Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
About the Author

The Last Killiney

Book One in The Ravenna Evans Series

By J. Jay Kamp

Copyright 2011 by J. Jay Kamp

Smashwords Edition


Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The Ravenna Evans Series:
The Last Killiney
The Bayman’s Bride
The Wager
Prologue

Disneyland, summer, 1977

People were staring at Paul Henley.
Where he stood sweating in the queue for the pirate ride, he could feel their conservative eyes taking in the cut of his leather trousers and his Cuban-heeled boots. He knew his hair was a mess. His compact, seventeen-year-old frame wasn’t tall enough to be menacing, but dressed all in black, sporting his favorite David Bowie badge, Paul could imagine how he looked to these folks—like a punk, a hooligan.
Get an eyeful, then, if you’ve a mind to. And just for a laugh, he turned and winked at the American couple two paces back. They wriggled appropriately. Paul smiled to himself. “Good,” he mused under his breath. After all, I’m not sweating in this leather coat fer nothin’.
It wasn’t long before the queue shuffled into a New Orleans-style mansion where, despite Paul’s resolve, he found himself grateful for the shade. The air smelled damp. It was cooler inside. A sandy isle complete with sea shells and treasure chest flanked the hand rail and, seeing it, he briefly entertained the notion of jumping into the lapping dark waters. California was great and all that, but the Anaheim heat was something Paul reckoned he could do without.
“Irish rain, that’s what I need,” he mumbled, glancing at the brick arch over their heads. “And a pint as well. That wouldn’t go amiss.”
“You like the rain?”
It was a feminine voice. Paul heard it clearly amidst the chattering all around him. He glanced back at the fellah in the Panama hat, the youngsters in the queue, the mothers and fathers, until finally his gaze rested on a diminutive girl. She looked roughly his age. She couldn’t have been an inch over five feet tall. Watching him with huge, brown eyes, she stood quietly only a few paces away. Despite her braids and denim skirt, Paul could see straight off she had pluck. She wasn’t keeping several yards back from him. In fact, she’d stepped closer.
“Why would you want a pint of rain?” she asked.
He thought of his wished-for Guinness and the weather to go with it. Wouldn’t have much kick, that rain, but I’d take it just the same. “Because I’m thirsty, that’s why,” he said, wiping his forehead.
Dark-haired, fair of skin, the girl studied him with fascination. Paul found himself slipping into charm-mode without even meaning to, his amiable manner disarming her stare. “You’ve never had Dublin rain, have you?” Raising a brow, he grinned at her impishly. “I’ll bet you don’t even know where Dublin is, yeah?”
“I do so.” She smiled, a dazzling sight that took him by surprise. “I’m fifteen, you know. I’m in high school and everything, just like you.”
The queue shuffled forward. Paul motioned for her to join him, curious now. “Is that right?”
“Do you want to come to my island with me? It rains all the time there. You’d like it a lot.”
Paul noticed how she stayed apart from the family behind her, didn’t belong to the teens ahead of them, either. When she reached the top of the queue and the attendant asked how many in her party, the girl held up just one finger. She’d have no friends climbing into the seat next to her. Pluck indeed. Here I’m fuedin’ with Trevor an’ Eamonn while she doesn’t even have the luxury of bleedin’ mates like mine.
“Make that two,” he told the attendant, and then, to the girl, “Your island? No, em…I don’t think your parents an’ that would appreciate having me around. But why don’t you tell me about it? You’ve an island all yer own?”
He followed her into the boat, and when her porcelain features lit up with joy, he knew what he’d started. ’Course she fancied him. Like Trevor’s sister back home, the girl thrilled to Paul’s every word. He didn’t mind. He loved an audience of any sort, ladies especially, and as the boat began to move, he indulged her with silliness designed to make her giggle. “So it’s a treasure island you’ve got, is it?” Tilting his head, he whispered low, “I suppose you’re a pirate’s woman, as well?”
Soon he was doing buccaneer impressions, pointing out drunken sailors on the wharf, even pushing her toward the dangling leg of a fierce-looking sea dog, all in an effort to hear her laugh.
Indeed, he was so successful that the girl completely forgot herself. Between pirate scenes, she explained it wasn’t all her island, although she and her parents were the only full-time residents. “Except for the birds,” she was quick to add. With its gently rolling fields, its high cliffs topped with wind-worn grass where puffins and cormorants made their homes, her Washington State island was perfect for all sorts of birds. Finches, pheasants—she described them in such detail that, picturing her driftwood fires and the winter storms battering her bedroom windows, Paul couldn’t help seeing his own house with its wide views of Killiney Bay.
“Sounds a lot like my country,” he told her. “Like Downpatrick in County Mayo, maybe, or the Cliffs of Moher.”
“You have puffins in Ireland?” she asked.
Paul nodded. “And choughs as well. But you don’t have any choughs in America?”
As if they were friends, that’s how he talked to her. After a while, he didn’t know if he were playing the game still, charming the girl for fun’s sake, or genuinely interested in what she had to say. There was something to her, he knew that much. As pretty as she was, she had her wits about her, more so than most Irish girls he’d met.
By the time they’d reached the pirate-besieged fort, he had his arm around her. Cannons were blasting, a sailing ship loomed above with surly-looking men waving their swords, but Paul wasn’t paying attention to them. All he could think of was the girl’s raven hair, brushing his hand so that he couldn’t help leaning closer to see if it smelled the way he thought it ought to, of salt water and sand, like his beach back home.
“You’ve lost it,” he muttered. With annoyance, he shook off the beginnings of a daze. What was the matter with him? Was he coming down with flu?
And yet with a certain fascination, he realized it: He’d been right. In that instant he’d leaned into her shoulder, he’d caught her fragrance of driftwood and salt sea, sweet as any perfume he’d known. Closing his eyes, he pictured himself on his own rocky beach, and in a flash of bewilderment, abruptly he found himself gazing at the cold gray waves beneath his house, the jagged cliffs, Dalkey Island beyond in the mist. And then…
Withdrawing his arm, Paul sat back. He forced himself to look at the bayou around him, the simulated fireflies and evening sky. Still the image lingered on: Swallowhill. His drawing room. The leaden light of a spring afternoon, rain driving hard at the Georgian windows…and this pretty girl.
Only she wasn’t a girl.
In this vision, where she stood near his hearth back home, she was definitely a woman—a slender, doe-eyed waif of a thing, but mature nonetheless, for how could Paul miss her generous hips, the peach-tinted rise of her womanly breasts? She was wearing a nightgown. Just barely. As if she’d donned it straight from the bath, the fabric was wet, slightly transparent. In the delusion, Paul stared, and with a sensation very much like a memory, he heard himself say, “You’ve been swimming in the ocean again, haven’t you?”
The woman didn’t answer. She went to the cupboard recessed in the paneling and took out a blanket, wrapped herself up. Her teeth were chattering. Her black hair dripped in a soft thudding cadence all along the Aubusson carpet, and in the dream, Paul followed her back to the hearth. Adore you, he thought. He took up a corner of the Irish linen and wiped at her lovely, heart-shaped face. “What did I tell you?” he asked her gently.
“That I’d drown out there?” Familiar voice, low-pitched and clear. “I’m a scuba diver, Paul,” she said in a whisper. She leaned seductively into his side, and he felt a sudden surge of arousal when the woman’s fingers slipped into his shirt, unbuttoning, searching, even as she purred, “I know what I’m doing, at least give me that.”
Startled by the image, by the tone of her words, he opened his eyes. They’d arrived back at the starting point of the ride, he and the winsome, dark-haired girl. Boats were unloading. A queue of people waited on shore, and as he gazed at the tourists, thoughtless, numb, he still felt the warmth of the woman’s touch, her whisper an angel’s breath at his ear, Love you, need you.
That was enough.
He pulled himself together in the moments that followed. When the boat came to a stop, he forced himself to look at the ride’s attendant instead of the girl. Eamonn an’ Trevor, you should be thinkin’ of them, yeah? Paul knew his row with the lads had been wrong, a selfish mistake, that they’d only been joking when they’d hidden his Bible in the ladies’ toilet. Now his mates were probably combing the city for him. More than likely Paul’s father had been called, a new return ticket issued and waiting at the airport counter.
He wondered what he’d say to his Da as the safety bar lifted, as the attendant motioned for Paul to exit.
Only then did he think of his petite companion, how her feelings might be hurt by his rushing off.
“Listen, I’ve gotta be somewhere,” he began. Turning to the girl, he didn’t dare touch her slender hand. “You’ve friends outside? There’s somebody waitin’ fer you out there as well?”
“My mother,” she said. “But I know she won’t mind if you eat lunch with us…if you want to, that is.”
Paul sighed. “Sweetheart, I can’t go. I’ve people lookin’ fer me right now. I have t’go meet them, and—”
“What about me? Will you meet me, too?” The girl’s mouth was determinedly set. Her coffee-dark eyes had hardened to coals. Waiting for his answer, staring him down, she looked for all the world like a woman—a gorgeous, adult woman, Paul thought nervously—perceptive and innocent, headstrong and shy, until he found himself slipping back into it again, that strange sense of knowing her beyond the confines of her teenage features.
“Will you?” she asked. “Will you eat lunch with me tomorrow in the bayou? At noon?”
He hesitated, glanced away toward the door. “’Course I will,” he whispered finally. “’Course I will.”

Chapter One

Wolvesfield Country House Hotel, England, 1991

He was definitely Irish. Ravenna sat on the bed, hands shaking, telephone receiver pressed against her ear. Would it do any good if she closed her eyes? She didn’t think so. No matter how hard she tried, still she couldn’t escape the image so forcibly thrust into her hazy thoughts: Russet-brown hair. Pale complexion. Freckles that’d look ridiculous if it weren’t for his ruggedly handsome features.
“This is crazy,” she muttered.
“Who’s gonna know?” Alia’s voice was supportive but firm over the crackling, long distance line. “Just go with it. See what happens.”
“But what if I pass out like I did before?” No way was Ravenna going through that again. One moment she’d been digging for her credit card, chatting away with the hotel front desk clerk, and the next she’d been floating—in her mind, at least. In reality, she’d hit the floor. The clerk, the other guests, everyone within shouting distance had huddled around her, fanned her face, offered to contact relatives back home, but Ravenna hadn’t even heard their offers. Instead, she’d seen…
“What if I have some sort of tumor?” She bit her lip, imagined the possibilities. “I mean, I could be suffering from a brain disorder, a hemorrhage or something, and you want me to encourage this?”
From halfway around the world, her cousin made a huffing sound. “Do what you want. Only I think you wouldn’t have called me if you didn’t already believe it’s true.”
“That this is a past life?”
Hearing herself say it out loud, Ravenna wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. A past life. Here she was, two days into the trip of a lifetime, and rather than driving along the beautiful Devon coastline or trying to meet British men, instead she was spending six dollars a minute to discuss reincarnation with her New Age cousin. I must be losing my mind, she thought.
Still, she went along with Alia’s idea. “OK, so what if it is a past life? What should I do? Look at my feet to see what kind of shoes I’m wearing?”
“Concentrate on your feelings,” Alia said.
Before, back home in Washington, she’d mostly experienced sensations that were manageable; she'd had emotional responses to these visions that weren’t anything to fear. Not now. Everything she’d felt since coming to this hotel was overwhelming, unavoidable. If she did as Alia asked and tried to access those buried feelings, she knew it would get out of hand. She couldn’t turn it off anymore, not the way she’d done at home, and it was frightening.
It was also exciting as hell.
When it’d started several weeks ago—just after the court case had been lost, in fact—she’d suffered only a mild episode. She’d been sitting on the bluff, crying, listening to the waves crashing on the beach below, when she’d found herself thinking again of the Dubliner, his flirtatious grin, his tall-heeled boots. After all, nothing held her back now. She was free to wander the world to look for him. She had the money, and she’d wondered, what had become of him since 1977? If she were to see him again, would she even recognize the man he’d grown into?
Trying to imagine it, she’d conjured up his well-memorized face, the inflection of his foreign tone.
Then came the shock. Without really trying, she’d found she could see him. It was as if a picture of what he now looked like had been placed in her mind, an instant photograph in supernatural clarity.
That had been only the beginning. As Ravenna had taken in the planes of his face, reveling in the detail, other visions had formed. She’d seen moving pictures of this man, and although they’d retained all the presence of the boy she remembered from Disneyland, his eyes had seemed more impassioned in these images. He’d been gazing at her as if he’d loved her.
Perched atop her island bluff, she’d gasped with the solidity of it. How could she have seen him if she hadn’t been consciously sustaining the visions?
But she hadn’t been. And she did see him. Unleashed from those archives where dream and expression were kept, images had flashed before her eyes as if she were being shown a private screening of some historical film—except you can’t feel a movie. With that boy from Disneyland grown and in her arms, Ravenna had lived those memories. She’d been with him in a way she could never have been in real life, not in 1977, for she’d been touching his skin, whispering his name, even opening his mouth with the eagerness of her kiss.
“Are you concentrating?” asked Alia.
Ravenna sat back, stretched on the bed. “I’m seeing him.”
“Tell me again. What is he like?”
A picture of heaven, that’s what he’s like. The Irishman was etched in her mind with perfect detail and an eerie tangibility that made her quiver. His eyes were blue. His angular features exuded a warmth, a slight vulnerability, and even in the midst of his serious gaze, she could tell he had a big heart. He also had a gigantic sword. By the way his fingers rested on the hilt, she guessed he’d used it quite a lot. As his clothes were reminiscent of the Revolutionary War, she understood he wasn’t a man she’d seen around town, that was for sure…but he did look like someone.
“Are you still there, Ravenna?”
With the vision hovering behind closed eyes, she nodded. “He has a square chin.”
“You can’t describe him any better than that?”
She took a deep breath. “All right,” she said, trusting her cousin. And with a deepening and solidity that astonished her, the images poured forth. She was with him as she’d never been with the real boy, pressed so close she felt every contour of his sturdy torso, each crisp, black hair on his burly chest.
“Alia, I’ve—” She couldn’t finish her sentence. Nearby was the shuffling of horses’ hooves, the comforting sounds of hay being munched. In the dim lamplight, she saw his face. Then the sudden feel of his skin against hers, his searing kisses along her neck, made her gasp with pleasure.
He’d undone her bodice. His hands were fumbling with her corset laces, and—
“Ravenna?”
No, she thought. No that’s…impossible. How would I know what to do with a man?
“Ravenna, this phone call is costing a fortune.”
“I’m…touching him.” There, she’d said it. Never in her life had she done something so extremely intimate, let alone so forward, and yet with a downward massage of her fingers, she couldn’t help it. She felt along the front of his trousers, stroking, caressing.
“And how does that make you feel?” Ever the counselor, Alia waited in the quiet that followed. It made her feel damned hot and bothered, that’s what it did, but Ravenna wasn’t going to say so. “There might be issues you need to explore. Search your feelings. Are you happy? Does this man love you?”
Love you. The words spilled into her, hazing the scene before her with doubt. She didn’t have the slightest idea why, but she started to tremble. Something was wrong. “Alia, I don’t think he loves me.”
“Why? What makes you say that?”
She opened her mind to find out, and like a storm front the visions gathered her up, made her feel what she’d felt in that life—in a different place.
She saw the Irishman. He’s talking to James, that’s what had upset her. James was her brother, this tall, black-haired man she saw, and he was making fun of her for the umpteenth time.
As they joked between themselves, ever glancing at her from behind their papers, the Irishman and James were behaving deplorably. The Irishman even spoke as an honorable gentleman ought never to speak of his intimate lover: with derision and mockery. It was as if it were nothing to insult her so. When he began glorifying the sailor’s life, the many ports, the exotic women they’d meet, she tried to remain calm. How long would she miss him? Would he even remember her very existence, swinging in his canvas hammock?
Ravenna froze, thinking of what it meant.
This man had been a seafarer, too.
Excited by the notion that they had something in common, she went on with it, focused on the Irishman’s face until it came over her again—another vision, yet another situation. He was watching her from his pianoforte.
He’d been playing Mozart. She knew it because the bright, clear notes still rung in the air, his personal message of contempt for her all too clear in his choice of music. His cold blue eyes were proof enough of his malicious intentions. When he told her their liaison had been pleasurable but nothing more—certainly not a reason for marriage—her fate was sealed.
He didn’t love her.
This wasn’t the sweet boy she’d met at Disneyland. This man seemed a rogue. If these were their moments together in a past life, the Irishman’s and hers, what good could come in trying to find him?
Back in America, Alia was losing patience. “Why didn’t this man love you? Try to listen to your inner voice.” In the stillness, her pleas seemed distant as Ravenna sorted through her deepening pain. With his callous grin, how could she have kissed those lips? And yet she had…and would again, if given the chance.
“Ravenna? What’s going on?”
“If I tell you the truth, do you promise not to give me a Buddhist sermon?”
“It’s the boy from the pirate ride, isn’t it?” Alia’s tone was snappish. “Actually, that would make perfect sense. That’s why you went on this trip in the first place.”
“I came because I got a check from the government.”
“You came to find him, and this Irishman, he looks like the boy, right?”
Ravenna sighed. The last time she’d seen him at Disneyland, he’d been walking away, mumbling to himself, leather jacket strung over his shoulder. Of course she’d lied, said she was fifteen when really she’d only been twelve, and that was probably why he’d skipped their silly bayou lunch date. He must have guessed her true age, surely, and what self-respecting seventeen-year-old boy would be interested in a twelve-year-old?
“It’s him,” Alia went on, and Ravenna knew only too well what sort of crystal-chakra nonsense would follow. “And yes, I’m going to give you a Buddhist sermon. You’ve spent all your life pining away for this guy, saving yourself for him when you could’ve had Don or Gary or even Frank the hottie boat mechanic, and now you expect me to believe you didn’t go to Europe to find him? You did, and you were supposed to. It’s fate, Ravenna. You lost your island for a reason—it was to get you out of your hermit hole and into the real world.”
At the mention of her island, her mind flitted back to her troubles, the things she should be forgetting on this vacation. Don’t think about it. Numbing her feelings, she tried to center on Alia’s voice, but the pain still surfaced. She couldn’t not think about it. Her island. Gone.
“If you hadn’t lost your island, you’d still be sitting there in your boat, cutting herring plugs for bait, wouldn’t you? Is that really how you want to spend the rest of your life, Ravenna? Fishing by yourself? Scuba diving under boats for some guy named Delwin who pays you to scrape the scum off hulls?”
No, she wanted to say, but she kept quiet and let the sermon continue.
“Everything happens on purpose, Hun. Your island was made into a bird refuge by the government for a bigger cosmic reason: to get you off your butt. And why on earth didn’t you choose a nonstop flight to Dublin? But no, you picked a layover in London subconsciously. You knew you needed to go to Devon. You went to the National Gallery and found that painting without even trying. You’re being guided, Ravenna. Your higher self is guiding you to the Irishman, and he has to be in Devon.”
Swallowing hard, Ravenna sat up. “Alia, I’ve got something I have to do,” she said, and without even thinking, she put down the phone.
How many weeks had it been since she’d first started remembering this man? Since that night on the bluff? When she’d gotten the government’s reimbursement for her property, the first thing she’d done had been to climb into her boat, take her belongings and her beloved Siberian husky, Nick, and head for her parents’ new home in British Columbia. There she’d stored her scuba gear. She’d delivered her dog for safekeeping. Yet even then, tying up her boat at the government dock in Mitchell Bay, even at the north end of Vancouver Island she’d had memories descend upon her from nowhere.
It’d only gotten worse when she’d reached England, when she’d found that painting Alia had mentioned.
Hanging in one of the many alcoves of the National Gallery, it had been a life-sized double portrait by John Singleton Copley that had stopped Ravenna dead in her tracks. Like many of its time, it featured a couple in fancy dress walking their dog. Never mind that the woman looked exactly like Ravenna; no, that wasn’t even the most disturbing thing about the picture. It was the husband in the portrait who had jarred her heart most. Just the sight of him had brought out an irrational response, a terrible sadness defying explanation. She’d felt friendship and loathing for him, each emotion as strong as the other. This was not the boy from Disneyland. This was not the Irishman. This new man, with his elegant, careful pose, was someone Ravenna had pitied, not loved.
Resonance, that’s the best way to describe it. It’d been as if there were a bridge between paint and flesh, a portal between that life and this one. Ravenna ached with misery as she read the picture’s title. “Lord and Lady Launceston, or ‘The Evening Walk,’ 1788. Wedding portrait of William and Elizabeth Hallett, donated by the Hallett family of Wolvesfield, Devon, 1840.”
This was all she’d needed. She’d rented a car, studied a county map of Devonshire. Tourist destinations were clearly marked. Castles and historic homes were indicated by symbols, and beside one of these, on the coast near the town of Dartmouth, she’d found the words Wolvesfield Country House Hotel.
The check-in incident had followed shortly thereafter.
Now, shivering with the image of her Irishman, she rose from the bed, eyes fixed in bleary disbelief as she looked around at the Georgian furnishings, the mellow gray walls and plaster decoration of her hotel room. A ribband-back chair stood in the corner. A copy of The Blue Boy hung over the bed. It seemed a world away from her island, the comfortable cabin on her little boat, and yet she felt so…Running her finger along the white marble mantel, she shuddered.
It’s this house.
Grabbing her room key, she went downstairs. Guests milled in the hotel corridor, but she avoided their stares as she rushed through the midst of them, intent on only one destination.
When she got to the music room door, she stopped.
What had her life been like before? Those twenty-seven years she’d spent on the water, the beaches she’d walked, the resident killer whales she’d known by name, every shred of it slipped away when she saw the piano. His piano.
What the hell was happening to her? Staggering forward, she squeezed her eyes shut. She tried in vain to retain her identity, her sense of surroundings, but a dizzy melancholy gained momentum in her thoughts as the feel of this room, the smell of it, rapidly flooded her consciousness and drowned out everything she’d known before.
Hadn’t she stood at this very window? Grief consumed her. He was never coming back. She’d never hear his satin voice, feel the dampness in his russet-colored hair nor see that wonderful, lumbering gait of his through these halls, never again. She heard the wind move over the fields. She felt its draft coming through where it could. Lifting the sash window, letting in the storm, she wrapped her arms about herself and repeated his name like an incantation. Love you, she thought. I’ll do my best, but I’ll never love anyone the way I loved you.
Tears filled her eyes when finally she focused on the woman beside her.
“Miss Evans?” The woman smiled, and Ravenna recognized the check-in clerk. “Are you all right, Miss Evans? Can I get you anything?”
Ravenna was shaking uncontrollably now. Her knees felt weak. She reached for the piano, turned away from the woman’s stare, for how could she speak? Words seemed impossible when all she could think of was living without him, drowning, dying.
When the clerk disappeared in the direction of the front desk, Ravenna sat down. With her back to the wall, she mashed her face in her trembling palms and tried to determine what she’d just been through. Was she losing her mind? Making sense of these spontaneous images, insulted by the Irishman in one scene and in terrible grief over him in the next, was becoming more difficult with each passing moment. Had he loved her? If he’d hurt her so bitterly, why would she mourn him?
Maybe I ought to rest for a while, she cautioned herself. Take a nap. Have some chamomile tea.
Then she became aware of a presence. Someone was approaching her again, probably the clerk coming back, and she wondered, how many people would offer to help her?
Yet before she could decide whether to look up or not, she heard a gentle, hesitant voice. “Miss Evans?”
She jumped at the sound. There’d been nothing threatening about it, and yet she’d started at the young man’s proximity: He was crouched right at her outstretched feet and she hadn’t even noticed him there.
Get a hold of yourself, Ravenna. “No,” she said, feeling ridiculous in front of this stranger. “I mean, yes, I’m Ravenna Evans. I was just…” What was she doing? And why had the clerk given out her name?
Wiping her eyes, she tried to stand, for surely she shouldn’t be leaning against the antique wallpaper. But the young man put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re upset,” he said gently, and he looked at her with such a warmth and concern, she forgot her grief. “Please, stay where you are. Relax for a moment. I’ll find a glass of water for you, all right?”
Embarrassed, she nodded. Still the young man didn’t leave. His gray eyes wandered over her face. His fingers at her shoulder tightened reassuringly, calming her, lulling her, making her thoughts drift ever so slightly, until at last it dawned on her what was going on.
He was staring at her.
As if she were an apparition, a movie star, a girlfriend he hadn’t seen in years—this was the way he looked at her.
She saw nothing unusual about him. Dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt, he wore no tie and there was no particular order to the layered mess of his dusky blond hair. He had a thickset, effeminate face, and almond-shaped eyes the color of slate. He was trim and attractive in a comfortable sort of way, but no matter how much he tried to disguise the fact, he was obviously not comfortable with her.
She began to fidget under such attention. Pushing the hair back from her eyes, she took a deep breath, shifted her feet whilst his gaze moved over her face, her earrings, the Celtic cross around her neck.
Finally the man collected himself, stood up from his crouching position. “Will you stay, Miss Evans?” Straightening, he turned toward the door with the promise, “I’ll be back in two moments with something cold.”
Only then did she realize it. He was the marquess. He was the owner of Wolvesfield Hotel. It’d taken a moment for his features to register, but she recognized him from the photo displayed at the check-in desk.
“Wait,” she called after him, getting to her feet. Maybe she shouldn’t be alone in this room, because what sort of delusion would come over her next? “I’m fine,” she said, brushing off her jeans. “I just need a change of scenery, that’s all. Would you…would you mind?”
She nodded toward the door, and the marquess broke into a friendly smile. He held out his hand. “Would my office do?”

Chapter Two

Dalkey, Co. Dublin, 1991

Paul was dreaming. Stretched out on the sofa, in his mind he was exactly where he didn’t want to be—in Belfast, in 1976 and on that same street in the Republican Markets section of town. Aidan was beside him, bundled in a duffle coat.
“Are you goin’ in or not?” Aidan asked, nodding impatiently toward the music shop door.
Paul stared at his friend, in wonder at the sight of his clean-cut looks, his familiar face, even that mohair jumper he’d borrowed so many times before. You’re alive. “Yeah,” Paul said in the dream, “but, em, give me the money fer the cigarettes first.”
Aidan scowled.
Paul knew he shouldn’t have asked for that money, not because Aidan disapproved of smoking, but rather because of what Paul intended the cigs for—clocking girls, looking cool. Aidan hated poseurs. Still he turned over the money to Paul, shook his head with an obvious frown. “You don’t even know how t’smoke the bloody things.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Paul said. “Look, I’ll only be a moment. See if they’ve got a recording of that Mendelssohn song you were playin’ the other day.”
“The concerto?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” and stepping into the traffic, Paul hardly glanced back as he crossed the street for the public house.
He should have glanced back. In the dream, he might have, catching one last glimpse of Aidan’s expression, that mop of blond hair, even his brusque way of walking which belied Aidan’s natural inclination for shyness…but he didn’t. Feeling the dread building in his heart, Paul wrestled with himself there on the sofa. He tried to wake himself out of the dream. Turn around, he thought, bloody hell go after him, don’t let him go in that record shop alone.
But Paul didn’t turn around. Just as he had on that fateful afternoon, he went in the pub, asked for the cigs. He picked up his change, and in the midst of it, in that horrible moment when the explosion went off, Paul’s sixteen-year-old ears filled with the sounds—the bomb blast roar, the shop fronts shattering, metal shards and pavement raining down.
With a jump, he woke up. His drawing room, still littered with textbooks and newspapers, was quiet, cold. No army units. No bombs.
No Aidan, he thought, rubbing his eyes.
Forcing himself to sit up, he focused his attention on the view of Bray Head outside his window. He tried to numb his thoughts, but each time he did, image after image coursed through his mind—Aidan on the beach, Aidan cooking mint potatoes at two in the morning. As Paul fought the pain, he told himself wearily, Don’t start this. Don’t even go there or you’ll be bashing your head through the walls again, won’t you?
Putting everyone through that a second time wouldn’t win points with the lads, he knew. The gardaí coming, Trevor explaining his fit to the barman and the woman being called to fetch him home…what would Paul do this year, he wondered? Pick a fight and get himself killed? How best to celebrate the anniversary of Aidan’s death?
* * *
When eventually the key turned in the lock downstairs, Paul paused in his brooding.
Fiona, he thought in a rush of heartache.
With his back to the door, he listened as his wife came up the steps, set her books down, fished through her purse for the crinkling of her cigarettes. Paul didn’t dare turn around to greet her. What good would it do? If he could get her in his arms again, tell her about his dream of Aidan and all those feelings he kept inside, then maybe, maybe it would mend his soul.
But he wouldn’t get her back. I’ve a better chance of winning the pools.
Staring out at Killiney Bay, he waited until he saw drifting smoke before he even bothered with looking up. At the sight of Fiona, he wished he hadn’t. Her hair was mussed. Her lipstick was smudged. Figures, he thought, for her blouse—the one he’d always hated—was misbuttoned near the top; the scalloped edge of her fancy bra showed all too plainly, and as she held out her cigarette with cold fingers and even colder eyes, he felt the rage kindling inside him.
He took the smoke from her anyway. He inhaled it as deeply as he thought he could stand.
“It’s not ’til tomorrow, is it?” she asked.
With the burning in his lungs almost as painful as her voice, he nodded, handed back the cigarette. “Yeah, tomorrow.” As if she’d care.
She started to walk away.
“But em,” and getting to his feet, he caught her eye, “Fiona, I was thinkin’ maybe, maybe this year you could come down to the pub with me. Trevor an’ Deirdre will be there as well. Maybe you an’ Deirdre could find something to talk about, y’know, politics or film?”
She shook her head. “You’re not going to the pub this year.”
Paul stopped in front of her. With the curls in her blonde hair and the lipstick she wore, he knew why she’d dolled herself up for the night. Not for me. I’m just the fellah who pays her bills, aren’t I? I’m only the fellah who’d give his life t’make her happy, not the guy she’s been shaggin’, the one who’s waitin’ outside in the car.
Feeling that anger welling up again, he lifted his hand, touched the place where her buttons didn’t match. “I’m going to the pub.”
For a fraction of a second, turmoil flared in her light blue eyes. Her mouth opened the slightest bit, and even though he loathed the way he needed her, still he found himself wanting to kiss her with all the hurt he felt inside.
He never got the chance.
“Fine, then,” she said, pushing him away. “But don’t be thinkin’ I’ll feel sorry fer ya. I won’t, Paul Henley. Not when the gardaí come, and not when you’re ringing me up from a holding cell.”
And just so he understood, she reached for her purse, took out her cell phone and tossed it on the table. All too keenly he felt her contempt. She held him responsible for the way she had to lecture him, to look after him. I am responsible, he thought dismally.
“So you’re going out?” As if he hoped she would, that’s how it sounded, and hastily he touched her arm. “I mean, you’ve got your hair all curled an’ that, I thought maybe you were meeting him tonight, since—”
“Yes, I’m meeting him.” She closed up her purse. “And if you’re not gonna top yourself ’til tomorrow, I can go, can’t I? I don’t see any point in stayin’ here.”
She turned toward the door, and Paul felt a jolt of fear go through him, so strong he couldn’t bring himself to release her arm. “Fiona, wait—”
But when she did wait, eyes like pools of ice, he couldn’t find words to tell her.
Calmly, she pulled out of his grasp. “Get on with yer life, Paul. Aidan or me, this has t’stop.”

Chapter Three

The marquess led Ravenna to his office, saying, “Let me just ask Kathryn to get the water.”
Yet when he approached the secretary’s desk, when they fell to talking about guest reservations, insurance agents and other business, it wasn’t long before the water was forgotten. Ravenna didn’t bother to remind her host; instead, she listened with interest as the secretary practically pleaded with the young man. “Lord Huntingdon requests your presence at his annual charity ball,” Kathryn said, the phone’s receiver pressed to her hand. “David, it’s next week. We have to tell them something.”
The marquess touched his fingers to his brow. “Send them a check for two thousand pounds, and tell Huntingdon I’m not able to make it. Tell him I haven’t yet learned my social graces. And call Emma Steiner.”
“What about Mr. Collins?”
The marquess frowned. “Keep trying, please?”
With that, he ushered Ravenna forward. “Why must the world revolve around money?” Leading her into the next room, he seemed to make an effort to lighten the mood. “These charity things are merely an excuse for rich people to go clothes shopping, if you ask me.” He pointed to an overstuffed chair. “Go ahead, make yourself at home. Do you feel any better?”
Anxious and a little taken aback by such chatter for a landed peer, she took a seat.  “I’m fine.”
“Well, you looked like a ghost a moment ago.  Or like you’d seen a ghost. That's been known to happen around here.”
“You’ve seen a ghost, Marquess?”
“Oh goodness, don’t call me that. I’m David. David Hallett.” He held out his hand to shake hers, and when she took it, he stepped a little nearer. “Look,” he said, and his voice was soft, “I don’t mean to pry, but…why were you crying in my music room just now? If there’s something I can do to help—”
“Actually, thank you,” and working up her courage, Ravenna tried to seem as normal as possible as she put into action the rough plan she’d conjured on the drive down to Devon, “yes, there is something you can help me with.” Try to sound like a college student, Ravenna. “I came to your hotel to research the history of ‘The Evening Walk,’ by John Singleton Copley—you know, that painting in the National Gallery of your ancestors?”
Taking the chair opposite hers, David nodded.
“Well, I didn’t see a ghost, but sometimes I get so wrapped up in my, um, research,” she lied, “that, as I’m trying to envision what life was like for these people, I feel like I really am the person I’m investigating. I guess I got a little carried away in your music room.”
There was something in his face then, she wasn’t sure what. Still, his attention remained undivided, and taking this to heart, she ventured on. “It’s like when you hear a sad song on the radio. It takes you back to whatever happened when that song was your favorite, makes you live it all over again, the feelings, the hurt. I think your hotel is doing that to me. Only,” and she caught herself—she was a terrible liar—“only I wasn’t really Mrs. Hallett. It’s just easy for me to imagine what it must’ve been like, living here as her. She must’ve had an awful time with the Irishman who played the piano. And I don’t think she could’ve been too happy about being married to Mr. Hallett, either.”
Slowly, as if edging away from something unseen, the young man sat back. “No,” he said quietly. “No, she wasn’t.”
His eyes were locked on hers with intensity. She wanted to hold her breath, for his easygoing manner had completely disappeared; he was rigid in his seat, and as she watched the scowl settle over his face, she wondered exactly which part of what she’d said had offended him most. Was he going to throw her out of the hotel? That slant to his features made her think he might, and she sat there nervously, waited in silence, until finally she couldn’t take it anymore. “Silly, huh?” She laughed uneasily. “I mean, coming here on vacation and getting so wrapped up in things that happened hundreds of years ago, that’s sort of a strange hobby. You must think I’m insane.”
“No,” he said, running a hand through his hair.  “Not insane, just…unusual.”
“Incredibly unusual, and I’m sorry if I’ve—”
“Elizabeth,” he said, and he looked away toward the window and the trees outside. “Your name was Elizabeth Mary Hallett.”
Hearing him say it, seeing the expression of gravity on his face, Ravenna could hardly believe what was happening. Clasping her hands tight to her chest, she felt a tide of shock wash over her. “You mean her name?” She blanched. “The girl in the picture?”
“No, in fact I mean you.”
She had no idea how to react to that. Was he baiting her? Trying to get crazy talk out of her so he’d have evidence for the police when they arrived to arrest her? Think fast, Ravenna.
Yet before she could come up with a rational response, he was talking again. “Well, you resemble her, don’t you?” His gaze swung back to meet hers, traveled over her hair again, her shirt, her jeans, so that it made her feel increasingly self-conscious. Yet his attention wasn’t lurid, or even accusatory. It was…sad. He was hurting, it was obvious in his tone when he went on, “You’re identical to her. Indistinguishable. Certainly you’ve noticed this, and if you feel as if you were Elizabeth, what other conclusions could one draw? Unless this is all a hoax, Miss Evans, and you’re an actress hand-picked because your appearance is similar to my ancestor? Is this a hoax, Miss Evans?”
Ravenna could hardly breathe. “No, never.” He looked as if he were about to cry.
“I thought not,” he said.
This wasn’t what she’d rehearsed on the drive down from London. She’d planned to represent herself as a history freak, an artist, a person who wanted to learn more about country life in the eighteenth century. And yet he was correct: Ravenna did seem exactly like the woman in the painting, right down to the V-shaped point in her hairline. Did she dare trust this marquess with the truth of her plight?
“So…” She fought with herself, knowing everything hinged upon whether or not she was perceived as deranged. “So you see the similarity?”
“Absolutely.”
“And you’d believe me if I told you something crazy? That I remember living in your house?” She winced, waiting for the inevitable call for security. None came. “With Mr. Hallett?”
Slowly, David nodded. He seemed as if he were in some sort of altered state. What the hell was going on? Did the marquess do drugs? Was he even more mentally unhinged than herself? But rather than tread cautiously as she ought to, Ravenna couldn’t help but ask, “What about the Irishman? Do you know about him?”
“That would be Richard Julian Henley, sixth Viscount Killiney. He played the piano, just like you said.”
She repeated the title carefully, Viscount Killiney. She waited for resonance, for anything that might trigger those feelings she’d had in the music room…but nothing came to her. Maybe a good thing. “He died young, didn’t he?”
David’s gaze burrowed into hers. “Yes.”
The clock on the bookshelf ticked away as she sat there, analyzing the marquess’s coltish face. His features were so sullen, so utterly affected by what they were talking about, Ravenna realized why he’d been so anxious to help her: He was obsessed the same way she was. It dawned on her suddenly that the calendar on the wall behind him, opened to May of 1989, was a National Gallery calendar, and that the illustration for that particular month was her own face, staring back. She glanced around then and realized that Copley's picture was everywhere; on a cookie tin beside his phone, on a paperweight above his mess of papers, even a set of porcelain figurines depicting the romantic couple and their dog perched on the white marble fireplace mantel. It didn’t matter how outlandish it sounded, that she might have been his ancestor, because for whatever reason, he felt the tug of history, too. She could see it in his eyes. He was in love with the girl in that painting, Ravenna knew it. And what had the hotel clerk said to her earlier? Nice fellah, Lord Wolvesfield is. Knows all the history of this house.
“Ravenna?”
“You just…This is too weird. I didn’t expect to come here and tell you the truth. I sound like I’m nuts.”
“Whether you’re nutters or not,” he said, “we have something in common, don’t we? It’s not just anybody who’s interested in talking about people who’ve been dead for two hundred years.”
“So this is your hobby? Researching your family history?”
“I don’t feel this way about my other ancestors.”
“Because of Copley’s painting. It’s given Elizabeth a face,” she said, leaning forward in her seat and pointing at the paperweight, “it’s made her more than just an abstract ancestor.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “no, whenever I go to London on business, I always end up in front of that painting. I look up at Launceston, and it’s as if something were pulling me to figure it all out, why he did what he did, why he died in the front yard and—”
Before he could say another word, a knock came at the office door. “Excuse me, but David,” the secretary said, popping her head in, “I’ve got Mr. Collins. Will you take it?”
Reluctantly, he nodded. “Insurance agent,” he mumbled, obviously not thrilled at the interruption. “I’ve been trying to reach him for two days. Do you mind, Miss Evans?”
She didn’t mind. Not one whit. For the next ten minutes while he was on the phone, she was free to stare at all the other Georgian items in his office. Besides the Copley set, there were other figurines on the mantel, and small, gold-framed prints on the walls that seemed to be the work of Thomas Rowlandson or some other eighteenth-century cartoonist. But rather than these or the Copley items, the thing most fascinating to Ravenna hung right above David’s cluttered fireplace mantel: an antique sword of polished steel.
As the marquess chattered on, Ravenna reached up, took the hilt with both hands. Familiar as the house itself, as the piano in the music room, the cold metal felt right and good in the same peculiar, unspoken way. She saw no visions in holding the sword, no Irishman wielding it against his foes. Nothing appeared to show her the deeds committed with the weapon, but when David hung up, he was quick to compensate.
“I’ve been told it’s over three hundred years old,” he said, taking it from her with the gentlest touch. He held it up to the window’s light, and she saw what could only be described as reverence as he tilted the weapon this way and that.
She stepped back a bit. “So this is a special sword?”
He didn’t answer right away. He stared at the four-foot double-edged blade, the S-shaped guard, and the corner of his mouth rose in a twitch before he dared to speak again. “In front of Wolvesfield, in a heavy fog at dawn on April 28, 1793, Christian Hallett died of a single thrust of this sword, yes.”
“Christian?” She struggled to place the name. “Is this someone I should be remembering?”
“William Christian Hallett, the second Earl of Launceston. He went by his middle name.”
“And he was Elizabeth’s husband, right?”
“My great-uncle eight times over,” David agreed.
Running her finger down the groove in the blade, Ravenna was intrigued. “Well, it’s very pretty, whomever it killed.” She paused a moment. “Do you know who it belonged to?” She held her breath, waited for the answer. The Irishman, say it belonged to the Irishman.
But glaring at the length of it, a veil of despair slipping fast over his eyes, David held the sword calmly. “I only wish I knew to whom it belonged. It wasn’t the fourth Marquess of Wolvesfield’s sword. I very much doubt he’d kill a man and then pay for everything, the doctor, the funeral, the coffin—it’s in the accounts. He even spoke at Christian’s service.”
“So who killed him, then? Killiney, I suppose?”
“The diary describes his rapier as being exactly like James’s, and this one is close enough to be its twin.”
“James?” This was not what Ravenna had expected to hear. Killiney, yes, but the brother in her vision? The brother who’d been so disrespectful of her feelings? “Wait a minute,” she said, “James was the fourth Marquess of Wolvesfield? But he was Elizabeth’s brother, I remember him. He had black hair, really straight and jet-black, and these broad, broad shoulders that wouldn’t fit into his double-breasted coat, and he was mean to Elizabeth.”
David gave her a sidelong glance.
“I saw him,” she explained. “In one of my visions, he was sitting with Killiney and making fun of me.”
Fingering the sword, David turned away. “If you can remember that much, we’d better get you to reading the diary.”
“What do you mean? What diary?”
“Yours,” he said, and hanging the sword in its place above the mantel, he led her toward the office door.
* * *
When he put the diary in her hand, she saw that same expression of gloom in David’s choirboy features. “It’s written as a novel,” he said, “but I’ll warn you, it’s still difficult to get through—messy handwriting, shewed instead of showed, that kind of thing.”
“But why would Elizabeth write her diary as a novel?”
“Perhaps you’ll know by the time I get back.”
“You’re leaving?” she asked.
“I must go to meet Mr. Collins, I’m afraid. You’re welcome to go through my books while I’m gone, and if you need anything, just find Kathryn. I should be home about ten o’clock.”
With a parting wave, he backed out the door.
Ravenna glanced at the book in her hand. Pocket-sized, covered in old, black leather and marked by a ribbon halfway through, it seemed less than intimidating, and yet she was fearful when she scanned the first page. Killiney’s eyes had been so unfeeling; the tone of James’s voice still rung in her ears, and what would happen if she welcomed these things? Would she awaken from her visions in a psychiatric ward?
There seemed only one sure way to find out.
She started reading.
Chapter Four

Wolvesfield House, Devonshire, 1790

What had Elizabeth done to deserve it?
After two years abroad, her so-called brother had come home for a stay in the country to irk her father; as if this weren’t enough—and believe that Lord Broughton could do enough for three brothers—he’d brought a guest with him, a certain Lord Killiney of Dublin, Ireland.
She first met him late one night upon her return from a hack in the fields. He was in the music room, and with no introduction nor warning of any kind, how could she have guessed him a peer? Behind the pianoforte, playing one of Haydn’s sonatas, he looked to her only a hired musician and therefore a servant. Her father was always bringing in starving composers.
Certainly, with his dark hair hanging free and his sleeves pushed to the elbow, he had no air of nobility about him. His wide, square jaw was littered with freckles. His appearance was perfectly ordinary in stature, like a bricklayer or a tenant farmer. He was unremarkable in every way, and as he played the pianoforte, he was even sweating.
And thinking him a servant, from the dining room doors Elizabeth called him. She asked him to stop, to abandon his sonata and come forthwith to stoke the fire. ’Twas nothing she wouldn’t have asked anyone to do, servant or not, and she didn’t think twice when she pulled up an armchair and laid down her gloves. After all, her concerns were far more consuming than the music of some starving composer. She had that dream to worry about, the one which had disturbed her for two days running and now seemed as foreboding as that night she’d first dreamt it: that her cousin, Lord Launceston—or Christian as she’d called him, for they’d grown up together—had died in America.
The forest had been dark where she’d seen him in this dream. Bent down on his knees, his clothes soaked with rainwater, Christian had worn a sailor’s breeches and these had been stained the dark russet colour of the cedar-bark soil. The wind had blown fiercely, had come in off the desolate ocean coast nearby; where the gale tore at Christian’s blond hair, the callused hand of a savage had appeared in her dream, and that hand had pushed Christian slowly and forcefully toward the forest floor.
Such an utterly foreign being, this savage. His dark skin had shone through cedar-bark clothing. His black hair, all gloss and length, had obscured his smudged features and tangled with the bit of shell he’d worn through the septum of his nose. Elizabeth couldn’t stop thinking about it—the gentle expression on the Indian’s face. ‘Twas as if the savage saw no sin in his assault. He hadn’t taken pleasure in it. He’d merely thrust an iron blade with an elaborately carved haft right into the base of Christian’s skull, and Christian had screamed.
With the memory of his dying voice, Elizabeth withdrew from her recollections. She shook a little. She glanced toward the door. For all the blood still tarnishing her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed how the sonata had stopped.
“Do you mean to take your time, or have you heard me?” she called, walking toward the music room doors.
When she saw the musician, she startled. He sat frozen in mid-reach for the highest notes of her father’s piano. How odd, she thought. Did he intend to mock her, to bring about her temper?
Then she caught sight of the musician’s eyes. Filled with a blatant temper of their own, they were not the eyes of a servant whatsoever, but alarming, dangerous, and by the blue of them, unquestionably Irish.
“Do you mean to make a fool of yourself?” he asked. “Or do you actually possess so much nerve as you pretend?”
Hearing his tone, Elizabeth was mortified. She might have asked him to cook up a nice squab with some tart, bring her a cup of chocolate and polish her boots! No less than a friend of James’s could incite such a feeling of smallness in her. This man was obviously the Irish viscount.
She thought of James and his taunting of her every action. He’d be laughing quietly now, had he witnessed her presumptuous blunder, and still while she thought these things Lord Killiney didn’t move. From behind the pianoforte, he glared at Elizabeth. His back was bent ever so slightly, as if he’d been caught in the act of bringing his hands down hard upon the keys. He’s waiting for an answer, she thought, and as she bit back the threads of indecision and found that nerve he’d spoken of, she told herself, This is not James, he cannot humiliate you.
“’Tis not nerve,” she said finally, “but cold that fuels my presumption, my lord.”
Killiney nodded, but still he didn’t move. “Cold can bring about the spirit, that’s true.” Those blue eyes remained locked upon hers, and for a moment he gazed at her, as if measuring her ability to meet his stare. “Shall we mend that nerve?” he asked in a whisper. “Shall we stoke the fire and tame you like a kitten curled before the hearth?”
“Shall I call my father down to teach you some manners?”
Killiney shrugged. “Any man would agree with me.”
Elizabeth shifted her foot uncertainly, and she lost some of her bravery then; she lowered her eyes, heard her own voice waver just a bit when she asked, “Agree with you about what, my lord?”
“That you are a wild thing, of course.”
“I am a lady!” Her gaze flew up, and she couldn’t help scolding him, nervous though she was. “I am the mistress of this estate and if you knew the ways of a gentleman, Sir, you’d retract your loose words and behave yourself.”
“You’re not,” he said simply.
“Not what?”
“A lady.” The faintest ebb of an Irish accent tinged his words as he regarded her carefully. “Ladies don’t ride the way you do, my sweet.”
Elizabeth’s heart began to race. Her hands worked their way into tight little fists, her thoughts tumbled anxiously, and still she couldn’t resist knowing the explanation for what he’d said. “And how would you know of the way I ride?”
Without stirring from his posed stance behind the pianoforte, Killiney’s gaze moved over her body. He might as well have performed some crude gesture simulating copulation; the effect was the same. He stared at the proof of her femininity, let his gaze ease down her quivering frame at a leisurely rate until she thought she would blush with embarrassment.
“Horse hair,” he said finally. “All down the front of you.”
And at last he moved, lowered his arms and let his hands touch the keys once more. He began to play, and as the dark waves of hair obscured his face from Elizabeth’s view, he picked up the melody precisely where he’d left it before their altercation had begun.
For a moment, perhaps two, she stood there. She wondered just how long she should embarrass herself in the absence of his attention until, suddenly, he spoke. “Do you like Joseph Haydn?” He didn’t divulge one glimmer of interest in hearing her answer, but kept on with his playing.
Even so, Elizabeth chanced a step into the room. “Mozart,” she said. “I prefer Mozart.”
“Ah, for her nerve the girl has musical tastes to match.”
“Do you mean to insult me again, my lord?”
“I mean that in England, there are few who know of our friend Herr Mozart. His music is not for the absentminded…or those who desire a fanciful, meaningless noise over which to spread their gossip.” He lifted his eyes from the instrument quickly. “And Lady Elizabeth does not gossip, unless it’s to quicken lies amid the horses’ ears, am I right?”
Smiling to himself, turning to his music in a seamless execution of melody and emotion, he said nothing more.
* * *
These were the first moments of their acquaintance. Not the best of beginnings, Elizabeth thought as she went upstairs, but a beginning nonetheless. After all, how many suitors had she knocking at her door? How many gentlemen?
Only Lord Launceston.
And Christian—or Launceston as everyone else called him—arrived the next night, hauteur already in place in preparation for their Irish guest. Elizabeth fairly cringed when she saw him. Trouble always came with Lord Launceston. How had he known of their gathering in the first place? For not only Killiney, but their friend Vancouver and his clerk, Mr Orchard, had come to dine, and Christian planted himself at Elizabeth’s side, stirring tempers with every subject arising.
“The Irish?” Christian frowned in disbelief at the comment Orchard had unwittingly made. “Do you seriously suggest our King release that rock to the keeping of such a doltish race?”
“Doltish?” Mr Orchard blinked. “My lord, my mother was Irish. And I believe, Sir, that the country would be better governed by its own people, doltish or otherwise.”
“I’ll wager the whole place would sink,” Christian muttered.
“Mr Orchard, why don’t you and I take a stroll?” Elizabeth rose from the table quickly, tossed Christian an angry glare. “I’m curious to hear of your adventures with Captain Cook,” she said, taking Orchard’s arm. “Would you mind if I asked you some questions about Indians?”
She did want to ask him about Indians, mind you. And Christian was being intolerably cross. Yet the actual reason for her withdrawal had more to do with Irish eyes, quietly watching from across the table. Blazing with some vestigial fire, Lord Killiney was shameless in his attention; it made Elizabeth more than uneasy, especially with everyone sitting around them.
So she led her charge—a meek, proper, mouse of a man—to the drawing room where she bade him sit.
“Sir, you’ve known many savages,” she said to Mr Orchard.
But as she explained her dream, described that native with his cedar-bark clothes, she found her thoughts wandering to the adjacent room. Lord Killiney’s eyes had sparkled wickedly; he’d laughed in response to her every jest, his attention following her every move, and when he’d smiled…who was he to flash her that grin? As if they’d shared a secret betwixt them, he’d imparted some sinful proposition, and had she accepted? There amongst the company, with nothing so much as an inadvertent glance, had she encouraged a man she knew nothing about?
She realized then Mr Orchard was staring. “Um,” she said sheepishly, “I was wondering if you’d met such savages.”
Mr Orchard nodded. “I knew such a boy.”
“Was he inclined to murder? Are the details such that you’d consider this an omen?” She clutched the folds of her dress in waiting. She knew Vancouver was on his way to America, would soon meet hundreds of coastal Indians in the course of his many-years voyage. “Because James and Killiney are going with you, Mr Orchard—to New Georgia, I mean, with you and Vancouver—and I fear I’ve dreamed some horrible prophecy. Mayhap Christian is merely a symbol.”
Orchard crossed his arms. “I don’t believe Indians are violent by nature.” He thought for a moment, then laughed to himself. “In many ways, they’re quite pleasant, really.”
“How so?” Elizabeth leaned forward in her seat, wondering if Killiney had ever seen an Indian.
The clerk smiled warmly. “They’re more inclined to be curious than violent. They like giving gifts.”
“And you’ve received gifts from coastal Indians?”
“Oh yes. Furs, wooden masks…and a strange, liquid substance meant to be sipped from a clam’s half shell.”
“What kind of liquid? An Indian wine?”
In the next room, she heard a chair pushed back. Dishes were clattered; the doors were thrown open, and she saw Clark, the footman, hurry past to help with the clearing up.
Orchard paused before he answered. “Not exactly a wine, although a taste will bring intoxication of a sort…or a trance.”
“So you’ve tasted this liquid?” Beyond their open door, she saw servants scurrying. “You fell into an Indian trance?”
“After my turn on deck, I did. And ‘twas the strangest dream I’ve had, for I found myself in a lady’s bedchamber the likes of which I’ve never seen.”
Elizabeth chewed on her lip. “Why is that?”
“Because it was filled with phenomenal things, wonders every bit as real as this room but against the laws of nature.”
Outside, Elizabeth’s father was laughing. In a casual saunter of Italian shoes, he was deep in conversation with Vancouver, and the whole party drew closer to the drawing room door until Elizabeth sat on the edge of her seat.
Still Orchard went on. “Instead of candles, this chamber was lit by the strangest lamp, and when I looked beneath its shade…there was no flame. Heat, yes, in a small white globe, but its light was as unflickering as the sun.”
Elizabeth peered into the corridor. “And this is why your dream was strange?”
“There was a box in this chamber—” Orchard looked, too, when Christian walked by, “—a black metal box, no bigger than a sailor’s sea-chest. It sat atop a commode by the bed, and it lit up the room as bright as daylight. Can you imagine that?”
James was framed by the doorway now, and at the sight of Killiney, strolling in a lumbering, peasantlike gait, Elizabeth glanced down. Don’t look, she thought. The last thing you need is to fire that man’s hopes, and who knows where such attentions will lead?
“It was with pictures, my lady, that it lit up the room.” Mr Orchard seemed quite willing to go on despite Elizabeth’s obvious distraction. “The prettiest, most perfectly executed art I’ve ever seen, and there were pictures of men, pictures of women and their little children, houses and gardens, even pet dogs, all of them so lifelike I’d swear they lived inside that box.”
She bothered then with looking up. “They lived in the box? All of them together?”
“You don’t believe me,” Orchard said, “but you see, they moved, these pictures did. Exactly as if children were in the box. What’s more, they spoke, and not with English voices, either, but with something closer to the American accent.”
With Killiney’s boot steps fading in the distance, Elizabeth sighed. “So Americans lived in this box of yours?”
“Drink it yourself. You’ll believe me then.”
“You still have this liquid? After ten years?”
“I do at that, in a dusty old drawer at home, I think. I’ll send it to you, next I’m there.”
* * *
Of course, Elizabeth didn’t care about the potion. The company had reassembled in the music room, and pointing this out to her clerical guest, she hurried to take a seat by the piano. There she was stunned by what Killiney did next.
“In your honor,” he said, and she blushed when he winked, sank down behind the pianoforte and played—what else?—Mozart.
Everyone was impressed by his playing, even Christian. The precision of the notes, the strength and feeling with which he played them, ’twas as if he were possessed, for he didn’t craft merely a succession of melodies; he intertwined them with sadness to make them speak, and ’twas enough to tear Elizabeth’s heart asunder. Indeed, she found herself thinking again of his intimate glances, his knowing grin.
Did she dare admit what was happening between them?
She warmed still more when he’d finished the piece, for he turned from the piano to receive her applause. His eyes flashed seductively. His lips mouthed a silent invitation across the room, and Elizabeth felt her senses careen. As much as she knew about Irish ways, they could almost be betrothed by such a look, and how could she meet it with Christian beside her?
Indeed, Christian might have left in a rage, had he not been prevented. By that hour he was very drunk. As Elizabeth walked him upstairs, saw to his comfort in the room next to Father’s, she found herself accosted by vicious complaints. “Why was he staring at you? Did you entreat the Paddy to ogle you so?”
“I did nothing of the sort,” she grumbled. “Now leave the bottle, will you?”
“But he played Mozart, and anyway, he’s got my rooms, hasn’t he? Why does the Paddy get the Prince’s suite? He’s only a stupid viscount, and an Irish one at that.”
She ignored these tedious insults and hurried with her duties. Still, when she returned to the guests downstairs to see Lord Killiney, she’d not been quick enough—he’d gone with James. Without even a proper goodnight, they’d retreated to those rooms Christian complained of losing, and no one had been invited to join them.
She told herself she didn’t care.
Yet the next morning, when she heard them riding out near four o’clock on the road toward Dartmouth, her curiosity was piqued; where had they gone? And why had they left without a word? For no one had been apprised of their schedule, not even Killiney’s trusted valet, and Elizabeth took matters into her own hands when she saddled her horse and rode out after them.
’Twas better than sitting at home like a girl.
The hour was late when at last she dragged in, having never caught up with her quarry. By then the windows of Wolvesfield were dark. The rooms downstairs—the servants’ hall, the basement kitchens—all were quiet, and each of their guests had retired to their beds.
All save one. Elizabeth heard music.
She didn’t recognise the piece he was playing. Yet listening to the melancholy in the notes, the flourishes of emotion, she couldn’t resist sneaking to the music room. During a particularly strenuous passage, she took a position behind his back where, fidgeting nervously, she waited until the sustain died away.
When he turned around, she drew in a sharp breath. She knew she shouldn’t have approached him in such a fashion uninvited, and yet Killiney’s eyes remained placid. His hand slipped from the keys, onto his thigh near the hilt of his antique Spanish rapier, and Elizabeth was still wondering how to explain herself when he spoke first. “You like my music?”
Where was the bite? The arrogant inflection?
“Yes,” she said quickly, “yes, how could I not? There’s such a wonderful feeling to the way you play. ’Tis as if you know the composer’s fears and desires. It draws me, I must admit.”
Killiney studied her carefully. “Which draws you more, my fears or my desires?”
’Twas only then she thought to look behind him. He hadn’t played from sheet music; he’d played from memory, and realising at once what he’d meant by his question, she raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t know, my lord, I’d no idea you were a composer of—”
“Have you an answer?”
Seeing the expression on his face, she couldn’t determine whether he toyed with her out of malice or affection; the gleam to his eye shewed evidence of both. “I think your question improper, my lord.”
Killiney laughed. ’Twas a deep, rich sound, completely at odds with his usual demeanor, and she stared when he slapped his thigh. “Improper?” he asked. “Should you speak of impropriety, you who comes in from the countryside at half-past one in the morning? After all, what business has a girl in the fields at such an hour?”
Elizabeth put her hands on her hips. “I could ask as much of you, leaving the house at four in the morning. What business have you in the fields at four?”
His smile dampened only a little. “Broughton warned me about you, my lady.”
“Dare I inquire what he told you?”
And seeing that he meant to tell her, that he was amiable in a way James never was, she pulled up a chair beside the pianoforte, eager to learn what James had said.
“Well,” Killiney began, “he thinks you are preoccupied with men’s business—estate matters, horses, that sort of thing. You disdain the role of the woman and seek instead to learn and act where you haven’t the intellect nor the privilege.”
Trust James to say something like that. “He only tells you so,” she explained, “because he fears what you’ll think of him. He’s embarrassed by me. But you see, my lord, I only seek what any eldest son would have by right.”
“In his eyes, you are something less. Eldest by default, yes, but you lack an heir’s demeanor and intelligence. You don’t deserve anything, regardless of gender.”
“And in your eyes?” she asked.
He considered, gazing at her thoughtfully. “From where I sit, I see an ambitious little girl without the sense to learn her place.”
Elizabeth felt her temper flare. “My place? Would you have me playing harp, I suppose?”
“Cultivating social talents, feigning the appearance of a gentle, submissive creature whilst learning the requirements of men, should you attract one—”
“Is that all you consider important, Lord Killiney?” She tipped her chin up haughtily. “Do women have nothing to offer beyond what they can give men?”
“You are too inexperienced to understand.”
“I have a suitor, if that’s what you’re getting to. I am not as desperate as you pretend.”
He shook his head. “That one doesn’t count.”
“Do you mean Christian?” She was annoyed by the gentleman’s presumption. “Since when are you counting my suitors, my lord? I should think an earldom for my sons should do very nicely. Very well indeed, and in view of your viscountcy—”
“You should marry for love.”
Killiney’s gaze lowered, and she was only too grateful for the absence of his piercing stare when she considered his words. She should marry for love. Just who did Lord Killiney think he was? “My lord, if and when I choose to wed Lord Launceston, it will be for whatever reason I deem appropriate—love, companionship, or otherwise,” she said.
Suddenly he moved, and Elizabeth had to stifle a gasp when he pulled his bench closer, leaned nearer to her side with a whisper most intimate and soft in her ear. “I know what there is to you, Elizabeth Mary Hallett,” he said. “I see what Lord Launceston never will.”
She couldn’t breathe. “You only see what I’ve let you see.”
“Then let me see where you’ve been tonight.”
He leaned back again, and crossing his arms, he let his gaze linger on her face, over her cheeks and down to her mouth, lowering still further until she felt his bold appraisal of her figure. “Go ahead,” he said to her softly. “Astonish me, my lady.”
How he did unsettle her with those appreciative eyes. It was as if he knew the effect he had, used it as a weapon to part her from her senses, for how could she make an answer with his stare?
She feared then she’d betrayed her innocence where men were concerned, for hearing his tone, seeing that sparkle in the depths of his gaze, she couldn’t stand another moment. She withdrew in apology from his closeness. ’Twas as if she’d taken ill, as if her whole being were caught up in the most unbearable, soulful aching. She spent that night writing furiously in her diary, recording her talk with the viscount, remembering his inflections and the exact phrasing of his questions, for she felt ’twas of vast importance in her life, a turning point, if you will.
For did she dare admit it? Yes, I think she must.
She was falling in love with this Lord Killiney.
* * *
The next day she wasn’t able to see him. He’d gone hunting, or at least that’s what the steward, Mr Scott, had told Elizabeth when she’d gotten up. She awaited his return all the day long, and when Killiney didn’t come back with James until late, she got up early to greet him the next morning—only to miss him once again. They’d ridden out in a miserable rain, he and James had. They’d gone to visit the neighbors this time.
Indeed, in the evening when they reappeared, Killiney and James had the neighbor with them. They showed Mr Caley into the white drawing room where Elizabeth’s father routinely sat, and sending the maids to fetching some tea, they shook off their wet coats and closed the doors tight.
Expecting she’d seen the last of them, she wandered upstairs. The storm outside was still going strong. She felt every bit as black as the clouds sweeping in from the Channel, for had Lord Killiney bid her hello? Had he even so much as glanced at her kindly?
Setting about sulking with a bitter vengeance, Elizabeth pulled the blankets over her head, buried her face in the feather pillows…until the drawing room doors were thrown open downstairs. Then she jumped up, for with a brazen and obvious tone, Killiney was talking. His words were easy enough for anyone in the house to hear: “But it’s happened, my lord, and surely you’ll appreciate the four hundred pounds I’ve got in that horse.”
Elizabeth went to her door in a hurry, listened as her father badgered Killiney. “Oh, come now,” her father said. “The stable boys will manage. They’re trustworthy lads.”
“Maybe so,” Killiney replied, “but I assure you, one crash of thunder and Khali will panic. No, I see there’s no alternative but to sleep in the stable and take care of him myself. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
With that, Elizabeth heard his boots in the passage fade into the rain, heard James and her father arguing as they turned back to Mr Caley in the drawing room. She wondered if she dared follow Killiney. Then, just as she was about to risk intruding upon my lord again, Sarah came rushing.
“It’s Killiney,” the maid whispered. “He’s waitin’ in the stables.”
Sarah made certain the passage was empty before her mistress stepped into it. Having changed into a prettier gown, Elizabeth slinked down the servants’ stair, past the white drawing room, crept right outside the west front door without ever being seen by either James or her father.
She found Killiney as he’d said, calming his stallion.
He didn’t look up when she first came in. The sound of the rain pounding on the roof quieted her footsteps, but Killiney knew well enough she’d arrived; when he did raise his eyes, she glimpsed a haven of desire tucked away in the blue. ’Twas as if his gaze were edged with a keenness, a deliberate passion, and as he ran his hand along the back of the stallion, walked toward Elizabeth with such an awful slowness that it set her to shaking, she managed to ask him, “What do you mean to do, my lord?”
Lifting his hand from the stallion’s withers, Killiney stepped nearer. “You know exactly what I mean to do.”
He didn’t falter then. His arms, so muscular and ever so burly, were around her in an instant. Before she knew it, the squareness of his chin was nuzzling her own, his fingers were stroking in a firm, intimate exploration all around her trembling hips, and with his compact frame so solid against her, Elizabeth was powerless to do anything save meet his ever-deepening kiss.
Drawing him closer, she opened to him. She enjoyed the gentle probing of his tongue, for how could she not? How could she keep from nibbling his lip? And in hearing him utter a growl in response, she felt an inexplicable joy in having pleased him, aroused him. She was about to whisper a bold proposal when suddenly he drew back. His mouth curved in a smile. “Would you do it here, for Khali to witness?”
“If it pleases you, my lord, why yes, I’d—”
“No,” and he laughed, shook his head affectionately, “no, my lady, you wouldn’t. Not if I’ve a say in it.”
Seizing her waist, he held her prisoner whilst the stable boy was summoned. Khali’s bridle and blanket were brought out; the stallion was saddled, and after pausing a moment to smother Elizabeth’s neck with kisses, Killiney easily mounted the horse, pulled Elizabeth up and into his arms.
Out the stable door, through the wind and rain, they rode to the Little Lodge deep in the woods where he pulled up the stallion, jumped down to unlock the massive oak door. Being carried into the tower’s single room, her skirts swinging, her teeth chattering from excitement rather than cold, Elizabeth couldn’t help thinking he’d arranged their liaison well in advance. The candlesticks were furnished with good, wax candles. The coal box was well stocked, and as Killiney set about starting a fire, he explained as he did that his stallion, Khali, really hadn’t a fear of storms.
“‘Twas a ruse,” he whispered. Striking the flint, he told her about that long ago day in Gibraltar when he’d bought the horse. “The wind was raging then, as well,” he said. “The most uncommon thunder sent the whole stable to neighing, and do you know how I found Khali in his stall? Asleep, I tell you. Completely content.”
Elizabeth giggled, and stepping back from the fire, he turned to her. “Like a kitten before the hearth,” he said. Falling to his knees, he easily pulled her into his arms. When he let his hands slip down the arch of her back, around her buttocks, into the soft creases of her muslin gown, he ignored the small, frightened sound she made. He kissed her anyway, and with the cold and quiet hiss of the fire beside him, his words were a warmth against her lips. “Just as you shall be,” he murmured. “Just as I shall make you.”
What they set to work doing next was more exquisite, more blissful, than ever she could have dreamed. He loved her with such a savagery, ’tis a wonder she lived to tell the tale. He planted kisses upon every part of her shivering body. He whispered the perfections of each limb and crevice so she felt his desire in the brush of his lips, and with each new passion he taught her, each loving instruction he gave in the pleasuring of his maleness, she grew more confident still that her desperate wish had at last come true: She’d found a husband.
And none too soon.
* * *
With many kisses, their liaison did eventually come to its end. “Even lovers must part,” he told her. Escorting her down to the door by candlelight, he untied the stallion, held out the reins.
She didn’t take them. “But we haven’t a need to part,” she insisted. “Father will give us his blessing, I know it, and then we’ll be married, I’d—”
“Go back to the house.” It’d changed somehow, that expression of contentment on his face. He was angry now. With something like a scowl, he looked away, repeated his request that she take Khali and ride out alone. “Think not about this night,” he said, and before she could argue, he’d boosted her into the saddle, then disappeared through the tower’s door.
She scarcely believed what had happened. In bliss and bewilderment, she caught up the stallion’s reins, pushed the horse hard to a hammering gallop. Think not about it? How could she not? She’d dwell upon this night, relive it a thousand times from beneath her sheets until the maids had broken down her bedroom door! She’d shout the news to the stable boys, to old Scott in the hallway, to anyone who crossed her path—that she’d found her heart’s beating desire, the twin to her emotional soul, and he was not Christian Hallett!
* * *
Of course, there was one person with whom she wouldn’t discuss her sudden joy. As if apprised of the affair, Christian arrived the very next day, and Elizabeth was in a panic when she heard his voice at the foot of the stairs.
Pleading illness, she had the steward send him away. She knew Christian would see it on her face, the new woman she’d become, and then he’d insult her, name her harlot or slut, and he’d have no idea the pain she felt.
For pain she did feel, and a great deal of it, too. Hardly five minutes before Christian had arrived, Sarah had woken her with the sorry news. “Killiney’s departed for London, m’lady.”
All the colour drained from her face at the maid’s announcement. It’d be just a short trip to Deptford, Sarah explained, only two weeks at most, and Lord Broughton would return him safe; need Elizabeth appear so grim?
But her mistress’s heart was sinking now. Killiney gone? He’d have bid her farewell, surely, cast her a secret glance when James wasn’t looking, maybe breathed her a kiss across the room. He’d have done something…wouldn’t he have? Or was a marquess’s illegitimate daughter not good enough to marry an Irish viscount?
* * *
When they returned in two weeks’ time, Elizabeth gave no indication she’d missed Killiney in the slightest. Everything was as usual in the house. No looks were exchanged, no secret meetings were arranged or implied, and she let on nothing that’d reveal her connection to him.
This new, cool demeanour didn’t last long. Just one evening, to be exact, for the next morning Killiney let himself into her bedroom chambers. He sent Sarah off with some paltry excuse, and settling back on the pillows with Elizabeth trembling under his arm, he kissed her full on the mouth, deeply, as ever a lover would.
Of course her head swam with joy. His lips were warm, brimming with promise, and his fingertips stroked with such affection that she soon forgot all about her fears, especially when he whispered, “I’ve a need for you, my Lady Elizabeth.”
As his hands were laced through her hair, she guessed what that need might be. “Did you miss me?” She kissed him, letting her tongue mingle with his. “You know you’ve only to name it, and I’ll perform whatever service you require.”
“Whatever I require?”
She smiled. “Absolutely, my lord.”
“All right, then. Can you interpret dreams?”
“Tell me the dream,” she purred into his ear.
Killiney raised a brow. “You’d really hear it? It’s a very important dream, and we must decipher its meaning because she’s trying to tell me something, I know it.”
“She?” Drawing back, Elizabeth frowned. It wasn’t at all what she’d expected to hear. “You’ve dreamt of another woman, my lord?”
“My angel. My lover. In this dream, she’s my wife, but I think she’s an angel, a spitfire with an angel’s face, a siren with tresses like Spanish gold.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes, feeling the first stabs of dread in her heart. There’s someone else. He’s only cloaked her in this stupid dream to gage my reaction, to break the news in a gentle way.
But Killiney was still talking. “You see, I’m always back home in Dublin in this dream. She’s mistress of Swallowhill, but she’s changed so many things—the furnishings, the paintings, even the privies she’s altered while I’ve been away. And she’s put these curious lamps in the house, the strangest things you ever saw because they never flicker—”
“They don’t?” Elizabeth opened her eyes, thinking of Mr Orchard’s story. “Because they have no flame, these lamps?”
“You’ve dreamed of them, too?”
“Just go on,” she said.
“But there is no more.” Killiney shrugged. “Every night it’s always the same. I walk into the house, I stumble about from room to room and stare at the furnishings until at last she comes home, from university, she says, and when she finally stops shouting, I make love to her, right there on the drawing room floor.”
“She goes to university?”
“To Trinity College, yes.”
Elizabeth didn’t counter that girls weren’t permitted at any college she knew of. Instead, she was thinking of Mr Orchard’s potion. Connecting the two stories, Mr Orchard’s insistence that his was no ordinary dream and Killiney’s belief that this angel was more than a fantasy, Elizabeth came to the conclusion fast: They’d had the same dream, visited the same incredible realm.
Thinking so, she started to form a strategy. She listened intently to Killiney, but she was scheming in the midst of everything he said.
“So you’ll help me find someone to interpret this dream?” he asked. “Because for two weeks I’ve had it, every night without fail, and it means something, I tell you—I’m meant to reach her, to possess her and marry her and make her mine.”
Elizabeth turned away with a sigh. Her need to triumph over this imaginary woman, to win Killiney back, this kept her composed, but inside she was sinking. How could he possibly love a dream when, lying in his arms, she would have given him anything he wanted, didn’t he know that?
“You don’t need a seer,” she said at last, and leaning close, she skimmed his lips with a kiss. “I can do better still, my lord. I can make your angel real.”
“What do you mean?”
Seeing that slant of captivation on his brow, she set about telling Mr Orchard’s tale—the potion, the fireless lamps, the lady’s bedchamber—and tailoring the story to suit her wants, she lied to her heart’s content. “It was an Indian woman who gave Orchard this potion,” she said. “This woman insisted they drink it together, and because its magic only worked with the passion of lovers in an outdoor setting, Mr Orchard coupled with the Indian maiden, right there on the beach.”
“And you believe this?”
“Would a clergyman lie?”
“I’d sooner believe he’d lie than ever couple with a savage woman.”
“But he did,” she insisted, and grasping for proof to keep Killiney listening, she told him about the box Mr Orchard had seen by the bed. How had he described it? Children in that box, he’d said, and Elizabeth repeated it word for word. “Like the most perfect painting in the world, my lord. Surely you saw such a box in your dream?”
This was all Elizabeth needed to win. Killiney had seen one. Thus she’d convinced him, and soon he was reasoning he’d really nothing to lose if he did as she asked. He begged to know when they could drink of this potion, perform this intimate act in the ruins, for what better place was there to bring about this magic but at nearby Swaneton Castle?
There was just one problem. She didn’t actually possess the liquid. Mr Orchard hadn’t sent it, and since Killiney had just spent two weeks with the man on board Discovery, mightn’t the viscount write the letter to ask for it?
Killiney nodded. “I’ll send it out tonight.”
And with a quick, hard press of his lips, he kissed her and hurried out the door.
* * *
Now whether she believed in either Mr Orchard’s story or Killiney’s dreams, ’twas of no consequence. The point of going to the ruined castle was to make Killiney see he needed not a dream mistress, but the warmth and desire of a real woman.
’Twas only the next day she realised the extent of the task.
He wasn’t cold to her. Indeed, he was mostly as he’d always been, but that was just the point—could his dream really mean so much? After their secret night in the tower, how could he speak so affably to Elizabeth? As if they’d never kissed, as if she were merely a passing acquaintance.
All the day they sat in the drawing room across from one another. James ignored them both, brooding in the corner over some letter he’d received, and with every opportunity for signaling and discreet glances, Killiney did nothing. Not one meaningful look did he give her. When they spoke, he didn’t question her with any genuine curiosity. He goaded her into talking about Vienna when ’twas plain he didn’t care, and as she described it, his eyes glazed over with distant thoughts. His mind was elsewhere. On angels, no doubt.
The longer this went on, the angrier she became. Still, she let on nothing. She kept her composure and try’d to remain aloof, until finally she could take no more; by eventide, she’d grown tired of having him ask about Mozart’s premiere of The Abduction from a Seraglio and portraying it for him in the greatest detail, only to see him gaze steadily at the table. Why should she accommodate him? For what reason should she fill the air with empty words, behaving as if she felt nothing?
She took her supper upstairs. She try’d not to think about his amiable disinterest with as much force of will as she could muster until, catching his voice at the foot of the stairs, she heard him arguing again with her father.
“I know, my lord,” Killiney fairly shouted, “but I’ll just check on him anyway. I’ll only be a moment.”
A stabbing sensation went through Elizabeth. He was checking on his horse. Should she follow as before? His demonstrations of boredom, his apathetic questions, had he orchestrated these things in the name of keeping their meetings secret?
He was stroking his horse’s nose when she arrived in the stable. She rushed in noisily, fully expecting to throw herself into his arms, but when he looked up sharply at the sound of her feet, her hopes faded.
’Twas plain he’d not been waiting for her.
So she told him she’d come to discuss their arrangements. How did he intend to conceal their liaison? Or would he tell James, confess the whole of it?
Killiney cocked his head to one side. “Broughton knows nothing, my Mary,” he said. “Not of the dream, the potion, or of us.”
With that, he turned back to the horse with affection, but Elizabeth hardly noticed his disdain; she was too stunned by what he’d said. He’d used her middle name.
You must understand, both Killiney and James used their middle names, and almost as if they regarded that use as a mark of superiority, of privilege. For Killiney to have called her thus meant just one thing—that he considered her his equal.
Nonetheless Elizabeth was furious. Not because he’d bestowed this honour, but for the way he’d used it to temper his words: James knew nothing, and wouldn’t, so long as Killiney had his way.
With her face flushed with anger, she accosted him. “Am I not good enough to be your wife? Can that be why you call me Mary?” She watched as Killiney studied the bits of weed in the stallion’s mane. He picked at the burs; he try’d to untangle the strands until she thought she’d go mad with waiting. “Are you listening to me?” she asked, grabbing his arm.
With her touch, he turned. All the fire, the contemptible fury she’d expected to see, all that was missing when he swung his gaze to hers. Leaning toward her only a little, his eyes travelled slowly over her features. His stare seemed as intimate as a caress, and her pulse quickened when he stroked the hair away from her shoulder.
He kissed her then. Pulling her close, his strong hands found their way to her hips. His silken mouth breathed against hers, imploring, ever more hungry to receive her until at last she could withstand no longer. How could she be angry? ’Twas as if he needed her from the depths of his soul, and she gave him everything, all he asked for in that kiss until she thought she would die, loving him so.
When at last he’d withdrawn, she heard pain in his voice. “Do you know how weary my heart is, my Mary?”
She shook her head.
“I think tomorrow I’ll sleep the whole day through,” he said, stepping away from her. “That should cure me of weariness, I’ll wager: twenty-four hours in the arms of an angel.”
And before she could say a word, he’d turned her around, walked her back toward the house in the dark. His angel, his wife…like torture, it was. She hated him, despised his need for an imaginary woman, a piece of fiction, a fantasy.
Still she said nothing. After all, that was exactly what would persuade him of how he actually loved Elizabeth—nothing. She’d wait for the potion to do it, because when no angel presented herself, who would be there to console Killiney? Who’d kiss him the way he needed to be kissed?
* * *
When Killiney and James rode out the next day, Elizabeth asked to go with them. ’Twas part of her scheme, the one she’d designed to speed things forward, and she didn’t mind at all when James refused her. At least he’d seen Elizabeth’s face. She’d gazed longingly at her love, obviously pining for his attention and making plain their intimate relations with nothing so much as the strength of her stare.
Not surprisingly, Killiney ignored her.
She waited until evening to confront him. In the very late hours she heard his music, and stealing downstairs, she meant to tell him of how the potion had arrived, for it had, just that night; it’d been brought in at supper whilst Killiney and James had been plotting and scheming.
Thus she stood against the music room wall, aching inside for the memory of his touch, when Killiney happened to glance up. His hands stilled at the keys. A mask of annoyance settled over his features. “Must you always be like a mouse, Lady Elizabeth?”
She wondered if she dared risk his anger, and yet, with his attention so shrewdly upon her, she’d no choice but to say something in reply. “I came to ask if James has given us his consent.”
Killiney’s eyes fell to the sheet music. “You assume I’ve asked for it.” As if he’d no thoughts for anything save music, he shuffled those pages attentively.
It took several seconds for his words to sink in. “So you’ve no intentions of marrying me?” She glared at him, letting the anger gather inside her. “You’d use me for…for bringing your precious angel and satisfying your base, bestial stupid needs as if I were your personal whore?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “No, I’ve treated you better than that. We were friends, you and I; Broughton need never have known as much.”
“So you did tell him? James knows about our intrigue?”
“Is that the word you use?” Taking up the notes again, he chuckled. “I’d say sex would be a more accurate term; or perhaps copulation, for the benefit of us both and in the interest of pleasure.”
Pleasure. The word stung her ears, cut into her heart like a well-worn knife. Playing the lightest of melodies, Killiney appeared not to notice as much, but this only enraged her further. “Does it not take love to feel such pleasure?” she asked, edging closer to the piano. “Didn’t you say that you loved me, my lord?”
Touching the highest notes in a flutter, he played on. “I did not,” he said quietly. “That I would remember.”
She couldn’t bear it then. Between his hands and the keys, she threw herself toward him, found courage enough in her agony to force his fingers away from his music. “But I saw it!” she cried. “I saw love in your eyes, you can’t deny that?”
“You saw respect, my Mary. You shan’t see it again.”
“Liar!” she shouted, and with the kisses he’d stolen raging in her heart, she lost all control. She attacked him, clawed at his face, screamed curses as foul as she’d ever heard. “Damnable Hibernian rake, you loved me! Forget the ruins, for I’ll never give you that potion now, and to hell with your angel—”
Killiney’s hands stilled. His jaw set into a dangerous line. His eyes, the colour of winter frost, narrowed upon her, and in the midst of her yelling, whilst she pummeled his shoulders with fists of hatred, he slammed his own down hard on the piano.
“Enough!” he snarled. Before she could step back, he’d seized her arm. He yanked her around and pushed her down, toward the candles where they’d toppled. “You will gain me passage to my angel,” he said, holding her near the guttering flames. “We’ll go to the Swaneton ruins tomorrow and you’ll say nothing to your brother, do you understand?”
She nodded, frightened.
Yet even though he held her so brutally, his voice betraying nothing of the whispers they’d shared, Elizabeth couldn’t help rejoicing when she realised what he’d said. He wanted the potion. He wanted her. They’d make love tomorrow, and whether in the ruins, for his angel or for any other reason, it could mean just one thing—that he cared for her still.
Eventually Killiney relented. He let her go, and when she fell wearily against his chest, felt his heart pounding next to hers, she knew the way he’d threatened her, the candles burning close, even the pain in her twisted arm, all of these things meant little in the end. There’s yet another chance, she thought, a second try to win him.
Raising a hand to steady her trembling, Killiney spoke softly. “You’re a wild creature, my Mary.” With a gentleness that shocked her, he stroked back the length of her raven-black hair. “Were things not as they are, indeed I might come to love you in time. I might.”

Chapter Five

When at last Ravenna closed the diary, the fields outside had fallen into darkness. The house was quiet. Her head was spinning with the diary’s sadness, crowded with images of Killiney here, maybe in this very room—hadn’t he sat just there, his back to the door, when he’d talked about his precious angel? Where will you take me, Wolvesfield House? Will you show me what happened to them after the diary? What became of Killiney and his arrogant ways?
Then it hit her, what the diary had said. Killiney had gone on Vancouver’s voyage. George Vancouver. The famous captain, that great navigator after whom the city in British Columbia had been named, he had stayed here, in this house.
She’d met George Vancouver in her past life.
This was a big deal to Ravenna. How many times had she pictured this man? His eighteenth-century naval uniform, his tall ships at anchor near her island home? Back when those headlands had been undisturbed by vacation homes, Vancouver had been the first European to chart Puget Sound and all the waterways of the Pacific Northwest. Now Ravenna was to learn that when Vancouver had named Mount Rainier, Port Townsend, and countless other features of the Washington landscape—even her own island—she’d been on friendly terms with the man?
She could have wrestled with such a coincidence for hours, wanting to accept it, skeptical nonetheless, but she had little time to consider. Hearing David’s voice in the hallway, she had to put down the diary and go off to greet him.
* * *
She felt a little awkward about joining him for dinner. Not because it was in his private apartments—which, perhaps, she should have at least paused over—but rather because of the books he brought to the table with him. The man was indeed obsessed. As Ravenna was served a French-looking appetizer from the hotel’s kitchen, David propped up a country house volume beside his plate; he picked up a fork, and without eating a single bite, he began to read. Out loud.
It was something about his ancestors, a man named Christopher whose marriage to a commoner was the source of many rumors. Ravenna listened…a little. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast that morning. The French-looking appetizer was calling her name, and as she dug into it greedily, she didn’t care much about Christopher Hallett.
“So Killiney,” she said, breaking into David’s recitation, “he went on Vancouver’s voyage, right? In 1791?”
“He died on that voyage, yes.”
Ravenna stopped chewing. “He died on Vancouver’s voyage?”
“Somewhere.” Peering down at the illustrations, David added mysteriously, “Maybe James will tell us where.”
She squished her brows. “What do you mean?”
“James had a safe. It’s in the library under the wallpaper. You never know what you’ll find when you de-Victorianize a five-hundred-year-old house, do you?”
“And you haven’t opened it? The safe, I mean?”
“We’ve only just found it. I’ve got a specialist in antique locks coming next month. Seems we can’t get it open without breaking the thing, so no, we haven’t opened it yet.”
Ravenna imagined the contents of that safe. Indian artifacts, rare jewels, maybe even the most valuable of treasures, historic information. “You think James wrote about Killiney’s death?”
“Look,” David said, and he flattened the book firmly, “let me just read this before I answer any more questions, all right? It says ‘Augustus James, Lord Broughton (later fourth Marquess Wolvesfield) was also known for his association with the explorer, George Vancouver. When James accompanied this famous captain to the North Pacific in 1791—’”
“So this is about Killiney’s death?”
“Just listen,” David said. “‘Vancouver planned to find the legendary Northwest Passage. No doubt James found this prospect attractive, given his interest in the Royal Society; participating in Vancouver’s voyage would virtually guarantee him fellowship. Indeed, James left behind title and privilege to pursue these interests, for his father died just prior to the expedition’s departure in what would become known as the Armistead Affair—’”
“Right, Armistead,” Ravenna said impatiently, “but can’t you skip to the part where it talks about Killiney?”
David shot her an irritated glance. “If you’re going to be that way,” he said, and turning the page in such a fashion she knew she’d upset him, he began again. “‘Lord Killiney of Swallowhill, Dublin, also accompanied Vancouver’s voyage. Although his seafaring experience was, like James’s, limited to touring…’”
David paused, skimming ahead in the book, and Ravenna found herself asking again, “What about his death? Does it say anything about how he died?”
“‘Like the sketches he’d made for Vancouver’s journals, Lord Killiney, too, did not survive. While Discovery awaited the return of the Chatham, Vancouver paid a visit to the local Indian village. As Vancouver’s hosts were in every appearance friendly, the captain observed no special precautions in sending Killiney on a hunting excursion following the course of a nearby river. There he and James were ambushed by an Indian group.’”
“He was killed by Native Americans?”
David shook his head. “Native Canadians. It says, ‘So it was that while Vancouver partook of the natives’ hospitality only a few miles away, Lord Killiney was shot dead. His body was taken into the forest, never to be recovered. And while James escaped to the Discovery with his life, he did not remain there. He set out on foot for the Spanish fort at Nootka Sound—’”
“So they were on Vancouver Island?”
“Somewhere,” David said, “but here’s where it talks about you. It reads, ‘James was accompanied on this journey to Nootka by his elder sister, and indeed, nothing about Lord Killiney would seem half so important without understanding his relationship to her. Elizabeth and Killiney were engaged to be married. It was widely known that James’s sister accompanied the voyage to be with her fiancé, and even conceived of a son shortly before Killiney’s demise.’”
“A son?” She couldn’t help interrupting him again. “We had a baby? Killiney and Elizabeth had a child?”
“It’s more complicated than it sounds. It says, ‘A fourth character must be added at this point, for it was never made clear who had fathered this child, Killiney or the rakish Earl of Launceston, for he, too, took part in the expedition. Launceston was known to have escorted Elizabeth from Nootka Sound to the Leeward Islands where, in late 1792, he asked for her hand. She’d barely been Launceston’s wife for two months before bearing him an heir, a son named Elijah Paul.
“‘This child was probably Killiney’s, or at least Launceston seemed to think as much if one should judge from his letters. And although Killiney’s seat at Swallowhill devolved upon a niece whose husband adopted the name of Henley, his viscountcy became extinct.
“‘Lord Launceston was not to last much longer,’” David said, and Ravenna leaned over her plate intently. “‘Elizabeth’s son succeeded to the earldom at the tender age of two months when Launceston, having gained a reputation for debt and debauchery, was challenged to a duel and—’”
“Killed, right?” Ravenna frowned dismally. “But the book doesn’t say who won the duel? Nobody knows?”
“‘Local legend claims it was Killiney’s ghost. Other sources tell of Elizabeth cherishing the memory of Killiney far more than her roguish husband, driving Launceston mad with jealousy and so inviting an unnamed protector to defend Elizabeth from his abuse.
“‘Whichever the real story, what is certain is how Lord Launceston died. He bled to death. The seventeenth-century rapier reputed to have delivered the fatal wound now hangs on the wall at Wolvesfield House, the identity of its owner having never been determined.’”
David snapped the book shut. “And the rest just goes on about James’s travels in Honduras,” he said, stretching his arms, “but that’s all there is about Elizabeth and Killiney. Christian, on the other hand—”
But Ravenna wasn’t listening. Her host chattered on about Christian’s picture in the National Gallery, about the shortness of Christian’s life, and all the while Ravenna let her thoughts wander. There was something here that begged to be noticed. It was the way David punctuated his sentences with heavy, swift gestures and stabs of his fork, the comfortable sprawl he displayed at the dinner table. As he went on talking, it persisted, this something, unnerving and familiar, coursing through her attention until she couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore, only how he was saying it: “We gave the National Gallery that painting, so why did they take it upon themselves to decide what year it was painted? And Christian, he wasn’t a furniture maker. I don’t know where…”
His voice, that’s what it was. Laced with complaining and subtle anger, it stirred something in her. She found herself welcoming it, calling it forth. Suddenly she had the strangest impression—that a transparent photograph had been laid over David, his own picture, a portrait of him dressed in eighteenth-century clothes. It slipped over his features with ease, not quite matching, almost aligning, until finally he looked up and the full strength of his soul pierced her like a knife.
The picture aligned itself perfectly then. Seeing his blond hair dusted with powder, his gray eyes sharp with insatiable need, she realized they were Christian’s eyes, Christian begging her not to forsake him when all the world pressed him to be something he could not.
She gasped softly. Was her mind playing tricks on her? Her cousin Alia had said people reincarnated in groups, but had the diary and her imagination gotten the better of her senses?
Then she realized he’d asked her a question. “I’m sorry,” she offered, shaking herself out of her transfixed condition. “What did you say?”
He almost smiled when he averted his gaze. “I said, do you want to go to Dublin tomorrow? To Swallowhill? Find out who’s filling Killiney’s shoes?”
For a split second, she heard warning bells—this man, this stranger, wanted to take her on an overnight trip? She’d known him for barely an afternoon. It wouldn’t be the smartest thing, and yet she remembered Alia’s words: Everything happens for a reason, Ravenna.
* * *
Their hotel outside Dublin was not much to look at. It sported a gorgeous sea-facing view, but more important was its location in Dalkey: On the same stretch of road, taking up a large portion of what Ravenna’s map called Sorrento Point, Swallowhill loomed above their accommodations.
Surrounded by modern houses, Killiney’s former residence seemed the last remnant of a bygone Ireland, a fortress complete with all the trimmings. Perched above the Irish Sea at the edge of a rocky precipice, ancient towers of undressed stone rose from the water’s edge. The battlements and arrow loops, along with the height at which the few, small windows stood against the timeworn walls, revealed the extreme age of the fortification, for it wasn’t a nineteenth-century romantic reproduction. It certainly wasn’t Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland. Swallowhill was the pristine home of the ghosts of Killiney’s ancestors.
Gazing up at its towers, shielding her eyes from the constant drizzle, Ravenna nudged her travel escort. “I thought this was a house? You said this was a house.”
“I said nothing of the sort, my dear.”
But while they talked amongst themselves, a young woman came down the road just then. With her pert, businesslike gait, she approached where they stood together, gaping at the castle, and it didn’t take long for Ravenna to see the look of irritation on the woman’s pretty face.
David stepped back to let her pass. Ravenna dared to meet her eyes as the woman skirted them and, with a toss of her golden hair, carried herself right up to the gates of Swallowhill.
It was all Ravenna could do to keep from shouting after her. “Ma’am—,” and she scurried to where the woman stood, key in lock, eyes moving over Ravenna as if she were a beggar, “Ma’am, I was wondering if you could possibly—”
“If it’s directions you want,” the woman said, pointing back up the road, “the hotel will help you, I’m quite sure.”
“No, but thank you, we’d like to talk with you about your castle,” she explained. “Do you have a minute? Can we buy you a cup of coffee?”
The woman’s perfect features crumpled in a scowl. “Americans, are you? Well, my house isn’t open for tours. Go up to Malahide if that’s what you want.”
“Look,” David said, “could we possibly talk to your husband?”
“No you couldn’t.” And with a final, cold and beautiful glare, she let herself in and disappeared.
Ravenna turned to David beside her. “This isn’t bad luck,” she said, squinting in the rain. “This is happening for a reason we just don’t understand yet.”
* * *
Back at the hotel, Ravenna went to her room to get warm, to curl up under the heavy blankets. When David came knocking ten minutes later, he’d been down to the front desk where he’d learned the name of their fair-haired friend.
“Well, what is it?” Ravenna asked, pulling the blankets up under her chin. “Lady Launceston, I suppose?”
“No, not Launceston. Henley, as it turns out.” David settled back on his elbow beside her. “Fiona Henley. Her husband runs some sort of charity downtown. Maybe we can catch him there tomorrow without the help of his charming wife.”
“She was charming, wasn’t she?” Ravenna smiled, thinking of the woman’s impolite manners. “She had such a sunny disposition about her, that’s what I liked.”
“Some people don’t know any better.” Leaning closer, David covered her hand with his. “Listen, I know that I tired you out yesterday, what with your transpolar flight and all, so I’ll let you sleep early. Then we’ll go up to Dublin tomorrow and find this chap Henley.”
“You’re going to bed already?”
With the sudden flame to his eyes, she realized at once what she’d implied; she hadn’t meant to, really she hadn’t, and yet when David’s gaze lowered to her shape beneath the covers, she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Do you want me to stay, Ravenna?”
He is handsome, she told herself. There was something undeniably attractive about him, and he was certainly more her type than any boat mechanic or logger’s son. He’s nobility, for heaven’s sake! Yet even as she struggled to come up with an answer, that awkward, dreaded moment came: His eyes locked hopefully on her lips.
The last time she’d been kissed, at least by anyone other than her grandmother, it’d been in a gymnasium with disco music and strobe lights for ambiance. She hadn’t been kissed—really kissed—since high school in Port Angeles. She doubted she even remembered how to do it. Worse still, she knew she shouldn’t have to remember, that worrying about it should be the furthest thing from her mind in meeting his eyes, in giving in to a flushed, uncontrollable need, one that she should be feeling right now. Why didn’t she feel it?
But while she pondered whether she felt flushed or not, David’s hand pulled the blankets from under her tightly set chin. His gray eyes narrowed with obvious desire. He leaned closer still, and—
He stopped.
“What is it?” She touched his arm. “David? If it seems like I’ve never—”
“You don’t want to do this.”
Ravenna considered his declaration, tried to think of words to negate his fears. “It’s just that…I’m not used to this kind of attention, that’s all.” She dared to slide her fingers up his shirt sleeve, over his slender, muscular shoulder. What had her cousin told her? That she needed to get out of her hermit hole? “I’ve never had a boyfriend, David. Never. Not even a one-night stand.”
“All the more reason to leave you alone.” Pulling out from under her hand, he stood up, headed for the door in somewhat of a suspicious rush.
“But it’s only a kiss. How could you possibly—”
“I can’t explain it, I just know it’s wrong.” Turning the lock, he glanced at her over his shoulder and far away, behind his mask of subtle wanting, she caught again that glimpse of Christian, his dejection, his suffocating dependence upon her, as if she were his only love, the only answer to his destiny.
But before the vision could really take hold, he left.
“David, please come back,” she called as the lock clicked into place behind him. “Stay and talk about this.”
From the hallway, she barely heard his answer. “I don’t think you know what you want, Elizabeth.”

Chapter Six

Of course, he was right. Where she lay on the bed thinking about it, she realized the truth—that she’d been so flattered by his attention, she’d overlooked her own uneasiness and ignored that veil of Christian between them. What did she want? She wanted this Christian guy to go away; she wanted David to lose that shadow of needing and be the man she’d dreamt of, to make her feel the way Killiney had made her feel.
Or did she? Listen to your insides, she told herself.
It was only a moment more and she was putting on her shoes, pulling on her coat, trying to shake Christian’s image from her mind as she went downstairs and out into the rain, heading for Swallowhill in a daze. She had no idea what she’d do once she got there. She only knew what she wanted—at last, what she wanted!—to be away from David to think.
* * *
When she arrived at its gates, she could see Swallowhill was empty. The rooms were dark. No porch light shone above the front steps, and gazing up at the mullioned windows, the ancient stone battlements, she pictured Killiney coming home, his coachman sheltering him with a broad, black cape as they rushed inside from the Irish weather.
Yet while she dreamed in the cold, she heard footsteps approaching. An old man appeared beneath the sodium light. Walking his little dog, the man waited patiently as the terrier inspected this and that; closer they came, starting and stopping, until Ravenna crouched down in anticipation of petting the terrier, for how could she not? She missed her dog Nick. Surely the old man didn’t mind, for he smiled when Ravenna met his eye.
Not like Mrs. Henley at all, she thought, and then, What harm could it do if I asked?
So she did. She asked what he knew about Swallowhill.
“That place there?” The man waved a hand at the castle door. “Not much, I’m afraid. See a young woman go out the door every mornin’, guess that’s Henley’s wife. She studies economics and he helps the poor. What a match, eh?”
“So they don’t work together at this charity?” she asked. “If I went there tomorrow, I could speak to Mr. Henley alone?”
“Can now, so far as I know,” he said, looking back down the road behind him. “He’s at the pub, you see. I just came from there myself. In fer the one, y’know.”
“Right now? He’s there?”
“It’s just a short walk,” he said, and turning her shoulders, he pointed her back toward the way he’d just come. “Follow this road ’til it reaches the beach, then look to your right. You’ll find it up on the hillside, yeah?”
She found the pub above the beach soon enough, except it wasn’t a pub, but a fancy hotel. A short climb up the drive, and she was asking which way to the bar. If she’d thought about it first, she could have guessed on her own, for Peter Gabriel’s So album drifted down the hallway.
The music filled her ears as she followed the passageway back to the lounge where, taking off her coat, she began to scan the crowd. Men were standing about in clusters, arguing their viewpoints. Couples were dancing. The place was a fracas of Irish laughter, Irish faces, and how would she find Mr. Henley in this? Should she ask one of the men whose attention she’d attracted in her deliberate survey of the smoke-filled room?
“That’s a thick bunch at the bar, there.” One of those men had approached her rather boldly and now lingered at her side with his best pick-up charm. “Can I get you what you need?” he asked. “I know yer man, Sean there, who’s pullin’ the pints. I could get you one, if you like.”
Ravenna gazed at her suitor, taking in his blue eyes, his Dublin tone and curly, carrot-colored hair. Should she ask? Or would her question begin a flirtatious conversation from which she’d never extract herself?
“I’m waiting for a friend,” she said.
“You could have a pint while you wait, then?”
Noticing another door on the opposite side of the room, she waved away the stranger with a quiet apology.
“Whatever suits you,” the stranger mumbled.
For in that doorway there stood a young man, no older than thirty, whose russet-brown hair made her senses reel.
Miss you, love you, you don’t know how much…
How familiar, that gait of his, the way he carried himself as he crossed the room. It was as if he knew everyone, yet took no one for granted. He buttoned up the last button of his faded jeans as he joined his friends at a table near the door, and his expression was one of beguiling innocence. He’d been in the men’s room. His friends railed at him for his deliberate act of laziness, coming out of the toilet with his trousers still open, but he only seemed to revel in their scolding; he grinned when the girl at his table slapped his hand—such attention from a woman delighted him, Ravenna could see it.
She watched as he took the unlit cigarette from the girl’s mouth and proceeded to fumble with it, searching behind the Guinnesses for a light. It was then Ravenna noticed the true nature of his mood, for in the act of lighting that smoke, his grin faded into weariness. His friends went on with their discussion around him. Still, he didn’t notice. He seemed to have tuned out their words completely as he played with the smoldering end of his smoke, and despite the dark, neglected hair in his eyes, she could easily see the painful blue of his listless gaze…the blue she knew so well, blue like china, like the color of the ocean after a storm, and how many days had he lost to the sea?
His face was haggard, shadowed with whiskers. His hands were sore, but when he laid them on her, looking at her with such reverence and need, they hardly mattered, those cuts and blisters. With his grin barely concealed, he brushed against her deliberately while the sailors worked around them. His touch lingered at her waist, her hips, and making certain the captain was well below decks, he whispered in her ear with the most loving voice she’d ever heard: He’d die without her, did she know as much?
His tired laughter rang out over the music, and the sound brought her back immediately. Velvet, Irish laughter. As she stood there in the midst of the crowd, watching him whisper in his friend’s ear, she felt a wave of warmth wash over her. Just looking at him made the visions struggle at the doors of her subconscious. What would happen if she approached him? Would her knees shake? Would her words garble? Would she ever get over that mischievous grin?
It was all she could do to take a seat, across the room and near to him. Folding her coat over a chair, she tried not to stare at him. The last thing she wanted was to attract his attention, and turning her back to him, shaking badly, she sat down to eavesdrop on him and his friends.
“Yeah, you think I’ve not seen you finishing off my pint,” he was saying. “Thought you’d get away with it, did you? Takin’ advantage of an innocent man—”
“I reckon you owe me fer last Friday night,” his friend said gruffly. “Cost me more than a pint fer the petrol to Portlaoise.”
“Didn’t ask you to come to Portlaoise,” the man replied.
“So you just called t’hear the sound of m’voice, then?”
“That’s right,” the man said. “I rang you up for directions. I’ve no idea why you came for me. I’ve never asked you t’save my arse from the woman in me life.”
“Let me ask you this, then,” his friend insisted. “Did you have a long way to walk when you rang me?”
There was a moment before his response, during which Ravenna heard the girl giggling. Then, under his breath, came the answer. “It was yer man’s phone behind the bar.”
His friends burst out laughing. Ravenna heard his voice over their onslaught of accusations. “If I’d have known you were gonna drink my pint,” he said, “I would’ve rang Deirdre. You wouldn’t take advantage of me, would you, Deirdre?”
“What do you mean, you would’ve rang me?” the girl’s voice chimed in. “You’re tellin’ me you don’t remember what you said t’me that night?”
Listening to them, Ravenna’s thoughts began to drift. His impish smile, his sparkling eyes, the way he pushed back his hair with a weary, practiced hand…she saw it all in her mind. As his accented voice wove through the music, through Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street,” she let go the thread of their conversation. Hearing only his familiar tone, she lost herself in the lyrics about dreams coming true, about kissing a girl named…
Mary, she realized as she mouthed the words. He sang about kissing a girl named Mary. With no trouble at all, she heard Killiney say it. My Mary, he’d whispered, and in an instant she was with him again, melting under his touch, his hands roaming over her, lingering, stroking, and all the while he kissed her with lips like watered honey.
The memory stirred through her soul with a vengeance. The song was over, five minutes had passed, and she was completely encased within her own world while he sat just a few feet away.
Or did he?
Amid the sounds of debate, the layers of conversation drifting over the smoke and the tinkling of pint glasses, she no longer heard his affable voice. A shudder of fear ripped through her senses when she realized he’d gone, and she turned around. Her eyes swept the room. She searched the corners, the men near the door, hunting the crowd for his familiar face.
Then she saw him, not ten feet away. He’d been caught up by two teenagers, and where they gathered in a huddle, the man’s back was to her. He stood with his arm around one boy’s shoulder, and whispering urgently, seriously in his ear, the man was so close now that she could see the freckles under his eyes. She tried hard not to stare. But as he went on talking, Ravenna couldn’t help it; his build was stockier than she remembered. His eyes, even in the dimness of the bar, were bright blue and opened wide, and the dark circles under them and the given-it-all fatigue he projected did nothing to mar the beauty to his features, the innate friendliness to his expression.
For a long moment he stood there, leaning against the teenager, unmoving but for his lips. Ravenna couldn’t hear what he told the boy. Yet when he pulled back, concern showed in the man’s tired face. He patted the boy’s shoulder, and Ravenna’s knees were weak just seeing the warmth he gave off, the strength of his attention for the boy’s every word. In those few seconds she felt the reality of him, the soul behind Killiney, the very essence of the man she loved.
But he was leaving now, stepping away from the boys and nodding, saying his goodbyes. Here’s your chance, she told herself, getting to her feet. Ask him a question, buy him a drink, anything to start a conversation and give him reason to—
“Hey, I was just coming t’see you.” Soft voice, almost coddling in its gentleness. Ravenna looked up, frightened out of her wits.
Sure enough, he was staring right back at her.
Wavering before her, waiting, his eyes were uneasy for all the warmth of his tone. Answer him, she told herself.
“I was…You were talking to those boys, so I didn’t want to interrupt,” she sputtered, but he was holding out his hand to her. She took it, for a handshake, she thought. Yet he didn’t let go. He stood there and gazed at her, his hand clasped around hers, his butter-soft touch holding her firmly in place.
“Em, I thought of comin’ over and saying something to you when you first walked in, but…” He hesitated, eager and at once confused. “But you know, for the life o’ me, I’ve no idea where I’ve met you. Your name’s…”
She half expected him to say Mary, but he was obviously embarrassed and waiting for her to introduce herself. “Ravenna,” she said, and it was a touch too loud, the slightest bit apprehensive.
His expression brightened, his hand shaking hers in affirmation. “Yeah, Ravenna, that’s it,” he said with a smile, but even though he tried to conceal it, he was no less confused.
In the uncomfortable seconds that followed, his grin slowly diminished as he stared at her, searching her face. His eyes clouded over, and seeing that shimmer of memory in his gaze, she wanted to tell him why he felt the way he did.
But she didn’t dare. It seemed wiser to make his acquaintance gradually. “It’s been a long time,” she said.
“Must’ve been. I’ve usually got a good memory, but I must admit, you’ve got me going here.”
“But you do remember me?” she asked. “You feel like you’ve known me?”
“I do, yeah. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings an’ that, but…it wasn’t in San Francisco, was it? You’re not a friend of Skye’s?” Ravenna shook her head, glanced down nervously at his hand in hers. “Was it here in Dublin, then? You were livin’ at Trinity on exchange, yeah?”
“I don’t think I should tell you just yet.”
That grin flickered in the arch of his brow. “You’re going to make me work for it, aren’t you? Sure you know what you’re gettin’ yourself into? It could mean hours and hours of puttin’ up with me while I try to piece it together.”
“That’s OK,” she said, shrugging. “It’ll give us a chance to catch up on old times.”
He regarded her devilishly, and his grin broadened into a full-fledged smile. “Can’t wait t’learn what sort of old times we’ve had.”
Turning toward Sean and his pints behind the bar, he pulled Ravenna after him. Hours and hours of putting up with him. How was she ever going to explain that they’d been lovers in the eighteenth century? How long would she have before he learned the truth and denounced her as crazy?
“All right then,” he said when they’d reached the bar, “let me buy you a drink and we’ll see if I can’t solve this puzzle. Sean, you haven’t got any American beer, have you? Or will you drink a pint with me?”
“Dance with me, instead,” she said, squeezing his fingers.
It surprised her, the surge of emotion that came into his face then. His mouth opened the smallest bit. His jaw stiffened, and with almost a look of panic, his pale eyes blazed with a trace of desire. “Yeah,” he nodded slowly. “Right, that would be OK. Do you want to leave your coat with Sean?” He let go of her hand and, taking her jacket, he passed it over the counter to the barkeeper. “I’ve a date, here, Sean. The lady’s asked me to dance.”
Sean waved them away. “You’d best attend to her.”
The Peter Gabriel album wasn’t playing anymore. Instead, it was Sting, and slower, more romantic, it was a ballad they danced to, although Ravenna didn’t know the song. It hardly mattered. With a gentle grasp, he took up her hand in his. He slipped his arm around her waist and, drawing her close, laid his head next to hers until she felt the warmth and enticing scratch of his unshaven cheek. Breathless with the intimacy of it, aching with that slow rocking movement of his hips, she was instantly in shock when they danced. He was all clumsiness and ungainly steps, the worst dancer she’d ever seen, yet in his arms she felt complete, at peace, exactly as if she’d come home after two hundred years.
But behind the bar, Sean was calling over the crowd, his voice fighting to compete with the music. Beside Ravenna, the man stopped dancing. Soon the word was passed by several people, all hailing in their direction, until finally she was able to understand one woman’s shout amid the ocean of faces. “Paul!” the woman yelled. “Paul Henley! Telephone fer ya!”
The man put his hand in the air, made eye contact with Sean behind the bar.
She should have known it. It should have been obvious right from the start, yet in that instant, it seemed as if the whole world shattered around her.
This was Mr. Henley…and he had a wife.
The realization struck mercilessly hard. She’d been happy for perhaps fifteen minutes and now all the possibilities she’d seen in his eyes were out the door, washed away and hopelessly fading.
But with his brows knit together in bewilderment, he was staring at her. Ravenna couldn’t hide her tears. Still, she wiped at them, trying in vain to hold a normal expression as he drew nearer, his hands rising gently to pull hers from her face. “Have I done something wrong?” he asked.
Before she could answer, a chorus of voices demanded his attention, and he turned around angrily. “She knows I’m not comin’ home!” He looked back at Ravenna, waited patiently as she collected herself. “Tell me what I can do,” he whispered.
Her mascara was running. People were staring. “Get me out of here,” she said, cowering beside him.
He nodded, and with a firm hand, he turned her back toward the bar, calling for Sean to bring out her coat.
* * *
Walking her down the hotel steps, he tried to keep his gentle manner, but she couldn’t blame him for the glances he gave her. He was married. She had no chance at all with him now. Certainly she had nothing to lose by telling him the truth about how she felt, but before she could summon her courage, he spoke.
“It’s the woman, isn’t it?” He glanced at her nervously. “You thought I fancied you?”
As if it could still her vicious trembling, she wrapped herself tighter in her coat and nodded.
He swore under his breath. “I didn’t mean to be leading you on. If I’ve given you ideas an’ that, sayin’ you were my date the way I did…I mean, I’m a married man, for God’s sake.”
“Then why did you say that?” She sniffed back her tears. “How was I supposed to know you were married?”
“I’m wearing a ring, yeah?”
“I wasn’t exactly looking at your jewelry.”
“Well, I wasn’t lookin’ at yours.”
For an instant that expression came back into his face, the guilty burn of desire she’d seen him stifle so quickly in the bar. Then his eyes slipped away, forging straight ahead as she stared at him, astonished. “Why were you looking at me at all?” she asked. “If you’re married, why did you dance with me like that?”
His brows creased sharply. His gaze narrowed as he picked his way between parked cars, and the sound of his boots rang in the night as she waited, hurrying next to him, until at last he looked at her. Then the pain she saw tore into her heart. His eyes were sick with weariness. Just as he’d been when his friends had ignored him, when he’d lighted that cigarette so despondently, he seemed upset, exhausted. “It’s the woman,” he said soberly.
“Your wife?”
He nodded, forced a smile. “She thinks I should find a nice girl to settle down with. That’s what I meant by that. It’s sort of a joke around here.”
Ravenna slowed beside him, reached out to take his arm. “I don’t understand,” she said, pulling him to a stop. “Your wife wants you to have an affair? That’s why you flirted with me?”
His eyes rested heavily on hers. “She wants to go to London, she wants us to…We had a bit of a row two years ago. She wants a divorce.”
When he looked away, glanced down at her hand where she gripped his sleeve, Ravenna realized she’d caressed him ever so slightly, comforted him without meaning to. She didn’t take her hand away. “And you won’t go to London?”
His lips tightened. He shook his head. “I keep hopin’ she’ll come around someday.”
Seeing that love in his anguished eyes, that useless and bitter love for his wife, made the pain knot up in her heart. She doesn’t love you, she wanted to say, but I do, God how I do.
With an obvious step backward, he pulled out from under her hand. He looked around the parking lot uneasily. “Anyway,” he said, “I lost my head back there in the pub, coming on to you like that. It just never dawned on me that you didn’t know m’life story like everyone else. I mean, I’ve been married nine years now. I thought everybody knew that.”
“You feel like you know me, that’s why.”
“Yeah, and that reminds me,” he said, and gently he kicked her foot with his boot, “if you and I have been more than friends, you might at least fill me in.” He said this casually, even with a hint of a smile, but he was braced for her answer, she could see it.
“We were more than just friends, yes,” she said.
His features dulled instantly. His eyes darkened to guilty embers, and as if her answer could save his soul, he put out the question she knew would come. “Before Fiona, was it?”
“It was before everything,” she agreed. “You can feel it between us, can’t you? Don’t you feel it when you look at me?”
Hunching his shoulders, he leaned against a parked car as he considered. “There is something about you, I can’t…can’t quite put my finger on.”
“The way I look, maybe? What I’m wearing seems wrong?”
“It’s your voice, that’s what it is. Very low-pitched, very familiar. I ought to remember a voice like yours.”
She felt her pulses quicken. He remembered their past life together. Not just a talent for recalling twelve-year-old girls he’d once sat in an amusement park ride with, but he actually remembered Elizabeth as an adult. “I had an English accent,” she said, studying his expression. “Can you remember? My name was Mary Hallett, and we lived in a country house next to the sea. You took me to some ruins, and you and I were—”
“This was a schoolyard game?” Suspicious, the way he looked at her then.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean did you make this up? Little girls do things like that when they meet older boys. When I went to America in ’77, I was seventeen years old, and you must’ve been, what, half my age? Any eight-year-old girl would be impressed by a seventeen-year-old—”
“I was twelve in—”
“Then it was America, I was right. You probably saw me when I played at that college, what was it called? You really had me frightened there, tellin’ me I was your lover an’ that.”
“But you were,” she insisted. “We were lovers, you can feel it as much as I can.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “not if you were twelve years old, I’d never have—”
“I wasn’t twelve, I was, I don’t know, twenty-six or something in 1790, and you were—”
“1790?”
“Yes, in Devon, that’s why you can’t remember, because it was two hundred years ago and I didn’t have an American—”
Her voice wavered and abruptly broke, for he wasn’t looking at her. With hands still shoved in the pockets of his coat, he was staring at the ground, his jaw shifting in obvious vexation.
She couldn’t imagine what he thought of her then.
But when he lifted his gaze slowly to hers with the smallest fire of anger kindled in his eyes, she knew what he thought. “Why are you lying to me?” he asked her softly. “Where’s the sense in that?”
She was dumbfounded. She couldn’t answer. She stared uselessly at his boots while he went on sharply, “It’s best t’just let the truth come out. You’d a crush on me, yeah? It’s no reason to lie.”
“I’d never lie to you.”
“So you’re tellin’ me you really believe we were lovers in 1790? I’m just thirty-one myself, or maybe I’ve—”
“It was in another life,” she said, feeling the tears threatening to overwhelm her. “I know how stupid it sounds, I don’t blame you for not believing me, because I don’t even believe me, but…”
She lost the battle then. With her lower lip trembling, she let the tears come, knowing he couldn’t possibly accept it. The glower on his face would mean the end of their acquaintance. Paul took a deep breath as she stood there, crying, and tension moved in his eyes when he did what she’d been so afraid he would: He turned and walked away.
At that moment she was convinced nothing in her life would ever matter again. He was everything, every wish she’d ever made ‘round a driftwood fire, every dream lover she’d ever fantasized about. What use would it be, going on without him? What would be the point when she knew he was the one?
And then he called her, over his shoulder. “Come on, then,” he said with a nod.
* * *
In the commuter train station, he paid for their fare. He led her to the platform where the train had just stopped, and reticently, Ravenna followed him inside where he sat her down, took the seat across from hers. “I can see this is going t’be an interesting evening for me,” he said as the train began to move.
She wiped at the corners of her eyes. “Why is that?”
“Because what you’re tellin’ me goes against everything I believe in. It’s reincarnation, is it?” When she nodded, he leaned forward in his seat, elbows on his knees, hands clasped near his lips as he collected his words. “I don’t believe in reincarnation,” he said gently. “I really don’t. But if you’re conning me, I must admit it’s the best con I’ve ever seen. I suppose if you’re bein’ paid by somebody, it would be, yeah?”
“But…why would anyone pay me?” she asked. “Why would I try to con you with a story you won’t believe?”
“I’m sitting next to you, aren’t I? I’m a pushover for misery, she knows that.”
She? The word registered in Ravenna’s thoughts while his gaze drifted behind her. Surely he didn’t believe that, did he? That she’d been paid to seduce him? “You think your wife set this up, don’t you?”
But he wasn’t listening. His eyes, firmly fixed beyond her, flashed with warning so that she turned to see what had caught his attention.
Three boys with buzz cuts glared back. With their Doc Martens on the seats before them, their lanky bodies draped in black, they passed a bottle in a paper sack between them. They swore a lot and laughed more, and Ravenna knew they were talking about her.
“Those lads are lookin’ for a good scuffle t’get into, I can feel it,” Paul said. “Come sit by me, I’d feel better.”
When the train pulled up to the Dalkey platform, she didn’t think of David. She slid over beside Paul, glad for his nearness, and as she sat back behind the denim of his shoulder, she felt his arm come around her snugly. “Now, what were you saying about Devonshire?” he mused.
The boys were out of their seats now, ambling their way down the swaying aisle. From one handhold to another, they talked amongst themselves as if they were innocent of all malicious intentions. When the smallest of the three, the leader, reached the seat Ravenna had just vacated, the boy sat down in it. He made a face at Paul.
The other two laughed, but Paul ignored them, whispered to her, “We lived in a country house, is that what you told me? Next to the sea?”
The boy glanced at his friends, then back at Ravenna. “You’re American, aren’t you?” the boy asked congenially. Paul’s hand gripped her tighter, but with the tone of the boy’s voice and the inviting expression on his dirt-smudged face, she found herself nodding in reply.
Instantly, she knew she shouldn’t have.
“Thought as much,” the boy said pleasantly, as if he thought much more than that. “You’ve come t’Ireland t’kiss the Blarney stone, haven’t you? See the Book of Kells? Or are you searchin’ fer yer Irish roots?”
She glanced at Paul nervously. “In a way,” she ventured.
The boy sat back more comfortably, and draping his arms across the seat behind him, he pointed at Paul with a thin finger. “This yer boyfriend?”
Paul scowled at the boy. “What of it?”
The boy raised his hand as if to keep Paul from hearing. “I reckon he’s a poshy, yeah?” He winked at Ravenna. “Y’know he might be from the Southside, but I guarantee he hasn’t got what yer lookin’ fer in those brash American trousers he’s wearin’. You’d do better with a real lad, say, someone like Fintan here, or then maybe you’d—”
“Look,” Paul broke in, “I don’t mean t’give you the impression we’ve not enjoyed your company, but—”
“But piss off?” The boy looked at Paul innocently. “Tell me, Poshy, did you ever think maybe yer girlfriend came t’Ireland just t’get shagged?”
Paul didn’t even grace this with an answer, yet the boy hardly noticed. “American girls’ll shag anything with a willie,” the boy continued gleefully. “Y’know yerself, these girls’ll come over on holiday just t’find some punter t’amuse themselves with, then they’ll go back t’America and slag him off in front o’ their girlfriends.”
Paul regarded the boy placidly. “Sounds like you’re talking from personal experience.”
The boy tipped back his head, laughed under his breath. “No, Poshy, I was talkin’ about you.”
Behind him, the other boys snickered in support.
“Yeah?” Paul asked.
“Yeah,” the boy said. “You’ve not done yer job, I can see it in yer girl’s eyes. It’s not yer company she’s interested in, or are you too daft t’notice? Just look at her. She’s beggin’ t’be shagged. So,” and he stood up, making way for his friend, “are you gonna shag’er, or is Fintan?”
Fintan edged closer. Ravenna felt the muscles in Paul’s shoulder tense as he readied himself, said, “Kind of depends on how much of Fintan is left t’shag, doesn’t it?”
The boy didn’t wait to find out.
Grabbing Ravenna’s arm, he hauled her roughly from her seat before she’d even thought to kick or struggle. Behind her, Fintan blocked Paul’s advance—she knew it because there was a scrambling of feet, something sounding like a punch being thrown. With her arm twisted behind her back, she couldn’t see, but she heard a soft popping noise as Fintan’s hulk lurched suddenly into view. Paul pushed past him in a dig of fists, and Ravenna ducked, for with his well-aimed punch, he’d knocked her abductor back a step.
The thug released her falteringly.
She wasted no time in getting behind Paul.
The train was approaching the station by that time. The third boy stood at the metal doors, ready to open them, and while he cautioned Fintan’s friend to back off, Fintan came to his senses again and dove at Paul from the opposite side.
Paul was amazing in his ferocity. More than she’d hoped or expected, he held his own, for although the boys kicked him with heavy boots and drunken enthusiasm, in just a few short seconds it became all too clear who was really winning. The boys’ punches slowed. Their threats slackened. Even though Paul hadn’t scored as many hits, still he urged them on, fists held high, his eyes dark and sharp with fury.
When the train finally stopped, the boys gave up. With relief, she watched as they fled through the doors and into the darkness, leaving silence in their wake and Paul staggering, breathing hard.
The doors shut tight. The train began to move.
Only then did he lose his fighting stance.
Turning toward her, he steadied her where she wavered fearfully. “You’re OK?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”
But it was Paul who’d been hurt. One side of his face had been beaten severely. He held his eye nearly closed on the other. When she touched his chin to turn him toward the train’s dim light, he pulled his face out of her hands. Taking a seat, he pressed his nose to the window. He wasn’t putting up with Ravenna’s mothering, he’d have her know that, and yet some of the fury did drain from his voice when he said, “Come here,” and made room for her on the seat beside him.
Beneath his arm, she tried to keep her eyes from meeting his. She gazed mindlessly at the empty seats, at his reflection in the glass. At last she saw his injured fist lifted to the window. “Is that your blood or theirs?” she asked.
He smeared it roughly into the fabric of his jeans. “It’s mine now.”
“Why did those boys do that?” She shook her head just thinking about it, still trembling fiercely. “I mean, why didn’t they just mug you if they knew you were rich? Why did they attack me?”
Laying his hand on his knee, staring at it, Paul bit his lip before he answered. “They weren’t interested in money. My money stands for everything they’re against, everything they hate about this country.”
“So they beat you up instead of taking it from you?”
He paused a beat. More hurtfully spoken words. “To them, it’s cooler to beat the shite out o’ the rich than to try making something of themselves.”
“But why? Why do the Irish love to fight so much? With those boys, and the troubles, and—”
But he was looking out to the sea, at the blackness of Dublin Bay, and she sensed the anger flaring inside him. Even when she couldn’t see his beaten face, she heard him talking against the window. “You don’t know the first thing about the Irish,” he said. He turned back toward her, and his eyes were alight with some distant, long-forgotten fire. “It’s not as easy as fightin’ or not fightin’, there’s more to it than that. You can’t know what it means in this country, it’s not as black and white as it seems. The border’s fifty miles away, but…”
“Are we talking about Northern Ireland?”
As if suddenly conscious of his own emotion, he averted his gaze.
For the longest moment, he seemed to be collecting his thoughts, as if he would actually answer her question. His lips parted as if he might at any time tell her some awful story about terrorist violence or lay down ten reasons why she didn’t understand what was happening in Belfast.
But he didn’t. Gazing steadily at his knee, a muscle flicking near the back of his jaw, Paul wiped at the blood smeared on his jeans until she couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “What is it?” She pushed closer, nearer to the heat of his side against hers. “Paul, what are you thinking about?”
He drew in a heavy breath, obviously making an effort to cover the vulnerability she’d chanced to see. “Nothing,” came the answer, gruff, reluctant. “Nothing that concerns you, anyway.”
She noticed then a small trickle of blood oozing from a cut under his eye. She reached out and wiped it gently from his face, and she didn’t think twice until after she’d done it, that he wouldn’t like it. Still, he was quiet under her touch, as if his darkened thoughts about the troubles, terrorists or whatever it was she’d so painfully reminded him of, consumed him so completely he couldn’t be bothered to let his discomfort be known. Distract him, she told herself. You have to tell him the truth about Killiney; maybe now is a good time.
“Would you mind if I told you about our past life together?” She folded her hands on her lap. “I know you don’t believe it, but all you’d have to do is listen.”
The train rocked with an irregularity in the tracks, caused him to sway that much nearer. “Yeah, OK,” he said grudgingly.
“Sure you won’t be offended?”
He frowned a little. “I’m not promising.”
What had he said? I’m a pushover for misery? She made an effort to appear dreadfully hurt by his offhanded comment, and she got what she wanted. He sighed. Positioning himself more comfortably close to her, the pain dwindled from his eyes as he whispered, “All right, then, come on.”
Beneath his cordiality, there remained a storehouse of worries, but he put them aside. It seemed he could charm on command, and she’d counted on this, for as she began to tell him, his attention drifted easily from that terrible aching he kept inside.
“I didn’t like you at first,” she said, feeling his fingers move gently at her collar. “In the end, though, I fell in love with you.”
“Ah, that’s what all the girls say.”
More charm to soothe her. She smiled at his joke as the train pulled into another station and a young couple took the seat across from theirs. As Paul’s arm was still around her, he said more privately into her ear, “And what were the girls callin’ me back then?”
His hair brushed her cheek while he whispered, and she closed her eyes, soaked up the feel of it. “Killiney,” she said. “I called you Killiney, but your name was Richard Henley.”
A few seconds passed while she debated the idea of facing his reaction. When she found the courage to look at him, he didn’t appear the way she’d expected. Cold insistence that they’d never been lovers, an incredulously twisted grin, he was neither of these things. Instead, he seemed uncertain, astonished.
“Do you know about your ancestors?” she asked.
“It seems you do.”
“You were the sixth Viscount Killiney,” she told him. “You died on Vancouver’s voyage in the Pacific Northwest in 1792.”
More silence from him. Apparently the charm had dried up, for he let out a little breath when he looked down at his bloodied knee, as if to say, Yeah, right.
“My friend tracked Killiney back to you,” she went on, watching him fuss with his turquoise ring. “We were hoping we’d learn more from the records at Swallowhill. Have you heard about Killiney before? Are there pictures of him?”
“Who’s this friend of yours when she’s at home?”
“He,” Ravenna corrected him. “David Hallett, he’s the Marquess of Wolvesfield in Devonshire, England. His ancestor was Christian Hallett, the man I married after Killiney died on Vancouver’s voyage. Christian was part of your family by marriage, and he—”
“Let me just get in here,” Paul said. “You’re tellin’ me I was my own ancestor in another life? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Sometimes reincarnation works that way. People’s souls get attached to a certain country, a climate, even a particular family or house. It’s not unheard of.”
“It is in Ireland.”
“No, really, it’s not—”
Looking her square in the face, he tightened his hand on her shoulder gently. “You know, I don’t mean to alarm you,” he said, “but Ireland’s mostly a Catholic country. You don’t hear much about reincarnation at Sunday Mass.”
Ravenna nodded. “So you’re Catholic, then.”
“No, but—”
“You’re Protestant?”
“Look, my spirituality’s got nothing to do with it, really. I might be a Buddhist, let’s say, but if I don’t remember what you remember—”
“So you don’t remember anything? Nothing at all?”
Slowly, Paul shook his head, dropping his eyes when he saw her disappointment. “No,” he said, “no, I think you believe in what you’re telling me, but I can’t believe in it, it doesn’t apply to me, to my life, even if I do resemble the guy. Can you see that? Can you understand what you’re asking of me?”
“All I want you to do is listen.”
“And indeed I have.”
“But you won’t consider that reincarnation might be real.”
“It might be real for you, but…”
And to his obvious relief, the train pulled slowly into the next station. Out the door and down a flight of stairs, he put his arm around her; she’d forgotten the cold outside, was glad for his shelter from the light rain, and matching his step, she pressed close and let a block or so go by in silence before continuing the argument he’d sought to escape.
“So you’re not religious at all?” she asked.
He wiped the hair out of his eyes. “I didn’t say that.”
“You said you weren’t Catholic or Protestant.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not a believer. It’s just that I don’t think a church and a priest are necessary for spirituality, at least not for everyone’s spirituality.”
“So you’re willing to allow there are different kinds of spirituality?”
“There’s no such thing as life after death, OK?” Paul’s eyes drilled into Ravenna’s. “Not for me, at least not in the sense you’re talking about. A guy has it hard enough livin’ the first time around. I mean, why would you want to do it all again?”
She leaned into him. “Now we’re getting to the real problem,” she said. “You’re not happy now, so why would you want to believe in something that might leave you unhappy again in the future?”
A street lamp buzzed above their heads and in its light, she saw that expression gaining strength in his pale features, that something wounded and unspeakably painful which shone too readily in his gaze. Dreading the way he’d brooded on the train, Ravenna shuddered, using the excuse to lean closer still against his warm, protective frame.
But he was talking again, his determined words breaking the quiet of the street. “It’s just that some people struggle so much. They deserve a bit of rest, y’know? I have t’believe they’re in a better place after all they’ve been through. Why would God put us through it if heaven’s not waitin’ at the end of it all?”
“To me, another chance to learn seems more interesting than heaven.”
He almost smiled. “You are a Buddhist, aren’t you? You’re not going to start chanting?”
“I’m not a Buddhist, I just…I’ve had some experiences I can’t explain any other way. I remember you playing the piano, and when I saw you in that bar, I—”
“Wait a minute, hold on. Playing the piano?” Suspicion flickered at the corners of his mouth, in his guarded eyes as he scrutinized her. “You’re saying this guy knew the piano?”
“What do you mean, he knew it? I thought you were familiar with your family history.”
“Yeah, but I…Just tell me about this fellah and the piano.”
She thought then about the diary, about all she’d read of Killiney’s music. “You played Mozart,” she said, “and Haydn, too, although I don’t remember that yet. There’s a piano at Wolvesfield, the house near Dartmouth where I lived, and you played that piano to seduce me. I crept up behind you when you played, and I remember the awful fight we had afterward. I remember crying when you died, when I knew I’d never see you again, and it’s an unbearable memory. It’s not the sort of thing people invent for fun.”
“So you’re tellin’ me you just spontaneously saw this? My ancestor, playing the piano in Devon?”
“I’d probably remember more if I were hypnotized.”
“And you think I’m him just because he’s my ancestor, because we’ve got the same face?”
“It’s not just your face, it’s everything about you, the way you walk, your smile, how you act around your friends.”
“But couldn’t I have inherited all that? Family traits and such?”
She slowed their pace as she considered his question. She thought of the first moment she’d seen him, when he’d come from the men’s room buttoning up his jeans, when he’d sat down among his friends scrounging for a light. His face was that face she’d been longing for, angular, bestubbled and loving, but how to explain the resonance she felt when she looked at him? That his was the face she’d mourned in the music room, crying at the window as the trees outside whipped in the storm?
She knew it completely. She couldn’t prove it.
“Our son’s name was Paul,” she said to him finally.
“Our son? So now you’re my ancestor, as well?”
“That was his name,” she said, ignoring his tone. “Doesn’t it mean anything, that you and Killiney’s son have the same name?”
“It’s a family name, that’s all it is.”
“But you came up to me in the bar,” she insisted. “You remembered me.”
“Might be a girl in America I’m remembering, somebody you remind me of. You’ll have t’do better than that.”
Ahead of them, between the framing of buildings, stood an ancient tower against the city-lightened clouds. As they gradually approached it, it became clear that this was Paul’s destination, and she knew from her travel books it was Christ Church Cathedral. It stood bleak and inanimate and strangely beautiful in the stillness of the city street, and he led her through its wrought-iron gates to a bench where he sat her down, acknowledged her frustration with a glance and a sigh.
“I don’t mean t’be upsetting you, I really don’t,” he said, “but you have t’try and understand—this is Ireland.”
“You could try to understand me, just a little.” She watched him take a seat beside her, not too close. “After all, I came all this way to find you.”
“And where did you come from, or am I ever going t’learn?”
Listening to his voice, all husky and smoothed by that satiny tone, she felt a warmth spread all through her body. He was Killiney. No one else could have that voice. “Protection Island, in Washington State,” she said. “I took a flight from Vancouver, actually.”
“And that’s where the guy died, yeah?”
“Look, I know how strange it all sounds, how you must feel about the whole thing, but can’t you just consider that maybe what I’ve said is true? That maybe you and I have been together, that maybe God and reincarnation can somehow coexist? I don’t know how, but—”
She stopped. His brows had abruptly slanted in a frown, and he didn’t seem to be listening anymore. His eyes looked like pieces of translucent ice, distant, emotionless, and when his gaze misted over with a fixated stare, she covered his hand with hers.
“Paul?”
He didn’t budge.
She should have been frightened then. Seeing that vacant expression on his face, his unblinking gaze, it occurred to her suddenly that she, too, felt strange: lightheaded and exhilarated all at once, as if she’d gotten up too fast and the ensuing confusion were somehow enjoyable.
Staring at his boots, wondering at their silver caps glimmering like beacons on a distant coast, Ravenna barely noticed when the edges of her vision began to blur. Paul’s eyes, now gazing at her with the utmost serenity, seemed the most impossible shade of blue, and she fell into them effortlessly, didn’t fight the dizziness, the airy, cool weightlessness that lifted her from heavy limbs.
She let herself be taken, surrendered herself until, cloaked in the pattern of dreams that received her, suddenly she knew no more.

Chapter Seven

There was a man on top of her.
Ravenna’s thoughts were still sluggish from sleep, but she knew the truth of it just the same. Where she lay upon cold winter turf, naked, her clothes strewn about in the frozen grass, her arms slipped across the heat of flesh, a silken form, another body molded to hers.
Muddled it all seemed, and yet she couldn’t deny the thick set of his masculine shoulders, the hair on his chest so feathery against her unclothed skin. Feeling the wetness of him between her thighs, that unfamiliar flush of heat and the tingling weakness coursing through her, Ravenna knew what they’d done, that he’d…that he and she had…
A knot rose quickly in her throat. Her mouth went dry. Only when several seconds had passed did she even think of identifying her lover, and when she had, though she wanted to believe it with all the strength of her lonely heart, still she didn’t trust her senses.
For when she lifted his ample, rugged chin, she found it was Paul entangled around her.
His breath came quietly. Not yet awake, he was heavy and pliable in her grasp, completely at her mercy. His limbs draped around her in an unconscious snuggling that somehow seemed childlike despite the brawn to his compact frame. Oh my God, she thought wildly. Between her legs, it was so…so intoxicating, that’s what he was. She could feel every inch of him, parts she’d never even seen in a magazine let alone touched in so intimate a way, and to hold him so close, to be able to tilt his head toward hers and almost kiss those sleeping lips, she could all but imagine how it would feel if they…
She forgot in a hurry when he started to stir.
Hesitant, bewildered, he lifted his head. His face was in shadow, and yet when he uncurled his limbs from hers, she sensed his terrible guilt. He’s cheated on his wife, hasn’t he? She could feel it in the frozen air between them, in the way he got to his feet in a rush.
Before she could apologize or reassure him in some friendlike way, she felt a swathe of fabric tossed over her body. A cloak of some kind, he’d thrown it down in a fit of remorse; she clutched it tight as he turned away, reached for his trousers slung over a bush.
Except they weren’t his trousers.
Ravenna glanced around her then. Gone was the churchyard, the high iron gates. Instead, there was a field, icy and dark in the winter night. She saw no buildings, no shimmer of Dublin’s lights in the sky. A few yards away, a stone wall decayed beneath brambles and brush, part of a ruin, or so it seemed in the dim moonlight. A dress lay on the grass beside her, and though it was too dark for details, she couldn’t miss the gown’s full skirts, the boning she felt along the waist of its bodice when she reached out to touch it.
Fingering the cloak then around her shoulders, slowly the shock of it began to register. These tall leather boots she saw all around them, the man’s white undergarments, the lady’s stockings, these were eighteenth-century clothes. Reaching for the nearest of several skirts, she tried madly to understand—had they been kidnapped? Stolen away from the churchyard to play somebody’s idea of a dress-up game?
Then she lifted her eyes toward Paul. The shirt he struggled to pull over his head wasn’t the one he’d worn in the bar. Rather, it was long and white, hung down to his knees over dark woolen pants. Catching the way she stared at him suddenly, Paul scowled. He turned away, and she understood why he might be angry. After all, he was dressing for her delusions, her admitted past-life fantasies, and how could he not blame her for this?
Knowing he did, feeling the strength of his cutting glare, Ravenna huddled beneath the cloak’s shelter…and that’s when she saw it. Shining in the moonlight, it was a little glass bottle, two inches in length and capped with gold. It lay on the grass next to her foot. With her attention distracted from Paul’s reproach, she sat up, lifted the vial with shaking fingers.
“What is it?” Paul asked.
“A perfume sample? I don’t know.” Yet as she examined it, she was struck by a feeling of déjà vu. A dark, oily residue lined the glass. Lifting it closer, she caught a whiff of something fishy, like a raft of kelp left baking in the sun. Elizabeth, she thought with a sense of familiarity. Yes, something about Elizabeth, drinking it down, watching the smolder to Killiney’s eyes in leaning to meet his passionate kiss.
In the midst of it, Paul walked away in disgust. He didn’t mutter a word to her, just ambled off in an angry saunter, leaving her to wonder, Can it be true? Have you lost your mind?
Forcing down the whirl that threatened to consume her, she scooped up what was left of the clothes. She made herself figure out what garment went where. The pair of riding boots she understood, but it seemed there were two dresses, the second being more of a nightgown of sorts. She’d been stretched out upon it, and as she picked up the garment and pulled it over her head, she realized it had suffered in their coupling—the nightgown was damp all down the back of it.
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.
“Killiney had dreams about a woman,” she explained, “a blonde woman who studied at Trinity College and said she was Killiney’s wife. Does your wife study at Trinity College?”
Slowly, Paul nodded.
“I think Killiney had something like a past-life memory in reverse,” she said, watching the frown set into his features. “He was in love with her, Paul. And I think he found a way to get to her, drinking the stuff that was in that vial.”
Telling him about the diary and the potion, Ravenna recounted how they wouldn’t have gone to the ruins at all had it not been for Elizabeth’s lie, her last attempt to lure Killiney from his golden-haired temptress at Swallowhill.
“And that’s my wife? This guy fancies himself desirable to my wife?”
“She’s not cheating on you,” she assured him. “Or at least if she is, she doesn’t mean to.”
“Oh, I know she’s not cheating on me.” Although his words were laced with amusement, Ravenna saw nothing but pain in his eyes when he lifted the glass again to his lips, tossed back what was left of the stout. “Not with Killiney, anyway,” he muttered.
* * *
This oppressive mood of his did improve somewhat when they ate the crumpets and drank the tea. Ravenna gave him time to stare at the fire, to brood over his awful situation a little longer and come to terms with it before she put to him the request she knew he wouldn’t like.
“I think it would be safer if we slept together,” she said. “Just in the same room, just for tonight, because what if I’m wrong? What if David has put us here? What if he’s planning to dress up as Christian and attack me in the middle of the night or something?”
With a grumble, Paul had to agree. So up the passageway and through the darkness they went in search of Killiney’s quarters. She knew, as David had told her, that the viscount had stayed in the Prince’s suite, and now she led Paul as quiet as a mouse to the great hall and on through the next chamber where, stiffening beside her, he tried and failed to pull her back.
Someone was snoring on a pallet in the corner.
After coaxing him past the room’s sleeping occupant, Ravenna explained that this was probably Killiney’s valet, close enough to do his master’s every bidding. With this matter cleared up, she left Paul with the bundle of clothes while she went to find Sarah; he tried to protest, but he was alone too soon.
The maid was waiting outside in the corridor, as if upon some secret signal. Indeed, Ravenna didn’t have to explain anything to the girl as they walked upstairs to what was obviously Elizabeth’s room. “I’ll fetch you from Killiney in the mornin’,” Sarah said. “Just as soon as Lord Broughton steps out, I will.”
Hearing this, Ravenna had the presence of mind to ask for the diary. After all, what other person might the maid mention whose name she needed to recognize?
While Sarah searched for the book in a wardrobe-looking cabinet, Ravenna spied a mirror on the nearby dressing table. Remembering the way Paul had stared at his reflection, it occurred to her then that perhaps she, too, looked different somehow. Was she in someone else’s body? There seemed only one way to find out, so bracing herself, holding up the candle, she stole a peek.
She had absolutely no make-up on her face. Other than that, she looked exactly the same.
Where Paul was concerned, she didn’t know if this were a good thing or not, but back downstairs she went nonetheless, through the great hall, the manservant’s room and into Killiney’s princely chambers where she found Paul sitting on a damask sofa at the foot of what was unquestionably the biggest, most elaborate bed she’d ever seen.
Set against the wall, its canopy must have been fifteen feet high. Its dome was ornamented with ostrich feathers and carved, gilded wood, and the damask curtains hanging from its roof were made to be pulled all the way around the mattress, protecting against drafts and prying eyes.
“This must be worth a cool million,” Paul said.
“It was slept in by George III, I think,” she said, remembering the hotel brochure.
Paul made a face. “Are you sure we should sleep on it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I can’t afford to replace it, that’s why. Do you think I’d take the commuter train if I’d the money for a car? It’s all tied up in Swallowhill, keeping it from falling down around me ears, and…”
Listening to him talk about his troubles back home, she set the diary down and gazed around the candlelit room. Ancient tapestries lined the walls. Gilded cornices framed heavily curtained windows. As Paul rattled on about plumbing and wiring, she stared up at the painted ceiling, tugged at the waist of her dress without thinking. High in the corners, women draped in classical robes sat surrounded by angels and well-bred dogs, and as she admired them, her attention wandered from Paul’s words; her hands drifted to the back of her gown, reaching for the hooks that bound her so tightly.
It was then she realized just how truly uncomfortable she was in the dress. With all the excitement and running around, she hadn’t had time to notice before.
“—Three times a year, and the bills an’ that are—”
Barely hearing him, struggling to get the hooks in her grasp, she tried to unfasten at least one. She adjusted the dress this way and that, all the while the realization gaining strength in her thoughts: She’d have to sleep in this gown. Either that or the nightgown, as damp as it was.
She glanced at the heap of clothes beside Paul, embarrassed even by the thought of that nightgown. Better to sleep in the dress and be uncomfortable than draw attention to that thing, she told herself, and suddenly it occurred to her how she no longer heard Paul’s disgruntled voice.
There was a sulk to his mouth when she dared to look.
“Em, I thought we had a deal, here?” he asked her softly.
“What? I’m just trying to loosen it a little, that’s all,” she said, twisting her arms behind her back.
“You’re not taking that dress off?”
“No. Did you want me to?”
“No,” he shot back. “I don’t, actually. If I’m t’suffer, then I think you should suffer as well.”
“But you’re not crammed into a size-three waistline.”
Paul’s eyes lowered to Ravenna’s stomach, as if to judge the truth for himself; with the smallest flicker of interest to his brow, he looked her over, said, “All right then, can’t the girl bring you something?” Uncomfortable, that’s how he sounded. He shifted on the sofa when he made the suggestion, and his gaze wandered off in avoiding Ravenna’s.
She tried explaining it to him. “We’re supposed to be lovers. If I ask for a nightgown, Sarah is going to get suspicious, don’t you think?”
“You might be cold.”
“I’m just loosening it, OK? You won’t be in any danger if I open the back…if I can open it, which it seems I can’t.”
With his expression a mix of annoyance and fascination, he watched as she struggled with the hooks. It was at least a minute before he spoke again. “So you’re sleeping in that?”
“If you’re so worried about it, then why don’t you help me?” Turning her back on him, she heard the rustle of silk in the silence as she stood there and waited, holding out the seams.
Slowly, Paul got to his feet.
She imagined his thoughts as his hands slipped over hers and carefully took up the hook and eye fastenings—Ravenna had planned this, hired the kidnappers, the English actors and rented the hotel. She’d gone to such trouble and all for the sake of getting him to undress her. As if I, of all people, could seduce him.
Yet as he went to work on the stubborn hooks, ripping open one after another, she felt his movements slow. His knuckles lightly grazed her skin; he lifted his fingers to the closure at her neck and unfastened the first hook, then the second, until the fabric lay open all across her back and down to the lowest clasp at her waist.
Ravenna held her breath. She expected him to walk away, to throw himself down on the couch in disgust at the sight of her skin…but he didn’t. For the longest moment he hesitated. When finally he touched the small of her back and reached for the hook that held her skirts together, Ravenna shivered, tried to keep still. His hair brushed her shoulder. She felt him lean closer, fingering that clasp, as if contemplating the terrible sin he was about to commit against his wife.
“Is that guy still in the next room?” he asked.
“I’m not…he might be. I don’t know.” Burning up with the feel of his touch, Ravenna waited, wondering, hoping.
But just as abruptly as he’d begun, his hands slipped away; he stepped out from behind her, and glancing at her self-consciously, he gestured toward the door. “He might bring me a new shirt for tomorrow? You could sleep in that?”
She was shaking. Could he see it? Did he know?
“No,” she said, pulling her wits together. “No, I think we should leave him alone and stay put.” She felt Paul’s eyes skim over her again. The firelight within them shone sharp and bewildering, and seeing him glance at her neckline with dread, she realized the dress had slipped. The edge of it clung to her shoulder precariously, poised to fall with her slightest movement.
Crossing her arms, she looked away. Paul did too, gazing down at the sofa and the bundle of clothes. “Well, you can’t sleep in that,” he muttered, and she felt a jolt of anxiety when he reached down and tossed aside what appeared to be a sock. “Here, there must be something you can wear—”
He took up a lacy hem, began to pull. Ravenna was already fidgeting madly. The length of cotton came untangled from the rest, and when he lifted it, suggested that she put it on, she couldn’t help it; she grabbed for the nightgown. “Please, just let me wear the dress, all right?” Tugging at the cotton, fighting his hands, she tried to keep a normal voice when she said to him, “Trust me, there isn’t anything here, I’ve—”
Instantly, Paul froze with her struggle. Regarding her curiously, a glimmer of affection flashed in his gaze. “You know I have seen women’s panties before,” he said, arching his brow.
“Well no one’s ever seen mine,” she grumbled. Shame burned in Ravenna’s chest, for surely he felt where the cotton was soaked through, felt the dampness remaining from…from when they’d…
Dread gnawed at her insides as he looked down at the gown between them. His fingers moved in the cotton folds. His eyes narrowed, and with his lips tightened in a sober expression, he nodded to himself.
I’ll die, she thought.
Still, without a word, he gingerly set it back down on the sofa. He reached for the lapels of the coat he had on, began to slip out of it, and Ravenna wasted no time in scooping up the unguarded nightgown. “What are you doing?” she asked, watching him toss the jacket to the floor.
He started to tug his shirt from his trousers. “I’m givin’ you something to wear,” he said.
When he pulled the shirt over his head, again she was swept up in weakness when she saw his skin and the pattern of silky hair on his chest. How soft that tawny hair had been, on his legs and arms, on everything between.
Wrenching himself from billowing sleeves, Paul paused to turn the shirt right-side-in before handing it to her. “I’d no idea,” he said, his gaze locked onto hers with warmth. “It’s no big deal, you know you’ve no reason to feel scared about it. Someday you’ll get married and then you’ll understand about these things.”
“About what things?” she asked.
But his eyes knew, she could see it in the lingering glint of gentleness and the way he calmly shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said. Turning from her, he pulled the curtains from behind the sofa. He kicked off his boots with a clumsy lean against the bedpost, a balancing act that made the muscles in his back move in appealing ways. When he climbed onto the bed, began tugging the rest of the curtains out, too, Ravenna only stood there. She watched with his still-warm shirt in her fingers, trembling, exhilarated, until finally he called her from behind the curtains. “Get undressed, then. I’m not lookin’.”

Chapter Eight

’Course I’m not lookin’, Paul thought, listening to the rustle of that dress slipping off. I’ve seen too much already, haven’t I?
From where he lay behind the curtains, arms crossed behind his head, he could imagine the way she looked. All that straight, tangled hair would be strewn around her. Paul’s shirt, wrapping her up with swimming sleeves, would just about reach her knees, and from there he remembered her strong, slim legs. In the field, by the moonlight, he’d gotten more than a passing glimpse.
Shaggin’ wish I hadn’t, he thought.
Because when Ravenna climbed onto the mattress, he felt things—things he hadn’t known still survived inside him, not after all this time. The bed rocked familiarly. She burrowed into the blankets, and the feel of her snuggling, the sound of her breath so soft in the dark, these were temptations that tugged at him now with more force than he had ever expected. If only you’d let her sleep in the dress and not dared to touch her…for that’s when it’d come over him, hadn’t it? He’d touched her. He’d unhooked the thing. He’d not been able to control himself or the thoughts that’d plagued him ever since, and what would he do when he fell asleep? Did he dare trust himself?
Thinking he shouldn’t, Paul lay still. For hours he listened to the rhythm of her breath until, certain she slept, he got out of bed. The fire had gone out by then. The room was ice cold. The air was so jarring that when he began stumbling about, tripping over rugs and chairs, he couldn’t keep from swearing out loud.
A fire, he thought. What I need is some bleedin’ heat. Groping near the hearth, he tried to find something to throw on the coals; peat, kindling, even a candle to light with the dying embers would be better than nothing. At least with a candle, he’d find the coal box, and if he could just get the room warm enough, he might bundle up in his coat, maybe even sleep on the sofa with the panties scattered over him for extra insulation.
So why didn’t you sleep there t’begin with? Paul cursed his own stupidity for climbing into bed with this waif of a girl even as he felt around the mantel for matches. What had he been thinking? I suppose about what happened in the field, yeah?
And as if on cue, that moment replayed itself in his mind: His waking up, stunned and confused and sunk between her thighs, her lovely breasts a cradle of warmth, her fingers messing through his hair, and Lord, how he’d reacted. He’d actually felt himself harden, and this after two years of studied celibacy? With nothing save his wedding vows and guilt to divide them, what if she’d pulled him down and kissed him in that field? If she’d wrapped her legs around him tight, if she’d asked him, encouraged him…what would you have done then, Paul Henley?
He didn’t want to think about that. Instead, he went on searching for candlesticks, feverishly now, until fumbling near the bed and over various pieces of furniture, at last he found the panties. Candles, coal box, even the coat which he vaguely remembered tossing on the floor, the really important things he couldn’t find to save his life—not unless he wanted to wake Ravenna in the process.
He glanced back toward where she lay sleeping. If I get back in that bed, God knows what I’ll do.
Yet without a fire, what else was there? To freeze because he didn’t have the self-control to resist this girl seemed completely absurd. Of course he could restrain himself. Ravenna was beautiful, yes, but it was dark. She was sleeping. She couldn’t beg him with those ink-black eyes, and with her being a virgin, how difficult could it be even when she woke? Just think about the wife if you’re gonna get ideas an’ that, tryin’ it on with Buddhist urchins.
So with visions of Fiona firmly in mind, he found the bed. He climbed into it as stealthily as he could, causing Ravenna to stir, but only slightly. Good, Paul thought. Feeling her warmth through the sheets was nothing but a distraction anyway. He should be thinking about getting himself home. How the freckles on his face had rearranged themselves, where the scar under his chin had gone, these things he left to God, but he had to get back to Fiona, didn’t he? He missed her. He needed her, and with each moment he spent in this lunatic fantasy of a dismal, horrible, temptation-laden place—
Suddenly, Ravenna moved.
Curling toward him in the icy dark, sighing a little, she didn’t awaken, but when she slipped her leg up next to his, Paul’s heart quickened; other parts of him made themselves adamantly known.
That he hadn’t dared get between the sheets with her, been so obstinate about keeping to his side of the bed and discouraged any whispering before they’d slept, all these precautions had been wise, he now saw. With nothing so much as a careless leg tossed in his direction, she’d stirred him to imagining uncomfortable things—waking her, talking to her, flirting with her until he heard that uncertain tremor to her voice, or whispering in her ear the way he’d never dreamed of whispering to his wife, erotically, playfully, maybe while running his mouth over the curves of her luscious little hip, dipping his tongue into the hollows behind her knees…
Don’t, he told himself. Yet he couldn’t help it. Maybe it was because Fiona had pushed him so hard, but he found himself drifting dangerously, inching toward Ravenna with nothing but his own good senses to stop him.
Where she slept so soundly beside him, she didn’t move when he sat up a little. He lowered his face down close to hers, wanting to feel her shallow breaths, taste them in his mouth, and as he measured the distance between their lips with each gentle sigh of sleep she uttered, he felt the heat spread through his groin, familiar as ever he remembered it. I haven’t kissed anyone in years, have I? And now here she was, inciting him, arousing him, and all without even opening her eyes.
Fiona, damn it, Fiona, and he groaned, hoping her name would bring him around. It didn’t. He was lost, for already he was slipping his fingers into Ravenna’s, right under her chin, and he imagined tipping her face just enough to press her lips with the lightest kiss.
But in the dark, he did nothing. He lay still beside her, for in a rush of understanding, he realized what was happening in this godforsaken place. However he’d gotten in bed with this girl, whoever had arranged it, only Fiona would reap the rewards because, after all, the wife was getting what she’d wanted, wasn’t she? Now Fiona will never take you seriously if you start kissing pretty girls, yeah? Then all your pining will be fer nothin’.
And ushering in the expected pain, even welcoming it, he thought about the wife, that last glimpse of her climbing into the boyfriend’s car. How long would it take for Fiona to miss him? Two days? A week? Or have I really been replaced by that fellah Killiney?
Cursing himself, Paul pulled his fingers out of Ravenna’s. He resisted her unwitting snuggling with all the strength he could muster even as his member ached between his legs and his hands clenched into fists, fighting to keep themselves from straying right back to her heart-shaped face.
Sleep, he told himself. Go to sleep and maybe you’ll dream yourself out of this mess.

Chapter Nine

It was just getting light when Ravenna awoke.
Paul, she thought, for even though he’d slept between the uppermost blankets, he lay so close she could feel the heat of his body against hers. He still wore his trousers and even his socks, but despite all his care and the barrier between them, his face was only inches from hers.
Such an innocent face. His hair was messed across his brow. Tiny wrinkles edged the corners of his eyes. His freckles seemed darker and more numerous somehow beneath the whiskers now shadowing his jaw, and she wondered, what would he shave with? A straight razor? A knife?
Then she noticed his fingers, that his wedding band had disappeared. Better not mention it, she thought, nor that his turquoise ring was gone. In its place, on his little finger, was something similar—a malachite stone set with gold rather than silver. Admiring it, she touched the ring, his masculine hand where it lay on the pillow; he didn’t wake up, not even when she curled her fingers in his. Amazed at how hard he slept, she couldn’t resist smoothing his hair, touching the curious blond of his brow. There’s a chance now, she thought, a real chance to win you if we have to stay here, if we can’t get back.
It wasn’t long until she was jolted from her reverie. She heard movement upstairs. Someone was walking in the corridor, coming down the main staircase, and it wasn’t a woman’s walk at all, surely not Sarah’s. With the sound of muffled voices drawing nearer, Ravenna began to get nervous, even more so when someone threw open the great hall’s doors with a clatter and crossed the room with heavy boots.
Paul slept through the whole thing.
Not knowing what else to do, she shook him, tried to wake him up. All messed and ruffled and thoroughly confused, he lifted his head, half-opened his eyes.
“Someone’s coming,” she whispered, “and if he has black hair, he’s my brother James, OK? Act like Killiney…like a jerk or something.”
She jumped off the bed, slid under it as fast as she could. She pulled the bulk of the dress in behind her. When she saw those boots come through the door, she held her breath, tried not to move lest the rustle of silk give her away.
“You’re just waking up?” she heard a voice ask. The boots approached the bed, and she heard the sounds of Paul stirring among the sheets, felt the mattress move above her head. “You’ve forgotten our appointment,” the voice observed flatly.
She heard Paul say, “Oh, is that today?” with an uncertainty she prayed James wouldn’t question.
“Yes, today,” the voice replied. “Where’s your mind, anyway? As if I couldn’t guess. Mr. O’Brien! Come dress this man and be quick about it, please.”
She saw the boots stride out the door, saw Paul’s feet swung over the side of the bed as a pair of red shoes shuffled into the room. The instant James was gone, this servant, obviously O’Brien, began to apologize in the heaviest brogue for letting James in without warning his master.
His master wasn’t listening. “He’s gone,” Paul said, his voice husky from sleep as he peered under the bed.
Clutching the neckline of the shirt she’d been given and hoping its length covered everything else, Ravenna cowered beneath the mattress. “I know.”
“This guy here, he’s an Irishman.” He gestured toward the red-slippered feet. “He’s on our side.”
She nodded impatiently. She fingered the bundled-up dress beside her, tried to figure out how to get into it without coming out from under the bed. “Could you…,” and she looked toward those crimson shoes, hoping Paul would get the idea.
Thankfully he did. He straightened, asked the servant for a moment alone. “All right now,” he said, walking toward the window, “you can come out if you’ve a mind to. I’m looking at seagulls.”
Slipping out from under the bed, she only glanced at Paul long enough to assure herself he wasn’t cheating. She stepped into the dress, and as soon as she’d covered herself enough to feel comfortable, she muttered her consent for him to turn around. When he did, when she saw his outstretched arms and the flash of silver in the window’s light, she gasped in surprise.
Paul held a sword in both rugged hands.
David’s sword, she recognized it at once with a flush of foreboding. Heavy and double-edged, it shone with the color of the overcast sky just as it had when David had held it. The guard over the weapon’s hilt curled back in the same tremendous scroll. Its four-foot length seemed massive and cumbersome, and yet in Paul’s grasp it somehow looked right; as if her mind registered more than she saw.
She realized then she’d been mumbling to herself, transfixed by the blade, because Paul was staring at her. “David was right,” she said.
“He’s yer man the marquess? Right about what?”
“That this sword killed Christian, or will when he eventually fights his duel. David said it belonged to Killiney and it does.”
A strange expression came over Paul’s face. Even before she’d finished her sentence, she saw him lower the sword; emotion surged in his narrowed eyes, pain, apprehension, and before she could question this startling reaction, suddenly he turned. “So what should I do?” he asked, laying the weapon next to its scabbard, next to the clothes the servant had put there.
Picking up the frock coat, she urged him to put it on. “Go with James,” she told him softly. His movements were sluggish when he slipped on the coat, so she helped him, said, “Come on, he’s waiting and I wouldn’t keep him if I were you.”
Indeed, when she turned to the window, she saw Killiney’s stallion and another horse saddled and standing just inside the stable door. A servant was holding them, keeping their tack from the inclement weather. When the man lifted his eyes toward the house as if to greet someone, Ravenna jumped back.
James was out there.
Instantly, she forgot Paul’s sword. James was an impressive sight. Even if he’d not worn a two-cornered hat, he still would have towered over the servant beside him. Added to this was his intimidating appearance: James’s clothes were black. His boots were black. His hair was shiny and, just as Ravenna’s visions had shown her, gathered in a jet-black, businesslike queue. His skin was deeply tanned by the sun—a strange complexion for an English aristocrat—and he appeared so exotic in the light of the storm, so severe and concise, that Ravenna felt a jolt of fear when he turned and looked toward Killiney’s window.
She trembled behind the curtain. Knowing of their affair as James clearly did, he might have been hoping to catch her there, to charge her with wantonness. The last thing she wanted was to be questioned by an enormous disapproving brother.
By then Paul had finished dressing, was struggling with the linen draped at his neck. “What is this thing, anyway?” he asked, and it was all Ravenna could do to keep from reaching for his hands and taking up the linen herself.
“I think it’s called a cravat,” she said. “Tomorrow you can have your valet dress you, and then you won’t need to know what it’s called.”
“Why isn’t he doing it now?” Paul sniffed, nodded toward the door with a frown. “He’d probably be faster, and that fellah—James is it? I’ll be up to my oxters in trouble if he’s not the patient type.”
She couldn’t stand it then. She took up the cravat from him, began tucking the ends into his waistcoat. “You’re afraid of James? After fighting those hoodlums on the train by yourself?”
“Seven feet tall, shoulders a yard wide…He could snuff me just by lookin’ at me. And I’ve no doubt he will.”
“James wouldn’t fight, he’d use his sword.”
“And that’s supposed to comfort me, is it?”
Straightening his coat, she noticed its skirts were cut at the sides, probably to accommodate that ominous weapon. She glanced back at where it lay on the bed, remembering David’s description of the heavy fog in front of the house, of Christian dying in the dawn’s gray light. Following her gaze, Paul shook his head. “I’ll skewer myself if I pack that thing around.”
“Well, you’re going to have to get used to it,” she said, reaching for the scabbard. “You’re right handed, aren’t you? Then it goes on the left.” She offered him the belt, watched as he fumbled with putting it on. When he’d finished, had reluctantly resheathed the sword, she dared to slip her hands beneath his waistcoat and tug the whole affair a little more to one side.
Stepping back to look at him, she appraised her work. “All right,” she said, “are you missing anything or can you keep your appointment?”
“Hat,” Paul muttered. “It’s pouring outside.”
“And a coat, I think.” Going to the door, she called the servant and asked him to bring whatever was suitable. Paul fidgeted as they waited, ever glancing at the window, until at last O’Brien carried in a wide-brimmed hat and a woolen coat.
Paul didn’t put them on right away. Instead, rather sullenly, he lowered his eyes, turned the hat over with hesitant hands. “We’re never gonna get out of here, are we?”
There was that expression again, that aching in his eyes as if he’d have Ravenna know it, Fiona and Fiona, always Fiona. “If I could send you back, I would,” she said, watching his gaze deepen and stir. “Just try not to think about it for now, OK?”
“You really would, wouldn’t you? You’d send me back to her?”
“Of course I would,” she told him tenderly. “Now come on, James is waiting in the stable.”
* * *
He was led out by the valet, O’Brien, the two of them exchanging Irishisms as they went. Ravenna watched discreetly from behind the curtain, and when the pair approached James, when Paul flashed a clumsy smile, Ravenna fairly cringed in expectation of what might happen, should James decide to lose his temper.
As it turned out, nothing happened. Paul climbed into the stallion’s saddle, and he must have taken riding lessons at some point in his city life because he had no trouble keeping up with James as they galloped across the lawn and disappeared into the woods toward Dartmouth.
When Sarah came to fetch her a few moments later, Ravenna couldn’t help asking her questions. “So where did Lord Broughton take Killiney this morning? They had an appointment?”
Sarah glanced at her mischievously. “You miss m’lord already, don’t you?” Shaking her head, the maid led Ravenna to the bedroom, saying, “They only went to town, m’lady. Somethin’ about muskets an’ a merchant ship.”
“They won’t be gone for more than a day?”
Sarah’s eyes were bright with amusement. “M’Lord Broughton specifically asked for tart with his supper, an’ if I’m parin’ apples for the carters an’ wheelwrights an’ not for m’lord…If he doesn’t come home, m’lady, he’s got another thing comin’.”
With Sarah’s manner so informal, so completely unservantlike as she set to laying out her mistress’s clothes, Ravenna didn’t dare ask another question; what sort of mess might she get herself into? If she didn’t recognize a footman’s name or an eighteenth-century turn of phrase—if she couldn’t even dress herself properly in those skirts Sarah piled high on the bed—what would Sarah do? Tell Lord Broughton that not only Killiney, but Elizabeth, too, was now suddenly loopy?
She restricted her answers to nods when Sarah began to ask insinuating questions.
“So,” she said, and she gestured for Ravenna to slip out of her dress, “since I’m not gettin’ a proper report outta you, m’lady, I trust you slept well?” The maid winked knowingly. “Was Killiney’s bed firm enough? His mattress a nice, big comfortable size, I’ll wager?” There was a grin in Sarah’s cheeks, an undeniable familiarity to her words, and she had to be Elizabeth’s friend with such a tone, didn’t she? Servants didn’t talk to their employers like that.
But the maid wasn’t through. Helping Ravenna to put on the new dress, Sarah said something so offhanded that it almost didn’t register in Ravenna’s mind. “But he’ll still set sail in two months, won’t he? Just like m’lord, thinkin’ he’s a sailor.”
Hearing this, her heart went still. She’s talking about Vancouver’s voyage—the voyage that took Killiney’s life.
She hadn’t thought of this, not yet. Her fantasies, her romantic delusions seemed criminal now, knowing as she did how Killiney had perished. Shot dead by Indians. His body never recovered. Paul couldn’t possibly go with James, and in what? Two months, Sarah said? If he did, he’d die in Killiney’s place, and how would Ravenna prepare him to avoid that?
* * *
They came home just after dark, after dinner. When Ravenna went to the window she saw their silhouettes in the stable door—the horses, James’s two-cornered hat, and Paul’s stocky figure sliding off the stallion.
She watched as they disappeared inside the stable; she waited fifteen whole minutes before deciding they weren’t coming out. Remembering James’s curtness with Paul, she found herself worrying that something might have happened between them, that James had learned Paul’s true identity and accused him of lying, attacked him, now cornered him in a horse’s stall…so she went down to see what had really gone on.
She was a little anxious when she ran into James in the stable corridor.
By the lantern’s light, he seemed gentle enough. He stood with a long, thin bundle under his arm, probably the guns Sarah had spoken of, and with a slip of paper in his large, brown hand, he didn’t insult Ravenna or shout at her the way she’d feared. He merely gave her a casual glance, then went on reading.
“If it’s Killiney you want, he’s in with his pet. Tell him there’s business yet to be discussed before the night is out.”
He didn’t even look at her when he said these things. His attention remained fixed on the missive in his hand, so Ravenna skirted him and followed the sound of buckles rattling further down the passage.
Paul stopped what he was doing when Ravenna came in. “Am I glad t’see you,” he said, but it wasn’t relief that flushed his pale features; it was excitement, astonishment. “I’m tellin’ you, you’re never, ever gonna believe the things going on out there.”
“Really?” she asked.
“The whole world’s like this huge motion picture set, and I keep waitin’ t’catch somebody out of character, but everyone’s goin’ about their business, y’know, walkin’ along, lugging their carts, herding their cattle through the streets—”
“Can we go in the house?” When Paul looked at her quizzically, she lifted her hand high in the air to indicate James’s immense stature; she pointed back the way she’d come, made a gruff face, and Paul understood immediately. James might have been just around that corner, reading in silence, and what would happen if they attracted his attention?
Ravenna wasn’t about to find out. As the stable was arranged around a central courtyard, she led Paul out by a different route, avoided James’s presence entirely and hurried toward the house. When they got to her chambers, she took no chances. She turned the key in the bedroom door, locked them in as Paul made a beeline for hearth and warmth.
With prodding he gave up his coat and hat, both soaked from the storm, and Ravenna tossed them over a chair while Paul moved the fire screen aside from the mantel.
“So where did you go today?” she asked, knowing the answer, yet craving the enthusiasm she’d heard in his voice. “Did you go to Dartmouth?”
“Listen, you’re never gonna believe me, so I’m just gonna tell you: We went sailin’.”
“On a merchant ship?”
“It was a big galleon-looking thing like the Golden Hinde or Nelson’s Victory, like yer man Vancouver’s ship, I’ll bet, and the captain of it? He actually let James steer the thing! I’m telling you, it was like Disneyland come t’life. Like Captain Hook’s ship or ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’ or whatever. The America’s Cup, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been on motor boats before, but you can’t imagine how cool this was.”
“And they let James man the helm?”
“Y’know, even the fellahs were impressed with yer man? We had our supper in a pub, and these laborers, these big, surly, docker-type fellahs, they came in and walked right up to James, and I thought, this is it, this is the end of it. But y’know he gets on with these guys?”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “From what the maid’s told me, James likes working-class people. He takes care of his tenants and feeds the poor, just like you do.”
“Yeah, but the poor people I’m used t’dealing with aren’t likely to cut your throat.”
With a grin, he turned back to the fire, holding up his hands to the flames, and in the absence of that continuous chatter, she found herself thinking again of the problem they would eventually have to discuss—the voyage, his death at the hands of Indians. She didn’t know what to expect, how he would take this alarming news. She had no idea how to even bring up the subject, so she decided to approach the matter cautiously at first. “While you were gone today,” she said, watching him rub his palms together, “I spoke with Sarah, the maid from last night. I think it might help if we told her about us.”
Paul’s hands stopped moving. Whatever enthusiasm he’d so briefly enjoyed was now lost completely as he lifted his eyes. I’ve said the wrong thing, she realized. Us was not a term he’d approve of.
“Makes it sound like we’re engaged or something.”
“Well, we have to have some help, Paul. There’s too much you need to learn.”
His expression grew more serious still. “Such as?”
She hesitated. That look of caution building in his brow was not what she’d intended at all. “Marksmanship, for one,” she said. “Things like fencing, maybe even diplomacy with non-English-speaking people. I know Sarah’s only a girl, that she can’t teach you any of those things, but she might help us find someone who can.”
Paul stared at her gravely. “This is a joke? We’re in England, everyone here speaks English.”
“They don’t where you’ll be going soon.”
“And where am I going?”
She gathered her courage and fought back the urge to touch him, to soften the severity of her words. “You’re going to the Pacific Northwest,” she said. “In two months, you’ll be sailing with Vancouver on board Discovery. I don’t think you can get out of it, Paul. You’d have to go back to Ireland alone, because James would never let me go there with you.”
Paul’s mouth dipped in an even deeper frown.
“You will have James to help you,” she said. “He knows all those things, guns and swords, and he learned about native peoples from Vancouver. He’ll protect you, you’ll be fine.”
“I’m supposed to die, yeah?”
Paul had heard nothing of her assurances.
Knowing the way he preferred the truth, she nodded then, confirmed his fears. He dropped that listless gaze altogether. Bowing his head, for a moment he stared at the arm of her chair. When finally he looked up, he tried to appear unruffled by the news, but still Ravenna felt his misery.
“So I’m the last Killiney,” he said.
“But you’re not Killiney. History won’t be the same now that you’re here. It doesn’t have to end that way.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “no, it does. You don’t understand.” He stood up, and turning toward the mantel, he leaned against it with a heavy sigh. For the longest time he didn’t speak, merely traced the designs etched in the marble. She’d expected him to be a little frightened by the prospect of history predicting his death, but she hadn’t foreseen a reaction like this.
She was about to stand up, to touch him regardless, but his voice came low. “I’m dreaming,” he said. “I’ve got to be. That has t’be what it is, y’know?” The fire crackled. His hair fell in his eyes and he didn’t bother to brush it away, only followed the curve of the rococo pattern until it drove Ravenna mad with waiting.
She leaned closer, forward in her seat. “Maybe I can go with you,” she whispered. “History says I’m supposed to go, and if you want to get back to your wife in the future, it’s the only way to get more of the potion.”
Hunched over the mantle, still not looking at her, he made a little sound like a grunt. “You’re saying I have to die t’get home?”
“You won’t die,” and she couldn’t help it, she reached for his hand. Cold and unresponsive in hers, he didn’t move as she tried to reassure him. “It’ll be OK. I don’t know how you’ll protect yourself, but you will, you’ll be fine, and we’ll have at least an entire year to figure this whole thing out between us.”
“Sounds like challenging God to me.”
“Think of it as taking control of your destiny. You want to get back to the woman, don’t you?”
With a gentle tug, he took his fingers out of hers. Slowly, he ran a hand through his hair, scratched at the back of his neck with a wince. “Her name’s Fiona, and how do you even know it’ll work a second time?”
“It’s the only shot we have, isn’t it?”
“So we’re going t’risk my life on the basis of that?”
“If you don’t go, then you’ll let James down. He’ll be angry with you. He’ll keep us apart. I’d have to send you the potion by messenger when James brings it back at the end of the voyage. Do you think you’d be all right by yourself, living in Dublin for four and a half years?”
With the look on his face then, she might have said he’d never see his wife again. Paul’s eyes melted into total despondency, hopeless emotion overwhelming any efforts he made to seem calm. Four and a half years! Without his wife, stuck there with Ravenna and every day another sin against his marriage, every moment another chance for Fiona to find love…how could he bear it? Killiney was with her, he knew that, couldn’t stand that, Ravenna saw it in the way his fingers unconsciously fidgeted with the emptiness of where his wedding band had been.
He stood there for what seemed like forever, eyes lowered, head down, and she just knew he had to be praying. Whatever bleak thoughts he entertained, he kept them to himself, didn’t say a word, until finally he turned and shuffled toward the door.
“You don’t have to leave,” she said, trying to take his arm as he passed.
He skirted her reach. “That guy’ll kill me if I don’t,” he grumbled, “never mind the voyage. He’s downstairs waiting, isn’t that what you told me?”
“James won’t hurt you. He’s your best friend.”
But even though Paul stood across the room, she still saw the grief in his eyes. “He’d have to go a long way before he’d be anything like Aidan O’Sullivan,” he said, and opening the door, he turned his back and left her there.

Chapter Ten

Four and a half years without Fiona! Paul trudged down the stairs, in shock at what was happening around him. Wasn’t it bad enough he found himself trapped in this place, but now he had to die here, as well? Not in Belfast, not on my drawing room sofa at home with the nurses an’ that sticking needles in my arm, but on a river somewhere in America, no less? And Fiona would never know, that was the worst part. He’d not be mourned, missed, nor even buried if what Ravenna had said were true. All Fiona would ever see was a husband who’d become much more adamant about sexual favors on the drawing room floor.
And all while I’m risking my life, he thought grimly. In the darkness, feeling for the bottommost step before he turned into the passageway, he indulged that mantle of fear settling over him, those demons he’d kept for fifteen years. He’d have to go on this voyage, wouldn’t he? He was being coerced, set up in a big way. God knew he couldn’t live four years without Fiona. That he’d never reach her, that Belfast was catching up with him and God wouldn’t mess about this time around, these things meant little. Paul had to go and God knew it. That was the joke.
OK, he thought. All right. So I’m the guy in the gilt-framed painting on the wall at home, the one who snuffs it on the river bank. I don’t like it, mind you, but I suppose if you’ll promise it’s me who gets killed and nobody else, then I’ve no choice, do I?
He knew he didn’t, and still he was grumbling, four and a half years…
Making his way toward the light he saw at the furthest door, he tried to think rationally about his predicament. What were his options? If he had to be shot, how best to meet his fate? How to get back home to Fiona, that was the real issue, and if he meant to reach that river bank at all, not to mention the potion, he’d have to make certain the ship got there safely. James and this Captain Vancouver had better know what they’re doin’, yeah?
And wondering if they did, Paul stepped into the candlelit room. Music room, he thought to himself, for James sat with his boots propped up on an antique piano. When the guy saw Paul, instead of giving out about Killiney’s strange behavior, instead of insulting him, James merely smiled; he put his feet down in a swift, sudden movement, though he didn’t bother to sit up from his slouch. “My friend,” James said.
That was all he said.
Paul was suspicious, because he knew what sort of grin James sported, and he didn’t like it—it made Paul nervous. Yet no matter how obvious and knowing James’s expression, however apparent that he knew about his sister’s and this fellah Killiney’s love affair, still James said nothing. He pointed to the stack of papers on the piano. “Shall we?”
When Paul approached, he saw they were charts. On the ship that day, he’d watched James studying them, and in witnessing the guy’s ignorance about the simplest facts such as whether there was a waterway through America or not, Paul had forced himself to bite his tongue. Of course there wasn’t a waterway…unless you counted the Panama Canal.
Now, as the man gestured toward the charts, Paul got an idea. “You’re wanting to discuss the voyage, I’m guessin’?”
“Is there something you’d rather we talked about?” James regarded him with blatant amusement. “Because I am open to a change of subject. Women, perhaps.”
“No,” Paul said, picking up a chart, “no, let’s talk about the voyage. Let’s talk about…Somalia, maybe the coast of Kenya, I’m not sure which. I think it should be said I know more about these places than I’ve let on in the past. Maybe I ought t’be telling you? Would that help Vancouver get us where we’re goin’?”
James frowned a little. “What have you been reading?”
“I’ve not been reading, I’ve been there,” he said. “I can see you won’t believe me. You’ve been slaggin’ me all day about bein’ daft and losing m’mind or whatever, so I’m just gonna tell you: I’ve been to Africa. Now if Vancouver’s going anywhere near the place, it’s best if you ask me what I know.”
James’s brows quirked in amazement.
“Well?” Paul demanded.
“Africa is not the problem.”
“What is, then?” Setting the chart back down, Paul picked up another from the top of the stack. “No, I don’t recognize this one. Where’s this? West Africa?”
Handing the paper over to James, Paul saw the man peruse the sketch with only half of his intimidating attention; the other half he kept firmly on Paul. “San Diego,” James said at last.
“California? That’s the problem?” Paul stepped closer, peered over his shoulder. “Because I’ve been there as well. Not for a few years now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I knew something a bit helpful, even if it’s not directly related to sailing as such—”
And throwing himself into pointing out whatever he could about the California coast, soon Paul found himself completely consumed in geographical issues. Gone was that nagging voice in his head, the one that spoke only of the girl upstairs who so obviously, generously cared for him. Four and half years without Fiona. How would he resist her? How could he ignore Ravenna’s sensitivity for his feelings, the artless way her eyes revealed everything and how she couldn’t keep her hands off him, no matter how hard he pushed her away?
But in James’s company, he forgot these things. He lost himself in nautical charts, and so the hours passed.

Chapter Eleven

Paul was gone for so many hours that Ravenna began to get curious about it. What were they discussing that it took all night? The clock adorning her mantel said it was getting close to midnight, and she was having more than a little trouble keeping herself awake. She wanted Paul to come back and talk to her. She wanted to make everything right between them before she let herself fall asleep.
So creeping down the main staircase, she followed the echo of masculine voices to the end of the passageway. The door to the music room stood open. The dim glow of candles fell on the polished floor just outside, and listening carefully, Ravenna backed against the wall of the corridor and tipped her head just far enough to see into the room.
James and Paul were hard at work. On the floor, James had spread out sheets of paper until there was no space left to walk between them. Setting one of the sheets on the piano, James studied it, mumbled under his breath. Paul seemed equally consumed by the document. Ravenna couldn’t follow the thread of their conversation; their voices were too low, but every now and again James would make an outburst. Then Paul would pick up a different sheet and show the man something, explaining his point with gesturing hands.
This went on for perhaps ten minutes until, eventually, a servant approached her in the corridor.
Slowly, silently, she edged away from the open door. She went to meet this man down the passageway, hoping James wouldn’t hear her, but the servant’s loud voice shattered her hopes. “Is the household settled for the evening, my lady?”
Uneasily, Ravenna glanced toward the door. “I think they’re in for the night, yes.”
“Very good, my lady.”
And then what Ravenna feared most occurred.
James appeared.
“Mr. Scott,” he said, “send Mr. Bowen to speak to me, please. And bring some food, maybe that apple tart if there’s any left?”
The uniformed man was quick to retreat, taking the servants’ stair to the basement. Ravenna turned to defend herself, but James spoke first. “I know Killiney appreciates your tomboy antics,” he whispered, “but try to be a lady, will you?”
Before she could reply, James had turned toward the music room door. Not knowing what else to do, she followed him, but contrary to what she’d expected from his warning, she wasn’t asked about Killiney. Instead, she saw that those sheets on the floor were maps, navigational charts and rough sketches of unnamed coasts. James eyed her suspiciously. “You know what these are?”
She nodded, although she didn’t like the way this man towered over her, awaiting an answer. “They’re charts,” she said cautiously.
“Of what? What else can you tell me about these charts?” She started to kneel down, the better to get a good look at the things, but he stopped her, motioned toward Paul. “Because he says you know more about them than I do. Now how is it that on the subject of New Georgia, you’re more knowledgeable than I?”
“I said she might know—”
“Let her speak, for if she knows but one thing, I’ll marvel.”
Why would Paul tell him this? Ravenna knew nothing about New Georgia—wherever that was—but daringly she asked, “Show me, then.”
Paul gave her the chart out of his hand, which she didn’t recognize at all until James pointed to its straight coastal view. “There lies Nootka Sound. Beyond that, you’re on your own.”
This was the coast of the Pacific, she realized, glancing around her at the papers on the floor. At her feet was a chart containing what looked like part of California, for she recognized the Baja Peninsula at the bottom. On another, she saw Alaska with its Aleutian Chain. A third chart seemed to show New Zealand, but she couldn’t be certain.
Studying the sheet Paul had put in her hand, she saw now that this was Vancouver Island, the westernmost coast of British Columbia. The ink traced the shoreline as if it were the continent, for to the people of this time, Vancouver Island had not yet been discovered to be separate from the mainland—Vancouver hadn’t sailed there yet. Ravenna had to remind herself, and hoped Paul remembered the same, that she couldn’t call anything by its twentieth-century designation. Except Nootka Sound, these places for the most part had never been named, never been visited, and she didn’t think it wise to influence the future.
But as she struggled with what to tell James in that moment, he laid a brown finger on the chart. He picked out the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the waters of her island home, though on the chart there was nothing marked but an inlet—most of the strait and Puget Sound were as yet unexplored.
“See this?” James asked. “Maybe you could tell me if it passes through the continent? Killiney thinks it’s an inland sea, that it’s blocked by mountains, but he’s claimed you’ll be more familiar with the region.”
Her brain worked frantically. How could she respond without giving too much away? Whatever she told him would surely reach Vancouver, so she couldn’t merely tell him the truth, that there was no Northwest Passage as he thought of it, for obviously this was what James sought. To reveal this information might change the course of Vancouver’s voyage. She’d have to placate him with tidbits, things Elizabeth might have learned from Killiney or Vancouver himself, but exactly what was known and unknown to people in the eighteenth century? Had they seen the Coast Ranges? Had they seen the Cascades?
Yet James was talking again. “No? Not more familiar? You mean Killiney was wrong about your vast geographical knowledge?”
She glanced at Paul then, reprimanding him for having revealed such things. Still she knew if she were going to get herself on the voyage, she’d have to prove herself valuable at some point; they wouldn’t just take her out of the goodness of their hearts. If she influenced the future along the way—if she altered history—that was just something she’d have to risk.
“Very well,” James said, and before Ravenna could utter one piece of prophecy about what Vancouver would find in Puget Sound, he turned away.
At that moment a man came into the room, a servant. James called him closer. “My lord, here—,” James waved a hand toward Paul, “—suffers from a memory loss of some sort. He’ll require looking after in the next few days, understand? You’re to humor him. Play along as he likes.”
“Yes, m’lord.”
The man waited for his signal to depart James’s presence, and seeing this, Ravenna followed his lead. Another moment, and who knew what sort of mess she might get herself into? Visions, love affairs…what did it matter when James apparently ruled the house? “It’s late,” she said, nodded toward Paul where he sulked across the room. “Lord Killiney’s tired. Can’t we save this for tomorrow?”
James took the chart from her, rolled it up slowly, and she found herself waiting for his consent just as the servant had. Watching her, sizing her up, finally James gave it. “Until tomorrow, then,” he said, and added more privately, “Lie to me if you must, but I know what you’re on about. And there’s still plenty of time before potential husbands set sail for America. Don’t take the bull by the horns just yet.”
And with the chart still in hand, he walked out of the room.
Ravenna sighed. Where Paul stood before the fire, he too looked relieved to be escaping James’s questions. Bedraggled, with his hair in his eyes and his shirt untucked and hanging to his knees, Paul kicked at one tall boot with the other. It made Ravenna think of how her own feet hurt, but Paul’s pain had nothing to do with shoes. He was exhausted. He missed Fiona, and after a day spent floundering in James’s company, he seemed about ready to drop where he stood.
Even though she knew he wouldn’t tolerate it, she went to him anyway. She didn’t flirt with him. She did her best to hide her attraction, to ignore it, for with the way he swayed so wearily before her, she wanted only to give him a hug.
Yet before she could do it, he went to the door, whispered only a half-hearted goodnight. She watched him go, and alone, surrounded by charts, she stood there until the servant came back with the food James had asked for.
* * *
Lord Broughton kept Paul busy all the next day. They looked at charts again, read descriptions from Captain Cook’s journals of New South Wales. Ravenna let them, didn’t try to intrude upon their “men’s business,” as James called it. Instead, she kept her distance and kept her silence when James was near.
Things changed in the evening. James had her sent for. When she joined them, found Paul talking mirthfully about some adventure he’d had in being lost in the desert, Ravenna was astonished. It wasn’t just his entertaining story that affected her. In telling it, he described how he’d stopped at every town, seeking directions from the Spanish-speaking locals; he even faked a Mexican accent, but what astounded Ravenna was that he was having a good time. She warmed with the enthusiasm she heard in his voice, melted at the sight of his stunning smile…until finally it dawned on her what he was saying.
Desert towns, blacktop highways and gas station attendants from Chihuahua—he was describing Arizona, and he was speaking Spanish to boot.
She looked at Paul in alarm. She tried to get his attention discreetly and prevent his making another mistake.
But when James noticed her standing there, he flagged her down. He beckoned her further into the room. “You should be hearing this!” he said, and taking her arm, he planted her on the chair beside him, urged Paul in a jovial voice, “Pray, tell her all of it, from the beginning.”
She waited expectantly for Paul to explain. When he lifted his glass for another drink, she saw all the explanation she needed: Paul was drunk, that’s what had happened.
“I didn’t see what harm it would do in tellin’ him.” He shrugged his shoulders. “This fellah’s not going to believe us anyway, so what’s the difference? He’s not real, is he? I’m sure I’ve invented him in the midst o’ my psychosis.”
“Inebriation, don’t you mean?”
Paul smirked a little. “He’s as pissed as I am, he just doesn’t express himself.”
“Paul, what were you thinking?”
“Nah, don’t worry, he keeps beggin’ to hear more, don’t you? Tell her what you’ve told me, what you’d do with an aircraft carrier?”
James sat perfectly still, observing the way the pair spoke to each other. His expression was not one of amusement any longer; clearly, he hadn’t believed anything he’d heard, at least not until Ravenna had joined the scenario.
She fidgeted in his massive shadow, wishing she could wring Paul’s neck. “You told him about aircraft carriers? What else have you told him?”
“We never got much further than the armed forces, really.”
“Well, that’s just great. Now he’s never going to take us seriously, is he?” She slipped from her seat beside James, wondering how she’d get them out of this mess.
She was surprised when James answered her question. “On the contrary,” he said, “in what other fashion could you possibly be viewed?” He stared at her darkly over the drink in his hand. “With you both conspiring in fantasy together, I see nothing to joke about now.”
“He told you we’re from the future?” she asked.
“He did,” James said.
“And he told you about the potion? About Killiney’s dreams and how we’re here in his and Elizabeth’s places?”
“I fail to see what you’ll gain by this fantasy.”
“So do I,” she said, throwing Paul a stony glance.
But before she could think of some excuse to offer James for their story, Paul was at it again. “Listen,” he said, and the Irish pronunciations rolled off his tongue with an honest fervor, “if I’m t’be on a boat with this guy fer months on end, I can’t be lying to him. It’s only been two days now I’ve been waltzin’ around him, fearin’ fer me life, and at this rate, I don’t think I’ll make it t’three, y’know? If we’ve convinced him along the way, then that’s great as well, but I’ve no wish t’find m’self explainin’ my mistakes at the end of his sword.”
“He’s not going to kill you. And if you’d only kept quiet—”
“This has gone far enough!”
James’s shout hung in the air, his eyes blazing as he dared either of them to speak. He turned to Ravenna, his patience wearing thin. “Why do you persist in this? What good could come in my believing your story? It can win you nothing decent nor well intentioned, you know that, no matter what he’s promised you.”
Looking at Paul, she tried to think of a reasonable answer. Why would Elizabeth want to make up such stories? Yet she saw no other way to fix what Paul had done. There seemed only the truth.
She shook her head, knowing it was useless. “I realize how it must sound, but we really are from the future,” she said, hoping her desperate tone counted for something. “I can’t think of a way to prove it off the top of my head, except that I can tell you a lot about Nootka Sound. It’s where I come from…or near there, anyway. I can tell you about the charts. I can help keep Vancouver’s ship safe and on course.”
James glanced at Paul. Where he lifted his drink convivially, Paul apparently didn’t notice.
“Either he’s swayed you to madness with his visions, or you’ve gone willingly,” James said. “All right, Sister. Let’s see how far you can get.”
So Ravenna told him about her trips to British Columbia, to Mitchell Bay and her parents’ new home at the northern end of Vancouver Island. She relayed everything she could think of, from tidal currents and prominent landmarks to salmon runs and tribal names of Native Canadians, and she said all of this as fast as she could. She didn’t want to appear to be making it up, or trying hard to remember what Killiney might have told Elizabeth. The strategy worked, rattling off these descriptions, because rather than accuse her of pilfering this knowledge or inventing these facts, James actually had an honest question. “What kind of salmon?” he asked with a scowl.
“At Christmas it’s mostly chum salmon,” she said. “That’s when I’m up there, near Nootka, in December when there’s nobody else around—just me and about a hundred bald eagles in the snow, with the whole Johnstone Strait to ourselves.”
She fell silent, thinking of the hours she’d spent out in her boat watching those eagles, or diving with friendly Pacific White-sided Dolphins. She expected James to ask another question, but it was Paul who spoke first. “Sounds beautiful,” he said.
James turned, suspicion flaring in his eyes. “You mean you’ve not been there? Shouldn’t you both have seen these eagles, if you’re both from the future?”
“I was raised on an island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca,” Ravenna explained. “He’s never been there.”
“So Killiney’s traveled in air ships to Africa and Mexico while you’ve spent your life among Indians?” James gave her an incredulous glance. “Then tell me, if I’m to believe these things, where’s my real sister? Held captive in a native village?”
“When Elizabeth drank the potion with Killiney, she probably took over my life in the future. I don’t think she’s at Nootka Sound. If anywhere, I think she’s in Dublin with Killiney.”
“At Swallowhill?”
“Yes, because Paul—,” and she pointed at him to make herself clearer, “—he’s the descendant of the Killiney you know. He inherited Swallowhill. So when they arrived at the churchyard in Dublin, they should have been able to find their way home.”
“And that’s what this is all about?” James asked. “Finding your way home?”
She nodded solemnly. “I know women aren’t supposed to be on ships, but I need to be on that voyage to Nootka. There’s no other way to get back.”
“So this is purely a matter of transport?”
“It’s a matter of four years,” Paul said between sips.
“And that’s how long you think the voyage will take?” James regarded Paul with a critical squint. “That adds up to quite a few nights without the company of a woman, doesn’t it?”
Paul glanced up sharply. “She’s not my lover, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Oh, she’s not?” James’s brows drew together, and quietly he looked down at the drink in his hand. “You don’t think I know a lie when I hear one, Killiney?”
“I’ve no idea about him, but I’ve never told a lie in me life.”
“And what about Khali and his fear of storms?” James didn’t lift his eyes, but he challenged Paul to deny it nonetheless. “You want to talk about the future, my friend? Let’s talk about that future. I hadn’t intended to confront you just yet, but since Sister is so adamant about joining this voyage—”
“And she’s not your sister,” Paul shot back. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re on about, but do I really seem like Killiney to you?”
“Enough to stand before God’s eyes, yes you do.”
“But look at us! We’ve no class, no style, she hasn’t the accent to be your sister and I’d bet money if this Killiney’s a friend of yours, he doesn’t sound anything like me. Now do I look like a guy who packs a sword?”
“You’ll need one if you keep this up.” James tapped the rim of his wine glass quietly. “My friend, I know what went on in the lodge these two weeks past. I know about your bedchamber visits, your tryst in the ruins, all of it, and before we get on Vancouver’s ship, I expect you’ll do the honorable thing.”
“But that was Killiney,” Ravenna insisted.
James turned to look at her. “Yes, I’ll thank you, Sister, it was. God knows it could have been worse than it is.”
“No, you don’t understand, that was before Killiney drank the potion, before we came back and he—”
“Can I just get in here a second?” Paul asked. “What is he talking about? He wants me t’marry you, is that it?”
“You’ve chosen this path, not me,” James said.
“No, I didn’t choose anything, but if I did marry her, even though I’m not this guy Killiney, you’d let her come along on the voyage, yeah?”
“If you refuse to marry her, you’ll be dead.”
Paul hesitated, his jaw shifting defiantly. “That a threat?”
“Does it need to be?” Slowly, with effortless menace, James got to his feet. “Because if you think I won’t defend her, that I’ll acquiesce to your angels and your visions and bring her on board for your beck and call, then perhaps you need provoking. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve crossed swords, would it? Or don’t you remember Madrid, either?”
Paul stared up at him, considering carefully before he replied. “I remember Madrid,” he said, “but I sure wasn’t there with you.”
James came very close to attacking him then as Paul, dropping his glass of wine, started to stand in retaliation. Ravenna saw the tension building in the powerful set of Paul’s shoulders, in his sturdy legs, readied for fighting. Something had to be done. They had to be distracted.
“James—,” and she took his arm, “—what if I told you that your father died before the voyage? Then would you believe us? If I told you he’d die in…what did David call it? The Armistead Affair? Or an affair with someone named Armistead?”
It was the first bit of prediction she could think of, but right after she’d said it, the look on James’s face made her wish she hadn’t. For less than an instant, his gaze fractured into a stab of something horrible, like the bottom had suddenly dropped out of his soul.
Then his composure resumed flawlessly, for he answered with only a hint of betrayal, “You would bring Father into this?”
“You don’t leave me much choice, with all these—”
“No, you,” James snapped, and turning around, his eyes sharpened on Paul. “You who calls yourself a friend, you would do this to me? And for the sake of bachelorhood, of all things?”
“The girl’s only trying to warn you, she’s tellin’ you that so you’ll—”
“You know better than to cross me.” Taking hold of Paul’s collar in his huge, fisted hands, James jerked him forward and growled, “That’s it. You’ll have no more connection to this family or this house, and if I find you in either when I get back…brother-in-law or not, I’ll run you through.”
With a sudden shove, he released Paul and stepped back. He straightened his coat in collecting himself, and there was something like hurt in the way he gave Paul one final glance before he threw open the door and stalked into the passage.
Ravenna knew she couldn’t bring him back.
After a moment, she heard his voice somewhere deep in the basement. The floor between them did little to muffle the thunder of his shout. Soon doors began to slam upstairs and down. A flurry of servants scattered down the hallways, and through their open door Paul and Ravenna could see maids carrying baggage, kitchen boys and footmen carrying baskets and boxes.
When she looked at Paul, she saw he was just as confused. “Now you’ve done it,” he told her, but there was no humor to his voice at all. He tightened his lip as the servants hurried by. One of them came in to mop up the spilt wine, but neither Paul nor Ravenna moved. Listening to the activity all through the house, it seemed dangerous to stir until things had settled down.
Ten minutes passed before they heard the sound of horses on the road outside, headed toward Dartmouth. A few minutes more and Mr. Scott came in.
“My Lord Broughton has gone to London,” he said, making his usual formalities to Ravenna. Then he turned to Paul, and the servant’s tone changed entirely. “You are invited to collect your personal effects, my lord. Leave nothing of yours behind, as Lord Broughton wishes you out of the house before he gets back. Make your farewells lasting as you shan’t see my lady again, once you’ve quit the premises. You shan’t be received here ever, my lord.”

Chapter Twelve

Paul didn’t leave the house, not that night or the next. Ravenna knew they had no choice but to wait out James’s absence and see if he came back with news of his father’s death. She didn’t know when the old marquess would pass on, not really. She’d just barely remembered David’s mention of this Armistead Affair thing, and she had no way of knowing even if her prediction would come true, let alone exactly when.
But to send Paul away would mean the end of everything: Ravenna’s time in his company, his chances to drink the potion in a year instead of four, not to mention the protection Wolvesfield House afforded in a hostile world he knew nothing about. She really didn’t think James would kill Paul. They’d been friends for years. Meanwhile there was a chance Ravenna’s timing might be good, that her prophecy would come true.
So they stayed put and waited. And hoped.
It was morbid in more ways than one.
On the sixth night after James’s departure, Ravenna set about trying to assuage this melancholy Paul indulged in so readily. They sat together on the rug in his room. In front of the fire it was warm enough, but Paul sat in a huddle; his brawny arms were wrapped around legs, his knees were tucked under his chin, and there was a mournful look in his eyes as he stared at the flames, like Dorothy dreaming of Kansas.
“What are we gonna do,” he said.
It was more of declaration of hopelessness than a question. Sensing that mood of his coming on, Ravenna knew better than to touch him, no matter how anguished his tone of voice. Instead, as she’d done for the last three nights, she tried to soothe him with the certainty of her words. “You’re going to tell him you were drunk,” she said, “that you’re sorry we even mentioned his father, and that I’ve since reconsidered and I’d rather marry Christian Hallett.”
Paul’s eyes came around and sharpened on hers. “So I’m supposed to sacrifice you in order t’make amends with this guy?”
“All I’m doing is following history. James will have to let me marry Christian. History says he does.”
“And where’s the sense in me gettin’ on that ship if you’re left behind?”
“You’d be able to drink the potion when you found it.”
Paul’s brows furrowed. “You want me t’just abandon you? You’ve no wish yourself of getting back?”
“Calm down,” she said, and she did touch him then, she laid her hand upon his knee. “You’ll send what’s left of it home with James.”
“Oh, so four years is better, is it? Mind you, I’ll be fightin’ Indians and drinkin’ the stuff alone while you’re living the life of a battered woman.”
“If I can’t get on the ship, I don’t see what else we can do,” she insisted. “If James throws you out, he’ll certainly see to it that you and I are separated. Even after he’s at sea, we’d still have to hide, because his servants would chase me if I ran away with you. That is, unless…unless we got married. I’d do it if you would, but I know you won’t.”
His lip tightened again. “No I wouldn’t.”
“So you have to go without me.”
“And if he comes waltzing in here with sword in hand? Then what’ll we do, apart from run?”
“You’ll run. You’ll go back to Ireland and wait,” she said, moving her feet nearer the hearth. “I’ll stay here and try to persuade him to bring back the potion.”
“And you think he’ll bring it back? There must be something we can do, hire our own ship, change the future with the diary, whatever, but we can’t just sit here.”
Ravenna frowned. “What do you mean by change the future?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking,” he said, and leaning closer, he lowered his voice. “Suppose we wrote in the diary ourselves, sent a message warning ourselves what would happen? We could be messin’ with the future from right here, right now. We could buy us some time t’think this through.”
She remembered when she’d first seen the diary. She’d had at least twenty-four hours until she’d sat with Paul at Christ Church Cathedral. That was twenty-four hours in which she could’ve wondered what it meant, that a two hundred-year-old book could contain a message written in her own hand.
“But what would we say?” she asked. “We can’t really change anything. We can’t stop Killiney and Elizabeth from drinking.”
“Not as such, but we can memorize the stuff that’s going t’happen so we can predict the future and James’ll believe us.”
“James might still believe us.”
“But he can’t tell me when I’m supposed to die, can he?”
Again, there flashed that unspoken grief, and Ravenna tried for his sake to remember what she’d heard about Killiney’s death. On a river, somewhere on Vancouver Island, that’s all she recalled, and if they wrote in the diary and warned themselves, she doubted they’d be able to learn much more. It seemed David had known only what he’d read in the book. Vancouver probably hadn’t written a word about Killiney in his published journals, and she told Paul this. “Nobody knows where Killiney died; you’ll just have to rely on your wits to save you.”
“Then I haven’t got a chance.”
“Of course you have. All you have to do is act like Paul Henley, right up until the time you’re attacked or you get the potion, whichever comes first.”
“You mean act like Killiney.”
Ravenna shook her head. “I’ve changed my mind. It’s you who dies in that history book now.”
“Well then, that’s it, isn’t it?”
“No,” she said, “listen, if you follow your instincts and make the same choices, you’ll follow the same destiny. That will get us to the potion. You just have to make the ending a little different, that’s all you have to do.”
“And how do you suggest I do that?”
“When the attack comes, you should do exactly the opposite of whatever your gut instinct tells you to. If you don’t do what Paul Henley would do, you’ll live.”
“And what if it doesn’t work out?” Paul’s jaw tensed as he regarded her anxiously. “Can’t we hire bodyguards, you know, a couple of big, surly-looking fellahs to follow me around?”
“James will protect you.”
“Yeah, but who’s gonna guard me from James?” Turning away, he fixed his gaze on the crackling flames. “You see I reckon none of this matters anyway. He’s only gonna come back and have an even bigger row with me for still bein’ in the house.”
“Well, what do you think we should do?”
Paul considered for a moment, scratched the stubble on his chin. “What about hiring our own ship, like I said?”
“You mean a private vessel? With a captain and crew to run it?” she asked. “That sounds like money.”
“There’d be none of this charting and exploring Vancouver’s got in mind. We could be there in only a few months.”
“Yes, but if you used up Killiney’s money to hire a ship and then something went wrong, we’d be in worse shape than we’re in now,” she pointed out. “I don’t think it’s worth it. Like you said, we don’t even know if the potion will work.”
The fire popped and flared noisily. Paul leaned back on his elbows, stretched his legs across the carpet. “We’d be poor, wouldn’t we?”
“Worse than poor, or at least I would be.” She thought of all the historical movies she’d seen, Jane Austen chick flicks and Merchant Ivory films. “Women can only do what they want if they’re rich or beautiful,” she said with a sigh. “If I went off to America with you and I came back penniless and unmarried to boot, I’d be like a leper.”
By the way he looked at her, Ravenna thought for an instant that Paul might actually say she was beautiful. His eyes wandered comfortably over her face. “You’d be like those peasant women I saw in town, herding geese through the streets, wearin’ rags, and all on account of me rushing t’get home.”
“I don’t think James would let it get that far.”
“Yeah, but judging by the way I’m goin’, it seems I would.” Turning toward her a little, his knees just touched the edge of her dress as he gazed at her, fingers fidgeting with the carpet. “I’ve no idea how to be looking after you, have I? It never crosses my mind something could happen to you as well, I’m so busy worrying about myself and the woman.”
“You wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”
He arched a brow. “I’d like t’think I wouldn’t, but you know, sometimes I’m a stubborn, self-serving bastard. Fiona, she’s what’s important, and sometimes I find myself protecting that at any price.”
“But I don’t understand, what are you protecting?” She asked this innocently, but then she realized its implications, what he’d taken it to mean. What was he protecting? A love that didn’t exist? A woman who seemed more than capable of looking after herself? “Why do you want to go back to her, Paul?” She watched him carefully, saw that fearful cast darken his features. “If she wants a divorce, why don’t you give it to her?”
It took a moment before he answered. “Because maybe, maybe without her, I don’t…” He faltered, struggling with the words, “Because—by myself—I don’t amount t’much, not really.”
“So you’re protecting you from losing her.”
“You have to understand, we grew up together. I’ve never known anything but Fiona. I mean, even when we were kids, I was putty in her hands, y’know?”
“So you can’t live without her?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “no I can’t, actually. She can see things about me that…that I haven’t even begun to realize, about what I’m doin’, the mistakes I’m makin’—”
“She sees you need a divorce, doesn’t she?”
Paul turned away. “In fact, there she’s wrong.”
“Are you sure?” Ravenna couldn’t help it, she touched his arm. “You’re in love with someone who doesn’t love you back, you know that, don’t you? Don’t you think you’d be happier if you let her go?”
“No.” After a few seconds, he glanced at her sheepishly. “Well, look at me,” he said. “I’m a mess, yeah? A couple of weeks without her and I can hardly function, for God’s sake.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you except how much you think you need her,” she told him. “I don’t believe you miss her half as much as you want to. What you miss is the idea of her, and according to your own story, that idea hasn’t been there for—”
He sat up abruptly, and Ravenna realized she’d hit too close to the mark. She let him alone for a moment. She’d gone too far, taken advantage of his trusting her, and he’d let her know as much in scowling at the fire.
His longish hair curled loosely on his shoulder and she found herself staring at it, thinking of how wounded he was by the truth. “You’re right,” she said finally. “I’d forgotten how happy you were in Dublin.” Of course, she didn’t think he’d been happy at all. She remembered his listless gaze in the bar before they’d spoken, before he’d left the table of his preoccupied friends. He’d been struggling with the pain of it even then, but she didn’t point this out. She let it go for his sake. They had enough to worry about as it was, and his wife wouldn’t be born for two hundred years.
“So what about Swallowhill?” she asked. “If you end up having to go back to Dublin, do you think Killiney has relatives? I seem to remember something about a niece.”
“You really believe Fiona’s the bad guy?”
Stubbornly, he couldn’t let the argument go.
“Paul, I didn’t say she was bad—”
“You think I’m paying for her courses and puttin’ up with her boyfriend an’ that because she’s a terrible person? What you don’t see is that I’m the bad guy. I’m late for dinner nearly every night. I’m completely hopeless with money, and I’m always making a fool out of m’self in public, so you see, I’m the problem, I’m the one you should be blaming. She’s only doin’ the best she can.”
“You’re covering for her,” Ravenna whispered. “You’re making excuses for what she’s done to you.”
“You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“I know you’re sensitive and you need someone who’ll appreciate that, not someone who’ll put you down for it.”
He paused. Whether it was because she’d surprised him with this flattery or angered him, she couldn’t tell, but Paul’s voice nonetheless was gruff when he answered, “Sometimes I need a good puttin’ down.”
“And that’s why you want to go home?”
“I want t’go home because I don’t want to stay here in fantasyland forever,” he said, staring at her with determination. “I mean, did it ever dawn on you that this might be a bit harder for me?”
“Paul, I know how you feel, I really do.”
“Yeah, it’s easy for you t’say that, isn’t it? You’ve not just had everything you believe in turned upside down. It’d be as if God had stepped out in front of you and offered to prove t’you that reincarnation didn’t exist. How would you feel?”
“I know it’s hard for you to be here, I do,” she said, “but you are here. You have to deal with that. It’s going to be a long time before you get home, if you ever do get home. For all we know, maybe you’re not even supposed to.”
Flash of rage, pain in the lines of his wearied face. “What kind of awful thing is that t’be telling me?”
“It’s just something you should think about,” she said. “Maybe Killiney is supposed to be there. Maybe the visions he had of your wife were precognitive, and they’ll fall in—”
“Oh, you’d really appreciate that, wouldn’t you? If I swallowed what you’re saying and just went along quietly?” He struggled to his feet, so roughly he messed up the carpet beneath his boots. “There’s no reason for me to even consider what you’re tellin’ me. You don’t know Fiona and you don’t know me.”
That twisted growl was meant to hurt her, his eyes like lightning, blazing and cold, but Ravenna didn’t move under his stare. “What will you do if I’m right?” she asked. “Kill yourself because you can’t live without her?”
He took a step backward, clumsy, careless. “I might,” he said, his lips thinned with anger. “Of course, I know I’d upset your plans. But hey, like you said—deal with it.”
* * *
With that, he turned and walked out the door.
He was only gone a moment before she heard the carriage outside, the jingling of harnesses and rumbling of wheels in the stable yard darkness. When the shouting began, she recognized James’s voice instantly, bellowing over the chatter of half a dozen servants who’d gathered to take the horses away.
Thinking of Paul and the argument they’d had, suddenly she was set to worrying. Paul was in no mood to see James now. What would he do if James were to confront him? Would Paul back down? Would he get himself killed after all?
She couldn’t even imagine the scenario, so she hurried through the hall to the dimly-lit passageway where James was just coming into the house. She expected to be yelled at then. James’s pace was no-nonsense brisk. He’d probably learned from the servants how Paul had refused to leave the premises, and now there’d be a fight, a duel, a murder.
Yet when Ravenna met his stare, she wasn’t prepared for what she saw: James’s face was a stern mask, almost an expression of disapproval, but those eyes, black and brimming with pain, gave away everything.
His father had died, she knew it immediately.
When he slowed a few yards away, she didn’t know how to handle him. His gaze shifted to the candles in the wall sconces. He reached for his brow, rubbed with a languor that went straight to her heart, and she couldn’t help whispering, “James, I’m so sorry…”
But before she could say another word, he’d pulled her up close with such a swiftness she didn’t have time to resist.
Held fast to that towering frame, it took her a moment to gather her wits. “I know how painful this must be for you,” she said into his waistcoat, “but I—”
“If you hadn’t warned me…” With his chin resting over her head, his words were a warmth in her hair as he continued, “We had two days together before he died…two days because of you.”
“You were with him?” she asked.
Loosening his hold, James stepped back with a terse nod.
Ravenna gazed up at him, thinking of how strange this all was. Unlike Elizabeth, she’d never had a brother, let alone one who hugged the way this one did. His sudden affection had completely disarmed her, and as she stood there before him, feeling the heat of his grip at her shoulder, she found herself fumbling for what to say next.
“Look,” and she removed her hands from him, “I know it’s not the best time to ask, but can you…do you…What I mean is—”
“Do I believe you?”
She wavered uncertainly before him. “Do you?”
James’s jaw hardened. He nodded darkly.
“And Paul?” She felt his grip soften. “You’re not going to kill him for being in the house?”
Straightening, James turned toward the cluster of servants gathered in the corridor. “Is he still here?”
“I’m here,” Paul said from the drawing room door.
James muttered something under his breath. Yet when he turned his eyes to Ravenna’s, there was no mistaking his tortured expression, as if he’d suddenly remembered it again, Father is dead…
“Let’s go sit down.” Gesturing toward the drawing room door, she led him to the sofa; she asked Paul to stoke the fire, and when he had, when all the servants had assembled and James had glanced up for an instant, Ravenna met his grief-stricken eyes. “Tell us what happened,” she urged him softly.
Leaning on the sofa’s arm, James shook his head. He glanced away. Shielding his eyes with an open hand, it was at least two minutes before he managed the words. “You didn’t know this, Sister, but our father was seeing Fox’s wife, Mrs. Armistead. He was at St. Anne’s Hill when his heart…gave out. I told him not to go…”
Staring at the carpet, he fell silent.
“Did he suffer much, my lord?” a footman asked.
Slowly, James nodded. “He left generous annuities for all of you.”
“And Ravenna?” Paul’s voice, reluctant from where he stood before the fire. “Who’s gonna be looking after her now?”
James shot Paul a solemn glance. “There’s always been a substantial portion set aside for Elizabeth’s marriage.”
At the mention of marriage, the maids hushed their whispering. Nothing stirred other than Paul’s boots, shifting from one foot to the other in weary apprehension as he glanced around at the servants’ faces. So many expectant eyes met his, but not Ravenna’s—she’d wanted him to face the truth about his wife, but never had she wished for this.
Eventually Paul took a deep breath. He still didn’t look at her, but clearing his throat, he pushed through the servants and got down in front of her on his knee. As if he’d made up his mind at last, he took the malachite ring from his finger. He reached for her hand, and when he’d slipped the ring in place, deliberately, quickly, it made her wince for the hurry of it all.
The ring fit perfectly.
As if he’d hoped and prayed it wouldn’t, all the light went out of Paul’s eyes.
She wished then she could take back the moment more than anything in the world. It wasn’t worth it, to see the expression on Paul’s well-meaning face as he gathered his courage and spoke the words, “Elizabeth, would you be my wife?”

Chapter Thirteen

Of course she’d agreed to marry him.
In the silence that followed, Paul didn’t move. He steeled himself and waited for the flood of memories—the altar of that little church in Dun Laoghaire, his friends and family gathered round, and coming down the aisle, dressed in white silk, Fiona more lovely than he’d ever seen her look.
But those vows are broken. Where he knelt before Ravenna, he knew his heart was losing strength. The voices inside him were whispering again even as he fought them off, This girl loves you. Give up. Tell her. Beating him down, wearing at his soul, the idea of it seemed too much—that he might need Ravenna more than he’d ever needed the woman. From the way she argued so passionately to the flush of her cheeks whenever Paul touched her, he saw what was coming. He’d defied it, ignored it, even tried to hurt her feelings just to live the lie a little longer, but under all his gruffness, in between his ardent pleas to reach Fiona and find Fiona and win back the love of his precious Fiona, beneath all this was the uncomfortable realization that he’d fallen again…and fallen hard.
Paul straightened, took his hand out of Ravenna’s. He muttered some excuse about being tired and, turning to leave, he stepped into the passageway just as he was, scowling, guilt-ridden. He didn’t care about James’s glare. Making his way to the great hall, he went out anyway, through the double doors and on toward the sea in a fit of despair. Fiona, he thought, but it was only a reflex. The name meant nothing.
For the first time in his life Paul was free.
Seeing the dull shimmer of the ocean stretched out before him, he walked for hours. The moon shone faintly behind the clouds. The air was bracing, but it only served to remind him of how awake he felt, how blind he’d been. You’ve lied to yourself about so many things. Had he ever recognized as much? Fiona did hate his sensitivity. She never would be happy with Paul, and when the girl had pointed this out in the bedroom earlier, her voice all scolding and tender at once, she’d only confirmed what Paul had fought so long to disprove.
The thing about it was, he’d known. He really had. Even back home when he’d met Fiona between classes, goaded her into telling him about her feelings, her troubles, in fact Paul had felt nothing—no sympathy for her problems, just this nagging idea that he should care about her. To admit he hadn’t would have meant conceding she’d been right all along, that Fiona was a stranger. He should let her go.
But then without the woman, what would he have? An empty house? A couple of friends who—apart from the fact they were sick to death of him—didn’t mind buying his pint after work?
Walking along the cliffs, going through his marriage year by year, he sorted out the truths. Fiona had changed. Trevor and Deirdre had grown tired of his antics while Eamonn rarely even phoned anymore. There were the kids, those many dirty teenage faces he knew on the Dublin streets whom he’d helped and counseled over the years, and there was Aidan’s mother, but few others would miss him. They’d say they did, but really they’d all be heaving a sigh of relief.
And then there was Ravenna.
What should I be telling her? That after all my fits and tantrums, I’ve since come t’realize she was right about us? That I’ve a mind now t’mess up her life as well? Because that’s what would happen. As much as she seemed to understand him, Ravenna had no idea what she was getting herself into. Fiona hadn’t left him for nothing. To straighten out whatever mess he was into and show him where he’d gone astray, to give out about his obsessiveness and irresponsibility, not to mention his sociable nature…was Ravenna really up for this?
Yer girl’s not stupid, Paul thought. She’ll figure it out soon enough, and until she does, until she sees the real cut of you in a Dublin pub when the barman’s calling time and she’s been phoned t’drag you home, you’ve no business rushing in with your typical selfishness.
Leave her be, he told himself. Give her enough t’keep her happy, but wait for the rest—for your own sake as well as hers.
* * *
By the time Paul arrived at her bedroom door, he’d summoned ten times the self-restraint he figured he’d need. She’s probably asleep, anyway, he told himself. Just wake her up, tell her.
But when he raised his hand to knock, it crossed his mind how beautiful she might be, coming to greet him in the middle of the night. With lissome legs and bare feet, she could be wearing that shirt he’d given her to sleep in. Gorgeous in that shirt, he thought. He remembered well her heavy black hair spilling over its collar, shirttails barely covering her thighs. It’d only been a glimpse he’d caught before James had ushered him off to sea, but that image burned in his mind, arousing him, hardening him…
“Stop it,” he grumbled. Now you’ll never keep your hands off her thinkin’ these things, will you?
Muttering a vow of celibacy, he knocked at her door. Nothing stirred. Should he wake her? Did he dare entertain that notion of turning the latch, stumbling inside, running his hands over the sheets until he’d found her in the darkness, silken and willing to curl in his arms?
He knocked again, more adamantly this time.
When he heard no movement, no padding of feet nor rustle of blankets, Paul felt a pang of guilt—not for wanting her, but rather for the fact he’d probably set her to worrying. Ravenna knew how angry he’d been made by their argument, and now he’d been missing for how many hours? He’d told no one where he’d gone. Doubtless the girl was bundled up somewhere, waiting for word he’d come home safe.
So he went downstairs, to the basement rooms where it seemed the servants were always about. He hoped to find someone to ask about Ravenna, but when he wandered into the kitchen, he found no maids or footmen. The candles were lit. A huge fire blazed in the main fireplace and in front of this, staring at a pie crust rolled out on the table, James sat pensively.
It wasn’t what Paul expected to find.
Rage was the general impression James gave. With his chair tipped back, his arms crossed and his boots up, there was a dangerous scowl on James’s brow. He seemed to be furiously brooding about something, and Paul wondered if he dared say anything to the fellah.
Just give him your condolences and go, Paul thought. “Em, I’m sorry about your father an’ that.”
James looked up. The lines to his forehead deepened at the sight of Paul, and when he started to stand, his fearsome build uncoiling from his chair, Paul raised his hands and stopped where he was. “If I’m buggin’ you here, I’m afraid I’ve—”
“No,” James said, shaking his head. Grief in that face, Paul could see it now. “No, I just…” James hesitated, rubbed at his temple. “I have a lot on my mind, that’s all. It’s Paul, right?”
Paul nodded, stepped forward. When he found himself invited to pull up a chair, he declined as politely as he could. “I’m just looking for yer girl,” he explained. “You don’t know where Ravenna’s gone?”
“She’s gone to bed,” James muttered.
“No she hasn’t, actually. She’s not in her room.”
It occurred to him then that maybe Ravenna wasn’t even in the house, that she’d followed him in the midst of his shame-ridden fit. She might be searching the beaches, the woods, even the ruins for him, thinking he’d gone to ask God to send him home, or worse, that he’d been so upset he’d wandered off to top himself.
But while he ran through these possibilities, James sat down, crossed his arms again; the muscles in his jaw moved ever so slightly. Seeing the fellah’s eyes shift uneasily about the room, Paul realized how selfish he’d been. This guy’s grieving for his father, isn’t he? It’s only a page from history to me, but to him…
And just like that, he felt it. Death. First his mother, then Aidan, and finally Paul’s Da, all of them had left their scars until Paul couldn’t even remember a time when he’d not known exactly what James was going through.
“I’m sorry for throwing you out,” James said.
Paul found himself averting his eyes. “Before you left for London, you mean?”
James gave a curt nod. “That was unwarranted.”
“No, it wasn’t really. I knew how you felt.”
He remembered how furious James had been, how he’d attacked Paul so readily. Six-foot-four, sinewy and strong, James was the very picture of threat, never showing his feelings, always righteous and opinionated…and yet he wasn’t so tough, was he?
Sort of like Aidan, Paul mused, thinking of his friend’s acerbic manner, his blunt way of talking. In fact, a lot like Aidan. “Look, I’m not Killiney,” Paul said, “but if you could use a friendly voice—”
“Killiney was never friendly.”
“He wasn’t?”
“Not dependably.” James cast a furtive glance at Paul. “I hope that doesn’t offend you.”
“No,” and shaking off that image of Aidan, Paul focused on James’s sun-browned face. “No, I quite understand. I’ve a few friends m’self who probably aren’t even looking for me. They’re not dependable or friendly, but they’re still my friends, aren’t they?”
“In the future?” James asked.
But as Paul started to answer, he heard the clatter of shoes on the servants’ stair behind him. Ravenna, he thought, and again there came that warming inside him, so strong he couldn’t fight it off. Tell her, just take her in your arms and say it.
But James shook his head, as if reading Paul’s mind. “It’s only Sarah.”
And it was the maid, hurrying into the kitchen with a worried taint to her pretty eyes. When she saw Paul, she frowned. “Well, look at you.” She stopped in front of him, put her hands on her generous hips. “We’ve only half the world searchin’ for you. He’s right here, m’lady.”
Paul froze, didn’t move.
In the doorway behind the maid, petite and beautiful as ever he’d seen her, Ravenna appeared in the dim kitchen light.
Taking a step toward him, the girl’s lips parted, and instantly Paul found himself imagining the most unspeakable things. The nightgown she wore was so sheer he could see the pink of her nipples. The dark patch of curls showed between her thighs all too plainly, and fussing with that malachite ring, her eyes fraught with worry, Ravenna seemed a vision.
Paul thought he’d burst with wanting to kiss her.
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” she asked.
He glanced at Sarah, at James who sat reticently before the fire. “No,” Paul said, turning back to meet her eyes, “no, I’m not mad. Can we talk for a moment? Can I walk you upstairs?”
When he approached her, took up her wrist in his grasp, Paul’s blood surged in his veins. Can I trust m’self here? Is this the smartest thing you’ve ever done? Because he knew if she so much as brushed up against him or touched his arm with a thoughtless caress, he knew he’d find a way to rationalize taking her. Virgin or not, she’d suffer the brunt of his burgeoning desire, and this couldn’t happen, could it?
Nevertheless, turning her around gently, he released her with a nod toward the servants’ stairs. “After you,” he whispered.

Chapter Fourteen

When Ravenna sat down at the foot of her bed, she thought Paul seemed different. There was relief in his countenance. The pain in his face, his anger over Fiona and getting back home, these things had been replaced by a tranquility of sorts, and yet Ravenna sensed it—he was still uneasy.
He hesitated before sitting down, carefully distancing himself so that even their clothes didn’t touch. “I’ve been thinking about our row,” he said, “about us being meant t’be here together.”
“Paul, I’m sorry.” And she really was, wished with all her heart she’d never said those things. “I shouldn’t have criticized Fiona or your marriage, or—”
“Yes you should have.” Rubbing at his neck, Paul gazed at the carpet, at the bedpost beside him before daring to continue. “And in fact you were right. I didn’t want to accept it, but you an’ me together, it’s just…God’s put us here for a reason, and the woman isn’t part of His plans, y’know?”
Ravenna bit her lip. “Maybe that is the reason. Maybe He put you here so you’d see how you really felt about your wife.”
“No, there’s something else,” he said, “something I have to tell you.”
Wearily, he let his hand slip from his neck, down to the coverlet beside her fingers. “When I first saw you,” he said, his thumb moving over the damask pattern, “you see, I was telling you a lie. I did remember you, and…an’ I knew I’d been in love with you.”
Ravenna didn’t move, didn’t dare believe what she’d just heard.
“I don’t know how I knew it, and I’m not saying I still am,” he went on, “but it’s there, rollin’ around in the back of m’mind. That’s why I danced with you, though I haven’t had a date in me life, why I took you round to Christ Church instead of going home. That’s why I’ve been so surly with you.”
Hearing those words, that he’d felt something even in Dublin, that he loved her…Ravenna nursed a shudder. When he leaned a little nearer, his eyes imbued with unwitting warmth, she found herself reaching for his hand, covering it with her own awkward caress. “The longer we’re here, the stronger the feeling gets, doesn’t it?”
“You know, it does? But that doesn’t change me having t’get back to Fiona.”
“What? But you just said—”
“I know what I said, but you see, whether I love my wife or not isn’t the issue now. I can’t just abandon her. She might still want a divorce, even from Killiney, and how do I know he’ll not keep it from her on general principles?”
“So you are going to divorce her?”
“I’m gonna go back and tell her I’m alive even if it takes four years, t’make sure she’s taken care of one way or the other. Beyond that, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’m telling you, I’m not doin’ it here.”
Ravenna watched him carefully. She could tell he wasn’t angry, for he still hadn’t taken his hand away. “If you’re talking about marriage,” she said, “I’m sorry about what happened with James. I didn’t know he would force you like that.”
“But I knew he would. I knew it. He wasn’t going t’have it any other way, and if we’re gonna get on that ship of Vancouver’s, being engaged can’t hurt, now, can it?”
She glanced down at his hand in hers. “It might hurt you.”
Paul’s jaw stiffened. “It might,” he said, and raising their fingers clasped together, he kissed the back of Ravenna’s wrist. “But lookin’ at you, I’ll get used to it.”
* * *
When she saw Paul the next morning, she knew immediately his feelings hadn’t changed. There seemed something added, deeper and more stirring, when he looked at her across the breakfast table. The awareness of what he’d said hung in the air between them, and when he passed the butter, it was with an affable, lopsided grin that sent Ravenna’s heart skittering.
Staring at the hair on the backs of his hands and finding it inexplicably enticing, she was glad for the distraction when the servants came in to stoke the fire. They seemed to think the dining room was a strange place for breakfast. When Ravenna asked about it, Sarah was quick to explain how the bedroom was the more usual location for the morning meal. If they wanted to be correct, they should take their breakfast while the various servants came to receive their daily instructions.
Sarah then told Ravenna she’d been given orders of her own. James, still not out of bed, had charged Ravenna with fitting out the entire household in mourning black. Ravenna had no idea how to do this, but Sarah, having been informed by James of her mistress’s true identity, had already taken care of the assignment. Ravenna had only to see James in his bedroom and tell him as much.
So walking up the stairs and down the long, central passage, Ravenna called his name. She didn’t know where she might find him, but soon James responded with a muffled shout that led her into a dark-paneled bedroom where amid a wilderness of sheets and blankets, the new marquess lay sideways across his bed.
Wrapped in the length of a linen nightshirt, there was something of a smile on James’s lips when she came in. He invited her to pull up a chair, and as she did, Ravenna gazed at the tangles in his straight black hair, at his smoothly sculpted face which, against the white of the bed sheets around him, seemed impossibly dark.
“These are our father’s chambers,” James said, glancing around. “I couldn’t sleep in my own bed last night, thinking of what I’ve felt in these rooms. It seemed fitting to sleep here.”
“David thought so, too,” she said. When James seemed confused, she explained, “Your descendant, the twelfth marquess. He took this room when his father died, just the way you have.”
“And what year was this?”
“1991.” Ravenna leaned forward in her chair, put out her hand toward James cautiously. “I’m Ravenna, if Paul didn’t already tell you.”
“You mean in that drunken fit he was in the night before I left for London?” James’s smile broadened as he shook Ravenna’s hand. “Yes, he told me.”
“So you really do believe we’re not Elizabeth and Killiney?”
“As long as he marries you, if you both continue behaving as you have, him with warmth and you with intellect, I’ll believe anything.”
For a moment James gazed at her, and she found herself thinking of Killiney. That selfish tone she remembered from her vision, the pain of his insults…she couldn’t imagine Paul talking like that. “He wasn’t a very nice person, was he?”
“Killiney?” James shrugged. “Not reliably.”
“So you like Paul better?”
James hesitated before he answered. “Your Paul has a kindness and honesty about him which Killiney could only dream of. Would that I’d never met Killiney himself, there might seem no difference, but I know the man far too well.”
“They’re the same on the outside but not on the inside.”
“The same but for the accent, yes.”
“And what about my accent? Don’t I sound different?”
He tilted his head. “Now that I’m paying attention, yes.”
“That’s because I’m American.”
“And how is that? Didn’t you say your home was Nootka? It’s a Spanish possession, so shouldn’t you speak Spanish the way Paul does?”
“Things are different in 1991.”
James’s brow furrowed slightly; one could almost see the questions popping up in his head as he considered her statement carefully. “Then the Spanish will lose their claim on the land?”
“I don’t think I should tell you,” she answered.
Averting his eyes, James laughed to himself. “What could I do with such information? I’m not going to take over the world, you know.”
“I know.”
“So tell me.”
She shook her head. “Nope, I can’t. It just doesn’t seem like a smart idea, handing out history as if it were—”
“Ravenna,” and sitting up in bed, he leaned toward her, dipping his head slightly as he regarded her with a sobering expression, “if you really are from the future, there’s never been a better time to prove it, yes? With Vancouver’s voyage coming up, and with me leaving…”
Ravenna stifled her grin. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you might know things that could help my studies. What you take for granted in the everyday world could be very important to the Royal Society, not to mention Vancouver.”
He’s bartering with me, she realized. He’s going to get me on the voyage!
“For instance,” he went on, “let’s say we’ve entered Juan de Fuca’s Strait. Before us lies a dangerous passage, and Vancouver has ordered the yawl and crew ahead for soundings. The procedure’s slow, darkness is falling—”
“You’re asking if I’d let the ship run aground?”
“If you’d call this historical interference, then you’d best tell me now.”
“And what makes you think I’d know how deep the water is?”
“You’ve described the reefs of these North Pacific coasts. One only considers such things with experience, and although I expect it’s unreasonable to assume you have a memory to match mine, I’d hope you’d remember at least something of these waters you call your home.”
She raised a brow. “Something, yes, but I don’t think you know what you’re asking of me.”
“Do you think I’d lash you to the bow to shout directions to the helm?” Laughter sharpened his high, chiseled cheekbones. “No, if you’ll only tell us something of these waters in the appropriate moments of need, I’m sure Vancouver would find you invaluable, even if he needed your assistance only once. The fact that you know something of the native peoples I’ll write about for the Royal Society, that would unquestionably be of value to me.”
“You really believe I’m from the future, don’t you?”
“Wasn’t that your intention?”
“Yes, but it’s a lot to ask. Here I’m exactly like your sister and yet I’m planning the voyage with you. That must feel pretty strange, I’d think.”
James squinted ever so slightly. “No—,” and she felt his appraisal of her features, “—no, believe me when I say you’re nothing like Elizabeth. There’s a substance to you which she couldn’t even comprehend, let alone simulate.”
“But will Vancouver believe it? Can he be convinced, too?”
Turning to the commode beside his bed, James opened the top drawer, took out a sheet of cream-colored paper. “It’ll be difficult,” he said, putting the sheet before her, “but Vancouver will be forced to own as I have that the advantages of your presence far outweigh the chance we’ll be found out.”
“And how do we do that?”
James took out a bottle of ink and a pen. “Draw me some charts to put before the man. Mark down every last damnable thing that might be important to the voyage,” he said, “including soundings, if you remember as much.”
“I can only give you that for the waters around my island. Oh, and my parents’ house, too. And it won’t be exact.”
“These are places Vancouver will sail?”
She nodded, wondering how good her memory was.
“Then this will have to do.”
* * *
That was the last she saw of James’s good humor. On the following Monday, the marquess’s funeral was held in the church near the edge of the estate. When his father’s coffin was brought from London, a noticeable change came over James.
He conducted business as usual, but there was a dullness to his eyes, a flat quality to the way he answered questions. He didn’t really become himself again until the day of the funeral. On that cold January morning, he scared the daylights out of the gravediggers. He sent them away in a completely irrational fit of shouting, and his reasons for this remained a mystery, for no one had the courage to ask James why he dug his father’s grave himself.
Of course, nothing was said of Mrs. Armistead or the circumstances of the old marquess’s death, but Ravenna wondered if this played a part in James’s odd behavior.
When the funeral was over, he regained a little of his old character. He asked Ravenna dizzying amounts of geographical questions that evening. He kept her up until well after dawn, and when she told him there was no more, that she’d not taken enough geography classes and couldn’t remember another thing that would render her invaluable to Vancouver’s voyage, James took her impromptu charts and ordered his carriage.
Against her protests, he went out just as he was—clothes wrinkled, eyes narrowed. He was going to see Vancouver, he said, confide in him about Father’s affair with Fox’s lover and the way Ravenna’s prediction had come true. When Paul and her had gotten a night’s sleep, they were to go to Hallett House, their London residence, where James would meet them as soon as he could.
* * *
With James finally gone, Ravenna went to bed. She slept all day and into the night, recovering from the effects of his cross-examination. When she finally awoke, the rest of the household was already sleeping, everyone having been alerted to the fact they’d be going to London quite early.
With no one to talk to and nothing to pack (as Sarah had packed everything for her), her thoughts drifted right back to James and his behavior at the funeral. Why had he dug his father’s grave?
She could think of only one way to find out.
With the yellow glow of a candle to guide her, she crept down the passageway toward the marquess’s chambers. James’s room now, she thought, and James’s desk, too, or had he left his father’s things intact? Either way, she hoped to find answers in the unlocked, uppermost drawer. She set down her candlestick, pulled up a chair. With a certain, delicious thrill, she began to read through the papers there, hoping to learn something of James’s secrets.
Household accounts, receipts for lodgings, bills for beer, coal, and sugar filled the drawer. When she finally found the stash of letters, she was elated; in discovering an unfinished letter from the marquess to someone named Quinn, she fairly stamped her feet with excitement, for it said:
“You know, my friend, in matters of the fairer sex Lord Broughton is sticking to his guns, as they say. Would that he marry an empty-headed heiress, he might not suffer these difficulties. Instead, he fancies our sharp little maid, Sarah, with even greater distraction than two years ago, which you know forces my hand…”
Ravenna didn’t bother with the rest of the letter. She read that part over and over, just to make sure she’d understood it correctly. James in love with Sarah! She would never have guessed it. He didn’t let on anything of the sort, although with the way Sarah spoke of James, always referring to him as her Lord Broughton, baking apple tart for him, stealing glances at his handsome posterior whenever James removed his coat—Sarah let on plenty. Hers was more than just a maid’s crush on her employer. Ravenna had often heard her mention the Duke of Chandos whose wife, Sarah pointed out, had once been a chambermaid at a country inn. Did Sarah secretly hope James would marry her?
The thought crossed Ravenna’s mind that perhaps James’s father didn’t know what he was talking about, that it wouldn’t be a good idea to get Sarah’s hopes up until Ravenna knew for certain. Maybe I’d better not tell her, she thought as she went back to her room, taking the letter with her. Maybe I’d better talk to James first, show him what his father wrote, wait for him to confess.
She lay down to a restless night thinking on these things, plotting James’s marriage, naming his children, and before she knew that she’d fallen asleep, Sarah was calling her. “Time for travel,” the maid muttered drowsily.
Soon Ravenna found herself dressed in black, propped up in a coach and heading toward the northeast and London. Gazing at Paul in the morning darkness, she didn’t care one bit whether he noticed or not. He and Sarah were busy enough conversing between themselves, and how strange it was that where they sat together, blissfully chatting about West End theater and the future development of the motion picture industry, neither Paul nor Sarah had the slightest idea how much somebody loved them.
But Ravenna knew. And during that slow and uncomfortable carriage ride to London, she thought of nothing else.

Chapter Fifteen

It took two days for Ravenna to see it. Paul wanted out.
Out of the house in London, that is. He went to Bond Street upon their arrival, bought new, warm clothes, a silver pocket watch with a tall ship engraved on its cover, and several other impulse purchases, but it wasn't the same. He wanted a drink, a nice pint of Guinness, in a local pub, and no amount of therapeutic eighteenth-century shopping would do.
What he really craved was the social setting, and putting on a suit that made his eyes seem impossibly blue, one afternoon he came down to the kitchen to tell Ravenna so. “Just goin’ out fer the one,” he said, giving her a wink.
Ravenna flew into a fit of activity once he’d left. She ran upstairs and dug through her things, searching for something that wasn’t black. In a panic, she sent Sarah to fill up the plunge bath and this time, rather than the hot water she’d been asking for, she told her she didn’t mind if it was cold the way eighteenth-century people liked it—they didn’t have two hours to heat the water.
For as she explained to Sarah, when Paul said he was going “out fer the one,” it was one drink he referred to. He’d be back all too soon and she had to be beautiful when he came home, confident and sexy and completely irresistible for one all-important reason: He hadn’t just winked at her when he’d left. He’d actually kissed her on the cheek.
So at twenty minutes past two o’clock, Ravenna climbed out of the bath and put on a dress of patterned India cotton, pastel green with tiny pink roses. She demanded that Sarah leave her hair alone. Instead, brushing it out, she went down to the Blue Saloon and sat in front of the fire, to dry her hair by the flames’ heat and listen for the slam of the heavy front door.
It was a long wait.
By the time she heard Paul come in, she’d watched the fire go out and then be rebuilt by Sarah half a dozen times. In its light, she’d carefully scrutinized the face of every distant Hallett ancestor. She’d toyed with the keys on the piano, talked Sarah into learning to play “Go Fish.” Finally, near eleven o’clock, she’d eaten the cold pigeon pie meant for Paul. Through it all, she couldn’t help dwelling on the idea that she’d never get any closer to him. When he’d left the house, hadn’t he said he’d be home soon? That had been nearly ten hours before. Had her looks given him even the faintest reason to hurry back, or was Guinness more seductive?
Maybe it was her mood, but she couldn’t help thinking she knew something of how “the woman” must have felt back in Dublin, calling the barkeeper to send her husband home.
Indeed, his entry was husbandlike when at last he came in. He threw down his hat and coat on the chair, stoked the fire, then asked about supper. All this he did with an extraordinary warmth, and Ravenna found herself moving to comply.
After sending Sarah for another plate of food, she asked Paul about his day. She sat as close to him as her skirts would allow, and when the maid brought the food, Ravenna helped pull up the table and set everything before him.
Yet even with all these thoughtful details, Paul barely looked at her. Sarah poured his wine. Using that charm of his, enhanced as it was by real Irish stout, Paul thanked the maid profusely, flirtatiously, until finally Sarah left and Paul dug into his food, chattered carelessly as he bent over the little table in front of him.
Ravenna had missed him and he didn’t even know it.
“I met a guy named Oliver today,” he said, taking up a fork.
“Just Oliver?”
“Lord Oliver, and he’s an Irishman. A Cork man.”
“You must have had a lot to talk about.”
“Yeah, in fact, we did. He was tellin’ me about the Irish Parliament, about what’s going on at Dublin Castle, and I’d no idea,” he said, abandoning the plate of meats as his voice picked up speed, “no idea at all how this history affects the people I’m feedin’ and lookin’ after in Dublin. I mean, I never cared much for history at Trinity. If they’d told me what Lord Oliver’s been tellin’ me, so I could see how much these two hundred-year-old politics mean to Ireland’s future, these overfed, self-important landlords who’re manipulating my country just so they can afford to redecorate their drawing rooms, I mean, the audacity of it! Can you imagine?”
There was a fervor in his eyes when he spoke, a drunken intensity that made him forget about time and place. Only when Ravenna failed to join in his patriotic ramblings did he realize he wasn’t with his cronies anymore. Sheepishly, he took a drink. “I must admit, I found myself a pretty educational conversation. We’d half the fellahs in the place fightin’ at our table.”
“That sounds like a great night out.” She watched as he stabbed at the meat, completely oblivious of her dejection. “Is that all you did?” she asked finally. “Argue for ten hours?”
“We didn’t argue about the voyage an’ that. We talked about that quite a lot, actually.”
“And what did he say?”
“Lord Oliver?” Paul set the plate down, and his manner instantly took on the flirtatious quality he’d used on Sarah. “He said he was jealous, but I think he was just foolin’ with me—the viscount going off to sea as an ordinary sailor, I mean come on. More likely he was just havin’ a bit o’ fun with me.”
“He could have been jealous,” she said, relieved that he’d finally paid attention to her. “You’re the one going to the ends of the earth, exploring new continents, following in the footsteps of Captain Cook.”
“So?”
“So what’s he doing? Getting fat and self-important, according to you. He’d probably give his right arm just to fit into your elegant clothes.”
“Yeah,” Paul mused, glancing down at the starched linen of his cravat. “Who’d have thought poofy shirts would suit me? Now I know how it must’ve felt to be Liberace…and I like how it feels, y’know?” With an impish grin and his eyebrows raised, he stretched out his arms toward Ravenna, wiggled his fingers like a pianist readying for the performance.
No sooner had Ravenna almost smiled, when those fingers attacked her waist with tickling.
She couldn’t help it, she squealed then, tried to fight those wiggling fingers, to fend him off without bursting the seams of her bodice from giggling. She could smell the alcohol on his breath, so close he was. His hair was in her face as he wrestled her affectionately, and Paul laughed all the more when slowly Ravenna slipped off the couch.
It must have been only for a few seconds of tickling, but when finally he let her go, she was struggling madly for breath. She had tears in her eyes as she pulled herself up. He knows I’ve been up all night waiting, she realized. He’d known all along. He was trying to lighten her mood, to avoid being yelled at, but as she wiped at her eyes, still smiling despite herself, the next approach Paul tried was the wrong one.
“I must admit,” he said, “I think Liberace had the right idea. These clothes really bring something out in a man. Las Vegas gigs, Elvis impersonations, you know I could make a living at this? I’ve a whole new career just waitin’ when I get home.”
Paul thought he was being cute, but Ravenna lost whatever joviality he’d induced with the mention of home.
After all, she didn’t even have one anymore—just the British Columbian wilderness, should she end up following her parents there. Worse than that, Paul’s home was where “the woman” was. He hadn’t exactly said he would leave her. Even if he did, Ravenna didn’t know for certain how he really felt. He could tickle her all he wanted, but leaving his wife was a whole different thing.
She must have looked even more upset, for he’d picked up his glass of wine and now he fidgeted with it, as if he felt responsible. “You haven’t got much to go home to, have you?”
“Just my dog,” she said.
“And you were telling me they took away your island?”
Why did he have to say that? The memory of her island emerged, as it always did with the slightest provocation, from the depths of her mind, complete and unbearable. With no effort at all, she imagined the Federal men trampling the grass, digging up the posts of her house, loading even the boulders from her yard onto their barge to clear the land for the bird sanctuary.
“What did you call it…em, Protection Island, yeah?” The alcohol slurred his words, but she knew somehow it wasn’t just the Guinness invoking his tenderness. “Tell me about this place,” he said. “Tell me about growing up on an island.”
If he were trying to comfort her, he wasn’t doing a very good job. Ravenna had been happy there once as a child, lulled by the sounds of wind and birds, but that was before the court battles. She tried to remember back that far. “It’s sacred ground to me,” she said, holding back a sigh. Paul was gazing at her intently, and the hint of affection she saw in his eyes made her emotions twice as sharp. “This really isn’t the night to be telling you about it.”
“Why not?” His face was perfectly angelic, innocent in a haggard sort of way. “Tell me something about yourself,” he whispered, “something that’ll make me know you better.”
“You don’t want to, not really.”
“Listen, I know you’re upset and you’ve a right to be as well, but I honestly know nothing about you…and maybe, maybe tonight I’m willing t’learn, all right?”
“And you want to start with the island?”
“If I’m going to be sailing there when yer man Vancouver finds it, I might as well know what it means to you.”
Hearing him say this, Ravenna felt a tremor inside. She was exhausted. She was hell-bent on obsessive depression, and Paul was listening with those gorgeous eyes fixed upon hers. “You want to know what it means to me?” she asked. “OK, I’ll tell you. All my life I’ve wanted to share my island with someone, and now I know that someone is you.”
Nothing changed in Paul’s face. He was still watching her carefully, and so she ventured on. “I know you don’t want to hear it, and I know you don’t believe in soul mates or destiny, but you and I are meant to be together on that island when Vancouver names it. You’re going to be there just like I always wanted, whether you like it or not.”
“And what’re we meant to do there, on yer island?”
Not a hint of Fiona anywhere in those eyes.
“Please don’t tease me,” she said.
“I’m deadly serious, I’ve no idea. I mean, what did you used to do on this island? You must’ve done something. Beach comb? Fish? What’d you have in mind for us? Apart from…you know.”
She hadn’t heard him right, surely she hadn’t. And yet there it was, that charm leaking out all over the place, from his beaming, modest eyes, from his dazzling smile. Beneath her dress, Ravenna’s legs sent the silk into an audible rustle; her ears filled with the sound, and she wondered, could he hear her shaking? Could he feel it? Was he trying to kill her?
Her mind raced out of control and she surrendered to the overwhelming urge to get away from him, to leave his side for the opposite end of the room. She got as far as twenty feet before he stopped her with a shout.
“Hey, hold on there! What’d I say?”
“What are you doing to me?” She anxiously gripped the folds of her skirts. “If you’re playing some game—”
“I’m talking to you, or I would if you’d come and sit down.”
“You don’t mean what you say. You’re drunk.”
“I’ve had a pint ’er two, all right? But I’m not pissed, and I certainly don’t mean t’be upsetting you. It’s just that you,” and here he paused, all traces of charm vanished, “you look very beautiful tonight. Very beautiful. And I don’t need to say anymore than that or I’ll be gettin’ myself into trouble, so come and sit down and tell me about your island.”
She was leery of him, but she did sit down.
It was just too much to believe, that he would be attracted to her. He’d said beautiful, hadn’t he? He had, and now to make her more comfortable, he set about eating his dinner, taking up the plate of meats while she stared at him, her hands in a knot.
He didn’t flirt with her again, or even look at her for many moments. Maybe he was embarrassed that he’d said what he’d said. He was drunk, she knew that much.
“Come on, then, tell me,” he urged, sipping his wine.
So she tried to explain it, now that she was sure he wanted to know. She told him about her grandfather who’d originally bought their island property. Paul worked on the pastries as Ravenna recounted how she and her grandpa had walked the beaches, how as a little girl, she’d been told of the wondrous things she might find among the rocks.
As she said these words, described the island’s high cliff walls eroded by storms and spring tides, Ravenna began to remember certain things. The life of these memories slowly enveloped her, and she lost herself in telling of the hours she’d spent on those well-loved beaches, searching the clam beds, the tide line, the bushes, for the wonders her grandpa had told her about.
They’d been woolly mammoth bones she’d been hunting for. Grand beasts that had lived off the fields and conifers twelve thousand years before, their fossilized remains could be found on those beaches, her grandpa had said. To prove it, he’d taken Ravenna to the base of the soft-sand cliff where, freshly brought down by a winter squall, a landslide revealed a ten-foot tusk buried long ago by an Ice Age glacier.
“They’re just like the bones in the Natural History Museum,” she explained, “and they’re there on my island, hidden in the cliff. I know we’ll find them if we go with Vancouver.”
She could tell by the look on Paul’s face that he didn’t understand, couldn’t fathom why fossils would be important to a girl, but he didn’t say so. “And what’ll you do with your trophies, these bones?” He drank the last of his wine, regarded her curiously. “Give them over to the British Museum or stash them away?”
“I think if I wrapped them up carefully, they ought to last two hundred years in a forgotten corner of Wolvesfield, don’t you? Maybe someday I could show them to my children, get them interested in archeology and history…”
Ravenna faltered, for she knew Paul would question the paternity of those children.
Yet rather than appear uncomfortable or angry, he only smiled. “Maybe,” he said.
* * *
On Monday, he took Ravenna to the opera.
It was The Siege of Belgrade by a composer Ravenna had never heard of, a man named Storace. Although it wasn’t Mozart, with Paul beside her, Ravenna was melancholy from the first note, even though the story was comic. The divine quality of the singers’ voices and the weaving of the melodies had the extreme effect of dousing her mind with romantic thoughts. When Paul whispered close to her ear, explaining to her this part of the story or that, she knew she loved him.
How could she not? With his engaging eyes misted by candlelight, his hair loose from its ribbon and his patient, playful explanations, how could she be unmoved by these things? When he leaned into her shoulder to point out something, a strand of his hair fell against her neck. Feeling it, she found herself clinging to his earlier drunken compliment while at the same time, telling herself she could not, must not, stray too close. As much as her need for him weighed on her soul, it would drive him away if he felt it.
And yet, by the end of the opera, she’d surrendered. She nestled close. She let her hand around his arm, and to her surprise, he didn’t seem to mind. Paul kept whispering, and soon she felt his head next to hers, the sensation sending a quiet shudder throughout her body, making her giddy and reckless with wanting him.
When the opera was finished, she tried so hard to put away these feelings. Paul uncurled himself from her embrace and she let him, pretended to be unaffected by his touch, but she knew she was no good at pretending. For the rest of the night she was lost to staring at him when he wasn’t looking, and did he notice?
If it mattered to him how she pined that night, he kept it to himself.
* * *
Tuesday brought James’s arrival.
They were playing cards when he came in, set his two-cornered hat on the table. Taking the chair opposite Sarah’s, he ordered the maid from the room. Ravenna didn’t like the brusque tone he used; it made her fear the worst, that Vancouver had said no.
Yet when he settled back in his chair, James seemed content. He met Ravenna’s gaze placidly. “Can I assume you’ve had the drawing lessons proper for a marriageable lady?”
Confused by his question, still Ravenna nodded.
“Very good. Vancouver welcomes you both to the Navy.”
With these words, Paul’s shoulders relaxed; he reached for Ravenna’s hand across the table.
“However,” James continued, “you should be aware of what the captain demands of you. He asked me specifically if the two of you are…cohabitating.”
Paul’s fingers stilled ever so slightly. “What’d you tell him? Did you say we’re engaged?”
“I said that, as I’m the head of this family, she will obey me in all things, regardless of where she’s come to us from. Of course, I won’t tell either of you what to do, but it’d be best to comply with Vancouver’s wishes. He’s assigned Ravenna in place of a young man he knows well, Jonathan Sykes, who’s recently taken ill and fears the sea will be the death of him. You’ve been promoted to master’s mate, Ravenna.”
“So what will I have to do?”
“Keep a journal in Sykes’s name until he arrives with the store ship next autumn. For you, this should be easy enough.”
Releasing her hand, Paul sat back. “And where does the artwork come into it, then?”
“Vancouver will publish his findings after the voyage, as I will for the Royal Society. Illustrations will boost his sales.”
“What about your sales?”
James threw Ravenna an affectionate glance. “I trust you’ll give me the best pictures, yes?”
“And that’s it?” Paul asked. “Apart from her warning where the reefs are?”
“Other duties will probably be assigned. Vancouver’s sent on the master’s mate’s uniform, but for your maid we’ll have to go through the trunks upstairs; George was Sarah’s size, I believe. But then you wouldn’t remember George, would you?”
She wasn’t wondering about George in the least. She was looking at James in astonishment, searching for any hint of emotion. “Sarah is going?”
“In the guise of a midshipman, yes. Does your history mention our older brother?”
“No,” Ravenna said, trying to figure out why he didn’t respond to Sarah’s name. She hadn’t asked for the maid to go. Yet James had finessed her inclusion as well; had he assumed a lady would need her companion? Or was it James who needed her?
Whichever the case, his intense brown eyes gave up nothing. “Well, no matter. We’ll have plenty of time for family history on the voyage. You do understand that if the Admiralty learns about any of this, Vancouver will suffer the loss of his career? Nothing must be said.”
He looked particularly at Ravenna. She shrugged her shoulders. “Who would I tell?”
“Our favorite cousin.” James’s eyes darkened. “Should he find out, the very seams of the world might come undone.”
She was left to wonder about this terrible cousin as James rose from his seat and called for Sarah. Pacing before the fire, listening with growing impatience to the sound of her footsteps crossing room after room, James rubbed at his temples. Paul peeked at Ravenna’s hand of cards as they waited, and again she wondered if he really thought of her the way he’d said those few nights past. Did he really think she was beautiful, now that his vision was not colored with drink?
Then her mind filled with thoughts of another sort, for a change had come over James in that moment.
Sarah had arrived.
Hurrying through the final door, the girl made the perfunctory curtsy, something so common among James’s servants that by now Ravenna had watched him brush off the formality of it a dozen times.
This time it was different. James gave her submissive gesture every ounce of his attention. He watched respectfully as Sarah bowed her head. It was as if they vented the chemistry of their attraction into the motions of this ceremony between maid and master…and they hadn’t seen each other in days.
With gingerly chosen words, James told her of how Vancouver was allowing Ravenna to go on the voyage. Then he asked her, not ordered, but asked if she would join her mistress.
What was Sarah’s immediate reaction? To beam at Ravenna, of course. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was there on her cheekbones just the same, for she thought Ravenna was responsible.
She wasn’t about to admit otherwise.
Once Sarah had gone, James spent several seconds with his back to them. How perfectly charming, to see the tiniest smattering of joy escape his eyes when he turned around to speak again. “So what should be done before our departure?” he asked, obviously stalling as he tried to regain his pre-Sarah composure. “We have but seven weeks. Will you be ready?”
“You’re the one who has things to do, not me,” Ravenna said, thinking slyly of the maid.
“My responsibilities are well underway. I was thinking more that you, being a woman and from a different culture, might need for the voyage something more than the usual sailor’s issue.”
His mention of the future made her wonder, what would she need for four years at sea? Normally, she’d have taken her hairdryer, her compact disc player, and every stitch of clothing she owned, but in the eighteenth century? A comb and toothbrush, paper to write on, and to play the midshipman, she’d need—
“Art supplies.” Paul spoke up. “So far I haven’t seen anything of the sort in this town.”
“The navy has furnished the expedition already, but you can purchase your own materials, of course.”
“And there’s other things we’ll need,” Paul went on. “Warm clothes, good shoes, and could we get a piano on that ship, d’ya think?”
“A piano?” Ravenna couldn’t help laughing. “What are you going to do with a piano? Learn to play so you can be Liberace when you get home?”
Paul didn’t smile. He looked up at James steadily. “Could we?” he asked, a choke in his voice.
As if it were nothing, to mention this piano, he waited obstinately for James to answer even as Ravenna’s mouth dropped open. She thought about his comments at the opera, when he’d displayed such an impressive knowledge of music. She remembered that moment on the train when he’d shown an interest in Killiney’s playing. Liberace indeed. Wasn’t it enough he was the very image of her dreams, that his voice tinged with Dublin inflection had said she was beautiful? Now there would be music. Killiney’s music.
But James had nodded. “We’ll see what we can do to persuade Vancouver.”
Swallowing, eyes deep with guilt, finally Paul dared to look at her. “You know why I didn’t tell you.”
She couldn’t make a sound.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d get all funny on me.”
“Then why do you tell her now?” James asked.
“She knows why.” Standing up, Paul brushed her arm as he passed, went to the piano. She felt overwhelmed to see him sit down behind it and, with his hand lifted, beckon her to the seat beside him. “Come here,” he said.
And of course she did. Never taking her eyes from his, she crossed the room until she’d sat down on the small space he’d left for her. “Except you’ll have to give me more room with those skirts.” She moved her legs aside. James pulled up a chair before the fire and waited for the music, as if this were a matter of routine for him, but Paul merely sat with his gaze fixed on the piano’s top.
“Mightn’t some written music be in order?” James asked.
Paul shook his head, spoke not a word. He only closed his eyes, managed a prayer and without looking, began to play.
Immediately Ravenna was just as he’d claimed, entranced and smitten, for he played Mozart knowing she’d take the romance from it and apply it to him. As she watched him lean into the notes, she understood now what it was she’d been waiting for. Not just Killiney all these years, not just an Irishman, but someone with this intensity of presence—a man with an artist’s mind, a gentle disposition, and a soul brimming with Irish passion. He maneuvered the keys with such carefulness, bringing out the lightest melodies and then crushing them, striking with such a force that the violence of the passage was chilling. Ravenna loved it. She loved him more. Bathed in his music, she wasn’t sure she could pretend any longer.
All too soon the piece reached its end. Paul didn’t open his eyes, nor did he move when the last of the sustain died away.
Before the fire, James stirred. “Again you prove you’re not Killiney.”
Paul ran his finger along the keys. “How’s that?”
“Killiney didn’t possess the depth of character to play the way you do. His was always a superficially perfected music.”
“He didn’t have any soul,” Ravenna said.
“He didn’t have a tortured soul,” James corrected her, “and I think that’s needed to make meaningful music. He was comfortable with his accomplishments, good and evil. He felt no remorse.”
While James spoke, Ravenna watched Paul carefully. He seemed unprotected, exposed somehow. He didn’t talk, didn’t look up. He stared at the keys with heavy eyes and held perfectly still.
She pressed close to his shoulder anyway. “Thank you,” she said, next to his ear.
After a long, exhausted moment, finally he whispered, “Only Mozart for you, Ravenna.”
James didn’t seem to notice Paul’s mood. Sprawled in his chair, he was quick to break into their quiet exchange. “And what piece was that, my friend?”
“Something I learned from Aidan,” Paul mumbled.
“It was Mozart’s Fantasy in D Minor,” Ravenna told him. “I have it on CD…or at least I did.”
“Mozart?” a familiar voice whined. “Who has ever heard of Mozart but you?”
Ravenna jumped and James was out of his chair in an instant, for standing at the door was the owner of that voice, appraising them loathingly, his hands on his hips.
Though slight of build, he walked with a swagger, his face like a choirboy’s with blond hair to match. The contempt in his expression stifled any beauty Ravenna might have remembered, so arrogant he looked, so sinister as he approached her. She stood to meet him, and she caught the scent of his perfume long before he’d come close enough to tell what color his eyes would be, but she knew, didn’t have to look.
David’s had been gray.
James took a step toward him aggressively. “I warned you to stay away from this house.”
“James, it’s OK. He’s fine,” Ravenna said, and she hoped Christian was. His resemblance to David was staggering. Not only were his eyes the same color, his hair the same shade of dusky blond, but he was an inch or two taller than Ravenna, exactly the way David had been. When he spoke, even the timbre of his voice matched precisely—low-pitched, self-conscious, and ever so faintly nasal. For a brief instant she was made to think of her earliest suspicion, that they’d been kidnapped by David. The likeness was that convincing.
After perhaps several seconds in which Ravenna stood staring, Paul’s voice broke the stillness. “This is your marquess? The Christian one?”
“I beg to know what you suppose by that remark, Killiney?” Christian eyed Paul carefully. “You’re aware of the degree of my nobility, which I’ll remind you is the Earl of Launceston and closer to God than a Paddy like you.”
Paul bristled visibly. “I fancy myself quite close to God, actually, but if you’ve a problem with the fact that I’m Irish—”
“All commoners disgust me, regardless of their race or color.”
“Desist!” James growled. “I’ll ask you just once. Who let you in?”
“Who let me in?” Christian shrugged innocently. “Is it my fault no one answered the door? I found no notice in my sight reading ‘Christian is unwelcome today.’”
James took another menacing step, but Ravenna jumped up and took Christian’s arm. “Of course you’re welcome here,” she said. “Why don’t you sit down?”
But rather than be grateful for her invitation, Christian leered at her. “And why this amiable performance? At least Lord Broughton—or must I now own defeat and say Wolvesfield?—at least he’s consistent in both his malevolence and his honesty. Pray tell me, what motivates you to receive me, my lady?”
“I sent you away, didn’t I?” She remembered the diary and Elizabeth’s last mention of Christian. “You came to see me and I wouldn’t let you in.”
“You traded my friendship for the calculated attentions of a man who’ll only give you despair in the end. Look at him! Would he give you love such as I have these last twenty-six years?”
He pointed at Paul. Paul glared back.
If Killiney had been seated behind the piano, he might have been right, but how to explain that Paul meant no harm? How to tell Christian this without giving away their true identities? She couldn’t throw him out the way Elizabeth had, for somewhere inside him was the beginnings of David; Ravenna felt a responsibility toward him, toward her friend, to work things out.
She took a deep breath, realizing the extent of the job before her. “Christian, we need to talk.”
“Here in this company, or alone?” he asked.
James shot Christian a vicious glance. “You will not take her from this house,” he said.
“Your room, then,” Christian muttered, and as he folded his arm tightly around hers, Ravenna had no choice but to follow.

Chapter Sixteen

Sealed off in her chambers upstairs, she realized just what it meant to be alone with Christian.
She watched him pace back and forth before the fireplace, only it was nothing like any pacing she’d ever seen. He walked with the surety of a lion. Padding in fashionably silk-laced shoes, he held one slender hand to his hip, the other in distress at his delicate brow. When suddenly he fell to his knees before her, she jumped about a foot.
“Tell me there’s been no proposal,” he said, putting his hands in hers. “Tell me, and all will be forgiven.”
She carefully withdrew from his grip. “I can’t tell you that. And I haven’t done anything to need your forgiveness.”
“The abuse of our friendship, your attention for that swine—must I remind you? Tell me it’s a rumor!”
“I can’t!” she shouted back. This got his attention. His ardor faded, replaced by a lost sort of quality that made her feel as if she’d abandoned him. She got the distinct impression that this was the desired effect, for at the sight of such despondency, Ravenna could think of nothing to say.
Of course, Christian had no such problem. “How can you love him? You know Killiney is a man used to the dispossession of women for his own advancement. He and your brother are inseparable, is this fact completely lost on you?”
“He’s not the same man.”
“Because he wishes to marry you, you believe this?”
“I mean he’s not the same man.” She considered telling him the truth then, about the transition, about the future. If she told him, she wouldn’t have to lie, something she wasn’t good at anyway. Telling him would be so much easier than pretending she was Elizabeth. She knew, though, that the real story would bring even more questions, the answers to which were not nearly as pleasant as those she’d had for James.
As she weighed the decision in her mind, a knock came on the door. Christian arose from his position on the floor, and she took the opportunity to escape him.
Paul was outside. Knowing of Christian’s keen interest in their affairs, Ravenna shut the door on his prying ears and joined Paul in the passageway.
His eyes were thick with concern as he scanned her for signs of distress. “You all right?”
“He’s harmless yet, don’t worry.”
“I’m not so sure.” Paul glanced at the door nervously. “You’re not going to tell him, are you? Because he might mess things up a bit, and I don’t think we should be trusting our lives to the cut of this guy.”
“If we don’t tell him, you’ll have to be my fiancé every time he’s in the room.”
“And he’s going on the voyage, yeah?”
Ravenna nodded. Paul’s face seemed to fall in response. “I can see right now he’s not gonna buy it. Not unless you and I are gettin’ along, and every minute of the day, as well.”
“Do you mind?” she asked.
He bit his lip and looked at the door. “No, I don’t really.”
Taking her arm, he directed her grasp toward the polished handle. “Better attend to the business at hand. If he misbehaves, scream at the top of yer lungs. He’ll be up to his bleedin’ oxters in trouble before he knows what hit him, I promise.”
When Paul had gone, she turned back to find Christian seated before the fire. “Look,” she said, taking the chair across from his, “I know I haven’t been myself since Killiney arrived, but things are different now. He and I are going to get married. I didn’t do it to hurt you, Christian—”
“Wound,” he said. “You’ve wounded me. You’ve surpassed the limitations of mere hurt.”
“Then I’m sorry. I never meant for that to happen. I’ve handled the situation poorly, I know, but…”
He showed no sign of bestowing his forgiveness as he’d earlier proposed. He settled back more comfortably and smiled deliberately. “Go on,” he said.
She took a deep breath. Only seconds before she’d assured Paul that this man was harmless. But now, behind his manipulative smile, she glimpsed the truth about Christian Hallett: All smuggery and sweetness, lord only knew what he’d do with the future if given the chance.
So she decided to forge ahead with the apologetic approach. “I know it’s selfish of me to ask, but…could we still be friends? With Killiney around, I know it won’t be easy on you, but I promise I won’t send you away like before. I won’t even talk about Killiney in front of you. If you want, I won’t even mention his name—”
“When do you wed this lowly viscount?”
“Christian—”
“Well, is he not lowly? A viscountcy is below an earldom, or am I not allowed to dwell on such facts?”
“Christian, I’m trying to make amends with you.”
“You’re trying to make me a consenting party to your pathetic domestication! And by a Celtic viscount, no less! Do you really wish me to so pleasantly witness your social demise? Do you really wish me to give you up without a fight?”
“Yes!” The word flew out of her mouth, and for an instant Christian hesitated, as if what he’d been planning to say had been nullified by the readiness of her answer.
It occurred to her then that her quick response might not have been the most kind, but Christian merely narrowed his gaze and went on with his demands. “When is this accursed wedding?”
“It’s not cursed.”
“Very well, mismatched. When should I expect to spout lies of well-wishing to the undeserving?”
“I don’t know. Sometime after the voyage.”
“And should he die of some sailor’s pestilence, scurvy perhaps, what then would you say? Would you still refuse me?”
“Then I’d die of scurvy, too,” she said carefully. “I’m joining the voyage, Christian. Vancouver’s asked me to go to America.”
By the look she saw on his face, Ravenna felt as if she’d told him she was dying. His boyish features paled. Without thinking, he closed the distance between them and put his hands around hers again, and as she waited through his obvious efforts to regain control of himself, his eyes wandered desperately around the room.
Almost a full minute passed.
Finally, when he managed to speak, the sincerity of his words seemed surprisingly genuine. “Even when we were children, not a year could divide us.” He toyed with Paul’s ring, turned it in circles around her finger in thoughtless frustration. “Did I not always find some excuse to come visiting, to seek Uncle’s advice, to borrow his influence or his money only to be at Wolvesfield with you? Must you now divide us with oceans and years as well as marriage, after all I have done to be near you? Must you leave me?”
“I have to follow my heart,” she answered, trying not to be moved by his plea. “I have to do what I have to do, whether it hurts you or not.” And thinking to dispel that tremble to his grasp, she tightened her hand around his. She knew she’d upset him.
Still, she wasn’t prepared for his reaction. He lifted his gray eyes to hers, and with all the vulnerability of a pit bull, he scowled. “Then so do I.” Pulling his hands away, letting her know the depth of her crime, Christian’s eyes lingered on hers until the door had closed between them.
Only after he’d gone did Ravenna notice her commode had been opened, its contents obviously rifled through.
* * *
Two hours later Lord Oliver came calling.
Asking for James, the man claimed he’d come straight from Brooks’s and he’d better see Lord Wolvesfield; James had to be told, preferably by a friend and not a stranger.
“He’s gone out,” Paul said, greeting the Irishman at the drawing room door. “Em, I think to meet a fellah for coffee, some naval lieutenant; I could find out which one—”
“Please, would ye mind?”
While Paul went off to ask the maid, Lord Oliver coughed and fidgeted, hummed and hawed, until finally Ravenna couldn’t stand it anymore. “James has to be told about what?” she asked.
“Ah, m’lady,” Lord Oliver growled, “you’ll pardon me sayin’ it, but that Launceston’s a menace, a genuine hellion. As your brother’s a decent man, it’ll kill him to learn what your cousin’s done.”
Cousin, indeed. Hadn’t James warned her to tell Christian nothing, to give him nothing to use against the family or, what had James said? The seams of the world might come undone.
Now all of London knew about James’s feelings for Sarah. As Lord Oliver explained, Christian had taken the old marquess’s letter from Ravenna’s commode, and he hadn’t hesitated to march right over to Brooks’s and pass it around amongst the gamblers and beaus.
* * *
For hours Ravenna sat up listening, waiting for James in the silence of her room. Sarah hadn’t heard about the letter. The maid was still completely unaware of James’s love, but Ravenna knew; what’s more, James could talk to her about it, for after Christian’s broadcast of the news, he certainly had nothing to gain by refusing to discuss his feelings for Sarah.
When finally he arrived home, Ravenna met him in the darkened passageway. Even with the dim light, she could see it in James’s face—shame, humiliation. He slipped his arm around her shoulder. Drawing her close, his voice was gentle, nothing like she’d expected to hear. “You know, don’t you? About Sarah?”
She wondered what to say as he led her into the bedroom, set her down before the fire while he kicked off his boots. She waited for him to take a seat, but instead he flopped down on her bed, covered his face with heavy arms.
“It’s not as bad as it seems,” she told him.
“You don’t know Christian.”
Ravenna sighed. “You’re right, I didn’t know he’d get that letter. If I’d known, believe me, I wouldn’t have brought it from Wolvesfield like I did. It just never occurred to me when I took him upstairs that he’d—”
James let his arms slide from his face, onto the bed where they lay lifelessly thrown back. She went to him then, and although he looked up, he didn’t move but to drudgingly breathe. “That is the least of it,” he said to her softly.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
James didn’t answer.
Sitting on the bed, she tried to console him. “So everyone knows you’re in love with your housemaid. So what? Don’t they understand that love knows no rules?”
James closed his eyes, and at once Ravenna knew she’d wounded him in some way, however unintentionally.
“Have you not always known me to treat the servants with respect?” he whispered.
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Hear me out.” He rubbed at his eye with the back of his hand, then asked, “Have I not always argued for the equality of every man, regardless of his station? Have I not dined with common men, drank their beer, even played with their dogs?”
“I suppose,” she answered.
“Then why can’t I admit I love Sarah?” He paused, and Ravenna sensed his internal struggle. “It shouldn’t matter what anyone thinks or wants, peer or otherwise. I should be prepared to defend her. I should marry her despite all objections. I should find it impossible to keep from arguing her worthiness in rivaling the beauty of the Duchess of Devonshire.”
The emotion in his voice made Ravenna think of the death of the marquess, and she put her hand on his shoulder, looked down on his solemn eyes. “Who’s more important to you,” she asked, “Sarah, or people whose dogs you don’t play with, that you don’t even like?”
“But that’s not the question, rather which of my feelings are stronger, love or pride.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“What can I do? Wait for her to learn of my feelings from unkind ears? No, I’ll have to tell her, and pray she doesn’t find my lack of courage repulsive.”
Ravenna smiled to herself. “That’s not what’s going to happen.”
And just like that, as if she possessed some magic to raise him out of despondency, James glanced up with a quizzical expression. “What do you know?” When she smirked, he sat up quickly, took hold of her shoulders. “What do you know? If you’re privileged to her feelings, then let’s have it out!”
“She talks about you constantly. That’s all I’ll tell you.”
“Are you certain? There can be no mistake?”
“She opens her mouth and the name James comes out—yes, I’m certain. You must know by now she cares for you?”
But James had slipped off the bed, was heading for the door in nothing short of an all-out sprint.
“You can’t mean to wake her at this hour?”
He stopped, turned around; with the corner of his mouth tugged in a grin, he lifted a wary brow. “You’d better be right about this.”
Before she could assure him she was, he’d shut the door.
* * *
All too soon it was time to leave London. Everyone went to bed early that night. Paul went first. Along with Sarah, James was next; he and his workmen finished with hanging the portrait he’d sat to in Edinburgh, a painting by Raeburn which James had commissioned several months before. No sooner had it been hung in the dining room when James went to bed, near ten o’clock.
They were to leave in the morning for Falmouth Bay where Discovery had put in to wait for her consort. Ravenna was more than ready to go, but as one o’clock neared, she checked her baggage a final time. Books, warm clothes, and fur-lined boots were all in order. She hoped she’d not forgotten anything, but as she went over the mental check list, she heard the piano’s tone, mingling with the chimes as the clock struck the hour.
Paul was calling her.
She stopped what she was doing and listened. The song, although not Mozart, was still mournfully sweet as it wound its way up through the hallways to find her chamber’s door. It was Beethoven, the Moonlight Sonata, a song not yet even conceived of in 1791. The music filled Ravenna with longing, made her melancholy grow with the beginning of each new passage played a little louder than the last, a little stronger. With the inflection of sadness in the notes, she knew where Paul’s mind was. He was calling her. This was his way, much more personal than knocking at her door.
She arrived at his side suddenly, not remembering how she’d made her way down to the piano. All she recalled was music, grand, soul-filling music, and stepping closer to him, she dared to lay her hand on his firm, broad shoulder.
In the near darkness, Paul stopped with his playing. The bench creaked as he moved, stood up to set the cover down carefully on the piano’s top.
Then he turned to her. “Mary,” he whispered, and his hand slipped tenderly around her back. “My Mary of the river.”
Ravenna kept still beneath his touch. She waited for him to explain, and when he didn’t, when he seemed to sink into his own thoughts, she coaxed him softly.
“I’ve just had a dream,” he said, and as if to awaken himself, he shook his head the smallest bit. “An awful, horrible dream.”
Silence for a moment. She thought he’d fallen into it again, for where he stood beside her, Paul didn’t move. He stared at the piano, and only his fingers stirred where they curled around her hip.
“Was it about me, this dream?” she asked.
No response.
“Will you tell me about it? Why was I Mary of the river?”
“You were on the banks of a river, that’s why, in a forest, like in Alaska, with big trees and mountains an’ that, just like they show in the advertisements back home.”
“What’s so horrible about that?” she asked.
For the first time, he lifted his eyes. “You were searching that river. You were looking for a body, for blood, for whatever you might find, and it was me you were searchin’ for. Me. Like it had all gone terribly wrong, but I hadn’t yet figured it out as such, because…because I could still see you, y’know? I tried callin’ out to you, sort of cried out your name, but m’voice, it wouldn’t…wouldn’t make a sound, not a word. All I could do was lay there, watch you go on up the river without me. And I knew I’d never see you again.”
“I’m here.” Leaning against him, she tried to reassure him.
He shifted his jaw nervously.
“Listen,” she said, “you’re smarter than Killiney. You know what’s ahead of you; just because you had a dream you died—”
“But what if I do?” He gazed at her determinedly, and his eyes were filled with unconcealed pain. “You’ll be stuck here, won’t you? You’ll be Mary of the river forever in this place.”
“Paul, you’re not going to even see an Indian, if I have anything to say about it.”
“But if it should happen—,” and he stopped, for he’d pulled her closer still. It seemed then that his final remembrances of Fiona were laid to rest, having taken Ravenna so readily in his arms. Venturing to lift his gaze, he acknowledged it, let his hand slide around her hip a little tighter, a bit more intimately. “It’s not that I’m scared of dying,” he said. “It’s just that I’m scared for you, that’s all.”
“You’re saying that I’m in danger now?”
“I’m saying that since I’ve stopped broodin’ over myself, I’ve come to realize what’ll happen t’you if God decides He wants me someplace else. My death will only be the beginning for you. If my destiny’s written out, then you’ll be marrying Christian after I’m gone, and I don’t want to be responsible for that. I don’t like t’think of you being abused by him, being widowed and alone and raising a son in this place with no way t’get back. I mean, is Fiona worth it? Not for my life, but yours?”
“So now you’ve changed your mind? You want to stay here and wait for James to bring the potion?”
Paul looked sheepish when he answered. “I know you’ve asked me a dozen times, but I don’t mind so much anymore, waitin’ those four years.”
“And every day of those four years I’ll have to wonder if you think about her, if you still love her and wish you’d—”
“I don’t love her, I’ve told you. The only reason I was gonna go back was t’tell her as much.”
“So go on the voyage. Then sometime next year we’ll find the potion, we’ll drink it, and everyone will be happy.”
“No, I don’t think you understand. You see, death…death has a way of following me around. If history says I’m supposed to die, then I reckon God means business this time, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to—”
“You mean you’re scared?”
“Ravenna, you can’t know what it’s like to…to lose someone. You’ve never had that. And I certainly wouldn’t want you t’be having it now, on account of me.”
His hand fidgeted behind her back as she considered, as she remembered the days when he’d so violently protested the idea of spending even five minutes alone with her, let alone four years. Now all he wanted to do was stay?
Turning toward the window behind them, out of nervousness, out of fear to see that emotion in his eyes, she avoided his stare. “I can’t believe you. This is your dream making you say these things—”
With a firmness that startled her, he caught her up in his other hand, forced her to look at him. Pain flashed between them as they gazed at each other. He held her tightly, making her see his grim determination, and Ravenna thought he’d scold her then.
Instead, slowly, letting his hand relax at her arm, Paul’s eyes softened. “Get your coat,” he said. “We’re going for a walk.”
* * *
Flickering lamplight greeted them outside. The Strand was empty but for an occasional coach taking some gentleman home from his cards.
He took her hand. He tucked it deep in the pocket of his coat, asked, “Have you ever been in love before?”
Yes, she wanted to say, a thousand times yes, with you, when we were children at Disneyland…but she didn’t. “You know the answer.”
“I do, but tell me anyway.” And despite that melancholy glint to his eye, he smiled a little; to ease her nerves, she thought. Could he feel her trembling with the turn this night had suddenly taken?
“I’ve loved other people,” she said, “but never the ones who’ve loved me back.”
“I reckon that’s the way of the world.”
She glanced at him. “It’s not as simple as just saying it, you know.”
“Saying what?”
“That you don’t want to go with Vancouver. Tonight you may be convinced you don’t love her anymore, that if you go on the voyage, you’ll die and leave me stranded here alone, but a year from now…You’ll be wishing you were on that boat, Paul, and I don’t want to be blamed because you stayed here for my sake. I don’t want to spend every minute knowing you resent me for what you gave up in protecting me.”
“But it’s my decision t’make, isn’t it? How could I blame you?”
“If you end up homesick in the next four years, believe me, you’ll find some way to blame me.”
“And if I don’t ever get homesick?” He gave her a measured stare. “If I don’t ever wake up someday and say t’myself ‘I might be shaggin’ the woman right now instead of yer girl’?” Paul shook his head. “It’s never gonna happen. So instead of having me to yourself free and clear for four years, and safe, I might add, you’d have me risk getting killed?”
“You won’t die. You do have free choice, you know. It’s not like everything is completely spelled out for you.”
Paul shot her an angry glance. “I’m sorry, but my faith is in God’s plans for me, not in any choices I’m likely t’make.”
“But this is history, not God’s plan. Human beings write history. They make mistakes just like everybody else, and maybe somebody got it wrong, like Columbus being the first to discover America. Maybe you don’t die at all, and no one’s bothered to really find out.”
“That’s a mighty tall maybe.” His eyes were uncomfortably sharp, and even when he didn’t look at her, he stared down the shop fronts and paving stones instead, his attitude worsening the further they walked.
“Don’t you have any faith in yourself?” she asked at last. “Or do you leave everything in your life up to God?”
“Look, right now this is all theoretical, what you’re saying, so it doesn’t seem like such a big deal t’you, but to me…” His voice trailed off as he slowed.
Ravenna leaned into him. “What is it?”
“It’s just that,” and he paused, gathering his words, “it won’t be such an easy thing if I really do die. You don’t understand, but I do. How will you survive? Who’s gonna look after you if I’m not here?”
“James will take care of me.”
“Is James going to talk you out of feelin’ responsible when you think of how you told me I wouldn’t be killed? Is James gonna be with you night and day, holdin’ back the darkness, keepin’ you from topping yourself? Can he take the place of me, make you feel like I make you feel?”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
“Because I know how it feels, Sweetheart. I know you love me. And apart from him being my friend, I loved Aidan just as much, every bit as much, and look what messin’ about with me did for him?”
“He died, didn’t he?”
“He did. I persuaded him to go somewhere we shouldn’t have gone. I did that. And you talk about me dying as if it’s nothing, as if you think we’re here forever, but the last time I saw Aidan, I would’ve never, ever thought something could happen, and that it’d be my fault. And he did die. And it was my fault.”
She remembered his rueful face at the hotel. “This was just before we came here, wasn’t it?”
“I was sixteen when Aidan and I went to Belfast for the weekend.” Paul hesitated, and there was a choke to his voice when he finally went on. “Now you tell me, what business have a couple of sixteen-year-olds in the Republican Markets area of Belfast?”
“With the troubles, you mean?”
Paul didn’t answer. He didn’t even glance at her as they walked, so that when she looked up into his face, she was aware of how upset he really was. There was that dread again, that fathomless ache shining in his eyes. “Whatever happened to Aidan,” she said carefully, “you still have to go back to your wife. You said that’s what you wanted, that it was the right thing to do. How else are you going to make sure you couldn’t have worked it out? That you don’t still love her, or—”
Abruptly, Paul stopped. The smoldering glare he gave her then sent a shiver up her spine. “I think I’m old enough t’know who I’m in love with.” As his fingers moved around hers in his pocket, he lowered his eyes self-consciously before continuing on up the rain-slicked street.
Ahead of them she saw a domed building, a church spire rising high above the city. As they neared it, she realized it was St. Paul’s Cathedral. He led her up the steps to its tall wooden doors, and under the shelter of its portico, Ravenna removed her woolen hood, wiped the rain from under her eyes. “You have a thing for churches at night, don’t you?”
Paul said nothing, merely opened the door.
In an instant, she forgot his moodiness. The place was magical, bathed in candlelight. Above them, the ceilings rose so high that where the darkness took over and the light couldn’t reach there appeared to be no ceiling at all. Cold and breathless, the great stone building seemed to go on forever, but Paul knew where he was going. He led Ravenna to a staircase and soon they were climbing step after step, making hollow wooden echoes and stony returns with the sound of their shoes on the spiral risers. Worrying about the noise they made, Ravenna followed him as quietly as she could, higher and further up into the dome, through corridors and into more stairs that rose and zigzagged until finally, after a lot of panting and several minutes, they arrived at a humble, unremarkable door.
On the other side of that door was London, all of it, like a flickering blanket spread out before them.
Together, they stood for a moment in silence. Paul seemed as transfixed as she, taking in the twinkling lights, the church spires. Yet when she heard him speak again, she knew he’d not forgotten their subject.
“There’s a reason for everything,” he said, turning back to her, “and I’ve a feeling in my gut tellin’ me that’s why we’re here, why God’s put us in this mess with each other.”
She dared to step nearer to him. “Why is that?”
“Because,” and it surprised her how swiftly, how easily his arms encircled her, “because neither of us were gettin’ where we should’ve been in the other time.” He drew her up close, so intimate and personal that she gasped despite herself. “And because I needed to break with the woman,” he went on, resting his forehead against hers, “and you’ve been living alone on that island of yours for far too long.”
“And what about Aidan?” she asked. “Maybe James is meant to fill the space Aidan left when he died in Belfast?”
“Look,” Paul said, sterner now, “I’m going to make you promise that if something happens to me, you’ll carry on, business as usual, all right? You won’t top yourself, you won’t live out your life in a mental ward or whatever, yeah?”
“I don’t think they have straitjackets in this time.”
He pulled back an inch or two and fixed her with warning eyes. “Promise me, Ravenna. I’ll not leave the house, I’ll not set foot on that boat until you’ve promised as much.”
Knowing he was serious, that she had no choice but to do as he asked, she nodded grudgingly.
“So you’ll get on with your life?” he said. “Flirt an’ marry an’ all that?”
“I’ll never stop loving you.”
“Never said you had to.” And working his hands under her cloak, feeling along the seam between her bodice and skirts, he lowered his hands slowly, awkwardly down the curve of her until she thought she would faint with wanting to kiss him. What should I do? she wondered. Lean closer? Kiss him first?
Yet even as she deliberated, she could feel it—he was shaking. It wasn’t just his hands that seemed to tremble at her hips, but his whole body pressed tightly to hers. She risked stirring then. Lifting her fingers to his jaw, caressing him, feeling the scratch of his whiskers beneath her touch, she marveled at the vulnerability she saw in his gaze. “Are you really that scared?” she asked.
There was the barest hint of a smile on his lips. He laughed a little. “The last time I kissed a woman that wasn’t Fiona, I think I was sixteen.”
And then, before the happiness faded from his eyes, she felt it: The warmth of his kiss came soft and clumsy, breathing life into her, pressing her with a gentleness that wet her lips with an appetite she’d never known she’d possessed. It didn’t occur to her that she didn’t know how to kiss him back. She just did, and when they parted, for several minutes afterward she was amazed at how the fluttering ache persisted in her belly and the taste of him remained sharp in her mouth.
Overwhelmed by the excitement of being in his arms, she, too was shaking at this point. Seeing that she was, he released her. He took a step back, gave her room to recover. “Hey, if I’m to get through this voyage,” he said, scooping up her hand, “you’ve a lot to teach me about Indians, yeah? Can you tell me about powwows and teepees?”
“Potlatches and longhouses,” she said, looking down at where he worked his fingers into hers, interlocking their hands in a snug, intimate fit. How strange this is, she thought. Does he know I’ve never done this before?
Glancing down, Paul followed her gaze. “Potlatches, that’s right,” he said distractedly, “but em, I guess I’ve a few months t’learn the difference. Otherwise I’ll never make it home to give the wife what she wants.”
“So you’ll go on the voyage?”
He hesitated, and immediately she sensed the deluge that threatened him, the need so strong in him to avoid the fate he’d seen in his dream. Still he nodded, his eyes a haze of bitter devotion. “For you, Ravenna. I’ll go because you asked me to, and because maybe…maybe this is what God’s got in mind, pittin’ me against death, makin’ me look it in the face, y’know? And besides, like my Da used t’tell me, the woman’s always right.”
“And that’s what you’ve decided about Fiona? You’re going to get a divorce like she wanted?”
“A divorce and a plane ticket, as soon as I get home.”
“Plane ticket? To America, you mean? But you won’t need one, I’ll be at Wolvesfield, or wherever Elizabeth has taken my—”
“Then we’ll fly to Las Vegas together,” he said.
“Las Vegas?” She smiled.
“Would you rather we do it on your island?” he asked. “With all the Federal Government fellahs protesting and threatening to take us off to prison?”
Holding her breath, her heart hammering wildly, Ravenna managed to squeak out the question as she looked at his perfectly serious face. “Do what?” she asked. “You mean you want to…you want to make love? In front of all the game wardens?”
But even before she’d finished the question, he’d melted in a grin. “That might be interesting,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “No, I meant marry, I want to marry you in front o’ the wardens. We could stand on the beach with the waves lappin’ at our feet, saying our vows under the seagulls and the open sky while yer fellahs start up their motor boats to take us away in handcuffs for trespassing…Or we could be married by an Elvis impersonator. Which is better, d’ya think?”
Ravenna stared at him, rendered insensible by the tide of emotion washing over her. This was a dream, it had to be, for as she tried in vain to force her lips into an answer, Paul let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her tight. He put his face down close to hers, and the memory of his kiss ached inside her when he drew her nearer still.
“That is, if you’ll have me,” he said. “Will you, Ravenna? Do you want me the way you said you did?” His eyes were shot through with needing; his voice was a whisper of husky breath that made her senses careen.
Gazing at him, feeling his hands run up and down her back, she heard the words tumble from her lips before she’d even thought to contain them. “Of course I do. I’ve wanted you since I was twelve, since I—” She caught herself, realizing her mistake.
Paul didn’t notice. He bent close and took her mouth in a kiss, moving his lips over hers, brushing her with promise, teasing her until it seemed there was nothing in the world but the sound of his pledge.
“Then you’ll have me,” he said, murmuring in a breath against her open mouth. “I’ll be yours, my Mary of the river, ’til death do us part.”

Chapter Seventeen

When they left London the next morning, Paul was elated. He’d gotten virtually no sleep, but he didn’t care. Having spent the night alone with his racing thoughts, he’d been happy to stumble outside in the predawn stillness, eyes blurry, head aching, yet completely content when at last he was able to take Ravenna’s hand.
Does she even know what she’s done t’me? That she’s changed m’point of view?
Helping her into the carriage, Paul wondered if she could imagine as much—that in her eager, inexperienced kiss he’d found something altogether deeper than passion. He’d lost himself in her innocence. He’d soaked up her hurry, her trusting nature, even her bewilderment in her own responses, and seeing that love in her eyes as their carriage rattled out of Charing Cross, Paul felt changed.
And yet he couldn’t tell her. He wanted to. Indeed, all night he’d been able to think of nothing else. But as much as he craved wrapping her in his arms, whispering those things he’d realized in the hours they’d been apart, still he didn’t, for he’d noticed something strange in the last few days.
James and Sarah never showed affection.
Paul couldn’t figure it out. Even in the carriage that morning, when no one but themselves were likely to see, James and Sarah acted the same. They didn’t whisper. They didn’t kiss. In fact, James wouldn’t even sit next to the maid, much less hold her hand. The pair did talk, but no more amongst themselves than with Paul or Ravenna. If he hadn’t already been told as much, Paul would have never even guessed the two were lovers.
Not that he cared what James and Sarah did. It was only that Paul reckoned he ought to be following the guy’s lead, behaving the way an eighteenth-century nobleman behaved. If that meant he didn’t sit with Ravenna as he wished he could, if James thought it proper to chaperone or whatever, then Paul should go along, yeah?
So he made a vow in the darkness that morning: Keep your hands t’yourself. Maybe James didn’t have a problem with it, public affection and all that, but Paul wasn’t about to start a row in the midst of a three-day carriage ride.
Even so, when the light strengthened and he was able to see Ravenna more clearly, he found himself straying. Where she leaned against the window, gazing at him with wistful eyes, she seemed delicate, fragile. She obviously was thinking about last night at the church, and this, along with the snug fit of her blouse, that pout to her lips so suggestive of things she’d never even heard of, let alone done…Paul could hardly stand it. He had to be near her. The memory of their kiss burned in his mind, and he seriously considered ignoring James’s example then, scooping her up in a rough embrace, searching the contours of her soft little mouth.
This he didn’t do.
Behaving himself all the way to Yeovil, Paul kept to his side of the carriage. He asked Ravenna questions, as many as he could think of about motor boats, killer whales, whatever, all the while stifling his wilder thoughts in the gravity of James’s face. When this didn’t work—as Paul had become so worked up in learning every detail of Ravenna’s life he’d forgotten all about James and Sarah—next he tried napping. He closed his eyes, hoping to avoid temptation this way. He only ended up dreaming about her, even worse as his dreams were vivid enough to make him awaken uncomfortably aroused.
Thank God it’s dark, he thought.
Such was the cut of him, infatuated, rigid, when at last they arrived at the coaching in. James got out first. When Paul followed him, stepped into the pouring rain and inches-deep mud, he stopped Ravenna at the carriage door. Slipping his arm behind her legs, in one swift movement he tossed her over his shoulder and carried her, along with the bedrolls, through the inn’s door to the warmth of the drawing room.
Setting her down beside the fire, he heard voices in the passageway, James questioning the innkeeper about their room.
“I’m afraid there’s just the one, m’lord.”
“One room? For the four of us?”
“Afraid so, m’lord.”
Hearing those words, Paul felt in that instant all the longing of their carriage ride bundled inside him, a pulsing knot of anger deep in his groin. One shaggin’ room. How would he manage it?
Where she lingered near his arm, she was already more than irresistible. Her hair was damp from the rain outside. Her fingers were cold when she asked for his fob watch, and in handing it back to him, unblinking, weary, she gazed up at Paul with the most loving eyes. In the dim light, she looked like a picture of heaven, and he almost kissed her then and there, for he knew James had gone upstairs with the innkeeper. Only Sarah would witness the deed, and so Paul leaned closer, craving Ravenna’s lissome frame, wanting to hold her, needing her so much…
But before he could act on these unbridled thoughts, she turned away. “I didn’t either,” she muttered, answering something Sarah had said. “Maybe I could talk him into some bread or—”
“You’ll do nothin’ o’ the sort,” Sarah replied.
A frown crinkled Ravenna’s pretty black brows.
“You’re in no fettle to go runnin’ about, bickerin’ with innkeepers,” the maid insisted. “Now we’ll just see what Jem says about the room, then you’re off to bed.”
“I’m fine, I’m just tired.” But tainted with too many sleepless hours, her words sounded frail. She was swaying, Paul noticed it now, and it crossed his mind that maybe in all his selfish ardor he’d done it again—he’d overlooked her needs, ignored everything about her save what he’d coveted in the midst of his lust.
Scolding himself, Paul dared to put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re hungry?”
“Yes, but it’s too late,” she whispered, pleading him with those doe-dark eyes. “Sarah and I were thinking if we could just get a sandwich, maybe a drink of water—”
Paul’s heart suffered when her fingers, still wet with rain, worked their way softly into his. “Can you get us something to eat?” she asked. “I don’t care what, I just…don’t feel very good, that’s all.”
“All right…OK.” Slipping his free hand down her back, Paul felt grim for the way he’d forsaken her. “Em, I’ll see what I can getcha when that fellah comes back.”
He pushed her gently in the direction James had gone, and handing the bedrolls to Sarah, he urged the maid to take her upstairs. “Don’t mess about, yeah? Just make her lie down. I’ll be there soon.”
Watching them disappear into the passageway, he crossed his arms tightly, fought with himself for the pain inside. How could he have been so self-absorbed? Touching her, making love to her…these things were important, but not to the exclusion of everything else, especially her feelings. In the carriage, where she’d gazed at him so longingly, and now, when she’d implored him with her hands wrapped in his, she’d not been seducing him. She’d needed him. And to think he’d been too enraptured with her earlobe to notice.
When the innkeeper came back, Paul got the food—cold beef, a loaf of bread, a tankard full of warm ale; taking it upstairs on a wooden tray, he found two bedrolls laid before the fire. James was already stretched out on one. That’s where I belong, Paul thought, on the floor, until I’ve learnt a thing or two about the way I’m goin’ here.
He took the tray to Ravenna, and although she lay sylphlike and beautiful amongst the blankets, Paul didn’t say a word. He set down the food. Smoothing back her hair, touching a kiss to her lovely widow’s peak, these pleasures were strictly forbidden, he decided, at least until he’d come to terms with this tremendous need he felt inside.
Instead, not daring to meet her eyes, he merely backed away. “I’ll leave you to yourself, then,” he said to her quietly.
He knew well enough what he had to do.

Chapter Eighteen

Then I’ll be yours. That’s what he’d said, hadn’t he?
Ravenna wondered all during their coach ride to meet Vancouver at Falmouth Bay. Where she’d expected Paul to kiss her, to put his arm around her and trade affectionate glances the way a boyfriend would, instead she met with nothing; nothing save his usual, amiable charm.
And there were hours and hours of that. Muddy roads and plenty of sheep made certain their journey to Cornwall was slow. Paul chattered convivially to while away the time, but for Ravenna, this was a torture made all the more unbearable by that grin he flashed, so disarming and suggestive, as he asked her about island living and getting paid to swim under boats.
Of course, he said nothing about the night before.
By the time they arrived at Falmouth, she’d given up worrying about it. It was dark, still trying to rain. She couldn’t see Discovery where it rocked at anchor, only pieces of it illuminated by lanterns on deck, but she was excited just the same as she followed James aboard ship, below decks. Down a dark and narrow ladder, through one chamber and then another, at last they emerged in the lamplight of the ship’s great cabin. There, squinting in the brightness from behind James’s shoulder, Ravenna strained to see a short, bald and most eloquent man.
Eloquent because, at the sight of her, the man lifted himself from his chair with unimaginable poise. Ravenna wondered who he was, this gentleman who firmly took her hand and with all respect kissed it, but as his hooded eyes met hers, she realized he seemed completely familiarized with her presence—and yet he, too, stared.
“You do not know me,” he said quietly.
“No,” she agreed.
All the men in the room had fallen silent.
“Well, doubtless there will be much to learn in the months to come,” he said, glancing around at their submissive faces, “for all of us. Forgive me, my lady. I am George Vancouver, captain of this ship. I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”
In her wildest historical fantasies, she’d never pictured Vancouver like this. The man who had charted hundreds of miles of wilderness coast, who’d named great mountains and numberless harbors, the captain who had literally put the Pacific Northwest on the map, was all of about five-foot-two.
He was also bald. Ravenna was later to learn he shaved his head, that he usually wore a wig, but meeting his deadly serious eye, she didn’t know these things. All she knew was that he looked nothing like the portrait she’d been shown as a child.
Vancouver beckoned them to sit at the table with the other men, and as they fell to discussing the finer points of fate and destiny, Ravenna began to fade with exhaustion. She’d been awake nearly twenty hours since leaving the inn the night before, and now Vancouver’s cabin seemed a hallucination, a flashback to her youth when his name had been a family legacy. How many times as a young girl had she tried to picture this cabin around her? How often had she wished to have been a part of this moment?
She was still reeling from lack of sleep when she went out on deck a few hours later. The weak, predawn light didn’t allow her to see much of the casting off, so she contented herself with the sounds of it. Orders were given for the fore and top sails to be unfurled. Officers passed commands between themselves in a procession of echoes. The topmen with laughter scrambled aloft, and when the gunshot sound of canvas catching the wind made Ravenna jump, she knew at last the voyage had begun.
Soon the morning strengthened into a pearly haze, and Ravenna could just make out the accompanying ship, Chatham, following dutifully in their wake. Swaying on the rain-slicked deck, she was spellbound by the sight of their consort sailing against the whitening sky so that she hardly noticed when someone came up behind her and whispered quietly in her ear.
“How I do so love a man in uniform.”
Spinning around, she was greeted by a smirk.
“Christian?” she gasped. “How did you…Who let you…”
As her eyes searched the deck, hunting through the sailors, hoping for a glimpse of James or Paul, Christian appeared completely unconcerned. “Who are you looking for, Beloved? Your commander, perhaps? To issue the orders for our return to port?”
“I don’t know how you got on board,” she said, “but when Vancouver finds out, he will turn the ship around.”
“I’m sorry, Beloved, but he won’t.”
“Stop calling me that! You have no business being here. You know I don’t want to see you anymore, that James will kill you if you so much as—”
“Then he’ll face the Admiralty, won’t he?”
Ravenna frowned, but Christian only seemed to relish her dismay. “Allow me to properly inform you of my position aboard this vessel,” he said, and with a flourish of his hand, he smiled broadly. “You see, I’ve been appointed assistant to Mr. Menzies, this complement’s naturalist, and as such I represent the interests of the Royal Society and its president.”
“The Royal Society put you on this ship?”
“As you’ll recall, Mr. Banks and I share a certain history as well as a number of unsavory, disreputable acquaintances whose identities, due to my limitless generosity, shall remain nameless.”
“You mean you blackmailed him,” Ravenna muttered.
“All perfectly legal, I assure you.” Regarding her with almost a sneer of sorts, he nodded toward the companion ladder. “Vancouver knows I’m here, Beloved. And neither he nor your mongrel brother can do the slightest thing about it.”
“Christian, doesn’t it matter to you that I don’t want to see you? That I’m engaged to Killiney? Why do you go on chasing me?”
“Why?” Taking a step closer, he touched her arm. “Because I love you, of course. Because I must be where you are.”
Those slate-colored eyes welled up with honesty, filling her thoughts with another place, another man gazing at her just the same. Pure and untainted by ambition or desire, that voice contained the future David as surely as Ravenna lived and breathed, and still he was talking. “Now you must own that from experience, you know the manner of my courtship could best any suitor you might fancy, even more so the likes of these bestial sailors. Will it be so hard to endure my affections? For between the Paddy and I, you’ll suffer nothing so much as the result of our rivalry.”
She found herself shaking her head, just staring at this apparition of David.
“And of course,” he continued, “you know what the question will be. Who will win? Who will cultivate your fond endearments, your acquiescence and consenting passion? Who will survive the voyage to claim you in the end?”
With the word survive, the spell was broken. Paul could die on this voyage. Christian was right, whatever his motivation for suggesting as much, and in the light of his unsuspecting comment, she worried for the first time she’d made the wrong decision in insisting Paul go.
“Nobody’s claiming me,” she said in a low voice. “I’m not a possession, and if I were…” She pulled her arm out from under his grasp in a blatant move to assert herself, “If I were a possession, I’d be Killiney’s, wouldn’t I?”
And feeling secure in her ability to deal with him, knowing she’d have to for the length of the voyage, she left Christian standing there. She went below decks, fervently hoping David’s history had been wrong.
* * *
Months of endless sea followed that first day on board Discovery. Whether it was Tenerife in the Canary Islands or the vastness of the sky over the wide Atlantic, the days passed in a blind succession of toiling and boredom, of sweat and slaving and then sitting around for hours on end, waiting for the wind to fill their sails.
Nothing much happened among the officers or crew in those first few weeks. Nothing much happened for Ravenna, either.
Paul was put to work with the other sailors. Viscount or not, it didn’t matter—he was still a seaman in Vancouver’s eyes, and soon he was reefing, dousing and furling sails, bending to the capstan bars in helping to weigh and cat the anchor, even swaying down the topgallant mast for repairs.
Ravenna had no idea what any of this meant. Outboard motors she understood, but sailing ships were a different story. She only knew that when night finally came, when Paul climbed into his hammock and passed out from the sheer exhaustion of straining at halliards and braces, it wasn’t Ravenna’s hammock he climbed into. Vancouver had set aside a small cabin for James and Paul to share, and it was there that Paul retreated when nighttime came.
Thus she never saw him, save at mealtimes. Then, too, he was so worn from his duties that he scarcely made any sense when he spoke. April, May and June all passed that way, with hardly a conversation between them, only a brush of his hand when they sat down to table, or a wink in the lamplight, haggard and weak.
In July, just as she was getting used to this life, the long hours of boredom, the pitching deck, the way Paul had become a full-fledged sailor and now spent all of his time in the rigging above decks, in July she saw the coast of South Africa for the first time. That was a big deal, so exciting were her days of floor scrubbing and galley cleaning. Thrilling, too, were the fresh provisions ferried aboard at Cape Town, but such were the limits of good times aboard Discovery. Mending sails, picking oakum for caulking, keeping a careful log of the ships’ progress along the African coast, these were Ravenna’s more normal pursuits. If she spent time with Paul, it was always on deck in full view of the sailors and Vancouver’s oddly puritanical eye.
Before Ravenna knew it, it was September. Six months had passed. They skirted the tiny island of St. Paul, and sighting land at the southwestern tip of Australia toward the end of the month, she was reminded of James’s name for the place: New Holland, the English called it. The men went out to survey this coastline, as Captain Cook had left it uncharted, and for a month the progress of the two ships was slow. Several hundred miles of Australian beach had to be meticulously explored. Captain Cook had to be outdone.
With the ships standing close inshore, at last Paul got a break from his duties. There wasn’t much for him to do while the boat crews were away, so after months of watching him work like a dog, Ravenna was finally allowed to spend time in his company.
By day—if it rained—they huddled together under a scrap of canvas and just as he’d done at the opera, Paul whispered in her ear this gossip or that about those unlucky enough to wander by.
“Now there’s Dillon,” he’d say, leaning close against her shoulder. “Dillon’s such a royal person. He fancies himself the best-hung lad on the ship, did you know that? The others were rowing with me in the sail room about it, but I think if he really believes as much, then why burst his bubble?”
She always blushed when he said things like that. He never noticed. He’d turn his attention to some other unsuspecting sailor, and then Ravenna would glance down at Paul’s lap, at the folds of fabric bunched there, wondering, gauging, going mad with curiosity.
When the weather was good, she was put to work on drawings of the coast while Paul told her these ship’s secrets. With his stories ranging from size to spitting to imaginary love affairs between Sarah and Corporal Simpson, Ravenna scolded Paul more than once for being silly.
“Couldn’t we talk about us?” she asked. “I mean, we don’t have much time left to talk. Couldn’t we spend it learning more about each other?”
Paul’s eyes became solemn. His hand rose and settled at the back of her neck, and as he gazed at her, biting his lip, she felt his thumb moving ever so slightly in a minute caress.
“What would you like t’know?” Sober voice, soft as rose petals. Ravenna sat completely still beneath his touch and she couldn’t think of one single question to ask him.
In those weeks they spent on the Australian coast, he played the piano for her every night, and to a lesser extent, for the crew. Vancouver had allowed the small instrument for the benefit of his sailors’ mental health, although it was Ravenna who gained the most from Paul’s playing. Conjuring the saddest melodies from the darkness of the great cabin, he’d play for her until Vancouver’s voice came softly from his bunk, “That’s enough now, my lord.” Some nights, before the captain’s order, Ravenna would fall asleep where she lay on the piano, reveling in the feeling of Chopin and Mendelssohn. Always, whatever talking was going on amongst the men fell silent as Paul began his concerts. Always, when Vancouver ordered sleep, the cry went up for more.
Paul played without printed music and without a lamp, and in the blackness of the gently rocking cabin, Ravenna felt drunk when she slipped down off the top of the instrument and lowered herself to the bench beside him. He never kissed her. They didn’t once share a word of affection, but the two of them knew what they felt in that music. They shared it completely, and she found love enough in that and in the grip of his fingers as he handed her into her cabin and closed the door behind her.
Soon these musical evenings ended. By late October a strong wind had come up, forcing the ships to be on their way. When they reached New Zealand, there was far too much work for Paul to even think of playing the piano. At Dusky Bay he made his contribution to the expedition in the form of a hunting trip accompanied by James, Master’s Mate Manby, and a lot of guns.
Where she’d never worried about Paul before, now she was a wreck. They were away from the ship for three days, during which time the decks were alive with whispers about the fearsome reputation of the Maori, the native people of New Zealand.
They’d once attacked a boat crew from one of Captain Cook’s ships, Mr. Dillon told Ravenna happily; two midshipmen and eight sailors had been eaten. Hearing this, she hardly slept until Paul and James came back safely. What if David’s book had been wrong? What if Paul were attacked by a Maori warrior rather than the predicted northwest coastal Indian? The fjordlike landscape of Dusky Bay was a forest set at a 45 degree angle, a thick tangle of trees that could hide a nation of such cannibals, and Ravenna was on tenterhooks imagining the possibilities until she saw James and Manby rowing toward the ship.
Weighed down with geese and ducks, Paul climbed up the side and dropped his catch upon the deck. He shook hands with Mr. Puget in greeting. He assured the lieutenant they’d had no problems to speak of, that they’d met no warriors.
While they discussed these things, Ravenna gazed at Paul with her heart near to bursting. His stocky frame seemed impossibly well made. As he spoke, his hands moved in eager, graceful bursts of illustration, enhancing the optimism in his voice. She didn’t care that his boots were caked in mud. His coat tails were all burs and bits of weed, he had the beginnings of a beard on his chin, but as he turned to assist James with his burden while he and Manby hauled themselves up, she thought Paul the most beautiful sight—her man, handsome and home from the wars.
Manby began to give his report to Puget, and when the descriptions of flora and fauna commenced, Paul walked away. Rubbing his hands together, he approached Ravenna quietly. As he reached her side, he didn’t lift a finger to touch her. Instead, adoringly and rather swiftly, he kissed her on the mouth. “How’s m’girl?”
Her lips buzzed with pleasure. Staring at his thoughtful eyes, blue and knowing and completely pacific, it seemed to Ravenna he both accepted and savored her inexperienced reaction.
Nevertheless, she felt foolish. He went right on rubbing at what she now saw was pitch on his hands, as if daring her to remark upon what he’d done.
So she gathered her wits and launched into telling him instead about Mr. Dillon’s frightening descriptions of the Maoris. She’d feared the worst, she said. She’d lain awake for the last two nights picturing Paul’s fingers as appetizers, his husky torso as the Maori main meal.
Paul’s lips pursed into a smile. He glanced down at his waistline. “Usually, I’d be a mouthful, but right now…”
“I’m serious,” she said. “You knew there were cannibals here, didn’t you? Paul, you could’ve been killed—”
But before she could scold him further, she felt his other arm come around her back and, strong and unyielding as a steel rail, draw her up tight to his chest. He gazed down at her lips. He nuzzled his face up close to hers, and then he did the very thing she’d dreamed about: He covered her mouth with a slow and deliberate kiss.
Instantly, she went quiet. A surge of adrenaline shot through her limbs as he pulled her closer, his fingers exploring the contours of her back, his hips rocking gently against her until, feeling the firmness of his body pressed to hers, she couldn’t help responding. Delirious, it was, breathing him in, swimming in the feel of him, and she could almost taste his tongue in her mouth when suddenly he froze against her.
Without taking his face far from hers, he withdrew gently, cast a glance toward Puget and Manby. Only then did it occur to her that neither the lieutenant nor the mate were talking.
Daring to look around the deck, she saw at least forty men, sailors and officers and red-coated marines, all of them stock still and watching the pair. When she caught his eye, James stifled a grin and looked away. Vancouver, now standing near the main hatch and obviously displeased, gave James a disapproving glance before calling Mr. Puget before him.
Paul was quick to step back from her. He must have expected disciplinary action by the way Vancouver spoke heatedly with his lieutenant. Yet when Puget returned, he said nothing to Paul; he only rejoined Mr. Manby and, like the rest of the men in Vancouver’s sight, carried on with the business at hand.
She glanced at Paul. Her heart thumped wildly with the thought of his desire. Did he mean to finally have her after all these months? Had he missed her that much?
If he had, he chose not to demonstrate his feelings. When they reached the privacy of her room below decks, he did nothing so much as talk. About his adventures in wild, unexplored New Zealand he chattered on happily for nearly an hour, and closeted with him in that tiny space, she quickly sank into despair.
That he’d kissed her, held her so close and intimate against his brawny chest, it meant more to her now than it ever had at St. Paul’s Cathedral, didn’t he understand that? She knew him now. After countless hours of his company, she’d become familiar with his every expression and endearing habit, the words he liked to use, the subjects that would make him argue or burst into laughter…and he talked to her about fjords?
In front of the crew or not, he didn’t kiss her again.
* * *
Christmas came as they neared Tahiti. Discovery had been at sea for nearly nine months, and throughout the voyage Vancouver had frequently assembled the men for readings from “The Articles of War,” a document outlining the military code of conduct. In the light of what he’d seen between Paul and Ravenna, Vancouver must have anticipated trouble at the first sight of topless Tahitian women—the captain celebrated the holiday with a lecture.
Along with the standard “Articles,” he warned the men of the punishments they’d receive if any one of them were caught using ship’s property to earn the bare-breasted women’s affections—a common problem in Tahiti, as many a captain had found his ship stripped of all supplies, fittings, even the nails holding the ship together in order to pay these women for their services. “They’re not to be approached,” Vancouver growled. “There’ll be no sexual intrigue nor foolishness of any sort or heads will fall and hell will be paid!”
So when he’d ordered Discovery around the main island to a safe mooring, Ravenna approached the captain cautiously. He’d thus far forbidden her shore leave, he claimed in the interest of safety, and now she wanted to go ashore to do the very thing Vancouver forbade. How could she persuade him to let her join Paul? How could she keep from revealing her intentions?
She approached the captain carefully, sidling up to where he stood waiting for the boats to be lowered. His hand leaned obviously on the railing near his side. He’s tired and hot, Ravenna told herself. He’ll dismiss my request out of hand.
Still, she had to ask.
“Sir, I was just wondering if Sarah and I could join the party ashore,” she said in her most respectful tone. “We’d promise to behave ourselves and do exactly as we’re told.”
Vancouver shifted his attention from the native girls to Ravenna’s request. The captain’s brow knit into a grimace. His leathery face began to glisten under the heat of his hat and, as he glared at her standing beside him, drip with sweat. Here it comes, she thought. I should never have asked, he’ll never in a million years allow me to go.
But his voice wasn’t angry when he spoke. “Out of the question,” he said to her quietly. Swaying a little, he pointed to the beach with a flimsy wave. “Until matters are considered secure among the natives, no one will leave the ship without direct orders from myself or the senior officers. We will have no…no incidents here.”
“But I haven’t set foot on land in—”
“My lady,” and he caught his breath before he continued, “I fully appreciate that you’ve joined us from an era in which matters of this nature are undoubtedly different. However, you do not and will not enjoy the privileges of a man aboard my ship, let alone an officer. I won’t have you stoking mischief at my every turn.” He then raised his voice for the benefit of the entire complement. “There will be no off-duty crew on shore, do you hear? We’ve not come all this way to partake of women!” He turned back to Ravenna with a warning glance. “Now get below with you. I’ve had quite enough.”
“But I’ve been on this ship for—”
“I said get below.”
She hesitated. Across the deck, James must have seen this exchange because he strode across the deck, approached to defend her in the face of Vancouver’s obvious anger. With the fearless expression she saw on James’s face, she was certain she’d begun a war. Yet rather than challenge him, James halted beside Vancouver, stared at him with something like concern.
She noticed then how Vancouver’s eyes were strangely unfocused. He gripped the railing with talonlike fingers. In an almost imperceptible movement, he appeared to list forward, as if losing his balance.
“Captain?” James asked, taking a step toward him.
Swiftly and suddenly, his free hand shot out toward James, keeping him at bay. The glaze lifted from the captain’s eyes, and with a murderous shine that seemed to come from nowhere, he looked up slowly. “Yes, my lord?”
James paused, glanced at Ravenna. “With all respect, Captain, the women need to go ashore. It’s been nine months. You can’t keep them on board forever.”
“Can’t I, my lord.” It was a statement, not a question, and whether from lightheadedness or rage, Vancouver was shaking ever so slightly, Ravenna saw it in the skirts of his coat.
James saw it, too, but still he persisted with the captain stubbornly. “Do you want the women to get sick?” he asked. “Surely from the standpoint of keeping them well, you’d see they need exercise, just like everyone else on this—”
“You’d have me play governess to young ladies, Wolvesfield?”
Vancouver’s gaze shifted furiously toward the marines, toward Sergeant Flynn a few yards away. James took his meaning all too well. “They’re my responsibility, yes,” James admitted. “I’ll own that, but—”
“Then keep your promise, Sir. Women have no place in naval affairs, and I’ll not have them encroaching upon the business of this ship.”
* * *
If James’s argument had changed his mind, Ravenna didn’t know, but Vancouver did let her go ashore the next day. His rules for Sarah and her were strict: They were to be well chaperoned and never out of sight from the detachment of armed marines sent with every crew. With this arrangement, Ravenna couldn’t single out Paul for a moment alone, which had been precisely the captain’s intention to begin with. There’d be no sexual encounters to interfere with Paul’s work if Vancouver could help it.
As for James and Sarah, the captain didn’t even know about them.
In full view of everyone they were maid and master, just as they’d been for most of their lives. They didn’t flirt, didn’t kiss. They said nothing about their attachment to anyone, not even when the four of them were alone in James’s cabin, squished around the cannon for a glass of wine.
But Ravenna knew they made love. Sarah had condoms in her sea-chest, and nearly every week she’d slip out after bedtime with one in her pocket. Where she met James, how they kept from being caught, these things were a mystery to Ravenna. The walls have ears, Sarah would say, and she refused to discuss her sexual adventures, even in a whisper behind locked doors.
That first night in Tahiti was no different. There was a loud game of faro going on in the midshipmen’s berth when Sarah finally returned from her outing. Ravenna saw the girl’s face flushed in the candlelight, her eyes aglow with what she and James had just done beneath the cover of the gambling racket, and Ravenna wondered, What had they just done?
With the idea of shore leave in the morning and the possibility that Paul and she might steal away from Vancouver’s sight, Ravenna couldn’t help asking Sarah one final time: What exactly did she do with James? And if Ravenna were to do the same to Paul, would he finally make love to her?
From where she sat by the gunport window, Sarah rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna seduce him, m’lady? The maiden o’ seven-an’-twenty years? An’ where will we get the nerve, pray tell?”
“I will,” she insisted, but with the way the maid scoffed at her, Ravenna couldn’t help but laugh.
“You see?” Sarah said. “Even you can’t deny it. Chaste as an anchoress, that’s what James says. You could no more seduce a gentleman than I could be queen of—”
“Don’t make fun of me, just tell me how!”
“Why, I’ve no idea what you mean.”
“How do you…arouse him? I mean, when it’s you coming on to him, what do you do? Take off your clothes? Or take off his?”
“M’lady they can hear you, you know, every last one of ’em—”
“Oh they’re all playing cards,” she said as she climbed out of her hammock. “Just tell me what happens between you and James. Do you ever start it? What does he like?”
“Would you really seduce m’lord?” Sarah asked.
“Yes! Just tell me what I should—”
But Sarah had gotten up from her seat, was bent over the sea-chest now and hunting through the extra clothes. Ravenna watched in confusion, not knowing what the girl had in mind, and the mystery was no more solved when Sarah pulled out a pair of Ravenna’s trousers. “Here,” she said, tossing them in her lap.
“What am I supposed to do with these?”
“Don’t you know? M’Lord Killiney has a penchant for ’em, as does everyone else aboard this ship if James is to be believed.”
Looking down at the trousers in her hands, Ravenna was astounded. They were the master’s mate’s breeches Vancouver had long ago sent her for the voyage. She only occasionally put them on, and for one very good reason: They made her look as if she’d stood waist-deep in a barrel of buff-colored paint.
“Wear those to begin with, m’lady,” Sarah said. “Then we’ll work up to more serious fare.”
* * *
Since Sarah spent her free hours with her lover and Ravenna didn’t, she decided she’d better take her maid’s advice and start small. She wore the trousers. Only she did the girl’s suggestion one better: Cutting off the legs, she converted them into sexy little shorts.
Now when the four of them went ashore, Vancouver had already visited the Tahitian king earlier in the morning. The captain was fuming, for despite all his precautions, the Tahitians had stolen several items from the ship, including James’s sword. If James was upset about losing his treasured seventeenth-century rapier, Vancouver was doubly so. To the captain, this was more than the loss of a family heirloom. It was a serious threat to the safety of the ship, and he and his lieutenants remained locked away in the great cabin for the rest of the afternoon, discussing how to best handle this thievery.
By the sound of their arguing, Ravenna figured Vancouver wouldn’t emerge until dusk, wouldn’t see her leave in her seductive shorts. Still, just in case his lieutenants did, she wore a skirt over her new cut-offs. She didn’t even tell Sarah what she’d done, not because she feared her disapproval, but because it didn’t really occur to her that what she wore was so horribly wrong. She planned to take the skirt off when she got to the beach, for swimming, she’d say. No big deal.
But it was a big deal.
After helping her climb out of the long boat, Paul held Ravenna’s hand as they waded through the surf. The day was overcast, sweltering. Paul wore no shirt, and his bare shoulders, long since darkened to a freckle-littered bronze, made his eyes seem all the more blue when they darted toward James and Sarah ahead of them, flitted back to Ravenna beside him. What is he thinking? she wondered. Did Sarah say something to give my plot away?
Pushing his fingers through his hair unconsciously, Paul suddenly halted beside her on the beach. “You’re gonna swim, yeah?” His mouth twisted into an easy smile. “Course you are, you’re the scuba diver. Let me just get rid of this.” Unbuckling his sword, he called James back from the thatch-roofed huts. “Yo, Jem! Take this for me?”
He held out the weapon as James approached. Thinking to lose her heavy skirt, too, Ravenna stepped out of it, gathered it up. The open air felt nice on her freshly shaven legs, and she wondered, did Paul notice? Did she dare risk a look?
She never got the chance. Before she even knew what had happened, James yanked her forward; he’d pried the skirt away, and while he glanced around quickly to see who was watching, Ravenna caught the full force of his anger in his sudden grip, smarting and rough.
“What?” she asked, bewildered by his rage. “James, what’s wrong?”
“Minx,” he said under his breath, while behind her back, he worked furiously to untangle the garment, to wrap it around her as he continued swearing, “Mischief maker…trouble stoker. Sarah!”
“But,” she stammered, “but Sarah didn’t even—”
“Is this your handiwork?” James glowered at the maid when she finally appeared. “Is it?”
“James, this wasn’t—”
“Do you think she has the judgment to know what’s proper?” His dark face set in a disapproving scowl. “Do you think she knows how she looks to a sailor?”
“Oh, she knew what she was doin’.” Paul’s voice behind her, brimming with laughter. When Ravenna turned around, he gazed at her, eyes mirthful and smoldering as they wandered appreciatively down her figure.
In bafflement, James shook his head. “I don’t think you understand, my friend. This is immodest, shameful and—”
“I rather like it.” Paul’s eyes lingered on Ravenna’s, and she felt a warm glow pulsing all through her body. He liked it. She rejoiced in the thought, and it must have shown because Paul smiled a little, as if he knew everything, the fantasies she’d had, her questions for Sarah, the way she’d begged to learn the particulars of how to arouse him.
But while she considered his suggestive words, he turned toward James, handed him the sword. “Take this for me?” When James seemed confused, Paul nodded toward the water. “She wants t’go swimming, yeah? So I’ll take her swimming. That way no one’ll see her but me.”
Reluctantly, slowly, James let her go. He accepted the sword. When Ravenna walked away without taking the skirt, without covering her legs, he looked as if he’d die of embarrassment.
She wasn’t about to wear the skirt now. Yet as Paul began talking to her, she noticed the faces of the sailors they passed. It was as if she wore nothing. Those men without Tahitian women on their arms might have hurt themselves with craning their necks.
“You are a minx, aren’t you?” Paul chuckled to himself as they walked along. “What were you thinking, wearing a bathing costume t’go bathing?”
“I think James overreacted.”
“Well I don’t. I think he’s right.”
“What?” She threw him an incredulous glance. “You think I’m shameful for wearing shorts?”
Leaning into her as they strolled, Paul gathered her up under his arm and pulled her snugly against his side. “You’re gorgeous, really. Nice enough to eat.”
He held her that way until they’d reached the swimming place, a lagoon of sorts where they’d been told they’d find fish. There Paul sat down among the waves, and with the water lapping at his well-sculpted arms, there was no mistaking the passion that burned in his eyes when he beckoned her to sit by his side. “Come here,” he said softly. “I’ve something t’tell you.”
The very idea of it, that he might kiss her again, that his hands might find their way into her clothes, her shirt, within the fall of her cut-off trousers, it made a vicious trembling in the pit of her stomach. Did he know what he did to her? How helpless she was to that look in his eyes?
She went to him anyway, impelled by nine long months of craving. Sitting beside him amid the waves, she tried to still her jangling nerves. He loves you, she told herself. You don’t have anything to be afraid of.
Yet her heart fluttered wildly when his touch alighted at her shoulder, slid in a languorous caress all down her arm. Beneath the water, he edged his fingers into hers, gave them a squeeze, and suddenly she felt better. Hadn’t they held hands a thousand times? His eyes wandered appraisingly to her lips, to her throat and below, until lingering and flaming with a sudden desire, his attention halted at her chest.
She looked down, fearful to see what he stared at so.
Her shirt was completely transparent.
Of course, she should have thought of this in her plotting and scheming. Anyone else would have thought of it, and if she’d been any other woman, she might have seduced him then and there, reached for his rugged chin, unbuttoned her collar and led his mouth down to her waiting breasts, her fingers entwined in his tangled hair while he did the most indecent things.
But she didn’t. She was caught off guard by the boldness of his gaze. That he might actually make love to her there—no going back, this was real, not a fantasy—it was enough to make Ravenna hesitate.
There were little fish in the water at her feet, sergeant majors or something similar, and she found herself staring at them when Paul’s eyes tried to engage her own. She knew he was studying her, and yet how could she look at him? With that unbearable lust so obvious in his gaze, how did he have the patience to put up with her?
When finally he curled his arm around her waist, Ravenna was shivering. “Sarah’s comin’,” he said to her calmly. He tucked her closer, lifted his arm a little higher at her breasts, and Ravenna drew in a quick, sharp breath when he planted a kiss behind her ear. “Don’t let her scold you for not bein’ a lady. Tell her I’ll be the judge o’ that.”
When he withdrew himself and started to stand, she ached to pull him back. Before she could, he’d gotten to his feet. With a splash of salt water, he ambled toward the huts where James sat alone, and passing Sarah on the way, he was soon swallowed up by the darkness of shade.
* * *
Whether it was Sarah’s arrival that stifled his advances or her own stupid fears, Ravenna never learned. The rest of their stay passed without so much as a spark between them. Given that she’d panicked when it’d actually come down to the moment of truth, when he might have taken her in his burly arms, kissed her, plundered the length of her…given that she’d not had the vaguest notion of what to do with him once she’d aroused him, Ravenna decided to cool it for a while.
Vancouver soon gave her other things to worry about. In the weeks following their departure from Tahiti, it quickly became apparent that something was wrong with their moody commander. It wasn’t just the dizziness, or the way he was apt to yell at his officers.
Strange things went on inside his head.
In Hawaii, Vancouver thought the native chiefs were trying to kill him. He accused his own midshipmen of plotting against him. Even his lieutenants questioned Vancouver’s sanity when he forbade all midshipmen of both Chatham and Discovery to visit ship to ship, or to talk to one another unless duty required it.
All this, and he was undeniably ill; everyone could see that.
When the California coast finally came into sight, it was Ravenna’s turn to tread lightly around the captain. On April 26, he called her into the great cabin and put a tankard of port before her. “Elizabeth,” he said, and then more quietly corrected himself, “Ravenna, I’d delight in hearing what knowledge you possess regarding this shoreline we’ve been following. For nine days now we’ve sought secure harbor. Do you know this coast?”
“I’ve got an idea of where we are, yes.” She lifted the tankard of port. “We should be coming to a river soon, and after that there’ll be two large bays.”
Vancouver squinted his hooded eyes. “The bays,” he said, “you’ve seen them as described by the fur trader, Meares?”
She’d heard him talk about this fur trader. She’d seen the ship’s copy of the map Meares had made on his voyage to the coast in 1788. Surely there was no harm in elaborating on facts Vancouver already knew?
“They’ll be called Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor,” she told him. “You should be able to anchor in one of them, but I’d think the river would interest you more. It’s one of the biggest rivers west of the Mississippi.”
Vancouver scratched his chin thoughtfully. “When you say big…do you mean, my lady, it’s accessible for vessels of Discovery’s burthen?”
“It’s so large that container ships—gigantic ships, five, maybe six times the size of this one—use it all the time. I’ve seen them myself.”
“And this is a river?”
When she nodded, she saw anticipation flood the captain’s face. “An important river,” she told him solemnly.
“Possibly the passage to the east we’ve sought?”
“The Columbia goes inland quite a ways, all the way to the Rocky Mountains, I think. But it’s not the Northwest Passage, if that’s what you’re asking.”
The captain’s eyes darkened with disappointment. “Well, then,” he said, settling back in his chair. “If it’s only a river, this Columbia I’m afraid we have no use for.”
Watching his gaze lower to the table between them, she wondered, Should I tell him about the Northwest Passage? Give him the clue he needs to find it? But that would change everything, their course, his decisions…and yet he sat there, obviously disheartened. She wanted to give him something to think about. “What about the Strait of Juan de Fuca?” she asked. “Isn’t it one of your goals to find that?”
Vancouver lifted his gaze from the tabletop. “There is speculation this links the Pacific with Hudson’s Bay, but that’s providing this strait exists, which it doesn’t, I’ll wager.”
“Yes it does,” she said, and she couldn’t help smiling. “The entrance to the strait is farther up the coast, probably less than a hundred miles north of Grays Harbor.”
She’d expected him to be grateful, maybe even thrilled. Instead, Vancouver fixed her with a lecturing glare. “Captain Cook, God rest his soul, commanded our last mission to these shores and on that mission we discovered not one shred of evidence to argue the presence of this particular waterway. Cook supposed it a myth, inspired by the greed of traders such as Meares.”
“But it isn’t a myth,” she insisted. “You see, I lived there, my house was—”
“That’ll be all, my lady.”
Ravenna stared at him, alarmed that he’d cut her off. “I was going to say my house was on an island you discovered in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Now how do you explain that?”
“My lady, I’ve told you the opinion of the greatest navigator the world has ever known and you’ve summarily dismissed it. Now should you wish disagreement, find it elsewhere, but do not speak to me of Cook’s inadequacies, or I’ll—”
“I’m not saying he was stupid, I’m just telling you he missed the Strait of Juan de Fuca.”
“That will be all, my lady.”
“But,” and she stood up, not able to help herself, “but this is why you’ve brought me, isn’t it? And now you won’t listen?”
“My lady, if you think I’ll forsake Cook’s hard-won knowledge merely at the suggestion of your supposed future insight—”
“I’m not asking you to forsake Cook, I’m asking you to—”
“That will be enough! Do you think I’ve the hours to while away in chatter with women?”
His face had reddened to a furious plum. His lean frame tensed into a stance of obstinacy, and in view of his peculiar behavior in Hawaii, she suddenly saw the value in giving up. “OK,” she said quickly. “You’re right, there’s no strait.”
“I have no need of your tongue,” he shot back.
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
“You’re disrespectful, that’s what you are. Your every word is defiance, young lady, and I tell you, I’m under no contract with anyone whosoever to accommodate you. You’re sorely under qualified to even speak Cook’s name, let alone expound upon his discoveries. That you could believe for one instant yourself superior to his—are you listening to me?”
But she wasn’t. How could she talk to him? Did he expect her to stand there all day and be yelled at?
She knew she was letting her emotions control her, but suffering the brunt of Vancouver’s contempt, she saw only two options: Say something violent and truly unladylike to an historical legend, or turn away.
She chose the latter. She walked calmly to the cabin door and, hearing Vancouver’s voice rising behind her, stepped outside.
* * *
The following day, she made well and certain she stayed out of his way. She sat near the quarterdeck rail, diligently working on a sketch of the coastline, and when Vancouver came out on deck, Ravenna didn’t so much as look at him.
Soon they approached a point of land presumed to be Cape Disappointment. She watched furtively as the captain consulted with Mr. Puget. Gesturing toward the promontory and then alongside Discovery, they talked about the milky color of the water, as if a nearby river emptied into the sea. Ravenna recognized all of this as the opening of the Columbia River, although the breakers over the bar made it hard to tell.
To Vancouver, it seemed just another stretch of beach.
“It’s obviously only a small river,” he said pleasantly to his lieutenant. “See how the land hinders its progress inland?”
“Yes, it’s not big enough for vessels of our size,” Puget agreed. “As you’ve suggested, I recommend we waste no time here.”
Vancouver then spied Ravenna near the rail. “What think you, my lady?” he called to her affably.
Ravenna looked up.
“Is this a mighty and powerful river?” he asked. “Worthy of charting and precious time? Or is it simply a common stream, recognized and dismissed as such by our Captain Cook?”
“It’s the Columbia River, Captain, mark my words.”
Vancouver only shook his head. “Then such a river lies in wait for someone else to name, yes? Our mission lies ahead.”
“In the Strait of Juan de—”
Before she could finish her question, Vancouver had turned away with a shout. “Signal Chatham to make more sail!”
* * *
Two days later at the ridiculous hour of four in the morning another ship was sighted. They’d already encountered the indigenous peoples of the coast and from the clamor of the sailors above her head, Ravenna guessed this wasn’t another native encounter. Only the sight of white men could cause such an excitement among the crew.
By the time she’d gotten out on deck, the other vessel had hoisted American colors. According to custom, a salute was fired. It wasn’t until two hours had passed that the ship came close enough to make out its name painted on the stern.
To Ravenna’s amazement, it plainly read Columbia.

Chapter Nineteen

Paul was among the crew sent to visit this Columbia.
He might have asked permission to stay behind, but he actually wanted to meet these fur traders. After all, they hadn’t seen another ship—apart from Chatham, their consort—in eight months or more. To run into one here, off this wild and desolate part of America, in fact it was a curiosity, Paul had to admit. He wasn’t sure what he’d find on Columbia, but whatever it was, it’d at least be more interesting than mending sails back home with the lads.
So in a constant, penetrating drizzle, he plied his oar without complaint. He rowed across the ocean swells, keeping his eyes locked on Ravenna’s where she stood at the larboard rail until at last, soaked and sweating, eager to climb aboard and confer in the comfort of a sheltered cabin, Paul looked up to see Columbia’s hull looming above them. He waited until Puget had gone first, then Menzies, before pulling himself up to the fur-trader’s deck.
Paul was shocked by what he found there.
Loitering about in groups, the entire ship’s company ignored the visitors. Every man—save for the fellah who was obviously in charge—every guy without exception had his attention turned toward Discovery, and as Paul noticed the spyglasses and the sailors’ lewd gestures, his blood began to boil. They’re pointing at Ravenna, he thought. Every last shaggin’ one of ‘em is waving at my girl.
He tried to control himself. He started to follow Puget below decks where Captain Gray was waiting, but as he walked through the men, he couldn’t help overhearing what they said.
“She’s a curvy little tart, ain’t she?”
“Tight as the devil’s arse, I’ll bet.”
“With all them sailors around her? Naw, she ain’t tight…not unless she’s the skipper’s wife, d’ya think?”
“I don’t care whose wife she is. With dugs like that, I’d—”
Paul stopped. He leveled his eyes on the nearest of the men. “You’d what?” he asked, feeling the rage mounting furiously inside him.
The sailor broke into an amiable grin. “I was gonna say I’d ball her, but if that little cutlet belongs to you—”
“She does,” Paul nodded, fingering his rapier’s hilt. “In fact, she’s my fiancée, so if you don’t mind, I’d rather you stopped making those gestures.”
“See here, now,” the man said, “keep her below decks if you don’t wish us looking at her.”
“Oh, you can look, but if you wave at her once more, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” The man sneered down on Paul, emphasizing his greater height. “Stab me in the foot, I suppose?”
A snicker went up amidst the Americans. Paul held his ground, glared dangerously at the fellah, all the while reminding himself that Vancouver had selected him specifically to befriend the Americans, to put Captain Gray at ease.
“No,” he said finally, cursing under his breath, “No, I’m not going t’stab you. It wouldn’t be emissary-like. Just tone down the invitations, maybe? And try to remember, women are human beings, not cutlets, for God’s sake.”
He let his words sink in, stood for a moment with eyes fixed upon the sailor’s. When he turned to follow Puget, he knew the guys were laughing at him, but he also knew what Ravenna would say if he came home bloodied and beaten. You got into a fight because they called me names? What difference does it make? Paul, we’ll never see them again…
* * *
When he got back to Discovery, he didn’t whisper a word to Ravenna. He went below to change his clothes and when James came in, muttering about “those damned Americans,” Paul couldn’t resist saying something.
“Do you know what they’re doing over there?” he asked, and he dropped his rain-soaked trousers, didn’t wait for James to acknowledge the question. “They’re all gettin’ off on Ravenna, that’s what. They’re all trying it on with her, every last bleedin’ one of ‘em, and if I hadn’t kept my wits about me, I’d be in the orlop right now.”
James looked up from beneath furrowed brows. “You started a fight? Because you’re jealous?”
“No I’m not jealous,” Paul said, digging through his clothes for another pair of trousers, “but it just makes me sick, the things they’re saying about her. I mean, you should hear it. One fellah, he said he fancied Ravenna could suck the brass off a pistol’s butt. I almost decked him.”
James didn’t comment. While Paul pulled on his trousers, he noticed how James stood there all sullen and serious, as if guilty of imagining the very same thing. Does he think I’ll deck him as well? Paul wondered, because he knew—had known for months—how James felt about Ravenna. The guy was attracted to her; James couldn’t deny it, and yet he couldn’t understand it, either. Paul had tried explaining it to him—how Ravenna didn’t see James as a brother; how in fact they weren’t siblings at all, and if James found himself drawn to her, it was only because Ravenna, having never had a boyfriend, couldn’t help reacting to James’s attention.
Now he probably pictured her fellating a firearm. No wonder the fellah looks guilty. “Listen,” he said, pulling on a dry shirt, “I know you’re tryin’ it on with her, and that’s OK, I’ve no problem with that. She’s always gonna be my girl, isn’t she? It’s just the people who don’t love her, who can’t even see how innocent she is and how something like sayin’ they’d want t’ball her or whatever, it’d completely destroy the trust I’ve built up and—”
“You’re talking about the Americans?”
“Do you know what would’ve happened if she’d heard those fellahs?”
“She’s less fragile than you think, my friend.”
Where he sat on his sea-chest, Paul nodded. He pulled on his socks, remembering Tahiti and how she’d tried to entice him with those silky legs, the shapely curves of her slim little hips. If she’d known what I was thinkin’ then, or even what goes through m’mind during an ordinary working day…
“It’s just…I don’t want her to find out what completely selfish, sex-crazed bastards men are, y’know?” Paul sniffed, reached down for his boots. “Not until she’s more comfortable with the whole thing, not until we’ve had a chance to really work it out. It’s taken me too long to earn her trust, and I wouldn’t want t’lose it, not when we’re so close to gettin’ there.”
James leaned against the door, his hands in his pockets. “So you do intend to end this? When we reach her island?”
“That’s the general idea. It’s what she’s wanted all her life, yeah? Me an’ her and a bunch of seagulls?”
“Better seagulls than American sailors.”
Paul shook his head in disgust, pulled on his boots. “Jem, you should’ve heard the things they were saying. I swear you would’ve mopped the deck with ‘em.”

Chapter Twenty

Home. No sooner had Ravenna thought the word when a warm glow spread through her, making her shudder in the morning’s gale.
Captain Gray, who’d soon name the Columbia River after his ship, had sent word to Vancouver that the mouth of Juan de Fuca’s Straight lay only a few miles to the north. Hearing this news, the captain gave orders to make more sail. By the next evening they’d rounded Cape Flattery, dropped anchor near the native village at Neah Bay, and come within sight of everything Ravenna knew and loved.
She felt the full strength of her homesickness then. Glued to the rail the next morning, she watched as the rocky cliffs went by, the familiar foothills of the Olympic Mountains, the points and headlands she knew so well. Seeing it all again, her heart ached with memories—the countless hours she’d spent in Port Angeles working under the hulls of boats, the diving she’d done off Observatory Point, Green Point, every point between there and Port Townsend, all this came to mind when she saw it standing there in the distance—her island. Home.
By the time the helmsman guided the ship toward Dungeness, it was long past dark. She’d have to wait until morning, she realized, and in the interest of killing time until then, she let James badger her about the spit of land outside their gunport. What would Vancouver name it? And would the captain be forced to admit their position was indeed in the Strait of Juan de Fuca?
Out of weariness, she gave in. She told James everything, and soon she found herself questioned and requestioned about the names of the different first nations groups—the Haida and Kwakiutl, the Tlingit and Makah. The Royal Society would be indebted to Ravenna for the things she’d told him, James promised eagerly, but despite his words, she knew he was after just one more detail.
When at last he’d left, she could hear Vancouver’s voice come muffled through the great cabin’s wall. It was hours before she nodded off, but in the morning, she was up with the first crews, hoping she’d beaten Vancouver on deck. Stepping into her breeches, hurrying into a warmer shirt, she didn’t even bother with shoes and socks, for her head was spinning with anticipation.
Just let Vancouver try and keep me here, she thought, fumbling with her shirt buttons. I’ll steal the cutter, hijack the shore party, even swim if I have to.
Yet in scrambling out on deck, she didn’t see Vancouver anywhere. Christian stood quietly near the stern rail, gazing at the island; he seemed harmless enough in the morning sunshine, so she bustled over to stand at his side. “You’re up early,” she said, leaning on the taffrail.
He turned to her placidly. “For you, Beloved.”
Then Paul appeared across the deck, causing Ravenna to turn around. Instantly, she felt a surge of pride. Even with bed hair, he was handsome. Tugging at his shirt as if he’d only just pulled it on, he hesitated near the capstan, glanced around at the various men until his gaze came to rest upon hers. As scruffy as he looked, still her heart swelled with love. He staggered up to where she waited, and she turned her back on Christian in a hurry, her thoughts centering only on Paul’s square jaw, his unshaven cheek.
“I knocked at your door, but—” He drew nearer, and she noticed how his eyes were bleary, half-closed with sleep, “—But em, I guess I didn’t wake up early enough t’catch you. I was hopin’ to surprise you, y’know?”
“Surprise me about what?”
He pushed his hair back in an unthinking gesture, regarded her carefully. “You mean you haven’t been told?”
When she said that she hadn’t, Paul looked away. A grin seeped into his tired face. Clearing his throat, he obviously took his time before answering. “Well,” he began, tossing his arm around her neck in a pal-like manner, “you know yerself James was after you last night, asking you all those Indian questions?”
His arm was warm, distracting, and as Ravenna considered, he leaned closer still, enhancing the effect. “Yes,” she said finally, trying hard to think. “He wanted me to tell him about native culture. He wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Y’see that’s because I asked him not to. I didn’t want you hearin’ me next door, having a row with Vancouver over who’s going ashore to hunt and who isn’t.”
She looked up at him, amazed by his words. “You mean…”
His eyes roved over her face with pleasure, taking in her excited reaction. We’re going to the island, she thought, and by the playfulness of his expression, she knew it’d be just Paul and her—isolated, unescorted, and completely alone. “But how?” she asked. “Doesn’t Vancouver think we’ll…that we won’t get any work done?”
“Oh, we’ll be gettin’ it done,” he said, and with eyes like a summer storm, savoring her, teasing her, he slipped his hand around her back and lower, to her hip where, caressing her with a silky firmness that made her quiver, his fingers curved intimately around her buttocks. He raised a brow. “Five days enough, d’ya think?”
Her pulses raced. With the heat in his eyes making her dizzy, she barely managed to shake her head.
“No?” he asked, snuggling closer.
Irresistible, that’s what he was, and drawing courage from his sudden smile, from the comfortable way he held her—as if they’d been together all of their lives—Ravenna put her arms around him. Forever, she thought, I want you forever, exactly like this.
“Then you’d best plan every moment for us, hadn’t you?” With devilry at the corners of his mouth, daring her infectiously, he drew nearer still until he was close enough to kiss. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe but for smelling his clean, earthy scent, and losing what control she had, she let her eyes wander the familiar contours of his face, his angular cheekbones, those strong, soft-looking lips as she imagined them doing unspeakable things.
“Lord Killiney, Sir!”
Ravenna jumped. Turning beneath the warmth of Paul’s hand, she scanned the deck for Captain Vancouver. Instead, she saw only a handful of sailors straining to hoist the pinnace from the gallows; they were obviously having trouble, and in the midst of the fight, Mr. Whidbey turned a scowl toward Paul. “Mightn’t you lend a hand, Sir?” he called, and when Paul didn’t move, “I say, look alive, my lord! Do you need askin’ twice?”
Without even a parting glance, Paul disengaged himself from her arms. He hurried to Whidbey’s side, and as he helped the men raise the pinnace, Ravenna was left on her own at the railing, struggling to recover from what he’d just said.
Had he meant it? Was he teasing her? Or did he really plan on making love at last?
As she stood there worrying, shaking in her shoes, at least ten minutes passed before she realized Christian had disappeared.
* * *
That afternoon, Paul set up their tent at the easternmost end of Ravenna’s island, close to the beach where her house had been. While she dug into their supplies for dinner, Paul spent the evening with his shirt off, chopping driftwood, splitting it into manageable pieces, hauling it up from the beach to their tent.
When he’d finished, he put his shirt back on and took the plate Ravenna gave him. No kisses. No meaningful glances full of longing and need, just “Thank you, Honey” and “Not biscuit again?”
Because of this, she’d fallen into a sullen mood. Sitting before the fire with his back to the beach, Paul seemed a thousand times more attractive than he’d ever seemed before, and yet it hurt Ravenna to look at him. For all his advances, his lustful attention and wandering hands on deck that morning, he showed no such interest now. Instead, he was serene. He gazed at the fire for minutes on end. Though his words for her were soft, they lacked the note of invitation that had earlier been so blatant in his every glance, every brush of his muscular body against hers.
So she got up and went to her knapsack. She hunted through her things until she’d found a comb and a pair of scissors. Where he sat with his legs stretched out, Paul kept pushing the hair from his eyes; it was too long, he’d said. Though Ravenna had seen him toss it back a million times in the course of the voyage, now alone with him, wondering if his feelings had changed, the sight of this gesture sent a current of need through her body that she couldn’t explain. He seemed so dejected, his eyes so distant beneath that mane. She had to do something. She couldn’t just watch him for four more days.
“Hey, you,” she said. “If you want me to cut your hair, we’d better do it now before it gets dark.”
“You’re going to cut it all off, aren’t you?” Agreeable he was, without a hint of reluctance. He pulled himself up from the ground and, taking a seat on a nearby log, he fixed her with a stern look. “You know if you cut it too short, the lads’ll be teasin’ me for months.”
“Well, we’re only a few hundred miles from Nootka,” she said, starting in on the mess of his locks. “You won’t have to put up with them for long.” Mindful of the way her fingers brushed his neck, she combed through his hair, thoughts reckless with trying to figure him out. He’s not angry, she told herself. So will he revert to his former charm? Sweep me into his arms now that I’m near?
He merely sat tranquilly under her hands, moving only to look up now and again. “This has been a really short year, hasn’t it?”
Ravenna wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Still, when he reached up to take a lock of her hair, she had to pay attention. He caressed the strand gently between his fingers. He lifted it to the fading light, and when the back of his hand brushed against her breast, Ravenna found herself leaning into his touch, barely listening as he spoke to her. “Your hair’s even longer than mine,” he said. “Guess when you’re workin’ an’ that, you don’t notice the time.”
“You must be the hardest working man on the ship.”
He caught her eye with a quizzical expression. “Are you trying t’tell me something?”
She pulled the comb through a difficult tangle and moved around to stand beside him. “Well,” she said, setting the comb down and picking up the scissors, “I’ve got James who takes better care of me than he does his own girlfriend. I’ve got Christian whose hands always stray to my rear whenever you’re not looking, and I’ve got a boat full of sailors who give me visual invitations on a daily basis in the hopes I’ll finally give up on you.”
There was a moment’s pause before Paul answered. “I’d no idea,” he said to her softly.
She tilted his chin in an effort to keep her work straight. He hadn’t shaved in two or three days. In her fingers, his jaw was rough and wonderfully, complaisantly supple, but she tried not to think about how tempting it felt, touching him in such a familiar fashion. He’d no idea? She didn’t believe that, not even for a second.
And many of those passed as she set to work in earnest, pulling the length of his hair taut, hacking it off at collar level. It fluttered over her hands in the breeze and fell away, victim of her doubts and misgivings. He’s changed his mind. He’s trying to find a way to get out of this gracefully. Bringing the length up short to his neck, evening up the ends, when finally she spoke, she couldn’t keep herself from raising the real issue. “So if you didn’t see everybody making passes at me, what have you been thinking about? Fiona I suppose?”
Paul glanced up with serious eyes. “You know better.”
“Do I?”
“You don’t honestly believe we’ve not made love because of the woman?”
“Do you want me to layer the top?” she asked, ignoring his tone. “Or do you want to leave it all one length?”
“Layer it, I guess; answer the question.”
She moved around to the front of him, and here she did her best to give his hair some twentieth-century shape. She cut his bangs long, below his pale brows. She layered the rest so it pushed back in a sloppy wave from his face, but all the while she was thinking about that long ago day, that one moment in Dublin when she’d seen Fiona with her own eyes.
Paul gazed at her steadily as she worked. His attention was unnerving, waiting as he was for her to answer.
“How should I know what goes on in your head?” she said at last. “If it’s not Fiona, then what is it? Why have we been together all this time and still nothing’s happened?”
“You’re telling me you’ve been wantin’ to get it done with a hundred and thirty-one randy men constantly within earshot?”
She pushed back the layers of his russet hair, arranged it tousled this way or that. He looked so much better with it short, as if cutting away the length revealed the essence of the man beneath. He’s beautiful, she thought, ruggedly gorgeous, and still he wasn’t hers, wasn’t beckoning her the way she’d always imagined, undressing her with strong and possessive hands.
“We could at least kiss or something,” she said. “James and Sarah kiss, I know they do, and Christian says they—”
Her fingers stopped in midstroke behind his ear. He was staring at her, and what she saw in his face made her heart turn over. Arresting, translucent, his eyes were wells of fathomless emotion. It was as if she’d awakened him, as if he’d been terribly hurt by something she’d said. His brows were tilted in a frown, and his lips, opened the smallest bit, seemed poised to speak, but he didn’t. Or couldn’t.
A wave of anxiety swept through her. “What is it?” she asked, and knowing by the needfulness and trust in his gaze that he wanted it, craved it, she smoothed back his ruffled hair. She let her hand stray behind his neck, and still Paul said nothing.
Then suddenly he moved, and Ravenna gasped when he leaned into her arm, rubbed his face all along her wrist and down into her open palm. His bangs fell across his furrowed brow. She felt the silver of his sailor’s earring against her fingertips, the firmness of his jaw, the brush of his lips as he closed his eyes tight, and while she stood there holding him, she saw complete abandonment in his expression. It frightened her. Or more correctly, it frightened her that she didn’t know what she’d done to bring about such a penitent reaction. He was submissive in every imaginable way as he waited, clasping her hand to his face, until she couldn’t remember when she hadn’t seen him so, couldn’t remember his flirtatiousness, his silliness of months past.
“Paul?” she asked softly.
“You smell good,” he whispered, his lips parted against her skin.
“What’s wrong with you tonight? What did I say?”
Slowly, with the reluctance of a child, he withdrew. He let go her hand. “You said we should kiss,” he murmured, and when he raised his eyes to hers, Ravenna saw pain in them, even as he tried to smile. “It’s just that,” and he paused, gathering his words, “It’s that I hadn’t really realized how it would hit me when the time actually came.”
“The time for what?”
There was a mist to his eyes when he answered. “For us to make love. For me to ruin the very thing I love about you.”
She wouldn’t have believed him if it weren’t for his deathly serious face. He looked away from her. He lifted his hand to the back of his neck, and she knew he wasn’t joking then; he reached behind his ear in a completely unconscious, anxious reaction, the way he always did when he was nervous.
Closing her fingers around his, she gently removed his hand. “You’re not going to ruin me.”
“Things will never be the same again,” he said. “I can’t ever go back and be what I was t’you the day we first met.”
“And that’s why you’ve waited?”
He looked down at her hand in his. With his other hand, in a gentle sweep he stroked his fingers down the length of hers, over the malachite ring he’d given her, and his words were soft, imploring when he spoke. “You’ve never had a lover, yeah?”
“I’ve hardly ever even kissed a man, let alone…” But even now she couldn’t say it. He was her friend, her protector, the object of her lust, but with his fingertips lightly tracing a path over her skin, she still couldn’t fathom it, that he might touch her like that everywhere.
He was watching her carefully. “Don’t you think I know that?” he whispered. “Don’t you think maybe this is why I’ve been waitin’, t’give us a chance to know one another?”
“We could’ve really known each other by now.”
“But how would we know each other? Always in the dark, in the crow’s nest or the bilges, and I could never say t’you one word while we were doin’ it? Maybe that’s all right for James an’ Sarah, but I’m Irish, I won’t be able t’keep my mouth shut. The last thing we need is for Vancouver to find out. He’s made it very clear what’ll happen if I’m caught with my trousers down.”
“So the reason you haven’t kissed me is because of Vancouver?”
His lips broke into a self-conscious smile. “I haven’t kissed you because once I got started, in New Zealand an’ that, I didn’t seem t’be able to stop. Now I’d never have gotten any work done that way, would I?”
“James gets his work done.”
The smile faded from Paul’s face, and he looked down at her hand again, gave it a squeeze. “Yeah, well, James has a few years to make up for.”
“So do I.”
“Look, when those two first made love in London,” he said, “I was still gettin’ over my wife, you know that. James an’ Sarah didn’t spend their first night with the lads listening outside their door. It just seemed best for everyone if you and I didn’t become intimate right away. I think it even did me some good to be without a woman’s touch for a while, just to be, you know, me. I’ve never done that before.”
“And now?”
“Now?” He took in a deep breath, expelled it slowly as he gazed at her, his eyes filling up with that same dire surrender. “Now we’re both ready. And now everything has to change.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
He glanced at the fire before answering, unsure of himself, his fingers moving unconsciously in hers. “Because maybe…maybe when it comes right down to it, I’m scared of messin’ things up with you.”
“With me? But why?” She took her hand out of his. She pushed back his bangs, ran her fingers through his silky-soft hair. “Paul, you couldn’t mess things up with me if you wanted to. You don’t have anything to be scared about.”
“But if we’re livin’ as man and wife, it’s only a matter of time before it all wears off. The spell will be broken. And then I’ll just be that guy, the one who takes out the trash or whatever.”
“But I’m not Fiona.”
He only squared his jaw, shaking his head as he looked away.
“So this is it?” she asked. “This is why you haven’t made a pass at me?”
“Ravenna, there’s so much I want t’say to you.”
“Then say it.”
“OK then, do you really want t’know how much I love you?”
A shock went through her, to hear those words. Staring at him with her heart beginning to pound, she could make no answer, but he went on earnestly. “That you’re scared,” he said, reaching for her sleeve, “and indeed, even now you’re scared, it means so much to me. I’ve only t’look at you and I can see it in your face that you love me, and I never saw as much in Fiona’s face, not ever. Not even when we were kids, but you, you’ve always looked at me like that. Even the very first night we spent together, at Wolvesfield when you were fussin’ over that nightgown, all embarrassed about what we’d done—”
“You liked that?”
“You were so worried about what I thought of you. Course I loved it. I loved t’see you wriggle, just like you’re doing now.”
“I’m not wriggling.”
He looked at her as if he knew better. And to demonstrate, he lifted his hands to her hips and pulled her forward, wrapping himself around her until she was encircled by his strong, warm arms. He pressed his face against her belly, and through her shirt, Ravenna felt the roughness of his whiskers, the firm, hard line to his jaw.
“You are,” he said, pulling her closer, nearer between his parted knees. “Flirting an’ that comes easy to me, but to you…it’s a very powerful thing, especially when you seem t’think I should be like those guys on the ship, that I should be wantin’ t’get it done the minute we’re alone.”
With effort, she fought the reeling in her brain. “Isn’t that what men want?”
“Not this one,” he said, lifting his eyes to look at her once more. And where was the confidence, the devilry she’d known? She saw only devotion. “Don’t get me wrong,” he went on, “shaggin’s great fun an’ all that, but em…bein’ in love is what it’s all about, yeah?”
Again she was struck by those breathtaking words. That he said them so easily after she’d spent months and months wondering, wishing, imagining that very phrase whispered in her ear, it was enough to make a shiver run through her. Empowered with the truth of it, she pushed back the hair from his eyes. She kissed his forehead. His skin was enticingly warm beneath her lips, and she let her mouth linger, drowning in the feel of his hands at her hips. “Say it again,” she mused. “Let me hear you say it again…”
Instead, his fingers slid up to her shoulders, pulling her, lowering her, until she found herself being guided down onto his lap. His arms encircled her comfortably. He gazed at her, soaking up her uneasiness with appreciative eyes, and leaning close until his nose just brushed her cheek, in an instant Ravenna was breathing his breath, feeling the distance between their lips like a keen, painful desert as he asked her teasingly, “You want to hear me say it again?”
“Yes,” she said, moving her hands up his shirt, over his throat to touch his face, his temples, the curious blond of his brow. “Tell me once more, I want to hear you say it.”
“You say it first.” And skimming his hand along her thigh, he finally closed the gap between them and led her into a succulent kiss. He grazed her lips with a tender pressure, opening her mouth, laughing a little as he moved his tongue in a velvety caress over hers. Tracing the inside of her lips until she responded with her own, he groaned when she sucked him in, tasting him, until her shaking intensified so much that she couldn’t sit still on his lap. She squirmed within his arms, trying to do as he wished, to meet his slow, drugging kiss and still make sense of the feelings that threatened her.
But as she curled her arms around his neck, he stopped and drew away. He pushed her hair tenderly behind her ear; he slipped his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her face to meet his. “I know you need t’go slow the first time. Maybe not even the first time. Maybe we could just mess around a bit, for both our sakes. Nothin’ grand and important, just something small.”
She swallowed hard and did her best to nod. His kiss still burned in her mouth with an insatiable sweetness, and she couldn’t stop herself from reaching up, tracing her finger along his lower lip to feel that softness once again. “What would we do?” she asked.
“Well, the cutter is comin’ for us in four days, is it?”
“On Saturday,” she said, looking down at the crucifix around his neck. Slipping her hands into his shirt, she took up the tiny cross, studied it carefully.
He glanced down at what she was doing. “Hey,” he said gently, catching her attention, “you know you haven’t done what I’ve asked you to.”
“I don’t…What did you ask me to do?”
Like a schoolboy muddling through his first crush, he faltered then. Anxiety flickered behind his eyes, and just the tone of his voice made her heart ache. “I was hopin’ you’d say it, that you, you know…”
“That I love you?” She saw the emotion sweep over his eyes in a shudder when she said this. Moved by the sight, she felt enabled by the power of it, that she could affect him so drastically with merely a spoken phrase, and leaning close to him again, she felt the butterfly touch of his lips against hers as she said it once more.
Longer than before, deeper, she kissed him as if she’d never get enough until at last he withdrew and whispered in her ear with a voice like melted butter. “Then you’ll call the shots.”

Chapter Twenty-One

For four nights they experimented on each other. The first she spent in his arms, listening to the auklets’ voices in the darkness as she learned exactly what sort of kisses made him moan with pleasure. She never did stop shaking that night.
By the second, she’d grown more accustomed to his caresses and she calmed somewhat, even become so bold as to run her fingers over the corded muscles of chest and down to the front of his linen trousers. Her curiosity was driving her crazy, but that second night she could do no more than feel him through the fabric, firm and waiting as her fingers traced the shape of him.
In the lamplight, she saw her every probing touch written in his face. With his eyes shut loosely, he turned his head away from her, and his body slowly and sensually writhed beneath her hand. She thought she was torturing him. Paul was quick to reassure her it was a torment he enjoyed, savoring every stage of it as he was. They’d only have this moment once, he said; he could easily wait for the final act.
By the third night, she was getting more comfortable with the whole thing. She’d explored the curves of his hips, the soft, wet recesses of his mouth. She’d showered him with kisses from the back of his sturdy neck all the way down his satiny chest, so that when his fingers moved from her breasts to the buttons of her shirt, she wasn’t alarmed.
He was laughing about something, Dillon’s endowments or some other silly thing, when she felt the cool night air against her skin. She didn’t even think about it then. She drew him closer as his hands slid over her, warming her, fondling her with a sleek caress until she found herself moving to meet his touch. He fell silent, and it was only a moment more when she felt the heat of his tongue across her nipples, the pleasant jolts of craving that shot through her body when he buried his face against her breasts.
Stroking her, holding her to him, at last Paul drew himself up and smothered her mouth with a penetrating kiss. “How’s that?” he asked, an impish grin on his handsome face.
She skimmed her fingers over the contours of that smile, taking in the endearing light of lust in his eyes. Then she slipped her hands in his hair. “Lower,” she murmured, pushing him down.
Soon she felt her trousers being undone, the trail of his chin down her belly as he covered her with wet and searing kisses. She lay back and shivered beneath his lips, and when he was finished, she would have done anything he asked.
But he didn’t ask. Gathering her up in his arms, he held her snugly for the rest of the night, whispering in her ear about his childhood in Dublin, about the life he’d led in the chill stone rooms of Swallowhill, about Aidan. Listening to him, Ravenna fell asleep and dreamed of those Dublin streets. Again and again she saw the seventeen-year-old face of the boy she’d known in Disneyland, his punkish haircut, his ungainly walk and those vulnerable, sensitive eyes.
* * *
By the fourth and last night, they were exhausted. They’d slept little in the course of their explorations, and in the daylight between those nights they’d spent all their time hard at work, fulfilling their promises to Vancouver.
Paul had told the captain he’d have a galley filled to the rafters with venison, but perhaps Paul’s penchant for boasting had gotten the best of him. Having grown up in the city, he’d never seen a deer outside of Phoenix Park. Even when he’d hunted with James in New Zealand, he’d had Mr. Manby’s superb sporting skills to help him out. Applied to the expensive double-barreled gun Manby owned, these talents had made the master’s mate responsible for most of the game they’d shot, not Paul.
Eventually Paul had to admit that either he was a lousier sportsman than he’d thought, or there were no deer on the island to be found—seals hauled out on every beach, but no deer. All they had to show for their efforts were clams, crabs, and crows. In the mornings, Ravenna dug the clams and dove off the island’s beaches for crabs while Paul shot the crows.
In between these chores, they managed to find time to look for woolly mammoth bones as Ravenna had hoped. She was ecstatic when she found a section of tusk, petrified and about two feet in length, high in the cliff behind the island. She lugged it back to their canvas tent, enshrined it with wild roses at the head of their bed. Paul didn’t understand, but he didn’t say so.
In the afternoons they spent the time fulfilling their other promise to Vancouver. They made sketches. Together, they sat on the bluff copying the features of the coastline, and while Paul made jokes about whatever came to mind, she documented the occasion by drawing his portrait.
“That’s me, is it?” he asked, leaning into her shoulder.
She nodded, and his mouth wrinkled in a smile. “Well I don’t think m’nose is that big,” he said.
“It’s not,” and she giggled, glanced down at his trousers, “but maybe I’m just showing what the rest of you is like. You know what they say, about men’s noses and their—”
“And their what?” He gazed at her expectantly, and she blushed just thinking about it—how that velvety-soft, rock-solid part of him had filled her hand with exquisite heat.
But Paul was shaking his head. “Sweetheart, you’ve barely seen mine, let alone anyone else’s.” And leaning close, he brushed her lips with a kiss. “Although I must admit, I’m flattered you think of me as such.”
* * *
That final night on the island, the air was balmy and breezeless. Paul built a fire, but he let it burn down as soon as their crow dinner had cooked. The evening was gorgeous anyway. They didn’t really need a fire. Besides, they had each other for warmth, although after a long day’s work ashore, Paul fell asleep before any real heat could be generated between them.
So it was that when morning came, Ravenna was shocked to hear the patter of rain above her head. When had the clouds rolled in? How had the temperature dropped so fast? She and Paul had slept in a tent, so getting drenched themselves wasn’t a problem, but what did disturb them was the fact that somehow, by some dreadful mistake, they’d left the roll of pictures outside.
She was certain she’d brought them in the night before. Paul swore he’d seen them propped against the seam of their tent in the lamplight. As his kisses had been so intoxicating, Ravenna was willing to admit that her recall might not have been the best that night, and yet the strange thing about it was this: They found that roll of watercolor sketches in the grass behind their canvas tent, just as if they’d been tossed aside.
Perhaps the wind, Ravenna thought.
However the drawings had gotten there, she dreaded going back to Discovery when the cutter came at the appointed time. They had no deer, no eggs or ducks. To show for their excursion, they had only a couple of auklets, twelve crows, a bucket of clams and crabs, and a packet of badly streaked watercolor pictures.
She prayed Vancouver was in good spirits as the cutter approached Discovery and maneuvered alongside the ship’s hull. When she saw Vancouver near the fo’c’sle, Ravenna knew even Paul’s prayers couldn’t help. The captain’s coat was soaked from the storm; the rain ran down his nose; worst of all, the scowl twisting his face could have made even Captain Bligh run for cover. From this, she gathered that Vancouver’s day so far hadn’t been the best, and she elected right then to keep the drawings’ fate a secret.
So with the bucket of clams and crabs in hand, she clambered up the side. Paul followed with the drawings wrapped in the tent. The rest of their things, the pans and such, were kindly brought up by the sailors in the cutter, and when the last of these men slipped over the railing and placed her mammoth tusk on the deck, Ravenna got a good look at Vancouver’s scowl—a genuine frown by this time. What have I done now? she wondered. Can’t I bring home a souvenir?
Fearful of another argument, she hid behind Paul, but it was Paul himself whom Vancouver addressed in striding across the rain-slicked deck. “Killiney, Sir,” he said, and although he hadn’t raised his voice, when the captain began peppering his salutations with “sirs,” everyone knew what was coming.
The sailors started to look at each other and shake their heads. James glanced at Paul warningly; caution, my friend, he seemed to say, but Paul never had the chance to speak.
“Lord Killiney, am I mistaken,” Vancouver asked, “or did I not issue you an order to procure venison for our larder?” The captain glared down at the deck beside Paul, at the mammoth tusk next to the pots and pans. He tapped it with his shoe. When this distracted Paul, Vancouver said calmly, “Answer the question, Sir. Didn’t I ask you to find meat for this ship?”
“I’d no idea there wasn’t a solitary deer on that—”
“Answer the question, my lord. All that’s required is a yes or no.”
The men lifting the cutter stopped what they were doing. All eyes were on Paul and from across the deck, Ravenna saw Mr. Puget meet his gaze, urge Paul with subtle gestures to concede.
“Yes,” Paul muttered, looking away.
“Then your orders were to supply this crew with venison?” Vancouver’s hooded eyes drilled into him. “Was that not why you were sent, my lord? With arms and supplies reserved for missions of import, to feed these men—these hardworking, tireless and loyal men who profess to be your friends?”
When grudgingly Paul nodded, Vancouver drew his foot back and kicked the mammoth tusk hard with his heel. “Then why do you bring me stones?” he asked. “Did you manage to acquire for these hungry men the slightest game to speak of?”
Paul hesitated. Then, feeling her moving behind him, he turned clumsily as Ravenna put the bags in his hand.
“My lord, I’m speaking to you, and I would have your—”
“Crows,” Paul said, and turning back to Vancouver’s impatience, he presented the bags resentfully. “I’ve twelve crows for you, some seabirds and some clams, as well.”
“Five days I give you, and you reward me with crows?”
“I’ve done the best I could, considering there’s not a deer on that shaggin’ island.”
“How dare you suggest so to me,” Vancouver snarled. “I rely upon you, Sir, to employ your judgment in turning to advantage the hours and location assigned to you and you bring me game such as Mr. Manby could provide in a single afternoon’s leave?”
“Then send Manby next time.”
“I will not, Sir! I’ll send you, and should you return once more without eggs or fish, I shall have you dragged to the gratings to be flogged! As a member of my crew, you will work, my lord, not gather stones.”
Vancouver glowered triumphantly at Paul, but as he savored Paul’s embittered submission, Ravenna dared to lift her voice. “I can get you fish,” she said.
Paul elbowed her in the ribs. She ignored him and approached the captain anyway. “If it would help,” she said carefully, “we can take the cutter right now and go to a place on the mainland where I used to dive for lingcod and flounder. There might be rock fish, too, and halibut—”
“Might be?” Vancouver frowned. “Would that be similar to ‘there might be deer on that island, Captain’? Is this how your plot was fashioned, Killiney? Is this where your assurances, your promises of game and venison were born? From her unreliable and questionable foresight? Answer me, Sir! Did she contrive this episode?”
“She didn’t, no,” Paul said angrily, but Vancouver had shifted his attention to Ravenna.
“And I suppose you sullied no canvas with paint?” Vancouver stepped closer, trying to intimidate her with the tyranny of his tone. “Had you the slightest intention of fulfilling my orders? Or was this island expedition merely a holiday?”
The ferocity of his expression made Ravenna’s insides curl. She fought off the urge to swear. Just barely. “No, I—”
“Then show me the drawings!”
“You can’t see them, they’re—”
“I can’t see them? I’ve given you my leave to illegally participate in this voyage on the grounds you contribute your artistic abilities and now I can’t see the drawings?”
“You don’t understand, they’ve been—”
“No, it’s you without the capacity for understanding. I would see those sketches. Now!”
There seemed no choice but for Ravenna to comply. So with the entire ship’s complement watching, she unfolded the tent’s fabric and reluctantly handed over the watercolor pictures. Vancouver swiped them up. He marched across the deck, shouted an order for Mr. Laithwood and Mr. Manning to hold a sail between them as he unrolled the sketches beneath the canvas.
Ravenna looked at Paul, held her breath. They both knew what would greet his eyes from the top of that stack of coastal drawings—a portrait of Paul that had definitely not been commissioned by the Royal Navy.
In seconds the furious roar of the captain rose above the noise of the downpour. “I did not risk my career for the benefit of your copulation! I did not, Sir!”
“Look,” Paul said, raising his hands, “it’s only a bleedin’ picture, and I’d—”
“Vancouver Island, prescient insight…Now at last the truth becomes plain: You’ve lied unconscionably, my lord, and I tell you, I will listen no more! Private Millward! Come forward!”
One of the red-coated marines appeared.
“Put this woman below and under guard! I’ll not have her promiscuity loose upon my ship! Private Bonchin, Sir!”
Another marine pushed through the crowd.
“You’ll relieve Mr. Millward at eight bells, and then Private Glasspole will stand the midwatch! She’ll have no sustenance for two days, do you hear? She’ll be made to suffer as we do in the consequence of her lies, and she’ll see no one, utter no prophecies and distract no man from his work, so long as she remains aboard His Majesty’s ship!”
Bill Bonchin and Thomas Millward, both men notorious for rough behavior, nodded as they approached Ravenna with enthusiasm. John Glasspole had arms the size of Paul’s waist, and as he neared, he ordered Paul to step aside and give Ravenna up or suffer a beating.
Paul didn’t budge. His only move was to put his arm securely around her, and that arm tensed as his feet shuffled behind hers for better footing. “If she goes, I go as well,” Paul growled.
“If that’s how ye like it,” Private Glasspole answered, and grinning at Paul, the marine began to slip out of his scarlet jacket. “Don’t think our cap’n would mind one whit if me fist takes a likin’ to your ugly nose.”
As Paul let go to roll up his sleeves, frantically Ravenna searched the men’s faces. The shouting had reached a level near mutiny. The sailors pressed in, choosing sides between Paul and Private Glasspole while beyond, above the din, she could hear James railing, “Does she look like a seaman to you? She’s a woman, Vancouver. Can’t you see this is madness?”
“I’ve sense enough to have you flogged the very same if you don’t stand aside, Sir, and leave me alone.”
“But you’re irrational. You’ve taken ill at the expense of your judgment and I won’t tolerate harm coming to my—”
“I have not taken ill! Do you tempt me, Wolvesfield? Then stand aside! Sergeant Flynn, Sir! There will be order on this ship, or you will all be spreadeagled at the gratings, do you hear?”
With this threat, Sergeant Flynn reined in Private Glasspole’s first swing at Paul with an obligatory shout. The other two marines promptly fell in beside the private, and together they surrounded Paul, against his fists and will. As they started to drag him away, Mr. Whidbey demanded all hands to assemble near the stern while above the pandemonium, Vancouver issued his resonant commands with an eager and righteous vengeance. “Take Killiney aft, Private Millward! And Mr. Barnes, collect your drum! For his defiance, we shall have two lashes for my lord before Lady Elizabeth is confined to quarters and then we shall ask what punishment befits liars, confessing his deception of captain and crew or two more?”
“No!” Ravenna cried, pushing Private Millward as hard as she could. “We didn’t lie to you! Paul’s done nothing to deserve this, he’s—”
“Sergeant Flynn!” Vancouver yelled. The sergeant approached her, his face tensed as he reached out to grab her.
“No,” she pleaded, “I’ll prove we didn’t lie to you, just give me the chance to—”
The sergeant’s fingers closed around her collar, but with all the strength she could muster, she pulled away. The linen tore as she twisted and fought in the sergeant’s grasp until somehow, before he’d found another hold, she escaped. She rushed across the deck, seeing the blur of men yammering in encouragement, seeing Paul out of the corner of her eye as she made for Vancouver near the quarterdeck rail with all she had in her, shouting, “Let him go, please, leave him alone and I’ll tell you the future!”
Vancouver’s small frame bent with rage. “Your future is worthless!”
“Please, I’m not lying, I can help you,” she said, and drawing nearer to the captain, unhindered by the sailors or the remaining marines, she begged him, tried to bribe him. “I can tell you where to find the Northwest Passage. I know what’s around Point Wilson in Admiralty Inlet, in Puget Sound, please just give me a chart and I’ll show you.”
“Sergeant Flynn, do you defy my command?”
But Ravenna had reached Vancouver’s side now. “This voyage is killing you,” she told him urgently. “We all know you’re sick, we all saw it in the Sandwich Islands, even your officers will tell you that! You’re tired all the time, you work too hard and you don’t eat, we’ve all seen the—”
“Sergeant Flynn!” He contorted with the force of his shout; the marine came running, and still Ravenna didn’t back down.
“You’ll be dead in less than ten years, is that what you want? That’s the future, and you’re dragging everyone down with you! You’re getting worse all the time, and if you have Paul beaten, it’ll only prove—”
“I am not insane!” Vancouver turned fiercely toward the marines. “Will you truss up Killiney and get on with it? Get on with it! I’d see him bleed before nightfall.”
But every man had heard Ravenna’s words. And every man stared at Vancouver, knowing in their own minds from what they’d witnessed, from rumor and speculation, that what she’d said was true. She stepped nearer to Vancouver, knowing the sea of faces was to her advantage, that he had to listen now. “Please don’t have Paul beaten,” she whispered. “I’ll do my best to keep you healthy and we’ll follow your orders, I swear we will.”
And trying to reassure him, she laid her hand bravely upon his arm.
In an instant, she felt herself shoved backwards. The force of it, only meant to push her away, was still hard enough to send her over the railing where the cutter still rode at the main chains; the men had abandoned it in favor of brawling and now, in the fall, her head met the bow.
She felt pain, then icy salt water. She felt the weight of her clothes dragging her down, and then she felt no more.
* * *
When she came to, pandemonium surrounded her. The boatswain was shouting at the top of his lungs; sailors were chattering, paying no attention to the boatswain’s demands; Vancouver was arguing violently with James, whose deep-timbred tone rose above the seamen’s voices in a string of raging, brutal threats.
Through it all, she heard a soft Irish accent counting in a litany of desperation while a fist pumped hard into her sternum. “…Thirteen…fourteen…fifteen. Breathe—”
She felt the frantic pressure of Paul’s lips against hers, the sudden force of his breath pushed into her, and reflexively she sucked it in. Her fingers scratched for purchase on the deck. In a fit of coughing, trying to inhale, she choked on the water in her lungs, and when she opened her eyes, Paul’s counting stopped.
Where he knelt over her, his lips, stained dark with cold, were near to hers. His hair was slicked back, and the lines in his haggard, frightened face were running with rain, with salt water when he stroked her forehead thoughtlessly and calmed her into a settled breathing.
She tried to sit up, but Paul didn’t let her. He curled his arm around her back. Lifting her quickly, he handed her into James’s embrace, and she was swung around, dripping, carried toward the companionway even as Paul staggered off with fists clenched.
Disoriented as she was, she twisted in James’s grip. She tried to see Paul’s face among the sailors, catch a glimpse of him approaching Vancouver, but she saw nothing but the ship closing over her head, heard nothing but Sarah’s urgent whisper, “In the cabin, Jem. We’re gettin’ her out o’ those wet clothes first.”
“I’ll kill him,” James growled.
“You won’t,” Sarah told him, and with the maid’s hands firmly clasping her arms, Ravenna was lowered to the floor of her cabin and hastily undressed.
She felt them tugging at her. Still, they seemed far away, so insensible she was at that moment. Above her on deck, she heard the scuffling of sailors’ feet and the occasional thump of something hitting the planks. Fearing the worst, she called out Paul’s name, but her own voice seemed a distant sound. James and Sarah ignored her completely in the midst of their panic, and as her consciousness darkened and strengthened again, she wondered if she’d called out at all.
Once Sarah had freed her of sopping clothes, the maid pulled a chemise over her head before helping James to wrap her up snugly. In her dazed condition, Ravenna found it difficult to focus her eyes; when James noticed this, he took her hand. “Love, I need you to try and stay alert,” he said, squeezing her fingers. “Just keep your eyes open ’til I come back, all right?”
Yes, she wanted to say, go to Paul, bring Paul, but her thoughts quickly muddled when James told Sarah to hurry and light the galley stove.
As the two of them left, she tried not to shake so fiercely, tried to concentrate as James had asked her to do. The sound of the commotion on deck had gained momentum, and now as she listened, the trouble came closer and louder above her head with the pounding of bare feet and officers’ boots. Shouting—no, cheering—resounded through the planking until she thought she heard the thunderous timbre of Vancouver’s voice.
Paul, she thought, but as she sucked in his name on an anxious breath, there cut through the din a thickened, crumpling thud of a noise. The ship’s lumber shook. Then, but for the ordinary creaks of sailors’ walking, all fell quiet and she heard nothing more.
When James returned and bent over her, he took her blanket and all to the galley. He didn’t say anything, but she knew what had happened. She could see every swing of Paul’s fist, every vindictive glare he’d given Vancouver, all of it in James’s expression.
Still, before the galley fire, in the cramped space there between kegs and barrels, her thoughts drifted. The air began to warm. James held her close. As he stroked her shoulders with absentminded affection, she clung to him, soothed by the depth of his voice. Something about England he was talking about, Wolvesfield and the smell of a summer garden in the rain, his mare Magazan whom he’d brought from Spain and now bitterly missed…
“Do you miss your home in the future, Ravenna? Will you not miss me, once you’ve gone back?”
Drowsy now, finally stilled of shivering, she looked up into his wide-set eyes. “Paul doesn’t want to go back,” she said.
He frowned, regarded her carefully. “So you’ll stay here with me? Even if he finds the potion?”
When she nodded, he gazed at her for a long moment. His hand strayed from her shoulder, slipped down her back in a trail of warmth. Without even thinking, she snuggled closer.
“Good,” he said finally. Cradling her head, he pulled her tight beneath his chin.
Somewhere above decks a drum beat a slow roll.
* * *
Ravenna woke up in her bed. The rain had stopped, replaced by the orange glow of sunset which poured into the room from the gunport beside her. That glow hurt her eyes, her aching head, but still she sat up weakly and waited for sleep to clear away.
How many hours had she lain there? Eight? Ten? Visions of Paul’s face set in a dangerous scowl loomed in her memory, but as she began to sort the heaviness of dreams from reality, abruptly she realized she wasn’t alone.
Paul was slumped before the door.
His shirt had been ripped down over his shoulders. With his burly chest heaving, he gazed at her listlessly, and Ravenna felt a stab of pain: all the fight had been taken from Paul’s eyes. He was covered with blood, his blood, drawn in the name of Vancouver’s madness, for when he struggled to move toward her, clenching his teeth with the force of his effort, she saw the deep crimson bands cutting the length of his freckled back.
She crawled from her blankets. “What can I do? Should I bring the surgeon?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, and with that uncertain set to his mouth, she ached inside; she knew what it meant, that fearful expression, but before she could comfort him, he’d leaned into her, hunched over and swaying until his chin rested easily on her shoulder.
She held him as tightly as she could. She wanted so badly to reassure him, but she knew she couldn’t possibly ease the agony of those tracks. With the blood welling up and thickening in them, she wished she could murder Vancouver for all the senseless, stupid things he’d done, for beating Paul so needlessly.
Holding her in his arms, finally he straightened. He showed only minimal evidence of tears, but she knew; while he ran a hand through his tangled hair in a blatant try at indifference, he couldn’t hide that shine to his eyes.
“Guess I’m a bit of a baby,” he said. “Here you’ve almost died and all I can do is get the shite beat outta me.”
“I just passed out, that’s all,” she soothed, but as she lifted her fingers to touch his brow, she saw the casualness he pretended die away. He backed out of her hands, withdrew from her completely.
“You didn’t just anything,” he said to her darkly.
A moment or two passed in which she sat stunned by his refusal. She searched his eyes when finally he dared to raise them to hers, and she saw fear there—fear for her. He sniffed, wiped his cheek with the back of his wrist. As if he’d betrayed too much already, he turned away.
Wanting to eradicate his needless suffering, she edged closer. He tried to stop her, but still she managed to kiss his cheeks, his temples, the bridge of his nose.
Yet as her fingers massaged the back of his neck, he broke away from her advances. “You haven’t yet figured it out, have you?” He glared at her bitterly. “You think this is all some sort of coincidence, some New Age test for me t’learn from, yeah?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ravenna, you almost drowned, do you know that? And just last night I was as close t’shaggin’ you as I’ve ever been.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “You feel responsible because we almost made love? That’s why you’ve waited so long to be with me? Because you thought God would kill me?”
“God takes away the people I love.”
“God hasn’t done anything,” she grumbled. “I’m the one who provoked Vancouver. I’m responsible if anyone is. And besides, don’t you think it’s pretty self-important of you to believe your love decides whether people live or die?”
Huddled in a mess of torn flesh and bruises, he shook his head. “I don’t expect you to understand. I’m just telling you the closer you an’ I get, the more likely something will happen t’one of us.”
“Then why are you here?” She challenged him, felt determined to expose him. “Did you come here to talk? To get your wounds doctored? Or maybe you just wanted me to mend your shirt—”
“Don’t be messin’ about with me.”
“Then tell me the truth. You came here so I’d hold you and promise everything’s gonna be OK…except you’re so terrified of death, you won’t even allow yourself that.”
“That’s right, because I’m not like you,” he said, meeting her gaze fiercely. “I’d rather you were living an’ not mine than dyin’ in my arms.”
“Well at least I’m not living in fear of what might happen. At least I haven’t wasted a whole year of our lives.”
Taking hold of her wrist sharply, Paul’s face colored with anger. “You can’t know what you’re saying, can you? You’ve never had someone stop breathing in your hands. You’ve never seen the life go out of someone’s eyes. I’ve seen it only this morning, and I’ll not go through it again, not with you, not after Aidan and m’mother an’ father, so you won’t mind if I don’t feel like shagging you this minute, yeah?”
The past shone in his eyes, tormenting him as he begged her to understand. “But you do,” she whispered. “You want to more than ever.”
With her gentle tone, finally he broke.
Letting go of her wrist, he kissed her. Harshly, feverishly, he searched her lips with a year’s worth of longing, a condemned desperation, as if he’d damned himself and her in the weakness of his need. In that kiss, she felt everything he’d suffered. His tongue moved achingly over hers. She took him deeper, dug her fingers into his hair until at last, with a roughness that betrayed his desire, he surrendered that final remnant of fear and backed her down to the cabin floor.
Sheltered by his brawny frame, she shivered with anticipation. His powerful shoulders loomed above her. His masculine hands slipped into her clothes. Tearing at the cotton, tugging her chemise over outstretched limbs, he was reckless, brutal in his haste…and still she urged him on.
He didn’t whisper. He said nothing at all in his Irish passion. Still, when he sank down between her thighs, he uttered a low, throaty groan of pleasure, and Ravenna dissolved. The feel of his open mouth, the fervor with which he pressed and stroked, it seemed too much, a bliss made all the more perfect by his forcefulness. I’m yours, she thought, carried by the hunger of his rhythmic suckling. Whatever you want, whatever you need…
Then abruptly, he stopped.
In the quiet of the cabin, she heard his husky growl. “God, you taste good.” His words were a brush of whiskers at her belly, a trailing caress all along her breasts. When he reached her lips, he kissed her tenderly. She didn’t know when he’d taken off his trousers, but as he lowered himself down, she felt the sudden heat of his skin, that soft rigid part of him she’d come to crave now tucked against her, tingling and warm.
“Do you want me, Sweetheart?” With the grim light of love shining in his eyes, he thrust himself a little closer. “Will you never leave me?”
Ravenna’s thoughts centered on that pulsating firmness. “Never,” she murmured, and dizzy with the feel of him, she slipped her hands around his buttocks. “Yes I want you. Please, Paul, don’t make me wait.”
Like an explosion he was, filling her with searing heat as he eased himself inside her. The thickness of him, the weight of him over her, these things made her pull him closer, and wrapping her legs around him, whispering his name again and again, she rocked to his movements until at last she heard his moan in her ear, like a velvet rush flooding everywhere.
She didn’t care what happened after that.
The light faded from the gunport beside them as he went on making love to her. The boards creaked beneath the weight of their movements, the men talked in the nearby cabin and Sarah’s sea-chest was in the way, but somehow nothing seemed so important as coaxing another kiss from him, shivering beneath still another caress. To be able to run her fingers over his hard, silky body, to feel the stubble of his cheek against hers as he murmured over and over that he loved her, that he needed her…these things for which she’d waited all her life were happening, and why should she care if anyone listened?
She only knew he was irrevocably hers when he wrapped his beaten body around her and whispered in the darkness, “Don’t ever leave me…”
* * *
Sometime during the night they crawled into her hammock. Once there, Paul draped himself around her, for his wounds, the slices cut into him by the nine-barbed cat, made it impossible for him to lie on his back. Even then, he slept in short, fitful spells. Ravenna felt sure he dreamt of Vancouver, although each time he awoke, Paul swore he’d dreamt nothing.
He didn’t lapse into a heavy sleep until just after dawn, and it must have been afternoon when they finally got up. Ravenna still ached from her own injury. Her head hadn’t entirely cleared, so it was only after dressing and moving slowly into the corridor that she realized there was an unnatural stillness about the ship; no sailor’s voices, no pounding of feet on the main deck, just the constant creaking of Discovery’s hull.
When James appeared in the corridor dimness, he gave her a start. “Christ,” she said, catching her breath. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he gazed past her, into her cabin, and in an instant she felt strong, tanned arms encircling her waist, the weight of Paul’s chin resting on her shoulder.
“Hey,” James said, nodding in greeting.
“Hey yourself,” Paul murmured, kissed Ravenna’s neck.
She found herself slightly embarrassed, especially when James averted his eyes. Ask him something. “Where is everybody?”
“Vancouver’s ordered a holiday ashore.”
Paul’s lips stilled. “Then we’re alone?”
“Puget’s in the crow’s nest—,” and for emphasis, James cast a glance toward the hatch, “—which reminds me, were I to be roaming about the ship without irons and in the company of my new rooming partner, I’d find time to thank the lieutenant, both of you. Eight hours spent in counsel with Vancouver on your behalf would warrant at least that.”
Paul’s frame tensed. “Vancouver’s letting us room together?” Releasing Ravenna, he stepped out from behind her. “He beats the bleedin’ life outta me for messin’ with her and then he lets us room together?”
“I think he’s written us off,” James replied.
“So you’ve told him about yourself an’ Sarah?”
“Two men lost to wanton behavior is nothing compared to an entire crew. Puget made him see the wisdom in that.”
Ravenna frowned. “So now I’m wanton?”
“You know Vancouver thinks you unchaste.” James lowered his gaze, and she was made to wonder what he thought, shifting his feet uneasily like that.
But Paul went on. “So Vancouver’s only left Puget to watch us? That’s it? No marines?”
“Just Sarah. That’s enough.”
“And where’s Christian?” Harmless enough question, Ravenna thought, and yet when she saw James’s face, she was intrigued; a trace of guilt flashed deep in his eyes. “James, why do you look like that? Did Christian go ashore?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes, he did.”
She regarded him even more carefully then. “What do you mean, ‘manner of speaking’?”
He only shook his head, refusing to answer.
“All right,” she said, taking a step toward him. “What did you do to him? You didn’t hurt him, did you?”
“He saw fit to endanger himself with no help of mine.” James paused, leaned heavily against the wall. “He deserted, Ravenna. Six days past.”
“Deserted? You mean he left the ship?”
“Tuesday the Chatham’s boat went missing with two able seamen and Christian with it. He bribed them, I’m quite sure, although why they left now I can’t imagine.”
She turned to Paul. “I know the reason.”
“We are the reason,” Paul agreed.
“Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now,” James said. “He chose his own course and we’ve no obligation whatsoever to disturb it.”
“You mean no one’s looking for him?” She glared at him, getting angrier by the minute. “You’re saying Vancouver’s declared a holiday and that’s the end of it?”
A smirk drifted into James’s expression. “There’s never been a better reason to celebrate.”
“But he’ll die out there!”
James only shrugged. “If he wants to come back, he’ll signal with a gunshot.”
“Does he have a gun to fire?”
“Why do you defend him? He’s trouble incarnate, you know he is.”
“But James, he’s our cousin. He’s part of our family. Does he really deserve to die just because we don’t like him?”
With a severity that surprised her, he took her by the shoulders then. “Yes he does. Family is a connection of title, of funds, not of love in his view, and believe me when I say that our future, our very lives, are protected with his death.”
And as if suddenly aware of his own threatening tone, James stepped back. “Forget about him,” he said, and nodding Paul’s way, he vanished into the corridor’s darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Two

What was it he’d told Ravenna? The closer you an’ I get, the more likely something will happen t’one of us.
Well, something had happened. Without being able to explain it, Paul knew the fellah wasn’t coming back. He sensed it in that moment when James walked away, for how else could Christian’s timing be interpreted? It’s too perfect, Paul thought. Here I’ve finally gotten it together with Ravenna, and now this guy’s gone missing?
Of course Paul was responsible, he saw that much.
The funny thing about it was Paul didn’t suffer. When a service was held for Christian two weeks later, when Mr. Orchard read from the Twenty-third Psalm and asked for a song to be played below decks, Paul felt OK with it. He really did. He began “Claire De Lune,” but he was thinking how Ravenna’s history books had claimed she’d been destined to marry, be abused and then widowed by Lord Launceston. Now how could she marry a fellah who’d died? Indeed, she couldn’t—and that was just the point. Christian had done much more than merely add himself to Paul’s list of funerals. Somehow he’d managed to mess things up.
History’s been subverted, Paul thought, and with an overwhelming sense of relief, like a torrent the notes rushed out of him as he threw himself into Debussy’s music. He played recklessly, joyfully, and by the time he’d finished and a speech had been made about Christian’s peerage, Paul was thinking just one thing: If Christian’s gotten it wrong and died, then maybe I can get it right and live.
* * *
Such was his state of mind in mid-July, when they arrived at what Ravenna called the Nimpkish River. Two months had passed. No longer worrying about death as much, Paul was really starting to enjoy the charting and exploring, the Alaska-like wilderness they saw all about them. When they approached the native village off of which Vancouver intended to anchor, Paul wasn’t nervous in the least. In fact he admired the painted house fronts, the forest rising up along the river’s banks. When the clouds moved in and the rain began, he didn’t care. Ravenna’s hand was in his; she leaned at his side with obvious affection, naming bights and points and passages so distant Paul could barely even see them, and soon he forgot the weather entirely, so fixated he was upon her tutorial.
“It’s Kwakiutl,” she was saying, pointing toward the village.
“That’s a people, is it?” Paul winked, squeezed her hand.
“Yes, a people,” she said, laughing at his flirtatiousness, “a native people, but they’re actually called something I can’t pronounce. If I’d taken the time to learn it on my last trip—”
And telling Paul about her parents and that, how Mitchell Bay was just beyond an island to their northeast and she’d spent many an hour in her motor boat there…hearing about her life before they’d met, Paul was more than content.
Soon he was summoned to help set the anchor. Ravenna went below, but even then Paul felt good. It’s been a really great day, he thought to himself. That morning had been especially perfect. They hadn’t begun sailing until nearly eight o’clock, so Paul had had plenty of time for making love before he’d been called. Also, after days of going hungry on ship’s biscuit, they’d been greeted by Indians eager to trade salmon for sheets of copper. With Ravenna’s morning sickness gone, for once Paul had been able to enjoy his meal along with her company, something he’d missed in the last few weeks. That she was now pregnant—a turn of history he didn’t object to—this, for Paul, was the greatest happiness of all.
Indeed, finishing up at the capstan bars, he couldn’t have been in a better mood. The working day was done. Everyone went below, but still Paul remained, watched the sunset sink below the clouds and turn red as the downpour really started. I’m blessed, he thought. Blessed t’be standing here, healthy and alive and soon to be a father. Blessed to have not only Ravenna in m’life, but James as well. Taking off his shirt in the midst of the squall, he thought about what he cherished, whom he loved. The chill of the storm only sharpened his sense of belonging, stirred him even further toward envisioning what he’d soon have—a son and family, a real home with real friends, in a Swallowhill not falling down in a mess.
This is where I’m meant to be. And reaching into his trousers’ pocket, he pulled out his fob watch, held it toward the weakening light to the west. He was still far too preoccupied to notice either the time or Ravenna coming up behind him there on deck. The rain drummed loudly. Paul couldn’t hear her words, nor her footsteps treading the well-worn planks until she’d slid her hands around his shoulders.
“What’s keeping you?” she purred.
Closing his eyes at the sound of her voice, Paul smiled to himself. As if I’d be kept from you. Turning around in a surge of emotion, he gathered her up, took her in a slow, meandering kiss that brought all his senses to attention. The sheer pleasure of it, savoring the taste of her, feeling her snuggle closer, it made him forget they were standing on deck. He slipped his hands around her. He probed the velvet warmth of her lips with careless abandon, needing everything she had to give, not complete without her, until he wanted to stay in her mouth forever.
Ravenna didn’t let him.
“Where’s your shirt?” she asked, drawing back. Her hands rubbed up and down his arms, warming him as she waited for his answer, which she didn’t get. “Paul, you can’t keep doing this. I know you’re used to Ireland, but if you should get sick—”
“I’m fine,” he whispered, and cupping her strong little chin, he leaned closer, rested his nose against hers. He felt completely overwhelmed with the way he adored her in that moment. Even with her hair dripping about them, the rainwater running down her pert nose and onto his, she was everything he’d ever wanted—lover and mother, conspirator and minder, confessor and tempter. She was his life. She made sense of him, and Paul felt God’s favor every time he held her, in each breath he drew against her soft ivory neck, between her limber, flexible legs…
Although the rain kept coming down, he couldn’t bring himself to usher her toward the companion ladder and below, out of the storm. Instead, he bent to kiss her right there. He didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t help uttering a low, uncontrollable moan when her lips parted, when she took him in her mouth and wet his passion with an urgency of her own, flicking her tongue in a satiny invitation. He could barely stand it when she slipped her hands into his trousers. Now how does she do that? he wondered, for already he felt that familiar heat like a drug all through his body, the rush of her lilac scent, her taste flooding his senses until his maleness had become unbearably hard.
“You’ve got me going here,” he whispered, his words smothered by her lips. He tried to step away a bit, just enough to keep himself from taking her then and there, but Ravenna’s nimble fingers had slipped around him, caressing him to the breaking point with all that he’d taught her and more that he hadn’t. “Sweetheart…Ravenna, I’m gonna embarrass m’self if you don’t give me some air—”
“Should we go below?”
Raising her knee, she rubbed him in a slow, deliberate friction, and he almost couldn’t answer. “No, em…let’s not, actually. I’ve another idea.”
With a quick kiss, he rebuttoned his trousers. Then, taking her by the hand, he pulled her toward the mainmast shrouds. He urged her up before him, catching tantalizing glimpses of her shapely legs, her voluminous skirts hiked up as she climbed. Her bare feet seemed inexplicably enticing, and by the time Paul had crawled into the crow’s nest after her, it was all he could do to keep himself together.
Soon darkness fell around them. The masthead rocked gently with the ebbing tide as Paul undressed her feverishly, tearing at her buttons, her woolen lapels. He pulled back her dress to get at the cotton chemise beneath, and feeling the heat of her skin at last, her slick strands of hair when she leaned close to tug his trousers down, Paul was furious with how much he wanted her. He wrenched the chemise over her head. He didn’t care if it ripped. He was aching for her, and when he slipped his hands up her inner thighs, saw that reach of heaven in the dark, enticing curls of her warmth, his need overrode everything else.
“Come here,” he told her.
Fumbling for her hands amid the tangle of their limbs, Paul pulled her forward. He led her into his lap until she’d settled herself on the source of his throbbing and wrapped her arms about his neck. “You’re perfect,” he murmured to her.
All the while the rain beat down. It beaded on her lips in a moist, delicious kiss, and he drank it up as he felt her glide downward to sheath him in a rapturous snugness. More than just the exquisite feel of her or the way she instinctively rode his desire, it was the look in her eyes that affected Paul most. She’s forgotten herself entirely, he thought. Tossing that mane of heavy hair, she arched her back. She wasn’t even aware of the little sounds she made, the soft, whimpering moans that escaped her lips when he reached down and stroked her. She sat astride him, rocking him with a delicate fervor, and as the friction built between them, as he hurried the rhythm of his fingers in those damp, silky curls, she shuddered in a whisper against his cheek. He rose up to meet her, and his own release seared through his veins in a shattering heat, a white hot whirl of heedless carnality and near-religious affection centered in the motion of her slender hips.
* * *
Again and again they sought out that hallowed communion, safe in the height of their chosen retreat. They lay kissing under the shelter of her woolen skirts when finally Ravenna drifted off, and listening to her quiet breaths, bursting inside with contentment, Paul lay awake for the longest time just relishing the love he felt.
I’d die for you, he thought, cuddling her closer.

Chapter Twenty-Three

A few hours after dawn, Ravenna felt fingers shaking her awake. “There’s Indians coming,” Paul whispered in her ear.
Sure enough, when she opened her eyes, Ravenna looked down to see canoes surrounding Discovery’s sides. Native men chanted in time with their oars as they circled the ship; sea-otter skins were tossed on deck as a gesture of the Indians’ trading intentions, and grabbing her chemise from the mess of their clothes, Ravenna hurried to cover herself. She knew at the merest suggestion of commerce every sailor would be on deck, and if just one of them were to look up, Vancouver would hear about how she’d been naked. Then she’d really be in trouble, or worse—Paul would.
By the time Vancouver appeared, however, everyone was fully clothed. Ravenna climbed down the shrouds in a rush, and as she followed Paul, clutched her skirts together and hoped nobody had seen her sans chemise, she saw the Indians come aboard and greet Vancouver with friendly smiles.
Like I needed to worry, she thought. Vancouver—as well as everyone else—was totally immersed in talking to the native guests. Although she didn’t understand their Chinook jargon or the gestures they used, she heard the translation: The chief of the village had invited Vancouver to come ashore.
Soon the pinnace was swayed out and lowered to the main chains. Officers and marines were picked from the company, and in the midst of this, with Mr. Whidbey at his arm entertaining the guests, the captain called Paul and James forward.
“I have a job for you,” he said to James, “another sporting excursion, if you will. I’ve sent for your muskets, and this chief, he’ll direct you to the best hunting grounds, lest there be any confusion.” He gave Paul an obvious glare, and without waiting for an answer from either of them, Vancouver went back to talking with Whidbey.
Ravenna was in shock. Go ashore? Here? Admiring native villages from the safety of Discovery, even greeting nice people like this friendly chief, these were controlled situations, supervised by sixteen well-armed marines. To send Paul ashore by himself with only James to guard him…this was madness. Ravenna was more than frightened. There’s a river over there, she thought with a tremble.
Paul seemed to be thinking the same thing, for as the sailors and officers hurried into the pinnace, he didn’t move. After a moment, James bent down and whispered in his ear, and Ravenna could easily guess what he’d said: Don’t do it, my friend.
Paul glanced at James nervously; he scanned the crowd until finally, having found Ravenna, he said the words that made her feel a bit better. “Permission to remain aboard, Sir.”
Vancouver turned around. He didn’t speak, but it was obvious when he glowered at Paul that the captain wouldn’t tolerate his orders being questioned. Still Paul went on. “Em…I suppose I can’t justify myself,” and he didn’t take his eyes from Ravenna’s, so she felt his uncertainty when he continued, “In fact, I reckon there’s no reason why I shouldn’t go ashore, but—”
Vancouver glanced around to see what Paul stared at. He found only sailors. Ravenna had ducked.
Wise to the situation all the same, Vancouver turned back to Whidbey and the otter pelts. “Get in the boat, Killiney,” he said. “You’ll act as your captain dictates, not your woman.”
Paul’s lips tightened before he answered. “I’m not trying t’be disrespectful, here, but if you think I’ll walk into an Indian village—”
“You will, Killiney, or I’ll arrest not only you, but Lady Elizabeth, as well.”
“But she’s told you about the Columbia River, hasn’t she?” Paul glanced at Puget for support. “What about the strait that Cook said didn’t exist? She’s not been lying, she’s been tellin’ you history, and I wouldn’t think you’d be daft enough t’send me down a river, yeah?”
“Do you hear yourself, Killiney, Sir?” An uneasy silence settled amongst the men as Vancouver turned slowly, his words intended for everyone. “My orders aren’t for pondering, they’re for execution, by able seamen such as yourself, for that is what you are, Sir. You’re not a viscount on my ship, you’re a sailor, a crewman, an ordinary subordinate. Now leave off the woman and get in the boat.”
“You can’t stand the thought of it, can you?” Still Paul didn’t budge, but stood fiercely waiting for Vancouver to answer.
Vancouver didn’t answer.
“You just can’t bear havin’ a woman knowing something you don’t,” he continued, glaring at the captain, “only you’ve not got the guts to admit as much, that Ravenna’s been right all along about Vancouver Island, about your illness an’ that. You’d kill me before you’d say it—”
That was the breaking point. With a shout, Vancouver had the marines up and running, along with Mr. Whidbey who was big enough to intimidate even Paul. Together they stormed toward him, and seeing them, his back straightening with defiance, Paul stared down the sailing master, raised his fists against the marines.
“Come on, now, m’lord,” Whidbey said softly. “You’d best do as the captain says. You don’t want m’lady locked up in chains?”
Paul tensed as Private Bonchin stepped nearer.
“I’ll do it, Killiney,” Vancouver called across the deck, and with a dip of his head, he signaled Puget to detain Ravenna.
After that, all hell broke loose.
Ravenna was dragged toward the companionway. The irons were brought out, and when James saw them, he turned on Vancouver, face contorting furiously as he threatened legal action and disembowelment, spitting on the captain with the force of his shouts. The crew erupted in response to this attack, cheering James on, siding with him, so that six more marines were dispatched to control both James and the mutiny-minded sailors.
All this and Paul didn’t move. Marines surrounded him on every side. From within Puget’s grasp, Ravenna felt weak when she saw Mr. Whidbey motion toward the larboard rail, saw Paul utter a curse and grudgingly turn in that direction.
“Paul!” she cried, and fighting to make her voice heard, she struggled against Puget. “I don’t care if they chain me, I don’t care what they do—”
But with his hands held fast behind his back, Paul had made up his mind. The marines walked him toward the boats, and although there were yards of planking between them, Ravenna could still see the emotion in Paul’s eyes. Love you, he mouthed, and she felt an icy dread deep in her heart when they forced him around at the railing, turned him to face Vancouver. Mr. Whidbey gave him a shove, but Paul couldn’t be budged from delivering to the captain one last violent glare before he was ushered toward the waiting boat. The six marines holding James in check now released him, pushing him forward, and Ravenna heard him swear as he followed Paul over the side.
Frantic, terrified, she wanted to scream at Vancouver, urge Paul to fight his way back on board, take her ashore with him, anything other than simply give up.
But she didn’t make a sound. Puget released her as soon as Vancouver had boarded the pinnace, and she watched in silence when they cast off from Discovery’s side.
Paul’s defeated eyes remained locked onto hers until at last the distance became too great. Then Ravenna strained to see the boat beached at the village, where Paul with his gun got out and lumbered up the hillside through the painted houses. James’s tall figure was ever beside him, and after some discussion with their native hosts, the entire party ducked through the central door of the largest of the houses and disappeared from view.
* * *
She was still at the rails when Vancouver returned. They didn’t have lanterns, hadn’t been equipped to stay out after sunset, and so the men rowed against the night wind in darkness. The sailors’ voices, worn and sharpened by their long day ashore, mingled with the lapping of the waves against the hull, and Ravenna listened frantically, trying to hear the difference between them, trying to discern Paul’s accent from the rest.
It was only when they came alongside that she felt relief, for she heard James clearly, telling the men to toss their oars.
As the marines began to appear on deck, she waited urgently to see Paul’s face. He’ll be cold, she thought. He’d taken no coat in the midst of Vancouver’s fit, and doubtless, he’d be grumbling about what a bastard the captain had been.
But when Vancouver came up, he was strangely quiet. He barely even glanced at Ravenna near the rail. Mr. Orchard, having taken the lantern from the watchman, held it soberly as he and Vancouver went below. The other officers and sailors streamed onto the ship, and as they went about their business with grim expressions, she imagined Vancouver had partaken in scoldings, that he’d punished all the men for Paul’s disobedience.
Soon the deck had cleared of sailors. Ravenna battled with herself for patience, telling herself that Paul would give her a report on Vancouver’s furthering madness when he came aboard, when the boats were raised.
But they never were.
When James reached the deck, there was something amiss in his face, Ravenna thought. His brow seemed too rigid. His eyes, always full of that characteristic warmth and flashing dark, now seemed dull when he glanced at her, lifeless when he looked away.
He paused by the railing, and Ravenna drew in a quick breath, for when James approached her, his arms outstretched to take her up close, blackness crept into the corners of her vision.
She knew fear then, real and desperate, as if the earth had opened up beneath her feet. Her heart squeezed hard; in a mindless rush of understanding, she felt James crush her tight to his chest, heard him whisper some nonsense in the softest breaking voice that Paul was dead, Paul was dead…
Ravenna shook him off. Digging her fists into his height, she pushed him back a step, staring up at him. Surely he’s wrong, cruelly and stupidly, terribly wrong.
Yet there was no denying the truth in his eyes, in the crumple of his chin as he struggled to compose himself.
“He’s gone, Love,” James whispered. “He’s gone.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Wearing Paul’s coat, clutching his sword and his handwritten music of Debussy’s “Claire De Lune,” Ravenna became a senseless creature as James helped her down into the pinnace.
Taking her on his lap, he tried to console her. She felt his arms around her, heard his whispering in her hair, and yet there seemed nothing so much in his comforting as his own self-absorption, that strange, uncertain tremble to James’s voice. Ravenna couldn’t bear it. She stared into the night, and her thoughts became a clutter of useless repetition to tune him out, begging no one in particular, Please say it’s not true, please let him be alive.
A group of native women were waiting on the beach, and after James had greeted them and with simple gestures arranged for Sarah to be led to the village, he lifted Ravenna from the bow. Setting her feet above the waterline, he spoke softly; it was some baloney about how everything would be fine, and hearing it, coming to her senses at last, Ravenna found the voice to ask him the question.
“Please,” she said, and her words faltered when she met his gaze, “James, tell me what happened…what happened to my…”
She tried to stifle that horrible dread deep in her heart, that unfathomable pain, and when she lapsed into tears, James held her up, spoke to her as if she were a child. “Let me take you to the village, Love. Then I’ll tell you everything that he—”
“No!” Clutching his arm fiercely, Ravenna brushed aside her tears. “No, I want you to tell me now.”
James didn’t answer.
“Look,” she said, gathering her wits, “tell me what happened. He was…he was shot, wasn’t he?”
James looked down at the stones, the salt water lapping at his boots, and then up to the pinnace as the men shoved off and started the slow rowing back to Discovery. “Vancouver is to blame,” he said quietly. “He’s the one who sent us up that river, and if we’d only had the sense to depart his authority—”
“This river?” she asked.
“Two miles distant, on the southern bank, but—”
“Then there lies his body,” and pulling away before he could stop her, Ravenna ran headlong up the beach.
She heard James come after her. She didn’t care. Rushing over the rocks, her only wish to follow Paul even into death on the same expanse of tidal shore, she threw herself forward up the river’s bed blindly, and with all the will she had so that she barely even heard James’s pleas behind her. “You won’t find him! They’ve dragged him into the forest, I’ve already searched—”
Dragged him into the forest.
Suddenly she heard Paul saying those words, the fear thick in his voice as the last strains of Beethoven echoed through the house. I tried to call you, but I couldn’t make a sound. All I could do was watch you go on up the river.
With the memory of that night taking hold in her thoughts, Ravenna slowed her flight; it was just enough for James to catch her from behind.
“You have to believe me,” he said, seizing her waist. “If I could tell you otherwise, I’d give my life to do it, but he’s gone, Love. They’ve—”
“Was he alive?” Ravenna calmed her struggle a little. “When they took him, was he still alive?”
“I couldn’t reload fast enough! There’d lay before you a heap of savages, if only I’d had my—”
“Did you see him die?”
“Ravenna, it had to be fatal, as much blood as he lost on those banks. He couldn’t have possibly—”
“Did you see him die?”
Guilt tore at James’s expression. “No, but surely—”
That was all she needed to hear. In an instant, she was wrestling against him, crying out when he held her fast. “No, Love,” he told her sternly, fighting to hold her, “he’d have wanted you safe with me, so that nothing more could—”
“Don’t you understand? He’s alive!” She felt the tears streaming down, and still she went on doggedly, “James, he’s there. He’s waiting for us. We’ve got to save him, we have to save him—”
Already James was shaking his head. “No, Love, he’s found mercy in God and we’re powerless to change that.”
Yet even with his face so filled with conviction, all Ravenna could think of was Paul’s dream, his whispering in the dark, my Mary of the river…
With a tremendous shove, she broke out of James’s hands. Beach soaked by the tide loosened beneath her shoes as she willed herself forward, traced the river’s course, paying no mind to anything but the color of boulders, searching the banks for the stain of his blood. She knew unquestioningly he was on that river. Paul could see her; his dream had given her that much at least, and if only she knew where to pick up the trail.
* * *
She ran until sorrow diminished into exhaustion. With James fallen behind somewhere around a bend, the only sounds were of her own violent passage, the branches she snapped, her breath coming hard in the silent cold.
Slowing to an unsteady walk, the weakness in her limbs kept her falling down, tripping over boulders, but still Ravenna went on searching. She must have gone two or three miles before she collapsed. Sinking to her knees in the river’s flow, she bent down into the icy current in the hopes James wouldn’t find her there. When he did, she begged him to leave her. She wanted to die in the rush of that river. She wanted to feel the chill in her bones until she couldn’t feel anything more.
With his boots slipping beneath the water, James stooped to lift her and carry her, dripping, back to the village. She clung to him, to the living warmth of his neck, and by the time they’d reached the Indian houses, she was unconscious in his arms, half-dreaming and half-terrorized by the image of Paul being forced into the pinnace and sent to his death.
* * *
She woke up before dawn to the sound of loons calling in the distance. James had placed her on a woven mat against the wall of the largest of the Indian houses, and with her back to the cedar planking, she heard his low voice just outside.
Her eyes were swollen from crying. Her head hurt when she straightened up, but still she managed to find the mat-covered doorway and step out into the terraced street.
James stood only a few yards away. With that quiet voice, he spoke with a young native man, and Ravenna watched as the Indian passed something to James, something small that fit easily into his pocket. The young man raised his hand to his lips; he tipped back his head, as if tossing down a strong drink, and James nodded in understanding.
Watching them struggle with these words and gestures, she was certain James was trying to extract some knowledge of Paul’s whereabouts. He must know something, she thought with hope, and picking her way with blistered feet to James’s side, forgotten was the misery of the Nimpkish River. She’d think only of Paul’s dream and Paul’s survival, for what had he told her? I tried callin’ out to you, cried out your name.
Without hesitation, she went up to James and put her arms around his waist. She looked up into his dark face, fully expecting to see evidence of some news, some clue that Paul had been found alive.
Yet when she met his eyes, she wasn’t prepared for what she saw: hopelessness, complete resignation.
“They’ve gone to all the villages,” he said softly. “There’s no word of him. There’s nothing more we can do for him, Love.”
She froze against his side. “That’s it? You’re just going to leave him out there bleeding to death?”
James slipped his hand around her shoulder. “This boy thinks,” and he paused, rubbed at his brow wearily, “Ravenna, you know how I’ve asked to see the guns in every village? They all know I can mend them, every Indian we’ve met, and this boy thinks that…that I was the target of the attack.”
“What does that have to do with anything? Why won’t you look for him?”
“Because if he’s survived, they’ll only kill him. He can’t repair their guns, and if he gets away, he’ll starve before he reaches us, you know that.” James hesitated. “Love, he’s too badly wounded. You have to believe that.”
With these words, she turned toward the eyes of the native youth, so surreal and gentle and exotically dark. No matter how concerned the young man might have seemed, Ravenna couldn’t bring herself to see the truth.
But James was talking again.  “Ravenna, this boy will take us to Nootka, where we can gain passage on a trading vessel—”
“You’d go with him?” She nearly choked on the words. The young man started to say something in his own language, but Ravenna pulled loose from James’s grasp. “You think he’s helping us? He’s the one who did it, can’t you see that? He knows where Paul is, he’s lying to you! He’s lying—” And she beat her fists against the young man; well and beyond rationality now, she threw her weight into him, crying out in the silence of the morning, her words turning to shrieks and then to miserable wailing.
The young man only stood there quietly.
Eventually James restrained her. When Ravenna saw the way he looked at her, the nausea crept back into her consciousness, and the awful truth of Paul’s death only became stronger when the last flicker of self-control disappeared from James’s face.
Staring down at his boots, she lost command of her senses. She sank to the ground at James’s feet, seeing nothing but the agony of life without Paul. Is James going to talk you out of feelin’ responsible when you think of how you told me I wouldn’t be killed? Is James gonna be with you night and day, holdin’ back the darkness, keepin’ you from topping yourself? Can he take the place of me, make you feel like I make you feel?
With the memory of his voice, her sobs grew until she’d bent with the force of them, her arms wrapped around James’s knees.
He didn’t stoop to pick her up. He didn’t bend down to hold her close. He only spoke gently as the young Indian walked away. “It’s not your fault,” he whispered above her. “Paul would have wanted you to know that.”
* * *
The men of the village combed the woods for days, looking for Paul’s body. When she finally gave permission for the search to be called off, James arranged for the young man to take them inland, up the river and into the mountains.
The journey to Nootka Sound took them twelve days. They carried letters from Vancouver that were to be delivered to Captain Quadra, the senior officer at the Nootka installation, and it was for this reason James had been released from further service aboard Discovery. Nothing could have kept him on Vancouver’s ship anyway. To him, it was as if Vancouver had killed Paul.
So the three set out. Led by the young man through good weather and bad, they faced boundless depths of virgin timber and near-vertical mountains, all without the aid of modern roads using game trails and trading paths. When finally they arrived at Nootka Sound with stiff ankles and aching legs, they made their way to the largest of the rough-cut lumber buildings where James preceded them warily inside.
Introducing himself to the Spaniards, he explained how the native man had been promised his choice from the armory in return for delivering Vancouver’s letters. The Spanish officers readily complied, asking James if he might take charge of, as representative of Discovery, a prisoner that Señor Quadra held in respect for his English friends. It was a deserter from their ship, the Spaniards said, a blond troublemaker who’d been brought to the installation only a few days before.
After so much grief and deathly determination, Ravenna couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She refused to do so until her suspicions were verified, but James almost prevented this; at the mention of the prisoner, he lost all patience and his temper, which Ravenna barely remembered, returned in full force when she asked for an interview with the captive.
“Would you ruin our chances of getting home?” James asked. “Let him stay and face his punishment!”
“Please, just let me talk to him,” she begged. “I know he’s not…not worth the effort, but James, he’s alive. I need to see him and know at least somebody survived.”
Reluctantly, James had to give in. With a few words to the Spanish officers, they were led outside to another building on the fringe of the little town. The thick cedar door was unbolted and thrown back, and when James saw the prisoner huddled in the corner, he swore under his breath; he grumbled a thank-you to the Spanish guards planted outside; then he took Sarah by the hand and together they headed for the beach and the ships. “Fifteen minutes,” he said over his shoulder. “That should be long enough to remember what a scoundrel he is.”
The captive certainly looked like a scoundrel. He sat at a table in the windowless room, bent over listlessly. The soft hair Ravenna had known at sea to be bleached by the endless sun was now dark and tangled, sheened with grease. Deep hollows claimed his eyes and his clothes were soiled, a strange sight indeed, given that Christian had always wallowed in the height of fashion.
For it was Christian languishing in the prison of the Spanish, and scoundrel or not, Ravenna was still glad to see him.
When she came into the room, he raised his gaunt face. A light went on in his fixated eyes. “Elizabeth? For the love of God, have I died?” He started to get up, but he was so frail that he faltered and sat back down. “Do you realize I would’ve died in this infested hell had the ships been delayed an hour more? Perish the thought—Lord Launceston dead, killed by fleas.”
As he muttered to himself, Ravenna took a seat beside him. “Christian, the ships haven’t come. James brought me here on foot across the mountains.”
“You mean you deserted?” His smile faded rapidly. “You can’t get me out of here, is that what you’re saying?”
“We had Vancouver’s permission to leave, but—”
“So you do have the authority, because there’s an American trader who’ll take us as far as Boston and he’s loaded down with Cantonese goods, he won’t waste a moment in getting back. We’re only too fortunate he had business in Nootka, else we’d be—”
“Christian, I came to say good-bye. I can’t get you out of here. The Spaniards have asked that you go with us, but there isn’t enough room in that merchant’s ship to—”
She stopped, for his face had changed significantly. That desperation to escape had melted, dissolved and hardened into something more sinister. His eyes narrowed the slightest bit. The corner of his mouth twitched with impatience, and yet when he spoke, his voice was all reason. “No room to what, Beloved?”
She hesitated, for the complacency in his voice didn’t match his expression, not at all. “To bring you with us,” she said, trying to sound honest. “The merchant can take only three to Boston. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to stay here.”
He swallowed then. He sniffed a little, and in a deliberate move to cause her anxiety, he laid his fingers on the table and touched her. Gently, with an affection that made her think of Paul, he brushed over the bones in her knuckle and traced down along her index finger. His intentions were anything but tender, Ravenna knew it. He proved it with the threat that drifted singsong from his lips, “Don’t make me do this.”
She tried to quiet her jittery nerves. “Do what?”
Gently, he squeezed her hand, and there flashed across his face a grimace, as if he almost couldn’t bring himself to speak the words. Yet he did. Easily. “You’d not leave me here to die, now would you? You’ll reason with the captain of this merchant ship. You’ll beg him to understand that you can’t leave me to fester and rot in this place?”
Coercion seethed from his quiet gaze. He waited for her answer, swaying slightly against the table, and Ravenna knew she was being asked to respond correctly.
She didn’t. “I can’t take you with me.” When she pulled her hand away from his, Christian rolled his eyes.
“Very well,” he said. Collecting himself, he straightened the ragged cuffs at his wrist, pretended to take no notice of her.
She knew he’d been hurt. His gray eyes were wet, but he didn’t let on that they were. Instead, wavering with illness, he adjusted the buttons on his sleeve exactly as he would if he were sitting in a box seat at Drury Lane. The way he ignored her fascinated Ravenna, so she almost didn’t hear him when he spoke to her softly, “When I visit you in prison, the fine sight of me dressed in James’s money will make you recognize the extremity of the mistake you’ve made.” He brushed the dirt from his shoulder, then looked at Ravenna; calm, self-assured, those eyes were on fire nonetheless.
“What?”
“Prison,” he replied. “Is that not where they take the poor? Oh, don’t fret, I’ll see to your wants, your food and rent; I would so hate to see you die in such an unmerciful place, but James on the other hand…”
“Christian, if you’re trying to frighten me somehow into taking you with me—”
“Actually, yes, I’m doing just that.”
“Well, stop it. Vancouver will come around the island in a month or so, and he’ll send you back to England. You’ll be fine, and nobody will go to prison.”
“And do you love your so-called brother?”
She was caught off guard by this question. The fierceness to his hollowed eyes made her think twice before she answered, “You know I love James very much, if that’s who you mean.”
“And does it please you to see him well and content, striking righteous poses and defending his morals with passionate temper?”
“I guess, but—”
“And I trust then, since you’ve yet to mention him, that Paul has not survived his Indian fate?”
Paul…The very sound of his name hurt. In her mind she saw his face, heard his husky voice grumbling about Christian as if he waited outside the door, as if he might come rushing in at any moment to check on her. The heaviness of his death pressed at her ruthlessly, and Christian saw it.
“How I am sorry,” he said. “Such a tragedy, that he succumbed in so barbaric a fashion; but then, so might have I. Had you not warned me with that dream of my death at the hands of savages, I feel certain I’d not be sitting here to thank you.”
The riverbed, the young Indian, the way James had looked so pitiful…Ravenna couldn’t think of these things. She shut them out, and as she did, it dawned on her that these were facts Christian shouldn’t have known. Paul’s destiny with the native people or even his name were secrets they’d kept from Christian all along, and how had he learned them? She tried to remember the first argument with Vancouver when her knowledge of the future had been broadcast to the whole ship’s company. Yes, it’d been after Christian’s disappearance.
He must have seen the confusion in her face, for his eyes fixed on her a stern look that belied the fact he was sick at all. “You could never keep secrets from me, Elizabeth. Or should I now address you by that other name—what is it? Ravenna? Yes, I believe I have it right.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know absolutely everything,” he said with a smile. “I’ve listened at your door to your confessions, your counseling, your histories, for much more than a year, so don’t even attempt to feign ignorance with me. You’ll only make a greater fool of yourself than you already are. Speaking of which, did I mention your carnal education was highly entertaining?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
“Day by day, bit by bit, I must own that Killiney was far more patient with your innocence than ever I would have been. To lie with you, naked and whispering falsities and yet to not defile you? Men have been knighted for less.”
The island, she thought, he’s talking about the island. She couldn’t bear to remember those nights, the feel of Paul’s lips all down her neck, the weight of his body rocking gently above her. That Christian had been there felt like a dull spike thrust through her heart. He’d listened outside their tent, Ravenna knew it now. He’d even intruded in the midst of their lovemaking, to steal the drawings and toss them in the grass.
“How dare you,” she said. “Paul was flogged because of what you did.”
Christian smiled thinly. “So I heard.”
“What do you mean? How could you—”
“But then, I don’t believe I’d have traded my privileged view of your sexual awakening, not even to have seen the Paddy take a whipping. How do you think he would have responded, had he known when he complained of violating you in a company of one hundred and thirty-one men that, when he finally tried you on for size, one man remained to witness the deed? Or should I say three, for my friends were also quite amused with your performance—”
“Stop it!” She felt the tears edging nearer.
Christian’s features crumpled in sympathy. “Oh, Ravenna, but I did warn you not to force my hand. Don’t misunderstand, I do love you, but now I really must insist that you marry me.”
She choked on her grief and stared at him. Hearing those impossible words was too great a shock.
“You needn’t leap out of your seat with joy. A simple yes will do nicely.”
“No!” she sputtered. “Why would I marry you? Christian, I don’t even like you.”
“Love,” he said. “The proper word for your new fiancé is love, and you do love me, as soon you’ll remember. Now, the Paddy’s claim has been made invalid by his death, am I correct? And in filling his position, I would expect James will have little to say about allowing my inclusion in your homeward scheme? Thus, should we marry, everyone will be happy.”
“Christian, why are you doing this?”
“Don’t you know? Because I love you. Much more than Killiney ever did, by the way, for what lengths did he go to in proving it, but to get himself killed?”
This was too much. His constant reminders of Paul and his death were wearing on her soul, and she started to get up from the table when the tears finally spilled down her face.
Yet as she turned to leave, Christian took hold of her wrist firmly. “Would you run to your precious brother to save you? I wouldn’t, if I were you.”
“Let go of me.” She tried slipping out of his fingers, twisting and pulling, but he clutched her stubbornly.
“I won’t release you until you agree to obey me, and should you truly love James, you’ll do exactly as I tell you.”
“I won’t, and you can go to—”
“Now, now, it would behoove you to retain your manners and listen, for when James returns, you’ll explain to him that although your matchless affection for Lord Killiney cannot be replaced, still you must consider your son’s future. Do you understand, Beloved? The child you carry. Killiney’s bastard.”
Slowly, Ravenna ceased to struggle as his words sunk in. He was threatening her baby.
“You will bear a son, yes?”
Ravenna nodded weakly. She was shaking hard now.
“So you see, the Paddy’s seed must be looked after,” he continued. “Surely James of all people cannot deny you the right to seek a title for your illegitimate son? I’ll give you that title. All you need do is admit you yet love me.”
“I don’t,” she said, “I don’t love you at all, Christian, why would you want me to? I don’t want your title, I don’t want your money or your—”
“Do you want to break James’s heart?”
“I don’t understand,” she said, wiping at her eyes.
“I have a secret which I’ll share with you, seeing how you won’t concede by any other means.”
“I don’t care about your secrets.”
“But it’s a family secret,” he insisted, “and knowing how James fears the very idea of its ramifications, should this secret be unleashed upon societal ears, I’m certain he hasn’t told you.”
“Hasn’t told me what?” she stammered.
“That he’s a product of common lust, a hybrid born of Mexican blood. Your brother isn’t your brother, Ravenna. He’s a bastard, pure and simple.”
She slackened against his hold. She searched his eyes, hoping to find the smallest bit of dishonesty, some reason to doubt his incredible words, but there was nothing but Christian’s obsessional gleam.
“You know it’s true,” he said. “You need only consider his fixation for respectability and his hatred for me, let alone his wretched dark complexion, to assure yourself of his heritage. So you see, if you refuse me, I have only to trot off to my attorney upon reaching England and the lawsuit will be filed. I have proof, you see, that Lord Wolvesfield’s marriage wasn’t valid at the time of James’s birth — or your birth, for that matter, but that’s neither here nor there, since your mother was an actress at Drury Lane.”
“What?”
“The House of Lords will pursue the matter, the evidence will be presented—and I have it, mind you; the last Lord Wolvesfield couldn’t fake an entry in the parish register without someone giving away the secret—and everything will belong to me. As the Paddy’s hovel can’t be passed to his illegitimate spawn, both you and James shall end up penniless as well as unfashionable.”
Ravenna looked around uselessly, feeling Christian’s hand at her wrist begin to soften. “I have no choice, do I?”
“Say you love me.”
“Christian, I don’t love you.”
“You do understand the death rate for infants in this day and age? It’s appalling. Anything that might aid a child in his first few years is essential, be it the best care, the most nutritious food, let alone a house to live in—”
“All right, I love you.” It hurt even to imagine the words. She would have thought to hear them, heaven would shine from his manipulative eyes. As it was, he regarded her placidly.
“That’s precisely what you’ll say to James,” he instructed. “Your performance will rival your mother’s best, or I’ll make a holiday of destroying your brother’s reputation.”
And giving her one last warning glance, he released her. Ravenna didn’t run or even turn away when he steadied himself against the table’s edge and reached for his coat on the floor behind him. She merely stared at him, her thoughts drowning with worry and hopelessness. She knew James would never believe her. Even when she’d spoken to Christian, she’d not been fond of him, only David of her distant memory and James knew this.
Yet as she watched Christian slip his hand into the pocket of his coat, it occurred to her—Christian might force her to make love. To keep her baby safe, to keep James and Sarah protected from destitution and disease, she might have to. She couldn’t even think of it, let alone do it.
Then Christian’s hand came out of that pocket with a flash of silver. Ravenna’s heart stilled to a faint tremble at the sight of what he held so disrespectfully in his grasp.
It was Paul’s watch. It ticked within the silence of the cedar walls and Ravenna thought her heart would burst.
“Where did you get that,” she whispered, barely able to breathe, to move or even think for looking at the polished silver.
“What? This?” Christian frowned. “Did James not say he’d be returning within a quarter hour?”
“Where did you get that!” The dirt floor soaked up the echo of her demand and Christian shrank from her, lifting his hands.
“The savage!” he said. “I got it from the savage who shared my imprisonment. Calm yourself, it’s only a watch.”
“Where is he now?”
Christian hesitated, staring at her as if she’d gone mad, but she didn’t care about how she looked. “Where is the Indian, Christian, please! That watch belonged to Paul—you have to tell me, I have to find him!”
He glanced at her darkly before looking down on the watch, opening it and casually noting the time. Then, raising his half-masted eyes to hers, he showed no sympathy, no sensitivity to her feelings whatsoever when he said, “He’s dead, if you must know. They shot that savage three days ago for thievery, and I suppose I must tell you that yes, he did murder your precious Paddy.”
Ravenna felt her legs slipping out from under her, felt the whole world tilt as that grief she’d held back came crashing down to claim her, and still Christian went on. “Until now, I didn’t understand exactly the base of whose skull the filthy creature had driven his iron blade into. It’s funny, but he described quite fondly how he’d committed the act with his elaborately carved weapon, and yet he said nothing at all about the victim. Oh, but he did mention a river. I could only assume he’d killed another savage like himself, since a gentleman such as Lord Killiney would certainly not have been—”
His voice was a meaningless whine as Ravenna put her face in her hands. Mashing her palms into her eyes, writhing with wave after wave of misery, still she saw nothing but the image he’d described—Paul’s face, scruffy and unshaven, forced down to the boulders of the riverbed while an iron blade pierced his skull, making his russet-colored hair run red.
With the picture burned into her imagination, she bent down in sobs to the floor. She was oblivious to Christian’s hands caressing her, to his manufactured sympathy. God, don’t let him have suffered, she thought, don’t let him have been afraid.
When finally she came to her senses, it was only because she realized James would be arriving at any moment. Sternly, she told herself, I must think of my son’s life, I must do as Christian asks or all will be lost.
So pushing aside the hideous images and brushing the streaks from beneath her eyes, she crawled to Christian’s side to put one last question to him before James’s arrival. “Please,” she asked, “can I have the watch?” She reached out but didn’t quite touch that object she’d last seen in Paul’s living hand.
Christian pulled it back compulsively. “I think not,” he said. “You’ll only be reminded of him with each moment’s passing and such would hardly be good for you, let alone our marriage.” Holding the silver disk to the sunlight, his consumptive features seemed to glow with wickedness. “But for me, what a keepsake! To see the moments spent with you, Beloved, in the movement of his very watch—I’ll be spending his time, so to speak…and he can do nothing about it.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

So Christian got what he’d wanted all his life: marriage to his cousin, the money accompanying this arrangement, and best of all, the opportunity to threaten and get back at James without him ever even knowing it.
It was difficult to keep James from learning what had happened. When she asked him to save Christian from the prison, his first impression was nearly correct, that she’d been tricked. Since she’d never been any good at lying, it took some doing to convince him that really, she’d not expected it, but the sight of Christian, alive and breathing and asking to come home with them, had affected her at the deepest level. After all, he’d been dead. To have him now miraculously returned, safe and enlightened by his experience, was—
“A bad omen,” James said. He stood on the beach at Nootka with his hands at his hips, his brown fingers tapping at the hilt of Paul’s sword. For a long moment in the failing light, he did nothing but bite the corner of his lip as he considered her question: Could Christian make the passage home with them?
In the end, he had to say yes. After all, Ravenna wasn’t wandering off in fits of depression anymore. She was asking, yes, even begging to bring Christian along on the voyage. She had to know he was safe, she said. She couldn’t leave him on that coast and in the months ahead, wonder, Did he die of malnutrition in that Spanish prison because she had left him?
“So blame me,” James insisted.
But then there was this other matter, this information Christian now possessed which James wanted, and wanted badly.
You see, Christian had been captured by Indians. He hadn’t really deserted Discovery at all, but fallen prey to a series of mishaps that had eventually led to his being taken to a village and, of all things, enslaved. His story gave a considerable amount of detail about the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest, and these details could beef up James’s paper for the Royal Society.
All James had to do was put up with his cousin for a few months. That and actually talk to him.
So their voyage home consisted of hours and hours spent cooped up in a cabin the size of a pantry while Christian recalled everything he could about his adventures. It had started with the hunting trip, he explained. Paul and Ravenna had gone off to the island, and knowing what they’d do with their privacy, Christian had followed in a fit of jealousy. For five days he and his cohorts had spied on them, dodging Paul’s hunting attempts while scaring away the deer. They’d watched Ravenna dig clams, dive for crabs, had even made bird calls from the bluff above her head.
Most amusing of all, they’d seen every move the pair had made in their attempts at lovemaking. Every move. Remembering the pictures he’d taken from the tent, Ravenna didn’t doubt Christian’s word.
When finally the lovers had returned to the ship, Christian and his buddies had intended to do the same. Yet on their way back, something had happened. The same storm that had ruined Ravenna’s watercolor pictures had sneaked up on Christian, and all the rowing in the world hadn’t saved him from being swept out into the strait. He and his friends had been lost for weeks, rowing along the desolate coast, searching for the ship, so that by the time the Indians had picked them up in a thirty-foot canoe, Christian had been delighted to be enslaved so long as slavery included food.
Taken to the Indians’ summer village, he’d soon found himself digging clams with the women. He’d done it gladly, he explained, because within the first week of his Indian captivity, his two friends had been murdered. A neighboring chief had come to call, arriving at the village in a huge canoe, and the hapless sailors had been marched right down to the beach where, in a grand display of wealth and ceremony, they’d been clubbed to death.
Christian described the beatings in detail. He explained how his friends, having fallen to the sand, had been placed under the neighboring chief’s canoe. They’d acted as rollers in the beaching process, enabling the great man to keep his feet dry.
But washed in a curling ribbon of blood, his crucifix dragging over the rocks, it wasn’t lifeless Mr. Bailey or Mr. Browne that Ravenna saw in her mind’s eye.
Of course it was Paul.
Not able to bear it anymore, Ravenna broke from the cabin then. Right in the middle of Christian’s description, she threw back the door and raced above decks to breathe the cold air of the Oregon coast, to whisper Paul’s name and steel herself madly against the stories she knew she’d hear yet again in the weeks to come.
Barely two days passed before Christian told another, this time the victim being a native man brought from some far flung village as a prize of war. A slave like Christian, this man’s death had been part of a similar ceremony. There’d been a feast at the occasion. Abalone, sea urchins and hundreds of fish had been eaten from wooden, animal-shaped bowls while the Indians had danced in frightening masks and long, flowing mantles of sea-otter fur.
These details James scribbled down furiously as Christian explained how the slave had been led before the Indian chiefs and shoved to his knees, his face forced down to the cedar bark soil. A dagger had been brought out, an iron dagger with a carved, painted haft. The slave’s tangle of hair had been brushed aside in readiness for the kill, and instantly Ravenna saw Paul’s shortened locks, saw the pine needles caught in his blondish brows. The slave in Christian’s story had struggled, and so did Paul when they forced down his head and raised the iron dagger high, drove it into the slave’s neck—right into the base of his Indian skull.
And then she knew.
Christian’s detailed description of the knife, the way Paul’s face had been shoved to the ground, the death of the Indian who’d given up the watch…all these things were blatant lies.
Paul was still alive.
She must have made a sound when she realized it, for James turned sharply. Under his gaze she tried not to cry. Christian had warned her what would happen if James should start asking questions about the watch, but as her mind raced with the possibilities invoked by Christian’s lie, Sarah interrupted everything.
“So you’re sayin’ this happened, m’lord?” she asked. “Right before your very eyes, they murdered the savage?”
Christian sighed. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”
“Yes, but is it true, m’lord, that’s what I’m askin’.”
Christian scowled at her, and still James kept his gaze on Ravenna. Hope and pain mixed behind her eyes, surely James saw it, for she was burgeoning with wild and desperate thoughts even as Christian lifted his hand, pointed to himself. “You accuse me?” he asked Sarah with innocence. “As emaciated as I am, and scarred for life, I might add, you charge me with fabricating my enslavement by Indians?”
“Plagiarism’s more the word I’d use,” Sarah replied.
“Given the quality of your education—”
“You don’t think I know the meanin’ o’ the word, do you, m’lord?” In disgust, Sarah shook her head. “Plagiarism an’ lyin’ are near the same, but the way I see it, the first takes less imagination.”
Christian laughed nervously. “How can you say that? I’ve told you my gruesome tale as a favor, as a contribution of information toward his ridiculous aspirations in the name of friendship, and you have the audacity to suggest I’m lying?”
“I’m not suggestin’, m’lord, I’m tellin’ you. It was your own skull those savages run through like a highwayman’s head on a pike, least that’s the way m’lady put it down in her book near on two years ago, isn’t that right, m’lady? An’ now he’s quotin’ your words as if he lived ’em when it was your dream, m’lady, an’ only a dream at that.”
James raised his hand against her for silence. “Desist,” he said gently, but his gaze never left Ravenna’s brooding. “What is it?” he asked her. “What do you see?”
Ravenna couldn’t speak. She was certain if she did, there’d be one set of words to leave her mouth: Turn the ship around.
In the silence that followed, James pushed his chair from the dinette table, bent down to kneel at Ravenna’s side. Oh, God, Paul’s back there, she thought madly, he’s alive and I’ve left him.
Taking her balled up fist in his hand, James waited patiently, but still she resisted the urge to cry out. She closed her lips tight. She forced herself to look straight into the worry of James’s expression until she thought she’d explode from fury and hope, while beside her, she heard Christian’s clothes rustling and his disgusted little sigh when he rummaged through his coat.
Suddenly an object was tossed on the table.
“That is what disturbs her,” Christian said.
Shining like a dull moon against the scratched oak, Paul’s watch moved, slipped with the pitch and roll of the ship.
Seeing it, James’s brow furrowed. The muscles in his cheek tensed; a dangerous cast came over his countenance, and as he glanced at Ravenna, he let go her hand.
He stood up slowly, and the look he gave Christian, with his brown eyes blackened to smoldering coals, could have put the fear in anyone. The smugness vanished from Christian’s features. In an instant, he was scrambling for cover as James ducked under the beam of the cabin’s ceiling and straightened over Christian. “Where is he, Cousin? Tell me where he is or I’ll break every bone in your miserable little—”
“On my mother’s grave, I don’t know!”
“You know well enough.”
“That watch was given to me by a savage,” Christian stammered. “How was I to learn the details of its thieving? Do I speak their savage language?”
“From your endless Indian stories, yes, I think you do.”
“But this was a different sort of Indian, and I couldn’t possibly—”
“So this wasn’t in the village? You received this watch at Nootka Sound?”
“Yes! In the prison, I—”
“When?” James asked. He took another step. “When did you meet this Indian at Nootka?”
Cowering against the cabin wall, Christian hesitated. His eyes roved wildly, glancing around at the planked floor, the table, at anything but James until finally James reached down and seized him by the collar, lifted him slowly off his feet. “When.”
“Three…four days ago,” Christian said. “The savage gave me the watch four days before you arrived and then the Spaniards shot him! How could I have asked from whom he’d stolen it? We couldn’t converse but with simple gestures.”
Hearing this blatant contradiction of his earlier claims, his detailed story of Paul’s death, Ravenna couldn’t help speaking at last. “He’s lying,” she muttered under her breath.
James raised Christian higher against the wall, gave him a shake. “Why does she call you a liar, Cousin?”
Swallowing hard, Christian glanced at her. There was trouble building in those gray eyes, she saw it, trouble born of that fear and cowardice which drove everything about him so that when he managed to regain his composure, when his voice steadied, Ravenna wasn’t surprised at all. “I fabricated a version of the Paddy’s death,” Christian said carefully. “I do understand your indignation, but you must believe I’m sorry. It was merely something that had to be done.”
“You told me they put a knife through his head!”
“I did tell you that, but only to make you believe my story.”
“A knife through his head?” James nodded toward her. “As she sits there grieving, you told her that?”
“Would you rather I’d told her the truth? That I got nothing from the savage, save his fleas?”
With a grimace, James put his face near to Christian’s, intimidating, threatening. “If you’re lying to me—”
“I don’t speak savage, I’ve told you as much.”
“And I’m telling you that when we get back to Nootka, you’re going to show me who shot this Indian and together, we’re going to comb that coast for Paul night and day, you understand me, Cousin? If those Spaniards remember anything at all, which nation he belonged to, what dialect he spoke or the type of his canoe, then we’ve only to hire soldiers to accompany us to every village until you and I have—”
“Has mourning driven you both mad?” Christian stared at James in shock. “Listen to yourself! He’s dead! You’ve told her so a dozen times at least, and now you fill her head with hopeless fantasy?”
“Better that than the daggers you’ve put in his.”
“It’s beyond your understanding, isn’t it, James? Why I’d invent that awful description?”
“Stole,” Sarah reminded him.
“Yes, deliberately, so my words would ring true, so she’d believe and get on with her life!”
James’s hands loosened the slightest bit. Christian slipped an inch down the wall. “She needed a finality which the truth couldn’t provide,” he went on, “and as much as it wounded her to hear my lies, at least she faced the brunt of her grief, which is more than I can say for your notions of going back to that godforsaken place.”
“She needs to bury him,” James insisted. “Should she have his remains for a fit and proper service—”
“Then she’d have a plot in the ground, wouldn’t she? We all know he’s dead—would you have her wandering that coast for years, searching for him, endangering herself and her child merely for the sake of burying his corpse?”
James’s shoulders hunched uncertainly.
“If you love her,” Christian said, “then convince her there’s no point in going back. You paint the image of the Paddy’s death. She’ll listen to you. She’ll do anything for you.”
From behind him, Ravenna saw only the back of James’s head, all that black, straight hair messed in a ribbon.
Wave after wave rocked the ship.
Finally James lowered his head, lowered his grip and, wavering with the pitch and plunge of the deck, he set Christian down and stepped away.
She couldn’t believe it. She was about to yell at him, to demand that he strangle Christian, tear him limb from limb or whatever it took to get the truth, but as she started to open her mouth to say so, James turned around. Only then did she see the look on his face.
His brows were drawn together in an agonized expression. His jaw was clenched, and she realized what Christian had so skillfully done—he’d transferred the blame. He’d played on the remorse and self-damnation that shone so readily in James’s eyes and invoked the guilt already there; after all, Christian was thinking of her welfare, and what was James thinking of?
Swaying with the rollers that crashed against the hull, James went to her then. He put his arms around her, crushed her against him with penitent urgency, and Ravenna didn’t like the things he whispered. “They shot him, don’t you remember how I told you? They shot him in the chest with a musket, Love, and he died…I know he died.”
He whispered such things for three days.
And after hearing again and again how Paul had fallen while the gun’s report echoed down the riverbed, how James had seen Paul’s eyes close and his limbs go lifeless as they pulled him through the tall salal…with all that emotion charging James’s voice, she had to believe him.
* * *
Christian refrained from telling his stories after that. As time went on, Ravenna reached the conclusion he’d indeed been truthful, that he’d only uttered such graphic descriptions to enable her to leave that coast behind and get on with her life, for he was much kinder in the months afterward.
What’s more, he didn’t condemn, ridicule, criticize or irritate James in any way again, at least not during the voyage home. Nor did he use the word “mongrel,” not even when he spoke to Ravenna privately.
These sacrifices were not lost on James. He tolerated Christian more and more, until it made Ravenna sick to think of what Christian had threatened, how he now so pleasantly poured James’s tea.
During those long months on the ocean swells, the merchant ship made incredible time. With the hold reeking of Cantonese tea, they sailed southward to Valparaiso, a Spanish port on the coast of Chile. There their captain obtained ship’s supplies and rested the crew for three whole days—the dangerous passage around Cape Horn was waiting, the captain said, and they needed all the rest they could get before battling those unmanageable seas.
Howling westerlies and pounding rollers came in off the Pacific as they struggled ’round the Horn. Those days were the most frightening Ravenna had known in all her years of being on the water, especially since she had no doubt whatsoever that their captain cared more about hurrying to cash in on his precious cargo than about any of his passengers or crew.
Both before and after the Horn, the ship never saw land for more than a day or two at most, but as they drew nearer to civilization, Ravenna realized that in passing up those ports, their captain had actually worked to her advantage.
Christian couldn’t marry her aboard ship.
Whenever they put in for the few supplies their captain judged they couldn’t do without, Christian was quick to hop into the jolly boat and inspect the port for its matrimonial suitability. Luckily, of the few harbors they’d encountered, he’d deemed them all uncivilized.
Until they reached Barbados, that is. There he promptly declared Bridgetown worthy of hosting their nuptials and he set about enforcing his threats by approaching James with the most wily of schemes: Respectfully and with as much modesty as he could muster, he asked James’s permission for her hand.
Rescuing Christian from the Spanish prison had been one thing. James allowing a marriage was entirely another. Ravenna expected his newfound tolerance to explode into a full-fledged murder, or at least a rekindling of the feud between the cousins.
This didn’t happen. James came to her on deck that first night and when she saw his face, she knew her last hope of escaping Christian’s threat had gone.
“He’s asked me, you know,” James said in a low voice.
She didn’t answer. Gazing out over the aquamarine water, she was thinking of Paul, of how stupid they’d been in believing his fate could be subverted somehow, that history could be cheated. If only you’d made a will to protect us, she thought bitterly. If only we’d married so your son could inherit Swallowhill and give us a home, an income, an escape.
“Should I even ask if you love him?” Seeing the way she stared at the sea, James touched her shoulder, turned her gently to face his question. “He’s keen to have me believe so, but I know you, Ravenna. You pity him, if anything. Your compassion is for that man inside him he’ll become in two centuries and I told him as much.”
“You told him about David?” She glanced up, scarcely believing he’d done such a thing. “I thought we agreed we wouldn’t talk about the future, or the potion we got in—”
“Don’t lie to me, Love.” James regarded her with solemn, raised brows. “He’s called you Ravenna, you know he has. I see how you keep your secrets with him. You didn’t tell me about Paul’s watch, did you?”
She bit her lip. She fixed her eyes determinedly on Bridgetown in the distance until James had turned away, his hand slipping pointedly from her shoulder. “If you confide in him so much,” he said, “maybe you do want to marry him after all. I’ll not stand in your way. More than I hate him, I love you, Ravenna, and I’d have you do as you wish with your life, so long as you go on living it.”
With this pronouncement, her fate was sealed.
They were married in a sugar plantation’s opulent seventeenth-century rooms. Apparently, even with the deplorable state of Christian’s clothes, the plantation owners had been impressed enough with his peerage to offer their house for the wedding. They’d even told Christian it’d be a great honor.
The moment they set eyes on Ravenna, they probably changed their minds. When she arrived in the nearly 80 degree heat, waddling in James’s extra large shirt and his breeches with the waistline let out to the seams, it became obvious why Lord Launceston would so adamantly wish for a private service—Ravenna was nearly eight months pregnant.
No one said a word about her condition. She was given use of the owners’ room, as well as a tub and a few of their toiletries. She hadn’t had a proper bath in quite literally years, and the idea of lounging in the tub while Christian waited impatiently downstairs was the only appealing aspect of the wedding.
She whiled away at least an hour, just watching the palm fronds sway outside the fancy sash windows. She tried not to think of Paul, but there was a heaviness to her thoughts, a mindless numb that constantly spoke his name no matter how she fought to shut it out. All she could do was lie there in the water, stifling the sound of her tears in a bath sheet as her last moments of spinsterhood ticked away.
By the time James came for her, she was a mess. The air was cool, yet she still sweated in her donated gown, her hand in James’s as thoughts of Paul drifted uneasily through her mind. He’d once joked that they’d marry on the island with Federal agents for witnesses, spend their honeymoon in prison for trespassing on government land, set up house in Las Vegas and wear gold lamé to the grocery store—had Paul come to his senses earlier, had he married her, instead of meeting Christian before the reverend as she was, she might now be Lord Killiney’s widow, long ago wedded in Tenerife or Cape Town. Had it been so, she’d have the Killiney title, castle and tenants’ rent and she’d certainly not have been marrying Christian.
But she wasn’t Paul’s widow. And being that she had no other choice, she allowed James to escort her into the drawing room where, waiting for her amid gilded furniture and tropical flowers, Christian stood fidgeting.
She expected him to be wallowing in self-satisfaction when she approached him willfully, took his arm. Yet he was anything but satisfied. She saw his eyes slide away in discomfort, toward the windows and the cane fields, toward anything other than the sight of her crying.
Because she was crying. She couldn’t help it. When the ceremony began and Christian was prompted to recite his vows, Ravenna was thankful James stood behind her; had he seen those tears trickling down her cheek, he would’ve stopped the entire proceedings, and what would Christian have threatened then?
She couldn’t risk it, so she promised to love, comfort, honor and obey. She found the strength to turn toward Christian, to speak those vows, but it was Paul’s summer sky eyes she saw. When Christian muttered some oath of fidelity, she heard the huskiness of Paul’s Dublin tone the way it’d sounded in the quiet of their cabin, felt the butter-soft touch of Paul’s hand in hers, remembered that moment when he’d knelt down before her, slipped the malachite ring from his finger and onto hers, saying, Elizabeth, would you be my wife?
Thinking of it, fighting back tears, she realized the moment had arrived she’d dreaded. Christian stepped nearer. He slipped his fingers around her arm, and with his coltish features pinched in a wince, he finally dared to meet her eyes. Penitence, humility, these were the things she saw when he licked his lips and bent down close. Feeling the warmth of his sweet-smelling breath, she braced herself, certain that when she closed her eyes, she’d meet head on with a greedy kiss.
Instead, she felt only the slightest softness of his mouth against her tear-stained cheek.
When the reverend announced them earl and countess, Ravenna was too stunned to move. She stared at Christian. Christian ignored her. He wouldn’t even acknowledge her, much less risk a glance as they signed the registry, thanked their hosts, and once their names had been duly recorded, he left the room in a hurry.
In the coach, he gazed off over the cane fields through the whole of their journey back to the ship, and in the brooding silence amidst the four of them, she knew.
He was ashamed of having made her marry him.
* * *
That night at dinner, James was inconsolable.
He’d bought a small bottle of Bajan rum and now he drank it, arguing vehemently with no one in particular about the avarice of the plantation owners and the injustice in not only slavery as a whole, but in the fact that from the comfort of their English estates these repulsive landlords didn’t even witness the suffering they caused among their slaves.
By the end of the meal, James had downed the entire bottle of rum. He didn’t appear drunk, or at least he wouldn’t have in the company of strangers, but Ravenna and Sarah knew him too well. They all understood what really concerned him. Watching her follow Christian out of the cabin, James looked as if he fully expected never to see Ravenna again.
And had Christian not already shown her the kindness of withholding a kiss that by law was his, Ravenna might have been near madness herself when she was led into Christian’s room. With the door shut, in the darkness she clasped her hands together, looked up toward Paul’s heaven where she hoped he was. Forgive me, she thought, imagining his face. It’s you I love, and I’ll love you forever.
Christian lit the lantern, and as soon as the flame took hold, he turned his back on her and slipped out of the jacket so generously given to him by the plantation owners. “How pathetically old-fashioned.” He threw the coat down. “Should it please God so much to torment me with perpetual misfortune? Even my wedding day is a joke to Him.”
Then he did something remarkable. Glancing down at where he’d thrown his jacket on the hammock, he picked it back up. He turned to Ravenna with blatant displeasure. “I suppose my lot has been relegated to the floor?”
For a few seconds, she merely stood there. She didn’t believe what she’d just heard. When he glared at her impatiently, she managed to put aside her racing thoughts and sputter an answer. “I’ll take the floor.”
“Good, then you can fend off the rats.” He started to unbutton his shirt, but when he saw her stupefied expression, he stopped what he was doing. “Oh, come now, you didn’t seriously think I’d find your corpulence arousing, did you?”
She shook her head. His eyes lowered to her pregnant belly. “Even if I did,” he said, “I wouldn’t subject my manhood to share the company of his spawn. Either one or the other of us would surely shrivel and die from the contact.”
Ignoring his tone, her thoughts lingered instead on his release of her, on the wedding and that look of humility she’d glimpsed in his obsessive stare. “You would’ve let me go today, wouldn’t you?”
Christian resumed with unbuttoning his shirt. “I’ve no intentions of negating your promise.”
“But you thought about it, didn’t you?”
“As soon as you give birth to that Hibernian bastard—,” and he pointed loosely at her stomach, “—you can be certain I mean to collect on our agreement. By then, you’ll appreciate the trouble I’ve taken to be with you. You’ll have forgotten about him.”
Pain flared in his eyes as he spat out the word, turned to the hammock and threw back the blankets. His hand closed on something, a small and shiny object, and Ravenna felt a surge of fear, for roughly, vindictively, he grabbed her wrist. “Here,” he said, shoving the object in her grasp. “Consider it a wedding gift from your precious Paddy.”
When she opened her hand, she found Paul’s watch shimmering in the lamplight.
She gaped at it, feeling the cool silver against her water-swollen fingers. She remembered that last night on Discovery’s deck when Paul had checked the time beneath the tumult of a rainstorm, and she could still see his clumsy, lumbering steps as he approached the taffrail, his burly chest glistening with rain and the wet fabric of his trousers clinging thickly around his hips. How I miss you, do you know how much? Do you know what I’m going through, wherever you are?
Feeling the corners of her eyes fill with tears, she looked up timidly. “Thank you,” she said.
But Christian had already turned away, begun removing his buckled shoes with a scowl. “Take him, then,” he muttered, dropping the first shoe. “He’s ruined everything for me.”
* * *
For the remainder of their voyage, she slept beneath his hammock. James never found out. Although she took her blankets when she made the move to Christian’s cabin, James didn’t ask anything about the marriage. His only concern was her pregnancy, he said, and this worried James to no end.
Before they’d left Nootka, he’d traded his musket for a huge supply of native foods. For weeks they’d eaten dried salmon, venison and blackberry cakes until they’d gotten to San Blas, where he’d managed to finagle a nanny goat, seven bags of oranges and a crate of naval provisions intended for a Spanish man-of-war. All of this food James intended for Ravenna’s unborn baby and all through the voyage, he paid strict attention to what she ate and when she ate it. When the stores began to get low, he often made her eat his share.
As a result, his clothes hung on his frame. From his labors under their fanatical captain, James was always tired, but soon he began to look unhealthily so. In Boston he got them on a ship bound for Portsmouth and in the company of Englishmen, he finally began to put on weight. They were well fed and looked after on that English ship. James promised its captain that once they’d reached England, he’d pay for the total amount they’d incurred. The captain agreed. He even gave them money for the coach from Portsmouth Harbor, once they’d finally arrived on land.
The roads were littered with potholes during the final leg of their journey home. Ravenna kept telling herself that at least she wasn’t in danger of washing overboard, that the constant jouncing was better than drowning, and by the time they reached Wolvesfield, she thought she’d never see so lovely a sight as her own bedroom with four-poster, fireplace and a housemaid to bring her plate after plate of apple tart.
Thus ensconced, she took to resting immediately. Christian went to Launceston, and when he returned in a carriage laden with trunks and boxes, he told her the mansion was uninhabitable. The roof had leaked in his two-year absence. While the repairs were carried out, he felt certain Ravenna would rather live at Wolvesfield than take shelter in the servant’s wing of his own pitiful house. “James will allow it,” he muttered.
So it was at Wolvesfield that, within two weeks of having left the sea, she gave birth to Paul’s son. She went into labor near eleven-thirty in the morning. Christian had just left to visit his friend Richardson, and James was out in the fields with his tenants. When Sarah had determined that the baby was really coming, that it wasn’t merely a false alarm, she sent someone to fetch James who in turn sent out two carriages, one to retrieve Christian, the other to Plymouth to bring a midwife and several doctors with whom James had already arranged the delivery.
She waited all day for those doctors to arrive. They did come eventually, having been delayed by a broken axle.
Christian, on the other hand, never showed up.
There didn’t seem to be much reason for the doctors to come sooner. The contractions strengthened then dissipated in succession, yet Ravenna still didn’t have the baby. James read Voltaire aloud to pass the time and distract her from the pain. None too concerned about pain herself, Sarah made wedding plans. She asked Ravenna’s opinion about dinner plate, the number of guests and whether or not there should be dancing. As Ravenna gritted her teeth and waited out the hours, she made a mental note of the way Sarah fawned over her fabric samples. Sarah, too, was pregnant at the time. Didn’t she understand that soon it would be her lying there in agony? That Ravenna would make a special point of fawning over something when the time came for Sarah to deliver James’s child?
When finally the midwife arrived at dusk, Ravenna was beyond worrying about Sarah. Everyone was sent out of the room—James, the maid, the wet nurse hired to help care for the baby, everyone but the doctors, and realizing she’d be alone with these people, that James wouldn’t be there to hold her hand or take action should something go wrong with the delivery, she panicked. She shouted at the midwife. She made threats and screamed curses worthy of a sailor’s tongue.
In the end, the midwife decided it was easier to ignore the taboos of the day and allow James to stay. By that time Ravenna was nearly hysterical, the doctors were groping her as if she were a farm animal, and bruising James’s hand, it was only a few moments before she bore down in a painful rage and Paul’s son finally came into the world.
The urgency she felt after the birth was overwhelming. The cord was cut, the baby wiped off, and when she heard his weak little cry, the only thing she could think of was to make certain he was all right, to count every one of his fingers and toes.
Yet even after all those months at sea, he was a perfect, healthy little boy. His tiny, dried-apple face was slightly blue. His fingers seemed disproportionately long, as if he’d grow up a better pianist than his father. But what Ravenna couldn’t have foreseen was the color of his soft, wet hair—Paul’s son was as blond as a summer-bleached wheat field.
That’s OK, she thought hazily. People will believe he’s Christian’s son, but I’ll know the truth.
Lying back in a sweat on the sheets, saying a prayer half aloud to Paul, she watched as James carefully took the baby from the midwife. Bent over her son with his face obscured, James spoke softly and Ravenna couldn’t make out the accent to his voice nor see his distinctive profile in the dimness. Her thoughts drifted easily. Staring at the length of his jet-black hair, she relaxed the focus to her eyes until gradually black lightened to brown and James’s arms seemed bigger, his voice more Irish.
To her exhausted, miserable senses in that moment, it seemed Paul sat there, Paul come back from heaven for his son, to protect us with his presence at last.
* * *
That night she floated in and out of dreams, visions of Paul living and breathing. Voices from the corridor awakened her only once, the housekeeper’s voice as she scolded Christian for roaming about on the eve of his son’s birth, Christian’s voice as he threatened to have the housekeeper fired.
She thought of Paul, always Paul, as Christian came in and without a lamp, got undressed. He lay rigid as a mummy next to her in bed, and without the whine to his voice or the sight of his blondness, Ravenna was free to imagine the warmth of his elbow in her back was Paul’s.
Curled around her baby, listening to the peculiar sound of his tiny breaths, she pictured Paul’s stocky frame pressed against her, his arm swung comfortably over her side. He has to be with us, she thought desperately. She couldn’t feel his presence, but where else could he be?
* * *
The next day, when asked by Reverend Wells what she’d call the child, Ravenna hoped Paul heard when she gave his name to their son. What had he said on that train to Dublin? It’s a family name, she told the reverend.
Christian came unglued.
They had a tremendous fight over it, Christian and she, right after the reverend left the room. Sniveling with that voice which she couldn’t stand in her depression, Christian cited his father’s name as the only choice, not Elijah Paul, and he demanded Ravenna call the reverend back to tell him this was so.
She refused. All those images of Paul, Paul in heaven, Paul in the corner watching over his son and sleeping in her bed, Paul keeping Christian at bay with his spirit between them, all this came over her with the force of her exhaustion.
She broke then. She lost all reason. Christian took a step toward her with malice in his eyes, and in her unbearable state of mind, she thought nothing of throwing a knife from their breakfast table at him. She didn’t care if she did make a gash in his hosiery, or that he bled all over the carpet brought from Launceston.
With her shrieks filling the house, James was upstairs in an instant. He didn’t step beyond the threshold of her bedroom door, however. Christian was dabbing at his shin with a napkin, calling her the crudest names as he ducked the silver candlesticks she’d thrown from the mantel, the fire poker, the gilt-framed landscape on the wall, and still James stood there quietly as she raged on and on. Finally Sarah came in, begging her to stop even as James looked on in astonishment, for when the maid took up the baby and cradled him tight, only then did it occur to Ravenna what she was doing.
And she left, pushing past James in a stagger as the tears came down like an iron fist with the pain of it, crushing her with the idea that she lived as she lived with Christian, that Paul was irrevocably dead and she would see his face only in his son’s little features.
She went down to the music room, barely able to walk after the pain of childbirth. Swaying before the window, sobbing in screams and hard-won breaths, she stood before the storm raging outside and knew at last that this was the moment she’d glimpsed from the future. This was the grief she’d seen, crying beside the piano, slowly and steadily dying beneath the weight of Paul’s absence and the realization that this, Christian and everything about Christian, was all she’d ever know.
She remembered Paul’s words in that moment, maybe for the first time since he’d died. Promise me that if something happens, you’ll carry on, you won’t top yourself, you won’t live out your life in a mental ward.
Calm down, she told herself, this is postpartum depression and that’s all it is. Christian isn’t so bad as he seems. Knowing it was true, having faith in the memory of Paul’s voice so clear in her mind, she relented and gave up her crying. I’ll try, she told Paul, spoke to the glass as if it were the veil that held him back in death.
And she went upstairs to soothe her crying baby.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Christian stood stiffly beside her. Even though she couldn’t look at him, Ravenna knew he gazed out the window the same as she, that he was playing with that hat again, for she could tell by the way he wiggled that he tapped it impatiently against his thigh.
“Heathens built this horrid house,” he was saying. “To locate it in such an exposed position next to the sea—you’ll have to forgive my ancestors, Sir. Like my wife, I’m afraid they didn’t know any better.”
“Yes, yes, I can see we’ll not finish today, either,” the painter replied. “You may move now, Lord Launceston, as it seems there’s no stopping you. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
Mr. Copley went on sketching even though Christian immediately took his arm out of Ravenna’s and, loosening his shoulders in obvious displeasure, turned his back on her. “Oh, incidentally, I won’t be here tomorrow,” Christian said. “I’ve been summoned to Launceston—what a pity.”
“And I’m just now finding out?” Ravenna asked.
“If it suits me, I needn’t tell you at all.” He tossed the hat on the painter’s table. “He has enough now to finish. Besides, I can’t imagine why you should care what I do. I know you and James will only rejoice in being rid of me.”
“With that attitude, maybe we will.”
“I’m certain you will,” Christian replied. “Perhaps in my absence you could reminisce about him. You could even set an extra place at table, lest his spirit be attracted by your gloom and wander in for supper. God might let him come, you never know.”
And seeing that Ravenna was already conjuring up images, Christian turned away in disgust. With wine bottle in hand, he made for the door. “Paint the dog as her husband, why don’t you. She loves him better.”
White, well-mannered, and with a ruff around his neck reminiscent of a collie, the dog he referred to was a wedding present from James. Ravenna called him Shasta. It amused her that Christian hated the dog; Shasta couldn’t get enough of his master, would often follow him room to room until finally Christian would relent and pet it. This, to Ravenna, was the best entertainment—watching her husband driven crazy by a pet.
And Ravenna loved to irritate Christian. Trailing him upstairs, she watched as he slopped down the bottle on the table, pulled off his jacket and, in a grand show of obvious distaste, threw it to the floor. Searching for another in the clothes-press—probably the coat with the diamond buttons—he said, “Must you trail me like a bitch in heat?”
She merely smiled. While he fiddled with his hair in the girandole mirror, put each strand in place so his full concentration was engaged in his appearance, she came up behind him. She knew how to get even with him. She knew what would put the fear in him, and leaning up against his back, setting her chin upon his shoulder, she slid her hands up his arms and waited for the expected response.
He froze, his fingers stilled in mid-preen.
“Don’t go with Richardson tonight,” she said.
He took in a deep breath. “Do you listen at all?” He pulled roughly out of her hands. “I’m going to Launceston, I told you as much. I’ve been sent for to offer my inspection of the roof, and if you’d for a moment put the Paddy out of your thoughts, you’d know that, Ravenna.”
“No, you’re going with Richardson.” She watched him straighten his starched cravat. “I know you, Christian. You’re going to the clubs. Haven’t you lost enough of my money?”
“There you have it wrong again—it’s our money, not yours.”
She shook her head. “James gave me that money for the roof, not for gambling. What will you pay those workmen with?”
“How unhealthy, this preoccupation you have with money. Why must the world—”
“I know, why must the world revolve around money? Just stop it. You’re going to end up in debtor’s prison and I’m warning you, I won’t bail you out.”
When his eyes met Ravenna’s in the girandole mirror, his brow wrinkled dangerously. “You’d leave me the way you did at Nootka, wouldn’t you? You’d let me die in prison, after sharing my company, my meals, my bed?”
“You won’t die.”
He stifled a snicker. “I’ve heard that one before, Beloved.”
“If you’d just stay home and stop gambling, stop drinking and try to do something constructive with your life—”
“Why? So I may live in celibacy beside you, sober enough to hear your every prayer to him? I’ll have the money through you or through James, but either way, I will have it.”
“I don’t believe you anymore.”
He picked the dog hair off his sleeve. “Believe what?”
“That you’d challenge James’s inheritance just to have money to gamble with.”
“Oh, but I would,” he said, and slipping off his shoes—the ones he’d gotten in Barbados for the wedding—he put on his favorites with the pointed toes. “After all, what else do I possess that fulfills me as much as spending money? Whores in Covent Garden come very dear these days, especially when they know I’m Lord Launceston.”
“I’m paying for whores now?”
“Should there be a reason for me to stay home, perhaps a wife who kept her word and performed her wifely duties, then I’d not find so much to interest me beyond the bedchamber door, would I?”
“If I had a husband who respected me,” she said, “then I might be more interested.”
“I do nothing but respect you! If you can’t appreciate the self-discipline I’ve shown in your bed, when you dress, even in the face of your advances when you’ve no intention of according me satisfaction, then perhaps my generosity is wasted upon you.”
“I don’t think it’s generosity, Christian. I think you’ve spared me because you’re afraid.”
“There you go again. How many times must I tell you, only women are capable of fearing copulation. It’s the size, you see. But then, with the Paddy, you wouldn’t understand about size, would you? Perhaps I should educate you. Perhaps then you’d forget about him.”
“If you were going to force me, you’d have done it long ago.”
“Maybe I’ve only just determined that my services are called for, to eradicate his memory and make you understand that what you need is not kindness or respect, but a good—”
“You won’t do it.”
“I won’t?”
“You know if you do any of the things you threaten, there’s no chance at all that I’ll ever love you.”
“If I had James’s fortune at my disposal and my sex between your legs, perhaps I wouldn’t care so much you didn’t love me.”
Ravenna met his cold stare. “You can threaten all you want, but I don’t believe you’d really hurt me.”
“And what about your Celtic runt? Do you trust me with him?” Christian stepped nearer, regarded her carefully. “Perhaps he’d like to visit the Foundling Hospital? I hear they give their orphans the very best in musical education.”
“You wouldn’t hurt the baby, Christian. You wouldn’t do it, I know you too well.”
“Do you think so?” The cast of desperation to his gray eyes then, the strength of his intended threat, it made Ravenna think she didn’t know him. “You’ve no idea what I’m capable of,” he snarled in a low voice, “the horrors I’ve committed in your name.”
Turning away, he tugged on the rope that would ring for the servants. He went to the clothes-press, and she glowered while he gathered his breeches, his shirts, his strong perfume. When a footman appeared, he ordered the carriage readied for London, and without so much as glancing at Ravenna, he went to the window and looked out over the lawn.
Rain pooled on the window casement. A strong wind blew off the ocean swells, and the sky was so dark that the clouds and the sea seemed to have melted into one. With his back to her, Christian continued to stand in front of that window. She knew the weather didn’t concern him. He was avoiding her. He’d insulted and threatened, and next he would leave.
“Oh, don’t look at me so,” he said at last. He still hadn’t turned around. “You know I wish the baby no harm.”
“I know you love me,” she whispered. “No matter what you say or threaten, I know inside you do love me.”
Where he stood before the window, Christian’s blond head inclined slightly toward the glass. He cleared his throat, and it was a moment before Ravenna heard his reply, gentler this time. “Then let me spend the money. Give me at least that.”
* * *
In the lonely days following his departure, Ravenna was by herself most of the time. James was busy, for the Royal Society’s president, Sir Joseph Banks, was eager to visit him at Wolvesfield to discuss Vancouver’s voyage at length.
Thus James spent every available moment in preparation for Banks’s arrival. He had the servants take down the huge bed in Paul’s old room. The tapestries were removed and a desk brought in, which James sat behind for hours at a stretch in pouring over the data he’d collected on the voyage. Quiet was the rule of the house. The only sound breaking the stillness without reprimand was the crying of Ravenna’s son.
And when the baby cried, when his little face looked too much like Paul to bear, she usually went down to the converted library to offer James any help she could. It was the only way she could spend time with him. By sorting his notes and helping him organize the artistic traditions he’d observed among the Indians, Ravenna hoped to distract herself from her ever-present death and gloom.
Yet whenever James paused to jot down a note, in the absence of his questions, Ravenna found herself drifting right back to Paul. Did you really die on that riverbank? she wondered. Or did you live long enough to suffer, as Christian said his friends did?
For if he’d managed to survive, if his attackers had captured him solely for the purpose of fixing their guns, Paul might have been taken to their summer village. With Paul’s strong arms and streetwise ways, he might have eventually overpowered his captors. He might have escaped.
So rather than suffer a hideous death during the festivities of a potlatch, Paul might have wandered the forest for months through the ceaseless, biting rain of autumn, hungry and cold and fast losing strength, hoping to find Nootka before the bears found him. He might have trudged along the coastal cliffs until sickness took him, desperate to catch sight of a fur-trading ship. He might have huddled between the dry roots of a cedar, watching the rain drip from the branches as the light left his eyes and the ravens closed in.
She shivered as she pictured such things, and James always noticed. Soon he began asking her to take a break, to go for a ride on Killiney’s stallion or pick out some furniture from the order book left by the local cabinetmaker—anything to alleviate the woeful look James said was on her face.
So after two years of being confined to a ship, always within arm’s reach of someone, now Ravenna spent her days in loneliness. She took to leaving her son with the nurse, setting out along the cliffs with Khali, letting him run until he himself chose to stop. Losing her macabre thoughts in the wind, she sometimes stayed out until long after dark. She knew the wet nurse would care for the baby. She knew that Sarah, having hired herself a tutor to give her the manners of a marchioness, would be as engrossed in her studies as James was in his. She knew it would be just Khali and herself, day after day after miserable day.
By the time Christian came home, she was close to drowning. She was desperate for a change of some kind, the company of another tortured soul, anything other than the endless hours she’d suffered and shared with no one; the sight of Christian, after so much useless whispering to the dark, seemed a comfort somehow.
When he stalked into the bedroom and slammed the door, Ravenna was fascinated. Something about him had changed. He was scolding her about the fact she hadn’t heard his carriage pull up, that he’d had to ask Scott if his countess were at home, but there was an anxiety beneath his angry words she hadn’t heard before, at least not since Nootka.
“And where were you?” he asked, removing his gloves with a series of sudden, brutal movements. “Daydreaming, I expect? I hope you’ve gorged yourself, because you shan’t have time for him in London, at least not while I’m with you.”
“London?” The movement of his hands distracted her, too quick and graceless for Christian Hallett. His sullen eyes, his jealous reference to Paul as he tossed down his gloves, these things stirred something in her as she watched him stupidly. He’s desperate, she realized, but desperate about what?
“You will go to London,” he continued haughtily, “and you’ll wear the diamond ring I bought you and smile prettily at Lady Salisbury’s assembly next week out of gratitude for my understanding and my boundless self-control. You’ll do as I kindly ask because I miss your company, and as the truth, that should be enough to persuade you in leaving him behind.”
“But the wedding, I can’t leave until—”
“I can’t wait until June, he might…I might grow impatient with you by then. You wouldn’t want to suffer a lapse in my chastity? Now pack,” and taking her roughly by the arm, he dragged her toward the clothes-press, “or my good nature may fail me here and now.”
Yet even under his forceful grip, she didn’t believe his threats. When he opened the cabinet door, she managed to pull out of his hands, realizing as she did that somehow she didn’t mind his roughness. He hadn’t hurt her. And she had only to look into that well of needing in the gray of his eyes to know he wouldn’t.
She couldn’t pin it down, this blunt, familiar feeling. The idea made her sick, and yet as Christian stood there, she knew it was true: She’d missed him. Within those few moments he’d been in the room, her bereavement had lifted. Not entirely, but enough to find interest in what he’d say next, what manner of manipulation he’d attempt in getting her to do as he wished. She could tell just by looking at him, by the way he’d forced her toward the clothes-press, that she had the upper hand now.
Glancing into his boyish face, she let him know it. “Am I supposed to be frightened?” she asked, leveling her gaze, steady and confident even though she smelled the whiskey on his breath. He doesn’t really mean anything he threatens, she thought. His hair looked soft. His eyes, rampant with bitter devotion, were a strange and morbid comfort to her, and feeling her grief dissipate into wonder over the way he looked at her with such dependency, Ravenna ventured a step nearer. “Do you want me to be frightened? Would that turn you on?”
Christian swallowed. His face squished into an uncomfortable frown, and she could see she’d affected him deeply. He did need her. He’d been telling the truth, and it was more than he could bear, being toyed with so, even worse when she pressed closer.
“Beloved, you tempt the devil,” he whispered. “You know not what you do.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked. “Do you really want me to go with you?”
Staring at her like a deer in headlights, considering the way she inched toward him without fear, he gulped one last time before turning away. “You make a mockery of my love,” he muttered, and shoving back the dresses to reach Ravenna’s shoes beneath, he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Of your own volition, without him, yes, I want you in London.”
“You’ll promise not to drink, to be nice if I go?”
Solemnly, slowly, Christian nodded, but he turned his eyes to the clothes-press shelves. “You’ll be home for the wedding, I promise you that much. In one fashion or another, by then I’m sure it will all be over.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

For the most part, Christian kept his word. Ravenna put away Paul’s malachite ring in favor of the diamonds he’d bought her in Hatton Garden, and from that night on, he believed in her acquiescence completely. Every time a duchess or a celebrated actress inquired about those diamonds, Christian became that much easier to live with.
Even so, with the places he took her to show off that ring, Ravenna was still miserable. She’d agreed to it, so she tried to have an open mind, but from one social function to the next it was always the same: ten or twelve boring, aristocratic know-it-alls dressed up to the nines in ridiculous clothes, arguing about the same subjects night after night while they ate and drank and lounged about. One evening it was the situation in France. Another night they couldn’t stop talking about some poor marchioness whom someone had seen in the ugliest gown.
Ravenna sat quietly as she’d been told, listening to these comments and watching her husband trash this marchioness’s reputation. What do they say about me behind my back?
She only knew that when it came time for dancing, she was relieved to escape such tedious conversation and put her hand in Christian’s—a testament to the awfulness of their hosts, not to mention Christian’s newfound courtesy. She didn’t dance well, but that hardly mattered. Christian didn’t say as many nasty things when he had her in his arms. All he worried about was keeping his distance—that and maintaining a look of indifference.
In the end, he couldn’t manage it. As they twirled around the floor, more than once she glimpsed a smile creeping into Christian’s cheeks. She even caught him looking at her, and the love she saw in that instant, shining in his almond-shaped eyes without obsession but with pride, with affection, it moved her.
But he broke the spell by admonishing her, for she’d missed a step. It was as if he’d hoped to draw her attention away from the fact that she’d responded, that they’d shared something in that furtive glance.
And by day, she was responding. Christian took her to coffee houses. He took her to clubs. He took her to meet people whom he said were his friends, but who never showed up. Christian asked her to do these things. He wasn’t particularly nice about it, but at least he gave her the chance to say no. Since it was better than having him go off with Richardson to gamble at Brooks’s until six in the morning, Ravenna went where he took her gladly and she didn’t complain, didn’t grumble.
With the money he “should have waged on ponies,” Christian took her shopping in the West End where he made her try on dress after dress until he’d settled on something that made her “somewhat resemble Emma Hamilton.” She was given to understand he viewed this as a compliment since, soon afterward and wearing the new dress as requested, she was shown off in St. James’s Park on the appropriate day at the fashionable hour.
Christian swaggered around the grounds until nearly sunset, and finally Ravenna could stand no more. She asked if they could go back to the house, so she might give her son his bath.
Christian drowned out her request with coughing. “Must you embarrass me?” He glanced around nervously, making sure no one had heard her admission. “Only commoners actually bathe their own children. Now perk up, will you? Queensberry’s on his way over to see us and he’ll lend us money if he likes the look of you.”
They stayed at Hallett House, at Charing Cross, because Christian hadn’t enough money to rent rooms. James’s terms for the lease were simple—that Ravenna must write to him every day to prove she’d not been mistreated in London. In return, she’d receive his letters in kind, in which James kept her informed as to how the marriage plans were progressing, what he’d so far accomplished with his treatise, and when he’d be meeting with the Royal Society. Sir Joseph Banks, the society’s president, was coming to Wolvesfield, and as soon as their visit was completed, James said, he’d come to London. He’d be with Ravenna in two weeks’ time, and he’d kill Christian if she suffered so much as a paper cut.
But Christian had been polite, enthusiastic and, for the most part, pleasant. Not himself at all, really, and on the Thursday following their visit with Lady Salisbury, Ravenna began to be suspicious of the way his behavior had shifted from kindness to an altogether different level.
That Thursday there was a terrible storm. The rain beat down on London for hours, pouring from the waterspouts and the rooftop gutters in thick, fluid ropes. From behind the saloon curtains, she watched as the hawkers and newspaper vendors scattered under the sound of spring thunder, but in the distance she still heard the bells of the postman as he trudged through the puddles and the carriage traffic. Regardless of the storm, he’d bring James’s letter. He always did.
With the baby only halfway through one of his meals, Ravenna cut short his suckling and rearranged herself sufficiently to be seen by the postman. Christian usually got the mail, but that day he’d been skulking around in the bedroom upstairs, complaining about the dreary weather.
So thinking he hadn’t heard the postman’s bells, she propped the baby over her shoulder and negotiated the many rooms between the saloon and the front door. The baby was quiet, so she moved slowly, doing her best to keep him still. She knew the postman would wait at the door. Indeed, she heard his knock, but there was only one more tennis court-sized room to go, and she walked softly, so as not to upset the baby.
When she got to the entryway, she saw the front door standing wide open. The postman wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Instead, Christian stood with his back to her. Near his foot, smeared with rain, was a letter, surely James’s, and yet he paid no mind to it at all. He had something in his hands—another letter. Fast filling up with smudges from the storm, that bit of paper captivated Christian’s attention entirely.
He bent over it for a long moment, reading. Rain soaked through his outstretched sleeves, stained his waistcoat with splashes of dark. Still he stood there, seemingly unable to move but for staring at the words, and under the sound of passing coaches spattering water on the sidewalk, Ravenna thought she heard him whispering, Not now, not yet…
As the piece of paper dampened and withered in his hands, she stepped toward him. She reached out to gently tap his shoulder, to ask what was wrong. Yet before she could touch him, Christian had stepped out into the storm.
As if in a daze, he walked away. He lifted his face to the cloud-ridden sky, to the pounding of the rain, and even though she called out his name, Christian heard nothing but his own thoughts. He stepped off the curb. His arms fell limp at his slender sides as he drifted into the carriage traffic. That piece of paper, crumpled now against his thigh, slipped out of his hands and into the waiting puddles of the street as he stepped before horses, before phaetons rushing home.
She just caught sight of his shirt sleeves between hackney coaches rattling past, until finally, still shouting at the top of her lungs, she watched helplessly as he disappeared down St. Martin’s Lane.
She couldn’t go after him. She had the baby in her arms. All she could do was retrieve James’s letter while out in the street, Christian’s square of paper met with carriage wheels and horses’ hooves.
* * *
He didn’t come back until two in the morning.
Awakened by an awful banging at the front door, Ravenna rushed downstairs to let him in. Surely he’d be drunk. Nasty and selfish, he’d probably yell at her, rave about being locked out in the rain instead of whatever really bothered him, and she couldn’t help wondering, What was in that letter, Christian? What could possibly frighten you so badly?
Yet with every step, each crash of the heavy door against the stone casing, she became more frightened at the thought of what she might find outside on the doorstep. The thud of the timbers resounded through the house. Each booming echo was interspersed with a beat of silence until halfway down the staircase, she realized just what he was doing. He wasn’t beating his fists against the door. He was beating himself against it, and hard—hard enough to rattle the chandeliers.
Oh God, she thought, taking the steps faster as a flash of blue glanced off the paintings beside her. Thunder, loud as cannon fire, shook the house. It made the banister tremble under her hand, but when the sound died away, in its wake there came something even worse, something that affected her more than she liked: her name, over and over again. Christian was wailing it, and as he threw himself full force against the door, the need in his voice made her break into a run.
She reached the door, unbolted the locks. Her hands were shaking as he pounded from the other side, for he’d obviously been wounded, had fought some duel and come staggering home, only to bleed to death in the street…She talked to him through the oak as she envisioned such things, fighting the ancient bolts and telling Christian to hold on, that she was hurrying, that she’d send for a doctor and everything would be fine.
When finally she threw back the door, she gasped. Christian stumbled, fell to his knees. In the dim lamp light, she could just see the rain running down his smooth cheeks. His waistcoat was ruined, but there was no blood on him. He wasn’t wounded. His linen sleeves were soaked, clinging to his slight arms, and his hair, usually powdered and always drawn back, now hung dripping and loose about his shoulders.
Looking up, his brows crushed together in a grimace. “God forsake me, but I love you,” he said, his breath coming fast. “Whatever I’ve done, I’ve done it for you.”
“Are you OK?” She bent down, offered him a timid hand.
He pushed it away. “Will you lay me to rest?”
“Christian, I don’t under—”
“Will you lay me to rest?” His teeth were clenched, and with every fiber of his miserable being, he beseeched her, narrowed his eyes upon hers.
Ravenna straightened. There was whiskey on his breath, she could smell it now. “You’re drunk,” she said as gently as she could. “You’re not making any sense, and I don’t know what you mean by—”
“Put me out of my misery, will you?” His words were slurred as his eyes tore into her. “Tell me that you…that you love me, Ravenna. Do you? Could you just once say the words?”
Hearing this impossible request, she couldn’t move, even when his wet hands slipped into hers, urged her with a desperate grip. “Please, Beloved,” he said to her softly.
She forgot about Nootka then, about everything he’d ever threatened. She saw only his needfulness, the pain welling up in his big gray eyes as slowly, with the caution and care of a nun, she reached down and helped him to get to his feet.
Shutting the door against the rain, she put her arm around his waist; she led him toward the stairs, not minding the way he staggered and swayed. “Everything’s going to be fine,” she whispered. “You’re all right now, and I’ve—”
“Tell me,” he said, staring as they walked together. “If you don’t, I’ll go to my grave without your words.”
She stopped at the foot of the stairs. He leaned against her heavily, demanding an answer by refusing to look away, but she ignored him and made certain once more she’d not missed any blood, that he was well and unharmed.
“Would a wound prove my love?” he asked, watching her examine him. “Is that what you want? He requires no weapon, but I could draw one in his stead. I could finish it and you’d suffer me no longer, just let me die hearing those words.”
“Who needs no weapon?” She steadied him, watched him swaying beside her. “Christian, what are you talking about?”
The storm flashed and thundered again, and beneath the skylight, Ravenna saw the struggle in his coltish face. “He’s coming for me,” he said, swallowing heavily. “He’s coming and I shall burn in hell.”
“It’s Lord Oliver, isn’t it?” She remembered that night in London, the Cork man’s admission he hated Christian. “Or Andrew Richardson, I know you owe him a lot of money.”
He shook his head forcefully. “No no no, death himself.” Tears spilled down his twisted face, lingered at the corners of his down-turned mouth. “I love you so, but God forgive what I have done.”
And leaning down heavily into her arms, he kissed her.
Ravenna didn’t move. His lips pressed clumsily into hers, and she stood stock still as his blundering tongue pushed over her own, hard and thoughtless for anything but easing his own insatiable, insufferable pain. Listening to the rain on the skylight above them, she endured it, but her heart ached at the seams for what she held back, that long ago lingering of Paul’s jovial presence, his Irish faith and Irish desire.
Suddenly, she felt him falter. Softening his kiss, he withdrew from her mouth. “Say it,” he whispered. “Say it the way you said it to him.”
Waiting for her to comply, he caressed her with a cold and hesitant hand. But even with the obvious effort he made to brave such things, to be kind to her, to be respectful and loving, still she couldn’t say it. “I know how hard this has been for you,” she told him, sliding her hands up his rain-drenched back, “but think how hard it’s been for me. Paul hasn’t even been gone a year, and no matter who I were with, you know my answer would be the same: I need more time.”
“But I don’t have more time.” His touch at her arm hardened a little. “Don’t you care for me at all? After all I’ve given to be with you?”
“Let go of me, Christian.”
“No,” he said, “not until you afford me that tone of voice.” His manicured nails gripped her tighter, bruising her as he stared her down. “Say you love me. Give me at least that.”
“You’re asking me to lie, and I don’t see why I should—”
“There’s nothing left for me but lies!” His eyes moved rapidly across her face. “Don’t you understand? He’s coming and I have nothing, only delusion and your words to foster it, and if you’ve an ounce of mercy, you’ll grant me relief before my time with you runs out!”
She stepped back from him. “If you don’t let go of me right now, it will be too late. Too late for everything, do you understand? Let go of me.” Wincing from his hold on her, she tugged at his hand, tried to loosen it.
He only stood more firmly against her. “I’ve given you everything, do you know that?”
And with a sudden, violent shove of his hand, he knocked her backwards.
She fell hard against the newel post, wrenched her arm as she landed on the risers. She must have cried out, for in the seconds that followed, she heard the echo of it diminish into the sound of the rain on the skylight, the ragged breaths Christian drew as he wobbled before her on whiskey legs. “Reputation, career, my immortal soul—,” he waved his arms, smacked his fist into the banister, “—God has taken it all in your name, and I’ll suffer eternally! Forever, Ravenna, without even so much as a kiss.”
“You threw it away,” she said, rubbing her arm.
“Only to protect you, to be with you!”
“I didn’t ask you to do any of those things, you can’t—”
“There has been no other path!”
His breath hung in the air between them, a cloud of warmth in the chill of the staircase. Stupidly, Ravenna gazed at it, in shock at what was happening around her, and still he raged on. “Had I ever a choice but to love you? I love you by God’s design, God’s will. There’s no recourse with destiny, no appeal, no escape—I have only you, Ravenna! I’ve naught to breathe without you, and now I’ll die unmourned and godforsaken, he’s coming and I shall rot in hell!”
She glared up at him. “Keep pushing me around, and maybe you should.”
He lurched toward her then, his hand shooting down to encompass her wrist. He yanked her to her feet, and with the pain surging through her injured arm, she couldn’t stop him, couldn’t fight as he took her in a steeled embrace.
“You are my life,” he said to her evenly. “We’re connected at the soul’s very seams and should I wish it, I can repay my suffering for you in spades; shall I take you down with me? Is that how it ends?”
Under her hands, she felt his chest heave and his heart beat fast in holding her tighter, letting his strength bear down on her bones. “Say it, Beloved,” he whispered close. “Do me the kindness and I needn’t hurt you.”
“My name is not Beloved.”
“Beloved, Beloved, Beloved,” he hissed, “you’ll be so ’til the day I die—,” and with a harsh tug to the back of her neck, he kissed her again. By the time she screamed against his soft, hairless cheek, fighting him all the way, it was done. He released her so quickly she staggered backwards. “You know better than anyone what lies in wait for me. Hell has sent for me. You know that, and for us both, there can be no other way.”
Drunkenly, letting his devastation be known by the violence in his lingering stare, he backed away into the darkness.
The footmen came running.
* * *
She didn’t know where he spent that night. She didn’t much care. She sat in her bedroom with the door locked and the corridor patrolled by servants sworn to keep Christian away, but still she couldn’t sleep. His madness preyed on her mind.
Hour after hour she wrangled with herself, with her common sense and her fears. One thing was certain. That letter he’d received had driven him to drink. Whatever horrors its words contained had deepened the desperation he’d hurled at her…but was that an excuse for what he’d done? Was that justification to threaten her?
He’d threatened her before. He’d never meant it. But then, he’d never actually laid a hand on her, either, much less kissed her. Vile, to think of enduring that again, and yet, in his mind, it was his right, wasn’t it? They were married. He was her husband. And should he come home in such a state the next night, and the next, drunk and pushed to his limits by the unknowable, mysterious death-wish he had…or perhaps receive another such letter…
Next time he might not disappear. She might not even get the chance to scream.
By the time dawn had lightened her room to gray, she’d set a candle on the hearth. She knelt before the single flame, wrapped in a blanket, and closing her eyes, she said Paul’s name. “My love, can you hear me?” she asked the silence. “Does Christian really mean what he says? Or does he need me more than ever? My love, what should I do?”
She waited in the chill to hear Paul’s whisper, for his answer to fill her like the yellow sunshine streaming over the soot-streaked rooftops.
As ever, there was no reply.
* * *
It was early when the baby woke up the wet nurse where she slept in the adjoining room. Having been sent out beyond the footman barricade to fetch Ravenna’s breakfast, the girl soon came back with the food and a frightened face: She’d seen Christian in the passageway. He’d yelled at her, Megan said. He’d demanded the countess be ready for the opera by eight that night, and should Megan fail to dress her mistress on time and in the appropriate manner, the girl would be fired, wet nurse or no.
Ravenna spent the rest of the day reassuring Megan she’d never be dismissed, no matter what Christian said. Megan loved the baby to pieces, Ravenna knew that, and what would she do without the girl’s help?
It wasn’t until five o’clock when they both finally calmed and Ravenna began to brace herself for Christian’s presence. She put on the Emma Hamilton dress. She styled her hair in the Emma Hamilton fashion, and making sure the baby was well and settled in the kitchen with Megan, she went down to the carriage at five minutes to eight. She had Paul’s watch in her hand, and damned if she cared what Christian thought about it. If he wanted her ready by eight, she’d be ready—and ready to do battle, if necessary.
* * *
She sat in the carriage, listening to the jingle of the harnesses as the horses fidgeted, for twelve whole minutes.
When Christian finally sauntered down the courtyard steps, Ravenna held her breath at the sight of him. What would she see when he turned his eyes to hers? The remnants of his abysmal need, his compulsion of the night before?
Pain, that’s what she saw, and it showed itself in a thousand different ways, in his bitter glances, the way his thin hands hesitated at the carriage door before he stepped inside. His double-breasted frock coat, royal blue with silver buttons, looked rich and vibrant in the evening light as he took his seat stiffly beside her. The air sweetened with the scent of his perfume. The sunshine reflected off his cut-steel shoe buckles and scattered across the leather walls, but no matter how gorgeous he looked, however dignified he presented himself, he was still a mess. Nothing had changed from the night before. He was better dressed, yes, but the madness hadn’t faded from his eyes in the least.
As their carriage rolled out into the thick of Charing Cross, Christian said nothing. Nor did Ravenna. Hackney coaches, sedan chairs, arrogant gentlemen on well-bred ponies, the clatter of it all would have drowned their uncomfortable words anyway. Not that they had the time to speak, because in two or three minutes they arrived at the theater.
Even before their man had opened the carriage door, Ravenna heard music. The opera had begun. It made her numb to hear that orchestra, and as Christian stepped down and held out his hand for her, she reeled from the sound of a soprano drifting through the theater doors. Ignoring Christian’s sharp orders to the coachman, she squinted her eyes. She tried to read the last remaining bill posted near the corner of the building, barely noticing how Christian still held her hand, for the one thing on her mind was the lettering on that bill; faded by yesterday’s rain, she could just make it out in the seconds before the workman tore it down.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, it read.
Just like that, the pain that waited always in her buried heart fought its way quickly to the surface. Christian led her brusquely toward the theater doors, and all through the muslin-wrapped, aristocratic women, all through the fops, her melancholy blossomed with the thought—Mozart! Why must it be Mozart?
But Christian hauled her into the theater’s darkness as if he were on a mission from God and the louder the music swelled, the more Ravenna resisted his strength. Her feet dragged. Her free hand trailed against walls, against banister posts, and still Christian lunged on, calling for an usher to lead them to their seats while a perfect tenor voice pursued them through the corridor.
When the usher turned at the curtained door and pressed a copy of the libretto into Christian’s hand, her suspicions were confirmed. Don Giovanni, that’s what it was.
Grand and unbearable, Mozart’s opera had the effect of a bludgeoning on Ravenna’s senses. Christian pushed her into the box, and she lost all notion of what was expected of her. A thin, golden light fell from the chandeliers. An ocean of silks and powdered hair lay below. Every English face was turned toward the set, a backdrop of trompe l’oeil imitating a lush garden courtyard, while on the stage stood Doña Anna and Don Ottavio lamenting the murder of Anna’s father. Stricken with shock, Anna wanted only to die with her father. As she lifted her voice in grief, Don Ottavio matched her every note, as if he’d follow her willingly to prove his love, even if her only wish were death.
Overwhelmed by it, Ravenna was startled when Christian yanked her backwards, forced her down into a chair. Their eyes met for an instant. His were every bit as black as last night’s kiss, and when he sat down beside her, draped his arm across her shoulder, it was a statement of ownership, both to her and to the world.
She held perfectly still beneath it. She didn’t squirm, didn’t struggle. She didn’t even resist when he eventually worked up the nerve to let his finger travel up the nape of her neck. Listen to the music, she told herself, and with some effort, she focused instead on Don Giovanni’s baritone notes. He sang in Italian, but she understood his story. Giovanni had been the one to murder Anna’s father; having first seduced Anna in a cloaked disguise, Giovanni had then killed her father, the Don’s identity protected by his mask.
Next to Ravenna, Christian was busy. While the opera went on, he explained loudly to a crude-looking youth that he hadn’t been well since Vancouver’s voyage, that the American climate had ruined his health. The youth was quick to shake his head in pity, but Ravenna ignored them, concentrated instead on Anna’s plight as she sang with Don Giovanni—how could Anna guess that her father’s cloaked attacker had been the cavalier Giovanni himself?
For in her presence, Giovanni showed no remorse for the murder. Nothing about him betrayed the pain he’d caused Anna or the life he’d taken. Thus Anna ignorantly begged Giovanni for help in tracing her father’s killer. Unshaken, sure of himself to a fault, Giovanni sang but Ravenna couldn’t hear his words; that ugly young man was talking about billiards.
Go away, she thought. Take Christian with you and leave me to my music, this awful, stirring music. And Anna, not knowing the snake Giovanni was, declared him a noble and gallant man.
Giovanni didn’t argue. He swore his blood, his sword and wealth in support of her efforts to avenge her father. He never let on that he himself had delivered the fatal wound, that he’d murdered the object of her measureless grief and watched the body grow cold, the way Paul’s had grown cold, the way Paul had died on that distant river.
By the end of the first act, the intricacies of this plot didn’t matter to Ravenna any more, only the music, this powerful music. She let her mind wander, let that aching run rampant as she gazed bleary-eyed at the women in the floor seats. From behind their flippant fans they pointed up at Christian. It made Ravenna sick, to see these women shun the attentions of the men already at their sides, wasting what love they already possessed…and for what? Christian, for God’s sake. In a blaze of chorus the scene finished with Anna realizing the truth, that Don Giovanni had deceived her and had been her father’s killer all along, but Ravenna was busy staring at those women. Here they were, sitting at the opera with their husbands, rich and healthy and basking in adoration, and what did they do with such good fortune? Could they even imagine how it felt to lose such love as they obviously took for granted?
Without even trying, she saw Paul’s face, saw his eyes narrowed with love in a theater like this. I’ve wasted so much, she thought, remembering that other, long ago opera. If only I’d kissed you that night in the theater, how much more time we would have had.
Catching herself, she sniffed before the pain became too great, brought her hand up to wipe at her eyes.
Christian stirred beside her.
She tensed. The memory of Christian’s cutting grasp edged at her mind. Did he know she’d been crying? Would he dare to threaten her within sight of his peers?
Yet when she turned to see what expression of disgust sat upon his embittered face, she found something entirely different.
He wasn’t looking at her. Bent over the last page of the libretto, he mouthed the lines of the final Commendatore scene, his teeth clenching down on every word. Below, Anna and Ottavio invoked the thunder of revenge that would strike Don Giovanni down, and seeing this musical assault against the Don, Christian shuddered. He gripped the libretto in his gracile hands as if it were his damnation, an omen sent from God to confirm his worst fears. Swallowing hard, he drew in a heavy breath and under the music, Ravenna barely heard his accusing words. “You will do the same,” he said, and turning toward her, his eyes darkened.
“What are you talking about?”
“Hell,” he said. “It will be your loathing which consigns me to the flames of hell.”
The orchestra punched the final notes of the first act, the curtains fell, and Christian sat calmly regarding her. Craven hatred shone in his stare. He was losing it again, she could see it. Whatever meaning he’d discovered in the opera had fueled his smoldering from last night’s madness.
“You’re not going to hell,” she said carefully, fingering Paul’s silver watch in her pocket.
“Oh yes, I’ve got it wrong. It’s the future for me, isn’t it? Another round of all this…this blissful, enviable life I have, but in the twentieth century?” Christian snorted. “At least I’ll get Wolvesfield. At least I’ll get the marquessate and James’s money, even James’s unborn children’s money to squander and waste as I please, and I’ll serve my penance as myself one of James’s disgusting, righteous spawn.”
“Christian, I meant—”
“Maybe I’ll set fire to it all,” he continued fiercely. “House, furniture, diary, everything that might remind me of you, once I’ve recalled who I really am. Wouldn’t you, if you discovered your soul had been mine?”
His voice rose, and around them, gentlemen everywhere leaned back in their seats and whispered to their wives. Behind fans and librettos, their fashionably pallid faces snickered as Ravenna pressed Christian to calm himself. “You weren’t supposed to find out about the future. You shouldn’t have overheard those things about David.”
“And why not?” he asked. “I’m sure you told James what he could expect.”
“James doesn’t have a life in the future.”
“So it’s a privilege reserved only for the damned? Is that the nature of hell, to live it all again? And where will you be, Beloved? You’ll be here. While your memory ruins my life not once but twice, you’ll be swooning under the Paddy’s boorish, incompetent love, waiting for death to kill me off—”
“What’s all this about death, Launceston?”
The two looked up. A man stood behind them, just outside the box’s curtains with only his head poking through.
Beside her, Christian choked. “Edmund,” he said, but that was all he could get out. Malice, complaint, he forgot everything in the face of the smiling, squinty-eyed gentleman behind them.
“Oh, come now, you can’t forfeit,” the man said. “You’ve only returned to the neighborhood, and you know I’ve not had my chance to part you from your money.”
“Edmund Thornton,” Christian repeated clumsily, giving Ravenna a warning glance. Getting to his feet, he faced the stranger. “I didn’t…I’d no idea you were back.”
“Well, I couldn’t help noticing you, Launceston.” Taking Ravenna’s hand, the man bent to kiss it. “And your lovely cousin Lady Elizabeth. I hear your brother’s writing a paper about Indians. He’ll have no trouble getting published, I’ll wager.”
“I hope not,” Ravenna said. Whether out of jealousy or manners, Christian took her hand from the man then, helped her to stand in the most gracious way.
“And what about you?” The man turned to Christian “Banks won’t even speak your name, something about a mistake in sending you on the voyage. If you’ve a treatise for the old tyrant, you’d better not count on a fair reading, because I’ve heard tell that—”
He stopped, turned toward the passage behind him. “Ah, here they come,” he said, holding the curtain back. “I beg your pardon, but I’ve some friends with me from Salzburg and they insisted on seeing this Mozart thing. Wouldn’t leave the box until the bastards quit singing. Here we are, my friends. Come and meet Lord Launceston and his bride.”
But when the first of Edmund’s visitors walked through the door, Ravenna’s heart stopped.
His friend had no freckles, no Irish brogue. He wore no silver at his ear, but that hardly mattered as he introduced himself, for Ravenna’s legs weakened. Her pulse raced madly, and she couldn’t stop herself from shivering, whispering, my love, oh God you look like Paul.
Thick of build, Edmund’s visitor had slender hips and a wrestler’s arms. His brown hair, darkened by the faintest shade of auburn, was brushed back and tied in a silk bag. Dizzying to look at, that color, and how she missed the sight, the feel of it under her stroking hands. Her heart beat quicker at the way his pale and hard-bitten features appraised her serenely, at the cleft in his square jaw, his angular cheeks and his liquid eyes, blue as Chinese porcelain.
Ravenna’s head lightened and whirled. Paul’s watch, poised at the edge of her pocket, fell to the floor at the man’s feet, but she couldn’t look away from those familiar eyes, so similar to her love’s. Miss you, how I miss you, she cried, and trembling viciously, enraptured by that face she had so longed to see, she gave in completely as the darkness swept over her.
* * *
When she came to, it seemed there was a scuffle around her. Voices arguing. Christian yelling. The orchestra had begun again, far off in the blackened distance of her mind, but it faded as she regained her senses and the voices around her fell away.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. Dark oak walls flew past her face, askew and tilted upside down, bouncing with Christian’s desperate rush. She felt the support of his arms around her back, behind her knees. Raising her head enough to slip her fingers around his neck, she caught sight of his slate-gray eyes.
The end of the world looked back at her. Was he furious? Scared? She couldn’t tell which, but when he yelled at an usher to open the door, his voice nearly broke with the strength of his emotion.
She held him tighter, pulled herself up nearer his face. “It’s OK,” she whispered, “I’m all right now, you don’t have to—”
“Shut up,” he hissed, giving her a shake.
More than the way he hated her with that voice, it was what he did next which frightened her. He strode to the curbside and, without warning of any kind, threw her down in the doorway of the carriage with a shove that smacked her head against the wall.
Tendrils of blond drifted about Christian as he stood there, panting, watching her struggle to right herself. Ravenna looked up at him, knowing what would come next and hopelessly fearing it.
But before she could move, he’d turned and dropped something on the street beside his left shoe. With gleeful abandon, he set his foot down hard and Ravenna heard the scrape of rock against metal, the sound of his heel grinding into silver.
She knew then it was too late. There’d be no retrieving the chance he might somehow let her go, for it was Paul’s watch he’d smashed. He’d destroyed it happily, and this, along with the scorn in his eyes, the coveting long suppressed and wanting her, only her…it was enough to make her finally realize she had to get away. There was no alternative. Escape or die with him.
So when he raised his foot to the carriage door, she didn’t let him step inside. Instead, blocking the width of the entrance, she put all her strength into one single well-aimed punch at his jaw. Not enough to hurt him, but it surprised him so much that she was able to squirm past him, out of the carriage and out of his grasp.
For an instant she met with empty air, freedom.
Then his fist slammed into her side, just below her rib cage. The force of it knocked the wind right out of her, sent her plunging to the pavement in pain.
What has he done? She sucked in a stabbing breath. What more will he do if he gets me alone?
Trying her best to make it difficult for him, she bit him hard when he scooped her up. She screamed as loud as she possibly could, flailing her arms at the passersby, begging their help, but still he got her into the carriage, only this time he didn’t throw her in—he backed in, holding her roughly around the waist.
“You frigid, selfish bitch,” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear. “You’d spread your legs for that one, wouldn’t you? Is that all one requires? That face and nothing more?”
The wheels jolted into motion and she kept still on his lap, waited for her dizziness to pass. She understood completely what he had in mind for her. She didn’t want to think about it, but to get out of his clutches, she’d have to. She’d have to.
Resting against him, she willed herself to relax, not shiver so heavily with what she was about to do. It’s now or never, she thought to herself. If he gets you in the house, it’s finished for sure. “You’re going to rape me, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to take what’s mine, what he never deserved.”
“No, there must be some other way,” and dredging up every speck of hopelessness she felt, she pleaded him more than she ever would have, “give me more time, I know I can love you if—”
“I’ll not be denied!”
Ravenna leaned closer. “The servants will stop you. Mr. Drew hates you, he’ll help me escape if you—”
“You are my wife, and I’ve every right to you, every right, so how is that idiot going to get you away from me? Force a pistol to my head?”
“No, Christian, please,” and she whimpered, made her voice quiver, “what about my baby? Don’t take me back to the house, I’m begging you, not if there’s going to be shooting near my son.”
And understanding fully well what unstoppable fires she might inflame, she let her hand slip as if by chance. Her fingers touched his inner thigh. “I’m so frightened,” she said, and turning to meet his terrible eyes, she moved her hand in a trailing caress.
That fear, that paralyzing dread, showed itself in the crush of his brow. His lower lip tightened. He recoiled ever so slightly in his seat, but Ravenna pretended not to notice. “What if there’s an accident?” Filling her voice with as much motherly hysteria as she could conjure, she went on stupidly, “What if the baby gets shot by mistake when Mr. Drew comes to rescue me? Christian, please don’t take me home, don’t put my baby in the middle of this!”
“If you’d shut up and lie still, there’d be no accident, would there?” he asked, giving her waist a vengeful shake. “Do you really love your son? Would you protect the Paddy’s spawn at all costs?”
She pushed at his ribs, tried to stop his rough embrace, but all the while her fingers inched closer to her target. The carriage was just pulling up before the house, and knowing she had only seconds to reach her goal, Ravenna lessened her struggling and settled her hand between his legs.
Christian’s eyes flared. He stilled beneath her touch. Taking encouragement from his reaction, seeing him so shocked and helpless, she pleaded for his mercy even as her fingers enfolded him ruthlessly. “If I give you what you want, if I…sleep with you,” she sobbed, “will you leave my son alone?”
Christian couldn’t answer. His tongue moved silently in his mouth, but no sound came out. When the carriage door opened, he glanced at the coachman; he cleared his throat, and in an effort to regain the strength of his anger, his hands tightened further around Ravenna’s waist…but it was too late. She’d already aroused his need beyond repair and Christian knew it, couldn’t deny it.
“Let’s finish it, then,” he grumbled bitterly. And with a stirring of shame deep in his eyes, he let her go.
It only took an instant for her to clear the door.
Putting a hundred yards between them, knowing well enough that Christian never, ever ran, she sprinted madly toward Charing Cross. She knew he was shouting at her. He’d surely send the coachman to chase her down the street, but she ran anyway, knowing the man couldn’t catch her once she’d ducked into the traffic.
Back up Cockspur Street toward the Haymarket, she knew where she was going. In the wake of the horrible stairwell kiss, she’d formulated a plan to fall back on, should Christian make good on his threats. She’d struggled for hours in coming up with someone, a friend she might turn to, for what she needed was a sympathetic ear, a woman like herself who’d understand why she wouldn’t want to sleep with her husband.
She knew of only one woman who might. Christian had mentioned how she’d once met this lady, at a party when Elizabeth had cornered her in an alcove and together they’d talked the whole night through. Christian hadn’t liked her. Did Ravenna care now?
At the top of the Haymarket, she turned left. Piccadilly stretched all the way to Green Park, and she hurried past home after glittering home until halfway down the row, just as Christian had once pointed out, she came to the Duchess of Devonshire’s house.
What must I look like? She wondered as she stepped up to the door, lifted the knocker. Will they even let me in?
But the young man who greeted her wasted no time in taking her straight to the duchess. He led her to the library where, with some explanation of her frightened condition, of Christian’s vengeful threats to her son, she was presented to a beautiful and stylish-looking woman.
Ravenna curtsied, or at least she tried to. “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” she began with a stammer. But glancing around at the duchess’s companions, she suddenly felt foolish. All eyes were on her. “It’s just that I didn’t know who else to turn to,” she went on. “My husband, Lord Launceston, he’s—”
“He’s threatened your son?” The duchess frowned. “What’s wrong with Lord Launceston, anyway?” She seemed genuinely concerned when she approached Ravenna, took her by the arm as a long lost friend. “Poor girl, married to a foolish rake.”
One of the duchess’s male companions lifted his hand. “Came into his money too young, that’s what’s wrong with him. It’ll ruin a man’s good sense every time.”
“That’s rubbish,” the other gentleman spoke up. “It matters less at what age one succeeds the title than what sort of rearing one’s had to begin with. Launceston’s father was a rogue, as you’ll well recall—”
The duchess gave the man a scolding look. Turning toward the servant behind her, she said, “Mr. Darnly, bring the duke’s carriage. We’re going.”
“You’ll help me?” Ravenna felt a smidgen of hope.
“What could Lord Launceston possibly do, refuse to receive me?” The duchess laughed, and her congenial eyes twinkled. “Of course I’ll get the baby for you. I’m a mother too, you know.”
* * *
She waited in the duchess’s library for almost two hours. Alone, worrying unreasonably that Christian might have attacked her benefactors, that he’d killed the baby in a fit of hatred and this was the reason for the duchess’s delay, she fell crying across the sofa. All she could think about was Paul. Relentlessly the memories poured over her with the realism inspired by the man at the opera—Paul swabbing the deck, Paul showing her how to reload a musket, Paul laughing to himself with that velvety tone, raising his eyebrow wickedly and pursing his lips with a flirtatious wink. All these things were perfect in her mind, as if he’d never died, as if he’d waltz in with the duchess at any moment, talking about the amazingly uncomfortable things women did in the name of fashion.
Finally, near two o’clock, she heard the duchess returning with her friends…laughing.
She feared suddenly they hadn’t gone at all to fetch her baby, but had been sidetracked by a coffee house or an acquaintance in the Strand. Giddy and idle, Christian had called her. Then my son’s still back there, at Christian’s mercy.
But the duchess came smiling into the library, and when Ravenna saw her son, she felt guilty for ever having doubted the woman. At her side was frightened Megan, and behind trooped the duke and his lady-friend, the duke carrying what Ravenna saw was Christian’s diamond-buttoned jacket, while the young woman had Shasta on a leash between them. After this, came the coachman—Ravenna’s coachman. Then two of her footmen, and next the cook, even Christian’s own personal servant, Mr. Davis, all of them blinking and uneasy to find themselves suddenly in the Duke of Devonshire’s apartments.
At last, bringing up the end of the procession, the duchess’s other masculine companion directed the servants to put down her trunk. It was obviously heavy with her dresses, her shoes and the baby’s things, for the duchess hadn’t only rescued her son, she’d humiliated Christian. She’d taken every servant, every possible possession belonging to Ravenna, and she’d made absolutely certain she’d brought it all.
* * *
That night, the duchess put her in the duke’s coach and sent her, along with her rescued servants, home to Wolvesfield and James’s safety. Ravenna offered to sell her wedding ring, to forward the duchess whatever money she could, but the duchess wouldn’t hear of it. She told Ravenna to take the diamonds and that ostentatious coat of Christian’s and save the buttons for her son’s future, as those diamonds were likely all she’d ever see from her husband’s sorry financial state.
Ravenna should enjoy them, if nothing else. “Buy a new dress,” the duchess advised. “And do get something a bit more fashionable.”
* * *
Five days later they arrived at Wolvesfield. Home, Ravenna thought to herself. This is where I truly belong, where we all do, but for how much longer?
For after abandoning their jobs and rallying behind the duchess, how would Ravenna tell Christian’s servants they’d made a mistake? That they’d be again at Christian’s mercy when he filed the papers of contestation and became the new and rightful marquess? Because certainly Christian would do just that. He’d prove that the old Marquess's marriage had been a sham, and he'd expose James’s illegitimacy. He’d take over everything, the rent role, the house, and even her pin money couldn’t save them.
Yet only she knew these things when the carriage rolled up before Wolvesfield’s doors. Her doomed servants jumped down from the coachbox. Mr. Davis, Christian’s valet, helped her with the baby and she’d never seen the man look so cheerful. Christian will destroy you, she thought glumly. He’ll ruin you all to get back at me.
When James came out of the house to greet her, he made as if to swoop down and give her a huge, boisterous hug. But as he neared, he glanced at the faces of those around them, the footmen and the cook, the coachman he’d sent. His gaze traveled to the carriage, painted in the duchess’s colors. The smile faded from James’s lips. He put his arm around her and, drawing the baby and her up close, his frolicsome eyes sharpened. “What has he done now?”
When Sarah approached, the expression on Ravenna’s face must have been pitiful because the maid appraised it correctly in an instant. “Oh, no, he’s gone an’ done it, then. The lousy knave’s beaten you, hasn’t he?”
Before she could answer, James took the baby with the utmost care, then raised his voice above the chatter. “I’m afraid there’s no time to rest,” he said, turning sympathetically from servant to servant. “Sir Joseph Banks is expecting a feast, so Mr. Smythson, Cook requires you in the kitchen, and Skelly, Peter, if you’d help with the serving?”
“Banks is here?”
“Upstairs,” James said, but he wasn’t thinking about the Royal Society when his eyes met Ravenna’s; worry burned obviously in James’s dark gaze. “Come up to your room and tell me what’s happened,” he said, tipping his head toward the house. “If Christian’s beaten you, I swear I’ll personally see that he’s—”
Ravenna stopped. “Promise me you won’t hurt him, James.”
Prodding her to keep walking, he took her arm. “Let’s first see how badly he’s hurt you.”
Once in her bedroom, she went to the window and looked out at the sea, thoughtlessly twisting Christian’s ring around her finger. She should have been happy to be away from him. She should have taken James’s obvious love and fed on it ravenously, but instead she felt hopeless. Christian’s distraction was gone. In its place, she found only fear, and fear in everything.
How was she going to tell James what had happened? To explain it all, about Nootka, the forced marriage, the threats of disinheritance, would mean telling him everything was about to crumble. Christian would take Wolvesfield and the peerage with it, reducing James to what he’d always been—the son of a commoner, and how could she say that with Sir Joseph Banks sitting in the next room, waiting to be wined and dined? James needed his wits about him. He couldn’t go running off after Christian now.
Because there was a chance, no matter how small, that Christian might not do anything at all. Threatening, insulting, even hitting her was one thing, but Christian might not have the guts to confront James.
Standing at the window, she felt the weight of James’s eyes as she considered her choices. If Christian doesn’t contest the succession, James doesn’t need to know anything, does he? At least not tonight.
“Ravenna.”
Just tell him what happened in London, and when Banks is gone, then tell him the rest. Christian can’t file the papers that fast. You’ll have a few days before the lawyers take action, and what could James do tonight but worry?
“Ravenna, what has he done?” James asked. “If he’s struck you, I don’t see any sign of it.”
At least until tomorrow, the truth can wait until then.
She turned to face James’s question. “You can’t see the bruise,” she said, pointing to her side. “It’s here, under my dress.”
As James stepped closer, she took off her jacket. She knew he wanted to see exactly what she’d suffered, so she tugged her blouse out of her skirt, held it up an inch or two to show the mark Christian’s fist had left.
Staring at the bruise, James betrayed nothing. He didn’t swear. He didn’t threaten to break every bone in Christian’s body, but she understood how furious he was. He turned away too quickly. He didn’t let her see the squint to his eyes, and when he paced the room with long, ambling steps, fell into the chair nearest the hearth, she sensed it. He blamed himself.
For a long moment he did nothing. He held the baby against his chest, gazed out the window behind her. “Forgive me,” he said finally. “I should never have let you go to London.”
“But he wouldn’t have hit me unless I’d gone.”
His black brows furrowed.
“What I mean is, if he hadn’t hit me, I’d still be with him, wouldn’t I?” Crouching down beside his chair, she made sure he saw the love in her face when she touched his arm. “There was nothing you could’ve done, all right? If he hadn’t hit me, it would’ve taken me a lot longer to figure out how he wasn’t going to change. He’d still be yelling at me, and I’d still be thinking there’s a chance I’d eventually fall in love with him.”
“And there isn’t that chance?”
Paul again, always there and waiting at the mention of love. Ravenna’s heart fluttered and convulsed with pain as the memories re-surfaced, nights at the piano with her arms around his stocky waist, dreaming at his shoulder, reveling in Mozart.
“I’ll never love anyone again,” she said.
Between them the baby began to fuss, and knowing he hadn’t been fed in hours, she took him from James’s arms and settled down to feed him in the opposite chair.
When the room had quieted, she told James about the opera and all that had happened in its wake. When she described the stranger’s face, his reddish-brown hair and the tranquility she’d seen in his sky-blue eyes, James looked uncomfortable. He understood. If he’d been introduced to that Salzburg man, he might have wept as well, he said.
Feeling the pain all over again, Ravenna explained the reason behind Christian’s behavior at the opera, how the rain-ruined letter had driven him to drink. She could still hear his pathetic voice when she told James about it, Christian’s bone-shattering slams against the front door and the terror, hellfire and retribution shining in his desperate eyes. Death himself, he’d said. He’s coming for me and I’ll burn in hell.
James considered these words carefully. “Just so I understand, how does this Don Giovanni end? Does the libertine suffer for his crimes?”
“He does.” She remembered the rain running down Christian’s face, the terrible conviction in his leaden gaze. “The statue comes to dinner and takes Giovanni to hell.”
“The statue?”
Guilt-ridden, frightened…at the opera he’d closed those eyes so tight, as if he might keep out the devil, if only he didn’t look. “The statue from the Commendatore’s grave,” she said, shaking the image from her mind. “Anna’s father comes back from the dead.”
* * *
Soon James had to go downstairs and entertain Sir Joseph Banks. From the door, he asked Ravenna if she’d packed anything to wear in her hurry, or would she borrow a dress of Sarah’s?
But she didn’t feel up to company. She was far too exhausted, not to mention disheveled from her five-day carriage ride, but still she felt compelled to support James’s bid for fellowship in the Royal Society. She put on Sarah’s dress. She dug up some shoes. She slipped Christian’s diamonds, along with the vial of Indian potion, into a boot at the back of her clothes-press. When at last she was somewhat presentable, when the baby was fed and everything done, Ravenna permitted herself one small luxury. “I’m yours,” she whispered, pushing Paul’s malachite ring on her finger. “No matter what happens, no matter what comes.”
With Paul’s image stifling her thoughts, she went down to meet James’s guests. They had supper in the dining room, sea trout and roast beef, while Banks completely dominated the discussion. On Sarah’s suggestion, they withdrew to the drawing room after their meal, and when the subject came around to cedar trees, Ravenna knew enough about nurse logs and temperate forests to keep Banks talking for several hours.
By the time the clock struck half-past four, she could barely keep her eyes open. That Salzburg man had deepened the wounds in her battered heart and now she found herself drifting from Banks’s opinions about Pacific foliage, instead stared mutely at the Turkish carpet in remembering Paul’s freckles, his pale, blond brows and the way he’d said tree instead of three.
Picturing it all with unmerciful accuracy, finally she couldn’t bear it any longer. Banks and the others were chatting about maples, and as they trooped off to view some botanical specimen in the greenhouse by candlelight, nobody noticed when she took James aside and, standing on tiptoe, kissed his cheek.
“Good luck,” she said.
“You’re going to bed?” James’s head tipped forward slightly. “Love, you know I’d break this off, but I’d—”
“No,” she told him, slipping her arms around his waist. “Don’t worry about me, just…do your thing.”
“Do your thing?” A bemused smile touched James’s lips, and she nearly drowned in his dark gaze when he raised an eyebrow, regarded her skeptically. “A twentieth-century turn of phrase? You invent them, don’t you? Tell me the truth.”
Hearing that long-missed warmth to his voice, she wished he would break it off with Banks, that he’d sit down and hold her in the quiet of her room while she poured out her soul to him, told him of her grief, of Christian’s threats…
Rather than suggest it, she shook her head. “I’ll see you tonight,” she said, and turning toward the door, she was about to make a beeline for bed sheets and comfort when suddenly he stopped her.
Scooping her up in his immense brown hands, he led her forward until she found herself exactly where she wanted to be, nestled to his six-foot-four frame. “I’ve missed you,” he said into her hair. Holding her close, he stood there for a moment, sheltering her, his chest a wall of buff-colored silk that seemed to her comfort personified, and when he drew back—she almost didn’t let him—she felt the tingling heat of his lips pressed in a kiss against her cheek.
Breathing in the intimacy of it, his face so close to hers, his musky scent filling her senses and his broad, tall shoulder looming above her, it was enough to make her vow she’d never leave his side again.
A second more, and she had no choice. Sarah was calling him. In response, he ducked out the door in a hurry, and she sighed; not out of weariness but with joy, relief, for walking upstairs without a candle, past Megan’s adjoining room where the wet nurse slept with her infant son, she felt a surge of hope.
As dawn began to gray the night, she slipped out of her dress and into a chemise, trembling with the thought of what James had done. “At least I know he still loves me,” she mused, getting under the covers. “At least I have that.”
“But of course I still love you,” a voice answered back. “’Til death do us part, just as we promised.”
Her heart nearly stopped at the sound. She lay as still as she possibly could, like a frightened fawn, for she knew that voice all too well.
Christian was under her bed.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

From beneath the bed skirts, he grabbed her foot. Ravenna should have screamed then, when he used her for leverage, slid out from under the rope-strung mattress. Instead, as he came at her, she kicked him viciously. It did no good. All the fighting in the world wouldn’t have stopped him, for with alarming speed, Christian had climbed on top of her and, gloating at where she lay helpless beneath him, covered her mouth with a heavy hand.
Senseless with fear, she held still. Sweat glistened above Christian’s lip. His hair was a mess, and when he leisurely settled his full weight over her, pinning her down, enjoying her panic, Ravenna knew she was in terrible trouble. With pupils the size of pinheads, Christian had obviously taken something.
Then she was frightened. All the rules she’d known, all the tricks she’d used in manipulating him were thrown out the window, for with that fixated wildness in his stare, he’d turned into a complete stranger. Leaning over her, he glanced down between them, at where her breasts just touched his shirt. A smile twitched strangely at his mouth. “I wonder,” he asked, staring at her neckline, “what exactly did the Paddy do to arouse you? Did he use his hands? Should we try as much?”
She fought to turn away, but he squeezed his fingers around her jaw, held her fast. “Oh, yes, but surely he courted you first.” And leaning down close, he took her mouth in a kiss.
Filling her, devouring her with a reckless hunger, he forced her to endure the crush of his lips. Ravenna grabbed at his powdered hair and yanked with all the strength she had, but it didn’t help. He only moaned, and the wetness of him roved and deepened until abruptly, just as suddenly as he’d started, he pulled out of her mouth with a flourish.
She struggled, gasped for breath. “Get off me,” she hissed.
“What’s that you say?” He seized her waist, gave it a shake. “You want me to get you off, Beloved?”
“You don’t even know what that means.”
“I don’t?” Christian smiled. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”
“You wish.” With his palm gliding up the front of her, she realized the door to Megan’s room was ajar. James was downstairs. She’d only have to scream to bring them both running, but as she took in a deep breath and filled her lungs, Christian’s hand came up to smother her.
On instinct, she clawed at it. Fighting to get at him, she tore into his shirt, his skin, whatever she met in the midst of her panic, but Christian merely pushed her down harder, held her entire body in check with the force of his clammy, wine-smelling fingers. When he leaned down and buried his lips at her neck, she felt his tongue edge toward her collarbone, nearer her breasts, his free hand wandering until, feeling his fingers between her thighs, Ravenna’s mind went blank with fear. He’d unbuttoned his trousers, was starting to lift the hem of her chemise.
With her hands unfettered, she lunged at him. She dug her fingernails into his eyes. When he weakened his hold, she gathered up her legs and, aiming for that which he intended to use against her, kicked him for all she was worth.
Instantly, the battle ended. Making no sound other than a gasp, Christian rolled backwards and fell to the floor with knees together and eyes shut fast. Ravenna wasted no time in escaping. Before her baby woke up, before Megan wandered in to see what had happened, she had to get James and put a stop to this.
Without lights and without thinking, she threw herself into the corridor and broke into a run. Hearing Christian scrambling after her, she raced downstairs and out to the greenhouse where, finding it empty, she turned and bolted back in the house. Even as she ran, she put all her strength into a cry for James. When the echo of it had subsided, she heard voices, and she hurried desperately toward the sound, burst through the great hall, dove through the doors standing open on the lawn toward James, his protection, his towering figure rushing to meet her.
With the noise of a blade being pulled from its scabbard, she tumbled to the lawn at James’s feet.
“Launceston!” James shouted.
Sliding, Christian stopped at the great hall’s doors.
Only then did Ravenna look up. Sarah stood a few yards away. Banks, Sidney, Farrough and Harlow were all clustered around James’s mare now held by the postilion, and as these guests watched in shock, Christian sauntered down the steps in a waver. Swaggering across the lawn, he showed no sign of slowing even when James lifted his sword.
“If you’ve harmed her,” James said, extending the weapon, “you’ll pay for it in blood, do you understand me, Cousin?”
Christian beamed drunkenly. “I’m so impressed.” And with a wave of his hand, he brushed off the sword. “Of course I understand you, but I think your guests might find it distasteful. After all, rapiers are so pathetically old-fashioned.”
Bowing his head dangerously, James edged the sword closer still, but Christian went on, reveling in his braggart tone. “Oh, but I’ve forgotten,” he said, “it takes good breeding to recognize style…doesn’t it, James?”
From the grass, Ravenna shook her head. Christian, please don’t say it, she thought, not here, not now.
Yet James seemed to dismiss the remark. Keeping an eye on Christian’s swaying, he held out his free hand to help Ravenna. “What has he done, Love? If he’s raped you, he’s already dead.”
Already dead…
Christian gazed at her, waiting for the accusation to fall from her lips as it rightly should, but seeing him balanced against the point of that sword, Ravenna was struck by the strangest feeling.
The mist had begun rolling in off the ocean. Ribbons of it crept over the lawn around them. One of the guests said something to James, but Ravenna ignored them in favor of this nagging familiarity in her thoughts, this urgency fighting for her attention in every detail, Christian’s royal blue frock coat, his delicate hand near the blade at his neck.
David standing there, that’s what it was. David telling her about Christian’s death when he’d held a sword in his reverent grasp, that sword, Paul’s sword. In remembering his words, a chill swept up Ravenna’s spine. She could still see David tortured by his need to understand his ancestors, this very weapon in his trembling hands, and with Christian before her, she realized what it meant.
This was the beginning of Christian’s death.
Death…Memories fought their way to the surface, of Paul’s last gaze as the pinnace pushed off from Discovery’s side; of how only a few hours had brought the shock of his absence, one moment moving tenderly beside her in the safety of the crow’s nest, the next moment dead on the river’s bank. As confident and spiteful as Christian was in leaning against that four-foot rapier, as much drug-induced violence as she saw in his eyes, still he was alive. He was alive. The sweat on his cheek was warm, his intense gaze animated and alert, and these were things worth the price of any amount of suffering.
“Ravenna, tell me,” James urged.
And knowing destiny rode on her answer, she turned away from the image David had vested in her and looked up at James with solemn resolve. “He’s done nothing. Please, just put the sword away. I won’t mourn him or anyone else ever again.”
“There’s nothing to mourn. If he’s raped you, he deserves to die.”
“No,” she said, watching the way Christian’s features sharpened. “He’s my husband, and you can’t kill him for doing what he has the right to.”
“I can and shall kill him.” And giving him a push, James forced him back with the tip of the sword. Blood trickled from Christian’s chin. It ran in the channel engraved along the steel, and yet it hardly mattered; quiet and unmoving where he stood pinned back by James’s anger, Christian didn’t appear to notice.
Instead, his poise faltering, malice and flippancy slipping away, he ran a hand through the blond of his hair. He swayed against the sword’s point, and as he stared at Ravenna in obvious shock, she was sure she saw love in his eyes.
Then he looked away, mumbling to himself.
“What was that, Cousin?” James glanced at Ravenna. “If he’s threatened you again to ensure your protection, I’ll—”
“I said I don’t deserve her,” Christian answered loudly.
“You don’t deserve the dirt beneath her shoes.”
“Listen to me.” Ravenna put her hands over James’s, under the rapier’s S-shaped guard. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt him, remember? No matter what happened, you said you wouldn’t—”
“He’ll answer for his crimes! He isn’t Paul, he isn’t worthy of your grief or your—”
“James, this is murder.”
“Leave him alone, Beloved.”
Christian’s guilt-ridden eyes met hers, and she did see it then, that love she’d glimpsed before. For an instant, his attention lingered on her, his cherubic features drawn up in a wince. Then he swallowed, and with as much belligerence as he could muster, he said blatantly, for all to hear, “I doubt very much the marquess inherited from his real father the nerve to run me through.”
She gasped as James abruptly withdrew the sword, then just as quickly brought it swooping across Christian’s face.
Christian didn’t move. Blood oozed from the length of the sword’s trail across his cheek, but his expression of purpose was far more alarming.
“What did you say?” James asked softly.
Glancing at Ravenna, Christian raised his voice. “I said your real father. You know the one. I believe he was tall, dark, and—oh yes—wasn’t he Spanish?”
James pushed nearer with the point of the sword, pressed it tight to Christian’s heart. “One more word before these people and you’ll meet God here and now, understand? I’ll run you through, I swear I will.”
“Do you mean that?” Christian asked in a whisper. “For Ravenna’s sake, you’ll kill me now?”
“I’ll do more than kill you.”
“Christian, please just go back to London.”
But Christian didn’t step back from the sword. “I’ll go,” he said, “but only if James will first tell these people about his real paternity. Is Sir Joseph aware of your secret heritage?”
“You know I’ll destroy you if you so much as—”
“James, why don’t you tell them how the third Lord Wolvesfield wouldn’t marry your mother? How he cocked up an actress and then forced your mother to raise Ravenna as her own?” Christian smiled a little. “Now expecting your mum to be faithful after that kind of abuse requires audacity, don't you think? Especially if you invite Don Juan into your home. Imagine my lord’s surprise when, nine months later, she bore him a mongrel, a dark-skinned Mexican brat?”
“That’s enough!” Tilting the sword back, James gave Christian a tremendous shove. Christian staggered backwards, but that didn’t stop him from persevering with the story.
“Why haven’t you told them, James? Why haven’t you told your wife? Well, wife-to-be, anyway. Are you afraid she won’t marry you, should she know the truth? That your father was a Spanish mestizo from Mérida, a swashbuckler, a mercenary, a common thief? Does Sarah not have a right to know the pedigree her children will suffer?” Christian implored the guests, giving Sarah a shaky nod.
“Or will you deceive her to the very altar?” He turned back to James, leaned ever harder against the sword. “Shouldn’t she know that her future groom will not be Lord Wolvesfield at all, but James Escalante, the poor son of a half-breed adventurer? Because you see, Lord Wolvesfield’s not only lied about his blood, but he’s assumed a peerage which by right of succession is mine. Oh, the third lord did eventually marry James’s mother—on her death bed. Then he bribed the vicar to alter the parish records. Thus the title, the house, everything he calls his own should lawfully belong to me and he’s stolen it impenitently because he’s not a marquess’s son at all, he’s a lying, thieving, mongrel bast—”
James lunged at Christian. Knowing what was about to happen, Ravenna got there first. She pushed against James, begged him to stop as she fought to cover Christian’s body, to keep the inevitable from happening around her.
Yet James dropped the sword when, in the midst of the struggle, he shoved her aside. “Love, stay back,” he snarled. Turning to Christian, fists raised, he punched him squarely in the jaw, giving Ravenna an odd sense of relief in watching her husband fall to the grass.
No one moved to collect the sword. Seeing her chance, she rushed to get it, to keep it from James as long as she could.
“Are you going to kill me with fisticuffs or swordplay?” Christian frowned as she picked up the weapon. “Beloved, give the marquess his sword.”
“Christian, I—”
“Give him the sword!”
But James had no intention of taking it. With his face contorted in unbridled rage, he circled Christian, his hands making fists again and again. “Get up,” he growled.
Leaning back, Christian touched the blood at his mouth. His eyes were heavy with unspoken defiance as he attempted to pull himself up to his feet. But with his intoxication, he tottered in the effort until, grudgingly, James was forced to help.
Christian waited then for the promise to be kept.
“Kill the scoundrel,” said one of James’s guests.
“Yes,” Christian said, “give Banks what he wants. After all, he wishes me dead as much as you do, with all those precarious secrets of yours buried with me safe and sound. One good thrust and everyone wins.”
With his soft hair drifting in the morning breeze, his shoulders hunched ever so slightly, Christian seemed frail in the face of James’s leonine scrutiny, and yet he urged him. “Do you wait for the mood to strike you? Deliver me!”
When this didn’t happen, he glanced at Ravenna. “Help me, Beloved. Indulge me this once and give him the sword.”
Ravenna stepped back. His voice was so rational, so calm and needful of his own destruction, and now his words were laced with love? When he’d driven her so far in the midst of his torture, when he’d so nearly killed what affection she’d felt?
But as she stood there miserably, feeding on the love she saw in his face, she heard James issue the final prophecy.
“I won’t,” James said, giving Christian one last look before turning toward Ravenna. “Not in front of your wife, I won’t. You have until Wednesday to put your affairs in order, Cousin, and after that, God help you.”
“NO!” Holding the sword out of his reach, Ravenna backed away. “James, you can’t do this.”
Holding out a lean, brown hand, James stepped toward her. “Give it over, Love. There’s two days yet before he feels that blade, and doubtless he’ll disappear long before then.”
He took another step. Ravenna’s heart hammered as she drew back further, but behind them, Christian’s expression had changed. As if he were struggling for air, for salvation, his eyes roved in a restless darting; his lips moved in a panic even as James raised his voice, tried to reason angrily with Ravenna. “He chose this destiny, not I. Can’t you see what will happen, should he take the estate? He leaves me no choice and he knows as much!”
Ravenna clutched the sword tighter, tears spilling down as she stood her ground. “If you kill him, so help me, I’ll leave you here, James. I’ll drink the potion and go back without you.”
Pain swept over James’s dark features. “Is that what you want?” Sharp voice, full of anger. “Because he’ll die regardless, but if your love for me runs as shallow as that—”
“Of course it doesn’t. But how could I look at you the same way again? How can money be that important?”
James shook his head bitterly, while beyond him, Christian was pacing now, gulping between stuttered words, “Not soon enough, it must be now, it has to be now…”
James didn’t hear him. “He made you his protector at Nootka, didn’t he? Is that when he told you? Is that when the lying began? Because I could’ve killed him, if only you’d said to me one word.”
Listening to him rage, Ravenna fingered Paul’s sword, that thing of sanctity David had worshipped. “Please,” she said, and heedless of James’s fiery eyes, she approached him then, didn’t fight when he pried her hands from the weapon; instead, she moved closer until, standing so near she might have kissed him, she whispered softly beneath James’s chin, “no more death and I’ll never drink it. I won’t go back without you, I promise.”
No sooner had she said it when, over his shoulder, she saw a flash, the muzzle of a pistol, Christian raising it to the back of James’s head. In a rush of fear, she shoved the sword in James’s hand. With one swift motion, he’d turned and thrust it hard through Christian.
In Christian’s fragile hand, the pistol shook, dropped.
He lingered there for a few seconds; tilting against the length of the blade, he glanced down, and where the scrolled steel disappeared inside him, blood began to spread. It turned the white of his waistcoat to scarlet. It seeped between his fingers where he clutched at the wound, and when he staggered backward, eyes cast desperately toward Ravenna, it drained from his face in a sudden, ghastly paling of his features.
She tried to catch him, to ease him to the grass even as James followed through, pinning him down in a cloven sprawl. “Fetch the doctor!” she cried desperately.
No one did. Sir Joseph Banks stood watching with his friends. Sarah clung to James. And with the sword extended unwaveringly before him, James stood righteously silent.
Managing to get her hands beneath him, Ravenna propped Christian up in her arms. His pulse was strong. His eyes were open, but still Ravenna knew it was useless when James withdrew the sword from his body, for Christian didn’t struggle. His fingers stirred through the slickness of blood, his dull lashes fluttered, but he made no sound as the weapon came out.
Instead, gray and wide, his eyes met Ravenna’s with rampant fear. “I’ll die, will I not?” His breath was weak where he shifted on her lap. “Is that not what your histories predicted?”
“I don’t want you to.”
Looking up at her, Christian cringed. “Dear God, how can you be so? After what I’ve done?”
“Nothing you’ve done is worth this,” she said.
“No, Beloved,” and moving his hand to touch hers, he gripped her tight, “you’ve no idea the unspeakable acts I’ve committed in your name. You can’t see what a back-stabbing, grievous coward I’ve been, but I’ve—”
“Shhh,” she soothed. “Cowards don’t attack James.”
“James is nothing.” As if bludgeoned by that nameless guilt, he clenched his teeth, went on stubbornly, “If you knew what lies in wait, you’d understand. You’d hate my very name and thank God for this day—”
“Quiet now,” she urged him. “Lie still until the doctor comes.”
But behind her, as James ordered the postilion to take the mare, to fetch the stable boys for Christian’s body, Ravenna heard Banks add with a shout, “And don’t bring the surgeon! We can’t have him recovering now, can we, Wolvesfield?”
As the boy went running, Banks stooped to the grass. He picked up the pistol, and Ravenna wanted to punch him when she saw how his face simmered with pleasure in examining the weapon, in glancing at James. “What a stroke of luck,” Banks mused.
With Sarah hovering at his side, James frowned.
“Plainly self-defense,” Banks explained. “I tell you, by Friday you’ll be appending to your name the letters F.R.S. if I have anything to say about it, regardless of who your father was.”
James’s eyes narrowed. “You’d make me a fellow? But you haven’t even read my treatise. And the voyage itself has been—”
“Oh, I’ll read it…eventually. They’ll have to on Thursday when they elect you, and you’ve most definitely earned it. When this rascal kicks off, a great many of my mistakes go with him and I owe it to you, my friend. I owe it most humbly to you.”
James studied Banks suspiciously, as if he didn’t believe what he’d said. “So I’ve spent nearly two years at sea and my treatise won’t even be read? I’m to be elected purely in payment for services rendered?”
Banks gave a nervous laugh. “I merely meant that, as I’m so indebted to you, I see no reason to suffer you the usual formalities of—”
“I hold no regard for what you meant. I am not your hired assassin, Mr. Banks. I am not.”
James glared at Banks. On Ravenna’s lap, Christian groaned; he tore at the place where the sword had been, and seeing him suffer, she pulled at James’s hand. “He needs to be in the house where it’s warm. I won’t have him out here for Banks to—”
“He’ll die where I say so!” James jerked his hand out of hers. “Had he gotten his way, I’d lie there in his place. Would you rather it were me?”
That sudden anger to James’s voice, as if he hated her, made Ravenna suck in a breath with tears, but in her arms, Christian was writhing, moving his bloodied hand within the folds of his coat as if prompted by James’s words. “Here,” Christian said. “Look here, in my pocket.”
His fingers closed around hers. Something was in his grasp, a small package, heavy and made wet by the wound. Even without looking at it, she knew by the feel what the package contained: As newly bought as the gun itself, a handful of bullets lay sealed and undisturbed within that paper wrapping.
She passed it to James, watched his mouth open.
“For my head, had you failed me,” Christian mumbled.
James looked down at the bullets in his hand, then back at Ravenna. It was only then she saw the rampant emotion in James’s eyes, the anger sliding fast into doubt, as if he needed her reassurance, as if he were saying, How could I have known? What kind of idiot raises against me an unloaded gun?
Banks chuckled. In a burst of anger, James tore his eyes from Ravenna’s and, removing his hand from around Sarah’s back, he put it forth to Banks viciously. “Give me the pistol.”
“It’s not even loaded.” Banks smirked broadly. “You’ve just killed him for nothing so much as a trot with his—”
“Give it to me! And I’ll thank you to leave this house without a word to anyone regarding what you’ve heard.”
Banks squinted at James, toying with the pistol. “With such a tone, young man, why ever should I grant you that?”
“Because Christian’s told me everything he knows about you, all of you,” Ravenna said over her shoulder. “Now give James the gun and get out of here, or I’ll start naming names.”
She waited for Banks to react, but he didn’t. As if he’d heard nothing, the man kept his focus on James until finally, from Ravenna’s arms, Christian murmured faintly, “The Hadean Club, Beloved. Begin with the time Banks hired fifteen boys to fondle his—”
Already Banks was walking toward the house.
James didn’t wait for Banks’s friends to recover. Forbidding the stable boys to lay a hand on Banks’s carriage or assist the man’s servants in any way, he sent them instead to bring the surgeon and Reverend Wells while, with his own hands, James lifted Christian and carried him inside.
Up the front steps and into the great hall, James didn’t pay any attention to the blood smearing his best coat. Sarah was quick to touch him at every turn, leading him by the arm, ushering him into the bedroom with her hand at James’s back, and when she’d smoothed out the blankets for him to lay Christian down upon, the maid whispered, “Did you think I’d an eye on your money, Jem? I’ve known forever, you’d no fear in tellin’ me.”
Downstairs, Banks’s servants complained loudly as Mr. Scott roused them and sent them to packing. From Megan’s adjoining room, the baby began to cry. Megan herself scurried out in her bed gown to fetch the kettle and fresh linen, the housemaids ran about in haste, and all the while James stood in the corner, watched in silence as his future marchioness did the work of a common servant.
Sarah knew well enough how Ravenna reacted to blood. While the maid put pressure on the wound, she patiently directed Ravenna to unbutton Christian’s high collar, to take off his cravat, his shirt and waistcoat. Ravenna tried to keep from fainting as she did these things. She lifted the soaked fabric from Christian’s stomach. She kept her attention on the set of his thick, adolescent jaw, his soft brown brows, and holding his hand as it grew lax and cool in hers, she watched as Christian slipped away before her eyes.
The housemaids removed the rest of his clothing. They wiped away the remaining blood, but Christian had lost consciousness by then. The air came in and out of him with the weakest of breaths. His powder-dusted hair made a mess on the pillow; his cheekbones looked white in the strengthening dawn, while his lips, full and opened the smallest bit, seemed like those of a sleeping child.
Seeing it all unfold before her, it numbed Ravenna with a sense of truth, as if she knew the secret of the universe and the responsibility was too much, too awful. This is the end of it, she thought grimly, squeezing Christian’s fingers in hers. When he goes, there is no more, just days and days of living here and trailing desperately after James.
The reverend arrived forty-five minutes later, but she sent him away. When the surgeon came shortly thereafter, she didn’t answer any of his questions, either. Instead, she stared blankly at the rabbit fur trimming of the cloak Megan had put around her shoulders and she barely noticed what the man did or even how long he worked. When he gathered his medical implements and went on his way, he left Christian in a swathe of stained linen, pale and fragile, the back of his hand cold in Ravenna’s.
Soon the housemaids arrived to change the bedding, and she watched in quiet horror as they lifted Christian from the bloodied sheets. Like a doll without stuffing, that’s what he seemed, and she sunk even further into her shock until at last Megan took her from the room.
They didn’t speak as Ravenna got dressed. The nurse had little Eli in one arm and seeing his face, those wide baby eyes, she felt an impossible distance between them. Everything is laid out for you, she thought, watching Megan lay him gently in his cradle. There’s no free will, but only destiny, that’s the real truth of it. Everything is fate and we’re all its prisoners.
It seemed only a moment had passed and Megan was gone, a few moments more and James came in, bringing Shasta with him. He tried to persuade her to eat, to lie down, to come away with him while Christian slept, but she wouldn’t leave. She stood at the foot of Christian’s bed and stared at his lifeless face, thinking, This is the death you never saw, this is the way Paul looked on that river.
Eventually she lay down next to him. She closed her eyes, thought thoughts of death, felt it settling heavier than the blanket covering Christian’s form until, finally, certain he still breathed, she dared to sleep. Then the riverbanks, the muskets, the silver watches and Indian longhouses, these things troubled her no more. Curled around Christian’s limp hand in hers, she fell under the weight of dream.
* * *
She was in her boat. In a heavy morning fog, pulling away from the government dock at Mitchell Bay, she found herself aiming for Stubbs Island without radar, going by the compass on her dash.
Suddenly, ahead and toward the edge of her visibility, she glimpsed the roll of a Dall’s porpoise where it broke the water’s glossy surface. She killed the motor. Her wake washed at the boat’s transom as she stepped outside onto the deck. Seconds later, a soft whoosh of breath cut through the stillness. He was circling her. The porpoise’s white sides rushed in a blur beneath the black water as he made two more turns around her boat and then, with a hurried blow, he dove down deep.
She knew she wouldn’t see him again. Still she waited, listened carefully. She heard only murrelets in reply.
And then, as dreams are apt to do, what happened next both confused her and seemed perfectly reasonable. Christian stepped out of the boat’s cabin. Dressed in the same blue frock and bloody waistcoat, his coltish face was vivid with health as beside her he yawned, stretched his arms to the sky.
How did you survive? she thought frantically. And where have you been all this time while I’ve grieved for you?
“So how do you sail this thing?” Christian grumbled, looking around at the fishing rods in their stainless holders. “Beloved, why must I perpetually end up at sea? Why does God insist upon tormenting me?”
At the sound of his voice, Ravenna woke up. The dark light of a rainstorm fell on the bed from the window above. Behind her, against her back, she felt Christian’s body move ever so slightly as Megan answered him from the next room. “You’re awake,” the girl said. She scampered to the bedside, choked back her surprise in staring at Christian. “Should I send for the doctor? Should I bring m’Lord Wolvesfield to—”
“Please,” Christian asked, “what is the day?”
“Why it’s Tuesday, m’lord. I’ll fetch Sarah.”
Hurrying toward the door, she shouted Sarah’s name in the corridor outside. Her calls faded into the depth of the house as carefully, so she didn’t disturb him where he lay against her, Ravenna turned to look at Christian.
Seeming slight where he sank in the mattress, he lay on his back. His chest rose and fell with strength. There was color in his face, however faint, and his eyes, although heavy with pain, followed everything she did with tranquil attention.
He was still alive.
In disbelief, Ravenna dared to lift her hand and brush the hair from his forehead. “I dreamt of you,” she told him softly. “You were in my boat. We were in the future.”
“It’s Tuesday,” he whispered, gazing up at her.
“Yes, you’ve slept through almost two days, and I must’ve slept through at least half that—”
But raising his fingers gently to her lips, holding her enrapt with aching, unfulfillable eyes, he murmured to himself, as if she were a portrait and couldn’t hear his words, “You’re so beautiful…” He let his touch linger, his throat constricting in a miserable swallow, until at last he turned away.
Ravenna didn’t move. She felt his fingers slip from her lips, fall back on the pillow.
Then Sarah came.
With slippers loud on the hardwood floor, the maid approached the bedside and pulled back the coverlet from Christian’s stomach. He didn’t look at her when she removed his bandage. Inspecting the wound, Sarah replaced it carefully before laying the back of her hand to his cheek. “I’ve somethin’ for the pain, if you want it, m’lord.”
Staring languidly at the green and white stripes of her gingham dress, Christian didn’t answer.
“Yes,” Ravenna said, breaking the stillness.
Sarah nodded, and covering him again, she lifted a worried brow at Ravenna. “You all right?”
She shrugged; given all that had happened, she wasn’t sure of the answer herself.
“You’d best come down to the kitchen,” Sarah said, “let James have a look at you.”
Ravenna hesitated. When Christian shifted in the blankets beside her, glanced at Ravenna with a listless gaze, sternly Sarah put out her hand. “Come on, then,” she said.
“In a moment,” Ravenna heard herself say.
The maid sighed, but she didn’t argue. When she’d gone from the room, Ravenna felt the weight of her disapproval lifted from the air until there was left only Christian and her, familiar and alone with a thicket of silence between them.
For several seconds, they did nothing but stare at each other. Then, outside in the drizzle of rain, she heard the dull staccato of a horse being ridden fast into the stable yard. Hearing it, too, Christian blinked, and with his serenity faltering at the sound, he drew in a long breath. “Ask me,” he said, his voice trembling, his eyes dropping from hers.
Ravenna bit her lip, let her attention wander to the window, to the treetops swaying in the breeze outside, to anything other than the memory of what he’d done, for that’s what he meant. Ask me why I tried to rape you, he was saying. Ask me the reason I wanted James to kill me.
“Please,” Christian said, “I haven’t the courage to tell you unbidden.”
She thought then of how he’d kissed her in London, desperate and awkward and trying so hard, and in the carriage, how his hatred had shattered under her touch. She’d refused him, she’d teased him, and never once had she said those three little words, no matter how much he’d begged her. Now where he lay awaiting her blame, he expected her to deliver him the final blow. “I know why you did it,” she said.
With the smallest of movements, he shook his head. “You don’t. What I’ve done to you, it goes beyond what you know.”
“And what have you done?”
Licking his lips, his eyes drifted aimlessly, further still from meeting hers.
“Christian?” she asked.
“I’ve stolen nine months of your life,” he whispered. “I’ve nourished your grief with lies and basked in your company like a wolf among sheep and it’s wrong, Beloved. I’ve so mortally wronged you…both of you.”
There came then the sound of porcelain smashing to the floor downstairs. Ravenna shivered. Something terrible would leave his mouth, she could sense it, that nameless dread of his given form and substance to frighten her the way that he’d been frightened, ever since that night he’d left in a daze.
“Both of who?” she asked, barely breathing.
His heavy gaze moved across the room, and then suddenly his lips pursed. Shouting downstairs, somewhere in the basement kitchen. Ravenna heard it only faintly, but Christian’s eyes grew wide with fear. “He’s here.” Holding his head off the pillow, pupils darting, Christian listened as the shouting faded and the house quieted into the sound of the rain.
“Who is?”
His attention shifted toward the door, as if nothing existed but the mysterious danger he envisioned downstairs. “Do you love me, Ravenna?” He stared at the painted oak. “Do you care for me even a little?”
Smoothing back his flaxen hair, she pushed him gently down on the bed. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. It’s probably the surgeon come back to check on you, it’s been two days since he—”
“Please, Beloved, do you love me?”
He looked at her then, imploring her, but she didn’t want to say it, not even if she’d felt it for a smattering of an instant when he’d lain in her arms, losing his life before her eyes. Still Christian waited, cowering in dread, until finally she summoned the courage to lie. “Yes,” she said. “Of course I love you. I know I shouldn’t, but—”
“Then go downstairs and tell him I’ve died a hideous and painful, rightful death, please, Beloved. Should you care for me at all, save me from him, save me from having to look on him again.”
“Whoever you think is out there won’t be able to get past James, and James won’t—”
“Don’t you see? He’ll send me to hell, he said as much. He’s come halfway round the world to deliver his vengeance and I can do naught to prevent it.”
With these words, she knew. He was talking about the letter. The fear in his face was exactly the same, missing the rainwater running down his cheeks and his waistcoat soaked from the storm but no more, he was just as he’d been in London that night, just as he’d been every night since in the midst of his madness. He’s coming for me and I’ll burn in hell.
For Christian, death himself was downstairs.
“The letter,” she said. “Who sent you the letter?”
Instantly his eyes shot back to hers. In a panic, he studied her, gauging, guessing, watching her every movement until, turning his head away on the pillow, he ripped his gaze from hers and covered his eyes with a shaking hand. “More than one, Beloved. God forsake me, he sent you three and I destroyed them all.”
Reaching for his fingers, she pulled his hand away from his eyes. “The letter was for me?”
Terror, absolute and cringing the corners of his pitiful expression, that’s what she saw while somewhere in the rooms below, urgent voices echoed through the house.
“The letter you left in the street was for me?”
“Yes,” he said, swallowing hard.
Closer, clearer, downstairs the urgency grew into shouts, a woman’s voice hysterical and screaming for James. Sarah’s voice, she realized, and beside her, Christian convulsed at the sound, but Ravenna couldn’t relent now, not when she was so close to learning his secret.
“Who sent it?” she asked.
“Please, Beloved, understand that—”
“Who is it that’s coming for you?”
“—That I couldn’t bear to lose you,” he whined. “How was I to tell you, after what I’ve done to you both? That he’ll kill me is nothing compared to the way you both shall look at me, and had James done his duty, I should never see it, God how I wished to never see this day.”
“Someone wants to kill you?”
Christian’s eyes rolled back in his head.
“It’s Richardson, isn’t it? He wants his money, he wrote to me for money, didn’t he? Didn’t he?” Ravenna shook him hard, trying to get some semblance of an answer, but he merely lay still beneath her hands, his eyes shut fast against her. “Christian, how can I hide you if you don’t tell me what’s happening?”
“There can be no hiding from the righteous.”
“Listen to me, whoever it is, I’ll go downstairs and pay them off, I’ll give them Launceston if I have to, just tell me who they are and what you did to them, all right? What did you do that made someone come to kill you?”
Silence downstairs. Slowly, Christian turned his head toward Ravenna and lifted those thick, brown lashes. “I deserted him,” he said, his lower lip quivering.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I listened to his fears and devotions for the length of a night, then I left him in that wretched, barbarous place to die like an animal.”
“Christian, I don’t know what you’re—”
“I viciously betrayed him, actually,” he went on, trembling heavily now. “He was too weak from his wounds to escape, so he made a diversion and sent me, trusted me to bring back James and the marines, but when you found me, Beloved…”
A dark dread stole over her heart. “Vancouver’s marines?”
“I had every good intention, before God, I swear I did, but had you known, had you recovered him, you’d have taken him in my place, you’d have left me to fester and rot with those Spaniards and married him without another thought.”
She couldn’t believe. She didn’t dare believe.
But without seeing, drowning fast in the shock of what he’d said, she forced the question from her mouth. “Paul’s alive?”
Another crash downstairs. Something heavy clattering to the floor, and then there came a desperate cry that tore into her soul, thick and tortured and breaking with pain, carried up the stairwell on a flood of emotion. She dropped Christian’s hand. She reeled from the sound, for that voice, familiar as her every dream, hurting her ears with tangible, unimaginable life, that voice calling her name was his.
“I’m sorry,” Christian whispered, sucking in the words with a fearful gasp. “I love you, Ravenna, please remember always how I loved you.”
Thrashing, someone clambering wildly up the stairs and before she could even think, she turned away from Christian’s plea; she listened while in a desperate scuffle, down the passageway footsteps raced, slid to a stop outside her door.
The handle turned. The door flew open.
And there was Sarah’s face, bright from running, her eyes a mixture of elation and worry. She stepped cautiously into the room, her hair loose and hanging thick about her cheeks, her hands held out toward Ravenna’s. “Come here,” she said, beckoning to her. “Give me your hand, let me get hold o’ you before I go tellin’ you—”
Again downstairs that voice came raging, battering the stillness, screaming her name.
In an instant, Ravenna had leapt from the bed and heedless of Sarah’s hold on her, she’d made for the door, fighting the maid, pushing against her even as Sarah urged her to reason. “You’re not fit to go rushin’ about, you’ll hurt yourself, you’re in no fettle for such a shock—”
But Ravenna broke past her, ran down the passageway and aimed for the staircase; nearer and deeper into the house, she rushed after that familiar voice, her heart bludgeoned by hope, so frightened she was that this was all a misunderstanding, a hallucination born of Christian’s madness until, clearing the final landing, Sarah’s pleadings yielded to James’s shout. “Do you wish her harm?” James demanded. “It’s too much for her, she’ll fold at the sight of you, she hasn’t the strength to—”
When she reached the corridor, James fell silent.
One of the marble busts in the passage had toppled to the floor. The servants, all of them, cowered in a huddle near the back stairs entrance while James, breathing heavily, stood in the great hall’s open doors not twenty feet away, his black hair come loose from its ribbon, his coat half off his broad shoulders, and bent over with straining arms he struggled to contain, fighting and alive with eyes so blue…
She felt weakened and dizzy as the truth of it took hold, for locked in James’s arms was Paul.
Drawing in a sharp breath, Ravenna fell hard against the maid. Her knees begged to crumple beneath her. Her pulses raced, but Sarah held her firmly by the arm, whispered in her ear to be calm even as Paul gave a violent tug against James’s grip and broke himself free.
Swaying from the effort, his stocky frame straightened as he looked at Ravenna. That face she’d missed, his strong, rugged chin, his angular cheeks and his eyes, the color of the months of sea without him, that humble face she’d imagined a thousand times from memory stared at her as real and surely as James beside him. He was solid in a way her dreams couldn’t have made him, and when he said her name, the sound paralyzed her, made her insides whirl with pain and longing and unbearable bliss at the resonance, the physical feel of his tone.
He was alive!
With his hands poised at his narrow hips, he took a step toward her hesitantly. He wiped at his cheek with the back of his wrist. He gazed at Ravenna with fearful expectancy, waiting, dreading, but she couldn’t even form words for looking at him. Stunned and astonished, she could only think of how many nights she’d lain praying his death had been painless, picturing his lifeless body in her mind’s eye to drive home the fact again and again, he’s dead, he’s never coming back and you’ll never hear his voice again.
But he wasn’t dead. Instead, he caught her listless eyes with an asking look, his jaw shifting nervously the way it always did when he was unsure of himself.
“Ravenna,” he said, and his pale brows creased uncertainly, “Ravenna, I know you’ve been gettin’ along without me an’ that, but…”
Hearing the insecurity to his voice, she began to cry, gasping, letting the tears come over her with a vengeance, for how could he know what she’d been through without him? You’re alive, she thought, oh God, you’re alive.
He came toward her then with unbalanced steps, his ordinary face made so beautiful by the love she saw in his expression. Soaked to the skin by the storm outside, his clothes were rumpled and frayed from traveling. His dark hair, drenched where it fell in his eyes, had grown long once more. It needs to be cut, she thought stupidly, but when he sank to his knees, she couldn’t move or even lift her hand to brush that hair back from his brow. She could only stare at him, sobbing as he buried his face in her stomach and wrapped his burly arms around her.
* * *
She cried for a long time, senselessly, violently, gasping in staggered breaths until she felt she’d used up the last of her soul. She bent over his kneeling form without thoughts or revelations, just this unleashing of grief as she wailed and shook, holding him to her, feeling him melt against her like an abandoned child until finally, reticently, he drew himself up and got to his feet.
Then she saw the scar. Running the length of his jaw from his right ear to the cleft in his chin, it was as if his neck had been slashed in a clean, meticulous line. She shuddered with the sight. Unable to keep herself from reaching out, she traced the trail of it through the shadow of his beard. But as the tears rose up inside her again, she couldn’t form words to ask, couldn’t guess what had made that scar or how he’d survived it.
Behind her, she heard the servants retreating. James whispered to Sarah, Megan moved in swishing strides up the main staircase, but there seemed only Paul standing before her, staring at her as she stared at him. Her throat was a rasp of crying as she slid her fingers up the front of his shirt. Unbuttoning it, feeling desperately inside for the tawny hair, she searched beneath until she’d found exactly what she’d feared she would—scars, left by gunshot and painfully thick, riddling his stomach and now-thin side.
He stood placidly while her hands moved over him. He gazed at her with weary eyes, but all she could see was that burning of his soul she remembered so well, ripping at her grief, tearing it asunder as the nearness of him, the overpowering presence he had made her head swim with a desolate passion.
Raising her hands to his stubbled face, she leaned closer. His shoulder-length hair slipped down between them when gently she touched her lips to his. Warm and unsure, he responded clumsily at first. He barely nuzzled her, as if he couldn’t allow himself to trust her affection. Then, in a slow and drugging caress, he began to kiss her, parting her lips, pulling her closer in a feverish embrace until she was drowning in the feel of his solidity.
When at last he slipped his cheek to hers, Ravenna was trembling in the shelter of his hug. “We’re all right now,” he told her reassuringly. “We’re together, we’re gonna be OK.”
Holding her near, those strong arms rocked her back and forth in a shuffling of boots, calming her, quieting her down. When at last she had, she heard James’s voice behind her. He was whispering to Sarah. Sarah whispered back.
Then Paul stroked away the hair from her face. Putting his mouth gently to hers for one last kiss, his gaze shone with reverence when he spoke. “You’re still mine, yeah?”
Staring at him in disbelief, letting her love for him well up in her heart, she lifted a trembling hand to show him the malachite ring on her finger.
Solemnly, he nodded. “You didn’t get the letters, did you? I sent three letters when I couldn’t get out of Mexico myself, I couldn’t sail with these fellahs, they’d too many men, and I—”
“Christian got the letters.” That image burned in her thoughts, the way he’d walked into the afternoon traffic with the rain coming down on his choirboy head. If only she’d looked at that letter in his hand, if only she’d seen its rain-smeared words in Paul’s messily written hand.
“And the watch?” he asked. Flash of anger in his eyes. “He’s lied about the watch as well?”
She pushed back the memory and the rage that went with it. “He said,” and she swallowed, trying hard to manage the words, “he said he never saw you, that he didn’t know anything about it or where you’d—”
“He knew,” Paul grumbled, shaking his head. “I gave him that watch because I knew he couldn’t stand t’keep it to himself. I thought when you saw it, you’d get the truth out of him, that maybe James would come lookin’ fer me.”
“In the same Indian village?” James’s words, from somewhere behind them. “You helped him escape and you knew he’d lie?”
“I’d no idea what she’d do without me. It took me five weeks t’get out of that godforsaken place, do you know that, Ravenna? Five weeks. You could’ve been tryin’ to top yourself every single day, for all I knew. I had to send him. I had t’take the chance he’d mistreat you or…”
His voice trailed off, for on the stairwell behind them came the clatter of shoes, Megan’s shoes. With her skirts hiked up and panic in her eyes, the girl hurried downstairs toward James and Sarah, and when she turned to Ravenna and pressed her hand, Ravenna felt a surge of dread.
“What is it?” James asked, searching the girl’s frightened face. “Where’s the baby as I told you?”
Megan didn’t answer right away. Instead, she broke into miserable tears, and Ravenna was petrified. My son, she thought, something’s happened to Eli.
Then she saw the blood on her hands. “It’s Lord Launceston,” Megan cried, tugging desperately on Ravenna’s fingers. “He’s ill, he’s very ill—”
Ravenna didn’t yield to her. At the mention of Christian, she stood there numbly and the fear she’d had for her child drained away and collected within her, merging and pooling with that hatred, too long dormant and flourishing in her heart for him, for Christian and what he’d done. She thought of his Indian stories, designed to make her convulse in tears. She thought of the glee with which he’d smashed Paul’s watch. The lies, the shame so full and blatant in Christian’s eyes, and all the while he’d known, he’d known that Paul lived.
As if from a distance, she watched passively as the girl struggled, as she pleaded for help, and still Ravenna felt nothing, only Paul’s weight against the front of her and that vengeance swearing in her battered soul. “So he’s ill,” she said finally. “So what.”
“But he’s dyin’! He hasn’t another moment if you don’t come to help, oh please you must come, please, m’lady—”
Ravenna turned away, toward Paul and his comfort. “I don’t care,” she said, slipping her fingers around his waist. Anything she should have felt or might have with such words as death and Christian had been crushed by the weight of Paul’s blue eyes, and pressing close to him, she ignored the girl’s babbling. The warmth of Paul’s throat seemed surreal, his hands a sedative, and folding against him in quiet surrender, she closed her eyes tight. “I didn’t want to marry him,” she murmured, sliding her hands up his broad, silky chest. “You believe me, don’t you? How could I have known you weren’t really dead?”
Far from accusing as she felt she deserved, his voice was gentle. “You couldn’t,” he said, stroking back her hair. “Whatever he’s done t’you, it’s my fault, not yours. I’m the fellah who got himself killed, remember? I’m the one who was daft enough to trust him.”
“But I married him—”
“Ravenna, what you do after I’m dead, it’s completely up to you. Don’t you remember me tellin’ you that? Isn’t that what you promised me before the voyage began, that you’d put me aside and get on with your life?”
She remembered that night at St. Paul’s Cathedral, the first kiss between them and the way he’d been so terribly nervous, awkward in letting his hands explore her. Thinking of it now, she started to cry, shivering as he held her tighter in his arms.
“Do you remember?” he asked.
She wanted to answer, opened her mouth to say yes, they’d agreed and all those months she’d tried so hard to do as he’d asked, but no sound came out. She nodded instead.
“You promised,” he said, “so all you’ve done is keep your promise to me, yeah? Whatever you’ve done with him.”
But Megan was tugging on Sarah now, begging in a small voice for someone, anyone, to help Lord Launceston, and hearing the girl’s dismal pleas, Paul gathered up Ravenna from his chest with a sigh. “All right, then,” he whispered, “let’s calm down and go see what he’s—”
“No!” She didn’t mean to, yet she blurted it out, paralyzed at the idea of being led to that bedroom, of seeing that hateful countenance which reminded her so much of how Paul had nearly, needlessly died. As Paul turned toward the stairs, she locked her hands around his big, burly arms. She held fast to him, desperate to keep him there.
Seeing the way she refused to go, Paul glanced at James. Grim and removed, James didn’t respond. He stood against the dark oak wall, hands in his pockets, head tipped back, and as Paul pried Ravenna’s fingers away, James merely watched, as if he’d expected everything that happened.
When finally he gave up and embraced her, Ravenna was crying, wanting and wishing in her blackened heart that Christian would suffer brutally, that he’d die upstairs before anyone could make them speak. “I won’t,” she murmured, feeling Paul’s lips touch a kiss to her forehead. “I can’t, I just can’t.”
Paul tried to soothe her, but like an oil slick of memories, Ravenna saw Christian’s wide, liquidous eyes, heard him say it again and again, You’re so beautiful, while the stroke of his finger slipped from her mouth.
Despise you, hate you, wish you were dead.
But tearing her from it, Paul’s hands were warm all down her back. He pressed nearer still, and she couldn’t help listening to his voice, feeling its resonance where she buried her face against his neck. “He’s dying, Ravenna,” he said to her softly. “Whatever he’s done, it doesn’t matter now.”
“How can you say that?” She glanced up, pushed her fists into his ribs. “He should die for what he’s done to you!”
“Sweetheart, you’ve never wished anybody dead.”
“But he left you to die, didn’t he?”
“That’s right, and if anybody wants t’kill him, it should be me, shouldn’t it?” Paul looked at her knowingly, shaking his head. “Honey, I know what’s been going on here, James told me as much. I know how you love him—”
“Love him?”
“—And if you don’t go up there, he’ll die and that will be the end of it. God’s givin’ you your chance t’make peace with him. That’s more than some people ever get, after the last year without me you should know that.”
“But I hate him.” She gritted her teeth, sobbing with the anger, “I could never love him, not the way I love you.”
“Maybe not as much, but you do, you’re a pushover for misery the same as me, and if there’s ever been a miserable bastard, he’s it. I mean, come on, he’s the king of the miserable bastards, don’t you think?”
Resisting that tone he sought to persuade her with, she didn’t answer. She let the tears blur her vision until finally the charm faded from Paul’s haggard face and pain, for her, for both of them together, sharpened his voice to a husky whisper. “You’ve been through hell, haven’t you?”
When she nodded, he put his rugged chin to hers. Like a familiar reach of heaven, he covered her mouth with a tender kiss, and tracing the curve of her lips, warm and urgent and desperately loving, he crushed her to him, bent around her in a swirl of devotion until it seemed to Ravenna he’d infused in her the strength of his will, all the seas he’d crossed, the ropes he’d hauled on without regret. The caress of his lips was everything, and she didn’t care about Christian then. Nothing mattered but to have Paul’s hips beneath her hands, to pull him close, to feel his breath against her face as he drew back and looked at her with unfathomable love. “He’ll never hurt you again,” he whispered.
She was glowing with what he’d just done, but she managed to say it, to confirm that trust. “I know,” she mused.
“So will you talk to him for me?”
Wiping the streaks from under her eyes, she tried to understand. “Why do you want this? Why do you even care what happens with him?”
That warmth to his gaze nearly flickered out then, like a flame guttered in the face of a storm, so that she wished she hadn’t asked.
“Because as much as I hate him,” and he paused, his jaw shifting again, “As much as I’d like t’beat the bleedin’ life out of him, I’m scared to death of what James says you’ve been like around here.”
It was James then, familiar and constant with that usual love to his deep, dark eyes, who finally made Ravenna give in. Seeing him there, she knew suddenly how he’d stood by and watched her all those months, helpless to stop her from letting Christian wear her down steady and sure. Where he leaned so still against the wall, James said nothing, of course. He watched her cower in Paul’s embrace, and with his gaze so heavy and quietly painful, James moved his mouth the slightest bit, as if he wanted to form the words but wouldn’t, Do as he asks, Love, do what is best for all of us here.
And knowing she’d do whatever James told her, at last Ravenna stepped back from Paul and turned toward Megan’s terrified face.
* * *
They followed the wet nurse, the four of them, and James explained that he’d long since sent for the surgeon in Dartmouth. When they’d first found Christian awake and alive, he’d done it then, but it wouldn’t help; Christian couldn’t survive. The surgeon has said so when he’d first packed the wound.
They talked amongst themselves in climbing the stairs, but Ravenna didn’t join them, couldn’t discuss Christian as if he were a horse about to be put down. She stared at Paul’s boots on the steps before her, the same boots he’d worn when Vancouver had forced him into the pinnace. With Sarah at her side, holding her up, all Ravenna could think of was that moment at Nootka when Christian had first laid down Paul’s watch, when he’d described so faithfully the way Paul’s skull had been stabbed right through with an Indian blade. Let Christian die, she thought. Let him commit hari-kari and martyr himself, he can choke on his own blood for all I care.
Yet when she reached the bedroom door, burning with these thoughts, unable to forgive, Ravenna gasped despite herself. No matter what she’d expected to feel in that moment, her anger absolutely couldn’t prepare her for the sight of what Christian looked like then.
He lay on the floor before the clothes-press, face-down and naked. The cabinet’s door stood open above him. Ravenna’s dresses and pointed silk shoes were strewn all around in a random mess, while her wedding ring lay just inches away from Christian’s slender, outstretched hand. His head was turned, so she couldn’t see his delicate features, just the blond of his hair, the bandage at his waist soaked through with red. Worst of all, permeating the carpet and running the length of the dusty floorboards, she saw Christian’s dark and thickening blood.
Sarah took hold of Ravenna with a gasp.
Pulling away from her, stepping around Paul in utter silence, Ravenna approached Christian’s unmoving form. She knelt down beside him and took his wrist. Warmth there, the hair on his arm soft beneath her touch, but…
There was nothing. No movement, no breath stirring through his lungs, just an unnatural stillness to his graceful bones.
She heard Paul’s boots behind her, but her thoughts were confused and swelling fast with the memory of Christian’s final words, how he’d cringed at the sound of Paul’s voice downstairs, the way he’d implored her with pitiful eyes to understand, to forgive. Please remember always how I loved you, he’d said, as if he’d already died, as if he’d chosen his end and knew he’d never say those words again.
Gently, she set down his lifeless arm. With a shaking hand, she pushed back the hair from his face. His jaw was slack. His blond head tilted at a ghastly angle. His eyes were shut, and as she ran her fingers mindlessly over his smooth temple and the end of his boyish nose, lost in the shock of it, at last she felt Paul’s hands come around her from behind.
“I’m all right,” she whispered as he leaned against her.
“You’re not,” she heard him say.
But as she stared senselessly at Christian, her thoughts shrouding over with languid pain, she noticed a shimmer of gold on the carpet, just beyond his reach, half buried beneath the silk of a dress.
The cap of the Indian potion’s vial, that’s what it was.
He’d taken the potion.

Epilogue

David, I write this for you. As you’ll learn from my papers, history didn’t quite work out the way you told me. Paul isn’t dead, and I don’t pretend to understand the connection between your time and ours to know why your book says he should be. We’ve opted to keep him out of sight, but beyond that, I don’t know what we’ll do. Lie low for a while. Sort through Christian’s mess of an estate while pondering the ramifications of letting Paul’s survival out of the bag.
Which brings me to the reason I’ve left you these papers. You could prevent all of this. For Paul and me, for Christian and the tragic, selfish mistake he’s made, but most of all for you, to save yourself, because I know you’ll open James’s safe a month after I disappear and you’ll read my account of what’s happened here. David, come back and stay with us. Come back and tell me during those long, dismal months that Paul isn’t dead. Lay to rest that awful memory of Christian’s death you carry in your heart and be him, set his life to rights the way he never could.
Or remain in the future, it’s up to you. Perhaps Christian didn’t take your life. Maybe the transfer wasn’t complete. Or maybe, and I’ll never know for certain, just maybe the potion doesn’t work the other way.
Whatever you do—and Paul and I beg you this with the utmost gravity—don’t let Killiney and Elizabeth drink the potion. James will only hold them down until they drink it again. Paul brought enough of it from Nootka to send them back a dozen times, and you can tell them this, if you see them. And I’m sure you’ll see them, if you haven’t already, once you read these papers.
Tell them for us that we hope they didn’t run into Fintan on the way home from Christ Church Cathedral, and that we thank them for giving us their lives. They can have ours, with pleasure. Paul says the woman deserves no better fate than to be mastered over by an eighteenth-century rake.
You’re welcome to her, Killiney.

Ravenna Hallett
Wolvesfield
19 July, 1793

The End

###

About the Author

J. Jay Kamp began The Ravenna Evans series in 1992 after meeting her then-favorite author, Anne Rice, at a book signing. Inspired to write a novel herself, she combined her own childhood in the Pacific Northwest with her memories of a past life in 1790s England to create the world in which she wanted to live, a world where reincarnation, time travel and fate are all inextricably entwined. Along with her three furry children (cats), she now splits her time between her Washington State home and her family’s vacation cabin near Port McNeill, British Columbia, where she is currently brainstorming ideas for her next book.

All titles in The Ravenna Evans Series (in order):

The Last Killiney
The Bayman’s Bride
The Wager

* * *

Connect with J. Jay on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or Blogger.