Millie never realized the moment she fell asleep, or the moment when James had taken her to her bed.
Knowing only that when she slept, she couldn't stop herself from doing it. Because feeling James'sbig protective body cuddled up so warmly next to hers, there was nothing else left to trouble her in the world.
A lifetime might've easily gone by like that, sighing contently in the found comfort that was James, and the way he'd held her close to him all night.
'God,' she thought ever cozily.'Why does he keep moving around like that...Please don't move. I'm not ready yet...I swear, I could just die in his arms like this.'
And then she felt the rudetug-tugof her blanket again, being dragged rather unceremoniously out from under her and exposing her body to the shock of her chilly, drafty bedroom.
'But not if I kill him first!'
Millie rose from bed to confront James for his blanket-stealing crimes, but her protests were swallowed by her urge to yawn first, and the irresistibly amazing morning stretch that followed.
"Miss Millie?"
James was pale and beautiful,his sapphire eyes wide with surprise, as if he'd forgotten all about accidently falling asleep while holding her last night.
As if he were seeing her for the very first time, after a very long while of never being allowed to.
Why is he looking at me like I'm a ghost?
And assuming that it was probably the whole'sleeping with an unmarried woman isn't very gentlemanly'thing again, Millie tried to put his conscience at ease.
"You know, James," her voice was softly airy coming out of her yawn. "At some point, we really gotta talk about this hammock thing. You literally have every blanket in my house, and now you're trying to steal mine too? For the love of coverlet, please just sleep on my couch. I'm begging you, and I promise you, no reputations will be harmed if we sleep within shouting distance of each other."
James's quivering mouth opened to answer her.
But words were ineffectual to the gutting solace that started in his chest and swelled to the back of his throat upon seeing Millie there. Snugly hugged by her quilt and the fair sunlight glowing like warmed chocolate through her let-down hair. Appearing like a distant dream faraway from the barking mad, dumb luck shot he'd just wagered everything on for her.
"Dear God...it worked," James breathed at last. "I thought I'd lost you, Millie."
Millie's smile for him was a blushing blend of fondness and confusion.
"That's not like the James I know. The James I know ran eight miles from my apartment to my job to find me. And now you're saying you lost me from my bedroom to your balcony?" she teased him lightly.
"I won't ever again be so careless," James's smile blushed only with a hint of his eternally heavy heart.
Le Cœur de la Merhad taken his bid.
And as it seemed, all for the inconvenience of scrambling up a few trivial events in history, like the fate of theOceanic and the Kincora, which had unexpectedly blurred into his own timeline.
But against the agony of losing his one great love, the confusion of events was a small price to pay, by Mr. Moody's say.
And James would willingly accept any version of his lifetime, so long as Millie lived safely and happily in it.
Yet, how should he tell the Miss that blanket wars between them was now the very least of their worries?
"When did the rain stop?" Millie asked James, glancing out the window next to them. And then squinting curiously at the mysterious coastline that had showed up overnight with its booming morning tide, she asked slowly, "When did we get...a beach?"
"Hang it up a moment. That's not what's important to me right now," James told her, as he combed his fingers through her hair to guide her gaze away from the window back into his. Inspecting every glistening movement in the vividly renewed life of her eyes, finding reassurance in all the signs of color in her face. "Are you hurt anywhere, love? Do you feel no pain at all?"
"I'm fine, James," Millie answered him, arrested by how earnestly James becameconcerned over her. "You're always worrying about me, but what about you? Last night, you were supposed to go home. Why are you still here?"
"Do you...not remember?" James asked her, his brow bending in concern.
And then the softly masculine allure of lavender enticed Millie's attention to the cozy, quaint room beyond her bed, and how strange it all really looked to her, now that she was fully awake.
Noting first the timelessly polished armoire, and then the bronzey ornate design of majestic swans spreading their wings around a long oval mirror like a halo behind James's head, hanging over an antique oakwood washstand set with a milky porcelain washing bowl and vase.
"Wait," Millie gradually realized. "None of this stuff belongs to me."
In fact, it was starting to feel a lot like Sarah Crewe syndrome.
As if she'd fallen asleep reading another one of those trashyGone with the Highlanderromance novels, and woke up to a gilded era she didn't belong in.
But instead of Ian Cambell or Jaime Fraser, she got James Paul Moody in a bath robe with the beautiful nothing he was obviously wearing underneath it.
"James...have you been ordering bougie stuff on my Amazon account again?" Millie murmured in disbelief.. An incredulity that only nursed her denial, as she wondered exactly how she and thewashstand ended up in the same room together. "I thought I...changed my password..."
Her voice taken by all the elegant wallpaper, the high sunlit ceilings and charming windows she'd only seen on Christmas dollhouses. Bygone indulgences not for the price tag of the common folk like herin the mundane sprawl of modern New York. The walls hung with golden framed oil paintings of landscapes in green pastures against stormy grey skies, sail-rigged ships at high seas, official looking Neo-Baroque buildings she didn't know, and portraits of people dressed in high laced collars and neckties, whom she recognized only in parts. A distinctly long nose here, a fine princely jawline there, a pair of gut-wrenching blue eyes that glimmered with a hint of infectious laughter.
All the pieces she needed to put her James back together by tracing his likeness in the Moody lineage.
"James," a stunned Millie spoke at last. "This isn't my room...This isn't even my house."
"Aye," James's apologetic answer was hardly over a whisper. "The truth of it is...We're notthereanymore, Miss."
Millie furrowed her brow questionably at him. "What do you mean we're not 'there' anymore?"
"That is to say," James stammered to find the right way to explain it to her. "Hereafter 'there'is not where we are at the present moment."
"Then where exactly are we?"
But before Millie could make sense of the verbal jigsaw puzzle that was Moody's words, her attention was drawn beyond James to the door, where she finally picked up the distant pandemonium of strangers arguing outside in poshy British accents.
"Enough humming-and-hawing me about! I have every right to confront him, and I will not go away quietly! He will face me and give her an answer, or I will leave no stone unturned to pronounce his guilt and take this matter up with His Lordship!"
"Is there someone else here with us?" Millie questioned James. "Why are there other people in-"
"Please don't fret, miss. They're good people-that is, save for one of 'em."
"Then why are you whispering? And why are you in that bath robe? James, what's going on?"
"I am very sorry to ask this favor of you, Millie," James's voice remained hushed. "But for the time being, you cannot leave this room, nor make any sound until I come back for you?"
"You're leaving me here?"
"I know it sounds dodgy, but please give me your confidence. I'll explain why when I've returned for you," James promised her. "The heart of it being that this house is my family home, and it belongs to a very,verydifferent time. And in that very different time, you resemble a very, very different person, and no one will understand that until I've had a chance to explain the situation."
"Your family home?" Millie frowned in confusion. "James, that doesn't make any sense."
"I'll explain it all, you have my word, but for now, it's of the utmost importance that you stay hidden. Should they find you, there will be a lot of questions, and I can't guarantee that I can stop them from separating us and dragging you back to Downton."
"Downton? As inDownton Abbey?" Millie couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Have both youandPaxton lost it? "
"Your brother was right. You're not Emily Amberflaw here. In this lifetime, you are an heiress of Downton, and you have been missing for some time now," James informed her solemnly. "And what's more, no Lady Crawley of Downton should ever be here in bed with a man like me. Should anyone discover us together, I regret to think what could happen to you."
"You're joking, right?" Millie called him out, quietly betrayed. "I told you about all my nightmares and my little 'memoryproblem', and now you're making fun of me by doing this? I may be confused about the pieces of me I lost a year ago, James, but 'missing' isn't one of them, and I'mabsolutelyno heiress of Downton either."
"Then staying put will be easy for you."
"Until when, exactly?"
"UntilI've sorted this out.I won't be long."
"Am I being kidnapped?"
"If taking you for myself is what keeps me from making the same mistake I made with you last night, so be it," James told her solemnly. "Please just wait for me here."
But just as James turned away from her, Millie pulled him back toward her by the sleeve of his dressing robe.
"James, wait," she stopped him, her mind racing on as she started piecing together the impossible. "It's been 100 years. Your brother is...Your whole family should be..."
But the worddeadcaught like sandpaper in her throat, as the blue in James's eyes brought her back to the rustling whispers of a restless ocean rushing into sand and coastal cliffs. Rising and falling with the rhythm of her softened breathing and the slow flutter of her lashes, as she looked for the last time upon a beautiful starry night above her.
The sound of James's voice becoming the most heartbreaking of her regrets left behind in the world, as the officer pleaded with her,"I've only again just found you."
What had he meant by that?
Why would she ever dream of something so morbid, like dying at Bitter Tears Cross, when she swore she had spent last night snuggled up happily in James's arms?
How did such a dark dream feel so...concrete?
"Your family isn't even from New York," Millie finally finished her sentence, as that shadowy line between dream and reality made her second guess herself again.
"There'll be nothing for it, Miss Millie," James confessed quietly, as he noddedstiffly in acceptance of their precarious situation."The truth of it is, it appears that you and I have come to Scarborough."
Millie closed her eyes, hoping against hope that she heard him wrong.
Taking in a deep, long breath as her hand still hung on tightly to James's robe sleeve. The weight of their situation coming down on her like the Titanic.
"Please tell me you're joking and that you actually mean some kind of fair," she whispered to him.
"Ours is a bit more complicated than a children's nursery rhyme, I'm afraid," James said. "I mean Scarborough, England, Miss Millie."
"What are you actually saying to me right now?"" Millie asked him, unable to let go of her denial. "England? As in Prince Harry, England?ThatEngland?"
James's brow rose to that.
"Whose Prince Harry?"
But Millie was hardly listening now, obsessed with only one question.
"Wait...Are we talkingmy-England oryour-England?"she raved on in whispers, her face steadily becoming paler with each revelation. "Not 21st century England...EdwardianEngland?"
ButJames was hardly listening now, obsessed with only one question.
"Do I know this Prince Harry fellow?" James asked her. "How are you acquainted?"
"James," Millie's hands gripped both his bath robe sleeves again "Tell me the truth. I may be a little crazy, but I'mnotthat crazy. Your family lived in acompletelydifferent century. How are we in their house?"
James sighed deeply, knowing he couldn't save her from knowing the truth fully, no matter how much he wished to spare her all this distress.
"Millie," his light-hearted blue gaze never appeared so honestly serious as he quietly informed her. "I can't say this to you kindly, and I'm so very sorry for how you will hear it. It grieves meto remember that your life was taken from you last night, and you soon after departed with me here."
"I did not," Millie insisted to him, letting her hand fall into James's, so he could trace her heartbeat tapping rapidly against her wrist. " You can feel my heart, can't you? I'mnotdead. Maybe I'm just asleep somewhere, or in a coma in some hospital again. Maybe I'm waiting to wake up from you, and this house, and whoever they are down there. I'm just between dreams.I'm one hundred percent sure it's just another nightmare. They all start out like this."
"No, darling, you aren't dead. I made very well sure of it. But you don't belong to the life you knew anymore either. This is..." James struggled to find the right word to describe it, none of which he knew would be particularly comforting to her. "It's thewayof things now. I had only one alternative and I bloody took it."
"What does that mean?" Millie's stomach turned to imagine his waiting answer. "James, what have you done?"Are you really saying that we're really in..."
"1912?" James softly finished her sentence. "Aye, it is. The year I died aboard the Titanic and wandered into your now, just the same...you've fallen backward with me into mine."
"Well that's...that's awesome for you. I'm really happy this all worked outin your favor, James. But kidnapping me wasn't part of the plan."
"I did everything I was required to do to save you, and I'd do it again all the same," James told her. "if it means you're alright in the end, Miss Millie, I'll play its morbid game for as long as it wants until it's done with me."
"You mean the Heart of the Ocean? You know, you're starting to sound exactly likePaxnow," Millie informed him. "A necklace doesn't play games, James. It's not a living thing."
"How long will you pretend none of this has happened since the night it found me on that ship?" James questioned her. "How many times must the world be ripped from under our feet? How many times must I lose you again?"
"You lost me five minutes ago atDownton!"
"And I haven't stopped ruing the day I did," James professed. "I'd have done anything to have you back, and that is the very heart of my misery. It isn't some bloody diamond that is my curse, Millie. It'syouwho are my ruin, time and time again. Because I can't live to let you go."
And whatever argument she had been waiting to fire back at him next, Millie gave pause. Suddenly losing track of her intended words as the gut-punch of James's confession gradually sank in.
"So, that's why you approached me in my shop that day...You're in love with the woman you think I am?" she realized. "Whoever the heiress of Downton was in your past life, she's the girl youlost before...on Titanic?"
"Perhaps you were right about the nature of this business," James told her quietly. "Perhaps the longer you cast your lot with it, the more the diamond takes away from you...And now that we're here, I must take care to keep the past from repeating itself. I will find a safe place to be rid of it, before it turns on us again."
"Afteryou send me back to 2022," Millie added firmly. "Right, James?"
"If going back means going by the same as we came, I won't give way to it," James said. "You can't ask me to stand aside and watch you die again."
"But you can't ask me to just stay here either," Millie countered. "Abandon everything I have there?"
"I fancy dying might've been a great deal worse for you than staying here."
"And I fancy itwillbe for you, if you don't send me back."
"Back to what, exactly?" James asked her. "Don't you remember anything of last night, love? You go back there, and you die. Who's to say if it's for good this time? I won't let it happen. I've come through hell and back so I wouldn't lose you the same way again. So, if you go back now, just know I won't be around to jump from anymore cliffs to rescue you."
"Wait, you didwhatwith me?"
"Saved your life, I did," James asserted his point. "Though for all your thanks, I may as well try to catch sea foam in my hands."
"Youthrew meoff a cliff?" Millie cried unbelievably. "Are you out of your mind?"
And James had only a second to take it all back, which gave him no time at all to stop the fluffy- albeit punishing-pillow Millicent snatched from the bed next.
The pillow coming down smashing against his gob-smacked face.
"Argh! What's that for?"
"Who's to say I wasn't even dead yet?" Millicent declared, as she went on pillow-clubbing him. "Who's to say I could be at home right now, if you hadn'tmurderedme and dragged me into 1912?"
"Miss Millie, please, will you give me a chance! You've every right to have it in for me for the cliff bit, I know, but we can talk about this!"
Though surely, not if he couldn't breathe!
Because the way she tackled him to the bed next, James might've had better luck fending off a Tasmanian devil.
"The time to talk wasbeforeyou gambled my life away! How doyoulike being murdered yourself, huh? Is this your idea of compromise?" she served him a taste of his own justice, smothering his head between pillow and bed. "Hand over the necklace, darling, or I'll be taking you back to the future with me."
"Mm! Mmm! MmmmMmmmm!" was all she got in response.
Muffling protests against her pillow, James's hands flailed to get a grip on the murderous madling on top of him.
"Take me back, James," she panted her desperate threat against the officer . "Or this nightmare for you will never end."
And an unending nightmare it was, indeed!
Good lord, would it never be over?
From the star-crossed moment he first lost Millicent, to the day James found her again in that daffy shop, and then the point at which he threw her in grave desperation over a cliff, would he ever escape this nightmarish raving calenture?
Killing him again would confirm nothing, but the impossibility of this damningly endless loop.
Even so, James had rowed against angrier tides, and laid anchor heavier than the hellish bit of damsel on top of him now.
But there was nothing he'd ever experienced like the way Millicent's warmed body staked her claim of his. The black skirt and tulle petticoat of her maid's costume bunched up to her waist, as she steadied herself against his solid navel, now bared by the fallen lapels of his dressing robe. And even though James knew this bonnie meant to murder him in cold blood, it was damn good fun to watch. Her fair, swan-curve thighsin nude being pleasing to the eyes as she topped his hips in her relentless dominance.
And the only thing keeping him from turning this situation around was that he couldn't very well do it in any gentlemanly manner. No matter which way he tried.
So, propriety be damned, James let himself have war with her.
Capturing his nightmare of a bearish Miss, James found his weakness in the way her corset-trained waist fit so nicely into his hands.
And nearly losing his head a little to that profound test of a man's self-endurance, James reversed their position, and caged her wrists flat onto the bed to hold her fast underneath him.
Her sandy chestnut hair scattered in waves across his white pillows, capturing his eye again in that rather fantastical play of morning sunlight, as her chest heaved into his to catch her breath.
His own chest damn near bursting for the beauty pinned down underneath him.
She reminded him of that seaside 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 behaving like no bloomin' princess either, which only made him need her more.
Had they not been in bed for a literal fight to the death, with his family only steps away downstairs, James might've done away with the damn tulle altogether and shamelessly made love to her there.
"We can indulge in this little amusement with each other all morning," James told her breathily. "It won't get you what you want out of me."
"Where is it, James?" Millie asked again. "I won't stop looking for that necklace."
"Get ahold of yourself, Millie, for the love of..."
But when Millie's eyes skated from his stoic face to the vanity across the room, James followed the heat of her attention to the foot of the vanity stool, where his rumpled bedsheets had been kicked off the bed in their scuffle.
And lying between bedsheet and the ornately green oriental carpet was the glittering star that was the Heart of the Ocean.
"Millicent," James warned her steadily. "Don't."
"It'sEmily!"
And then the modern Valkyrie of a woman writhed her way out from under him, rolling out of bed to claim the necklace for herself.
James scrambled out of bed to head her off first, his progress only hindered by all the fluff and nonsense on the bed.
Giving Millie enough time to rake the diamond safely into her hand from the rug, just as James straightened himself up right in front of the door she needed to get through to make her escape withLe Cœur de la Mer.
"You don't have..." James bent over panting to catch his breath between words, as he held his guard at the door. "...any sort of idea what you're playing with."
"Damnit, James," Millie sighed reluctantly, hating every minute of how his stubborn will to make her come to her senses only hindered her stubborn will to make a hasty decision she might regret. "Don't make me do this."
Snatchingthe glass oil lamp from his bedside table, she turned it into a sworden gardeagainst him.
"Send me back to 2022now," she told him firmly. "Or else."
"You were gunned down in front of me," James pleaded his case. "I watched your life fade away in my arms. Do you not understand how it gutted me when I nearly lost you again?"
"Again?"
"Better that you never understand, than to feel as hopeless as I was last night. Forgive me, but I can't do it over, Millie. So, bludgeon me to the pulp with that lamp all you like. I won't see you back in harm's way."
"I can't stay, James. 1912 isn'twhere I belong," she pleaded her own defense. "What about my job? And my apartment? And Captain Wentworth? And Patrick?...What will happen to Patrick if I don't go back?...Please, James. Please just help me reverse this."
"If going back there is where you wish to be, then I won't stand in your way. I'd never deny you anything, except this," James told her gently. "Not like this, Millie. Not in this dreadful way."
"Isthere any other way?" she asked him. "Or am I really stuck here in a place I never asked to be?"
"I don't like it no more than you do, but it's our rope to slack now, and I won't rest until I've found the answer," James pledged to her. "But we must stand by each other, Miss Millie. Because rest assured, whether in your day or in mine, ne'er a soul on earth is going to believe us."
"I'm getting out of this room, one way or another. So, I suggest youmove."
"I suggest you reconsider."
"Then I suggest this might hurt."
"Darling,you don't fully realize the world you're in now."
"Don't call medarling, you murderer!" she declared. "I'm going, whether you agree or not."
"You can't just walk out there like this."
"And I suppose you plan on stopping me?" Millie asked him, a hint of warning in her voice that dared him to try.
But James had already died twice on her account, in a matter of a week.
Dying was old news to him now.
"Go on then, if that be your heart's content," he told her. "But kill me, and I vow to take you with me, wherever I go. And once we're gone, I can't promise you where we'll turn up. When we die, it seems things go topsy-turvy. Take it from a man who knows. If you take the gamble, duck, you may not get the ending you're hoping for. It's as if the world as we know it erases and rewrites itself. Judging by how greatly they've confused my death here now, 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, Miss Millie, and agree that we stick together. Until we've sorted this all out, nothing will come of us offing the other. Which means I think it best that you put that lamp down now."
And no sooner had James spoken those words did he get his wish.
But it wasn't for bludgeoning him that Millie had armed herself with the bedside lamp.
It was for the attention of the ones downstairs, whose bickering suddenly went quiet after Millicent dropped the oil lamp smashing onto the wooden planked floor at her white converse.
James winced, too late now to stop her from damning them both.
"Heavens! What the devil was that noise?" the Moodys' caretaker, Mr. Evans, approached the closed guest room door from outside in the hall. "I suspect you're right, Mrs. Moody! It sounds as if a thief has broken into the house!"
And with the bed caught in the middle between them, Millie looked at James, and James looked at Millie.
"I'm sorry. I can't wait," Millie swore to her Titanic officer. "Take me now, James."
"No."
Millie narrowed her eyes at him, but James was unmoved.
And sizing each other up in one last contest, they scrambled for the door, racing each other to be the one who opened it first.
Millie betting on being discovered by the others and allowed to leave the Moodys' house, and James hoping that the bloody Levinson didn't indeed find another woman pouncing upon him in his bedroom, who happened to be none other than a very confused and very feisty Lady Millicent Crawley.
Right in the nick of time, just as Mrs. Annie Moody and Mr. Evans reached the guest bedroom door, James caught Millicent in his arms before she could turn the knob and escape into the hallway.
And winning against the fierce momentum of tangling up with each other, James came out on top of their rivalry this time, caging Millicent between him and the wall behind her.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Hello?" Mr. Evans inquired hesitantly from behind the door, as he tried the lock. "Anyone there?"
"Aren't you going to answer them?" Millie dared James in a whisper. "You can't keep us locked in here forever. Sooner or later, you'll have to explain to them why youmurderedme."
"For God's sake, Millie," James whispered back. "I did not bloody-"
Knock, knock, knock.
"We know you're there," Mr. Evans called again. "Please step out and identify yourself."
James held his finger to his lips, his blushing hot face so accidently near hers again as they both breathed each other in, remaining perfectly still.
"It's probably only a draft," Mrs. Moody said. "The tide breezes are unusually rough this morning."
"We may as well confirm it. Have you no way into a room within your own home, madam?" Mr. Levinson questioned Mrs. Annie.
"My husband has forbidden anyone to enter it," Mrs. Moody answered. "It's our James's old room, you see. Ever since James went missing, his father wants none of his belongings disturbed."
"Have you any master key?" Mr. Levinson asked the caretaker.
"If Mrs. Moody wishes for the room to be opened for her," Mr. Evans stated to Levinson, a stern warning of his loyalties hidden in his words. "I will fetch the key for her."
"How very convenient, I say."
"Considering the circumstances, I should think not, sir," Christopher disagreed with Levinson. "What is it you want from us, eh, if you can't have our James? The Levinsons and the Crawleys have everything imaginable. There is no man who would turn down that girl's hand, now that my brother is dead. Why do they insist uponJames?"
"Haven't you heard the news, sir?" Mr. Levinson asked him. "Patrick Crawley, heir of Downton, has gone missing. The lad claimed he was going away on another venture to look for his sister and never being His Lordship's heir, the family and their estate are in an uproar, naturally. As you know, it has been some years now since Miss Crawley disappeared."
"And what's that got to do with my brother?" Christopher challenged him.
"Do you think me a fool, sir?" Levinson questioned him. "My cousin has told me everything regarding Mr. Moody's history with the Crawleys. If I'm convinced that James Moody's disappearance is not somehow connected to Miss Crawley's, Iwouldbe the fool you presume I am."
"What are you on about? That my brother has seduced Miss Crawley and runaway with her?"
"Mrs. Moody," Mr. Levinson turned away from Christopher to the lady of the house. "Are there any more ladies who reside here with you, madam?"
"Only I, sir," Mrs. Moody affirmed.
"Then am I mistaken in believing I heard a woman cry just now,'I'm sorry, I can't wait. Take me now, James''?"
"A woman?" Mrs. Moody asked, surprised. "Inthatboudoir?"
"How long will you chase this goose to nowhere, sir?" Christopher demanded.
"I'm not surprised that you would hide your brother and his runaway slut in this house to protect him," Levinson hissed. "I am only surprised that Lord Grantham still speaks highly of your family, when you are plainly a house of debauchers!"
"If that truly was my brother in there-alive and well, so it appears-then he'd have quite some explaining to do, wouldn't he?"
"Well, I'm all ears, sir," Levinson said. "And I'm afraid, until I know for certain Mr. James Moody is not in that room, I can not rest easy."
Mr. Evans rolled his eyes and turned back to the door.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Come off it, Mr. Moody. This oaf nincompoop here, Mr. Levinson, is convinced you are only faking dead," Mr. Evans called to the door sarcastically. "Do come out. We would all be very thankful to rest easy upon seeing you alive after all, sir, if that's the way of it. You must understand how distressing this is for Mrs. Moody, and how thrown off we all are."
"Who are you calling a nincompoop, sir?" protested Levinson.
"This woodheaded ning-nong insists that you're a rake, sir. Have you nothing to say for yourself?" Mr. Evans went on jokingly challenging the door in sport at Levinson's expense.
James's eyes ran away from the door back into Millie's.
"Will you give me three days to put it right?" James whispered to her, offering her a bargain for her partnershipinstead. "It's only fair, knowing I stayed as long with you. If I don't find a way to send you back that doesn't involve anyone dying, we will open it up for debate again. Though, you must understand, Miss Millie, you're a long way from there. This isn't 2022 anymore. It's a different world now. Different rules. 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. I promise I'll find a way to fix everything, if you give me time."
And no matter how crazy traveling backwards in time to 1912 was, or how much she didn't want to believe things like this could happen, Millie knew James was right.
Whatever ill-fated destiny had swept them up, she had become its plaything as much as James was now.
Dying, after all, hadn't been easy.
If they were going to find a better way to make their respective timelines right again, they needed each other in this.
And next to the many years she still had waiting for her in 2022, three days playing along with this "Once Upon A Time"knockoffwasn't such a bad bargain, was it?
"This has gone on long enough," Mr. Levinson declared to the closed door. "If that was really you I heard in there, Mr. Moody, and you have nothing to hide, I demand an explanation for you fabricating this nonsense about being dead, and locking yourself away like this. Or I'll be forced to confirm the worst of you."
"What we mean, my good fellow," a superstitious Mr. Evans tried to keep peace with the late Mr. Moody's spirit. "Is that we hope you rest easy, sir, even as we will never know what happened to you. I hope you will know that we haven't forgotten you, though it be God who shall decide how long we wait to meet you again."
"It has been years of waiting for my dear cousin, Miss Lavinia!" Mr. Levinson countered him. "It may seem impolitic of me, but with a lady's reputation at stake, the situation is indeed direful. And so, I require an answer from you immediately, Mr. Moody. Are you or are you not keeping amorous congress with an unwed woman in your bed?"
"Heavens to Betsy!" Mrs. Annie was aghast. "Is the whole world gone higgledy-piggledy this morning? This is beyond unforgivable, sir, and I must ask you to never call on anyone in this house again!"
"Very well," Levinson resigned. "I have seen enough to make my report to Lord Grantham this very afternoon. And I must say, I'll rather enjoy watching your ill-bred family fall back into the gutter where you belong. An example for the rest of the would-be self-seekers who forget their place."
"Kindly,getoutof my house, sir," Mrs. Annie warned him again. "Or I will throw you from that landing myself."
"Surely, you will regret this meeting hereafter, madam," Levinson smiled, taking his time to bow his pardon politely to her. "I'll take my leave then. Good day to-"
But right in the middle of Mr. Levinson making his pardons, the door to the bedroom jerked open, and James Moody threw himself out of it into the hallway with slamming the door quickly shut behind him.
"Alright then?" James greeted them all, straightening himself up and catching his nervous breath. "Forgive me for keeping you waiting. I've only just rose from bed."
"Talk of the devil and he will come!" professed Levinson.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" a wide-eyed Mrs. Annie cried, dumbstruck to find him among the living after all. "James! How is it that you are-Truly, we were led to believe that you were..."
"Dead to the world, indeed," Christopher remarked, side-eyeing his little brother cynically.
"What's this all about, dear boy?" Mrs. Annie beckoned him to explain. "Your father is beside himself looking for you!"
"I know, I know, and forgive me. I can only imagine all the trouble that's happened since I've been away and regret making you all fret over me...Only, this is going to sound right mad," James duly warned them. "But would anyone be kind enough to tell me what day it is?"
"You've forgotten the day?" Chistopher asked him, surprised.
"The exact date, that is, I'm afraid I've lost track of it," James explained. "Is it April still? Sunday, is it?"
"April? Good gracious, James, are you well? " Mrs. Annie asked, deeply concerned for him. "April has not yet arrived. And it is Monday, naturally."
James nodded assuredly.
"Monday. Right. Of course."
Then not so assuredly.
"Monday of what, if you would?"
"The 25th of March, Jim," Christopher answered him. "Surely, you remember?"
"March?" James repeated, perplexed. "It's only March?"
"God, James, what's happened to you?" Christopher questioned him worriedly. "You're not acting like yourself at all. First, we hear you're lost at sea with theKincora. And the next, you're dallying around in your bath robe raving about it being April."
"But that's not at all what happened," James tried to explain. "I truly was lost at sea, but not while aboard the..."
Though, judging by the way they stood bowling over him, James thought better of it.
Was it any use?
It was only March here.
Here, Titanic was as alien to them as an Apple mobile phone, or Costco, or the internet.
They'd much sooner lock him up in some hospital than ever understand him. And then what should happen to Millie in his absence?
How should he go about explaining to them how happy he was to see their faces again, after being dead in some parallel world on a doomed ship called the RMS Titanic?
And if April 15th, 1912 was the day he went down with Titanic in that other world, had that dreaded day not even come yet in this one?
"How did you let yourself in? I don't remember you calling for me," Mr. Evans questioned James.
"Well, you can hardly call it a plot twist," Mr. Levinson declared. "And I must say, I'm rather disillusioned by these old party tricks."
He noted James's bedraggled light brown hair, and his scanty bath robe.
"I see you have indeedrisento the occasion, may as well drag that whore in there out of hiding. You've been long found out," Levinson dared him. "Iknow it was a slut's filthy lecherous cries I heard in and Lavinia's has been a rather prolonged engagement, hasn't it, Mr. Moody? It's only natural that a young man, with lovely eyes such as yours, should allow them to wander."
And desperate to save her stepson from any disastrous rumor that Mr. Levinson would take out of that house, the goodly-intended Miss Annie quickly spoke up.
"As you can see already, your assumptions about our James's character are unfounded," she swore. "In fact, to prove it to you, he'll go ahead and show you the room himself. Won't you, James?"
James's eyes widened. "Won't I, ma'am?"
He hoped his stepmom would catch the hint that he absolutely could not, by any means or circumstance.
But it was too late.
Mr. Levinson gloated victoriously. "What a brilliant idea, Mrs. Moody."
James shook his head subtly at his stepmother, and slid her a hard look, until Mrs. Annie's eyes narrowed back into his, as the realization suddenly dawned on her.
"Why, after all, wouldn't you be able to show him this room, James?" she asked suspiciously.
"Precisely," Levinson seconded that. "If you have nothing to hide, this will settle the matter."
"Well, I..."
James looked to Christopher for rescue, but not even his older brother could see him out of this one.
He was on his own.
"That is to say, the reason being...Well, what you ought to know first is that I.."
And then without warning, James felt the bedroom door snatch open from behind him.
It was the worst possible time for that door to open.
James let out a slow, long breath, closing his eyes and accepting that today might very well be the day he was murdered thrice.
"I'm all finished changing your bedsheets now, Mr. Moody," Millie informed him, as she walked out of his room, carrying a wicker basket of his discarded bedcovers with her. Her hair done up quite presentably under her white bonnet again, and apron retied neatly at her waist over her maid's costume. "Is there anything else you need, sir?"
Mr. Levinson stood jaw-dropped and stupid.
Scanning the room behind Millie for the secret runaway paramour he had suspected hiding in it.
No illicit love nest there, but a room as orderly and spotless as a good maid ever left it. The bed neatly dressed and smoothed under freshly fluffed pillows and all traces of the broken glass oil lamp swept clean.
And glancing back at the hazelnut-haired "Jezebel" walking out of the boudoir, Mr. Levinson could hardly believe that Mr. James Paul Moody had outsmarted him like this.
"A housemaid?" he demanded, astonished.
And though she certainly planned to give James a piece of her mind for it later, Mrs. Annie would much rather play along than allow James to sink for it.
"Yes," Mrs. Annie quickly owned up to it, side-eyeing James with a double tone that only he could understand the true meaning of. "I'm growing older, and require a personal maid in my house. Is that such a crime, Mr. Levinson?"
But Levinson wouldn't drop his eyes from Millie, studying every feature of her face, as he tried to see the lie in it he knew was hiding there.
"And what isyourname, my dear?" Levinson asked her.
"It's Miss Emily, sir," she answered him confidently. "Emily Amberflaw."
Levinson's head cocked curiously at her peculiar accent.
"You're American?"
"These questions are hardly suitable for a housemaid and aguest, Mr. Levinson," Mrs. Annie thwarted him again. "Please refer all your inquiries regarding my house to Mr. Evans."
"Forgive me," Levinson said, still eyeing Millie intently. "She has a face a man can never forget...Almost as if you might've easily been an earl's daughter in another life, had you not been so unfortunately born into this dismal working class."
James stepped willfully in front of Millie, blocking Levinson's line of sight from her.
"I reckon you got your proof now," James told Levinson. "I'm alive and well, and you can send my regards back to my dear fiancé, Miss Levinson."
The unexpected wordfiancédrawing Millie's eyes away from Levinson to James, and the stinging surprise inher gaze only mirroring the ache in James's own heart.
And the way Millie quicklydropped her eyes again to her wicker basket, and didn't dare look at James again, only made him regret instantly that he couldn't pull her aside and take all the hurt right back.
But he knew Levinson was watching, and that he must say whatever Levinson wanted to hear, tokeep the man from interrogating Millicent more.
"Please have her take comfort that she can expect a letter from me soon," James told Levinson.
The man nodded, knowing that now that Moody had given him his answer, he had no more ground to stand on to investigate the dodgy case of the beddable American housemaid.
"Very well," Levinson answered coolly. "Consider it done."
Though the gentleman fumed on privately for the cunningly resourceful Englishman. Privately beingthe only gentlemanly way of doing these things.
Then Levinson turned to Millicent, nodding a parting to her that lingered longer than it should've, for James's tastes.
"Miss Emily," Levinson bid her farewell. "I hope we meet again soon."
"Emily, you'll find the wash out through the kitchen," Miss Annie interrupted them quickly. "Then you will meet me in the drawing room to send away our other guest, Mr. Lowe. Between him and I, I do believe after all this excitement, it's me who'll be needing the brandy more."
Millie glanced at James with a question on her lips that never materialized into words. James nodded encouragingly to her.
She narrowed her eyes back at him, mouthing the words,'You owe me'.
Then turned away to obediently follow Mrs. Annie down the great staircase.
Leaving Levinson to see himself out, pondering over one last lingering question.
'How can a family of modest means such as the Moodys afford to employ both a housemaidanda caretaker? Quite unusual indeed."
Could the young lady really be a housemaid, or was there more to the way her unusual air reminded him of Lady Sybil and Lady Mary of Downton?
Having only just crossed the Atlantic from America, Levinson had never met the infamous missing daughter of Sir James Crawley, and without unquestionable evidence to prove who she was or any portrait to refer to, Mr. Levinson could not tell a common Jane from a Mary when it came to identifying His Lordship's runaway niece.
Yet...who could ever trust the moral code of a sailor?
Even so, Levinson was forced to accept that he'd lost this round, and would go quietly from the Moodys with his defeat.
"It seems I underestimated your character, Mr. Moody," the apology was like a brick forced out of Levinson's throat. "Pardon my intrusion."
Though the slight inflection of Moody's surname at the end of his statement warned the officer that Levinson's crusade for a hill-to-die-on was far from over.
A withdraw today to sound the alarm for 'reinforcements' tomorrow.
And bowing out humbly as he went, Levinson turned with his walking stick and marched down the corridor to make his cool exit.