Now and Forever (90 page)

She closed the door quietly behind her and started down the hall. It was almost unnaturally quiet, as if the household was holding its collective breath, and she shook off an odd feeling of anticipation.

Halfway between Abigail's room and Devane's suite she noticed small pools of water on the polished wooden floor, each one a man's stride away from the next. She bent and touched her finger to the liquid. It was cold and slushy, obviously melting snow.

Soldiers, maybe? She looked toward the top of the staircase but didn't see any footprints on the steps or the landing. "Weird," she muttered. How had they managed that trick? Did they carry their boots up the stairs then slip them back on, or walk on their hands like acrobats in Cirque du Soleil?

Even more unnerving, the trail of melting snow led straight to Devane's rooms. The door was closed. She was certain she hadn't left it that way. Cautiously she pushed it open and stepped inside.

The curtains were open. The candles were extinguished. Devane's bed was untouched. Everything was as she'd left it except for the trail of melting snow that led straight to the armoire.

Don't even think it, Wylie! This isn't the time to turn into Nancy Drew.

Hidden staircases and mysterious messages tucked inside old clocks were fine in the pages of a book, but they had nothing whatsoever to do with reality.

Reality? You mean, like time travel?

All she knew was that Devane had watched her comfort his daughter, probably even heard the child's cries, and chosen to do nothing about it. He had stood in the doorway to his daughter's room then turned and walked away.

He wasn't going to get away with it. Not if she could help it.

A towering sense of rage filled her and she swung open the door to the armoire, practically vibrating with the certainty that Devane's secrets were within her reach. She'd find him even if she had to track him through the centuries.

His treatment of Abigail was unconscionable. The thought that he could watch the child cry and do nothing,
feel
nothing, defied reason. He was the lowest type of slime crawling the earth, and she intended to tell him so as soon as possible.

She peered inside empty drawers, felt around for secret compartments, would have settled for a pair of linsey-woolsey Jockey shorts with hearts embroidered on them, but no luck. The armoire was still as empty as her bank account back home, but the sense of certainty inside her didn't lessen.

She ran her fingers across the smooth wood of one of the inner drawers. The armoire was a strange piece of furniture. The drawers were flimsy and cheaply made, while the wardrobe itself was almost a work of art. Each piece of pine fit into the next piece seamlessly, as if the entire thing had been wrought from one enormous tree. The only board that didn't seem quite a part of the whole was the one in back, but that could be a trick of the dim light and not a blemish on the craftsmanship.

Or maybe it was something else. Her fingertips tingled as she ran them up the vertical grain and her pulse rate leaped exponentially. She'd experienced that kind of thing often enough in her life to know exactly what it meant, and she thanked God for it.

She slid the drawers out and stacked them on the floor by her feet. Her hands had a life of their own as she lifted out the runners and laid them next to the drawers. Then
bingo!

Her palm found a slight depression near the seam on the right-hand side of the board and the metal latch she'd discovered earlier. She gave a tug and then a push, and as it swung open it was all she could do to hold back a whoop of exhilaration.

The passageway was dark and narrow, but she felt no fear. She was meant to be there. Every cell and neuron in her body told her so. Her extrasensory abilities were beginning to flex their muscles again, and she felt more like her old self than she had since climbing into the hot-air balloon a thousand lifetimes ago.

She stumbled twice on the uneven stone floor but continued to move forward. Boards creaked overhead and she heard a scurrying noise that sounded awfully mouselike.

She'd read about secret passageways that snaked their way through old houses, and knew they invariably led outside. She didn't have a terrific sense of direction, but if her guess was right, she was heading toward the stables.

Why would Devane feel he needed to use a secret passageway when he owned the house in question and dominated everyone in it with his iron will and bad attitude? You'd think a man like that could come and go when he wanted without having to answer to another living soul.

A man who worried about his reputation would use a passageway like this to conduct a love affair away from prying eyes, but in Devane's case that didn't make sense because he was no longer a married man and could conduct a love affair in broad daylight in the center of town if that was what he wanted to do.

No, the only reason a man like Devane would go to such lengths to conceal his movements was if there was something greater at stake, something of such importance that it had to be kept secret at all costs.

Something like spying.

The explanation she'd been circling since she'd dropped out of the tree at Devane's feet was inescapable now. Everything he did, everything she'd seen and heard, all pointed toward the obvious conclusions. His hatred of the Continental army had been hot enough to blister paint. She'd sensed that he was a Tory sympathizer when they first met; now she was certain.

She consoled herself with the fact that when she found him she could berate him not just for being a lousy parent but for being a traitor, as well.

The passageway took a sharp left, narrowing until she wondered whether she'd be able to wedge her well-padded hips through. She could imagine some archaeologist finding her bones in the passageway a few hundred years from now and branding her demise as "death by cellulite."

She smothered a laugh. At least her sense of the absurd was still intact. Her courage, however, was another story. It seemed to be waning fast. Her ankle throbbed and she did her best to ignore it. A loud scratching noise sounded overhead and she cringed, convinced that one of Mickey Mouse's less affable cousins was going to make an unwelcome entrance on the scene.

Carefully she made her way down a steep staircase, navigated a series of sharp turns, then descended another set of steps that apparently led into the bowels of the earth.

Where on earth was she going to end up? The possibilities were not too pleasant. What if Devane had a guard posted, some bayonet-happy traitor who'd turn her into a human shish kebab? She hadn't thought to bring a weapon of any kind with her.

No matter. It was too late to turn back. That sense of destiny, of rightness, was gathering force with each step she took. Somehow it was all tied together—Patrick Devane and Abigail and this house and the sense that where she was at that moment was where she was meant to be, the path that would lead her home.

#

The White Horse Tavern

Molly Cutter's third-floor room boasted a thin feather mattress that rested atop a narrow iron bed. The ceiling angled sharply down to a waist-high window that overlooked the stables.

It reminded Emilie of her dorm room in art school, a sad little closet that was Dante's Inferno in the summer and a meat locker the rest of the year.

The girl's meager belongings were lined up neatly on the shelf that served as a dresser: a wooden comb, a length of black ribbon, a skein of indigo blue yarn and bone knitting needles.

That's all she has in the world,
Emilie thought as tears stung her eyes. In the twentieth century she had left behind, even the poorest soul had more.

She turned away and looked out the window. Snow continued to fall. The wind had picked up some since she had arrived, and drifts were forming against the side of the stables. She thought about Timothy's horse and hoped that the stable boy had understood the coin she gave him came with the expectation of services rendered. If she wasn't so tired, she would go back downstairs and make sure, but a sickening lassitude had taken hold and it was all she could do to make it to the narrow iron bed and lie down.

She lay there for a long time, dozing fitfully, awakening herself each time a crimson hot-air balloon floated into her dreams.

At a little after midnight she heard Molly climbing the twisting staircase, and she sat up as the girl entered the room.

"What did you find out?" she asked as the door closed behind Molly. "Where is my—where are Rutledge and Blakelee?"

The expression in Molly's green eyes was serious. Too serious for Emilie's taste. Blood hammered in her ears, making it hard to hear the girl's words.

". . . or she'd take the strap to me."

"What was that?" Emilie stared at her. "Someone said she'd take a
strap
to you?"

"Yes'm," said Molly. "Said to stop asking questions that weren't my business or I'd be sorry."

"Did you ask about the red ball that everyone's talking about?"

"No'm, never got the chance. Soon as I mentioned your two friends it got quiet as church on Monday morning."

"So you didn't find out anything?" Emilie asked, on the verge of tears. "Nothing at all?"

There was a slight pause, so slight that under normal circumstances Emilie never would have noticed it.

"The Redcoats," said Molly sadly. "I'm sorry, missus, but the Redcoats are goin' to hang them."

Chapter Sixteen

Rum had never failed Patrick before, not even during the darkest days after Susannah left him. Rum had filled the coldness in the center of his soul where Abigail had been. Rum had warmed the bed where his wife had lain beside him.

But this time rum couldn't begin to soothe the ache inside his chest as he thought of the comrades he had condemned to death. There wasn't enough rum in the world to help him forget what he had done. To forget that two men would die because he had not recognized danger when she appeared before him.

He'd suspected it from the beginning, but something inside him, some weakness of the soul, had kept him from accepting the truth that he could no longer deny.

He heard the soft sound of her footsteps as she made her way through the dark and narrow passageway, and he felt a grudging admiration for her courage. He knew few men who would venture alone into that passageway and fewer still who would not turn back long before reaching their destination.

But still she came, moving closer to him with every beat of his heart. He found it hard to reconcile his suspicions with the inexplicable sense of joy he had felt as he watched her hold Abigail to her breast in the darkened bedroom.

"Bloody fool!" He gulped down more rum. The quickest road to disaster was to trust a woman. He would not make that mistake again.

#

"What has kept you so long, Dakota Wylie?"

She jumped at the sound of his voice. Squinting, she made out his shadowy figure about fifteen feet away.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, as if she were Our Lady of the Passageway.

"Waiting for you, my dear wife. The night is long and cold without you."

"Stick a sock in it." Her aura was shooting sparks. She was surprised he couldn't see them arcing over her head, making her brave and powerful and impossible to deny.

"I am pleased you have decided to join me," he drawled. He was close enough for her to smell the faint scent of rum on his breath and she moved back, but she needn't have bothered. He made no move to touch her.

"You should be back in that house, taking care of your daughter."

"You served her well, madam. There was nothing more I could do."

"Nothing more you could do?" She laughed out loud. "You did nothing at all."

"Nothing was required."

"She had a nightmare."

"All children have nightmares."

"And their parents comfort them until the bad dream passes."

"Who will comfort her in school, madam? It is time she learned the difference between dreams and life."

"You treat her like a stranger. Cook would be a better parent to her than you have been."

"You overstep your bounds." He loomed over her and she knew the only thing between herself and death was the extent of his self-control. "Even if it were your concern, madam, this is not the place for serious discussion."