Shattered Moments (23 page)

“She has the power to help Kit, but she won’t,” seethed Louisa as she paced the tiny sitting room area of the Taylor cottage, her tirade fueled by rage.  “She flat out refused.”  Louisa had already burned the offensive document proclaiming Kit’s guilt, but she was still angry with Jane’s refusal to testify on Kit’s behalf.  She could understand her reasons, but Kit could die to save Jane’s dignity.

Fred Taylor’s eyes followed Louisa for a few moments before he finally spoke, his voice soft and soothing.  “Louisa, come sit down and we’ll talk this through.  You’re wearing yourself out with anxiety, and that won’t do anyone any good, least of all Kit.  Now, come dear girl, not all is lost.”
  His eyes looked large behind his glasses, the sympathy in them nearly making her cry.

“How can you say that?” Louisa asked, turning on him.  “Someone was willing to kill
Deverell to keep their secret safe; so chances are they are not coming forward to confess, are they, especially when someone else is poised to swing for the crime.  The only way to free Kit is to find out who killed Deverell, and I have no idea where to even begin.  Mr. Brooks questioned everyone and came up with a big, fat, nothing.  So we are right back where we started, before we knew that Deverell was a blackmailer and an extortionist.”

Fred shook his head and pointed to a chair across from him, inviting Louisa to sit and calm down.  He never got worked up or overly emotional, and his calm demeanor and rational nature appealed to Louisa, especially in a time of crisis.  She sat down and fixed her attention on Fred Taylor.  He looked as if he had something to say.

“Louisa, the law is not always about right and wrong, and black and white.  There are many shades of gray, even in this century.  Mr. Brooks doesn’t have to prove that Kit is innocent, all he has to prove is that there’s reasonable doubt of his guilt.”

“But he
is innocent,” Louisa stated, stamping her foot for punctuation.

“I’m sure he is, but there’s no way to prove that, especially since he didn’t sleep with you that night.  No one saw
Kit from late afternoon until the following morning when he stumbled from that barn with a raging hangover.  Had Deverell been blackmailing him, then he had opportunity and motive,” Fred pointed out reasonably.

“You’re not helping!”
Louisa retorted, angry.

“Oh, but I am.  No one saw him, which means no one can place him at the scene of the crime.  No one can say with any certainty that Kit did it.  So, if we can discredit Annabel’s testimony, there’s no case against him whatsoever,” announced Mr. Taylor triumphantly.

“Do you think there’s a way to discredit Annabel?” Louisa’s eyes were full of hope as she considered this new tactic.

“Absolutely, and I know
precisely the way to do it.  We just need Mr. Brooks to comply, which I’m sure he will.  He should be ashamed for not coming up with this idea himself.”

“I don’t think Mr. Brooks has ever done more than draw up a Will or a deed to a house
; he’s not a trial lawyer, if there is such a thing these days.”

“No, but we’ll turn him into one,” replied Fred with a grin, reaching for the chessboard.  “Come, let’s have a game.  It always focuses the mind, and I have a few details to iron out before I present my plan to our esteemed attorney.”

“I only hope it works,” Louisa said, giving Mr. Taylor a small smile.  She was feeling slightly more hopeful, and he knew it, which in turn made him happy.  Sometimes Louisa thought that he regarded her and Valerie as daughters he never had, and it gave her some comfort to have a father-figure, especially since her own parents were gone, or more accurately, hadn’t been born yet.

September 2010

Princeton, New Jersey

Alec switched off the TV, but made no move to rise from the couch.  The house around him was peaceful and silent, the night outside filled with the buzzing of insects and the occasional sound of a passing car.  He heard loud, drunken voices of young people as they made their way home from some bar, intoxicated and happy to be alive; their only concern in the world that of  avoiding a blinding hangover tomorrow.  His own life had been vastly different when he was their age, and he was glad it had.  These young people seemed to act much younger than their age, acting like children and refusing to take any responsibility for their actions.  In his time, men of twenty were mostly already married and fulfilling their duties as husbands, fathers, and providers. 

Alec suddenly remembered his brother at that age.  Finn had been carousing, drinking, and wenching with the best of them, marriage the furthest thing from his mind.  It wasn’t until Valerie showed up on their doorstep that he finally began to consider a future in which he was loyal to only one woman
, and even that might have been caused by Alec’s own interest in their strange guest.  Would Finn have fallen in love with Valerie if he hadn’t wanted to snatch her from under Alec’s nose?  He always had been very competitive when it came to women, and this had been the first time both of them wanted the same woman.  How long ago it all seemed.  Well, as of now it was about four hundred years ago, but really it’d been just over twenty.  How he missed Finn, and wished he could talk to him and tell him about everything that was happening in his life.  Of course, had Finn lived, Valerie would still be his wife, and they’d most likely still be in England living in their ancestral home and tending to the family business, not growing tobacco and importing cane liquor to Colonial Virginia. 

Alec finally rose, took a Coke out of the fridge and stepped through the sliding doors into the moonlit back garden
, where he folded himself into an Adirondack chair and opened his drink.  Sleep didn’t come easily these days, and he spent many an hour watching late-night TV or just walking the streets of Princeton.  Valerie said it was due to his newfound love of coffee and Coca-Cola, but he knew it wasn’t that.  He had to admit that he did love the bitter richness of a good cup of coffee and the fizzy sweetness of Coke, but what was keeping him up at night had nothing to do with caffeine. 

He tried hard to find something to keep him occupied during the day, his anxiety mounting as the days flew by with them being no closer to returning home.  He loved the modern conveniences that others took for granted, and never got into a hot shower without smiling at the ingenious contraption that allowed an unlimited amount of hot water to cascade over his body, warming and soothing at the same time
; made even better when followed by a cool drink from the refrigerator.  And he still marveled every time he flipped a switch and the room was flooded with light, but no amount of TV, driving around town in the professor’s car, or tasting new and exotic foods could make up for the sense of displacement he felt; made worse by the countless clocks that he was exposed to every day. 

There were clocks everywhere: on the car dashboard, on the cable box, on the computer, and even on the billboard in front of the bank
.  Never before had he been so aware of time, or the passage of it.  All his life he’d lived by the dictates of nature.  He rose in the morning, went to bed at night, and worked during daylight hours.  There was no loud alarm clock to wake him up, or constant reminders of what time it was on any given day.  It made him feel anxious and rushed, despite the fact that he didn’t actually have to be anywhere.  How could anyone be comfortable with living such a regimented existence; always being reminded of exactly what time it was and how much time they had left until the end of the workday, the next class, or some appointment?  Days seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye in this modern world, the pace of life so hectic compared to the more harmonious rhythm of the seventeenth, or even the eighteenth century. 

No, he
didn’t belong in this world.  He was a non-entity, a man without a name, a history, or a bank account.  He was no one.  No one besides Valerie and Isaac would even know if he’d gone missing.  No one would care, for he didn’t exist in this world, had no resume to list his accomplishments, or even a credit card to document his spending.  He was a speck of dust in the wind, here today, gone tomorrow — hopefully. 

However, no amount of anguish Alec felt could compare to
what Valerie was going through.  She tried to remain cheerful, cleaning the house, cooking exotic dishes, and running errands for the professor, mostly in a desperate effort to get out of the house and put her time to good use.  She hadn’t said a word, but Alec hadn’t been married to her for nearly twenty years not to understand the turmoil that was tearing her apart.  At this very moment, Valerie existed in two places and had the power to change everything that had happened, erase their entire life together.  All she had to do was show up and make up some story about where she’d been since she disappeared from the antique shop in a small, nondescript town in Devon, England. 

Louisa was sure to be back from England by now, devastated by her sister’s disappearance, but still hopeful that she would
somehow turn up and explain everything away.  Her parents were still very much alive, and praying for the safe return of their daughter.  Alec knew how desperately Valerie wanted to go see them, to catch a glimpse even from a distance; to feel for that one fleeting moment that a reunion was possible, and she could fly into her mother’s arms and tell her that everything was all right, and she wasn’t really gone forever.  Maybe she could even prevent the accident that would claim their lives only a year from now, although Alec wasn’t sure about that.  Fate had its own way of making things happen, and if something interfered with destiny, the universe auto-corrected itself and simply found another way of reaching the same outcome. 

They had to watch their money now since Valerie was officially missing
, and any activity on her account would be reported to the police.  They had plenty of cash left from when Valerie visited the bank in Williamsburg, but what would they do if Isaac couldn’t send them home?  The mere thought of being stuck in this time and place made Alec feel hollow inside, not only for himself, but for Valerie.  Regardless of how much she wanted to reveal herself to her family, her other family waited in the past.  Little Tom was the only living, breathing reminder of their willful daughter, who wouldn’t have died in childbirth had she been living in the future.  All it would have taken was a cesarean section and their girl would still be alive, as would her poor husband who died of the plague.  It hurt Alec to think of all the horrible things that could have been avoided had their children been born in the future, but to dwell on that was totally pointless. 

Valerie would never be whole
, even if she managed to somehow find a reasonable way to see her family again.  Finn and Abbie, their granddaughter Diana, and everyone at Rosewood Manor would be forever lost to them.  Louisa would never go back in time, meet and marry Kit or have her children, and Alec would likely never know the love he’d known since Valerie stumbled into his study all those years ago and promptly fell in love with his reckless brother.  So much water under the bridge, so much love, loss, and pain.  But it had to happen; it had happened. 

The sooner they went home the better for everyone involved, but Alec was beginning to have doubt
s in Isaac’s ability to send them back.  He was kind and generous, eager to help, but he was also an old man, one who hadn’t done this kind of work in decades.  He loved having them there, for they relieved some of the terrible loneliness he felt since the death of his wife, but they had to get back, and soon.  They had to pick up the threads of their life, and let go of “the future” once and for all.

Valerie had to come to terms with never seeing her parents again
, and the further away from them she was, the easier it would be.  Louisa, on the other hand, must be going mad in both centuries, looking for her sister in the here and now, and overcome with anxiety in the seventeenth century; not knowing what happened to them or if they would ever come back.  Alec hoped that everything was running smoothly back at home, his mind spewing images of ripening fields of tobacco, their overflowing house, and all the dear people in it.  He longed to hold Tom as he fell asleep on his shoulder, or have a game of chess with Genevieve or Kit while sipping French brandy in the parlor, and trying to drown out the never-ending noise that was always the backdrop for everything that went on at Rosewood Manor. 

He even missed Charles and Annabel, although relations had been somewhat strained since Annabel realized that Tom was actually the spawn of her ill-begotten brother
, who seemed to ruin their lives every time he showed up anywhere near their daughter.  Now they were both dead, so there was no point going over all the what-if’s, but Alec couldn’t help wishing that he had made his peace with Louisa before she died; had told her that he loved her one more time, and had enveloped her in a hug as he often did when she was a little girl and came to him for comfort after she’d fallen or had a fight with her brother.  Alec sighed and rose from the chair, his Coke empty and his heart full.  It was time to go to bed, although he knew he’d lie awake for hours before sleep finally found him in the early hours of the morning, and gave him a few hours of oblivion from his thoughts.  And then it would be another day.

September 1779

Virginia