‘I don’t remember falling asleep.’ Tess pushed herself upright in the chair. ‘But I’ve got an impression of ignoring a voice in my head . . .’ She looked at Ambrose. ‘That was you?’
‘I’m afraid Luke was quite right to say “I told you so”,’ he admitted. ‘Nell is a very strong presence. I couldn’t get past her and through to you at all. But this time, you don’t seem as disorientated as you were before.’
‘No, I know exactly where I am.’ Still rubbing her neck, Tess looked around her. I think perhaps I fell asleep in the past so there wasn’t that sudden transition coming back to the present.’
‘Do you remember anything that happened after Meg was born?’
‘Of course,’ said Tess, surprised. ‘Meg’s six now.’
‘Six! Have you made such a big jump in time before?’
Tess tried to think. ‘Not quite so long, perhaps, but it’s not as if that time is blank. I remember all of it.’ She smiled. ‘I have a son now too. Hugh, named after my father.’
‘Nell’s father,’ said Luke and Tess blinked, taken aback by the sharpness of his tone.
‘Yes, I mean Nell’s father, of course.’
Ambrose shot Luke a warning glance. ‘How old is Hugh?’
‘Three.’ Tess’s face softened. ‘He is very dear to me. Such a sunny-natured child. He has a smile that lights up a room. Everybody loves Hugh.’
‘Even Ralph?’
Her expression hardened. ‘Ralph is glad to have a son. That is all that matters to him. But he does not know his children. He does not know how quick Meg is with her fingers or how she loves to dance. He does not recognize Hugh’s laugh. His children are to be shut away until he is ready to barter them for gold or service.’
‘And what of you?’ Ambrose asked carefully with another warning look at Luke. ‘Does Ralph beat you still?’
‘Sometimes.’ Tess shrugged. ‘But I have found a way to survive. I submit without protest. I let him do what he wants with me, and I have ceased caring. It is just one more thing to endure. And because I do not hate it any more, it is no pleasure for him. Even the chest has lost its horror,’ she told Ambrose. ‘One night when he dragged me by my hair towards it, I didn’t even struggle, and he threw me aside in disgust.’
She smiled grimly. ‘I deny Ralph hate and fear and pain, and it unmans him. He takes his fists to me sometimes just because he can. He might come to my bed and pinch and slap me until he is aroused, but I can blank my mind off, so most of the time he takes his pleasure elsewhere. I have closed my mind to where he goes and what he does. I cannot think of that. I can only look to my children and keep them away from him as much as possible.’
‘So you are happy?’
Tess considered the question. ‘I am content,’ she decided eventually. ‘My children are safe and well fed. That is enough for me.’ She frowned and shook her head, and when she looked at Luke, her eyes were clear once more. ‘Sorry, that was Nell . . . but it’s so strange, I remember all of it.’
Luke was still looking grim and she tried a coaxing smile to lighten the mood. ‘You see, I was fine! I didn’t die in childbirth after all.’
‘Nell died sometime, though, didn’t she?’
Darkness breathed on the nape of Tess’s neck, and slithered down her spine.
‘Yes, of course, but . . . yes, I know what you mean, but for now, when I’m her, she’s okay. You heard what I – she – said. She’s content, and maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s it. She’s told her story and she can leave me in peace.’
‘Do you really believe that?’ asked Luke with a sceptical look.
No, of course she didn’t. Tess chose not to answer. She looked at her watch instead.
‘Oh my God! It’s nearly four o’clock! How long was I asleep?’
‘A couple of hours.’
‘I need to get back.’ Tess jumped to her feet. ‘I left Oscar with Mum –’ Oscar! She broke off and clapped a hand to her mouth, aghast to realize that she had been so involved with Meg and Hugh that she had forgotten her own son.
The colour rushed into her face, and the eyes that met Luke’s were stricken.
‘I rang your mother,’ he said brusquely. ‘I told her that you’d had a touch of food poisoning and were lying down, so you’d be a bit late to pick Oscar up.’
Tess slumped in relief. It wouldn’t be too hard to pretend that she had been ill. In spite of her eagerness to be with her children in the past, she was shaken by how powerful Nell’s hold on her was. In the space of an afternoon she had given birth twice. No wonder her insides felt jumbled and knotted, her emotions stretched raw and brittle. She felt sick and empty, exhilarated and guilty, all at the same time. Convincing her mother that she had picked up some bug wouldn’t be difficult. She couldn’t tell her the truth, anyway, that was for sure.
She tried to thank Luke, but he brushed her aside. ‘We’d better get back if you’re feeling up to it.’
He was monosyllabic in the car and after a while Tess gave up trying to make conversation. Her fingers were aching, and flashes of scarlet pain were shooting up her arm and behind her eyes without warning. She held her hands curled upright in her lap, as if making an offering. She was glad she didn’t have to drive, but when she tried to say as much to Luke, he snarled at her and told her he was trying to concentrate.
They were on the A1, one in a long queue of cars passing a truck. His jaw was tense, his hands rigid on the wheel, and he cursed as a car cut in front of him without indicating.
‘Fucking BMWs.’
‘You’re angry,’ said Tess.
‘I should never have taken you there.’
‘I’m glad you did. Now I can think of Nell as happy with her children.’ A smile tugged at the corners of Tess’s mouth as she remembered the warm weight of Hugh on her lap, brushing the tangles out of Meg’s hair. How could she regret precious memories like those?
Except they weren’t her memories, were they? Her smile faded, and Luke noticed.
‘Exactly,’ he said, savagely changing gear. ‘I thought Ambrose would be able to help you, but as far as I can see, he’s just made things worse. Nell’s hold on you is even stronger now.’
Tess swallowed. ‘Perhaps, but Ambrose still helped. You were right. It was good to talk to someone who didn’t immediately assume that I was crazy. Ambrose made me feel normal.’
‘You think it’s normal to forget about your own son? I know you did. I could see it your face.’
Forget Hugh? Never! As if she could. Tess was outraged before the realization hit her like a blow. He meant Oscar.
She had forgotten Oscar.
The queue of red tail lights ahead blurred before her eyes. Oscar, forgive me.
‘No,’ she said in a low voice. ‘No, of course I don’t.’
‘What do you think it was like for me to watch you lying there?’ Luke demanded. ‘Christ, Tess, you were . . . gone. You were nothing, and instead there was this dead woman in your body, using your mouth, smiling your smile . . .’ The gears scraped as he shoved at them again. ‘We couldn’t get you back. I thought we’d have to leave you stuck in the sixteenth century, and how would I have explained that to Oscar? Sorry, Mummy’s busy with some other babies that have been dead for four hundred years?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Tess pressed her fingers to her temples and then regretted it as pain jabbed through the guilt churning inside her. ‘I didn’t think.’
Helplessly, she dropped her hands back in her lap. Luke had been so understanding up to now. She didn’t like him being angry with her. She wanted him to understand this too. ‘You haven’t had a child, Luke. Maybe only another mother would understand. It was just so strong, the need to get to my baby. It was like I didn’t have a choice.’
‘Oh, don’t pull that you-can’t-possibly-understand-if-you’re-not-a-woman crap,’ said Luke. They had laboured past the truck and he jerked the car into the inside lane behind a lumbering tanker so that the car behind could flash past in a
blur of sleek lines and bright headlights. ‘You’d rather be with some dead kid than your own.’
‘What’s it to you anyway?’ Guilt soured Tess’s voice, made her lash out. ‘You’re not Oscar’s father.’
‘No, right, I’m just the joiner.’ Swearing under his breath, Luke moved out again to pass the tanker. ‘All right, all right.’ He gestured in the mirror to the car that was powering up behind him, headlights blazing. ‘God, I miss my bike,’ he muttered as he pulled in again. ‘This car’s a heap of shit. That’s what you get for trying to grow up and do the right thing.’
Tess made herself take a breath. She was baffled and hurt by his reaction, and it made for an unpleasant mix with the guilt and shame curdling in her stomach.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said in a different voice, turning in her seat to face him. ‘Really. I’ve been so consumed by Nell, and so desperate to try to hold things together that I haven’t thought about what any of this has been like for anyone else, and that’s not fair. I don’t know what I would have done without you, Luke. You’ve kept me sane and tried to help, and driven me all the way to Lincoln and stayed with me, and I’ve just taken it all for granted. I’m sorry,’ she said honestly.
Luke took a hand off the wheel and dragged it through his hair as he blew out a breath. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. You’ve got a kid, a harassing husband, a critical mother and a ghost intent on sucking you back into the past to deal with at the moment. That’s more than enough for anyone.’
Relieved to see the tension slip from his face, Tess swivelled back in her seat. ‘You’re one of the reasons I’ve been able to deal with any of it,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten what it was like to have a good friend,’ she added in a low voice. ‘I’d forgotten how to be a good friend. It shouldn’t be one-sided. You’ve done everything for me, and I’ve done nothing for you.’
‘For God’s sake, Tess, don’t start beating yourself up,’ said Luke with an alarmed glance at her profile. ‘Forget I said anything.’
‘I can’t do that. You were angry with me.’
‘Only because . . . I was frightened, all right?’ It was Luke’s turn to sound defensive. ‘You were out of Ambrose’s control, and I felt responsible, and powerless to help you. And yes, if you must have the truth, I was jealous too. You were so absorbed in the past when you came round, so happy with your babies, it was like you had nothing left for anyone in the present – not for Oscar, and certainly not for me.’
Chapter Fifteen
‘You don’t need to say anything,’ he said gruffly as Tess opened her mouth. ‘I know it’s mad. There’s no way you can think about me at the moment. You’re married, you’re possessed by a ghost . . . it’s not exactly great timing, is it?’
‘Could be better,’ said Tess, but a treacherous glow was uncoiling deep inside her, curling through her distress and her guilt, warming her.
‘I’m just telling you why I was angry.’ He held the wheel at arm’s length, concentrating fiercely on the road. ‘I wanted some of your attention, that’s all. I’m not proud of it.’
Tess moistened her lips while she tried to get her jumbled thoughts in order. It was difficult to know how she felt exactly. Reassured, definitely. She hadn’t realized how much she had come to rely on Luke until his anger had made her think about how self-absorbed she had been. There was guilt, too, and pleasure, and a little throb of anticipation. It was so long since she had felt wanted, desired.
But mixed up with it all was fear and frustration and a touch of exasperation. Luke was right: his timing was appalling. There was so much going on in her head. She had Oscar to think about, and Martin, not to mention a whole other life in the past that was clamouring at the back of her mind. How could she give Luke the attention he deserved too?
Her hands throbbed as she looked down at them. That was something else she needed to do something about. If the pain got any worse, she would have to go to the doctor.
‘Luke—’
He held up a hand, like a traffic cop. ‘No. Please don’t try and explain. I understand.’
‘Then you know more than I do,’ said Tess tartly. ‘I don’t understand anything at the moment – that’s the truth. But I do know that I’m really glad to have you as a friend again, and I know I’m really sorry that I hurt you.’
Luke made a face, slid a glance at her. ‘We’re not going to have a let’s-just-be-friends conversation, are we?’
‘We are,’ she said, but her smile softened the words before she sobered. ‘I’ve got things to be scared of at the moment, Luke, but the thing that scares me most is that I might end up using you.’
She looked down at her hands where they lay in her lap, cool and undamaged on the surface, pulsing and flinching with pain inside. ‘I’m afraid of being needy, of letting myself depend on you. I really need to prove that I can manage on my own. I never want to be the way I was with Martin again. I need to be strong, and I’m afraid you might tempt me to be weak.’
‘Weak?’ Luke shot her a look, shook his head and turned his eyes back to the road ahead. ‘You? You’re the strongest woman I know, Tess.’
Tess stared at him. ‘What are you talking about? I’m pathetic. If I was strong, I would never have let Martin walk all over me for so many years.’
‘You were strong enough to leave.’
‘I don’t feel strong,’ she said. ‘I feel scared. I’m overwhelmed by everything and I don’t know how I’m going to cope with any of it.’
‘But you are coping with it,’ Luke pointed out. ‘All these awful things are happening to you, and you haven’t fallen apart once.’
‘Apart from smashing plates and throwing cereal all over the kitchen.’
‘Okay, once.’
‘And time travelling back to Elizabethan England and forgetting my own child.’
‘Has it occurred to you, Tess, that anyone else would have been having the screaming abdabs if they did the same? They’d have been running off to their doctor in a panic, but not you. You won’t risk Oscar, so you’re just gritting your teeth and sticking to your plan, just like you always did.’
Puzzled, Tess shifted round with a frown. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You always had a plan.’
‘No, I didn’t!’ She gaped at him, amazed that he could remember things so differently. ‘I was always a follower. Look how I always tagged along after Vanessa at school.’ She swung back to look through the windscreen. ‘I was lucky she was so kind to me, or I’d have been really lonely.’
Luke snorted. ‘Vanessa wasn’t kind. She needed you much more than you needed her.’
‘What are you talking about? Vanessa didn’t need me. She was always pretty and popular.’
‘Was she?’
‘Of course she was. She had loads of friends.’
‘I don’t think so. Oh, she had the boys after her, but you were her only girlfriend.’
Tess opened her mouth to protest, only to shut it again. She had never thought of it before, but Luke was right about that. ‘It was still kind of her to take me under her wing,’ she said finally. ‘I was so gawky and too shy to talk to anyone else.’
‘And what better foil for pretty Vanessa?’
‘Perhaps you might like to try that again?’ Tess suggested, sweetness tinged with acid. ‘Here’s a suggestion: of course you weren’t gawky, Tess?’
Luke laughed. ‘You weren’t, but you would never believe it. You were awkward and aloof, but you were interesting. I liked that about you. And you knew you wanted more than just to stay in York being safe. I liked that too, even if your plans didn’t involve me.’
Tess was silent. She looked at the cars ahead, unseeing, trying to remember the girl she had been, the dreams she had had. ‘I don’t remember having a plan,’ she said at last. ‘I thought I was being a good girl, doing what was expected of me. Go to university, get a job, get married. That’s not much of a plan, is it?’
‘You said that was what you wanted,’ said Luke. ‘You were very clear about it.’
‘Only because you made it clear that your plans didn’t include me,’ Tess said. She remembered that. ‘You were always talking about going off and travelling on your own. There wasn’t much scope for archival research bumming around the world with you, even if you had wanted me, so of course I pretended that I wanted something different.’
Luke’s mouth twisted. ‘I only made such a thing about travelling because you were so set on a life that had no place for me. The truth is that I didn’t know what I wanted. I just knew that it wasn’t to stay in York without you.’
Tess wished that she had known. She wondered how different her life would have been if she had, if she hadn’t been hurt and lonely when she met Martin, if she and Luke had talked, found some way to compromise. But what was the point of regretting? The past was past. She had made her choice and she had to live with the consequences.
But maybe, just maybe, they would have another chance. Tess slid a glance at Luke, at his beaky profile; let her gaze linger on the cool curl of his mouth. His hair was too long and standing every which way where he had dragged his hands through it. His jaw was dark and rough with stubble, and the urge to lay her palm against his cheek, to feel its prickle and anchor her swirling emotions in the physical reality of him, rose in her on a flood of heat so powerful that her hand twitched with it.
She could do it. She could tell him to pull over, into a layby, onto the hard shoulder. She wouldn’t care. She could clamber all over him the way she had used to. She could burrow into his lean, hard body. She could forget Martin and Nell, forget the pain in her fingers, forget herself. Blot out the turmoil and the fear and the uncertainty and the shame and the regret in the feel of him, the taste of him.
But that would be using him, and she didn’t want to do that.
Luke glanced at her and Tess jerked her gaze away. ‘Your colour’s back,’ he said. ‘That’s something.’
She had enough to deal with, Tess reminded herself. As Luke had pointed out, being regressed by Ambrose only appeared to have made Nell stronger, but Tess was running out of options. She still had Pat French’s card in her bag, but just thinking about contacting her made her fingers jump as pain and panic slashed across their tips like a knife. In the end they had agreed that Ambrose would do more research on safeguards and that he would try to regress Tess again in a couple of weeks. Luke wasn’t happy about it, but Tess didn’t know what else to do.
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