Page 38 of Echoes of the Sea (Storm Tide #2)

Kipling and his marvelous team of champions had managed a miracle.

The new arrivals from the village had been at Guil-ford for a week, and the change was already startling.

Mrs. Jagger had transformed the instant everyone had arrived from the unsure and almost dottering woman she’d been in the weeks that Amelia had been at Guilford into a capable and authoritative housekeeper.

Amelia felt as though she was getting a glimpse of Mrs. Jagger twenty years earlier.

The housekeeper organized those who were to work as maids in the house as well as consulted with a woman of about her age who had come from the village willing to act as cook for a time, making certain she had a couple of hands in the kitchen to help when the time came.

Marsh had chosen a man from among the villagers to act as a footman, feeling they didn’t need more than one in the relatively small house.

The young man he’d chosen was also skilled at building and making repairs, so when not needed in household duties, he would be joining Kipling and most of the rest of those who would be addressing the damage of neglect and improving the state of things around Guilford.

Mr. Ivers had shown an unusual amount of excitement, which, for him, amounted to the tiniest lift of his eyebrows when Kipling had insisted some of the work ought to include repairing paths on the island and making certain those living at the lighthouse and the keeper’s residence had what they needed.

Mrs. Ivers, who knew the villagers well, had warmed instantly to the flood of people.

She’d come up to the house every day since their arrival, bringing her little baby with her and not only being friendly with those who were now going to work for a time at Guilford but also offering Amelia insights into who they all were and what she knew of them.

A miracle. An absolute miracle.

As evening approached on the eighth day of this fully staffed version of the house she was required to live in, she found herself overcome with the gratitude she felt at all these willing and capable hands.

She understood that they had come because it would be good for the village.

She didn’t begrudge them that, didn’t resent it or think less of them for it.

She was grateful to have been in a position to help and to offer these good people the hope she was clinging to for herself: a future.

And even though those futures would pull them apart, she still felt a sense of belonging and camaraderie with them.

And for the first time since being imprisoned here, she felt a touch like she was at home.

Mr. Ivers was uncomfortable anytime she tried to tell him she was grateful. Smudge always turned those attempts into a joke. Mick was too busy running about the island like the ragamuffin he was to sit still long enough to be told thank you.

It was to Kipling she was most desperate to offer her gratitude. She needed to tell him in a way that truly matched the enormity of what she felt. That, she suspected, was actually impossible.

All he’d done, the way he helped and cared about people, his kindness, humor, intelligence, that he treated her with respect, as an equal ... Her feelings for him felt impossible to truly express, but leaving them entirely unspoken was proving unbearable.

It was likely an hour before dinner would be served. Kipling would be in his room, though likely not yet starting to dress for the meal. It was one of the few times she was likely to speak with him with any degree of privacy.

The house wasn’t empty, and Kipling was very busy. She didn’t see him often. She missed that, but she understood.

She reached his door and lifted her fist to knock, but it was actually slightly ajar.

She nudged it open further and peeked her head inside.

Before she could ask if he would mind her entering for a moment, she spotted him sitting on the floor beneath one of the windows.

A leather-bound book lay open on his lap.

He was bent forward. At first glance, he seemed to be looking at it, maybe reading it, but a closer study revealed there was something heavier in his posture. Something defeated. And sad.

“Is something the matter?” she asked from the doorway.

He looked up, and her heart dropped to her feet. His expression wasn’t merely sad; he looked as though he’d been fighting tears and not entirely winning the battle.

Good heavens. What had happened?

She crossed to the window and knelt on the floor beside him, setting her cane next to her.

She’d comforted her cousin when she’d been upset, especially when they’d been younger, but she’d never offered comfort to a grown gentleman when he was distraught, especially a grown gentleman she wasn’t related to and had undeniably tender feelings for.

Hesitantly, unsure if it was the right approach, she set her hand on his. “What’s happened?” she asked softly.

A quick sigh accompanied the further drop of his shoulders. “I’ve been trying very hard not to dwell too much on what’s happened. But that means it hits me in waves, and it’s—it’s a lot to try to think about.”

“The Tides of Time, you mean?”

He tapped on the book open on his lap. “This journal was in the trunk of clothes. The man who wrote it was also a traveler on the tides.”

“It seems reading about his experiences isn’t helping.”

“It is in some ways, and it isn’t in others.

” He shook his head, helplessness joining the heaviness in his expression.

“I feel less alone. So much of what he talks about is what I’ve felt: confusion and not knowing what to do.

Not knowing where I fit. Being desperate to get back to my own time and place but knowing that I can’t. ”

Her heart dropped at that. He wanted to go back. Of course he did. She couldn’t blame him for that. But the thought of him leaving her struck pain in her heart.

“Thinking about staying feels like I’m giving up on going home,” he continued.

“But I can’t really be giving up if it was never possible to begin with.

” He snapped the book shut and lightly tossed it onto the floor beside him.

“I think part of me thought I’d read this and find some magic fix he discovered, some trick to hopping back on those tides and riding them home again. ”

Amelia swallowed down the immediate plea that sprang to her lips. If he found a way to return to his own time, she would be devastated. Yet how could she be so selfish as not to want him to be able to go back to what was his home?

He looked over at her and attempted to smile.

“I won’t be gloomy all night, I promise.

I’ll be wonderful company. Even Mrs. Finch won’t have reason to correct me.

” His pretended aunt had taken on the role with gusto and spoke to him very much the way an older, overprotective, mothering type of relative would.

But his reference to her and the humor they had both found in that behavior fell flat in the moment.

Amelia set her other hand on his. “I wish I knew how to help this feel like home to you.”

He shifted his hand so that their fingers interwove. “And I wish I knew how to make Guilford feel less like a prison to you.”

She had discovered in the weeks she’d known him that Kipling Summerfield changed the topic as a means of avoiding difficult conversations.

Sometimes, it was the kinder thing to let him make the shift.

But sometimes, like in that moment, she knew that continuing to push aside what weighed on him would only lead to more moments like this, when the weight was crushing him.

She reached up and gently touched his face. “In four more months, I will be able to escape this prison, but you will still be two hundred years out of your time. Please let me help you with that. Please talk to me. A burden doesn’t become easier by insisting on carrying it alone.”

He set his free hand atop hers, where it rested on his cheek.

He slowly and gently turned his head until her fingers rested against his lips, and he softly kissed them.

He then lowered their clasped hands to his heart and kept them pressed there.

“I’m very fortunate that I was brought where and when I was. And that you were here.”

“I’ve thought the same these past weeks. But that makes me feel a little guilty. You coming here has pulled you away from the people and places and time you would understandably rather be with and in.”

“I knew who I was then. It is a horrible thing not even having an identity anymore. I don’t even know how to create an identity in this time.”

She didn’t know how to help with that. They were making up a history for him to tell her uncle, but there was no substance to it. When everything at Guilford was settled and done, he wouldn’t actually have family or money or connections.

“You must be very lonely,” she said.

“I was often lonely in my own time as well. Except when I was with Malcolm and Jen.”

Amelia adjusted so she was sitting more comfortably. “Malcolm is the one you said is a saint?”

He nodded. “And Jen is his wife.” He adjusted them both, arranging them so that rather than sitting facing him with her hands in his, she was sitting beside him, with his arm around her shoulders, tucking her up to his side.

“I grew up in America, like I told you, but I moved to England when I was eighteen years old to go to university.”

That wasn’t surprising. He had the sound of a person who was educated, though she didn’t know what that looked like two hundred years from now.

“I met Malcolm at university. We were both studying acting, starting in the same program at the same time.”

“You were an actor?”

His eyes darted to her. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is not a ... respectable occupation.”

“The ‘tattoo’ of jobs?” He was clearly making an attempt at humor, but his frustration rendered the effort flat.