He escorted her to the drawing room and gestured for her to sit on the settee. He walked over to the cord that was on the wall and pulled it. “Do you drink tea in the future?”
“Once in a while, but I mostly stick to coffee or juice,” she replied as she sat down.
“Coffee. That’s an American drink, isn’t it?”
“I’m from America.”
That explained why she sounded strange when she talked. He’d thought it was just something that happened to people’s voices when they were in the future, but if she was from another country, she would sound different even if she’d been born in this time.
“Does America have a good relationship with Great Britain in the future?” he asked as he went over to her.
“Yes. We’re allies.”
He settled beside her. “Our countries don’t get along so well in this time. We just came out of a war with your country.”
“I didn’t know there was a war in this time. I thought the Revolutionary War was the only one America had with Great Britain. That’s the one where we fought for our independence in the 1700s.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that war, but I mean the one where Great Britain was trying to defeat Napoleon. Napoleon posed a great threat to all of Europe. I don’t think those of you in America realized just how serious things were over here. He had to be stopped. But while we were doing our best to stop him, America felt it necessary to declare another war on us. I’m just glad that everything with Napoleon is over.” He glanced her way. “It did end with him at Waterloo, didn’t it?”
“I don’t know much about the history of Europe, but Napoleon never took over all of Europe.”
Good. At least there was one good thing that had happened in the future. All he had to do was prevent Francis from coming out here. Then, if tomorrow did end up repeating itself, he could rest knowing the coachman was able to get off of this property today. It seemed like everyone who wasn’t on this land was able to move forward in time. That gave him hope.
“Well, in my time, our countries get along very well, and we also get along with France,” Willow said.
His eyes widened. “We do?”
She nodded. “It all worked out in the end.”
He wondered how that was possible after so much fighting. He’d been sure that the tension between the countries, especially France, would always be there.
A maid came into the room, and Julian rose to his feet to tell her to bring in some tea and scones. After she left, he returned to the settee.
“Have you had scones?” he asked.
“No,” Willow said.
“It’s a pastry with fruit in the middle and sugar sprinkled on top. If I don’t ask for a change in fruit, Cook picks blueberry. I hope that’s all right.”
“I like blueberries.”
“I do, too, though over the years, I’ve gotten tired of them. But since Cook makes them best with blueberries, I thought you would enjoy those.”
“That’s nice of you to pick blueberries for that reason,” she said with a smile.
He returned her smile. It was nice to have someone he could have a real conversation with. With the servants, it had been like dealing with actors who were put on a stage with certain lines to say. He’d never developed a connection with any of them. Willow, however, was different. And different was very nice.
“I know the last thing you ever wanted was to be stuck here with me, but I’m glad you’re here,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “I realize it’s selfish of me to say that. I should be doing everything I can to find a way to get you back to your time instead of keeping you here to have tea and scones with me.” Not to mention getting a bedchamber set up just for her.
“I already searched the entire place. There is no other portal. Everything else I could see my reflection in was normal. I couldn’t put my hand through anything except that strange mirror in the hall.”
“It’s funny that you saw a mirror and all I saw was something that made me think of a painting. For the longest time, I thought it was a painting of a white sheet. It wasn’t until the other day that I saw my own hallway. I couldn’t see my reflection or the reflection of any of the servants. Now I realize that was because I was looking into the hallway in your time. We didn’t exist there.”
“Yeah, the whole thing is so strange,” she said. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
“It was a great error on my part, but I’m sure the missive I burned in the fireplace has something to do with all of this.”
“Missive?”
“A message. I haven’t read it since June 16, 1817. It came in the evening. At the time, I didn’t think it was important, so I threw it in the fireplace.”
“That’s a long time ago.”
“If it had occurred to me that I’d be stuck in an endless loop forever, I would have written down what was in it the second day I woke up and it was still June 17.” He shook his head. “I didn’t even think there might be a connection between all of this and that missive, but now I’m certain there was.”
“Did all of the missive burn?”
“Enough so that I can’t make out anything that will help me.”
A thoughtful expression came over her face before she asked, “So there are fragments from the missive still left?”
He nodded. “The fragments are there. I can take them out, and they’ll return there before I wake up the next morning. Everything goes back to being the way it was on the original day I woke up on June 17. I can destroy everything in this room, and tomorrow when I wake up, it’ll look like this. Though,” he amended, “that might change now that you’re here. I’m not sure what your arrival means.”
“If things are going to be different because I’m here, maybe something will be different with that missive. Maybe there will be some clue you didn’t notice before.”
Would it be possible? Could her being here change more than the day he’d wake up in tomorrow? Could it also change other things around here?
The maid came into the room with the tea and scones. He remained silent until she was gone.
“I burned the missive in the library,” he said as he poured tea into their cups. “When we’re done with this, we’ll look in the fireplace.”
After he gave her a cup and scone, she asked, “In the future, most of the rooms in this place have the furniture all covered up. This room wasn’t one of them.” She scanned the area. “It looks like all of the furniture is still here. The lawyer said everything was kept in its original condition as much as possible. I don’t know if it was to give this place an old-fashioned appeal or if people were afraid to update things beyond the plumbing and lighting.”
He suspected the plumbing had something to do with her earlier inquiry about where she could relieve her bladder but had no concept of how one might use anything but a chamber pot, so he decided not to ask about it. The lighting reference made more sense since he was familiar with candles.
“In my time this room is called a sitting room,” she said.
“I call it a drawing room,” he replied after he swallowed his tea. “But it makes sense why you call it a sitting room. We are sitting.”
She chuckled then bit into the scone. “Do you draw in this room?”
“No. I’ve written missives on occasion, but I mostly use this room to entertain visitors. Not that any visitors have been here in two centuries. If I write, it’s in the library, but again, I haven’t needed to write anything in a very long time.”
She studied him, and he caught the sympathetic expression on her face. “What have you done all of this time?”
“Nothing, really. I’ve just been going from day to day and hoping that I’ll wake up and tomorrow will be June 18.”
“That’s awful. I would go crazy if that happened to me.” She took a deep breath. “I suppose I might find out what it’s like if tomorrow is June 17.”
“I hope it’s not. I hope it’ll be the 18th.”
“
Me, too.”
He wasn’t sure she’d even be here if he did wake up tomorrow and find it was still the 17th, but he kept the thought to himself. He had to hope that tomorrow would be different because if it wasn’t, he might just give up.
They continued to eat and drink in silence.
Chapter Eleven
Willow stood back as Julian removed the screen from the fireplace. The library looked so different without all of the sheets covering everything. It looked far cozier than she had imagined.
Julian knelt in front of the fireplace and sorted through the debris. She joined him and searched through the ashes and remnants of wood for any pieces of paper she could find.
Something pink glowed at her. She turned her gaze to where Julian’s fingers were. The pink was faint, but it was definitely glowing. “What’s that?” she asked as she pointed to it.
He sorted through the area she had gestured to and picked up a small, burnt piece of paper. “It’s part of the missive, but I’ve never seen it glow before.”
Excited, she asked, “You can see it glowing?”
He nodded. “I can. I’ve handled these pieces many times, and I’ve never once seen them glow.”
“What color do you see?”
“It’s like the color of a pink rose.”
“I see that color, too!” She leaned closer to him. “Is there anything on it?”
He tilted it so that it was in her direction. “It’s part of a word. I can only make out an.”
Bummer. She was hoping there was more than that. “Same here.” She shouldn’t be surprised. It was probably too much to ask for the missive to magically come back together so they could read the whole thing. She didn’t dare voice the wish in case it got his hopes up. He’d already been through enough as it was.
“There are more pieces.” He set the piece of paper down then resumed his search.
She followed his lead and dug through the ashes. A couple of times, her hand brushed his, and she had to make an effort to ignore the surge of pleasure the contact produced. She avoided eye contact with him in case he picked up on her excitement. He wasn’t making a romantic gesture. If anything, this task wasn’t the least bit romantic.
But, try as she might, being this close to him and accidentally touching him from time to time kept prompting her to think of romantic things she hadn’t given thought to in a very long time.
It must be her years of solitude catching up to her. Sure, she had dated in the past, and she had been surrounded by people at her job. It wasn’t like she was a total recluse. But she had been pretty much detached from any meaningful relationships. She hadn’t even been aware of when she withdrew from most of the world around her. It’d just been a natural progression after high school, she supposed.
Certainly, that would make her sensitive to being so close to a man, especially one as attractive and sweet as Julian was. She recalled the times she had studied his portrait in the future. She had been attracted to him, but, of course, with him being dead, her thoughts hadn’t gone beyond the superficial flutter in her stomach. She never thought she’d actually meet him.
And having met him, she realized he wasn’t stuffy and full of his self-importance like she assumed rich people were. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Julian had turned out to be a bit of a jerk. But Julian wasn’t turning out to be what she had expected.
When she realized she had stopped searching through the ashes, she hurried to get back to the task in case he figured out she was thinking about him.
In the end, she managed to find five pieces. Two had actual words on them: father and bound. When she checked the six pieces he had found, there was only one full word, and that was duel. All of the other pieces only had one to three letters on them.
“You don’t know how many times I wished I hadn’t destroyed this missive,” he said in frustration.
“Well, maybe there’s something here we can use.” Willow collected the pieces and carried them to the desk. “Does anything bring back a memory?” As he joined her, she picked up the word that seemed to be the easiest to prod an old memory. “What about the word duel? That didn’t happen often in your time, did it?”
“While some argue it’s wrong, dueling does happen. Why? Don’t you have duels in your time?”
“I don’t recall anyone slapping someone with a glove and going out to a field to shoot him with a gun. Though,” she added, “there are incidences where people fight each other until one of them dies.” She shrugged. “I guess every time period will have violence. Some of it is just more formal than others.” She glanced at the other two words. “I don’t suppose father or bound brings up any memory when you think of the word duel?”
He rubbed his jaw, and after a long moment of silence, he finally said, “It happened a long time ago. It was before I was born. But, I recall my mother saying something about my father getting involved in a duel.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Do you think there’s a connection between that and the fact that I’ve been stuck here for two centuries?”
“At this point, I don’t know what to think, but I wouldn’t rule it out. We have to consider every option. There might be a clue somewhere that can help us figure out what’s going on.”
“All right.” He sighed and crossed his arms. “In that case, let’s say this curse we’re under has something to do with a duel my father was involved in. All I remember my mother saying about it was that my father was foolish to do it. I never talked to him about it. I don’t know if he thought it was foolish or not. Maybe he regretted it. Maybe he didn’t.”
When he paused, she asked, “In a duel, doesn’t one person die? This isn’t something both people can walk away from, is it?”
“A gentleman doesn’t always die, but a reputation can be ruined. That’s why it goes against good moral judgement to get involved in it. If I had known the duel would lead to all of this, I would have asked my father about it.” He picked up the piece of paper as if doing so would give him the answers he was looking for.
“We know your father lived. Do you know the person who dueled against him?”
“My mother didn’t say.”
Unfortunately, that didn’t help. She bit her lower lip then asked, “Is there anything else your father did? Did he bind someone up?”
He laughed. “Bind someone up?”
“The word bound was in this letter.” She gestured to the piece on the desk.
He stopped laughing. “I see why you asked that. No, he didn’t bind anyone up and keep them a prisoner or anything like that. He stayed here for as long as I can remember. My mother and I went to London, but he stayed here. Once I was able to, I left here and had no intention of living here ever again. I only came here to take care of his funeral and to make sure the estate was in order. Little did I know that when I returned, I wasn’t going to be able to leave.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “Your father didn’t leave. Could he leave?”
“I don’t know. I assume so. He was never stuck in one endless day like I am.”
“I wasn’t stuck in one day, either, but I was unable to leave. Or at least I wasn’t able to leave in my time.” Who knew if she could leave now that she was in a different time?
“Do you think you can leave now that you’re in my time?” Julian asked.
“I wasn’t born in this time period. I shouldn’t be here. So maybe whatever magic captured me in the future won’t do it in this time.”
His gaze went back to the pieces of the missive in front of him, and he tapped the desk as if he was debating something.
“Do you think we should go to the bridge and see if I can cross it?” she asked.
He hesitated to respond, but then, in a soft voice, he said, “If you can cross it, you might not be able to come back in.”
She hadn’t considered that possibility. Would it be a good idea to cross over the magical barrier if she couldn’t come back? She didn’t know anyone in this time period, and she sure didn’t belong he
re. “I can see if my hand will go through it. I don’t have to step across it. I was able to put my hand through the time portal in the hallway and stay on my side.” She glanced at the window. “Does the rain ever let up during this day?”
“About mid-afternoon, it will become a drizzle and then pick up again within a couple of hours.”
If they were to test out the theory, then that would be a good time to do it. She turned her attention back to the pieces of paper. They were still giving off their pink glow. That had to be significant. “We should save these. There’s something important about them.”
“I agree.” He scanned the room. “I can put them in here.”
He went to a small box that was tucked away on one of the bookshelves. Her gaze went to the books. She recalled looking through them in her time. The binding had been faded, but they had been well-preserved. Curious, she walked over to them and took out one of the familiar ones. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.
She opened it. The pages were no longer crisp and yellow. They were easy to turn without the threat of ripping them.
Julian approached her with the small box. “Is there something about this book that is different from the others?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s a book like any other. I just remember looking at this in my time. It was old by then. It’s strange to see it looking so brand new.” She glanced around the room. “Everything is newer in this time. It’s strange to step back in time.” And it was weird to know what the future of this place was going to be like.
“I enjoy that book immensely,” he said. “Though, I’ve read it so much over the years that I don’t want to ever read it again.”
“What is it about?”
“A gentleman who is afraid he will lose the castle and lands he owns unless he has an heir. The book starts on the day of his son’s wedding. His son dies when a helmet falls on him. As a result, he tries to marry the lady his son was supposed to marry so he can have an heir to carry on his family line, thereby keeping the castle and lands indefinitely.”
An Earl In Time Page 9