Chapter 16

1845

Collinwood Rear Gardens

Victoria stood admiring the lovely rose bushes that Harriett had doted on for the past twenty years. "I find when I am with my roses though they have thorns they are more friendly than some of my own family." She sighed sadly. "I always seem to be coming into someone's conflict." She lovingly touched the velvet softness of one of her roses, and then bent to sniff it. "They at least do not disappoint nor hurt me because I can see their thorns and avoid them."

Victoria had looked at this woman with a degree of pity. "You see Daniel and I were arranged for our marriage. I had hoped to give him healthy strong sons and a lovely daughter that I could cherish myself. All plans do not go as we all hoped." She turned with a bittersweet smile on her lips. Her eyes for a moment had gone distant. "But that is not the case for you is it my dear. I can see it in your eyes when you look upon Cousin Barnabas, you adore him."

Vicki had tucked her chin then nodded slowly. "Yes, I do love him with all my heart. I feel we have known each other a life time and it is my intention to be the type of wife he can appreciate and love and in return he has my love and loyalty. He is everything I envision in a man." She had paused then added softly, "And a husband." She added to clarify what her true meaning had intended.

Harriett chuckled softly, "Of course my dear. I still will presume your marriage night must have been awkward. I mean you met for the first time and I know you naively thought those letters would acclimate you to the type of husband you would be getting but when it comes down to it my dear and this is from a mother at heart to a daughter, for that is how I view you now Victoria as one of the daughters of Collinwood. When a man has expectations that do not come from written word or a piece of paper it is vastly different. I hoped your mother had prepared you for your wedding night."

Harriet had shuddered remembering her wedding night which had consisted of Daniel coming in whipping her gown up, falling on top of her and slamming his manhood into her with no preamble after a few moments he lay spent on top of her sweating like a horse after having run a mile in the heat. It was not the type of night she had hoped to have and it certainly did not improve. She did have a duty to family and unfortunately for her she had conceived with Quentin on that night. She did perform her nightly obligation as a wife dutifully and without complaint for the next 30 years. She even prayed that Daniel would take a mistress to give her some relief. For Harriett it was not to be her lot in life.

She had recalled how Daniel had repeatedly quoted Joshua and his rearing lessons turning to Victoria she smiled indulgently, "I had to hear over and over how important it was to be faithful and dedicated to family. He would extoll the words of Joshua as if it were the sanctified version of the Holy Grail. How at least a modicum of affection should be bestowed on the ones that were to love you. So he would offer a chaste kiss before he expected me to lay still for his grunting and sweating on me." She sighed and then looked away.

"I go to far, I should not be burdening you with my family failures or the lack of affection from a husband that does not know how to show affection." She looked at the thoughtful look that had crossed over Victoria's face. "I see you are feeling pity for me and my situation. It is of my own making and I have learned to accept and endure it my dear."

Victoria smiled then looked down with the delightful shade of pink she seemed to hold in constant on her cheeks. "I can confess my dear Cousin Harriett, that any affection shared between myself and my husband are equally matched and there is a bond that came on our night of love making that I never expected. He was a gentle soul and took my feelings into consideration the whole time. So I cannot complain. He is an exception to the rule as far as men are concerned and I feel he has learned to love me on an equal basis and I am very happy with him."

Victoria had been so sincere expressing her feelings that Harriet was moved to tears with her confession. "You give me hope my dear Cousin Victoria that there is hope for both of my sons and my daughter to find happiness in their lifetime." She sat back in the comfort of her chair looking at the now setting sun. "I had feared that no one baring the name of Collins would ever find a complete happiness with a mate. I see that I have hope to believe that it will be so."

Victoria relaxed thinking about her life with Barnabas in her time. "I can assure you when it comes to the Collins males my husband set the standards for being what I had hoped and dreamed in my naïve little girl way of being the perfect husband. I have no complaints about him, he is all I could hope and dream that a husband could be and he has never disappointed me in any way."

"With words of such passion spoke by such a charming mouth how could anyone find fault with a woman such as my wife. Hello Cousin Harriet, I hoped you did not mind my intrusion. Imagine my surprise when I came home to have my house staff to tell me she was visiting with family and then to come upon such an eloquently sweet description of a man filled with faults how could I not fall in love with her and hope to cherish and keep her for the rest of our lives?" Barnabas stepped forward dressed in the stately grey suit with tails. Bending to plan a sweet kiss on her cheek he turned to take Harriett's hand and kissed it lightly.

"Cousin Barnabas so nice for you to join us. Would you care for some tea, your lovely wife has been telling us of her devotion and love for you so it would possibly be wise for us all to learn your secret to keeping your wife so happy and content." Quentin stepped from he arbor where he had taken up a position out of sight but within hearing of what Victoria was expostulating on the virtues of her husband. The glorious picture she had been painting was about to turn his stomach. So for once he was glad to have an interruption even it if was the subject of such poet prose.

Barnabas turned and looked at Quentin, "I am sorry Cousin Quentin I did not realize that you were here or I would have made my cordial welcome to you as well as your lovely mother."

Quentin waved off the supposed offense with a slight smirk and a flick of his wrist. "Actually I was about to fall asleep in the arbor there I am actually glad another male has made his presence into the house of the hens." He smiled at his joke, which Vicki bristled not liking him comparing their talk as that of the cackling of a bunch of females chickns.

Vicki set her cup down and then stood quickly, "Husband forgive me but I am feeling a bit fatigued I do not suppose you brought the carriage for the ride home did you?" She turned to Harriett then half turn to nod to Quentin. "I hope you will forgive me."

"I find your company compelling cousin Victoria but of course I shall forgive but never shall I forget our memorable meeting on the beach this morning." And there it was that wonderfully lovely shade of red that now crept all the way up her neckline to highlighted her cheekbones. Then the second predictable action the tucking of her chin to hide her embarrassment with a flutter of her lashes over those incredible hazel eyes.

Barnabas frowned looked from his cousin Quentin to Victoria. "Is there something I am not aware of my dear?" He moved to take Victoria's elbow and lead her to the other side of his body placing him self between her and Quentin. Another set of curious eyes looked at her son then to Victoria. The imagination was running rampant between the two not aware of what happened.

Victoria smiled shyly. "I decided to walk the beach today and well I was not in traditional dress, I had found some of Daniel's old clothing from when he was a teen. They were all tcked away in the attic so I donned his pants and went wading in the water. Unfortunately, for me Cousin Quentin found me being quite decadent on the beach in my boyish clothing." She was flushing showing her true embarrassment.

Barnabas had narrowed his eyes and then judged that she had been telling the truth smiled, took her hand and then patted to say gently with a tenderness she had come to associate with him. "My dear, I wish I had been there to see you dressed in those boyish clothing it must have raised an eye brown and caused a few embarrassed moments when you discovered you were observed." He turned to Quentin and pointedly looked at the man with a different competitive look. "I am sure you were embarrassed as well were you not Cousin Quentin?"

Quentin chuckled, "Actually I found your wife very charming while she played like a child in the surf. That is until she tumped me into the water and then ran away and unfortunately met one of our more disreputable residents of Collinsport. A headmaster at a local religious based school not far from here."

Harriett piped up shocked, "HIM! What was he doing here on our property! You ejected him immediately did you not Quentin?"

Vicki flushed deeply, "He was very rude to me and tried to take liberties with my person and Cousin Quentin was there to stop him from molesting me any further."

Harriett jumped up from her seat sending her skirts flying about her legs with her agitation. "That man is despicable and hand no rights being on our property. I shall inform Daniel of this incident immediately. I for the life of me do not know why he allows him access to the grounds and now after this, I am sure he will stop his admission to the grounds."

"Whom might this person be perhaps I need to pay a special visit to him to let him know I will not tolerate anyone touching my wife without her permission." Barnabas was no longer interested in Quentin's attention to Victoria as he was the thought that someone of disputation reputation from the town was once again targeting Miss Winters.

He was reminded of the Reverend Trask from his time and how he had nearly raped her in the hallway of his own home. Even now he could vividly recall finding her nude in Josette's bedroom and how that image had played havoc with his mind when he would see her innocently moving about the house or grounds. He had become so distracted by her image that he had trouble focusing his attention back to Josette, which had been one of the reasons that he wanted to call off his duel with his Uncle but his Uncle had died by a vicious attack from a wild animal.

Shaking his head he turned to face Quentin, "And the name of this scoundrel that attacked my wife?"

"What is this? Who attacked Cousin Victoria?" Daniel entered the garden went to Harriett's side kissed her cheek then turned to face Barnabas and Victoria.

"The very estimable Lamar Trask father, he molested Victoria in the woods this morning after her brief paddle in the ocean waves. He was very ungentlemanly."

Daniel puffed up like a blowfish. "WHAT? Not Lamar, he is a man of impeccable credentials and a holy man! Did you do something provocative or invite him to be so rough in his handling of you Cousin Victoria?" Daniel pinned his gaze to the form of a woman that so strongly resembled someone he vaguely remembered from the past.

It was an almost simultaneously uttered exclamation by all present, it was said at the same time. Harriet looking truly upset at the accusation shouted, "DANIEL~"

To Quentin's resounding unruly and unbelieving protestation of, "FATHER!"

Then it was Barnabas that stood upright and glared dangerously at the man that had been naught but a young boy from his day, it was Barnabas expostulation that had caught Daniel's attention because it had sounded so much like Joshua, "COUSIN DANIEL HOW DARE YOU! I DEMAND AN APOLOGY IMMEIDIATELY." It was the set and the tone of the demand that made Daniel take notice.

He was taken back to so long ago to when he was under the rule and guidance of Joshua and remembered well his intonation and temper of his voice when he was displeased. Stepping back from the murderous look he had just received from Barnabas he sputtered, "I have known the man most of my life, he has been nothing but a devout and religious man that followed in the footsteps of his father who disappeared when he was but ten years old!"

Victoria could not hold her tongue. "A despicable licentious man that sought despoil virgins and to convict innocent women and then when he was done with them he threw them away to the hangman's noose or he had them burned alive." Victoria was on a self righteous proclamation speaking from personal experience and then in the middle of her tirade she sputtered to a stop and then took a deep breath and turned away.

"How do you know of this Cousin Victoria? That was before your time surely you are not recounting this from your personal experience?" Quentin had found that the heightened color and her backbone to face down his father was amazing and very compelling.

"I speak of it from the experience of the ancestor or one of his victims." She looked at Daniel. "When she was here you were but a sweet innocent boy. She wrote of you in her diary. She had not much memory. Reverend Trask abducted her from your very home under all of the family's noses. She was held prisoner in the old house where he threatened her with being tied as a witch. Thanks to my very loving husband's father she was able to escape from him."

Barnabas stared in amazement at the ability she had to spin such a story. He thought she had almost slipped up when she went on her tirade. "So you were a product of her escape. Did she regain her memory?"

Victoria sighed looked down, "She was my mother and yes, she did regain her memory. She moved away from Collinsport and she found her heart in the West. She moved to Indiana and there she met my father. I was the youngest born to them late in life. When father had a chance to marry me off in a good position he knew that Barnabas' father was a good man and his son must have be an equally good man."

Barnabas stepped to her side to pull her into a comforting hold. "Mother kept a diary and I found it and read it. It was extremely enlightening to say the least. The one thing she had trouble getting over was what happened between her and Trask and how he had tortured her because she would not submit to his sexual desires and whims. She was kept shackled in the slaves cells of the old house, can you not imagine how I felt the day we moved into that house and I went to that cellar and found the cells that my mother had been held prisoner? It sickened me. So do not stand there Daniel Collins and tell me what a wonderful man this Trask is when he is the same issue from the man that had tortured my mother!"

Victoria jerked away from Barnabas' hold looked at the stunned looks on the faces of those that now surrounded her. "He manhandled me and he touched me in areas that if he had done the same to your sweet Harriett you would have him castrated. Now if you will excuse me I am not feeling well husband and shall see you at home, I think I would like to walk home so that I can seek my own counsel to get my emotions under control. Thank you Cousin Harriett you are a sweet dear woman and I am proud to say we are related, thank you Cousin Quentin for coming to my rescue, and as for you Cousin Daniel it would be a shame if I wrote my mother that the dear sweet boy she remembered and saved his life had turned into a condemning, fault finding poor excuse of a man. Good eve to you all."

She moved past them with her head held high she rushed from the garden and to the pathway that led to the old house. Barnabas glared at Daniel. "It is a shame cousin Daniel that your blind obedience to your friend had cost my wife great emotional distress. I still will expect an apology before this week ends. I fear that you have caused a great deal of distress within your own family. Once you repair your family's obvious aggrieved condition, I suggest you present your self to my wife and present her with an apology. Until then I shall be allowing my wife her time to compose herself but I assure you I do not take lightly this slight you have dealt. Good eve all." Barnabas followed behind Vicki.

Quentin sauntered up to his father's side looked down at him and smiled. "Are you not the popular one this eve. Let us take an inventory of how many you have managed to upset, there is my mother, which I feel you owe her an apology, then let us not forget Barnabas, a close relative that holds a great deal of power and prestige in England and finally his wife, whom you challenged her veracity as to what she had to say about your oh so precious Lamar Trask, whom had I a chance would have thrown from Widow's Hill."

Daniel harrumphed glaring at his son. "I had a right to question her veracity, she had accused the man of nearly raping her!"

"With good reason father, when I came upon them he had her pinned to a tree and his hands were in her pants and under her top. He was pressing his body into hers and had her unable to resist any of his attentions. I can certainly say he was very aroused by the fact she squirmed to get away from him. She found him odious and a threat and had I not happened upon this scene. It was deplorable and by God's own wrath from above I was incensed by his actions. I swear father he was about to rape her right then and there! So yes cousin Victoria and Cousin Barnabas do deserve an apology."

Quentin sighed deeply turned to his mother kissed her cheek and spoke softly, "I am sorry you have found no love in his cold bed for these past years mother. I can see where he puts his friendship to a debauched licentious man over his own family and for that I pity our family and I even pity him because he will die alone and lonely like Joshua did." Quentin turned and walked off into the darkening shadows that now engulfed the majority of the garden.

1796

The Old House Collinsport Maine

Nightmarish dreams permeated Quentin's sleep. Tossing he sat up and screamed out "NO!" He looked down to find he was covered in blood. He began to sob, "No, no, no, not again! How was this possible?" He looked around at the ammunitions room noting he had managed to get locked into it sometime. Staggering up to the step he pushed it aside and opened the door with the hidden release.

Daylight was just peaking its tendrils of soft pinkish and yellow streaks through the now gathering cloud cover. Staggering out to the crypt area he sat on the sarcophagus of Naomi and buried his face in his hands. "Whom did I kill last night?" He muttered softly and felt horrible from his night of rampant blood lusting and hunting. Staggering out into the cemetery he collapsed on the ground and fell into and exhausted unconsciousness.

Victoria moved along the pathway unfeeling, distant and filled with inconsolable grief. She had to see the spot she had last seen Jeremiah alive. Moving forward she saw a body lying on the ground. Fear and confusion filled her another body was lying where she had found Jeremiah. Rushing forward she dropped to the ground and rolled over the body. A sharp intake of breath filled her when she looked upon the features of Quentin. "No! Quentin!" She leaned over him to see if he held breath to his body.

Letting out a sigh of relief she saw he was covered in blood and searched his body for signs of injury and saw none and wondered whose blood he held to his body and clothing which had been shredded in what appeared to be some kind of horrible fight. Gently she patted his face. "Quentin open your eyes, please open your eyes." She felt her tears streak down her cheek to fall and land on Quentin's face. With the wetness hitting his face, Quentin groaned softly, slowly opened his eyes and smiled for her.

"Hey, don't cry it would take more than some large wolf to stop me. I am Quentin Collins remember?" He reached up a hand and with gentle fingertips he gently brushed her tears away. "See, I am fine just exhausted."

Vicki smiled then leaned over and gently kissed his forehead. "Thank God. One death in the family is enough." She spoke softly and once again her tears were beginning to form. Quentin blinked in surprise then spoke softly.

"Who died last night? Not Barnabas?" He hated to think he was here during the time the curse had been set on his cousin. He watched her slowly shake her head.

"No not Barnabas. It was Jeremiah who saved me from being attacked by a huge wolf that walked like a man last night. Unfortunately, it was Jeremiah that died." She hiccupped and began to sob softly. Quentin sat up to gather her close to his body and cradled her to him. His guilt was now complete; he was responsible for the death of Jeremiah.

Holding her close to his body he spoke softly, "Vicki, he was destined to die either by a fall from the horse or a duel from Barnabas. Time could not stand still for him to live on that would have altered the future if he had actually been saved and continued to live. Events were already destined."

Vicki looked up and sniffed. "But he wanted me to stay with him, he was willing to give Josette a divorce if he could have me here with him. He confessed his love to me. Then he was mortally wounded and with his final breath he told Josette she was his one true love and he would love her forever." Victoria sniffed she was sure she had not misheard this information that had been whispered around her by the servants.

Her grief was complete as she held onto Quentin and wept out the loss of the man she had loved not once but twice. "I had agreed Quentin, I had agreed to stay with him and what if by agreeing to not return to my time, I caused this wolf to kill him, it is my fault!" She held onto him with all she was as she cried.

Quentin gently stroked her hair back from her face and spoke softly, "It was destined to be and it was not your fault. You and I both know you could not have stayed here in this timeline it would have altered the future. Now stop this blaming game and listen to me. We have to bide out time until we get back to the time we both belong and I have to protect you from Trask, he is responsible for me being here and of one thing I am sure, he had help. I just need to figure out who was responsible for this. Once we get back we will then be able to stop whomever had manipulated this entire fiasco."

From the darkening of the wood line the two were being watched. Trask had followed her to the cemetery with the hope of trapping her alone so he could have his way with her. Now she lay on the ground with this man whom was another mystery and perhaps he like she was a male witch. His mind worked feverishly. He knew he had to get back because Phyllis Wick would be waking soon and he needed the touch of a soft body against his. It might not be the one he wanted but he would be patient and he would have his prize before the month was finished.