side? She didn’t know what to say.
He placed a finger across her lips. “Don’t answer. I know I have no right to ask. I have so little to offer you.” He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t even remember who I really am.”
She took his hand and held it between hers. “It’s who you are now that matters, not who you were or who your family was. You are a good and honorable man, and you deserve happiness.”
“Then if the universe is just, you will be here when I get back, for that is what will make me happy.” He kissed her. “I will return as soon as I can.”
She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. When she kissed him good-bye, somehow she knew it would be forever. He rose from the bed and dressed. She sat up, drawing the coverlet over her shoulders, suddenly cold. Blinking away her tears, she smiled. She wanted him to remember her smiling.
“Sleep well, my love,” he whispered and blew her a kiss.
As soon as the door clicked shut, she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. Too heartsick to sleep, her tears flowed freely, and sobs wracked her body.
Chapter Sixteen
Eleanor woke late in the morning, heavy and groggy from her restless night. Then she remembered the ghosts had not come for her. She was still in the past and would see Shermont again. Her heart soared. Energized, she sat up, ready to face the day.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Deirdre said.
Eleanor’s hopes evaporated as she realized she was in a different room, and the two ghosts were seated primly at a small table near a window that faced the rear, rather than the south lawn where they’d played croquet and where the archery targets had been set up.
Disoriented, she asked, “Where am I? What happened?”
“That’s easy,” Mina said. “You’re in a room down the hall from where you were. Sorry about that, but the inn is crowded, what with that group of college students—”
“Stick to the point, Mina,” Deirdre said.
“Oh, certainly. And you are back in the modern world.” She punctuated her announcement with a quick jerk downward of her chin.
“But I didn’t save your brother.”
“Well, technically you did prevent the duel, even though you couldn’t prevent his death,” Deirdre said.
“And he wasn’t really our brother,” Mina added. “So you succeeded, even if not the way we expected.”
“What we know now is that our task wasn’t learning a lesson or doing something ourselves. We were merely the tools used to set a few events right that had somehow gone wrong. You helped us do that. Uncle Huxley inherited the title as he should have in the first place. And he was a marvelous guardian.”
“But he inherited the title before.”
“Yes,” Mina interjected. “But this time, because of what he learned about Teddy through your intervention, Uncle Huxley didn’t want us to wear mourning for such a brother, so he took us on his world tour. We collected thousands of specimens for his collection. Deirdre and I became quite expert at catching butterflies and moths and had such a wonderful time.”
“Did Huxley find his new species?”
“In New Guinea,” Deirdre said with a wide grin. “A stunning iridescent blue and green wing with a row of pink spots along the outer edge. The adults measured six to eight inches across. Magnificent. He named it
“I’m so happy for him,” Eleanor said.
“Extinct now, unfortunately. That’s a specimen on that wall,” Mina said, nodding toward a framed butterfly that looked like a print.
“You should buy it,” Deirdre whispered. “When Uncle died we donated his entire collection to the British Museum, except for a few we kept for sentimental reasons. That silly female who runs this place has a price tag on it of forty-five pounds. It was worth thousands when we were alive.”
“And we want you to have it,” Mina said. “To remember us by.”
“As if I could forget you.”
Deirdre stood. “We just wanted you to know how much we appreciate your help. Now we really should go. Our husbands have been quite patiently waiting for us.”
“Wait! Did you marry brothers? I worried that since I prevented you from meeting—”
“We did marry brothers,” Mina said. “Magnificent, brilliant, kind, handsome Dutchmen we met on a butterfly hunting safari into central Africa.”
“They didn’t speak a word of English, and we didn’t speak any Dutch.”
“Oh, but what fun we all had learning.”
“Mina,” Deirdre said, her tone an admonishment.
“I’m glad,” Eleanor said. She wanted to ask them about Shermont, yet she debated whether to do it. She wanted him to have had a happy, fulfilled life and to have found love. Did she really want to know the details?
The ghosts said their good-byes, but as they faded, Eleanor heard them arguing yet again.
“We should have told her,” Mina said.
“She’ll find out soon enough,” Deirdre said.
“Wait! Come back! Tell me what?” Eleanor jumped out of bed and ran to where they had been. “That’s not fair,” she said to the ceiling. She spun around in a circle and wanted to yell and scream. “Damn it.” She stomped her foot, but it didn’t provide the same satisfaction as when she was wearing shoes. “Come back. Please.”
A long silence was her answer.
She sank into one of the chairs and dropped her head into her hands. Now she would never know about Shermont.
“The reason I was so hesitant,” Deirdre began.
Eleanor looked up to find the ghosts seated in the window seat. “You came back.”
“Obviously. Although materializing and dematerializing is quite draining.”
“Just tell her,” Mina said.
“Yes, well, the reason I was so hesitant when Mina first suggested taking you back in time to stop the duel is because we had already taken someone back earlier. That had ended with disastrous results. When we brought you to the present, we had to bring the other time traveler back as well.”
Eleanor connected the explanation to Patience’s disappearance into thin air. No wonder it was a disaster. She couldn’t think of a worse person to take back.
“Because of the necessity of bringing two of you back together and the limits of our available energy, we have returned you to a point two years in the past, if you measure from when you left. You are at the point when you visited the inn the first time. That’s why you’re in a different room. It’s the one you stayed in then. As far as anyone here knows, you arrived last night.”
“We’re quite pleased it worked out so well,” Mina said.
“Wait a sec.” Eleanor was a bit confused and plenty worried. “Won’t returning to an earlier time create a time paradox? An anomaly? Am I going to explode upon meeting myself?”
The ghosts giggled in response. “Good heavens, no.”
“Each individual is unique,” Deirdre explained, “and cannot exist in duplicate form. When you came back in time, you replaced the previous Eleanor completely. Quite simple, really. Elegant. As are most big truths of the universe.”
“But I remember everything that happened.”
“Yes. Your experiences during those two years and what you learned on your trip to the Regency made you stronger. Therefore, you, as the more powerful force, replaced your younger, weaker self. You are still you. The one and only you.”
Eleanor was still uncertain, but she had to accept it as truth. She hadn’t believed time travel was possible … until it happened. Still, if she met herself in the hallway, she was going to run in the other direction.
