‘Ah, so that’s how it is?’ he said, ‘Leave you alone for one day, and look what happens. Want a beer, Jess?’
Nat and I looked at each other and smiled. Alan let out a heavy sigh, stood and walked into the kitchen. ‘I’ll take it as a yes for the beer.’
‘Alan let me drive his motor carriage today,’ Nat said with a grin.
‘Oh, Al, how could you? What if you’d been caught?’
‘We went out to the old airfield. Not much harm he could do there,’ Alan said from the depths of the refrigerator.
I looked at my lover. ‘So, did you enjoy it?’
Nat grinned. ‘I believe I reached a speed of twenty miles per hour,’ he said. ‘Imagine how far I could go in that time!’
‘Twenty miles? Were you practicing on one of our motorways?’
Alan chortled but Nat looked from one to other of us. ‘Is there some merriment?’
‘Our motorways are renowned for their traffic jams,’ I said, but seeing the puzzlement in his eyes, shook my head. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
Undeterred, Nat continued, ‘I see you have one of Leonardo’s machines in your garage. Can you show me how it works?’
I stared at him blankly. ‘One of Leonardo’s machines?’
‘The contraption with two wheels. We saw the old woman on one.’
‘Oh, my bicycle. It’s a lady’s bike but sure, I’ll teach you how to ride it.’
Alan returned with beers for the three of us. ‘This weekend is the fair up at Heatherhill Hall. Mortlock’s regiment is having a muster to commemorate the Battle of Chesham Bridge. I thought it would be amusing if you could come along, Nat.’
Nat looked at him blankly.
‘A muster? What are you mustering?’
‘Alan is a member of the local historical re-enactors. They re-enact life in the armies of the English Civil War. A muster is when they get together and put on a demonstration of--’ I paused, feeling rather foolish. ‘Life during the English Civil War.’
‘Why?’ Nat asked.
A faint color rose to Alan’s cheeks. ‘Because we find it particularly interesting,’ he said.
‘It’s not interesting. It is a war,’ Nat said. ‘The worst of wars--a civil war. I would think it is best forgotten, not, what do you call it, ‘re-enacted.’ Do you kill each other?’
‘Of course we don’t.’ Alan cleared his throat and looked away.
‘But they pride themselves on being authentic,’ I said. ‘That’s what convinced Alan of your story. Your clothes.’
‘I have--I had--two brothers,’ Nat said. ‘My youngest brother, Thomas, took up arms for Parliament. He was killed at the battle at Long Marston in Yorkshire last year.’
‘Were you there?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘No, but my second brother Edward was. He cannot live with the fact that he could have faced his own brother on the battlefield and not known. That is what a civil war means.’
My hand closed over Nat’s.
Alan sighed. ‘I’m sorry if you find it offensive, Nat.’
Nat shook his head. ‘No. I just find it strange. In fact, it is one of the stranger aspects of your world. Do you find us quaint or are we something to be studied like a barbarian tribe?’ He looked at me. ‘Or is it just all so long ago that the reality of what the war really means is lost?’
Alan shrugged. ‘No, it’s about remembering, and not forgetting, that this was the last time war was waged on British soil, and what it meant for the future of the country.’
Nat regarded him for a moment and then gave a self deprecating laugh. ‘I will come if only because it will be amusing to see how you ‘re-enact’ my time.’
‘I could introduce you as a sort of expert in the period?’
He looked so hopeful, I could not help laughing. ‘Alan. You are incorrigible.’
‘But he’s a firsthand resource, Jess.’
An ironic smile quirked the corner of Nat’s mouth. He looked at me. ‘Where are my clothes?’
‘I sent them to the laundry. I’ve no idea how to get that much blood out of them and I had to do some fast talking.’ I rose to fetch another beer. When I opened the fridge I said, ‘I’ve taken leave for the next two weeks.’
‘Leave?’ Alan asked. ‘I thought that hospital couldn’t run without you.’
‘Well they weren’t happy, particularly at such short notice, but they’ll manage. Where do you want to go, Nat?’ I asked as I returned to the living room.
‘Go?’
‘We can go to London, Paris...’ I paused. ‘Even Rome?’
‘But I have such a short time.’
‘If you want, we can fly. We can be in Rome in two hours from London.’ Nat’s jaw dropped. ‘Two hours, but it took me months...’
‘One small problem, Jess,’ Alan said. ‘Our friend here has no passport. In fact, he has no birth certificate. He doesn’t actually exist. Even in the EU, he still needs some sort of ID.’
My grand plans fell to dust. In a time when identity was everything, Nat’s lack of any sort of identification could prove to be a real problem...if he were to stay. My heart leaped at the thought. What if he did stay?
My mind whirled ahead to clandestine meetings with shady forgers capable of whipping up such vital documents in the dark alleys of... Where was I to find shady forgers in the back streets of Northamptonshire?
‘It’s of no matter,’ Nat said with a shrug. ‘Can we still go to London? I haven’t been there since before the war.’
‘We don’t need a passport for London,’ I said. ‘We’ll take the train tomorrow and be back for the weekend.’
‘Excellent plan. Although you may find it’s changed since your time,’ Alan said. ‘The London you would have known burned down in 1666.’
‘I served at the court of King Charles for nearly a year. Is Whitehall Palace still there?’ Nat asked.
‘No,’ Alan said, ‘apart from Westminster Hall and the Dining Hall, but Hampton Court and the Tower of London are still recognizable. Sorry, did you say you served at Charles’s court?’ I could see the possibilities whirling through his academic mind. ‘Tell me about it?’
I glanced at my watch. ‘Are you staying for dinner, Alan?’
Alan is a good brother and quite capable of taking a hint. He excused himself and I was alone with Nat. We barely made it to the bedroom, and dinner was eaten late.
~*~
We stayed in a little hotel off Piccadilly. We spent the nights making love, ate in small restaurants, drank far too much wine and reveled in each other’s company.
I generally avoided London as much as I could but with an eager tourist in tow, I saw it through fresh eyes. He absorbed everything about the city. As Alan had said, the city he had known had long since disappeared but we found places he recognized remaining, such as the Tower of London and Westminster Hall and the Abbey of course. Despite the centuries, these buildings still dominated the city.
As we walked down Whitehall, past what had once been the Whitehall palace, we stopped to admire the great equestrian statue of Charles I and the somber statue of Oliver Cromwell.
‘Cromwell,’ he said musingly, ‘I have heard his name. He is a fine commander of the cavalry I believe. I must ask Alan what he did to warrant such a place of honor.’
‘Oh, I can tell you that,’ I said and proceeded with a history lesson on Cromwell’s rise to being Lord Protector. He listened intently, his expression grim, and made no comment.
We stopped at the modest building that was the last remaining vestige of the great Whitehall Palace, the Dining Hall designed by Inigo Jones, another building apparently known to Nat. As it was open to the public, I paid our entry and we joined a guided tour.
Nat grew more and more withdrawn as the tour progressed. The guide stood by the windows and described how King Charles I had stepped onto the scaffold on that cold winter’s day in 1649 to meet his death. Nat turned away and left the group.
I found him standing on th
e street outside, leaning against a wall. ‘Are you all right?’
‘They killed the king,’ he said without looking at me,
‘Yes, they did. You will need to ask Alan more about it.’
‘Everything we are fighting for, everything I will die for will be for nothing.’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No, because of what happened, England will be a better place. The monarch will be accountable for his or her actions to the parliament. There will be no more civil wars.’
‘And your queen?’ he waved a hand in the direction of Horse Guards. ‘Does she rule by divine right?’
‘No. She is a figurehead with no real power.’ Nat straightened. ‘I need a drink.’ I took his hand. ‘Let’s find that drink and then we’ll go to the Natural History Museum. I think you will find that far more interesting.’
As we boarded the train at Paddington on Friday afternoon, I wanted to turn and run in the opposite direction. The battle of Chesham Bridge would be in three days time. The thought filled me with foreboding. Sometime before then Nat would return to his time to die too young. As wonderful as our few days in London had been, it was as though I had given someone with a fatal illness their last taste of life.
So he would not see my tears I turned away and looked out of the window at the passing countryside.
Chapter 5
Mustering at Heatherhill
‘Today,’ Alice says. ‘Are you ready?’
My arm tightens around Jessie the Witch and she sighs in her sleep. ‘Alone?’
‘No, she will come with you.’
I kiss Jessica’s hair. Will she find my world as strange as I find hers? When I die will she be stranded forever between times?
‘No, Alice.’
Alice sighs. ‘I must talk with her.’
‘Then talk to her as I do with you, Alice. Don’t ask this of me.’
I hear Alice’s skirts rustle as she paces the room. ‘I cannot, Nathaniel. She must come with you.’
‘How?’
Alice laughs.
So many things I will never understand and that defy logic. I have no choice but to trust her.
~*~
I rolled over and looked down at my sleeping lover who lay on his back with one arm flung over his head. I knew every inch of his hard, lean body, every scar and blemish. I wanted to hold on to this moment forever, keep him here beside me, but as inexorably as time, I knew he would be leaving me and when he went, I would be heartbroken. A tear trickled down my cheek. I didn’t want to let him go back. If I could nail him to this time and place, lock him in this room, I would.
Instead I cooked him breakfast.
Alan had picked up Nat’s clean and mended clothes from the laundry and left them at my house. Nat had spent Friday night polishing his boots, belt and baldric but when the morning came he would not wear them.
‘I think it a foolish notion, to dress up and pretend you are in times long past. It would be as idiotic as me pretending to be a bowman of Crecy.’
‘Oh, there are re-enactment groups who do that too.’ I smiled. ‘And Romans.’
Nat just rolled his eyes and stowed the bag with his clothes in the boot of my car.
A large crowd had gathered at the Hall. The lady in the pink cardigan, flushed by the exertion of dealing with the number of visitors, greeted us like old friends.
‘Back again?’ she said. ‘We’ve got the Civil War Association here, you know.’
‘Yes, my brother is one of them.’
‘And what about you, dear?’ she addressed Nat. ‘‘Are you getting dressed up too?’ she asked, eyeing the sword and boots he carried.
‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Isn’t that the point?’
‘Oh...but you’ve cut your lovely hair.’
Nat ran a hand through his shorn locks and gave her the benefit of his most disarming smile. ‘I am sure the likeness is still there.’
A faint color stained her cheeks and she giggled like a teenager. ‘Oh well, I will look out for you,’ she said.
We identified Alan by the standard flying above his tent. He looked rather fine in his green jacket and sleeveless buff coat.
Nat shook his head. ‘This is some dream from which I will wake,’ he said.
‘Did you bring your clothes?’ Alan’s eyes gleamed.
‘Of course,’ Nat said as he set the bag down on the table. ‘And did you find something for Mistress Shepherd?’
‘Oh, I’m not getting dressed up. I don’t--’ But the protests died on my lips as Nat kissed me.
‘I would like to see you dressed as a proper woman,’ he whispered, cupping my face in his hand.
I batted it away. ‘You chauvinist. Do you think long skirts and corsets make me a proper woman?’
‘A lady suitable for my arm on this fine day of battle?’ Nat wheedled.
I relented, and with some help from a couple of the female ‘camp followers,’ I entered into the spirit of the day, emerging in a heavy blue wool frock and neat lawn collar trimmed with lace. They could find no shoes to fit me, so I kept my sneakers on.
Nat held out his arm. ‘Now we look the part. Like a pair of strolling players.’
‘Except they didn’t have women actors in your day.’
‘True,’ he said.
‘You look stunning, Jess, although I’m not sure about the handbag,’ Alan observed, pointing to my large leather bag, slung over my shoulder.
‘I’m not leaving it in a tent.’
Alan shrugged. ‘We’ve got a little time before we kick off. I thought we should go and visit Nat’s sword,’ he said.
Unlike our previous visit, the great hall was full of tourists. Standing beneath his portrait, even with his hair cut short, there could be no denying Nathaniel Preston was the subject of Van Dyck’s portrait. My heart beat a little harder beneath the constricting bodice. Nat unsheathed the shining sword and held it up to the glass case. It was incredible to think it was the same weapon.
‘Well, well. That is a superb copy. Do you mind if I have a look?’
We turned to find ourselves face to face with the elderly gentleman dressed in the same tweed jacket we had passed in the woods the first day we had come to Heatherhill.
His gaze was fixed on Nat, who, without a word, presented the sword to him. The gentleman turned it over in his hands. ‘A perfect replica, right down to the nick just below the hilt. I commend you, sir. Where did you have it made?’
‘Germany,’ Nat said.
The man turned to look at the Van Dyck portrait. ‘You will pardon my curiosity, but I can’t help but notice that you bear a striking resemblance to my ancestor. Are you distantly related to my family?’
‘You are a Preston?’ I asked, deflecting the question.
‘Indeed. Colonel George Preston. The last of the Prestons, alas.’ The elderly man indicated the portrait of Nat. ‘My ever-so-great grandfather by direct line. One of the dashing cavaliers of King Charles. He died in the Civil War.’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nat wince.
The Colonel had not missed the momentary lapse in Nat’s composure. ‘But you haven’t answered my question. Are we related?’
Nat met the eyes of his great-plus grandson. ‘Family history is not my interest. I would need to consult my grandmother.’
‘Well, I would be most interested to meet with you again, Mr...’
‘Preston, Nathaniel Preston,’ Nat said with a smile. ‘I carry the name, Colonel.’
George Preston’s moustache twitched. ‘Indeed you do, sir. Well, if you will excuse me, I believe I have the honor of starting a battle. I look forward to our next meeting.’ With a slight bow, the military gentleman left us.
‘Well, that was an odd conversation,’ I remarked.
‘Odd,’ agreed Alan. ‘You would think he knew who Nat was.’
‘Yes, but that’s not likely is it?’ I said. ‘Come on, Al, you’ll be late.’
‘What exactly are you doing today?’ Nat aske
d as we walked toward the line of tents that marked the muster.
‘It’s supposed to be the battle of Chesham Bridge but we’re not blowing anything up.’
‘What was blown up?’ Nat inquired.
‘The bridge, of course,’ Alan replied. ‘It stopped the Parliamentarians in their tracks and allowed time for the king to bring up more troops. We should use you as our technical advisor for the battle.’
‘Alan, may I remind you, Nat hasn’t fought the battle of Chesham Bridge yet,’ I said and instantly regretted my words.
In two days time, Nat would fight the battle and he would die but he didn’t appear to have heard me. He had wandered over to one of the cavalry and was talking to the trooper. In fact, he appeared to be giving the man some advice on his equipment.
Alan introduced him to the gathering as a technical specialist on seventeenth century armament who he had invited along for the day. A trumpet sounded, and the muster assembled.
Nat shuddered. ‘I’ve no stomach to watch this. Come, let’s go for a walk to the river.’
We found a gate in the wall and strolled with our arms around each other, through the orchard to the banks of the River Nene, which flowed deep and dark from upstream of Chesham. Nat sat down on the bank. I spread my skirts and sat beside him. We fell back in the sweet smelling grass and I laid my head on his shoulder as he slid his arm around me.
We lay together, listening to the murmur of the river and the distant sound of the battle.
‘This is nice,’ I whispered, feeling his fingers stroking my hair. ‘Let’s enjoy it, while we can,’ he whispered.
~*~
I must have fallen asleep. When I opened my eyes, the sun had slipped away and we were lying in shadow. Despite the heavy woolen clothes, I shivered as a cold breeze blew across the water.
No sound came from the direction of the Hall. The battle must have finished and Alan and his mates would have retired to the beer tents.
I stretched and sat up,
‘Alan will be wondering where we are,’ I said
Nat brushed the grass from his breeches as he stood up. He held out his hand and pulled me to my feet.
‘Have they finished fighting my war?’
I glanced at my watch. The digital face had gone blank. I took it off and shook it, annoyed that the new battery I had just put in it had failed.
Secrets in Time: Time Travel Romance Page 7