Hide in Time (36 page)

She drove home, showered, packed a
small suitcase, threw it in the boot and removed the backpack –
she’d sort that out later – and set off for “Foxhills”.
How much easier things would have been if the tunnel was close to
Matt’s – none of this racing back and forth from town to
the coast. Still, she wouldn’t be doing it again. In the shower
she’d checked herself carefully once more to make sure no other
little bits of herself were missing. Not the underside of a toe, not
a toenail, not an ear lobe; nothing more had disappeared, but she
mustn’t push her luck. Now here was Jeeves, meeting her at the
door, taking her case, sorting out the parking of her car, and asking
her if she’d like dinner on a tray. She would; in front of the
telly.

The seven o’clock news was just
starting as Jeeves brought the tray in to the sitting room. Although
much had changed in the world outside since 1815, this was,
essentially, the same room. The fireplace remained the same, even the
arrangement of the chairs. The colours were similar and she was
sitting on a cream brocade armchair facing the television on a side
table by the hearth.

She was famished. The cook usually had
time off when Matt was away and Jeeves enjoyed pottering in the
kitchen, it relaxed him he said, and he’d gone to some trouble
to prepare Laura’s favourite – lamb shank. She noticed
that, despite being wholly courteous and attentive, he did not look
at all relaxed.

“Have you heard from Matt,
Laura?”

“No, not yet.”

“I haven’t heard in the
last forty-eight hours either. Most unusual. I’ve got a few
other numbers I could try. I’ll let you know how I get on.”
Jeeves set the tray on the little table alongside her and hurried
away. The food looked good, smelt good and would no doubt taste even
better. She knew she could live here now with Matt.

Suddenly, with eyes heavenwards, and
fists clenched, Laura exclaimed, “Oh, God, please no, God, no,
no, no!”

Jeeves turned and saw what had startled
Laura. There on the television was a picture of Matt.

“Matthew Redfern, better known to
many of his supporters as ‘The Guardian’ is thought to be
lost overboard from the ‘Guardian of the Seas’ one of the
ships which patrols the Southern Ocean striving to prevent illegal
whaling.”

The television showed film of raging
waves and the ‘Guardian of the Seas’ holed just above the
waterline.

“The ship was rammed by a pirate
boat, thought to be in the pay of whalers, in retaliation for his
financing and planning of the disruption of the dolphin drives on the
south-east Pacific coast where thousands of dolphins are slaughtered
annually. Mr Redfern was due to return to England after spending time
aboard the ‘Guardian of the Seas’.”

Laura sat spluttering, “What…?
Why is he there? Jeeves?”

Jeeves muttered despondently, “Just
as I’ve always feared.”

The film cut to the ship’s
helicopter attempting to land as the ‘Guardian of the Seas’
pitched, making the pilot’s task seemingly impossible.

“Captain Shaw stated that due to
storm force winds, the crew and Mathew Redfern had all been wearing
life-jackets at the time of the ramming but nobody could be expected
to survive for long in these conditions. The pilot had radioed to say
that Mr Redfern had not been sighted.”

Tears streamed down Laura’s
cheeks.

“Repairs to the ship are under
way and the crew are confident of being able to stop the ship taking
on more water. As one of the engineers pointed out, this is not the
first run-in they have had with pirates and whalers, and they are
well-equipped to…”

Laura heard no more. Jeeves came
forward and listened as if for both of them then took a few steps
back. “He’s always thought this could happen.”

Laura stared at him, her eyes huge with
horror. “You’ve known about this, Jeeves?”

"Why yes, of course. Rolf is his
bodyguard on sensitive trips, he’s with him now, well…
was.” He looked very uncomfortable and despair crept in as he
said, “You yourself have begun to realize, surely? You’ve
mentioned whales for some time now.”

“Whales? I thought he’d
gone to Wales!” Laura pointed in what she thought was the
general direction of Wales. She’d thought he was rich enough to
indulge his passion for travel, the titular head of a few charitable
causes, kindly assisting a few waifs and strays, that sort of thing.
And in these last few hours she’d doubted him – how could
she. Now here he is, just like Adam, righting wrongs in a most
decisive manner, with no thought for his own safety. Oh how
assumptions can deceive. Had she learned nothing?

Jeeves drew up a chair, sat down
heavily, turned the sound off, and said, “He didn’t
really want you to know until you were ready.”

Laura stared at the floor. “I had
no idea.” How could she repeat the same mistake? This outwardly
cool, charming man turns out to be just as passionately wild and
caring as the man she’d left behind. Was she blind?

With surprising venom, Jeeves launched
into a tirade. “He’s not like these politicians, spending
other people’s hard-earned money on their own pet projects,
boosting their world profiles. Every penny he donates is his, and
backed by personal research, making sure there’s no skimming
off.” Jeeves thumped the arms of the chair, stood up and began
pacing the floor with one eye on the television.

Laura listened as Jeeves became angrier
and increasingly red in the face. There were about a dozen wealthy
donors involved in the ‘guarding of the seas’ –
prancing pop stars; bankers chained to monitors fourteen hours a day;
oil executives, and oh by ginger, if he’d had enough money he’d
be doing much more himself. How proud he was to be a part of the
back-up team. These damned gangsters plundering the oceans’
resources, stripping out whole species. Did she know that dolphins
have a structured language? And Matt had told him he’d heard a
bull whale scream when it was harpooned. Its mate hurled itself at
the whaler but it, too, was harpooned. Tragic. He finished with a
heartfelt, “There’s no respect for life. We’ll all
be like the dodos soon,” and flopped in the chair.

Laura was aghast; she’d never
seen Jeeves like this. They both fell silent and the flickering
television drew their gaze but neither knew what they were watching.

She’d almost had it all –
even peace of mind for her past mistakes and a future with a fine
man. The finest, the very finest. Everything was slipping away. She
stared at the empty hearth. She’d been so wrapped up in her own
crusade she’d not noticed what was happening in his life or the
wider world. And now she was free of ‘baggage from the past’
(as her clients often confessed to) he’d been taken away!

The sound of the phone ringing in the
hall snapped Jeeves into action. Laura’s taut nerves
immobilized her. For a few minutes, Jeeves was at his professional
best – then he fell apart and all Laura could hear was Jeeves
swearing like a trooper, yelling incoherently and slamming the phone
down. It rang again and he went through a similar performance. And
again, and again. “I can’t give you any news. I’m
stuck here waiting!”

Laura sat glued to the television,
changing to a twenty-four hour news channel, but there was no further
information. How could this happen? Just when she knew she loved him
more than life itself. She ached for him. She no longer cared about
her past – it was dealt with. She was free to do as she wished;
being a woman rarely hampered her now. Her life was just as Adam had
hoped but she didn’t care one jot about herself. Nor did she
care about “Foxhills” – not without Matt.

Hide in Time ~ Anna Faversham

Two chaotic days followed two sleepless
nights. The following morning, Laura remotely accessed the
answerphone in her office and changed the message. “The office
is closed for annual holidays,” it now said. She hadn’t
any events for a couple of weeks, so she didn’t have to arrange
a deputy host. She couldn’t face dealing with the messages
building up – they’d just have to wait.

As for Jeeves, despite his best efforts
to find some diversion in cooking, he’d given up. “I’ve
lost all sense of taste,” he’d said to the cook when
she’d returned at his request, “and Laura isn’t
eating at all.” Admirably, the cook had refrained from giving
advice on the importance of keeping one’s strength up and
simply offered to make some comforting soups. Despite her leaving the
kitchen door wide open so that a constant aroma of soup pervaded the
air as never before, neither Jeeves nor Laura had been tempted until,
unasked, she brought each a tray of soup and freshly baked rolls.
Though under-employed she had freed Jeeves to handle the phone calls
with a little more of his returning aplomb. They made a good team.

Laura decided a shower would infuse her
with a little energy. Oh that was better, so much so that she chose
something pretty to wear, Matt’s favourite blue dress. She
wandered around the deep red and cream room, similar in style to
Alexandra’s blue room which had once been hers. She sat on the
stool in front of the dressing table and reached for her mobile for
the umpteenth time. There was a text. Her hopes soared, her hands
shook. She didn’t recognize the number and her hopes dwindled.

‘All is well. See you soon.’

Who was this idiot who didn’t say
who he or she was? She all but flung herself down the stairs to find
Jeeves; he was in the kitchen and at any other time Laura might have
noticed that his appetite was evidently returning. “Jeeves,
look!” Shaking, she thrust the phone in his face. “All is
well! But who is it from?”

Jeeves took the phone carefully and
went through the details. “It came in half an hour ago. You
must have been in the shower.” Then he said after some
consideration, “I think it could be Matt.”

Laura sat down on a kitchen stool.
“But…” she stalled, though her mind raced, “if
it were Matt, wouldn’t he say so? And it’s not his
number.”

Jeeves replied gently, “Well, he
doesn’t use his usual mobile on the boat, Laura.”

“Why not?”

Jeeves looked as though he was turning
several phrases over in his mind before he said simply, “There’s
no signal. He uses satellite communications.”

Satellite? The conversation had veered
into the unknown as far as Laura was concerned. She took the phone
and read the message again. “This is the way he speaks, isn’t
it?” She was beginning to feel faint. “I’m not sure
if it’s hunger or this, this… this awful tension, but I
feel quite ill, Jeeves.”

“Let me ask cook to make you some
scrambled eggs, Laura. Go and sit down somewhere comfortable. We
shall just have to wait, I’m afraid. In cases like this, the
relatives are sometimes pestered by cruel hoaxers.”

~

The long case clock in the hall, the
one she knew so well, seemed to tick louder than ever before. How
many ticks and tocks were there in a day, she wondered, as she
slumped on the sofa next to her mobile. She felt guilty, she ought to
be doing something, she’d only been up for a few hours but
still she curled up and slept, like a dormouse hiding from the world.

The phone rang and startled Laura who
nearly fell off the sofa in her attempt to race to the hall. Where
was Jeeves?

She seized the phone. “ Hello,”
she announced breathlessly in a voice she hardly recognized as her
own. A second’s silence. “ Hello,” she repeated.

“Laura, it’s Matt.”

“Matt?” she said
incredulously.

“An exhausted Matt, but it is me,
I promise you.”

“Oh glory!”

“Far from that, I’m
afraid.”

“Where are you?”

“At the front door. I haven’t
got a key.” He rang the bell.

Jeeves, who’d moved in a stately
manner towards the hall, now rushed to the front door and flung it
open. Matt, clutching a mobile phone to his ear, nonchalantly walked
in, handed Jeeves a small leather case, gave him a warm smile, and
continued to talk to Laura in the hall. “I love you, Laura.”

Laura took in his form, clad in clothes
she did not recognize. “You’re alive?”

“I believe so. Bit of a long swim
though.”

Only Matt could make an escape from
tumultuous seas sound like a mishap on a boating lake. “I love
you too, Matt. I love you so very much.”

Matt was still standing near the front
door and taking only an occasional step towards the rooted Laura.
“That’s the first time you’ve said that. It’s
made this chilling experience worthwhile. Will you marry me, Laura?”

Laura’s voice was cool and clear.
“Yes, yes, yes!”

Matt roared laughing.

“I’ve said something wrong,
haven’t I, Matt? I can tell by your laugh.”

“No, Laura, that’s the best
answer you could have given.” He raced across the hall,
throwing his mobile in the air, caught by a still shocked but ever
attentive Jeeves. He snatched Laura’s phone, threw that to
Jeeves too, picked Laura up as if she were a mannequin, and twirled
round and round like a flourish at the end of Strictly Come Dancing.

~

It was dawn before they noticed how
tired they were. Matt had made light of his exhausting, freezing swim
to the life raft dropped from the helicopter. “They carry two
and the crew thought they’d drop one in the flow of the
current, just in case… Great guys; deserve medals.” He’d
told her the media made it more dramatic than it really was. “Just
got a bit wet, that’s all.”

Laura had so many concerns: whys,
whats, whens and wheres. He listened – oh how he listened,
those dark eyes followed every movement of her lips and the flash of
her eyes, taking in what she said, how she said it – no other
man listened like he did.

“Prepare for journalists at the
gates tomorrow, Laura,” he warned.

Laura still had more questions: she
wondered if he was something of a pirate, was he supposed to disrupt
whaling, hadn’t it always been…? Then Jeeves’
words haunted her, ‘stripping out whole species’. No,
there's a limit. There comes a time when good men have to… oh,
what was that quotation? Something about evil flourishing if good men
don't… No wonder he hadn’t wanted to come to her
Pirates’ Party. She stilled her mind. He was now talking about
the future, their future. She just wanted to hear his voice; it was
husky, warm and inviting. She drew herself closer; her Matt was as
exciting and luscious as his Wild Honey ancestor.