Clandestine (29 page)

Marc nodded, taking another bite of meat pie.

“I knew nothing about the portal.” Kit swallowed. “How does it work?”

“Who knows really.” But in between bites of bread, Marc told her all he knew about the portal, its fickle nature, the ties that can bind people across centuries.

“So if we were allowed through the portal because it was the best way for us to meet, what about Daniel? Why was he sent through the portal with you?” Kit asked.

Marc sighed. “I honestly don’t know. He and I were grappling, so maybe he was just collateral damage. In the wrong place at the wrong time. Though it was obvious he had been planning to go through the portal—”

“Only Daniel would get caught up in a mess like this.” Kit shook her head. “My brother has always been restless. He’s a wanderer, just like our mother. He dabbled in drugs as a teenager but, fortunately, never got addicted to anything. I think he was afraid to end up like our mum. But he can’t just
be
. His mind never seems to stop. He is brilliant at mechanical things and is the type of person who can pull apart a toaster or grandfather clock and reassemble it, better than new. But ask him to spend an hour in an engineering class and he blows up. He refuses to even look at a computer. I don’t know that he has ever even read FauxPause. I don’t think he even knows how to turn a computer on—”

“What? How is that even possible in this day and age? Well, not
this
day and age—” Marc rolled his hand, nodding his head. “—our day and age. You know what I mean.”

“I’m with you. I can’t understand it either. My brother and I are so much alike and yet so opposite somehow. It’s like Daniel got the worst attributes of both our parents. He just bounces from one thing to the next, constantly one step ahead or even behind the law. He’s smitten with serious wanderlust and often will disappear for a day or two without telling anyone. It’s so frustrating, particularly his ridiculous aversion to post-1950s technology. He never carries a cell phone, so tracking him down is nearly impossible . . .

“Anyway, about two months ago, I found some notes of his with the words ‘Duir Cottage,’ the address and a note listing different articles of clothing and money. It was all stacked under an old bottle of chloroform our father had collected at some point. Obviously super suspicious. Probably related to the blackmail, but I didn’t know that. Daniel got super cagey when I asked him about it and refused to talk to me. I thought maybe he was back to his drug habits or something. Then, to make matters worse, he vanished. Just didn’t come home. After nearly week, I was panicked, desperate to find him, thinking he was in something deep this time. So I went to Duir Cottage, just to see what kind of a place it was, maybe talk to the people who lived there. The house was charming and looked entirely harmless—”

“Which it is.”

Kit acknowledged this with a nod. “Yes, well, I guessed as much. Anyway, this is the part that is less-than-flattering, but I, uh, tried the doors and found the back door ajar—”

“What?! How did that happen?” Marc’s eyebrows raised in alarm. “Perhaps the caretaker left it open by accident—”

“That could be. There were some cleaning supplies in a bucket by the door.” She noted Marc’s wide eyes. “But, I know, I know. I shouldn’t have gone in regardless. I guess I was just trying to find anything that would help me find Daniel and understand what he was up to. I just want my brother to be safe, you know.”

“Are you insane? Anyone could have been in the house. You could have been hurt.”

Kit rolled her eyes at him. “Exactly! Which is why I brought a taser and my rape alarm—”

“Kit, Kit, Kit,” Marc muttered, lowering his head into his hands, pressing his fingers against his temples.

She ignored it. “I snooped around the house, finding nothing—taking nothing too, I have to add—and then stumbled down to the cellar, thinking that the drugs or whatever might be down there. So the rest should be fairly obvious. I went through the portal and didn’t remotely understand what had happened at first. The house just changed, and I wandered outside completely disoriented.”

She paused and stared at her plate, shredding a scone with her fingers. Then continued. “It was . . . awful. I was seriously freaked out, on the verge of having a full-blown panic attack. I was walking up the road toward Marfield when a nice old lady stopped me. She introduced herself as Auntie Gray—”

“Ah, Auntie Gray. Emme thinks that woman is part witch.”

“I would believe it. Anyway, she took me home with her, found me some clothing. Over the next couple days, she acclimated me to this century, showed me the ropes, how to behave. She didn’t indicate that she knew anything about the portal or where I was truly from, but I wonder if she doesn’t know more than she let on.”

“Yes, I believe she knows a lot about the portal. I wonder why she didn’t say anything?”

Kit shrugged. “I should have been more direct with my questions, I suppose. She actually left on the mailcoach about five days after I arrived—something about going to Sussex for the birth of a new grandchild. I would have gone back to her with more questions had she been around.

“Before Auntie Gray left, she introduced me to the vicar who then arranged for the position with Lady Ruby. The only thing that kept me going was thinking Daniel was here too. That I needed to track him down and then find a way to return to our own century. I didn’t know, at the time, that Daniel wasn’t here yet. He had gone off in 2014 and then came home for a week or two before coming here—”

“And he didn’t wonder where
you
had gone?”

Kit shrugged. “Daniel doesn’t really think about things like that. He just assumed I was on a business trip. Anyway, once I had my position at Haldon Manor, I snooped around in Arthur’s study, hoping to find something that would link Daniel to the cottage or Haldon Manor. Or, at least, information about the portal and how it worked, but I couldn’t find anything. And that’s where you came in.”

They ate in silence for a few moments.

“So . . . your father was an honest-to-goodness lord. What’s
that
like growing up?” Marc took a bite of meat pie.

“Not so different, except you hang out with other kids whose parents are lords. Most of them were uppity and arrogant. I think that’s where my initial idea for FauxPause came from. I was so tired of being looked down on and wanted to have a voice of my own. I mean, sure my dad was a lord, but the family estates had been given to the National Trust years ago and we were never wealthy. Dad was a history professor at the university in Hereford.

“Don’t get me wrong. We were obviously not poor, but we never had the money other peers had. Dad didn’t seem to care. He just wanted to spend time in his study, researching the history of the family and area. Daniel and I were left to fend for ourselves most of the time. Which is how I became more mother than sister to Daniel. I fixed dinner, did laundry, cleaned house . . . all of that.”

Marc gave a mock-gasp of surprise. “What? No servants?”

“Uh, no.” Kit laughed. “
That
ship sailed a good generation or two before my lifetime.”

“So, if your father has passed on, Daniel is Lord Whitmoor now? Isn’t that how it works?”

“Well, yes and no. Daniel
should
be Lord Whitmoor, but the title hasn’t been vested in him yet as Daniel has been reluctant to accept it. And there are no other male heirs, so if Daniel leaves or declines the title, then everything reverts to the Crown. It’s all been this ugly mess. The barony was created through a writ of summons, not patent, so Daniel feels like we have options but—”

Kit caught Marc’s eyes glazing. She waved her hand. “I’ll spare you the details. Basically, when my great-grandfather gave Whitmoor to the National Trust, he negotiated that future heirs could live in the family wing but if Daniel doesn’t return and everything reverts back, then—”

“Wait. Whitmoor? You lost me.”

“Whitmoor House. The family estate. If Daniel doesn’t return and take up the hereditary title, then the family stake in the house automatically reverts to the National Trust. I not only lose my brother, but the house that has been in our family for nearly two hundred years. The house where I live. Which, incidentally, is where we are headed. I think Daniel would go to Whitmoor. The house isn’t in the family yet, but I figured it was as good a place as any to start looking for my brother.”

“Is it far? Whitmoor House?”

“No. It’s not far at all. Just up the road.”

Chapter 18

Whitmoor House

Gloucestershire

Evening on March 1, 1814

T
hey reached Whitmoor House just as the sun was setting. Kit knew the estate lay only a couple miles outside of town, but even so, it had been shockingly easy to find. So many of the landmarks hadn’t changed through the years. The moss-covered stone fence lining the road. The ruined watchtower on top of a nearby hill where she and Daniel had played as children, its windows already empty and sightless.

Kit’s heart gave a painful lurch as the impossibly familiar ramparts came into view. The house had its origins in the Middle Ages, but had been added to over the years, lending it a bit of a hodge-podge look. A medieval keep stood in its center, flanked by two Tudor halls which branched into Jacobean wings, the entire whole outlined against the darkening sky.

“So . . . who lives here right now? How do you propose we work this?” Marc gestured toward the large house as they drove up the drive.

“As far as I remember, no one lives in the house during this era. My father was somewhat fanatical about the history of the family. The house stood empty for many years before my ancestor, the first baron, purchased it for a song. So we should be alright visiting it for a night.”

“More breaking and entering? Are you sure your brother is the only member of your family with criminal tendencies?”

Kit nudged him playfully with her shoulder.

Marc guided the gig around the house to the stables. There were no signs of habitation, though the stables were clean enough. They even found some serviceable hay for the horse.

Their horse tucked in for the night, Kit led the way back to the house, skirting the main entrance and heading toward a recessed area next to the central tower. A small door with age-darkened wood emerged from the gloom. If she were lucky, the small servant’s door would be as it had always been. It certainly looked the same.

Marc raised his eyebrows questioningly, but Kit reached her hand between the door and cool stone wall, finding the groove carved into the limestone. A chain nestled inside which lifted the locking crossbar. Pulling on the chain, Kit pushed the door open.

Go figure. It worked just the same. She and Daniel had been fascinated by that door as children. Such a clever way to provide entrance without needing a key.

She turned back to Marc with a smile, beckoning him to follow her inside.

“Allow me to welcome you to what will become Whitmoor House.”

Confidently, she led Marc up a few narrow stone stairs and through another door into the large central medieval hall. She could see the faint outlines of banners hanging from the walls and the enormous ancient fireplace gaping before them. Furniture dotted the room, lumpy shapes covered in heavy cloth.

Kit tugged off her bonnet and gloves, placing them on what seemed to be a table. She felt several strands of hair pop free of their pins. She probably looked ghastly, but the gloom hid that, right? Marc dropped hat and gloves onto the table, too.

“I don’t suppose you have a flashlight or some matches?” Marc asked, his voice echoing quietly. “Or maybe you know how to light a candle in 1814?”

Drat. That was a problem.

Kit rotated, studying the large hall. The general layout of the house hadn’t changed much, but it was going to be a long night without any light whatsoever.

Suddenly, a noise came from the left of the keep, coming from the portion of the house that would belong to her family in the twenty-first century. Something that sounded a lot like a chair scraping across wood.

Kit jumped and grabbed Marc’s arm.

“I thought you said this place was empty,” he hissed in her ear. “That no one lived here.”

“It
should
be.” Kit took a couple tentative steps toward the family wing.

“Kit . . .” Marc said warningly behind her. “It could be anyone up there. Robbers, thieves, French spies—”

“Or it could be Daniel—”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Be nice.”

But Kit kept going. Through the west drawing room, up the stone stairs she knew so well.

A strong suspicion lodged in her thumping heart.

Marc followed her, his quiet strength lending her courage. Or maybe it was just his huge muscles. She couldn’t be sure.

She rounded the corner and saw a light flickering from one of the bedrooms.

The bedroom that had been (wait—would be?) her father’s.

She crept down the hallway and cautiously peered around the door. A lean figure bent over a desk in a pool of candlelight.