Endless Time

by Frances Burke

  The irony of his situation struck him. Still afire with the feel and taste of a woman he believed he hated, wanting and yet not wanting to recreate the intimacy that had once inflamed him almost to the point of delirium, he had encountered total rejection. She had looked at him with loathing. She had bruised herself to escape his touch.

  Still shaken by the suddenness and strength of the emotional storm, he stood waiting to regain command of himself. On the second stair he saw a small patch of lacy fabric and bent to retrieve it. Carrying it to his face, he inhaled the fragrance of roses – her fragrance. With eyes closed he pressed the scrap hard against his lips, enduring the bitter-sweet pain of loss, then slipped it inside his coat. Resuming his habitual mask, he returned to his guests, polite excuses for his wife ready on his tongue.

  *

  Karen rested her elbows on her dressing-table and covered her eyes. Her heart beat painfully against the wall of her chest, and she breathed as if she’d run ten times further than the few yards to her bedchamber. Her first impulse had been to scrub her lips clean but, as her injured pride recovered, she could assess her feelings more honestly. She’d been disappointed in Antony’s reaction to her news, and humiliated by his obvious disbelief. He had thought she was ‘recovering’ from her illness, and been shocked by her relapse. What else could she have expected?

  But he had also been genuinely sorry that he’d given her pain. And his kiss had been anything but hurtful.

  Cautiously, she explored her reactions to his peace offering. For that was all it had been. Taking her hands away from her face she stared at herself in the mirror, watching her expression soften as she thought of Antony’s mouth on hers, feeling again the sense of shock and familiarity as she succumbed to him just for those few seconds. Yes, she’d enjoyed being kissed by him. She had to admit it.

  But she’d felt like a traitor to herself. She was Karen Courtney, not Caroline Marchmont, and she had no business entangling herself with anyone from the nineteenth century. She was going home, to her own time, to Adele – come hell or high water!

  That was why she’d torn herself from Antony’s arms and fled like a virtuous maiden. And it was a good reason to stay away from the man, with his insidious charm. It would be all too easy to fall victim, without knowing whether she could trust him. She had to remember that he was a domestic tyrant, that he was uninterested in a real relationship, and that haggard good looks could hide depths of character she’d rather not explore. She wasn’t about to fall into that trap.

  She sat erect and picked up the hare’s foot, patting powder over her face. It was time she went downstairs to face questions and exclamations, and the eternal drawing-room gossip. Oh, how tired she was of the silly social round. So far, Amanda’s efforts had achieved very little, with no word from Pierre Marnie, and no other hopeful avenues offering. It was already the end of May, over six months since she’d been thrust into this world, and she was no closer to finding her way back to her rightful place. Was she doomed to exist among strangers as Lady Caroline Marchmont, a woman of poor repute? Would she ever again see her daughter? It seemed as though she’d reached a dead end.

  She admitted in the darkness of her despair that she was lonely, living in an isolation that few could have known outside of a solitary confinement cell. Marooned in her alien dimension, she sometimes looked in the mirror and began to doubt her own existence.

  That’s what made Antony so dangerous. He attracted her as no man had before. She sensed a depth of feeling in him that rarely surfaced – a strong temperament held under tight rein. On that memorable day at the studio she’d recognized the challenging possibility of attraction between them. Sometimes she deliberately tried to goad him into response through sheer devilment and a desire to break up the pattern and shatter his remoteness. But he could not be drawn. Never until tonight.

  He puzzled her. She knew his surface existence of aimless pleasure camouflaged a very different mode of life. If she had correctly interpreted the conversation she had overheard between Antony and Charles, Lord Marchmont was one of those daring patriots who risked their lives for no reward other than the private satisfaction of serving their country.

  At first astonished and disbelieving, she had eventually concluded that her husband was exactly the kind of man suited to such work. She’d come up against his strength of will and character often enough. He was not a happy man, and most likely he discounted the value of his life. What was there for him to regret? Chloe? She’d seen how little interest was there. His father? He never spoke of the old man in her hearing. His wife? That was her cue for derisive laughter. It had been demonstrated. Antony Marchmont was the ideal spy. And she had it in her power to destroy him.

  Steps in the passage outside her door brought her to the alert, but they passed on. She hadn’t forgotten the two attempts upon her life, and never relaxed her guard entirely. But the past months of freedom from attack had made it difficult to maintain a sharp edge. She’d made no headway with her investigations. Even questioning Lucy had been quite abortive. The girl was either stupidly cunning or terrified to speak.

  As for Antony, she couldn’t believe he was the kind of assassin to sneak by night, to drug and leave his helpless victim to a slow death in the cold. Damn him! Why couldn’t she put him out of her mind?

  Jenny Marchmont, her predecessor – what had she been like, this unforgettable girl wife? No one ever spoke of her in this house, which was sad. Even Antony hugged her memory to him like a miser. There was no likeness of her, nor any of her own work hung in the many rooms available. She’d asked Charles, and he had simply said it was Antony’s wish. Why had all traces of Jenny been swept out of her own home? Or had they? Everyone kept a memento of a loved one. Hadn’t that associate of Turner that she’d met at the exhibition said something about painting miniatures? Somewhere there was a likeness of Jenny and her baby.

  The chimes of the little carriage clock by her bed recalled her to her duties. She stood up and automatically shook out the folds of her gown. Her appearance didn’t interest her greatly. Reluctant still to go down, she thought she might look in on Chloe in her new pink bower before facing that lot in the drawing room.

  On impulse, halfway along the landing she stopped and retraced her steps as far as the entrance to Antony’s apartments. No sounds penetrated here. Servants were either occupied with the aftermath of the dinner party or taking their ease. Beds had been turned down and rooms tidied for the night. No one was about.

  She didn’t question her impulse. She simply knew she had to have some sort of answer to at least one of her many questions, and it might very well be found in a part of the house she had never entered.

  A lamp stood on a table just inside the door, its soft glow illuminating the apartment. She stepped cautiously in and surveyed the rather Spartan furnishings of a man’s sitting room, if there was such a thing. More like a study, a place for relaxation, the smoking of a pipe, it was certainly more pleasant than the chilly, darkly furnished library where Antony spent so much of his time. She’d felt that to alter it would have been an intrusion; although it was hardly less reprehensible than her present sortie into his privacy.

  Stifling her better feelings, she began with the desk, going swiftly through the drawers, feeling behind as well as inside. Nothing. Going to a flat-fronted bureau she found nothing more exciting than books and papers. No concealed cupboards lay behind the two small etchings of country scenes, and the window draperies hid no secrets. She moved on to the bedchamber.

  This was lit by two more lamps of frosted glass set on either side of the chimneypiece. A fire in the grate threw more light, but it also wove a web of shifting shadows that brought her nerves close to the surface. She made herself go on.

  The object that claimed her attention in this somber chamber was the bed. It was vast, a mighty edifice of oak draped in bottle-green velvet hangings, and it could have comfortable accommodated Henry the Eighth and all six wives at once. Karen had never seen
such a bed. It looked Tudor in style, with paneled boards and bunches of carved fruits bulging from each post. A set of steps led up from floor to coverlet, almost waist high. She was seized with a sudden childish urge to run up and throw herself upon the wide sea of green velvet, but she resisted. Already she’d been here too long.

  Dragging her gaze away from the temptation, she made a careful search of every drawer and cupboard, learning quite a lot about Antony’s tastes in apparel, in jewelry, in snuff, but nothing about the person who interested her most, Jenny. She turned back to the great bed. If she wanted to hide something there, where would she choose? The fruits and vines twining up the bedposts positively leapt out at her. Such a profusion of scrolls and knobs and lumps to twist, so many hollows to press.

  A voice behind her said, ‘Try the apple on the bedpost nearest to you. The one above the grape stalk.’

  Karen almost leapt out of her slippers., Whipping around she found Sybilla’s face inches from her own.

  Bending from her greater height, the other woman moved closer until her lovely face seemed to fill Karen’s vision. ‘I know what you are seeking. ‘Tis behind the panel. Twist the apple knob and you will see.’

  Karen stepped backwards and came up hard against the bed. Sybilla followed, taking her hand in a grip like pincers, forcing the smaller white fingers around the apple knob and twisting. The nearest panel in the bed head slid back and Sybilla released her.

  ‘There. Look.’

  Still shaking, Karen looked. Reposing in the small cupboard space was a pile of what looked like letters, some documents tied up in ribbon, and a small velvet case.

  ‘Take it out. I have, many times.’ When Karen didn’t move, Sybilla reached impatiently past her and brought out the case. She opened it and thrust it into Karen’s hands. ‘There she lies. The sorceress herself and her brat.’

  Karen closed her eyes. This was not how she had wanted it. She had not wanted to discover Jenny in such an atmosphere of bitter triumph and hatred. For it was hatred she heard in Sybilla’s voice. The familiar soft tones had a grating edge; the words were a desecration of the Madonna façade. Was this the real Sybilla? Did she go about her daily life harboring a monster of ugliness inside her, feeding it with secret visits to Antony’s hiding place? The thought made Karen feel ill.

  Sybilla’s hand came down hard on her head, bunching her curls and twisting painfully, forcing her neck to bend. ‘Look at her. Behold your rival… and mine.’

  With tears of pain blurring her sight, Karen looked down at the exquisite miniature.

  Andrew Robertson, the miniaturist, had recalled that it was a mother and child pose, but not that each was almost a replica of the other. Jenny, the woman, had a bird-like look, all soft brown hair and winged brows over the most expressive pair of eyes Karen could remember seeing. The girl’s heart showed through these soul windows, luminous and clear as spring water flowing over beds of brown moss.

  Fascinated, Karen stared for a long time, unaware that Sybilla had released her and moved aside to view her reaction.

  Chloe had her mother’s pointed chin, and lips so soft yet cut so fine. Baby ringlets hung over the pixie ears, and the cheeks were peaches coming into ripeness. There was no mistaking her. The seven-year-old asleep upstairs had once looked like a much-loved cherub.

  Sybilla’s tongue stabbed and shattered the moment. ‘What a pretty sight! It turns my stomach, that sugared smile, that simpering, sly air of holiness. She was just a little brown thing with a limp. What was her secret? How did she manage to ensnare and hold him? How did she do it?

  Karen felt the woman’s frustration as a series of energy waves pulsing through her body. She stepped back, tightening her grip on the miniature case.

  She said, ‘I don’t think you could understand. By all accounts, Jenny was sweet and kind and loving – all the things that you are not. I think Antony loved her for her goodness.’

  Sybilla threw back her head and laughed. Karen wanted to cover her ears. She wanted to run and distance herself from the malignity that looked out at her from Sybilla’s face. But an odd feeling had risen in her, a need to champion the little painted brown Jenny wren and her cherub child, just as if they were living people – not one a memory and the other a half-forgotten appendage to a man with a broken heart.

  Sybilla had stopped laughing. ‘Pah! Men want more than milk and water goodness from a woman. What arts did she practice to keep him in her bed? What siren’s lures did she learn, and where?’

  ‘Come on, Sybilla. She loved him, and he loved her. That’s all there was to it.’

  The black eyes narrowed. Then Sybilla said in a more normal voice, ‘But you could not take her place. He has not come to your bed chamber in a twelvemonth. Despite your beauty he has not longed to spread your “tempest of bright hair” on the pillow before him. That is what he once called it. I listened to you both, my ear pressed to the wall, and heard him writhe in the depths of passion for your exquisite little body. But you could not hold him. His fever was spent within a few weeks.’ Her lips curved with rich satisfaction.

  Karen was speechless. She couldn’t have been more outraged if it had actually been she who was the object of Sybilla’s eavesdropping. The added knowledge that Antony’s cousin was eaten up with desire for him scarcely came as a surprise, since it had been obvious from the moment Sybilla had commented on the miniature. But the ugliness of it deprived her of words.

  Sybilla stood with closed eyes, looking inward at a picture all too clear to Karen.

  She said, accusingly, ‘You don’t love him! What you feel is plain old lust, and I doubt that Salome herself could attract Antony. He’s not interested in women.’

  Sybilla ignored her, swaying on her feet, her hands moving sensuously through her own long hair, streaming it out behind her. Her movements grew more explicit as, lost in her erotic dream, she fed the hunger she had awakened.

  ‘Sybilla!’

  Her eyes snapped open. She looked at Karen in bemusement. ‘He shall know such pain. Oh, there are so many delicious ways to torment a man.’

  Bile rose in Karen’s throat. She pressed her hand to her mouth as Sybilla snatched the box from her and returned it to its hiding place. The panel slid shut.

  She turned back to Karen with her serene smile in place once more. ‘I am so pleased we have reached this understanding.’

  ‘What understanding? What are you up to, Sybilla?’

  ‘Why, your understanding that my cousin belongs to me. I have seen it written in my future. It was promised by the houngan that night before we left Jamaica. Antony and I have a destiny to fulfill.’ For an instant something evil peeped out from behind the mask to touch Karen.

  She recoiled, not understanding why. A moment later she was bracing herself with a dash of common sense. ‘What a lot of nonsense you talk, Sybilla. Antony is my husband; and while we may not have a deliriously joyful relationship, it’s still a legal fact.’

  Sybilla shrugged. ‘It has been promised.’

  ‘By a voodoo witchdoctor? You lived in Jamaica, not Haiti. And I somehow think it will take more than a few spells and the Dance of the Seven Veils to capture Antony.’ Did Sybilla really think she had black powers? Incredible! But her obsession could be as dangerous as it was unhealthy.

  Sybilla said reasonably, ‘You do not understand. I have been taught the sacred rites. My nurse was blood sister to the Obeah. I have powers you do not dream of.’

  Karen gaped. Here was clear paranoia. She decided to ignore the wild claims. ‘Why did you call Jenny your rival? She’s been dead for four years.’

  ‘And he has mourned her for four years. Even when he sniffed like a street cur around your ankles his heart was never engaged. She has him still bewitched.’

  ‘Then, what has changed? Why should he suddenly turn to you after all this time?’

  ‘Because I have at last perfected the incantation. It has required my sending to the Indies for some of the sacred ingredients. I ne
eded these to call upon my Lord, the Baron Samedi. Now I am almost ready.’

  Only her eyes gave her away, thought Karen. If you looked long enough into the hypnotic depths you could see there was something wrong, something slightly askew. She wondered whether anyone else had made this discovery. Surely the parents must know. Maybe this explained the overbearing Lady Oriel’s more subdued behavior in her daughter’s company. Maybe she was afraid of her.

  Aware that she was wandering dangerously from the present, Karen blinked and pulled free of that fascinating gaze. She looked down and saw the Sybilla was now holding a hairbrush, a heavy tortoiseshell-backed piece, meant for a man’s use.

  Sybilla turned the brush over and picked at the bristles. ‘The spell calls for some of his hair. Body hair would be ideal, but that is too difficult to obtain. There are other items, also. But soon… very soon…’ She began to croon to herself, hugging the brush to her, her vision fixed on some ghostly scene in her own imaginings.

  Karen backed slowly towards the door. When she was within a few feet of it she turned and ran, speeding out across the sitting room, along the corridor and down the stairs. She entered her own drawing room with heightened color, fortunately still some time ahead of the gentlemen, and slipped back into her role as hostess.

  She might despise the gossipy cliques huddled together to paw over the latest on dit, but they did have the advantage of being relatively sane.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Friday, December 7

  Tom was profoundly stirred by his dream. The intensity with which he had lived those moments in the copse, the superstitious fear which had claimed him, could not be easily dismissed. He lay awake until dawn, his brain so alive he felt it could jump out of his skull.

  Trained to think logically, he was shocked to discover that his processes could fall into such disarray. Snippets of remembered sessions with other patients mixed in with the tapes of Valerie’s, along with his own dreams and fantasies. Bits of Phil’s off-beat theories interspersed with whole paragraphs from the books he’d recently absorbed. When he tried to sort them into order, to establish some kind of pattern, they broke apart and danced beyond his reach.