past? About getting”—he paused dramatically, widening his stone eyes—
Now she leaned down toward him. “What are you talking about?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and wagged his stone tongue. “I’m not telling.”
“Bill!” Luce pleaded.
“Not yet, anyway. First let’s see how you do tonight.”
Near dusk, Luce caught her first break in Helston. Right before supper, Miss McGovern announced to the entire kitchen that the front-of-house staff needed a few extra helping hands for the party. Luce and Henrietta, the two youngest scullery maids and the two most desperate to see the party up close, were the first to thrust up their hands to volunteer.
“Fine, fine.” Miss McGovern jotted down the names of both girls, her eyes lingering on Henrietta’s oily mop of hair. “On the condition that you bathe. Both of you. You stink of onions.”
“Yes, miss,” both girls chimed, though as soon as their boss had left the room, Henrietta turned to Luce. “Take a bath before this party? And risk getting me fingers all pruny? The miss is mad!”
Luce laughed but was secretly ecstatic as she filled the round tin tub behind the cellar. She could only carry enough boiling water to get the bath lukewarm, but still she luxuriated in the suds—and the idea that this night, finally, she would get to see Lucinda. Would she get to see Daniel, too? She donned a clean servant’s dress of Henrietta’s for the party. At eight o’clock that evening, the first guests began arriving through the wicket gate at the north entrance of the estate.
Watching from the window in the front hallway as the caravans of lamplit carriages pulled into the circular drive, Luce shivered. The foyer was warm with activity. Around her the other servants buzzed, but Luce stood still. She could feel it: a trembling in her chest that told her Daniel was nearby.
The house looked beautiful. Luce had been given one very brief tour by Miss McGovern the morning she started, but now, under the glow of so many chandeliers, she almost didn’t recognize the place. It was as if she’d stepped into a Merchant-Ivory film. Tall pots of violet lilies lined the entryway, and the velvet-upholstered furniture had been pushed back against the floral wallpapered walls to make room for the guests.
They came through the front door in twos and threes, guests as old as white-haired Mrs. Constance and as young as Luce herself. Bright-eyed, and wrapped in white summer cloaks, the women curtseyed to the men in smart suits and waistcoats. Black-coated waiters whisked through the large open foyer, offering twinkling crystal goblets of champagne.
Luce found Henrietta near the doors to the main ballroom, which looked like a flower bed in bloom: Extravagant, brightly colored gowns of every color, in organza, tulle, and silk, with grosgrain sashes, filled the room. The younger ladies carried bright nosegays of flowers, making the whole house smell like summer.
Henrietta’s task was to collect the ladies’ shawls and reticules as they entered. Luce had been told to distribute dance cards—small, expensive-looking booklets, with the Constances’ jeweled family crest sewn into the front cover and the orchestra’s set list written inside.
“Where are all the men?” Luce whispered to Henrietta.
Henrietta snorted. “That’s my girl! In the smoking room, of course.” She jerked her head left, where a hallway led into the shadows. “Where they’ll be smart to stay until the meal is served, if you ask me. Who wants to hear all that jabbering on about some war all the way in Crimea? Not these ladies. Not I. Not you, Myrtle.” Then Henrietta’s thin eyebrows lifted and she pointed toward the French windows. “Oof, I spoke too soon. Seems one of ’em has escaped.”
Luce turned. A single man was standing in the room full of women. His back was to them, showing nothing but a slick mane of jet-black hair and a long tailed jacket. He was talking to a blond woman in a soft rose-colored ball gown. Her diamond chandelier earrings sparkled when she turned her head—and locked eyes with Luce.
Gabbe.
The beautiful angel blinked a few times, as if trying to decide whether Luce was an apparition. Then she tilted her head ever so slightly at the man she was standing with, as if trying to send him a signal. Before he’d even turned all the way around, Luce recognized the clean, sharp profile.
Cam.
Luce gasped, dropping all the dance card booklets. She bent down and clumsily started scooping them up off the floor. Then she thrust them into Henrietta’s hands and ducked out of the room.
“Myrtle!” Henrietta said.
“I’ll be right back,” Luce whispered, sprinting up the long, curved stairway before Henrietta could even reply.
Miss McGovern would send Luce packing as soon as she learned that Luce had abandoned her post—and the expensive dance cards—in the ballroom. But that was the least of Luce’s problems. She was not prepared to deal with Gabbe, not when she needed to focus on finding Lucinda.
And she never wanted to be around Cam. In her own lifetime or any other one. She flinched, remembering the way he’d aimed that arrow straight at what he’d thought was her the night the Outcast tried to carry her reflection away into the sky.
If only Daniel were here …
But he wasn’t. All Luce could do was hope that he’d be waiting for her—and not too angry—when she figured out what she was doing and came home to the present.
At the top of the stairs, Luce darted inside the first room she came to. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it to catch her breath.
She was alone in a vast parlor. It was a marvelous room with a plush ivory-upholstered love seat and a pair of leather chairs set around a polished harpsichord. Deep-red curtains hugged the three large windows along the western wall. A fire crackled in the hearth.
Beside Luce was a wall of bookshelves, row after row of thick, leather-bound volumes, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, so high there was even one of those ladders that could be wheeled across the shelves.
An easel stood in the corner, and something about it beckoned to Luce. She’d never set foot upstairs in the Constance estate, and yet: One step onto the thick Persian carpet jogged some part of her memory and told her that she might have seen all of this before.
She moved toward it. She had to see what he’d been painting.
Just before she reached it, a trio of high voices made her jump.
They were right outside the door.
She froze, watching the door handle pivot as someone turned it from the outside. She had no choice but to slip behind the thick red-velvet curtain and hide.
There was a rustling of taffeta, the slamming of a door, and one gasp. Followed by a round of giggles. Luce cupped a hand over her mouth and leaned out slightly, just enough to peek around the curtain.
Helston Lucinda stood ten feet away. She was dressed in a fantastic white gown with a soft silk-crepe bodice and an exposed corset back. Her dark hair was pinned high on her head in an array of shiny, intricately placed curls. Her diamond necklace shone against her pale skin, giving her such a regal air it nearly took Luce’s breath away.
Her past self was the most elegant creature Luce had ever seen.
“You’re all aglow tonight, Lucinda,” a soft voice said.
“Did Thomas call on you again?” another teased.
And the other two girls—Luce recognized one as Margaret, the elder Constance daughter, the one who’d walked with Daniel in the garden. The other, a fresher replica of Margaret, must have been the younger sister. She looked about Lucinda’s age. She teased her like a good friend.
And she was right, too—Lucinda
Lucinda flopped on the ivory love seat and sighed in a way Luce would never sigh, a melodramatic sigh that begged for attention. Luce knew instantly that Bill was right: She and her past self were absolutely nothing alike.
