Timeless (A Time Travel Romance)

by Jasmine Cresswell

  “Why do you look so worried?” she asked. “The surgeon William summoned has healed me.” She pointed to her chest. “See? No dagger. No wound.”

  He didn’t seem to hear, although he was standing less than three feet away from her. His emotions overwhelmed her, so strong that she turned her back, hiding from their power.

  “Robyn, where are you going? Look at me, damn you!” His features blurred again, and he called to her, more frenzied than before, pleading with her to come back. Robyn didn’t want to listen. She covered her ears with her hands, blocking out the sound, as she decided what to do. If she stepped forward, she knew she would be able to see Zach more clearly—maybe even touch him—but what about William? In her heart of hearts, she was sure William still called to her, even though she could no longer hear him. Was there any way to step into the mist swirling behind her and find William?

  Robyn looked back over her shoulder, straining to detect even the slightest hint of William’s presence. The mist thickened as she looked, and however hard she peered into its gray depths, she saw nothing. Refusing to accept defeat, she tried to walk into the mist, but it congealed into a solid barrier that froze her muscles and left her incapable of movement. She knew then, without reason but with absolute certainty, that to walk farther into the foggy darkness was to invite death, and that if she persisted in exploring the icy blackness, William and Zach would both be lost to her forever.

  For a moment the enormity of her loss kept her immobilized. Then she heard Zach calling her name, his voice soft, compelling, and aching with regret. She turned, responding instinctively to his need. He saw her turn, and his face broke into a huge smile.

  “Robyn, sweetheart, I knew you’d come back one day.” He stretched out his hands in welcome, waiting for her to come back to him. Belatedly she understood that he couldn’t move any closer to her. If she wanted to take his hand, if she wanted to rejoin him, she would have to choose to walk forward into his arms.

  The choice suddenly didn’t seem hard at all. Her feet were weighted with lead, but Robyn stepped forward, determined to reach Zach. The light brightened steadily, and the mist drifted away, re-forming into solid shapes. Her feet were lighter now, and with each step, movement became easier. Robyn ran toward Zach, hands outstretched. She was almost touching him now. Almost...

  * * *

  The darkness pulsated with flashes of scarlet and purple. Robyn clawed at the hands squeezing her neck, coughing and spluttering to stop the sickly sweet sludge from trickling down her throat.

  “Get away from her, Gerry.” The stranglehold around her neck eased and the weight lifted from on top of her. Gasping, lungs screaming out with the pain of drawing breath, Robyn collapsed against the sofa cushions.

  “Tell me what you fed her, damn you!”

  “N-nothing. I don’t know! She did it herself, I swear. I tried to stop her, but she was uncontrollable.”

  “What were you afraid of, Gerry? It wasn’t enough that she’s out of her mind since your sister shot her? You had to make sure she was dead, is that it?”

  “Have you gone crazy, old chap? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Save your protests for the judge and jury. I’m not willing to be suckered anymore.”

  Could that really be Zach speaking? Robyn struggled to orient herself. Was she delirious from being stabbed and simply fantasizing? Or else... was it possible that she had come back to her own time?

  Robyn realized that she’d drawn in at least a half-dozen breaths without feeling as if her lungs would explode. Stomach still churning with nausea, she pushed herself up on her elbow, finally ready to open her eyes.

  She sat up and looked around. She was in her mother’s living room, lying on the tweed-covered sofa that had been bought the year she left home to go away to college. Zach knelt beside her, fists clenched, jaw rigid with tension, brows drawn together in a ferocious frown. He looked so much like William in one of his more belligerent moods that she didn’t know whether to laugh in tender recognition or cry with bittersweet regret.

  In the end she did neither, because her body felt too disconnected from her brain to obey the simplest command. She tried to say hello, but the only sound that came out of her parched throat was a rasping grunt, and even that puny effort left her stomach clenching with nausea.

  “Robyn? I won’t hurt you, my dear, I just want to find out what happened.”

  “Don’t know.” The words came out sounding more like the croakings of an amorous frog than a coherent effort at human speech.

  Zach hesitated, almost as if expecting her to protest, then sat down on the sofa and put his arm around her protectively, the gesture of a kindly mentor with a not-too-bright protégé. Robyn looked up at him and smiled, all she was capable of until her throat smoothed out a little.

  Zach returned her smile cautiously, as if he expected rejection—or worse—at any moment. “Does your stomach ache?” he asked, his voice low and carefully mild. “Can you point to where it hurts you, Robyn?”

  Her sluggish, muddled brain finally produced the words she’d been trying to say minutes earlier in the conversation. “Hi, Zach. It’s me, Robyn. I’m home.”

  Her voice sounded scratchy, but at least this time it was comprehensible. Zach drew in a patient breath. “Hi, Robyn. I know you’re at home, my dear. Do you think you could tell me what happened here?”

  Gerry spoke while she was still trying to make her mouth say the words inside her brain. “I’ve told you what happened, for God’s sake! She was going to drink that stuff.” He pointed to the vial on the floor that still contained a trace of fluid.

  His face crumpled into an expression of anxious concern. “God, I’m glad you arrived right in the nick of time, Zach. It was an absolute nightmare. She went berserk when I tried to take the flask away from her. God knows what she had in it.”

  Muriel Delaney came into the sitting room and Robyn’s heart gave a jump of happiness. “Mother!”

  “Hi, sweetheart.” Muriel Delaney answered absently. White-faced, she bent down and picked up the empty bottle.

  “Good grief, it smells like gasoline. What happened? Where did it come from?”

  “I don’t know how much she drank,” Gerry said. “I took her embroidery over to the light to get a better look and when I turned around, she was slugging the stuff in that bottle. It looked such a weird color, I knew she shouldn’t be drinking it. I rushed over and made a grab for it. We spilled quite a bit while we were tussling. I hope I haven’t ruined your sofa cushions, Muriel.”

  Muriel burst into tears. “Oh, lord, when is this going to end? I thought Robyn learned her lesson when she tried to drink dishwashing liquid and we had to give her an emetic. But this is worse, much worse.”

  Robyn wanted to get up and comfort her mother, but her knees buckled when she tried to stand. Zach was staring at Gerry, looking suddenly uncertain. A brown-haired woman Robyn had never seen came in from the hallway and took Muriel’s hand.

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” the woman said. “How lucky we are that Gerry was here to stop her before any real damage was done.”

  “I’ll drive her to the hospital emergency room,” Gerry said. “That’s better than waiting for the paramedics. Muriel, could you get her coat?”

  Zach stepped forward, his expression belligerent. “I’ll drive her,” he said.

  “All right, old man, no need to sound so aggressive. We’ll follow you.” Gerry turned to the brown-haired woman. “Coming, Gloria?”

  Robyn noticed that everybody talked around her, as if she were blind, or deaf, or mentally incapable of taking part in handling her own life. But that was a puzzle to be explained later. First things first. She shook off the dreadful nausea and the mind-numbing lethargy that made her want to lean against Zach and let the world go rambling by.

  “Stop him,” she croaked. “Stop Gerry. Don’t let him leave.”

  Everyone stared at her. She forced her thick, clumsy
tongue to pronounce the necessary words. “Gerry... tried to... kill me.”

  “Oh, heavens, I’m so sorry, Gerry.” Muriel’s face was flushed with embarrassment. “She doesn’t understand what she’s saying, of course.”

  Gerry gave a kind, understanding smile. “I know—”

  Robyn broke in. “I understand exactly what I’m saying, Mother. You tried to kill me, Gerry. Why? What have I ever done to you?”

  Gerry spoke quickly. “Look, she’s obviously confused. What we need to do right now is get her to the hospital. I’ll get my car—”

  “Don’t let him go!” Robyn croaked, dragging herself to her feet and tottering toward the door. “He pinned me into the corner of the sofa, shoved that flask into my mouth, and forced me to swallow. He tried to poison me!”

  Gerry and Gloria didn’t wait to argue. They made a simultaneous dash for the door, but Zach was there first. He knocked Gerry down with an uppercut to the jaw, followed by a two-handed blow to the back of his neck, and when Gloria looked all set to scramble over her brother’s body and make a separate run for it, he grabbed her by the hair and socked her hard in the gut.

  Muriel gasped. “Oh, my, Zach, don’t hurt her! She seems like such a nice lady.”

  “Yeah,” he said grimly. “So nice that I’m pretty damn certain she’s the woman who tried to shoot Robyn.”

  “The woman who shot me had long black curly hair,” Robyn said. “This woman has short brown hair.”

  “I expect she wore a wig when she attacked you,” Zach said, busily engaged in using his belt to tie Gerry’s hands securely behind his back. “There, that should keep them under control until the police get here. Muriel, could you call the police at the same time as you call the doc—”

  He broke off in midsentence and strode across the room. He grabbed Robyn’s shoulders and swung her around to face him. “What did you say?” he demanded, shaking her in his desperate eagerness to hear confirmation of his hopes.

  “I said the woman who shot me had black hair. But I expect you’re right. She probably wore a wig.”

  Zach stared down at her, struggling to find words. “My God, Robyn, you’ve come back! You’re here, really here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m really here. And I’d better warn you that if you keep on shaking me like that, there’s a strong probability I’ll prove I’m here by throwing up all over my mother’s favorite Oriental rug. My stomach doesn’t approve of that green stuff Gerry tried to force down me.”

  Hugging her daughter, Muriel gave a laugh that was one part disbelief, three parts joyful tears. “That sounds like the daughter I’ve been longing to hear for the past three months. Hang in there, honey, I’m going to call the paramedics. Can you give me a better description of whatever it was that dreadful man tried to make you drink?”

  “It was bright green, very sweet, and it tasted sort of warm in my mouth,” she said.

  “The paramedics may recognize what it is. Presumably it’s a common household item since Gerry was planning to pass your death off as either an accident or suicide.” Muriel gave her daughter a final hug. “I’ll go and call right away. Zach, you’ll take care of her for me?”

  “You betcha.” He glanced across the room to make sure that Gerry and Gloria were still safely tied together, then sat down in a chair by the fire and pulled Robyn onto his lap, cradling her head against his shoulder and running his hands over her face with yearning tenderness.

  “I thought I knew how much I missed you,” he said. “But I was wrong. God, Robyn, you have a smile in your eyes again and it looks wonderful.”

  He bent his head and kissed her softly on the forehead. “I don’t know where you’ve been for the past three months, but welcome home, my love.”

  “It’s good to be back.” She realized as she spoke that it was true. Her separation from William was still an aching wound, but Zach’s presence soothed the pain of her loss. His love reached out to her, folding her in its warmth, and she felt the stir of complex emotions she had deliberately kept buried during her exile in the past.

  She placed her hand over Zach’s and gazed deep into the glowing heart of the fire. “One day, when we’re both old and gray, I’ll have to tell you where I went.”

  He carried her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss into the softness of her palm. “Just so long as you never go back. I don’t think I could bear to lose you a second time.”

  She glanced toward Gerry and Gloria, captive and unable to wreak further harm. She remembered Captain Bretton as she had last seen him, brought to death by the violence of his own hatred.

  “I don’t think there’s any danger of my going back,” she said. “The villains have all been taken care of. I’m here to stay.”

  Zach traced a circle around her palm, his touch tender with longing. “I missed you, Robyn.”

  “I missed you, too.” She looked into his eyes, eyes that were a brilliant, achingly familiar blue and felt a surge of emotion so strong that her whole body shook with it. Her love for William, still fraught with the pain of their parting, fused with her feelings for Zach. The delicate bud of a new, stronger love began to grow deep inside her soul. Hesitantly, she reached up and cupped Zach’s face between her hands.

  He kissed her, then linked his arms around her waist. “I love you, Zach. Those were the last words you said to me before I left to catch my plane for Paris. Do you remember, Robyn?”

  “I remember.”

  His voice had gained confidence, and he was beginning to smile. He leaned down, drawing her close. “One day soon, you’ll say them again.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I’m sure I will.”

  Loving Zach, she realized, was how it was meant to be.

  Epilogue

  A full moon hung in the velvet darkness of the August sky. Robyn threw open the old-fashioned casement window and leaned out, breathing in the softness of summer night air. A warm breeze, scented with honeysuckle, blew her hair into her face and ruffled the satin ribbons on her nightgown.

  Zach came up behind her, circling his arms around her waist and dropping a kiss into the hollow of her collarbone. “Happy, Mrs. Bowleigh?” he asked.

  “Blissful, thank you, Mr. Bowleigh.”

  “You look very fetching in black lace.” His hands trailed up from her waist to cup her breasts. “But I seem to recall you look even better out of black lace.”

  She leaned back into his arms, smiling to herself. After three days of marriage, she had decided that honeymoons were a great invention.

  “I’m glad the weather is so gorgeous,” she said. “I’m looking forward to exploring the countryside tomorrow. Everywhere looked smothered in wildflowers as we drove here from the airport.”

  He turned her around in his arms, gazing down at her with sudden seriousness. “You don’t have any regrets?” he asked. “No nightmares? Coming here to Starke hasn’t brought back too many unpleasant memories of the shooting?”

  “It’s brought back memories,” she said. “But that isn’t necessarily bad. Gerry and Gloria are in prison, so I have no real fears anymore. And sometimes nightmares are worse if you refuse to confront them.”

  She touched his cheek in a fleeting caress. “I needed to come, Zach, to lay a lot of old ghosts to rest.”

  He held her close for a moment, and she rested gratefully against him. “On a happier subject,” he said. “We have another wedding present. This came for us from the baron while you were in the shower. Do you want to open it now?” He walked over to the desk and picked up a well-padded package that looked as if it might contain a picture or a small painting.

  Robyn’s heart gave an odd little jump of anticipation. “Yes, please, I’d like to open it now.”

  Zach slit open the bubble wrap. Inside was a framed sheet of vellum, covered in copper-plate script, and a note from the baron. He read the covering note, then handed it to her.

  Robyn and Zach: This letter has always been a treasured item in our
family archive. When I noticed the surprising similarity of names, I decided it would make an intriguing gift to celebrate the happy occasion of your wedding. It comes to you with every good wish from the Bowleighs of Starke, to the Bowleighs of the United States of America.

  Robyn put the baron’s note aside and picked up the framed vellum letter, which was dated January 14, 1749, and signed William Bowleigh. Pulses racing, she began to read.

  Dearest Robyn, wife of my heart, I write to you from the fullness of a spirit overflowing with love and bittersweet joy. Today Hannah, my wife, in defiance of all our expectations, gave birth to a healthy daughter She had feared herself too old to conceive, and her happiness at this safe delivery is a source of great pleasure to both of us.

  You told me, on that dreadful day, exactly three years ago, when you were taken from me, that Hannah was a good woman, and you were entirely right. She is kind, affectionate, and a woman of excellent intellect. Our children—yours and mine—love her dearly, and she returns their love in equal measure. I owe her my gratitude, my respect, and my affection, and this she has in full measure. But my dearest Robyn, she can never possess my heart. That belongs only and for ever to you.

  Our family thrives in all its branches. My brother Zachary has adopted the Catholic faith of the Stuart princes he admires so much. He plans, if you can believe this, to take the vows for entry into the priesthood. Like many reformed sinners, it seems he is determined to carry his penance to the ultimate lengths.

  Your infant son Zachary is an infant no longer. He runs all over the house, rivaling even his older brothers in the mischief he can accomplish in one short day. Clementine grows ever sweeter in the kindly care of her stepmother, and our new baby daughter seems set to startle the world with her bright red curls. Hannah wishes her to be called Elizabeth Arabella, in your honor, and I am delighted to agree.

  Beloved Robyn, I write this letter in accordance with the promise I made you on that dreadful day in Bristol. Strangely, the act of writing seems to bring you closer and the ache of my loss feels less. I wish with all my heart that I could write this letter knowing that you were alive somewhere in the world to read it. Instead I console myself with the hope that you wait to welcome me into Paradise, where I shall remain forever and eternity, your most loving husband, William Bowleigh.