The Hands of Time (26 page)

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Thinking of the future brought me to another problem. 
I knew
I didn’t have to tell anyone where I came from, but I hated keeping things from Alec.  I
’d
been planning to
tell Finlay eventually, but never got the chance
,
and now I needed to tell Alec.  He
’
d been true to his word and never asked me any prying questions, but I knew that deep inside
,
he wondered about my past and wanted to know about my life before Castle Yealm.  No person appeared out of nowhere
,
and he knew there must be someone out there to whom I belonged before meeting him and Finn.  Now that I was his wife, he felt a deeper curiosity about my life
,
and I thought Finn might have mentioned to him that I had been married before. 
Should
I tell him?  H
e
might think I
was
crazy
,
and never believe anything I
said
again. 

On the other hand I felt like I needed to share that part of my life with him.  If Alec loved me the way I thought he did, he would at least hear me out and try to accept what I was telling him.  I kept looking for the right moment to bring it up, but one did not present itself and now with all the business problems
,
I wasn’t sure this was the best time to burden Alec with the knowledge that his wife had dropped in out of the
twenty-first century
. 

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I hadn’t realized Alec had woken and was watching me.  “I
cannot
even hazard a guess as to what you are thinking about.  I can practically see smok
e coming out of your ears.  Care to share it with your husband?”  He rolled onto his side, raising himself on one elbow and watching me.  It was now or never
, so
I let it rip.

“Alec,” I began
,
then stopped and took a deep breath.  “Alec, there
’
s something I need to tell you, something you must know.  It’s important.”

“Is it about your life before you came to us?”  I saw a worried look cross his face
,
and I nodded. 

“I need to be honest
,
and I hope you will at least hear me out,
” I
was getting really nervous now and I wished I had kept quiet.  His face looked more and more concerned as he watched me. 

“Valerie, I know you were married before Finn, if that
is
s what you are trying to tell me.  It’s all right.  He is dead, right?”  His eyes begged me to say “yes” and I took another breath
,
plunging in.

“Actually, he hasn’t even been born yet.  I wasn’t accosted on the road or r
a
n away from home as Finn said you suspected.  I came from the future,
twenty-first century
to be exact.”  I looked at him, fearing his reaction.  Alec was strangely quiet, just watching me with those feline eyes of his, listening.  “Go on.”

“I was on vacation with my sister, Louisa, trying to recover from my divorce,” I began.

“Divorce?!”  Right, Catholics in this age didn
’
t get divorced.

“Don’t
worry;
my first husband will not be born for almost four hundred years, so technically I am
not divorced.” 

“Well, that’s a relief. 
Please
continue.”  He didn’t seem angry, just withdrawn somehow
,
and I was sorry I ever opened my mouth.

“Anyway, I was on vacation with my sister
.  S
he was working during the day, appraising an art collection at
this old manor house
in Compton
.  I was alone
,
and I walked into a shop looking for a gift for my parents.  I didn’t find anything, but there was this clock on the shelf that drew my eye.  It was an ormolu clock with a cupid sitting on top.  It was working, but set to the wrong time
;
I lifted it off the shelf and turned the hands of the clock to the right time, which was 4:05, or 16:05.  A few
moments
later
,
I came to in the meadow at the bottom of the hill
,
having no idea what had happened to me.  I
’
d never been so confused and scared in my life.  You and Finlay saved my life,” I finished lamely watching Alec’s face. 

I could see the thoughts racing behind his eyes, but he remained quiet, just looking at me and trying to work
something
out in his head.  What was he thinking?  Was he trying to figure out how to get rid of me now that he knew I was mad?  I should have known this would be too much for him to take in.  After all, people didn’t routinely drop in from the future and live to tell about it. 

“Alec?”  I whispered, “
Say
something.”

Suddenly
,
Alec’s eyes lit up like he was a little kid who just got the best present he could have hoped for
at
Christmas.  He smiled down at me and asked me the question I expected least of all at
that
moment.  “Did you have a car?”

Chapter
4
9

Present Day

It took Louisa a while before she could bring herself to go back into the storage room and look at the portrait
again
.  She made excuse after excuse
,
unable to face her sister’s smiling face.  Based on the name
,
there could be no
doubt
that the woman
in the
portrait was Valerie, but how was it possible for her to be painted in 1608 by Joseph Blackburn?  No logical explanation could be found
,
and Lou obsessed over it twenty-four
-
hours a day until her brain felt as if it was consumed by a raging fever.  She didn’t say anything to her parents.  They were finally learning to accept that their daughter wasn’t coming back
,
and to spring this on them out of the blue
,
would be enough to kill them.  Louisa had to figure this out on her own.  She chose a moment when Billie was out to lunch
,
and braced herself for another trip to the storage room. 

She pulled the sheet off the canvas, feeling a jolt as Valerie’s face came into view. 
At least she looks happy
, Lou thought as she examined the painting close
ly
.  There was no doubt that the canvas was from the
seventeenth century
.  The frame was scratched and chipped, the paint flaking in places
,
and grime cover
ed
the surface like a dusting of snow
;
but her sister’s violet eyes were clear and her gaze direct, looking
straight
into Louisa’s heart.  She stepped back and took another look.  Was there anything
that gave a clue to Valerie’s
disappearance?
  Her dress was clearly from another age, but it was beautiful and probably very expensive.  The pearls in her hair and the necklace at her throat also spoke of
wealth
,
and the background of the portrait was a well
-
appointed
drawing
room of some sort. 

Valerie’s white hand lay casually on the armrest of her chair
.  It stood
next to a small table with spindly legs
,
holding an ormolu clock with a fat cupid perched on top, holding his bow and arrows.  Something niggled at Louisa’s memory, but she couldn’t qui
te
grasp it, so she continued to look.  Valerie was wearing a large cabochon ring on her ring finger
,
and according to the name on the portrait she was married to someone named Whitfield.  Who was he
, and how did they wind up in America
?  Would there be
anything
online? 

Lou went back to her desk and plugged in the name Whitfield, 1600s.  Several articles relating to the
Gunpowder
Treason Plot in 1605 popped up
, so
she opened the first one beginning to read.  There was a lot of background information about the grievances of Catholics against James I
,
and their attempt to kill him and blow up Parliament as the session opened on November
5
th
of
that year.
  She scanned the article looking for the name.  There i
t
was toward the bottom.  Finlay Whitfield was one of the
conspirators who
was arrested
and
tortured
while being held at the Tower of London.  He
died before his execution. 

It
can’t
possibly be the same Whitfield
, Louisa thought.  The portrait was painted in 1608 in America, three years after this Whitfield died in prison.  It was a common enough name.  She looked through the other articles,
but it was more of the same.  Louisa gave up and went back to the room, picking up the inventory sheet as she went.  She pulled the sheet off the next painting.  It was a portrait of children, a boy of about five and a girl of three or so.  The little girl sat in a large chair wearing a lacy frock, her
light
-
brown
hair framing her round
face, dominated by a pair of huge eyes the color of amber.  T
he boy stood next to the chair
,
holding the hand of his little sister.  Louisa knew even before she looked at the name that the children were Valerie’s.  The little girl
looked just like her when she was that age, except for the eye color,
and the little boy had eyes of startling green, but resembled Valerie in other ways.  She looked at the name: “Finlay and Louisa Whitfield, 161
1
, Oil on Canvas.”  This time she was prepared and didn’t faint. 

She ran back to the computer.  What was the name of that traitor?  It was Finlay, wasn’t it?  Good God, it must have been the right person.  She read the article again.  Sure enough, the man’s name was Finlay Whitfield, so he must have been the boy’s father, but what about the girl?  She was too young to be his daughter if he died in 1605
,
but
the name listed was Valerie Whitfield.  Did Valerie remarry and if she did, wouldn’t her name have changed to that of her husband?  Louisa suddenly sat back in her chair. 
Look at me
, she thought,
here I am wondering about my sister’s love life in the
seventeenth
century when my mind can’t even comprehend the fact of how she got there
.

She rose
,
and went back to the storage room once more.  The portrait of the children stood next to Valerie’s
,
and she scoured it for any clues she had missed.  They seemed to have been painted in the same room
,
and just behind the
boy was the little table with the cupid clock.  Suddenly
,
something clicked into place.  Of course, she
’
d seen that clock before.  It had been at the antique shop where Valerie was last seen.  She
’
d notice
d
it standing on the high shelf above the little shepherdess that Valerie was supposedly looking at right before she vanished.  It was probably just a coincidence.  Cupid was very popular in those days. 

Louisa unveiled the third canvas, but it was a landscape of a pastoral scene
,
with fat cows chewing their cud and a boy fast asleep in a haystack.  She turned away from it looking back at the paintings.  In both paintings
,
the clock was set to exactly the same time, 8:10.  What did that mean?  It could
’
ve been broken, but then why include it in the scene?  Were they so fond of Cupid?  8:10, 20:10.  Louisa sighed and went back to her desk feeling more
confused then ever.
 

Chapter
50

May 1606

“Did you have a car?” Alec repeated
,
as I stared at him dumbfounded.  How could he possibly know about cars?  I
’
d lived with him for nearly a year and there was never any indication that he knew about the future, much less that he might be from the future.  No, it wasn’t possible and I was just hearing things.