Caught in Time

by Julie McElwain

  “I don’t know. But I plan to find out.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Aldridge was in his room. He pressed his ring into the soft wax of the last letter he’d written, sealing it. He added the letter to the two others already written, glancing at the young boy hovering nearby.

  “Two of these letters must be sent out at first light with your fastest riders.” He handed over the thick stack and a coin for the boy’s troubles. “Do you understand?”

  “Aye, my lord—er, Oi mean, yer Grace.” The lad shot him a gap-toothed grin, and bolted for the door.

  Wilson glanced up from the corner chair where he’d been polishing the Duke’s boots. “How long will we be staying in East Dingleford, sir?”

  “I’m not certain.” The Duke’s gaze traveled around the darkly paneled bedchamber. It was the best the Green Maiden had to offer, although much smaller than he was used to. Still, it had a dressing room, which he appreciated, and a fire in the hearth. The bedchamber’s furnishings included two upholstered chairs, a small table, and a writing desk, which was pushed against the window. The canopied bed looked comfortable enough.

  Wilson set down the boot he’d been buffing, satisfied that he’d repaired its gleam, and stood up. “Is there anything you require before I bid you goodnight, your Grace?”

  “No, thank you.” Aldridge went to the fireplace, picked up the poker, and pushed the logs around, sending up a shower of sparks in the grate. “Please make sure I am awakened at seven. Miss Donovan and I shall have breakfast before we meet Mr. Matthews.”

  “Yes, sir.” Wilson strode to the door, but hesitated there. His face was a careful mask. “Miss Donovan appears to attract a considerable amount of trouble, sir. I don’t recall you ever being involved in murders before she arrived at Aldridge Castle.”

  Aldridge arched a brow at his manservant. “I do not think that is fair to leave at Miss Donovan’s door, Wilson. Mr. Stone would have been murdered here in East Dingleford whether Miss Donovan was in the vicinity or not.”

  “That may be true, but would you have been in the vicinity?” The valet gave him a significant look, then bowed out of the room. “Pleasant dreams, sir.”

  Thoughtfully, Aldridge crossed the bedchamber to bolt the door. Wilson had helped him undress earlier, and he now shrugged out of his robe. The cold drove him toward bed, snuffing out the candles and turning down the oil lamps quickly before climbing in beneath the canopy.

  He should have slipped easily into slumber. The day had been long and, with the murder, quite eventful. Even so, his mind continued to race. He thought of the three letters he had sent with the boy. One would depart on the Royal Mail, and take a full day to reach the staff awaiting their arrival in Lancashire. The other two letters would travel farther, but if the riders were truly the fastest, they should be delivered at varying times the next day.

  The Bow Street Runner, who’d be coming from London, would probably be in East Dingleford on Tuesday morning. Alec, meanwhile, was currently settling business at his estate in Northamptonshire. God willing, he would receive the letter by nightfall tomorrow. Aldridge figured that Alec would ignore the rule about traveling on the Sabbath. He expected to greet his nephew by Monday afternoon, at the latest.

  Alec would be quicker not only because his estate was closer, but his motivation greater. The fact that Kendra Donovan had become embroiled in yet another murder investigation would not sit well with his nephew, Aldridge knew. Alec’s instinct would be to rush in to protect the American. Of course, he understood Alec’s fear. His own inclination was to shield the gentler sex.

  Not that Kendra Donovan wanted to be shielded. And she certainly never acted like the gentler sex. Good God, she’d actually pulled the muff pistol from her reticule while on the road, and had tried to push him behind her at the approach of the Luddites. If he didn’t understand her good intentions, he would have been insulted by the gesture, which seemed to indicate that she thought he was so white-livered as to cower behind a female’s skirts.

  Concern pulled his brows together. There were some areas where he and the American would never see eye to eye, he knew. What he viewed as protection, Kendra saw as a prison. But whether she liked it or not, he felt the need to place himself as a buffer between her and the nasty slings and arrows of the Beau Monde. But how could he protect her from his own nephew?

  He wasn’t a fool. He bloody well knew that Alec wasn’t only teaching Kendra to shoot when they disappeared into the woods. He’d been young once. He remembered what it was like to be in love. He recalled those heady days before he’d made Arabella his wife and gave a wistful sigh. It was embarrassing, really. Watching Kendra and Alec together, he’d begun to feel like one of those detestable matchmaking mamas who plagued the Season, desperate to marry their whey-faced daughters off to the first eligible bachelor that gave them attention.

  Fiend seize it. He might not be Kendra’s father, but he was her guardian. And by God, he refused to stand by and let his own nephew compromise her. She wasn’t a light-skirt to be trifled with. It was within his rights to demand that Alec marry her.

  Except—and this was truly the crux of the matter—he suspected that it wasn’t Alec who was averse to marriage.

  What to do? His frown deepened. Kendra was guided by a different set of principles, fashioned from another time. And as much as Kendra sometimes drove him to the brink of sanity, the future from which she hailed enthralled him. While the American remained annoyingly reticent about giving away too many details—because of a misplaced fear that she might somehow change the future—he knew that daily life in the twenty-first century moved at a much faster pace. She’d once told him that, in the future, they were no longer at the horse and buggy stage, that they’d even traveled to the moon. The moon! How marvelous was such a thing? He couldn’t fathom a world without horses and carriages for everyday use, but he followed the current development of steam engines with keen interest. He’d invested in several steam ships himself. As far as he was concerned, it was only a matter of time before the vessels dominated the waterways, replacing sails. Steam engines had been much less successful on land, but someday, he supposed, that would change too.

  But if he were truly honest with himself, the societal shifts that came with the passage of time and technological advancements left him uncomfortable. As much as he applauded the advancement of women—his own wife had been intellectually gifted and had deserved the same respect as her male counterparts—he still believed a gentleman had a duty to protect the fairer sex. Was that so wrong? Was it wrong to wish to protect Kendra’s reputation from being shredded by the claws of society’s more vicious cats? Was it so wrong of him not to want to see her crushed? And she would be crushed, if she didn’t conform to the sensibilities of this time.

  He drew in a deep breath, then exhaled. He knew that his sister, Caro, had noticed Alec and Kendra’s closeness. Of course, she’d assigned the blame to Kendra. She was brazen, Caro said. She was odd. Caro had cornered him every chance she could get to discuss Kendra’s fast behavior.

  Aldridge Castle was enormous, and yet it hadn’t been big enough to accommodate both Kendra and his sister. All of this had motivated him to arrange for the visit to the Lancashire estate. He’d inherited the land and manor from a cousin twice removed who’d failed to produce any male heirs. At the time, putting half of England between the two women had seemed the only way to stop them from murdering each other. How could he have foreseen that they’d stumble into a murder investigation in these remote regions of Yorkshire?

  He was a man of science, but he was no atheist. He believed firmly in the existence of a deity. Of course, his faith veered more toward the Deism espoused by Kendra’s countryman, Thomas Jefferson, which envisioned a benevolent but ultimately uninvolved deity. Yet in the last two months, since Kendra’s miraculous arrival, he’d begun to reconsider that, and wonder if a higher power might be involved.

  Wilson was right. They wouldn’t have been on this particul
ar road at this particular time if it were not for Kendra. He’d only been seeking peace of mind by separating his sister and his new ward.

  An image of Mr. Stone’s savagely bludgeoned head came to mind. He wouldn’t be finding peace of mind here in East Dingleford. But he’d settle for justice.

  6

  I received word from his lordship,” Matthews said when he arrived in the public dining room the next morning, where Kendra and the Duke were finishing up their hearty breakfast of eggs, fried tomatoes, mushrooms, and oat cakes. “He will be at the mill. I have my gig ready.”

  Kendra nodded and took a last sip of coffee. The dining room was busy with travelers breaking their fast before setting off again on their disparate journeys. Given the sunshine streaming through the windows, it would be a good day to travel. Of course, blue skies and sunshine didn’t mean balmy temperatures. In late October, temperatures in England fell a little south of fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Not bad, but cool enough for Kendra to be grateful for the navy wool spencer that Molly had given her to wear over the long-sleeved pale blue muslin walking dress.

  Matthews went outside to await them, and Kendra and the Duke followed shortly after. The young man was standing next to a two-wheeled, open-air contraption that was harnessed to a single horse. Kendra liked to think that she didn’t scare easily, but her heart picked up speed at the sight of the vehicle. The wheels were large, the seat set high off the ground. In fact, the entire thing looked dangerously wobbly. They’d be road kill if the horse got skittish and bolted.

  “Why aren’t we walking?” she asked. “We walked last night.”

  “We walked last night because of the fog, Miss Donovan,” Matthews said, hoisting himself up onto the padded leather seat. “This will be faster. It’s a two-seater, but I think we can manage.”

  Kendra swallowed hard, but took the Duke’s offered hand and climbed up on the gig. The ground seemed very far away. Her fingers itched with the twenty-first century need to secure herself with a seat belt, or some other sort of safety harness.

  “Do not fret, Miss Donovan,” the Duke said, smiling as he met her eyes. “It’s quite safe.”

  “Yeah? I’d like to see the statistics on that.”

  “Very few people have been killed in gig accidents,” he said.

  “What about maimed? Shit!”

  The curse escaped when Matthews cracked his whip, as the horse trotted out of the stable yard and Kendra was jerked backward. Matthews gave her a sideways glance, startled.

  Aldridge pressed his lips together, apparently holding back great mirth at her predicament. “Miss Donovan is unused to riding on gigs,” he offered.

  “Miss Donovan doesn’t want to break all her bones,” Kendra snapped. “It’s bad enough that—” She broke off with an embarrassing yelp when the carriage wheels hit a rut and her ass went airborne.

  “Oh shit.” She made an instinctive move to grab onto anything that would hold her steady. Only when Matthews gave his own yelp did she realize that she’d latched onto his upper thigh.

  “Sorry. Sorry.” Still, it took half a minute for her to peel her hand away.

  The Duke took pity on her, grasping her hand and looping it through the crook of his elbow. He winced only a little when her fingers dug through several layers of fabric into his forearm. Logically, Kendra knew that they would both be catapulted into the ditch if they hit a bigger pothole. Psychologically, though, holding onto something made her feel a little better.

  She worked to steady her breathing, focusing on the landscape rather than the road beneath her. Yorkshire in the fall was truly breathtaking. Mother Nature had painted the sloping hills green, yellow, and brilliant gold, while the woodlands, separated by patches of field and moors, were a fiery red, amber, and burnt sienna. Hedgerows and low gray stone walls crisscrossed hills that were dotted with sheep. They passed a few cottages, stone barns, and outbuildings and she glimpsed the river, bright blue shot with silver beneath the blazing sun, through the trees.

  Kendra was vaguely ashamed of her panic attack when they arrived at the mill without incident. If she stayed in the nineteenth century, she’d probably have to get used to traveling in such antiquated contraptions.

  If . . . That implied she had a choice in the matter.

  Narrowing her eyes against the glare of the sun, she focused on the brick building ahead. The mill was as enormous in the daytime as it had been at night, but not nearly as spooky, as it looked exactly what it was—a factory. A trio of men in rough worker’s garb stood outside the door, smoking and talking, but the men stopped talking and their eyes narrowed with suspicion as the newcomers approached. No one said anything. Kendra didn’t have to look back at the men to know that their eyes followed them into the building.

  The windows flooded the interior with light, revealing more workers—young boys as well as men—in the process of cleaning up the mess left by the Luddites. Some of them stopped what they were doing to stare at Kendra, Matthews, and the Duke; others continued their work, hammering at the water frames, picking up the tangled skeins of cotton off the floor, hanging from the machinery, seemingly uninterested in their visitors. It reminded Kendra of the morning after Halloween, when people were left to clean up after tricksters decorated their houses and trees with streams of toilet paper. No one in the mill appeared particularly friendly.

  Kendra found herself retracing her footsteps from the previous evening. The mill relied mostly on sunlight to lighten its gloomy interior, but here in the hallway, a few wall sconces had been lit. She heard voices coming from the first open door in the hall, and followed Matthews into the room. A quick glance revealed an office, the kind that Kendra expected in a mill. It definitely wasn’t a gentleman’s study, like Stone’s office. Here bookshelves were filled with thick ledgers, and rolled folios that appeared to be blueprints and maps. In the corner of the room, a simple wooden coat stand was festooned with a greatcoat and hat. On the desk was a pewter inkstand that held quill pens, a vial of ink, a penknife, a taper stick for candles, and two boxes, one for sprinkling sand, the other for the wafers used to seal letters. The rest of the desk was a chaotic mix of sheets of foolscap and letters. A pair of gray kid gloves, a black beaver hat, and a walking stick with an ornate polished silver handle had been thrown on top of the chaos.

  An old man sat behind the desk, still wearing his greatcoat. He held one of the rulers, bouncing it in an angry tattoo against the edge of the desk. There was only one chair facing the desk, unoccupied, but there were two other men in the room, standing in front of the desk. One was Constable Jameson. The other man looked to be in his early forties, with dishwater blond hair, light blue eyes, and a clean-shaven face with average features. His complexion was pale, suggesting a life spent indoors. Average height. Neither fat nor thin. Kendra got a managerial vibe off him—not upper management, but mid—except for his clothes, which were exquisitely tailored and tasteful.

  Jameson was speaking. “I’ve got men huntin’ for the ruffians, have no fear, sir. Their necks will be stretched or it’ll be off ter Botany Bay for them!”

  “Good,” the old man said, his voice as hard and cold as polished granite. “Their vandalism has cost me a bloody cod of money.” Though he was sitting, and at least double the age of the men facing him, he held himself with the unyielding strength of a much younger man. His spine was ramrod straight in the chair, his shoulders squared in the expertly tailored coat.

  Lord Nathan Bancroft, the Earl of Langfrey, Kendra assumed. He’d lost almost all of his hair except the half-moon gray fringe at the base of his skull. His weathered face was lined and speckled with age. His eyes, beneath iron-gray brows, were cold, dark, and intense. Kendra felt the jolt all the way down to her toes when he flicked a look in their direction as they entered the office.

  The old man’s gaze fixed on Kendra and the ruler that he’d been rapping on the desk suddenly froze, midair. No one said anything. Then the old man stood abruptly, his gaze still locked on Kendra. �
��Who the bloody hell are you?” he demanded.

  Matthews had retrieved his hanky, and now clutched it in his hand like rosary beads. He cleared his throat nervously. “Lord Bancroft, may I introduce the Duke of Aldridge and his ward, Miss Donovan. I—I sent word to you that they would be inquiring into Mr. Stone’s death.”

  Bancroft’s expression was enigmatic. Then he gave himself a little shake, dropped the ruler, and came around the desk, his step agile.

  “Forgive me for staring, Miss Donovan,” he said, even as he continued to stare. “But a mill is not the normal environment for ladies. Did I hear Oliver correctly when he said you would be investigating Mr. Stone’s death?”

  Maybe someday she’d get used to the men in this era gawking at her like she was a succubus from hell, Kendra thought. “You heard correctly. The Luddites didn’t kill your manager, my lord,” she said, keeping her voice firm. Don’t let them see you sweat. She shot the constable a pointed glance. “I want to make that clear to you in case it hasn’t been: the evidence suggests that Mr. Stone was killed by somebody else.”

  “The evidence?” the other man in the room said. “What evidence?”

  Kendra was disconcerted to realize she’d forgotten about the third man. Bancroft had commanded her complete attention. Matthews introduced the other man as Mr. Biddle—Mr. Stone’s assistant, and Kendra knew she’d been right; mid-management.

  Biddle executed a brief bow. “Your Grace, Miss Donovan. Forgive me, but I don’t understand. The Luddites destroyed the factory at the same time Mr. Stone was killed. How can the two not be connected?”

  Kendra gave Jameson a pointed look. “Didn’t you explain how the murder happened?”

  The constable’s chest rose. “Now, see here, why should I go on and tell them all yer hysterical notions, Miss Donovan? It ain’t like you can prove it.”