say, “They’re dark brown.”

  His gaze rises to my medium-brown hair. “Well, that is embarrassing. That’s what I get for relying on a word I’ve only encountered in novels. It’s a good thing I never shared the poems I wrote for you. Sable featured prominently.”

  I slide off his lap. “You wrote me poems?”

  “Calling them such may elevate them to a status they did not deserve. They are the terribly earnest odes of a fifteen-year-old boy. There’s a reason you never saw them.”

  I open my mouth to ask whether he still has them. Then my gaze flicks to the fire, which is likely where they ended up after I left.

  I smile. “Well, I do wish I could have read them.”

  “Don’t say that, or I may dig them up from whichever book I stuck them into and force you to read about your sable hair and chestnut eyes, rich chocolate with hints of warm honey. Yes, I freely mixed my metaphors. Also, I might have been hungry.”

  “The poems are here?” I leap to my feet. “In one of these books?”

  “Did I not dissuade you with the threat of atrocious food metaphors? There is also one poem devoted entirely to the sound of your laugh. And, before you decide that’s terribly sweet and romantic, there were at least two odes to your breasts.”

  I sputter a laugh.

  “I was fifteen,” he says.

  “And so you would not compose odes to them now?”

  His gaze drops to the body parts in question. “I believe I could compose epic poems to them now.”

  I grin. “I may hold you to that. For now, though, I want to find these poems.” I glance at the massive stacks of books. “Any hints?”

  “I believe you’ll find one in a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets, as great an insult to the bard as ever there was.”

  I laugh and dive into my treasure hunt while he reclines on his pillows, calling out clues as he watches me scamper around his library in search of the poems a fifteen-year-old boy once wrote me.

  I’m asleep on the library floor, curled up in William’s embrace, my dreams dancing with the music of thos
e poems. Yes, they weren’t exactly Shakespearean sonnets. To me, though, they’re the most perfect odes ever written to young love. After I devoured them, he composed a new one, performance art that still sings through my veins, passion in word and touch and kiss.

  When the whisper first comes, it weaves through my dream, a discordant thread that I block. It grows louder, a woman’s voice, whispering words that I try to bat away like annoying insects at my ear.

  Fool.

  Beware.

  Danger.

  Then . . .

  Run.

  My eyes fly open to see the pale oval of a woman’s face, lips parting in a “Run” that is not the worried urging of the woman in black. This is a sneer spat from a twisted visage. One glimpse of a face that slams me in the gut, a flash of remembered horror from a night twenty-three years ago.

  Run.

  I jolt upright, heart slamming against my ribs, hands flailing against the specter. But she’s no longer there, her face leaving only the faintest impression, a wisp of smoke I can’t catch, an image I can’t form again in my mind.

  When I jump up, William gives a start. As I crouch there, staring, he scrambles, arms going around me and pulling me to him.

  “Did you hear something?” he asks, and his words make the hair on my neck rise.

  Yes, yes, I did.

  Heard something. Saw something. Let me tell you about it. Please let me tell you about it.

  He peers around the room. “The kittens don’t usually wander from their box, but Pandora can make the most terrible noises. Is that what you heard?”

  I swallow hard, keeping my face turned from his.

  This is not the time to unburden yourself, not if you fear that the ghost is a woman he knew.

  I run my hands over my face. “No, it was just a nightmare.”

  He pulls me onto his lap, holding me tight, asking whether I want to talk about it. I only shake my head and insist it was nothing.

  “Shall we move to a proper bed?” he asks. “That might help you sleep.”

  The clock strikes five.

  “I should probably go home,” I say. “Spend a little time with Enigma and return for breakfast.”

  He tenses, but only for a second before kissing me. “If you’re certain you’ll be all right . . .”

  “I dreamed that she was hurt,” I lie. “I’ll feel better seeing her before I return for breakfast with you.” I pause. “What time do you expect Mrs. Shaw?”

  “I stopped by the village yesterday to tell her I won’t require her for a few days. She insisted on coming up briefly to prepare meals, but she won’t arrive until late morning. By then, I fear I’ll also be gone. I must return to Whitby on business. I’ll be back by evening. Is that all right?”

  “That’s perfect. Thank you.”

  By the time I get home, the sun is just rising, and Enigma is up, ready to play “pounce on Bronwyn’s toes under the covers.” So I’m not going back to sleep, which is fine—I have too much on my mind.

  First comes kitten-playtime. Then I dress and head downstairs to prepare a hot breakfast for William.

  As I cook, I send off a quick e-mail to Freya. I have questions about Rosalind that I might be able to answer with a trip to the village library and archives. Freya has already offered to take me there if I want to know more about William, and this is a fine excuse to accept her offer . . . along with the chance to talk to someone about the ghosts.

  Did I actually see a ghost in William’s library? I’d been certain of it, but the rising sun tugs doubt in its wake. I’ve never seen a ghost in his time period. I’d been seized with certainty that it was the same specter who sent me screaming from sleep the night my uncle died, yet I’ve had no experiences like that since I returned. The woman in black and the boy in the knickerbockers both told me to run, but in warning. The one last night had been pure threat.

  Run or else.

  The thought of the boy reminds me of the bones in the walls. I push that guilt aside. I need to figure everything out before I report his body.

  Is he connected to Rosalind’s death? It seems that he should be, but I’m not sure how. There’s no boy . . .

  An image flashes. August in the dining room, his eyes glowing with pride as he talks of his son. I give a convulsive shiver.

  Please do not let that be the answer.

  I could check. Pop over to William’s side after he’s gone, slip into the passageway and see whether the body is there. If it isn’t, then it could be August’s son, due to perish in a few years, and I can make sure that never happens.

  I’ll investigate that this afternoon once both William and Mrs. Shaw are gone. For now, I set the boy aside to focus on Rosalind. She is the woman in the moors. I’m sure she is.

  Is she also the woman in black?

  Another image flashes. Another hidden face. The woman in the shroud.

  Is that also Rosalind? I’d been sure the woman in the moors was the same as the one in the shroud, and it does still fit. The strong-willed woman William described could easily be the angry ghost I encountered, frustrated at my inability to understand and help her.

  If is it Rosalind, though, then there is one more question I must ask William.

  30

  We’d agreed that I’d return at eight for breakfast, and I arrive twenty minutes early to find William in the barn. That gives me time to sneak in with my basket of food. I narrowly avoid discovery as he comes charging into the house to change for breakfast. He stops in the entry and inhales, as if catching the scent of food, but after a quick “Bronwyn?” he dashes up the stairs, and Pandora comes in to watch me set the table, accepting scraps of honeyed ham and bacon.

  I’ve cooked a full “American” breakfast. Bacon, ham, eggs, pancakes, hash browns and toast, bringing it all in an insulated bag. I also brought proper coffee, plus orange juice.

  The juice proves to be the highlight of the meal along with the maple syrup for the pancakes. He tears through the food with such appetite that I almost wonder whether I brought enough. When I comment, he only remarks that he needs to get rid of it all before Mrs. Shaw returns.

  We’re nearing the end of the meal when I lift my empty fork, hoping I look as if a thought just struck me. “Speaking of Mrs. Shaw, I was thinking yesterday that I seem to recall another employee of yours. Or perhaps a day laborer? I only remember that he was rather fearsome.”

  William’s brows lift.

  I describe the man with the spade, fudging the age by saying that he looked old to me, but of course, when we’re young, anyone over forty seems elderly. I barely finish my rehearsed description when William nods and cuts a slice of ham. “That would be Harold. I don’t believe I ever thought of him as fearsome, but I suppose he could seem a dour sort.”

  “Harold?”

  “Our head groom. Mrs. Shaw’s husband.”

  My gut twists.

  “Are you sure?” I say as lightly as I can. “I thought I’d have remembered if she had a husband.”

  I describe the man in more detail.

  William nods. “That was certainly him. He tended to fade into the background beside his wife, content for her to speak while he tended to his chores. He was an excellent groom. I’m not fond of sharing my stable, but Harold is sorely missed.”

  “Is he . . . retired?”

  “He passed a year ago. That’s when I suggested Mrs. Shaw move to the village. Harold liked to be near his stables, but I knew she’d enjoy the company of her grandchildren more.”

  Harold Shaw died last year. Meaning he was still alive when Rosalind disappeared.

  I return to find an email from Freya, inviting me to come down at any time, and we’ll visit the library together. At one o’clock, I’m in the parlor of her picture-perfect cottage. It’s tiny, maybe a quarter the size of Thorne Manor, and guilt stabs me at first, thinking of myself knocking around in that huge house, having it all to myself. But one glance around Del and Freya’s cottage tells me that the size is
a choice. It’s impeccably refinished and furnished, suggesting no lack of retirement funds.

  This cottage tells the story of a couple happy to live in each other’s pockets, and that turns the guilt to envy. I could have this with William. We’d pursue our own interests outside the home, yet when we were there, we’d be happiest in close proximity, doing our own thing, like reading together last night.

  I can have that. I only need to give up everything else in my life for it. Give it all up . . . only to resent him later.

  No, that will never happen. It can’t. Yes, I grieve for what could be, but would I rather not have William at all? What we do have will be wonderful. Just not conventional. Not without challenges. The first of those challenges is ridding Thorne Manor of ghosts, which I’m tackling now. Free the ghosts so I may live there in peace, knowing they’re also at peace.

  I bring Freya up to speed. When I finish, she reaches for her tea, missing the cup entirely.

  “I feel horrible about the boy,” I say. “There are bones in my walls, and I’m just . . . leaving them there.”

  “Rightly so,” she says. “Folklore would indeed suggest that moving his bones could disrupt your ability to communicate with him and, more importantly, to help him. Once you call in the police, we’ll lose access to his remains.”

  When I shift in discomfort, she lays a soft hand on mine.

  “He will not be there forever, Bronwyn. I know it is difficult, staying in a home that has a boy’s remains in the walls.”

  I give a soft laugh. “Yes, it should be, shouldn’t it? The truth is, I’ve barely thought of that. It feels no different than having his ghost there.”

  “He is fine for a little longer. He will be finer still if we identify his killer.”

  That we lifts some of the responsibility from my shoulders. We’re in this together, and I appreciate that more than she knows.

  Freya continues, “I sincerely hope it isn’t that poor man’s son. I cannot imagine the tragedy that would have been. To lose a wife and a son while he’s still so young.”