Passion (13 page)

“Wel . We can’t worry about them too much, can we?” Roland smiled. “What brought you back here, anyway, Lucinda? Does Daniel know?

Does Cam?”

“Cam’s here, too?” Luce shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was.

“If my timing’s right, he’s probably just rol ed into town.”

Luce couldn’t worry about that now. “Daniel doesn’t know, not yet,” she admit ed. “But I need to nd him, and Lucinda, too. I have to

Luce couldn’t worry about that now. “Daniel doesn’t know, not yet,” she admit ed. “But I need to nd him, and Lucinda, too. I have to know—”

“Look,” Roland said, backing away from Luce, his hands raised, almost as if she were radioactive. “You didn’t see me here today. We didn’t have this talk. But you can’t just go up to Daniel—”

“I know,” she said. “He’l freak out.”

“ ‘Freak out?’ ” Roland tried out the strange-sounding phrase, almost making Luce laugh. “If you mean he might fal in love with this you”—he pointed at her—“then yes. It’s real y quite dangerous. You’re a tourist here.”

“Fine, then I’m a tourist. But I can at least talk to them.”

“No, you can’t. You don’t inhabit this life.”

“I don’t want to inhabit anything. I just want to know why—”

“Your being here is dangerous—to you, to them, to everything. Do you understand?” Luce didn’t understand. How could she be dangerous? “I don’t want to stay here, I just want to know why this keeps happening between me and Daniel—I mean, between this Lucinda and Daniel.”

“That’s precisely what I mean.” Roland dragged his hand down his face, gave her a hard look. “Hear me: You can observe them from a distance. You can—I don’t know—look through the windows. So long as you know nothing here is yours to take.”

“But why can’t I just talk to them?”

He went to the door and closed and bolted it. When he turned back, his face was serious. “Listen, it is possible that you might do something that changes your past, something that ripples down through time and rewrites it so that you—future Lucinda—wil be changed.”

“So I’l be careful—”

“There is no careful. You are a bul in the china shop of love. You’l have no way of knowing what you’ve broken or how precious it may be. Any change you enact is not going to be obvious. There wil be no great sign reading IF YOU VEER RIGHT, YOU SHALL BE A PRINCESSS, VERSUS IF YOU VEER LEFT, YOU’LL REMAIN A SCULLERY MAID FOREVER.”

“Come on, Roland, don’t you think I have slightly loftier goals than ending up a princess?” Luce said sharply.

“I could venture a guess that there is a curse you want to put an end to?” Luce blinked at him, feeling stupid.

“Right, then, best of luck!” Roland laughed brightly. “But even if you succeed, you won’t know it, my dear. The very moment you change your past? That event wil be as it has always been. And everything that comes after it wil be as it has always been. Time tidies up after itself. And you’re part of it, so you wil not know the dif erence.”

“I’d have to know,” she said, hoping that saying it aloud would make it true. “Surely I’d have some sense—” Roland shook his head. “No. But most certainly, before you could do any good, you would distort the future by making the Daniel of this era fal in love with you instead of that pretentious twit Lucinda Biscoe.”

“I need to meet her. I need to see why they love each other—”

Roland shook his head again. “It would be even worse to get involved with your past self, Lucinda. Daniel at least knows the dangers and can mind himself so as not to drastical y alter time. But Lucinda Biscoe? She doesn’t know anything.”

“None of us ever do,” Luce said around a sudden lump in her throat.

“This Lucinda, she doesn’t have a lot of time left. Let her spend it with Daniel. Let her be happy. If you overstep into her world and anything changes for her, it could change for you, too. And that could be most unfortunate.” Roland sounded like a nicer, less sarcastic version of Bil . Luce didn’t want to hear any more about al the things she couldn’t do, shouldn’t do. If she could just talk to her past self—

“What if Lucinda could have more time?” she asked. “What if—”

“It’s impossible. If anything, you’l just hasten her end. You’re not going to change anything by having a chat with Lucinda. You’re just going to make a mess of your past lives along with your current one.”

“My current life is not a mess. And I can fix things. I have to.”

“I suppose that remains to be seen. Lucinda Biscoe’s life is over, but your ending has yet to be writ en.” Roland dusted o his hands on his trouser legs. “Maybe there is some change you can work into your life, into the grand story of you and Daniel. But you wil not do that here.” As Luce felt her lips stif en into a pout, Roland’s face softened.

“Look,” he said. “At least I’m glad you’re here.”

“You are?”

“No one else is going to tel you this, but we’re al rooting for you. I don’t know what brought you here or how the journey was even possible. But I have to think it’s a good sign.” He studied her until she felt ridiculous. “You’re coming into yourself, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Luce said. “I think so. I’m just trying to understand.”

“Good.”

Voices in the hal way made Roland suddenly pul away from Luce, toward the door. “I’l see you tonight,” he said, unbolting the door and quietly slipping out.

As soon as Roland was gone, the cupboard door swung open, banging the back of her leg. Bil popped out, gasping for air loudly as if he’d been holding his breath the whole time.

“I could wring your neck right now!” he said, his chest heaving.

“I don’t know why you’re al out of breath. It’s not like you even breathe.”

“It’s for e ect! Al the trouble I go through to camou age you here and you go and out yourself to the rst guy who walks through the door.”

Luce rol ed her eyes. “Roland’s not going to make a big deal out of seeing me here. He’s cool.”

“Oh, he’s so cool,” Bil said. “He’s so smart. If he’s so great, why didn’t he tel you what I know about not keeping one’s distance from one’s past? About get ing”—he paused dramatical y, widening his stone eyes—“inside?” Now she leaned down toward him. “What are you talking about?”

He crossed his arms over his chest and wagged his stone tongue. “I’m not tel ing.”

“Bil !” Luce pleaded.

“Not yet, anyway. First let’s see how you do tonight.”

Near dusk, Luce caught her rst break in Helston. Right before supper, Miss McGovern announced to the entire kitchen that the front-of-house sta needed a few extra helping hands for the party. Luce and Henriet a, the two youngest scul ery maids and the two most desperate to see the party up close, were the first to thrust up their hands to volunteer.

“Fine, ne.” Miss McGovern jot ed down the names of both girls, her eyes lingering on Henriet a’s oily mop of hair. “On the condition that you bathe. Both of you. You stink of onions.”

“Yes, miss,” both girls chimed, though as soon as their boss had left the room, Henriet a turned to Luce. “Take a bath before this party?

And risk get ing me fingers al pruny? The miss is mad!”

Luce laughed but was secretly ecstatic as she l ed the round tin tub behind the cel ar. She could only carry enough boiling water to get the bath lukewarm, but stil she luxuriated in the suds—and the idea that this night, nal y, she would get to see Lucinda. Would she get to see Daniel, too? She donned a clean servant’s dress of Henriet a’s for the party. At eight o’clock that evening, the rst guests began arriving through the wicket gate at the north entrance of the estate.

Watching from the window in the front hal way as the caravans of lamplit carriages pul ed into the circular drive, Luce shivered. The foyer was warm with activity. Around her the other servants buzzed, but Luce stood stil . She could feel it: a trembling in her chest that told her Daniel was nearby.

The house looked beautiful. Luce had been given one very brief tour by Miss McGovern the morning she started, but now, under the glow of so many chandeliers, she almost didn’t recognize the place. It was as if she’d stepped into a Merchant-Ivory lm. Tal pots of violet lilies lined the entryway, and the velvet-upholstered furniture had been pushed back against the oral wal papered wal s to make room for the guests.

They came through the front door in twos and threes, guests as old as white-haired Mrs. Constance and as young as Luce herself. Bright-eyed, and wrapped in white summer cloaks, the women curtseyed to the men in smart suits and waistcoats. Black-coated waiters whisked through the large open foyer, of ering twinkling crystal goblets of champagne.

Luce found Henriet a near the doors to the main bal room, which looked like a ower bed in bloom: Extravagant, brightly colored gowns of every color, in organza, tul e, and silk, with grosgrain sashes, l ed the room. The younger ladies carried bright nosegays of owers, making the whole house smel like summer.

Henriet a’s task was to col ect the ladies’ shawls and reticules as they entered. Luce had been told to distribute dance cards—smal , expensive-looking booklets, with the Constances’ jeweled family crest sewn into the front cover and the orchestra’s set list writ en inside.

“Where are al the men?” Luce whispered to Henriet a.

Henriet a snorted. “That’s my girl! In the smoking room, of course.” She jerked her head left, where a hal way led into the shadows.

“Where they’l be smart to stay until the meal is served, if you ask me. Who wants to hear al that jabbering on about some war al the way in Crimea? Not these ladies. Not I. Not you, Myrtle.” Then Henriet a’s thin eyebrows lifted and she pointed toward the French windows.

“Oof, I spoke too soon. Seems one of ’em has escaped.”

Luce turned. A single man was standing in the room ful of women. His back was to them, showing nothing but a slick mane of jet-black hair and a long tailed jacket. He was talking to a blond woman in a soft rose-colored bal gown. Her diamond chandelier earrings sparkled when she turned her head—and locked eyes with Luce.

Gabbe.

The beautiful angel blinked a few times, as if trying to decide whether Luce was an apparition. Then she tilted her head ever so slightly at the man she was standing with, as if trying to send him a signal. Before he’d even turned al the way around, Luce recognized the clean, sharp profile.

Cam.

Luce gasped, dropping al the dance card booklets. She bent down and clumsily started scooping them up o the oor. Then she thrust them into Henriet a’s hands and ducked out of the room.

“Myrtle!” Henriet a said.

“I’l be right back,” Luce whispered, sprinting up the long, curved stairway before Henriet a could even reply.

Miss McGovern would send Luce packing as soon as she learned that Luce had abandoned her post—and the expensive dance cards—in the bal room. But that was the least of Luce’s problems. She was not prepared to deal with Gabbe, not when she needed to focus on nding Lucinda.

And she never wanted to be around Cam. In her own lifetime or any other one. She inched, remembering the way he’d aimed that arrow straight at what he’d thought was her the night the Outcast tried to carry her reflection away into the sky.

If only Daniel were here …

But he wasn’t. Al Luce could do was hope that he’d be waiting for her—and not too angry—when she gured out what she was doing and came home to the present.

At the top of the stairs, Luce darted inside the rst room she came to. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it to catch her breath.

She was alone in a vast parlor. It was a marvelous room with a plush ivory-upholstered love seat and a pair of leather chairs set around a polished harpsichord. Deep-red curtains hugged the three large windows along the western wal . A fire crackled in the hearth.

Beside Luce was a wal of bookshelves, row after row of thick, leather-bound volumes, stretching from the oor to the ceiling, so high there was even one of those ladders that could be wheeled across the shelves.

An easel stood in the corner, and something about it beckoned to Luce. She’d never set foot upstairs in the Constance estate, and yet: One step onto the thick Persian carpet jogged some part of her memory and told her that she might have seen al of this before.

Daniel. Luce recal ed the conversation he’d had with Margaret in the garden. They’d been talking about his painting. He was making his living as an artist. The easel in the corner—it must have been where he worked.

She moved toward it. She had to see what he’d been painting.

Just before she reached it, a trio of high voices made her jump.

They were right outside the door.

She froze, watching the door handle pivot as someone turned it from the outside. She had no choice but to slip behind the thick red-velvet curtain and hide.

There was a rustling of ta eta, the slamming of a door, and one gasp. Fol owed by a round of giggles. Luce cupped a hand over her mouth and leaned out slightly, just enough to peek around the curtain.

Helston Lucinda stood ten feet away. She was dressed in a fantastic white gown with a soft silk-crepe bodice and an exposed corset back.

Helston Lucinda stood ten feet away. She was dressed in a fantastic white gown with a soft silk-crepe bodice and an exposed corset back.