The Garden of Promises and Lies by Paula Brackston

Author:Paula Brackston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

Liam was still holding her hand tightly when they found themselves standing on a narrow cobbled street with sharp sunlight affording them no hiding place. Xanthe saw a young couple walking away from them and was thankful for the way love made the pair oblivious to the sudden appearance of two people only a few short strides away. She motioned to Liam to remain silent until the strangers had turned the corner out of sight at the end of the street.

She looked at him then. “Are you OK?” she asked gently. She knew him well enough to be certain he would play down any unfamiliar and disorienting feelings he was experiencing. She also knew how unsettling and alarming time travel could be. Watching people she cared about experience it was new for her, and she felt the responsibility keenly.

“I’m good,” he insisted, even though she could detect a slight tremor in his voice and noticed that he was a little unsteady on his feet.

“Take a moment,” she said. “You might be a bit … dizzy.”

He managed an unconvincing but nonetheless brave smile. “You don’t say?”

She studied their surroundings. This was not the alleyway she had arrived in on her recent journey, but it was familiar to her. There was something about the curve of the little street, the windowless walls of the backs of the buildings that ran along it, the unevenness of the cobblestones. Suddenly, unexpectedly given the warmth of the day, she saw the scene beneath a light covering of frozen snow. Now she knew it for the place where she had once found Mistress Flyte, beaten near to death and left to perish. Which she would have done, had not Xanthe and Edmund found her. “This way,” she said, leading Liam toward an old wooden door that was set into the wall on their right. She had her hand on the latch when it was abruptly pulled open, startling both of them.

Mistress Flyte stood in the doorway. For a moment her elegant early-nineteenth-century attire threw Xanthe, who had just been recalling her dressed for the 1600s. She realized she was staring at her. The old woman frowned.

“I have been waiting for you,” she told Xanthe. “I had not, however, been expecting a fellow traveler. Who are you, sir? Miss Westlake, was it your wish to be accompanied?”

“It was. Mistress Flyte, this is Liam.”

Liam held out his hand before remembering what he was supposed to be doing. He executed a clumsy bow. “A pleasure to meet you, madam,” he said.

“Liam who? What business has he here? How do you know him, that you would trust him with the secrets of a Spinner?”

“For our current purposes,” Xanthe told her calmly, “he is Liam Westlake, my brother. And we are both grateful to our aunt for inviting us to escape the unpleasantness of a summer in London by offering to accommodate us for a few weeks here in Bradford,” she explained.

“Indeed,” said Mistress Flyte. There was a pause

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