He turned sharply on his heel and marched out of the chapel, sending daylight streaming into the gloomy building as he opened the door.
‘You’re the one with the PhD in the subject,’ I said to my brother. ‘What do you know about him?’
‘Preston’s Regiment of Foot,’ Alan said. ‘A minor regiment, but it played a considerable part in the battle of Chesham Bridge, a precursor to Naseby.’
The village of Naseby lay just five miles distant and every year Alan’s re-enacting group would participate in some form of muster to commemorate the battle. I had attended a few, and like any local, had become quite familiar with the stories of the battle that had been the last great set piece battle of the Civil War and marked the end of the King’s cause.
We found Nathaniel leaning against the car, arms and feet crossed, staring at the gray stone house that had once been his home. He said nothing as I unlocked the car.
‘I think we could all do with a drink,’ Alan said as I turned the vehicle onto the road.
I glanced at Nathaniel. He stared straight ahead, his face white and drawn. ‘I second that,’ I agreed.
We found The Bear open, the wooden tables outside already populated with the early lunchtime crowd. We settled ourselves in a secluded corner of the bar and Alan went to fetch three beers.
‘I used to come here,’ Nathaniel said at last. A wry smile twisted the corner of his mouth. ‘It has changed little.’
‘Fourteenth-century and proud of it,’ I said.
Alan set the beers down and opened a packet of crisps. As one, we lifted the glasses and took long draughts.
‘So--’ Alan spoke first. ‘Nathaniel Preston of Heatherhill Hall, I believe you.’
Every logical instinct in me cried out in resistance. This defied the laws of physics--of nature--but with a small, shaking voice I said, ‘So do I.’ Nathaniel looked from one to the other of us. ‘And I, you.’
Alan frowned. ‘What I want to know is how you come to be here?’ Nathaniel picked up his beer and took a swig
‘What happened yesterday?’ Alan asked. ‘Anything...peculiar?’
Nathaniel looked at the table and shook his head. ‘Nothing of significance. I told you I had set off for Oxford in the morning, when I encountered the enemy.’ He touched his injured arm. ‘As Master Shakespeare would say, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and--’ That fetching smile caught at his lips again. ‘Withdrew.’
‘You mean, you ran away?’ I said.
He fixed me with an amused smile. ‘They shot my horse from under me. I got a little way before it went down and then I was on foot. I was making my way home along the lane that runs beside your cottage with six of the scurvy knaves in hot pursuit and,’ he shrugged, ‘decided to take cover behind your wall.’
‘Did you feel anything? See anything unusual?’ Alan leaned forward.
‘Yes. I went over a wall and came across a half naked woman,’ Nathaniel said, revealing a sense of humor that transcended the centuries.
‘I was not naked,’ I protested.
‘To my eyes you were, but I now see you were quite properly dressed.’ He looked around the bar at the other drinkers. ‘My mother would be appalled to see such immodesty.’
‘Well, I’m grateful to have been born in the twentieth century.’ I raised my glass. ‘Here’s to the twentieth-century woman.’
Nathaniel smiled and lifted his glass. ‘A truly wonderful creation.’
He turned to Alan. ‘To answer your question. No, I simply went over the wall.’ But even as he spoke, he looked sideways, not quite meeting Alan’s eyes. I wondered if, perhaps, there was more to the story than he was prepared to tell us.
‘This is extraordinary. A genuine seventeenth-century resource. Imagine what we could do…’ Alan sat back, and I recognized the look of excitement on his face. Alan was formulating a plan.
‘Alan.’ I thumped him on the arm. ‘Whatever you are thinking, the answer is no. You’re not turning Nat into a side show, and who would believe you anyway?’
Alan stared at me. ‘Of course, you’re right. Nat--do you mind if I call you that? Nathaniel is such a mouthful--I am a professor at the university. My subject is seventeenth-century history, particularly the English Civil War.’
‘What war?’ Nat looked at him.
‘Your war. We call it the English Civil War, and yes, indeed, it is the subject of much academic interest, just as you probably read about the Wars of the Roses.’
Nat frowned. ‘So you can tell me what became of the struggle?’
‘I can, but are you sure you want to hear it?’
‘Perhaps not right now,’ Nat conceded. He set down his beer and said with a wry, humorless smile, ‘It has been enough for me to know that I am dead, and indeed to know the exact date and circumstances of my death.’
I cleared my throat. I had been in the position of passing bad news to patients but even I couldn’t tell them exactly how, and when, they would die. Unless one was a prisoner on death row, how does anyone know when they will die? I don’t think I would want to have that information and could only imagine what thoughts were going through Nat Preston’s mind.
It was the fourth of June. If his time and ours ran parallel, he had eight days to live. Nathaniel tapped his fingers on the table and looked up at Alan. ‘So you think that I will return?’
Alan frowned. ‘Unless there is another Nathaniel Preston in a parallel universe, then you must go back.’
I shook my head in disbelief and stood up. All my life I had followed only logic and scientific proof. When I tried to make sense of what I was hearing, the thoughts whirled and jostled in my head.
‘I can’t get my mind around this. Time for another beer.’
I fetched us all another round and when I set the glasses on the table, Alan leaned forward. ‘We are agreed that yesterday was the same day of the month, only the year is different?’ Nat nodded and Alan continued, ‘So it seems to me, unless the fabric of time is going to be completely disrupted, you have to return.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
Alan cleared his throat. ‘We know Nat was present at the Battle of Chesham and his sword is in that display case. Therefore he must return.’
Nat’s mouth tightened and the unspoken words lay on the table between us; he had to return to die.
‘But how is he going to return?’ I asked.
Alan turned to me. ‘Jess, what did you feel yesterday?’
‘Feel? Nothing. Nat came over my wall and trampled my dahlias. That’s it. There wasn’t any weird shimmering or strange music.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant, but it is probable for those few seconds you were probably there as well.’
‘In the seventeenth century? With a Walkman?’ I spluttered on my beer.
Alan shrugged. ‘I’m a historian, not a physicist.’
‘I’m going back to my death,’ Nat said.
Alan cleared his throat. ‘You may not have a choice. Just as you didn’t choose to fall over a wall into the twentieth century, time may take you back when you least expect it.’
Nat drained his glass and set it down with a thump. ‘Then life, whatever form it takes, is for the living. I want to know everything about this time.’
~*~
At the end of a long day, we returned to my little cottage. Alan excused himself to return to his flat in Northampton and his papers, leaving me alone with Colonel Nathaniel Preston.
We had driven around the area, and explored every nook and cranny that he would have known from boyhood--no church or inn or ancient monument in the neighborhood had been neglected. To my surprise, now he had accepted the fact he was in 1995, he seemed to take in every new sight and sound with enthusiasm. In his position, I probably would have crawled under the bedclothes and stayed there, but he had a curiosity that astonished me.
One more modern invention awaited him and I was a bit wary it might lead to sensory overload. The television. Wh
en the picture flicked into life, he visibly started but once over the initial shock, crouched in front of the screen, touching the newsreader’s image.
‘How...’ He looked up at me, frowning.
I smiled. He looked so endearing, like a puzzled child, but a day of providing detailed explanations on every facet of twentieth-century life had left me exhausted.
‘I have no idea,’ I conceded. ‘How about I cook us some dinner? If you want to change channels...um, get a different story, then you press this button.’ I handed him the remote and, like all males of my acquaintance, he proceeded to channel surf. That kept him busy while I rustled up an omelet and soup for dinner.
I poured us each a glass of red wine and, with a heartfelt sigh, sat on the sofa beside him.
‘How is your arm?’ I asked, my fingers lightly brushing his injured bicep.
He stretched his arm and flexed his fingers. ‘A little sore but bearable.’
‘I’ll give you another pain killer before bed tonight.’
He smiled. ‘They are most efficacious, but I think not. Tell me, Jessica, are there other women doctors in this time?’
‘Many of us. Doctors and hospitals are different places today. Yesterday you said you wouldn’t go to hospital because you weren’t dying.’
‘That is the only reason for a hospital.’ He shuddered. ‘I have read Dr. Harvey’s work on the circulation of blood. Is he correct?’
‘Yes he was,’ I replied.
‘I am interested in knowledge.’ Nat sipped his wine. ‘I like to know why things happen the way they do.’
‘Isn’t it all the work of God?’
He looked into the glass. ‘This is a fine wine.’
‘Just an Australian Shiraz,’ I said. ‘Nothing fancy.’
‘What is Australia?’
I found my old school atlas and indicated Australia on the map of the world. He closed the book and set it to one side, shaking his head.
‘I have seen enough for one day,’ he said. ‘You ask if everything is the work of God? Of course it is but that does not preclude reason. You are a doctor, have you not seen the hand of God where there is no reason?’
‘Many times,’ I conceded.
‘When I was eighteen I travelled on the continent. I spent six months in Italy.’
‘Is that where you came across Leonardo Da Vinci?’
‘I procured a book of his machines and brought it home with me. It has been my constant companion.’ He gave me the benefit of one of his lopsided, wry smiles. ‘I even tried to construct one or two of them. Not with any success.’
‘You are a contradiction then.’ I tilted my head to one side and looked at him. ‘From what I know of the seventeenth century, you are a man ahead of your time in many ways.’
‘So I have been told,’ he commented as he poured himself another glass of wine. ‘One of the great scientists of all time, Isaac Newton, was born not far from here in Lincolnshire in 1642. He changed the way we view the world.’
‘So there will come a time of enlightenment when this war is done?’
I shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Under Charles the Second, Newton and others founded the Royal Society...’ His attention had wandered to the flickering TV screen. Perhaps, like me, he had taken in as much as he could for one day. ‘Tell me about your family?’
His attention snapped back to me. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Your wife?’
‘Anne.’ He shrugged, a curious dismissive gesture when talking about one’s spouse, I thought.
‘Had you known her long?’
‘It was never intended as a love match, Jessica. Her father was able to provide power and influence at court that my father lacked. He paid a handsome dowry for her hand.’ He smiled. My face had always been a book and I must have looked horrified at this cold blooded approach to matrimony.
‘You are shocked? I liked her well enough but she didn’t understand me…my interests. Her only thoughts were of the house and children.’
‘And your children?’
‘Just the boys.’ His mouth tightened. ‘They are my greatest concern. I abhor the world in which we now live, a country at war with itself, and I fear for them. You have no children?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘And why do you have no husband?’
I couldn’t answer that. I would have married Mark, until the ‘incident’. I looked up and saw Nathaniel looking at me.
He arched an eyebrow knowingly. ‘A broken heart, I think?’
I managed a watery smile. ‘Something like that.’
‘Then whoever he is, he is entirely undeserving of your grief.’ He brushed my cheek with a finger and a shiver ran down my spine. ‘You are a lovely woman, Jessica. There will be others.’
‘Not many men like playing second fiddle to a career, particularly when they have one of their own. But enough of me. What about your parents?’
‘Both dead. My sister still lives at the Hall and my grandmother, Dame Alice.’ He looked at me and smiled. ‘You would like Alice. She is--’ He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. ‘I am tired, Jessica. Would you excuse me if I retired for the night?’
As he rose to his feet, I asked, ‘Can you work the bath?’
‘Another bath?’ he inquired with a raised eyebrow. ‘I only had one yesterday?’
‘Well, these days we bathe daily,’ I told him, adopting a severe expression while trying to keep a smile off my lips.
‘Too much bathing can sap your strength,’ he replied.
‘Nonsense. Just call it a house rule. Good night, Nat.’
‘Good night, Jessica.’ A slow smile spread across his face. ‘My witch.’
I felt an unfamiliar warmth wash over me. Mark never had any terms of endearment to describe me. ‘Why do you call me that?’
‘Because you have bewitched me.’ He bowed and left the room.
I heard the bath water running and sat back, nursing my glass and thinking about the curious man who had dropped into my life. My safe, clinical world had been turned upside down and, I thought, even if Colonel Nathaniel Preston were to leave tomorrow, it would never be quite the same again.
~*~
I cannot sleep.
Every time I close my eyes I see this new world and all its wonders. The noise overwhelms me. Even now in the dead of night, I hear the carriages racing past and see the bright lights illuminate the curtains over the windows.
Light. There is so much light.
I try to order things in my understanding, relate them to my own time, but I fail. My own ignorance fails me. I am a savage in this land. Jessica the Witch must think me a veritable fool, and that concerns me. I think of her warm, sun-touched skin on that day I first saw her, and the courage with which she faced me. I want to touch her. I need that touch of a warm, living being to remind me that I am still a man and not an object of pity.
The knowledge of my death tugs at my mind. I keep pushing the memory of that cold stone in the chapel away. I don’t believe I am to die. I am only thirty years old. I have two small sons. Who will care for them? Who will protect my sister and my grandmother?
Alice. Help me. I can’t live with this knowledge.
I hear her voice coming through the mist of my mind. ‘You must find the strength. Remember why you are there. Learn as much as you can of this new world Nathaniel, and you will have a chance to set things in order.’
I close my eyes and remember all we talked about, Alice and I. She is right, I have to acquire the knowledge needed to set my world in order.
But to do that I will return to my time.
To do that, I must die.
Chapter 3
Northampton
So many books.
Jessie the Witch must put great store by learning. Not since the great library at Oxford have I seen such a collection. Every book I own is precious to me and cost dearly. I sometimes closet myself in my library and take each one out for the sheer pleasure
of the touch of the paper and the smell of the leather binding.
There is one book more precious than all the others that I keep locked away and only bring out when I want to dream. I have thought much about it in the last few days.
In a glass cabinet, Jessie has an odd assortment of broken pottery and keys. My breath stops in my throat as I recognize one of the objects. Despite the rust, it is still familiar, just as my sword had been. Such a little thing but is this what binds us?
‘Why is this here?’ I ask Alice.
‘You will know in time,’ she replies.
~*~
I came back from my morning run to find Nat fully dressed, standing in front of the cabinet containing the odd pieces of the cottage’s past that I had found during the renovation. I have enough interest in history to appreciate the value of the broken bits of pot, old bottles, bits of clay pipe and other pieces of household detritus that kept turning up as I worked on the house. They told the story of the previous inhabitants, and their story had become the story of the house.
I particularly liked the keys, which ranged from a giant iron door key to small cupboard keys and one particularly interesting item with the rusted remains of a fine filigree pattern on its head.
He turned around as I entered, inclined his head and smiled.
‘I have been looking at your books.’ He waved a hand at my overfilled bookcases. ‘You must be wealthy to possess so many books.’
I laughed. ‘No, I’m not. It’s just that books are cheap and I’m a voracious reader.’
His eyes met mine and he smiled. ‘Then you are blessed. Even I can only afford the luxury of purchasing a book every now and then.’ He frowned and looked me up and down. ‘What is that strange garb you are wearing?’
I sat and unlaced my running shoes. ‘I’ve just been for a run.’
His left eyebrow shot up as it did when some new concept intrigued him. ‘Who were you running from?’
‘No one. I just went for a run. It’s how I keep myself fit.’
‘The women of my household have no need of running.’ He narrowed his eyes, as if imagining the women of his household out for a morning jog.
Secrets in Time: Time Travel Romance Page 4