Chapter Nineteen
Halwell awakened the next morning, his hand reaching for the shoe that he had placed on the bed beside him the previous evening.
“Rachel,” he whispered, staring up at the ceiling. “Please come back.”
With a painful knot in his throat, he rose and pushed himself upright. He set the shoe down and strode to the window to look out on the gray day, a day which suited his gloomy thoughts.
A tap on the door heralded his valet, and he called out listlessly.
“Enter.”
“Good morning, George,” Lord Alton said as he entered the room. Fully dressed, the earl carried two cups of tea, one of which he set down by the bedside table. He paused and studied Rachel’s shoe curiously before turning to his son.
“Father! I expected Jensen. Good morning. Thank you for the tea.”
Dressed only in his nightshirt, Halwell pushed the shoe under his pillow and rose from bed to pick up his trousers from the previous evening. He donned them, then picked up the tea and joined his father in one of the brocade chairs fronting the fireplace.
“To what do I owe the honor of this early morning visit, sir?” Halwell asked.
“What was that shoe? Is that a new fashion?”
“Something new from America, I believe. I was contemplating purchasing a pair for strolling.”
His father shook his head. “The reason I have visited you so early in the morning is that I wanted to speak to you privately. I did not wish to trouble you last night, as we had word you felt unwell and had returned home early.”
“Yes,” Halwell said briefly. He was not in the habit of confiding in his father, whom he rarely saw, and although Halwell’s anguish felt almost unbearable, even now he did not feel compelled to confide in his father.
His father hesitated, as if searching for words. Halwell stiffened, fearing some bad news.
“What is it, Father? Finances? Your health?”
“No, no, nothing dire. It is more family business. I know that you are close to your mother. As an only child, she treasured you, and in turn you clung to her. You became inseparable. I will admit, my son, that I worried for your future.”
Halwell stiffened even further. “Do you know a lady by the name of Miss Hickstrom, Father?”
“What? Whom?” his father asked. “No, I don’t believe so. If I may return to the subject at hand?”
Halwell nodded. “Forgive me for interrupting.”
“Not at all, George. I am finding the subject difficult to discuss. Where was I?”
“My mother? Your wife?” Halwell could not prevent himself from adding the latter.
“Yes, your mother. As you know, my other business interests have kept me in London these many years, and I could not stay in the country as long as your mother wished. Over time, we truly went our separate ways. She enjoyed country life.”
Halwell waited for further enlightenment on his father’s purpose.
“As a result of my extended absences, you and I grew distant. No, that is not correct. We were never close, and I regret that bitterly. I truly do, George. But your mother begged me to leave you here with her in the country. I could not take you from her. And then when you bought your own place in London, I knew it was most likely too late to try to take my place as your father again. Else, you would have stayed with me at our home in London.”
Still, Halwell said nothing. He truly could not understand what his sire wanted from him. Redemption? Not necessary. Though they had not been close as father and son, he had provided handsomely for the family, denied them nothing.
“I love your mother,” his father said unexpectedly. “I always have. She did not think so. She brought money into the Alton fortune, but I loved her, and I still do. Now that you are grown, I wish to court my wife. I want to coax her to return to London with me. It is still easier for me to conduct my business from London. You will marry someday, and then where will she be?”
Halwell stared at his father, stunned.
“I do not know what to say, sir.”
“I do not know if there is anything you can say. I will do my part to court my wife, and you should find a wife.”
“Are you certain you have never met a woman named Miss Hickstrom?”
“It is such an unusual name that I would remember. Is this a young miss whom you might consider marrying?”
“No,” Halwell said. “She is a matronly woman of uncertain age.”
“I do not wish to tell you what kind of woman to wed, son, but matronly? Should you not cast your sights on a young lady your own age?”
Halwell could have smiled, and would have if he did not feel so truly hopeless. Rachel was gone. He did not know if he would ever see her again. In a scenario that he could never have imagined, Miss Hickstrom had apparently sent Rachel back through time to a future he could not imagine. She had never wished to come to the nineteenth century, to his time. He had not understood that before, but once Hickstrom explained the mystery, he saw how unhappy Rachel had been. At times. There were other times that she had seemed not at all unhappy.
“Yes, of course, if possible,” he replied to his father. Miss Hickstrom’s curse had not been revoked.
“But of course it is possible! You are my only heir. You will someday have the title and estate to pass on to children. You must marry.”
Halwell said nothing. He had no intention of trying to tell his father the fairy tale Hickstrom had told him. He could not.
“Indeed. I wish you many felicitations, Father. I must say that I am pleased to hear that you regard Mother with affection. I did not know that.”
“I suspect she did not believe it herself. I shall woo her and win her heart again.”
Halwell’s cheeks reddened to hear his father speak in such romantic terms.
Lord Alton rose. “I shall begin with breakfast!”
“I will send for a tray in my room,” Halwell said with a smile.
“That would be nice, George. Thank you!”
His father set down his teacup and left the room. Halwell rose and crossed over to the bed to retrieve the shoe. Tiny in size, Halwell tied and retied the laces as he wondered what to do.
An hour later, his breakfast eaten, he shaved and dressed with the intention of riding out. He crept stealthily down the stairs so as not to disrupt his parents should they still be in the breakfast room.
But his mother heard him, and she came out of the breakfast room, shutting the door behind her. Her cheeks were unusually bright, and to his eyes, she looked years younger. He presumed that his father had spoken to her.
She looked over her shoulder at the closed door and pulled him into the drawing room across the foyer.
“George! The oddest thing has happened.”
“Other than Father’s visit?”
“No, it is just that! You and I did not get to speak last evening after he arrived just before we were to leave for the ball. I had hoped to touch on the matter at the ball, just in an aside, but then you said you were unwell and left. How did you get home, dear?”
“I walked, Mother.”
She gasped, but he reassured her.
“The air cleared my head...ache.”
“But in the dark, dear?”
“Yes. What are your concerns about Father’s visit?”
“There! You have called it a ‘visit’ again. This is his home, of course, but that is how we have come to think of his rare sojourns here, as a ‘visit.’”
“Indeed.”
Halwell did so hope his mother would get to the point. She looked positively girlish, her blue eyes sparkling.
“Your father requested to have breakfast with me, and he said that you were still unwell and breakfasting in your room.”
“Yes.”
“Well, he has been very attentive, George. Very attentive!”
“As a husband should be to his wife.”
“George!” she exclaimed, as if he had said something shocking.
He felt pity for his poor mother. Between the pair, they had made a mess of their marriage.
“I said nothing untoward, Mother.”
“No, of course not. It is just... I am unused to his company and do not know what to say. He has been very particular in his compliments to me this morning on my dress, my hair, even the color in my cheeks.”
Halwell admitted that his mother did look particularly fetching in a Delft-blue gown that matched her eyes to perfection. He almost said so but paused, reflecting on all that had come to pass over the past few weeks. He thought of Rachel, Miss Hickstrom, Mary and St. John, his mother and father, and he came to a decision.
“Mother, I am your son. He is your husband.” He nodded in the direction of the breakfast room. “I should not be your confidant, though I have been these many years. It seems likely that your husband is wooing you. That is between you and him, not you and me. I love you, but I suspect he loves you as well. Do not show him disrespect by treating me as your intimate. That should be him. I think I will go for a ride now. Until later.”
Halwell bowed before his mother and left the room. He left the house and went to the stables to have his horse saddled. He hoped he had done what he could for his father’s cause. He hoped he had done what he could for his own cause. Should Rachel ever manage to return, if she chose to, he wanted to be able to offer her his home, free of an interfering mother-in-law. His father’s declaration had given him hope that was possible.
He rode out in the direction of Alvord Castle. If nothing else, he wanted to speak to Mary and St. John, and perhaps Phelps. He most likely owed the estate agent an apology.
He reached the gate, pleased to find it open. He rode through and approached the gatehouse. He called out to the house, with no response. Thinking that Phelps must be at the castle, Halwell rode on. He reached the castle in short order and dismounted. A groom came for his horse, and a footman led him into the drawing room.
Mary and St. John entered.
“Halwell!” she exclaimed. “You’ve come about Rachel, haven’t you?”
Halwell breathed a sigh of relief. There was to be no dissembling then. He studied Mary as if he had never seen her before, as a woman who had traveled over two hundred years into the past.
“I have. I do not know how much you know.”
“And we’re not sure what you know. Why don’t you sit down? Do you want some tea?”
Halwell shook his head. “Perhaps I should start. I learned last night that Rachel traveled through time from the twenty-first century—that is to say, Miss Hickstrom propelled her through time. I believe that happened to you as well, Lady St. John.”
“Mary, after all we’ve been through. It’s Mary.”
Halwell looked at St. John.
“That is what I could not tell you,” St. John said sympathetically.
Halwell looked at Mary again. “It is fantastical! Improbable!”
“And yet all too real,” St. John said.
“Are such supernatural occurrences common in your time, Mary?”
“Not at all,” she said. “Roger came to tell us that Rachel vanished at the front door. The footmen said she was last seen talking to a blue-haired lady dressed in a ruby-red dress on the front stairs. I would be absolutely terrified at Rachel’s disappearance if I didn’t know what I know and had not heard that Hickstrom was about. Where did you go last night?”
“I am loath to admit that I—once again—had a quarrel with Miss Lee, with Rachel, and that I stormed off like a petulant child. I left the ball with the intention of walking home, but upon reflection realized that my behavior was petulant, insupportable. I wished to speak to Rachel, to apologize to her and to beg her forgiveness, but when I returned to the house, she vanished before my eyes. Miss Hickstrom, who had been standing beside her, explained everything.”
“Explained what? Did she send Rachel back?” Mary asked.
A tap on the door stopped them, and they turned to see Roger peek in. When he saw Halwell, he made his apologies.
“Forgive me. I did not realize you had a guest. I will return.”
“No, Roger, come in,” St. John said. “This involves you as well.”
Phelps stepped in, his manner diffident. Halwell was uncertain how to behave.
“Sit down, Roger,” Mary said. “So let me get this straight. Halwell, you thought that Rachel and Roger were an item?”
“An item?” Halwell repeated faintly, his mortification knowing no bounds at Mary’s bold declaration.
“Attached?” she rephrased. She quirked a dark eyebrow.
Halwell turned to the estate agent and inclined his head.
“Forgive me, Phelps—yes, I did think so. And there is absolutely no reason why they may not form an attachment for each other. None at all.”
“But we have not, your lordship,” Roger said, perched on the end of a chair, as if he would flee the scene. “Miss Lee is very enamored of you, not me.”
“She is?” Halwell asked. His heart thudded in his chest “She is enamored of me? Are you certain? I had hoped so, but I could not know for sure. We seem to anger each other easily.”
“Growing pains,” Mary said briskly. “Misunderstandings. Lack of communication, which was really neither of your faults. And an interfering fairy godmother forcing you together.”
“Indeed,” St. John said. “Although I resent the woman, I am forever in her debt. Mary and I experienced many of the same travails. Roger could tell you.”
Halwell looked to Phelps, who nodded.
“I have her shoe,” Halwell said in a bemused tone to no one in particular.
“What?” Mary asked.
“Rachel fell on the stairs. I desperately hope that she was not injured, but when she fell, her shoe caught in the hem of her gown. I ran to her aid, but she vanished, leaving her shoe behind.”
“Her athletic shoes?” Mary asked, a smile growing on her face.
“One of them, yes. Is it possible to conjure her with the shoe?”
“No,” Mary said, her smile broadening.
Halwell lowered his eyes to his clasped hands. “How can I get her back? I must speak with her.”
“You can’t, Halwell,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry. If Rachel wants to come back, she has to have the book.”
“This book of fairy tales that Miss Hickstrom described?”
“Yes. Hickstrom’s Book of Fairy Tales.”
“She names it for herself?”
“She apparently wrote them and stars in them.”
“What can I do?”
“You can only hope that her love for you is stronger than her desire to return to her former life,” St. John said. “If it is, and you love her, then you will look up one day and there she will be.”
“There she will be,” Halwell repeated, using St. John’s surprisingly sentimental tone.
“If she has the book,” Mary said in a more practical voice.