The first day of the house party was the single longest and most boring of Alaric’s life.
Guests—invited for the weekend—had arrived in droves. They pressed in on him from all sides, filling up the guest rooms, spilling out from the drawing rooms, parlors, dining hall, ballroom, billiards room, library, conservatory, and every other usable room with which Stonecross was furnished. Alaric mingled amongst them, playing the gracious host with a radiant Ellen never straying far from his side. He could see what she was about: making sure the two of them seemed like one impenetrable unit, already joined in spirit if not in fact. Though she had no understanding what such a bond meant. Ellen thought husbands were little more than fashionable accessories, at the least. At the most, they were symbols of status, equally valuable and as inanimate as the ropes of glittering diamonds she displayed to full effect against the creamy, untouchable backdrop of her beautiful neck.
He thought of Laura’s neck, unadorned but for a series of beauty marks much lovelier than any string of pearls, no matter how costly. There was nothing pretentious about her. She was all frankness, and yet she was mysterious, something one could see clearly but could never fully comprehend. Like the night sky in a poem.
Except, of course, when he couldn’t see her at all. Like now. He longed for her, but he could not go to her. She didn’t exist, except when she stood in front of him. And wherever she was right now, he certainly didn’t exist for her. When he had believed at first that she was a figment of his own mind, he wasn’t far wrong. He was also a figment of hers. He wondered if she thought about him nearly as much as he thought about her. Perhaps it was their thoughts that brought them together.
At the moment, all he could think of was Laura.
Even when other ladies were in front of him, vying for his attention, his thoughts strayed to her, as though he could caress her with his mind, and she could feel it. He didn’t know what she was, or the meaning of her sudden appearance in his life. All he knew was the way he felt when she was with him, just looking at him with her large, dark eyes.
Understood. Loved. Safe.
And lit on fire, a torch burning from the inside out.
The room was damnably hot. Alaric tugged at his neckcloth—Jeffries tied it so bloody tight. And there were too many people about, pressing against him. Ellen had promised him it wouldn’t be a crush. He should have listened more closely when she tried to talk to him about the guest list. Alaric felt as though every person he had ever met since the day he was born was in his house. If he listened closely enough, over the din of laughter, clinking crystal, and the strains of music coming from the ballroom, where the string quartet labored to create the appropriate ambience, he might be able to hear the foundation of Stonecross groaning in protest. Waves of heat rose up from the bodies of the guests, whose mingling scents clashed abominably. People always over-scented themselves for a party in an attempt to mask the inevitable odor of sweat that was the result of too many bodies crammed together, dancing and flirting. It was the smell of lust battling with that of propriety. In Alaric’s experience, lust usually won out, in one way or another. And then propriety dealt with the aftermath.
Just when he was seriously considering flinging himself from the nearest available window, dinner was announced. Some semblance of the order of precedence was followed. There were few peers present, because Alaric didn’t know many, other than some of the lads he went to school with who had come into their titles or retained their courtesy titles while they waited for their elders to pop decorously off into the netherworld. Alaric was glad, not for the first time, that he was not in possession of a title. The Storm fortune had once stunk rather badly of trade, but it was more than respectable now. He was a gentleman with no responsibilities other than to his tenants, and his land steward took care of that. Observing at his social superiors, some of whom were looking distinctly weedy and glad of a gratis meal, despite their pedigrees, Alaric felt a sense of pride in his costly, elegant attire. He used to be quite a young blood, once upon a time. Oddly, he felt rather more interested in his personal appearance than he had in years. It didn’t take much probing to realize that it was because of Laura. Because she could shimmer into being again at any moment. He wanted her to be proud to love and be loved by him, even if they could never be together.
As he led Ellen into the dining room, its vast table crammed end to end with laughing, chattering guests, Alaric imagined Laura appearing suddenly among them. What a stir she would create. Especially if she had neglected to get dressed. He hadn’t seen her fully dressed since that first day, when he thought he saw her at the front door.
Had she really been there?
He didn’t know. He hadn’t asked her. He didn’t know anything about who she was, or why she was at Stonecross.
The problem was that he had only just begun to think of her as a real person, in the sense that she had lived a life and experienced things he couldn’t imagine. Even if he didn’t understand who she was, he had to stop thinking of her as a creation of his own mind. He couldn’t bear the idea that she was little or nothing more.
She was so real. So much more so than anyone who now sat at his table. It wasn’t that they weren’t fully realized human beings, loveable and interesting, or despicable and petty, in their own ways, just as he was. It was that he didn’t know any of them, and they didn’t know him. He had never maintained any of his relationships. He had no idea what they were all doing here, pretending to fete him as though he were an old and beloved friend. It was all a beautiful farce, full of blinding footlights and elaborate costumes. Everyone made polite and suitable statements at the prescribed moments, just as they ate their palate-cleansing ices with the correct dainty spoons.
The only palate cleanser Alaric wanted was Laura.
He could taste her now, even as the spoonful of lavender- and lime-flavored ice melted over his tongue, and Ellen placed a proprietary hand none too discreetly on the sleeve of his coat. He caught sight of the two of them in one of the many sparkling mirrors placed strategically about the room in an attempt to multiply it endlessly, so the light would seem infinite, as would the room, and the number of guests. They looked well together, he had to admit, like a pair of perfectly matched grays about to be bridled to a common yoke, pulling the well-sprung carriage of their union down an endless street. Endless, that was, until one of them dropped dead.
Alaric had to admit that Ellen was everything she should be: beautiful, elegant, her conversation both decorous and entertaining without trespassing upon her partner’s wit. She wore the most fashionable garments, and her skin had never spent an instant too long beneath the sun. She would age like a dream, the perfect matriarch for their future brood of show horses. But that was not all he wanted. He wanted much more, and Ellen could never be more than she was, and if Alaric married her, he never would be, either.
Clenching his jaw, Alaric removed his arm from beneath her fingers as subtly as he could, but he saw the flush creep up from her bosom like the blush of pink in the heart of a rose. He used the hand he had taken from her to bring a glass of wine to his lips, so he wouldn’t embarrass her. She didn’t deserve the impatience he felt. She had every right to expect him to offer for her. He had not behaved like a gentleman. Not strictly speaking. And Ellen was the sort of woman who brought out the gentleman in men who weren’t even born to it. That was the problem. With Ellen, Alaric would be obliged to conduct himself with gentlemanly tact in every waking moment for the rest of his life—even, he had absolutely no doubt, in the bedroom.
Whenever he thought of taking her to bed, he imagined her made of cloth beneath her clothes, and stuffed with sawdust, like a doll, her arms and legs, shoulders, neck, and head all made of porcelain. When he laid her back, her eyes clicked shut.
When he thought of Laura, it was another matter entirely.
Which was the very reason why she should be the last thing on his mind as he sat at table with everyone he knew.
His loins tightened painfully beneath the sleek wool of his trousers, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing up at the mirror again to see if his lascivious thoughts had bled into his carefully arranged face. Mistaking his sudden movement for a signal, one of the footmen came instantly to his side, proffering a carafe of wine. Alaric nodded, and allowed the man to refill his glass, which he had barely touched.
Just as he had barely spoken to the woman at his side.
Or the man on his other side.
He was a taciturn man, but he knew he was being ridiculous.
He turned to Ellen, who had just finished laughing merrily at the slightly risqué joke told to her by the gentleman on her right. “These … centerpieces are very … elegant,” he said, gesturing slightly to the masses of fruit and flowers festooning the length of the polished table.
She smiled brilliantly, her teeth a row of polished pearls, and he was chagrined by how obviously grateful she was for his attention. He was a bastard. She deserved better. He had known her so long—too long, perhaps—that he often treated her as though she was little more than another piece of furniture decorating his parlor. Even though he didn’t want to marry her, he really was rather fond of her, in a nostalgic sort of way.
“You’ve done a remarkable thing, Ellen,” he continued. “I have never seen the old pile looking so festive.”
“Only wait until you see it tomorrow,” she breathed. “I have some surprises in store for you yet. This is merely the preliminary show.”
He smiled as genuinely as he could. “Wonderful.”
She returned his smile with true pleasure and lowered her eyes, blushing as though she was a debutante and he her most desirable suitor. He studied her while her gaze was lowered demurely. Did she really feel that way about him? Was he truly the trophy for which she had waited so long, or was he not, by now, a desperate consolation prize? Had he allowed himself to be so blinded that he truly didn’t know?
After the ladies rose and withdrew, leaving the gentlemen to their port, Alaric rose and slipped from the room while the footmen were busy with decanters and cut crystal glasses, and the gentlemen were dusting off their bawdier jokes and loosening a few of the buttons on their straining waistcoats. How relieved everyone always seemed to be when left alone with members of their own sex. Alaric didn’t particularly enjoy being left alone with anyone, other than his father. He had so few friends. None, really. His truest friends were either dead, scattered to the corners of the kingdom, or shimmering back and forth between nothingness and negligible existence.
He walked silently down the corridor, until he saw a few lady stragglers gossiping on their way to the drawing room. He ducked into the nearest doorway, and slunk down the back stairs. Inevitably, he nearly ran into a maid on the third story—he was forever running into servants. She was a skinny young thing with bright black eyes and a rather fearsome expression to go with her beak of a nose. She put Alaric in mind of a crow, if there was a corvid equivalent to a scullery girl.
She gave him a penetrating look, the audaciousness of which brought him up short. She didn’t drop her eyes, though she graced him with a curtsy, her wilted apron clutched in her chapped fists. “Tara, is it?” he said, examining her oddly handsome little face.
His mouth quirked at the barely concealed mutiny that rose in her expression before it subsided into something slightly more suitable. He didn’t enjoy the way her eyes glazed over, as though she was deadening herself. “Tess, sir.”
He didn’t know why he had stopped to speak to her. It was foolish of him. Servants didn’t like to be condescended to. No one did. It was best if they just pretended not to see one another, when at all possible. Jeffries had a marvellous way of acting as though Alaric was an animate mannequin when he bathed and groomed him. He was not given to gossip, any more than Alaric was himself. His entire life seemed to be the thankless pursuit of perfection. Alaric really had no business keeping him shut away at Stonecross, where all he had to do was keep the clothes of a gentleman who never went anywhere or did anything to showcase his precision with a razor and flair with a neckcloth. Poor Jeffries. He would have to give him a pay raise, or let him fly back to London, where his talents could be put to better use.
He nodded at Tess, whose eyes had drifted to the vicinity of his beautifully polished shoes. “Well, off you go,” he said gently.
She gave him a look that sent a terrible chill through him, though he had been sweating through his shirt only moments before in the blazing dining room. It was an expression that reminded him of Laura: too wise and aware, as though all the secrets of existence were laid out before her eyes. As though she could see the whole truth of him, and what was to become of his life. It was not an altogether delightful sensation, and Laura clearly managed to dilute it. This girl hit him with the full force of her unearthly awareness. Why had he never noticed how strange she was before now? She had been just another scrawny kitchen maid, and now she commanded the full force of his attention.
“What is it?” he said sharply, taking hold of her arm. It was as thin as a matchstick in his hand, and he was careful not to squeeze it too hard.
“I’ve seen her again,” she said. “The lady what don’t belong.”
“Where, Tess?” he asked, tilting her chin so that she had to look at him with her glazed eyes.
“Now,” she said insensibly, as though she was in a sort of hypnogogic state. “And then. And always.” She blinked blearily, her brow furrowing, her fierce little face gathering into a scowl. “She’s in the kitchen, cracking eggs. She’s waiting. Waiting for you.”
She swooned against him, and Alaric gathered her up, making sure she didn’t fall—the girl weighed absolutely nothing. In the kitchen, cracking eggs. What the devil did that mean?
One of the chambermaids came down the corridor, and Alaric waved her over. “I want you to take her to her room and put her to bed,” he told the awestruck girl, who gaped at him with her mouth open. He didn’t know her name, and didn’t ask for it. “She isn’t feeling herself. Can you manage her?”
“Yes, sir,” the girl said, dropping a curtsy.
“Never mind that,” he told her. “Just take her.”
When he was satisfied that the girl wouldn’t drop her charge on her head, Alaric left Tess in her care, and strode off, his leg aching slightly after the exertion. The pain told him that a storm was gathering, despite the heat welling up inside the house that made him forget the time of year. As if he could truly forget. October had a way of making itself felt, in every moment.
He ignored it, and charged down the back stairs toward the kitchen.
In his agitation to see if Tess was correct or merely babbling, he nearly didn’t notice what had happened.
It was the single most unsettling thing that he had ever witnessed, even given that he had been lately falling rather deeply in love with a specter.
As he descended the final staircase, Stonecross changed.
It wasn’t a trick of the light, or the product of an errant shadow. He saw his way very well. And his way was littered with refuse. The plaster was crumbling along the plain whitewashed walls of the servants’ stairwell, and the woodwork bulged in the places where unchecked moisture had ruined it. The banister felt like a grossly misshapen limb beneath his hand, and he jerked away from it, wiping his hand reflexively on his waistcoat, as if to rid his skin of its memory. The plain wool runner had disintegrated beneath his feet, and his nostrils were assaulted with the brackish stench of decay. It was as though the house had died around him, and he was standing inside of its moldering corpse.
Heart racing, Alaric crossed the remaining few yards to the doorway of the kitchen. The doors hung loose on their hinges, and when he pressed his shoulder against them, the one on the left shuddered open with a god-awful screech that sent talons of irritation raking along the back of his neck. He glanced wildly about, taking in the wreckage of what had been a very orderly kitchen the last time he had had occasion to visit it. Now, he barely recognized it, with its peeling walls, grime-crusted floor, and broken windowpanes. Only the long plank table in the center was wholly familiar, with his own initials carved on one rickety leg.
Carved when? he asked himself. A hundred years ago? Two? The notion sent an arrow of fear ricocheting through his bowels. Was he dead now, wherever he was? And what would happen to him if he couldn’t go back? Laura always did. That was true. Even when he didn’t want her to. Always when he didn’t want her to. For the first time, it was a comfort.
In the dimness, he barely saw the figure that darted out of the pantry, cradling something against its chest. Before he could help himself, he let out a yell. The figure froze, staring at him. Who on earth would be living here? Alaric moved forward, and picked up a lantern someone had lit and left there unattended. It threw a feeble light over the dimness of the room as he held it up high, barely dispelling the dense shadows. He squinted, and moved closer.
“Who is there?” he said, his voice a low growl in the dimness. There was another flicker of movement, and Laura gasped, dropping what she was holding.
An egg.
It splattered onto the floorboards and over her feet.
Alaric stared at her, stunned. She’s in the kitchen, cracking eggs.
She pressed her fist to her heart, as if to stuff it back in. “She said you couldn’t,” she said. “That only I could.”
He frowned. “Who said?”
“Tess.”
Rivulets of unease trickled down the inside of his collar, but he shrugged them away. Surely he was beyond that. He lowered the light, replacing it on the table before he dropped it, adding his own contribution to the mess on the floor. “She told me you were here. She said you were cracking eggs.” He shook his head at the impossibility of what he was saying. “I saw her not a moment ago.”
Laura shook her head slowly, with a strange little smile. “No, Alaric. You saw her sixty years ago.”
Her words broke over him like powerful waves. He felt like he was drowning in them. He was in Laura’s time now. Was it really possible? If it was improbable when she did it, now that he was following suit, it seemed utterly unthinkable. He wasn’t like her. He was just an ordinary man. It wasn’t his place to go traipsing about in time, like a Sunday picnicker in the park.
Alaric reeled drunkenly, flinging a hand out to steady himself on the table. Laura reached out reflexively, as if to catch him, but her hand slid through him. It was almost painful. He could practically feel her fingers slipping through him to the other side of his skin.
“Good God,” he said. “So this is what it feels like to be dead.”