Chapter Twenty-Three

‘Kate!' Theo yelled her name as she streaked across the field and launched herself into a fairly impressive leap.

It was almost as if she did the splits in the air and for a moment she was flying, her arms outstretched, her bare toes pointed and her head gracefully tilted backwards.

It was bloody impressive, actually.

It was bloody impressive until she came down on a stepping stone, her foot slipped off it and she tumbled into the river.

It seemed as if everything happened in slow motion after that. He ran onto the stones, jumping across them and grabbed hold of her arm, tugging her inelegantly out of the water. She didn't struggle, which was probably the most worrying thing; she was just floppy and unresponsive and his heart was pounding. ‘For God's sake, Cat,' he heard himself say, ‘what the hell were you doing?' He didn't even know where the ‘Cat' thing came from again; it was as if someone else had shouted it.

Theo scooped her up and held her close and picked his way back across the stepping stones until they were safely on the bank. He adjusted her weight so she was snuggled into him and held her close, trying to get some warmth back into her body—

Her foot was twisted at an unnatural angle and she had a deep cut on her forehead. He prayed it wouldn't scar — she was too beautiful to be scarred like that. She was too wild and adventurous, too perfect for this world she lived in, but she couldn't leave the world like this — she couldn't.

‘I'll get you to the cottage,' he told her, ‘I'll look after you. Only please wake up, please wake up. I can't bear it if—'

A bark from his feet, his dog running in mad circles in the snow.

‘I know, I know. We'll get her warmed up. She'll be well in no time. No time at all.'

His heart pounded and his breath came in little puffs of air as he hurried back to the cottages—

He had to believe that all would be well or else . . .

* * *

They were in Millie's bedroom, Hector sprawled out on her bed where he knew he shouldn't be. The leaves were turning gold and red outside and the fire was lit. They were occupied with pasting pictures and keepsakes into a scrapbook, their heads bent together as they decided what should go where.

‘This invitation should be with this pressed flower.' Millie pointed to a faded rosebud and a gold-foiled card. ‘I kept them together entirely for that purpose.' She picked up the card and read it. She smiled and laid it back down next to the flower.

‘It's a special one, then,' Kate teased.

Millie blushed, her already flushed cheeks turning redder. To be brutally honest, when Kate took a good look at her, she didn't seem at all well.

‘You're very pale, darling,' she said and laid her hand across Millie's forehead. Oddly, she seemed feverish, despite her washed out appearance; and her hands were so thin, the veins stood out in stark relief.

‘Oh, I'm all right,' Millie dismissed Kate's concern with a wave of her hand. ‘I just can't get rid of this horrible old cold.' As if to prove it, she hacked out a nasty sounding cough. She wasn't quick enough to hide her lace-edged handkerchief. There were spots of red on it.

Oh, no. Kate knew something of these symptoms. Consumption. Tuberculosis. The White Plague. Whichever way you looked at it, this thing was a killer in 1885.

First Will, now Millie. How many other people was Cat going to lose so horribly? Kate couldn't let Millie know she knew. She cast a glance at the clock. It had just passed six in the evening, the twilight creeping in on them.

Please don't strike , she silently begged the clock. Please, just don't do it. I want to stay here.

‘Oh, well, if that's all it is,' Kate said, far too cheerfully. ‘You'll soon be cured.' Impulsively, Kate hugged her friend, holding her tightly. She was so thin and frail it was heart-breaking. She had a feeling this would be the last time she saw her.

But how had she arrived here this time? She hadn't heard any clocks striking.

‘Yes, a cold. That's all it is,' Millie replied comfortably. She wasn't a very good actress, and Kate doubted even Millie knew the extent of the disease.

Kate turned her attention back to the scrapbook and cleared her throat. ‘So, you didn't answer my question. What's so special about this letter and rosebud, Amelia Violet Aldrich?'

‘Oh, no! Really? Is it so obvious?' Millie's blue eyes were wide and disbelieving.

‘Utterly obvious.'

‘That rosebud was given to me at that ball, by a very special person.' She blushed again and dropped her eyes. ‘But I can't tell you who. We don't want anybody to know yet.' She compressed her lips, as if she'd said too much. ‘Please. It's just embarrassing now. And I can't tell you who it is. I can't tell you most of all.'

By implication, that meant that she desperately wanted to tell her everything about the mystery man.

‘Why not?' Kate asked curiously.

‘Well, because of Will, mainly,' Millie said in a low voice. ‘I don't want to bring all those feelings back to you. Why, I think I should simply die if anything should happen to — him. And you, dearest Cat, have lived it all. It's happened to you and I — we — feel guilty for our happiness.' She frowned, fighting some inner conflict. She fingered the rose again. Kate felt terrible that Millie would probably be the one to die first anyway and couldn't look at her for a moment. Millie coughed again and Kate cringed inwardly as her friend struggled to catch her breath after the fit had passed. ‘And of course, after what you told me about Edward last week — it's adding insult to injury!'

A memory flooded in — a ball at a neighbouring estate; a muffled giggle from behind the topiary hedge as Cat wandered through the formal gardens searching for Edward. She'd had her suspicions, of course she had. And then he had made an excuse and left her alone — and he hadn't come back for the dance he had promised her. The eager, pink frothy girl from the Hartsford Midsummer Ball — Maria — had disappeared as well — and Cat, being Cat, had gone out into the formal gardens to search for them both. She'd found them and was about to challenge them — loudly — but at the last minute her courage had failed her and she had peered at them from behind a shrub, horrified, as their hands explored each other through the layers of formal clothing. He pressed the girl back against the wall of the dovecote, and she arched her back, eager for him to do more . . .

Cat had run away, back to the ball, and immediately sought Millie out to tell her. Then Millie had feigned illness, and Cat had been "forced" to take her home. And they had discussed Edward with righteous indignation ever since. Cat felt particularly stupid and didn't know, she'd said, how she could quite face either of them again.

But she had to. Of course she had to. Hadn't her aunt and uncle made it quite clear? He was suitable, they said, and seemed to be doing all in their power to push them together. This was 1885, Kate reminded herself; did women have the choices then that they had in her own world? She knew, deep down, that they didn't and it was quite depressing.

Eventually, she composed herself enough to speak; she assumed Millie would think it was memories of Will that had upset Cat the most — and she would have been right, sort of. The memories of him — Cat's memories — were strong and overwhelming, even as they sat here in the cosiness of Millie's bedroom.

It was slightly overdramatic, perhaps, but Kate really did feel surrounded by death and misery and bad memories here today. She missed Will. She missed going into his little cottage and having him push her around the estate or lift her up in his strong, capable arms. She missed his touches and his kisses and the way he looked at her with such a sense of wonder. She hated to think of him not being here, and the idea that he — or Theo, at least — was alive in Kate's own time; and bloody hell, didn't she have a chance to be with him then? But it seemed that this time, Theo needed to let go of his most recent past — and it wasn't going to be pretty. Kate knew she was deliberately shying away from him, despite every ounce of her soul being drawn towards him.

After Chris, she didn't want a part-time boyfriend; she didn't want someone who she couldn't be with fully. And to complicate matters even further, part of her wanted Poppy to be his, because she thought how awful it would be for him if she wasn't. But, then, if Poppy wasn't his, then that meant a clean break from Lori and a bigger part of her wanted that . . .

‘Whatever you and your friend feel for one another,' Kate said carefully, ‘will never change what's happened to Will. I'll always love him. And I can't begrudge you that chance at happiness just because mine has gone.' Her voice broke as she finished. Would Millie even get a chance at happiness?

Kate looked up at Millie and her lovely face was full of pain.

‘I am longing to tell you about him,' she said quietly. ‘MayI?

Kate nodded.

‘It's Charles,' Millie said, completely throwing her, ‘can you believe it?'

‘I — no. No, I can't. Charles? My brother Charles?'

‘The very same.' Millie blushed again and looked at the rosebud. ‘I know it's very strange, and we are cousins, of a sort. But that doesn't stop the way we feel about one another.'

‘And Fred?' Kate asked, tongue-in-cheek.

Millie laughed, the awkwardness suddenly gone. ‘Fred was a passing infatuation. He cannot compare with Charles!' Then she clamped her hand to her mouth and her eyes were wide and comical above it, overly-bright. ‘Oh, no, what if anyone hears me saying that?'

‘What of it?' A rush of affection flooded through Kate. ‘I, for one, am entirely supportive of whatever makes you happy. You are the best friend I could ever have, the most wonderful cousin and you will be my dearest sister when the time comes,' Kate told her sincerely. On some level, she firmly believed that would be the case. The other possibilities were just too awful to comprehend.

Millie smiled. ‘And you will be my dearest sister as well. Oh! That reminds me. I was cursed with a vile brother, and he did this — remember?' She rearranged some bits and bobs on the table and pulled out a couple of photographs. She pushed them towards Kate and her stomach lurched.

There, before her, were two pictures. One was of Kate — or Cat, rather — scowling in her Bath chair, and the other one was Cat and Millie laughing and holding each other up on a section of frozen river. They were both balanced on identical ice-skates, one of Cat's arms was thrown outwards to help keep her balance and Millie had both arms around Cat. They looked wobbly as hell, but seemed to be having such a good time.

The memory of that moment came back to Kate in a flash. Philip had taken the picture, practicing with his new camera, which had been, she knew, a Christmas gift. They had been unwilling to pose in the Hall gardens as they had new ice-skates and wanted to test them out. It was February and the first real ice had formed thickly on the river. Kate suddenly knew why Cat had written her name inside the skates; it was so they didn't get mixed up with Millie's. She felt so sad — where were Millie's skates now? What had happened to them? Kate suspected they'd just fallen through time, or been discarded when Millie died.

But on the day of the photograph, the girls had snuck out of the house, instigated by Cat, of course, and Philip had followed them. He had threatened, good-naturedly, to blackmail them and asked for their puddings for a week to ensure he said nothing. It had been such a fun morning.

It was a couple of days later that Cat had decided to go it alone and had the accident. Millie had been nursing her bruises from their initial attempt and had preferred to sit indoors on a soft cushion. She'd been disapproving and said Cat shouldn't do it, but she hadn't been able to stop her.

Kate held the photograph now and realised that if Elodie's archive system was working, this picture would still be in the Hall — but where, she had no idea. Unless . . .

‘Millie, can we paste this in the book?' she asked. ‘Then it'll be safe forever.'

‘Of course we can,' Millie responded, surprised. ‘I thought you might like to keep it though.'

‘I do want to keep it. But I'll only lose it, so if you put it in this book,' she lifted the cover up so she could check what it was like — it was brown and had birds and flowers painted onto it in black — ‘I'll know exactly where it is forever.'

Millie shrugged. ‘If you insist.'

‘I do. And I want you to promise that you'll never, ever take it out.'

‘I won't. I promise. Will I put the other one in too?' She picked up the Bath chair one.

‘If you want,' Kate said, ‘but I'm really not too bothered about that one, funnily enough.'

‘I might just have it framed and gifted to you,' Millie replied, playfully.

‘Do what you want with it!'

‘I most certainly will, then! I might even write a little message on the back for you. I'll have to consider what is most fitting.' Millie smiled, mischievous. ‘I really will have to consider it very carefully. It has to mean something to us, so we both know the spirit in which it's intended. Anyway — look, I'll only put a dab of paste on each of the corners of this skating one. Then if you want to remove it, it'll be easy to do without spoiling anything.' It was Millie's turn to lean across and hug Kate.

‘I'd like that very much,' Kate said. ‘It will certainly make things a bit easier for me in the future.'

They were still hugging when a clock struck somewhere — it was the church bell, ringing for Evensong — and Kate found herself on the edge of the river they had skated on. She was shivering a little bit and dripping for some reason, but there was a warm body next to her — Will, she suspected — and she closed her eyes, trying to remember every little bit of that visit to Millie.

She wondered whether Millie had seen the leaves fall from the trees that year; whether she had seen another winter out at the Hall; or whether, when the spring buds came, she had been lying in the churchyard at peace. Kate determined to go there and find out. It was desperately painful, even now; but at least she would, she hoped, have a grave.

Which was more than her beloved blacksmith had—

* * *

‘Welcome back,' said his voice. ‘Any time you want to tell me why you decided to launch yourself off that riverbank, feel free.'

For a moment, she was confused. Hadn't she just been rescued from the skating incident? Was the timeline as confused as she was? Because Will had died, hadn't he? And now Millie was dying, but Will was back and he'd just rescued her again and her ankle was hurting and—

Kate clung to him and buried her face in his chest. ‘I thought you were dead,' she murmured, breathing in the scent of his t-shirt and his body and the strawberry and cherry shower gel and . . .

‘I'm not dead. But you might have been if I hadn't hauled you out of the river. It's probably not a good idea to do ballet leaps after three glasses of wine, Kate. Not onto the stepping stones, anyway.'

She pushed herself away from his chest and looked up at him. It wasn't Will. It was Theo — although it wasn't easy to tell the difference, to be honest. She only had the fact that this guy was wearing twenty-first century clothing to go on.

‘Ballet leaps?' she asked faintly. She had a sudden image of herself doing a grand jeté and cursed the wine.

Theo nodded and thumbed the side of her face. He pushed the hair away from her forehead and peered closely at it, then looked down at her legs. ‘May I?' he asked and she could only nod, dumbly, as he ran his capable hands down her legs and rolled her ankles gently.

He looked up at her, surprised. ‘You're fine. I was expecting a sprain at the very least there — a break at worst.'

‘A spiral break?'

Theo nodded and pressed gently again. ‘It's fine. Bloody hell.' He shook his head in disbelief. ‘How? How can you fall like that and not get injured?'

‘I'm a dancer. I'm pretty bendy. I've gone over on my ankles more times than I care to remember. I must have stretchy ligaments.' I may also , she thought, have had my fair share, in some life, of leg injuries. So she was getting a break, excuse the pun, in this life.

He moved her hair back again. ‘Not a mark on you. I was sure you'd given yourself a head injury. I thought I saw a big gash there. And your leg looked so much worse when I picked you up.' He frowned, and she wondered what he was thinking. ‘It was just . . .' But he shook his head again and didn't pursue the matter.

‘Mmm.' Kate sort of knew where that was coming from — but she didn't elaborate. She shifted uncomfortably on her spot of grass, the dampness from her watery adventure soaking through her shorts.

‘I suppose you want to call it a night now?' He didn't seem in a hurry to move away from her, so Kate didn't force the issue. She brought her legs up in front of her and wrapped her arms around her knees. She was damp, but she wasn't shivering any more. The sun was low in the sky and there was still some warmth in it. At least she thought it was the sun warming her. It might have been Theo's proximity.

‘No. I think you still have beer, don't you?' she asked. ‘In your van?'

‘It's back at the museum, remember? Can you walk that far? I don't want to hurry you if your ankle's bothering you.'

‘It's not bothering me,' she said truthfully. ‘I'm just sorry you had to witness that display of idiocy.'

Theo laughed and stood up. He held his hand out and hauled her to her feet. ‘You're a bloody good jumper. I'll give you that.'

‘You should see my pirouettes. I've been told they're pretty good too.' As if to prove her ankle was fine, and also because she wanted to show off a little bit and rarely got the chance, she stood on tiptoe and executed a series of perfect pirouettes.

Theo clapped and shook his head in awe. ‘Incredible. I never realised. You've got some hidden talents, Kate.'

‘You have no idea what I get up to in my downtime,' she said wryly; and it wasn't exactly dancing that she meant. The image of Millie's sweet face, ravaged by that horrible disease, would haunt her for a long time.