Passion (11 page)

Angels, Luce l ed in. They must be the only other souls who could see Bil in this form. She guessed this because she could nal y make out the man and woman, the ones who’d prompted Bil to take cover. Gaping through the thick, prickly leaves of the tomato vine, Luce couldn’t tear her eyes away from them.

Away from Daniel, real y.

The rest of the garden grew very stil . The birds’ evening songs quieted, and al she could hear were two pairs of feet walking slowly up the gravel path. The last rays of the sun al seemed to fal upon Daniel, throwing a halo of gold around him. His head was tipped toward the woman and he was nodding as he walked. The woman who was not Luce.

She was older than Lucinda could have been—in her twenties, most likely, and very beautiful, with dark, silken curls under a broad straw hat. Her long muslin dress was the color of a dandelion and looked like it must have been very expensive.

“Have you come to like our lit le hamlet much at al , Mr. Grigori?” the woman was saying. Her voice was high and bright and ful of natural confidence.

“Perhaps too much, Margaret.” Luce’s stomach tied up in a jealous knot as she watched Daniel smile at the woman. “It’s hard to believe it’s been a week since I arrived in Helston. I could stay on longer even than I’d planned.” He paused. “Everyone here has been very kind.” Margaret blushed, and Luce seethed. Even Margaret’s blushing was lovely. “We only hope that wil come through in your work,” she said.

“Mother’s thril ed, of course, to have an artist staying with us. Everyone is.” Luce crawled along after them as they walked. Past the vegetable garden, she crouched down behind the overgrown rosebushes, planting her hands on the ground and leaning forward to keep the couple in earshot.

Then Luce gasped. She’d pricked her thumb on a thorn. It was bleeding.

She sucked on the wound and shook her hand, trying not to get blood on her apron, but by the time the bleeding had stopped, she realized she’d missed part of the conversation. Margaret was looking up at Daniel expectantly.

she’d missed part of the conversation. Margaret was looking up at Daniel expectantly.

“I asked you if you’l be at the solstice festivities later this week.” Her tone was a bit pleading. “Mother always makes a big to-do.” Daniel murmured something like yes, he wouldn’t miss it, but he was clearly distracted. He kept looking away from the woman. His eyes darted around the lawn, as if he sensed Luce behind the roses.

When his gaze swept over the bushes where she crouched, they flashed the most intense shade of violet.

SIX

SIX

THE WOMAN IN WHITE

HELSTON, ENGLAND • JUNE 18, 1854

By the time Daniel got to Helston, he was angry.

He recognized the set ing at once, as soon as the Announcer ejected him alone onto the shingle banks of the Loe. The lake was stil , re ecting big tufts of pink cloud in the evening sky. Startled by his sudden appearance, a pair of king shers took o across the eld of clover and came to rest in a crooked moorland tree beside the main road. The road led, he knew, into the smal town where he’d spent a summer with Lucinda.

Standing again on this rich green earth touched a soft place inside him. As much as he worked to close every door to their past, as much as he strove to move beyond each one of her heartbreaking deaths—some mat ered more than others. He was surprised at how clearly he stil recal ed their time in the South of England.

But Daniel wasn’t here on holiday. He wasn’t here to fal in love with the beautiful copper trader’s daughter. He was here to stop a reckless girl from get ing so lost in the dark moments of her past that it kil ed her. He was here to help her undo their curse, once and for al .

He started the long walk toward town.

It was a warm and lazy summer evening in Helston. Out on the streets, ladies in bonnets and lace-trimmed gowns spoke in low, polite voices to the linen-suited men whose arms they held. Couples paused in front of shop windows. They lingered to speak with their neighbors.

They stopped on street corners and took ten minutes to say goodbye.

Everything about these people, from their at ire to the pace of their strol ing, was so infuriatingly slow. Daniel could not have felt more at odds with the passersby on the street.

His wings, hidden beneath his coat, burned with his impatience as he waded through the people. There was one fail-safe place where he knew he could nd Lucinda—she visited the gazebo in his patron’s back garden most evenings just after dusk. But where he might nd Luce—the one hopping in and out of Announcers, the one he needed to find—that, there was no way of knowing.

The other two lives Luce had stumbled into made some sense to Daniel. In the grand scheme, they were … anomalies. Past moments when she had come close to unraveling the truth of their curse just before she died. But he couldn’t gure out why her Announcer had brought her here.

Helston had been a mostly peaceful time for them. In this life, their love had grown slowly, natural y. Even her death had been private, between just the two of them. Once, Gabbe had used the word respectable to describe Lucinda’s end in Helston. That death, at least, had been theirs alone to suf er.

No, nothing made sense about the accident of her revisiting this life—which meant she could be anywhere in the hamlet.

“Why, Mr. Grigori,” a tril ing voice cal ed out on the street. “What a wonderful surprise to find you here in town.” A blond woman in a long pat erned blue dress stood before Daniel, taking him ut erly by surprise. She held the hand of a pudgy, freckled eight-year-old boy, who looked miserable in a cream-colored jacket with a stain underneath the col ar.

At last it dawned on Daniel: Mrs. Holcombe and her talentless son Edward, whom he’d given drawing lessons to for a few painful weeks while in Helston.

“Hel o, Edward.” Daniel leaned down to shake the lit le boy’s hand, then bowed to his mother. “Mrs. Holcombe.” Until that moment, Daniel had given lit le thought to his wardrobe as he moved through time. He didn’t care what someone on the street thought of his modern gray slacks or whether the cut of his white oxford shirt looked odd compared to any other man’s in town. But if he was going to run into people he’d actual y known nearly two hundred years ago wearing the clothes he’d worn two days ago to Luce’s parents’ Thanksgiving, word might begin to travel around.

Daniel didn’t want to draw any at ention to himself. Nothing could stand in the way of nding Luce. He would simply have to nd something else to wear. Not that the Holcombes noticed. Luckily Daniel had returned to a time when he’d been known as an “eccentric” artist.

“Edward, show Mr. Grigori what Mama just bought you,” Mrs. Holcombe said, smoothing her son’s unruly hair.

The boy reluctantly produced a smal paint kit from a satchel. Five glass pots of oil paint and a long red wooden-handled brush.

Daniel made the requisite compliments—about how Edward was a very lucky lit le boy, one whose talent now had the proper tools—

while trying not to be obvious about looking past the pair for the quickest way out of the conversation.

“Edward’s such a gifted child,” Mrs. Holcombe insisted, taking hold of Daniel’s arm. “Trouble is, he nds your drawing lessons just a lit le less thril ing than a boy his age expects. It’s why I thought a proper paint set might al ow him to real y come into his own. As an artiste. You understand, Mr. Grigori?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Daniel cut her of . “Give him whatever makes him want to paint. Bril iant plan—” A coldness spread through him and froze his words in his throat.

Cam had just exited from a pub across the street.

For a moment, Daniel churned with anger. He’d been clear enough that he wanted no help from the others. His hands bal ed into sts, and he took a step toward Cam, but then—

Of course. This was Cam from the Helston era. And by the looks of it, Cam was having the time of his life in his fancy striped tapered slacks and Victorian smoking cap. His black hair was long, cascading just past his shoulders. He leaned against the pub’s door, joking with three other men.

Cam slipped a gold-tipped cigar out of a square metal case. He hadn’t seen Daniel yet. As soon as he did, he would quit laughing. From the beginning, Cam had traveled through the Announcers more than any of the fal en angels. He was an expert in ways Daniel never could be: That was a gift of those who’d thrown in with Lucifer—they had a talent for traveling through the shadows of the past.

One look at Daniel would tel this Victorian Cam that his rival was an Anachronism.

A man out of time.

Cam would realize that something big was going on. Then Daniel would never be able to shake him.

Cam would realize that something big was going on. Then Daniel would never be able to shake him.

“You’re so very generous, Mr. Grigori.” Mrs. Holcombe was stil nat ering, stil had Daniel gripped by his shirtsleeve.

Cam’s head began to swivel in his direction.

“Think nothing of it.” The words rushed out of Daniel. “Now, if you’l excuse me”—he pried her ngers loose—“I’ve just got to … buy some new clothes.”

He made a speedy bow and rushed through the door of the nearest shop.

“Mr. Grigori—” Mrs. Holcombe was practical y shouting his name.

Silently, Daniel cursed her, pretending he was out of earshot, which only made her cal more loudly. “But that’s a dressmaker’s, Mr.

Grigori!” she shouted, cupping her hands over her mouth.

Daniel was already inside. The glass door of the shop slammed behind him, the bel that was tied to the hinge ringing. He could hide here, at least for a few minutes, in the hopes that Cam hadn’t seen him or heard Mrs. Holcombe’s shril voice.

The shop was quiet and smel ed of lavender. Wel -heeled shoes had worn down its wooden oors, and the shelves along the wal s were stacked to the ceiling with bolts of colorful fabrics. Daniel lowered the lace curtain over the window so he’d be less visible from the street.

When he turned, he caught a glimpse in the mirror of another person in the shop.

He swal owed a moan of surprised relief.

He’d found her.

Luce was trying on a long white muslin dress. Its high neck fastened with a yel ow ribbon, bringing out the incredible hazel of her eyes.

Her hair was tied back to one side, clipped with a beaded oral pin. She kept dgeting with the way the sleeves fel on her shoulders as she stood, examining herself from as many angles as she could in the mirror. Daniel adored al of them.

He wanted to stand there, admiring her forever, but then he remembered himself. He strode toward her and grabbed her by the arm.

“This has gone on long enough.” Even as he spoke, Daniel felt overcome by the delicious feel of her skin against his hand. The last time he’d touched her was the night he thought he’d lost her to the Outcasts. “Do you have any idea what a scare you gave me? You’re not safe here on your own,” he said.

Luce didn’t start arguing with Daniel, as he’d expected. Instead, she screamed and slapped him smartly across the face.

Because she wasn’t Luce. She was Lucinda.

And, what was worse, they hadn’t even met yet in this lifetime. She must have just come back from London with her family. She and Daniel must have been about to meet at the Constances’ summer solstice party.

He could see al of that now as the shock registered on Lucinda’s face.

“What day is this?” he asked desperately.

She would think he was insane. Across the room, he had been too love-struck to note the di erence between the girl he’d already lost and the girl he had to save.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. This was exactly why he was so terrible as an Anachronism. He got completely lost in the smal est of things.

One touch of her skin. One look into her deep hazel eyes. One whi of the scented powder along her hairline. One shared breath in the cramped space of this tiny shop.

Lucinda winced as she looked at his cheek. In the mirror, it was bright red where she’d slapped him. Her eyes traveled to meet his—and his heart felt like it was caving in. Her pink lips parted and her head cocked slightly to the right. She was looking at him like a woman deep in love.

No.

There was a way it was supposed to happen. A way it had to happen. They were not supposed to meet until the party. As much as Daniel cursed their fate, he would not disrupt the lives she’d lived before. They were what kept her coming back to him.

He tried to look as uninterested and scowly as possible. Crossing his arms over his chest, shifting his weight to create more space between them, keeping his eyes everywhere but where they wanted to be. On her.

“I’m sorry,” Lucinda said, pressing her hands over her heart. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never done anything like that.…” Daniel wasn’t going to argue with her now, though she’d slapped him so many times over the years that Arriane kept a tal y in a lit le spiral notebook marked You’re Fresh.

“My mistake,” he said quickly. “I—I thought you were someone else.” He’d already interfered with the past too much, rst with Lucia in Milan, and now here. He began to back away.

“Wait.” She reached for him. Her eyes were lovely hazel orbs of light pul ing him back. “I feel almost as if we do know one another, though I can’t quite remember—”