Snowstorms & Sleigh Bells: A Stitch in Time holiday novella

by Kelley Armstrong

  As Bronwyn goes off to do her own shopping, I find books for Edmund—on pirates—and August—on auto mechanics. Then I return to the center display, where I pick out a selection of books on Hanukkah and one on making your own dreidels from molding clay, a project for Edmund and me over the holidays. Once I have everything, I catch up with Bronwyn.

  “I’m afraid I’ll need to ask you to pay for these,” I say. “I have enough in my old accounts to repay you later.”

  “As William has told you, you have plenty in your old accounts, and the fact that you never asked us to empty them always seemed to suggest you were not quite done with this world.”

  I feel my cheeks heat. “I suppose I was not.”

  She takes the books from my hand. “Good,” she says and then heads for the cashier.

  13

  Late that night, we leave the Thornes in the modern world and drunkenly stumble back through the stitch to spend the night in ours. We tuck Edmund into Amelia’s trundle bed and then make our way to the guest room, where I discover that I was definitely not the only one who thought their spouse looked quite fetching in twenty-first-century garb. August is rather taken with the riding trousers, which I shall have to repay William for and add to my chest of “night-play wear” . . . along with the soft cords I may have secreted back from the modern garage.

  While I considered myself adventurous in the bedchamber before, if I’m listing what I gained in the modern world, I must add a newfound confidence in that side of our marriage. I’m quite certain some Victorians were at least as adventurous as their twenty-first-century counterparts, but they were not as open about it, certainly not within the confines of an upper-class marriage. Having spent time in the modern world, I brought confidence to my already curious inclinations, and in August, I have an equally curious and open partner, which is truly wonderful.

  All that is to say that we do not get to sleep until it is nearly dawn. It’s more than the intimate play. It’s as if the last barrier between us has crumbled. He has seen the twenty-first century, and it is an experience we can continue to share. I have admitted how it both terrified and delighted me, and that shadow has been lifted. I will speak more openly about my time there, acknowledging the—yes—trauma of the experience, and August will no longer need to tiptoe around the subject.

  The morning light has set the room ablaze by the time Edmund wakes us, nudging me ever so gently until my eyes open.

  “There is someone at the door,” he whispers. “I was waiting in bed, and I heard a coach out front, and now someone is there.”

  August lifts his head, blinking. We do expect the Thornes later, but they won’t arrive by coach, and they won’t come before Christmas luncheon.

  A crisp rap sounds at the front door.

  August groans. “It is Christmas morn.”

  “It must be an emergency,” I say. “Someone expecting William to be at home. Wait in the hall, please, Edmund. We shall dress and see who it is and then check whether Santa brought you any presents.”

  “But first, coffee,” August says, rising, the coverlet around his waist. “Ring the maid and ask . . . Oh, that’s right. There is no maid here. I’m sorry, Edmund, but you must wait until Papa has had his morning coffee. It may take a while.”

  “Ignore your father,” I say. “He’s teasing you. You’ll have your presents as soon as we get rid of this caller.”

  I wave Edmund out. I’m still pulling on my morning dress when he raps urgently at the door. I tell him to come in, and he pokes his head through.

  “There is someone downstairs, Papa! An intruder!”

  I sigh. “Let me guess. William still has not fixed that back door. Apparently, our visitor tired of waiting.”

  I adjust my dress as August walks into the hall.

  “Hello, dear brother,” a voice trills from the stairwell. “Merry Christmas!”

  “Miranda?” I say.

  I don’t even get the word out before my son is vaulting down the corridor. I peek out to see him leaping into her arms.

  “Whatever are you doing here?” I ask.

  “Well, isn’t that a fine hello. Merry Christmas to you, too.”

  I walk over to give her a hug. “You know what I mean. We expected you and Portia up for Boxing Day. You are welcome, of course. It is simply unexpected.”

  “Portia will be delayed, and since I was only waiting to travel with her, I decided to come last night. There are such interesting people on the train Christmas Eve.”

  “You arrived last night?”

  She pulls off her gloves. “I stayed in York.”

  I open my mouth to protest and then close it. In this world, a young woman does not ride the train alone from London to York and then find herself lodgings. Or she does not unless she is my sister, who would find the modern world so much more to her liking.

  I hug her again, using the embrace to stifle my concerns before I give them voice. There is a limit to how much I may fuss over Miranda these days. She is a grown woman and, if we are correct, a successful authoress.

  Author, I correct myself.

  Yet she is still my little sister. And far too reckless in regards to her own safety.

  I take a look at her as I pull back. She may be twenty-six, but she still looks like the girl I remember. No taller than I, but with a figure some might—and do—call plump. Unfortunately, that only makes it easier for her to get away with whatever schemes her imagination concocts. She is a pretty, plump blond girl, certainly innocent and mild.

  I snort at the thought, which has her brows rising.

  “Let us go downstairs and—” I begin.

  “—brew coffee,” August says.

  “Open presents,” I finish.

  “What about the Thornes?” Miranda asks. “Are they still abed?”

  I hesitate.

  “They are not at home,” August says. “The baby arrived early, and they had to go to York. They should be here this afternoon.”

  “I saw the pirate!” Edmund says, and perhaps he was simply bursting to tell her, but I get the feeling he’s helping his father distract Miranda from asking about the Thornes.

  “You three go on,” I say. “I still need to put on my boots.”

  They leave, Edmund chattering about the pirate, which he is pretending to have seen in this world. I’m still lacing up my indoor boots when Miranda returns.

  “They are starting the water for coffee,” she says. “I was going to put my bag away, but the room seems to be locked.”

  “The one right across from ours?”

  “The next one down. Which was also locked the last time I was here. That seems odd, does it not?”

  “As it is not our house, Miranda, I believe we shouldn’t question locked doors.” I meet her gaze. “Nor attempt to prize them open.”

  She only grins. “Has Edmund been practicing his new skills? Wait until you see what I got him for Christmas. Did I mention I have been taking sword lessons?”

  “You mean fencing lessons.” I finish tying the boot laces. “Yes, you did mention that.”

  “Mmm, no. Fencing was dull. I am now taking sword fighting.”

  “Of course you are.” I pause as I rise. “Tell me this has nothing to do with Edmund’s gift.”

  She picks up something from the floor. When she lifts it, I see the cashmere sweater I borrowed from Bronwyn. “What is this?”

  “My shirt,” I say, taking it.

  “I’ve never seen a shirt like that. Nor made of that material.”

  “It is a Yorkshire style. From special sheep.”

  I tuck the sweater into a drawer and turn to find her lifting the cord tied to the bedpost.

  “Out,” I say, pointing.

  Her lips twitch. “Is that a special Yorkshire custom as well?”

  “Miranda . . .”

  “A cord tied to a bedpost. Whatever might that be used for? Please tell me it is on August’s side of the bed, dear sister. That would make this story eve
n better.”

  “There is no story,” I say. “Yes, it is August’s side of the bed. The poor man sleepwalks dreadfully. Terribly dangerous in a house that is not his own.”

  She sputters a laugh. “You are not even going to bother making up a plausible excuse, are you?”

  “I do not believe I need to. Just be warned, Miranda, if you so much as mention that cord to August, you will need all the sword-fighting lessons you can get.”

  She laughs again and pulls me into a hug. “I missed you, Rosie.”

  “And I missed you. I would miss you even more if I had to murder you for interfering with my enjoyment of my darling husband.”

  “I never would. Though I am curious—”

  “Use your imagination. I know you have an excellent one.”

  I steer her into the hallway and shut the door behind us.

  “About that locked room . . .” she says.

  “It belongs to the Thornes. It is their office, which means it is none of our business. Now, let us get downstairs before Edmund explodes from waiting for his presents.”

  I usher her along the corridor. Once we’re past the locked door, I glance back at it and wait for my heart to start tripping. When it does not, a curious lightness rises in me, and I find myself smiling at the closed door.

  Not a gateway to hell, but a passage to adventure.

  “Rosie?”

  I prod Miranda along. “Christmas awaits. Let us get to it.”

  Thank you for reading!

  I hope you enjoyed Rosalind and August’s holiday adventure. You may have guessed that the “pirate ghost” was more than a passing side note . . . and that Miranda is not going to forget the mystery of that locked door or Rosalind’s unusual clothing. Those stories will collide in book three in the series, coming in October 2022.

  * * *

  A Turn of the Tide stars Miranda, who learns about the stitch, sneaks through to see the future…and instead goes back to 1790, where she meets a certain very-much-alive young privateer and gets caught up in his Robin-Hood campaign.

  * * *

  More details will come in early 2022, but for now you can read an early draft of the first two chapters starting on the next page.

  A Turn of the Tide

  * * *

  A Stitch in Time book 3

  * * *

  Coming October 2022

  1

  Imagine, if you will, that a locked door stands between you and the greatest adventure imaginable. It is not the sort of lock one might find on a safe containing such a treasure, but a mere interior door lock, easily opened with a hairpin. Imagine having an older sister who honestly believes that will keep you from the adventure. A sister, I might point out, who is speaking to a sibling already six-and-twenty, and not a small child in need of protecting.

  What lies on the other side of that door? A time machine. That is what I’ve heard them call it—Rosalind and her husband August, whispering together when they think I cannot hear them, when they think I will not press my ear to the door to listen. Yes, yes, at my age, I ought to be past such shenanigans, but I learned early in my life that the best conversations are always held behind closed doors.

  Time machine. I have never heard those words combined, yet I am a writer with a very healthy imagination capable of conjuring meaning from the words. They also refer to this thing as a “time stitch,” which makes even less sense. No matter. I know what lies behind that door. A passage to the future. From our century—the nineteenth—to the twenty-first.

  Is any lock supposed to keep me from that?

  Honestly, I wonder whether my sister knows me at all.

  Fine. I will concede that she knows me very well—having raised me and my other sister, Portia, after our parents died. She knows me well enough to have all those delicious “time machine” conversations behind closed doors. And, perhaps, she believed that, given the sense of responsibility she worked so hard to instill in me, that I will not open that locked door when it resides in the home of another.

  To get to this doorway to untold adventure, I must enter the home of my sister’s dear friends—Lord and Lady Thorne—while they are not at home, and I believe the correct term is “trespass.” Also, “breaking in illegally.” I feel bad about that. I really do. I am not above minor criminality, but this is a much greater offense. I can only sooth my conscience by insisting to it that the Thornes are excellent people who would never begrudge my adventure, and it is only my sister’s damnable caution that keeps me from openly pursuing my goal. Or, perhaps, my sister’s lack of trust in my ability to keep a secret, which is reprehensibly offensive . . . and also justified.

  In this, though, I understand the magnitude of the secret, and so I shall indeed keep it until my dying day. I am perfectly trustworthy when it comes to what matters, and this does.

  I first encountered the locked door on Christmas Day, quite by accident. At the same time I discovered—in the guest room my sister was using—items of clothing that did not look like anything I’d ever seen, though she insisted they were simply Yorkshire fashions. That set my inner detective tingling. Two mysteries to be solved. Might they be linked?

  It took months—five agonizing months!—to get my answers. Given that I make part of my living as a newspaper writer, I ought to have been able to get to the bottom of the story faster. The problem was lack of access. I live in London with Portia while Rosalyn lives in Yorkshire with her husband and son. I had to come up with endless excuses for visiting them, which is not a hardship. They live at an earl’s summer estate—the earl being August’s brother—and it is a glorious place, filled with forests and lakes and follies and secret passages. The company of my brother-in-law and adorable nephew are also an attraction. Fine, I even enjoyed being around Rosalind, who is quite lovely when not thwarting my deepest desires.

  Five months of finding excuses to visit Courtenay Hall and listening at doors—well, listening when noises within didn’t tell me I absolutely should not be listening. Bits and pieces of conversations to piece together until I understood the staggering truth. There was a spot in that locked room in Thorne Manor, through which they could leap forward nearly two centuries. A spot that my sister had stumbled through and been trapped there for four years, during which we thought her dead.

  I think that is the most difficult part of the secret to keep. I know why my sister vanished, and the answer was not “an accident and amnesia,” and I so desperately want to talk about that, to console her on an ordeal even my imagination cannot fathom. But no, for now I must pretend I don’t know the truth. That is yet another reason to pass through time—so that I can return and tell her and we can talk what happened to her.

  Enough maudlin meandering. I am thoroughly annoyed with Rosalind for keeping such a marvel as a “time machine” from me, and I will not pause to admit that, yes, she probably is doing so out of fear that I would race through and be lost to her.

  I don’t know what happened to keep Rosalind from returning, but if such a thing happens to me, while it would be a difficult adjustment, I would be far better circumstances than she’d been. I have no husband or child, and Rosalind would be able to pass over and visit me. Of course, there is Portia, and my friends, and my career . . . But I will not think of that. There is risk, yes. But reward beyond measure. I am going to see the future. The future!

  I have chosen my timing with care and such patience that Rosalind would be impressed. All right, “patience” may overstate the matter. When I first understood what lay behind that door, it took all my willpower not to run to Thorne Manor, burst in on the Thornes and break open the door right in front of them. That wouldn’t do. I had to wait until they were in London, Thorne Manor left empty. Then I was off.

  I came in through the kitchen door, which I will point out did not require breaking any locks. The door doesn’t close properly, and William Thorne is in no rush to fix it. He would say that his reputation should stop anyone from breaking in, but I suspect he a
lso presumes that anyone who does break in must be in dire need. The Thorne family has long had a reputation for being eccentric, which only means that they do not act as others expect from nobility, and I find them fascinating for it. Many might eschew the title of “eccentric,” but I consider it a lofty achievement, one I hope to claim myself.

  I enter through the kitchen door and be sure my boots are clean before I head for the stairs. Halfway there, a movement makes me jump, but it is only a calico cat.

  “Pandora?” I say. “Or Enigma?”

  The cat fixes me with a baleful look, and I smile. “Hello, Pandora.”

  She ignores me as I continue through the house. I am familiar to her. Even if I were not, well, cats are not dogs. Dogs will raise the roof if a stranger nears the house. Cats will let a stranger stay a fortnight undisturbed, so long as their food bowl is kept full.

  I head up to the locked room, which I open easily. Then I hesitate.

  As much as I long to run and leap into the future, there is a moment where I must take stock of the situation. I am about to leap into the twenty-first century. Am I ready? Mentally, yes, but on a more practical level, do I have everything I’ll need for the journey?

  My clothing is not correct, but I plan to borrow some of Bronwyn Thorne’s. While she is half a head taller than me, she is a sturdy woman and I am a plump one. I should be able to find a suitable outfit until I can buy my own.

  As for money, I have fifty pounds. I don’t know how much that might be worth in the future, but it seems enough to make a start of it. I also have my notebook. I am never without my notebook and two pens with two bottles of ink, because when a writer is struck by an idea, she is certain to find her pen nib broken or ink gone dry. I carry both book and writing implements in a fashionable little pouch I designed myself, where they rest along with my knife. A second pocket knife lies against my thigh, in yet another original design. One can never have too many weapons.