TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 (26 page)

‘You are most welcome,’ replied Mountfort. ‘I had no wish to die, but I was unwilling to purchase my survival at the cost of your own. I am a soldier, of sorts, and a violent death is likely inevitable. But a girl such as yourself has no place at the end of a hangman’s rope.’

‘It was kind of you,’ replied Dora. ‘I am ashamed of the spectacle I made of myself. I would not have you believe that the things I said were true.’

Mountfort laughed. ‘I have seen many strange things in my life, not least this day, but even I have not yet witnessed – what was it you said? – a black goat walking upon its hind legs singing lullabies composed of baby screams. You have a most creative imagination.’

Dora was mortified to hear her desperate lies memorised and repeated. ‘I would be grateful if you would forget what I said, or at the least never refer to it again,’ she said.

‘As you wish,’ he replied with a gracious nod. ‘We were not, I believe, formally introduced when last we met. My name is Richard Mountfort, humble servant of the Crown, and your good self.’

He gave a small, seated bow.

‘Dora Predennick,’ said Dora. ‘Scullery maid of this house. Once. Now I do not know what I am. Let us say I am a traveller and leave it at that.’

‘A woman of mystery. How delightful.’

‘How came you to be sharing this kitchen with my mother?’

‘I was on my way here when I was apprehended by those ruffians and accused of being a spy, correctly as it happens,’ he explained. ‘Once I had gained my freedom I resumed my course and made for my intended destination – this house, and the hospitality of your fine mother’s kitchen. I carry an urgent message for your master. One of the servants has been dispatched to inform him of my arrival. While I wait at his pleasure, your mother kindly furnishes me with food, drink and good company.’

Dora appraised her new friend. She reckoned him to be mid-thirties, with black hair and dark eyes that sparkled with a gentle, lascivious wit. His lips were thin, but curled up at the edges in a permanent sardonic grin. He gave the impression, she thought, of being an honourable libertine. His hair, moustache and beard were wild and unkempt, as if he had taken his disguise as a peasant a step too far; Dora knew many farm labourers, and they generally had more self-respect than to traipse around looking as if they had been dragged through a hedge backwards. This was a well-to-do man playing at dress-up, and none too well. Dora found the combination of artless pretend, base cunning and flirtatious charm oddly attractive. She did not consider him an immediate threat. In fact, he might make a useful ally. She would never trust him, but she was not sure she would ever trust anybody again, not after what had happened to James.

‘The young man who apprehended you,’ she asked urgently. ‘Did you see what became of him?’

‘The whelp?’ Mountfort’s voice dripped contempt. ‘I think perhaps I saw him running for the woods when the blue-faced devils began their advance.’

Dora felt a surge of relief. That meant he was probably still alive, which meant there was a chance he could be turned from the path he had taken.

‘Did I hear right … he is your brother?’ asked Mountfort.

Dora nodded. ‘He is. James.’

‘I would think you glad to see him burn, given how shamefully he used you.’

‘I would have thought so too,’ agreed Dora. ‘But I find that I cannot wish him ill.’

‘Foolishness,’ said Mountfort shortly. ‘Do not let it cloud your judgement should you encounter him again. There was no spark of human kindness left in that boy, and family loyalties mean little nowadays.’

Sarah gave a soft moan and Dora, who was holding her hand, clasped it more tightly.

‘On the contrary, sir,’ replied Dora. ‘They mean more now than they ever did.’

His face betrayed his scepticism. ‘Sentiment will get you killed,’ he said.

‘I would be grateful if you would not mention James to my mother when she wakes,’ Dora said. ‘She knows nothing of his current whereabouts or affiliations.’

Mountfort nodded graciously. ‘As you wish.’

Dora leaned forward and softly called her mother’s name, stroking her hair as she did so.

Sarah’s eyes flickered open and for a moment they roved, senseless, before focusing on her daughter’s face.

‘Mother, it is your daughter. I have returned,’ said Dora, now unable to stop the tears from welling over and running down her cheeks.

‘Dora?’ muttered Sarah, her drowsiness fading into excited disbelief. She sat up and pulled Dora into a soft, floury embrace that smelt like childhood. For the second time that day, Dora held a parent as they wept for joy. This time there was nobody chasing after her, so there was little opportunity for Dora to dodge the barrage of questions her mother fired at her. All she could do was try to make her mother the centre of attention.

‘You’ve had a shock, Mother,’ she said, trying to help Sarah to her feet. ‘Come, sit down.’

But Dora’s attempts to cluck and fuss her mother into momentary quiet were an abject failure. Sarah brushed her daughter’s hands away and rose to her feet unaided.

‘Sweet child, I am not a cripple nor a halfwit to be cosseted so,’ she said as she arranged her clothes and straightened her hair. It seemed to Dora that her mother’s immediate shock and joy were already beginning to shade into anger at her daughter’s unexplained five-year absence. Dora wasn’t surprised. She had little choice but to take a seat and endure the interrogation, pointedly ignoring Mountfort’s obvious amusement.

Sarah sat herself in a chair directly facing Dora and reached out to take both her hands. ‘Now, child,’ she said, ‘you must tell me where you have been.’

‘I …’

‘And no stories, mind. I am a grown woman. I know the ways of the world and although you still look exactly like the girl who left, five years have passed and you are a woman now too. So be honest with me. Was it a man?’

Dora answered ‘Yes’ even before she had consciously decided to lie. But once the word was out of her mouth, she was sure she had done right. The last thing her practical mother would accept was the truth. Dora was still not sure she accepted it herself – the events that had overtaken her since she had last stood in this kitchen increasingly seemed like some kind of fever dream. Were it not for the out-of-time kitchen appliances that sat so incongruously amongst the copper pots and pans, she would almost be able to believe she had imagined it all.

Sarah tutted and shook her head. ‘You silly, silly girl,’ she said. ‘I thought it must be. Well, what is his name?’

Dora hated lying, but she gritted her teeth and willed herself to do so. ‘Kaz,’ she said eventually, silently begging her travelling companion’s forgiveness for dragging him into her deception.

‘Kaz? What kind of name is that?’ exclaimed Sarah.

‘He is a traveller from the east. That morning he passed by the house and knocked on the kitchen door in hope of provisions.’

Sarah pursed her lips and regarded Dora sternly. ‘Did he force his affections upon you?’

‘Oh no, nothing like that.’ Dora felt awful as the next lie passed her lips. ‘He … he stole my heart with a glance and we ran away in search of adventure.’

Mountfort sniggered, but the double daggers flashed at him by two generations of Predennick women silenced him instantly.

Sarah shook her head wearily. ‘Am I a grandmother?’ she asked after a moment.

‘No,’ replied Dora, trying but failing not to sound outraged.

‘Oh, I see. He has deserted you.’

‘He has not,’ scolded Dora, unsure why she was so annoyed on behalf of a mostly imaginary lover. ‘He is nearby. I returned this day because it was not possible for me to return earlier. I did not wish to leave without saying goodbye but … oh, I do not know what I can say to you. I am sorry for the pain and worry I have caused, but please believe me, it was not done cruelly.’

Sarah withdrew her hands from her daughter’s and sat more straight in her chair. ‘Well, it is not only me to whom you must apologise. For a time after you left Lord and Lady Sweetclover were suspected of involvement in your vanishing. There was much gossip abroad, and their names were blackened for a time.’

Dora was surprised that her mother was accepting her lies so easily, but even more so by the sudden change of focus to Lord Sweetclover. Especially since the conversation she had overheard in the church had led her to believe that it was Sarah herself who had spread such stories.

‘Gossip, Mother?’ she asked.

Sarah nodded primly. ‘Wicked lies were spread. I never believed them. I knew that they could never be guilty of such a crime.’

Dora would have accepted ‘I felt in my heart that you couldn’t be dead’ or ‘I dared not believe such a fate had befallen my beautiful girl’. But ‘I knew Lord Sweetclover was too nice to murder you’? That did not sit well with Dora at all. She struggled to construct a suitable rejoinder, but something about her mother’s eyes brought her up short.

‘Mother, did you not, perhaps, spread such tales yourself?’ she asked.

Sarah’s face was a picture of outrage. ‘Most certainly not!’ she cried.

In a flash, as if someone had switched on one of those instant electrickery lights, Dora realised that her mother was not in her right mind. Dora had never been able to lie to her mother, and nor had anybody else; she had been too quick witted for that. Yet now she was accepting Dora’s clumsy deceptions with the easy faith of the truly stupid. What’s more, she was bowing and scraping to her social superiors with a subservient zeal that Dora did not recognise, and seemed unable to remember actions that her old neighbours had referred to in Dora’s earshot earlier that day. Her mother had never been anybody’s lapdog, nor had she ever been scatterbrained. Dora realised someone must have bewitched her mother to be more easily led, less curious and assertive; someone who had played tricks with her memory. Dora decided to play along.

‘You speak of a Lady Sweetclover?’ she asked.

Sarah leaned back in her chair and folded her hands, her preferred attitude for a good gossip. ‘Oh yes. The kindest lady I have ever known. She met Lord Sweetclover shortly after you disappeared. Well, I should rather say after you left, now that we know what became of you. I must own, I greeted her less amiably than I should have. The thought shames me.’

Dora was incredulous but saw an opportunity to obtain useful information. Playing on her mother’s bewitched pliability, eyes wide and innocent, she guilelessly began asking pointed questions.

‘But Mother,’ she said, ‘it is not like you to be so unwelcoming. What was it about the mistress that caused you to act in such a way?’

Sarah leaned forward, conspiratorially. Dora was aware that Mountfort was doing the same, but refused to make eye contact with him lest his grin of amusement break the concentration she required to keep a straight face as she dissembled so.

‘Well, there was an accident many years ago. Milady is badly burned. Disfigured, in fact. She wears a mask made of stone to hide her features, walks with a mighty limp and covers her baldness with a wig. I, foolish flibbertigibbet that I be, surmised that she was a witch who had, by use of infernal magics, escaped a burning stake and taken refuge here, enchanting Lord Sweetclover to fall in love with her despite her disfigurement. My belief was that she had done away with you, perhaps because she considered you a potential rival for Lord Sweetclover’s attentions. And I did not stint to spread this scandalous rumour to all and sundry.’

‘Mother!’

‘I know, sweet child. All I can say in my defence is that I was not of sound mind for a period of time after your departure. Eventually the mistress sought me out and, while she would have been justified in sending me away, even taking action against me, she instead explained her situation and showed me, by her kindness, how wrong I had been in my opinion of her.’

‘She sounds a most patient and understanding mistress,’ said Dora.

‘Oh yes, she is the kindest lady I have ever known.’

The repetition of this phrase was not lost on Dora.

‘And what exactly was her situation? How did she come by those burns?’

‘An overfilled bed warmer set her sheets alight. It was a miracle she survived. And it is a miracle that Lord Sweetclover should be able to love her in the state she is in, but love her he most assuredly does.’

Dora could not help wondering whether Sweetclover had been bewitched by Quil, much as her mother clearly had. But something about the way he had spoken of his wife in the future made Dora think otherwise. Unlikely as it seemed, perhaps they truly were in love.

‘You must apologise to both of them for your impulsive abandonment of your station,’ instructed Sarah sternly. ‘Perhaps, if you are sufficiently abject, they may agree to let you resume your post. Would you like that, my dear? To work alongside me in this kitchen?’

Dora could think of nothing she would detest more.

‘Certainly, Mother,’ she said. ‘If you would introduce me to them, I will provide a full explanation and apology.’

Mountfort rose to his feet. ‘I am sorry, ladies,’ he said. ‘Fascinating as this discourse is, I can wait for this tardy servant no longer. I must seek out the lord of this house and relay my message. If you will excuse me.’ He bowed to each of them in turn and left.

As soon as he was gone, Dora explained that she would go with Mountfort and take the opportunity to apologise to Lord Sweetclover for her disappearance. Sarah tried to stop her, told her she would do better to wait here and let her handle it, but Dora would not be turned aside. Leaving her mother with a promise to return shortly, she hurried out in pursuit of Mountfort. Following the sound of voices, she scurried down the corridor towards one of the rooms off the main entrance hall. She crept up to the door and discovered she could hear what the two were saying. Lord Sweetclover was rebuking Mountfort.

‘… for my servant to fetch you to me in good time. I do not take kindly to being interrupted in my private chambers by a man unannounced and, regardless of his claims to the contrary, seeming to be no more than a common farmhand.’

‘My apologies, your lordship,’ replied Mountfort, affecting a moderately convincing tone of genuine contrition. ‘But the intelligence I bring is most urgent.’