The Rose Garden (15 page)

The
Sally
didn’t lie at anchor long. Next morning Jack was off again in his turn, and I stood with Daniel on the hill below the house and watched the sloop’s white sails pass by the harbor of Polgelly far below us, heading east.

‘Where is he taking her?’ I asked, but Daniel only glanced at me and answered noncommittally, ‘I cannot say.’

‘Because you still don’t trust me.’

‘Because,’ he said, ‘’tis best that you do not concern yourself with certain things.’ I felt him glance at me again although I kept my own face turned towards the sea and the departing ship. ‘Are all the women of your time so curious?’

‘The women of my time are many things,’ I told him. ‘Doctors, lawyers, heads of state. We can do anything a man can do.’

I couldn’t tell if he believed me. ‘Heads of state? Well, we have had a queen ourselves, till lately.’

‘Not only queens. I mean elected heads of state, leaders of parliaments.’

‘You jest.’

‘You don’t believe a woman’s capable?’

He seemed to give the matter thought. ‘’Tis not that I dismiss a woman’s capability,’ he said, ‘nor her intelligence. ’Tis only that I would be fair amazed to see society permit it. I would think that she would find herself opposed by members of my sex and ridiculed by members of her own.’

I had to smile. ‘Yes, well, that does still happen sometimes. But at least the opportunity is there. We can be anything we choose to be.’

I looked away again. The
Sally
’s sails had grown much smaller now, a little blot of white against the rolling blue of the Atlantic.

Daniel was still thinking. ‘If in truth there is such freedom for the women of your time, then you must find it difficult to be here.’

I actually hadn’t thought that much about it. I’d only been here for short periods, and I’d had more on my mind than my freedoms and rights. But if I were to stay here forever, I thought, he was right. It would not be an easy adjustment—to know that my opinions would no longer count for anything in public and that all the legal rights I’d come to take for granted were no longer mine; to be dependent for support on someone else because I could not earn my living.

Daniel watched my face a moment, then he turned his own gaze out to sea and said, ‘My brother sails to Brittany.’

It was an open declaration of, not just his trust, but his respect.

I turned to look at him as he went on, ‘There is a harbor there where he has friends who keep him well supplied with wine and silk and wigs for trade, and where there are young brides whose husbands are too often gone off to the fishing. ’Tis most likely more than one child in that town does bear a passing likeness to my brother.’ He was smiling when his head came round. ‘No doubt the women of your own time would be too wise to fall such victims to his wicked ways.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. There’d still be some who’d swoon.’

‘But not yourself.’ His tone was sure. ‘My brother did remark upon the fact you seemed unmoved by all his charms.’

‘Was it a blow to his confidence?’

‘Likely. Though he claimed that his purpose in telling me was to set my mind at ease, for his own mind has leapt to a certain conclusion since he did discover you in my bed.’

I wasn’t used to the dark light of mischief that flared in his eyes, and not knowing him well enough to know the way to respond to his flirting, I treated it lightly.

‘Well, at least it won’t happen again. Fergal’s given me padlocks.’

‘Has he now? Thoughtful man.’ He’d have said something else, but a sound from the road to the back of Trelowarth distracted us both—the hard clop of a horse’s hooves, coming along at a purposeful trot.

Daniel motioned me to step towards him and I didn’t argue, knowing that his size and strength, together with the sword he carried, would give me protection. It was not his sword he reached for, though. Instead he took the dagger from his belt and held it as he’d held it that first day I’d faced him in the study, with the blade all but concealed within his hand.

His other arm he offered to me as the rider came in view and I could see that it was not the constable, only an ordinary man on a high-stepping grey horse. I felt relief, but Daniel didn’t drop his guard. ‘Stay beside me.’

As we climbed the short slope of the hill towards the house, the rider turned the grey horse off the road into the side yard, and dismounted. From that distance I could only see that he was lean and wearing a white wig beneath his hat, and that his clothes looked to be fancier than those I’d seen here so far. This impression grew stronger the closer I got to him and owed as much to the fabric his clothes had been cut from as to their design. His long jacket was dark green brocade, with an elegant sheen to it, and his high boots were so gleamingly black that they looked as if they’d hardly been worn.

But his face, when he turned, was plain-featured and didn’t quite match the effect.

He ignored me completely and nodded a greeting to Daniel. ‘Good morrow. I wonder if I might impose on your kindness. My horse has a shoe loose.’ The accent was hard to place. Scottish, I guessed, though it held a faint trace of the Continent.

I could feel Daniel’s shoulders relaxing. He said, ‘’Tis a dangerous road.’

‘So I’m told.’

For a moment the men faced each other and waited, and then the newcomer offered his hand with a smile. ‘The name is Wilson, Mr. Butler, and I do bring with me the good wishes of our mutual acquaintance.’

‘I am glad to have them, Mr. Wilson.’ Daniel sheathed the dagger in his belt so neatly that another person watching would have missed the motion altogether and not even known that he’d been holding it. He shook the stranger’s hand and, looking up the empty road, he asked, ‘You travel on your own?’

‘I did arrive with my man yesterday. We took rooms at the inn at St Non’s, and I charged him to stay there and wait while I came on alone to you here.’ He had noticed me finally. His eyes held polite expectation as he looked at Daniel and waited.

‘Forgive me,’ said Daniel, as though it had been an oversight and not protective instinct that had kept him from bringing me forwards. ‘Mistress Eva O’Cleary, a guest of my house.’

Wilson bowed. ‘Mistress O’Cleary, your servant.’

I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I did what I’d seen women do in the movies—I made a deep curtsy and hoped that was right.

To my relief, Wilson turned back to Daniel and asked, ‘May I stable my horse?’

‘In the back.’

There was nothing uneven at all in the horse’s gait, confirming my impression that his mention of a loose shoe had been part of a script, as had Daniel’s reply—like two spies trading passwords to make themselves known to each other.

I guessed too that their ‘mutual friend’ was most likely James Butler, the Second Duke of Ormonde, who according to the reading I’d done earlier would still be in England, waiting to learn what the House of Lords would do in answer to the charges brought against him of high treason. He would be impeached, I knew. And soon. But no one here was yet aware of that.

‘How fares our friend?’ asked Daniel.

Wilson, if in fact that was his name, was walking several steps ahead of us, the horse’s bridle in his hand. ‘He is quite well, though incidents of late have tried his patience, as you likely can imagine. It has been suggested to him he might seek to cure his restlessness with travel.’

‘If he has a mind to travel he has but to say the word and I will put my ship and crew at his disposal.’

‘’Tis most kind,’ said Wilson with a nod of thanks. ‘I will be sure to tell him so when next I see him.’

Trailing silently behind, still holding Daniel’s arm, I tried to remember if any of the history sources I’d read in my research had said how the Duke of Ormonde had escaped to France. I didn’t think they had. Which left me wondering if he had made the crossing as a passenger aboard the
Sally
.

No doubt I was going to find out.

It was strange, knowing what I was seeing was history unfolding. How many historians would have paid money to walk in my shoes at this moment? I wondered. To be able to listen and watch while these men played their parts in a growing conspiracy, one that would lead in a few months to open rebellion?

From the glance Wilson gave me, I guessed he was finding my presence a bit of a nuisance. His next words were proof. ‘Surely Mistress O’Cleary will much prefer waiting out here while you show me which stall I may use for my horse?’ And directly to me he said, smiling, ‘You’ll not want to ruin your slippers.’

He appeared to be expecting a response from me, but Daniel stepped in smoothly.

‘She has not the use of speech.’

The man named Wilson raised his eyebrows. ‘Does she not? And how then was she robbed of it?’

‘It is my understanding she has been afflicted since her birth.’

‘Remarkable.’ He looked at me as though I were a scientific specimen, and I had the impression he’d just dropped me down a few points on the scale of intelligence. ‘How sad,’ he said, then turned away dismissively.

I knew Daniel would have to follow, so I lifted my hand from his arm and the look he angled down at me held quiet thanks. He said, ‘Please go and let your brother know that we will have a guest for dinner.’

With a nod, I went. I looked back once, but they had gone into the stables with the horse already and the yard was empty. When I brought my head back round I saw that Fergal had come out to stand within the open doorway, hands on hips. He frowned. ‘I thought I heard a horse.’

I quickened my steps, knowing I’d have to be in the house with the door shut, and able to talk without worrying Wilson would hear, before I could tell Fergal what was going on.

‘Has someone come?’ he asked.

I gave another nod but faintly, because something had begun to change in Fergal’s face. He was looking at me strangely. With my next step I came close enough to see his eyes, to watch the question in them change to open disbelief. And then he raised his hand and crossed himself. ‘Sweet Jesus.’

And before I could react, he started wavering and faded to a shadow and then vanished altogether like a breath of smoke dissolving in the air.

I stopped walking.

And suddenly I wasn’t in the yard myself, but stepping out onto the open hillside from the Wild Wood, with sunlight breaking through the clouds above me and Trelowarth waiting patiently to welcome me, and Susan a small figure heading off towards the greenhouse.

I hovered in confusion for a moment before memories started swirling back—my evening spent with Claire, my sleeping over at her cottage, and my waking up to find she’d gone out before me. Coming back along the coast path through the woods, and then the sudden rain and running for the house, and…

That had happened two full days ago for me, yet here I was back in the present day, and it was plain to see no time had passed. When I looked down I saw the deep impression of my footprints in the muddy ground that led to where I stood now on the soft grass of the hill, and everything was as it had been. As it should be.

Well, perhaps not everything.

I ran my hand down one hip to make absolutely certain, and my fingers smoothed across the silken fabric of the gown I was still wearing. And beneath its linen covering my hair was still pinned up in its elaborate style. Not things that could be easily explained, I knew, if anyone should see me.

It was that one thought that shifted me to motion, forced my feet to leave the spot where they had taken root, and lead me running uphill in a hurry to be safely out of sight.

At this hour of the morning Mark should already be out and working. I could only hope that he’d be keeping to his schedule. But in case he was still finishing his breakfast in the kitchen, I went in by the front door and made a beeline for the stairs.

I’d gone halfway up before I heard a door close overhead and cheerful humming that I recognized as Claire’s. There was no chance for me to make it to my room without her seeing me, and since her steps were coming down the corridor right now there likely wasn’t even time for me to turn and go downstairs again. I’d never cross the hall in time.

I was panicking, pressing my back to the paneled wood wall, when the feel of that wood stirred my memory and I turned to push the panel on the landing in the way Daniel had shown me. Part of me didn’t expect it to open, but it did, and just in time I slipped into the cramped and cobwebbed space and pulled the panel closed again behind me as Claire’s footsteps neared the stairs.

I heard her light and even tread come down and cross the landing, passing close beside my hiding place, and without pause she carried on and down the final half flight to the hall.

***

The dress looked different here. I spread it on my bed and touched its folds with careful fingers, for the journey across time had left it faded, and the stitching of the seams showed through in places, weakened. Fragile.

Such a lovely thing, I thought. And now I’d brought it here, and there was likely no way I could ever take it back to where it properly belonged. My own clothes, left behind in Daniel’s time, were easy to replace, but this…

‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly, although I knew the people the apology was meant for couldn’t hear me. I found a padded hanger in my wardrobe and I hung the chemise and skirt and bodice on it, then I covered all of them with Daniel’s red silk dressing gown—his ‘banyan’, he had called it—because somehow it seemed right to me for them to be together. They were almost too bulky to keep in the wardrobe now, and anyone who opened up the wardrobe door would see them, but for the moment it would have to do.

The slippers and hairpins were easier. Wrapped in the soft linen cap they tucked tidily into the drawer where I’d already hidden my sleeping pills, wristwatch, and phone. I’d left the watch and phone there even after I had figured out that stress was not my problem, since I didn’t want to run the risk of taking either item back in time with me. Modern technology didn’t belong in the past.

Nor do you
, I reminded my face in the mirror.

But somehow the eyes that looked back at me didn’t seem wholly convinced.