It was April 15th.
A Monday.
At least that's what Harold Lowe remembered it ought to have been.
Harry slowly came to, out of a sleep too much akin to death.
Awakened from an eternal coma by whispers of seduction from the low morning tide. Breathing in the rich meadowy scent of laurel-grown hills, wood sage, and bramble leaf kissed by misty sea-air.
When did he forget how much he loved the world smelling so green?
Harry's eyes sleepily blinked open, warmed to a fiery chocolate shade in late morning sunlight. The window open and undressed to allow as much of the sea-air in as possible.
Carrying the scent of dried lavender and bergamot from his wardrobe closets and chest of drawers.
The sheer lace curtains and indigo drapery tied back in the same fashion the housekeeper, Mrs. Potts, had always knotted it for him as a boy, allowing him to meditate on the sea rather than his studies.
And watching the shadow and light play through the leaves of the Irish Oaks at his window, Harry knew no trouble in the world.
Taken by a peace he hadn't felt since the first day he'd caught an ocean wave between his toes.
And everything felt as it should be.
Just as he'd always remembered his childhood home in Barmouth.
Was this heaven?
Or had he only dreamt it all?
Being dragged under the Atlantic by Titanic...Throwing himself off a cliff to his death in a parallel universe...That barmy clock woman from that daffy crack shop?
Harry let out a deep sigh of relief, falling back onto his pillows again.
"Ah, thanks be to God," he whispered. "It was all a bloody nightmare."
And knowing that had to be the case all along, Harry closed his eyes and squeezed his pillow contently, vowing never to move an inch again-so help him, God.
However it was that he found himself home again, it was loads better than dying...and even a step more luxurious than sleeping on some cot in a steamship to God knows where. Because as an up-and-coming junior officer, he hadn't had the privilege of a good night's rest in years.
And had the thought of that been so seductive last night, that he'd forgotten to remove his uniform first?
It's all just detail anyway, he dismissed the world lazily. I'll sort it out when I'm up.
"Good day, madam. Please forgive us for showing up unannounced, but the matter was urgent."
Harry's eyes opened again.
His moment of zen suddenly interrupted by the muffled depth of a gentleman's voice somewhere off, and the realization that he wasn't alone in the house.
"Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Hudson Evans, Senior Commissioner at White Star Line. I was told this is the residence of Mr. Harold Lowe?"
"Aye, yes, it is," a woman's voice answered him, alot like Harry's old caretaker, Mrs. Potts. "White Star, you say? Is something the matter?"
"Well, I'm here unofficially, madame, out of personal concern. I'm a dear friend of Mr. Lowe's, you see," Evans explained. "Please do not be alarmed, but there's been...an unfortunate development, I'm afraid."
Harry lifted his head from his pillow, his eyes curiously drawn to his closed door and the echoing murmurs of voices down the hall.
Mr. Evans?
As in the Mr. Evans he knew?
Surely, he'd be in Liverpool this time of year, when the shipping season boomed with a strong demand for crew members.
In fact, the only time a workhorse like Mr. Evans ever left his clerical office at the White Star was to divert an apocalypse of sorts.
So why would he and Mrs. Potts ever need such a grave reason to be in Barmouth at the same time?
"Well, there's no need for all those big, fancy words, sir," Mrs. Potts informed her unexpected guest. "Simple is how we like it best here. Though, I'm sorry to tell you that my Mr. Lowe isn't in. He's been out to sea for some time now."
"I see...well, I'm afraid that's precisely why I hoped to speak with you," Mr. Evans replied. "It grieves me to say this, but I have most unfortunate news concerning Mr. Lowe. May we come in?"
"Why, yes, please. Do come in."
Slowly, Harry worked the crook of his elbow out from under his pillow and freed himself from his bundled bedcovers.
Never remembering the quilts on his old bed to be so...weighty.
In all his 15 years at sea, sleeping on just about any plank or a hammock aboard pretty well every ship afloat – the different classes of ships– from the schooner to the square-rigged sailing vessel, and from that to steamships, and of all sizes-he never remembered waking up beaten so black-and-blue.
Like he'd been cuddling up a sack of potatoes all night.
Blimey...Had a pillow alone done that to him?
What the blazes had he been up to all night?
Working the tension this way and that out of his neck and back, Harry's corpse-white bare feet touched the cold wooden floor.
An anvil of a headache crushing down on him like a hangover.
Stretching out the soreness in his arms, Harry quietly opened his door, his feet soundlessly following the solemn hushed voices to the baluster of the staircase balcony.
"The young lady here suspected something amiss, and asked for me at my office in Liverpool. For all we know, there's been no sign of him," Mr. Evans continued from the reception room. "I'm afraid that...well it seems that Mr. Lowe has...I can not bear to inform you that Harry...is presumed to be dead."
And Mrs. Potts stole the words right out of Harry's own thoughts.
"Dead?...Are you certain?" she asked breathlessly. "Well, that can't be...There must be a misunderstanding. I'm telling you, it just doesn't feel right in my heart. I'd know it, if he was."
"I've searched everywhere for him, from Liverpool to Southhampton and now Barmouth," Mr. Evans continued worriedly. "I fear the worst may have happened. An accident of some kind, or perhaps-"
Mrs. Potts squeezed the teapot handle in her trembling hands.
"Don't bother yourself saying it, because I won't believe it," she shot back firmly to the gentleman, who remained remorseful and grave in the sitting room, his morning black tea untouched. "It's a mistake, it is...My Mr. Lowe? You can't really mean Harry?...That dear boy."
Mr. Evans frowned, his eyes brimming with condolences.
"Harold always spoke highly of you," Evans softened his voice.
Mrs. Potts dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, wailing as she said, "Well, I may not be his mam, but it don't matter, because he was just the same a child of mine."
"It's why I came to you first, before I informed his father. Hoping against hope that you had seen him, or at least received a letter from him about changing ships without me knowing it?"
And though it wasn't socially proper for a housekeeper to behave in such a way, Mrs. Potts fell back onto the sittee, unable to bear the thought of Harry gone mysteriously missing at sea.
"Forgive me," she whispered to her guests, fanning her round rosy cheeks. "I'm suddenly dizzy."
"Please, there's no need to make an apology," Evans told her. "We're all troubled for Harry's sake. He was a good chap, and it's never easy when the young die young. We regret the loss of such a promising shipman."
"I beg you, sir, please do not say 'was', like you've given up all hope for him. Pray, don't ever speak about him like that, unless you can tell me you're absolutely sure that lost at sea my Mr. Lowe is."
"With all my heart, I want to believe I've made a mistake," Evans said. "Perhaps, he did change ships, and he never had a chance to inform us. You know how busy Harry is at sea, now that he's been promoted to deck officer. And well deserved, it was. The poor fellow wouldn't ever show it, but it gutted him to fail the examination for his master's certificate. When he sat for it a second time, I knew he'd stop at nothing to prove his worth."
"Aye, I knew it even before then," Mrs. Potts sniffled into her handkerchief, blowing her nose woefully. "Since the day Harry was a lad, and he took his wee punt out into the bay-"
"A punt, Mrs. Potts?"
"A wooden little rowboat he and his brothers would take out sailing and boat handling," she explained. "Before even uttering his first word, Harry was determined to get to sea. Convinced his mates to conspire with him, he did. Stole his little boat out the bay-without my knowing, of course. And when I was told by the fisherman that he saw Harry commanding a crew of rascals out to sea, I nearly had a calf. They sent a lifeboat out to fetch him, because I feared he might be in danger so far out. But as the rescue party was rowing their way out, here comes Harry perched on the stern like so, sly as a fox, asking them where the lifeboat was bound for."
"Ah, yes, I believe I've heard this tale from the man himself," Evans chuckled quietly. "He said you let him have it when he got to shore."
"And he deserved more than what he got, in my opinion!" Mrs. Potts declared. "I said to Mr. George, his father, I said 'Watch out for him, Mr. G, you'd better. That one right there will be somethin' when he gets his hands on a proper ship.' Of course Mr. G. wasn't keen on that idea, but Harry gave him no other choice. He's always been a stubborn lad, and even though he took some years off of me, he is my favorite of the boys, he is. And I am always proudest of him."
She buried her face in her handkerchief again. Her shoulders shaking with each hard hiccup of utter devastation.
"Oh, how I wish it wasn't true, that it was Harry only playing another game of his now," she wailed. "I wouldn't even be cross with him, in the least, so long as he came home straight away."
'Ah, the poor old girl. Somebody ought to tell her I wasn't really dead', a smug-looking Harry thought.
And what better messenger for the telling than he?
As might be expected, she'd beat him back to yesteryear for pulling one over her like this, but he'd rather missed dodging her bludgeonings anyway, if truth be told.
So how could he resist sauntering right down there after all these years-cool as chilled custard-and ask the old girl what she reckoned they'd have for breakfast, now that he was back home?
Harry began his descent, grinning.
"Not to worry, madam, I won't give up until I've found him," Evans went on assuring her. "If there is any information you can give me from Harry's last letter, it would be most helpful."
"The last I heard from Mr. Lowe, he was aboard the Mersey."
"Yes, of course. I clearly remember assigning him to the Mersey as a training officer. I know that for a fact. Though, when I checked in at the White Star Head Office, they informed me that it was I who was mistaken," Mr. Evans said. "They insisted that I'd assigned him to the Haverford as 4th officer. However, when I checked my record of Mr. Lowe signing on for the Mersey, I found it'd gone missing. My secretary had no knowledge of the record, which is absurd, because I am certain I remember every letter of it. So, I went back to White Star and demanded to know which story was truth. But when I finally received word back from the Mersey, the crew claimed they hadn't a Mr. Lowe either. Then I was told that he'd been assigned to the SS Tropic instead, but that was without rhyme or reason. I sounded the alarm at once that he might be lost at sea. No one had any clue on where to look for him. All the head office could tell me was that it was very easy to go missing and no one notice. They guessed he might've fallen overboard, but they appeared hardly bothered by it. May God damn them all, I say-Pardon, my language, Mrs. Potts. I'm still rather vexed by their bureaucratic codswallop."
And by the time Mr. Evans finished venting over the discrepancy, Lowe had frozen again mid-staircase.
It was no wonder Mr. Evans believed he was missing.
Neither he nor White Star had their facts about him straight.
Because as Lowe remembered it, it was actually 1911 that he'd been aboard the Tropic.
And it'd been some months now since he'd completed his service aboard the Mersey.
So, why would the Crew Commissioner go looking for him on past ships he'd already retired from?
And Titanic?
How had she never been mentioned in the places Mr. Evans had checked for him?
As if such a ship as she had never before existed.
But that couldn't be right.
There was something funny about it.
Something a few sails short of a full mast, that was for sure.
"Is that really all they intend to say for him?" Mrs. Potts objected at Evans's report. "Mr. Lowe has dutifully served the White Star for years. Does none of it matter now? How can they do nothing but shrug his name off so lackadaisy? And what am I to write to his father? That he is missing or that he is dead?"
"Might I suggest an alternative truth?" a woman's voice Harry hadn't realized among them finally spoke up. "Perhaps he isn't dead or lost. Perhaps that is the very crux of his ruse. Things are not always as they appear, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Evans?"
Harry's knuckles tensed around the hand-carved wooden railing of the staircase.
Realizing now who was actually responsible for this sudden unprecedented call.
What made her think she could do as she pleased, coming and going about his house without a chaperon like she already owned the place?
Would they now allow him to call her "consumed by thirst" for her relentless pursuit of him to the ends of the world?
"I beg your pardon, Ms. Luckett," Mrs. Potts couldn't help but oppose. "Do you mean to suggest that Mr. Lowe is only playing dead?"
"Can you imagine the scandal if Mr. Lowe really were so cowardly?" Ms. Luckett continued coolly. "You never know a man until he is backed into a corner. Perhaps he could think of no better way to abandon his promise of marriage to me."
And Mrs. Potts's face boiled like a lobster in her silent fury.
Had this Luckett woman no manners anymore, knowing she was already in Mr. George's favor?
"Untimely and regrettable as this news may be, Ms. Luckett," Mr. Evans spoke first, saving Mrs. Potts the temptation of making Ms. Luckett regret the steaming teapot close at hand. "It is bad form to soil a good man's reputation by rumors alone, without a proper why and wherefore."
"There's no rumor about it," Ms. Luckett persisted loftily. "Mr. Lowe has never made it a secret that he does not fancy marriage, and that he intends to stay at sea, perpetually, if it means never having to marry. And so, forgive me, Mr. Evans, but after all the years my fiancé has avoided the question, I find it rather hard to believe that he wouldn't stage his own death, at least once, to avoid me."
"Well, fancy that...But I can't say I blame him for it," Mrs. Potts mumbled under her breath, as she tried to look busy by clearing off their untouched china.
"My, what a bargain it must have been to hire that one?" Ms. Luckett remarked, her posture straight and highbred as she sipped her tea. "When I am lady of this house, she'll be the first thing to go."
The tea tray rattled as Mrs. Potts let it fall on the table again, her blue eyes large and popping in silent outrage.
"Even so," Mr. Evans resumed quickly, desperate to keep the peace between the ladies. "I can speak fully for our Mr. Lowe. He is an exceptionally honorable man. Truly, a ship officer's reputation is worth as much as his service. If he has agreed to marriage, he will honor his pledge. A man like Mr. Lowe would surely never risk his career at sea by performing such a gambit. So, rest assured, Ms. Luckett. He's an honest man, even when he's honestly dead."
And wasn't that just the inconvenient truth?
Harry was indeed promised to the Luckett woman, even if it wasn't he who made her that promise.
That he should relent and abandon his life at sea, accepting the full responsibility of his inheritance, was his father's dream only.
Mr. G's grand scheme being to join companies with his top competitor, Arthur Luckett. Entwining a family partnership between Luckett Goldsmithing and Lowe & Sons Jewlery.
Because after all, Mr. George counted on Harry as an ethical man, who wouldn't back down once the cogs started rolling.
And after the marriage proposal was announced publicly by his father without Lowe's consent, Harry found himself choosing between two damning fates: Accept the match and make Ms. Luckett regret it for as long as he lived, or slander his own family name by admitting the marriage offer was a forgery.
Whatever his disdain for the match, Lowe had worked too hard to jeopardize his rank as officer.
By marrying, he'd climb the social ranks, just as his father had intended for him. And didn't that kind of rise in society come with the perk of Ms. Luckett knowing all the right people with all the right power to destroy him?
If he denied her the dream to become a wife and mother, she would surely make him pay for it by setting fire to everything he loved at sea.
Even so, for all the power she had in this matter, Ms. Luckett was still wrong about one thing.
Lowe didn't need death to avoid a loveless marriage with her.
He only needed a loophole.
A heartbreaking and impressive enough sob story about "how unworthy he was for her without a suitable salary" and how he must do the honorable thing by staying at sea until he'd earned enough to "wife her properly".
In fact, Lowe had been so good at finding jobs and getting out to sea, that Ms. Luckett hadn't caught up to him in nearly 10 years now.
And Harry would damn well keep it that way.
Gingerly turning on the heels of his feet, his face cemented in silent panic at the idea of "that woman" catching him on land again, Lowe soundlessly tip-toed back up the staircase to his boudoir.
Taking extreme care to push his door quietly closed, so as not to leave even a thud behind him.
Sighing deeply, Lowe dropped back onto his bed one last time, now remembering why it was that he could never come home.
Come hell or high water, he needed to find his way quietly from that house and catch another ship out of Liverpool at full steam ahead.
And if bowing out of the main door was a fall out of his cards, then he'd surely make do with his bedroom window quite nicely.
But just as Harry tugged at his quilt to knot some rope for climbing, his quilt stubbornly tugged itself back.
Chilled to the bone, Lowe's eyes widened.
Recognizing the drowsy sigh of an unsolicited bedfellow stirring awake behind his back.
Afraid to do it, but knowing no alternative, he slowly dragged his eyes away from the window and came nose-to-nose with his tug-o-war opponent.
As nothing said Mondays like waking up to a woman he wasn't married to and never remembered taking to bed with him.
"Ms. Amberflaw?"
Lowe's words were caught halfway between utter disbelief and utter dissent as he fixed on the fake "stewardess" from the Titanic shop.
"But how did you...How had I...How might've we..."
He had only a second to take in her disheveled mess of sun-kissed champagne hair, and sorrel-green eyes wide and horror-struck for the man she never remembered taking to bed with her either.
And Lowe had no time to stop the punishing pillow she snatched with her determined hands.
"You jerk!"
The pillow came down in smashing fury against his gob-smacked face.
"Did you kidnap me?" she declared, as she went on pillow-clubbing him. "You sick creepy psychopathical pervert!"
"Ms. Amberflaw, please, will you give me a chance! You've every right to have it in for me, I know, but I can explain!"
Though surely, not if he couldn't breathe.
Because the way she tackled him to the bed, Lowe might've had better luck fending off a Tasmanian devil.
"You like 'em when they don't fight back, don't you? You like being in control, huh? How's it feel to know you just picked the wrong girl? Does this turn you on now?" she demanded, smothering his head between cushion and bed.
"Mm! Mmm! MmmmMmmmm!"
Muffling protests against his own pillow, Lowe's hands flailed to get a grip on the murderous madling on top of him.
But Kora dug her elbows deeper into the pillow.
"Don't fight it," she warned him. "Because the harder you fight it, the harder it is to breathe. In the end, it's just like falling asleep, isn't it? A lot like what you did to me? Because when I'm done with you, I'll feel to you exactly like one big...bad...beautiful nightmare."
An unending nightmare indeed!
And would it never be over?
From the star-crossed moment he met her, to the point he threw her over a cliff, would he ever escape this changeless raving calenture?
Even so, Lowe had rowed against angrier tides, and laid anchor heavier than the hellish bit of damsel on top of him now. Because the only thing keeping him from turning this situation around was that he couldn't very well do it in any gentlemanly way.
But there was nothing genteel about the way her body staked her claim of his, her thighs straddling atop his hips in forceful dominance.
And so, propriety be damned, Lowe let himself have war with her.
Finally getting his hands on the bearish Miss and reversing their position, caging her wrists flat onto the bed to hold her fast beneath him.
"Have you lost the plot?" Lowe demanded breathily.
Her sandy hair scattered in waves across his white pillows, as she struggled to overtake him. Catching the eye in a rather fantastical play in the morning sunlight. Like that tale he'd heard as a child...The bit about the mermaid who fell in love with a prince and gave up her voice to be with him on land.
Only this was no fairy tale they were caught up in.
And she was no bloomin' princess to him either.
"Bleeding Christ!" he cursed, battling to tame her without losing an eye. "Get ahold of yourself, Ms. Amberflaw, for the love of-"
But the rabid Valkyrie of a woman writhed her way out from under him, rolling out of bed to reclaim the upper hand of their match.
Lowe scrambled out of bed to head her off first, but found his progress tangled momentarily in all the fluff and nonsense Mrs. Potts had thrown on the bed for him.
Giving Kora enough time to grab the oil lamp from his bedside table, and turn it into a sword en garde against him.
"Let me go," she warned him. "Or this might hurt."
"Go where, Ms. Amberflaw?" Lowe tried to reason with her. "You don't fully understand where you are."
"Well, that works out just great for you, doesn't it?" she declared. "Why did you bring me here?"
"Because I had no choice!"
"What does that even mean?"
"I know pretty well how dodgy it looks, but God as my witness, it's nothing like you're imagining it."
"Oh, so I just fell into your bed then?"
"Or thus and such," Lowe couldn't completely disagree. "Give or take a few, that is, but it appears that was roughly the way of it."
Her eyes widened.
"That is," Lowe quickly backtracked. "I can't rightly tell how we've gone to bed together, but my word as my honor, it was in the strictest definition, as in sound asleep side by side to each other-rather intimately, I suppose-but not so intimately as to be intimate, and that is all."
"Oh yeah, I'm sure that's how it happened," she called his bluff. "You're gonna have to come up with a better story than that."
"I'm telling you, the truth it is!" Lowe insisted. "I will swear to that and my name. I never had it off with you."
"I don't even know your name!"
"Lowe," he persisted. "My name is Lowe. I introduced myself to you only yesterday, don't you remember?"
But shaking her head, she appeared more lost than ever she was before.
"The man from your gift shop?" he reminded her. "Tried to sell me a clock, you did. 10 percent credit, mix and match, have a nice day? Those were your precise words."
But none of it appeared to make any sense to her.
"Sell you a clock?" she repeated. "Why would I ever do that?"
"That answer is beyond me still, but dead set on it, you were."
"Wait, stop, you're just confusing me more."
"Well, drink to that, I will," Lowe agreed dryly. "As I seem to be in the same boat with you I never paid to be on nor can ever make port off of. It was yesterday we met, Ms. Amberflaw. How can you have forgotten?"
"What exactly do you think I'm supposed to remember, because if it actually did happen, why wouldn't I remember it?" she questioned him suspiciously.
"Dear God, so it is for you as it was for me?" Lowe realized. "That is, when I found myself wandering into your time, I couldn't remember how I befell there either. And now, just the same...you've fallen with me backward into mine."
"I'm sorry, what?" she challenged that. "So, rather than admit you falsely imprisoned me in your bedroom, you're really gonna stand here and argue that I 'time traveled' myself into it instead?"
"Allow me to prove the logic of it," he pursued his argument. "The oil lamp in your hand is the only lighting in my room. All of the house is lit by illuminating gas. I observed within your shop electric switch outlets. There are none the like here. So, I should imagine gas lighting is a relic in your time."
"Or maybe you're just cheap," Kora countered.
"Well, I should say so, or do I look like an Astor to you?" Lowe rebutted. "Electrification of the entire house is daylight robbery. A wee bet upmarket for my price."
"Well this story is a 'wee bet' out of mine too."
"I'll admit it sounds more H.G. Wells than actuality, and I don't like it anymore than you do, but it's our rope to slack now, and I won't rest until I've found the answer," Lowe pledged to her. "But we must learn to trust each other, Ms. Amberflaw. Because rest assured, whether in your day or in mine, ne'er a soul on earth is going to believe us."
"You need help," Kora shook her head in denial. "I'm getting out of here, even if I have to take you out doing it. So, I suggest you stay out of my way."
But Lowe had already died twice in a matter of hours.
Dying was old news to him now.
"Go on then, if that be your heart's content," he dared her. "But kill me, and I can't promise you where we'll turn up. When we die, things go topsy-turvy. I've worked out that much in my mind. So unless you want to keep betting your lot on this endless loop, I suggest you collect yourself, Ms. Amberflaw. Until we've sorted this all out, nothing will come of us offing the other. So, for the time being, I think it best that you put that lamp down now."
And no sooner had Lowe spoken those words did he get his wish.
Ducking just in time as the lamp came hurling for his head, smashing into the wall just behind him.
"Heavens! What the devil was that noise?" Mr. Evans's voice approached Lowe's door from outside. "I suspect you're right, Mrs. Potts! It sounds as if a thief has broken into the house!"
And with the bed caught in the middle between them, Kora looked at Lowe, and Lowe looked at Kora.
Sizing each other up in one last contest.
Before racing each other to the door to be the one who opened it first.
Kora betting on being rescued from her deranged captor, and Lowe betting that his fiancée didn't find another woman pouncing upon him in his bedroom.
And in the nick of time, just as Mr. Evans reached the door, Lowe caught Kora in his arms before she could turn the knob.
And winning against the fierce momentum of tangling up with each other, Lowe came out on top this time, caging her between him and the wall behind her.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Mr. Lowe?" Mr. Evans inquired hesitantly from behind the door. "Was that you in there?"
"Keep silent, please, I beg you," Lowe whispered to Kora, his body so accidently near that his face was only inches from hers. "If they find us together here, there won't be a coming back from it."
"Pardon me, Mr. Evans," Ms. Luckett joined in the hallway. "I might've sworn earlier, I heard a woman's voice in there."
"A woman?" Evans asked surprised. "In his boudoir?"
"Why, of course not. Naturally, you've misheard," Mrs. Potts chuckled nervously. "If that's truly our Mr. Lowe in there-alive and well, it seems-then he's got quite a range on him, doesn't he?"
"Mr. Lowe?" Mr. Evans knocked again. "Was that you, my good fellow? That shriek sounded rather girlish. Are you alright? "
And Kora knew then that she had the high ground, as time was running out for Lowe.
"You can't keep me locked in here forever," she warned him.
"You may leave if you damn well please, as mark my words, I'd'e gladly be done with you," Lowe informed her. "But not now. Give me a moment to send them away first, and then you may go quietly on your own, if that's how you like it."
"Why would I help the guy who kidnapped me?" Kora questioned him.
"For God's sake!" Lowe whispered his objection. "I never bloody-"
But he was cut off again by a knock, knock, knock.
"Mr. Lowe?" Mr. Evans tried again. "Do come out. We would all be very thankful to rest easy upon seeing you."
"Choose very carefully, Ms. Amberflaw. Because you'll soon wish you'd done me this kindness," Lowe quickly switched to bargaining with Kora. "After all, this isn't 2022 anymore. It's my world now. My rules. And you're goin' to need me more than you want to admit. I know I've no right to ask you to stay for the time being, but you have my word that I will take you back anywhere you wish, if you put your faith in me this once. Wait patiently in here until I come back, and I'll find a way to fix everything."
And no matter how much Kora wanted to see the psychopath who kidnapped her in his eyes, she couldn't.
Whatever ill-fated destiny had swept them up, Lowe had become its plaything as much as she.
But if Lowe hadn't actually kidnapped her, then what exactly had happened to them the night before she woke up to him?
What did he mean by "having no choice" but to bring her here?
Where was "here", and how had she gotten to it?
None of it made sense to her yet.
But whether or not she could trust someone like Lowe, she had run out of time to decide.
"This has gone on long enough," Ms. Luckett's voice joined outside the door. "Harold, I demand an explanation for you locking yourself away like this, or I'll be forced to believe the worst of you."
"What we mean, my good fellow," Mr. Evans softened the request. "is that you must understand how thrown off we are. It's been some weeks now since anyone has heard from you-"
"10 years, rather," Ms. Luckett corrected him. "So, forgive me if my coming here is impolitic for a lady, but I am no longer interested in being patient. I've been made an offer of marriage by another man. And so I require an answer from you immediately, Mr. Lowe, as I cannot afford to wait on your affection any longer. If you won't come out and face me, you leave me no alternative but to come in there after you and demand the answer."
"Heavens to Betsy!" Mrs. Potts finally breathed, recovering from the shock of Ms. Luckett's untimely revelation. "Is the whole world gone higgledy-piggledy this morning?"
"Please allow me, Ms. Luckett," Mr. Evans offered, saving the fired-up young woman from anymore embarrassment for herself. "Mr. Lowe, I hope you will forgive us for the intrusion, but in the interest of your wellbeing, we must come in!"
But just as Mr. Evans reached for the knob, the door pulled open, and Lowe threw himself into the hallway with them, slamming the door quickly shut behind him.
"Alright?" Lowe greeted them all, straightening himself up and catching his breath. "Forgive me, I was only just awakening."
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Mrs. Potts whispered fiercely, dumbstruck to find him alive after all. "What's this all about, Mr. Lowe?"
She could've very well pummeled him that instant.
"Dead to the world, indeed you are!"
"This is going to sound mad," Lowe duly warned them. "But would anyone be so kind as to tell me what year it is?"
"I beg your pardon?" Mr. Evans's brow arched, caught off guard.
"The exact date, that is," Lowe clarified. "I'm afraid I've lost track of it."
"Good gracious, Mr. Lowe, " Mrs. Potts spoke, deeply concerned for him. "It is Monday, naturally."
Lowe nodded assuredly.
"Monday. Right. Of course."
Then not so assuredly.
"Monday of what, if you will?"
It was Mr. Evans then who took his turn at looking concerned.
"Why, the 26th of February, 1912, Mr. Lowe," he answered. "You must surely remember?"
"February?" Lowe repeated perplexed. "Only February? Are you certain?"
Because it couldn't be.
April 15th was the last date he remembered.
Had that day not even come yet?
Or did it mean everything that had happened in April was still yet to be realized?
Had Titanic truly been erased from history...or simply diverted?
"I say, Mr. Lowe, you're giving us quite the scare. Are you unwell?" Mr. Evans questioned him. "You don't seem like yourself. Here we were, believing you to be dead, and now you say you were merely asleep here the whole time?"
"Well, you can hardly call it a plot twist, if it's expected," Ms. Luckett remarked, eyeing Lowe critically. "And I must say, I'm hardly impressed."
The skin on the back of Lowe's neck crawled, enduring the sound of her voice too close for his own liking.
"Well, we can't have that, can we?" Lowe answered icily. "I should work harder to keep you guessing then. Wouldn't want to lose you to another, now would I, Ms. Luckett?"
"Oh, I trust you've been working very hard at that lately," she answered, with a smile more like a toying alley cat than a dallying kitten. Her eyes tracing over his bedraggled dark hair, and the hem of his dress shirt lying untucked over the fly of his trousers. "Tell me, did you rise to the occasion, darling?"
"Ms. Beatrice, as I slept, you brazenly marched into my house without ever being invited," Lowe reminded her, his voice softening like poison to her ears. "If decorum didn't stop you there, I don't see why words should stop you either. So, bare your soul to me, sweetling. You didn't come all the way here to hold back, now did you?"
"Is there someone else?" she asked him again directly. "Were you indeed all alone in your bedroom?"
"Ms. Luckett, what a bold thing to suggest," Mrs. Potts gasped.
"I'm not a fool. I know what it was I heard," Beatrice wouldn't back down. "10 years is a rather prolonged engagement for a man, after all."
Then she turned her eyes back to Lowe.
"So, whatever it is that's got you so taken over this morning, I hope you've taken yourself back from it now. The next time you go missing without explanation, better that you remain lost than ever be found by me," she said. "Though I must say, I rather like this new rosy color in your face. It suits you."
And desperate to save her Mr. Lowe from any disastrous rumor that Ms. Luckett might spread about Harry after this, the goodly-intended Mrs. Potts quickly spoke up.
"I assure you that your assumptions about Mr. Lowe's character are unfounded," she declared. "In fact, to prove it to you, he'll go ahead and show you his room himself. Won't you, Mr. Lowe?"
Lowe's eyes bowled over, aghast. "Won't I, Mrs. Potts?"
He hoped the housekeeper would catch the hint that he absolutely could not, by any means or circumstance!
But it was too late.
Ms. Luckett's sky-blue eyes glinted zealously. "Why, what a lovely idea."
"Right, what a lovely quip," Lowe chuckled it off. "Ah, that Mrs. Potts. She'd kill a man with her sense of humor, wouldn't she?"
Lowe shot the housekeeper a hard look, and Mrs. Potts's eyes bore back into his, as the realization suddenly dawned on her.
"Why...wouldn't you be able to show her your room, Mr. Lowe?" she asked suspiciously.
"Precisely," Ms. Luckett agreed. "What have you to hide, darling?"
"Well, I..."
Lowe looked to Mr. Evans for rescue, but the poor Mr. Evans was clueless as to how to undo the noose around Harry's neck now.
"That is, the reason being...Well, what you ought to know first is that I.."
And then without warning, Lowe felt his bedroom door snatch open from behind him. Fully exposing his entire secret to his unintended guests.
It was the worst possible time for that door to open.
And Lowe let out a slow, long breath, closing his eyes and accepting that today might very well be the day he was murdered thrice.
Until-
"I'm all finished changing your bed now, Mr. Lowe," Kora informed him, as she walked out of his room, carrying a whicker basket of his discarded bedcovers with her. Her hair done up quite presentably under her white bonnet, and apron tied again neatly. "Is there anything else you'd like me to do for you, sir?"
Ms. Luckett stood jaw-dropped, scanning the room of her husband-to-be for the secret paramour she suspected hiding away in there.
With none to find.
No illicit love nest there, but a room as orderly and spotless as her fiancé always kept his quarters.
Lowe's bed neatly dressed and smoothed under his freshly fluffed pillows.
And glancing back at the fair-haired "Jezebel" walking out of her fiancé's boudoir, Ms. Luckett could hardly believe that Mr. Harold Lowe had outsmarted her yet again.
A housemaid?
The young woman was certainly dressed like one.
But could that really be all she was?
Ms. Luckett was inclined to think not.
In fact, if she dared to entertain the idea, she might've guessed there was something oddly familiar about the maidservant.
But not in a way that left her feeling at ease.
Even so, she had lost this round, and was forced to fold against the evidence and accept her defeat.
Withdrawing for now to bide her time.
"I didn't know you had taken on more help, my dear," Ms. Luckett remarked, forcing a sweet deadly sort of smile. "You're always so full of surprises."
And trying not to look so dumbfounded and amused by the woman they all took for a housemaid, Lowe uttered, "Might we even call it...a plot twist, my dear Bea?"
"Now that you've finished in there," Mrs. Potts said to Kora, finally taking Lowe's hint and playing along with the scheme she'd been unwittingly swept up into. "We best get started on breakfast right away, now that Mr. Lowe has come home at last."
Because even as she certainly planned to give Harry a piece of her mind for it later, Mrs. Potts would rather sink with him, than leave Harry to face the social consequences of Ms. Luckett's wrath.
"Come on now. Keep up."
Kora glanced at Lowe questionably, who let her have a nod of encouragement, ever so slightly. As if to say, 'Go on now.'
And she narrowed her eyes back at him, ever so slightly. As if to say, 'You owe me.'
Then she hurried away to follow Mrs. Potts to the staircase.
"Ah, yes, well I best be off as well!" Mr. Evans made his excuses, desperate to escape the awkward tension of the situation. "Call on me tomorrow, Mr. Lowe, when you've finally sorted yourself out."
And turning fast down the hallway, Mr. Evans showed himself out the house.
"My, my, she's pretty, I must say," Ms. Luckett muttered darkly to Lowe.
"She's for Mrs. Potts," Lowe told her a good story he'd only just invented. "The old girl can't stand the aching in her hands when the weather is cold. Another housemaid will make the work easier for her around here."
"I see," Ms. Luckett replied. "Though, I still can't quite imagine why you'd ever need another maid in this house. You're rarely ever home as it is."
Lowe only smiled.
"Join us for breakfast, my dear?" he invited her politely, sidesweeping her remark.
"Thank you, but no, I don't think so. Perhaps another time. Without a proper invitation, I do not think that's entirely appropriate," she said ironically, slipping her hands into her gloves as she prepared to take her leave. "I'm glad to see you alive, my darling...Funny how precious things suddenly are, when we realize they can be taken from us at any moment. Wouldn't you agree?"
And then it was her turn to smile, as she walked on her way, leaving Lowe to come to his own interpretation about the dark meaning of her philosophy.
And the moment Lowe was left alone, he fell back against his bedroom door, crushed under the burden of his misadventure.
What have I done?