How oft when men are at the point of death

Have they been merry!



William Shakespeare







The Girl with Flaxen Hair







I









It ought to have been raining.



That was his first thought when he woke, a thin shaft of sunshine sifting between the drapes, slanting directly across his eyes and making him squint. It was a beautiful morning and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Yet if there had been any justice at all in the universe, the light would have been drab and gray, the view outside his window cloaked in fog and a fine, silvery drizzle.



Or, so he told himself.



However, William Pratt was not particularly surprised to find it otherwise. As stormy as his disposition had been lately, it would have taken a climate far less temperate than that of South West England in order for the weather to conform to it.



He stared up at the sun-dappled ceiling, making no move to leave the bed, though it was well past his time. Why bother? The day lay stretched before him like an empty road: bleak and desolate and all-too-familiar. It was no wonder he did not wish to face it. That void. That silence. That damned enormous house. Dozens of rooms peopled only with himself and the characters in the novels he read. Not a soul to talk to besides servants and the feeble creations of his own imagination. Loneliness. The agony of it was becoming so acute he felt he could have screamed.



Except, of course, that gentlemen did not.



And God knows we must remain gentlemanly at all costs.



The thought made him smile sourly. How often had he heard that in his youth? How many hours had they spent drilling those rules into his brain? Behaving like a gentleman had always meant adhering to a long list of don’ts: don’t raise your voice; don’t swear; don’t talk slang. Don’t run, or sing, or whistle, or write silly poems, or laugh when you feel happy, or cry when you feel sad. Above all else, do not ever cry. In fact, don’t show any emotion of any kind at any time. Men were stoic; men were strong. Everyone knew this. Only members of the weaker sex could give themselves over to their sensibilities with impunity, and even then only if they were very young.



No wonder, then, that he should feel such a sense of shame when he realized how close to crying he suddenly was. Much better that he should fling the warming pan against the wall in a fit of temper than let the servants catch him on the verge of tears. And what had he to cry about, anyway? Nothing at all.



Nothing, nothing, nothing, he chanted silently, dismally. That is what I have; all I shall ever have. Not a single damned thing.



Of course, looking around his bedroom he had to admit this was not entirely true. He actually had a good deal in the way of material possessions. He had a marble fireplace and a Persian rug; he had a cupboard full of expensive garments and a gold clock on the mantelpiece. He had a large house adorned with quality furniture and a stable filled with fine horses. He had servants and books. He had money. When you came right down to it, there really was not a lot he did not have, aside from simple human companionship.



And I would give up all the rest of it in an instant if I could just have that, he thought mutinously. It is not a lot of ask for, surely. Just someone decent to talk with.



As if in a mockery of this desire, the bedroom door suddenly creaked open and in crept the chambermaid, ready to begin her morning chores. While not particularly offensive in her looks or character, she certainly did not fit his many ideals, and lonesome as he felt, it would never have occurred to William to talk to her.



Still, he watched the girl as she moved about the room, stoking the fire, filling the washbowl with hot water, and opening the draperies. Though not exactly graceful, she performed each chore with such an absence of wasted effort that it almost seemed like a kind of domestic choreography, a working class ballet. He lay still and pretended to sleep—anything else would have been improper—but he could not help marveling at her. How could she sing at her work that way when it was so arduous, so unending? And why was it that he in his idleness never once even felt the urge?



He really did not feel very well at all this morning, and he wondered if perhaps he should forego breakfast and just call for a tray to be brought to his room. There was no shame in that; most men in his position did so occasionally. Yet, his mother had never permitted it in their household—she had considered it lazy and, therefore, unchristian—and William had continued to carry on the tradition of a formal meal even after her death. It seemed somehow wrong to change that now. Disrespectful.



The maid left the room as unobtrusively as she had entered it and, with a low groan, William finally climbed out of his bed. Despite the season—and the generous fire in the hearth—the room felt chilly and damp, and he shivered as he dressed. Shivered and coughed. And coughed. And coughed. His head ached and there was a strange pain in his chest, and he thought wearily that he might as well send for the doctor. He scrawled a quick note at his writing table and handed it to the second footman on his way down to the dining room.



Breakfast, then. It seemed unavoidable, and yet what an absurd scene it was—himself sitting silent and rigid and solitary at a table meant to hold a dozen. It was humiliating, in a way, and so desperately lonely that William felt he would have even asked the scullery maid to dine with him, just to have a bit of company. Except, of course, the scullery maid was coarse and illiterate and smelled of lye where she did not stink of sweat. And if he would not speak with a chambermaid, he certainly would not dine with a girl from the kitchen. He was a gentleman; far higher-ranking servants than these were beneath his notice.



It was something of a pity, really. The girl who milked the cows was not at all bad looking.



He sighed as he took his seat. Rather unappreciatively, he knew, for he certainly occupied a more desirable station in life than did any of the aforementioned staff. Yet the rules were so stifling, the game too competitive for a man as mild-tempered as he. William often thought if he were a bootblack rather than a gentleman of means, he would not be spending every morning eating his breakfast alone.



And just how long had he been alone? As he waited for his food, he tried to remember, but the day of his mother’s death—as well as all those immediately preceding and following it—had the blurred quality of a nightmare. All he could recall was that she had died early in the spring, and it had been raining.



A year ago, then. A little over a year. He had to take a moment to absorb that fact, for it hardly seemed possible he had been by himself so long. It hardly seemed possible he was not yet accustomed to it.



Perhaps he would never grow accustomed to it.



He gazed down at his plate as the footman began to fill it, but the sight of the food did little to tempt him. Although expertly prepared, the eggs, sausages, and bread seemed far too heavy for this hour of the day, and William knew if he ate them, they would sit in his stomach like a pile of stones. He reached for his porridge instead, laid a sap through the middle of it and drizzled in a lacework of treacle. Yet, somehow, the effect was not appetizing.



“Sir?”



He looked up, startled. The footman, though finished serving, was still standing at his right shoulder.



“Yes?”



“I was wondering…” The man hesitated. Then, “Sir, I was wondering if perhaps there is something else you might prefer instead. Something else I might tell Cook to prepare you…?”



There was nothing wrong with the food; it was only his own lagging appetite that kept him from enjoying it. Still, William could not help but appreciate the concern, even if it did come from a servant. He tried to muster an approving smile for the footman, but his head was aching so badly by this time the expression more closely resembled a grimace.



“Thank you, but I think not. I find I am not—that is—I don’t care for breakfast this morning. You may take it away.”



William knew the food would probably end up in the belly of one of the kitchen staff or the hall boy, but he could not bring himself to feel any resentment. It was better they eat it than let it go to the pigs. He pushed back his chair—“Call me when the doctor arrives—”and then escaped to his study. He went with the intention of reading a little in his new book of poems, but climbing the stairs left him out of breath and dizzy. He lay down upon the divan instead, draping one arm across his face to block out the light. Rather than read, he thought perhaps he had better rest for a little while until the doctor came.



It was half-past eight o’clock in the morning, and already he felt very tired.

II





The doctor’s visit cost £1/6s. Hardly an exorbitant sum for someone of his means, yet William could not help but feel he was being wasteful. Why should he pay a physician to tell him what he already knew, what he had known for months? Still, he figured he might as well and have it over. After all, he would have to hear it some time: the death knell.

That afternoon, he sat on the edge of a parlor chair and meekly submitted to the doctor’s scrutiny: opening his mouth when he was told, coughing when he was told, breathing deeply just as the doctor said for him to—and answering all of his questions.

“Have that cough long?” The doctor’s breath was sour with the odor of cigar smoke, his whiskers stained yellow from the same source. William looked away before he answered.

“Some months. It comes and goes.”

“Productive?”

“Only very rarely.”

Dr. Long grunted. He was an older man, portly, with the well dressed and yet vaguely unkempt appearance of a gentleman alcoholic. William knew him only slightly. Their doctor in London had been William Gull, who had attended to none other than the Prince of Wales and had brought him back, so they said, from the very precipice of death. Dr. Gull was considerably more expensive than his Wiltshire counterpart and considerably more appealing. Yet his attempts at prolonging Anne Pratt’s life had been unsuccessful to say the least, and William did not feel he was worsening his own prospects any by engaging this new person. In terms of geographic proximity, Abel Long was certainly the most desirable physician to be found; he lived only a mile away, just outside the town of Westbury.

“Your mother died of the consumption, then?”

The question didn’t surprise William, although he had not mentioned his mother at all in his discourse with the doctor. Although he had purchased this property after Anne’s passing and rarely discussed her death with any of his neighbors, he knew there must have been gossip amongst them. There always was gossip with people like that.

He gave a silent nod of assent and the doctor pressed, “How long ago was that?”

William told him, bracing himself lest he be required to go into greater detail, but Dr. Long made no further inquiry into the matter. He asked about William’s appetite, instead, and did not seem shocked to learn it had been recently flagging. Nor was he surprised by his fatigue or the slight elevation in his temperature. In fact, only a few minutes later, the doctor sat back in his chair and told William he had seen and heard all he needed to, and the examination was complete.

“I’m sure you know that you are consumptive,” he said bluntly. “Likely you’ve been so for some time, and you’d know what it looks like, what with your mother and all. I can give you a compound that will suppress the cough and allow you to rest, but it will only treat the symptoms, not cure the illness.”

“And is there nothing you recommend to cure the illness?” But William’s voice was bland, full of neither hope nor despair. After all, this was nothing more or less than what he had expected.

“I recommend what I am sure your mother’s doctor recommended. Lot’s of air, full rest, a warmer climate—”

William looked away, irritated. Dr. Gull had suggested all that, certainly. He had obeyed every order and forced his mother to obey them as well, even when she would have preferred to not. And still—

“We spent half a year in Italy,” he said tersely, his voice trembling with anger—and something that was not anger. “It did not slow my mother’s decline in the slightest. In fact, I imagine she would have been far better served had I allowed her to stay in London and die in her own bed—”

For the first time during his visit, Dr. Long actually seemed taken aback. Perhaps he was not accustomed to seeing his consumptive patients show so much energy.

“Symptoms such as yours often wax and wane for some time,” he rejoined, after a moment of stunned silence, “and in a milder climate I can assure you recovery would not be outside the realm of possibility. Your mother was elderly and frail; you are not.”

“And if I choose to remain here—?” William asked stubbornly.

The doctor rolled his shoulders with poorly concealed impatience. Having diagnosed the ailment and dispensed his advice, he now seemed to be rapidly losing interest in the situation. He was packing his leather case, and he addressed his tools rather than his patient when he said, “Here is not London. The air is fresher, the spaces open. You might have years yet.”

Perhaps the doctor meant his words to offer reassurance, but William could not muster any feelings of gratitude for them. He could not muster any feelings at all. He watched the doctor make ready to leave, and he felt curiously numb, as if his heart and his brain and the queer, tight, aching spot in his lungs had all been temporarily frozen.

Years yet. He wasn’t at all sure he had the strength to face them.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~






The compound Dr. Long left him for his cough came in a brown glass bottle, rather flat, with a long neck and a yellow paper label inscribed in red ink. It read:



LAUDANUM
POISON
DIRECTIONS
Three months old: 2 drops
One year old: 4 drops
Four years old: 6 drops
10 years old: 14 drops
Twenty years old: 25 drops
Adults…30 drops



Nothing else, but that was to be expected. Only patent medicines bothered to list their indications. Nevertheless, he could not help but feel some surprise. Until she reached the point of coughing up blood, Dr. Gull had prescribed paregoric for his mother, and William did not feel he was ill enough yet to require anything stronger than that. Nor was he particularly eager to drink from a bottle marked “poison,” even if it was supposedly safe for infants. However, despite his concerns on the matter, he pocketed the laudanum with neither question nor comment. After all, one did not interrogate the physician about one’s cough remedy, particularly when one had been so previously argumentative about other suggested forms of treatment. It was not good manners.

It would have been good manners for him to walk Dr. Long to his buggy, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do so. Aside from the fact that the doctor seemed offended with him and most likely did not want his company, William also felt achy and feverish and not at all up to the task. He left it to the footman, instead, and kept to the relative comfort of the parlor. He was too tired now to climb the stairs to his study.

A June afternoon was really too warm to have a fire in the hearth, but he called a maid to build one anyway. Let the servants swelter, he decided. Let them be uncomfortable for a change. He was chilled with his fever, and he would have a fire if he wanted one. When she finished, he stretched his legs out toward it and closed his eyes.


I’m going to die.

He waited a moment to see if the thought would distress him, but it did not. He really found himself not caring one bit. Far more troubling than death was the idea of a slow decline: years of wasting and suffering, as his mother had. Moreover, of being forced to do so alone. And he certainly would be alone now; that was all but guaranteed. No woman would ever want him in this condition.

Oh, but you’re fooling yourself there, he told himself with a bitter sigh. Being ill changes nothing in that respect, for no woman ever wanted you in the first place.

A rather disheartening thought, but he was finished lying to himself. He had spent his youth foolishly chasing after the unattainable, and he would not try to place the blame for his failure on anyone but himself.

He propped his chin on his hand and gazed across the room to the windows, mildly surprised to see how deep the shadows had grown. Had the doctor really stayed as long as that? The exam had felt so brief, Dr. Long’s demeanor harried and impatient; it was difficult for William to believe most of his day was already gone, spent in the morbid pursuit of a death warrant.

Still, he sat.

At five o’clock, the footman came to the parlor door, tentatively tapping on the edge of the frame, but William sent him away again.

No. I don’t want any tea.

Then again at seven o’clock: No, I don’t want any dinner.

The things he did want were things he did not know how to get. That was his problem.

As the evening faded into long summer twilight, he began to toy with the bottle the doctor had given him. Laudanum. Or, if you wanted to be very scientific about it: deodorized tincture of opium. Not so different from paregoric, really, although it was said to be quite a bit stronger. He remembered when his mother made the switch. Her discomfort had been terrible by that point, and laudanum was the only thing that allowed her to rest.

I could rest.

It was a tempting thought, for lately he had not been—at least not very well—in spite of his fatigue. The cough always seemed worse at night, and it often disturbed his sleep. But this—

William uncorked the bottle and peered into it. The contents were reddish brown and rather more turbid than he had expected. Dark bits like coffee grounds lay settled along the bottom of the glass. When he gently shook the bottle, they swirled through the liquid, clouding it, but they did not dissolve. The smell of the stuff was altogether vile, like some rancid, bastardized form of cherry liqueur. He almost decided against it.

Then a coughing fit seized him—and pain stabbed like dagger behind his right eye—and he could hear one of the maids giggling with a stable hand out on the lawn, flirting with him despite the fact it wasn’t allowed—and suddenly he felt so lonely he could not bear it any longer.

The doctor had neglected to give him a dropper, so he pressed his thumb over the mouth of the bottle to stem the flow of liquid and then carefully tilted it back, placing ten drops—one right after the other—upon his tongue. The directions called for three times that, of course, but somehow the idea of taking it all at once made him uneasy. He lowered the bottle and waited.

Truly, he never expected it to work so quickly, or so well. In just a moment, his cough faded and his lungs felt open in a way they had not in weeks. His entire body felt open: warm and fluid, so utterly relaxed it almost seemed as though his bones had left him entirely. He felt as if he could melt out of his chair and drip through the tiny cracks in the floorboards; he felt as if he could seep into the earth beneath them. He imagined with just a little effort he could disappear from the world altogether.

How strange he never knew just how much pain he was in until it left him. Was this how other people felt? Normal people, happy people? Was this what he had been missing all these years? This calm—this contentedness—this utterly improbable desire to laugh—it was—

Altogether glorious.

He lifted the bottle again, but his hands were clumsier this time and the drops came too fast—he lost count.

It’s all right, he thought serenely, where before he might have panicked. He calmly wiped a dribble of the sticky liquid from his chin and reassured himself: Nothing terrible could possibly come of something this pleasant.

Still, he did not feel he should sit any longer. To sit would be to drink, and already he could recognize the slippery slope on which he stood. He could imagine drinking again and again until he drowned himself in this feeling of euphoria, and he wasn’t nearly enough of a poet to commit suicide. He corked the bottle and placed it in the inner pocket of his jacket, then climbed to his feet.

The boneless feeling was still with him, and he was glad no one was around to bear witness to his trembling, knock-kneed walk over to the other side of the room.

My God, he thought, bracing himself on the glass of the French door. It’s like being in the hull of a ship.

And it was, for the room seemed to be tilting at regular intervals—back and forth, back and forth—and there was a dull rushing sound in his ears that might have been the surf. William pushed aside the velvet draperies—he pried open the latch—and then followed the tide out into the garden. Leagues of inky blackness lay before him, and he wasn’t afraid at all.

How lovely the night was! All day, he had felt so cold even when huddled near the fire. Yet now the early summer breeze felt as pleasant as bath water, and the stars seemed to be radiating a warmth he could feel in his toes. When he looked up at the moon, he saw it was throbbing gently, moving in perfect rhythm to his own heartbeat.

His legs were too unsteady to carry him very far, so William limited his voyage to the other end of the garden. He dropped to the ground at the base of a stone bench and closed his eyes. The damp grass was soothing against his feverish skin and the earth smelled rich and fresh.

I could die right at this moment, he thought dreamily, and it would not hurt at all.

But he did not die. In fact, as drowsy as he felt, he didn’t even fall asleep. He was too relaxed to sleep, too content. He didn’t want to drift away and end it, not just yet.

It was just as well. Only a minute later, a sudden dull thud startled him out of his daze, and he bolted upright in the grass, twisting his head from side to side, as he looked for the source of the sound.

It did not take him long to find it. After all, even in such an inebriated state as this, it was impossible to overlook something as large as a horse.

III




The horse was tall and stocky, a skewbald gelding of indeterminate breed. Sleek dark flanks and white shoulders, a russet head ornamented with a thin white blaze—nothing too remarkable so far as horses went. Yet in the opium-tinted moonlight, William thought it looked uncommonly handsome. In fact, it reminded him very strongly of a rocking horse he’d possessed as a child, and he wondered if perhaps he had conjured it from that very memory. In London, he had heard tales of opium-eaters and the strangely realistic visions they sometimes experienced. Some men hallucinated Nirvana; some even became creative geniuses. Meanwhile, he saw a discarded childhood toy come to life.

That seemed about right.

“But you’re off your rockers,” he said softly, climbing to his feet. The ground swayed beneath him, and he had to press a hand against the stone bench to keep from stumbling. Still, he was not afraid, not even when he noted the shadowy figure of a rider sitting astride the animal’s back. Defenseless as he was, he could not imagine any calamity befalling him now. The night seemed far too kind for that sort of thing.

He squinted at the figure, trying to make out its features, but owing to the dim light and distance between them all he could really see was the white blur of a face, the shadowy outline of a short and rather narrow frame.

The gelding, having dropped its head to graze, ignored William completely as he edged closer to it; but the rider let out a low, good-natured chuckle.

“Well, at least you’re not shy.”

This startled William so much he almost fell a second time, for the voice, while pleasant enough, was unmistakably female.

Female!

A woman, traveling in the dark alone—a woman, riding her horse astride—he had never heard of such a thing. He was not entirely certain such a thing was even possible in England.

I’m delirious, he decided, as he stared slack-jawed at the spectacle. That’s what this is: a fancy.

The fancy, meanwhile, seemed to be growing impatient with his reticence. She slid from her mount’s back and, looping the reins over one arm, closed the gap separating them with just a few graceful strides.

“Not shy,” she repeated with a slight smile. “But maybe not very good at conversation, either.”

William tilted his head to one side, scrutinizing her with a boldness he never would have shown had she been a real, flesh-and-blood woman. Yet she was decidedly not real; he knew this. She was a vision, and a vision could not cut him with a look or hurt him with her words. A vision could not fault him for his curiosity.

Nor did she. Instead, she cocked her own head and looked back at him—playfully mimicking, as he realized a moment later, the intensity of his gaze.

“Well?” she asked, sounding for all the world as if they were in the middle of a conversation. He was baffled.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’ve got to be thinking something, staring at me like that. Care to share?”

Idiotic as it was, William suddenly found himself flushing. An oval face and green eyes, long, wavy hair the color of flax—vision or not, this woman was terribly attractive. Odd, of course, even so far as hallucinations went, but beautiful just the same. This was what he had been thinking as he looked at her, yet he could not quite bring himself to tell her so.

“I was thinking—”

“What?”

“—you’re very thin.”

The girl looked down at herself, seemingly surprised. “I am?”

“Rather. Are you ill?” It made sense for her to be. After all, he was ill; why should his vision be otherwise? Yet even as he asked the question, William knew it was not so. Despite her slightness of form, there was a certain wiry strength about the girl, the muscles of her exposed arms solid and curiously defined. Whatever else she might have been, she did not appear to be sick or frail.

“Oh, no. I’m healthy as a—” She jerked her head toward the gelding. “Well, you know.”

William was not at all certain he did, actually. He opened his mouth and then closed it, at a complete loss as to what he should say next. How did one make polite conversation with a being of his own invention?

As the silence drew on, the girl began looking at him with something akin to sympathy. “Maybe you are shy, after all.”

She said this almost as if to herself and there was no malice in her tone, but accurate as it was he could not help bridling at the comment.

“I think you would find me far better at conversation when it is not rising one o’clock in the morning.”

The corner of her mouth twitched at that, though she nodded in apparent agreement. “The element of surprise probably didn’t help either,” she said. “Did I scare you, coming out of nowhere like that?”

William gazed over her shoulder at the dark tree line, frowning slightly as he tried to work it all out in his head; the laudanum was making it difficult to concentrate.

“Is that where you came from?” he asked finally. “Nowhere?”

She laughed at the question, although he couldn’t imagine why.

“I guess it probably did look that way to you.” Despite her obvious amusement, he thought there was something melancholy in the way she looked at him then. She would not meet his eye even when he tried to meet hers.

“You’re the oddest dream I ever had, anyway.” He knew he was being rude, but somehow the words slipped out before he could check them, and he meant no harm. It was only that her clothing was so strange. Trousers, on a woman! And not just trousers but odd, tight black ones made of a material he had never seen before. Her shirt was a vulgar red and contained less material than a normal lady’s corset cover; if he had not known she was a delusion, William would have thought her terribly indecent.

However, she was a delusion and, because of this, he did not feel overly guilty for satisfying his desire to look at her. Her naked shoulders and frail collarbones—the shape of her legs in those bizarre trousers—he had never seen a woman so exposed before, at least, not outside of a very specific type of photograph.

The girl didn’t seem to mind his gaping at her. In fact, she hardly seemed to notice it. She was staring at him with a startled expression.

“You think I’m a dream?”

He nodded but declined to elaborate when she pursued the matter. Fancy or not, it seemed somehow ungentlemanly to explain to her about the laudanum. Instead, he tried diverting her with a question of his own.

“What is your horse’s name?”

She barely glanced at the animal. “His name?”

“Yes. Doesn’t he have one?”

A long silence followed, but William didn’t hurry her. He reached a hand toward the gelding, which lifted its head in response. Its breath felt warm and moist against his palm—so real he almost could have believed it was, had it not been for the girl.

She was watching him with that same, almost sad expression as before, but her voice was neutral when she told him, “His name is Spot.”

“Spot?” he echoed, raising an eyebrow. The animal was a patchwork of brown and white, but he would not have called it spotted. The girl suddenly looked defensive.

“Well, I didn’t name him,” she said huffily. “He’s not even mine. I borrowed him from my—”

“From your what?” William asked, for she had made a sudden pause.

“—from my friend.”

How strange it was, the notion of an optical illusion having friends—or a life—or a horse. William struggled not to think of how mad it must make him that he should imagine a woman so vividly. Suppose the madness did not wear off when the opium did; where would he be then? He rubbed the gelding’s forehead uneasily.

“Don’t you believe me?” the girl pressed.

“Of course I do,” he lied. “It is only that—well—he’s an uncommonly fine one, isn’t he?”

“I guess.” She sounded indifferent. He stared at the horse’s crooked blaze and tried to think of something else to say. It was a dismal thing, knowing one was uninteresting even to one’s own imaginings.

“I…I realize I asked the animal’s name, but I have not asked yours.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“That was rather rude of me.”

“A little bit,” the girl agreed. She seemed to be waiting for something, but it took William a minute or two to realize just what it was.

“Forgive me,” he said.

“Forgive you.” She seemed confused. “What’d you do?”

Rather than answer the question, he made a polite—if slightly awkward—bow and told her pointedly, “I am William Pratt.”

The girl stuck out her hand sideways, almost as if she expected him to shake it, though surely this was not the case. Shake her hand as if she were a man? Absurd. She couldn’t want that. William wondered if perhaps she meant for him to kiss it, yet he couldn’t quite imagine doing that, either. Hallucination or not, she was still a stranger, and she was not even wearing a pair of gloves. He stared at her slender fingers dumbly, unsure of what to do.

She looked at them too, and seemed equally puzzled.

“Well…it’s nice to meet you anyway, William.” She dropped her hand.

“Yes.”

“I’m Buffy. I mean, in case you were wondering. I’m Buffy Summers.”

Buffy Summers?

William tried not to scoff at that, but honestly, how could he not? It was a ludicrous name under any circumstances, and he was more than a little bit intoxicated. Fortunately, Buffy Summers did not seem unduly offended by the raucous burst of laughter that followed. She leaned against her horse’s flank and watched with raised eyebrows as he struggled to pull himself together.

“That bad, huh?”

It would have been rude to agree with her, so William shook his head and murmured several reassurances to the contrary. Still, he could not help but indulge in his curiosity and ask her how she came by such an unusual name.

“According to you, I’m some kind of weird dream,” she pointed out. “So, really, you ought to be asking yourself how you came by it.”

It was obvious from her expression she was teasing him, but William thought she had a point nonetheless. And he could not help but wonder at the power of his own imagination. Inventing a whole person seemed unlikely enough, but to dream up such an outlandish name for her as well—

It must have been the opium. That was the only explanation that made sense. As uncomfortable a sensation as it had been, loneliness would not have been enough to send him this far over the edge into insanity.

Therefore, I haven’t any reason to worry, he thought. If opium is the only reasonable cause, then the only reasonable cure must be—

To not take any more laudanum, obviously. To wait for this evening’s measure of the drug to run its course and then throw the bottle onto the rubbish pile. That was what any logical person would do. The only problem with the plan was he didn’t want to do it, not in the least. Because, illusion or no—insanity or no—he could not help but feel this was enjoyable. He didn’t want to give it up.

“Uh, William?”

He came out of his daze to find Buffy Summers watching him, an uneasy smile plastered across her pretty, moonlit face.

“Yes?” For the life of him, he could not understand why she looked so uncomfortable.

“Moments of deep reflection are great and everything,” she said. “I’m sure you Englishmen probably live for them. But the unblinking stare and grim frown? Really starting to creep me out.”

“Oh.” Due to her odd way of talking, it took him a bit to process this information. When he did, he blushed. “I completely forgot myself for a moment, didn’t I? To say nothing of my manners. Forgive me—”

“Stop saying that,” she interrupted. “It’s making me nervous. Anyway, I want you to know I was only joking, before.”

“Joking?”

“About me being a dream. It seemed like that upset you or something, and I didn’t mean to. And it’s not true, you know. I’m…real.”

So she said, yet her slight hesitation before the last word gave William all the reason he needed not to believe her. However, he shrugged it off as a positive thing; opium or not, he knew he never could have been this relaxed in the presence of a real woman.

He could feel her gazing at him thoughtfully—rather too intently considering the embargo on unblinking stares—yet when he looked back at her, all she said was, “Nice night, isn’t it?”

It was a nice night. It was a balmy, dizzy, deliciously surreal night. He sighed into the summer air. “It’s beautiful!”

“Sometimes—” she pushed a lock of hair back from her face “—sometimes, on nights this nice, I wish I were a poet.”

William threw her a sharp glance. There was something oddly knowing in her expression, and he felt himself stiffen in response to it.

“Why would you say that?”

“Why not?” she countered. “Don’t you ever feel like writing poems?”

“No.” He could feel her surprise, which in turn surprised him. For a make-believe woman, she certainly had very lifelike emotions. “I feel such endeavors should be left to those with the talent to pursue them. Otherwise, it’s merely a waste of one’s time.”

“That’s a dumb thing to say. Nothing is a waste of time as long as you enjoy doing it.”

“Yes, well.” He smiled crookedly. “I could find little enjoyment in making a mockery out of an entire art form—and in turn, making a fool of myself. You write poetry; I shall engage in more realistic pursuits.”

“God, you sound bitter!” She looked so injured it surprised him. “I never expected—”

“What?”

“—you would be so cynical.”

“I’m not cynical,” he retorted—rather cynically, though he did not realize it. “And I ask you: what expectations could you possibly have had? If you are not a dream, you are unquestionably a stranger. How could you have thought anything about me at all?”

“You’re right. I couldn’t.”

Her voice was sad and soft, and William suddenly felt like a heel for hurting her. No wonder he had never found someone to spend his life with; he could not even maintain a pleasant conversation with himself.

“Forgive me—” he began. Then, seeing her expression: “That is to say, please accept my apology. I was terribly rude.”

“You weren’t rude,” she sighed. “It’s me. I’m just overly sensitive or something. It’s just that I did have expectations about you. Maybe it was stupid of me, but I did.” She turned away.

William, fearing she meant to mount her horse and leave him, reached out and touched her arm. He did it without thinking, and the feel of her bare elbow beneath his fingers—warm, soft flesh that felt very real—left him momentarily speechless. It was not until she met his eyes—her own being moist and sad and oddly hopeful—that he managed to find his tongue.

“Please, Miss Summers. You’ve every reason to be upset with me; I have been a cad. But please allow me to make amends. I’m really not cynical, or boorish, or rude, though I know I have acted so just now. Only—it has been a terribly difficult day—”

Emotion made his chest tighten, and he could not quite stifle the cough that followed. Not wanting to appear ill mannered, he tried to draw away, but Miss Summers suddenly covered his hand with her own, pressing his fingers against her arm and stopping him before he could stir a single step.

“Hey,” she said softly. “Call me Buffy.”

“Buffy.”

Alien as it was, it still felt wrong to be calling a lady by her first name, and William stumbled over it awkwardly. Yet though his voice was hoarse and soft, something in it made her smile. She gave his hand a little squeeze before suddenly releasing it and turning to pet the gelding, which ignored her.

“You’re not laughing,” she observed.

William, watching her slim fingers twine through the horse’s mane, could not help but wonder what it would feel like to have them in his own hair—or even on his flesh—stroking so gently. He knew he ought to be ashamed even to consider it, but he was not. Too many of his days were spent plagued by shame; he refused to let it ruin his dreams as well.

“Why should I be laughing?” he asked her.

“At my name. You found it so funny before.”

“Ah.” He looked down at the damp grass, at her small feet in their strange shoes, dropping his head so she would not see his smile. “I suppose I find it less humorous on the repetition.”

“The repetition,” she echoed, and something in her tone made his heart quicken. Was she laughing at him now? It seemed so, but he could not feel offended, for there appeared to be no malice in it. If anything, a quick glance upward showed her expression to be almost affectionate, as warm and indulgent as that of a sister or a dear friend. Not that he'd ever had either, but he could imagine.

“Am I humorous now?” he asked softly, a trifle shyly, though he would not own it. The girl’s smile was encouraging, yet it seemed somehow easier to direct his question at the grazing animal than at her.

“Actually, you’re kind of sweet. Not exactly what I expected, but—”

She said it lightly enough and broke off with a small, self-conscious laugh, but William felt his face heat nonetheless. He perceived a certain expectation in her gaze, the desire for a response, yet he had none to give. It was the first compliment he had ever received from a woman, and he hadn’t the faintest idea how to reply. He turned his head a little to one side and coughed.

“Are you afraid of me, William?” Buffy asked. Her question was playful, but he found himself bristling in response to it. She was small and slight, and he was a man. Why should he be afraid? He asked her, but she merely shrugged.

“All men are afraid of women. Why would you be any different?”

“Are all men afraid of women?”

“The smart ones are.” She gave him an odd look then, that same knowing look as before. “As a sex, we’re much crueler than men. Don’t you think so?”

“I have known some cruel women in my time, certainly,” he conceded. “But I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of them. Perhaps, at one time—but there is only one thing I fear at present.”

“What’s that?” she asked him, but William wouldn’t tell her.

“You look disappointed,” he said instead. “Are you a woman who wishes to be feared?”

She shrugged. “I’m a woman who’s used to it.”

IV




“Cac!”

Máire Mullen swore softly to herself as she struggled to right the stone cherub she had just overturned. She rarely visited the grounds adjacent to the house—her duties were limited to the scullery—and she had not anticipated the many decorative obstacles that now blocked her path. Like most large estates, Pratt’s had several acres to the rear of the house that were devoted entirely to flowerbeds and shrubbery and fruit trees that bloomed but never bore fruit. The garden was separated from the rest of the property by a low stone wall; it was dotted here and there with pretty, useless bits of statuary and furniture that looked well enough but never appeared to be used. The entire garden seemed to lie idle despite the care given to it by the staff. At least, Pratt never took pleasure in it himself, and he certainly did not invite his neighbors to do so.

So why am I even looking for him out here? Máire wondered impatiently. He never sets a foot out-of-doors that I’d know—

Of course, the answer to that was simple: she was looking for him out here because she had been told to do so. Because Bridget had found Pratt’s room empty that morning when she went to do the fires, and because his bed had not looked slept in. Because all of them knew about the doctor’s visit the afternoon before and most could work out what it had meant.

“Do we think he’s done himself in?” Máire asked suddenly. The housekeeper walking beside her suddenly took on a look of mild disgust.

“I hardly think such speculation is appropriate,” she snapped. “See to the task at hand.”

And the task at hand, of course, was to find him. Máire chewed on her lip and wondered if her own lack of concern meant a hardened spirit. Certainly, Pratt had not been a terrible master to have. He was cold, as befitted those beneath his position, but he wasn’t cruel or demanding. He paid well. Should she not have some sympathy towards a dying man?

However, when she looked at the opulence around her, it was difficult to feel stirrings of pity. Pratt may well have had a short life, but—in her mind, at least—there was no doubt it had been a good one.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




William woke to sunlight in his eyes and damp grass at his back, the faint hum of voices speaking urgently and not so very far away. His neck felt stiff and his head ached, and he winced as he slowly pulled himself into a sitting position. For a long moment afterward, he hadn’t the faintest idea where he was.

Then he did know, and he was alone, and his disappointment was so great—so utterly ludicrous—it almost made him laugh.

How stupid you are, he scolded himself. You knew all the time it was only a dream.

Of course it had been a dream. How could it be otherwise? Strangely dressed young women did not roam the countryside in the middle of the night, looking for men with whom to converse. Aside from this, he was next to the stone bench, near to the garden wall, in the very same spot he had lain himself the previous night, right before the girl made her appearance. It was only common sense to recognize he must have fallen asleep and dreamed her up.

But it felt so real, not like a dream at all.

Naturally, it had felt real. That had been the work of the laudanum, hadn’t it? That was something for which it was known: vivid dreams, hallucinations.

Madness.

Agitated, he fumbled the bottle from his frockcoat pocket, turning it in his hand. He thought he ought to despise it for tricking him so, yet when he fingered the cork and smoothed the paper label, his hands were gentle, almost caressing.

“Poison,” he whispered, as if to remind himself. Only it had not felt that way at the time, not poisonous or dangerous, not terrible in the least. He closed his eyes and tried to recall, but it was all so fuzzy now, his memory of the girl as indistinct as that of any less mercurial dream. Rather than details, most of what he could recall was the feelings they inspired.

And those feelings were incredible—it was like being alive.

What an odd notion, yet there seemed little point in trying to disabuse himself of it. He pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and rubbed at his tired eyes. A faint green scent clung to his fingertips, accompanied by a sharper smell usually associated with horses. He knew it must be his imagination, the aftereffects of the laudanum, yet he could not help but feel a vague sense of excitement.

Watch yourself, Pratt. You might very well being going mad.

And what if he were? Did it matter anymore?

With his heart pounding in the base of his throat, William crawled across the grass, parting the dewy blades with his fingers, searching for something—anything—that would prove her existence. Footprints or hoof prints, some small article dropped from her pocket. Yet he found nothing, and when he sat back against base of the stone wall, he almost felt as if he would cry.

Instead, his chest tightened and he began to cough.

It was fully as bad as before the laudanum, perhaps even worse. He dropped his head and pounded his chest with his fist, hacking and choking until his breath—and his strength—was entirely gone. He was trembling against the wall, taking in shallow sips of air, when the servants happened upon him.

The little scullery maid—he didn’t know her name—made a startled curtsy and dropped her eyes to the ground, but Margaret, the housekeeper, stooped down in the grass beside him.

“Sir, may I send for the doctor?”

He looked into her brown eyes, which held an expression of genuine concern. He liked Margaret. She was a stout older woman, motherly in appearance but so unwaveringly professional, so disciplined, she often sent lesser servants into terrors with her demands for greater competence. Of all the servants, she was the only one who had been with him in London, the only one who had known his mother.

“Sir,” she said again, and William realized he had never answered her question. He braced his palms against the wall and slowly climbed to his feet.

“Thank you, but that isn’t necessary.”

“At least let me have them run you a bath, then?” She posed it as a question, gently, and held out one meaty arm so that he could steady himself against her. He might have done so had the scullery maid not been watching them.

“Thank you,” he told her again. His breath hitched as he tried to stifle a cough, and he saw both women flinch slightly. He wondered how he must look to them: thin and red-eyed and grass-stained, hardly respectable. The scullery maid was staring at him out of the corner of her eye, and he could perceive a sense of uneasiness there. No doubt, she was wondering if her employer had gone mad.

Margaret saw the flustered look he threw her and she snapped at the girl: “Go to the house and tell John to prepare his master’s bath. Then you may begin your own morning duties.”

The maid curtsied again and fled toward the house. It wasn’t until she was out of sight that Margaret leaned down to retrieve something from the grass at their feet. The bottle of laudanum, as it turned out. William had dropped it during his coughing spell and forgotten about it in the misery afterward. Margaret handed it to him without comment, and he slipped it into his trouser pocket.

They began the slow walk back to the house in silence, but after a few dozen paces Margaret suddenly paused and said, “Sir, if I may—”

William tensed, half-expecting her to question him about the laudanum, his illness, or why he had chosen to spend the previous night sleeping in the garden, none of which he was prepared to discuss. However, she did not. Instead, she reached out and took hold of his arm, pressing the callused pads of her fingers against his wrist. His flesh was hot and damp with sweat, but his pulse beat steadily and she withdrew her hand with an expression of relief.

“You must take care not to tax yourself,” she told him, as they fell into step once again.

William glanced at her. Her expression was fixed, unreadable, but he did not wonder at her show of concern. If he died, she would lose her situation. They all would. He found a certain comfort in that, the knowledge that his death would affect so many.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





The bath water was cool and pleasant, fragrant with lavender and milky with saleratus. William lay with his head resting against the tub’s pewter ledge, his legs stretched and his arms floating, weightless. His eyelids were leaden, and he could feel his fever dropping off by degrees. All around him, the house was quiet.

It was odd how soothing the silence was, when noise could be so lonely. Yet it had always been this way for him; the clamor of the servants—their conversations and their quarrels, their laughter—had never failed to make him feel desolate. Like any gentleman of means, he felt himself above them, yet he could not help but envy their camaraderie, their flirtations. The work of domestic staff was either backbreaking or mind numbing—for the unluckiest few, it was both—yet they never seemed more than marginally unhappy. They were never lonely.

I don’t have to be lonely. Not now. Not if I don’t wish to be.

The thought came unbidden, and he felt himself flushing, embarrassed to be having such an unnatural desire. Still, it persisted.

It doesn’t matter. No one cares. A dying man, one who lives alone—why should anyone bother over what he does? I could take more laudanum if I wished. I could take it right this minute and—

And what? Did he really think she would reappear, just like that? Opium or not, a dream woman was unlikely to be so accommodating.

And even if she were, you wouldn’t want her coming to you now, for God’s sake. Not while you’re in the bath.

More than anything, it was this last thought that kept him from it.

Nevertheless, the bottle was in his trouser pocket and his trousers were on the floor. When he stepped out of the bath, William stooped down to retrieve it. He set it on the ledge of the tub and looked at it as he toweled himself off, as he dressed. He put on fresh clothes although he had only worn the other suit twice. He knew this was odd and wasteful; most of his personal habits were. The servants often talked of it. Margaret had once told him he would catch his death from washing so much and that the frequent laundering of his garments would make them unfit for wear—they wouldn’t keep out the cold and wet nearly so well, she claimed. He didn’t care what they thought or what they said. He didn’t care if Margaret was right, and he certainly didn’t stop. The habit had formed years earlier, and it was too deeply engrained to be altered. Back then, he was trying to rid himself of the stink of his mother’s illness. It was horrible—the sweet black smell of death, of rot. The servants had sworn they couldn’t smell it; Margaret insisted he was being fanciful, and the doctor thought it hysterics. But they were wrong; it was there and it clung to everything. He had loved his mother, adored her, held her at the very end, even though by that time she was so wasted she hardly appeared human—but he hated that smell.

Suppose I smell like that now? Would I even know it? The very notion of it filled him with horror and he doused himself liberally with cologne. He shaved and cleaned his teeth, then spent an extra few moments wrestling with his hair—a useless venture, given that his curls always managed to look tousled, defying even the most rigorous combings. He did it all out of habit, for there was no one in his house who cared what he looked like and very few who would even notice. However, in the very back of his mind he couldn’t help thinking of the girl. If he saw her again—he wouldn’t, naturally. Dreams didn’t work like that—but if he did, he would want to look nice. He would want her to think him handsome.

And she did think he was handsome. He wouldn’t have believed that had she not said it straight out, just before parting. So many of the night's events were murky, yet he remembered that clearly. She’d bid him goodbye and gone to mount her horse, but afterward she’d only sat in the saddle and stared at him. When he asked her about it, she'd shrugged.

It’s just something I do, she had told him. I stare at handsome men. It’s an awful shortcoming.

She said it lightly enough, but the compliment had made him shiver with pleasure. With a pathetic eagerness he later regretted, he asked her if he would see her again.

She’d looked at him, then. Buffy Summers, with her flaxen hair and her wistful smile—her green eyes full of something he couldn’t quite understand. And she’d answered him thusly: You know what, William? I can almost guarantee you will.

The night before, he’d tasted delight in her promise; now he found himself dwelling pessimistically on a single word. Almost. Why had she said “almost”? Why had she not said “certainly” or “absolutely,” something more substantial that befitted a guarantee?

More importantly, why did he continue to dwell on it when he knew it was nothing but a bloody dream?

Annoyed with himself, William pocketed the laudanum and trudged out of the dressing room. The footman was waiting for him just outside the door.

“Laying breakfast, sir,” he said. Then, because it was often not the case, he added, “That is to say, if you’re in a need for it—”

William nodded before the man could finish. Maybe it was just because he hadn’t eaten well yesterday—maybe it was the laudanum or the cool bath, or those strange, surreal memories he had of the girl—but whatever the reason, he wanted his breakfast. He was hungry now.






To be continued...

V




Sunday.

Normally, he would have been sitting on a hard wooden pew listening to the vicar’s endless droning about light and darkness and the loving, dictatorial spirit of the Almighty. But not today. Today, he had lost track of time, forgotten about his spiritual duty entirely in a strange haze of dope and unaccountably high spirits. After breakfast he went upstairs without a second thought, completely unaware of the stunned glances he left in his wake. The carriage was waiting for him out front; the servants had naturally assumed he would be attending services.

Instead, he spent the morning cloistered in his library searching through what suddenly seemed to be a limitless collection of books. It took him until midmorning to find the one he was looking for, a battered secondhand memoir he had occasionally leafed through but never gotten around to reading in full.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, it was called, Being an Extract from the Life of a Scholar.

It sounded right, he thought. It sounded like him, like something that might help him understand what had happened the previous night. But it was disappointing. He was not certain what he had hoped to find in those yellow, dog-eared pages, but as he read, it became increasingly clear he would not be successful. Thomas De Quincey’s experiences were nothing like his own. Moreover, the rapturous way he described the drug made William feel distinctly uneasy. Could this be what lay ahead of him if he continued to pursue her? Was he destined to become a raving madman, a slave to a bottle?

Then again, would it even matter? After all, the ending would remain the same no matter what he did, and perhaps he hadn’t enough time left to become an addict.

He wanted to read the book all the way through; he wanted to know how it ended. Yet he was only a little more than halfway done when the footman knocked on the door to announce luncheon. William might have sent him away, but he knew if he was to avoid another meal then he must first deal with the servants—the feigned expressions of concern, the tiresome questions, the offers to send for the doctor, none of which he felt like parrying. It seemed like less work to just sit in the dining room and eat, and he did feel at least a little hungry.

It was not until he reached the dining room, however, that he recognized his earlier error. He gave the servants Sunday nights off in order to attend church services, and because of this, the evening meal was always something light and easy: sandwiches, salad, or cold tongue. It was really more a meat tea than a proper dinner, so the staff prepared a rather splendid lunch in order to make up for it. Not that William often paid proper tribute to the food—lately he had scarcely shown an interest at all—but it was tradition, the way things were done in a grand home, and the staff would never have considered altering their habits just because they were serving a single man instead of a large family. Therefore, when William saw a leg of lamb in the center of the table, he immediately knew what day it was.

The bloody Sabbath.

Ordinarily, he would have been annoyed with himself for forgetting, but presently all he could muster was an active sense of relief that it was now too late for him to attend services. He despised church, had despised it since the first time he walked into one thirty years before, although it was not until time afterward that he stopped believing in God. He never told anyone that, of course, not even his mother. Especially not his mother. It would have broken her heart had she known, her being so devout and all. A member of the Lady’s Aide Society, a soprano in the choir—or, at least, she had been these things until her illness stole her strength. She had often had the vicar and his wife over to dinner. Before she died, she had made him promise to keep his faith, (not realizing he no longer had any), and to continue attending worship services wherever he chose to live after her passing. She had asked him to pray for her soul. He had promised her, and he had done it. He had done all of it, albeit reluctantly, and with an ever-increasing sense of misery. Rituals and crowds were two things he could not abide, and they were the two things on which every church seemed to operate.

If he were well, skipping church that morning would have been not only unforgivable in the eyes of Westbury society, but also fruitless for there were services in the evening as well, and if his peers overlooked his absence from one, they certainly would not from the other. In fact, a healthy, independently wealthy person was required to attend both. However, no one could expect a man in William’s condition to set foot outside at night—everyone knew night air was the worst thing for consumptives—and he figured he could now avoid at least half his religious obligations without causing too much alarm amongst his peers, or breaking his promise to his mother. After all, allowances must be made for those in poor health.

This realization was strangely elating, and William applied himself to his meal with sudden good cheer. Not only would he be able to avoid a task he disliked, he found himself looking forward to an evening without the servants. Lonely as he was, their constant presence could be stifling, and they were completely useless in terms of company or conversation. Furthermore, he recognized that with them gone he could more easily indulge in his experiments with the laudanum. If he were fortunate, the girl would appear as easily as she had the night before, and if not, perhaps he could help matters along in some fashion. He was not entirely certain how he might do this, but the very notion of it—that he might have some control over her presence, over his own life—pleased him beyond measure, and he found himself speaking to the servants in such congenial tones they seemed almost alarmed as a result. Naturally, none of them spoke of it—not to him—but a whispered conference took place in the kitchen, and at the end of the meal, just as he was rising from his chair, Margaret suddenly appeared in the doorway of the dining room.

Ostensibly, she was there to oversee the removal of the china to the scullery for cleaning, but William could feel her watching him as he climbed to his feet. He could sense the strange, searching intensity of her gaze, and he ought to have upbraided her for it—he had every right—but instead he only smiled wryly and asked her what the matter was.

Thereby given permission to speak, Margaret denied anything was the matter. She said she was merely wondering how he was, if he felt some better after that morning’s bath and rest.

“Some better,” he agreed. Then, in order to ward off any further questions he added hastily, “Yet I think I shall spend the remainder of the day resting, and I shouldn’t like to be disturbed. See to it the others know this, Mrs. Hastings, and tell them they may take their leisure as soon as the afternoon chores are done; I won’t want anything else today.”

Margaret’s eyes widened slightly. There was nothing particularly strange about his canceling dinner; she would have been more surprised had his brief burst of appetite continued. However, it was very unusual for him to offer the servants extra leisure time. In fact, it was completely unheard of. The management of the household staff fell to herself and the butler, and they would only give an extra hour or two in the event of illness or great personal tragedy. She could not imagine what William’s motives might be.

Yet when she parted her lips to ask him, he raised his eyebrows pointedly, and Margaret realized she would be foolish to pursue the matter any further. He was, after all, the master of the house. His directives were beyond reproach, his motives entirely his own.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





Of course, the staff could not just set out the moment he dismissed them. William felt foolish for not recognizing this earlier. He should have known they would not leave; they had nowhere else to go. Like any gentleman in his position, he had been very careful to choose servants whose families were not nearby—it discouraged gossip—and like all servants they lived in his house. Where had he thought they would go?

Still, at the very least his orders kept them from being directly underfoot. He took Confessions of an English Opium-Eater to his study, fastened the door behind him, and lay upon the divan to finish reading it in relative comfort.

He did not find any answers, of course, but then he had not really expected to. If anything, the final chapters left him with a smug sense of relief, for De Quincey seemed rather stupid, and he had been unquestionably gluttonous in regards to the opium. A thousand drops a day? No wonder the man had nightmares! William could not envision himself growing so careless, so insatiable, not even for—

Yet at twilight, when the servants had gone and the house was quiet, he drew the bottle from his jacket pocket and poured the liquid onto his tongue with neither a moment’s hesitation, nor the slightest consideration of the consequences. In the back of his mind he truly believed there could be no consequences. After all, he was a dying man. What could he possibly do that would hurt himself further?

The complete relaxation of body and mind was something he had almost forgotten from the previous night, and in the first few moments after swallowing, William found himself staggering about comically, wholly unprepared for the sudden weightlessness of his limbs. His vision swam—the windows looked enormous and the floor seemed very far away—but this did not worry him. Rather, he found himself chuckling in amusement at his own distorted perception, at the clumsiness that made him grab at the furniture to keep from falling. He opened the study door and made his way down the hallway to the landing. The stairs were more difficult to navigate than he expected—they seemed steep, endless, and the first time he stumbled, he almost felt fear. Yet he persevered. Somehow, he knew he must make his way out to the garden if he was to see her again. Vision or not, something told him she would not just appear before him no matter how much he might long for her to.

In the parlor he leaned against the French doors and panted, exhausted by the long passage. The glass was cool and slick against his skin, and his forehead left marks he knew would annoy the parlor maid the next day. He could not bring himself to care. It was his door, his glass, his maid—what reason had he to worry? None at all. For only the second time in his life he felt utterly tranquil.

Then he saw the blur of something white at the far end of the garden—he thought he might even be able to hear the soft thudding of shod hooves on grass—and panic came crashing back with a force that almost knocked him down. Had he missed her? Was he missing her? Stupid, bloody idiot, he raged at himself. Standing here, smiling moronically into the darkness, and all the while she was out there waiting for you.

He hated the idea of chasing after an apparition, of appearing so desperate, yet it seemed as though he had no choice. He had to see her, so he ran—thin arms and legs pumping, feet slipping on the dewy grass, tail of his frockcoat flapping out behind him. Graceless, maybe even pathetic, but determined—absolutely determined—that he should catch her.

And he caught her.

She did not laugh when she saw him, though he would not have blamed her if she had. He was breathless, trembling, rumpled, and sweaty—he must have looked a fright. Yet when he drew up behind her and called her name, she glanced over her shoulder at him with an expression of relief.

“Well, there you are,” she said. “I was beginning to wonder.”

William did not answer—he was struggling to catch his breath—but he watched her avidly as she turned her horse and approached him. She looked different tonight, though he did not immediately understand why. Yet she seemed softer, somehow, and more familiar. She looked more feminine—

That was it, he realized. That was what was different. She looked feminine tonight; she was wearing a dress.

It was not, of course, a dress in the fashion to which he was accustomed. Like the more masculine garb from the previous night, it was strangely cut and shockingly skimpy. Her arms, neck, and most of her shoulders were bare, and the hem of the thin, slightly flared skirt did not even reach her knees. He thought the frail white voile and low v-neck made the garment look more like a chemise than anything else, yet it was undeniably becoming on her. Though she was bronze as a ploughman, her bare skin was silky and flawless. Beautiful.

“You’re staring again,” she remarked. William startled a little at that; he blushed. Yet her tone was good-natured, and he knew better than to apologize. He forced his features into what he imagined must be a relaxed sort of smile.

“I could hardly do otherwise,” he said softly. “You look—”

“What?” she pressed, for he hesitated at the last. He swallowed and dropped his eyes to the ground.

“—lovely.”

“Oh…” Buffy Summers glanced down at herself, smiling. She asked him, “Do you like the dress, William? I wore it just for you.”

He looked up sharply.

“Did you?”

“Sure. You seemed a little baffled by last night’s ensemble, so I thought…”

William leaned slightly forward, but her voice trailed away before the sentence was complete. He could not imagine what she had meant to say, but he was glad she had worn the dress. Her slim calves and small ankles were lovelier than anything he had seen in photographs.

“Aren’t I a dashing equestrienne?” she asked suddenly, interrupting yet another guilty reverie. William dragged his gaze from her bare legs and fixed it upon her eyes, completely ignorant of the amusement twinkling back at him.

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, this is only the second time in my life I’ve ridden a horse, and I think I’m pretty damn good at it.”

Ordinarily, a lady using profanity would have shocked him, but Buffy Summers was a dream, and her vulgarity seemed little more than an extension of his own. William cocked his head at her.

“Did you jump the garden wall?” he asked.

“I did. Impressive, right?”

Not really. The stone wall was only three feet tall, and William had seen foxhunters—occasionally even ladies—sail over obstacles far higher than that. Even he, in his younger, healthier years, had been known to take his horse up to five feet.

Still, it was only her second time on a horse—surely that must count for something—and she was very attractive. He could not imagine it would be good manners to disagree with her.

“That’s quite remarkable,” he said instead. Then, “However—and most certainly if you are going to continue jumping—I’d say you might want to shorten your leathers.”

“Really?” She looked at her saddle in confusion. “How do I do that?”

And William might have told her. He might have demonstrated with gestures or asked her to dismount and done it himself. Instead, he stepped boldly up to the side of the horse and took her stirrup—as well as her small, sandal-shod foot—into the palm of his hand.

“I can do it for you, if you like. I can do it right now.”

Willingly, she slid her feet from the irons and let them dangle at the horse’s sides as he made his adjustments. Her leathers really were too long, especially for a novice. He took them up three holes on each side and then told her to put her feet back in and tell him if she could feel the difference.

“My legs feel scrunched up,” she said, frowning. “Are they supposed to feel scrunched up?”

“Well, no,” he admitted. “But you’re not really—that is, you want to hold yourself more like this—” He grasped her bare ankle gently, holding her lower leg steady as he used his free hand to pull her heel down to the correct angle.

She made a face then, an adorable sort of half-pout, and said it made her Achilles tendons feel very odd. But all William could think about was the smooth flesh beneath his fingers, the warmth and the softness, and the gently throbbing veins. She felt so alive, yet if she had been he knew he never could have touched her. He had never dared to touch any woman before, let alone so intimately.

“It’s uncomfortable because you’re not accustomed to it,” he told her hoarsely, hardly aware of what he was saying. “After a while, it will come naturally.”

He knew he ought to release his grip on her—hallucination or not, it was not right to take advantage—yet he could not quite bring himself to do it. Instead, he found himself sliding his fingers up even further, curving his palm along the downy flesh at the back of her knee.

“Bring it forward—”

“Like this?” she asked with apparent innocence, copying his adjustments with her other, unmolested limb. He nodded.

“But put your hands a little more toward his neck.” He demonstrated with a light grasp on her elbow. “You want a straight line from here—” leaning up to touch her earlobe “—to here” grazing her elbow again “—to here.” And with a final caress to the back of her heel, he finally stepped away.

Oddly, she seemed completely unperturbed by all his fondling. In fact, a quick glance upward left him wondering if she might even have enjoyed it, for she was smiling, though whether this was from amusement or some mysterious, womanly sense of satisfaction he had no way of knowing. All he knew was that he suddenly felt confused and embarrassed, even somewhat ashamed of himself. All this, even though she was not real and nothing he had done to her could be considered wrong.

“Hey,” she said softly, and there was a question in her voice. William cleared his throat gruffly, but he kept his eyes on the ground as he answered.

“Yes?”

There was the soft thumping sound of her dismount, followed by a slight rustling as she tied the horse to a nearby tree. Then, suddenly, he felt her hand on his arm, the press of her breast against his shoulder as she leaned up to speak directly into his ear.

“It’s all right, William,” she told him. “You can look at me.”

And because she said it so gently—because she was beautiful and unreal and nothing terrible could possibly come of it—he did.

VI





Her hair smelled like honeysuckle, her skin like the sea. For one irrational moment, William pictured himself drawing her into his arms, burying his face in the warm, bare flesh of her neck and breathing in that scent until he was dizzy. He didn’t do it, of course; he never considered actually doing it. Yet the resulting fantasy was so vivid it almost seemed real. He had never been this near a woman before—he had never had a woman touch him—and it was a drug even more intoxicating than the laudanum. He thought if he were to become addicted to anything, this would be it.

But she isn’t real, he reminded himself.

And she wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t. She was something better; she was something safe. She was a dream creature, as considerate as she was beautiful. In his experience, this was never true of real, flesh-and-blood women. The small horde of ladies who treated him kindly in London had done so only because their mothers instructed them to, because of his money. His lack of social grace made him seem like an easy catch for a pretty girl, and likely his wealth made him a very desirable one for a girl who needed to refill the family coffers.

Yet he had not been caught. The London dowagers underestimated him in that regard. William didn’t want just a beautiful face or a prominent name; he didn’t care about bloodlines. What he longed for was a companion, a partner. He wanted a woman who could love him, a woman who would want him for who he was rather than what he possessed. Artful as those little social climbers had been, he had never labored under any serious delusions about their intentions. None of them had ever cared two pins for him, and that was painfully obvious from the start.

Of course, when it came to a certain other young lady he had not been nearly so discerning. In a manner all too typical of him, William had set his sights on the very last creature likely to have him, and he had made a complete fool of himself in his pursuit of her. As a matter of fact, it was due to this very misadventure that he—

But he would not think of that now. His mysterious flaxen-haired companion had nothing to do with such matters, and he refused to waste his time with her dredging up old sorrows. Cecily Underwood might have been a real woman in every unpleasant sense of the word, but Buffy Summers was not.

Thank God for that, he thought fervently. Thank God—

Buffy’s hand was still resting in the crook of his elbow, her expression growing quizzical and slightly amused as she watched him ruminate. When it became clear the silence would continue indefinitely without some intervention on her part, she shook him gently and said, not without a certain amount of playfulness, “Talk to me, William. Tell me what’s going on in that wacky little noggin of yours.”

William looked at her helplessly. What he was thinking was not something he could verbalize, and even if he could, the idea seemed too alien to consider. Aside from his own mother, he had never shared his private thoughts or feelings with a woman before; no woman had ever been interested in them.

“Where are you from?” he asked instead. This was partly to divert her, but also because he was genuinely curious. Her accent sounded vaguely American, yet he had met plenty of Yanks while he was traveling and none of them ever used the strange vernacular of Buffy Summers. Of course, he had made Buffy Summers up out of his own head, which might account for her peculiarity; but he could not help wondering from where his subconscious had drawn its inspiration. Surely it could not all be due to the laudanum.

Buffy cocked her head, and it seemed to William she was weighing her answer with unusual care given the simplicity of the question. Finally, she asked him, “Do you know where California is?”

“On the western coast of the United States, isn’t it? A rather undeveloped region, I’ve heard, and full of rough people.”

She smiled then, and slid her hand from his arm so she could smooth the front of her dress.

“No, I’d say it’s actually pretty developed, all things considered. Why would you think otherwise, William? Do I really look that rough to you?”

Although he knew she was only teasing him, William felt his face heat with embarrassment. What an awful blunder to make. Had she been a real woman, no doubt he would have offended her greatly.

“I—I do apologize,” he said slowly, taking care to consider his words this time. “Of course I didn’t intend to imply you were—it’s only that—well, I’m afraid I’m not very skilled at conversation—”

“You’re doing fine,” she assured him. “Keep going.”

“Going—?”

“Talking. Tell me about yourself, if you want. Or, you know, ask me more about myself. Let’s do our best to keep this conversation ball rolling.”

She really was incredibly odd. William knew he should not find it so appealing, but he couldn’t help admiring her energy, her candor. She would never feign interest in a man because of his money, nor encourage his hapless affections if she did not return them. He was not certain just how he knew this, but he did. If she did not admire a man, she might tell him in the most brusque, unladylike manner imaginable—but she would tell him. She would be honest.

All the same, there seemed little use in asking her further questions about herself; anything she told him would be a fabrication of his own mind. He rubbed a hand across his face and sighed, wishing there was some way he could forget his delusions were only delusions. It would be lovely to believe she was real, if only for a little while.

“What would you like to know about me, Buffy?” Delusion or not, he felt quite bold for asking her outright. Who knew what she might feel compelled to ask him? Those green eyes certainly did look mischievous.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered. “I guess I’d like to know how old you are, what you do for a living, and—” she reached out to tug on the end of his cravat “—where you get your keen fashion sense. You know—all the usual things.”

Puzzled by her apparent mirth, William looked down at his neckcloth. He could see no reason why it would be worthy of ridicule. “It’s silk brocade,” he told her defensively.

“Snazzy,” she answered.

“And it matches my waistcoat.”

“As well it should.”

He frowned. “I thought you would like—”

“It’s fine, William, honestly. And you’re fine. Well-dressed, polite, handsome…a Dickensian dish of epic proportions.”

William had no idea what she meant by that, but before he could sort it out she was off on another track.

“So, you’re how old…?”

“Oh!” He suddenly recalled she had asked him that question before. “Thirty-three, this past April.”

“You look younger.”

“Do I?” His laughter held a trace of bitterness. “That’s fortunate. I’m afraid I feel several decades older.”

Buffy’s expression became almost tender then. She reached up to brush back the curls from his forehead. “Well, you’re totally rocking the baby-soft skin.”

William’s eyes drifted shut as her fingertips grazed his brow, yet he remained surprisingly coherent, even in the midst of the caress.

“I’m afraid I forgot the subject of your third inquiry,” he admitted.

“I asked you what you do for a living.”

“I live here.” He did not have the faintest notion of why this should make her laugh, but it did. To his disappointment, she also withdrew her hand.

“No. What I mean is how do you earn money? What line of work are you in?”

“Ah, I see.” Now he did see, but he was shocked she would even ask; it was hardly good manners to talk of money. Nonetheless, he answered courteously: “I don’t have a situation, Buffy, for there is no need of it. I’m landed.”

“Landed?” She looked bewildered, yet there seemed no polite way of explaining things to her. William felt as if he might as well bang his head against a tree.

“Yes, you see…I have…I’m…” He looked around the garden, struggling to find a way to describe his means without sounding vulgar. Buffy looked too, and only a moment after her eyes landed on his house, they lit up with understanding.

“Oh, so you’re independently wealthy, huh? That’s a nice gig if you can get it. I’ve looked into it myself, but there never seem to be any positions open.”

William looked at her suspiciously. She didn’t appear to be teasing him this time, but it was difficult to know for certain. Her speech was charming in its way, but far from easy to comprehend.

“Is there anything else you would care to know?” he asked, after an appropriate interval. He didn’t want to encourage further ridicule of his position, if that was in fact what she had been doing, yet he felt it was only polite to offer.

She thought a moment, and a peculiar expression came over her—the same sad, slightly knowing expression from the night before. She asked him softly, “What about your family?”

“Dead.”

William knew it was awful of him to put it so bluntly, but he had no other words. For the first time since they met, Buffy actually looked a little startled.

“Not all of them, surely?”

“There were only my parents and myself. My father passed when I was young, and my mother—” He hesitated.

“What about your mother?” Although her tone was gentle and sympathetic, William thought he detected a sense of urgency as well, as if she attached a great deal of weight to his response. Because of this, he chose his next words carefully.

“Mother has been gone over a year now. She died last May, in Italy. I suppose it was a blessing. She was ill for quite a long time, and she suffered a great deal.”

“But you’re absolutely sure she’s dead?” Buffy seemed genuinely distressed, but William could not help feeling offended by the question.

“I wouldn’t be likely to misremember such a loss,” he told her stiffly. She blanched, immediately contrite.

“God, of course you wouldn’t,” she said. “I’m sorry, William. I didn’t mean it that way—I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just I’m stupid, and I keep assuming…”

William waited, but her voice trailed away before the explanation was complete. He could not remain angry with her, however, for she looked so remorseful there could be no doubt her apology was genuine.

“Truly, it is all right. Pray don’t be sorry, and do forgive my short temper. I know your intentions were good. I should not have been so overly sensitive—”

“No,” she interrupted. “You weren’t being overly sensitive. I suffer from a huge case of foot-in-mouth disease, that’s all. But despite the massive evidence to the contrary, I really can understand how you must be feeling. I lost my mother, too.”

“Did you?”

She nodded. “Almost three years ago. She had an aneuryism. I came home one afternoon and found her lying on the couch.”

William wasn’t sure what an aneurysm was, but he thought he could picture the horror of that moment with fair accuracy. Buffy, walking into the home she shared with her mother, blissfully unaware anything was wrong. Buffy, finding her mother sprawled across the divan, her mouth gaping, her eyes glassy—

Don’t be absurd, he told himself impatiently. She’s a figment of your imagination, as is all the rest. None of it actually happened.

Perhaps not. However, the sudden look of grief in her eyes was real enough to hurt him, and William clumsily reached out to pat her shoulder.

“I’m so terribly sorry for your loss—”

She smiled a little at that and lifted her hand to cover his, gently pressing his fingertips into narrow ledge of her collarbone. “I know you are, William,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”

William managed to return her smile, but he could think of nothing more to say. It was just she was so near to him now—she was beneath his hand—and that made it terribly difficult for him to think in a rational manner. He could have done almost anything—

I could kiss her, he thought dizzily. She isn’t real; it wouldn’t be wrong. She would let me—

Would she, though? Real or not, he was not entirely sure of her intentions. Perhaps she would not be as willing as she appeared. Yet the laudanum made him brave—or stupid—or both—and he might well have tried it had an unexpected torrent of voices not suddenly ruined his chances.

Clearly startled by the noise, Buffy jerked away from him.

“Who is that? Is someone else here?”

“Likely it’s only the servants. They were at church earlier, but services must be over by now. The road to town is just on the other side of those trees—” he indicated the direction with a wave of his hand “—and the sound of their talking would carry on the wind. It’s all right,” he added hastily, seeing her troubled expression. “I shall see to it they won’t molest you.”

“It’s not that,” she said slowly. “I just—”

“What?”

“You haven’t told anyone about meeting me, have you?”

“Certainly not!” He laughed. “I would be thought mad.”

“Not even your servants?”

“I don’t talk to my servants.”

“But your friends—”

“There aren’t any.” How it cost him to admit that! William thought if she expressed any pity for him now, the earth might as well open up and swallow him whole.

However, Buffy nodded without speaking, and nothing in her demeanor indicated she found his solitary existence strange or sad. After a tactful pause, she turned away from him, moving to where her horse still stood, tethered to a tree.

“I should probably go anyway,” she sighed, reaching to untie the animal. “It’s getting late, and if someone were to see me—”

“Stay!” He reached for her hand, pulling it away from the reins before she could unknot them. “Please, Buffy, stay just a bit longer.”

“William, don’t…”

“Why not?” Although she appeared to be doing her best to extricate herself from his grasp, he stubbornly refused to let go of her hand. “The servants won’t bother us, and it isn’t really so very late. You’ve no reason to leave so suddenly—"

But his desperate words and persistent clutching won him no sympathy at all; Buffy reached down and pried his fingers back with a force that made him yelp.

“Would you just chill out?” Having regained possession of her hand, she turned back to her mount, looking more than a little bit exasperated. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here all night, every night. I’ve got other things to do. I have a life—"

Stung, he snapped back: “Well, go on then if you’re intent upon it! I can’t stop you. I should have known it would all turn into a nightmare eventually—all my dreams do.”

He turned away dismissively, expecting she would mount her horse and go. Instead, she hesitated, one hand on the reins and the other resting against the pommel of her saddle. After a minute or so of silent consideration, she finally heaved a sigh and walked back over to him, dragging the reluctant horse behind her.

“Okay,” she said when she reached him. “I didn’t want to have to ask you this, but that’s obviously where the evening’s headed, so here it goes. William, are you trashed or something?”

He blinked at her, too startled to remember he was angry.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Drunk,” she explained. Then, even more plainly: “You know, intoxicated. Have you by any chance been sneaking sips of the cooking sherry?”

William knew he should probably take offense at this, but somehow righteous indignation was difficult to come by. While he might not be drunk in the strictest sense of that word, there was no denying the fact he was something. If he were in his right mind, she wouldn’t be here.

Still, it would hardly be good manners to tell her that. He ran his fingers through his hair and laughed without humor. Things had been so pleasant earlier, he thought. How had it gone so terribly wrong?

Buffy was watching him with steadily growing impatience.

“William,” she said finally. “I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he insisted, “and I’m not drunk. I’m simply—” He faltered.

“You’re simply what?”

“—having a most peculiar dream.”

Her eyes softened a bit at that.

“You still think I’m a dream?”

“Of course I do.” William was surprised there would be any question of it. A beautiful woman appearing in his garden in the middle of the night—what else could she be but a fancy?

Buffy appeared to consider this for a minute or two, and then she reached out and pinched him on the arm. Hard. For the second time that evening, William let out a most unmanly cry of pain.

“And just what was the meaning of that?” he demanded.

She met his gaze levelly, completely unconcerned by his displeasure.

“I’m proving a point about my reality. Dreams can’t hurt you; I can. Therefore, I must be real.”

“Ordinary dreams cannot hurt one, perhaps,” he conceded. “However, you being the product of a—”

Here he stopped, unwilling to broach the subject of the opium. This was not because he felt embarrassed or ashamed; he was merely loath to face the questions that were sure to follow. He did not want to discuss his illness with Buffy Summers; he didn’t want to think about death in her presence.

Fortunately, Buffy seemed to have no interest in pursuing the matter further. She unfastened the braided leather choker from around her throat and held it out to him.

“What are you doing?” he asked in bewilderment.

“Trying to confirm my existence. Humor me for a second, will you, and let me have your hand.”

Though considerably puzzled by her command, William never thought of disobeying it. He held out his hand and Buffy slid the necklace over it, doubling and redoubling it until the coil of leather lay snugly against his wrist.

“There,” she said, releasing him. “If you wake up tomorrow and that’s still on your arm, you’ll know I’m not just a dream.”

“I—I couldn’t take your necklace,” he stammered. “If something were to happen to it while it is in my care—”

Actually, there was very little to fear in that regard. The choker was hardly quality jewelry—just a pewter crucifix, dangling from a bit of cheap leather—and not even the lightest-fingered of his servants were likely to steal it. Yet it was warm from her skin and smelled of her perfume—it belonged to her—and wearing it, taking it away with him, seemed a gesture of shocking intimacy. It seemed almost…wrong.

Oh, for God's sake. Don’t be a fool. It can’t be wrong, for it isn’t real. She isn’t real, and your reputation is in no danger. What’s the harm in humoring her?

So he humored her, amending his earlier statement with a bold: “I shall be certain to return it tomorrow evening.”

The edges of Buffy’s mouth quivered, though she didn’t exactly smile. “If it’s still there, you mean.”

“If it’s still there,” he agreed. Then, because he couldn’t quite help himself, he asked plaintively, “Must you really leave now? Could you not just—only for a little while—”

“I have to go, but—” she gave his ornamented wrist a tug “—I’ll bet you a million dollars you’ll find this is still here tomorrow morning. You’re not nearly as imaginative as you think.”

“And how can I be sure you will return so I can collect my winnings?” William asked. But despite his best efforts, his voice lacked her playful humor.

Buffy put a gentle hand against his cheek.

“Hey,” she whispered. “You can trust me.”

William didn’t answer her—he suddenly felt too wretched for words—but he forced a smile for her sake and lifted his hand in a mock salute when she told him goodbye. He waited until her horse had cleared the garden wall, its hoofbeats fading away into the dark.

Then he turned and slowly walked back to his house alone.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





Early the following morning, Margaret Hastings was standing in the larder with the cook and one kitchen maid taking inventory of the supplies when an unexpected clambering on the cellar stairs startled all three.

“Sarah Walker!” Margaret exclaimed, once the source of the bedlam appeared in the doorway. “Are you a woman, or a Clydesdale?”

The young chambermaid dropped an eager curtsey. “Forgive me, Mrs. Hastings. But I was just upstairs to do my work, and it seems the master’s gone ill, or daft, or something, so I came to get you straightaway.”

This declaration so shocked Margaret she dropped her ledger. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” she demanded.

“He’s up in his room now, ma’am, laughing and crying by turns. And he’s talking clean out of his head—”

“That’s enough!”

“But you’ll go to him?” asked Sarah. She looked so genuinely disturbed Margaret felt a flutter of fear, though naturally she was careful not to let on.

“Of course I will,” she said evenly. She stooped to retrieve her book from the floor, and then shoved it at the cook. “You must carry on without me, but be sure you don’t forget anything. And you—” she nodded at Sarah “—get on with your other duties. I shall see to the master myself.”

She did so with deliberate calm, too sensible to risk alarming the rest of the staff. When she reached the master bedroom, she found the door slightly ajar, but she tapped on it as usual. Her only concession to fear was that she did not wait for his permission before she stepped inside.

Not that he seemed to notice. Although Margaret saw no sign of the hysteria Sarah had mentioned, the master of the house was clearly not in his right senses. He was sitting on the edge of his unmade bed, wearing yesterday’s rumpled clothing and staring down at something he held in his left hand. Margaret could not see what it was, for as soon as she stepped into the room his fist closed around it, concealing it from view. He was trembling slightly and white to the lips, yet he did not seem to be ill.

Margaret cautiously edged her way over to him. “Sir,” she called softly. “Forgive me for intruding, but are you all right?”

William looked over at her then, his eyes bloodshot and watery, filled with an uncanny brightness. He gave her a crooked smile.

“Well, Mrs. Hastings," he said. "At the very least, it seems I am not mad.”

VII




“Sir, are you quite sure you are all right?”

William cocked his head slightly, blinking and regarding the housekeeper with a puzzled expression. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked her.

“Well, it’s only that—I thought—that is, you seem—” His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and Margaret, knowing him as well she did, flushed darkly and immediately abandoned that line of inquiry. “I was just wondering if you needed anything,” she finished lamely, half a minute too late. He thought for a moment.

“I want a bath,” he told her, “and a clean suit of clothes. A pot of coffee. And—”

“Sir,” she said, slightly questioning. He had stopped sharply in the middle of his sentence.

“Nothing. There is nothing else I want. You may go.”

He waited until the housekeeper had shut the door behind her, and then he climbed from the bed. His limbs felt stiff and sluggish in the cool dampness of the morning, and he paused for a moment and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily and trying not to tremble. His left hand still lay locked into a fist at his side. Presently, he loosened his grip, unfolding his fingers from the small, tangled heap of leather and cheap metal that was her necklace.

“Buffy Summers,” he whispered, staring at it. The name sounded even more absurd now that he knew it belonged to a real person. A real, flesh-and-blood woman who rode her horse astride, who rode abroad alone and late into the night. A woman dressed in clothing which barely covered her and who approached strange men in the moonlight. Worse still, she was a woman who allowed those strange men to touch her in all manner of inappropriate ways.

William scowled at the necklace. Oh, what a fool he had been! His stomach writhed at the mere thought of it. He had been worse than foolish. He had been purely irrational—a madman—to assume she was some sort of specter, a hallucination caused by the opium, when even the blindest of idiots could have seen she was real.

Real but certainly not a lady. Not with behavior like that, not dressed in such scanty attire.

Then she must be a toffer, he decided bitterly. Because what other plausible explanation could there possibly be for her vulgar attire and bizarre behavior?

Still, it seemed odd that she had never tried to occupy him. William mulled over it as he went into the dressing room to have his bath, struggling to recall some hint, some insinuation of sex on her part. If she were a prostitute, surely she would have broached the subject at some point. Of course, his experience with such creatures was obviously very limited, but he had spent a substantial portion of his life in London, and God knew there were whores aplenty in that city; a gentleman could scarcely walk through certain sections of it without some unfortunate female propositioning him, and such women were hardly delicate in their approach. More than once, he had found himself faced with the excruciatingly awkward task of refusing such a proposal. The only wonder was that Buffy Summers had not done the same. Yet he could not recall her uttering a single suggestive remark, not even when the smooth skin of her calf lay warm beneath his palm. And why not? If she wanted his money surely that would have been the most opportune moment to ask for it.

Unless she was looking for a greater sum than a single tup would bring. He had a good deal in the way of money—everyone in the area must know it—and he was not skilled with women. He was ill and he was alone. In way, he was quite vulnerable. Perhaps she was a swindler instead of a prostitute. Somehow, this notion was even more disturbing than the other, but he could not deny it as a possibility. That knowing look of hers, those shrewd observations about his life—she must have heard gossip about him in the town and thought him an easy mark. Perhaps those nightly visits were to garner his trust so that she could later rob him. Such things might not be as common in Wiltshire as they were in London, but they were not completely unheard of either.

She means to trick you, he told himself as he stepped out of the bath, probing at his wounded ego as if it were a sore tooth and finding an odd sort of comfort in the pain. She means to make you care for her so that you cannot deny her when she asks for money—

And he did care for her; that was the truly terrible thing. He cared for her yet, longed for her yet. The notion of her being a fraud was awful, yet it was still more awful to realize he must never see her again. Somehow, in just two brief visits, she had managed to worm herself into his affections, and now he found he could not easily cast her out.

He dressed and went down the hall to the study. Although he had not asked them for it, the staff had been considerate enough to prepare a breakfast for him. Toast, eggs, fruit, and coffee, all carefully arranged on a card table near the fire. He carried the plates to an open window and tipped the food into the hedge below, but he drank the coffee in grateful swallows. It was scalding hot and so black it was bitter, just the way he liked it; anything heavier in his stomach would have been sure to make him ill.

Liar. Thief. Harlot.

He tried the words in his head, one by one, but none of them seemed to fit her any better than his sense of betrayal fit him. He even found himself inventing reasons for why he must see her again. Only just the one time, he told himself, but he must do it. He must confront her about her disingenuousness; he must show her he was not a man so easily duped by a pretty face. Even more absurdly, it occurred to him that he had to return her necklace, because keeping it would make him a thief. So, he had to meet her just once more. He really had no choice in the matter.

He told himself that, and he believed it.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




Of course, there was no longer any need for the laudanum. Now that he accepted her reality, he also realized she would appear to him just as well without the help of a hallucinogen. Yet as the shadows lengthened over the baseboards, he felt his heart begin to beat faint and quick, a certain familiar queasiness tightening in the pit of his stomach. He was not comfortable with women. He had never felt at ease in their presence and had become far less so after the incident with Miss Underwood in London. And Buffy Summers…How could he be expected to confront her, to say all the harsh, unkind things he must say to show her he was a man and not a willing victim? If he were to talk to her honestly, he felt he must have the laudanum. His nerves would be the end of him if he did not.

After dinner (barley soup and toast, which was all he could stomach) he returned to the study, and he took the laudanum with him. This time when he uncorked the bottle, he did not even attempt to count the drops as he tipped them onto his tongue. He felt as though he did not care if he killed himself. He thought it might even have been a relief to do so. Life was, after all, such a tiresome thing.

Perhaps it was only his frame of mind, but the opium caused no euphoria this time, no dreaminess, no giddy laughter—nothing, except the sudden sense of being detached, of drifting away, accompanied by a certain sullen sleepiness. It was not particularly pleasant, but he felt no anxiety and that was a mercy. He replaced the cork and pocketed the bottle, and then he began his slow, stumbling journey out to meet her for the last time.

She was a long time in coming. So long, in fact, that he began to wonder if he had come too early, if his timing was poor. He had not thought to consult his pocket watch beforehand; perhaps the shadows had not been as deep as they first appeared. Was this the long summer twilight instead of night? For the life of him, he could not tell the difference.

He watched the sky and walked a restless lap around the garden. He thought he was being careful, but the earth suddenly swelled in a wave beneath him, and it sent him reeling. Falling took a year; once it was over, he found himself lying on his stomach on the ground, blood trickling from a cut on his temple where his head had struck a stone. He felt dazed and sick, and more than a little sorry he had come. A smear of dirt on the lens of his spectacles obscured the vision in his left eye. He stared at the smear intently, and it took on the shape of a rabbit.

He thought of sitting up, but somehow it seemed an impossible feat and he did not attempt it. Instead, he lay with his cheek pillowed against the damp grass, listening to the strange rattling sound that was his own breathing. He watched the rabbit and wondered how long she would be in coming. He waited.

When she arrived, it was with dreamlike abruptness, as if she had just appeared out thin air, mid-jump, on the other side of the garden wall. When it cleared the wall, her horse landed so close to William he could smell the sharp scent of its sweat and see the faint gray stripes on its otherwise pink hooves. In fact, he was in some danger of having his head crushed by those powerful, metal-shod feet, but he did not think to move away.

Buffy Summers was blinking rapidly, as if her eyes had not yet adjusted to the dim light, and it took her several seconds to notice him lying on the ground in front of her. When she did, she gave a sharp gasp.

“William!” she exclaimed, dismounting quickly. “Are you all right?”

William didn’t have a clue how to answer that. He tried not to let her fool him with her soft voice, with the note of concern that couldn’t possibly be real. He kept his eye fixed upon the rabbit and waited.

She knelt beside him, knees in the dirt, and began to gently probe at the knot on his temple, checking its severity. “Did I run you over? God, I ran you over. That damn horse has no brakes at all—”

Her hands were soft and smelled like lavender, and the tenderness of her touch seemed genuine. A drop of water suddenly splashed onto the tarnished spectacle lens—the rabbit hopped away—and William screwed his eyes shut before he answered her.

“No. I think…I think I must have fallen.”

“Well, are you okay? You’re bleeding—” She dabbed at the side of his head with something soft, something she had taken from her trouser pocket, carefully cleaning away the blood. Although he did not open his eyes, William could feel the warmth of her breath against his forehead as she leaned over him; he could smell the mild, sweet scent of her perfume. He wondered what it would feel like to kiss her—he wondered if she would let him—and then he immediately felt ashamed. After all, he was supposed to be sending her away, not negotiating some sordid arrangement.

“I think I died—” he said confusedly and sat up.

“I don’t think you died.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re still breathing, and that’s usually a pretty good indication of being not dead.” She brushed his hair back from his forehead, stroked his cheek with the very tips of her fingers. “William…”

“What?” The word came out strained; he felt as if he could not breathe.

“Open your eyes.”

Though they felt leaden, he forced his eyelids apart, startled to find when he did that her face was just inches from his own. Her green eyes narrowed, scrutinizing his face in a way that was not particularly pleasant.

“Your pupils look all drawn up,” she said, frowning.

“Meaning…?”

“You tell me. It’s dark out; they should be dilated. Maybe you have brain damage.”

“Brain damage?”

“From your fall. You hit your head, after all.” She combed her fingers through his hair, probing his crown and the base of his skull in search of additional injuries, and although he knew it was a pointless undertaking, William didn’t bother trying to stop her. He liked the feeling of her fingernails trailing along his scalp, and he liked the note of concern in her voice; he was intent upon enjoying it for as long as possible.

Something in his expression made her smile, though her voice was solemn when she said, “William, each night you claim you’re not drunk, and I really want to believe you. But it’s becoming increasingly obvious something is going on. Are you on some kind of drug?”

“Are you a prostitute?”

Hardly a polite rejoinder, but her question had caught him off guard. Fortunately, she seemed more amused than offended, and she answered him with a wry, “Why? Are you in need of one?”

“Then you are!” Horrified, he launched himself off the grass, but she grabbed the tail of his coat before he could flee altogether. She dragged him back down with the kind of force one simply did not expect from a woman, and then she said,

“For God’s sake, sit down! I am not a prostitute.”

“Then why did you say you were?”

“I didn’t. You said I was one, and to tell you the truth I’m more than a little offended by it. Why would you think I’m a prostitute?”

“Because you appear out of seemingly nowhere, and you only come at night; your clothes are scarcely adequate, and you’re always—” He hesitated.

“I’m always what?”

“—touching me.”

“I’ve only ever touched you above the waist,” she pointed out, “and I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb when I say that makes all the difference.”

“Well, I’m not going to give you any money. You might as well accept that and be on your way.” Yet his tone was hardly definite. If she had chosen that moment to leave him, he knew he would have chased after her. He would have showered her with coppers—he would have pitched pound notes into the air—just to entice her to stay.

But she didn’t leave; she did not even attempt it. Instead, she released her grip on his jacket and sat back on her heels, looking for all the world as though he had struck her.

“Okay, now you’re just being a prick,” she said in an injured tone. William felt his face heat beneath that reproachful gaze, and he scrambled to justify what was, after all, very ungentlemanly conduct.

“I’m not a prig! I’m—I’m merely trying to properly define the boundaries—”

“The boundaries of what, exactly?”

“Of what is there.”

She considered this, and for a moment, it actually seemed as though she might follow him down that tangent. Then she thought the better of it and returned to the matter at hand.

“Have I ever once asked you for money, William?”

Of course, she had not. However, William could not help but think this meant very little. It might have been that she was hoping he would offer it; or perhaps she had been waiting for a more opportune time to ask. Either way, she must want money. There was no other explanation for her interest in him.

When he pointed this out, she looked at him almost pityingly, as though he had said something profoundly sad.

“I’m here for you, you goddamn moron,” she told him. “I’m here because I like you.”

This was an alien thought, and it would have struck him dumb even if her profanity had not. When he finally spoke, all he could think to say was, “Why in heaven's name would you like me?”

“I’m beginning to wonder that myself!” But she was smiling now, no longer angry. She leaned over, nudging his shoulder with the edge of her own. “You really are kind of an ass, you know.”

“But you like me?” He wanted to hear her say it again; it had such a pleasant sound. No woman had ever said such a thing to him before.

“I like you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“Do you travel a long way to come here?” he asked. She tilted her head back and laughed into the dark.

“You have no idea.”

She did have the look of a faraway place, William thought. Yet he could not imagine she came from such a very long distance, not every night. Not on horseback.

“I was wondering—” he began. But before he could get further than that, Buffy Summers jumped to her feet.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

A walk to where? William wondered but did not ask. He did favor her horse with an uneasy glance, however. She had tethered the animal to a low hedge, and it was eating some of the flowers within its reach.

“I could call a groom,” he suggested, climbing to his feet. “We could put your horse into the stable—”

“He’ll be fine.” She started away at a brisk pace, stopped a moment later when she realized William was not following her. He was still standing some distance away, meticulously brushing bits of ground debris from the back of his trousers.

“Are you kidding me?”

Startled, he looked up from his task. “Do you mean about stabling the horse?” he asked confusedly. For a second, she only looked at him blankly. Then:

“We’re not going to a garden party, you know. There’s no need to fret over a little dead grass on your clothes.”

“I do apologize,” he began sheepishly. “You must think I’m an awful—what on earth are you doing?”

The answer to this question was simple enough to see; she was climbing the garden wall. What he could not fathom was why. She scaled the stones with ease, calling to him from the opposite side, “There’s no point in walking all the way to the gate. It’d take too long, and I’m too lazy. Come on.”

With a small sigh, he moved toward the wall. It was low, of course, and presented no great difficulty as an obstacle. Still, it would have been nice to clear it with a catlike leap as she had done, instead of lumbering across it in the manner of an anesthetized bovine. His own descent was reminiscent of a controlled fall, and it was all he could do to land upright and not in an ungainly heap at her feet.

Then he coughed quite hard and the force of it caused him to stumble, and he collapsed at her feet anyway. Lovely.

“My God. Are you okay?” Her voice was quivering as if she were trying not to laugh.

William looked up at her, and as he struggled to catch his breath, he debated with himself whether he was scandalized by the shortness of her skirt, or gratified by it.

“William—?”

Gratified. Definitely gratified.

“I’m fine,” he told her, standing. “It’s only a cough.”

“It sounds awful.”

“It is.” He looked around, but saw nothing noteworthy about the neat rows of apple trees in which they stood. The orchard belonged to him, and while the trees were not bearing fruit this time of year, in every other respect they looked no different now than they always did. “What is it you wanted to show me?”

“You have to promise me you won’t freak out,” she said, taking hold of his hand.

“Freak out?” he echoed. “What does that even mean?” But he followed her willingly when she pulled at his arm, leading him further down the dark row.

“You know…become…worried. Or scared. There’s nothing to worry about, okay? And there’s no reason to be afraid.”

“Afraid!” Outwardly, he scoffed at the idea, but deep down William felt a flutter of uncertainty. Suppose she was a thief, after all? Suppose this was some sort of trap? It was dark and secluded here. No one knew where he had gone—

I really ought to let go of her hand, he thought, just to be prudent.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he followed her as docilely as a pet dog on a leash, stopping only when she motioned for him to do so some two hundred yards on.

“Well,” she said unceremoniously, “there it is.”

“There what is?” he asked in bewilderment. There was nothing around them but more trees and a tangled expanse of weeds and thorns that marked the property line on that side. Buffy nodded to the bit of wasteland.

“That right there,” she told him matter-of-factly. “That’s where I’m from.”

William followed her gaze, squinting slightly as if that would allow him to see something other than what was there. What was there being, of course, nothing at all.

After a long, fruitless moment, he finally turned his eyes back to her. She was looking at him expectantly, a hint of wry humor in her eyes. Yet the subsequent smile was neither mocking nor mad; anyone could see that. So then what…?

He asked her, but the answer was less than satisfactory. Of course she didn’t mean she lived in that neglected field, she said. It was a shortcut from somewhere else, somewhere farther away.

“But it isn’t,” he insisted. “That field connects to David Temple’s property; beyond that there’s the church, the town. Nothing exotic. And it's a roundabout way to go at that, certainly not a shortcut…”

She listened patiently and without one iota of interest. Once his argument wound down, she said only, “I can show you.”

And he answered with a somewhat condescending smile, “By all means do.”

“But you promised not to freak out,” she reminded him, releasing his hand, “and I’m holding you to that.”

William nodded and shrugged, playing along even though he was beginning to tire of the game. He stood where she told him to stand and watched her as she directed him to do. She set off at a sprint, leaving him for the patch of barren earth that belonged to David Temple. Weeds parted and leaves crunched beneath her feet, and then—

And then she was gone. As abruptly absent from the landscape as though she had stepped through a door, or hidden herself behind a tree. Except there was no door; there was no tree. There was only a flat bit of scrubby pastureland and the clear night air. Only this—and yet somehow she had managed to vanish into it.

Drawing a deep breath, William traced her path through the brambles, making a careful orbit around the spot where he had last seen her. Yet even after the second loop around—even after the third—he found no clue as to how it happened. Once again, he began to entertain the notion that he had gone mad.

When she returned, it was just as unexpected. After completing his fourth unsuccessful journey through the briars, he had paused, stooping down in order to examine some impressions in the earth. Hoof prints, as it turned out. Nothing strange about that, except for the fact they began out of nowhere, as if a horse had just come into being, fully grown, on that very spot. Maybe it had. After all, if a woman could just disappear—

But William never finished that thought, for it was at that very moment that she reappeared, stepping through whatever mysterious portal had borne her away and materializing in the very spot where the hoof prints were. It was then—and regardless of his very sincere promise to her that he would not—that William freaked out. He didn’t intend to do so, of course. It just happened. He couldn't help himself.

VIII




There was a sound coming from him, something shocked, forceful, and not remotely pleasing to the ear. There were words as well: accusations and interrogations, rambling, opium-induced confessions of things he might never even have done. But he wasn’t aware of any of it. He wasn’t aware of anything, except for the single, horrifying realization that he must have gone completely demented. Because nothing else, not even the laudanum, could explain Buffy Summers’ disappearing-reappearing act. Things like that just did not happen in the real world.

While he was telling himself this, Buffy was pulling at his sleeve in a vain attempt to redirect his attention. “William, it’s okay—it’s okay!” Her voice was low at first, but it grew more insistent as she struggled to get through to him, to drown him out. He wanted to do as she wished; he wanted to calm down. But his thoughts were too confused, his brain too dope-addled. He literally could not help himself.

She laid him on the grass with the sweep of one leg, an assault so smooth and deliberate it almost did not hurt. He landed flat on his back, and before he could move—before he could even consider moving—she flung herself on top of him, her slim body stretched at an angle across his own, the palm of one hand pressed firmly against his trembling, noisy mouth.

“William,” she said. “Stop it.”

Her tone was harsh, her green eyes stern, yet these were not the reasons he found himself capable of obeying her. It was the soft press of her breasts and the smooth, taut stretch of her bare thigh—the delicious friction of a hipbone placed just so—that finally caused him to fall silent. She might have been holding him down, but she was still holding him, and no woman had ever done that before. Perhaps he was mad and this was only happening in his head, but even if it were—

If it were—

Oh, God. If it were, he still didn’t want it to end. He would prefer madness.

It had been so long since he experienced real human contact he had almost forgotten how much he craved it, and even during an apparent return to composure, he felt taut and anxious, hungry for more. He pleaded silently with whatever deity might exist and feel compelled to intervene: Don’t let her move now. Don’t let her get up—oh, please—don’t get up—”

And she didn’t. Once it became clear that he had returned to his senses, her features relaxed in noticeable relief, yet she withdrew neither her hand nor her body. Instead, she dropped her head down until her brow came to rest against his own, and then she murmured, “William, you don’t have to be afraid. I promise I’m not going to hurt you. That’s not why I’m here.”

He jerked his chin in a nod of assent, murmured something indistinguishable behind the obstruction of her palm. She furrowed her brow and asked, “What?”

Of course, he could answer her no more distinctly now than before, so he did not try. He just looked at her, his eyebrows slightly lifted. After a moment’s hesitation, she cautiously removed her hand. “What?” she repeated.

She had not raised her head. If he opened his mouth a little wider—if his bottom lip trembled just a bit—they would have been kissing. His whole body ached with the effort of restraint, although he was not entirely certain restraint was what she wanted. Red-faced and awkward, he asked her for the second time, “Why are you here, Buffy?”

She smiled at him, the sad, soft smile that always seemed a trifle too knowing, and then she said, “Don’t you know, William? It’s you. I’m here because of you.”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





If it had been up to him, he would have lain like that forever, pinned beneath her body, wrapped in her arms and tangled in her legs, her mouth hovering torturously close. But the weight of her pressed against his chest aggravated his breathing, and he began to cough—he couldn’t stop until she rolled off of him so he could sit up—and then he wanted to kill himself.

Buffy seemed to understand how he felt. She rubbed slow circles along his back with the palm of her hand, wincing at every paroxysmal hack. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously. “Is there anything I can I get you?”

But he shook his head.

When he finally got his breath, his chest hurt and his head felt weak; all the good feelings from before were gone. He kneaded his forehead with the tips of his fingers and said wearily, “But that cannot be the truth.”

“What can’t be?”

“That I am the reason for your coming. Perhaps now…but on that first encounter I could not possibly have been…”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you didn’t know me then. We had not yet met.”

“Maybe I came in order to get to know you,” she answered. Then, seeing his expression: “I came to get to know you, William. I came with the express purpose of meeting you and spending time with you. That’s the only reason why I ever—”

Well, that was unexpected, if not altogether baffling. He stared at her.

“For the love of God. Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you wish to meet me? How were you even aware of my existence?”

She shrugged, suddenly looking uneasy.

“That…is a really complicated story.”

“You might tell it, regardless.” William knew he was being rude, but he couldn’t put it in gentler terms than that. If he was not a lunatic and she was not a thief, then for what possible purpose had she sought him out? And how had she done it? How was she able to disappear and reappear at will? He didn’t consider himself out of line for assuming he had the right to know.

Buffy was chewing on her bottom lip.

“Okay,” she said eventually. “I’m going to try to phrase this in terms you can understand—”

“That shouldn’t be so very difficult, should it? I don’t consider myself a halfwit—”

“Yes, I know,” she interrupted, rolling her eyes. “But it’s just a really out there kind of story—I’m not sure if I even get it—and you’re such a Victorian—”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Just be quiet for a second so I can think about how to word this.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, and just as William was ready to lose patience and demand an answer from her, Buffy said, “It’s because I already knew you.”

He frowned. “I don’t think I—”

“Well, I didn’t know you, exactly. But I knew a different—version—of you, a version who’s no longer—and a friend of mine found this door—and, well, here I am.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever,” he said.

“I told you it wouldn’t!”

“What do you mean by a door? What door did you find?”

“It isn’t really a door. It’s sort of…well, it’s a portal. She didn’t make it or anything, my friend. It’s always been there. She just found it and opened it up for me.”

“A portal to where though? Where are you from?”

“The portal is in England, near the house of another friend of mine. I’ve been staying with him for a few months now, but like I said before, I’m actually from California.” She hesitated and then added reluctantly, “What I didn’t tell you before was that I’m also from 2004.”

“Two thousand and four what?” asked William, by now thoroughly bewildered.

Buffy looked equally confused, but only for a moment. Then she clarified, “The year 2004.”

William looked down at the ground, taking in the scrubby, overgrown grass, the dull, moonlit shine of his own carefully polished calfskin shoes. Somehow, it was preferable to looking at her just then. He asked, and not without a certain amount of difficulty, “So, what you’re telling me is that you are actually from the future? Some type of traveler through time?”

“Sort of. I mean, there’s more to it than just that, but I think we can save that particular revelation for another time.” She smiled faintly. “You look like you’ve had just about all you can take at the moment.”

“Rather.” There was a false note in his laughter, which she noticed immediately. She reached out, laid a hand on his arm.

“William, it’s a lot to take in. I know that. And if you don’t want to take it in—if you don’t want to have anything more to do with me—that’s okay, too. If you want me to, I’ll leave and I won’t come back. I won’t bother you—”

“But you’re not a bother,” he said. The words came automatically from common politeness. They came from something else as well, though he would not name it.

Again, that smile—that pretty, faint smile. She gave his forearm a little squeeze and asked him with deceptive lightness, “You’re sure about that?”

“I’m altogether certain.” Yet even as he said it—and meant it—William was stretching out his free hand, reaching into the space from whence she had come, groping, searching for something that no longer seemed to be present. When he turned back to her, it was with a question in his eyes.

Buffy looked almost apologetic. “It only opens for me,” she said.

“Oh.” He dropped his hand, feeling strangely defeated.

“But you never know,” she added a moment later. “It might open for you, too. Someday.”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




He forgot to return her necklace.

It did not even occur to him until much later, as he walked home alone in the moonlight. Of course, she had not asked him for it; she had not mentioned it in any respect during that evening’s discourse. Perhaps she did not care if she got it back. Yet he could not help but feel guilty, for cherished or not, cheap or not, the necklace did not belong to him. He had an obligation to return it to her. He almost turned back in order to do so, but that would have been foolish. Aside from the distance he had already covered, he also knew she would not be there. She had left already. He had seen her go, disappear back through that mysterious gateway into the unknown.

He continued homeward.

It was now so late it was beginning to be early: the stars growing faint, the night sky fading from black to bluish-gray. William felt so tired his knees trembled, but he knew he could not sleep just yet. When he reached his house, he yanked the bell-pull in the foyer to summon a servant. It didn’t matter to him which one. Just a servant.

Seven minutes later, the young hall boy appeared, rubbing his eyes with one fist and clutching the sputtering stub of a candle in the other.

“Yessir?” His voice was slurred, sleepy, but still properly deferential. He bowed clumsily as he spoke.

William did not bother with preliminaries. He reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew Buffy’s choker. “Do you see this?” he asked the hall boy.

The boy did not seem to know quite what to make of this question, but he answered it nonetheless. “Yes, sir. I do, sir.”

“I found it in the garden. I want you to have a look at it.”

The boy gaped at him, clearly bewildered as to why this was necessary at four o’clock in the morning. Yet he took the pendant when William held it out to him, and he dutifully examined it before handing it back.

“I’ve never seen it before, sir, though I could ask around if you like. Some of the others might well have—”

“That won’t be necessary. I want you to say nothing to them about it, do you understand?”

Though he clearly did not understand, the boy nodded. What else could he do?

“Good,” William said briefly. “You may go now. Leave the candle.”

With another quick bow, the boy stumbled off, groping his way back down the dark hallway. William waited until he had gone before allowing himself to smile.

Well! As bizarre as Buffy’s tales of time travel were, they were beginning to appear downright plausible. After all, it was not only him now. The servant boy had seen the necklace—he had held it, acknowledged it—and that must mean it was real. It must mean that.

The whole world couldn’t be mad.

Could it?

IX




The following day William slept until noon, delaying the midday meal by almost an hour, for he refused to rush his toilet just for the convenience of the servants. When he finally sat down at the table, he grimaced wryly at what they placed before him: oxtail consommé and eggs in aspic, blancmange and tea so hot with ginger it scalded one’s throat, going down. Not that he had any particular aversion for such things, but the cook’s intentions were all too clear. Kitchen physics was what they were, foods full of substance and easy to stomach—in other words, perfect to tempt the appetite and foster the strength of the infirm. And he was infirm, wasn’t he? Dr. Long had applied the label when he gave William his death warrant, and it would follow him until the day they carried his wasted corpse to the churchyard. No doubt, the servants knew this and discussed it amongst themselves, and it would seem they had decided the best course of action would be to feed him well and keep him comfortable. After all, their prospects remained closely tied to his wellbeing. If he were to die—

Well, he would die. There was no question of that. The object of the game was to keep him animate—and in England—for as long as possible. It saved his staff the tedious task of finding new employment.

On the periphery of a dozen whispered conversations to that effect, William felt as though he should upbraid them. His health was none of the servants’ concern, and they were being downright insolent to speak of it. However, admonishing their gossip, their pity, would first mean acknowledging he had noticed it, and that was beneath him. Moreover, he was finding it difficult to muster any genuine interest in the matter. Hopeless as his situation was, that morning he felt too consumed by pleasant subjects to trouble with the unpleasant ones. Pleasant subjects, of course, being all those concerning Buffy Summers.

Her necklace was in his watch pocket, just below his heart. Every so often, he put his hand to it just to reassure himself that it was real.

He did not feel hungry, but that was hardly surprising. The laudanum would have curbed his appetite even if his illness had not. Nevertheless, he forced himself to eat, swallowing the food whole and without really tasting it. He knew he would grow weaker if he did not take better care to nourish himself, and the thought of it suddenly frightened him. She was not a dream, and that meant he needed his strength in order to meet with her. That night and the following night and every single night afterward he must meet her; he refused to allow a small matter like his own terminal illness to thwart him in this endeavor.

How different things seemed today! If her reality did not give him a reason to live, at the very least it offered him a reason not to die, and he felt his spirits shift accordingly. He was happy—undeniably so—yet also restless and keen, not like himself at all. He felt captive in his impatience to see her again. He felt like a rabbit in a snare—like a dog fighting against a tether—and it left him irritable and quick to snap at those beneath him. The staff, not wanting to provoke him, determined to keep well away until he called for them.

But he didn’t call for them.

In the afternoon, he took to the gardens and the orchard, annoying the gardeners, who of course must stop what they were doing and bow whenever he passed them. He ignored them entirely, focusing instead on the hoof prints in the grass, the small, shallow indentations where her feet had trod. Part of him thought if he just paced long enough she would come to him in spite of the early hour. She had never done such a thing before, but her necklace lay secreted in his waistcoat pocket yet, and if any man was capable of bringing a woman into being through sheer force of will, he would have surely managed it.

Of course, he did not manage it because it was not possible, but it took him a while to accept that fact.

After dinner (bread-and-butter and beef tea, which he insisted upon eating in the garden) he sat in the sun-warm grass at the base of the wall to brood. Why, he wondered, did she insist upon only visiting him in the night? Was there some unnamed difficulty keeping her away? Would she come right now, if only she were able to do so? He knew she could not care for him in any romantic sense, but was she fond enough of him to miss him when they were apart? Was she thinking of him now, just as he was thinking of her, and wishing for darkness to fall so they could meet?

He laughed a little at the last, and then gave a beleaguered groan. For he knew full well she could not be possessed of the same single-minded devotion he himself felt. No woman could. Not for him.

She comes and goes just as she pleases, and I must wait for her. All my day, I am waiting. I couldn’t call my soul my own at this point—

Yet, on further reflection, he couldn’t say he minded. His soul was something he did not value very highly and it was nice, in a way, to have her so entrammel it. He had never completely belonged to anyone before.

Well, no. That was not strictly true. There had been another. Just the one and it had not lasted very long, but it had been no less genuine because it was ill fated. Much as he might like to, he could not deny its existence.

This fancy felt different somehow, more consuming, but he could not imagine it ending any better than its predecessor. He might have been foolish, but he was not a glutton for punishment, and previous experience had taught him well. Never again would he attempt to make a woman love him; never again would he hope for it. Buffy Summers hadn’t any idea how he felt about her, and he was glad of that. He would be clever this time around, and give the object of his ardor no indication of his real feelings, no ammunition with which to hurt him. He would be strong.

Nevertheless—

Oh, why did she keep coming here? If only he knew the reason, he was sure it would not be so difficult to keep his emotions in check. He could not believe her motives were as simple as she claimed. Surely, a woman would not make such an effort as to travel across the decades just to spend time with—what was it she had called him?—a different version of a man she once knew.

And what is the meaning of that, anyway? How could she have known any version of me? Even the healthiest of men could not live a hundred and fifty-five years. Yet she could not have meant she knew some strange reborn likeness, some transmigration of my soul, for she knows too many details about me, and my current life. Surely, that must indicate—

What, precisely? He hadn’t a clue, and as he sat trying to work it out, a young woman suddenly appeared on the garden path before him.

William startled and for a moment his heart beat fast, but the sun-backed apparition wasn’t Buffy. It was one of the under maids, and clutched in her hand were two oblongs of stiff paper—calling cards, of course.

Now, William rarely had callers. He climbed to his feet, trying to mask his surprise as he asked the girl, “What is it?”

“Sir,” she answered timidly, dropping a curtsy. “I’m terrible sorry to disturb you, but there’s some people wish to—”

“Your manner of speech is atrocious,” he interrupted. Rather unkindly, but it was a pet peeve of his and he was annoyed by the intrusion. When she offered no response, he snapped his fingers and held out his hand.

The top card was white and plain, with nothing but the name, The Reverend Samuel Pleasance, inscribed in stark black ink. William shifted it to the bottom with little more than a cursory glance. The other card was larger than the first, pale yellow, and ornamented by any number of vibrant chromo flowers. The printed text was elaborate: a feminine script with so many swirls and curlicues deciphering the name was almost impossible. Yet William did not have to read it to know its owner must be Isabelle Pleasance. The unmarried sister of the equally unmarried clergyman, Isabelle lived with Samuel and kept his house. As part of this role, she often accompanied him on his missions of mercy about the village.

William assumed that was what brought them here this evening: a mission of mercy, two pious neighbors hoping to offer a bit of comfort to a dying man. Undoubtedly, they would be the first in a long line of altruistic well-wishers. He hadn’t attended services the previous Sunday, and news traveled quickly in a small place such as this. The whole village probably knew of his condition by now, and they would all come by to catch a glimpse of him as he rotted.

He shoved the cards back at the maid with a sour expression.

“You may tell them I’m not in,” he said.

The girl bobbed a quick curtsy. “Yes sir. Only—” she hesitated.

“Well, what?”

“If it makes a difference to you, it’s just Miss Pleasance and her girl servant. The vicar ain’t with them.”

That gave him pause. The vicar remained single for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which being his corpulent physique and hideous countenance; Isabelle, however, was rather good-looking. Not altogether beautiful, perhaps, and she was getting on. But even at twenty-nine, she was lissome and pretty, with dark hair and bright blue eyes. She had always seemed kind enough, and there were times in church when the vicar’s words had bored him and his eyes had sought her out, just to have something to look at. Perhaps, she’d done the same and found him pleasing? There were Sundays when she had smiled at him very warmly.

The thought made him flush, but only for a moment. He was being absurd. She had most likely heard of his illness from the doctor’s wife and, being a dutiful Christian, decided to visit the poor invalid as an act of charity. Well, he didn’t need her charity, or her pity. He didn’t want it. He had—

Buffy

—himself.

He glared at the maid. “Did I not tell you to say I’m gone?”

“You did, sir.”

“Then leave me and do so!”

She fled and he dropped back onto the grass, feeling oddly satisfied with himself. All he had ever wanted in London was to belong, for polite society to hold him in high regard, and he had worked tirelessly to that end. Yet in spite of his most strenuous efforts—in spite of his money and his reputation and his fine family name—something had always held him apart from his peers. Long before he realized the extent of their ridicule, he had known they didn’t admire him. It had been a terribly painful thing to acknowledge back then, but now he found he did not care if Westbury society admired him. In a perverse fashion, he almost felt he would rather they did not. What good was it for them to be friendly to him now, when there could be no future in it?

A quarter of an hour passed and then the maid returned, this time with a short, handwritten note from Miss Pleasance. In it, she expressed her sympathy for him in his illness and her desire to help him in any way he might deem possible. She begged him to call on her or send for her whenever he felt it prudent to do so. It was an amiable and very sincere little missive, full of tender overtures for friendship from one lonely soul to another. In another lifetime, William might have been touched. He might even have found the courage to respond.

In this lifetime, he uncorked his laudanum and only skimmed the letter before crumpling it in his hand. The sun was low on the horizon, and she would be here soon. He had neither the time nor the inclination to consider lesser idols. His heart was full.

Eyes closed, he lifted the bottle to his lips and drank.

X





The first time he fell in love, it was during the weekly gathering of the Greater London Gentlemen’s Literary Guild. He had been a member for several months at that point, but he rarely participated in the lively discussions for which it was known. In truth, he had not wanted to join the club at all, but the president had been a business associate of his father and was, by all accounts, still a “friend of the family.” According to William’s mother, it would have been both rude and ungrateful not to accept the invitation.

Still, if she could badger him into attending, she could not force him to speak. Membership was limited to men only, and without Anne there to goad him, William spent most of his time cloistered in a distance corner, listening to the conversation but making no effort to contribute to it. The other gentlemen rarely tried to entice him. Under the sharp eye of their leader, they were unfailingly polite. However, it was obvious they found William’s behavior off-putting, and they avoided his corner as though social awkwardness was a disease that might be catching. It was just as well.

The topic on that particular evening was John Keats, and the general consensus seemed to be that he was an overrated sop. William did not agree with this assessment at all, but he felt too shy to say anything. He sat fiddling with his teacup and trying very hard to pretend he was invisible, until suddenly a voice said heartily, “Well now! I do believe we’ve offended Miss Underwood!”

William’s eyes lifted from his cup. The “Miss” to which the speaker referred was the Guild president’s daughter, Cecily. Of Arthur Underwood’s three girls, she was the only one old enough to help play hostess during social affairs, and aside from her mother, she was the only female in the room. Just then, she was standing at Walter Rathbone’s elbow, frozen in the act of freshening his tea. As the gentleman had noted, she did seem offended.

“Do you feel we are being unfair to Mr. Keats, Miss Underwood?” Walter asked. His tone was properly deferential, but predictably condescending. Daughter of the host or not, she was, after all, only a woman.

Cecily blushed but answered stoutly, “Your only complaint against him seems to be his romanticism.”

“Is that not enough?”

“I should think not, when his verses are so beautiful—so—so full of genuine feeling—”

“No doubt he wrote some truly exceptional lines, my dear,” Victor Chattoway said finally, speaking for Walter, who by now was looking rather stunned. “Yet you must concede that for the most part he is too steeped in sentimentality. For the modern male reader, examining his works is rather like wandering through an endless maze of rose trees—all perfume and no purpose, you might say.”

“Which is precisely why a woman would find him appealing,” Daniel Reade put in, completely disregarding Cecily, who had looked as though she were about to speak.

The other gentlemen laughed—the conversation moved on as before—and poor Cecily was left standing red-faced and forgotten with a half-filled teapot in her hand. After a moment’s pause, she gave a sigh and resumed her duties without another word.

Later, when William was making ready to leave, Cecily fetched his hat and coat for him.

“You’re leaving so soon,” she said politely, as she saw him to the door.

“Oh, yes. I—I always leave early, a poor habit.”

“I thought perhaps you were ill.”

“Not inordinately. Miss Underwood—” This last he said with some urgency, for she had begun to retreat.

“Yes, Mr. Pratt?”

“Nothing—only—I wanted to tell you that you were right. About Mr. Keats, that is. I quite agree with you.”

“Do you?” Despite the open door and his supposed intention of leaving, she lingered before him, looking suddenly interested. “You like Mr. Keats’s poetry?”

“I do, of course. Endymion—The Fall of Hyperion—they are among my very favorites.”

“‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever,’” Cecily quoted, and in the instant before she turned away, she smiled at him.

It was only a small exchange and likely of no real importance. Nonetheless, it was enough. For all the rest of that year, his heart wasn’t his own.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




“Oh, God. Please tell me you’re not lying there dead from last night’s concussion.”

Buffy’s voice—full of genuine concern—startled him awake at once, but it was a least another minute before William could see where it was coming from. His eyes felt swollen and hot, the lids painfully dry. Even when he opened them, it seemed as though the world would never come into focus.

His fingers closed around clumps of dewy grass and he willed the unsteady landscape to stop rocking beneath him. He felt so dizzy he feared he might be ill. Had he really taken so much laudanum?

“I suppose I must have fallen asleep,” he said finally. Hardly a courteous greeting, but given that his brain currently felt like a mound of wet cotton, he was relieved he could speak at all. The inside of his mouth tasted sour, like cherries gone to rot, and his head was heavy. He did not bother trying to sit up—he hadn’t the strength—but he turned his face a little to one side lest his breath offend her.

If it did, she gave no indication. She was leaning over him, her elbows in the grass on either side of his shoulders. Her back was arched and her face just an inch or so away, and although she wasn’t touching him, somehow he felt trapped, lodged between her body and the damp earth, walled in by the silky hair that fell on each side of her face—and by virtue of their proximity, on each side of his own. He wondered why he liked it so, the feeling of being beneath her. He wondered if it meant something was wrong with him. Should not men prefer to subjugate women?

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Her fingertips grazed his temple, brushing the hair aside to expose an injury he didn’t even remember suffering.

“You’re late.” The words came out harsher than he intended, almost accusatory, but she did not seem insulted.

“Am I late? I guess I didn’t realize we had a schedule to follow.”

“It’s dawn soon. You normally don’t wait so—and I thought—”

The resentment in his tone was too strong for her to ignore. She sighed. “I know it’s late, William. I’m sorry. I got held up by something really unpleasant—not to mention totally unavoidable.”

Her manner of speech was not much more refined than that foolish maid’s, but it never occurred to him to feel annoyed. She shifted her weight slightly, laying a hand against his rumpled shirtfront in a cajoling sort of way—but lightly, as if she knew too much pressure would cause him to cough.

“You aren’t mad at me, are you?”

Anger was long gone by then, but he could not quite bring himself to tell her so. He liked the apologetic expression in those green eyes. Trivial as it was, he liked having the power to make her feel remorse. If he could do that, it must mean she cared about him at least a little.

He looked down at her hand and wondered if she could feel the frenetic throb of his heart, the strange liquid rattle that was just beginning to plague his breathing. If she did, would she realize what it meant? Unable to bear the thought of her pitying him, he covered her fingers with his own and attempted to pry them away. Unfortunately, she misunderstood his motive and refused to budge. He couldn’t force her. She really had extraordinary strength for a woman.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that.” She dropped her head against the crook of his shoulder, whispering her next words into the side of his neck as though they were a secret. “I brought you a present, so you can’t keep being mad at me. It isn't good manners.”

A present. Did she mean a gift? He tried to muster some curiosity, but it was difficult with her practically straddling him in that fashion. His thoughts were—elsewhere.

“What on earth are you thinking about?” Because he still hadn’t spoken a full minute later. He was lying with his eyes half-closed, completely oblivious to her bewilderment.

“I was thinking…you smell lovely…”

Not at all what he had intended to say, but he could tell she was flattered from the way her flesh warmed against him. Her fingertips played along the knot of his tie, the buttons of his shirt, though she seemed very careful not to disturb any of it.

“And what do I smell like?” She lifted her head until her mouth lay almost against his ear, and he could not quite stop himself from squirming.

“I—I couldn’t say, exactly—but—it’s exquisite—” The fingers of his left hand were splayed across her nape now, though he hadn't the faintest idea how they had gotten there. For a single, foolish moment, he thought about doing what every aching nerve in his body was pleading for him to do. He thought about telling her.

Then he remembered what happened the last time he confessed his feelings to a woman, and he knew he could not.

Instead, he forced a completely insincere laugh and said, “I thought you said you had a gift for me. Where is it?”

It came as a relief when she finally drew away. At least that was what he told himself while he waited for his erection to subside.

Meanwhile, she was fiddling with a lopsided bundle tied to the back of her saddle. It was large and unwieldy, and if the horse’s reaction when she unfastened it was anything to go by, it must have been quite heavy, too. However, Buffy lifted it with apparent ease and swung it over her shoulder.

"Okay," she called as she walked back over. “Before I can give you what’s in here I need you to promise me you won’t show it to anyone.”

“I wouldn't dream of it,” he swore. Nevertheless, he blushed. He couldn't help but remember her necklace, which he had not only stolen but also shown to someone. Just a servant boy, but somehow he doubted she would approve.

If his expression betrayed his guilt, Buffy did not appear to notice it. She opened the top of the bundle and upended it, dumping its contents onto the ground beside him.

Books. A great many of them judging by the looks of it. He stared up at her in confusion.

“Well, don’t look at me like that,” she said. “They’re not going to bite you.”

Perhaps not, but they were certainly not like any books he had ever seen. They had pasteboard bindings and shiny paper jackets ornamented with photographs. Color photographs no less. He hadn’t known such things even existed.

She was watching him carefully. “You can touch them, you know. In fact, if you want to be really adventurous you might even try reading a couple.”

“Forgive me. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s only…” His voice trailed away as he began sorting through the volumes. The pre-dawn light was dim, and he had to squint to see them properly. They had titles like The Late Victorian Era 1870—1901, A History of the 20th Century, Chronicles of the 20th Century, Great Moments in World History, and The Dawning of the New Millennium. He glanced over at Buffy as she sat down beside him, but she merely shrugged.

“Don’t feel obligated to read them if you aren’t interested. I just thought you might want to know a little bit about where I come from. It’s a crazy world, but—”

“You’re sharing it with me.”

“Something like that.” Her smile was wistful and tender, full of enough warmth to break his heart. William couldn’t look at it.

Instead, he looked back down at the books. Out of half a dozen volumes, only one stood apart. It had no jacket, just a plain blue binding with a few words embossed across the front in black. He traced his fingertips over the lettering as he read the title.

The Complete Poems
E.E. Cummings
1904-1962

“Poetry?”

“Just the one. I know you said you don’t write poetry, but you seem like a guy who might still enjoy reading it. If you don’t—”

“No,” he said quickly. “I do. I like it.”

“Good.” She reached out to touch the cover, placing her fingers where his had been only a second before. “I think you’ll like this guy. I like him, and I’m not even all that big on poetry. We studied him in school.”

“School?”

“College. Freshman year—my only year, actually—I took Introduction to Poetry.”

He tried not to let his surprise show. “And did you enjoy it?”

“I did. I mean, I wasn’t going to run out, buy a black turtleneck, and start beating bongo drums at the local coffeehouse…but I liked it.”

“What was your favorite?”

“My favorite kind was haiku, because it's short. But I guess in terms of real poetry my favorite would be…” She pulled the book from his grasp and began hastily flipping pages. She looked so eager William didn’t have the heart to tell her haiku was real poetry.
A minute later, she passed the book back to him with one page dog-eared.

He read the verse carefully—read it twice, in fact, because the poet’s style was so unique, so unlike anything he had ever seen, it took him a second reading to understand. When he looked at her again, his eyes were wet.

“That’s extraordinary.”

“I know,” she answered. “It is.”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




She would not visit the next night.

Buffy didn’t tell him this until she was about to leave. Perhaps she had thought he would take it badly. Frankly, he did. He watched her mount her horse in the red light of the sunrise and he insisted, “But you must!”

“But I can’t,” she repeated. She gathered her reins and looked at him, and even his poor self-esteem couldn’t refute the genuine regret in her eyes. “It isn’t my fault, William. I have a job to do, and I’ve been slacking off too much as it is. Trust me when I say I have people telling me that every day. I need to—”

“You needn’t work. If it’s money you want, I could give you—” He felt almost ashamed to offer, but she didn’t take it in the wrong spirit. As a matter of fact, she laughed.

“Thank you, but I'm not doing it for money. It isn’t that kind of job. It’s—” She hesitated.

“What?”

“Well, it’s important. People need me.”

I need you! He would not have said it for anything in the world, but the thought was there. The terrible, weak, desperate thought—

He sighed.

“If you are depended upon, I suppose you must go.”

“And it’s only for the one night.”

“Yes.”

“Please don’t look at me like that.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he answered stiffly. But he was lying. He did know, and it produced the very result he desired: she climbed off the horse.

“William...” She was standing so close he could feel the heat from her skin. He could smell that delicious, intoxicating scent—

“What?” he breathed.

She picked up the bag of books from the ground and flung it against his chest, almost knocking him flat.

“Stop being such a manipulative ass and go home!”

There seemed to be little else to say after that. He went.

XI









Two full days without her.



Forty-eight hours.



Two thousand, eight hundred and eighty minutes.



One hundred seventy-two thousand, eight hundred seconds.



Should he have known that? He probably shouldn't have known that. It was obsessive and more than a little bit pathetic to break his loneliness down into increments, to catalogue each one as it passed. Even knowing this, he could not bring himself to stop. The propensity for mindless infatuation being, of course, very much a part of his nature. What was the old adage about what was bred in the bone coming out in the flesh? Well, all one had to do was look at his own family history to see where that bit of eccentricity originated.



He wondered if she thought of him while they were apart.



She would not miss him, of course. He could never have hoped for that. But did she consider him at all during that seemingly endless absence? Did she wonder if he was reading her books and was she curious about his reaction to them? With characteristic pessimism, he doubted he entered into her thoughts at all. He was an amusement for her, a curiosity, but interesting only so long as he was standing before her. If she truly had any depth of feeling for him, she would not have insisted on a separation. She would not have been able to bear the thought of one.



William bore it with very poor grace indeed.



It rained on Wednesday, confining him to the house when he would have preferred to sit in the garden, the orchard. All day long, the servants hovered over him. They annoyed him with their questions, their constant offers of assistance. He knew they were merely concerned, but the intrusive, noisy presence made his head ache. He gathered his laudanum bottle and the bag containing Buffy's books and shut himself in the study. He wanted to be alone, to be quiet, but all afternoon they knocked on the door, calling through it to ask him if there was anything he needed.



He was needful.



Was that not what Walter Rathbone once said? A late June evening in Hampstead, the air dense and heavy in the face of an impending storm. Allan Priest was having his annual Midsummer Night party, a ludicrously pagan affair involving bonfires, fancy dress, and inordinate quantities of champagne. Cecily was in attendance, of course, as ladylike as ever but a little silly with the general merriment of the occasion. She wore a jeweled tiara and a mask made of dark blue silk; her gown had silver stars embroidered about the hem. He had wanted to talk about poetry, to ask her if she enjoyed the book he lent her the week before, but she brushed him off. Not cruelly, but in an offhanded way, as though he were an interfering child or an annoying dog. He stood on the edge of the croquet field, dejected and confused, and watched her go.



He certainly looks intent upon it, an unfamiliar voice said from somewhere in the game behind him.



Well, she won't have him and that's a mercy for her, Walter had answered. God help the woman who does take William Pratt, a man so needful he requires his mother's care at the age of thirty.



The two men laughed and said even more as they played through, but that was the word that stuck in his mind: needful. Requiring a mother's care even at the age of thirty.



Damn them. Did they really think he had chosen the life he led? He loved his mother, but he had not wanted to remain with her forever, a perpetual child. She needed him. That was the thing no one understood, the credit he never received. He was taking care of her. She had clung to him after his father died. He didn't blame her for it; he was all she had left. It was not so terrible when he was young and most of his days were spent locked in the hell that was Eton and, later, Christ Church. Back then, it was a relief to escape into a mother's loving arms. It was only later, when he was full grown and desirous of his own identity that those embraces became confining. By then her illness was apparent and she needed him more than ever. What choice did he have but to care for her? Did they expect him to abandon her in a sanatorium or leave her to the tender mercies of some half-witted home nurse? He could not do that. She was his mother and he loved her. Was it wrong for him to do his duty uncomplainingly and free of resentment toward her?



Two years later, he still found himself clenching his jaw, furious with the injustice of it. Yet he could not help but wonder how Buffy Summers might perceive those actions. Would she consider him loyal and loving, the ideal son? Or, would she see it as his own peers had, as a sign of weakness and effeminacy? How did men behave in her place and time? What was expected of them?



William looked for answers in the books she had given him, but he did not find them. The newer volumes seemed more focused on technology than anything, except for perhaps sex. Good God, with all the premarital, extramarital, and post marital relations going on it was a wonder they had time for anything else. War, for instance. There was a lot of that as well. Her world seemed to him a very violent place, and he could not help but wonder if this might be why she visited him. How strange it was to consider that his life—his narrow, suffocating, unhappy little world—might actually seem like an escape to someone like her.



He browsed through every volume, but he could not bring himself to finish even one. The events they relayed were too disheartening, the photographs and descriptions sickeningly graphic. Even the first volume, the one about his present time, seemed filled with nothing but horror stories. One chapter, cheerfully entitled "England's White Death," talked about consumption. William didn't realize it at first, for the author called it something else, but midway through he caught on. He would have liked to finish it, to see how it all turned out, but he was too afraid of the ending to do so. He was afraid of where it would lead him.



Shaken, he set the history books aside and took up the poetry instead. Here was something that would not worry him, he thought. Here was something recognizable. True, some of the verses were candid to the point of vulgarity, but they still felt safe. They still described emotions with which he was familiar. More importantly, she had read this collection. She had liked it, carried it with her for an entire semester at University. Her name was inscribed on the inside cover in blue ink and her fingertips had smudged some of the pages. It was hers, and that fact alone made it worthy of his attention.



He read her favorite poem until he had it memorized, until he could lay the open book across his chest and recite it with his eyes closed. He did that, and imagined what it might be like to whisper the verses into her ear, her hair, her skin. For two long days, he did nothing else. It was raining out, and the extra measure of laudanum he took to calm his nerves left him feeling sluggish and ill. She would not visit him. No one would. What else had he to do but dream?



~*~ ~*~ ~*~









She was, of course, terribly put out by his lack of progress with the books.



He had expected this, so it came as no surprise when she reproached him. After all, she would not have given them to him if she did not intend for him to read. What stung was that she made this the sole focus of her visit. They hadn't seen each other for two days (which might as well have been an eternity, if you wanted to know his opinion on the matter), and now all she could talk about was his laziness, his poor attitude, and his lack of intellectual curiosity. He had known all along his fantasies about their reunion were outlandish, and he had not actually expected her to embrace him or tell him she missed him. But would it have been too much to ask her to show a little enthusiasm? Could she not take a single moment to greet him properly before turning her attention to those damnable books?



"I'm afraid I didn't realize the matter was of such importance," he said stiffly, once she finally stopped to take a breath. "I suppose from now on I should follow your syllabus to the exclusion of everything else in my life."



Like the business of dying. He did not say this aloud, but the thought was there.



Of course, Buffy didn't know he was dying; she did not even know he was ill. To her, his moodiness seemed like little more than an exercise in self-indulgence, and she rolled her eyes at him as though he were a five-year-old in the middle of a tantrum.



"I thought you wanted to know everything about me," she said.



"Yes. About you. Those books are not about you." He favored her with a sullen glance. "You refuse to tell me anything at all about your life, including your reasons for coming here. I know nothing of who you are or what you do."



Buffy could hardly argue with him on that point. Still, she seemed eager to justify her actions. She swore she would tell him everything he wanted to know; she just needed to be certain he was ready first. That was why the books were so necessary. They were meant to prepare him, to help him understand.



"And did you finish even one of them?" she demanded, returning to her original train of thought. "Did you try—?"



"I finished the poetry." Normally, William would not have been so rude as to interrupt, but he suddenly felt too tired to listen to further diatribes. He sat down on the ground at her feet and rested his aching head against his hand.



"I'm not so lazy as you think," he muttered into his palm. "I did try reading the others. I started them all. It was just a lot to take in, particularly over two days' time. "



She softened a bit at that. "You're right. It is a lot to take in. I shouldn't have asked you to..."



"Pray don't," he said. "It's all right." But it wasn't, not really, and Buffy must have known that. She dropped down onto the grass beside him.



"Well, at least tell me what you thought of the poetry."



He answered without lifting his head, without even glancing over at her. "It was terribly vulgar in places."



"Only in places?"



William heard the amusement in her tone and he resented it, but he struggled to be just when he answered. "Only in places. Some of it was rather beautiful."



He could feel her watching him, studying his face with an intensity that made him uncomfortable. Cool as the night air was, his cheeks were fever-flushed and his forehead glazed with a thin sheen of sweat. His skin felt hot, yet he shivered inside his woolen coat. He wondered if there was any possibility she might fail to notice this. His illness was a secret he did not care to share, not with her. Not just yet.



"I think 'in time of daffodils' was my favorite," he said, partly to distract her and partly because it was true.



"Oh, yeah?" She shifted a little nearer to him, her elbow coming to rest in the crook of his own. "Why is that?"



"Because you said it was your favorite, and I like being reminded of you."



"Oh, William..." The raw tone of her voice startled him and he lifted his head to look at her. At that moment, her affection seemed a tangible thing. He felt as if he could have reached out and stroked it; he felt as if he could have cradled it against his heart. Yet she looked sad, too, and full of a terrible sense of indecision.



"What is—" he began. She interrupted him before he could finish.



"I guess you'll be going to London soon."



"London?" he echoed in surprise.



"You have a house there, don't you? In Kensington?"



Now, how would she know that?



"I did own a house in Kensington at one time, but not any longer."



"You sold it?"



He nodded. "After my mother died. I didn't want to live there anymore."



"Oh, I don't blame you for that," she told him. "I wouldn't have either."



She thought he meant he did not want to live where his mother had died, William realized. He didn't attempt to disabuse her of the notion. Instead, he focused on fielding her next question.



"But you go back sometimes, right? Even just to visit?"



"I shall never go back." His vehemence appeared to startle her, and he took care to lower his voice a few decibels before adding, "I despise London."



"Why?" Buffy asked. He lifted his eyebrows and she laughed, taking his point. "Okay...okay...you're right. It isn't fair for me to ask questions when I won't answer them. How about we trade?"



"Trade?"



"Trade questions," she explained. "You can tell me why you hate London and then I'll tell you something about myself. How does that sound?"



It sounded rather ridiculous to him, but William knew nothing could be gained from telling her so. He said instead, "The people in London...they aren't people with whom I care to socialize. They aren't...kind."



"Someone was being unkind to you there?" He opened his mouth to protest and she added hastily, "It's all part of the same question."



"All right, if you insist on knowing. Yes. Someone was unkind to me. Several someones, actually, and on a fairly regular basis."



"Women?"



"One woman. And that makes three."



"Three parts," she argued. "Not three separate questions."



"Still..." He reached beneath his spectacles to rub his eyes.



"Fine. You can ask me something similarly involved and then we'll call it even."



"All right." He shot out the question almost before he knew what he wanted to ask. "The—version—of me you say you knew before, what was the nature of your relationship with him?"



"We were...friends."



"Only friends? Yet, you come to me because—"



"Not this," she broke in quickly. "We can't talk about this. Not yet."



"Why not?"



"Because I don't want to!"



That struck him as rather unfair, but no argument in the world would change her mind now. He knew; he tried. "Just pick another topic," she insisted. And, because her stamina for debate greatly exceeded his own, he eventually did.



"Very well. Tell me something of your life."



"Like what?" she asked.



He gave a lofty shrug. "I scarcely feel equal to choosing. After all, I know absolutely nothing about you."



"Well, try."



If she were any other woman, he might have commented on her disagreeable tone; but Buffy looked well capable of striking out, and it seemed impolitic to provoke her further. Far better he should ask his question while he had the chance than waste time testing her patience.



He gave the matter some consideration. Then, "You said you are employed in a trade of some type. It was why you were unable to visit last night. What do you do?"



"Oh..." Buffy bit her lip, clearly not liking this line of inquiry much better than the first one. "Actually, it really isn't a trade so much as a calling."



"Like motherhood," he suggested.



Buffy shot him an annoyed glance. "God, no. Not even a little bit."



"What then? What is it you actually do?"



"I protect people," she said. "I make the world a better place..."



"Go on." For she had hesitated, and he sensed her courage might be about to fail.



"I do it by killing vampires."



Clearly, she expected this revelation to result in some kind of extreme reaction on his part, but the only thing William could think to say was, "Oh."



"Seriously?" She looked incredulous. "I tell you I'm a vampire slayer and that is your response?"



He thought about it for a moment. "I suppose I do have one more question, if I may."



"By all means."



"No doubt you will think me very foolish for asking," he said. "But what exactly is a vampire?"

XII




There came a long pause in which he could measure her displeasure, her disappointment. Then, like a mask slipping into place, she suddenly smiled. "You know what a vampire is, William."

Despite its false good humor, her tone sounded definite almost to the point of insistence. She sounded as though she were trying to convince him of it. William wished she could convince him of it, for he wanted to please her. More than anything in the world, he wanted to please her. It was only that...

"Forgive me. Truly, I don't."

The expression on her face when he said it made him wince. She looked so troubled, so anxious. Yet she struggled against it, fought it down, and when it was gone, it was almost as though it had never been there at all. She said again, "Oh, you know. Vampires. Like Count Dracula."

"Dracula," he echoed, trying out the word. It seemed no more familiar in his mouth than in hers. She was watching him carefully.

"Actually, scratch that. Forget about Dracula. Come to think of it, Bram Stoker won't be writing that for a few years yet. How about Carmilla?"

He shook his head.

"Varney the Vampire?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Huh." She settled back against the heels of her hands, frowning thoughtfully.

"Perhaps I am not so learned in these matters as you assume," William said quickly, trying his best to gratify her. "If you would be so kind as to describe what manner of creature you mean, I am sure it would be known to me. The name is merely an unfamiliar one."

She looked skeptical. "To be honest, they aren't that easy to describe. I'm afraid you might not be—"

"Please," he interrupted. Then, when she looked at him, "Please. I don't ask a lot of you."

"That's true. You don't." She sighed. "All right then, if you insist. Vampires are these things—monsters, I guess you would call them—that come out after the sun goes down. They survive by drinking blood and—"

"The blood of men do you mean?"

Buffy seemed unreasonably annoyed by this question. "Men and women," she answered. "They mostly go for whichever sex turns them on. Of course, a really hungry one will take what it can get, even down to animal blood."

"And are they animals?" She was being frightfully vague, and he was having trouble imagining such creatures. Every time he tried, all he could picture was stoats raiding a chicken coop.

"No, they aren't animals. They're more like...well, like people infected with parasites. Evil, bloodthirsty parasites that steal their hosts' souls." She saw his blank look and struggled to explain. "See, what happens is a corpse gets taken over by a demon—"

"Good God!"

"Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself. What happens first is a vampire attacks a human. For example's sake, let's say it's a male vampire and the human he attacks is a woman. Anyway, he bites the woman and drinks her blood. Then, just as she's about to die, he cuts or bites himself and forces her to drink some of his blood. After that she becomes a vampire."

"Immediately?"

"Well, no. Most of the time it takes a couple of days."

William took a moment to digest this information.

"I see," he said finally. But he didn't see, not at all, and that could not have been any more obvious to her if he said it outright. She looked at him soberly.

"So, is any of this ringing any bells for you? Do you know the kind of creatures I'm talking about and maybe just refer to them by a different handle?"

"Handle?"

"Name."

"Oh." He wanted to say yes. He wanted to remove that fretful look from her face and see her smile. He wanted it so badly it amounted to an actual, physical pain. But he couldn't. It would have been a lie.

When he told her, she looked away, focusing her attention on the horse grazing a few feet away. He knew she must not want him to see her expression.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be. You didn't do anything wrong." Still, the words sounded hollow. He heard her whisper under her breath, "Trust me to land in the world without shrimp." Then she laughed so bitterly it frightened him.

"The—the world without shrimp?" he echoed. She turned back to him with a sigh.

"Oh, it's just a metaphor. Or an allegory. Whatever. I sucked at English literature and never learned the difference between them. But I'm not even going to pretend any of that will make sense to you."

Undoubtedly, she was right and he wouldn't understand, but it hurt somewhat to hear her say it. Men were supposed to be cleverer than women; they were supposed to know things women did not. Men were supposed to teach them. Yet here was Buffy Summers, explaining things to him as though he were a child, determining when she had reached his capability for understanding. It was not a little humiliating, and part of him longed to change the subject, to talk of matters with which he was familiar so that he might impress her. Yet another part, the part that had not yet been touched by laudanum, could not quite restrain its curiosity. Because if the things she told him were true, they were also extraordinary.

"These...vampires..." he began reluctantly, "You say they are corpses?"

She nodded.

"Do they look like men?"

"And women." She offered him a tiny smile. "Don't be a chauvinist and ignore the female bloodsuckers."

He thought about that for a bit.

"But if they look no different than the general populace, how on earth would one know who they are?"

"There are ways, trust me. When they get ready to bite somebody, they look different for a while. Also, they're a lot stronger than a regular person is. They're, like, The Incredible Hulk type of strong."

William had no notion what The Incredible Hulk might be, but he was willing to take her word for it that vampires were powerful. Nevertheless, there was one thing he could not quite understand.

"You say you kill these creatures," he said. "As you put it, you purge the world of them and make it a safer place. How do you manage that?"

"You mean what do I have to do in order to kill them?"

"No!" He wasn't at all sure he wanted to know that. "Rather, how are you capable of doing so? If they are as strong as you claim..."

"They are."

"Well, it is only that...what I mean to say is...you seem quite delicate." He found himself stumbling over his words, feeling suddenly confused. If only she weren't looking at him so oddly, with that mixture of amusement, irritation, and regret. If only he knew the right words to say to please her, which clearly he did not. William started to apologize—he felt as though he ought—then he remembered she did not like it.

He lapsed into a humiliated silence instead, and waited for her to make the next move.

"Delicate really isn't the word for what I am," she said finally.

William looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to elaborate. It seemed as though she might. He could see her hovering on the brink of her indecision, but at the last moment, she appeared to change her mind. She exhaled slowly, a sound so heavy with discontent it made his heart falter.

"If I knew..." he tried clumsily.

"Knew what?"

"What to say to please you. If I knew that, I should say it now. I do want—"

He couldn't go on, the words choked him, but somehow it did not seem to matter. He had a feeling she knew what he meant.

"Oh, William," she said. Then, with a little edge to her voice, "Oh, God."

"I've upset you."

"This whole damn situation upsets me. It has nothing to do with you."

What an absurd thing for her to say, William thought, when it very obviously had everything to do with him. Something he had done, or left undone, had let her down. She looked every bit as miserable and frustrated as he felt.

She did not, however, withdraw from the situation, as he would have done. As he tried to do. Instead, she reached out and touched his chest, tracing her fingertips along the line of his cravat and smoothing it down where it had come loose from his waistcoat. There was sadness in the gesture. There was sadness in her voice, too, when she said, "Tell me about your mother, William."

"My mother?"

"Yes. Tell me how she died."

His back tensed, although he did not quite pull away.

"I don't normally like to talk about that."

"No, I know. I wouldn't either. It's just that..." She hesitated.

"Just what?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Never mind. I know how you feel. I don't like talking about my mom either, about how she died. I shouldn't interrogate you."

No, she should not. His mother was a subject he refused to discuss with anyone. In the year since her death, he had not spoken her name aloud, and he certainly had not volunteered any information about her illness, not even to his doctor. He knew what would happen if he did. He knew what people would think of him.

It would have been the same with Buffy had it not been for the look in her eye, the gentleness of her touch, and the fact that he had taken more than his full measure of laudanum earlier in the evening. Heretofore he had always managed a certain amount of decorum in her presence—at least, he thought he had—but now his defenses were down and his natural inclination toward restraint utterly gone. He dropped his head down into his hands and told her the truth in a single, agonized gasp.

"I'm the reason my mother died, Buffy. I killed her."

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




The fingers of her right hand lay splayed across his shoulder, her palm resting just on top of his faintly beating heart. She did not pull it away at his confession, although her fingertips did press into his flesh a little more firmly as she asked him, "You did what now?"

William recognized his error almost immediately. Through no fault of her own, she had taken his words literally and now thought him guilty of something terrible. Her surprise was palpable, but oddly enough, she did not seem overly concerned. Confused and obviously quite taken aback, but not distressed. Not afraid of him.

Shouldn't she have been afraid of him?

William looked down at her hand on his chest. She thought him a murderer and still she desired to comfort him. Why?

He could not bring himself to ask her. It was all he could do to explain.

"I don't mean to say I did so intentionally. I was responsible, but I never meant to hurt her—"

"I know you didn't," she murmured. Then, even more gently, "Tell me what happened."

"It was because of Italy. I made her go there. She wanted to remain in England, but I forced her."

When he closed his eyes, he could see himself doing it. Forcing her. Hiding behind the pretense of following her doctor's orders when what he was really doing was pursuing his own selfish impulse, his desire to escape.

"Why did you force her?" Buffy's voice broke into his thoughts and he gave his head a slight shake. Yet he could not banish the echo of their laughter and mockery, of Cecily's dismissive words. Oh, that last was the worst of all. A gracious refusal he might have endured with equanimity, but to be so needlessly cruel about it...!

"I hate England." His voice was as harsh as his words, and trembling with poorly concealed rage. He added, "That is why I forced her to leave. I despise it here."

"I don't like it either," Buffy said. "It rains too much."

William looked up in surprise. Her tone was deadpan—she wasn't teasing him—yet her expression was one of extreme tranquility, as though she heard such confessions so frequently they had become commonplace.

He had expected disgust, or at the very least righteous indignation. Instead, he found only compassion. Her eyes were very soft, her voice very tender, when she asked about his mother's illness.

"She suffered from consumption. Do you know what that is?" She nodded and he continued, "Her doctor advised a move to a warmer climate for two or three years. I leapt at the chance to go. I gave no thought to what she wanted, and it killed her in the end."

"But if she was already sick, why would you think—?"

"Because she wanted to be here! She would have died regardless—I know that—but she wanted to die in London, in her own home. In Italy, she knew no one and she was miserable. She wished to die. A dozen times, she begged me to take her back to London; a dozen times, I might have obliged her. But I never would."

He waited for her to ask him why, but she did not. He was almost sorry she did not. It would have been a relief to tell. When she pointed out that everyone did things they later regretted, he shook his head wretchedly.

"Not to the people they love they do not."

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "Of course they do. Probably to the people they love more than to anyone else. I've done it."

That gave him pause. He swallowed and took a moment to pull himself together. Then he asked, "But to your own mother?"

"To my friends, who are practically family to me. I've hurt them, they've hurt me, and we all felt really sorry about it in the end. It's pretty much just human nature."

"Isn't that a rather awful prospect? That people must hurt each other even when they would not?"

"Maybe." Then, seeing his expression, "Probably. All right, yes. But that doesn't make it not true. No one is perfect, William, and what you did with your mother isn't any worse than what a lot of people do to their loved ones. I've known people who have done a lot worse—and were forgiven for it."

"Such as what?" he asked, but she shook her head. He drew a breath. "Well, it does not matter. I'm not likely to be forgiven anyway."

"If she weren't dead you would. I think you know that." She sounded so confident William felt his spirits begin to rally. After all, if she was able to know the worst of him...if it did not send her away...

He clumsily reached for her hand and, somewhat to his surprise, she suffered him to hold on to it. Yet her thoughts seemed very far away when she asked him, "After she died, what did you do?"

"Then I buried her, and I came home."

"Why did you come back? If you hate England..."

"I had to sell the house in London and settle some business matters. When I finally felt free to go, I found I hadn't the energy. I bought this property instead. I moved in and I waited."

"Waited for what?"

Waited to die.

That was the answer she was seeking, but William could not tell her so. If she knew he was ill, she might not visit him any longer. Anyway, the depression of spirit had come long before his prognosis, and that suddenly seemed a distasteful thing. Unmanly. He had divulged enough ugly secrets for one evening. His ill health, the ugliest one of all, could wait until another time.

He looked down at their clasped hands.

"You don't think less of me, I hope. You don't see me as a—a—"

"No, I don't," she interjected kindly. "I think you're a good man. I just think it's been too long since someone told you that, and you've started to forget."

A lump came into his throat at that. He swallowed hard, but couldn't say anything.

After a moment or two, she released his fingers with a little squeeze. The expression on her face when she glanced at the sky was one he knew well, one he had quickly come to dread.

"You're not leaving?"

She looked apologetic. "It's getting awfully late."

It was, too. The sky was beginning to fade from black to navy, and William knew his servants would be rising soon. Still...

"I wish you wouldn't go just yet. If you would like, we could have breakfast together."

Buffy smiled at him as she climbed to her feet. A wistful sort of smile, not at all like her usual.

"I would love that," she said, "but I really have to get back." She moved off in the direction of her horse, which was happily dismantling some of the rose trees within its reach. William watched her untie the animal and run down her irons. The same preparations to leave as every night, only now they left him feeling strangely gutted.

"You'll come tomorrow?" he asked her.

She paused, one hand on the pommel of her saddle, the other on her reins. She did not look at him when she gave her answer.

"Of course I will."

She was lying. He knew it even then.

XIII




"Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!" Máire Mullen gasped. She stared out the scullery window wide-eyed, one hand dropping against its ledge and the other hanging limply at her side.

Of course, she was not meant to be looking out the window at all, but one of her early morning duties included heating water for the kitchen, and the cook stove stood near enough to the window that she could gaze out while she worked. She usually managed to do so without calling attention to herself and her idleness, but this morning surprise had overtaken good sense. She leaned nearer to the glass, her small jaw dropping in an almost comical display of shock.

"What is it, Máire?" a voice asked from behind her. "What is the matter?"

Máire glanced over her shoulder. That was Bridget Mason talking, of course. Bridget lit the fires in the master's rooms and she was, at present, stooped over the coal bin in the corner, filling a scuttle to carry upstairs with her. She did not stop her work even when she spoke, but her eyes were fixed on Máire with keen interest.

"It's only the master coming across the lawn," answered Máire, with active relief. "Sure and he gave me a fright coming out of the dark like that."

"He's never been out this early?" Thunk, thunk, thunk, lumps of coal dropped into Bridget's scuttle. "It's not even dawn yet."

"He hasn't a hat and his coat is off one shoulder," Máire said, peering out. "I should say he's not been in."

"What, do you mean all night?"

"'Twouldn't be the first time." Máire glanced back at her water, startled to find that it was now bubbling out onto the stovetop. She dragged the kettle off the range, moving with such haste water lapped over the sides and splashed against the stone floor.

"You'll take a rag and see to your mess!" Bridget said shrilly. "You did the same yesterday and I had to wipe it away. I'll not do it again!"

"Am I to be scolded by you as well as Mrs. Hastings?" Máire asked in vexation. However, she set the kettle on the floor and took a clean rag from the basket by the stove.

"Do you mean the master has spent all night in the garden before?" With the puddles attended to, Bridget had become chatty once again.

Máire looked smug. "You mean to say you don't know about that, when you were the one who found his rooms empty in the first place? It was the morning after the doctor came. Mrs. Hastings and I came upon him in the garden, lying in the grass as if it were his own bed."

"Was he!"

"Upon my honor. Though he was coughing something terrible from the dampness and the night air."

Bridget hefted the now-full scuttle onto her arm, staggering a bit from its weight. "I heard nothing of that," she huffed, "only that he had been found."

"Naturally, Mrs. Hastings did not want there to be gossiping and storytelling." Máire seemed quite unconscious that this was what she was doing.

Bridget sighed. "He'll be wanting his fire if he's lain out all night," she said. "I suppose I must fly—"

"I should say you must," a third voice interjected. Then, even more severely, "And you, Máire Mullen. What must you being doing?"

Both girls startled violently at this, and Bridget nearly lost her coal altogether. Recovering herself quickly, she dropped a curtsy.

Mrs. Hastings, who was standing in the doorway with a disapproving frown on her face, did not acknowledge her. She was staring at Máire.

"Well," she said pointedly. Máire squirmed.

"I've heated the water and now I must take it to Cook," she murmured.

"Precisely. However, first you shall tell me just what it was that put you so behindhand."

"The master...he startled me. There at the window." She motioned with a jerk of her chin. "I happened to be gazing out and he took me by surprise. I was merely telling Bridget—"

"Never mind what you were telling Bridget. Go on with your work." Margaret glanced at Bridget, who was trying to make as unobtrusive an escape as possible, and added, "Both of you. Bridget Mason, do you know Sarah is upstairs doing her work with no fires lit? Get on quickly!"

Bridget hastened her departure considerably, Máire not too far behind her.

Margaret waited until they had gone. Then she flung open the scullery door and stepped out into the garden.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





Although he had been very near the back of the house when Máire first spotted him, by the time Margaret left the scullery the master was at the far end of the garden once more. He was walking swiftly, following the boundary of the low wall, and looking out over it into the orchard. A faint track worn in the grass showed just how long he had been at this, but presently he stopped and lowered himself onto a marble bench that sat nearby. His hunched shoulders were trembling, his head bowed. He did not appear to mark her approach.

"Sir," Margaret called softly. Then, hastening her footsteps, "Mr. Pratt!"

It still seemed odd to call him that, when in her mind he would always be William. The young master. He had been just thirteen years old when she took her place in the house, a shy youth and small for his years, just getting ready to begin his training at Eton. These days the Westbury servants thought him inflexible and unfeeling; they liked him only as well as the salary he provided. But they had not known him as Margaret had. They had no recollection of a sweet-tempered boy asking for another piece of gingerbread after dinner, or a young man sitting in the parlor, reading The Pickwick Papers aloud and laughing with his mother. They could not remember a man in his twenties, lovesick and hopeful, composing bits of poetry for a woman who would never care to read them.

If it had not been for his mother, Margaret thought, he might have turned out very differently. After all, he was bright, he was educated, and he had a remarkably kind nature; he might have done anything. But the mistress had clung to him much too tightly when her husband died, and she continued to cling for another twenty years. By the time she finally perceived what damage her stranglehold caused him, it was far too late to put it to rights. Not that she didn't try. Overcome by a desire to rectify her mistake, she pushed that poor retiring creature into society without a thought to how ill equipped he was to handle it. She could not understand it when he failed spectacularly in all his efforts, when his temper finally broke and he took all his frustrations—a lifetime of them—out on her. She felt betrayed by him then, no doubt, and their relationship never seemed the same afterward.

Certainly, he never seemed the same. Not the same gentle, well-intentioned man at all.

Still, hardened as he had become, the old sympathy, the affection for him, remained. When Margaret reached him, she touched a hand to his coat sleeve and spoke his name with exceeding tenderness.

He startled, moving so abruptly his elbow almost hit her in the face. She ducked.

"Mercy! I didn't mean to frighten you so—"

He stared at her, silent in his bewilderment. Behind the water-beaded glass of his spectacles, his eyes seemed distant and blurred, the pupils mere pin pricks in the dim, predawn light. Not for the first time, Margaret found herself silently cursing laudanum. If you asked her, the blasted stuff caused more harm than the illnesses for which it was prescribed. She sighed.

"You've been out all night, sir?" A silly question, given that she knew the answer to it before he even opened his mouth. The dew in his hair—his rumpled, dirty clothing—it gave him away. Besides which, this was the fourth morning Margaret had found him thus. Normally, he crept inside by way of the parlor door, escaping to his rooms just as the servants were rising. He had passed her in the corridor more than once, but he had not spoken. Neither had she. It was not her place to do so.

She realized he must have been meeting someone. No man left his bed, night after night, to wander abroad in the dark unless he had a purpose. Margaret had seen the hoof prints in the garden; she had heard the murmur of voices on the rare occasion she rose from her own bed to investigate at the window. It was too dark and they were too far off for her to see whom he was with, but Margaret thought it must be a woman. A fancy woman, no doubt, or else one of the low girls from the village—someone young and easy, and out to earn a few shillings off a gentleman. Still, she kept her peace. Men had their weaknesses, everyone knew that, and who was she to criticize him for indulging in them.

It did not appear to be doing him much good, however. He looked pale as a dead man.

"Are you feeling all right, sir?"

"Yes, fine." But there was an edge to his voice. When Margaret continued to stand by his side, he snapped impatiently, "What do you want?"

"Forgive me. It is only that...I was wondering...would you not prefer to come inside now."

"Inside to what?" he asked. Sullen now, resentful of the intrusion.

"Well, it's breakfast soon." She was coaxing, as one might have done to a child, or a madman. "John could prepare a bath first. You look feverish and your collar is damp. You'll catch your death—" She stopped herself, but not soon enough. He let out a sarcastic snort.

"My death," he echoed softly. Then, with a bit more feeling, "Mrs. Hastings, I think it is safe to say that my death is a quarry already caught and caged."

A lesser woman might have yielded to this argument, but Margaret said boldly, "Be that as it may, I see no reason for you to hurry it along. Come inside, Mr. Pratt. Please."

She hardly expected such a simple entreaty to work, but to her surprise, he unfolded himself from the bench and climbed to his feet. He swayed like a top-heavy sunflower in a strong summer breeze. He extended one arm to her. "I am afraid I shall have to ask for your assistance, Mrs. Hastings. I feel...rather weak and trembling."

Of course he did. He had not eaten a proper meal in three days and he had spent half the night making circles around the garden. Margaret took his hand into the crook of her own, allowing him to lean against her as they started down the path toward the house. He had something wrapped around his left wrist, a thong of leather with a battered pewter cross hanging from it, but Margaret made no mention of that. She said nothing at all, not until they were halfway home and she saw the look on his face—an awful, agonized look as though he were about to cry. He glanced back over his shoulder to the orchard and his step faltered, bringing them both to a halt.

"Sir?" she said anxiously. "Are you well?"

"I made a mistake," he choked. But softly, as though he was speaking only to himself. There were tears in his voice, tears in his eyes, when he said again, "I made an awful mistake."

It was like trying to construct a puzzle with half the pieces missing, but Margaret thought she understood. He wasn't meeting someone in the garden at night. Not any longer. He had been at one time, but she, the girl, whoever she was, had put a stop to it. These past four nights he had been waiting for her and she had not shown herself. Without warning, without explanation, she had thrown him over, and he—

Well, he was breaking his heart over it. That went without saying. Those eyes...

Still! Who would have thought he would form an attachment to some common girl with no morals? And she must be that, for no unmarried lady would ever creep around in the dark with a gentleman. It seemed so unlikely of him, so sad. The first girl he pursued might have been cold and unfeeling, but at least she was suitable. This, however...

It must be because he was ill, the poor devil. He was grasping at whatever comfort he could find, and that made him an easy mark. If his mystery girl had not robbed him outright, she'd begged off him, or gotten everything she could in some other way. She'd abandoned him the moment his purpose was served.

Small wonder he looked so wretched.

A wave of pity washed over her, though naturally she was not free to indulge in it. He was already walking again, swiftly, pulling at her in a way that almost belied his previous need for support. Just before they reached the parlor door, he dropped her arm altogether.

John was waiting for them just inside. He must have seen them coming from the window.

"The master wants a bath, please," Margaret murmured, as William brushed past them both with no comment. "Then, when you are finished with that, come and find me."

John nodded. He followed William at a discreet distance while Margaret returned downstairs.

In the servants' kitchen, most of the staff was seated around the plank table, eating their breakfasts. Margaret took her customary chair and addressed the coachman in what she hoped to be a nonchalant manner.

"After you finish, will you take the coach to the Long home? The master is in need of the doctor this morning."

Oliver swallowed a bite of food and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Is he very bad off?" he asked, already half-rising. "I can go without delay."

"No, it isn't as serious as that. Don't rush yourself."

Across the table, Máire was helping serve. She leaned across Sarah Walker's elbow and whispered loudly, "If you ask me, it's a member of the clergy he wants, not a doctor." Her tone, while not venomous, was filled with gossipy delight. Margaret rose from her chair so swiftly she tipped it over.

"Máire Mullen!"

The maid paled visibly; she had not realized how her voice would carry. "Yes, Mrs. Hastings?"

"After breakfast I want you to scrub the floors in this wing, and mind you do them well. They are in a dreadful condition."

"Yes, Mrs. Hastings." Máire paused, then asked timidly, "Which floors will I be doing today?"

Margaret picked up her chair and resumed her seat. She made the girl wait a minute or two before she answered. "You're to do all of them. You're to keep at it until they are finished."

~*~ ~*~ ~*~





When Doctor Long arrived at a quarter after ten that morning, he found his patient restive and in a very poor temper. He had taken but a little of the breakfast his staff prepared and seemed annoyed with them for having summoned the doctor without consulting him. However, he submitted to an examination with minimal argument and sat quietly to hear the results of it.

His chest sounded more congested, and the crimson patches on his otherwise wan face were from a high fever, which would also be the reason why he felt chilled. His eyes were sunken and he had lost weight; clearly, he had not been following orders regarding his diet. In fact, he looked as though he had been neglecting himself shamefully, no doubt from some perverse desire to hasten the inevitable. Dr. Long told him this dispassionately, with an expression that clearly stated he had expected nothing more or less from such an uncooperative patient.

Before he left, Dr. Long advised William to take an extra measure of laudanum at luncheon, another just before dinnertime. To calm him, the doctor said. To help him rest.