The Bride of Time (17 page)

From above, the moon shone down and lit her way as she approached the Abbey. It wasn’t full now; it was in its second quarter. That was a relief. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about werewolves for the moment. All she wanted was to feel Giles’s arms around her again, those strong, muscular arms holding her, clasping her fast to his dynamic body. She could still feel his hands
roaming over her. She could still feel his warm, eager lips possessing hers.

Approaching the drive, she realized that in his own time he could be treading the same ground. They could both be occupying the same space, only a century apart. It boggled the mind. Somewhere, his warm volatile body lived and breathed and wanted her. He was here—
right here
—and she could neither hear nor see him. His living, breathing flesh was treading the same patchwork hills her feet now trod, yet she couldn’t reach out and touch him. But she could feel him. Somehow, his presence was palpable despite the time that separated them. He was here, in the mist, in the night, in the very air she breathed. His scent wafted across her memory, his sultry, musky maleness. It was all around her, ghosting through her, driving her mad.

There was no door, no grand staircase to enter, and no Great Hall to welcome her. No evidence of rooms had survived, only most of the chimney structure. Tessa couldn’t help but marvel at how well the house had been constructed to have withstood such devastation with anything left standing. She wondered when it had happened, and how? Was it an accident, or was it deliberate? Why did Master Monty come to mind with that question? One thing was certain. “The Bride of Time” had been finished and somehow found its way to the little gallery off Threadneedle Street before the fire. If only she knew what had happened to Giles.

Cold chills walked up and down her spine at that thought. She dared not think on it. The curator at the gallery simply said he’d disappeared. No mention was made of his death. The very word brought tears to her eyes. She could not bear the thought of his dying, though of course he had; but she prayed he had not died in that blaze. The wounded house was breeding morbid thoughts. She would not have it! She would find him.
She had to find him! They had nearly been intimate together. If the moon hadn’t risen…No! She would not dwell upon that, either. Somehow, they would overcome the curse if it were true. She still doubted, but only because she could not bear the truth. It was too terrible.

She picked her way through the ground-creeping vines among the brickwork columns in the moonlight. Everything was in ruins, black with petrified char. Whenever the disaster had happened, it wasn’t recent. She was just about to turn away, when a voice from behind booming through the quiet spun her around and froze her to the spot. Tessa gasped. She was looking down the double barrels of a shotgun in the hands of an angry-looking man past middle age. A nimbus of gray hair fanned out about his face, and his eyes, like black onyx beads peeking out from beneath wrinkled eyelids, twinkled in the eerie moonlight.

“Hold it right there, missy,” he said, cocking the weapon. The sound ran Tessa through. “And who might you be, eh? And what are ya doin’ up in here? Don’t come no closer! It don’t matter ta me if a trespasser’s wearin’ trousers or skirts.”

“Put that ridiculous gun down!” Tessa charged. “I’m doing no harm. What possible damage could I do to
this?
” She gestured toward the entire circumstance. “You scared me half to death!”

“Aye, and well ya should be scared, and will be when the place starts fallin’ in on ya.” He gestured toward her swollen lip. “Looks like you’ve already done yourself a mischief. Who are ya, and what are ya doin’ in here?”

“My name is Tessa LaPrelle, and I…I knew someone who was employed here once. Who might you be, sir?”

“Ezra Jones, the caretaker,” the man said. “The Longworth Trust pays me good money ta keep folks like you out. And if you knew somebody who worked
here, that would have been long before my time, missy—and yours. You’ll have to do better than that. Now, who are ya and what do ya want here?”

“I have already told you, Mr. Jones. I didn’t say I knew the party personally. It happened to be a distant relative of mine. Her name was LaPrelle, too. Look here, I’ve done no harm. You have no right to treat me like a common criminal. This is no way to treat a lady!”

“Izzat so?” he countered. “Well, you don’t look like no lady ta me, all got up in them whore’s duds, Miss LaPell, or what ever your real name is. Now git, before I set the guards on ya!”

“ It’s
LaPrelle
, and how dare you, sir!”

“Don’t make me shoot this thing. I don’t hold with shootin’ women, no matter their profession, but you was told to git, so move!”

“Very well. I’m going, but could you at least tell me what happened here?”

“Why? What’s it to ya?”

“I told you…one of my ancestors used to be employed here as governess to a young boy.”

“Hah! ’Twas a young boy what set the place afire,” Jones said. “Some say there was a curse on the little blighter, that his guardian used ta lock him up when the moon was full. Balderdash, if ya ask me. He was a bad hat, old Longworth. All them artist fellas are a peculiar lot, drinkin’ and carousing about with the bawds.”

“If a trust is paying you to watch over the place, why has it never been restored?”

“It’s a curiosity, is why, more valuable like it is. Folks come out here just to gawk and hear about the scandal. Folks don’t care how they throw their money away these days. The place is up for sale, has been for years. Let the new own ers do the repair work, that’s what the solicitors say, meanwhile it’s takin’ in a fair bit o’ change from the tourists that come up here to poke about and
hear the scandalous tale. Folks do love a scandal. It pays me wages; the rest goes to the Crown.”

“Well, that being the case, I don’t see how you can object to me being here.”

“First off, you haven’t paid. Second, we don’t give tours in the dead o’ night, only on weekends, and third, nobody gets to come up in here. We don’t put nobody to the hazard.”

“And you live here?”

“No, I don’t live here. The stables wasn’t burnt. Ain’t no horses now, but the loft apartment is where I live. It’s right comfortable, and close enough to chase off any intruders like yourself. Seems ta me I asked you to git!”

Tessa ignored him. “If I pay, will you tell the tale to me?” she asked him. Slipping the pocket from the side of her frock, she shook it, rattling the coins inside. He hesitated, and Tessa picked out two coins, being careful to choose the right currency, and handed them over. “There,” she said. “That should be more than enough. Tell your tale. My bus comes by soon, and I shall have to be below by the lane to flag it down.”

“You’re a cheeky little snippety-snap, ain’t ya?” he said, jingling the coins in his palm. “All right, but then ya git!”

“Agreed.”

“I told ya it was before my time,” he began. “Almost a hundred years ago, it was, when the scandal broke. Everybody said old Longworth was mad as a brush, shut up in this house, with what he said was his models comin’ and goin’ at all hours, but they was whores, and him carin’ for a little boy and all right under the same roof. No wonder the scamp run off.” He shook his head in disapproval.

“Who ran off?” Tessa cut in.

“The boy up and run off one night. Rumors spread that old Longworth done for the lad, till the boy come
back and done this.” He swept his arm wide. “The guards from the Watch they had back then was onto Longworth, and one o’ them got killed. They blamed that on old Longworth, too. He got what was comin’ to him when this here went up in flames. There was a young woman hired on ta tend the boy, come ta think of it. Don’t know her name—”

“And was she here when all this occurred?” Tessa interrupted him.

“That she was,” Jones said. “Shameless hussy! She took ta posin’ for Longworth, who was workin’ on a scandalous painting. ’Twas called ‘The Bride of Time,’ some fancy o’ the Prince Regent, George IV…”

“What happened to her—Longworth’s model?” Tessa asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“I’m gettin’ ta that,” Jones replied testily. “If ya want ta hear the tale, ya have ta stop interruptin’ me. You’re mixin’ me up.”

“Sorry. It’s just that she was my ancestor, you see, and I’m anxious to know.”

“Mmmm, I can believe that—on both counts,” Jones said, taking her measure disrespectfully. It was clear he assumed her to be a doxy. That hardly mattered. He could think anything he liked, as long as he told his tale.

“Do continue, sir,” she prodded.

“Ummm, where was I now? Oh yes! Old Longworth finished his painting—shameful thing, the woman in it nekked and all. ’Twas supposed ta be art, but I’d call it somethin’ else from what folks say—”

“Yes, well you shouldn’t make judgments upon things you haven’t seen firsthand,” Tessa interrupted.

“There ya go, interruptin’ again!” Jones admonished her, looking daggers down the gun barrel. “Anyhow, ’twas delivered ta the Prince Regent, and he must have approved, because after the tragedy, the Prince set up a trust for Longworth. Then, all o’ Longworth’s paintings
sold to the highest bidder. Everybody wanted ta own something done by the artist who’d painted old Prinny’s Bride o’ Time, and Longworth became a success overnight, he did. ’Twas what they call a ‘posthumous’ success—that means he was dead by time he got famous. I dunno what happened to that scandalous painting afterward.”

Tessa wanted to tell him she knew what happened to it. Somehow it had found its way to a little gallery off Threadneedle Street in London, and had probably been donated years ago. But that didn’t matter. There was a question she had to ask. Though she needed to know, she was afraid to ask it, and she let him natter on about nothing in particular and everything in general until she’d mustered the courage to put it into words.

“What happened to Longworth?” she murmured. “H-how did he die?”

Again the caretaker waved his arm. “Here, in this,” he said. “Burnt ta death in ’is bed with ’is doxy. All three o’ ’em died in the blaze, so goes the tale. The servants done what they could to put the fire out, but not a soul would come to the rescue. ‘Let it burn!’ was the hue and cry when she went up like a tinderbox. A flaw come on, a real screamer with winds strong enough ta lift the hair clean off your head, so they say, and it spread the blaze long before the rain come ta put it out. Their ashes was scattered far and wide, ’cause no trace of any of ’em was ever found, not that folks was lookin’ all that hard for ’em, mind ya.”

“Are you saying no one lifted a finger to help put the fire out?” Tessa cried. “Why, that’s barbarous!”

“No, and why would they?” he responded. “Rumors spread that they was
werewolves
—the boy and all. People ’round these parts are a superstitious lot, missy. They believe in faeries and knocker gnomes in the tin mines, and giants and devils from hell ta this day! This be
Cornwall, not your fancy London Town, though the towners eat this gammon up when they come for a tour of old Longhollow Abbey.”

“But to just let them all perish…” It was more than Tessa could take in. Her breath was coming short, and her heart was pounding in her breast. White pinpoints of blinding light starred her vision. She could bear no more. There was nothing for her here, nothing but death and desolation. She had to get away. She had to get back to the Abbey when it was whole and grand and alive, and Giles Longworth was flesh and bone, not dust blown to the four winds in a Cornish flaw.

“What’s the matter with ya?” Jones asked, squinting toward her. “You’ve gone all funny of a sudden—whiter than fog. Don’t ya go giddy on me here! You’ve got ta git now. I told ya your tale, and then some, so you can just be on your way.”

“Yes,” Tessa said, stumbling past him over vines that seemed to grope her feet and ankles like living things. “I shall do that. Thank you for the ‘tour,’ Mr. Jones. I shall trouble you no further.”

He said more as she fled the debris, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. It was as if his voice was coming at her through an echo chamber, the delay between each word bleeding into the next. She wasn’t herself until she burst out of the ruins into the starry night, taking deep, shuddering breaths of the stiff Cornish wind that had risen sharply since she entered the remains of the Abbey. The lane seemed so far away now. It was nearly time for the bus to pass by again. She had to be there waiting when it did. Only one thing was certain: she had to find Giles now, before it was too late.

At least now she knew more of what she was facing, though it left her so desolate she could scarcely put one foot in front of the other. Reaching the lane, she climbed over a stile by the roadside and sank down upon
it to wait for the bus. Her knees were so wobbly she couldn’t have gone another step.

Her mind was racing, trying to digest all Ezra Jones had told her. Giles had finished the painting before the fire, but she knew that because she’d seen it. That it had found a home in the little gallery wasn’t surprising. Many paintings owned by royals were loaned or donated to museums, or sold outright when new monarchs took the throne. Sons of nobles deep in debt often sold such artifacts to keep from going into Dun territory. Some things never changed. Someone very rich must have bought it from the little gallery on Threadneedle Street. What had the curator said…a couple from Yorkshire had purchased it?

No matter. More relevant was the fire, the fire that took Giles Longworth’s life…and hers. Unless…perhaps he had another woman in his bed at the time, which wouldn’t surprise her, considering the outlandish behavior of the man thus far. Why did that jealous thought flush her cheeks with hot blood? Jealousy. There was no other name for it. She drove the images back, but no matter which way her mind turned then, Giles Longworth’s virile image in bed with another woman bit her sore.

Then there was the part about the child running away, and the authorities believing Giles had murdered the boy, that theory to be refuted when the child returned and set the fire that destroyed them all. That hadn’t happened yet, nor had the painting been finished. There was still time—to do what exactly, Tessa had no idea. She had to get back to Giles’s time, and she craned her neck, looking down the lane into deep darkness, praying it would give birth to the bus lanterns.