A Murder in Time

by Julie McElwain

  “How did you get into the passageway?” Alec snapped out the question.

  Kendra glanced at the tapestry that had been pushed aside upon her stunning exit from the passageway. The door had closed, its very existence once again hidden from view. There was no way she could’ve gotten “accidentally” inside the passageway. She knew it; they knew it.

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

  If looks could kill, she thought as she caught Alec’s gaze, all that’d be left of her would be a pile of smoking ash coming out of the ugly half boots. Her nerves tightened. She really wasn’t up to a verbal battle, not until she had a chance to think this through. Relief rushed through her when someone knocked at the door, and a moment later a tall, thin woman wearing a black gown and white linen cap, swept in.

  She dropped into a graceful curtsy. “Your Grace. My Lord.” Except for that first glance, she didn’t look at Kendra. “How may I assist you?”

  Despite the old-fashioned gown and cap she wore, she reminded Kendra of a college professor she’d once had: cool, calm and, above all, competent.

  “Mrs. Danbury, Miss Donovan seems to have gotten lost in the passageway,” Alec commented, and there was no mistaking the disparaging note in his voice.

  “Oh?” Mrs. Danbury turned to study Kendra with frosty gray eyes.

  “She claims that she was hired as a lady’s maid.”

  Mrs. Danbury opened her mouth, but before she could issue a denial, the other man said mildly, “I’m certain Mrs. Danbury knows this, Alec. While there may be quite a crush for Caro’s house party, I have full confidence in Mrs. Danbury and Mr. Harding’s control of the staff.”

  Put like that, Mrs. Danbury could only bow her head. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  “Miss Donovan is feeling ill,” he continued. “As the ladies have retired for the evening, Miss Donovan’s services are no longer required. Perhaps you could escort her to her room?”

  “Of course, Your Grace.” The woman’s skirts barely made a sound as she moved to the door. She glanced back at Kendra. “Miss Donovan?”

  Kendra hesitated. She knew what was expected of her, knew she was being asked—no, ordered—to go with Mrs. Danbury. Anxious knots twisted her stomach as she weighed her options. She had none. She had no choice but to leave the room.

  “I wish you good evening, Miss Donovan.” The twinkle in the older man’s s blue eyes was impossible to decipher.

  “Good evening, Duke,” she finally managed, and was already walking out the door so she didn’t see the expressions that ranged from surprise to outrage flash in the eyes of the room’s occupants. When she stepped out into the hall, she felt only a numb acceptance of the wall candles there.

  “Miss Donovan, you will never address His Grace as Duke again,” Mrs. Danbury said as soon as they were out of earshot of the study. “He is Your Grace, or the Duke of Aldridge, or sir. And you will curtsy when you leave a room with one of your betters. Is that understood?”

  Betters? Kendra swallowed hard, but nodded. She ignored the look, bright with suspicion, that Mrs. Danbury slid in her direction. She needed to keep her mouth shut. Duke—the Duke—had given her a reprieve. No one was going to toss her out. Not yet, anyway.

  She still had time to figure this crazy situation out.

  Time . . .

  Kendra shivered. That was the one question she’d deliberately not asked during the bizarre episode: time. The date, the month, the year. Because she was very afraid of the answer.

  “She’s a forward bit of baggage,” Alec commented as he settled into a chair, sipping the claret with a frown.

  The Duke—Albert Rutherford, the seventh Duke of Aldridge, and Alec’s uncle—picked up the clay pipe he’d been packing with tobacco before the girl had begun banging on the hidden door. With a thoughtful expression, he lit a taper from the fire, carrying it to the pipe bowl. As he puffed, his eyes lifted to the oil painting above the fireplace, depicting a woman and child.

  It had been twenty years, but the grief was still there. Sometimes it was as raw and fresh as the day it had first been inflicted. Other times, like now, it was a weary sort of pain, the sharpness dulled into a nostalgic ache.

  Alec followed his uncle’s line of vision to the painting of Aldridge’s long-dead wife and child. Arabella had been a vision, both in life and captured in oil. Even though he’d been but a lad of twelve at the time of her death, Alec remembered her beauty, the black hair and brown eyes, her gregarious warmth.

  The times he’d visited, his aunt and uncle’s relationship had always struck him as idyllic. But that could’ve been because his own life had been so far from idyllic. Since he preferred not to dwell on that, he shifted his eyes to the child, a pretty little thing who resembled her mother in coloring and, if the artist’s rendition was accurate, would one day rival her in beauty.

  Only five when the painting had been commissioned, she’d be dead less than a year later, her body swept out to sea in the same sailing accident that had brought the mother’s broken body in with the tide.

  He glanced at the Duke, saw him looking at the child, too, and something inside him tightened. “She’s not Charlotte, sir.”

  “She would be around Miss Donovan’s age. And they have the same coloring.”

  “Charlotte’s dead,” Alec said more harshly than he intended. “She died twenty years ago.”

  The blue eyes came around, the sadness unmistakable. “I could remind you that her body was never found . . .” He lifted a hand when Alec opened his mouth to protest. “I’m not a lackwit, Alec. I know Miss Donovan is not my Charlotte, but she interests me nevertheless.”

  Alec’s mouth tightened. “She’s a liar and most likely a thief.”

  Aldridge frowned. He’d seen a multitude of emotions play out across the woman’s face. Disbelief, anger, fear. But more than anything, it was the lost look in those big dark eyes that tugged at something inside him.

  “She lied, yes. But I don’t think she’s a liar or a thief,” he responded slowly, and glanced at the Ming. “She’s right, you know. That particular vase was produced during the Jiajing Empire.”

  “I didn’t say she was not clever, even if her mathematical skills are poor,” Alec countered, his expression grim.

  “Hmm.”

  “You should have let her leave. She wanted to leave.”

  “No.” He recalled the flash of helpless terror he’d seen in her eyes before she’d controlled it. “She did not want to leave, Alec. She has nowhere to go.”

  Alec sighed, and set down his empty wineglass. He rose to his feet. His uncle had made his decision, God help them. “I see. Well, ‘tis late, and I must go to bed.”

  That announcement brought the Duke of Aldridge back to the present. “Is it your bed you’ll be seeking, Alec?” he asked with a trace of indulgent amusement. “I have heard talk of you and the lovely Lady Dover.”

  He and the beautiful widow had done more than talk, Alec thought, but merely smiled. “A gentleman never tells.” He paused at the door, glancing back at his uncle. His expression turned serious. “One word of warning, Duke. If Miss Donovan stays on, I’d suggest you have Mrs. Danbury count the silver.”

  Kendra’s sense of unreality deepened as she followed Mrs. Danbury down a hall and then up two flights of servants’ stairs. The single lantern the woman had picked up to guide their way turned the walls into a horror house of twisting shadows. Kendra wondered if any of it was real. Stiffening her spine, she battled back the bubble of panic that was threatening to engulf her. Whatever was happening, whether it was a psychosis or something paranormal, panicking wouldn’t help.

  Mrs. Danbury stopped outside a wooden door. “I shall deal with you tomorrow, Miss Donovan.” The tone was steely and suspicious. “Tonight, you may share the bedchamber with Rose.” With that, she gave the panel a brisk tap and opened the door.

  The light from the single lantern spilled across the threshold, illuminating a tiny room tucked under the ea
ves. A large oak armoire was positioned against one wall, opposite two narrow single beds separated by a nightstand. One of the beds was occupied. As Kendra watched, the covers moved, a pale hand lifted, and two big brown eyes, under the ruffle of a white nightcap, squinted toward the doorway.

  “’Oo’s there?”

  “’Tis I—Mrs. Danbury.”

  “Mrs. Danbury?” The girl yawned. “Ma’am, w’ot time is it? W’ot’s wrong?”

  “Nothing is wrong, Rose. I am sorry to disturb you, but Miss Donovan needs a place to sleep. Good night.” She withdrew, taking the light with her.

  Kendra blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Moonlight streamed through a tiny window on the far wall. There was a flurry of movement from the bed, then steel striking flint, and sparks. A stout candle on the nightstand emitted a small circle of light.

  The girl looked at her. “’Oo are you?” she asked bluntly.

  “Kendra Donovan.” Because she was feeling queasy again, she sat down abruptly on the unoccupied bed.

  “W’ot ’appened to your ’air? ‘Ave you been ill?”

  “That would explain it.”

  In the faint glow, they studied each other. The girl couldn’t be much older than fifteen or sixteen, Kendra decided. She was pretty, with big, Bambi eyes, bright with curiosity, in a round face, framed by her old-fashioned nightcap and tumbling dark curls.

  “Are you ’ere for the ’ouse party?”

  “I . . . yes. I was hired as a lady’s maid.” Again, Kendra could feel the panic tickle at the back of her throat, trying to work its way free. She could tell herself that this was impossible, that she couldn’t be sitting on this hard little mattress in the candlelight, talking to a girl who looked like she belonged in a history book. Yet she was having an increasingly difficult time dismissing what she was seeing, smelling, feeling.

  And that terrified her more than anything.

  “Ooh,” the girl said, impressed. “Me sister bettered ’erself by becoming a lady’s maid in London. She was a scullery maid ’ere at the castle. Me ma says I only need apply meself. I’m an ’ard worker. Last year, Mrs. Danbury upped me to a tweeny when Emma became an ’ousemaid and Jenny ran off to Bath.” She stopped suddenly, and blushed. “Look at me, runnin’ on. You must be tired, ’aving been ill and all.” She frowned as she glanced around. “Do you ’ave a bag, Miss Donovan?”

  “Kendra. Please call me Kendra,” she said automatically, and looked around, as though her bag would miraculously appear. She’d left her purse on the floor of the study, she remembered, before fleeing into the passageway. Of course, that, along with Sir Jeremy’s body, had disappeared. “I’m afraid not. My bag was lost.”

  “Well, never you mind. Mrs. Danbury’ll set you up. I’m Rose. Do you need ’elp getting undressed?”

  “What? Oh. Thank you.” Kendra stood, and turned her back to Rose, much as she’d done to Sally. The recollection brought on another shiver.

  “’Ere, now, get under those covers. You’re cold!”

  Kendra sat down, bending to loosen the ties on her half boots. Rose knelt before her, and helped her out of them, setting them aside.

  “Where do you come from? You don’t sound English.”

  “I’m from the United States.”

  “Ooh, America. I’ve ’eard such tales,” she said as she scrambled back into bed. “Me pa says the colonists are a bunch of ’eathens. No offense, mind you.”

  “We’ve been called worse.” Kendra stood and stripped down to her shift. By the time she slipped between the sheets and pulled up the thin blankets, she was trembling from more than shock and fear; it was actually cold. The room, she decided, was like a refrigerator.

  Rose smiled at her, before leaning over to blow out the meager candle flame. “Good night, miss.”

  Kendra said nothing for a moment, as she stared at the shadowy slanted ceiling. She could hear the girl settle into the other bed, hear her light breathing. Other than that, the silence seemed absolute.

  “Rose?” she whispered.

  “Aye?”

  “What . . . what year is it?”

  Kendra couldn’t see Rose’s face, but sensed by her sudden stillness that she’d shocked the girl. She couldn’t blame her. If someone had asked her that question, she’d have thought the person was off their rocker.

  “You mean, w’ot day?” the girl asked cautiously.

  “No . . .” Her throat felt tight with apprehension, but she managed to push the words through. “I mean, what year is it? I’ve been ill, remember?” she added lamely.

  “Oh. Of course.” Still, Rose hesitated, as though trying to deduce what illness could possibly have wiped away someone’s memory to such a degree. “’Tis 1815,” she finally replied, her voice soft and anxious in the darkness. “Do you remember now?”

  “Yes . . .” she lied, closing her eyes against the reality that she refused to accept.

  “Sleep well, miss.”

  Kendra said nothing. She doubted whether she’d sleep at all. But exhaustion soon weighed her down, pulled her under, and she slept, dreaming of madness and murder.

  8

  Kendra woke to the rustling of clothes, the padding of feet, and the general hustling of movement. For just a moment, she thought she was back in the hospital, and the never-ending rotation of pill-prodding nurses.

  “Annie?” she murmured, rolling over and opening her eyes to the gray light of morning.

  “Nay. My name’s Rose. Remember?”

  “Jesus Christ. You’re not a figment of my imagination?”

  “You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Rose reprimanded primly. Yet when she glanced in her direction, she softened the words with a smile. “You’d best ’urry, miss. Mrs. Danbury’ll wanna speak with you before you attend your Lady.”

  My Lady?

  “What time is it?” Kendra pushed herself to a sitting position, warily watching Rose, who was already wearing a cotton blue floral-print dress, unbuttoned down the back. She moved to an old-fashioned washstand that Kendra hadn’t noticed last night tucked between the armoire and wall. Briskly, the girl poured water from the pitcher into the washbasin. Her eyes sought Kendra’s in the small swivel mirror.

  “’Alf-six,” she answered, splashing water on her face. “The staff usually breakfasts at ’alf past eight, but Mrs. Danbury changed our schedules for the party.” Snatching the towel draped across the washstand’s inbuilt rack, Rose blotted away the moisture. She brushed her teeth using what looked like a primitive toothbrush that she wet and dipped in a jar filled with white powder. Then she pulled out and unfolded a small screen, which baffled Kendra for a moment until she saw Rose reach under the washstand for the chamber pot.

  Kendra turned away to give the girl some privacy, and tried to ignore the tinkling sound of nature’s call. Grimacing, she realized that she’d have to make use of the chamber pot as well.

  A chamber pot, for God’s sakes!

  “If you button me, I’ll do the same for you,” Rose offered as she popped back around the screen, brushing her tumbling dark brown hair. With an efficiency born of practice, she twisted the mass into a tidy bun and began stabbing long, lethal-looking hairpins into it.

  Swinging her legs over the side of the small bed, Kendra stood and shivered, both from the chilly morning air and the fact that her delusion was still going on.

  “Ooh, whatever ’appened, miss?”

  Kendra glanced around and saw that Rose was staring at her scars. She shrugged. “You might say they’re reminders.”

  “Reminders of w’ot?”

  “To be more careful.”

  She ducked behind the privacy screen and awkwardly used the chamber pot. Afterward, because she had nothing else, she dressed in the same garments as yesterday, turning obediently so Rose could button her.

  “Maybe I have a brain tumor,” she murmured, staring at the wall.

  “W’ot?”

  She sighed. “Nothing. I’m just babbling
. Trying to fight off hysteria.”

  “May’ap you shouldn’t. Babble, I mean. I know you’re from America, but . . . may’ap you shouldn’t.”

  “You might be right. They’ll lock me up in a loony bin, if I’m not there already. Turn around.” The buttons on Rose’s dress were like smooth pebbles against her fingertips as she pushed them through the buttonholes. Sighing again, she sat down to lace up the half boots. “Figment or not, you’re a nice girl, Rose.”

  Rose smiled uncertainly. “Thank you. And, um, may’ap . . .” she hesitated.

  Kendra lifted a brow. “Spill it.”

  The girl looked confused, glancing around. “Spill w’ot?”

  “Oh, God—sorry. I meant, go on. I know you have something else to say.”

  “Aye, well, may’aps you shouldn’t ask people w’ot year it is, either.”

  “Good point. Thanks.”

  This time the maid’s smile was tinged with relief. “I know you’ve been ill, but if you say such things, folks’ll think you’re a bit daft.”

  Kendra refrained from admitting that she was feeling a bit daft, simply nodding instead and picking up the abandoned hairbrush as she wandered to the window. It was small and not all that clean, but it offered a sweeping view of the English landscape that rolled gently into the distance, seamed with hedges and dotted with thick copses. An early morning mist clung to the ground, offering its own enchantment. In normal circumstances, she would’ve enjoyed the view.

  These were not normal circumstances.

  After brushing her hair, she turned to the washbasin, using the water already in the bowl. It felt icy cold against her skin. Did delusions feel this real? She stared at her reflection in the pitted mirror. She was paler than normal, making her eyes, below the blunt cut bangs, appear even darker. She didn’t like the fragile look of the woman before her, the shimmer of panic twining with fear in her gaze. Show no weakness.

  Behind her, Rose scurried around the room, quickly making the beds. “Did you come with one of the ladies, or did Mrs. Danbury ’ire you for the party?”

  “Duke . . . I mean, the Duke wanted me to stay,” Kendra said carefully. Since there was nothing else she could do with her hair except let it swing straight and silky to her jaw, she set down the brush and picked up the jar filled with white powder. Sniffing, she realized it was baking soda. She wet her finger, dipped it into the white powder and then scrubbed her finger against her teeth.