Faith ran to him. “Are you all right?” Her hands were running over his chest, down his legs. “Did she hurt you?”
“I am fine,” he said, looking a bit dazed. “I fell asleep. The sun and…” He waved his hand about the beautiful room, then looked at his uncle. “What is wrong with her? She looks mad.”
Faith stood up and looked at the girl William was holding, his face white from the exertion. She took the knife out of the girl’s hand.
“I think someone has fed her a mushroom that’s made her temporarily crazy,” she said as she pulled the girl out of William’s arms.
“But why?” Tristan asked.
“My guess is sex,” Faith said. “Someone found out about a certain mushroom’s ability to get rid of a girl’s inhibitions.”
William and Tristan were looking at her in puzzlement. “You know,” Faith said, “candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker?”
That made the men nod in understanding. Faith led the girl to the door and called to Thomas to come and get her.
“Take her into the house and keep her in a room until her reason returns,” she told him. “Don’t hurt her and don’t let her hurt herself.”
In the next minute Amy came up on Tristan’s big black horse, jumped to the ground, and pushed past Faith to get to Tristan. As soon as she saw him as he had been in her dream, wearing the same clothes, on the same bed, with the windows behind him, she burst into loud tears.
“I knew it all. It was all in my head,” she said, crying copiously and holding on to Tristan’s hands as he sat on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t put it together. In the dream I saw you and I saw the men around you. I even saw Beth. This place is so different from my dream that I thought you’d be safe. And you were so well guarded. You—”
“Amy,” Tristan said as he pulled her up from the floor.
William put his arm around Faith’s shoulders and led her outside. “How did you know?”
“The mushrooms,” Faith said. “I saw them by the tower, but in my vanity I thought no one but I knew what they could do. Amy begged us to help her with Tristan, but I paid no attention to her. But if I hadn’t come back with her, and if I hadn’t taken you from that room, Tristan would have died.”
“Sssssh,” William said and pulled her into his arms so she could cry on his shoulder. “It has worked out as it should. It is his destiny to live.”
“Yes,” Faith said against his shoulder. “Maybe Tristan’s destiny is back on its rails again.” She smiled when William looked at her in question. “It doesn’t matter. Tristan is safe now.” Behind them, they could hear Amy and Tristan talking quietly inside the orangery.
“What say you that we spend tonight in the house?” William said.
“Yes,” Faith said. “I think we should. Let them have their time alone. But I’m going to send them a huge supper. Amy needs to eat.”
William laughed. “I think you would like to feed the world. Tell me, in your time, do they still have poverty?”
“I have no idea what you mean by ‘my time,’” she said with all the innocence she could muster. “I grew up in…”
“Quick!” William said. “Give me the name of an English county.”
“California,” Faith said. She looked around them and they were in the parkland that had been designed by Capability Brown. In just a very short time, she’d never again see this place, this time, or these people.
She looked at William. He was still many pounds under what he should weigh and there were still circles under his eyes, but he was freshly shaven and his shirt was so white it sparkled.
“Ah,” he said, “I have seen that look before, but thought never to see it again.”
“Do stop talking,” she said.
He put his arms around her and kissed her, then held her against him. “I might not have the strength to…”
“That’s okay, Faith said. “I’m good on top.”
He laughed and they walked to the house hand in hand.
Twenty-three
Just as they had dreaded, one moment they were in the eighteenth century and the next they were in Madame Zoya’s sunroom. Instantly, Zoë started crying.
“I was afraid of that,” the woman said. “It often happens when people want to go far back in time.”
“I’ll never see him again,” Zoë said. “He’s dead. Dead hundreds of years ago.”
Madame Zoya looked at Faith and Amy. “Was it a success for you two?”
Faith’s hands went to her hair and her face lit up. “Oh yes!” she said. “A great, overwhelming success. Nothing in my life has happened to equal what I learned and saw in these last weeks.”
“You didn’t have to leave anyone behind,” Zoë said. She pulled two tissues out of the box on Madame Zoya’s desk and blew her nose.
“Have you two decided when you want to go back to?”
“I have a question,” Faith said. “When we went back in time we arrived there wearing clothes of that time. I want to know if we can go back in our own time and keep these clothes on.”
“What does that matter?” Zoë asked, tears on her cheeks.
“Pockets,” Amy said dully. “She wants to return with her pockets full.” She wasn’t crying, but the thought of never again seeing Tristan and Beth and the whole estate was weighing her down.
“You want to take money back with you?” Madame Zoya asked, her tone letting them know what she thought about that. “I don’t think that—”
“I want to take seeds,” Faith said as she ran her fingers through her hair and pulled out long, thin tubes of cloth. Her precious seeds were inside. “I want to take some very special seeds back with me.”
“Ah,” Madame Zoya said. “Seeds. And how special are these seeds?”
“They are from a plant that is extinct today.”
“It’s a plant that’s in the Bible,” Amy said, pulling tubes from her hair. Faith had intertwined them in her and Zoë’s hair on their twenty-first day in the eighteenth century.
“Interesting,” Madame Zoya said. “Would you two like to go back now or would you like twenty-four hours to recover?” She glanced at Zoë who was still crying.
“I’d like some time to think,” Faith said as she put her hand over Zoë’s.
“All right,” Madame Zoya said. “I will see you two tomorrow at two o’clock.”
They left Madame Zoya’s house, went outside and walked to the main street. For several long minutes they stood there looking about them at the paved road, at the cars whizzing by, at the women wearing trousers and makeup, and the buildings with their big glass windows.
“It’s another world,” Faith said. “I—” She didn’t know how to tell the others that she wanted to be alone. She needed some time to think about where she’d been and what she’d done. And she wanted to think about where she was going tomorrow. Did she really want to do her life over? She had some decisions to make, and she wanted to make them without hearing the opinions of others.
“I’ll see you two back at the house at about seven,” Amy said, then she turned down the street, away from them.
“She wants to see what the books say her lover boy did after she left,” Zoë said, as she blew her nose.
“And wouldn’t you like to know what Russell did?” Faith asked. “Maybe you can’t have him in the flesh, but you can read about him.”
Zoë looked at her suspiciously. “What I want to know is where you disappeared to for those last two days.”
“Zoë, darling, I’ve heard that every generation thinks it created sex, but it’s not true. Now dry your eyes, dear, and go find out about your boyfriend.”
With that, Faith turned and went down the street in the opposite direction of Amy.
Faith didn’t get back to Jeanne’s summerhouse until nearly nine. She’d spent a lot of time walking and thinking about what her life had been and what she’d been through in the last three weeks. She kept thinking about what Amy had told them that Primrose had said abou
t destiny. If destiny was like a train and it could be derailed, then Faith’s train had been pushed into the mud a long time ago.
She tried to boil it down, but it seemed that what she’d learned in the eighteenth century was how important it was to be useful. In a mere three weeks she’d become a person who was needed by others and it had fulfilled some need in her that she hadn’t even known was empty.
Zoë had teased Faith about having come out of her depression because she found out that Ty hadn’t jilted her, but Faith knew there was more to it than that. All her adult life she’d felt that she’d had a choice between two men and that she’d chosen the wrong one.
What she’d asked herself today was whether either man was right for her. It was easy to say that her mother had forced her into marrying Eddie. And it was easy to blame her mother-in-law for all the misery in her marriage, but what part had Faith played in it all? She liked to think of herself as an innocent bystander, but she hadn’t been.
By the time she got back to the summerhouse, she was glad to see that the lights were off. She was afraid that Amy and Zoë would be up with a bottle of wine and wanting to spend the night talking.
Instead, there was a note from Amy on the breakfast table saying that she and Zoë had gone to bed, hope she didn’t mind.
“Ready?” Madame Zoya asked Faith and Zoë the next afternoon.
“Yes,” Faith said. Her hand was on the seed capsules in her pocket, and she’d given Madame Zoya three capsules. It was the least she could do.
“I’ll see you two tomorrow,” Amy said when they left the house. “I’ll make us a nice dinner and you’ll tell me everything that happened in your new lives.”
All morning they’d talked about the idea that if they went years back into their pasts then when they returned their entire lives would be different. Amy said that if Faith went back and married Tyler, then lived a new life, maybe when she returned she’d have children at home waiting for her.
Faith hadn’t replied because she had some other ideas about what she’d like to do with her life.
As for Zoë, she made it clear she didn’t have much hope. She said she’d run away from her hometown and avoid the car crash, but then what? Whatever she’d done would still be there. “And Russell wouldn’t be,” she said.
Amy didn’t say anything. She’d been so tired yesterday that she’d slept all afternoon and through the night. For the first time in weeks she’d been able to relax because Tristan was safe. As far as she could tell, saving him hadn’t changed her life at all. She’d called home, listened to the same message in Stephen’s voice saying that Amy and their two sons were out, please leave a message. It was all exactly the same now, but today she hoped to search the Internet to find that Tristan or his descendants had done something great.
Whatever she found out, she was determined to be cheerful and not let Faith and Zoë see her true feelings.
“And when we return, you can tell us about Tristan,” Faith said.
“I will,” Amy said, but she had volunteered no other information. She closed the door behind them.
“Is it me or do you think that under her fake cheeriness she looked disappointed?” Zoë asked.
“I think she has to be going through a bad time. She was in love with Tristan and she had to leave him. That must have hurt.”
“What I want to know is what the two of them did those last two days. I know you were in bed with William. I just hope you didn’t kill him.”
“He managed to live,” Faith said dryly. She was glad to see that Zoë hadn’t put on her dark makeup again. Now she looked like a pretty young woman who wanted to live.
“And I—” Zoë looked into the distance.
“Zoë,” Faith said as she put her hand on her arm.
“I’m okay,” Zoë said. “Really I am. I spent some time on the Internet last night.”
“And?”
“Let’s just say that I memorized some things too.”
“What does that mean?” Faith asked.
“I’ll tell you later—if it works out, that is,” Zoë said. “So tell me, was William good in bed? As good as Tyler?”
“Different,” Faith said, smiling. “All three of my men were different from one another.”
“You’re the one who’s different,” Zoë said. “I wouldn’t recognize you from the woman I first met here.”
“Really?” Faith said. “And what about you? Did they run out of industrial-strength eyeliner?”
They had reached the road to Madame Zoya’s house. Zoë turned down it and started walking backward. “Since my portrait is hanging in the Louvre, I thought I ought to have a face that matches it.”
Faith stopped walking and stared at her. “Zoë! Is that true?”
Zoë just shrugged, laughed, and raced ahead to Madame Zoya’s house.
Part Three
Twenty-four
“Okay,” Amy said after she’d poured the wine. “I want to hear every word of it.” She’d spent the morning in the library and the afternoon making a dinner for the two returning women.
It had taken all she had to overcome what she feared could become a deep depression. She had saved Tristan, yes, but she’d also lost him. That emotion was understandable, but the one she didn’t like in herself was a feeling of disappointment in the fact that, as far as she could tell, nothing had changed in her life. But hadn’t she said that her life was perfect? So she should be glad that she’d not changed any of it.
She’d called home, talked to her father-in-law, and he was the same gruff man she’d always known. What had she expected? That if she kept his ancestor alive, Lewis Hanford would turn into a gentleman? It hadn’t happened.
Stephen and the boys were still camping, but they’d be back in time to meet Amy’s plane tomorrow. She was looking forward to seeing them again, although she knew she’d never tell Stephen or anyone else what had happened to her. Stephen would tell her she’d been reading too many romance novels, then he’d laugh at her.
As Amy had been cooking today, she realized that the only people she could talk to about what had happened were Zoë and Faith. It was ironic that these two women whom she’d feared for being strangers might be her friends for life.
Amy left the women at the table and went into the kitchen to get the bread she’d baked. No jealousy! she told herself. Whatever had happened to Zoë and Faith in their three weeks in the past—but just minutes in this time—had certainly changed them a great deal.
Amy remembered the Faith she’d first met, a stooped-over old woman who looked as though she expected people to be mean to her. The woman who was in the summerhouse now stood up straight and looked like she owned the earth. What in the world had happened to her?
As for Zoë, she looked great. She was wearing some New York–type outfit that could have come off a runway. Her eyes were alight and she laughed at everything.
Both women were wearing wedding bands.
Amy took a deep breath and went back into the dining room. “Tell me!” Amy said as she sliced the bread. “I want to hear it all.” The only thing they’d told her so far was that they had both wanted to remember everything in both lives, the new one as well as the old one.
“It all seems so long ago,” Zoë said, turning to Faith. “Doesn’t it?”
“A lifetime. Whereas we were only gone three weeks to the eighteenth century, and when we returned, our lives were the same, this time my life has been totally different,” Faith said. “What about you?”
“Completely different,” Zoë said.
They looked at Amy.
“The same,” she said. “Not one change that I can tell.”
Faith and Zoë looked at her in sympathy.
“What happened to Tristan?” Faith asked.
“He lived. Remember that I told you I had him go to London and hire a genealogist? Well, it seems that he did find relatives of mine, and he married a young woman who was an ancestor of mine and they had four children.
And guess what?”
“What?” Faith asked politely.
“His two sons became doctors, and his two daughters married doctors.”
“Goodness,” Faith said. “A whole family of them. That’s wonderful.”
“But the bad news is that the title was dissolved right after World War I, and the estate was sold. We didn’t save his family forever, but it lasted longer thanks to us.”
They were silent for a moment.
“This looks great,” Zoë said, staring at the food. “I’m starving.”
“So?” Amy said. “Are you two married? Kids?”
Faith and Zoë nodded, their heads bent down in silence.
Amy slammed the wooden cutting board down on the table. “That’s it! I’m not going to have you two feeling sorry for me. Do you remember what my husband looks like? And my kids? Just a day ago, that’s right, just one day ago in real time, you two were feeling sorry for yourselves because I had it all. Now here you are feeling sorry for me because you two have it all. You cannot have it both ways!”
Faith and Zoë looked at each other and began to laugh.
“She’s right,” Faith said.
“Perfectly right. So who goes first?”
“Zoë,” Faith said. “I want to know why that town hated you.”
“They didn’t,” Zoë said, then paused to hold the suspense. “They did hate the person who made a man kill himself, but they just blamed me.” She put her hand on Faith’s arm. “You’ll love this: The whole thing was caused by my sister.”
“Damn my waistline, give me more pasta!” Faith said. “I want to hear everything. Don’t leave out a word.”
“You have to understand,” Zoë said, “that when I went back, I didn’t know anything more than I did when I arrived here. My memory didn’t come back until—”
“The night of the car wreck,” Amy said.
“That’s right. How did you know?”
“That’s what would make the story good,” she said, then waved her hand. “Go on. Sorry for interrupting.”