The River of No Return (38 page)

“Are you done?”

“Yes, I’m done.”

Alva shook her head. “You had me up until Nixon and the gold standard, Peter. I know you know everything about the late twentieth century, but you need to learn about 1815. There’s no gold standard right now, you ignoramus. When they aren’t arguing about the Corn Laws, the politicians are fighting over money, and how to make it have any meaning. There won’t be a secure gold standard for a few more decades.” Miss Blomgren crossed her arms and smiled triumphantly at the girl. “This, Peter, is why I think you should go back to America, go back to 1987, finish high school and go to college. Double major in economics and history.
Then
you can join the Ofan. For God’s sake, you could leave today, spend six years getting an education, and come back here tomorrow, grown up and with some real scholarship to back up your brilliance. You would be of much more use to us!”

The girl’s face fell. “I’m not going to do that, Alva, and you know why! My mother—”

Miss Blomgren held up a hand, and Peter closed her mouth. “I don’t want to go there, Peter. Not again. And what about the Talisman? You got me to listen to this diatribe by saying that your little wooden stick there had something to do with the Talisman.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, what about it?”

“You mean I didn’t say?” Peter laughed. “Oh, my God. That’s the whole point. It’s the tally stick. Tally, talisman—it’s the same word, at root!”

“That’s it. That’s your revelation.
Tally
sounds like
talisman
.”

“Yes.”

Miss Blomgren exploded. “That’s all? Do you understand that the Pale is going to destroy us? Do you understand that if the Talisman exists, it might be the only thing that can stop it, or even help us discover what it is? Your semantics, your three months making friends with teenagers from ye olde days? How the hell is that supposed to help us in the future?”

Peter went very still in the face of Miss Blomgren’s anger. Then, when it was over, she took a deep breath and her voice took on an adult gravity. “Please think about it, Alva. A talisman is just like a tally stick, or a symbolon. Except that it isn’t about a debt of money or goods. A talisman is a symbol of the relationship between humans and the supernatural. The relationship of interdependence, of mutual debt, between human beings and the unknown. Gods, or ancestors, or even the future. So, like, yin-yang is that kind of talisman. Or like when a fairy gives you a magical jewel in exchange for your baby.”

Miss Blomgren shook her head slowly. “Do not go all fairies and warlocks on me, Peter. I can’t take it.”

“No.” The girl put up a hand. “Stop treating me like a child and listen. A tally is a calculation of
human
debt. A talisman is one half of a
magical
deal between humans and otherness. The talisman that we see and can hold might be a word or a symbol or a stone or something. The other half is usually your soul or your firstborn child or something really horrifying like that.”

Julia swallowed; her throat was so dry it was painful. A talisman. A magical character. A mark, a stamp, a representation. A symbol. But . . . she was just a young woman from Devon. She wasn’t one half of a deal with the devil.

For her part, Miss Blomgren shook her head. “I need to wake these two girls up and get on with my day, Peter. We’re done here.”

Peter grabbed Miss Blomgren’s hand as she moved away. “When we’re looking for the Talisman, we’re looking for
half
of something. At least get that through your head. Something that’s been torn or broken. Some sort of relic of a really intense debt that was never paid, and so now the Pale is coming to kill us all. Who knows what the hell this Talisman is—but I bet you when we find it, it has a jagged edge.”

* * *

Julia would have reversed time as she had when Eamon tried to kill her and started it again a few seconds before Peter had appeared in the room. But for some reason Miss Blomgren and Peter didn’t think to do that. They got back into the positions they had been in when Miss Blomgren first froze time, and then Miss Blomgren started it up again. Julia did her best to come to life as if in mid-gesture, but she felt very awkward. Luckily she had been feeling very awkward before, when all she knew about Miss Blomgren was that she was Nick’s lover. Now she knew much, much more, and was even less confident about what steps she should take. Meanwhile, Miss Blomgren explained to Julia and Bella that “Petra” was a servant who had thought it would be a good joke to dress up and surprise her mistress; she had snuck in the door. Hadn’t the girls heard her enter? No? Well, Petra was a tricky one.

Peter, much less gracefully, played the part of the contrite subordinate and left as quickly as she had arrived, but using her feet and the door this time.

When Peter was gone, Miss Blomgren didn’t mention tea and lemon cake again, nor did she try to hide that she was suddenly in a bad mood. “Time for you to go,” she said, and made short work of bustling Julia and Bella out of her house. Bella protested—it wasn’t fair that she should be shut away from friendships because of inane social conventions, she didn’t mind that Miss Blomgren was Nick’s mistress, in fact, Alva could marry Nick, and become respectable!

Miss Blomgren became quite short with Bella then, and scolded her. “You are hurting Julia’s feelings, Lady Arabella. You have said that she is in love with your brother. Not only that, but you are being rude to me.”

“Rude? How?” Bella protested as she and Julia and Solvig were propelled up the basement stairs.

“I have made it clear that I cannot be your friend, my lady, and you persist in pursuing an unwanted connection.” Miss Blomgren got them down the hallway and out of the front door. “Go and do not come back.” She stood with her hands on her hips.

Bella lifted a tragic face to her idol. “I am sorry,” she said. “I enjoyed talking to you so much that day when we met. You told me you believed in education and equality. And I wanted . . .” She stopped, unable to continue.

At that Miss Blomgren’s face softened. “I know, my dear,” she said gently. “But dreams and reality are at odds in this case. You are a lady and I am the opposite. It is the way of the Natural world. I wish you all the very best, and I hope that you find what you crave. Now good-bye.” She turned and disappeared inside her house, the door snapping shut behind her.

Bella turned to Julia, her face red. “I am mortified,” she said. “I had no idea. And I liked her so much. It is unfair!”

Julia put her arm around her shoulder. “Hush,” she said. “She was right, you know, to turn us out. But I am glad you brought me to meet her.”

“Even though she is Nick’s mistress? You seemed horrified.”

“It is the way of the Natural world.” Julia smiled at her friend.

“You would just accept that? A man with a mistress?”

“That is not what I said.” Julia squeezed Bella’s shoulders and grieved for the look of confusion in her friend’s eyes. The gulf between them was widening. Poor, hungry Bella had been entirely unaware of the feast that Julia had just attended; Julia had learned more from Alva and Peter in fifteen minutes than she had in an entire lifetime. And Bella, who craved nothing more than knowledge and freedom, had been frozen stiff.

Naturals, Guild, Ofans. It was beginning to make a crazy sort of sense. Ofans could travel in time. Members of the Guild probably could, too. Julia felt the thrill down her limbs, the rushing in her head; so could she. She knew it. She could feel that she could, if only she knew how.

As for Nick, what was he? He was partly Guild, for he was bound in some relationship to Lebedev. But Alva was Ofan, and she knew Nick. She was his lover, by her own admission. Perhaps Nick was Ofan, as well. Or perhaps he was a spy. But for which side?

Julia frowned.

She turned to Bella. “I am going home,” she said. “Alone. You go along to Hatchards and collect Clare without me.”

J
ulia handed her cloak to the butler. “Is my Lord Blackdown in, Smedley?”

Smedley flared his nostrils. The Falcotts’ London butler was famously priggish. “He is,” he said repressively.

“Please ask him to attend me in the drawing room at his earliest convenience.”

“The other ladies are out, Miss Percy.”

“I am not inquiring about the other ladies. I am asking about his lordship.”

“You wish to see him alone.” It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation.

“Yes. I wish to see him alone.” Julia met the butler’s gaze squarely.

Just under his left eye, his cheek was twitching. But after the hall clock had ticked past an echoing seven seconds, he broke and bowed. “As you wish, Miss Percy.” He walked slowly away toward the study door.

Julia took off her bonnet and set it on the footman’s chair. She checked her hair in the hall mirror. It was still brown, as were her eyes. She wasn’t very tall, and her face was not a perfect oval. She didn’t have any experience. She had no possessions of her own, and she was reliant for her lodging, her clothing, and her very life upon the dubious kindness of friends and relations.

But that was no reason for her not to have self-possession. Miss Blomgren had it. So could she. Julia pinched her cheeks, hoping for a little color, then went into the drawing room to await Blackdown.

He was with her quickly. “Hello.” He smiled, closed the door behind him, and came over to her, holding out his hands. She gave him one of hers but withdrew it quickly. He looked at her quizzically. “Are you quite well?”

“Yes, thank you. Shall we sit?”

“Certainly.” He waited for her to arrange herself on the settee, then sat down beside her, his long legs stretching out, his highly polished black top boots reflecting back the afternoon sun that was pouring in the tall front windows. He took her hand again and audaciously stroked her fingers, sending a silvery shiver up her arm. “What is this mark?” He traced the red stain on the back of her hand.

She watched him, as if from a distance. “Beet juice,” she said.

He looked at her, his eyes questioning. “You are in a strange mood. Have you just come home? I thought you had gone to Hatchards, but instead you’ve been messing about with beets. Where have you been?”

“As Satan says to
another
lord, I’ve been ‘going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it.’”

Nick laughed uncomfortably. “Are you Satan in this scene?”

Julia studied his face. It was weathered by his years in Spain, almost harsh in its angles. It had creased where he used it to smile or frown. His changeable eyes were restful on the surface, stormy in their depths. She supposed his face was like Devon. Rich in places, bleak in others, and always there was the gray-blue moody sky. Again she had that feeling that she did not know him, that he was a stranger. And yet he was hers. She felt it fiercely.

“I want you,” she heard herself say. “I want to lie with you. Like in the poem.”

It seemed to her for a moment that time stopped. It wasn’t anything she was doing—time was, in fact, trotting along at its usual pace. Yet the way he sat there perfectly still, his eyes intent upon her . . . the moment might simply go on and on. But then he stood, in one fluid movement. He squeezed her shoulder almost carelessly and went to the door. Was he going to walk out on her? Leave her, pretend she’d said nothing?

He opened the door to the hallway and called the butler. “When are my mother and sisters expected home?”

“I am not sure, my lord. Your sisters went to Hatchards with Miss Percy.” Smedley looked past Nick at Julia, and for just one moment allowed obvious disapproval to show on his face. “Perhaps Miss Percy will be better informed than I as to when they will return, and from where.”

“Thank you,” Nick said reprovingly. “And my mother?”

“Lady Blackdown is visiting with Mrs. Beauchamp. I cannot say when she may return.”

Nick turned to Julia and said in bright tones, “We may as well take our walk, then, Miss Percy. There’s no telling when they will come home, and it’s no good waiting for them. Are you ready?”

Julia heard the light words, but his eyes, bent upon hers with searing intensity, were very serious. He was giving her an order.

She stood and pulled on her gloves. “Of course, my lord.” In the hallway she pinned her hat on her head again and glanced once more at her face. Did she look different, now that she had dashed to pieces every rule of good behavior? No. Her hair was dark. Her cheeks were pale. Her eyes were brown. She was the same.

He waited by the door, his own hat already on his head. “Shall we?”

She sketched him a miniature curtsy and they left the house. The butler closed the door behind them with evident disdain. Not five minutes had passed since she had made her outrageous request, and she was now standing in the street outside his house—in disgrace?

Blackdown took her arm, and they walked down the marble steps together, turned right, then immediately right again onto Davies Street.

“Where are we going?”

Nick said nothing, merely steered her right once again into the mews behind the row of town houses. He led her to the stable door, opened it, and they walked in. The big traveling carriage and three smaller equipages confronted them. The tack room was to the left, and to the right, the row of stalls. The warm, comforting smell of hay and horses enveloped Julia. Down the dim row of stalls she heard horses shifting and one soft, questioning whicker. But Nick was already pulling her forward between the carriages, looking to left and right as he did so. “If we see a stable hand we will have to pretend we are visiting Marigold and Boatswain,” he whispered. “But with any luck we won’t.”

At the back of the stables was a small, plain wooden door. Nick opened it and pulled Julia inside, then shut it. They were in profound darkness. Julia felt her heart in her throat. “Where are we?”

“We are back inside. These are the cellars beneath the kitchens.”

“Why?”

“Shh.” He pulled her by the hand, and she followed. “There should be a stair somewhere here. . . .” Julia heard a dull thump. “Blast! Here it is.” Nick turned and took her elbow. “Watch your step. I’ll follow you up, but walk softly. We shouldn’t meet anyone, but if we do we must say that we are . . . exploring.”

“Exploring?” Julia stifled a laugh. “That sounds convincing.”

“Well, then, don’t meet anyone.” They began to climb. The stair took a turn, and the darkness eased; after the second turn a skinny window shed dirty light on what was revealed to be a narrow wooden staircase enclosed on both sides, with a door opening onto each floor.

Julia looked back over her shoulder at Nick, climbing behind her. He caught her glance and grinned. Like an idiot she beamed back at him. She wiped the smile away, turned her face resolutely forward, and kept climbing. These were clearly the stairs that led to the cupola. He was taking her there, having told the butler they were going on a walk. No one would know they were at home, up in that forgotten aerie. Her step faltered.

Nick came up behind her and put his arm around her waist. Standing below her on the steps, his mouth was just at her ear. “Cold feet?” he whispered. His breath in her hair and on her neck sent shivers down her spine.

“Perhaps.”

“Poor feet. Allow me to relieve them.” Without a word of warning, he scooped her into his arms.

She stifled a shriek. “Set me down!”

“Hush.” He was laughing silently; she could feel his stomach quivering against her hip. “Put your arm around my neck. Do you want to send us tumbling back down the stairs? Like Jack and Jill?”

“It would serve you right to break your crown,” Julia said, but she put her arm around his neck as he asked. It sent her breast pressing into his shoulder, and her face was very close to his. This was not at all what she had imagined when she posed her question downstairs. A scramble through secret passageways, ending with a half-hilarious, half-awkward ride in his arms. She felt her cold reserve melting away like one of Gunter’s ices on her tongue. She had asked him to be her lover, and he was going to oblige her.

Nick began climbing.

“You are absurd,” Julia said conversationally.

“You are delicious.” He squeezed her against his chest and buried his nose in her hair. “Mmm. You smell like plum pudding.”

“Is that a good thing? I thought a girl was supposed to smell of lavender or roses.”

“Let me see.” He bit her earlobe. “Definitely plum pudding. Stop wriggling.”

“Then stop biting me.”

“Never.”

* * *

Julia arrived in the cupola with neither dignity nor poise. Her hair was in disarray and she had a laugh on her lips. It wasn’t what she had imagined—she had planned on being aloof and superior. But she didn’t care anymore.

He set her down and she reached up her arms to draw his smiling face down to hers for a kiss. He was happy to consent, kissing her as he took his hat from his head and sent it flying into a corner, and kissing her again as he untied her bonnet and sent it flying after his hat. He kissed her as he peeled the gloves from her hands, and then from his own, crumpled them together into a ball and threw them over his shoulder. Then he kissed her as he sat down and pulled her into his lap. He looked at her then, his right arm encircling her hips and his left arm around her back, and opened his lips to speak, but she shook her head. “No words.”

“I must speak, Julia.”

She pressed her lips to his.

But he turned his face and pulled away an inch. “Talking, my turtledove. We must exchange some words, you and I. Now.”

Julia drew her finger down his cheek and found the edge of his cravat. She began to untie it.

“You little vixen.”

“I thought I was a turtledove. How do you untie these things?”

“It is an art.” He unceremoniously tilted his thighs and tumbled her sideways from his lap, onto the cushions. “Julia.” His voice was firm. “You must listen to me. Just now, downstairs—”

“Yes.” She rearranged herself into a sitting position and smoothed her skirts. “I asked you to take me to bed, Nick.”

“Why?”

She looked up at him in surprise. “Because . . .” She contemplated her interlaced fingers.

“Because?”

“I desire you?” She frowned at her fingers.

He reached out and touched her cheek. “My darling, you are talking like a courtesan and pouting like a girl.”

“Very well.” She raised her chin but looked past his shoulder at the treetops. “I desire you. I am twenty-two and a virgin. I wish to learn . . .” She stopped, and he waited. She was afraid she sounded entirely foolish, but she soldiered on. “You gave me a poem in which a gentleman offers to teach a lady. What did you expect? That I would simply faint away in shock? That my eyes would shrivel in my head? I think that gentleman is much like you, and I am much like his mistress. I would like you to teach me.” She looked down again at her hands. “Now, are you going to oblige me, or shall we dismiss the notion? I will not beg you.”

“You have no idea how very much I wish to oblige you. But . . .” She looked up and his eyes seemed to cloud over. “I have been away for so long, and living such a different life. Among different women.”

“In Spain.”

He was silent for a long time before he answered, and she could see that he was aching to tell her something. But when he spoke he simply repeated her words. “In Spain,” he said.

As he said it, she realized what he was suppressing: he could travel in time. He had not been lost for three years in Spain. He had been lost in time. And for quite a bit longer than three years. That was why he looked older than he should. She looked at him with new knowledge. How old
was
he? Thirty? Thirty-five?

“Are women so very different from me . . . in Spain?”

Humor and regret combined in his expression. “It is a foreign country,” he said. “They do things differently there. I do things differently there.” He pressed his lips tightly together, opened them to speak, then closed them again. She was glad he didn’t tell her the truth; she wanted this moment to be uncomplicated by revelation. Instead, he clasped her fingers, pressing her hand to his cheek. “But now I am back. I am confronted with a beautiful woman whom I hold in the very highest esteem. She wishes to become my lover. And you should be impressed with my self-control,” he said, his voice getting a little rough.

“Self-control is the last thing I desire from you.” She put her other hand on his chest. “Shall I be plainer in my speech? If I do not have reservations, why should you?” She let her hand drift down until it rested on his stomach. “‘There is no penance due to innocence.’”

He released her hand and stroked her hair. She felt his stomach flex with every movement of his arm. “Far back in my memory,” he said, “almost as if it were a dream, I seem to recall something. Some rule of chivalry. Ah, yes. A gentleman must never take a young lady’s virtue.”

Julia leaned forward until she could whisper in his ear: “And that is all it was.” She pulled back and gazed into his eyes. “Just a dream.”

His eyes glinted. He pulled her face recklessly to his and kissed her mouth.

He toppled back against the cushions, dragging her with him, and she was tossed like a boat on a stormy sea, her hands thrusting into his hair as he kissed her. He pushed her sleeves from her shoulders and kissed her collarbone, and then his hands slid firmly down her back until they met the flare of her hips. “Glory,” he murmured in her ear, his touch growing lighter as he fanned his hands across her bottom. “Such loveliness . . .” He let his hands roam. She arched her back, gasping, and found that she was pressing her belly against the long muscle that was straining between his legs. He smiled dreamily into her face, his calm expression at odds with the urgency of his caresses. She could feel the muslin of her dress tickling up her calves; he was stroking it higher as his hands moved.

“Nicholas . . .” She heard herself breathe his name as her hem skimmed above her knees.

“Yes, my lovely girl . . .” He bit her shoulder gently.