Duchess of Mine (7 page)

Before Fleur could respond, Helen was on her
feet, shuffling toward the exit Fleur had yet to see. She stood and
turned around, alone in the house. Alone and suddenly so scared.
She rushed toward the front door, the one where Duncan had pressed
his fingertips against the small of her back. When he’d done
that—oh, the tingly sensations still rippled through her.

Fleur found herself in Helen’s garden, close
to a thigh-high rosemary bush and wavy chamomile white and yellow
daisies that flickered at her. This was so like her grandmother’s
garden, back when Papa was still alive. And Helen looked so much
like Rachel. Maybe...maybe all of this was a dream. But how could
she wake from it?

“You don’t,” said a nearby female voice.

Fleur jumped when she looked just beyond the
rosemary to see two dark redheads pulling weeds in a row of
carrots. They both wore golden coveralls, and were covered in small
smudges of dirt. One looked up at her and smiled, and that’s when
Fleur took a step back.

“You’re...you.”

The redhead nodded.

The other looked up from pulling a dandelion
then winced. “Shoot, they keep dandelions, don’t they? They use
their roots and their leaves in teas and in tinctures, huh?”

The closest redhead nodded. “That’s okay. I
think the dandelions were taking over the poor pansies over there.
See? So you can pull a few of them.” Then she smiled up at Fleur.
“Remember me? I’m Clio.” She then pointed to the other woman.
“That’s my sister, Erato.”

Fleur snorted a laugh, remembering slightly
her mythology. “The muses. Are you telling me you’re Greek
muses?

Clio turned to Erato again. “She knows a lot
for being a genealogist.”

Erato scowled. “I did tell you she was super
smart. What was your high school called? The one you went to down
in Texas?”

“T-Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science,”
Fleur whispered, not quite feeling her feet any more, stunned that
Erato knew so much about her.

Erato nodded. “An American Justice of the
Peace went to school there. Which one?”

Both the muses turned to Fleur, their hands
still in the sandy dirt, but paused as they waited for an
answer.

Fleur shook her head. “This can’t be
happening.”

Clio blinked. “Well, as you said to Duncan,
it is, because you’re here. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but you
said something like that. And quite honestly, I thought you were
handling the switch in time rather well until now. There you were
on the road, trying to get him to believe you’re from—”

“The future!” Erato finished with a
triumphant smile that looked like she was attempting to imitate Doc
from
Back to the Future
. She even had a finger pointed to
the sky as she grinned.

Fleur sank to her knees. “Why? Why are you
doing this to me?”

Erato was first to kneel close to Fleur,
hugging her around her shoulders. “You know, this morning wasn’t
what we expected. We’ve never worked with Coyote before. That’s why
we decided to come back so soon and talk to you privately
about...well, everything.”

Fleur didn’t know why, but after hugging
Helen and now a woman who was trying to pass off as a muse
seemed—God, she didn’t know what was wrong with her—but she didn’t
mind at all.

Still, she wanted some answers. “So—so I
really saw Coyote this morning?”

Clio nodded. “He loves you, which made things
a little serious there for a moment. Not that Erato and I don’t
adore you, but we haven’t been watching you since you were a child,
like him. He’s much more, um, directly involved. So it went to a
personal level this morning.”

“I really am back in time, aren’t I?”

Clio then sat next to Fleur and wrapped her
arms around her too. “Yes, sweet girl. That is hard to swallow,
isn’t it?”

“Why?” Fleur asked, trying to gain a little
distance from the two, well, muses.

Clio looked at Erato, who nodded. “Okay,
well, we saw what Coyote saw. You aren’t happy. You aren’t
you
.”

Fleur tried to stand, but could only crawl a
few feet away. “How do you know, hmm? I’m happy. I’m
happy
.
Yeah, I’m happy.” As soon as she uttered the words she knew the lie
she’d said. It felt like bile in her mouth, and she hunched over
wondering if she would vomit.

Clio and Erato looked at each other, but then
back at Fleur.

Without warning, Fleur felt a tear escape her
eye and trickle down her cheek. She wiped it with the back of her
hand, angry that her body was betraying her.

“All right! I’m not happy. But who the hell
is?”

Erato shrugged. “Generally, I am.”

Clio nodded. “Most often I am too.”

“Yeah, but you’re muses. You don’t
count.”

“Ouch, kitten’s got claws,” Erato said.

Fleur huffed. “I mean, humans. What human is
happy?”

Erato nodded. “I see your point. There are
many humans who aren’t happy, so Clio and I have our work cut out
for ourselves. But this
glimpse
is so much more than finding
your happiness.”

Fleur shook her head, thinking back. “So,
what? Coyote thinks I’m a shell of what I could be, and you two
think I’m not me. Subsequently, I’m supposed to find myself in
sixteen-freaking-fifty-three? What the hell happens in 1653 that’s
important to
me
? What does any of this have to do with
me
? If you were really looking out for my best interest,
then you’d have taken me to 947, when—”

“That’s the carbon dating of the Viking
skeleton that your friend Rachel found, isn’t it?” Clio asked. “You
think this has something to do with your work?”

Fleur threw her hands to the slowly darkening
sky. “Ah, duh. Yes! I love my work. It’s the only thing that’s kept
me sane in these last few years. It’s been my one sanctuary. I
can’t even trust Rachel as much as I trust my research and the
clarity I find when I’m conducting it. Why wouldn’t you try to
incorporate my work into
my
supposed glimpse?”

Clio pursed her lips and looked at Erato. “I
don’t like her attitude.”

“Try to be patient.”

Fleur growled and tried to stand again, but
she felt a powerful hand pull her back down to the garden. Before
she could blink, hands held her own to the dirt, in the dirt. She
looked up into Erato’s crystal turquoise eyes.

“Do you remember when your grandmother taught
you to call back for your spirit when you touched the soil?”

Fleur felt her insides melt then vanish. A
cool breeze swept along her intestines in an unpleasant way. She
remembered days when Na had taught her so many things, things she’d
tried so hard to disregard as the years progressed, because there
was no room for them. There was no place for them when she was
trying so hard just to...What had she been doing? Trying so hard to
survive.

“She remembers,” Clio whispered.

“Yes,” Erato said, her face stern as she held
Fleur’s hands in the dirt a little firmer, “I sent you here to call
back for your spirit, because you’re lost, little girl. You have
been for quite a while. And, yes, I know you can find yourself
here. But there are two reasons why a
glimpse
is happening,
because, you self-centered creature, it’s not just happening to
you.”

Erato released Fleur and immediately stood,
looking pissed. Clio came to stand beside her sister, taking her
hand in her own. They looked down at Fleur still on the ground,
feeling so small and angry.

“There’s someone here from the future too?”
Fleur asked, even madder at herself from the way her voice cracked
and sounded childish.

Clio shook her head. “There’s someone here
who needs you as much as you need them. It’s your duty, your
privilege to find them. When you help them, then you will find
yourself and your inner strength.”

Fleur huffed, not sure if the sound she made
was more a sigh or an attempt to deflect from crying. As ire
coursed through her, she could no longer find words for how unfair
this was, because she was scared she’d yet again sound infantile
and whiny.

Erato suddenly knelt close to Fleur again and
chucked a finger under her chin. “Learning to pick your battles is
an excellent lesson, one which you will learn while you’re here.
And don’t worry about picking the wrong ones. Maybe fight all of
them, Fleur? Maybe you should be pissed at my sister and me? After
all, we sent you back more than three hundred years to a time you
hardly know, a place you know even less about, and more than likely
nothing about this is related to your work.” Erato smiled then
stood again.

Fleur swallowed.

“But I have to warn you of a couple things,”
Erato said. “First, Cromwell knows well of the Highlanders’
rebellion. We need you to finish here before his army comes into
Scotland. And we really should have warned our last
glimpse
participant better, but you can get hurt here as you would in your
own time. You can even die. So stay clear of Cromwell and his New
Model Army. They’re wiping the rebellion from the map and coming
here soon.” Erato looked toward the large stone house then sighed.
“The other thing is...well, you can probably guess it, but to be
fair I should tell you about...Helen.”

Fleur stood slowly, holding her hands over
her heart, holding her breath too.

Erato placed her head on her sister’s
shoulder. Clio instantly patted it, making Fleur a little jealous
of their relationship, how in tune they were to each other’s
needs.

It was Clio who said, “She’s sick.”

That’s when Fleur thought of the smell. It
permeated Helen. She knew it well because when her grandmother had
been in the hospital, Fleur had to walk through the cancer wing.
There was a sickly sour scent with cancer, especially if it was
terminal. There had been a scent from Na too, but Fleur’s
grandmother had had diabetes, a disease that made her Na smell too
sweet.

“Helen’s got cancer,” Fleur whispered.

The muses nodded.

Sighing, Fleur realized that the kindly muses
had given her a hint whom she was to find. Helen was sick. Helen
must need her. And Fleur knew, God how she knew it, that she hadn’t
taken as good of care of Na when she was dying as she had hoped.
Years of resentment had reared its ugly head when Na had needed
her. And although Fleur had held Na’s hand through all of it, even
as Na took her last shaky breath, she still regretted one
conversation they’d had. So she needed a good purging from the
guilt, the shame, by being in the presence of someone whom Fleur
could take care of. Helen. The pieces all fit into place then. She
was here to nurse Helen, finally lessen the past hurt, and
then—

“So when I find this person and help them,
then I can go back to my time, is that the way it works?” Fleur
asked.

Clio looked at Erato. They seemed to
communicate a whole conversation with just a few eyebrow arcs and
narrowed eyes. Finally, Clio turned back to Fleur. “I will tell you
this: Unlike others who have had a
glimpse
, you will have
many more choices. That might be a—”

“You might think it’s a blessing.” Erato
finished for Clio.

“Or a curse.” Clio nodded, then smiled. “But
like all of life, the choices you make will be your own.
Yours.”

Fleur nodded, thinking that it could be a
blessing. Maybe if she played along with the muses, she’d find
peace, and then she’d be back at her lab in no time, grinding
bones, discovering their ancestry through their intriguing
chromosomes.

“Thank you,” Fleur said on a wide grin.

“She thinks she’s got this all figured out,
doesn’t she?” Clio asked Erato.

Erato lifted her hand and smiled at Fleur.
With a wink and a snap of the fingers, the muses were gone. Fleur
stepped back until she fell on her ass close to some posy flowers.
Blooms that supposedly warded off death, but had done nothing to
stop the black plague. Fleur worried her bottom lip while she
scanned the pretty blossoms.

Chapter 6

“
W
hat do you mean there’s something
wrong with the lady?” Helen asked as she stood on a step leading to
the colorful gardens at the hindmost of her home.

Duncan hadn’t meant to say it exactly like
that. Yet it had come out anyway. How could he tell his ma that
Fleur had said she’d come from another time? How could he tell her
that Fleur might be crazy? Or worse, he might, because something in
him believed her.

Lord, that scared him too. A woman flung back
in time to Scotland, that was the making of a good tale. His life
was far from a story though. He’d been a mercenary far longer than
he’d been anything else. All he knew was war, battle, and the
consequences of such. He knew his sword, and he was learning how to
aim better with the musket. He knew tactics and fighting. He knew
blood and gristle.

However, lately fighting as a mercenary felt
like a lifetime ago. Actually, several lifetimes ago.

When he’d gotten news his brothers had been
taken to America after the horrible defeat to Cromwell, he’d sailed
to Scotland faster than he’d ever traveled before. He’d expected to
find his mother, then travel to London to get under deck of an even
faster boat to find his brothers and bring them back. However,
Helen had begged him to stay with her, even saying the lads were
better off in America. Duncan hadn’t been the most obedient lad,
though he’d always tried to listen to his mother, and when she had
tears in her eyes, asking him to stay, he’d relented.

God, how he wanted to run though, to get
away, do anything other than stay put. Durness hadn’t grown much
since his youth, and he’d hated it then as much as he did now.
Perhaps he would feel differently if the people around him didn’t
know him so well. But they knew everything. They remembered how he
and his mother only had each other for many years, until he was
nine. Laughing, they’d recall his stepfather, Albert, and how
Duncan hadn’t taken to the man. His mother was wed and pregnant
before he could sneeze, it seemed. Then Duncan had started to sleep
outside, because he couldn’t stand the sight of his stepfather. The
townspeople would chuckle at Duncan who would sleep in the barn,
thinking him odd, comparing him to a dog. Nonetheless it was better
than being close to Albert who treated him no better than a
dog.