“Would you like to stop here?” he asked, his words soft over the backdrop of chirping crickets.
She looked up into his face and smiled to lessen his worry. “No. Let’s walk the way we did last time.”
They stepped onto the drive without talking, while Leah let the tranquility of midnight wash over her. She snuggled closer to him, and he put his arm around her, apparently dropping his guard in his concern for her. She looked up at the sky and marveled at the number of stars--so many more than she had ever been able to see through the light pollution that shrouded modern Philadelphia.
“Perhaps you should slow your pace, Leah. You would do well not to overexert yourself.”
She smiled at him again, gently removing his arm from her shoulders so she could take his hand. The scent of roses got stronger as they walked. She wanted to say something silly in French but resisted, afraid he’d put up a wall if she tried to get playful.
He stared into her eyes. “You look more yourself now. Are you feeling better?”
When he watched her that way, like no one else in the world existed, she felt . . . oh, as though no one else did exist. She wanted to kiss him but told herself to wait. Let the beauty of the night enchant him first, then she could try adding whatever charms she had to the spell.
“The fresh air helps.” She made herself look away from him, fixing on the path ahead. They had unintentionally set off toward the spring. Somehow, the course seemed natural. Now she felt eager to see the pool again, a sixth sense telling her she might find a form of guidance there. After all, the spring did wield some kind of magic.
“What exactly happened back at the house?” he asked. “Was it indeed the carriage ride that made you unwell?”
She kept her gaze focused ahead. “I guess it must have been. That, combined with the shock of seeing Solebury House ransacked.”
“But the house had not been ransacked, and when you learned the truth, you still couldn’t shake off the vapors.”
“Vapors?” She couldn’t help flashing a grin at him. “Well, I suppose we all succumb to vapors once in awhile.”
The concern clouding his eyes didn’t clear. “Are you certain there is nothing else upsetting you?”
“What else would there be?” They reached the path leading to the spring, and she motioned in that direction. “Come on, let’s visit my favorite spot.”
“What?” He resisted the tug she gave him. “You cannot possibly want to return to the spring again, especially not now. You have just calmed yourself from one disturbance. Why subject yourself to more distress?”
“Don’t worry. I have no desire to jump in the pool tonight.” Suddenly, she remembered the plan she had formed in London when Lord William asked about her ring. She had decided to throw it into the spring, just as Jeanine had advised her. “I have something else in mind.”
He wouldn’t budge, holding her back by the hand. “Whatever your idea is, I cannot think the notion a good one. Why don’t we return to the manor? You heard my--Solebury say he wishes to speak to me.”
She caught his slip of the tongue and grinned, pleased to know he wanted to speak to his
father
. “We’ll go back in a minute, but first I have something I want to do. And I’d like you to be there while I do it.”
He hesitated but gave a grim nod. “Very well. But I refuse to let go of you throughout this entire visit.”
“That suits me fine.” She laughed and led him off the drive and down the trail to the spring.
The pool of water looked especially peaceful this evening, glittering with a rippled reflection of the moon and stars. She brought David right up to the edge, surprised she didn’t feel any fear of the time portal. Maybe she had grown to accept her trip to the past, trusting that she had some mission in store for her. Whatever her role here might be, her strange calling had lent her focus, assured her that her life had meaning. She couldn’t wait to throw away Kevin’s damned
friendship
ring. The cheap trinket had come to symbolize the aimlessness of her old life.
“Must you stand so close?” David asked. “This moss is damp and slick, and you could slide into the pool.”
She fished the ring out of her pocket and grinned at him. “Afraid of a few feet of water?”
He snorted. “Certainly not. I simply don’t want you to dunk yourself again.”
“Aren’t you even wondering why we’re here?” She held up the ring to show him. “I’m going to get rid of this, like I should have done long ago . . . years ago, in fact.”
To her disappointment, his face didn’t light up with enthusiasm. His mouth, in fact, took on its habitual twist of cynicism. “I presume this is the plan you mentioned when William asked you about your ring. Does this mean you have dismissed your old suitor?”
“Definitely.” She watched for his reaction.
Still, he frowned. “Rather a quick turnaround from the sentiments you betrayed a few days ago.”
“A lot has happened in the past few days.” She felt a painful stab that he didn’t realize what he’d become to her--that their encounter in the gate house seemed to mean less to him than to her. “I thought you’d be happy.”
He gave her what could only be called a scowl. “Why would
I
be happy?”
She snatched her hand away from him, hurt but determined to go through with her gesture of independence for her own sake. “Well, if that’s how you feel, you can stop pretending to protect me from this stupid pool. You don’t believe there’s any danger here, anyway.”
She turned and stared into the spring, ceremoniously suspending the ring above the water.
“Leah, you have been fortunate so far, but if you get soaked again, you are quite likely to catch cold, perhaps even worse.” He took her elbow in his hand. “You ought to be more mindful of your well-being.”
“I don’t need
you
to look after my well-being.” She wriggled her arm to try to break free. “I don’t need anyone for that anymore. I only wish I could have the chance to tell Kevin as much.”
“Leah, please, stop this nonsense.” He tightened his grip and tried to pull her away from the pool, but she twisted harder and yanked free. Unfortunately, the movement threw off her balance and she lost her footing. She slid into the pool, wincing in an icy splash.
The ring slipped from her fingers as her body dropped--no, her body plunged! In a lightning stroke of terror, she realized the time portal had opened.
Panic shot adrenaline through her blood vessels, and she flung out her arms to try to clutch onto anything solid. She smacked into David’s arm and grasped frantically, but her fingers slid down his to his wrist. He grabbed her hand and, for a moment, she thought he might be able to save her. But the spring raged and sucked harder. His hold loosened, and she spiraled downward, clamping her mouth shut against a scream.
It won’t last. It won’t last
, she repeated in her mind, trying to ignore the muffled roar of the cold cauldron’s brew and the bubbles accosting her skin.
In another minute, I’ll be able to breathe again. I’ll be . . .
Where? Back in the twenty-first century? Or in yet another time period?
She curled into a ball, squeezing her eyes shut to try to blot out the teeming abyss. Surprisingly, the tactic seemed to work. The bubbles felt as though they grew softer against her body. Could they actually be subsiding? Her rear end settled on the bottom of the pool at the same time her head and shoulders emerged above the surface.
A jolt of daylight blinded her, but she forced her eyes to adjust, anxious to orient herself. She rose in the thigh-deep water, slowly distinguishing her bright surroundings. The springhouse stood in ruins again. The great oak tree cramped the little clearing, dwarfing the pool with its huge roots. When she spotted her purse on the grass near the edge of the water, there could be no further question of what era she’d reached.
She sloshed out of the pool, too numb to feel chilled by the air. Mindlessly, she leaned over and began to wring out her skirt. But when she looked at the burgundy fabric between her fingers, she stopped. Phoebe had lent her this gown for her trip to London. A minute ago the dress had been a minor detail in an intriguing world. Now, the gown was the only thing left of that life. The rest of the world was gone, everyone who had lived there, dead.
David was lost to her forever.
She stared at the fabric, forgetting her efforts to squeeze the water out. Suddenly, she clutched the skirt against her chest and dropped down onto the ground. Immersed in yards of soaked sarcenet, she sobbed like a lost child.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
David lunged toward the whirlpool that stormed and swelled around Leah. He grasped for her outstretched arms as the water engulfed her. An instant before the spring could swallow her, she caught his forearm with one hand. Her grip skidded down his skin, but he managed to capture her fingers.
Afraid the pool would drag him in as well, he hooked his foot around the trunk of a tree. He pulled with all his strength, praying he would not wrench her arm. She flailed and he grabbed for her other arm but missed getting hold. Then the fingers he’d already had in his grasp slipped free.
The maelstrom devoured her.
“Leah!”
He dropped flat on his abdomen and sliced his arms through the water. Around his head and shoulders, the surge tempered into a gurgling, and his hands struck mud at the bottom. As he probed the roots and rocks on the floor of the pool, the bubbling diminished into ripples. The tantrum had subsided.
Pale moonlight penetrated the water, outlining dark natural formations but no trace of Leah. He refused to accept the evidence and tumbled head-first into the spring, splashing madly. As he righted himself, his limbs scraped on stone and bark but met with nothing akin to human flesh.
She was gone.
He clenched his fists and balled up his body, ducking below the surface and opening his eyes. The blackness around him only grew quieter, and cool night air skimmed the top of his head. The depth of the pool did not even cover him.
Frustrated, he sprang back up, dousing the surrounding area with a huge splash. He lost his balance on the rutted floor and fell forward, elbows thudding into the bank.
Half draped on the ground and half submerged, he buried his face in the crook of his elbow. She was gone, irretrievably swept from his life. She had tried to tell him the truth, and he had refused to believe her. Her story had been outlandish, but he might have at least listened. Eventually, she would have told him enough to prove her case. Now the future had reclaimed her and thrown her two hundred years away from him--a distance he had no means of spanning.
He clasped his fingers behind his neck and squeezed his head between his arms. Not since his mother’s death had he felt so bereft. He wondered why Leah’s departure should affect him on the same scale as such a personal loss. Had he actually harbored some hope of bridging the social gap between them?
Yes. For the first time, he realized that her easy acceptance of his birth had indeed given him hope. Foolish or not, he had secretly longed to win her in the end. He had dreamed he might accompany her back to the States to reunite with her family. There, where the efforts a man made counted more than the station of his birth, he would have worked to build his own success. He would have sweat blood to prove himself worthy of her--to convince her to become his wife.
Instead, Fate thwarted him again. As with every other important aspect of his life, his efforts would amount to nothing. All of his abilities, his exertions, any scheme he could devise . . . none of it would bring her back. Preternatural powers had brought her to him and ripped her away again. Divine or demonic, such forces loomed beyond the realm of his influence. Disgusted, he collapsed, his arms spread out across the ground.
Something warm brushed his fingertips, and he jerked back. A metallic gleam, half hidden in the grass, cut through the darkness. He reached forward and picked up Leah’s guinea, apparently fallen from his pocket during the struggle to save her. Oddly enough, the gold still retained his body heat.
As he gripped the coin, he imagined the metal grew warmer. The gold began to feel almost hot. And the water around his legs started bubbling. He remembered that Leah had credited the guinea as a catalyst for her original transport, the means by which she’d wished herself back in time.
The metal flared hotter, and the waters of the pool increased in turbulence. Apparently, this strange spring accepted trinkets in turn for granting wishes. Now, he sensed the spring wanted
him
to sacrifice the guinea.
Did he dare ask for a return?
“I do want to be with her,” he whispered.
The water surged to his waist, and the heat of the coin intensified. The metal burned into his palm, forcing his hand open. The gold dropped into the water with a hissing wisp of steam. Then the ground fell out from beneath him, and his body plummeted into rumbling blackness.
He closed his eyes against the brew and stretched his arms above his head. Already, the water topped his reach. The pool no longer had a surface or a bottom, only endless rioting currents reverberating around his body.
By rights, he should have said his prayers then. He should have pleaded forgiveness for all his sins and prepared to meet his Maker--or the nothingness he often feared might comprise the next world.
But Leah had survived the same experience.
She had braved this trial, and he would, too. He felt more excitement
than fear, more freedom than loss of control.
He soared, weightless, through the void, likening the effervescence around him to years bubbling past. The moment his lungs began to ache for air, his feet touched down on the bottom of the pool, and he burst through the surface, gasping.
The glare of afternoon sun blinded him, and he shielded his eyes, blinking to adapt to daylight. He had traveled through time! Gradually, he made out details in the surrounding scene: a huge oak crowding the pool, the springhouse in a wretched state of repair . . . and Leah, sitting before him in the grass. Soaked, bedraggled, her face swollen with tears, she gaped at him as though she had witnessed a ghost materializing.