Authors: J. Jay Kamp
Remembering the feel of Paul’s maleness against her, Ravenna set the gown aside. She started to put on the other dress.
We’ve made love
, she thought giddily.
I can’t remember doing it, but we must have, we had to have
.
For what other conclusion could she reach? As she turned the dress around, fastened the hooks down the front instead, she squelched her excitement as best she could and gave herself a stern talking to.
Look at you
, she thought.
You stand here patiently hooking up this dress when you should be frightened by everything around you, expecting to see the serial killer or the kidnapper responsible for bringing you here, afraid for your life and anything, absolutely anything but happy. A sane person would run for the nearest motorway, but you keep glancing toward that wall, wondering what Paul is doing back there
.
From behind it, she heard him clearing his throat; the familiarity of it instantly filled her with a sense of belonging.
Even if I am crazy,
she thought, tugging the dress around the right way,
why should I be scared?
Her adventure had done nothing but left her unclothed and nestled in his sizable arms, and she wouldn’t fight that, even if it were a past-life delusion.
Still, when she gathered up the rest of the skirts, began to pull on the leather boots, Paul came out from behind the wall and Ravenna drew in a sharp breath.
A black horse was following him.
Killiney’s stallion
.
Remembering what she’d read in the diary, she shivered with the sight of that horse. She prayed and hoped with every fiber of her being she’d not wake up, that the dream would go on and she’d know every ounce of Killiney’s love, live the fantasy,
be Elizabeth
.
Paul paid no attention to her shock. He led the horse with an acrid expression, beaming impatience and yet carefully coiling the reins in his grasp. When he came to a stop, the horse nudged him, urging him forward, and Ravenna couldn’t help reaching out to stroke that black, velvet nose.
“This guy’s somebody’s baby,” Paul said, giving the horse’s neck a scratch.
“He seems pretty attached to you,” she ventured.
His gaze shot up to hers with annoyance. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “and maybe I did tell you it’s your right t’believe what you want. But as long as we’re here, there’s no such thing as reincarnation. Somebody’s kidnapped us. Whether it’s you who’s done it or somebody else, I haven’t yet decided as much.”
It hurt her, the hostile stare he gave her then. Still she took the horse’s reins, asked for a boost up into the saddle. When he complied, she offered him a hand, helped him climb up behind her where, with his thighs pressing hers like a close-fitting glove, he wrapped his arms around her tight.
The horse started walking, and she let it. She gave the stallion plenty of rein, and soon they approached an ocean bluff which she recognized as being near Wolvesfield. With their path leading into a stand of trees, she felt the stallion’s pace quickening; he tugged at the reins, and as any horse heading for his stable would, he began to fight Ravenna’s grip, straining and snorting, until little by little he’d lifted his head and they were crashing headlong into the woods, between a pair of wrought-iron gates.
By this time Paul was shouting at her to turn the horse, to bring him around. When she couldn’t, wasn’t strong enough, he covered her hands and took control; he gave the stallion a tremendous yank, and as the trail came out from under the shadows, the horse veered sharply. Ravenna lost her balance, but with Paul’s arms holding her firm at the waist, she was kept from tumbling as the stallion staggered to a wavering stop.
Paul uttered a low curse. When Ravenna looked up, she saw the east front of Wolvesfield outlined against the winter sky.
“Well,” he grumbled, “does it need t’be said, or can I assume we’re at that house you were telling me about?”
Trembling a little, she nodded in reply.
“Then where do we put this horse, d’ya think?”
She pointed toward the stable block. “There, on the other side of the house.”
She felt like Elizabeth going there in the night, letting Paul help her down, taking the bundle of underclothes from him and following his sauntering walk across the lawn. She felt like Elizabeth…but she couldn’t really
be
Elizabeth. That was too much for even her to believe. After all, she was suffering from twenty-seven years’ worth of virginity, wasn’t she? With her entire life spent fixated on some brief encounter with an Irish boy, it was far more plausible she’d lost her mind, that this growing sense of familiarity was all bound up with David’s descriptions, with her own increasing desperation upon hearing of Paul’s beloved wi—
She jumped. Paul had opened the stable doors, and inside they heard someone stirring, someone yawning…and still Paul went ahead with the horse. He led the animal into the darkness, and Ravenna started again when she heard a sleepy voice.
“Will ya be needin’ ’im again, m’lord?” A child’s face materialized in the scant light coming from the open door.
Paul stared at the boy, fairly stuttered a response. “No, em…no I won’t, actually,” and when the boy reached out for the stallion’s reins, Paul gave them over uncertainly.
Without a lamp, the boy disappeared, led the horse into the blackened corridor with an obscenely loud clopping of iron shoes.
We’re here
, Ravenna thought.
Paul stood for a moment, gaping after the boy, until Ravenna took his arm and, knowing he’d fight, towed him back across the lawn. As it turned out, he was too busy reveling in the authenticity applied by their captors even to think of struggling against her hold. “You wanted me t’be impressed?” he shouted. “I’m impressed, all right? I’ll be goin’ home now.”
She tried to quiet him as they entered the house, but he refused, claiming he had no reason to sneak through their ordeal. He’d make a fuss and not play along for the benefit of David or whoever had done this. Hoping he didn’t bring disaster on them both, she tugged at him doggedly until they’d reached the safety of a drawing room where, begging him to shut his mouth, she opened the heavy curtains to let in some light.
Long shadows fell across the hardwood floors. Pictures in their gilt wood frames hung silent in the moonlight. The air was cold, smelled faintly of smoke, and with its white color and gold-painted swags of fruit and flowers, she realized the room must have been the white drawing room of Elizabeth’s diary; all Gothic gilt leather and armorial bearings, the room of David’s country house hotel was nowhere to be seen.
“Well, now what?” Paul said. He watched sourly as she set down their bundle of clothes on a chair. “Is some slave gonna bring me tea? Is Marie Antoinette comin’ with cake? Or maybe we’re goin’ to the gallows in the morning.”
“Will you stop?
Whisper
, OK?”
“Why should I be whispering?”
“Because if Elizabeth’s father finds us together, we might alter the course of history or something, so keep quiet while I think this through.”
“This Elizabeth,” he said, “that’s your character?”
She was about to say it was when she noticed a girl hovering in the doorway, the white of her apron gleaming in the dark.
The maid from the diary
. She knew without even thinking, without even the light to see the girl’s face.
“Everything all right, m’lady?” Stepping into the room, the maid performed a perfunctory bow. “I’ve water boilin’ if you’d have that tea.”
“And crumpets?” Paul demanded, walking toward her.
Before the girl had a chance to respond, Ravenna spoke up. “Sarah?” she asked. “It’s so dark in here, is that really you?”
“I’ll take that to meanin’ you’d have a bit o’ light.”
Ravenna smiled nervously. “Yes, that’d be nice.”
With a swish of her dress, Sarah vanished through the door as suddenly as she’d come, and Ravenna let several minutes pass before daring to turn toward Paul with a warning. “
Please
play along without shouting,” she said, “at least until we know what’s really going on.”
“Oh, you know what’s goin’ on. This is your fantasy.”
“You don’t really believe I’ve kidnapped you, do you?”
“I’ve no idea what to believe. That guy, Wolvesfield, he’s got money. He might’ve arranged this.”
“And how would he have gotten you into the country?” She stepped closer, her hands on her hips. “Did he drug you and box you up or what?” she asked. “Or maybe this is all a psychotic illusion. Maybe it’s
your
fantasy, did you ever think of that?”
“I’m hopin’. I’m hopin’ it’s a fantasy.”
“Then relax, all right?”
“Listen,” he said, “this must be great fun for you, chasing around on racehorses in the middle of the night, having servants an’ that bringin’ your tea—”
Before he could finish, Sarah reappeared. She had a kettle of sorts, an armful of sticks, and Ravenna watched as the maid set down a lamp and arranged the wood around embers from the kitchen. Soon the logs were blazing away. The candles were lit in their sconces and candlesticks, and Ravenna could see the girl’s chestnut hair where it escaped from beneath her muslin cap.
When Sarah had finished, she straightened before Paul. “What sort o’ tea would you have, m’lord?”
He considered for a moment, and Sarah waited, as if she could easily stand there all night.
“You haven’t got any stout?” he asked finally.
Sarah nodded, but when she turned to Ravenna as a waitress would, it wasn’t a drink she requested. Instead, she wanted the one thing that’d prove Paul hadn’t been abducted, that they were indeed in another century. “Could you bring us a mirror?”
“You look gorgeous,” Paul muttered.
Ravenna tossed him an irritated glance. “The mirror’s for you,” she said to him quietly, and once the maid had gone from the room, Ravenna picked up a candlestick, approached Paul where he stood by the fire. “Let me take a look at you, all right? I won’t make a pass at you, just…hold still.”
Without fighting much, he let her come close, and what she saw, or rather didn’t see then, made her gasp in utter astonishment: Not only had he lost his silver earring, but his ear was no longer pierced at all. Unbroken skin lay beneath her scrutiny; no scars, no holes, just this lingering scent of spice on his breath, and how could he have eaten if he’d been drugged and kidnapped?
Alarmed by the truth of it, she touched her own ears. She felt up her sleeve, ran her tongue over her teeth, but her scars and even her fillings were gone; wisdom teeth crowded her mouth once more. God knew what else she’d find, and as she began to process these discoveries, it occurred to her suddenly how Paul looked ever so slightly changed.
“What is it?” he asked. “I suppose I’ve been disfigured to top it all off?”
“But that’s just it, there
is
no bruise.” She stared, couldn’t help touching his bewildered face, searching for the darkened pit under his eye, the tiny cut, any evidence at all that she imagined these things…but there was nothing to find, just this undeniable feeling that something was amiss—had his features been altered? Rearranged in so subtle a way that she’d never pin down what it was that seemed different?
“Let me see your hands,” she said, “hold up your hands.”
Although he frowned, still he obeyed. When he glanced at his fingers to see what she studied, he found no gash, no blood from his fight with the miscreant boys. “Your ear isn’t pierced anymore, either,” she told him. “Paul, this isn’t a dream. I don’t know what it is, but it’s real, it’s solid. We have to be careful, or—”
“It’s retribution from God for entertaining your ideas about reincarnation, that’s what it is.”
Yet before he could grumble another word, Sarah came back, now presented Paul with a hand-held mirror. At Ravenna’s suggestion, the maid lifted a candlestick, held it while Paul examined his reflection. “Closer, the light’s not good enough,” he said, but as he tried in vain to see where the boys had scored their punches, Ravenna pointed to his unpierced ear.
Instantly his blue eyes darkened.
For at least two minutes he stared at that mirror. He didn’t move, didn’t stir, didn’t even seem to be looking at his reflection until it made her think he’d gone into shock.
Finally, with an air of resignation, he lifted his hand to his face and felt along the bone of his cheek, his jaw and all the way down to his chin, as if the shape were foreign to him, the flesh hostile. Sarah glanced at Ravenna with suspicion. Still she watched him carefully, trying to see what he saw when he looked in the glass and scowled that scowl.
By the time he’d handed the mirror back to Sarah, his gaze had sharpened into an accusing, embittered glare of surrender. His eyes wandered over the maid’s white apron, her frayed muslin mantle, but these things seemed to portend his damnation, so grim Paul appeared in the silence that followed.
Sarah remained unaffected by his glower. “Will you be needin’ anything else, m’lord?”
Turning toward the fire as if condemned to its flames, he didn’t answer.
“No,” Ravenna said. “Thank you, anyway.”
With a dip of her head, the maid disappeared, and only when she’d gone did Ravenna notice the porcelain tea service set on the table, along with what looked remarkably like crumpets and a glass of beer.
Pulling up a couple of chairs, she moved the table closer to the fire. She took Paul’s hand, placed the pint of stout in his grasp. “I don’t blame you for not believing this,” she said.
“Then the wife, she doesn’t know what’s happened?”
“She might. That is, if Killiney can figure out how to get from Christ Church to Swallowhill.”
Paul lifted the glass, took a long drink. He set the stout down carefully on the table, then sank into the opposite chair with heavy limbs and an even heavier sigh. “How do you know we’ve not gone missing?”
“Because,” and here she hesitated, wondering if she should even put the idea in his head, “because I think your wife is the reason this has happened.”
He tilted his brow, looked at her uncertainly.