Page 27 of Watch For Me By Candlelight

Kate detested peanuts even more than she detested olives so she wasn’t the happiest bunny when the taxi poured them out at Chris’s house. They’d left Tom at the hotel and he’d given her a huge bear-hug, his bristly face rubbing against her cheek.

‘Cheer up, Katie. You can go back home tomorrow.’ Which was exactly the sort of flippant comment she loved him for.

Despite the fact her evening had turned into a food-less farce, Kate sniggered. ‘I think I might still be drunk tomorrow. Don’t really want to drive far.’

‘Me too. I’m pleased I’m going by train.’ They both found that inordinately funny and giggled like a pair of children. In fact, Tom was heading to France on the Eurostar, and it was probably a very sensible thing to do whether you were drunk or sober.

By the time she and Chris had arrived back in Chiswick, though, the levity of the situation had left Kate somewhat.

‘Chris, I’m actually quite hungry,’ she said as she waited for him to unlock the door.

He looked at her, genuinely confused. ‘But there were snacks. You didn’t touch any of them.’ The door clicked open and he stood back to let her in first.

Automatically, she kicked off her shoes before heading into the lounge where she sat on a very upright designer chair she’d always hated, while he locked up and kicked his own shoes off.

‘I don’t like olives and I don’t like peanuts even more.’ Kate knew the syntax was all wrong and the words were slightly slurred, but she was trying to speak reasonably.

‘Oh no! I forgot!’ Chris threw himself onto the sofa and shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t face any more food. You see, we had a big catered event thing after the Skype call and—’

‘You didn’t mention a catered thing!’ Kate interrupted, her voice rising dangerously. ‘You just said Skype! When you came in late. At the place. The hotel place.’ She waved her arm around angrily. She couldn’t recall the name of it.

‘Ah, yes, I forgot it was on, the catered thing. I finished the call and then they had this meeting. I was only supposed to stay for a little while, but it was a really good networking opportunity, and Saffy had organised it so—’

Kate stopped listening. She tried to slouch in the chair to make herself comfortable, but it was impossible — she knew Chris would tell her all about the networking opportunity for quite some time. He absolutely loved his work. But he was supposed to love her as well.

Chapter Ten

Kate was still annoyed by the next morning. She’d turned the situation over and over in her head and had eventually managed to go to sleep in the early hours of the morning. When she did doze off, her dreams were full of images that just didn’t relate to her life as she knew it. They were more in keeping with the Victorian daydreams she’d been having — because they couldn’t have been anything more than daydreams. Could they? Working in a museum consumed a person — you got used to the old things you were surrounded with, and it was only a small leap of the imagination to visualise the lives and loves of the people who had owned them.

Or so she tried to tell herself. But part of her didn’t quite believe it. There were just too many strange things happening to her.

Kate half-listened out for the chimes or the cuckoo-clock; with her eyes closed, she could almost imagine she was back at home and she could walk downstairs and see Will, in whichever guise he decided to appear in . . .

* * *

‘Will, I heard a rumour you were leaving Hartsford. It’s not true, is it?’

She was sitting in the little garden behind his house. He’d brought a stool out for her to perch on, still concerned, she suspected, about her leg. She was clutching a bunch of wildflowers and buried her nose in them. He’d picked them for her on a little walk — or a little hobble, in her case — along the riverbank. To her mind, they were the nicest bunch of flowers she’d ever had.

‘I’m not sure where that rumour came from.’ His voice was guarded and she looked up. Their eyes met and she saw something in his expression that she couldn’t quite place.

‘Why not? You must have an idea. Rumours are usually based on fact.’

He shook his head, then his easy smile broke out across his face. ‘I can’t tell you for sure, Cat, my love, because even I don’t know where they came from.’

‘I’m a captive audience, so you can tell me how these wicked tales started, because I can’t really run away very fast.’ She nodded to her legs. The hated Bath chair was parked up at the side of the cottage. She hadn’t managed to discard it completely yet, but she was still trying her best. That blasted walk the other week hadn’t helped. If it hadn’t been for Millie rescuing her — she felt sick at the thought. That’s why Millie was skulking around today. She’d been the one to bring her here, after all. Millie was the best friend anyone could ever want. ‘I just know I don’t want the rumours to be true. I like you being here. I like being here with you. Look — Hector agrees.’ The dog wagged his tail and flumped down next to her, his boxy head resting lovingly against her legs.

Will reached over and smoothed her hair away from her face. She could feel his warmth, feel the tenderness in the touch of his rough fingertips and it sent a shiver down her spine.

Kate parted her lips on a little sigh and leaned instinctively towards him. He moved closer to her until he was so near to her, she thought she’d died and gone to Heaven. His eyes were inches from hers and—

* * *

Kate woke up with a start, her twenty-first century heart pounding as fast as her nineteenth-century one had done. She blinked into the darkness, realising that the glow coming through the blinds was a streetlight, not the warm, Suffolk sunshine she’d been enjoying in her dream. That might have been the point she also realised the look in Will’s eyes had been regret.

She couldn’t get back to sleep after that.

Eventually, when it was a reasonable time to get up, she did so. She padded over to the en-suite and stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. Her hair was all over the place and she was white and drawn, her freckles standing out hideously — her usual hangover face. Not a good look. As she cleaned her teeth and switched the shower on, she couldn’t even fathom out what was going on in her own head — never mind what had been going on in Cat’s mind during the dream. Was she really Cat? Had she been Cat in a previous life? She half expected to see a bunch of wildflowers lying by the sink; but there wasn’t one. Kate wasn’t quite sure if she was disappointed or relieved.