Clandestine (House of Oak Book 3)

by Nichole Van

  Kit took off her cloak and warmed her hands by the fire as a maid delivered platters of food. Most of which Kit recognized: a meat pie, steamed cabbage, mutton stew, fluffy scones and some slices of pound cake.

  Once the door closed behind the maid, Kit chuckled. “Lady Vader?”

  Marc nodded his head. “Why not? It seemed more believable than saying you were my sister.” He doffed his hat, setting it on an empty chair, and then pulled off his gloves. “Even I know claiming you as anything other than my wife or sister would be a complete faux pas—”

  He stopped, tension suddenly entering the room.

  FauxPause. It hung between them.

  “Right.” Kit smoothed her skirt. “Again, I am truly sorry, Marc. Sincerely. I am committed to doing whatever I can to make this right.”

  He regarded her with hooded eyes, slapping his gloves against his thigh. She watched emotions flicker across his face: hurt, frustration . . . maybe even a smidge of betrayal.

  “Your review stung, Kit. It really did.” He rubbed his chest with his free hand, as if massaging some tightness away. Gloves still snapped against his leg. “But who knows? Publicity never hurts and maybe some good will come of it—”

  “Exactly! That’s what I think too. And, I do sincerely apologize. Do you feel it possible, given time, you could forgive me?”

  He stared at her, face impassive. After a moment, he shrugged, tossing the gloves on top of his hat.

  “I don't know,” he said, sliding off of his greatcoat. “I suppose it depends on how good your make-up kiss is.”

  Her entire body sagged at his admission.

  “Amazing. I promise it will be amazing.” She smiled, letting her relief shine.

  He matched her smile, though it didn’t quite touch his eyes. “It will have to be.”

  He studied her for another moment, face unreadable. And then nodded.

  Time. He just needed a little time to process it all. Heaven knew, she did.

  Marc took a seat at the table and started dishing food for himself, gesturing for Kit to do the same.

  She sat and placed a scone on her plate. And then stopped, as another thought occurred, causing her to give a long chuckle.

  “What?” asked Marc, looking at her over the meat pie. Eyebrows inquisitive.

  “I was just imagining the scene if we had met at a posh party in modern London.” Kit reached for a jar of what appeared to be gooseberry jam. “One of those Perez Hilton types would have made sure we were introduced as La Pochette and the ‘Crocinator.’ I would have made some pithy comment about your missing dreadlocks—”

  Marc snorted softly. “And then I would have said something oh-so-dry about people hearing multiple voices in their heads. All in a dignified manner, of course."

  “Of course,” Kit agreed, smile flitting. “But we would have simply confirmed all our prejudices about each other and never looked beyond that. It’s such an interesting twist of Fate for us to be here together. That we had to travel two hundred years into the past and be stripped to our barest selves—”

  “Allowing us to see the person behind of each of our twenty-first century public personas,” Marc finished for her.

  “Exactly.” Kit nodded.

  “Emme has a best friend, Jasmine. She’s part mystic, part psychic. Personally, I think she needs to lay off the incense.” Marc set down his fork, studying Kit. “Anyway, Jasmine believes the universe will find a way for people who truly belong together to meet. Even across time and space.”

  Something flared in Kit’s chest at his words. Hot and bright.

  “What a beautiful way of expressing it.” Kit smiled softly, dishing some cabbage on to her plate.

  Her breathing eased. He seemed more relaxed . . . his anger would pass. It had to. She refused to consider any other option.

  Marc broke open a scone and reached for the gooseberry jam. “So I know some about La Pochette. But I want to know more about the real Kit,” he said.

  She let out a long breath of air. “Let me start at the beginning. You already know part of the story anyway. My father was the seventh Lord Whitmoor, a title awarded by the crown in the 1820’s, if I remember right. My parents married, had me and Daniel, and then my mother ran off with her best friend’s husband and never looked back. She died about ten years ago in Thailand.”

  Marc lifted his eyes, questioning.

  “Drug overdose.” Kit said the words tonelessly. As if those two simple words could encompass the pain of burying a mother she had never known. Of being raised motherless. Of being the one child on the playground who had only a vague understanding of what the word ‘mother’ even meant.

  Something of her pain must have flickered across her face.

  “My father left,” Marc said softly, not taking his eyes off of her. “When I was about eight. Emme and I woke up one morning and he was gone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  Marc paused. And then shifted his shoulders, as if moving something weighty.

  He continued. “There was so much rage in me over it. So many years before I even understood what the rage meant. Martial arts literally saved my life. It gave me an outlet.”

  Kit nodded. “Writing and humor were like that for me.”

  “Jokes made it palatable, at least to other people.”

  “Exactly. If I could be the funniest, most likable kid in school, then maybe the other kids would forget about my motherlessness.”

  “Kids don’t forget,” Marc said, shaking his head as he piled another slice of meat pie onto his plate. “Us or them.”

  That was truth.

  Laughing at yourself and others before they could laugh at you.

  The natural reaction to not being wanted by the one person who had mattered most.

  “What happened to your father?” Kit slid the question in casually. She intended to stay inside the non-meringue zone as long as possible.

  “Died when I was a teenager. Car accident. My British grandma took it hard, obviously. I think she held onto Emme and me even more after that.”

  “Your mom?”

  “She took it all in stride. Looking back, I don’t know how she held us all together. She worked as a flight attendant. Still does, actually. You would like her. She’s a hilarious, spunky lady.”

  “I’d like to meet her.”

  Their eyes met and held.

  That sense of familiarity still hung between them. It was more than just recognizing someone from a movie preview. Or sharing a few jokes with each other. Kit saw that clearly now.

  It was realizing you had found your tribe. A person who sees the same reality as yourself.

  She and Marc were two sides of the same coin. Achingly similar.

  Housed in the same soul.

  The knowledge caused a pang to rise in her chest, something tight lodging her throat.

  She looked away before she did something stupid. Like cry. Or kiss him senseless.

  Or both.

  Kit shifted in her chair. “How did you end up here?”

  She meant in the nineteenth century. Though, really, it was a better question for her.

  Marc grimaced and told her about James and Emme, Georgiana and Sebastian, Duir Cottage, the portal, the blackmail note and arriving to find the trunk and nineteenth century clothes. The short fight with Daniel.

  “Daniel . . . can be such a trial.” Kit shook her head. “He’s a good person, Marc. You have to believe that. He wouldn’t deliberately harm you. But you said all this happened about two weeks ago?”

  Marc nodded, taking another bite of meat pie.

  “I knew nothing about the portal.” Kit swallowed. “How does it work?”

  “Who knows really.” But in between bites of bread, Marc told her all he knew about the portal, its fickle nature, the ties that can bind people across centuries.

  “So if we were allowed through the portal because it was the best way for us to meet, what about Daniel? Why was
he sent through the portal with you?” Kit asked.

  Marc sighed. “I honestly don’t know. He and I were grappling, so maybe he was just collateral damage. In the wrong place at the wrong time. Though it was obvious he had been planning to go through the portal—”

  “Only Daniel would get caught up in a mess like this.” Kit shook her head. “My brother has always been restless. He’s a wanderer, just like our mother. He dabbled in drugs as a teenager but, fortunately, never got addicted to anything. I think he was afraid to end up like our mum. But he can’t just be. His mind never seems to stop. He is brilliant at mechanical things and is the type of person who can pull apart a toaster or grandfather clock and reassemble it, better than new. But ask him to spend an hour in an engineering class and he blows up. He refuses to even look at a computer. I don’t know that he has ever even read FauxPause. I don’t think he even knows how to turn a computer on—”

  “What? How is that even possible in this day and age? Well, not this day and age—” Marc rolled his hand, nodding his head. “—our day and age. You know what I mean.”

  “I’m with you. I can’t understand it either. My brother and I are so much alike and yet so opposite somehow. It’s like Daniel got the worst attributes of both our parents. He just bounces from one thing to the next, constantly one step ahead or even behind the law. He’s smitten with serious wanderlust and often will disappear for a day or two without telling anyone. It’s so frustrating, particularly his ridiculous aversion to post-1950s technology. He never carries a cell phone, so tracking him down is nearly impossible . . .

  “Anyway, about two months ago, I found some notes of his with the words ‘Duir Cottage,’ the address and a note listing different articles of clothing and money. It was all stacked under an old bottle of chloroform our father had collected at some point. Obviously super suspicious. Probably related to the blackmail, but I didn’t know that. Daniel got super cagey when I asked him about it and refused to talk to me. I thought maybe he was back to his drug habits or something. Then, to make matters worse, he vanished. Just didn’t come home. After nearly week, I was panicked, desperate to find him, thinking he was in something deep this time. So I went to Duir Cottage, just to see what kind of a place it was, maybe talk to the people who lived there. The house was charming and looked entirely harmless—”

  “Which it is.”

  Kit acknowledged this with a nod. “Yes, well, I guessed as much. Anyway, this is the part that is less-than-flattering, but I, uh, tried the doors and found the back door ajar—”

  “What?! How did that happen?” Marc’s eyebrows raised in alarm. “Perhaps the caretaker left it open by accident—”

  “That could be. There were some cleaning supplies in a bucket by the door.” She noted Marc’s wide eyes. “But, I know, I know. I shouldn’t have gone in regardless. I guess I was just trying to find anything that would help me find Daniel and understand what he was up to. I just want my brother to be safe, you know.”

  “Are you insane? Anyone could have been in the house. You could have been hurt.”

  Kit rolled her eyes at him. “Exactly! Which is why I brought a taser and my rape alarm—”

  “Kit, Kit, Kit,” Marc muttered, lowering his head into his hands, pressing his fingers against his temples.

  She ignored it. “I snooped around the house, finding nothing—taking nothing too, I have to add—and then stumbled down to the cellar, thinking that the drugs or whatever might be down there. So the rest should be fairly obvious. I went through the portal and didn’t remotely understand what had happened at first. The house just changed, and I wandered outside completely disoriented.”

  She paused and stared at her plate, shredding a scone with her fingers. Then continued. “It was . . . awful. I was seriously freaked out, on the verge of having a full-blown panic attack. I was walking up the road toward Marfield when a nice old lady stopped me. She introduced herself as Auntie Gray—”

  “Ah, Auntie Gray. Emme thinks that woman is part witch.”

  “I would believe it. Anyway, she took me home with her, found me some clothing. Over the next couple days, she acclimated me to this century, showed me the ropes, how to behave. She didn’t indicate that she knew anything about the portal or where I was truly from, but I wonder if she doesn’t know more than she let on.”

  “Yes, I believe she knows a lot about the portal. I wonder why she didn’t say anything?”

  Kit shrugged. “I should have been more direct with my questions, I suppose. She actually left on the mailcoach about five days after I arrived—something about going to Sussex for the birth of a new grandchild. I would have gone back to her with more questions had she been around.

  “Before Auntie Gray left, she introduced me to the vicar who then arranged for the position with Lady Ruby. The only thing that kept me going was thinking Daniel was here too. That I needed to track him down and then find a way to return to our own century. I didn’t know, at the time, that Daniel wasn’t here yet. He had gone off in 2014 and then came home for a week or two before coming here—”

  “And he didn’t wonder where you had gone?”

  Kit shrugged. “Daniel doesn’t really think about things like that. He just assumed I was on a business trip. Anyway, once I had my position at Haldon Manor, I snooped around in Arthur’s study, hoping to find something that would link Daniel to the cottage or Haldon Manor. Or, at least, information about the portal and how it worked, but I couldn’t find anything. And that’s where you came in.”

  They ate in silence for a few moments.

  “So . . . your father was an honest-to-goodness lord. What’s that like growing up?” Marc took a bite of meat pie.

  “Not so different, except you hang out with other kids whose parents are lords. Most of them were uppity and arrogant. I think that’s where my initial idea for FauxPause came from. I was so tired of being looked down on and wanted to have a voice of my own. I mean, sure my dad was a lord, but the family estates had been given to the National Trust years ago and we were never wealthy. Dad was a history professor at the university in Hereford.

  “Don’t get me wrong. We were obviously not poor, but we never had the money other peers had. Dad didn’t seem to care. He just wanted to spend time in his study, researching the history of the family and area. Daniel and I were left to fend for ourselves most of the time. Which is how I became more mother than sister to Daniel. I fixed dinner, did laundry, cleaned house . . . all of that.”

  Marc gave a mock-gasp of surprise. “What? No servants?”

  “Uh, no.” Kit laughed. “That ship sailed a good generation or two before my lifetime.”

  “So, if your father has passed on, Daniel is Lord Whitmoor now? Isn’t that how it works?”

  “Well, yes and no. Daniel should be Lord Whitmoor, but the title hasn’t been vested in him yet as Daniel has been reluctant to accept it. And there are no other male heirs, so if Daniel leaves or declines the title, then everything reverts to the Crown. It’s all been this ugly mess. The barony was created through a writ of summons, not patent, so Daniel feels like we have options but—”

  Kit caught Marc’s eyes glazing. She waved her hand. “I’ll spare you the details. Basically, when my great-grandfather gave Whitmoor to the National Trust, he negotiated that future heirs could live in the family wing but if Daniel doesn’t return and everything reverts back, then—”

  “Wait. Whitmoor? You lost me.”

  “Whitmoor House. The family estate. If Daniel doesn’t return and take up the hereditary title, then the family stake in the house automatically reverts to the National Trust. I not only lose my brother, but the house that has been in our family for nearly two hundred years. The house where I live. Which, incidentally, is where we are headed. I think Daniel would go to Whitmoor. The house isn’t in the family yet, but I figured it was as good a place as any to start looking for my brother.”

  “Is it far? Whitmoor House?”

  “No. It’s
not far at all. Just up the road.”

  Chapter 18

  Whitmoor House

  Gloucestershire

  Evening on March 1, 1814

  They reached Whitmoor House just as the sun was setting. Kit knew the estate lay only a couple miles outside of town, but even so, it had been shockingly easy to find. So many of the landmarks hadn’t changed through the years. The moss-covered stone fence lining the road. The ruined watchtower on top of a nearby hill where she and Daniel had played as children, its windows already empty and sightless.

  Kit’s heart gave a painful lurch as the impossibly familiar ramparts came into view. The house had its origins in the Middle Ages, but had been added to over the years, lending it a bit of a hodge-podge look. A medieval keep stood in its center, flanked by two Tudor halls which branched into Jacobean wings, the entire whole outlined against the darkening sky.

  “So . . . who lives here right now? How do you propose we work this?” Marc gestured toward the large house as they drove up the drive.

  “As far as I remember, no one lives in the house during this era. My father was somewhat fanatical about the history of the family. The house stood empty for many years before my ancestor, the first baron, purchased it for a song. So we should be alright visiting it for a night.”

  “More breaking and entering? Are you sure your brother is the only member of your family with criminal tendencies?”

  Kit nudged him playfully with her shoulder.

  Marc guided the gig around the house to the stables. There were no signs of habitation, though the stables were clean enough. They even found some serviceable hay for the horse.

  Their horse tucked in for the night, Kit led the way back to the house, skirting the main entrance and heading toward a recessed area next to the central tower. A small door with age-darkened wood emerged from the gloom. If she were lucky, the small servant’s door would be as it had always been. It certainly looked the same.

  Marc raised his eyebrows questioningly, but Kit reached her hand between the door and cool stone wall, finding the groove carved into the limestone. A chain nestled inside which lifted the locking crossbar. Pulling on the chain, Kit pushed the door open.