A Tale of Two Centuries

tension in her shoulders.

“When I came back home, I didn’t think anyone would believe me.” She laughs. “Hell, I didn’t plan on ever telling anyone, either, but just in case I needed to, I collected proof.”

“Proof?” I ask, wondering why she never mentioned this before.

She flinches, and my apprehension escalates. I know she didn’t forget to show this to me—she kept it a secret on purpose. But why would she feel the need to hide?

Tapping her manicured nails on the binder’s cover, she focuses her gaze on Lucas instead of me. “You see, as if the ability to travel through time wasn’t crazy enough, my gypsy girl let me bring my backpack with me. And along with much-needed toothpaste, deodorant, magazines, art supplies, and various electronics, I had my camera. Whenever people weren’t looking, or sometimes even when they were, I snapped shots.”

She opens the binder and begins flipping through pages of buildings, outfits, and food. I spot the familiar sight of Mama’s profile, and my heartbeat stutters over the gaping hole her absence has left. Then Cat stops on a page containing a picture of me covered in green goop, and blood rushes to my face.

“We all agree this is Less, right?”

The boys nod, and Austin’s lips twitch with amusement. I flash Cat a disgruntled look. Could she not have chosen a less embarrassing photograph to prove her point?

Cat grins and flips another page, and then it is time for her breath to catch. I look down and discover why.

It’s a photograph of Lorenzo.

Lucas jerks and grabs the binder. She places her hand on his arm. “Lucas, meet Lorenzo. Lorenzo Cappelli, your Renaissance ancestor, and the artist who painted me there.”

Almost as one, four sets of eyes shift to the painting.

A muscle pops in Lucas’s jaw, and I can’t imagine what he is presuming. Cat bites her lip and picks at a nonexistent hangnail. “Luc, I know how it looks, but nothing happened. It was completely innocent. Most of that painting is artistic interpretation.”

I bite my tongue, deciding it best I not share my suspicions about all that Lorenzo glimpsed that day, and look back at the binder, pondering what else it contains.

Cat begins flipping pages again, an obvious attempt to refocus Lucas’s attention when she says, “But that’s not the painting I wanted to show you. He did one of Less, too.”

Now my eyes widen. Austin sits up straight and cracks his knuckles. When my cousin points at a page, he strains his neck to look over her shoulder, trying to smooth his facial muscles. But I see the tension snapping just below the surface. Knowing I never posed for such a painting, nor have any intention ever to do so in the future, I say, “That’s not possible.”

Lucas huffs. “Seems like there’s a lot of that going around.”

Cat lifts the book to her chest. “This is different. This is a painting Lorenzo did right before you got married, or, err, get married. He did it as a wedding gift to your bridegroom or some craziness.”

The word bridegroom hits me like a bucket of cold water. Austin visibly recoils.

Sure enough, she lowers the binder and exposes a printed replication of a portrait of me, sitting on my beloved fountain in my family’s courtyard. I am dressed in a gown Mama recently had done up for me, my current favorite, a light green surcoat with the most beautiful embroidery.

I grab the book from her hands, searching the page for a clue as to when this could’ve been painted and who I am to marry, hoping to find some mark that will show it is years from now. But I look the same as I do today. I lift my eyes, and Cat nods at my unspoken question. “The date said 1507.”

The book falls from my fingertips. “But when I return it will be 1507.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounds hollow and far away.

She presses her lips together in a thin line, and realization hits me.

“But you knew that,” I say. “The first day I arrived, I told you what year it was when I left. Which means you knew all along that I was to marry soon.”

Cat looks at her bedspread. That is what she has been hiding. All this time she has known what waited when I returned. Betrayal washes over me…and then fades as quickly as it comes.

What good would it have done for me to know the truth any sooner? Would I have changed one moment of the last two weeks? If anything, had I known what lay ahead, I most likely would have focused on that, on my future as a bride, and not on my time here.

With Austin.

I feel the weight of his stare as I ask her, almost scared of her answer, “Do you know whom it is that I am to marry?”

Cat shakes her head. “The title of the painting didn’t say. It just said it was a gift to your bridegroom. I planned to do a full ancestry search soon, to find out what happened to everyone. You, Cipriano, your parents, Patience, Lorenzo.” Her eyes dart to Lucas and back. “But I haven’t had time yet with Christmas break. I found this doing a quick Google search right after I got back. But if you want, we can go to the library tomorrow and find out before you leave.”

Of course, my mind immediately conjures the worst potential suitors in Florence, and how lonely a life with any of the men would be—but I still have to know. “Yes,” I say, even as my stomach roils. “I would like that.”

Austin’s eyes have remained on me for our entire exchange, sitting in relative silence, not even commenting on the fact that I am (apparently) soon to become a sixteen-year-old bride, something quite unusual for his time.

Cat does what I haven’t been able to do since I heard the word bridegroom—she looks at Austin. Closing the binder, she takes Lucas’s hand and pulls him off the bed. “We’re gonna go in the bathroom and let you two talk.”

From Lucas’s expression, I have no doubt their conversation will be an interesting one as well.

Austin waits for the telltale click of the bathroom door, then interlocks our hands. I stare at the contrast between his thick, roughened fingers and my smooth, slender ones. He lifts our joined hands and places a knuckle under my chin so he can look me in the eye. “So it’s true?”

I give him a halfhearted smile. “You always say I speak like a historical novel.”

The side of his mouth lifts in a grin, and hope flutters in my chest. “You do.”

I fight the urge to squirm and look away as he studies my face, and when his mouth tightens, every cell in my body tenses for his response.

“You know, as crazy as it is, it kinda makes sense. In a surreal, mind-boggling sort of way.”

Deeming it too good to be true, I ask, “You mean…you believe her?”

Austin slowly nods, almost as if he, too, is surprised. “I do. I mean, at first I didn’t. The buildings in Cat’s pictures don’t look much different now, and the rest could’ve been from a really good Renaissance fair. But that painting of you…and seeing your face when you heard about getting married…” He breaks off with a low curse. Then he closes his eyes and opens them, the blue so deep I could drown in them. “Yeah, I believe you. But that’s not why you were so upset. You always knew where you were from, so something else must’ve happened before I got here. What?” He narrows his eyes. “Why was that woman here tonight?”

Willing myself not to cry again, I crush his fingers in my grasp and whisper, “She came to take me home.”

Austin bounds off the bed and paces the length of the room. He stops, starts again, and then pulls me up with him. Gathering me to his chest, he curls his shoulders around me as if he can protect me—as if he can stop fate just because he wills things to be different—and says, “That’s not happening.”

His voice is sharp, with a determined edge of steel, and if I weren’t so heartbroken, I would kiss him.

Instead, I lay my hand on his cheek. “It’s all right. Reyna granted me a forty-eight-hour reprieve. I have until after opening night.” I swallow hard, pushing my emotions back down my thickened throat. “But—but then I’ll have to leave you.”

Austin takes my hand and walks back to the bed, placing me on his lap as he sits down. “Baby, I just found you…you really think I’m gonna let her take you away from me? We’ll figure something out, I promise you that.”