When the car-hire driver slows in the village of High Thornesbury, I direct her to the hill instead, where a house looms at the top, barely visible through the falling snow.

“Wait,” the woman says. “You’re going to Thorne Manor?”

“I am.”

“You know them then? The couple who live there?”

“You . . . could say that.”

She cranes to look back at me, and I resist the urge to nicely ask her to keep her eyes on the road . . . the impossibly narrow roads of North Yorkshire, now covered in slick December snow.

“Is it true what they say?” she asks.

I’m tempted to make some noncommittal noise, quite certain that I don’t want to know what “they” say. But curiosity wins out, and I venture a cautious, “What do they say?”

“That she owns the house—the wife. She inherited it from her aunt. She’s a professor in Toronto—the wife, not the aunt.”

“I have heard—”

The driver steamrolls over my response, her accent sharpening as she warms to her subject. “They say she used to come here as a girl. To Thorne Manor. Then a terrible tragedy claimed the life of her uncle. But the best part is . . .” Her voice lowers to a delicious whisper. “The ghosts. The manor house is haunted, and the girl saw the ghosts. Her uncle did too, the night he died.”

My throat closes, swallowing any reply I could make.

The driver continues, “Then the woman inherited Thorne Manor and came back, after over twenty years away. She must not have seen any ghosts that time, because she stayed the summer, and she met a man. A Thorne.”

“Yes, I have heard—”

“It’s like a story out of one of those romantic movies, isn’t it? The American—well, Canadian in this case—inherits a house in the English countryside, and then along comes a British lord, claiming it’s his rightful family home. They start off fighting about it, only to fall madly in love.”

I sigh inwardly. I should just let her have her version of the story and keep my mouth shut. But I am a history professor after all—I cannot allow rumor to stand as historic fact. Of course, nor can I tell the actual truth, which would probably have the poor woman turning around to whisk me to the nearest psychiatric hospital. Still, I should repeat the narrative we’ve constructed, the part of our story that is completely true.

“I’m familiar with the couple in question,” I say. “The woman knew him when she was a girl. They were old friends, and he has never laid any claim to the house.”

“Hasn’t he?” She frowns through the mirror at me. “Isn’t that suspicious?” Her eyes round. “Oh! It’s that other sort of story, then. The one where he pretends to fall in love with her to get his hands on the house, which he thinks is his by right.”

“No,” I say.

“How would you know?”

Because the man was the rightful owner of Thorne Manor . . . two hundred years ago. Because as a child, that girl stepped through time and met a boy. Returned as a teenager, and fell in love. Returned as an adult, and won him again and was able to bring him back, both of them now moving from his time—where he is Lord William Thorne of Thorne Manor—and her time, where he is Mr. William Thorne, husband of the current owner. How do I know all this? Because I’m the current owner, the girl, the woman, the wife: Bronwyn Dale Thorne.

Of course, I can hardly say any of that, so I only gaze out at the lights of High Thornesbury as we pass through the tiny village. I know every street of it, in this time and in William’s, and my pulse quickens, a smile growing as my hands clasp atop my protruding stomach.

Home. I am home.

When I was a little girl, this was my favorite place in the world. Even after I lost it, first when my parents divorced and later after my uncle died, I would dream of North Yorkshire the way others dream of a childhood home. So many happy memories here. Summers spent exploring these moors, picking bramble berries and picnicking with my dad and my Aunt Judith and Uncle Stan. So many even happier times crossing over to William’s world, secret visits to my most cherished friend and, later, my first love.

I grew up and found love again. Married a wonderful man and lost him, widowed at thirty. I’d had a home with Michael, but Toronto never felt like home the way this place does. Now I am back. Back for good, I hope. I had to return to Toronto to teach the fall term, but I’ve started my maternity leave, expecting a baby in March. After that . . . Well, if all goes well after that, this will be my home. I have a lead on a teaching position in York and a few other possibilities tucked in my back pocket.

I’ll miss Canada, but I am ready to make this move. I think I’ve been ready since the day I first visited my aunt and uncle at Thorne Manor, certainly since the day I stepped through time and met William. Now, seeing the village lit up for the holidays, I feel as if I’ve come home. My first Christmas at home.

The lights fade quickly as the hired car begins the long climb to Thorne Manor. I’m struggling not to press my nose against the cold glass, straining to see the manor house through the falling snow. I think I can make out a faint glow and then—

The driver curses and jams on the brakes just as the headlamps illuminate a coal-black horse, racing around a curve and coming straight for the car. Or so it seems, but when the car follows the turn in the winding road, it becomes obvious that the horse is actually off to the side, galloping down the hill.

“Bloody fool,” the driver grumbles.

“True,” I murmur.

The rider wheels the stallion around and begins running alongside us.

“Is he mad?” the driver says.

“Possibly. Just don’t let him beat us to the house, please, or I will never hear the end of it.”

Now I do press my nose to the icy window, breath fogging the glass as I squint out. William lifts gloved fingers in greeting, but I don’t think he can see me. He’s bent over the horse, and with his black jacket, he nearly melds into the beast. Only his red scarf makes him truly visible, flapping behind him, an obvious concession to my warnings that car drivers aren’t accustomed to sharing the road with horses.

The horse seems to have adapted well to his new master’s riding habits. After much consideration, William bought him late this past summer. The first horse for his new stable on this side of the stitch. A black stallion, the mirror image of his on the other side. Xanthus and Balois, named after Achilles’s immortal steeds.

We continue to the end of the drive, where William swings off Xanthus and lifts an imperious hand for the driver to stop.

Then, before the driver can do more than squawk an objection, William is throwing open the rear door and shoving his head and shoulders inside.

“Finally,” he says. “I have been waiting hours. You really should have let me meet you at the station.” He peers at me. “You aren’t dressed for the weather at all. It’s a wonder you didn’t freeze on the way.”

“Hello, William. So lovely to see you.”

He grumbles and shoves a thick car blanket into the rear seat, bundles me into it and then glances at the driver.

“That will be all.” He hands her a bill. A large one, given the way her eyes saucer. “I appreciate you conveying my wife safely from the station. Please deposit her bags at the end of the drive, and I will retrieve them later.”

“I can carry—” I begin.

“I’ve got it, miss,” the driver says. “You ought not be carrying anything in your condition anyway.”

I’m not even halfway out of the car before I’m scooped up, the blanket wrapped around me.

“I’m pregnant, William,” I say. “Not an invalid. I can walk—”

“Yes, you can. No, you will not. It’s cold and it’s slippery, and you’ve come halfway around the world in a single day, while six-months pregnant. You must be exhausted.”

Exhausted is one way of putting it. Bone-dead and beat-down is another. I’ve spent the last two weeks cranked up to double speed, frantically finishing my end-of-term work so I could catch the first possible plane to William.

I’d told myself I’d sleep on the flight. I did not, even though someone found a way to secretly upgrade me to first-class, and I had no excuse for not stretching out in my little pod and spending the seven-hour flight sound asleep. No excuse beyond the fact that I was on my way to see William for the first time in two months, and I was so excited I could barely stay in my seat.

No sleep on the flight. No sleep on the train. Definitely no sleep in the car, and I can blame my chatty driver, but by that point, as William and Thorne Manor drew ever closer, it’d taken Herculean effort not to leap out of the car and run the rest of the way.

Now I am here, and it’s as if my strings have been cut, every bit of energy evaporating. So yes, I am tired. Exhausted. But my journey is at an end, and I will now crawl into bed and not leave for three days straight. Okay, maybe there won’t be much rest tonight—I’ll definitely find the energy for a proper reunion—but afterward, I’m zonking out.

William fusses with my blanket, making sure I’m swaddled like an infant. I don’t argue. I’m in the mood for a little coddling. Also it gives me time to look at him, just look at him, a sight even more welcome than the lights of High Thornesbury.

It’s always disconcerting to see William in twenty-first century clothes. That’s my hang-up. He had no such concerns. He’d been more than happy to shed his suits and ties for jeans and sweaters. This is a man who’s never more comfortable than when working in his stable or riding out on his land. Modern clothes suit his lifestyle much better, even if he does look very fine in an old-fashioned suit.

Today, he’s wearing a cable-knit sweater under his jacket. I roll my eyes at that, wondering which local knit him the sweater. When he’d first “arrived” as my fiancé, the villagers had been skeptical. Yes, he was obviously a Thorne—his face bears the strong features that grace a dozen portraits in town—but they didn’t know him. They’d taken me in—that wee thing who used to trot about town, that poor girl who saw her uncle die, that quiet widow who came to reopen Thorne Manor at last.

William might be a Thorne, but clearly he was up to no good. Wooing me in hopes of regaining Thorne Manor. Their suspicion lasted about five minutes, and the next thing I know, he’s bringing home the best scones from the bakery and the finest cuts from the butcher.

High Thornesbury is very proud of its history, with a million tales of the eccentric and good-hearted family who once inhabited the manor house. The Thornes were a rare example of popular landowners, and William carries the mantle of that legacy with ease. He is as popular in modern High Thornesbury as he is in his own version of it, and I have no doubt someone knitted him that sweater . . . and no doubt that he has already found a way to repay their kindness.

The sweater does look very good on him. Even by modern standards, William is a big man, over six feet tall and broad shouldered. Like me, he’s thirty-nine, our birthdays being a mere month—well, a month and a hundred-and-fifty-odd years—apart. His tousled black hair is unfashionably long in his own time, but suits him well here. He has a square face, bright blue eyes and a solid jaw without even a hint of five-o’clock shadow, meaning he shaved for me this evening. Not that I care—he looks very nice with beard shadow, too—but he will always be the Victorian gentleman who must show his lady that she’s worth the effort of a late-day shave.

I take off one glove and run a finger along his clean-shaven jaw. His gaze slants toward the road, being sure the driver is gone. Then his hand goes behind my head as he pulls me into a deep and hungry kiss.

“Now that’s a far better hello,” I say as he lifts his head.

“It seemed rather improper to deliver it while you were in the backseat of a cab, shivering to death in the cold.”

I roll my eyes. “I wasn’t shivering, William. But yes, it wasn’t the best place for a welcome-home kiss.”

I snuggle into his arms and let him continue carrying me up the walk. As we reach the porch, I twist, wanting to see Thorne Manor lit up in her holiday finest . . .

The only lights are ones illuminating the porch. The yard is snow-covered and otherwise empty.

William pushes open the door, which lacks so much as a wreath. Once we’re through, I discreetly try to look about for a tree or maybe a sprig of mistletoe, even cards on the fireplace mantle.

Nothing. There’s nothing.

“Yes, yes,” he says. “Stop squirming. I’ll put you down soon enough.”

A clomp-clomp as he kicks snow from his boots. Then he walks into the parlor and deposits me on the sofa, amidst a nest of piled blankets. Across the room, a fire blazes. A tantalizing odor makes my mouth water, and he disappears into the kitchen, only to return with a basket of warm scones.

“Freya’s?” I say.

“Of course. You didn’t think she’d let you arrive without sending up a bushel basket of scones. That’s the appetizer. Mrs. Shaw left a cold supper on the other side. We’ll cross over when you’re ready.”

A cold supper isn’t . . . quite what I’d hoped for. Especially not one served in a nineteenth-century house on a midwinter night. I’d rather stay here and pop something into the microwave oven, enjoy my late dinner with central heating and electric lighting.

Really, Bronwyn? Really? Mrs. Shaw made dinner for you. Freya made these scones for you. William got this fire going for you and came out to meet you with blankets. And you’re complaining?

No, the truth is just that I’m disappointed by the lack of, well . . . My gaze slides around the room, which looks exactly as I left it after October’s Thanksgiving break.

I’m disappointed by the lack of Christmas. Which is equally shameful. I know William hasn’t celebrated the holidays in years. Did I expect him to ready the house for me? He’s waiting so we can decorate it together. It’s hardly Christmas eve. There’s plenty of time.

I’m just tired. Tired and overwhelmed with the emotion of being back here and seeing him and our house. I missed them both so much.

Which reminds me . . .

I sit up as he takes a scone from the basket. “Where’s Enigma?”

I’d left my kitten here, with William and her mother, Pandora. Taking the little calico to Canada wouldn’t have been fair. This is her home. Yet she can pass through the time stitch, so I’d expected her to be waiting for me.

“She’s off doing kitten things,” he says. “On the other side. Endless mischief, that one. I think I might have spotted her this morning . . .”

Not disappointed. I am not disappointed.

“Give me a few moments to fetch your bags and stable Xanthus. Then we’ll cross over.”

He kisses my forehead and then holds a warm scone to my lips. I smile and take it. As I nibble a toasted edge, he heads for the door. Then he turns and glances back, his lips twitching in a smile.

“Any gifts for me in your bags?” he asks. “Best to warn me, so I don’t accidentally peek.”

“You mean so you know whether there’s any point in peeking.”

His brows arch. “That would be wrong.”

“No, William, there are no gifts for you in my bags.” I take a bite of the scone, drawing out the moment. “I had them shipped to Del and Freya’s. Pre-wrapped. And very well taped.”

“One would think you don’t trust me around them.”

“One would be correct.”

He shakes his head. Then, at the door, he pauses and looks back at me. “You never did tell me what you want for Christmas. You’ll need to do so post-haste, or you’ll wake up to a very sad holiday morning.”

So he hasn’t bought me any gifts yet. He’s waiting to hear what I want . . . when I spent days wandering through wretched shopping malls picking out exactly the right things for him, without so much as a hint about what he’d want.

Not disappointed. I am not disappointed.

The door closes, and I slump into the blankets and sigh.

It’s fine. Really, it’s fine. There are many inconsiderate people in the world, but William isn’t one of them. This is all just new to him.

The man has spent the last decade living alone in the moors, avoiding all but locals and close friends, his family gone, his life shadowed by scandal and rumor. Now, in the space of a half-year, he finds himself married and a father-to-be . . . and living part-time in a world he can barely fathom, a world filled with endless challenges.

It’s a wonder he crossed over to meet me at all. In his place, most people would hide in their own century, popping over only long enough to leave a note saying “Meet me on the other side.” He not only waited here but found a way to surprise me with a flight upgrade and hired car. And I’m disappointed by the lack of a Christmas tree and presents?

By the time he returns, I’m on my feet, face washed, hair brushed, scone basket over my arm.

“All ready to cross over?” he says as he shakes new-fallen snow from his hair.

“I am.” I kiss his cheek. “Thank you for coming to meet me. And for the flight and car.”

“Flight and car? Whatever are you talking about?”

“The upgrades?”

His eyes dance. “Must have been pixies. I can scarcely operate my mobile phone. I’d hardly know how to get you . . . what did you call it? An upgrade?”

I shake my head. He’s right about the phone—so much tech to learn, so little time to learn it when you’re taking care of two houses and two stables.

Luckily, William isn’t afraid to ask for help, and our neighbors Freya and Del are more than happy to provide it. Well, Freya is, at least. Del just quietly comes over and cleans out the stable or mows the lawn, and then, if thanked, he’ll grumble that someone needed to do it.

“We’d best bring a blanket or two,” William says, as he puts out the fire. “I’ll need to light the fireplaces once we cross. Perhaps we should bring a torch as well? I considered leaving a candle burning, but that bloody kitten of yours would have set the house aflame.” He frowns. “I hope she didn’t get into our supper. I ought not to have left it out.”

So I’m leaving this brightly lit, warm house for a cold, dark one with a potentially kitten-nibbled dinner?

I plaster on a smile. “It’ll be fine. I’m just glad to be home.”

He leads me upstairs, flipping off lights as we go. We head to my old bedroom—the one I’d used when I’d visited my aunt. It’s an office now. We’d debated turning it into a nursery, but we’d rather not need to worry about our baby crawling through time during naps. This is where the stitch is located. A link between my old room and William’s.

Why is there a time stitch here? How is there one? What even is it? There are questions we can’t answer and don’t care to.

For years, I’d been the only human who could cross. Then came Pandora, William’s kitty, and later Enigma. After I put the last of the Thorne Manor ghosts to rest, William was able to cross as well.

Could others cross? It isn’t a question we’re ready to answer. The few people who know our secret have decided that, as much as they would love to pass through time, they don’t dare risk being trapped on the wrong side.

We only hope that our child will be able to cross over. If not . . . well, if not, then we’ll have decisions to make, but we trust that if we can—and our cats can—then our child will be able to as well.

We head for the stitch spot without preamble. William takes my hand, and we cross into our other office, which—contrary to his warning—is neither cold nor dark. It’s blazing with light and warmth, the fireplace burning bright.

I turn and smack his arm.

He rubs his arm. “Is that how they use mistletoe in your world? Terribly uncivilized.”

I crane my neck up to see a green and red sphere hanging over the stitch. It’s a kissing ball—an apple covered in foliage and herbs, giving off the most delectable smell. There’s mistletoe, of course, with its bright red berries, but also rosemary and lavender, symbolizing loyalty and devotion.

I smile as I gaze up at the ball. Then I reach for William, but he’s already bending down to pick up a bright red box.

“Your first gift,” he says.

Before I can protest that it’s too early, something inside the box scratches. Then yowls piteously. I sputter a laugh and pull off the perforated lid to see a half-grown calico cat nestled in a bed of blankets with a toy and treats. Enigma glares at me with baleful green eyes.

“Hey,” I say. “I’m not the one who put you in there.”

Enigma continues to glare until I pick her up. Then she settles in on my chest and accepts my petting, even deigns to purr a little.

“I spent all afternoon trying to catch her.” He rolls up his sweater sleeves, revealing a criss-cross of scratches down both arms. “Ungrateful little beast. I told her you were coming home, but did she listen? No. Just wanted to chase mice through the barn.”

I set Enigma on my desk chair. Then I put my arms around William’s neck, leaning back for a kiss. Instead, he scoops me up in his arms.

“There will be none of that,” he says. “You have missed your chance and will need to wait for next Christmas. Do you know how much time I spent crafting that kissing ball? Holiday decorating is exhausting. I cannot imagine all the bother other people go to, putting up trees and hanging wreaths. I hope you’re quite content with that single ornament.”

He knees open the office door. Something smacks the top of it, and I crane my neck up to see a sprig of greenery hanging from a red ribbon.

“Wait,” I say. “Is that more—?”

“More what?” he says, deftly swinging me around so I can see it. “Stop squirming, Lady Thorne. You’re worse than that kitten of yours.”

“Also much, much heavier,” I say. “I’m going to suggest you put me down before we reach the top of the stairs. I’m carrying a few extra pounds these days.”

“So I’ve noticed. I’ve always encouraged your obsession with scones, but you may want to curb your intake. You seem to have developed a bit of a . . . belly.”

“Pretty sure I’ve always had one.”

“No, you have a lovely, lush figure, which is currently somewhat unbalanced in the center. I blame scones.”

“I blame you.”

“Me? I’ve been in Yorkshire all these months, unable to feed you a single biscuit or other sweet treat.”

“You just have Freya help you mail them to me. In large boxes. Which are much appreciated but still . . .” I lay my hands on my bulging stomach. “Even those treats are not responsible for this. Now set me down—”

“Too late.”

He takes a step down the stairs. I shake my head and go very still, which isn’t necessary. The Victorian country lord’s lifestyle is active enough. Add an insistence on doing one’s own property work, and the result is a man who has little difficulty carrying his not-small-even-when-not-pregnant wife down the stairs.

When we reach the bottom, he turns me around again, so I can’t see where we’re going. I don’t miss the kissing ball over the next doorway either, though he pretends not to see it.

“May I walk now?” I say.

“Certainly not. It’s pitch black and freezing, and I fear the cats have eaten our supper.”

“So I’m imagining the candlelight?”

“You must be.”

“And the crackle and heat of a blazing fire? The smell of a hot meal?”

He frowns down at me. “You didn’t catch a fever in that airplane, did you? You appear to be suffering from the most dreadful hallucination.”

“Including the smell of a pine tree?”

“Indoors? Dear lord, who would do such a thing?”

He takes another step and then pauses, his foot moving something that swishes over the carpet. I twist to see a brown-paper wrapped box with a bow on top.

“That’s not a gift, right?” I say.

“Certainly not. Someone has dropped a parcel on the floor.”

My gaze drifts over a pile of boxes. “Quite a few parcels, apparently.”

He sighs. “I cannot keep up with the post. Boxes upon boxes of saddle soap and shoe polish. Thank goodness you’ve finally arrived to tidy up after me.”

He deposits me on the sofa, and finally moves aside for me to see the room.

I gasp. I can’t help it. Yes, after seeing the kissing balls, I suspected he’d done a bit of decorating. Yet this is beyond anything I imagined.

There’s a magic to Victorian Christmases, even if it’s just our twenty-first century fantasy version, one that didn’t actually exist outside a few very wealthy Victorian homes. The appeal for us is the simplicity of the decorations and the emphasis on nature. Brown-paper parcels with bright scarlet bows. A real tree, smelling of pine and blazing with candles. Wreathes and holly and ivy and mistletoe, none of them mass produced in plastic. It’s a homemade, homespun Christmas.

That is what I see here. The fantasy, as if William pored over modern representations of that Victorian dream and brought it to life.

Brown-paper gifts piled under the tree, each wrapped in bright, curling ribbon. Evergreen boughs woven and draped across the mantel. Victorian holiday cards tucked into the boughs. Sprigs of holly scattered over every surface.

The tree stretches to the high ceiling, and the sharp scent of pine cuts through the perfume of the roaring fire. The tree is bedecked in red bows and ribbons. No candles—such a fire hazard—but hand-blown representations of them instead. The reflection of the roaring fire makes the glass candles dance, as if they’re alight themselves.

When I rise and step closer to the tree, I see pine cones sprayed silver and what looks like silver-wrapped balls, each no bigger than a nickel. William pulls one from the tree and unwraps it to reveal a spun-sugar candy.

He holds it front of my mouth, and I inhale the sweet smell of peppermint.

“It’s a bit early in the century for candy canes,” he says. “I’d hate to accidentally invent them, so I’m hoping these are an adequate substitute.”

I open my mouth to speak, and he pops the candy inside before I can. I laugh and let it melt on my tongue.

“It will do then?” he says, waving at the room.

Tears prickle at my eyes. “It’s . . . it’s . . .”

“Serviceable? Good. Now I presume you’d like some supper.”

I catch the front of his sweater. “I can think of something I’d like better.”

His brows rise. “Better than sustenance for our unborn child?”

“I ate a scone. The baby’s fine.”

“Well, then . . .” He lowers himself to me. “I suppose that cold supper can’t get any colder.”

“And I don’t care if it does.”

Dinner is not a cold supper. It’s only slightly cool by the time we get to it. Mrs. Shaw knows her employer well enough to leave it in the oven, keeping warm until he finally gets around to eating.

Mrs. Shaw lives in the village, spending semi-retirement with her daughter and grandchildren. Yes, having Lord Thorne alone in his manor house, with only a live-out housekeeper and occasional stable boy is dreadfully shocking, but as I said, the people of High Thornesbury are accustomed to eccentric lords. I’m sure there are plenty of whispers about the fact that his new bride spends so much time in London—while she’s pregnant, no less—but an excuse about an invalid relative needing care has been deemed acceptable enough.

So we have the house to ourselves, which is good, considering that William is currently walking out of the kitchen naked, ferrying plates of food in to me, as I lie in front of the fire in an equal state of undress.

It’s a veritable feast. Holiday food, to go with the ambiance. There’s mincemeat pie, which still contains actual meat in this time period. Plum pudding is served with the meal, being considered more of a solid chutney than a dessert. To drink, there is a peach punch. Victorians love their punch, and being able to make it with out-of-season fruit is the mark of a cook—or housekeeper—who has mastered the art of canning.

The last dish is a tiny plate of sugarplums. William holds one to my lips as he stretches out beside me.

“Dessert before I’m finished dinner?” I say.

“Oh, I apologize. You aren’t done yet? You do look very full.” His gaze drops to my belly.

I groan. “You’re going to keep doing that, aren’t you?”

“I must. Freya bought me a book on twenty-first century fatherhood, and it included something called ‘Dad jokes,’ which it defined as repeating a vaguely funny witticism ad nauseam. I’m practicing.”

I roll my eyes and stretch onto my back, taking the sugarplum with me. As a child, I always thought sugarplums were, well, sugar-coated plums. There are no plums involved, just lots and lots of sugar, this particular one having an anise seed at the middle, rather like a jawbreaker.

As I enjoy the comfit, William runs a hand over my belly. I look down to see his face glowing in the candle light.

“Bigger than when you saw me in October?” I say.

“Wonderfully bigger.” He leans down to kiss my stomach. “You look well and truly pregnant now.”

He’s moving up beside me when he stops short, his hand on my belly.

“Was that a kick?” he asks.

“Probably food digesting. I was a bit hungry.”

I feel a tell-tale twitch inside me and glance down to see something briefly protrude from my stomach.

“Nope,” I say. “That’s definitely a kick.”

William grins and spends the next few minutes watching my stomach as our baby wriggles and kicks.

“A dancer,” he says. “Like her mother.”

I snort. “About as graceful as her mother, too.”

I finish a second sugarplum and then stretch a hand over my head, fingers brushing a brown-paper parcel wrapped with scarlet ribbon.

William lifts it out of my reach. “None of that.”

As he moves it, the tag—cut from a Christmas card—dangles low enough for me to read. I blink and then sit up, catching the tag to double check the writing.

“To William, with love from Bronwyn?” I say. “Uh, this isn’t from me.”

He frowns. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Freya is under strict orders not to release your gifts to anyone but me. I also didn’t wrap them in brown paper.”

“How strange. I wonder what it could be, then?”

“One way to find out.” I reach for the box, but he whisks it away.

“Uh-uh,” he says. “You have made the rules very clear. We do not open gifts before Christmas. Possibly Christmas eve, if I have my way, but no sooner.”

“I’m the giver of that one, not the recipient. I want to see what I got you.”

“It’s a surprise.”

I thump back onto the pillow-strewn carpet. “You are ridiculous.”

“Insults will not earn you more gifts.”

I look at the towering pile. “I don’t think I need more.”

“They aren’t all for you.”

I crawl over and plunk down beside the stack to begin reading tags. “For me, for me, for me, for . . . Will Jr? Hoping for a male heir, I take it?”

“Certainly not. I picked a name suitable for either sex.”

“We’re going to call our daughter William?”

“Willa. Will for short.”

“Which won’t be confusing at all.”

He crawls over to sit beside me. “I would love to choose a proper name, but I cannot do it until you give me one of my presents.”

I look at the box tagged to him from me.

“Not that one,” he says. “The one you’re hiding in your magic box.”

I look down the length of my naked body.

He sputters a laugh. “Your other magic box.” He rolls over and pulls my cell phone from my discarded coat. “You have something on here for me, don’t you?”

I take the phone, flip through photos and pull up my ultrasound picture. When I pass it over, he turns it this way and that, frowning at the screen.

“Now you’re just teasing me,” he grumbles. “I know the difference between a baby and a topographical map.”

I laugh. “Sorry, but that is your child. It’s a sonographic view.”

I point out the facial profile and limbs, and as I do, his blue eyes light up. Holding the phone, he rolls onto his back to stare at the photo while I munch on candied nuts.

After a moment, he says, “You say the doctor can tell the baby’s sex from this sonograph?”

“She can.”

He sits up. “And . . .”

“Well, if you were secretly hoping for that proper Victorian heir, you’ll be disappointed.”

“A girl?” He grins. “We’re having a girl?” He lifts the phone to gaze at the screen again. “Baby Willa.”

“We’ll, uh, work on that.”

He pulls me over to him. “In the interest of marital harmony, I’ll settle for Wilhelmina, but that’s as far as I’m going. Wilhelmina Hortensia Melvina Dale Thorne.”

“Melvina,” I muse. “I like that.”

He pauses. “I was joking.”

“No, it’s a good one. Melvina Thorne. I think we have a winner. We’re definitely—”

“Oh, look, is that mistletoe over our heads?”

“I believe there’s scarcely a square foot of this house where mistletoe isn’t over our heads. We’ll need to get rid of it after Christmas. It’s poison, and little Melvina—”

He cuts me off with a kiss and lowers me back onto the pillows as the phone slides to the floor, forgotten.

As a historian, I specialize in the Victorian era. It has been my period of fascination since childhood, when I first crossed the stitch into William’s time. That knowledge is extremely helpful now. I know what to expect from this world. While I can still be uncertain and cautious, I feel comfortable navigating it, with few genuine moments of culture shock.

Thus I know what I should expect on waking mid-winter in Thorne Manor. The room will be freezing cold, with no maid to slide in and light the fire before we wake. I should be nestled under layers of blankets and wearing a long, flannel nightgown—for warmth, not modesty. The windows will be open despite the sub-zero windswept moors, because a closed window invites miasma, which will lead to endless ailments. Even after the fire is going, the ambient temperature will likely not exceed sixty degrees, requiring those endless layers of undergarments.

Instead, I wake naked in a comfortable feather bed with just the right amount of blankets, the top ones peeled back so I don’t roast. The fire is roaring, and has never been fully extinguished. William rose earlier and stoked it, and while a big stone house like this is impossible to keep toasty without central heating, the rooms will be warm enough to suit my more modern sensibilities—and my preference for modern underwear, which William fully endorses. One window is just cracked open. We’ve discussed germ theory enough for my husband to banish period-appropriate notions of miasmas, and for us, a little fresh air is simply preference.

The room is deliciously cozy, that chilly breeze like the welcome ripples of wind on a hot day. The sharp and crisp breeze perfectly counterpoints the perfume of the roaring fire and . . . Is that tea?

I lift up and follow my nose to a steaming cup resting on the nightstand, with two biscuits perched on the saucer.

God, I love my husband.

I love this bed, too, which is going to be my dearest friend for the next twenty-four hours. I’ll tell William that I need a little more sleep, and that he’s more than welcome to join me later, when we can continue our marital reunion.

I grin and reach for a biscuit. The door swings open, William giving it a kick as he walks in, breakfast tray in hand.

Enigma wends her way past his feet and hops onto the bed to curl up with me. Her mother—Pandora—follows at William’s heels like a loyal hound. It is a picture I have been dreaming about for two months, rising in this bed, seeing William, the cats, the fire, the smell of the moors through the window . . .

I am home, and here I will stay.

William sets the tray on the side table.

“You cooked breakfast?” I say.

“Cooked is a strong word. More like ‘warmed up.’ But I did put eggs in boiling water.”

“Impressive.”

“I knew you’d want to rest after your journey.”

I sigh in deepest contentment. “Thank you.”

As I dig into breakfast, he disappears and then returns with clothing heaped over one arm.

“I bought a few winter frocks for you,” he says. “I hope they’ll fit. Mary estimated for me, and she’ll adjust as needed.”

“Perfect. Thank you.”

He sets the pile on a chair and lifts the pieces, one at a time. The first is a full rich burgundy skirt, floor length, with pleats for light crinolines. Then a blouse that’s obviously been tailored for my belly, simple and white with burgundy buttons. There’s also a long fitted jacket in hunter green and a matching winter bonnet. Together, they’ll form a simple but stunning holiday outfit.

“Gorgeous,” I say.

“I thought they’d be suitable for our day’s adventure.”

“We’re . . . going out?”

He’s lifting the gown and can’t see my expression.

“We are,” he says as he lowers it. “The Festival of the Penitent Rapscallions. I thought you were going to miss it. But you are not.”

“The Festival of the . . . what?”

He waves off my confusion. “I’ll explain later. We’ve time for you to eat breakfast and dress, but then we really do need to be on our way. There are rapscallions in need of pardons, whether they are penitent or not.”

“Uh . . .”

“Eat. Dress. Your festival awaits, my lady.”

Within an hour, I’m bundled into a sleigh. A proper Victorian one-horse open sleigh, complete with jingle bells. I’m nestled in a pile of furs, and then my husband is beside me, and soon we’re whipping down the hill to High Thornesbury.

I struggle to keep my eyes open. I swear I’m more tired now than when I arrived. Which, I suppose, may have something to do with the fact that I didn’t get much sleep last night. Entirely my own fault. William had been endlessly solicitous of my “condition,” and I’d waved off all his concern, avowing that I was only six-months pregnant and there’d come a point where sex would become unwieldy, and damned if I wasn’t getting my full share before that happened.

If I’d been more energetic than William expected, then he can be forgiven for not realizing exactly how tired I am post-journey. I could say something. I could even just yawn and lean onto his shoulder, and that would be enough to have him turning the sleigh around and bustling me back to bed.

Two things stop me from doing that. Two things that have me sitting upright in the sleigh, bright-eyed and beatific, smiling and tipping my chin to everyone as we enter the village.

One, I am Lady Thorne now, at a time when that really means something. William may employ minimal house staff, but he understands that it is his hereditary duty to oversee the well-being of “his” town. Many of these villagers farm on his land or tend sheep in his flocks or run shops in buildings he owns. There’s something uncomfortable about that for a twenty-first century dweller, but I still remember William’s shock when, as a child, I told him we did our own cooking and cleaning. He wasn’t aghast at the thought of hard work; he was alarmed about the disappearance of a major source of employment for the working class.

While there are certainly cruel and overbearing—or just plain thoughtless—landowners in Victorian England, the Thornes have always been an example of the way the system was supposed to work. It’s still imperfect from a modern viewpoint, but despite my discomfort with being “lady of the manor,” it’s exactly what I am.

If I must be a lady, then I want to be the best one possible. That means joining William in village life. Playing my role. There’s a cringeworthy old saying about the wife being a reflection of her husband, but there’s truth of that here. I want to rise to William’s example. This festival is important to the village, and our role in it is important, and I’m not going to force him to make my excuses, even if he’d happily do so. How would it look if Lady Thorne only returned yesterday evening and she’s already too tired to join the “common folk”?

The second thing that keeps me from bowing out? I’m about to participate in an archaic Victorian holiday tradition, one unique to this village. The historian in me is salivating, and the little girl who loved all things Victorian is bubbling with excitement.

William steers the sleigh down the snow-packed roads. The sides are thronged with villagers, snaking their way toward the village hall. When a preschool-age boy darts from the crowd, shrieking at the sight of the sleigh, William pulls the horse to a stop lightning fast.

The boy’s father runs out, calling apologies.

“No trouble,” William calls back. “He only wanted to see if he could outrun my sleigh.” William leans over the side and waves a shiny copper coin. “Do you want to try, lad?”

The boy nods furiously.

“Then here is the wager. You must stick to the side of the road there. If you come out into the street, you lose the bet. We race to the village hall.”

William shades his eyes. “Anyone else up for the challenge? Boys and girls are welcome to try their luck, but no one over the age of ten. We mustn’t make it too difficult on my horse.”

People laugh, and a few children come out from the crowd. William asks someone to do the countdown, and then we’re off. William keeps the gelding going at a trot, leaving the children struggling. A few give up. When he nears the hall, though, he reins the horse in, and any of the children who kept at it win themselves a farthing.

We leave the sleigh outside the hall, and we’re met by Mrs. Shaw’s sons and son-in-law who help me down and then escort us in. The hall is already packed with people, more streaming in. There’s a small stage erected at the front. On it are two rough-hewn wooden thrones, festooned with holly and ivy. We’re led in the back and to the thrones, where we’re given holly crowns and scepters.

Once everyone’s in, the vicar says a few words, welcoming the villagers to the festival. Then he summons a little girl from a seat near the front. She’s about six years old and missing her front teeth. She wears a green dress adorned with enough bows and lace for two gowns. As she draws closer, I can see the dress is a hand-me-down, faded and repaired, but in it, she walks like a princess, her face glowing.

The girl stops before us and curtseys.

“Agatha, isn’t it?” William says.

“Yes, m’lord,” she lisps.

“Have you committed a misdeed this year, Agatha?”

“Yes, m’lord,” she says, barely able to contain a grin.

“Are you ready to make a full accounting of that offense?”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“Please proceed.”

She straightens. “Last fall, I climbed a fence and stole an apple that had fallen on the ground.”

“And what did you do with it?”

“I ate it, sir.”

William frowns. “You didn’t try to put it back in the tree where it belonged?”

She giggles. “No, sir.”

“That poor tree, losing an apple, only to have a little girl snatch it up.” He eyes her. “Was it a delicious apple?”

“Very delicious, sir.”

“Did it have any worms in it?”

She makes a face. “No, sir!”

“Well, then I suppose one could say that if the tree dropped the apple, then it meant for someone to eat it, and if there were no worms inside, then you weren’t stealing their food, so . . .” He looks at the crowd. “Does anyone wish to claim the cost of this fallen apple?”

A few low chuckles drift from the audience.

“Well, then,” William says. “I pardon you, Agatha, for your misdeed.” He taps his scepter to her head. “In recognition of your brave confession, Lady Thorne has a reward for you.”

“Two rewards,” I say, taking a couple of humbugs from my basket. “One from Lord Thorne, and one from myself.”

I pass the girl the peppermint sweets. She curtseys and blushes and can’t quite make eye contact with me, but she smiles shyly before scampering back to her seat.

The procession continues. One child after another confessing to some “misdeed” from the previous year, to be “pardoned” by William. As childhood crimes go, they’re all innocent enough. I’m sure no one who actually did anything seriously wrong would confess it here. In some cases, I also suspect children concoct a “crime” to join the fun and get the candies.

This is certainly not a Victorian tradition I’ve ever heard of. William says it’s very localized and he doesn’t know the origins, only that he’d attended his first as a boy when his grandfather had done the pardoning. I cannot wait to discuss it with Freya, who’s a folklorist and has surely heard of it.

When the official pardoning is over, the festival spills into the village square to allow the hall to be prepared for the luncheon. William and I go out with the others and socialize in the square while admiring the decorations.

When we think of an old-fashioned Christmas, the Victorian model is what comes to mind, mainly because most of our traditions surfaced—or in some cases—resurfaced with Victoria’s reign, many of them borrowed from her husband’s German homeland. Here I’m witnessing what is truly the dawn of the modern British and North American Christmas, and the locals have thrown themselves into the season with typically Victorian abandon, decorating everything in sight.

We’re soon called back into the hall, where what waits is not a luncheon but a veritable feast. Everyone has cooked and baked their family holiday speciality, and as the local nobility, we must try it all to avoid giving offense. Boar’s head. Ham. Roast goose. Sage stuffing. Vegetables cooked in every possible combination. Mincemeat pie. Cranberry pie. So many pies. And, of course, plum pudding. Three plum puddings.

After we dine, it’s back into the square for more socializing. William is off talking with a group of men who farm on his land. I’m chatting with the local schoolmaster and his wife when I notice a young woman trying to catch my attention. It’s Mary, the teenaged seamstress William hires for our wardrobe.

I excuse myself from the young couple and head toward Mary. Even with the square cleared of snow, I need to haul up my long skirts and coat, and by the time I reach her, I’m very aware of exactly how tired I am, but I banish it with a bright smile of genuine warmth.

“Greetings of the season, Mary,” I call as I approach. “It’s so good to see you. Thank you for altering my outfit. You are an expert estimator.”

“I’m glad it fits, ma’am,” she says, “and I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation. I only wished to ask if we might have a word. Not now,” she adds quickly. “I know you’re busy. Perhaps we could talk tomorrow, when I come to the house?”

“Tomorrow would be fine, Mary, but if there’s something you need to speak to me about, I’m happy to hear it now.”

“It’s not worth troubling you with, ma’am. Just . . .” She casts a quick glance at my midriff, as if not wanting to be indelicate. “Lord Thorne says you’ll be staying at Thorne Manor now, at least until the fall.”

“We will. My invalid aunt is doing much better. If William and I decide to spend any time in London, it won’t be until after the summer.”

In other words, if I can’t get a local teaching position in the twenty-first century, William has insisted we’ll temporarily move closer to wherever I’m working.

Mary nods. “That’s what his lordship said. For now, though, you’ll both be living at the manor, along with the babe when it comes.”

“We will.”

“And being a lady, especially one with a new babe, you’ll need more staff at the manor. At least a maid. Perhaps even a nursemaid.”

“We . . . haven’t given it much thought.”

“But you will. You can’t stay up there with just a live-out housekeeper.” She straightens. “I would like to apply for whatever position you require, Lady Thorne. I do not have experience as a maid, but I’m a quick learner.”

“I know you are,” I murmur.

“And I do have experience with babes. I can provide references for that.”

“I thought you liked being a seamstress, Mary.”

“Yes, but it’s only part-time. Piecemeal work. Father says I need a full-time position. He’s found one for me in Whitby, working on a farm. It’s either that or I marry George Wilcox, who’s widowed with five little ones.” She lowers her voice. “I don’t know which is worse.”

I stifle a smile. “No doubt.”

The answer here is obvious. Hire her. I know Mary, perhaps better than I know anyone in the village. She’s been at the manor many times. She accepts our eccentricities without question. To her I am simply a formerly widowed American, and any oddities of my speech and behavior can be chalked up to that.

I trust Mary. There’s no one I’d rather have in the house, even if I’d still want it to be a live-out position. I don’t need a maid—or a nursemaid—but this isn’t about me. She needs a job, and I could find enough work to justify a wage that we can very easily afford. So why am I not jumping in to offer her a position?

Butterflies.

What holds me back is a little thing called the butterfly effect, which gets its name from the idea that the mere flap of a butterfly’s wings could set about a chain of reactions that cause a tornado.

For the average person, the “butterfly effect” is usually heard in terms of time travel. What if we could go back in time? What effect would our actions have on the future? Even if we actively strove to do good, couldn’t we unknowingly cause future harm? What if we traveled back in time to stop a killer, only to discover that one of his later crimes had launched a revolution in forensic science or victims’ rights, so we’ve save a few lives only to ruin thousands?

This is the dilemma I struggle with as a bona-fide time traveler. I didn’t, at first. As a child, one hardly considers such things. As a teen, quite frankly, I didn’t care. As an adult, though, I am keenly aware that I am tampering with history. Even my existence in this world could have unforeseen effects, and I cannot add to that by meddling.

I’m not a monster, though. I won’t let Mary be married to a middle-aged man who only wants free childcare and housekeeping. Nor will I let her be shipped off to Whitby, away from her family, her seamstress talents wasted doing backbreaking physical labor. I will find another solution to this problem, and so I tell her I’ll think on it, and she tries not to let me see her disappointment at that.

By the time William bundles me into the sleigh, I’m ready to fall asleep against his shoulder. I’m stuffed with plum pudding and pie, and my brain is buzzing with all the things I saw and heard, cataloguing them for Freya. I’m also making mental notes of names and occupations and the spiderweb of relationships that is at the heart of an English village. I want to be like William, able to put names to faces and ask people how their sheep are faring or whether their newly wed daughter is settling in well.

Of course, thoughts of married daughters remind me of Mary. The obvious answer is to discuss this with William. He at least needs to know she asked about employment. But when it comes to my butterfly-effect concerns, he has decided not to interfere. I must work this out for myself. His opinion would be that I shouldn’t worry about it, and he realizes that could sound as if he’s belittling my concerns. So he’s keeping mum on the subject, and I agree that’s best in general. Still, I would like to know whether I’m overreacting here.

“I spoke to Mary,” I say, raising my voice to be heard over the swish of snow beneath the runners.

“I thought I saw you two together,” he says. “Did she say when she’ll be up tomorrow for the fitting?”

I pause. “She asked about speaking to me when she came to the house, presumably for a fitting, but we didn’t set a time. Had she already arranged an appointment with you?”

“I discussed it with her yesterday, when I knew you were on your way home early. The Festival of the Penitent Rapscallions isn’t the only thing that you arrived just in time for. There’s also the Yuletide Ball at Courtenay Hall.”

“What?”

He smiles over at me. “August’s family holds a holiday party every year. You finally get to see Courtenay Hall and attend your first ball.”

His smile widens to a grin, setting his blue eyes twinkling. The first time I met Mary, he’d hired her to play ladies maid for me, as I prepared to attend a ball—a private ball for just William and myself. That was our first night together as a couple, and it’d been the most perfect, magical night ever, meant to fulfill my teenage fantasy of having William sneak me into a Victorian gala.

Now he’s giving me a proper ball, at the summer home of one of my favorite people on this side of the stitch: William’s best friend, August Courtenay. I’ll get to see August and his three-year-old son, Edmund, plus visit their estate and attend my first ball. Even better, I don’t need to sneak in. I am Lady Bronwyn Thorne, an invited guest. A thrill darts through me, and I find myself grinning back at him.

“I thought you might like that,” he says, his arm going around me in a quick squeeze.

“When is it?” I ask.

“Tomorrow night.”

My smile falters as I inwardly collapse into a puddle of exhaustion. I recover in a blink and deliver a quick kick to my mental backside. None of that. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I’m damn well going to seize it. It’s only mid-afternoon. I can nap as soon as I get home, and if I’m still tired after that, I’ll extend my nap into an all-night sleep so I’m fully refreshed and ready for tomorrow.

I have a holiday ball to attend, and I cannot wait.

So, that plan to crawl into bed when I get home? It starts to fall apart as soon as we get back to Thorne Manor. William wants to escort me inside and then stable the horses, but I insist on accompanying him into the barn. Horses may be his passion, but they are an old love of mine, one I’m rekindling as fast as I can.

First, I must greet all the horses while trying very hard not to lavish undue attention on my personal favorite, Epona, named after the Celtic patron goddess of horses. The two-year-old gray filly is Balois’s offspring, and she’s promised to a London buyer once she’s old enough to be trained. I don’t have a horse of my own yet—I usually ride the gelding William uses for pulling the sleigh, who is a fine horse but more trained for carts than riders.

We’re still trying to decide whether I should claim a future foal or buy a young horse of proper riding age. While I would love a horse from William’s stock, he has buyers for two years’ worth of colts and fillies, and I’m not sure I care to wait that long for a horse to call my own.

An hour passes between feeding treats to the horses and discussing whether or not riding is safe in my condition. The doctor says it is, but William would prefer we didn’t take the chance, and I’ll grant him that.

When William finally shuffles me into the house, I’m ready for bed. Instead, he steers me to the time stitch, because apparently we have a tea date with Freya and Del, and just enough time to go back to the modern world, change and then drive over to their place.

Sleep. Someday I will sleep. Just not today.

“There,” Freya says, closing the door behind William as he heads outside with Del. “They’re gone. Now get your dead-beat self onto Del’s chair for a nap.”

She points at the recliner by the window. It’s old and ratty, clearly his contribution to the marital home, and yet it looks like the most comfortable chair I have ever seen. My knees wobble just seeing it.

Freya puts a hand against my back and steers me toward it. When I dig in my heels, she walks where I can see her and crosses her arms.

I lift one eyebrow at her stern expression. “Is that the look you gave your students when they misbehaved? If so, may I tell you why it didn’t work?”

“Oh, it always worked. I might have been the softest touch at the academy, but that only meant my pupils hated to disappoint me.” She looks up into my face. “You are disappointing me, Ms. Dale.”

I sputter a laugh. But I do lower myself into Del’s chair with an audible sigh of contentment.

“So,” she says. “Are you going to tell William how exhausted you are—having flown across the world, six months pregnant, right after exams—or am I going to need to have a word with our Lord Thorne?”

I sigh. “It’s not his fault.”

“Nope, it’s yours.” She catches my look and arches her white brows. “Well, it is. He’s like a child who just devoured an entire bowl of sugar. His new bride is home, at the holidays no less, and he’s too excited to pause long enough to see that the only place you want to visit is your bed.”

I sigh again. Deeper. Then I straighten. “Oh, I haven’t told you where we went this afternoon.”

“Don’t change the subject. We’re—”

“The Festival of the Penitent Rapscallions.”

That stops her. She blinks. “The what?”

I smile. “You mean you haven’t heard of it? Aren’t you the local historian and folklorist?” I lean back in my seat. “Well, I suppose it’s not that important. Just a forgotten local tradition that I attended personally and could tell you all about . . . if only you wouldn’t rather discuss my need for sleep.”

She glares. Which is adorable, really. Freya is barely over five feet tall, plump and white haired, and about as menacing as a Persian kitten.

“Would you like to talk about the festival?” I say.

“Would you like to tell William you’re too tired for all this holiday running about?”

“After the ball. I really do want to go to that. Until then, if I can just sit here, with nice cuppa and a biscuit or two to sustain me . . .”

She rolls her eyes but walks to the table and pours me a tea as I start telling her about the festival.

“That is remarkable,” she says twenty minutes later, sitting in her own chair, madly typing my observations into her laptop.

“You’ve never heard of it?” I say.

“I have heard of a local tradition involving pardons, but I was never able to track down details. It seems I was looking in the wrong direction. Pardons are primarily Roman Catholic in nature, mostly associated with Easter and Michaelmas. There’s very little Catholic influence here, though, which is why I wasn’t getting anywhere. What you’re talking about more likely holds traces of Saturnalia.”

She chuckles at my expression. “Yes, you’d best not tell the vicar that their beloved festival is rooted in paganism.”

“Aren’t most, though?” I say as I glance around her living room.

While there’s a small tree in the corner, her own decorations suggest a celebration of Yule and the solstice more than Christmas, though they also bring to mind the Victorian decorations William put up, strengthening the commonalities between the two.

The emphasis is on nature, with evergreen boughs and holly, dried citrus slices, mistletoe balls and pine cones. And, of course, candles. So many candles, as if to summon the sun indoors as the days grow ever shorter.

“Saturnalia then?” I prompt. “Roman holiday held in December and one of the precursors to the non-Christian aspects of Christmas.”

She smiles. “Correct. Saturnalia celebrated freedom, among other things. Masters would serve dinner to their servants and slaves, who were free for that brief period of time. According to some historians, there was also a practice of pardoning criminals during that time. Your local penitent festival could have its roots there. There are also potential origins closer to home. In the middle ages, the York minster hosted a winter mistletoe service that pardoned wrongdoers. It clearly rose from pagan practices.” She taps her keys, making more notes. “I’ll take a closer look at the York mistletoe service and see whether the practice spread to any other villages in the area.”

We chat a bit more about the High Thornesbury festival and its possible antecedents. Then I pull my feet under me. “I also had . . . Well, I have a situation I need to discuss with you.”

I tell her about Mary.

“And you’re hesitating to hire her?” Freya says. “For fear of what exactly? That you might interfere with her destiny to die broken down in a field by the age of thirty?”

I give her a look.

“Well?” she says.

“It won’t come to that, obviously. If I don’t hire her, we’ll find another—less intrusive—way to help. But it’s a symptom of an issue I need to deal with. What if, in the correct timeline, she went to Whitby, met the farmer’s son, fell in love, and lived both happily and comfortably for the rest of her life? What if, by hiring her as a nursemaid, I sentence her to a life in service, never able to give up the steady paycheck to follow her dreams?”

“And what if, by squashing a bug in Victorian England, you bring about World War Three?” Freya snaps her laptop shut. “Where do you draw the limit, Bronwyn? And at what point is that limit going to interfere with your life, and the lives of your family? Yes, your baby doesn’t need a Victorian nursemaid. But maybe she should have one. Maybe that’s her destiny.”

When I don’t answer, she sighs and says, “You do realize the butterfly effect is pure fiction. An author’s creation.”

“No, it’s not,” says a thickly accented voice from the doorway. “It’s chaos theory.”

I look up. Del is in the doorway, pulling off his boots, with William coming in behind him. Del had been Thorne Manor’s caretaker for years, my aunt hiring him when she stopped coming up to North Yorkshire after her husband died.

My early correspondence with Del referenced his legal name, as he was part of Aunt Judith’s will. That name is Delores Crossley. It’s almost hard to remember that now, arriving and being confused for about five seconds before I figured it out.

Del presents as male and uses male pronouns. As for the specifics, it’s none of my business. He is Del Crossley, caretaker of Thorne Manor, devoted husband of Freya and our friend. He’s also a retired physicist, which was more of a shock than anything else. The man looks like he’s spent his life with grease on his hands and a pipe clenched between his teeth.

Del walks in and pokes around the tea table before selecting a square of cucumber sandwich.

“Chaos theory,” I say. “That’s science, right?”

He snorts. “Yes, Dr. Humanities Professor, it’s one of those science-y things.”

He eyes his chair—with me in it—and I start to rise, but he waves a gnarled hand and lowers himself beside Freya, who leans against him briefly in greeting.

“Is it a physics science-y thing?” I ask as William comes in and silently takes a seat near me.

Del sighs, as if I’m asking him to roll a boulder uphill, not talk about a subject he enjoys as much as William likes talking about horses . . . or Freya about folklore . . . or me about Victorian history. We are passionate about our passions, which is probably why we’ve become such good friends.

In normal conversation, Del’s North Yorkshire accent is porridge thick and liberally salted with local dialect. I think that’s partly a choice and partly camouflage. The average retired physicist—or historian—might want people to remember they have a PhD after their name, but Del would be quite happy if most of his neighbors forgot. He wants to recede into village life for his retirement. Hence the accent. When he launches into lecture mode, though, all that falls away.

“Chaos theory is the study of random or unpredictable behavior within systems,” he says. “When it comes to time travel, many theoretical physicists disagree with the so-called butterfly effect. They believe that it’s ridiculous to think one small action could disrupt a future that has—in the traveler’s time—already taken place. According to them, the universe would heal itself.”

“How?” I say. “Any change I make here must ripple through time.”

“Must it? That makes the universe seem an awfully fragile thing.” He leans back. “The butterfly effect is a Hollywood gimmick, a constraint to place on time-travel stories. Raising the stakes and all that nonsense. But those writers live in a world where time travel doesn’t exist. If it does—which we know—the results cannot be catastrophic.”

William rises and brings the tea pot over to refresh my cup. “That presumes, of course, that time is linear. Or that my world exists in the same timeline as yours.”

“Precisely,” Freya says. “I don’t think it does. It’s like I’ve said before. Time seems to be stitched together at a point where you two can cross. It’s probably also stitched at other points. That would mean multiple layers of time rather than one set timeline.”

And so it goes, launching into a heated discussion of the nature of time travel. I join in a bit, but my mind keeps circling back to what they’ve said about the butterfly effect and chaos theory.

There are no answers here. Oh, I could try to get answers. I’ve already affected William’s own timeline. I can check the archives and see whether anything has changed.

I did check once, when I feared I’d never get back to William. I learned that he died an old man in his nineties and never married.

If I check again, will that have changed? Even if it has, does that prove this is one uninterrupted timeline? I’m not sure it does. Maybe only my timeline changes, the effects I’ve wrought appearing in the archives in my own time, but not in the future one of his. Yes, it makes my head hurt just thinking about that.

But even if I could prove, beyond a doubt, that it is a single timeline, does that also prove that me hiring a girl in nineteenth-century England will have unforeseeable—and disastrous—effects on the modern day? Of course not.

These answers do not exist for me to find. I need to make choices on my own. To decide for myself what I believe and what I’m going to do about it.

Despite my busy day, William is careful not to keep me out too long. By dinner, we’re back in Thorne Manor, and then it’s a quiet evening and off to bed early. Which would be lovely if my racing brain would actually let me sleep. It’s not just my brain. Little Melvina is restless too, kicking and squirming, as if she senses my disquiet.

This is, of course, all her fault. Yes, I’m already shoving blame onto my poor unborn child’s shoulders. The fault, I think, lies with impending motherhood. Or maybe just hormones. All I know is that five months ago, I enjoyed a glorious newlywed summer with William, unhampered by thoughts of what havoc my existence might wreak on history. We spent most of our time holed up in Thorne Manor—on one side of the stitch or the other—and we interacted with the outside world no more than we needed to do to establish our story as a newly wedded couple.

But then I returned to Toronto, and as my belly grew, I began to think more and more of myself as a mother, and with that came an additional sense of responsibility. It didn’t help that I was teaching Victorian history, constantly reminded of the impact people and their actions have had on our past.

Lying in bed that night, my brain ping-pongs from one side of this debate to the other.

One minute, I decide I’m overthinking it. Making too much fuss out of nothing. Hubris, even, to think that my actions could impact history.

Then the next minute, I’m a fretting ball of nerves, setting guidelines and rules for myself, treating William’s world like a museum I’m visiting. Stay on the paths. Do not touch the exhibits. Do not cross the ropes. Remember that I am a guest in their world, there to observe and . . .

And do nothing that might actually make a difference, even a difference for the better? If I do that, am I not like a wealthy visitor to the V&A, walking right past the donation boxes to take advantage of the free admission?

William has money. No, he’d correct me—we have money. His family had been in dire straits when his mother passed on. He’d barely been able to keep Thorne Manor, which had always been the family’s holiday house, with their primary residence in London. William had taken what little capital he still owned and invested in . . . well, he invested in me. In my words. In what he remembered me talking about when we’d been teenagers, all the advances of the twentieth century.

William figured out what industries would become most important, what new inventions were likely to succeed, and while he made a few ill-timed choices, his instincts and his intelligence were enough to make him a wealthy man, all his family’s debts repaid with a cash flow that would be the envy of his peers.

Ask William what he does with this fortune, and he’ll joke that he uses it very wisely—to allow him to hole up in his beloved moors, with his beloved horses, playing the reclusive eccentric and never needing to set foot in London except by choice. That’s true, but he also uses it for good. To help where he can in High Thornesbury.

How do I follow his example—which I desperately want to do—without interfering in history? Or, in worrying about interfering, will I do less good than I could?

These are the thoughts that have me tossing and turning. I wake with a few ideas for other ways to help Mary, but it doesn’t solve the problem long term. That I still need to figure out for myself.

The next day passes in a whirlwind of activity. Mary comes, and while I make suggestions for her future, I can tell none of them are what she wants. I offer to help set her up in a proper dress shop, but there isn’t enough of a market for it in High Thornesbury, and she doesn’t want to move away. I offer to hire her to sew our baby clothes and a new post-pregnancy wardrobe for me, which is great, but what comes after that?

She listens to my suggestions and tells me they’re very good and she’ll pay them proper consideration. But I hear the hesitation in her words. I see her disappointment, too. It’s not as if she’s asked for something outrageous. Just a modest position that we’ll need filled anyway. My reluctance must feel like rejection, no matter how much I assure her it is no reflection on her.

After my dress fitting, Mary takes the gown into another room to make alterations. Once the dress is done, it’s time to get ready. Mary helps with that, as she did the night of my private ball with William. I might argue that I don’t need a maid, but for an evening out, Victorian style demands at least one extra pair of hands. As Mary helps, she temporarily forgets her disappointment, and begins chattering away, sharing all the local gossip.

It takes nearly two hours to get ready. First come all the layers of dress, made that much more difficult by my belly. I’m thankful I’m only six months along. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to find formal dress if I were in my eighth month. I suppose the answer there is that if I were in my eighth month, I wouldn’t be going to a ball. I have a feeling I should enjoy this side of the stitch as much as I can over the holidays, because not long into the new year, I’ll want to be in the twenty-first century, where no one will blink at me going out in public with a basketball under my shirt.

Once I’m dressed, it’s time for primping—the makeup and the hair and the jewelry. Tonight I wear the Thorne jewels. The necklace is a huge sapphire pendant circled with diamonds, more diamonds hanging from it. Even the chain is encrusted in diamonds. The ring is gold inlaid with a large sapphire flanked by diamonds. And the bracelet, not surprisingly, is more diamonds and more sapphires.

A fortune in jewels, passed from generation to generation, a symbol of continuity and former wealth, a reminder that the Thornes are a very old and very close-knit family. When his parents’ debt had been at its worst, William had been on the brink of doing the unthinkable: selling a piece of the set. That’s when he concocted the desperate ploy of using what little capital he had left to invest in the future I’d described. Now I hold the jewels in trust for the next generation.

When I’m finally dressed and ready, I look in the mirror and my breath catches, as it did the first time I saw myself in a proper ballgown. There’s a fantasy fulfilled here, one featured in a thousand historical-romance novels, our intrepid young heroine dressing for the ball where she will meet the man of her dreams.

At thirty-nine, I don’t quite fit that “young heroine” mold. I’m a middle-aged, very pregnant widow on her second marriage. And yet my story is at least as magical as any in those books I loved. I have married the man of my dreams twice. When Michael died at thirty, I thought that was it for me, even if “remarrying” was on the list of things he wanted for me . . . right after “have countless torrid affairs.” The affairs never happened. The remarriage did, though, to the man who first captured my heart.

Mine might not be a standard romance story, but it is an incredible one that I am incredibly lucky to be living. Married to the man I thought I lost, starting a family after I assumed that opportunity had passed from my life. I have a home, a family, a community, and a career I love.

That’s what I see in the mirror. Me, happy. Insanely happy, adorned in jewels and wearing the most amazing dress. Because while family and home and career are all vastly more important, one can never discount the value of a gorgeous ballgown.

This one is sapphire blue, in a shade to match the jewels. It’s empire-waisted, which isn’t the fashion, but it means that the waist sits above my belly, allowing the skirt to flow from there. Long-sleeves finish in delicate black lace. There’s a black front panel on the full skirt and black trim on the hem. A low neckline to show off the jewels. Victorians may have a reputation—unearned mostly—for prudery, but I’ve never had more of my bosom on display then when I wear a period-appropriate ballgown.

My hair tumbles past shoulder length. It’s threaded with silver, and my refusal to dye it is more proof of vanity than a lack of it. I consider my hair my best feature—even if William would point to other assets. Dyeing out the silver would mean changing the color and possibly the texture, and so I will be vain and leave it long and natural. Mary has curled and pinned it into a gorgeous partial updo that I can only pray will survive the three-hour sleigh ride to the ball.

Mary’s gone now, and I’m in front of the mirror, tweaking and turning, making sure everything is right because I know enough about Victorian society to realize it must all be right. It’s scandalous enough that I’m appearing in public in “my condition.”

As I’m adjusting my décolletage, William walks in, murmuring, “I’ll do that for you.”

“Yes, and that will be a lovely way to launch my society debut, arriving hours late and in disarray because somehow, fixing my neckline resulted in my dress spending the next hour in a heap on the floor.”

His smile sharpens to a wolfish grin. “No need for that. I will hitch it around your hips with utmost care. It’ll scarcely even wrinkle.” He touches my waist as he moves in closer. “Or perhaps I’ll hoist you onto the table here, where there’s a nice carpet for my knees as I go down—”

“Stop,” I say, my voice coming out strangled. “Please.”

He arches one brow. “Are you certain?”

“I am not at all certain,” I say. “Which is the problem. We need to be on time, William, and I need to be as presentable as possible. Once I’ve been properly introduced and everyone has had time to form an opinion of me, then you may ravish me in a deserted back hall.”

He chuckles, the sound half growl. “If you think I won’t take you up on that . . .”

“Oh, I will be very disappointed if you do not, Lord Thorne.”

He puts his fingers under my chin and lifts my lips to his in a long, delectable kiss. “It is a deal, then, Lady Thorne, on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“That I do not ravish you in a back hallway, but that I do exactly what I just offered, in some suitably empty room. If there is to be any ravishing, it will take place on the ride home.”

“In the sleigh?”

“Is that a problem, Lady Thorne?”

I brush my lips across his. “Not at all. Now lead on, m’lord. We have a ball to attend.”

Under normal circumstances, there would be no problem arriving late. Fashionably late is a thing in Victorian times as much as the twenty-first century. One never wants to appear too eager. Or one doesn’t if one cares about such things, which we do not. In fact, we’re going to the ball early, though mostly so that I may have a proper tour of Courtenay Hall and spend time with Edmund before he’s sent off to bed.

August Courtenay has been William’s best friend since childhood. He’s also his business partner. August is the one person on this side who knows the truth about me. Not because William confessed, but the opposite—William had refused to explain anything about me at all. When I’d returned to Thorne Manor at fifteen, William suddenly became less available to his friend, secretive and very, very busy. Presuming the issue was a girl, August set out to solve the mystery and discovered that William had been spotted with a mysterious girl no one had ever seen, one who dressed quite oddly. His first guess was that William had found himself a girl of the fae. I suppose that made more sense than the truth, which August worked out last summer when I returned.

August lives in London, but his family has an estate in North Yorkshire. And when I say “estate,” I mean the kind of place that gets used today as the backdrop in grand period dramas. In fact, I’m quite certain modern Courtenay Hall has appeared in at least one production. In the twenty-first century, it’s periodically open to the public, and when I visited it as a girl, my mind had been blown by the sheer scope of the place.

I’ve never been to nineteenth-century Courtenay Hall. This past summer, August always came to us, sometimes bringing Edmund. August’s wife, Rosalind, died when Edmund wasn’t even a year old. I say “died.” William says died. Most of the world says died. Rosalind was apparently known for her moonlit rides on horseback, and one morning, she wasn’t in bed when August awoke. Her horse was later found drowned, having apparently panicked and charged off a seaside cliff.

Clearly, Rosalind is dead. What other explanation could there be for the disappearance of a young mother who, by all accounts, adored her husband and son? Well, according to August, she left. Abandoned them. Ignore the fact that she never threatened any such thing, that they hadn’t been fighting the day before she disappeared, that she’d never given anyone the slightest indication that she wanted out of the marriage. No, forget all that. Rosalind abandoned him, and he will hear no reasonable argument to the contrary.

William has long since stopped beating his head against this particular wall, and I cannot do it either, however frustrated I might be. I never met Rosalind, but I am offended on her behalf. For a good man, August is making a very stupid mistake—obviously preferring anger to grief—and our only consolation is that he does not share this theory with their son. He tells Edmund only that his mother loved him very much and died tragically.

We leave mid-afternoon because it’ll take three hours to get to Courtenay Hall. I am not looking forward to repeating the journey late tonight. All right, given what William promised, I’m looking forward to at least part of the return trip. The rest will not be quite so comfortable in the middle of a winter’s night.

August offered us overnight accommodations at Courtenay Hall, but his brother vetoed it. Apparently, the earl is a bit of an ass. That’s my description of Everett Courtenay. William’s is much more colorful. According to the Earl of Tynesford, we do not rate an overnight stay, and if my condition makes the long journey difficult, perhaps we shouldn’t attend.

“He means perhaps I shouldn’t attend,” William says as we draw close to Courtenay Hall. “Our marriage may have brought me a measure of respectability, but I am still not acceptable in polite society.”

William is referring to the scandal that has dogged him for over a decade. Three young women have disappeared in William’s life: his sister, his former fiancée and Rosalind. That count sometimes rises to four. I’m the fourth—the mysterious girl seen with him all those years ago.

William was responsible for none of those disappearances. We solved the two murders, and I laid the spirits to rest. That is not, however, the sort of thing he can say in public.

“The problem,” I murmur, “is that while you may have married, I am not someone the earl—or any of his compatriots—has ever heard of. A middle-aged widow from the Americas? Very suspicious.”

“Devil take them all, I say.” He glances my way, his face shadowed by his fur-lined hat. “They won’t bother you. They won’t dare. That’s the one advantage to possessing such a dreadful reputation.”

I shake my head. “I don’t care either. I understand why we can’t spend the night, though. It is his brother’s house.”

“And by the time his lordship decreed we could not stay, the local inns were full. There are others farther along, though when you see the condition of them, you may prefer to carry on.”

“We have blankets,” I say. “If you do not mind me curling up in the back . . .”

He smiles. “I do not mind at all. In fact, I believe I packed enough blankets that you may strip down to your knickers and curl up quite comfortably.”

“And then the sleigh breaks down, and you’re left standing at the side of the road with your wife in her underwear.”

He waggles his brows. “That would certainly provide a boost to my reputation.”

“Not in the proper direction.”

I push my hands deeper into my muff and gaze out at the winter wonderland. Endless fields of snow stretch to the horizon, with the falling sun painting the world a festive red. I cuddle closer to William as he turns the horse onto another road.

We pass a wagon, and the boys in it all turn to stare at the sight of us. Living this close to Courtenay Hall, they’d see their share of well-dressed couples in expensive conveyances. Our sleigh is certainly a wondrous thing—sleek and gleaming black with a leather seat and fur-trimmed blankets. What these boys don’t usually see, I’ll bet, is a sleigh like this being driven by the owner himself. We should be comfortably ensconced on that leather seat while a driver conveys us to Courtenay Hall. Personally, I like this much better. It’s certainly a quicker ride, with William deftly steering the gelding, knowing exactly how fast the sleigh can safely and comfortably travel.

We turn onto another road, and I lean forward with a gasp.

“Pretty little thing, isn’t it?” William murmurs.

In the distance, Courtenay Hall sprawls at the foot of wooded hills. Every window is ablaze with light and a skating rink glistens in the front yard.

We continue down the lane, passing gardens put to bed for the season. I spot a maze, two small ponds, a lake to our left, a grand fountain to our right . . .

“There are follies, yes?” I whisper. “That’s what I heard, though when we visited in the modern day they were off-limits to the public.”

“There are several follies,” William says. “To your right, if you squint, you’ll see a pyramid. There’s a tower in the woods. Oh, and of course, the Grecian temple on the hill ahead.”

I make a noise suspiciously close to a squeal. William chuckles. I have a weakness for follies. Perhaps they carry less mystique to those who grew up in England. Or to those who don’t study Victorian history.

The nineteenth century saw a huge rise in tourism, at least among the upper and upper-middle class. Egypt, Greece, Italy, India . . . The English were mad for travel, and if you traveled, you wanted the world to know it. Souvenirs were a must.

Of course, many of those so-called souvenirs are what we’d now call stolen artifacts, and I suspect I’ll see a few objects d’art inside that will make me squirm with discomfort. But follies are different.

When the wealthy traveled, one thing they brought back was a blazing desire to reproduce the world in their backyard, which worked best if your backyard encompassed hundreds of acres. Victorians rebuilt architecture from places they’d seen, usually scaled down versions. And by “scaled-down” I mean a twenty-foot pyramid instead of a two-hundred foot one.

“Is the temple life-size?” I ask. “At least big enough to walk in?”

“It’s big enough to hold a garden party. That’s where August proposed to Rosalind, if I recall correctly. It was our favorite spot growing up. We’d spend hours in there, playing all sorts of boyhood games. It’s based on the Temple of Athena Nike in Athens, as perfect a scaled replica as could be managed.”

He glances over, a smile playing on his lips. “We could always skip the ball and ride straight there. Spend the evening huddled in blankets on the steps of the temple, gazing up at the stars . . .”

He catches my expression. “And that was a cruel tease. I apologize.” He kisses my nose. “We’ll return when we can enjoy it properly, preferably in spring. The earl despises the countryside, and he’s rarely here. We’ll visit when August comes to stay.”

“We’ll bring little Melvina,” I say.

He laughs. “We will certainly bring little whatever-we-name-our-daughter-that-is-not-Melvina.”

I’m about to tease him when a figure darts from a doorway. It’s a young woman in a maid’s uniform, waving madly.

William pulls the reins and the horse stops sharply. “Trying to get yourself killed, Lottie?” He calls. “I know having the master at home is never cause for joy, but surely it isn’t all that bad.”

The girl—no more than a teenager—giggles and curtseys. “Mr. August told me to watch for you. He’s getting ready, and he wanted you to come in this door, if you please, so he might bring young Edmund down for a visit.”

The maid stops at my side of the sleigh and curtseys again. “I’m Lottie, Lady Thorne. Pleased to make your acquaintance. May I help you down?”

“I’ll assist my wife,” William says. “Get yourself inside before you catch your death of a chill.”

I smile. “Please do go in. Lottie. But thank you for the offer.”

Lottie disappears into the house, and William provides the assistance needed to get off my high perch. Then he carries me straight to the steps, ignoring my laughing protests.

“We’ll go in and get comfortable,” he says as he sets me down. “If August is getting ready, we’ll be here a while. Even with a valet, the man cannot ready himself for anything in a hurry.”

“If he takes extra care tonight,” I say, “perhaps it means he’s ready to look for a new wife.”

William’s snort says what I already know. August is light years away from that. William is about to comment when we step through the doorway, and a reedy voice shouts, “Uncle William! Aunt Bronwyn!”

We turn as a fair-haired preschooler tears along the corridor. William catches Edmund up, making the boy squeal.

August appears around a corner. William might gripe about how long August spends getting dressed, but the result is exquisite as always. When August does decide to re-enter the world of courtship, scores of eligible young women will be summoning their dressmakers for a new wardrobe, in hopes of catching his eye. He might be the youngest son of an earl, with no title of his own, but he’s well-off in his own right, with a face that belongs on a Greek sculpture.

“Bronwyn,” he says with a half bow. “You look incredible. I see you brought your stable boy. How thoughtful.”

William rolls his eyes. I will point out that William’s suit is both fashionable and well-fitting, tailored to his large body. It is not, of course, as fashionable or as well-fitting as August’s. If the man has a streak of vanity, it’s best seen here, in his impeccable attire.

We embrace, and August waves us into a room. A small sitting room of some kind. In a house this big, there are probably a half-dozen of them. I take a seat, and Edmund launches himself onto me, his squeal drowning out his father’s gasp of horror.

“Careful, Edmund,” August says. “Aunt Bronwyn is with child, remember?”

I laugh and arrange the boy on my knee. “My lap isn’t quite as spacious as it once was, but we’ll manage. I want to hear everything I’ve missed since I’ve seen you. First, though . . .”

William passes me a wrapped cloth from his pocket.

“Cookies!” Edmund shrieks.

August mock winces. “Biscuits, Edmund. They are called biscuits here.”

“But these are cookies,” I say. “Because they come from America.” From my favorite bakery in Toronto, actually, though I can hardly tell Edmund that. “Chocolate-chip cookies.”

This is how I won the heart of August’s shy toddler. A very special cookie known only in the Americas. Now, let’s just hope he never actually travels to the Americas and discovers no one’s heard of a “chocolate-chip cookie” yet.

Aren’t you worried about that? my little inner voice whispers. Rosalind was a baker. Maybe Edmund will grow up to “invent” chocolate-chip cookies decades before their time, and the universe will implode.

That is, of course, ridiculous.

Less ridiculous than thinking terrible things will happen if you hire a sixteen-year-old girl who is in desperate need of a job?

I brush off the voice and turn my attention to helping Edmund unwrap the cookies as William and August get caught up in some shipping matter or another.

“So,” I say when we’ve freed the treats. “How is Surrey?”

Surrey is Enigma’s sister, and another of Pandora’s kittens. August gifted her to Edmund after William claimed he’d found homes for all four kittens. She’d been a surprise, and so that’s what Edmund named her, Surrey for short.

This is all the prompting Edmund needs. Mouth stuffed with cookie, he launches into a story about his beloved kitten, and I settle in to listen.

By the time the ball begins, I’ve almost forgotten what we’re actually here for. My mind is still buzzing from a private tour of Courtenay Hall, and it’s calmed only a little by helping put Edmund to bed and reading him a story.

When William suggests we may want to “freshen up,” I spent thirty seconds wondering why, before I hear music and chatter from the rooms below. Then I look out the window to see a queue of horse-drawn carriages inching down the lane.

William and I stand on a balcony to watch the guests arrive. I lean back against him, his warm arms around me, and we chatter like red-carpet reporters. I ooh and ahh over the fashions, as couples ascend the wide stairs. William does the same for the horses and carriages. He tells me the names and titles of everyone he recognizes, along with whatever gossip he can dredge up from memory. We spend a perfect half-hour hidden in the shadows, watching the procession.

Then, when the lane is log-jammed with carriages and sleighs, William decrees it time to make our appearance. This has been our plan all along. We’ll enter the ball at the busiest moment, to attract the least notice. William doesn’t care, of course, but I’d rather avoid as much unpleasantness as possible. My Victorian-ball fantasies only involve wearing a pretty gown and dancing the night away with someone special. Making a splash of any kind is not part of the plan. I am here to enjoy and observe.

Having been in the house for two hours already, we could enter through the rear of the ballroom and avoid being announced. That, however, wouldn’t mean we could sink into the shadows. William is too notorious for that, and I am too pregnant.

In a book, we would swan into the ballroom, the butler would announce us, and everyone would turn to stare. And only someone who had never actually attended such a gala would imagine such a thing. We walk in, and it’s like stepping into a wedding halfway through the night. There’s a quartet playing music somewhere, but I can barely hear them over the din of voices.

If one imagines a Victorian ball would be very sedate, one has—again—never met an actual Victorian. Voices rise as people compete to be heard over one another. Raucous laughter rings out. Someone shouts for a passing serving girl. It’s a cacophony of riotous, happy noise, and I am more than content to have our introduction drowned out by it.

“Lord William Thorne and his wife, Lady Bronwyn Thorne,” the butler announces.

Only a few people close enough to hear him turn. We begin our descent into the ballroom almost unnoticed. Then the ripples begin, our introduction being passed along on a tide washing out ahead of us.

Thorne? William Thorne? Isn’t that . . .

I won’t say every head swivels our way, but enough do that if I ever entertained even the vaguest fantasy of turning heads at a ball, I can check that off my bucket list.

While there’s something to be said for glances of admiration, am I a terrible person for admitting that this is kind of fun, too? Being the scandalous wife of a scandalous man?

I’d worried I might embarrass William by blushing or shrinking into myself under the weight of wicked whispers and gimlet-eyed glances. Instead, my spine straightens and my chin rises and the tiniest of smiles plays across my lips as the crowd parts for us. I am on the arm of a wonderful man, in a world I never thought I’d see, living a life richer than most people in this room could ever imagine. I am blessed, and if I’m a wee bit smug about it, I’m fine with that.

It’s only after a moment that I see where the crowd has parted. Where it’s leading us. A figure walks our way, a man who reminds me of August in a fun-mirror reflection. I’m sure he was handsome once, but there’s a dissolution about him that makes my skin crawl.

It doesn’t help that I’ve heard nothing good about Everett Courtenay, Earl of Tynesford. Yet even without that, I’d still feel that chill. His red nose and pouched eyes speak to a fondness for drink. He’s in good shape otherwise, if solidly built. The look in his eyes is what creeps up my spine. It’s a haughty sneer that says he doesn’t see his equal anywhere in this room, and certainly not in the couple approaching him.

“Thorne,” he says, his voice ringing in the now hushed room. “Finally decided to buy your way back into polite society with a bride, did you?”

I blink. Whatever I’ve heard about the man, I expected a veneer of civility. Or maybe that’s what comes with being a member of the upper nobility. You can say what you want, hurt who you like.

“Tynesford,” William says. “Good to see you. May I introduce my wife, Lady Bronwyn Thorne.”

“Bit long in the tooth, isn’t she?”

A titter ripples through the crowd.

“I didn’t marry her for her teeth,” William says smoothly. “Lady Thorne was a childhood friend, whom I had the good fortune to meet again this spring.”

The earl’s gaze shoots pointedly to my stomach. “Didn’t waste any time starting on an heir, I see? Remind me again when you two got married?”

Gasps mingle with the titters now. Everyone knows what the earl is insinuating. He’s actually correct. We married when I was nearly two months pregnant, in a small, private ceremony, with a clerk who was willing to backdate the marriage certificate for us.

“June second,” William says. “And yes, we were fortunate enough to begin a family while on our honeymoon. As for an heir . . .” He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “I’d be more than happy with a healthy baby girl. In fact, I’m quite certain that’s what I’m going to get. I’d even be willing to wager on it.”

For the first time, a pinprick of interest gleams in the earl’s eyes.

“Would you?” Tynesford says.

“I would. I’m so certain, I’d lay ten to one odds on it.”

A ripple of surprise through the crowd, almost drowned out by the earl’s guffaw. “Well, then, far be it from me to discourage a man willing to gamble at such outrageous odds. Shall we say ten pounds?”

The gasps take on an edge of excitement. Surely William won’t agree. If he loses at those odds, he’ll owe the earl a hundred pounds, the modern equivalent of over ten thousand dollars.

“Accepted,” William says.

The earl’s laugh grows louder. “You really are mad, aren’t you? All right then. Ten pounds at ten to one odds. Now, see that you don’t murder this bride before she can give you that child.”

William stiffens. His mouth opens.

“William!” a voice calls, as August pushes his way through the crowd. “Finally.”

He embraces us as if we didn’t just spend two hours together. Then he glances at his brother, as if only now noticing him there.

“Everett,” he says, his tenor voice ringing out. “Thank you for entertaining my friends. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“No, your friend just wagered me ten pounds at ten-to-one odds that his wife will have a daughter.”

“Did he?” August looks at me, his brows rising in question.

I dip my chin in a nod.

“Well, then,” August says, “allow me to join in the fun. I won’t give quite as good of odds, but shall we say ten pounds at five to one odds?”

Tynesford chuckles. “How much have you had to drink tonight, August? All right then. I accept your wager.”

“Excellent,” August says. “Now please allow me to steal my friends away . . .”

As he steers us from his brother, he whispers, “How certain are we about that?”

“Very,” I say.

He exhales. “Excellent. I will look forward to my spring windfall. Come along then. I have so many people for you to meet, Bronwyn. Have you ever heard of . . .” He whispers a name into my ear.

My eyes must round, because he laughs. “Very good. Then we’ll begin there.”

It is the ball of my dreams. Beyond my dreams. My youthful fantasy had been all about the gowns and the dancing. I have the first, and I get the second, with both William and August escorting me around the dance floor until my feet hurt. But it’s more than that. It’s the people for one thing. I meet some I know from history and some I’ve never heard of, but if August introduces us, it’s because he finds them interesting. I expected to be in a corner with William, and instead I have incredible conversations with bright, witty and fascinating people.

There is also the food. One can never discount the food. Raw oysters are all the rage, and they’re here in six varieties. There’s sweetbread pate, which I’m sure is delicious, but I’ve never been a fan of organ meats. Tiny quail with delicate truffles. Deliciously fried rice coquettes. And fruit, every variety of fruit available in this era, showing off the estate’s wealth. Imported oranges and pineapples. Greenhouse strawberries and grapes. Platters of exquisite little cakes and one entire tray devoted to Nesselrode pudding—chestnuts and fruits and liquor in a cream gelatin base. Knowing I can’t judge the alcohol content—and the Victorians poured with a liberal hand—I take only a nibble or two from William’s bowl of pudding. I also eschew all punches except the one August assures me is alcohol-free, a sad little pitcher at the end of a table groaning with bowls of jewel-toned beverages.

The pièce de résistance, though, is the ice cream. Which is . . . Am I being a complete twenty-first century snob to say I get a laugh at the ice cream? Row upon row of tiny silver dishes with a tiny half-melted scoop in each.

Had it been summer, it’d have been difficult to produce ice cream for this many guests, and the treat would be reserved for dinner parties. The Courtenays have an ice house—an insulated and sheltered well packed with ice in the winter. While freezing isn’t a problem at this time of year, the sheer effort of churning ice cream in these quantities is a feat, and I pity the staff.

William also makes good on his promise: the one about sneaking off to an unused room, hiking up my skirts and getting down on bended knee. Yep, that’s an entirely different sort of historical romance scene, but I’ve certainly read and enjoyed those too, and I enjoy this enactment even more.

Whatever fears I had about being here, whatever trepidation, it evaporates after we leave the earl and his snarky insults. I’m sure others make some, but I don’t hear them. I thoroughly enjoy my evening.

At one point, as the ball begins to break up, William is snared by a man I don’t recognize, who wants to talk business. I excuse myself, and I’m heading to fetch another glass of punch when a familiar calico tail swishes from under the table cloth.

Surrey.

I glance around. Thankfully, no one else has seen her. The earl is not a Surrey fan, and this will be just the excuse he needs to ban the kitten from Courtenay Hall. I hurry to another table to grab a scrap of fish and then, with my back to the guests, I coax Surry out, scoop her up and scamper out the nearest exit.

Once in the hall, I pause to get my bearings. Voices waft over from my left, a trio of women by the sounds of it. I clutch Surrey to my chest and turn a corner to avoid the small room where they’re chatting.

I make it three steps before their voices reach me with a word that catches me up short.

“—Thorne.”

I slow.

“I don’t know what anyone sees in the man. He’s brutish.”

“He might seem it,” another says, “but I’ve heard he’s an absolute gentleman between the sheets.”

As they titter, I smile. When I first fell in love with William at fifteen, I’d have been horrified to hear such a thing. Perhaps that’s the advantage of age and maturity. I’m glad William found pleasure elsewhere and that he pleased women doing it. He may have been a recluse, but he was not a monk.

The women giggle amongst themselves, and I’m about continue on when one says, “That wife of his, though. I’d heard she was of an age with him, but did you see her? The size of her?”

“I know,” another says. “I didn’t appear in public once people could tell I was with child. It’s not seemly.”

“I don’t mean the pregnancy,” the first woman says. “Even without a child in her, she’s going to need her gowns specially made. Lord Thorne may be a man of some size, but his hands still won’t span her waist.”

My cheeks heat. I should walk away. I know that. Yet I stand there, rooted to the spot, and I’m fourteen again, ignoring girls sniping as I buy a cookie from the cafeteria. I’m twelve, overhearing the boys snicker about the size of my breasts. I’m nine, when my ballerina mother canceled my beloved lessons, finally acknowledging I was never going to be ballerina sized.

Oh, I hear other voices, too. William ogling my figure as he plies me with scones. My father telling me I inherited his size—tall and broad and never “thin.” My stepmother marveling over how strong I am, how toned from my dancing.

I am big. Tall, big-boned and carrying extra weight even without a baby. I’ve come to terms with that. I’m healthy and fit and active, and if being a size eight would mean giving up my treats, I’m not doing it. Life’s too short.

Yet this still stings. Stings all the more because this is a world where concepts of beauty are shifting. In the early Victorian era, women were more likely to be mocked for being too slender. It was considered unhealthy. By the end of the nineteenth century, fat-shaming and diets will be in vogue. Even now, attitudes are changing, and in a time when the average woman is a size six, I very obviously do not fit that norm.

So their words sting, but I’m hardly going to let them ruin my evening. I continue down a side hall and find the sitting room we’d used earlier. I deposit Surrey there with more fish, and I promise August will return her to Edmund as soon as possible. Then I ease the door shut behind me and wait to be sure she doesn’t howl.

When all remains quiet, I make my way toward the ball only to hear the trio of gossiping women have entered the corridor. To return the way I came means passing them. I should, chin high, but I can’t be bothered. Not if I don’t have to. There’s another way around, and I decide to take it rather than risk any scene that might torpedo my perfect evening.

I head down a hall, and then another and then . . .

And then I am lost.

Seriously? It’s a house. You can’t get lost in a house.

You can if it’s an estate like this, with a dozen bedrooms and a half-dozen sitting rooms. When I spot narrow steps leading up to the second level, I realize I’ve reached the servant wing.

I’m turning around, orienting myself, when I catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. I spin to see the hem of a dress flipping around a corner.

“Miss?” I call.

I hurry to the corner. There’s a young woman ahead. Light hair. A pale blue dress. Moving soundlessly as her feet seem to float an inch above the floor.

A chill runs through me.

I shake it off. I don’t see ghosts. Okay, I have seen them, but only at Thorne Manor, and those have all been laid to rest. I haven’t seen one since. Nor have I seen one anyplace else.

This isn’t a ghost. It’s just a maid wearing slippers, a maid who has learned to move noiselessly through the house.

“Miss?” I call again.

She disappears around another corner.

I sigh and lift my skirts to follow. “Miss?” I call. “I’m a guest from the ball. I seem to have lost my way. If you could direct me . . .”

I trail off as I catch a low laugh. A laugh I recognize as the earl’s. I slow and turn the corner to see the young woman looking back at me, her pale face in shadow. She lifts one hand, as if in a wave, and I take a tentative step forward. She moves through a doorway, vanishing again.

Another chuckle from somewhere ahead and around yet another corner. Definitely Everett Courtenay. I do not want to bump into him, and I presume the maid’s thinking the same, waving me into a side room until he’s passed. Skirts lifted again, I jog along the hall and veer into the room she’d entered.

It’s empty.

No, it simply seems empty. It’s a music lounge, complete with a gorgeous little piano and seating that rings the walls. It’s also dark, and I walk in, squinting to see where the girl is hiding.

“Hello?” I whisper.

No answer. I take another step and my knee thumps against a stool. I stifle a yelp of surprise and bend to move it aside, my fingers sliding over crushed velvet.

Something moves alongside me, and I jump, straightening fast.

“Hello?” I try again.

Nothing. The room is silent and still, the only light coming from the hall. I squint and struggle to see, until I’ve surveyed the entire room.

The maid is gone.

I firmly remind myself that I do not see ghosts outside Thorne Manor. Well, the manor and the moors. Still, they’d all been connected to a single killer, and they’ve been laid to rest. Therefore this is not a ghost.

Then what is it? A teleporting maid?

No, it’s a maid playing a game. I couldn’t see her well enough to guess her age. She could be a parlor maid or a between maid, young enough to have a bit of fun with the fancy guests. Or young enough to want to see the ball, and now she’s hiding before her master catches her. I thought she was waving me into the music parlor, but she could have been waving me on, telling me which way to go to return to the party.

A perfectly reasonable explanation. And I don’t buy it for a second.

I saw the ghost of a woman in a blue dress. Not a maid’s uniform, but a lady’s dress. A fair-haired woman, small of stature.

When I’d been secretly trying to identify the ghosts at Thorne Manor, I’d asked William to describe Rosalind. Could she be tall and dark-haired? No, the opposite. Tiny and blond.

Like the figure I just saw.

I take a step deeper into the room and whisper, “If you want to speak to me—”

A yelp sounds outside the door. A young woman’s cry of surprise, dissolving into nervous laughter. I consider, and then I back up to the doorway to listen.

“Please, m’lord,” a young voice says. “I really do need to return to my duties.”

A rumble of a male voice, words indistinguishable, but the tone sounding like Everett Courtenay. I hesitate in the doorway and listen. When another girlish yelp comes, I hurry toward the voices without thinking.

Again, the yelp becomes nervous laughter, and I know that sound only too well. A young woman trying to make light of a concerning situation. Trying to laugh it off.

“You should get back to the ball, m’lord,” the young woman says. “They’ll be expecting you.”

“Is that an order?”

More anxious tittering. “N-no, sir. Of course not. I just thought your guests might appreciate your attentions—”

“More than you?”

The giggles take on a note of panic. “N-no, sir. I appreciate your kind words.”

“They aren’t kind. They’re honest praise. You’ve grown into a very pretty lass.”

I stride around the corner to see that the earl of Tynesford has a maid against the wall, his hand cupping her bottom as he leans into her. It’s Lottie, the maid who came out to greet us.

Lottie lets out a shriek, a little too loud for the surprise of seeing me. I feign a startled gasp and fall back. Then I laugh softly.

“My lord,” I say. “My apologies. You gave me a start. I’ve been wandering these halls for at least a quarter of an hour, trying to find my way back to the party.” I look from him to the maid. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“Not at all, m’lady,” Lottie says, a little breathlessly as she squirms away from the earl. “His lordship was just asking if I’d refill the punch bowls when I had a moment. Why don’t I escort you back to the ball, and I’ll see what needs to be filled.”

Tynesford doesn’t get a chance to even speak before Lottie is past him, hurrying over to me. I thank the earl for the lovely party. He only glowers at me, and then turns on his heel and stalks off.

I let Lottie lead me down another hall. Then I say, as carefully as I can, “I do hope I didn’t interrupt anything you did not want interrupted, Lottie. It sounded as if you might . . . welcome the excuse to escape.”

Her fair cheeks blaze bright scarlet. “Yes, m’lady. I did. Thank you. He . . .” She swallows. “He has had a lot to drink this evening.”

“Ah. That’s a rare occasion, is it?”

Another flush, this one paired with a low chuckle. “It is not, m’lady.”

“Does he often ‘notice’ you when he’s in his cups?”

Her gaze drops and her feet move faster. “He didn’t used to. Not until this summer. He hasn’t—hasn’t done anything like that. But Cook did warn me I ought to be careful when he’s . . . like this. He surprised me.”

“Hmm.”

“It’s all right, ma’am.” She flashes me a smile that’s a little too bright. “I’ll be fine.”

I don’t answer. I’m already deep in thought. Looking closer at Lottie, I’d guess she’s about sixteen. That explains why she might not have had trouble with the earl before this summer. I could be outraged at the thought that she’d have trouble with him now—she’s a third his age and his employee.

What I just witnessed, though, is hardly a unique situation for a pretty girl in service. I could blame the Victorians, but I remember a summer job at her age, having to deal with my fifty-year-old supervisor’s gaze never rising above my well-endowed chest, with his “accidental” touches that always managed to brush my breasts.

The difference is that I’d been in a temporary position, and I would have quit if it’d gone any farther. I didn’t need the money, and my mother would have insisted I quit if she’d known. Lottie doesn’t have those options. No more than Mary does. Their choices are limited, and at sixteen, a job is the beginning of a career. It is not pocket money but a means to survive.

I can’t offer Lottie a job. She wouldn’t want it anyway, I suspect. This is her family in service, and there’s prestige in working for an earl. She might change her mind if it becomes more than drunken groping in a back hall. Or when it does—I have little doubt it will.

What I can do is inform August. He’ll care. He might have had quite the reputation before he married, but like William, August’s reputation features only willing lovers moving in the same social circles. Neither William nor August has anything good to say about men who dally with their housemaids.

Here, I will interfere. There is no question of that. Which, I reflect as we near the ball, answers my other question, too.

If I intend to live part-time on this side of history, I cannot do it in a bubble. It’s like hearing a cry for help and telling yourself someone else will respond. I despise such people for cowards, and I have always vowed I will not be one of them. If I heard that cry on a modern street, would I pause with a thought for the future I might be disrupting? Wonder whether it is the victim’s destiny to be attacked, even killed? Of course not. And so I shall not do it here.

Del is right. If true time travel is possible, and I am in the same timeline as ours, then the universe will accommodate for that. It will heal itself.

I will not act carelessly, but I will act. I must.

I find William, and I tell him what I saw in that back hall. With every word I speak, his face darkens, and I begin to wonder whether I should have waited until we’d left. The last thing William’s reputation needs is for him to call out his host. He does no such thing, of course, because whatever his reputation may be, he is well-versed in temper management. He is angry and outraged, but he’s not about to go hunt down Tynesford, not when anything he does could open Lottie to retaliation.

“August wondered whether he’d prey on the child,” William says when I finish. “He has a history of that, which is why the houskeeper prefers to hire older woman and girls who are less to his taste. I believe Lottie was a special case, a dire circumstance.”

He glances over my shoulder and then steers me farther aside as a couple approaches, laughing. “The point being that August feared trouble, and he has considered offering the girl a position in his own household. He doesn’t particularly need another maid, but he could find work for her.”

“That would be wonderful,” I say.

He kisses my forehead. “I’m glad you were able to stop him tonight. August has been watchful, but Tynesford knows he’s being watched. The man is, sadly, not an idiot. I’ll speak to August and he’ll offer the girl a change of position.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you, for getting lost. The fact that you managed to help that girl means I shall be far less inclined to suffer the guilt of having abandoned you.”

“Mmm, pretty sure I abandoned you. The punch bowl seemed much more enticing than a discussion on tariffs.”

He puts out his arm for me to take. “Still, accept my apologies with a return trip to said punchbowl, before it is well and truly empty. I presume you did not manage to refill your cup.”

I tell him about rescuing Surrey, which I’d left out of the initial explanation. I’d also left out the mysterious disappearing maid. No need to worry him about that. But now that I’m reminded, there’s something I need to ask.

“This may sound like a foolish question,” I ask as we approach the banquet table. “But when we were touring, I don’t think I saw a portrait of Rosalind.”

“Ah, no, you did not. That . . . would not be on the tour. Not if August is giving it.”

His face reflects the same emotions I feel, that mingle of pain on August’s behalf and frustration with how he’s handling his grief.

William straightens his cuffs. “There is one picture of her, I believe. One he has not managed to . . . make disappear. Would you like to see it?”

“I would. Please.”

We’re in a dimly lit alcove, close enough to the kitchen that the heat from it has me sweating. I can smell roast pork, breakfast for those guests lucky enough to win overnight invitations.

“Where are we?” I whisper.

William motions for quiet and then opens a door into what seems like a cramped sitting room, stuffed with castoff furniture.

“It’s for the staff,” he says.

“And Rosalind’s portrait is here?”

“I believe so.” He takes an oil lamp, lights it and raises it. “Yes, it’s still here. The cook was quite fond of Rosalind, and I believe the old woman snatched this photograph before August could . . . put it into storage.”

He points at a small table where several ornately framed photographs are displayed. When I pause, uncertain, he lifts one and passes it to me.

I lift the picture into the light and—

“Oh!” I say.

I expected some dour-faced formal portrait. There’s always a misunderstanding that Victorians didn’t smile for photographs, when the truth is that the process took so long that attempting a smile would result in a blurred face. A serious pose was less likely to show the distortion of movement. Yet while the subjects in this picture aren’t exactly grinning, they exude a joy brighter than any hundred-watt smile.

It’s Rosalind and August, when they’d been courting. She’d owned a bakery in London, quite a scandalous thing for a young single woman, especially one of her good breeding. But she’d been the oldest of three girls who’d lost their parents. To support her sisters, she’d either needed to marry quickly or make use of her stellar baking skills. She chose the latter.

This photograph was taken in front of her bakery. Rosalind holds August’s arm, and they gaze at the photographer with a joy so incandescent that just looking at them feels like an invasion of privacy. I have seen August happy, but I have never seen him like this.

As for Rosalind, she is positively ethereal, a beautiful young woman of no more than twenty-two, tiny, with light hair and a face that is as beautiful as her soon-to-be-husband’s is handsome.

“She’s gorgeous,” I say.

“She was many, many things,” he says. “That was one of them.”

I could be envious, hearing my husband speak this way of another woman. I am not. I know how much he cared for Rosalind. She’d been like a sister to him, years after he’d lost his own.

“I . . . I thought I saw a young woman in the halls,” I say. “I mean, yes, I did definitely see one. I presumed it was a maid and went after her because I was lost, but she kept moving. She disappeared into a room . . . after beckoning me. That’s how I found the earl and Lottie.”

William nods slowly. Six months ago, I’d have tensed, interpreting his careful reaction as doubt, but I know now he’s assimilating my words.

When we first reunited, a comment about ghosts had elicited a very clear reaction from him. A very dismissive reaction. Superstitious nonsense. So I’d kept my experiences to myself, only to later discover that as soon as I said I saw ghosts, he believed me. The critical part there was me. If I told him I saw unicorns, he’d believe me, and if he said the same, I’d believe him.

“This young woman led you to Tynesford,” he says. “So you could interrupt and rescue Lottie.”

Now I’m the one pausing. “I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, it makes sense.”

“And you thought it might be Rosalind’s ghost.” He glances at the photograph. “Was it?”

“No.” I look at the picture. “The figure was fair-haired and small of stature, and I didn’t get a good look at her face, but I’m quite certain it wasn’t Rosalind.”

He exhales, echoing my own relief.

I continue, “I wouldn’t want to think of her trapped here, unable to communicate with her family. I also . . .” I take a deep breath. “August isn’t the only one who doesn’t want to believe she’s dead. That’s silly—I never even knew her. I certainly don’t want to think of her having abandoned her family, though.”

“She wouldn’t,” William says firmly. “August and Rosalind were having . . . troubles.” He looks at the photograph. “I haven’t admitted that, have I? It wasn’t the sort of trouble where one abandons one’s family, though. Certainly not for anyone as attached to family as Rosalind. She loved August, adored her son and was very close to both her sisters. The problem was August. He could be very jealous, and he struggled with that. He could be controlling, and she struggled with that. They would have worked it out. But you wonder why he believes she left. That is it, I think, even if he’d never admit such a thing. He fears he drove her off, and somehow, it’s easier to blame her for abandoning them. Do I think she ran away? Absolutely not. Do I think she died? Unfortunately, yes. Do I hope to be proven wrong? That she fell and struck her head and lost her memory, like some gothic heroine, and she’ll reappear one day? Yes. Mostly, though, like you, I simply would not want to think of her as a ghost.”

He pauses and then says, his voice lower, “That is what I’d hoped for, though, when I thought you were lost to me. That I’d stay at Thorne Manor even after I died. That I’d see you again that way, when you returned. That you might even see me . . .” He rubs his hands over his face and shivers. “Fortunately, it did not come to that.”

I hug him fiercely, my head on his shoulder. I’d thought the same thing . . . while hoping that even if we were separated forever, he’d have moved on and found peace, no matter how much I’d have desperately loved to see him again.

He hugs me back and kisses the top of my head. I reach up and kiss him properly, a deep one that chases away the memories of that terrible, uncertain time.

“It could have been a maid,” I say as we part. “A living maid, who alerted me to the issue and then slipped through a door I didn’t see in the dark.” I roll my shoulders. “Either way, that particular young woman seemed fine. It’s Lottie that matters.”

“And it’s Lottie I’ll speak to August about, posthaste. Let us go find him now.” He glances at the photograph. “Best not to tell him this is here.”

“I won’t.”

William speaks to August alone. While August is hardly the sort to blush and stammer at the mention of sex—even in front of a woman—he is still a man of his time, and this conversation will go better without me to hear it. Particularly if the answer is not to my liking. I can’t imagine August shrugging off Lottie’s dilemma, but he might have already decided against offering her a job at his London home and instead just promise to have the housekeeper and other staff look out for her.

I needn’t have worried. The matter is settled in the time it takes me to freshen up in the lavatory. August will offer Lottie a position, and if she agrees, she can quit Courtenay Hall right after the holidays and depart with August and Edmund. The earl will be livid, of course, but it’s not as if he gets on with August anyway. Also it’s not as if Tynesford can threaten to cut off August’s allowance—he did that when August married Rosalind—or threaten to keep him from visiting Courtenay Hall—access is part of August’s birthright. So while I feel bad about giving the brothers one more point of friction, William assures me August is only too happy to whisk an innocent girl from his brother’s lecherous clutches.

From there, we depart. August offers to smuggle us into his quarters for the night, but I can only imagine what kind of scandal would erupt if we were spotted sneaking out in the morning. No, we gratefully accept a hot flask of tea from the cook, and then we are off for the journey home.

Once again, William makes good on his promise of an intimate diversion. Or he does after I assure him I am quite awake enough and warm enough to enjoy it. We find a sheltered spot, ensure the horse is comfortable and then get comfortable ourselves in a bed of blankets. It is a wonderful interlude, snow just beginning to fall around us, the night clear and bright with stars . . . though admittedly, I don’t notice either until I’m lying there afterward, cuddled with William and staring up at the sky.

The next thing I know, I’m waking in bed. Obviously, I fell asleep. Equally obviously, William did not—he drove us home and carried me up to our room. I remember none of that, though, and I wake snuggled deep in blankets.

I lift my head and find myself looking into Enigma’s green eyes as she stares at me accusingly. Then I see the sun through the windows. Bright midday sun.

I blink and reach for my modern-day watch on the night stand. It’s almost noon. I blink harder, and I’m pushing myself up when William enters with a steaming breakfast tray.

I smile. “Breakfast in bed again? Careful, I could get used to this.”

“I am merely providing necessary sustenance for the long and busy day ahead.”

“Busy . . .” I say carefully. Even sitting up sets my entire body groaning, as it whimpers that it would like a few more hours of rest, please.

“Yes, busy,” he says as he sets down my tray. “We have a terribly full day ahead of us. First, a sleigh ride. Then charitable visits. Then supper at the curate’s. Then either caroling or attending the Sir Hugh’s evening of charades.” He pauses. “No, I believe we can do both. First the caroling, and then the party, with only an hour’s ride between them.”

I open my mouth.

“Oh, and decorating. I left off decorating twenty-first-century Thorne Manor so we might do it together. We’ll need to squeeze it in somewhere. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

I open my mouth. What comes out is a soft whine, audible only to the cats.

William looks thoughtful. “Or—and I realize this is a mad thought—but hear me out. Or we could send our regrets on all counts, postpone the decorating, and you could spend the day in bed.”

My mouth opens again.

“No,” he says quickly. “That’s silly. Forget I mentioned it.” He sets the tray before me. “You can’t possibly be tired. It isn’t as if you slept the entire ride home from the ball, so exhausted that you didn’t even stir.”

“I—”

“Didn’t stir despite driving through a blizzard, with me cursing the entire way.”

“I—”

“Didn’t stir despite the fact that we nearly plowed into a sheep.”

“A sheep? In winter?”

He throws up his hands. “Exactly my point. A white sheep during a whiteout. Fortunately, your husband is an excellent horse trainer, whose steed scented the beast and stopped for it. Then I had to check the ewe’s markings and return her to her owner, who lost her in the fall. Yet somehow, my wife, kept sleeping. Soundly enough that I checked her pulse not less than five times, only to begin worrying that while the signs of life remained strong, perhaps she was suffering some sort of pregnancy-induced coma, one that would explain her not waking despite sharing her open-sleigh bed with a sheep.”

“With a . . .?” I peer at him. “Okay, now you’re making things up.”

He walks to a chair, picks up my discarded corset and plucks off a strand of wool. “There was a sheep. And so, worrying about your health, I shook you awake. Do you remember what you said?”

“No . . .”

“You mumbled something about the woolen blanket smelling damp, and then went back to sleep. Which suggests you were very, very tired. Except, if that were the case, you’d have told me, instead of letting me drag you hither and yon.”

“I’ve enjoyed being dragged hither and yon.”

He gives me a stern look. “Perhaps. Yet maybe, in my excitement to give you a perfect first Christmas together, I forgot you are a six-months pregnant professor on holidays, who flew across an ocean to see me. I failed to consider that you may be—humor me here—a wee bit exhausted.”

I lift my thumb and forefinger. “A wee bit.”

He sits on the edge of the bed and stretches his hands as far apart as they’ll go. “A wee bit.”

I laugh and twist to fall into his arms, nearly upsetting my tea cup. He rescues it and hands it to me, and I take a long sip.

“Yes,” I say. “I should have told you. I just didn’t want to interfere with your plans, which were lovely and delightful, and I thoroughly enjoyed them.”

“But now you’ll thoroughly enjoy a well-deserved day in bed?”

“I will. Tomorrow.”

He sighs.

I lift a hand. “Today, I will spend a few more hours in bed. Then I would like to speak to Mary. I wish to offer her a position, if that’s all right with you.”

His expression tells me I’ve made the right decision even before he says, “It is most certainly all right with me.”

“Then, while I won’t have Mary start until after the holidays, I would like to let her know as soon as possible. May we do that?”

“We may. We could stop by her family’s home this evening.”

“You did mention caroling. Is that really a thing?”

He sighs. “In High Thornesbury, it is most definitely a thing. To my eternal dismay. Eleven months of the year, the villagers know to stay at the bottom of my hill. But come mid-December, they all begin tramping up, expecting Seville oranges and a cup of smoking bishop. A simple glass of mulled wine isn’t good enough, not since that bloody Christmas Carol story. They all want smoking bishop.”

“Well, I shall help Mrs. Shaw make the punch, but, since caroling is a tradition, I have an idea . . .”

It’s early evening, and we’re bundled up against the winter’s chill, walking along the front path of a tidy little cottage I know only too well. In my world, it belongs to Freya and Del. I’ve passed it many times in this world, and never known who lived there, perhaps not wanting to know, lest they be unsuitable people. But as we make our way up the front walk, I’m grinning with delight.

“Mary’s family lives here?” I say.

“Haven’t I mentioned that?”

I tug my hand from the muff to sock him, and he yelps far louder than it deserves.

“That is not ladylike behavior, Lady Thorne. Yes, perhaps I ought to have mentioned it, but . . .” He glances at me. “I know homes are much larger in your world, and I feared it might . . . discomfit you.”

He has a point. I’ve often thought how adorable Freya and Del’s cottage is, perfect for two people. Yet it had once housed an entire family.

“I am a history professor,” I remind him. “I know this sort of living situation was much more common.” In the great cities, entire families live in places a quarter this size.

“Life is different here,” I continue. “It is not always what I’m accustomed to, but many would argue that people in the twenty-first century don’t need nearly the size of homes they buy. Although one could argue that here, too. No family requires a house the size of Courtenay Hall. And Thorne Manor is rather large for two people and their cats.”

“Don’t worry. It shall be full enough soon. I want at least six children. And a score of staff.”

“More like six cats and a score of horses.”

“Now that’s just ridiculous, Lady Thorne. Horses in the house? They’d trample the poor cats.”

“The point, Lord Thorne, is that I realize this size of house is the norm for a village family, and if they are healthy and happy, then I will not be discomfited.”

“If it bothered you overmuch, I suppose Mary could live in with us?” There’s a note of trepidation in his voice that makes me smile.

“No,” I say. “Despite your jest about the score of staff, I know you would not want that, and I could not abide live-in staff any more than you.”

He exhales in relief.

I continue, “I will ask that we ensure her earnings well compensate her for the lack of room and board, and if she wishes, she may take rooms elsewhere. That seems a suitable compromise.”

“Very suitable.”

We reach the front door. William knocks. There’s a flurry of commotion inside, and someone peeks out a window, sees our lantern and basket and shouts “Carolers!”

There’s a pause, a silent one, and I glance at William, my brows rising as I wonder whether he’s not the only one who isn’t particularly thrilled with this custom. Just when I think they’re going to pretend they aren’t at home, the door opens, and a middle-aged version of Mary stands there, beaming. Then she sees who it is.

“M-m’lord,” she says. “Is-is there a problem?”

“No problem at all,” he says. “We’ve come caroling. Is Mary home?”

Another pause. Then Mary’s mother invites us in, but the invitation is hesitant, and I get the sense she’d rather we stayed at the door. Having gentry unexpectedly come to call is the ultimate hostess nightmare. I assure her we’re very warm and comfortable and will not stay long. She backs inside and calls for Mary, and she returns with Mary, an older man, and an adolescent boy. Also a chair. The boy carries the chair outside for me to sit on. I thank him and say I will sit in a moment.

“First, we have come caroling,” I say, lifting my lantern. I also point to the basket in William’s hand. Normally, this would be empty—a hint for a modest recompense for our singing, perhaps an apple or a sweet. Ours, though, is full. “And a holiday gift, in thanks for the kindness you have shown, allowing Mary to tend to me.”

Mary murmurs something, trying very hard to sound appreciative and not at all disappointed that I’ve made no mention of her offer.

“Now for the carol.” I look at William. “Please tell me your singing voice is better than mine.”

“Er, perhaps we should have discussed this before we decided to go caroling.”

“I take it that’s a no.” I turn back to the perplexed family. “We apologize, in advance, for our inability to carry a proper tune.”

I take a deep breath. Then we sing our song to the tune of that Victorian caroling classic “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

“We wish to hire Mary after Christmas, we wish to hire Mary after Christmas, we wish to hire Mary after Christmas . . . and John too, if he can be spared.”

The family gapes at us.

“Oh my,” I say. “That’s not how it goes at all, is it?”

Mary’s father lets out a boom of a laugh. “It is not, but it a lovely song to hear nonetheless. I do hope I didn’t misunderstand the lyrics.”

“Easy enough to do with our dreadful voices.” I look at Mary. “You suggested you would be available to work for us if we decided to hire additional staff with the baby. I would like to offer you a live-out position, to be assumed any time after the holidays. The salary will be negotiated once we have a better understanding of our needs and your availability, but it will be no less than twelve shillings a week for half-time employment.”

Mary goggles at me. “Twelve shillings for half-time?”

“That is very generous,” her mother says. “I do not think she requires quite so much, but as you said, it can be negotiated.”

The average house maid in this era can expect to make about fifteen pounds a year, slightly more than doubled if they aren’t given room and board. What we’re offering is a full-time wage for half-time work. It’s woefully low by modern standards but to go higher would smack of charity.

“We certainly can negotiate later,” I say, my smile belying the fact that I don’t intend to offer a pence less.

“As for the second part of our song,” William says. “I know young John has been seeking employment outside the family farm. With the baby coming and my wife’s occasional family obligations in London, I have realized I will require additional stable staff. I wish to make a similar offer to young John. Twelve pence a week for a half-time live-out groom position, to be negotiated properly after the holidays.”

“Groom?” John says. “You mean stable-boy, do you not?”

“Am I mistaken that you passed your thirteenth birthday recently?”

“N-no, sir. You are not.”

“I have a stable boy, who works after his school classes, and he is but eleven years of age. That would mean, I believe, that you are better suited for the position of groom. Unless you would prefer to be a stable boy.”

The boy straightens. “No, sir.”

“You are fond of horses, I believe.”

“Very much, sir.”

“Then we will suit nicely.” William lifts the basket. “While we realize it is traditional to collect sweets while caroling, we find ourselves quite overburdened with them. We were hoping we might leave these here.”

“Were you not continuing your caroling, Lord Thorne?” Mary asks. “I would join you if you were.”

William hesitates.

Mary’s mother elbows her daughter. “Lady Thorne ought not to be on her feet any longer than necessary.”

“I would be quite fine with a few more stops,” I say. “Perhaps you would know who in town might not be otherwise occupied on this evening?”

Mary nods, understanding my meaning—are there lonely villagers whose evenings we might brighten?

“There’s the Widow Allen,” Mary says. “And Mr. Morris’s children have not yet come for the holidays.”

“If they do at all,” her mother grumbles.

“Then we shall make those stops and perhaps a third. Please feel free to join us, Mary.”

“We’ll all join you, if that’s all right, ma’am,” her mother says.

I smile. “That would be delightful. Thank you.”

T’was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The last rodent, it seems, had been caught this morning and deposited on my pillow as an early Christmas gift. We have peace now, as we cuddle on the loveseat in the library, watching our blissed-out cats lolling on the carpet.

“What did you call it again?” William asks. “The herb in those toys?”

“Catnip.”

“For cats? How intriguing. I’ve heard of catnip tea for humans.” He watches Enigma purring loudly, wrapped around her toy. “I do believe I shall invest in catnip as a cure for the overactive kitten.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll sell it on the pharmacy shelf, right beside Godfrey’s Cordial, for fussy babies. Which reminds me, I ought to purchase some of that for little Melvina.”

When I glance over, his lips are twitching.

I squeeze his thigh. “Not funny.”

“No? I do believe opium addiction is a small price to pay for a quiet baby.”

“Which reminds me that’s something we need to discuss with Mary. Absolutely no giving Melvina medicine for colic or teething or crying, even if it’s an old family recipe.”

“Probably best to just request that she not give the baby anything unless approved by us.”

“True.”

Godfrey’s Cordial was a well-known “cure” for cranky babies in the Victorian era, along with several similar concoctions. In this time period, the manufacturer doesn’t need to list ingredients. The active one in most of them? Tincture of opium.

We can be shocked by that now, but this is a time when lower-class women were expected to put in a full day of backbreaking work at home—plus taking in extra chores, like laundry—while tending to an endless stream of pre-reliable-contraceptive babies. If something would keep those babies quiet while their mothers worked, they’d jump at it, especially when it was an approved medicine.

Even if those mothers had known the truth, opium use is widespread at this time. It’s legal and easily available in laudanum, a lovely little sedative to help with everything from restless sleep to “attacks of nerves” to menstrual cramps.

“That reminds me,” I say. “If in a few years, the doctor tries prescribing you anything containing a new miracle drug called cocaine, best to refuse it.”

“Freya has already made an appointment for me to meet the doctor in modern High Thornesbury. No offense to dear Dr. Turner, but one thing I am fully taking advantage of is twenty-first century medicine.”

“Good call.” I sip my punch.

“Stop looking at the presents.”

“I’m not—”

“You can’t take your eyes off them. Particularly this one here.” He rises and picks up a gift I couldn’t even see, tucked behind the tree.

“Fine,” he says. “I surrender to your relentless curiosity. You may open it.”

He hands me a long narrow box, unduly heavy. I weigh it in my hands. Then I smile. “You bought me a clothing iron. How delightful.”

He shakes his head and motions for me to get on with it. I untie the ribbon and take my time unfolding the paper, enjoying his obvious impatience. Finally I lift the lid off the box. Inside is a brass plate engraved with “Epona.”

I look up at him.

“You are as easily fooled as young Edmund,” he says. “Did you really believe I’d sell your favorite filly?”

“You said she’d been sold since before her birth.”

“And now she is unsold. The buyer was more interested in a colt, and so I convinced him to wait for that, with the added incentive of a reasonable discount.”

“So she is mine?”

“No, I simply bought a brass name plate for her door until I find another buyer.”

I throw myself into his arms for a fierce hug. “Thank you.”

“She will not be ready to ride for a year or so, but you said you’d like to participate in training.”

“I would very much. Thank you.”

He reaches into the pile of gifts and hands me another heavy box. This one is addressed to Will Jr.

I open the gift, faster this time, and discover another brass plate. This one reads Gringolet—the name of Sir Gawain’s horse. Beneath it is the bill of sale for a young gelding pony.

I laugh. “You’re already buying our daughter a pony?”

“Never too early to start.”

I lean in to kiss his cheek. “She’ll love him.”

“And now a gift for me,” he says. He picks up the one in brown-paper wrapping. “Oh, I am most curious about this present.”

“The one you bought yourself?”

“Nonsense. It clearly says it’s from you.”

He settles into the spot beside me again, his hip rubbing mine. I reach for a candied nut and as soon as I snag one, he tugs me onto his lap.

“I do believe we should open this one together,” he says. “Since you seem to have forgotten what you got me.”

“Baby brain,” I say.

“Undoubtedly.”

He pulls the string and I unwrap the paper, which has been carefully folded and secured without the use of tape.

“Books!” he says. “You bought me a trio of tomes. How kind.”

“Because you obviously need more,” I say, waving at the overstuffed shelves surrounding us. “I’m not even sure where you’ll put three more.”

“Not in here, given the publication dates.”

“Ah, I see. They’re modern books.” I lift the first one. “An Introduction to Baking.”

“So I can learn to bake for you,” he says. “Excellent choice. I can only hope it includes instructions on operating modern appliances.”

“Well, this one does. Though not for the kitchen.” I hold up an ‘idiot’s’ guide to smart phones.

“Thank you,” he says. “I do need that.”

I sputter a laugh and then flip to the third and final book. “A Father’s Guide on What to Expect in the First Year.”

“Now that,” he says, “is definitely a modern book. I do believe the current version would have exactly one page, telling me to cede all responsibility to the angel of the household.”

I make a choking noise.

“Yes,” he says. “I have a feeling my angel would like me to change a soiled cloth or two. I also have a feeling that I will want to do so, not only for her, but to fully experience fatherhood.”

“Changing diapers is the best way to do that,” I say. “All the diapers.”

He frowns and flips through the book. “I’m quite certain it doesn’t say that.”

“I’ll write it in.”

He laughs softly and turns me to face him. “So yes, these books are to me from me. My way of saying that I intend to be a complete and active participant in your world”—he holds up the phone guide—“and in our household”—he lifts the cookbook—“and in our child’s life. While I know you’d expect me to do more than a man of my time and background, you might also make allowances for my time and background. That is unnecessary. We are in this together.” He puts his arms around me. “You, me and our child-who-will-not-be-named-Melvina.”

“I actually had some thoughts on alternatives.”

He exhales dramatically. “Thank you.”

“I was thinking Amelia. Amelia Judith Thorne.”

A moment of silence. “After my mother and your aunt.”

I nod. “Is that all right?”

“It is very all right. However, if Judith is more common in your day, we could reverse the order.”

“I like Amelia Judith.”

“Might we sneak in Dale? As a second middle name?”

I smile. “We could do that.”

“Amelia Judith Dale Thorne.”

“It’s quite a mouthful.”

“A beautiful mouthful.” He bends to my stomach. “Happy Christmas Eve, Amelia.”

My eyes fill with tears, and I twist to hug him.

“Happy Christmas Eve, Lady Thorne,” he says.

“Happy Christmas Eve, Lord Thorne.”