“My father was at home taking care of me while his wife lived on the old master’s doorstep, and he told me that the old man’s jaw dropped down almost to his chest. He was that astonished at what I’d done.”
“So?” Zoë asked when Russell paused. “What did he do?”
“He told my mother to bring me to him when I was seven. My mother said he’d probably be dead by then and she’d have to get someone else to teach me. My father said the old man sneered at her, said, ‘Six,’ then left their house.”
“Wow,” Zoë said. She was lying on the grass beside him, with an arm’s length between them. “Wow, what a great story. You knew you could draw practically from the time you were born, while I didn’t know it until I was an adult. Did you go to him when you were six?”
“Aye, I did. On my sixth birthday, my mother was there with me.”
“She didn’t leave you alone there with him, did she? You were just a child and with that bad-tempered old man!”
Again Russell laughed. “I told you my mother was clever. She’d had years to prepare for her only child going into apprenticeship. She’d found out that the old man could never keep servants. His rages, and the way he accused them of things they didn’t do, made them leave. No one ever stayed more than a year.”
“So what did your mother do?”
“She sent me to him with a box full of food.”
Zoë looked at him in question.
“During the years that I’d been growing up and drawing so much that she said I was driving her mad, she set out to learn to cook. Custard pies. Meat pies. They were beautiful and tasted like heaven. I was given a cold bare room in the old man’s house, but every morning she’d knock on his door and give me a box full of food. It was her plan for the old man to taste her cooking and hire her to work for him.”
“Did she get it?”
“Oh yes, she did. She was his cook for two years, then she was his housekeeper. In my third year there, my father came to work for him too.”
“So your whole family was there,” Zoë said. “And you learned your art at the knee of a master.”
“Hmph!” Russell said. “At the end of his boot was more like it. He was as mean as they come. He begrudged me everything I did, was jealous of me, and he fired my mother every three months.”
“But she didn’t leave?”
“Leave her only son?” Russell smiled. “She was a match for the master and when he told her to get out, she just laughed at him. And he knew that no one could replace her. She kept his house clean and filled his table with good food—even though he complained about every cent she spent.”
Russell’s voice lowered. “He died when I was sixteen and he left everything to my mother.”
“That’s wonderful,” Zoë said. “He wasn’t so bad after all.”
“Yes he was,” Russell said. “I’m sure that if he’d had even one relative he could abide, he’d have left everything to him, but he didn’t. He’d done a lot of work for the church but they’d stolen half the money they owed him, so he couldn’t leave it to them. My mother was the only person who’d ever come close to liking him.”
Zoë looked up at the tree leaves for a while. “What happened to your parents?”
“They’re still there,” he said. “My mother lives in the master’s house with my father. They’re quite old now and my mother writes me every week with laments that I have not given her grandchildren.”
At that, he turned and looked at Zoë. For a full minute, she thought of living with this man and staying here forever.
In the next minute, she got her mind under control. She’d only met him a few hours ago.
Russell reached across the space separating them and took her hand in his. “Sometimes a person knows when things are right,” he said softly.
Zoë looked into his eyes and she wanted to roll over to him and put her arms around his neck. She wanted to kiss him, probably even make love with him, but she didn’t. She knew she was going to leave soon and she didn’t want to hurt him or herself.
Russell saw the change in her eyes and knew that the moment had passed. “So tell me the truth about your training. Did you spend three months on mixing the color that exactly matches the sun on a pond at noon?”
“Not quite,” Zoë said, sitting up. “I never had a teacher. My talent is purely natural.” She gave a great sigh. “Some of us have to learn to draw and some of us have a gift.”
Russell sat up. “Is that so? What say you we have a bit of a competition?”
“You’re on, baby!” she said, reaching for the sketch pad that was between them.
Russell touched the paper just as she did. He put his hand over hers and their heads were close together. Zoë sucked in her breath and held it. She was sure he was going to kiss her.
“I can wait,” he said softly, and she could feel his breath on her lips. “But I warn you that I am as sure of what I want as I was the day I picked up my first piece of charcoal. You will give in to me.”
Zoë wanted to give in to him right that moment, but she pulled back. “That’s what you think,” she said, and he laughed.
Fifteen
It was nearly evening, and the beautiful room was glowing with the setting sun. It was a small, cozy room with cream-colored wallpaper that had been hand-painted with bamboo and luminescent birds.
Zoë, Amy, and Faith were sitting at a round pedestal table and before them was a feast of Amy’s making: breads, early fruit, peas, parsnips, three kinds of meat. A huge pot of tea sat in the middle of the table. Amy had dismissed the servants, who tended to stand at attention and wait for someone to give them something to do.
“So, what have you two been up to today?” Amy asked as she put a slice of rare roast beef on Faith’s plate.
The two women just stared at her. At last, Zoë said, “Should we kill her now or wait five minutes?”
“I vote for now,” Faith said.
“Okay,” Amy said, “so maybe I’ve been a little busy today and I haven’t taken care of you two the way I should have, but—”
“Taken care of us!” Zoë said, then lowered her voice. “When did you become our mother?”
“Amy,” Faith said, then took a breath. “All this,” she waved her hand to include the house, even the world, “may seem normal to you, but Zoë and I realize that we have been transported back to another time. It’s strange to us.”
“It’s more than strange,” Zoë said.
Amy didn’t seem in the least perturbed by their words or their attitudes. “More than strange, is it? Golly, Zoë, was that you riding on the back of that horse with Mr. Johns? You sure seemed to have your arms tightly wrapped around him. And you, Faith, didn’t you return today with Beth and you two were laughing? I haven’t known you very long, but I’ve never before seen such happiness on your face. And the gardeners said you spent over two hours in the kitchen garden and that you were practically wallowing in the herbs.”
“What we did is beside the point,” Zoë said, but she looked at her plate while she said it.
“Amy,” Faith said, “I think we should take all of this a little more seriously than we have been. I’d really like a more complete explanation about how you know so much about this place when you only got here today.”
“I don’t know,” Amy said. “I really and truly don’t have an answer for you. It’s as though there are two realities in my mind and each of them is as clear as the other. I remember my husband, Stephen, and my two sons. But I also remember growing up under the fists of my father and sister in that public house—even though I’ve told everyone that I grew up in America. Most of all, I remember him rescuing me, and—”
“Him. His lordship? Do you mean Tristan?” Zoë asked.
“Yes. Tristan,” Amy said. “Part of me is horrified at the thought of calling him by his first name and another part thinks that’s what I should call him.”
“I heard how you’ve given the poor man a very hard time,”
Faith said.
Amy shook her head in wonder. “I know. I remember it. You’d think that if I…or my body, I guess, came here months ago, I would only remember the past I had here in this time. But I seem to have been cut in half ever since I first saw Tristan.”
“You mean, since your first dream,” Zoë said.
“A dream that was only a few days ago, but I seem to have been purchased by Tristan a year ago.”
“Fourteen months,” Zoë said.
Faith and Amy looked at her.
“He told me,” Zoë said.
“You two certainly seem to have had a long, intimate talk today,” Amy said, her eyes blazing. “You talked about his wife and about me.”
“I did no such—”
“Are you two going to get into a catfight?” Faith asked. “If you are, I’m going to leave.” She looked from one to the other, and when they were calm, she spoke again. “I think we need to figure out what we’re to do here. Do you both agree?”
“Yes,” Amy said. “But we know that. We’re here to keep Tristan from being killed. That’s the number one task, the only task, as far as I know.”
“All right,” Faith said. “Amy, what have you found out about who wants to kill him?”
She put down her fork. “No one. I’ve thought about it until my brain seems to have turned inside out.”
“Did you think about it while you were yelling at boys about blood on the floor?” Zoë asked, an eyebrow raised.
“For your information, yes. I’ve been running that kitchen for so long that I could do it in my sleep.”
“Then why were you so fierce about getting rid of me today?” Zoë asked.
“Tomorrow you can stay with me all day,” Amy said sweetly. “I’ll let you peel potatoes. How does that sound?”
Zoë mumbled something.
“What was that?” Amy asked.
Zoë narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to go out with Russell tomorrow. We’re going to do some drawing.”
“Oh,” Amy said. “So maybe you liked that I sent you away from the kitchen. Maybe you liked that I got past your stubborn bullheadedness to meet a man you had decided you wanted nothing to do with before you even met him.”
Zoë started to speak, but Faith looked at her. “I think you should give up. You’re not going to win. And, besides, I don’t think you want to win, do you?”
Zoë sighed. “Okay, let’s go back to his lordship. You sure do like pretty boys, don’t you?” she said to Amy, who immediately started to say something angry in return.
“So help me,” Faith said, “if you two don’t stop this—” She left her threat open.
“There’s no one who wants to harm Tristan,” Amy said.
“But there is,” Faith said softly. “You and I know that someone kills him while he’s sleeping. It may seem that everyone likes him, but at least one person doesn’t. Who would benefit by his death?”
“His uncle and his sister would inherit the estates,” Amy said.
“I can vouch that the sister is a lovely little thing,” Faith said. “She adores her brother.”
“Maybe she’s in love with someone and her autocratic brother won’t let her marry him,” Zoë said.
Faith and Amy stared at her.
“It was just a thought,” Zoë said. “Since both of you are so in love with her, maybe I should be the one to try to find out the truth about her.”
“You can’t interrogate her,” Amy said. “It wouldn’t be polite. And you’re not—”
“Her class,” Zoë said. “I know. Actually, I was thinking of getting chummy with her maid. Maids know everything their charges do. And I know that for a fact from all the rich houses I’ve lived in. Husbands rarely know anything about their wives, but the maids know it all.”
“Good idea,” Amy said, smiling at Zoë. “I knew I needed you on this trip. But don’t just ask what Beth is doing, find out about everybody.”
“What about the uncle?” Faith asked.
“He’s too sick to care much about anything.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Who knows?” Amy said. “I’m sure that if I took him to our time a doctor could give him a bottle of pills and he’d be cured in three days. But he’s not in our time, so the poor man is under the care of some old man who calls himself a doctor and—” She waved her hand. “This is one point where I’ve not been able to move Tristan. The doctor was a friend of his father’s. He delivered both Tristan and Beth, and Tristan thinks the man can do no wrong. I’ve complained so much that I’ve been banned from the sickroom.”
She took a breath. “I know it isn’t right but I have so much to do I haven’t had the time to tend to William. He’s the sweetest man, but he’s so sick that he does nothing but lie in bed all day. A horrible woman takes care of him. She empties his chamber pot, and watches over him, but I see to his food. Only the best of what we have is prepared for him. I’m sorry, but it is the best I can do.”
Faith and Zoë blanched at the mention of a chamber pot, but they didn’t let Amy see it. Amy was so cool and blasé about living in the eighteenth century that they wanted to hide their own awkwardness.
“Let me look at him,” Faith said. “I’ve had some dealings with illness.”
Amy smiled at her. “I was hoping you’d say that. If I have to hold a gun on Tristan, I’ll get you in that room. The head gardener told me he thought you might know something about herbs.”
Faith frowned. All she’d done was walk through the big kitchen garden. She hadn’t talked to anyone, hadn’t picked a flower. So how had they seen her love of herbs?
Amy seemed to read her mind. “Don’t let it worry you. You get used to it after a while. Everyone knows everything about everyone else.” She turned to Zoë. “Is it true that today Russell asked you to marry him?”
Zoë choked on the wine she was drinking, and Faith patted her back.
“All I did was visit a garden,” Faith said. “Have you really started a romance already?”
“You should see Russell,” Amy said. “He could have invented the word ‘stud.’ Every female on this place has been after him and a couple have had him, but he doesn’t give out marriage proposals.”
“Look who’s talking,” Zoë said. “You and his lordship. He said you were going to bankrupt him with all the strays you bring into his house.”
“He says that all the time,” Amy said. “It means nothing. I told you that there’s nothing between Tristan and me.”
Both Faith and Zoë looked at her with eyes that said they didn’t believe her, but Amy refused to comment.
“What happens when you leave here?” Faith asked. “It seems that your body was here before we visited Madame Zoya, so do you think that after we go back, your body will stay here?”
“And do what? Clean his floors?” Amy said bitterly. “I’ve learned enough here to know that Tristan and I could never marry. We’re of different classes. No one would speak to either of us if we wed. That’s too much of a burden on any marriage. That’s why I—”
When she broke off, the other two women leaned forward. “That’s why you did what?” Faith asked.
Amy took a while to answer. “You’re going to think this is crazy, but I sent Tristan to London to hire a genealogist.”
“He doesn’t know who his ancestors are?” Faith asked. “But Beth said they’d lived on this land since ‘the dawn of time.’”
“Not for him, for me,” Amy said. She lowered her voice. “Yes, there is a, well, a closeness between Tristan and me, but I can’t marry him. And, personally, I think that when the three weeks are up we’re going to be sent back to our time and Amy the housekeeper won’t exist anymore. If the memory of me is taken away, that would be okay, but I’m afraid that Tristan…” She looked down at her plate.
“He’ll have lost two women,” Faith said softly.
“Yes.”
“So what does a genealogist have to do with anything?” Zoë aske
d.
“It’s a long shot, but I’m trying to find my ancestors.”
Both Faith and Zoë looked at her, considering what she was saying.
“You’re trying to find one of your relatives in this time?” Zoë asked.
Amy nodded. “More or less. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s the only thing I’ve been able to come up with.”
“But what if—?” Faith began.
“They’re housekeepers too?” Amy finished for her. “I don’t know, but my great-grandmother was alive when I was little and she used to tell me stories about ‘the old country,’ meaning Scotland.”
“Russell is from Scotland,” Zoë said dreamily. The others looked at her. “Sorry. So what about you and Scotland?”
“My great-grandmother used to say that we came from a village in Scotland that was just north of Edinburgh.”
“Doesn’t that just about cover all of Scotland?” Faith asked.
“Probably, but the important thing is that she said there was a statue there for one of our ancestors. I don’t know what he did, but they made a statue of him. I’ve always meant to go see it.”
“What was your family name?” Faith asked.
“MacTarvit.”
“Interesting,” Faith said, leaning back in her chair and considering Amy. “You’re playing matchmaker with the man you love.”
“Love as a friend,” Amy said, then when they said nothing, she grimaced. “Okay, so I like Tristan a lot. I’ve lived with him for over a year and we get along well.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Faith said. “I heard the two of you fought all the time.”
Amy smiled. “It’s odd that we like each other. Stephen and I never fight, and Tristan and I rarely do now that…that…”
“You’ve established who runs the house?” Zoë asked.
Amy shrugged. “I guess so.”
“So,” Faith said, “you’re looking for an ancestor of yours to marry poor, lonely Tristan.”
Zoë’s eyes widened. “You’re counting on past lives, aren’t you? You don’t want a relative to marry him, you want to marry him. You in a different body, a different time, but it’s still you.”