Tender (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Time Travel Romance Book 1) Page 5

  “Fact number three, he’s already brought into question your very sanity. If you insist on returning to Williamsburg, he shall do much worse.”

  “But—the press conference,” Rachel said. “There’ll be contacts from every major news agency in the country.”

  “Oh, of course. That’s quite important, and you’ll be back in plenty of time, with a much clearer perspective and in a safer, public location.”

  Malcolm interrupted, his eyebrows drawn together. “You don’t know that. You don’t know if she’ll come back at all—” he began, and Mary shushed him and went on.

  “While you’re here, Rachel, beginning tonight, you have one task: to remember your past.”

  “Do you think I haven’t tried? I’ve tried for over two decades, and—nothing. I doubt that in one night—”

  “Conventional time is of no consequence to us. And the human mind is a marvelous device, dear. But yours is weary, and it needs rest. Let Rosalie help you heal.”

  Mary’s words moved her. What was it about this place that seemed so … therapeutic?

  “Meanwhile, Malcolm and I shall do some poking about, and see what we can find out about Max Sheppard.”

  “I can’t let you do that. He’s too dangerous.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t frighten me. Believe me, he won’t know a thing.”

  “You underestimate him, then.”

  “No, dear. You underestimate us.”

  Rachel smiled.

  “A mystical time for you. A time to look forward, while remembering the past. A time to bring the past into the future—and, perhaps, the future into the past.”

  “Malcolm, didn’t I ask you to be quiet? You’ll frighten her with your puzzles.”

  “To discover what the past means to you.” He gave a merry nod toward the oversize portrait on the wall. “And what better place than Rosalie?”

  Admittedly, the old estate, tucked away in the countryside outside the town, would be the last place her father would look for her. If she and Camisha stayed there for a day or two, they could plan what to do next.

  “We require one promise of you, Rachel. That you make no changes in your surroundings, no matter how dissatisfying it may seem to you. It’s different from the world you’re accustomed to, but it’s as it should be. And you must leave everything—and everyone—as you found it. You are here only to remember.”

  Mary’s warning amused her. Did she look like she was going to trash the joint?

  “I promise.”

  At last, Lottie showed them each to a room for the evening, and Rachel bade Camisha goodnight. Grateful for the solitude, she changed into the nightgown and robe Lottie had loaned her.

  Opening a window, she welcomed the fresh, cool air of the storm. A nervous elation was swept away. She had two sisters—and Max Sheppard had known it all along. He had stolen a part of her life forever.

  And as she considered confronting him with it, she understood Camisha’s silence for the past twenty years. If he had concealed the truth, he was implicated by it.

  She listened to the lulling patter of rain against the windowpanes, holding the only thread to her past.

  The fragile newsprint was as soft as a chamois. She saw the headline—Three girls found living in squalor—but her gaze was riveted to the evocative photograph, printed larger than the story. It brought tears to her eyes, reminding her of photographs of Appalachian children during the Depression, hopeless, hungry gazes staring out of hollow-cheeked faces.

  There were three children, two in filthy undershirts and tattered shorts. The oldest girl held an infant, and a toddler huddled against her. Two dirty faces stared at the camera in dazed fear. Haunting recognition stole over Rachel. Each girl—even the infant—bore the mark of a tiny crescent at the corner of her right eye, exactly like Rachel’s scar. Her gaze was pinned on the oldest girl.

  It was her.

  The story was dated the same month her father had adopted her. She stared at the photograph, trying to conjure a single memory of the two sisters she’d once known. They must’ve played and laughed together, the make-believe games of girls, creating the memories of childhood.

  She touched the locket, pressing the catch so it opened to reveal two perfect faceless hearts, shining silver and cold. She closed the locket and fastened the chain around her neck.

  Distracted, she listened. Had someone called her name? A thunderclap told her it must have been the whisper of the wind.

  “Rachel.”

  There it was again. She walked to the window, but she heard only the ominous rumble of thunder rolling over the James River, a somber gray line on the horizon. The aroma of rain and earth and pine and river rose in her senses.

  Then, she noticed a faint flash of white in the trees below. She focused on the trees, and there it was again. Someone was down there. Why would anyone be out in this mess? The figure was small, and as indistinct as a morning mist. It floated from behind another tree, as if looking for something, and became clearer—dressed in a nightgown, she realized. A child.

  Fury flashed in her at the stupidity of parents who let their children wander the woods in a storm. At that moment, the child raced back toward the house, stopping beneath Rachel’s window. She looked up, and Rachel’s heart seemed to stop.

  Cascades of blonde hair hung dripping around the girl’s shoulders, and huge blue eyes blinked at Rachel imploringly. She wore a pale pink satin dress, covered with a mud-stained white apron.

  “Rachel, help me! I can’t find it anywhere!”

  Stunned that she knew her name, Rachel called, “Emily?”

  She bobbed her head, folding her arms against her body as if to ward off a chill.

  “Stay there. I’ll be right down. Don’t move!”

  She hurried through the house to the back door. She still clutched the newspaper, and she stuffed it inside her nightgown.

  Emily—if that was her name—darted away from the window as soon as she saw Rachel, urging her on with a frantic wave of her arm. “Hurry! Papa will be so unhappy if he finds I’ve slipped out of bed again!”

  She disappeared into a thicket of trees, and Rachel’s heart pounded as she followed, fear over such a young girl being lost in the woods. The underbrush ripped at her legs, but she raced on uncertainly. Whoever the mysterious child was, she was no ghost. She was a disturbed little girl, and she had taken the trouble to find out who Rachel was. How or why she’d followed her to Rosalie was too much to ponder right now.

  “Emily!”

  “I’m over here! Hurry, we must find it! Oh, they’ll be ruined!”

  Emily bolted out of the thicket, and Rachel followed her into the clearing. There she was, running toward the archway—

  What was she doing in the ruins? That wasn’t a safe place for a child to be, with near-gale force winds blustering about. Rain blinded her as she ran toward the ruins.

  “I remember now!” Emily emerged from the shadows and smiled through the rain at her. “I left it next to—”

  Lightning split the sky, fleetingly illuminating the impossible. The nebulous billowing of the girl’s gown melted away in the storm, along with the child. Rachel squinted against the rain that sluiced down her face, and as the lightning faded, Emily appeared again—but in that split second of brightness, clearly and unmistakably, Rachel had seen the back wall of Rosalie behind Emily’s shadowy silhouette. She had looked through the child.

  As she grappled with what she saw—a ghost who happened to know her name?—the girl’s form solidified and hurried through the gaping arched entryway of the home that had stood there almost three centuries before. Spurred into action, Rachel dismissed the trick the lightning had played on her eyes.

  “Emily, don’t! It’s dangerous!”

  And Rachel had no choice but to follow her over the threshold of Rosalie. She gasped as a fierce, blistering heat covered her—in the midst of the cool storm, it was as if she were walking into an inferno. Abruptly, a blinding pressure seemed to
shatter within her. The storm’s violent caterwauling was swallowed up in a deafening silence. The rain was gone. The winds, still. And Rachel was engulfed in darkness.

  Chapter Six

  Rachel wandered in and out of a most peculiar dream. She was cold, bitterly cold, and damp. The chill surrounded her like a shroud, and when she shivered, someone drew her closer into a seductive warmth. Then she opened her eyes, and the dream grew stranger.

  A man stared at her, his heavy-lidded gray gaze as turbulent as the storm that had brought her to him. Long, black lashes fringed his eyes, and the faint lines—as well as his tanned skin—told of years in the sun. His mouth was grim, but the lower lip was wide and full. His nose was strong and straight, and glossy black hair was drawn back from his face and fastened with a black ribbon.

  “Oh,” she murmured. “You work for them.”

  He held her in his arms, and raising her head from his solid strength was an effort beyond her power. She stretched out her hand over his broad chest, and the sure beat of his heart somehow comforted her. Her wet, disheveled hair dampened his robe.

  “Sorry.” She felt drugged; her tongue felt thick. “I’ve gotten you wet—and I’m heavy.”

  “Nonsense. You’re light as a child,” he murmured. His voice was deep and soft, yet crisp with an English accent. His gaze moved over her, then his jaw squared as he closed his eyes, almost whispering, “Who are you?”

  “My … my … Rachel.”

  Her head lolled against his chest, and she curled into his warmth. He lowered her into a cloud-like softness; it might well be a cloud, and he a dark-haired angel. And a strong hand brushed her hair away from her face, the way a father would his daughter’s.

  The cold returned, though, and she shivered. A soothing, satisfying warmth surrounded her, and perhaps the angel was holding her again.

  It held the finest elements of a dream—a cloud, a handsome angel, the distant crackle of a fire—as well as the colonial influences that reminded her of those unresolved places in her mind that sought peace in dreams.

  When he would’ve left her, she instinctively curled closer to him, exploring the hardened muscles of his chest, his shoulders. As in any dream, she acted with boldness that she lacked in life, and she let her leg slide between his, one hand moving downward curiously. And then the dream was gone, and she only slept.

  Rachel opened her eyes. A fat candle burned a foot away in a shallow brass holder. She lay on her side in a very soft bed. A thin little man in an elegant dressing gown and a peculiar nightcap watched her, his hands folded on his lap.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Hastings.”

  She pushed herself up on one elbow, wincing at the pain that went through her temple. Her head felt heavy—was she sick?

  “Er … I was told you may suffer some discomfort for a day or two.”

  Rachel groaned, remembering the storm.

  “Drink this. It will ease the pain. ’Tis an herb potion, brewed by Hattie.”

  She frowned into the tiny china bowl. Within it was a pale brown, wretched-smelling concoction. Swallowing it in one miserable gulp, she lay still while the taste passed, trying to remember any of these surroundings.

  A large brick fireplace. A slant-front desk. A chest of drawers. None of it was familiar.

  “What … where … how?” she stammered, bewildered.

  “The better question might be when.”

  “What?”

  “1746. In the month of April, to be precise.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Perhaps in his sixties, he had alert blue eyes, heavy silver brows, a thin mouth, and a slightly hooked nose. Faint disdain was forged upon his face as if by habit. “You’re at Rosalie plantation.”

  “Oh, of course—Mrs. Chesterfield’s home. I agreed to stay there, for a day or two.”

  “That home, I’m told, will be built sometime after the colonials win their independence. Which won’t come to pass for another thirty-five years. Again, so I’m told,” he sniffed.

  She sat up, the pain eclipsed by impatience. She had just about had her fill of colonial phony baloney. “Mr. Hastings, you don’t have to put on a show for me. I understand how the interpreters work.”

  “Interpreter, madam?”

  Her attention was captured by what she wore: a frilly, old-fashioned nightgown and robe. “Where did this come from?”

  A flush stained Hastings’ cheeks as he looked away. “The fact of the matter is, you were—er, disrobed when you arrived. One of the maids was awakened to dress you.”

  Her fingers fumbled at her neck, locating the locket, and she threw her legs over the side of the bed. “Where’s a telephone?”

  “All in the twenty-first century, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, please. Just tell Camisha—”

  “I regret I don’t know who you mean,” he said, rising. “It’s quite late, but if you feel more comfortable moving about, I’ll have a maid find you a frock.”

  “I want my own clothes.”

  “Gone, too.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  He wrung impeccably groomed hands. “Miss Sheppard, I fear your language—”

  “You’re going to fear a lot more than that if you don’t explain this charade. Immediately.”

  “A Mr. Henderson informed me that you’ll stay at Rosalie for … well, a period of time.” He paused, then gave a weary shake of his head. “And that I have no choice but to be responsible for your well-being in this time.”

  Was this a joke? “Do you work for the foundation?”

  “I’m engaged by Lord Windmere, the master of this house.”

  “Who?”

  “Of course, he much prefers to forget the title, and you should, too. I speak of Mr. Grey Trelawney, the father of Emily.”

  “That does it,” she muttered, stomping to the door. “The deal’s off. Excuse me, Mr. Hastings, but I’ll have to be going back to the real world now. I don’t care if an axe murderer’s after me.”

  “Mr. Henderson said—”

  A hall loomed before her, long and dark and forbidding, illuminated by a candle placed every ten feet or so. She started down the polished hall with Hastings in stubborn pursuit.

  The walls shone golden brown as the candle cast eerie shadows as high as the carved crown moldings. The home was ornately beautiful, but not nearly as old as Mrs. Chesterfield’s home. The mahogany torchères—George II, if her knowledge of antiques served her—were beautiful and doubtless expensive, but obvious reproductions. The wood shimmered with rich perfection. At the end of the hall, she noticed some stairs.

  “No, miss, I beg of you…”

  She hurried down steep, narrow stairs—that went nowhere. She stopped short at a dark, stone-walled passageway, trying to find the trail of the stairs. But the passageway was dark, dank, and wind moaned from somewhere farther down.

  “Miss Sheppard!”

  Relief flooded her at the sound of Hastings’ call. “I’m lost,” she yelled, following the sound of his voice through the dark corridors. She almost screamed as he appeared square in front of her.

  “The candle went out,” he said, and relief wracked her at his matter-of-fact complaint.

  Then she saw the stairs, and she took them two at a time, anxious to be out of the spooky house.

  “How do you get out of here?”

  “Where would you like to go?” He retrieved another candle as they arrived back upstairs.

  “Out of here,” she said, biting out the syllables.

  “Let me summon Lord Windmere, he’s in the stables—”

  But now she could see the entryway, they were just above it, and she hurried down the eight-feet-wide staircase, yanking at the front door.

  The driving rain chilled her, a web of chain lightning slashed the night sky, and the wide, gravel drive better resembled a creek.

  “May I get you a wrap?” Hastings inquired dryly.

  She slammed the door and w
hirled on him, slinging water over him as she did. “You may get me a cab.”

  He blinked, wrinkled his nose but slightly, and wiped his eye with calm dignity. “There are none to be had.”

  “If I have to search every room of this house, I’ll find a telephone.”

  “I give you leave to search, but there are no—er, telephones. Not in the house, not in the capital, not in the entire colony. Not in this century.”

  “Mr. Hastings, it benefits neither of us for me to be here.”

  “On that, Miss Sheppard, we heartily agree.”

  “So you’ll help me get home, first thing in the morning?”

  “Would that it were in my power.”

  Her temper went through the twenty-foot ceiling. “Fine.” Bracing herself for the wet blast of the tidewater storm, she yanked open the door and started out.

  “Miss Sheppard, I implore you. Williamsburg is two leagues off through a dark thicket, and you’ll not find—”

  His voice faded as she strode into the blinding storm, blinking to see past the sheets of rain that stung her. The drive was lined with gravel, keeping her from sinking knee-deep in the mire. Two leagues in this stuff? And what the hell was a league, anyhow?

  Rachel wasn’t one to admit defeat, and not so easily. But no more than two hundred feet from the house, she stopped. Could she endure an entire night with that quirky old fellow and his quirkier ramblings?

  She looked back. Lightning split the sky, illuminating the brick mansion. For several seconds, she was transfixed. Rising three stories into the sky, three chimneys were placed at the front and three at the rear of the immense Palladian mansion. An electricity went down her spine.

  Rosalie.

  It couldn’t be!

  The rain pelted her in cold, stinging sheets that penetrated her denial. The furniture upstairs were neither antiques nor reproductions. They were contemporary, lavish appointments to a house that bristled with newness, from its gleaming interiors to its stalwart fortress exterior. The man had an archaic way about him that defied explanation, but for the one he’d given her.

  Your mind is weary, dear, Mary had said.

  Acute delusions, Max had said.