I felt like Alice in Wonderland, falling into the rabbit hole, spinning and spiraling downward into a dark mist, reaching out my arms and hands but feeling nothing but the rush of air. I closed my eyes...Surely I was dreaming...
But when I felt my feet touch solid ground and smelled the musky odor of river water, it seemed too real just to be another one of the vivid and frightening dreams I'd been having lately...especially the one I'd been having over and over...
Slowly I opened my eyes.
I was standing on a quay next to a swiftly flowing river. I judged it to be slightly after dawn when I looked up at the sky. There was a chill in the air, and I pulled my shawl tightly around my shoulders.
A shawl?! I was wearing a shawl? But how could that be?! I didn't even own one! I quickly looked down at my attire, and my eyes opened wide. It was a period costume, something I judged to be from the early 1800s...a dress of pale yellow muslin with an empire-style waist. When I lifted the hem of the skirt, I saw I was wearing a pair of short boots with laces across the top, and when I reached up to touch my hair, I found it to be pulled up into a knot on the top of my head with some tendrils falling down around the sides of my face.
Was it Halloween, and was I on my way to a party? Was I auditioning for a play?
I closed my eyes again, squeezing them shut this time and willing myself out of my dream, but when nothing happened, and I could still hear the sound of water rushing by, I opened them again to see a small boat approaching the quay with a dark-haired man at the oars. He lifted a hand to me, and a smile spread across my face while my heart fluttered...and I knew it was James come to take me away.
If this was a dream, at that moment, it became my reality. I had slipped through the portal of time and was in a different period and place...perhaps it was my past, a past I had forgotten from another lifetime...
James steadied the boat as it bumped against the wood of the quay and held out his hand to me.
"Hurry," he shouted above the sound of the water.
I looked over my shoulder, feeling ice in my veins and hairs raising on the back of my neck, knowing they were after me and that if I were caught, they would drag me away, and I'd never see James again.
He gave me a brief kiss on the cheek as I settled down into the bobbing craft, then he pushed away from the quay with an oar, and we headed downstream on the swift current. I pulled my shawl even more tightly around my shoulders, feeling the chill from the wind reach into my bones. But I knew the chill was from more than the wind...it was from fear.
When I glanced at James, his face was intent on the task of getting us away, and when I glanced back towards the quay, I could see a half dozen horses approaching with men atop them. I knew one of them was my father and that he was determined to catch me.
The wind and the roaring current carried us swiftly downriver, and I remained silent, knowing James needed every ounce of concentration to get us to our destination. I tried my best not to think of my father and his party of friends who were most likely on the river themselves by now, putting all of my faith into James, the man I was determined to spend the rest of my life with despite the objections of my parents.
My father had made it clear that James was unacceptable as a marriage prospect for me, his family being of less noble birth as well as him being a third son, unlikely to inherit a title. When he discovered James and me alone, embracing in the conservatory, he became incensed, booting James out and forbidding any further contact between us. Without my consent, I'd been betrothed to an elderly, titled acquaintance of his and locked into my chambers.
Little did my mother or father know, however, that James and I had been meeting clandestinely ever since we'd first been introduced to each other in London during my last Season several months previous. It had been love at first sight for both of us, and it wasn't long before we'd become intimate and talked of marriage.
When James had approached my father, however, his request to offer for me was immediately rejected, and he was warned to stay away. Our discovery in the conservatory had created havoc and set plans into motion for my escape.
I was fortunate in my maid, Molly, who had a romantic nature and empathized with my situation. She not only assisted me in meeting with James in secret locations but carried correspondence between us, thus aiding in my ability to leave unnoticed in the middle of the night.
As our boat rounded a bend in the river, James pointed ahead to a dock on the right and aimed us towards it. The moment it touched the side, he was up onto the dock, pulling me up after him. He didn't wait to anchor the boat, and it floated onward down the river. I was soon on a horse, mounted behind him, and we swiftly galloped away through a copse of trees then onto the road which led to a small hunting box owned by James's family.
James thought we'd be safe there, and so did I.
The hunting box hadn't been used in many years, James's father not being inclined to hunting as his grandfather had been, and it was in a bit of disrepair. It mattered little to James and me, however. It was our refuge for now and until we could find a way to marry. James had procured a special license, but the haste in which I had to leave didn't allow time for a marriage ceremony. We thought we'd hold out for several days, hoping my father would give up the search, then travel on to a town or village further away. James had provisioned the hunting box in advance with enough to sustain us for the present.
I was feeling somewhat ill when James lifted me down from the panting horse, and he settled me inside next to a fire that he quickly built before going back outside to take care of the horse and hide it in the small stable behind the hunting box. He was back moments later, concern on his face, and began to chafe my hands that were numb and cold.
"Are you all right, sweetheart?" he asked, holding my hands against his warm chest and looking into my eyes.
"Yes," I responded in a whisper. "Now that I'm with you, I'm fine..."
He pulled me into his arms and tenderly kissed me before gently setting me away, and holding me by the shoulders. "Is it true what your last note said then?" he asked. "Are you with child?"
Tears brimmed in my eyes as I nodded and then buried my face into his shoulder.
"Don't worry, sweetheart," he whispered against my ear. "We'll be wed soon, and all will be well..."
Suddenly, however, there was a clattering of hooves outside the front window, and I heard shouting, then fists pounding on the door. Seconds later, the wood of the door splintered, and in strode my father, followed by several men, one of whom I knew was his friend that I was supposed to marry.
I screamed as I was torn from James's arms and dragged out the door screaming his name. As my hands were bound and I was flung up onto a horse, I heard the report of gunshots from inside the hunting box, and pain so overwhelming and intense overcame me that I fainted. I knew in my heart of hearts that James had been shot dead.
Upon my return home, after being taken from James at the hunting box, I'd been called a wicked and immoral girl, a strumpet, a whore, and "spoiled goods" by my father, as my mother sat quietly by, sobbing into a handkerchief. When I asked where James was, I was told it had been made certain I would never see him again. I covered my face with my hands and fell to my knees, begging that it not be so, but it was to no avail.
Two days later, I stood at the altar of a church and was given in marriage to Lord Salisbury, Marquis of Willingham, a widower and a man five years older than my father. I was pale and wooden and mouthed the words required of me as tears coursed down my face.
The weeks passed, then months. I ate little, having no appetite for food or for life. The only thing that sustained me was the knowledge of a life growing within me, the child that James and I had created from our love, and I knew that my only reason for wanting to live was to have and hold our baby.
Molly did her best to try and find out what had happened to James, but she either never knew or didn't want to tell me. I was never sure which. I assumed one of my notes to James had been intercepted.
My new husband, Lord Salisbury, was disgusting to me. I refused him the marriage bed, but he said that would change once my bastard was born. He spent most of his time hunting and with his dogs. His friends often came to the manor in which I now lived, staying up late drinking and playing cards. I kept to my chambers, having only Molly for companionship, while I sat in a chair in front of the window, working on embroidering a gown for my babe and thinking of James.
My baby was born on a cold autumn morning. It was a difficult labor, but my only thoughts were those of James and what our love had created. "It's a boy!" I heard the midwife exclaim as I panted from the exertion of the last push. Then I heard the baby cry, and I knew he was healthy and that I had reason to live after all.
Or, so I thought...
As I was administered to after the birth, I heard a door close, and my child's cries fade away. Immediately I sat up, screaming for my baby, wanting to know where he had gone, who had taken him. No one would answer me, not the midwife, not Molly, who turned her head away with tears on her face, nor the two maids who had assisted with the birth.
I bolted from the bed before I could be stopped and tried the door, but it was locked. I pounded on it in vain, then clawed at the wood as hands tried to drag me back. I pushed them away, continuing to scrape at the door until my hands were bloody and my fingernails torn. Then, I collapsed on the floor onto my knees and wailed until I had no strength left.
Mist enveloped me once again, and I felt myself spiraling upward, turning in circles, air blowing and swirling all around me, and I knew I was headed back up to the portal from which I had first entered.
And I knew my dream was at an end...but was it a dream? Or, was it something else...a slice of reality from another lifetime? When I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands, I saw traces of blood, and I will always wonder...