Toby opened her mouth to say “I am home,” but in one movement Graydon put her down and covered her mouth with his. The first time they’d been together she’d had to coax him to not be so gentle. But not this time.
He didn’t bother with words or undressing. He slammed her against the bedroom wall and lifted her skirt. That’s when he found out that, this time, she’d gone pure Regency. She wore nothing under her petticoat, just lots of warm skin.
Graydon unfastened his trousers with one hand and in seconds he set her down on him. Toby gasped at the sensation and clung to him, her legs easily going around his waist.
His thrusts were hard and fast and Toby felt them all through her body. Inside her, a growing urgency was released, building and building. Her head went back and Graydon buried his face in the soft skin of her neck. She could feel his whiskers, that very male mixture of rough and soft.
Faster, harder he moved and Toby went with him. She braced against the wall as her thighs tightened around his waist.
When she felt his body stiffen between her legs, she knew a release was coming within herself. She arched against him, her hips moving forward, just as his did.
They came together in a white-hot blaze of passion, his lips on hers. For a moment she didn’t seem fully alive. It was as though part of her had escaped her body. Her eyes were closed and she thought that when she opened them, she would be back in her bedroom in Nantucket and this would all be a dream.
“Graydon!” she whispered, panic in her voice.
“I’m here, my love,” he said, then carried her to the bed and stretched out beside her. He pulled her head onto his shoulder, his hand buried in her hair. His other hand went to her stomach, feeling the new contour through her dress. “Ours,” he said.
She put her hand over his. “Yes, I’m sure of it. Oh, how I wish—”
His kiss didn’t let her finish the sentence, but then he knew what she was going to say, that she wished they could stay where they were, that they could be married and raise their children together.
She snuggled against him and began kissing his neck.
“We have to return,” he said softly.
“I know.” Toby put her hands on the sides of his face. “Like last time, when we fall asleep, we’ll leave here.”
“No, I mean, we have to return to the wedding. There’s a reason we came back here and I mean to find out what it is. If Garrett hired Dr. Hancock to attend his wife’s lying in, there must have been a previous connection between them.”
When she looked into his eyes, she saw deep anger there. “What are you going to do?”
“Take a sword to the man, cut him into pieces, and throw them into the sea to the sharks.” His anger was so strong that he couldn’t be still. He rolled off the bed and stood looking at the fireplace, his back to her.
“Graydon,” Toby said as she lifted herself to her elbows, “you can’t do that! Garrett will be the one punished for it.”
He tossed a log onto the fire. “I know, but it’s what I want to do.” Looking back at her, he began to search his pockets. “I don’t know—” He broke off with a smile as he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.
“You brought something with you?”
“I thought—hoped—that re-creating our last time here would bring us back so, as an experiment, I filled my pockets.”
“So you didn’t do all that for me but for Tabitha?”
Graydon chuckled. “Yes. Did you not know how much in love with her I am? I especially like her little stripteases.”
“Do you? But then, I hear she’s deeply and passionately in love with Garrett, so they’re even.” She put a pillow behind her head and smiled at him invitingly.
Graydon looked as though he wanted to join her on the bed, but then he looked at the little desk in the corner of the room. “I put twenty-first-century coins in my pockets, a modern medical journal, some small tools, plus a timeline of history since 1806.”
Her curiosity aroused, Toby sat up. “Is any of it there?”
“None of it,” Graydon said, “except for a photocopy of Parthenia’s letter to her mother.”
“Oh!” Toby flopped back on the bed. “The infamous Dr. Hancock. Please tell me you aren’t really planning to kill him, are you? Even in secret?”
“I thought of that, but no, I fear that Garrett will only hire another doctor. I need to do what I can to make sure no doctor gets near Tabby.”
“How will you do that?”
Graydon picked up a quill pen. “I’m going to copy this letter and circulate it. I plan to say that it was written about someone I know in Boston. His wife was butchered by Dr. Hancock. Since Captain Caleb seems to rule the Kingsley family, I’ll get him to swear that no doctor will touch my wife.”
She got off the bed. “To make the letter believable, you’ll have to remove the references to the island. Shall I help you?”
“Yes, please do.”
When she went to the desk to stand beside him, he put his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, his head against her growing belly.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Here and now in this place and time of great freedom, I can bare my soul to you. Toby, I love you.” When he looked up at her, his dark eyes were glistening with what looked to be tears.
She took his head in her hands and kissed his forehead. “I love you now, I love you then, and I will love you for all time.”
For a moment he buried his face against her stomach, then abruptly he turned away and wiped his eyes. Without looking at her, he handed her the paper he’d brought.
Toby’s hand shook as she took it. She’d only read it once before and she didn’t relish doing it again. She took a breath. “Start it with ‘My dear Garrett,’ ” she said, then reluctantly read the horrible letter again.
Garrett was so worried about his beloved Tabby that he hired a Dr. Hancock to come from Boston. He feared that the local midwife—of twenty years’ experience—would not know what to do if aught went wrong. While Tabby’s labor went on for hours, the doctor said he could not wait all night just for a baby to get born. He used forceps on her before her body was ready. Of course etiquette declared that he could not look at what he was doing so he used the steel monster blindly. He caught part of Tabby’s womb with them, and when the baby was born, he pulled her insides out with it. He must have used too much strength as the baby died instantly, its little head crushed. While Tabby was screaming from pain, the doctor bled her profusely to make her calm down. As the odious man hurried off to catch the last ferry, he said that death was in the hands of God and that he’d certainly done all he could to save both of them. As Tabby faded away, we told her the baby was happily sleeping. She died with her silent infant in her arms, never knowing the truth.
No one has the heart to tell Garrett that the doctor killed his wife and son. With his temper he’d go after the man. I can tell you that no woman on this island cares what happens to the doctor, but we do not want to see Garrett hanged.
Toby wanted to go with Graydon when he went out to spread the word, but she was attacked with such a severe case of pregnancy sleepiness that she was swaying on her feet.
Seeing it, he smiled. “You and our baby need to sleep,” he said as he led her to the bed.
“But I want to help.” Toby could hardly keep her eyes open. “And what if I wake up at home and you’re still here and—”
Graydon kissed her to silence. “Ssssh. I’m sure I’ll be there soon afterward.” He helped her to lie down on the bed. “Just rest.”
Her eyes closed even though she tried to keep them open, but she held on to his hand. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“First, I’m going to find the local potter.”
Her eyes fluttered in alarm. “Promise me that you’ll protect Garrett.”
“I will,” he whispered, then kissed her again and held her hand as long as he could as he went toward the door.
Toby heard the door clos
e but she didn’t look up. As her body was settling into sleep, images ran through her mind. Victoria in her green silk suit at Alix’s wedding, Valentina in her low-cut dress at Parthenia’s wedding. Dr. Huntley’s face floated through her mind. What was it he said?
Toby didn’t open her eyes but her mind became a bit more alert as she began to remember. “Both Valentina and Parthenia were there with her.” That’s what Caleb said.
Her eyes fluttered. “Tell the women.” The words were in her head in … in Jilly’s voice. “Tell the women.” Graydon had said he was going to tell the head of the family, Caleb, but he was a man. And who knows what men would do? When Tabby went into labor he might be on a long fishing trip and return after it was all over.
As Toby pulled herself up to a sitting position, she kept trying to come out of her sleepiness. She put her hands on her hard, round belly. “I know you are very young but, kid, if you want to be born, you need to wake us up.”
It took a few minutes, but Toby was finally able to open her eyes. She took a few deep breaths and began to feel herself becoming more alert. When she swung her legs off the bed she gasped because the baby kicked her.
For a moment she sat on the side of the bed, her hands on her stomach and smiling. “You’re like your father, aren’t you? You’re ready to do battle to help people. All right, my dear child, let’s go find the women.”
She made it down the stairs to the empty ground floor and out the front door. Lightning was flashing in the sky but there was no rain yet. She hurried over to Kingsley House where the wedding was still going strong. She had yet to find out whose it was.
The first person she saw was Valentina sitting in a corner with Captain Caleb. Their heads were close together and they were whispering like lovers. Toby wished she knew more about their history so she could tell them about their futures. Didn’t the captain go down on a ship? But that was when Garrett was with him. If Garrett didn’t go, maybe the captain wouldn’t either.
The baby kicked again, seeming to remind Toby to stay on the issue. Valentina wasn’t the one to tell. She was too absorbed in the captain to pay attention to anything else.
Jilly—Parthenia—was sitting on a window seat cushion by herself, a cup of punch in her hand, and watching the dancers. “Tabby,” she said, smiling. “I thought you went to bed.”
“I did,” Toby said, her mind racing to think of how to present the problem without talking about time travel, reincarnation, or other taboo subjects. “I had a very bad dream. A nightmare that was so very real.” Toby then proceeded to tell everything she knew about that night in the birthing room. She told of the doctor being in such a hurry to get away to catch the last ferry, that he used the “steel monster.”
Since everything had actually happened to poor Tabitha Weber Kingsley, Toby wasn’t far into the story before she began to cry. Parthenia put her arm around Toby and gave her a handkerchief, but she didn’t interrupt.
A few people came over to ask what was wrong, but Parthenia waved them away. When Toby finished her story, Parthenia led her out of the room, past the dancers, through the little service porch at the side of the house, then out into the cool, dark night. “No doctor will touch you,” Parthenia said. “I swear it.” She was leading Toby out toward the lane. “Now I want you to rest. It’s not good for your baby to be so frightened. If you are scared, so is he.”
“Or she,” Toby said. Her legs were weak, as the emotion of the story had taken the energy out of her.
“No, it’s a boy. I know these things.”
Toby looked at her and nodded her head. Dr. Huntley had said as much about Jilly.
“I do not usually tell people what I see and feel, but I think you and I are kindred souls. And I believe your dream may have been real. I have worried about you since you married Garrett. I think that what you told me tonight was what I was seeing. You may trust me that no doctor will attend you. Valentina and I will make sure of that.”
“Thank you,” Toby said, and with the assurance, the overwhelming sleepiness began to return and she leaned heavily on Parthenia.
It was when they reached the lane that they heard the pounding of horse hooves on the cobblestones. The women halted and looked in the direction of the sound.
“Something is amiss,” Parthenia said.
The horse came closer to them but didn’t seem to be in danger of slowing down. When it was almost upon them, a flash of lightning cut through the night. Before them was a horse as black as the air around them. On top of it was Graydon, his snowy cravat clearly visible above his dark jacket. But above that was nothing. Where his head should have been was empty.
But in the crook of his left arm was Graydon’s head, with its lifeless face, eyes closed, hair tied neatly back.
Toby looked up at the apparition on the horse, holding the head of the man she loved, turned to Parthenia, gave a little smile—then fainted.
When Toby awoke, she didn’t at first know where she was. There was such a deep silence around her that she felt as though she’d awakened in a vacuum. It took a moment for her eyes to clear and for her to realize that she was in her bed in Nantucket. Her cell phone was beside her bed, her iPad on the dresser, her laptop on her desk. Twenty-first century.
The room was dimly lit but she could see sunlight under the shades. Turning her head, she saw that there was no indentation in the pillow. Graydon hadn’t slept beside her.
She put her hands on her stomach. Flat and empty. Instantly, tears came to her eyes. No baby, no husband, silent house.
“You’re awake,” Jilly said from the doorway, a tray of breakfast in her hands.
Toby pulled herself up and quickly brushed away the tears. “They’re gone, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Jilly said.
“Graydon was with them? He is well? Healthy?”
Jilly put the tray down. “Very healthy—if a man as truly miserable as he is can be called that. Why would you ask such a question?”
“I just wanted to know if he had his head on straight.” She tried to smile at her joke, but couldn’t.
Jilly took a big envelope from the tray. “Graydon asked me to give this to you.”
When Toby opened it, out fell another envelope and a small book. As Jilly quietly left the room, Toby opened the smaller envelope.
My Dearest,
I could not bear to wake you, but my father called for his sons to appear together. I am his loyal subject and must return.
Please do not forget me. With all my love forever,
GM
Toby dropped the letter onto the coverlet. At the moment she didn’t know how she felt about anything. It was all too soon and too raw for her to feel.
She picked up the little book and looked at it. It was old and raggedy, the cover torn and faded. Forbidden Nantucket was the title. “The stories the people of Nantucket don’t want told,” it read below the title.
She opened it to a marker and saw a drawing of a man in Regency dress atop a large, dark horse. The horse was rearing up on its back legs and in front of it was a middle-aged man holding a doctor’s bag, his hand to his mouth as he suppressed a scream. He was terrified because the man on the horse had no head on his shoulders. The gruesome-looking head was tucked into the crook of his left arm and grinning maniacally.
The story with the gory picture was short. It said that in the early 1800s a local man had dressed up as a headless horseman and chased a Dr. Hancock, who was so frightened that he ran to the wharf and spent the night hiding inside a half-empty barrel of rum. In the morning he boarded the first ferry off the island and he never returned to Nantucket. The question the author asked was why was the good doctor chosen to be terrorized? He was merely visiting on that cold autumn night, a guest at a wedding, and had never before been to Nantucket. But it was said that the horseman chased him, and no one else, halfway around the island.
The book concluded by saying that when the author interviewed Nantucketers—this in 1963—no one wanted
to tell him of the story. Most people said it had never happened. “Considering that Nantucketers have very, very long memories, this was unusual. Why was this Headless Horseman story hidden? And why was the horseman after the doctor from Boston?” the author asked. “No one would tell me.”
Toby wondered if Graydon had stayed up all night trying to find a record of what he’d done that night while she slept. Had he searched the Kingsley House library to find the obscure book? At least now she knew why he’d wanted to visit the local potter. The face of the head had been made out of clay, a wig over the back of it. She knew he hadn’t told her of his plan because she would have told him it was too dangerous. What if some local had taken a shot at him? But then, Garrett’s family was as much a part of Nantucket as the sea was—and Nantucketers took care of their own.
When she looked at the picture she had to smile. He’d certainly scared the doctor away so he wouldn’t ever return to the island.
All in all, it looked like there had been a reason, a purpose, to their getting together. Maybe she and Graydon were meant to go back in time and change what happened to Garrett and Tabitha.
And that was enough! Toby thought. To be able to do something like that was more than most people got to do with their lives.
As she began to eat the lovely breakfast Jilly had so kindly made for her, Toby thought the silence of the house was eerie. No clanging steel, no one laughing, no Lanconian being spoken. When she finished, she put her tray aside, fell back against the pillows, and looked up at the ceiling. She’d known this was coming so she shouldn’t feel so bad. And she should not be angry at Graydon. Would it have been better if he’d stayed for a long, drawn-out goodbye? Clinging together, both of them in tears? Would that have been better?