They lay entwined in the pool of moonlight and blanket. Cassandra ran a hand over the smooth wooden floor. The building was old, the only kind she’d ever wanted to live in. Had the people who inhabited the townhouse before her, going back generation upon generation, loved like this? The house had stood in that one place, with all the drama of love, life and death it had witnessed, for a long, long time, but not as far in the past as Lauro was traveling the next day.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“You know what I’m thinking.”
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
She was silent.
“Do you know what I’m saying?”
She looked into his eyes.
“I’m not afraid of the journey. Or of being in ancient England, or traveling back to Italy, or starting my life over. But I don’t think I can leave you.”
“There’s no other way,” she whispered, choking back her sobs.
He pulled her roughly into his arms and kissed her for a long time.
“Lauro,” she said as she pulled away. “You have to forget about me. Your life can have no place for a woman who never really belonged there.”
“I love you as I loved Teresa. To have to bid farewell to a second love is unbearable.”
“Yet there’s still time for another,” she said, the regret palpable. “You’ll meet someone else, someone remarkable, I’m sure.”
“And you? Will someone replace me? I cannot bear to think of it.” Tears now ran down his cheeks. He wiped them away briskly.
“I don’t want anyone else. But our lives have to go on.”
“Will you love me forever, Cassandra? Knowing you will is the only way I’ll be able to step into that machine tomorrow.”
She whispered, “I will love you forever.”
Scientists and travelers gathered in the lab. Calculations were checked again and again. Cassandra stood back from the action, merely an observer. She wore a light yellow dress, Lauro’s favorite color. He stood near the console. On his face was a frightened, yet determined expression. He patted the small satchel that contained his telescope, and then brushed a piece of lint off the burgundy velvet tunic he wore that fell below his hips. Beneath, he wore short breeches over black hose. There was a thigh-length black cloak flung behind his back, a flat, black cap on his head, and black leather shoes on his feet. He looked more handsome than ever. The agony of parting from him clutched at her throat.
Professor Carver sat at the controls with Yoshi. James stood near the portal chamber, also dressed in his Elizabethan clothing.
“We’re ready,” the professor said.
Cassandra had been more concerned with parting from her lover than from her son. What kind of mother did that make her? Yet James would be all right. There was a contingency built into the journey this time: if there was trouble, he could return quickly and easily to the portal exit because he would never be very far from it.
She took her son’s hand and squeezed it. He pulled her in for a hug, and she kissed his cheek. “Good luck, darling,” she said to him.
“Thanks, Mom.” James picked up his leather satchel and stepped into the portal chamber.
Lauro embraced his friends, then solemnly took Cassandra’s hand, bowed low, and kissed it. As he straightened, their gazes locked, but neither said a word. Lauro stepped into the chamber with James, bag in hand, like a heroic astronaut entering the rocket that would hurl him into space. The chamber door slid shut. Cassandra turned to look at the monitor with Professor Carver and Yoshi. Yes, the exit into the alley was clear. The professor hit the control, and with a humming sound, the shadowy silhouettes of the two men disappeared.
Chapter Ten
A month passed and there was no sign of either traveler. Cassandra took turns with the other scientists, waiting at the lab with her eye on the monitor. If James and/or Lauro appeared there, it would be a signal to transport them back. However, it seemed James’s experiment must have been going well, and Lauro must have gone on to Italy. Her son’s plan was to stay in Elizabethan England for at least six months. There was no reason to think he’d come back sooner unless he was in trouble. Each time-traveler agreed to a strict edict: do not use the portal for anything other than an emergency until your pre-set return date. If a person from the past saw someone suddenly disappear, it could have terrible psychological repercussions.
Cassandra finally told Professor Carver she was planning to return home to Boston. She had a lot of work to do to record and process her experience in Italy, and she would begin to prepare to publish the account for the public to read, as she had done with her two previous journeys. She scanned the sens-net every day for information regarding Galileo that might give her hints about Lauro’s existence, or whether he was able to follow the plan of giving Galileo the telescope, and working with him. But either he had not had success, or he was so successful in hiding his name and work it never made an impact on history. She uncovered no more information about Lauro Sampieri than she and Jake had before they’d left on the trip. The only difference was a change in the date of his death. Instead of Francesco Marino being the person whom history recorded as dying on July 2, 1509, the information now stated it was the date of Sampieri’s death. Since July second was last time he was seen alive in Siena, the people who knew him there must have taken it as the date he died.
Just as she was about to make her plane reservation to leave London, the professor called to say he’d picked up another wormhole signal. It was located in Paris. He had no way of telling if someone was going into the past in it, he said, what year they were traveling to, or if they were coming back to the present. He’d dispatched a colleague of his to check it out, but the man had found it abandoned and recklessly destroyed, probably just hours before. Elton and Cassandra agreed it had to have been Nick, figuring he had made his way from Italy to Paris. It only made sense he’d given his team the location in Paris where they were to build a portal exit before he left Siena of 2124 for Siena of 1928. Then, once in the past, Cassandra imagined he probably hung around enjoying Paris in the twenties and managed to get back to the present just before the New York stock market crashed and a world-wide depression set in. At the moment, he could still be in Europe, or maybe was on his way back to the States. There was no way of finding him if he didn’t want to be found.
Then she heard from Jake. Giulia had been re-elected mayor, though the election was only a formality, he said—there were no other candidates. There’d been two other issues on the ballot, he said. One was the question of giving the portrait of Giuliana to the Louvre, or keeping it in the Museo Civico. The other was whether or not to keep the Palio. The people voted overwhelmingly to keep both. As there was to be no formal inauguration of Giulia, a special celebration had been planned to install the painting. Jake begged Cassandra to come back for it.
“I don’t know, Jake. I really don’t want to go back to Siena. It’s too painful. I know I will see Lauro everywhere I look.”
“Cassie, this is so important to me, but for more than one reason. Giulia and I are planning our wedding a few days after the installation of the piece.”
“Your wedding?”
“Yeah.” He giggled shyly.
“I thought there was something going on between you two. I had no idea it was moving so fast!”
“It didn’t actually happen that quickly. True, Giulia and I fell in love quite soon after we met, but you were so involved with Lauro you didn’t notice. All this time we’ve spent together while you’ve been in London has just made me even more certain. She’s so much like the woman she was named after.”
“Jake, do you love her because she’s like Giuliana?”
“No, no. Giuliana was a dream. Giulia is real. She’s brilliant and vibrant, a woman of this day and age completely. She inspires me and challenges me, and she feels I do the same for her. We’re made to be together.”
“And what about your work?”
“My caree
r focus may be shifting, Cassie. I feel an urge to stop time - traveling and to devote myself to the field of art history and anthropology. There’s so much here to study.”
“Jake, I don’t know what to say. I’m both stunned and delighted, and so incredibly happy for you.”
“So you’ll come?”
“I’ll make the reservation now.”
Though Siena was once again bursting with tourists, there to get a glimpse of Giuliana in her rightful home, the locals were given preference. Each person received a free, timed ticket to visit the Museo Civico and see the famous Senese patroness. Cassandra, however, was given the VIP treatment and allowed to visit the museum after closing hours in the company of the mayor and her fiancé.
Jake and Giulia walked her through the museum plastered by her side, guiding her every step to where the portrait hung.
“Oh!” she cried upon laying eyes on it. “How incredible to finally see the real thing. The colors are so rich, yet the light is so subtle.” She took a step closer. “Look at her hair. The strands almost move. And her eyes….”
“They look through you,” Giulia said.
Jake had a comical grin on his face. Giulia elbowed him in the side.
“What is going on? Is it pre-wedding excitement, or are you still giddy with your success?” Cassandra wanted to know.
“There’s something more you need to see,” Giulia said. “We couldn’t tell you by link, we wanted you to see it yourself.” She took Cassandra by the shoulders and slowly turned her around.
On the wall opposite the large portrait of Giuliana was a much smaller one, modestly framed, of a woman with long reddish curls, blue-grey eyes, a delicate nose, and defined cheekbones. Cassandra nearly stumbled backwards. “It’s me.”
“Lauro finished your portrait,” Jake whispered.
Giulia clapped her hands together and laughed.
“But when? Why is it here? Why didn’t we know of it before?”
“The last two questions I can answer,” Giulia said breathlessly. “It was recently discovered in storage at a farmhouse near Florence. When the owner took it to an expert, and the expert realized it was painted by Lauro Sampieri, a Senese, he sent it here to the museum and they paid the farmhouse owner handsomely for it. Though Lauro is a relatively unknown artist, his style is so remarkable, and so obviously of the same school as Francesco Marino’s, the curator of our Museo Civico realized he had a great treasure on his hands.”
Cassandra approached the picture and studied it. “I don’t see Lauro’s name. Is it on the back?”
“Actually, no.”
“How did they know it was his? I can see how you would know when you saw it, but how did the curator know?”
“There was something tucked into the frame in the back. Come into my office. We’ll show you.”
Cassandra turned back to the picture, torn between curiosity and her desire to continue to admire the painting, done purely from memory by Lauro’s own hand. Jake touched her shoulder, and she followed him and Giulia into the mayor’s office.
“Sit down, Cassie.”
She sank into a cracked, leather chair. Jake handed her a thin folder.
“We’re going to leave you alone for a while,” said Giulia. “When you want us, link.”
“But—”
“No, Cassie,” Jake said. “Just read it. It’s in Italian, but the handwriting is clear. You’ll understand it.”
The couple left the room. Heart pounding, Cassandra opened the folder to find a letter written on yellowed parchment. The script was large and obviously done by an artistic hand. At the risk of her heart stopping altogether, she read.
My Contessa
She appeared to me one morning, dropped, as it were, out of the sky. Her hair gleamed auburn in the sunlight, her azure eyes unable to demurely hide the bold woman behind them. She took over my life without meaning to. She filled it with music and conversation. She lifted my ideas beyond where they were hovering, waiting to burst forth in scientific revelation.
I caught a glimpse of her body, like marble, sculpted like no Madonna could be, as she stepped out of a bath on a rooftop. I wanted her then as I never wanted anything else.
One night, under a sky so full of stars their light was like rain, I almost kissed her.
One day, I saved her from assault by a band of rogues. She didn’t know then I would have given my life for her.
Yet it was her who saved me from death.
She plunged me into her world before I could catch my breath, and showed me miracle upon miracle, so many I would have lost my mind if her cool hand had not been there to guide me.
In a field of wheat, she nearly gave herself to me. So ripe, so sweet she was, like a kernel of fine grain. Her lips told the story of how she wanted me too.
On a tragic night, we succumbed. Spent from a day of horror and turmoil, alone, on that same rooftop, we bared our naked bodies to each other. When I entered her, I entered paradise.
I loved her time and again. The night I finally left my home forever, we sped through space, under a glass ceiling of moon and stars, united in frantic motion where sweat and kisses, hands, thighs, and breasts, blended, melted, fused.
The last night we lay together, we said goodbye forever. I thought I would die. But she entrusted me to a wonderful friend. He sent me back to my native land a stronger man than I had been before I’d known them.
Because of her inspiration, because of what I learned from all the people who helped me in her world, I was able to pursue my dreams. I was the one who provided the first glimpse into the heavens. By the side of a great man, penning his words as he spoke them, perfecting the instruments he used, nursing him through illness, providing assistance when his financial resources failed, debating ideas and challenging theories with him, I helped the world to understand the universe and how it works. I may not be known, but my hand will be felt as science moves forever forward.
Now, in my old age, I am painting again, sculpting, and inventing. It is all for her. And finally, I had the courage to paint her, from a memory of long ago.
When I look at the universe with my telescope, I see her looking back at me.
Before I knew her, I knew another wonderful love. I never thought I would find another, but Cassandra, my Contessa, brought me great love again.
As I approach death, I will fear nothing. Thanks to her, I know the secrets of the universe, and I know what heaven is. I welcome it.
Lauro Sampieri, May 3, 1630
Crying tears of joy, Cassandra closed the folder and pressed it to her lips. No matter what it might take, she would find a way to be with him again.
The Time Mistress Series
Book One – The Time Baroness
A romantic, time-travel adventure set in Jane Austen's England. This is the first story featuring Dr. Cassandra Reilly, a scientist from the year 2120, as she embarks upon a journey to England of 1820.
Book Two – The Time Heiress
Dr. Reilly is surprised to find herself time-traveling again, this time to New York of 1853, accompanying the internationally acclaimed artist, Evie Johnston
Book Three – The Time Contessa
An adventure to Siena, Italy, 500 years into the past and 100 years into the future. Something has gone wrong with an historical timeline, causing a famous painting to disappear from the world’s conscious memory, surfacing only in people’s dreams.
Book Four – The Time Duchess
Sometimes, time travel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as James Reilly discovers when he journeys to Elizabethan England to solve a long debated question: Did Shakespeare really write the plays attributed to him? When his investigation leads to nothing but a violent confrontation between him and the Bard, he returns to the future to ask the most renowned time-traveler of the day, who also happens to be his mother, Dr. Cassandra Reilly, to go with him to London of 1598 and use her charms to make inroads where he has failed.
Georgina Young-Ellis, The Time Contessa (The Time Mistress Book 3)
The Time Contessa (The Time Mistress Book 3) Page 26
