Page 81 of Never a Hero

She’d never thought it could hurt this much when he did.

You were more than just acquaintances, weren’t you? Nick had said to Joan at Queenhithe.

Joan still felt bonded to Aaron beyond the actual time they’d spent together. They’d escaped a massacre together. He’d taught her about the monster world.

For the first time, though, Joan wondered if there’d been anything more between them than that. Was that why this hurt so much? Had she felt more for him than just friendship?

No, she told herself.

And then: I don’t know.

She blinked. She hadn’t expected to answer her own question like that.

She forced herself to be honest now. She’d been attracted to him last time. She still was. Probably most people who encountered Aaron wanted him, at least a little. But she’d actually liked him too.

Had he felt the same about her? It didn’t seem possible; someone like Aaron could have anyone he wanted. And yet … There’d been a moment at the end when he’d touched her face. When it had seemed as if he’d been about to kiss her. And she’d felt … She swallowed. She’d felt something for him in return.

And what about now? How did she feel now?

A gust of wind rippled through the leaves, ruffling Aaron’s hair, harsh enough to make Joan’s eyes sting.

She released the thought. It didn’t really matter how she felt about Aaron, did it? Any more than it mattered how she felt about Nick. They were both gone.

Joan looked back over her shoulder. A sliver of Kensington High Street was still visible. A horse-drawn hackney rolled past, driven by a man in a tweed suit.

‘What year is this?’ she asked Aaron. How far away from home was she now?

‘The guard house is here from 1889 until 1904,’ he said, sounding as cold as ever. ‘They wanted you brought to 1891.’

Joan took that in. Even if she could escape from these grounds, she’d be stuck here, mired by the cuff. And she’d stand out in these clothes. She had a flash of the woman on the bike staring at her, with the kind of goggling shock someone might have at seeing a stray zoo animal.

When Joan was in Aaron’s company, most people looked at him, but Joan’s clothes had clearly been so outlandish that—

Wait … Joan replayed it in her mind’s eye—the woman hadn’t just been looking at Joan’s clothes; she’d been staring at her face too.

Joan almost groaned aloud. How big was the Chinese population here? If she managed to get out of this place, she wasn’t going to escape the guards with a change of clothes. She was a Chinese girl in Victorian London. She’d be memorable wherever she went.

‘Come on,’ Aaron said.

Ahead of them, the house appeared in pieces: the fairytale roofline, the gingerbread edges, the glint of glass. And then the path opened up onto the lawn, revealing the full scope of it.

Holland House was as beautiful as Joan had remembered—a grand Jacobean manor in red brick and white trim. Despite the horror of the situation, Joan drank in the sight of it: the turrets, the colonnades. This was fifty years before the Blitz; before the west wing would fall; before fire would consume the elegant library, the Map Room, the Gilt Room …

And at the same time, it wasn’t quite as she’d remembered. She’d only ever known it as a museum—a re-creation with ropes barring access to rooms, with fireplaces sealed up. This was the real house, alive.

Aaron frowned slightly. ‘It’s strange. I feel like …’

Did he remember something? ‘You feel what?’ Joan said. Like he’d been here before?

The guard had been silent except to guide them down the path. Now he spoke. ‘Holland House,’ he said. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? King William III once considered making it his palace. He chose Kensington instead.’

Aaron’s face cleared. ‘Yes, very nice,’ he said briskly. He started walking again. Joan stared after him until the cuff jerked her forward. Had a memory of the previous timeline almost been triggered in him? Was that possible?

She followed Aaron and the guard across the lawn, poking the grass with her shoe as she walked. The curators had consulted old paintings when they’d made the house into a museum, but it seemed that the painters had rendered the lawn as more lush than it had really been. The actual grass was pale and patchy, and muddy in places from rain.

They reached the stone steps of the porch, and the guard pushed open the door. Joan looked down automatically at that first familiar tile. Cave Canem, it said. Beware the Dog.

The entrance hall wasn’t quite as Joan had known it either. The tile pattern was the same: wreathed fleurs-de-lis in blue and gold. But the pylons with their marble busts had been removed, along with the chairs and the grandfather clock. Even bare, the room was beautiful, though, with wooden panelling, intricately carved. Arched openings framed the next room—the inner hall—with its tapestries and frescoed ceiling of cupids and clouds.

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