Clandestine (House of Oak Book 3)

by Nichole Van

  It figured. The man had been Daniel. She would know her brother anywhere. Even here.

  Frustrated, Kit spent the next thirty minutes walking the length of town, finally looping back to the gig and her patiently waiting horse.

  Still no Daniel.

  Had she truly seen him? Or was she just so desperate to find him that she was now imagining things?

  And she had to get back to Haldon Manor before she lost her post. Chewing her cheek in frustration, Kit patted the horse again, forcing agitated tears back. She never cried. Crying solved nothing and would only give her a headache. She took in several lungfuls of air, trying to center her breathing.

  In, out . . . in, out.

  Giving the horse one more affectionate pat, she climbed into the gig.

  Daniel was here. He was. She had seen him. She refused to doubt it.

  She would find him, remove him from whatever nonsense he had gotten himself into and return home. End of story.

  Chapter 4

  The cellar

  Duir Cottage

  February 19, 1814

  The pounding in Marc’s head pulsed viciously. Like someone playing whack-a-mole with his eyeballs. Groggily, he opened his eyes to a spinning world.

  And then promptly shut them again as bile rose in his throat.

  He lay on ground that was far too hard and cold. The musty air chilly. But mostly, it was the startling lack of sound. His ears hummed noisy, empty static.

  He felt like he was coming out of anesthesia, where every sense was hyper-aware but still shockingly befuddled.

  Taking in a couple deep breaths, he forced his mind more awake, centered his focus.

  Tried to remember what had happened.

  The greatcoat. The beaver top hat. The trunk.

  Blackmail. There had been an intruder. A man. And a fight. A sweet-smelling cloth over his mouth. That button with a shield surrounded by twining leaves.

  And then . . . falling.

  Gingerly, he opened his eyes again. The headache receded somewhat but room still spun around, though a little less than before. He was lying on his back in the cellar, the portal humming against the top of his head, the stairs rising up at his feet. Dim light filtered down from the trapdoor.

  Cautiously, Marc flexed his hands and then his feet. Aside from all his senses being acutely heightened, he seemed to be all right. There must have been some drug on that cloth. Like a handkerchief full of chloroform or something equally Sherlock Holmes-esque.

  Each deep breath cleared more of his fuzziness. The nausea retreated. Listening intently, he still heard nothing. No sound of movement from above.

  Feeling more alert, he carefully sat up and then paused, allowing his head to stop spinning.

  So far, so good.

  Pulling to his feet, he took in a few more slow breaths. Better. He was improving, the mental fog retreating.

  He needed to call the police about the break-in. And then James and Emme. This whole situation was getting more serious. The man who attacked him had to be involved somehow with the blackmail attempt. The events were too coincidental not to be related.

  Marc climbed up the steep wooden stairs and stopped in the doorway to the hall, clutching the jamb, closing his eyes against the spinning world.

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t quite a hundred percent. More like seventy-five percent. A couple more deep breaths and a cool hand against his forehead helped.

  He would grab his phone from the kitchen and then lie down before attempting to make any calls. He could deal with all of this a lot better once he was lying on his back.

  He opened his eyes again and stared down at the wood floor. The trunk was gone. Whoever had broken in was obviously no longer here. What a mess. Was some nineteenth century nut-case now loose in modern Herefordshire?

  Sighing, he turned to walk into the kitchen and then froze. His heart rate kicked into high gear.

  The kitchen wasn’t there. Well, something was there, but it was most definitely not the 2014 kitchen he knew.

  Breathing shallowly, Marc scanned the hallway. It was eerily the same with its dark oak paneling. But no light fixtures hung from the ceiling, no switches poked out from the wall.

  Adrenaline pumping, he walked fully into the back of the house, where the modern kitchen/great room should have been. The enormous fireplace still dominated the left side of the room, but it now hung with work pots and baskets of dried herbs.

  All signs of modernity gone.

  “No!” Marc gasped. “Nonononononono!”

  Clutching his aching head, he stumbled back down the wooden stairs and collapsed against the stone at the far end of the cellar. The portal thrummed under his hands, potent and alive. But nothing happened. Not the swooping, falling sensation that Emme and James described.

  Wait.

  Falling. He had fallen.

  No!

  This couldn’t be happening. Was he in 1814? He was definitely going to be sick.

  Darting back up the stairs, Marc barely made it to a bucket in the primitive kitchen before losing the contents of his stomach. Shaking, he collapsed on the cold wood floor, one arm still looped around the bucket.

  This couldn’t be happening. He didn’t have time to be trapped in 1814.

  He needed to be home, meeting with his agent and coming up with a strategy to combat the whole FauxPause mess.

  He needed modern medicine and wi-fi and ESPN and . . . and . . . deodorant.

  And what of his attacker?

  They had fallen down the stairs together. Had the blackmailer returned to 1814 with him? Or was the man now, indeed, traipsing around 2014 causing trouble?

  And how could Marc possibly discover the answer to those questions?

  Damn! What an ghastly mess!

  He hung his head over the bucket and threaded his fingers into his hair, trying in vain to massage the tension from his skull.

  How would Emme and James ever figure it out?

  And why had the portal let him through? He had jokingly tried for nearly two years to take a trip back in time. Granted, he had never been serious about it.

  But the portal only allowed you through for a reason. Your life had to be entangled with that of someone else—at least, according to Jasmine. The path of your life had to require a trip through time.

  Who could he be connected to in the past? This attacker/possible blackmailer who was now (maybe) creating havoc in 2014 Marfield? That made no sense.

  And what was he, Marc Wilde, to do here? What did 1814 have to offer him? And vice versa?

  He was a British/American martial arts actor, raised in Denver, living wherever his acting took him. The only constants in his life were his mother, his sister and Broncos football. Precisely in that order.

  Of all his dreams and ambitions—of which he had many—living in the early nineteenth century was decidedly not one of them.

  How soon could he return to his own century? And even worse, would he be allowed to return?

  His stomach heaved again, requiring him to clutch the bucket tightly. After completely emptying his gut, the nausea receded. A few minutes later, Marc struggled to his feet. He emptied the bucket into what looked like an outhouse of sorts behind the house and took a drink from a well in the yard. Then, he trudged back down to the cellar.

  The portal still pulsed mockingly. But again, no amount of thinking positive twenty-first century thoughts and hugging the stone—and then kicking, swearing, pounding it—returned him home.

  Sighing, he sank back down to the dirt floor, holding his head in his hands.

  Trying to gather his fuzzy thoughts together.

  Okay, assuming he might actually be stuck in 1814, now what?

  He was lost in another century, far from friends and home and everything that was familiar.

  Well . . . that wasn’t entirely true. He actually did know people in 1814.

  One person, at least—Georgiana.

  Georgiana, James’ younger sister, was here wi
th her husband, Sebastian. Marc knew Georgiana well, as she had spent over a year in the twenty-first century. She was like another sister to him. But Georgiana and Sebastian weren’t anywhere near Duir Cottage, of that he was quite sure. Sebastian was the Earl of Stratton, so he and Georgiana were probably in London or living wherever nineteenth century earls lived.

  So they probably weren’t an immediate help.

  However, Arthur Knight should be nearby. James’ younger brother who had inherited Haldon Manor when James and Emme were supposedly ‘killed’ in a carriage accident.

  Marc had never met Arthur, obviously, but he was family of a sort—being Marc’s sister’s husband’s brother and all.

  That should count for something. Arthur would help him, right?

  Well . . . maybe . . .

  Hadn’t James and Georgiana reminisced more than once about Arthur’s stodginess?

  Not that it mattered at this point. Stodgy or no, Marc needed help. Needed to pick himself up off the floor and head up the road to Haldon Manor. Fate would take things from there.

  Breathing deeply for another fifteen minutes helped immensely. Most of the nausea passed, and Marc’s head felt nearly better.

  As he sat there, Marc took stock of the situation. He couldn’t just walk up to the doors of Haldon Manor in the jeans, t-shirt and leather jacket he was currently wearing. He needed to look the part of an arriving gentleman who might be friends with Arthur Knight.

  Right. How to do that?

  Fortunately, Emme had made Marc go to the Jane Austen Festival in Bath more than once. Not to mention the Bosom Companion of the English Regency meetings he had attended a couple times with Georgiana. The kind ladies there had drilled him over and over on how to speak. Marc had finally figured out that he just needed to use the fanciest, biggest words he knew. That usually did the trick.

  So he had a general understanding of how a nineteenth century gentleman should dress and act.

  And Ninja Pirate 1 had been a historical film (loosely interpreted, but he had worn pantaloons, a cutlass and had learned how to bow like a gentleman). So really, he wasn’t entirely clueless. Thank goodness.

  But it did mean finding more period-appropriate clothing.

  Pushing to his feet, Marc climbed out of the cellar (again) and explored the cottage. It was eerie to be in a building he knew so well—that looked so much the same—and yet was not. All the floors smooth and level, the wood brighter and un-aged. Walls didn’t bulge and lean. Everything crisp and new.

  It was like seeing a younger, less drunk version of the house.

  In a wardrobe upstairs, he found some men’s clothing, finely woven and tailored. Judging by their size, they must belong to someone taller than his own six feet. Sebastian, perhaps? Hadn’t James said he was tall?

  It didn’t matter. The clothes would work.

  A few minutes later, Marc stowed his modern clothing in the bottom of the wardrobe and assessed himself in the wavy mirror in the corner of the room.

  He didn’t look too bad. The fawn colored trousers bunched a bit his ankles and the blue wool coat was a little long in the sleeves, but his broad shoulders filled out the rest nicely. He wasn’t drowning in it. The silver-striped waistcoat fit well. Granted, a gentleman usually wore boots, but his dark leather shoes weren’t entirely anachronistic. Some things just never went out of style.

  Best of all, he had managed to tie the cravat in what James called a mail coach knot. It was the only knot Marc knew.

  But, seriously, how many twenty-first century men could confidently dress themselves to look like a gentleman from 1814?

  He felt absurdly proud of himself.

  Though, running a hand over his scruffy chin, he would probably need a shave. The scruff Marc religiously maintained, his I-haven’t-shaved-in-a-week-stubble would have to go. He was quite sure a permanent five o’clock shadow wouldn’t become vogue until Don Johnson and Miami Vice circa 1984. Unfortunately, the cottage didn’t have a straight razor, so shaving would have to wait. He probably needed a hat and gloves too, but those items were not to be found.

  Though after a little more digging, Marc did uncover a caped greatcoat in another closet (again, probably Sebastian’s judging by the size) and shrugged into it, glad to finally feel warm under so many layers of clothing. The February chill had definitely permeated the house.

  So that was that. He was as ready as he would ever be.

  Squaring his shoulders, Marc marched down the stairs, intent on the front door and Haldon Manor. But as he turned to walk outside, he saw that the door down to the cellar still stood open. No sense in advertising to the world there was something of interest down there.

  He took two steps down the hallway and shut the closet door. But as he turned back toward the front door, he caught a flash of white out of the corner of his eye.

  There, on the floor, lay a folded square of cloth. Hidden behind the open closet door. Bending down, he gingerly picked it up. Noting the yellow liquid which stained its center. A careful sniff revealed the same sickly, sweet smell. Chloroform or whatever had been used to help subdue him.

  This had to be the same cloth his attacker used. But how had it ended up here, just outside the closet door in the hallway?

  There was really only one answer. In order for it to be here, the man had to have fallen through the portal with Marc. And then, he had accidentally dropped the cloth while leaving the cottage. Marc felt a sense of relief that the man wasn’t running rampant through 2014.

  But it was all too fleeting.

  Why was someone trying to use the portal? Why the blackmail? Why would the portal allow this attacker to travel back and forth? Had Fate linked him to this man for some reason?

  And how was he to apprehend a man he hadn’t seen? His memory of that button was all he had to go on.

  So many unanswered questions. And no Google or modern police forensics to help him.

  Marc pocketed the square cloth and surveyed the hallway one more time, looking for any additional clues. But there was nothing more.

  He just needed to find Arthur and formulate a plan. An unknown man with proven nefarious intent and knowledge of the portal was on the loose in Marfield. Who knew what might happen. The man couldn’t be stopped soon enough.

  With a deep breath, Marc stepped out of the front door of Duir Cottage. And swallowed.

  He hadn’t really thought through how much things had changed in the past two hundred years.

  The house was completely different. There were no sunny yellow roses in the window, obviously. But also gone were the graveled drive and lush front garden. The stone fence was starkly new, bare of any covering ivy. The enormous oak tree to the right of the house was a tiny sapling, recently planted and spindly. Forest surrounded the house.

  The silence was even more unnerving. No hum of the nearby motorway. No rumble of a tractor or burst of a car alarm. Just the chirp of birds and rustle of leaves.

  It all underscored the reality of his situation.

  A lane still wandered off to the left, disappearing into the trees, hopefully leading up to the front door of Haldon Manor.

  Straightening his shoulders, Marc stepped through the garden and onto the lane. After a few minutes of walking, he saw the lane intersected with a wider road in front of him. Haldon Manor should be down that road to the left.

  Suddenly, gunfire cracked sharply through the woods, followed by the frightened whinny of a horse and the loud jangle of a harness.

  But it was the sound of a woman screaming in terror which sent Marc sprinting up the lane.

  Chapter 5

  The echoing gunshot shattered the peaceful calm, startling Kit. The bullet ricocheted right over the top of the gig, causing her to jump and lose her grip on the reins.

  But even more critically, the flying bullet spooked her horse. The poor gelding flinched in his harness and then took off at a run. The sudden movement, combined with Kit’s own slack hold, tore the reins entirely from her hand
s.

  With a terrified scream, Kit clung to the frame of the gig as it hurtled down the lane, watching the driving leathers bounce uselessly on the ground behind the galloping horse. No way to retrieve them.

  The lane extended straight ahead for the moment, crossing over a small bridge. But beyond that, the road curved sharply to the right, and the horse showed no signs of slowing down. At her current pace, there was no way the gig would make the turn without toppling.

  Holding on desperately to the bone-jarring carriage, her options quickly dwindled to just two less-than-ideal choices. She could jump from the runaway gig and hope she wasn’t too injured. Or she could stay in the carriage and pray the horse calmed before the curve. Which given the poor thing’s frantic pace, seemed unlikely.

  The gig clattered over the bridge, the fateful bend in the road looming closer and closer. Jumping looked more and more like the better idea. At least that way she could choose where she fell.

  It just figured she would (finally!) see Daniel only to be crushed to death under a runaway carriage. Given everything she had been through in the last month, she refused to have it all end like this.

  Kit tried to assess how fast she was truly going. Could she release the gig long enough to gather her dress in one hand before leaping out? She didn’t want her skirts to snag, dragging her underneath the carriage instead of away from it.

  Staring along the left side of the road, she was debating whether grass or mud would make for a better landing, when a man burst from the bare trees next to her horse, running full tilt.

  She caught the general impression of a billowing caped greatcoat and dark, curly hair as the man came alongside the horse. Effortlessly, he grasped the harness and launched himself onto the animal’s back in one smooth motion, wrapping his arms around the beast’s neck and grabbing the reins. Leaning backward, the man pulled on the reins, gradually calming the terrified horse. Stopping its frantic gallop.

  Kit gasped. Astonished. It had all been so fluid, done with such seeming ease.