Cathy patted Robin’s arm. “Talk to Margaret. Trust her.”

  No, Margaret had given up so much that she deserved better. She’d soon realize that when she met more women, women with normal family members who supported and encouraged each other, looked forward to spending holidays together, celebrated each other’s achievements, and didn’t call each other names. Robin loved Margaret and wanted the best for her. She’d help her become independent, be there to watch out for her, and quietly fade from her life when Margaret found love and happiness with a decent woman Robin trusted. She would not drag Margaret into the abyss known as the Tillman family. When Margaret had confessed her feelings in the Bainbridge guest house, Robin should have insisted that they never see each other again. She wouldn’t let Margaret pay for her selfishness.

  *****

  Pam forked a mouthful of apple pie into her mouth and wanted to moan in ecstasy when the pastry instantly crumbled. Heavenly. Much better than the frozen crap she’d stuck into the microwave. She wouldn’t mind expanding her limited culinary skills; in fact, she’d probably have to—knowing how many minutes to microwave something wouldn’t do her much good here. Now she’d have the time to cook proper meals. In 2010, the last thing she’d wanted to do was slave in the kitchen after dragging herself home from work. Dinner in five minutes with no effort and minimal dishes, or in an hour with a dishwasher load? Tough choice—not. But now she had no choice. “Did you make this?” she asked Hortense, knowing Oliver’s means were more modest than his parents’, though they did employ a cook and a housemaid.

  Hortense nodded.

  “The pastry is perfect.”

  Enjoying their own pieces, Jasper and Oliver murmured their agreement.

  “Do you want the recipe?” Hortense asked.

  In 2010, she would have giggled and wondered about the asker’s sanity. “Yes, please.”

  “I’ll copy it for you. If you don’t use it, your cook can.”

  Pam wasn’t sure she wanted servants in their faces. A cleaning lady who came in a few times a week would be nice. Their house, while not as large as Oliver’s parents’, had enough rooms that Pam could see herself doing housework all day to keep up with the dust. But she wanted privacy, at least for the first few years. She’d try this cooking thing and see how it worked out. “Does your cook mind you in the kitchen?”

  “She’s not live-in, so sometimes I do the whole meal myself. When she’s here, she usually doesn’t mind if I do the dessert.”

  Oh, I could handle a part-time cook. “Jasper and I—”

  Shouting from the hallway drowned out the rest of her sentence. Startled, she twisted toward the door. A red-faced Elliot marched into the room, the housemaid on his heels. “I’m sorry,” the housemaid wailed. “I tried to calm him down.”

  “It’s all right,” Hortense said, gesturing for the housemaid to leave the room. Her voice hardened. “What is it, Elliot? Where’s Doris?”

  His hands went to his hips. “That’s a good question. I thought she’d run here, but apparently I was wrong.” His eyes settled on Pam. “This is your fault.”

  Her heart pounded. “Pardon me?”

  He pointed at her. “You, filling Doris’s head with nonsense.”

  “What’s happened, Elliot?” Oliver asked.

  “Doris has run off, that’s what’s happened. I didn’t believe it when Mama told me, but it’s true. She’s gone.”

  Oh my god, Doris had actually freed herself from her chains! In one day! Maybe she’d known that the longer she waited, the more difficult it would be.

  “Why is it Margaret’s fault?” Hortense asked.

  “She said that Margaret helped her to find the courage to pursue the life she wants, which doesn’t involve a husband and children. The fool woman actually believes she can be a doctor.” He barked a laugh. “I came to talk some sense into her, but I’m glad she’s not here. She’ll be more trouble than she’s worth. You can have her. And I’d be careful about the company you keep.”

  “Don’t be rude,” Hortense snapped.

  “I’m trying to warn you, though perhaps it’s Jasper I should warn. If I were you, I’d reconsider my choice of bride. I doubt you’ll get the loving wife and mother you expect.”

  “Enough!” Oliver rose from his chair.

  “Don’t beg me to take Doris back,” Elliot said to him. “I don’t want her. I doubt anyone will.”

  Oliver’s eyes blazed. “I wasn’t going to ask you to take her back. I want you to leave!”

  “With pleasure. Tell Doris I wish her well in her life of spinsterhood. As for you, Margaret, I’ll be sure to warn everyone not to expose their unmarried daughters to your influence.” He whirled and stomped from the room, leaving behind a shocked silence.

  Still standing, Oliver shook his head.

  “I told you betrothing her to him was a bad idea,” Hortense said.

  “We were trying to help her, all right?” he snapped. “We don’t want her destitute.”

  “She won’t be destitute if she gets her medical degree and practises.”

  “And how will she do that? Mother and Father won’t pay, and we can’t either, not when we’re—” He gulped down some air, then carried on. “Not when we’re hoping to become a family of three soon, and I still need capital to invest.” He gazed at Pam. “I don’t know what you said to her, but I hope you didn’t give her false hope.”

  “It’s not her fault, Oliver,” Hortense said. “It’s what Doris wants. It’s what Doris has always wanted. She needed someone to bolster her courage. It should have been us.” She pushed back her chair. “We can discuss Doris’s future later. Right now, let’s find her and make sure she’s all right.”

  “She must be at the house.” Oliver quickly dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and threw it down on the table.

  Pam stared miserably at the half-eaten pie that had been so enticing only a minute ago, then blinked back tears as she slid back her chair. Some of them were for Doris; the rest, because Jasper hadn’t defended her. While Hortense and Oliver had spoken up, he’d sat silently. Not a word. Not a peep. Even now, as they walked down the hallway, there were no whispered words of support, no reassuring pats. What was she doing here? This wasn’t a movie.

  Her words to Robin, on Robin’s last morning in 1910, came rushing back: He might be okay with that at first, but when we reach the point where I’m yelling at him for throwing his dirty underwear on the floor, he might wish he was back here and wonder why he gave it all up.

  Why had she given it all up—Robin, her house, her friends, her work? Had she thought shedding her old life for a fairy tale would make her happy? There were no fairy tales. Santa Claus and the tooth fairy didn’t exist. Parties always ended. They called it the “honeymoon period” for a reason.

  Did Margaret feel the same way? Was she wishing she’d used the book? Had Robin disappointed? Had Margaret realized that other people can’t make one happy, that happiness must come from within? Pam’s life in 2010 hadn’t been so bad. Okay, she’d been in a rut. If she’d wanted to, she could have made changes, held out for the right man, done some soul-searching and figured out what she really wanted from life. But that would have been hard and taken time. Instead she’d left it all behind for a dream world that was becoming a nightmare.

  She should have read the rhyme until everyone was returned to their own time. If she’d sucked Robin back, they would have tried again, varied who read the rhyme and where they stood, until she and Robin were back in 2010 and Margaret and Jasper were here.

  Well, she still had the book. She could put this right. Robin and Margaret hadn’t even realized what had happened yet; they wouldn’t know for a hundred years. So reading the rhyme wouldn’t affect them. It wasn’t as if they were already happily married and she’d wrench them apart, right?

  Though, what if they were? What if all time periods somehow coexisted? Would time travel be possible, otherwise? Did it matter? Being in the wrong time period was unnatural and made happiness impossible. Returning them all to their own time would be doing everyone a favour.

  Her resolve hardened as she climbed down the steps to the car in the light of a full moon. Tonight, when the servants were in bed, she’d dig out the book from the trunk and read the rhyme. She wouldn’t be in Margaret’s drawing room, but instinct told her that it wouldn’t matter. There were two time travellers in the wrong time. The rhyme knew who they were.

  Her carriage was about to turn into a pumpkin, but she’d rather live with her eyes open than closed. The historical record had been truly accurate all along. Pam Holden wouldn’t marry Jasper Bainbridge. The real Margaret Wilton would.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Margaret carried two mugs of steaming tea into the study and set Robin’s down on the coaster near her elbow.

  “Thank you,” Robin murmured.

  Margaret glanced at the comfy armchair, wanting to sit and chat for a few minutes. But Robin’s mood hadn’t changed since her birthday; she was still withdrawn, perhaps depressed, and rebuffed every attempt at meaningful conversation. Margaret had hoped that Cathy would get through to her, but the drawbridge was still up, the windows still shuttered, and the battering rams weren’t making any progress. Well, Mother had called her stubborn for a reason.

  She sank into the armchair and blew on her tea. “This afternoon, I continued that course you found . . .” What was that word again? “ . . . online. I know it’s not a proper course, but I’m improving. I’m typing faster, and I only made a few mistakes.” For a moment, she thought Robin would ignore her, but then Robin laid down her pen and looked up.

  “That’s great! Last week you were still typing with two fingers.”

  Margaret chuckled. “Yes.”

  “It is a proper course. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean it can’t teach you anything.”

  “I suppose I still need to touch things to consider them real and valuable,” Margaret said, thrilled that Robin was speaking in complete sentences, rather than single words and grunts. “If the same course was on paper, I wouldn’t question its value.”

  Robin touched her mug and apparently decided her tea was too hot to drink. “I was thinking that we should probably find you a,” her fingers formed air-quotes, “proper typing course, along with a word-processor course. And maybe we should take a look at community college programs to see if there’s a certification program you’re interested in. Something that will help you find a job and won’t take you years to complete.”

  “I’m doing the sewing course.”

  “Yes, but that won’t help you find a job. What it will do is get you used to sitting in a classroom and interacting with classmates. After that, you’ll feel more comfortable enrolling in a certificate program.”

  To hide her dismay, Margaret sipped the scalding tea. “I know I’m a burden—financially.” She hoped she wasn’t a burden in other ways. “I’m trying to contribute however I can, by taking care of the house and meals, so you’ll have more time for your schoolwork.” When Robin reached out her hand and then slowly pulled it back, Margaret cursed the table that separated them, certain that Robin had wanted to touch her.

  “You’re not a burden. I appreciate everything you do. Don’t feel you have to do it.”

  Of course she had to do it! She wasn’t the sort to twiddle her thumbs, and she wanted to take care of Robin and contribute to the running of their household. Robin didn’t make it easy. When she was home, she always wanted to help with the cooking, and she seemed determined to do at least some of her own laundry and part of the housework.

  Robin continued on. “But you need to become independent. You don’t want to be tied to me.”

  Margaret gripped her mug. “Why shouldn’t I want to be tied to you?”

  “I could be run over by a truck tomorrow,” Robin said.

  She wasn’t fooling Margaret. “So could anyone else.”

  “Right. So it’s best that you can take care of yourself. Then you don’t have to worry.”

  She wasn’t worried, not about Robin being run over by a truck. Was it possible? Yes, and if it happened, she’d be in dire straits—but her grief would cripple her, not anxiety over how to buy the next loaf of bread. Thrown into the rapids, she’d quickly learn to swim, as she was doing now at a less frantic pace. Robin always wanted to plan for the worst, but that wasn’t what she was doing now. “If it will make you feel better, I will find a certificate program that appeals to me.” And hope that, by the time she finished her sewing course, Robin would have lowered the barrier she’d erected between them and embraced their relationship again.

  But the sinking feeling in Margaret’s chest told her that perhaps she was fooling herself. Could Robin overcome years of Janice? Could she cast off the burdens she placed on herself? Even after Janice’s death—and despite Margaret’s disgust with her, she wished her many more years of life—Robin wouldn’t be free. She’d stagger under the weight of guilt and regret.

  Perhaps they shouldn’t have destroyed the book, not because Margaret wanted to go back, but because she didn’t want to add to Robin’s worries. Well, it was too late now. The book was gone. She couldn’t flee even if she wanted to, and she didn’t. She’d be miserable in 1910; she wanted to remain here, with Robin. But she didn’t know what to do, how to get through to Robin, and whether her love would survive Robin’s self-imposed siege. Margaret was stubborn; she would scale the castle’s wall and hang on until her muscles ached and her fingernails bled, but Robin might pry her fingers away and watch her fall.

  *****

  Pam listened as Oliver and Hortense reassured an ashen-faced Doris that her entire family wouldn’t abandon her. They’d found her sitting at the dining room table, still as a statue, maybe waiting for Elliott to burst in and drag her back to prison. Relief and surprise had flitted across her face at the sight of her brother, sister-in-law, Pam, and Jasper.

  “He’ll order you off the grounds,” Oliver was saying. “Father’s dead set against you entering medical school.”

  “So is your mother,” Hortense said from the chair next to Doris. “He’s just more vocal about it.”

  Oliver nodded. “You’re right, they’ll both be livid. They won’t accept it, Doris, and Elliot won’t take you back. You’ll be homeless and alone.”

  “I’ll find work,” Doris said. “I can find a room in a boarding house.”

  Oliver opened his mouth, then closed it. His support for Doris, both here and in front of Elliot, had taken Pam by surprise. Maybe Doris’s flight had finally gotten through to him how much his sister wanted to be a doctor and not married, or at least not married to some society snot who’d use her as a baby-making machine.

  “It could take years to earn the tuition,” Hortense said.

  Doris shrugged. “I’ll be working toward something I really want.”

  “You don’t want to live in a lice-ridden hovel, though. If we had room—”

  “Even if we did, it wouldn’t matter. Father will order her off the grounds,” Oliver said again. “Doris—”

  “I’ll do what I have to do,” Doris said evenly, her white-knuckled hands belying her bravado.

  Pam glanced at Jasper, who stood silently at her side. She was keeping her mouth shut because she didn’t want to remind everyone that she was responsible for this mess. Better that they remain focused on supporting Doris. As for Jasper, she couldn’t blame him for not stepping into the fray, but shit, she could be angry at him for leaving it up to Oliver and Hortense to defend her to Elliot. She’d assumed that Jasper would support Doris’s aspirations, but now she wondered. Did she have him all wrong? Maybe he was a man of whatever time period he was in, prepared to accept women as equals in 2010, but not here in 1910. But what of his story about Emily? He admired independent women, or so he’d said.

  Hortense sighed. “We’ll do whatever we can to help, but I fear it won’t be enough.”

  Doris finally unclasped her hands; her fingers must be stiff. “Not forcing me back to Elliot is enough.” She patted Hortense’s arm. “Knowing that you and Oliver won’t turn your backs on me is a great relief.”

  “Of course we won’t,” Oliver said. “I’ll admit, I have my doubts that you’ll find happiness, but I suppose it’s your life. But are you sure? If you pursue this course, you may never find a husband.”

  Hortense gave him an indulgent look. “If she wasn’t sure, she’d still be at Elliot’s parents’.” She glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. “We should take our leave. I’ll come around tomorrow, Doris.”

  Doris nodded. “All right.”

  With mixed emotions, Pam joined everyone in the entrance hall. As Oliver and Hortense reassured Doris with their parting words, Pam said good-bye to Jasper. Her throat tightened when his lips brushed hers; she couldn’t resist slipping her arms around his neck and holding him, her eyes closing when she felt his stubbled cheek. When they drew back, she briefly held his face in her hands and whispered good-bye in her mind. She loved him, perhaps more than she could ever love anyone. But she didn’t belong here. She’d strain against the attitudes of the day, prove a challenge for Jasper, and eventually bite through her tongue. If her futuristic advice hadn’t ruined Doris’s life, it had certainly made it ten times harder, and Pam couldn’t promise herself that she wouldn’t advise other women to eschew the expectations of their society and pursue their dreams.

  As she watched Jasper, Oliver, and Hortense descend the steps to the car, she told herself that leaving him now would be better than disappearing when they were married. She’d leave a note, tell everyone that she couldn’t face life without her family and had returned to Toronto to beg their forgiveness. Only Jasper would know where she’d truly gone; the black rhyme book left behind in her bedroom would be the only clue he’d need, and Margaret’s reappearance would clinch it. God, it had better be Margaret. What if Robin came back? What if Jasper went forward? Don’t panic. They’d keep trying until everyone was where they were supposed to be, remember? They’d do what they should have done in the first place, instead of trying to cheat time.

 

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