Passion (21 page)

Luce nodded. She straightened Lys’s black gown and held her head a lit le higher. “Snap to it.”

“And … go.” Bil snapped his fingers.

For a split second, the party snagged like a scratched record. Then every midconversation syl able, every whi of perfume being carried through the air, every drop of punch sliding down every bejeweled throat, every note of music from every player in the orchestra, picked up, smoothed out, and carried on as if nothing in the world had happened.

Only Luce had changed. Her mind became assaulted by a thousand words and images. A sprawling thatch-roofed country house in the foothil s of the Alps. A chestnut-colored horse named Gauche. The smel of straw everywhere. A single long-stemmed white peony laid across her pil ow. And Daniel. Daniel. Daniel. Coming back from the wel with four heavy buckets of water balanced from a pole laid across his shoulders. Grooming Gauche rst thing every morning so Lys could take him for a ride. When it came to smal , lovely favors for Luce, there was nothing Daniel overlooked, even in the midst of al the labor he did for her father. His violet eyes nding her always. Daniel in her dreams, in her heart, in her arms. It was like the ashes of Luschka’s memories that had come to her in Moscow when she’d touched the church gate—but stronger, more overwhelming, intrinsical y a part of her.

Daniel was here. In the stables or the servants’ quarters. He was here. And she would find him.

Something rustled near Luce’s neck. She jumped.

“Just me.” Bil flit ed over the top of her capelet. “You’re doing great.” The great golden doors at the head of the room were eased open by two footmen, who stood at at ention on either side. The girls in line in front of Luce began to tit er with excitement, and then a hush swept the room. Meanwhile, Luce was looking for the fastest way out of here and into Daniel’s arms.

“Focus, Luce,” Bil said, as if reading her mind. “You’re about to be cal ed into duty.” The strings of the orchestra began playing the baroque opening chords of the Bal et de Jeunesse, and the whole room shifted its at ention.

Luce fol owed everyone else’s gaze and gasped: She recognized the man who stood there in the doorway, gazing out at the party with a patch Luce fol owed everyone else’s gaze and gasped: She recognized the man who stood there in the doorway, gazing out at the party with a patch over one eye.

It was the Duc de Bourbon, the cousin of the king.

He was tal and skinny, as wilted as a bean plant in a drought. His il - t ing blue velvet suit was ornamented with a mauve sash to match the mauve stockings on his twig-thin legs. His ostentatious powdered wig and his milky-white face were both exceptional y ugly.

She didn’t recognize the duke from some photograph in a history book. She knew far too much about him. She knew everything. Like how the royal ladies-in-waiting swapped bawdy jokes about the sad size of the duke’s scepter. About how he’d lost that eye (hunting accident, on a trip he’d joined to appease the king). And about how right now, the duke was going to send in the girls whom he’d preselected as suitable marriage material for the twelve-year-old king waiting inside.

And Luce—no, Lys—was an early favorite of the duke’s to l the slot. That was the reason for the heavy, aching feeling in her chest: Lys couldn’t marry the king, because she loved Daniel. She had loved him passionately for years. But in this life, Daniel was a servant, and the two of them were forced to hide their romance. Luce felt Lys’s paralyzing fear—that if she took the king’s fancy tonight, al hope of having a life with Daniel would disappear.

Bil had warned her that going 3-D would be intense, but there was no way Luce could have prepared for the onslaught of so much emotion: Every fear and doubt that had ever crossed Lys’s mind swamped Luce. Every hope and dream. It was too much.

She gasped and looked around her at the bal —anywhere but at the duke. And realized she knew everything there was to know about this time and place. She suddenly understood why the king was looking for a wife even though he was already engaged. She recognized half the faces moving around her in the bal room, knew their stories, and knew which ones envied her. She knew how to stand in the corseted gown so that she could breathe comfortably. And she knew, judging from the skil ed eye she cast on the dancers, that Lys had been trained in the art of bal room dancing from childhood.

It was an eerie feeling, being in Lys’s body, as if Luce were both the ghost and the one haunted.

The orchestra came to the end of the song, and a man near the door stepped forward to read from a scrol . “Princess Lys of Savoy.” Luce raised her head with more elegance and con dence than she’d expected, and accepted the hand of the young man in the pale-green waistcoat who had appeared to escort her into the king’s receiving room.

Once inside the entirely pastel-blue room, Luce tried not to stare at the king. His towering gray wig looked sil y poised over his smal , drawn face. His pale-blue eyes leered at the line of duchesses and princesses—al beautiful, al dressed exquisitely—the way a man deprived of food might leer at a pig on a spit.

The pimply figure on the throne was lit le more than a child.

Louis XV had assumed the crown when he was only ve years old. In compliance with his dying father’s wishes, he’d been betrothed to the Spanish princess, the infanta. But she was stil barely a toddler. It was a match made in Hel . The young king, who was frail and sickly, wasn’t expected to live long enough to produce an heir with the Spanish princess, who herself might also die before reaching childbearing age. So the king had to find a consort to produce an heir. Which explained this extravagant party, and the ladies lined up on display.

Luce dgeted with the lace on her gown, feeling ridiculous. The other girls al looked so patient. Maybe they truly wanted to marry the acne-ridden twelve-year-old King Louis, though Luce didn’t see how that was possible. They were al so elegant and beautiful. From the Russian princess, Elizabeth, whose sapphire-velvet gown had a col ar trimmed in rabbit’s fur, to Maria, the princess from Poland, whose tiny but on nose and ful red mouth made her dizzyingly al uring, they al gazed at the boy king with wide, hopeful eyes.

But he was staring straight at Luce. With a satisfied smirk that made her stomach turn.

“That one.” He pointed at her lazily. “Let me see her up close.”

The duke appeared at Luce’s side, gently shoving her shoulders forward with his long, icy ngers. “Present yourself, Princess,” he said quietly. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The Luce part of her groaned inwardly, but on the outside, Lys was in charge, and she practical y oated forward to greet the king. She curtseyed with a perfectly proper bow of her head, extending her hand for his kiss. It was what her family expected of her.

“Wil you get fat?” the king blurted out at Luce, eyeing her corset-squeezed waist. “I like the way she looks now,” he said to the duke. “But I don’t want her to get fat.”

Had she been in her own body, Luce might have told the king exactly what she thought of his unappealing physique. But Lys had perfect composure, and Luce felt herself reply, “I should hope to always please the king, with my looks and with my temperament.”

“Yes, of course,” the duke purred, walking a tight circle around Luce. “I’m sure His Majesty could keep the princess on the diet of his choice.”

“What about hunting?” the king asked.

“Your Majesty,” the duke began to say, “that isn’t befit ing a queen. You have plenty of other hunting companions. I, for one—”

“My father is an excel ent hunter,” Luce said. Her brain was whirling, working toward something—anything—that might help her escape this scene.

“Should I bed down with your father, then?” the king sneered.

“Knowing Your Majesty likes guns,” Luce said, straining to keep her tone polite, “I have brought you a gift—my father’s most prized hunting rifle. He’d asked me to bring it to you this evening, but I wasn’t sure when I’d have the pleasure of making your acquaintance.” She had the king’s ful at ention. He was perched on the edge of his throne.

“What’s it look like? Are there jewels in its but ?”

“The … the stock is hand-carved from cherry-wood,” she said, feeding the king the details Bil cal ed out from where he stood beside the king’s chair. “The bore was mil ed by—by—”

“Oh, what would sound impressive? By a Russian metalworker who has since gone to work for the czar.” Bil leaned over the king’s pastries and snif ed hungrily. “These look good.”

Luce repeated Bil ’s line and then added, “I could bring it to Your Majesty, if you’d just al ow me to go and retrieve it from my chambers

—”“A servant can bring the gun down tomorrow, I’m sure,” the duke said.

“I want to see it now.” The king crossed his arms, looking even younger than he was.

“Please.” Luce turned to the duke. “It would give me great pleasure to present the rifle to His Majesty myself.”

“Go.” The king snapped his fingers, dismissing Luce.

Luce wanted to spin on her heel, but Lys knew bet er—one never showed the king one’s back—and she bowed and walked backward out of the room. She showed the most gracious restraint, gliding along as though she hadn’t any feet at al —just until she got to the other side of the mirrored door.

the mirrored door.

Then she ran.

Through the bal room, past the splendid dancing couples and the orchestra, whirring from one pastel-yel ow room into another decorated al in deep chartreuse. She ran past gasping ladies and grunting gentlemen, over hardwood oors and thick, opulent Persian rugs, until the lights grew dimmer and the partygoers thinned out, and at last she found the mul ioned doors that led outside. She thrust them open, gasping in her corset to draw the fresh air of freedom into her lungs. She strode onto an enormous balcony made of bril iant white marble that wrapped around the entire second story of the palace.

The night was bright with stars; al Luce wanted to do was to be in Daniel’s arms and ying up toward those stars. If only he were by her side to take her far from al of this—

“What are you doing out here?”

She spun around. He’d come for her. He stood across the balcony in simple servant’s clothes, looking confused and alarmed and tragical y, hopelessly in love.

“Daniel.” She dashed toward him. He moved toward her, too, his violet eyes lighting up; he threw open his arms, beaming. When they final y connected and Luce was wrapped up in his arms, she thought she might explode from happiness.

But she didn’t.

She just stayed there, her head buried against his wonderful, broad chest. She was home. His arms were wrapped around her back, resting on her waist, and he pul ed her as close to him as possible. She felt him breathe, and smel ed the husky scent of straw on his neck. Luce kissed just below his left ear, then underneath his jaw. Soft, gentle kisses until she reached his lips, which parted against her own. Then the kisses became longer, fil ed with a love that seemed to pour out from the very depths of her soul.

After a moment, Luce broke away and stared into Daniel’s eyes. “I’ve missed you so much.” Daniel chuckled. “I’ve missed you, too, these past … three hours. Are—are you al right?” Luce ran her fingers through Daniel’s silky blond hair. “I just needed to get some air, to find you.” She squeezed him tightly.

Daniel narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think we should be out here, Lys. They must be expecting you back in the receiving room.”

“I don’t care. I won’t go back in there. And I would never marry that pig. I wil never marry anyone but you.”

“Shhh.” Daniel winced, stroking her cheek. “Someone might hear you. They’ve cut of heads for less than that.”

“Someone already did hear you,” a voice cal ed from the open doorway. The Duc de Bourbon stood with his arms crossed over his chest, smirking at the sight of Lys in the arms of a common servant. “I believe the king should hear of this.” And then he was gone, disappearing inside the palace.

Luce’s heart raced, driven by Lys’s fear and her own: Had she altered history? Was Lys’s life supposed to proceed dif erently?

But Luce couldn’t know, could she? That was what Roland had told her: Whatever changes she made in time, they would immediately be part of what had happened. Yet Luce was stil here, so if she’d changed history by ditching the king—wel , it didn’t seem to mat er to Lucinda Price in the twenty-first century.

When she spoke to Daniel, her voice was steady. “I don’t care if that vile duke kil s me. I’d sooner die than give you up.” A wave of heat swept over her, causing her to sway where she stood. “Oh,” she said, clasping a hand to her head. She recognized it distantly, like something she’d seen a thousand times before but had never paid at ention to.

“Lys,” he whispered. “Do you know what’s coming?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“And you know that I’l be with you until the end?” Daniel’s eyes bored into her, ful of tenderness and worry. He wasn’t lying to her. He’d never lied to her. He never would. She knew that now, could see it. He revealed just enough to keep her alive a few moments longer, to suggest everything Luce was already beginning to learn on her own.

“Yes.” She closed her eyes. “But there’s so much I stil don’t understand. I don’t know how to stop this from happening. I don’t know how to break this curse.”

Daniel smiled, but there were tears brimming in his eyes.

Luce wasn’t afraid. She felt free. Freer than she’d ever felt before.

A strange, deep understanding was unfurling in her memory. Something becoming visible in the fog of her head. One kiss from Daniel would open a door, releasing her from a loveless marriage to a brat y child, from the cage of this body. This body wasn’t who she real y was.

It was just a shel , part of a punishment. And so this body’s death wasn’t a tragedy at al —it was simply the end of a chapter. A beautiful, necessary release.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs behind them. The duke returning with his men. Daniel gripped her shoulders.

“Lys, listen to me—”

“Kiss me,” she begged. Daniel’s face changed, as if he needed to hear nothing else. He lifted her o the ground and crushed her against his chest. Tingling heat coursed through her body as she kissed him harder and deeper, let ing herself go completely. She arched her back and tilted her head toward the sky and kissed him until she was dizzy with bliss. Until dark traces of shadows swirled and blackened the stars overhead. An obsidian symphony. But behind it: There was light. For the first time, Luce could feel the light shining through.