Her mistake was instantly caught by Mrs. Trebor.
“No, dear, this is Miss Eileen,” she said in a singsong voice, hardly noticing anything amiss.
This woman was the spitting image of Emma. Perhaps a northern relation?
“Of course,” Isobel corrected, “my apologies, Miss Eileen, the trip was so long that most of my senses are a bit tired, I’m afraid. If someone would be kind enough to show me to my room, I’d like to rest a while.”
“Wilfred!” Mrs. Trebor called out and the butler scrambled to her side. “Please see that Lady Isobel’s things are brought up directly to her chambers.” She turned again towards Isobel. “I’ll show you up myself, dear.”
Isobel gave Eileen a tight-lipped nod and followed Mrs. Trebor inside.
Wilfred’s whistle for a footman pierced the silent exchange, further rattling Isobel’s nerves.
Her blood had gone colder than snow.
Was this stranger in fact a relative to Emma? A sister perhaps? The resemblance was most striking.
An alarming coincidence surely.
Once she was finally left on her own she simply collapsed onto her bed.
She couldn’t be troubled to remove her bonnet. Even if the feathers were crushed beyond recognition, she’d simply buy another. Shopping would be a good distraction.
Was she to have no rest? In leaving her family she’d hoped to put this whole debacle behind her and start fresh and yet here this Emma doppelganger had put an end to that.
Was she to feel remorse for what she’d done?
Unlikely.
If one really considered the situation, she was the true victim here. Everyone would say so.
Had Emma not turned up in the first place, all would be as it should be. Certainly Isobel would not have had to take the drastic measures she’d taken. Dormer House would still be standing.
So really, all of this mess could be blamed on Emma. That wretched girl, with her pretty hair and sorrowful eyes.
And who simply forgets where they came from?
All this thought of Emma reminded Isobel of the journal that she’d been tasked with returning to a Miss Crabtree in Oxwich.
She leapt out of bed with newfound excitement and started rummaging through one of her trunks.
“Ahh… there you are,” she said out loud to herself as she fingered through the pages of the journal. “Now what do you suppose I’ll find in here?”
Eager to set about reading, she kicked off her heeled shoes and curled up in the chair by the window.
From the outside there was nothing in particular to mark this journal as important, only the keen desire she’d seen in Emma to have it returned to its owner. That alone was enough to stir her own curiosity and the reason she’d decided instead to keep it close to her person.
Who was this Miss Crabtree she’d spoken of?
Isobel settled in to read.
Chapter 11
Disappeared
It was four o’clock when I arrived back at Emily’s place the next day.
A stupid thought had occurred to me on the short drive over.
Why did all our names begin with the letter E? Was there some sort of significance there? Or did someone just like names that began with that letter?
Eileen, Emily, Emma and apparently my grandmother was Enda, which was a sixth-century Gaelic name meaning bird—I’d Googled it last night.
Speaking of birds…
Harold, as I’d decided to name him, flew circles above me as I drove my car up the road to Emily’s house.
The first note of alarm took hold when I saw that two cars were already parked in her drive, and one of them was from a private security company, it seemed.
I got out of the car and made my way up the broken path to the house.
All night my head had been churning with information. I’d even written a whole list of questions to ask Emily. Yesterday, the overload had been too great for me to even think straight.
Those thoughts now seemed rather trivial given the possibility that something might have happened.
Harold cried out, that eerie sound that birds of prey made as they circled for food.
Here, in this urban setting, it felt more like a prelude to something horrible.
I certainly hoped not. I’d had my share of horrible and that was not something I wanted to live through again. Since coming back I’d suffered night terrors, something I hadn’t had since childhood. Most likely from some post-traumatic stress after my incident with Mr. Jacob. The violence of it was still seared into my memory.
I knocked on the door.
My phone was tucked into my back pocket and it started to vibrate. As I reached for it the front door flew open and a medium-built man with close-cropped hair and mustache stood on the other side, looking at me inquisitively. His dark cargo-like pants and fluorescent windbreaker looked similar to those of the local police.
“Hiya,” he said, giving me a strange look. “Can I help you?”
“Well, yeah. I’m looking for my aunt, Emily, she’s expecting me.”
“Ahh…” He hesitated. “Perhaps you’d like to step in, Miss…?”
“Clayton,” I filled in. “Is Emily here?”
“Not at the moment, I’m afraid. Maybe you could help us in that regard. There’s been an intrusion in her home and we’re trying to reach her ourselves to let her know.” He gestured for me to come in and so I did. “Perhaps you can shed some light on this for us.”
“Why are the police not here then?”
“We’re private security, Miss Clayton,” he said as if he’d been insulted by my suggestion. “The police are on their way but we happened to get here first.”
I’d not noticed that Emily had a house alarm when I was here the other day. It seemed odd that someone would have need of private security in a town this size. But Emily did have a few interesting quirks and was somewhat paranoid, it seemed.
The house was quiet save for a few hushed voices coming from the kitchen.
An uneasy feeling crept up my spine, sending involuntary shivers through my body.
From where I stood I could see all the way to the kitchen, where all my worst fears were confirmed. Dishes lay smashed all over the floor, chairs on their sides. Papers from a nearby desk were strewn all over the ground.
What the hell?
“Just a typical burglary, we think,” he said gently, clearing his throat.
It looked more like someone had been looking for something.
“Do you have any idea where your aunt may be?” the man asked drawing my full attention back to him.
I thought back to the conversation we’d had the other day when she’d mentioned ‘the dangers’ and that there were people who would stop at nothing to be able to do what I could do.
What people? I wondered.
“To be honest, I only just met her yesterday. I have no idea. She was expecting me after she finished work.”
“Very well.” He was writing something down on his pad. “She is your aunt, you say?” The man’s mustache twitched. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed that I wasn’t more helpful.
I nodded.
“Do you mind waiting here a moment? My colleague will want to ask you a few questions.”
“Sure, but like I said, I don’t know much.”
The man walked off toward the kitchen. I still held my cell in my hand.
All of this seemed odd. Why were the police not handling this? It couldn’t take that long to get here.
Out of habit I tapped the screen on my phone to check my new text.
It was from Emily. Maybe she’d already gotten the call about the break-in.
When I clicked on it, the air immediately swooshed out of my lungs.
Emily Crouch: Don’t go to the house. Run!
My blood froze. Fear shot through me, making the tiny hairs on my neck stand on end and my limbs feel awkward and heavy.
Immediately I looked around the room. My heart hammered
in my ears, almost deafening.
Then I caught a glimpse through the French doors that led out to the back garden. My eyes were instantly drawn to a tall woman in plain clothes—at least I had the impression that it was a woman, but her features were difficult to pinpoint—talking to the man I’d just met. Her hair and skin, the small bits I could make out, were pale, almost albino. My heart did a double beat, the same kind of feeling I’d had when I’d noticed Emily in the grocery store for the first time.
Another wayfarer?
As if she’d felt it too, she slowly turned towards me, but I was quick to step out of view.
Terror vibrated through me. I didn’t need any more evidence that something was not right.
Without another thought I turned on my heels and bolted from the house.
Harold flapped just above my head. I could feel the shift in the air from his wings so close to me.
I jumped in the car and gunned it for the hotel.
Jesus Christ! What the hell was going on?
Where was Emily?
And who were these people?
Chapter 12
Preparations
“Is he still out there?” April asked from the next room.
She was referring to Harold, our red kite, who’d now found us back on the outskirts of Oxwich.
After my scare at Emily’s, we’d packed our bags and taken the train back to London. During which time, against Emily’s advice, I’d told April everything. Even about being pregnant.
I’d felt so rattled by what had happened in Buxton, the stories flowed from me like a river. She was my best friend after all.
It went surprisingly well. However, she got incredibly drunk in the aftermath. Perhaps the shock to her world was just a little too much to handle in one go.
For me, it was a relief to be open about what I’d been through and why my decisions that she’d found a little abrupt, namely my breakup with Ben, now made perfect sense.
“Em, all I’ve ever wanted for you is happiness,” she’d told me during our heart-to-heart. “I see now why Ben may have been the wrong person for you, but no one can make you happy, that’s just something you need to find in yourself.”
Wise words from a girl who made bad decisions all the time.
“I know, and that’s why I want to go back. Henry completes me, April. I feel like he’s the missing piece of me that I’ve only just found. More than that though, he makes me feel like the best version of myself, the person I’ve always known was there but could never find. I choose happiness too. I can’t keep accepting a mediocre amount of love, I want the whole thing. I want my whole heart.”
“If that’s what you choose, then I will do everything in my power to help you get there.”
And so we spent a week together in London buying some nineteenth-century clothes, all the old money I could find on eBay or at coin collectors, and anything that could be useful—a hand-cranked flashlight, Ibuprofen, chewing gum and chocolate (her idea but a good one). If I was going to make this trip back in time, I wanted to be prepared.
Now, faced with some potential danger and my imminent departure (if I could figure out how), we were holed up in an Airbnb outside the town of Oxwich making last-minute preparations.
“Yep, he’s still there. Why couldn’t I have a spirit animal which offered some form of protection, like a wolf or something?” Immediately feeling guilty, I yelled outside, “No offense, Harold!”
April had also made it her mission to educate me on all things Victorian. It was amazing what you could find on the internet. When I joined her on the edge of the bed she was bursting at the seems.
“Oh, Em, this one is amazing. Listen to this. ‘The majority of women’”—April sat up a little straighter and pretended to have an English accent—“‘happily for them, are not much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind. As a general rule, a modest woman seldom desires any sexual gratification for herself. She submits to her husband’s embraces, but principally to gratify him.’ This was written by a Dr. Acton.”
“Seriously? That’s what he wrote?” I laughed with her. “I assure you, it was not like that with Henry. If I run into this doctor I promise to set him straight.”
“Oh, such scandal! I can imagine it now. ‘No, Dr. Acton, you couldn’t be more wrong, women like sex quite a lot but perhaps not with the likes of you.’ I bet he’s just got a really small penis. No wonder the women he knows aren’t much troubled with sexual feelings,” April teased.
And just like that, she was quiet again.
Underneath the laughs and jokes there was a sadness to these preparations. A finality to our friendship.
Essentially, the moment I left, it would feel as if I’d died. That was how she put it.
Of course I hadn’t considered her feelings before now, so caught up as I’d been with my own.
“You know, I’ve been thinking. We should devise a system so you can maybe leave me notes or something. You know, like those time capsules. That way I can know that you’ve made it and that things are good.”
Since we’d arrived back in Oxwich, we’d dug around looking for any information about the fire at Dormer House or what had happened to the Drake family and we could find nothing. Either documents were missing or destroyed or we were told to go look somewhere else.
I had wondered if it was because I was now tied to that time period in a way. As silly as that seemed, I could find no other explanation for it.
So April had been very concerned about the fact that she’d have no way of checking on me.
“Maybe that could work, but where would I leave it? It has to be somewhere we know doesn’t change.”
“What about the old stable near where the Dormer House used to be?” April gave me a knowing smile. I’d told her about the things that had gone on in there.
Images of Henry the night of the ball flashed before me. His body pressed up against mine.
Yes, that old building was very close to my heart. My hand rested on my belly instinctively.
“That could work—other than the vegetation that has taken it over, the structure itself is still there.”
“Settled then.” With a half-smile, she went back to her computer.
Both of us felt better having a plan. It certainly wasn’t the same as talking but it was something.
Just then a text message from Ben came through.
Ben: Em, someone named Alex came around looking for you. Said you were in Oxwich. Here’s the #07788563725. Miss you.
Emma: Don’t know an Alex. Is that a man or woman??
I chuckled to myself. Alex was one of those androgynous names like Pat. It really could go either way.
Ben: Dunno. Really hard to tell actually. He/she said they were with the NHS, I think. Thought you knew something about it. Really do miss you.
Umm. How to respond?
Emma: Thanks for the message. B in touch soon. xx
Why would the NHS be getting in touch? That seemed odd. I hadn’t yet been here for six months so I wasn’t eligible for Britain’s public health system. Maybe they’d had a change of heart.
I dialed the number on my cell and waited. Double ring… double ring.
Gotta love the British double ring.
“Emma?” the sexless voice answered.
My heart did the double-beat thing. Another wayfarer?
Something didn’t feel right.
There was nothing welcoming or soothing about this greeting. It had an expectant ring to it. Something that sent every instinct in my body on high alert.
Icy fingers climbed up my spine.
Electricity hummed through me.
Outside, Harold did one of his eerie cries.
Was the bird sensing my unease or was he seeing danger?
Goddamn bird, you’re seriously not helping here.
So I did what anyone would do and hung up.
“What was that all about? Sounds like your bird is acting out.” April smirked at me, not realizing
the gravity of the situation.
My mind instantly went to Emily’s house and the wayfarer I’d seen there.
“April, I have a bad feeling.”
Chapter 13
The Watch House
Up until the night the body was found, Henry had only ever seen one other person he loved lie dead before him.
His mother.
He remembered the measured tone of his father telling him the news but it was only when he’d seen it with his own eyes that the reality had sunk in. The pain in his throat was excruciating as he fought off the violence of his anguish. He was so determined to be as stoic as his father. With his jaw clenched tight, he forced the sorrow to burrow itself deep inside his small body.
He would be a proper man, he thought, even though he was just a boy.
Her dark hair lay feathered on her pillow, the way she always liked to sleep. Many times he’d sneaked into her bedchamber just to be soothed by her steady breathing.
But this time her chest no longer made that subtle motion. The skin on her face had frozen in her last moments.
Like a painting, he always thought, just like a painting.
So still.
Her soul had already departed, leaving only the shell.
It was no longer her.
He certainly didn’t want to touch it. Remembering her cold and unyielding was the last thing he wanted.
Instead, he wanted to remember her warmth and the way her body always molded to his when she embraced him.
So too was that horrible night when Mr. Grant brought him to St James’ Parish to see the body.
He needed to see it for himself. To know for sure.
Once he stepped down from the carriage, each step he took was like the somber march to the guillotine. He knew in his heart that there was no way to survive this but he made his way just the same. The dead man’s walk.
The vicar had left the metal gates open for them. Moonlight through the trees laced the path before him.
At the end of it stood the parish watch house, an ominous sight indeed.
The large wooden doors creaked open with the slightest effort.
The Wayfarer's Daughter: A Time Travel Romance (The Wayfarer Series Book 2) Page 6