by Lisa Kleypas
As the woman slipped an arm around her shoulders, Addie could detect the sweet fragrance of vanilla that clung to her, as well as the fresh starch in her linen morning-collar. The fanlike sweep of her skirts brushed against Addie's as she squeezed her shoulders affectionately.
"Why is everyone bein' so dreadfully serious?"
May asked, and her laughing gaze seemed to soften Russell's countenance. Ben's expression didn't change.
"We're waiting for Adeline to explain why she was two hours late in town," Russell said, much more casual than before. "She cost us a lot of time and worry, May, and she's got to learn there's a time for games and a time for gettin' work done. But right now I want to know what she was doin' while Ben and Cade couldn't find her. "
Three pairs of eyes rested on Addie's face. She could hear a nearby clock ticking in the silence. She felt like a cornered animal. "I don't know," she said, her voice wavering. "I can't tell you because I don't know. The last thing I remember is being with Leah." Her voice broke as she tried to continue. It was all too much. She was too tired to face this any longer. "Leah…' The tension inside her snapped and she jerked her hand up over her eyes and she burst into tears.
She was vaguely aware of Ben leaving the room in disgust, and Russell's anxious promises of pocket money and bonbons to keep her from crying, and above all, May's soothing.
"I'm sorry," Addie choked, wiping her wet nose against the lacy frill of her sleeve, taking a handkerchief as it was thrust into her hand. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's happened. What have I done? Do you understand any of it?"
"She's overwrought. She just needs to rest," Addie heard May say, and she seized gratefully on the idea.
"Yes. I need to be alone. I can't think-"
"Everything's fine, sugar. Mama's here. Come upstairs with me."
Submitting to the gentle coaxing, Addie started to follow her out of the room, her head downbent. She saw a calendar on the small desk by the door.
"Wait," she said, breathing in shallow gasps as she saw the black numbers printed on the ivory paper. "Wait, She was afraid to look. But she had to. Even if it was a dream, she had to find out. The year. What was the year?
May paused in the doorway, while Russell stood behind her, both of them plainly confused by her behavior. Addie moved closer to the desk and ripped the top sheet off the calendar, holding it with hands that trembled so badly she could hardly read.
I880
The room reeled around her for one dizzying moment. "Is this right?" she asked hoarsely, extending it to May, who took it and read the date in an interested manner that was clearly intended to humor her. Addie waited with tightly clasped hands.
"No, it isn't right, sugar," May finally said. "This was two days ago." She walked over to the calendar and ripped off another sheet, crumpling it neatly and dropping it into the basket next to the desk. "There," she said with satisfaction. "Now we're right back on schedule. "
"Eighteen-eighty," Addie breathed. Fifty years ago. That’s impossible. I can't have gone back fifty years.
"Last time I checked, it was," May said cheerfully. "Now, come on upstairs, Adeline. You have no idea how tired you look. I've never seen you like this."
I880. Oh, yes, this was a dream. It could be nothing else. Numbly Addie followed her to a bedroom with fringe-trimmed curtains and elaborate flowered wallpaper. A brass bed with embroidered sheets and downy pillows was positioned between two windows. On the nightstand was a small crystal vase filled with wildflowers.
"Take a little nap, sugar," May said, pushing her gently toward the bed. "You're just tired, that's all. You can have a nice rest for a couple of hours. I'll have Leah wake you up."
Addie's pulse quickened. Leah was here? That couldn't be true. "I'd like to see her now."
"Rest first."
In the face of May's gentle insistence there was nothing Addie could do but take off her shoes and lie down on the bed. Her head sank into the softness of a pillow, and she turned her face into it with a grateful sigh, closing her burning eyes.
"Thank you," she mumbled. "Thank you so much."
"Feel better now?"
"Yes. Yes, I feel better. I just want to fall asleep. And never wake up. "
"I'll go downstairs and have a talk with your daddy. We won't talk about this afternoon anymore, not if it makes you upset. You know he'd never do anything to make you cry. Why, he'd get you the sun and moon if you wanted them. "
"I don't want the sun and moon." Addie whispered, barely aware of the light hand that smoothed her hair repeatedly. "I want to be back where I belong."
"You are where you belong, sugar. You are."
* * *
"Adeline? Aunt Adeline, it's time to wake up." A loud whisper broke into her slumber.
Addie awakened with a start, sitting up and squinting through the room. The walls were tinged a peach color as the setting sun cast its light through the windows. "Who is it?" she asked thickly, pushing her disheveled hair away from her face.
There was the sound of a little girl's giggle. "It's me. Grandma told me to wake you. "
Addie blinked to clear her vision. A child approached the bed, a skinny girl with gray eyes and long black braids.
"Leah," she said hoarsely. "Is that you?"
Another shy giggle. " 'Course it is."
"Come here. Come closer." The child hopped onto the bed beside her, and Addie touched one of her braids with a trembling hand. Her heart ached and her lips pulled at the comers with an unsteady smile. Good Lord, it is her. Leah! She had never been so stunned in her life. The woman who had raised her, disciplined her, fed and clothed her, given her pocket money, was standing right in front of her. But she was a little girl. She could see Leah in this child's face, could hear Leah in her voice. "Yes, it is you. I can see it. Tell me how old you are."
"I'm ten. My birthday was last month. Don't you remember?'
"No. I don't remember," Addie said huskily. "Why are you crying, Aunt Adeline?"
For you. For me. Because you're here and still lost to me. "Because I love you s-so much." Giving in to a powerful urge, she put her arms around the little girl and held her tightly. It didn't make her feel any better. Uncomfortable and bashful, Leah tolerated the embrace for only a few seconds before making a move to pull away. Immediately Addie let go and wiped her eyes.
"We're having fried chicken for dinner," Leah said.
"Your dress is all dirty. Are you gonna change?"
Addie shook her head slowly, wondering when all of this would end.
"Aren't you even gonna fix your hair?"
"M-maybe I should." Sitting on the edge of the bed, Addie jerked on her shoes. There was an ivorybacked brush on the painted dresser, and she pulled it through her hair after plucking the pins from the tangled mass. Same face, she noted as she looked in the mirror. Same eyes, same hair. "Leah," she said desperately, turning to face the little girl, "do I look the same to you as I always have? Is there anything different about me? Anything at all?"
Leah seemed puzzled by the question. "No. Nothin' is different. Do you want something to be?"
"I'm not sure." Addie faced the mirror again and brushed until her hair was smooth. She couldn't manage any styles as elaborate as those she had seen that day. Using a few hairpins, she pulled the front locks away from her face and let the rest fall down her back. After smoothing her bangs, she set the brush down and squared her shoulders. "I'm ready to go down now."
"Like that?"
"Yes. Is there anything wrong?"
"I guess not."
As they went downstairs, Addie noticed how beautiful the house was. The furniture was polished and elegant, draped with lace table covers and embroidered tidies for all the chairs and sofas. The curtains were made of expensive coarse linen in shades of chocolate brown and Thrkish red, while the carpets were boot-heel deep. The appetizing smells of food and coffee wafted through the air, awakening Addie's appetite and reminding her she hadn't eaten in a long time.
"There aren't going to be any leftovers when I get through with dinner," she said, aware that her stomach was beginning to growl insistently.
Leah wrinkled her forehead. "There aren't gonna be what?"
"Leftovers," Addie said, and as the girl continued to look confused, she realized the word wasn't familiar. "Extra food."
"Oh." Leah's brow cleared. They neared the dining room and the sound of easy conversation and clinking dishes. As they came to the doorway, all sound vanished. Everyone was staring at her. Even Cade had paused in mid-bite. The room was filled with people, most of whom seemed to be family members.
Addie's attention was drawn to a pair of icy green eyes, and she saw that Ben Hunter was seated at Russell's right hand. Ben was looking at her with subtly veiled contempt. His glance encompassed every detail of her appearance, the loose hair and flushed face, the warm and tumbled picture she presented, and a cynical smile touched his mouth. What was wrong? Why was everyone looking at her like that?
The silence deepened, and she stumbled forward to sit at the first empty chair she saw. "Don't you want to sit at your usual place, sugar?" came May's quiet voice. Addie stopped and went to the other side of the table, sinking gratefully into the chair beside May. Her appetite had vanished completely.
"Caroline, fix a plate for your sister, please," May directed, handing Addie's empty plate to a pretty blond woman across the table. Caroline… that was the name of Leah's mother. Does that mean she's my sister? Since she'd been cast in the part of Adeline Warner, it probably did. You'll know you're really insane when all of this starts making sense to you Addie.
"Heard you had quite a day today," Caroline said, giving Addie a teasing smile. "I also heard you're not tellin' a thing about it. Since when have you started to keep secrets from us? If it weren't for talkin' about your latest exploits, dinnertime conversations around here would be as dull as a Sunday stroll."
"It was quite a day," Addie said cautiously, her eyes darting to Ben Hunter's face. His mouth twisted sardonically before he picked up a roll and broke it apart.
She was relieved as everyone began eating again, and her tension faded a little. Her appetite came back with a vengeance as she received a plate heaped with fried chicken breasts, steaming potatoes, and string beans glistening with butter. It was difficult to eat slowly when she was this hungry, but Addie didn't want to attract any more attention to herself. As the conversation around the table resumed, May leaned over and whispered in her ear.
"You're too old to be wearin' your hair down, Adeline. It's too late to change it now, but tomorrow night I want it pinned up like always."
Addie looked at her with round eyes. Was that why everyone had acted as if she had walked in the room with her dress unbuttoned? Just because her hair was hanging down? "Was that why everyone was looking at me like that?" she whispered back, and May gave her a wry, reproving glance.
"You know the answer to that."
So that was why Ben had looked at her so contemptuously. He thought she was trying to attract attention to herself. A knot of embarrassment and resentment tightened in her chest. Addie kept her eyes on her plate for most of the meal, only looking up to risk short glances at the people around her. The heavyset man with the gentle face who was sitting next to Caroline had to be her husband. He was completely unassuming, the least dynamic of all the men. Cade was quieter around the family than he'd been with Addie. Russell liked to control the conversation, and the only one he would tolerate interruptions from was Ben. What kind of position had Adeline Warner taken in all of this? Silently Addie watched, listened, and wondered.
Since Ben Hunter was indifferent to her glances, she had the freedom of studying him unnoticed. He was not handsome in the way Leah had led her to imagine. "Handsome" was Douglas Fairbanks or John Gilbert, with their well-polished faces and aristocratic elegance, men who looked like the prince in a fairy tale. Ben was rougher-cut than that, too swarthy to be a fairy-tale hero. The lower half of his face was shadowed with dark stubble. He needed a good shave, and it would help his looks if he weren't tanned so dark. But she had to admit he was attractive in a distinctive way. Of course there were those green eyes. And the force of his personality was powerful. He had a talent for wry understatement, and a gift for cutting honesty, as well as an immeasurably high opinion of himself.
He had the muscular build of a man accustomed to long days in the saddle, exposed to physical danger and backbreaking work. But why, when it was obvious he was educated, was he working as a ranch foreman? She knew enough about cowboys to be aware that most of them were unqualified to do anything else. Where had he come from, and why had he decided to settle here? He was hiding from someone or something. She would have bet a fortune on it.
As Russell Warner spoke at length about the ranch, all heads were turned in his direction, but Addie stared at Ben's profile instead. For the first time she began to understand the situation she was in, and she felt all the blood drain out of her face. Russell was still alive. Ben Hunter hadn't killed him yet. And she was the only one who knew what was going to happen.
2
THE SOUND OF LEAH'S ADDIE, I NEED MY MEDICINEstarted every morning, a signal for the day to begin. Addie lay still with her eyes closed as she waited for that call, yawning and keeping her face buried in the pillow. Why hadn't Leah called yet? Why hadn't-
She sat up with a wide-eyed start as if a loud alarm had just gone off, her heart thumping at a frantic pace. Her eyes darted around the room. She was still here. Another world away. What's happened to me? What's happened to everything?
Her surroundings were entirely different from what she was accustomed to. The ruffly little pink bedroom was not hers. It didn't suit her taste at all. She wanted her own blue-and-white bedroom at home, with Leah's painstakingly stitched needlework on the walls and the clutter of rouge pots and lipsticks on the dresser, the posters over her dresser-Valentino as The Sheik and Mary Pickford in My Best Girl. She missed all of it. She missed the familiar shape of the radio in the corner.
"Radio," she said out loud, stunned by the realization that here there would be no radios, no electric light bulbs, no Kodak cameras or ready-made clothes. They didn't know anything about the Great War or Model T's, Charlie Chaplin or jazz music. Dazedly she pondered the possibilities. She might as well have found herself in the Dark Ages. It was that different from the world she was used to.
Flying to her closet, she flung open the door and stared at the dresses that hung there. Nothing that looked familiar. No short, jaunty skirts, no little cloche hats. She saw only long dresses, frilly blouses, and flowing skirts. The closet was overstuffed with a rainbow of garments, of shining silk, patterned batiste and thin floral-striped lawn, clouds of netting and satin roses. Obviously Adeline Warner had worn the very best money could buy. It took a minute to realize that most of the clothes were pink, in shades varying from the brightest carmine to the palest coral. "Acres of it, " she said out loud, stunned as she looked from dress to dress. "Acres of pink. " It was a nice color, but this… this was a nightmare.
On the right side hung cotton and cambric dresses, simpler in design, that must have been intended for everyday use. Beautiful to look at… but to wear? She had a feeling that everything in that closet would be just as uncomfortable as the dress she had peeled off her body last night. Addie turned to the plump chair by the dresser to regard the soiled dress and the pile of white undergarments, and her face wrinkled with distaste. It had taken forever to get out of that mess.
Skeleton hoops, with a ladder of tapes up the front. A corset, and a cover that extended far over the hips, to which a short underskirt was fastened. It was inconceivable that a woman's body could endure being bound and compressed for so long. There were stays made of bone or metal, or something equally as painful, stitched into the tight corset. It had made deep red marks on her skin. Could she manage to get into any of these clothes without first squeezing herself in that contraption? It was doubtful.
Th
e plainest dress she could find was a pink-and-white-striped batiste trimmed with clusters of ribbon loops. It took several minutes of trial and error to get dressed. Surveying herself down to her kid shoes, fastened at the sides with straps and buttons, and finished with bows on the toes, she grimaced at the picture she made.
When she finally appeared downstairs, Addie was relieved to discover only Caroline and May were having breakfast. They were both prim and proper in highnecked cambric dresses similar to hers. Evidently a crowd had just left, and a maid was clearing the dirty dishes from the empty places at the table.
"Good morning, Caroline," she said hesitantly. "Glad to see you slept late. Looks like the extra rest did you a lot of good. "
Addie glanced at the clock on the wall. Slept late? It was only seven o'clock. "I appreciated the extra sleep," she said slowly, and looked at the other woman seated at the table. " 'Morning, May."
"May?" the older woman repeated with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. "When did you decide to start callin' me by my first name? Only your father does that, Adeline." She looked down at the toast she was buttering daintily, her brows knitting together in a slight frown. "Ever since you got home from the young ladies' academy, you've had some odd notions."
"I'm sorry." Addie was immediately flustered. "M-Mother."
"Poor Addie," Caroline said gently, giving her a smile and patting the chair next to her. "Come sit by me. You've just got a case of the fidgets, that's all. You're like this every spring."
"Just wait until you get married and have children, Adeline," May said. "You'll be too tired to have the fidgets."
Addie went around the long table and sat next to Caroline, feeling an odd tingle as she noticed the pregnant swell of Caroline's stomach.
"H-how are you feeling?"
"Much better, Adeline. It's real sweet of you to ask. I'm not having problems keeping my food down anymore." Caroline smiled and patted her stomach. "I know Peter wants a boy this time, but I just have a feelin' it's going to be another girl. That'll be fine for Leah. I think she'll like having a sister."
