The River of No Return

by Bee Ridgway

All those years in America and barely a complicated feeling. He hadn’t been home for twenty-four hours and already nothing was simple. The marquess was battling for ascendancy. Clare, who had been about to sell Blackdown, was now dispossessed by his return. And Jemison. That thin hand held up against Nick’s story. That curt nod, and that way that Jemison had turned and left, as if it were his own land across which he walked so lightly.

  A sound made Nick look up. A horse was nosing its way out of the little path that emerged from the trees up ahead. At first he could see only the horse’s head, but then the entire animal stepped delicately into the sun, and its rider was revealed.

  Thank God. A woman. Something to distract him from himself.

  Her black riding habit was unrelieved by any color except for a splash of white at her throat. The early-morning sun was shining behind her, so that he couldn’t see her face or determine the color of her hair, which was coiled and netted. She was looking away from him, down the long slope toward Falcott House, and he could make out the pure line of her cheek, her neck, her breast. The rest was camouflaged by her full skirts.

  The mysterious lady held her horse’s reins lightly in one gloved hand. The mare tossed her head, but the lady’s hand remained resting at the pommel. Nick felt a rush of erotic pleasure: her small hand, the powerful animal. She trusted the horse, and her own control over it. Nick had spent ten years in the republic of tight jeans and bikinis, and he had come to like it there very much. But it was good here, too. He stepped forward, intending to present himself, but, without ever realizing he was there, she urged her horse on and was soon flying over the fields in the direction of the river.

  The mare neighed once, shrilly, hallooing the joy she felt in the canter, and Nick heard the rider’s responding laugh. He stood, hands on hips, watching them go. The mare’s pretty black legs flashed, her hooves kicking up clods of rich earth as she stretched to run as fast as she could. The lady sat her like a queen, her lovely bottom (and this Nick could now see, for the habit was tucked most advantageously) lifting with the horse’s gait. Would she come back this way? Nick watched as horse and rider grew smaller, slowing as they reached the river, then walking along it back up toward the line of trees. There was a path there, also, that led along the river to the village; they still might choose to come back this way. He waited. The lady and her horse disappeared into the woods. No matter. This was clearly her morning ride.

  He would be here tomorrow, perhaps on a horse of his own. He wasn’t looking forward to the painful process of getting reaccustomed to the saddle. He didn’t want to think about the ache and pains that were coming the way of his own lovely bottom.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  What did you do today?” Nick asked Arkady over brandy, after Clare had left them for the evening.

  “I sat all day in the inn yard in Stoke Canon and listened to conversations. Mostly they were talking about you.”

  Nick smiled.

  Arkady did not. “You enjoy yourself too much, playing the great lord,” he said. “Remember, you are here to do a job.”

  Nick sipped his brandy. “The way I see it, I am doing my job. The job I was raised to do. I am the marquess.” He looked out of the window at the perfectly dark night. “I know that this way of life is passing. Is already past. Factories are rising, the railway is coming. But you cannot bring me back here and not expect me to take up the old ways. You said that I would enjoy being the marquess again. But it isn’t enjoyment that I feel. It is simply . . .” Nick swirled the amber liquid in his glass. “It feels right. I am home.”

  “Listen to me.” Arkady set his brandy balloon down on a table and leaned forward, his sharp elbows propped on his sharp knees. “When I said you would enjoy being the marquess, I also said that it was nothing but a fantasy, yes? You know what comes, what is coming. You are a traveler in time. No more for you the wallowing like a happy pig in the pleasures of the present. It is not for you, or for your sisters, that you are here, dressed like that. It is not for your family or your tenants or your title that you stand there, drinking brandy that was laid down before Marie Antoinette’s pretty head rolled beneath the guillotine’s blade. It is for the Guild. It is for the Guild that we return and put on these costumes.”

  “You said the Guild wanted me to be an aristocrat. It’s why they let me keep my ring. Even as they dispossessed me, they knew. Now I have remembered. This is my home. My family. My land.” Nick twisted the ring on his finger. “I am Blackdown.”

  “Bah!” Arkady clenched his fists, then opened his long-fingered hands very wide. “You are Nick Davenant! Do not forget this! This time we have come back to, it wants you. Like the siren who sings. You are giving in. I said to Alice, perhaps he is too weak. But she said no, that you are strong.”

  “I never wanted this,” Nick said quietly. “I asked to be sent back to Vermont. I told you I wasn’t right for the job.”

  Arkady’s face softened into compassion. “Do you think I don’t feel for you? I, too, lost all when I jumped. Remember, it was I who taught you to feel time, my priest. To feel it slow and stop and speed up again. I taught you to step outside the stream. I taught you that beautiful sensation. Try to feel it again now, how the time is dragging you along. Feel it. Can you? It is moving your limbs, moving your thoughts. Remember you grabbed me by my sleeping clothes today?”

  Nick did remember how the marquess had flared up in him. And with the exception of that brief hour in the morning when he had allowed Jem Jemison to rattle him, Nick had given in and been the marquess all day long. Ogling horsewomen. Walking his lands. Greeting his tenants. Inspecting the home farm. He felt the marquess in him now, angry and affronted. He let him speak: “I grabbed your nightshirt—which in fact is my nightshirt—because you deserved it.”

  Arkady looked at him, his blue eyes very serious. “No.” He shook his head. “Do not give in. Come back to me, Nick Davenant.”

  Nick stared at his friend, his lips pressed tightly together.

  The Russian’s voice was quiet. “You think you are a singular man, an individual, Nick. A great marquess, second only to a duke, yes? You think that you control your own feelings. But time, Nick. Time is all around you. Volga: the Queen of Rivers. Mississippi: the Father of Waters. Amazon: the River Sea. The River of Time is a thousand times greater than these. As wide and deep as the universe itself. If you try now, you will feel how you swim in it. It holds you up. It feels good. But it can pull you down. Wear your dandy clothes and drink your brandy. But do not give in. Do not drown.”

  “Could I drown? What do you mean? Stop speaking in metaphors.”

  The Russian sat back. He pulled his own ring up to the knuckle and pushed it back down, then again. He was searching for words, something Nick had never seen him do before. “Metaphors, they are all we have.”

  “Whatever,” Nick said. “Surely you can speak plainly for once. You want me to be the marquess but not be the marquess. Why?”

  “Alice told you that we travel on feelings. Your feelings, they are your time machine; she said this to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think you understand this. You have jumped, with me to guide you. You have reentered the river in your natural time. You are remembering the feelings of this era. And you think, I am the Marquess of Blackdown! I remember! Bah. Little you, little tiny man. You do not remember. The river—it is the river that remembers you! It flows all around you, through you; it drowns you. Unless you respect its power.”

  “‘Little tiny man’! Now I hope that is a metaphor, Arkady. . . .”

  But the Russian was not to be distracted. His half-lidded eyes gazed somewhere over Nick’s shoulder. “Human emotion. Millions of souls, together they make the mood of a certain time. It doesn’t matter that they disagree, that they hate, that they fight. All together they create it, this thing. This epoch. Times of war. Times of famine. Times of wealth and happiness. The mood of an era. What is stronger than that?”

  “Is th
at what you do to us, those of us who jump and never learn the truth? You drown us in the new era, so that we never reach our potential?”

  The Russian’s eyes snapped back to focus on Nick. “I have not thought of it that way,” he said. “You make it sound bad. I believe that it is humane, what we do. But yes. Exactly. We drown Guild members in their new time.”

  “And I came up for air, didn’t I? For the first time, back in 2013, when you stepped on my foot in the drawing room. I was feeling backwards. I was looking at the mantel and seeing the place where it was chipped. I was beginning to touch the past.”

  Arkady nodded, smiling. “You have many feelings, Nick Davenant. You are a passionate man, behind that solid English garden wall. It is good. But you stirred time then with your longing for your home. Also, do you remember? You stirred time in the car when we were passing Castle Dar. You are not trained—probably you could not have jumped. But imagine if you had? A man enters the past in midair, sitting two feet above the ground, and traveling at thirty miles an hour.” He laughed. “Road pizza!”

  Nick stared at the fire. His talent wanted to express itself, it wanted to be trained. But they were keeping him ignorant.

  Arkady reached across the space between their two chairs and gripped Nick’s shoulder. “My friend,” he said. “Do you think I like it? The lies and the secrets? I do not like it. But believe me, it is the only way. The past must stay the past, Nick.”

  “Why?”

  “To protect the future.” Arkady spoke with conviction, and with the frustration of a teacher for a willfully stupid student. “It is obvious.”

  “But why? Why is the future so precious?”

  Arkady shook his head. “My priest,” he said, and his voice was strangely loving. “Simply believe.”

  “I am no priest.”

  Arkady sat back. “No, you are not a priest. And belief is not simple. But try. I ask you: Stay afloat. Remember. This era wants to drown you, wants to claim you. Swim in the river. But do not drown. We are here to fight the Ofan, and I don’t want to lose you to your marquessing. You are Nick Davenant, of the Guild.”

  Nick looked for a moment into Arkady’s pale eyes, then nodded. Yes. He could feel it now. The strong pull to be someone he might have been, to be swept away, to be the Marquess of Blackdown, marquess, war hero, protector of women, benevolent master—and nothing else. At first it would feel good to let go. It would feel good to forget Nick Davenant, forget the twenty-first century, forget the blasted Guild. But Arkady was right. It would be to drown in his personal tempest. “‘Those are pearls that were his eyes. . . . Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell.’”

  Arkady stood up, suddenly all energy. “Enough of this! I can smell him, on the wind, our Ofan whom we have come so far to find. He is somewhere nearby. But he is lying low. Who can he be? All day I listen to the peasants, talking of you. They talk of nothing else. How sad that you lost your memory, how wonderful that you are returned, how glad your poor mother will be. I hear nothing, nothing at all to help me.”

  Nick swirled the brandy in his glass. “Perhaps I am Ofan.”

  Arkady whirled and pointed a long finger at Nick. “Do not joke about such a thing. The Ofan!” Arkady spat the word out. “They killed my daughter, did I tell you?”

  Nick whistled a low note. “No, you most certainly did not.”

  “Well.” The Russian passed a hand over his face. “They did. My poor Eréndira. But. It is in the past.”

  “How terrible for you and Alice. I’m so very sorry.”

  “She was not also Alice’s daughter. She was born before I knew my Alice. Eréndira was the child of a lover I had in South America, how shall I say—many, many years ago. She was a brilliant girl. . . .” Arkady blew his breath out through his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. “But enough of that. Enough.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “My brother, it is I who am sorry to burden you with this long-ago pain of mine. But now you know. We do not joke about them. If the Ofan are trying to set up their business here and now, in little Stoke Canon, I will find them.”

  Neither man spoke for a long while. Nick stared into the shifting light of the embers, and Arkady, standing, stared through the window. When Arkady broke the silence, his voice was peevish. “Your English peasants, they are not very friendly.”

  Nick chuckled. “I hope you didn’t call them peasants to their faces.”

  Arkady turned from the window, his hands spread. “I did not get the chance to call them anything. I drink their beer and eat their food, and no one will talk to me. I am a foreigner and a stranger.”

  “But you listened.”

  “Yes. To the chatter about you, I listen. A little about the new earl, Lord Dar-something?”

  “Darchester.”

  “Yes. There is a new earl, and he is hated. I thought, perhaps he is Ofan, so I push my chair back to hear the conversation that is happening behind me. I learn that he is an ugly man, an old man. But already, they say, he has a young mistress. The peasants, they know the mistress before he came. She is young and beautiful, but they say she is the daughter of a whore, perhaps. This bad mother is why she will be with the ugly earl.”

  Nick frowned. He didn’t remember any woman with that story in the village. “A local girl?”

  “Yes, so they said. But I think an Ofan would not have a mistress that local people know; he will not take that risk. This is not our man.”

  “I wonder if it was the earl’s mistress that I saw today. I saw a girl when I was out walking.”

  “Pretty?”

  “I think so. I was quite far away and the sun was behind her. But she was shapely. She could ride like a Valkyrie. I wouldn’t have thought she was an old man’s mistress, but it’s been so long. I can no longer read the women of this time.” Nick took a swallow of brandy. “If she is his mistress, perhaps she is open for a little dalliance.”

  “You will steal your neighbor’s mistress? Is that the sort of man you are, back here in the past?”

  Nick grinned. “No . . . not steal. Maybe just borrow?”

  “Bah! To be unmarried! I tell you, it is hard to be married to the Alderwoman. She knows everything. My leash—it is very short. I so much as smile at a girl in this time, she will know it two hundred years later.”

  “You wouldn’t have it any other way, Arkady.” Nick drained his glass and stood. “Don’t try to fool me.”

  He was surprised to see the Russian blush. “Yes. I love her like I love my own life. She is my heartbeat.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The next morning Nick was down at the stables at dawn. He’d left orders for a hunter to be saddled, and he was delighted when he saw that it was Boatswain who was waiting for him in the yard, a groom by his shoulder. When he heard Nick’s step he looked up and tossed his head, whickering and stepping to the side. The groom held him firm. “He has missed you, my lord.”

  Nick took the reins and stroked the stallion’s neck. He let that spicy scent of horse and leather fill his nose. “How are you, old man?” He reached into his pocket and fished out a carrot. Boatswain took it daintily from his master’s palm. Nick turned to thank the groom, but Boatswain would not tolerate the shift of attention from himself and blew snot all over Nick’s hand. Nick accepted the cloth the groom handed him and looked Boatswain in the eye, seeing the horsey amusement there. “I’d forgotten about you and your tricks.”

  Boatswain snickered, pleased with himself.

  “He’s sixteen now, my lord, but at heart he’ll always be a colt.”

  “I hope so. Thank you for readying him for me.”

  Nick mounted. He hadn’t been on horseback in years, and it felt good, though he knew he would suffer for it later. “Now then, Boatswain,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do, and more to the point, what I can do.”

  They set out at a canter, and Nick relaxed into the easy gait. Boatswain was older and heavier; Nick could feel the difference in the horse’s stride. It w
as a cold, overcast morning, not as sparkling as yesterday. He urged his mount on, his heartbeat quickening as he thought of the mysterious woman in black. He wanted to be at the pathway into the trees when she appeared. A dalliance would be the perfect thing to smooth the transition back into this time. The perfect thing to keep him from drowning. Boatswain picked up his pace, breaking into a gallop, and Nick’s body shifted to accommodate.

  “Like riding a bicycle,” Arkady had said about women. But Nick was as anxious as a fifteen-year-old; what would she be like? He had left for Spain when he was twenty, and before that he had sown his wild oats among the demimonde and willing serving wenches. And for years now his lovers had been twenty-first-century women.

  Boatswain was flagging, and Nick let him slow to a walk. Why was he even thinking about this woman at all? He couldn’t actually sleep with another man’s mistress; it would be ungentlemanly in the extreme. And if she wasn’t Darchester’s mistress, she was another man’s wife, or a virgin, at which point ill manners tipped into villainy.

  In the end, he convinced himself that he wasn’t riding out to see the mysterious woman in black. He was riding his estate, getting to know his horse again, and if he happened to meet a neighbor, so much the better. Nevertheless, when he reached the path that led back into the trees, he dismounted and let Boatswain graze while he leaned against a tree and . . . if he was being honest with himself, he was waiting. But he wasn’t being honest with himself. So he wasn’t waiting. He was resting.

  * * *

  Marigold was calmer this morning and accepted her carrot with dignity. She only capered a little as they cantered down the drive, and she picked her way along the woodland path quietly. But before the trees gave way to fields, the horse pricked her ears. A bright whinny sounded from somewhere up ahead, and Marigold answered, breaking into a trot.

  Julia pulled her back and stopped. Someone was up ahead, there where the path entered Blackdown land. Perhaps it was the Falcotts’ new steward, Mr. Jemison. Or were the Falcotts themselves back from London? Julia hoped so, fervently. Perhaps she could wangle an invitation to stay, and that would prove to the village that she was still worthy of their friendship. Otherwise . . .