“I’m sorry, Darby,” he said, recovering. “I’m not laughing at you, but myself. I seem to have a talent for tangling nets around me. Well, never mind. What I did for the vicar was something anyone can do, even a child. It’s a simple procedure; I can show you how to do it if you want.”
“Certainly,” she said weakly. “Such a thing might prove useful more than once in a lifetime.”
She could not look at him. Pushing herself from the chair, she walked to the window and gazed down at the moonlit garden. The cherubic statuaries placed among the roses glistened in a light spring rain. The cherubs appeared to revel in their various poses: faces raised heavenward, chubby arms gesturing outward toward the earth. So childlike they looked, so innocent.
Her heart throbbed in her ears.
“I have never heard of such an angel,” she said, speaking distantly as if to the cherubim below. “The angels I’ve read about don’t have human failings. They aren’t concerned with how a woman dresses. And they certainly don’t hold flirtatious conversations with coquettes.”
Simon remained quiet for only an instant before asking, “Coquettes? Are you referring to Lenora?”
“Yes, of course I mean Lenora,” she said, worrying at the lack of deference in her voice, but unable to do anything about it. “Everyone knows she is a shameless flirt, as should you.” Not liking the alarm that inexplicably bloomed in his eyes, she turned back to the window, barely hearing his footsteps as he came to stand beside her.
“You don’t like Lenora?” he asked stupidly, as if her answer really mattered. It was quite enough. Surely the flare of rage she felt was justified, and God would not kill her for it.
“You have placed me in a dilemma,” she said, showing her teeth. “Now I must ask myself the question: Dare I speak truth to my angel, or should I lie expediently, as he has taught me to do?”
She felt an answering heat rising in him. He stood no more than a foot away from her, flames lighting the depths of his eyes. She retreated a pace and fingered her belt.
“I want ...” His jaw worked. “I want to hear the truth.”
“As do I,” she declared, adding with cowardly haste, “But if you must know, I neither like nor trust Lenora.”
He turned slowly and went to sit on the edge of the bed, bowing his head and drooping his forearms across his knees. “Oh, man,” he said despondently.
She felt an unpleasant mixture of bewilderment and alarm. A terrible apprehension seized her. What if her angel was unhinged, mentally? Could such a thing happen?
She started forward, intending to sit beside him on the mattress, then thought better of it. There was a wooden rocker beside the window, and she pulled it near the bed and sat, staring upward until he looked at her. Between the chair’s lower height and Simon’s tallness, she felt like a little child gazing up at its parent.
But such a strange parent he was. He had rid himself of his jacket before coming to her, and his white linen shirt with its cascades of lace looked romantic stretching across his chest and defining the muscles underneath, as similarly-dressed, sword-fighting heroes of the last century looked romantic in the illustrations she’d seen in books. And his hair, his silvery hair that he’d unbound from its ribbon to flow across his shoulders—that was romantic, too. She reined in her thoughts uneasily.
“Simon. What have my feelings toward Lenora to do with anything?”
At first it seemed he would not answer, for he rubbed his hands across his face and raked his fingers through his hair as if in the throes of great weariness, or indecision. When he finally spoke, the words burst from him like water overflowing a dam.
“Everything, Darby. What you think of Lenora means everything, since I’ve seen your brother values only one opinion above his own—yours. That’s the reason I’ve come here again, I’ve got to make sure Alexander marries Lenora. He simply must.”
Chapter Five
She stared at him with all the horror he feared she would, looking as if the power of speech had deserted her. Well, he’d been speechless, too, when he discovered the present owners of Brightings—Chesterton Place, they called it, now—had descended from strangers instead of Alexander and Lenora Brightings, as they were supposed to do.
In the world he’d previously known—the world as it was before he warned Darby about the fire—she had died. Alexander married Lenora, who bore him three sons, the oldest of whom became Elena’s several-times-great grandfather.
Somehow by delaying Darby’s death, Simon had changed all that. He’d caused a different world to exist.
Elena did not live in this new world and never had. And Tay with his sparkling green eyes, bubbling laughter, and plump little arms and legs always moving, had never drawn breath.
How could the sun dare shine in a world that knew no Tay?
And how much solace could Simon take in the fact that his wife—ex-wife, he reminded himself harshly—and child had not died brutally at the hands of one of his fans, a psycho who had declared her love for him in over five hundred letters? The guilt of not recognizing the woman’s real threat, the guilt of being the unwitting cause of his family’s murder, had been an impossible burden. But preventing them from tasting life at all was worse.
And all because his warning had delayed Darby’s death—had delayed it no more than a couple of months.
He looked at her now with compassion. Why was this radiant, idealistic girl seemingly destined to die so young? Never mind the grey eyes flashing doubt, fear and repugnance at him; she was entitled. Hadn’t he doubted himself during the past weeks, been almost paralyzed with it? He had begun to think he’d imagined Darby, Elena, Tay, and all the rest.
Darby began to speak, her lips and voice trembling. “What do you mean, Alex must marry Lenora? I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t. This is hard for you, especially since your feelings toward her aren’t pleasant.”
“You could not have told me a worse thing.”
“Oh, come on, Darby, she’s not so bad as all that. I spent some time getting to know her tonight—”
“So I observed.”
“—um, okay, and she seemed quite nice, actually—”
“She would seem that way, since she centered all of her attention on you. Lenora ever enjoys fawning over men. Try being a woman around her and see how charming she is.”
“But I saw her speak kindly to Miss White and others,” he argued. “Aren’t you being a little rough on her?”
“She’s one step removed from a tart, and the distance grows closer daily.”
“Whoa, Darby!” he said, laughing. “You’re overreacting.”
His mirth died when he saw she blinked back tears.
“I tell you, Simon, you cannot form an objective opinion about her because she was so taken with you. Another evening, it might be Alex or Claude or someone else. Had you visited us tonight in the guise of a humble old man, or a plain one—and I cannot understand why you did not—instead of this angelic beauty you have chosen to display, only then could you judge her dispassionately.”
He couldn’t help smiling. “Angelic beauty?”
“Surely you know how well you look,” she said irritably. “You chose this form, did you not?”
“No, I’m afraid this is the way God made me,” he answered meekly, a teasing expression on his face.
“Oh.” Her eyes lit briefly as if she wanted to join his amusement, but she did not succumb. “Well, in that case I must tell you this: Alex would be much happier with Evelyn, to whom he has been promised for most of his life. She is a lifelong friend and all that is amiable. Her reputation is above reproach. She—”
As Darby continued to extoll the virtues of Evelyn, her words ran together in his ears. Simon rose from the bed in agitation. This was what he had feared; Darby was the cause of the change in Alex’s choice of wives. And she was still talking. He couldn’t understand a word of it; he had to stop her.
“No, Darby,” he interrupted. “A
lexander can’t marry Evelyn. No way.”
Darby, too, rose and walked behind her rocker, holding onto the chair’s back for support. “But why, Simon?” It was almost a wail.
“Because—because it has to do with destiny.”
“Destiny,” she repeated, as if the word was unknown to her.
“The family that Alex and Lenora will have ... there’s a descendant of theirs who’ll be born many years from now. If they don’t get married, that descendant won’t exist.”
She studied him with fierce concentration. “How can you know this? Is it given to angels to see the future?”
“Not all of it,” he said uncomfortably. “I just know what’ll happen if those two don’t get married.”
“Then are you saying that if Alex and Lenora don’t give birth to this child, or cause this descendant to exist, something terrible will occur to mankind?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Something terrible will happen to me.
“What does this mean, ‘in a manner of speaking’? Devastation either occurs, or it does not; there cannot be degrees of it, surely.”
“I never said it would devastate the world, Darby. But an earth without that child would be more ... empty.”
“But why cannot Alex and Evelyn become the ancestors of this person? Surely that could be arranged.” She gave him a pleading look.
He brushed the hair back from his eyes. “No, it can’t. If Alexander and Evelyn marry, they’ll have a daughter. The Brightings line will die out; the estate will be sold to other owners.” While disbelief grew on her face, he continued desperately, “You won’t like this part. The potteries will go out of business, and the chinaware you and your brother produce will never become more than a local business.”
She bowed her head, her long hair, loosened now for bed, hiding her face. He did not need to see her expression to know how she felt; her woe-filled voice said it all. “But if Alex and Lenora wed ...”
“Everything will be for the best.” A crafty thought made him add, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Brightings dinnerware will become known across the earth for centuries. You and Alexander will found a fortune and a tradition.”
A ghost of a smile curved her lips, then died. She shot a stabbing look at him, shook her head and began to pace before the window.
“I don’t understand how you know all this. You speak as if the future is a road with many turnings, each one leading to a different destination. Is that how it is? Can a simple act like choosing one marriage partner over another be of such significance?”
“Sometimes it can,” he said easily. But as her words struck him more deeply, he grew quiet. What was he doing, messing around with the past? He’d changed a thousand things when he was here for only a few hours. How many differences would he cause if he stayed a month? And what gave him the right?
The trees give me the right, he thought instantly, then dismissed it. His stumble into the past had been a freak of nature, like a tornado or an earthquake. There couldn’t be any real purpose to it. He’d just do the best he could with the circumstances that had fallen his way. It was no different than he’d always lived his life. But how to make Darby understand?
“Do you remember when I warned you about the abandoned house?” he asked.
“Yes, and I haven’t thanked you for that,” she said, her voice warming. “You were right; after you told me about it, Alex asked me to accompany him to the Holley estate. He wanted to play a jest on our uncle; but your words came to mind, so I was able to stop us from getting burned. Thank you, Simon.”
“It was my pleasure to be able to help you. But if I hadn’t, you would have died that day. Call it another forking in the road if you want, but I think it’s better you lived.”
“Naturally I feel the same. But you aren’t speaking of life and death over Alex’s choice in wives, are you? Only that this descendant of Lenora’s might not exist. You haven’ t claimed something devastating would occur in that event. So, I must ask you: How can we know the future is not better without him?”
How did he know? By the aching in his heart. But what if she was right? What if leaving the future in its changed state was better for the greatest number of people?
No, he couldn’t start thinking that way; he’d go crazy. He knew what he had to do. “It’s just better, that’s all,” he said, knowing he sounded childish.
“And yet, if what you desire comes to pass, Alex will be condemned to danger,” she said softly. “How can you forget him in your plans?” She turned her back to him and stared into the night. “I did not wish to say this, but I see I must. You are consigning him to life with a murderess.”
“What?” he shouted, then flinched and looked toward the door. “What are you talking about?”
“You will say it is all conjecture and that I’m mad for speaking of it.”
He hurried to her side, then propped himself in the windowsill, forcing her to look at him. “Tell me,” he said.
She swallowed. “Well, I have no proof; but when Lenora’s husband died last Christmas, there was talk that she killed him. You see, we had all gone to Bath to spend the holiday with Reece and Lenora, taking rooms in the same hotel where they lived. One afternoon while Alex and I were attending an assembly, Reece fell from his bedroom window. I spoke with the hotel manager after it happened. According to him, Reece had been in his rooms all day, drinking heavily. When he sent his servant to fetch another bottle of wine, the manager, fearing the destructiveness of an inebriated guest, delivered it himself with a mind to judging Reece’s temper. Just as he arrived at the door, Lenora flung it open, as if to leave, but Reece seized her and shouted, ‘I shall tell all! They will learn the truth about you from my lips!’ or words to that effect. The hotel manager was mortified at interrupting this domestic squabble and, as Lenora did not appear to be in danger, he left immediately. Moments later, Reece’s body was found on the pavement, four stories beneath their chamber.”
Simon breathed deeply. “But if Reece was drunk, he probably tripped and fell.”
“That’s what Lenora claimed, and her story was believed, at least officially.”
“But you think otherwise.”
“I cannot be positive, of course, but I suspect murder. Their window opened to the floor, but outside the glass was a tiny balcony made of iron; you know the sort of thing I mean—curving bars that form part of the building’s ornamentation. This thing was waist-high and not meant for guests to stand upon; I suppose it provided a convenient place for the servants to wash the windows, though. To fall from it, Reece would have had to squeeze onto this platform and climb over the bars deliberately. It hardly seems a thing he would do.”
“Sometimes, Darby, in a moment of despair, people do crazy things.”
How bitterly well he knew it.
His family’s killer, Sheila Wells, had been in despair. And, in the weeks of crushing grief that followed her act, he himself had dwelt in the shadowlands, thinking the dark thoughts that could have led to an action similar to Reece’s. Ending his pain became an obsession.
How glad he was that he hadn’t. Perhaps now he could save Darby—again. Bring Elena and Tay back into being. Make a difference in someone’s life; an important difference. Something more vital than he’d done before— existing only as a thirty-foot image in a darkened room, birthing impossible dreams in the minds of strangers.
“You didn’t know Reece,” Darby disagreed. “He treated himself to every indulgence, be it whiskey, fine clothing, or—or women, I’m sorry to say. He was not a man to end his life; he enjoyed it too much.”
Simon thought a minute. “You make me wonder why Lenora married him. A charming woman like her shouldn’t have trouble attracting men.”
After sending him a prolonged look of distaste, Darby said, “Reece Ellison seemed a fine match when they first wed. He had not gambled the greater part of his fortune away then, nor was he fat and indolent. As time passed, Lenora came to realize
her error in judgment; this is why I believe she killed him.”
“She’s too small, Darby. How could she have pushed a pudgy guy over a rail?”
“Lenora is quite strong. And Reece was intoxicated, remember.”
Darby walked to her rocker and swung it around to face him, then sat. She gazed down at her lap and pulled the edges of her robe together across her knees, beginning to rock slowly.
Simon contemplated her, ice spreading through his body. Tattered thoughts were knitting together in his mind, and he didn’t like the pattern they made.
“Do you have any idea what Ellison meant when he shouted he’d tell the truth about her? Do you think Lenora has secrets?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Darby said, head still bowed. Suddenly she looked up, her eyes swimming with hope. “Do you believe that’s the reason she killed him? That she was not merely tired of him, but did something awful— stole someone’s jewelry, mayhaps; no, someone’s husband, more likely—and when Reece threatened to tell, she killed him to protect herself from a vengeful woman, or the ruining of her reputation, or something like? Do you mean to say you think I’m right about her?”
Simon stared at Darby, transfixed. Despite his chill, he began to sweat. Was the room growing smaller?
How could he say, Yes, you may be right about Lenora, when he wanted Darby to like her, to encourage Alexander to marry the woman? How else to ensure Elena’s birth?
But on the other hand, how dare he say, Absolutely not; your imagination is running away with you; Lenora is a wonderful person, when it could be she was a murderess—that she might even try to cause Darby’s death?
Darby Brightings, twin sister to Alexander Brightings, drowned under mysterious circumstances on the evening of June 10, 1818, read the twenty-eighth page of the estate’s crumbling historical record. He’d only had a moment to scan it before the sounds of sirens chased him from Chesterton Place. But the author’s overwrought prose had branded into his brain.
Tragically, her death occurred during her twenty-first birthday ball. While family and friends danced to the strains of orchestral music, Darby drowned in darkness in the estate’s secluded pond. Was it an accident as the magistrate claimed, or could it have been murder? If only an accident, why was she alone at the pond instead of enjoying her guests? And how to explain the horrible bruising found on her face? Unfortunately, these were questions that had never been answered.
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