A Kiss Across Time (Time Into Time)

‘Didn’t they see the assailant going out?’ I was head-down in a lavender bush, rummagi

ng.

‘The Trelway visitors are coming and going. Whoever it was could have slipped upstairs, gone out of the front door…’ James broke off as I straightened up, a heavy wooden cosh in my hand. ‘Hell’s teeth,’

‘Someone came equipped,’ I said. ‘This isn’t a poker snatched up in a fit of anger. This was intended.’

Chapter Twelve

Luc, injured, proved to be hard work. He only agreed to go to bed when I threatened to weep all over him. I’m not sure he believed me, but I managed an adequately trembling lip and curled up beside him, saying it was in order to make sure he stayed put, but actually because I needed a cuddle.

We had to keep him awake and alert – although what we would have done if he’d had a bleed on the brain, I don’t know. Trepanning, Garrick said when I cornered him in the kitchen. That was no DIY operation, we’d have to call in a doctor and I had little confidence in the outcome if we did, so it was a fairly ghastly twelve hours before we finally let him doze.

James and I reported on our dancing class and Miss Reece and her views on Harrogate. Luc dismissed it as bravado because she had actually spent the time closeted with great aunt as a punishment. Then I produced the cosh, judging him recovered enough to face the weapon. ‘Definite malice aforethought,’ I said. ‘I don’t believe for a minute that anyone respectable carries something like this and just happened to have a brainstorm at the sight of you, whipped it out and thumped you. You were being stalked.’

Luc picked up the heavy baton and weighed it in his hand. ‘There is a lead core in here. This is the first positive thing that has happened.’

‘Positive? Someone tried to kill you and you call it positive?’

‘It means we’re getting somewhere, otherwise, why take the risk?’

‘True.’ Garrick came in with a cup of tea. ‘Drink that.’

‘I want claret. It’s at least six o’clock.’

‘No alcohol,’ we chorused.

‘And stop thinking about the murder,’ I added. ‘You’ll get brain fever.’

‘Do you want me to open your post?’ James asked. Luc nodded, winced and pushed away the tea. I pushed it back.

‘Invitation, invitation, tailor’s bill, letter from the steward at Whitebeams.’ James scanned down the three sheets. ‘Just a report, nothing urgent. Another invitation. Ah, Mama’s handwriting.’ He slit the seal and unfolded two pages. ‘Oh, bloody hell.’

Luc sat up with a jerk. ‘The boys?’ I pushed him down, he resisted.

‘No, everyone’s absolutely fine. But our dear Mama intends to descend on London next Wednesday, bringing the twins, and to stay for at least a month.’

We stared at each other. ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ I echoed. ‘What are we going to tell her about me?’ Then I looked at Luc’s bandaged head. ‘No, forget I said that. I’m not important. What about the fact that at least one person intending you deadly harm is loose in London and your mother and two small sons are about to arrive? How are we going to protect them?’

‘Tell her she can’t come,’ James said as his brother finally yielded to my pushing and lay flat again. ‘Tell her that the ceiling of the principal floor at the Town house has collapsed after a water leak.’

‘Say James has mumps – she won’t want to risk the boys getting that.’

‘He’s had mumps,’ Lucian said. ‘When he was about three. And if she thinks the Town house will need redecorating she’ll descend, stay in a hotel and expect to supervise.’

‘Well, think of something,’ I said. ‘Or are you going to tell her that you’re having an affair with a time traveller from the twenty-first century and that someone is trying to kill you?’

‘Or simply tell her about the danger, then Lady Radcliffe will stay safely where she is,’ Garrick suggested.

‘She’ll worry herself to flinders,’ James objected.

‘Better worried than in danger,’ I said. ‘And what about the children?’

‘You’re right,’ Luc said, staring up at the ceiling, held flat by my hand on his breastbone. ‘James, you write now – she’ll take it more seriously if she thinks I can’t manage a letter – but for God’s sake, don’t let her think I’m at death’s door. Then if it goes express it will be in time to stop her.’

I felt Luc’s pulse, which was amazingly steady under the circumstances. If the situation was reversed and my mother was about to descend on us I would be hyperventilating. I peered at his eyes which were still focused and normal and began to believe that he was going to be all right.

Eventually Garrick went to interrogate the porters, make a list of everyone they recognised and gather descriptions, however vague, of everyone they didn’t. ‘Not that it helps much,’ he said when he got back. ‘Anyone could have slipped in and out unseen and there is no-one on this list who we have considered suspicious.’