Summer's Secret

by Sandra Heath

  SUMMER’S SECRET

  Sandra Heath

  Chapter One

  “How do you feel, Summer?”

  “Mm?” Her eyes were closed, and she was drifting pleasantly.

  “How do you feel?” Her English brother-in-law’s voice sounded distant, even though he was holding her hand as she lay on the sofa.

  No longer able to feel his touch, she hesitated. How did she feel? Well, wonderfully drowsy and warm for one thing, but revitalized too, filled once more with the get-up-and-go she thought had gone forever. It was a heady mixture, as if all the recent grief and ill health hadn’t taken its toll, but although she was full of energy again, at the same time the drowsiness was as relaxed and sensuous as she used to feel after making love with Jack. But she wasn’t with Jack now; she was slipping into a hypnotic trance.

  “I feel out of this world,” she murmured lazily, her eyes still closed.

  “Don’t you dare go to sleep on me!”

  She gave a start as his sharp tone penetrated. “I’m sorry, Andrew. I feel good, fighting fit actually, which makes a very welcome change.”

  “Where are you?”

  She opened her eyes and was unnerved to find she’d come from the sunshine of a modern September morning into the icy darkness of a long gone winter night. “It... it’s a bit bewildering; I need a moment or so to get my bearings.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” She began to recover from the initial shock, and gave a quick laugh. “It’s really weird. A few seconds ago I was in the beach apartment with you; now I’m somewhere that probably doesn’t even exist anymore.”

  “Let’s get this straight once and for all. Your body is still here with me, it’s your memory that’s gone walkabout in the past. So tell me, where are you, exactly? England? The States? Outer Mongolia? “

  “England. The courtyard of a coaching inn called the Black Lion, in the market square of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, and I’ve just gotten out of a carriage.” She shivered. “It’s dusk on Twelfth Night, 1807, there’s a freezing fog, and I’m chilled to the bone after traveling since first light.”

  “Go on,” Andrew prompted.

  “Well, the inn is four stories high, and the courtyard has wooden galleries all around it. The weather has been really bad for days now—snow, then this fog, so there are icicles hanging from every conceivable thing, and all the snow has been cleared into piles around the sides of the yard. The cobbles are strewn with straw, and the whole place is very busy.” Her nose wrinkled. “It reeks of horses, I mean, really reeks!”

  Andrew laughed.

  She went on. ‘There are several other private carriages like mine, and a stagecoach has just arrived. The main entrance is through an archway from the square, and there’s another archway at the rear leading into the stable yard. There are quite a few people around, passengers, ostlers, stable boys, and so on, and a bell is ringing inside the inn to warn other travelers that the stagecoach is about to leave again. Anyone too slow off the mark will be left behind.”

  She glanced around a little more, especially through the brightly lit window of the nearby dining room. “There’s a real Twelfth Night get-together going on inside, with dancing, eating, and general merrymaking. Christmas greenery is everywhere, although I suppose it will be thrown out after tonight.” She smiled. “They’re all having a great time,” she murmured, watching the happy faces.

  Andrew breathed out with immense satisfaction. “Well, from the sound of it we’ve succeeded. You’ve regressed to a previous existence!”

  His words sank in, and suddenly she felt a surge of almost childish excitement. “Yes, I have! Oh, Andrew, I’ve traveled back in time!”

  He corrected her again. “No, Summer, it’s only a subconscious memory; the real you is in a hypnotic trance here in the future.”

  Plain facts didn’t meet with her approval at a moment like this. “You’re not going to spoil it all with all that stuff about the collective conscious, are you?” she demanded.

  “All that stuff, as you call it so disparagingly, happens to be part of a hypnotherapist’s bread and butter. So let’s be clear about it. Your mind has regressed to a previous life, but no matter how real it may all seem, what you’re seeing is only a deeply buried memory. So relax, enjoy it, and I’ll see nothing bad happens to you. You trust me, don’t you?”

  She smiled. “I guess every girl trusts her therapist.”

  “Especially if he also happens to be married to her big sister. “

  “Right.” Summer smiled. Andrew Marchant was probably the last guy on earth she would have expected her sister to marry. Chrissie had always gone for the bronzed, muscular, sportsman type, and Andrew was slightly built, with thinning brown hair and owlish glasses, but he had one of the kindest natures anyone could wish for, and if Chrissie’s smiles every morning were anything to go by, he had quite a talent between the sheets.

  There was a pause, then Andrew spoke again. “Chrissie wants to know what it’s like to become someone else.” He laughed. “As if that’s the sort of question that can be answered in a single sentence!”

  “Chrissie just spoke?” Summer was puzzled that she couldn’t hear what her sister said, even though she was only a few feet away, but she smiled again. “Tell her it gives ‘learned by heart’ a whole new meaning. She’ll understand.”

  “She’s nodding.” He pressed on then. “Okay, so it’s Twelfth Night, 1807. Let’s start with who you are. Are you male or female?”

  “Female, thank goodness, for I don’t think I could handle being a guy! My name is Olivia Courtenay, I’m a widow, comfortably off, and I’m freezing to death out here in this yard!”

  “Never mind the weather; I want to know more about Olivia. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “Exactly the same as you are here in the future.”

  Summer nodded. “Give or take a few months.”

  “You say you’re a widow. How long has your husband been dead?”

  “Two years, so I’m just out of mourning. His name was Roderick Courtenay, Major Roderick Courtenay, and he died in a shipwreck returning from Gibraltar.”

  “Did you love him?”

  She paused. “No, not love exactly, but I was very fond of him. It was an arranged match, you see. Hearts and flowers didn’t enter into it.”

  “Have you any children?”

  “No.”

  “What do you look like?”

  Summer didn’t need a mirror to describe herself, for she knew exactly what she looked like. “Well, I’m about five feet four, shorter than the future me, with a good figure, really hourglass, if you know what I mean. My hair is a mass of long black curls that I have difficulty pinning into the dainty, Grecian-statue styles that are all the rage, and my eyes are a clear gray. I’m rather proud of my eyes, actually, for they’re large and long-lashed, and are said to be very beautiful.” She smiled, for this nineteenth-century self bore no physical resemblance to her at all. Summer Stanway was tall, willowy, fair-haired, and blue-eyed.

  “What are you wearing ? “

  “A hooded dark green cloak lined with black fur, over a high-necked empire-style damson velvet gown. You know what I mean; the waistline’s just under the bust, and the skirt is soft and clinging, with a slight train that I’ve had to loop up slightly to protect it from the snow and everything else one finds in inn yards. There are warm overshoes on my feet, and my hands are in a large muff that matches the cloak. Quite stylish, I suppose.”

  “You said you’d been traveling all day. Where have you come from, and where are you going to?”

  “I’m on my way from my house in Kensington to visit relations at their new residence near the town of Berkeley
, which is farther west from here but still in Gloucestershire. I mean to spend the night here at the Black Lion, then complete the remaining twenty miles or so tomorrow.”

  “Who are these relations?”

  “My widowed uncle, Henry Merriam, and his daughter, my cousin Caroline. I call her Caro, and she is more like a sister to me than a cousin. I’m going there because on her birthday in two weeks she is to be betrothed to the son of Lord Lytherby, a local landowner. She only met Francis when she and Uncle Merriam moved to Oakhill House six months ago, and from all accounts it’s a real love match. I’m so happy for her, because she is the sweetest person imaginable, and after my aunt’s sudden death three years ago, followed by poor Uncle Merriam’s recent financial setbacks, it’s wonderful that something good should happen at last. Actually, it’s quite astonishing that Lord Lytherby should have consented at all, for Caro can no longer be described as a catch, whereas Francis definitely is.”

  “So this is set to be a happy visit?”

  “Yes, the visit itself is, but...”

  “But what?”

  “Well, I’m being foolish by coming here.”

  “Here? Oh, you mean the Black Lion. Why? Isn’t it respectable?”

  “Oh, perfectly respectable, but I’ve agreed to meet an old friend of my husband’s, Major Jeremy Fenwick. He and Roderick were in the same regiment, and he was very good to me when Roderick died. In fact, I don’t know what I would have done without him, but he’s what you’d call a charming rogue, and if it gets out that I’ve met him at a country inn, it won’t do my reputation any good at all. I wouldn’t normally have agreed to it, but he has to travel from his home in Bath to rejoin the regiment prior to its departure for Ireland, and when he learned from one of my letters that I would be coming this way at the same time, he suggested dining here at the Black Lion, as it will be over a year before we see each other again. His letter arrived around the anniversary of Roderick’s death, and I kept thinking how good Jeremy had been to me—you know how it is. Anyway, I agreed, and now I wish I hadn’t. You see, if it should get out, it won’t just be my reputation that could suffer; it might also cause trouble for Caro’s betrothal.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in the past month or so Lord Lytherby’s attitude has apparently changed, and Caro is now convinced he wants to call the match off. In her letters she’s told me she suspects he’s looking for any excuse, no matter how small. If she’s right, shocking misconduct at an inn by one of the bride’s closest female relatives might be just the thing he needs.”

  “What shocking misconduct? You’re only going to dine with this Jeremy person, aren’t you ? Or are you?”

  “Yes, of course, but I’ll also be staying overnight, and so will Jeremy. A night under the same inn roof? Can’t you imagine how the tongues would clack if it were to be discovered? I’ll be deemed disreputable, and Lord Lytherby will view me as manna from Heaven.”

  “Then forget dinner with Jeremy and drive on to the next inn.”

  “I’m tired after traveling all day in such bad weather, and before you suggest another inn here in Tetbury, the ones I’ve seen are disreputable. It’s the Black Lion or nothing at all, so the moment I alighted, I asked an ostler to go see if Jeremy had arrived. I’m praying he’s been delayed somewhere en route from Bath, so I can stay here safely and finish my journey tomorrow without a blemish on my character.”

  Hearing steps approaching, she turned quickly and saw the ostler returning. “Hush, Andrew, the ostler’s coming now,” she whispered.

  The inn servant was a squat man, with a wide-brimmed flat hat and a dirty coat. He was unshaven and unkempt, and smelled more like a horse than a horse. There was a sly, knowing look in his eyes as he removed the wisp of straw he was chewing. “There ent no one ‘ere by the name of Major Fenwick, ma’am,” he said in a broad Gloucestershire accent. “But that’s not to say ‘e won’t get ‘ere by and by.” He grinned, showing blackened teeth.

  She colored, knowing exactly what he was thinking. Oh, why had she been so stupid as to agree to meet Jeremy like this? “Thank you for your trouble,” she said, startled to hear herself suddenly speaking with a very English voice, low, modulated, and—-to her American ears—rather reserved.

  He almost snatched the coin she held out to him. “That’s right gracious of you, ma’am,” he said, touching his hat and then hurrying away again.

  She waited until he had gone, then spoke to Andrew again, and when she did, her voice was her native American again. “Did you hear that, Andrew?”

  “No.”

  She was taken aback. “No? But—”

  “I can only hear you when you speak directly to me; in between there’s just a long silence as far as I’m concerned. It’s like someone speaking on two phones, picking up to speak to one person, then using the other to speak to someone else. That’s why you couldn’t hear Chrissie a few minutes ago either. Do you follow what I mean? “

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “So what happened? Is Jeremy there?”

  “No, thank goodness, I’ve got my fingers crossed he doesn’t make it, then my conscience will be clear. By the way, the weirdest thing ... When I speak to you like this, I have my usual voice, but when I spoke to that ostler, I was really English.” Her breath caught suddenly. “Oh, no, there’s another carriage arriving. It might be Jeremy after all!”

  She drew back into the shadows by her own vehicle, watching as the other coachman deftly maneuvered through the archway from the market square, but as the new arrival drew to a standstill, she breathed out with immediate relief. “No, it can’t be Jeremy; he couldn’t possibly own anything as grand at that! Oh, Andrew, it’s the most splendid carriage, green-lacquered, with gleaming brasswork, a perfectly matched team of four bright chestnuts, a liveried coachman, and a very impressive coat-of-arms on the door.”

  As she watched, a gentleman alighted. He was tall, athletically built, and fashionable without being in the least foppish or dandified, but she couldn’t see his face because his top hat was pulled low over his forehead, casting his features in shadow. He wore an ankle-length charcoal greatcoat trimmed with Russian lambskin, and his Hessian boots sported gilt spurs that rang as he stepped down onto the straw-strewn cobbles.

  He exuded that air of authority that always comes with wealth and breeding. Here was a man who was used to issuing orders, and who expected them to be obeyed without question. His movements were supple and graceful, and his whole demeanor was arrestingly confident. Very little would faze him, Summer thought, wondering who he was.

  He turned, his face still in shadow as he flicked a coin to the ostler she had spoken to a few minutes before. “I require a room for the night,” he said. His voice was softly English, clear-spoken and precise.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And it had better be the best you have here.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “No bugs.”

  “There ent no bugs at the Black Lion, sir.”

  “Well, if there are and they have my hide, I’ll have yours come the morning.”

  “Sir!” The ostler hurried away, his heavy boots clumping on the cobbles.

  At last the gentleman removed his hat, and by the light of one of the carriage lamps she saw he had unruly blond hair that he had to push back into place with gloved fingers. His face was memorably handsome, with finely sculpted but strong features, and a complexion that even in this poor light she could see was that of a man who liked the open air. His mouth was straight and firm, with lips that were neither too thin nor too thick, and his eyes were quick and intelligent as he glanced around the yard.

  Shrinking back by her carriage in order not to be seen, Summer stared at him as if at a ghost. She felt rigid with shock, and the character of Olivia Courtenay fell away, leaving Summer Stanway in all her raw pain. “Jack?” she whispered.

  Her fingers must have tightened over Andrew’s, for suddenly his voice broke in. “Is something wrong, Summe
r?”

  “Andrew, it’s Jack!” she cried.

  “It can’t be,” he replied, his voice taking on a disturbed note.

  “It is, I tell you! Jack Windham just got out of that carriage. He may be dressed like something from Jane Austen, but he’s still my Jack!”

  Andrew was now very uneasy. “I think I’d better bring you out of this...”

  “No! I have to speak to him!”

  “Be sensible, Summer! Jack’s dead!”

  But she ignored him as she stepped into view beside her carriage. The gentleman saw her, and for a heart-stopping moment their eyes met. An avalanche of feelings tumbled chaotically through her, and her heart seemed to turn over as he held her gaze.

  A faint smile played upon his lips, and she felt as if her very soul were exposed to him, but then the inn and the long gone winter night disappeared, and she was staring up at Chrissie and Andrew as they leaned anxiously over her in the sunlit modern apartment overlooking the English Channel.

  Chapter Two

  For a few minutes Summer was so disoriented that she almost felt faint, but then she started to get up agitatedly.

  Andrew pushed her gently but firmly back. “Oh, no, you just lie there quietly for a moment” He glanced at Chrissie. “Bring a glass of water, there’s a love.”

  Chrissie nodded and hurried through to the kitchen. She was Summer’s elder by two years, and very like her to look at, with the same willowy figure, bobbed fair hair, and blue eyes. She wore a simple blue-striped cotton dress, and her flip-flop sandals pattered on the parquet floor as she went to get a glass from the cupboard.

  Reality was pressing around Summer now, and she lay back. The vitality she’d regained so briefly during her visit to the past had vanished, and in its place was the familiar tiredness she hated so much. Her thoughts were in turmoil. The atmosphere of the inn yard was still almost tangible, but she knew she was here in the future again.

  The morning sun was shining dazzlingly through the open French windows of the second-floor apartment, and only yards away outside she could hear the gentle lap of waves on the Sussex shore. There was a light breeze that moved the curtains, and seagulls wheeled against the cloudless sky. She turned her head slightly and gazed southwest through the balcony railings toward the undulating green patchwork of Isle of Wight. Ferries and yachts dotted the blue-green water, just as they always did. It was all so normal, and yet normal was the last thing she felt right now.