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The heavy fabric hanging from the top of the four-poster bed in which she lay blocked her view of the rest of the bedroom, but there could be no doubt about where she was. Last night, she’d done her utmost to persuade herself that if she fell asleep in the seventeenth-century bedchamber, she’d wake up in her modern London flat. It hadn’t happened.

She snapped her eyes closed again. “Stay calm. Stay calm.” Her words were barely audible, but they circled the room in a taunting whisper.

Somehow, she’d fumbled her way through an entire Elizabethan meal. At least, she’d thought it was Elizabethan, but she’d been wrong about that too. She clenched the blanket. Sixteen oh five. The beginning of the Jacobean era, with all its political turmoil and domestic hardships. When the significance of the date had finally hit her, shock had left her virtually speechless.

In retrospect, Isla realized that her continued silence at the table may have come across as rudeness, sullenness, or shyness, but she would accept any of those labels over having a complete meltdown or saying something that would send her to the Tower of London. She took an unsteady breath. What was the right thing to say? If she had truly traveled back in time, did she tell the people living here about the dangers the government was about to face? Or would giving them that kind of information somehow rewrite history? Over the last few months, she may have wished for more influence at work, but this was taking responsibility for the workings of Parliament to another level.

She pulled back the bedcovers. The room felt chilly and damp, but she slid out of the bed anyway. When her bare feet touched the wooden floor, she shivered. There was a small pile of logs lying beside the fireplace, but with no matches in sight, she had no idea how to start a fire. Helplessness mingled with panic. Starting a fire without matches was only the beginning. She didn’t know the first thing about how to survive in a seventeenth-century world.

Attempting to tamp down her fears, she focused on what she could do. Her best chance of warming up was to put on a few more layers. The gown Lady Maidstone had loaned her lay across a nearby chair. Her costume shop clothing hung on a clothes rack in front of the empty fireplace. Tiptoeing across the floor so as to limit how much her feet actually touched the cold surface, she reached for the cream-colored floral gown. It was dry.

Isla wasn’t sure whether the speed at which she donned the clothes was due to practice, or if she was just desperate to warm up. Either way, she dressed quickly and hurried over to the window. Opening one of the shutters a fraction, she peeked outside. This bedroom faced the front of the house. Morning mist hung over the trees, shrouding the world beyond. Puddles caused by the rain the night before appeared like pockmarks on the gravel driveway, and the grass glistened with moisture. Beyond the nearest cluster of trees, she could just make out the tiled roof of the woodshed.

She gripped the window frame. Was it a woodshed? Or was it some kind of time portal? The thought that she might actually be experiencing life in 1605 was mind-blowing. And completely terrifying. She had to check the shed one more time. Before anyone else was awake. If she had actually traveled into the past, there had to be a way for her to go back.

With a whispered apology to Lady Maidstone, Isla slipped her feet into her hostess’s size-six shoes and crossed the room. She opened the door carefully. It creaked, but the hall beyond was silent. Just enough light was coming through the chinks in the shutters to guide her down the stairs and to the front door. There was no sign of a servant, so Isla turned the enormous key in the lock. The bolt drew back with a loud thud. She stood very still. Voices reached her from the back of the house. Something clanged. A pan in the kitchen maybe? Not waiting to find out, she opened the door and stole outside.

Closing the door behind her, she ran down the steps and cut across the gravel driveway to the grass. The damp ground muffled the sound of her running feet, but it was slippery. She slowed her steps slightly. She’d fallen in this area once before and still had grass stains on her gown to prove it. Moving more carefully, she wove around a small grove of trees, and suddenly, the woodshed was right before her. From the safety of the trees, she glanced up and down the driveway. There was still no sign of anyone, so she stepped onto the path and cautiously approached the shed door.

The black wood and wrought-iron latch were discouragingly familiar. She walked around the right side of the shed. An empty wheelbarrow was parked against the wall. She continued past it to the back of the small building. It pressed up against a thick hedge, and even though she could just make out the muted greens of a field beyond, there was not enough space for anyone or anything to pass between the wall and the dense foliage.

Doubling back, she walked around the front of the shed to study the other side. Three large logs lay on the ground, and if the dusting of wood chips on the grass was any indication, this was the spot where much of the wood for the house was chopped. There was no sign of any tools. Presumably, the Maidstones’ servants knew better than to leave axes or saws outside in an area where unexpected rain was common.

Like it or not, it seemed that there was no other entrance or exit to the woodshed. The black door was the only one she could have come through the night before. She stared at the unimposing entrance to the woodshed with mounting trepidation, then she reached for the latch. It lifted. She pushed open the door and stepped inside. The wood was stacked just as it had been before. Tidy rows piled almost as high as the uneven roof. No painted walls, no mirror or hooks, no polished wood floor.

Isla fought back tears as her hope crumbled. Lord Bancroft was right; this building was nothing more than a woodshed. She would never understand how she’d come here. And if there was a way for her to return to modern-day London, she didn’t know where to begin looking for it. She pressed her hand against the roughly hewn doorframe, her thoughts and fears tumbling over each other. What was she to do? Without ID, money, a home, or family—at least, none who would know her, even if she knew where to find them—she was basically destitute.

And what of the life she’d left behind? How long would it be before her parents, siblings, friends, and coworkers realized she was gone? Her heart ached at the thought that her mother and father would never know what had happened to her—or how much she loved them.

“Miss Crawford?”

At the unexpected voice, Isla gasped and swung around. “Lord Bancroft!”

“Are you quite all right?”

All right? No. Not remotely. “I . . . uh . . .” She fought for control of her emotions.

He must have sensed her helplessness, because his eyebrows lowered. “If I can be of assistance, I am willing.”

“Thank you. You’ve already been marvelous. I just don’t know if you’ll . . .” She shook her head. The man was hardly more than a slight acquaintance. If she told him the truth, he’d think her a certifiable nutcase. But what other choice did she have? She didn’t know nearly enough about the early 1600s to survive another twenty-four hours without help. Besides, she had nowhere to go and no one else to turn to besides him and the Maidstones.

“I have a considerable number of well-connected friends and associates,” Lord Bancroft said. “Lord Maidstone has even more. No matter what has happened in your past, between the two of us, we are well positioned to give you aid.”

Isla wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m not sure that anyone here can help me.”

“I should like to try.”

Hope made a valiant attempt at surfacing through her deepening despair. “Why? We hardly know each other.”

Shrugging off his cloak, he stepped forward and set it around her shoulders. It was heavy and warm and smelled of horses and leather. He drew it around her. “First, any young lady wandering rural Britain in late September without a cloak is, of necessity, in need of aid. Second, my father taught me that being born into privilege simply means that one is in a better position to offer assistance to others.”

Isla stared at him. “Your father is a remarkable man.”

“He was. He died when I was eighteen years of age. That was ten years ago, but I miss him fiercely even now.”

“I’m sorry. Is your mother still alive?”

He shook his head, regret in his eyes. “She followed him to the grave two years later. Martha and I are the only ones left now.”