A Murder in Time (13 page)

Kendra blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Moonlight streamed through a tiny window on the far wall. There was a flurry of movement from the bed, then steel striking flint, and sparks. A stout candle on the nightstand emitted a small circle of light.

The girl looked at her. “'Oo are you?” she asked bluntly.

“Kendra Donovan.” Because she was feeling queasy again, she sat down abruptly on the unoccupied bed.

“W'ot 'appened to your 'air? ‘Ave you been ill?”

“That would explain it.”

In the faint glow, they studied each other. The girl couldn't be much older than fifteen or sixteen, Kendra decided. She was pretty, with big, Bambi eyes, bright with curiosity, in a round face, framed by her old-fashioned nightcap and tumbling dark curls.

“Are you 'ere for the 'ouse party?”

“I . . . yes. I was hired as a lady's maid.” Again, Kendra could feel the panic tickle at the back of her throat, trying to work its way free. She could tell herself that this was impossible, that she couldn't be sitting on this hard little mattress in the candlelight, talking to a girl who looked like she belonged in a history book. Yet she was having an increasingly difficult time dismissing what she was seeing, smelling, feeling.

And that terrified her more than anything.

“Ooh,” the girl said, impressed. “Me sister bettered 'erself by becoming a lady's maid in London. She was a scullery maid 'ere at the castle. Me ma says I only need apply meself. I'm an 'ard worker. Last year, Mrs. Danbury upped me to a tweeny when Emma became an 'ousemaid and Jenny ran off to Bath.” She stopped suddenly, and blushed. “Look at me, runnin' on. You must be tired, 'aving been ill and all.” She frowned as she glanced around. “Do you 'ave a bag, Miss Donovan?”

“Kendra. Please call me Kendra,” she said automatically, and looked around, as though her bag would miraculously appear. She'd left her purse on the floor of the study, she remembered, before fleeing into the passageway. Of course, that, along with Sir Jeremy's body, had disappeared. “I'm afraid not. My bag was lost.”

“Well, never you mind. Mrs. Danbury'll set you up. I'm Rose. Do you need 'elp getting undressed?”

“What? Oh. Thank you.” Kendra stood, and turned her back to Rose, much as she'd done to Sally. The recollection brought on another shiver.

“'Ere, now, get under those covers. You're cold!”

Kendra sat down, bending to loosen the ties on her half boots. Rose knelt before her, and helped her out of them, setting them aside.

“Where do you come from? You don't sound English.”

“I'm from the United States.”

“Ooh, America. I've 'eard such tales,” she said as she scrambled back into bed. “Me pa says the colonists are a bunch of 'eathens. No offense, mind you.”

“We've been called worse.” Kendra stood and stripped down to her shift. By the time she slipped between the sheets and pulled up the thin blankets, she was trembling from more than shock and fear; it was actually cold. The room, she decided, was like a refrigerator.

Rose smiled at her, before leaning over to blow out the meager candle flame. “Good night, miss.”

Kendra said nothing for a moment, as she stared at the shadowy slanted ceiling. She could hear the girl settle into the other bed, hear her light breathing. Other than that, the silence seemed absolute.

“Rose?” she whispered.

“Aye?”

“What . . . what year is it?”

Kendra couldn't see Rose's face, but sensed by her sudden stillness that she'd shocked the girl. She couldn't blame her. If someone had asked her that question, she'd have thought the person was off their rocker.

“You mean, w'ot day?” the girl asked cautiously.

“No . . .” Her throat felt tight with apprehension, but she managed to push the words through. “I mean, what year is it? I've been ill, remember?” she added lamely.

“Oh. Of course.” Still, Rose hesitated, as though trying to deduce what illness could possibly have wiped away someone's memory to such a degree. “'Tis 1815,” she finally replied, her voice soft and anxious in the darkness. “Do you remember now?”

“Yes . . .” she lied, closing her eyes against the reality that she refused to accept.

“Sleep well, miss.”

Kendra said nothing. She doubted whether she'd sleep at all. But exhaustion soon weighed her down, pulled her under, and she slept, dreaming of madness and murder.

8

Kendra woke to the rustling of clothes, the padding of feet, and the general hustling of movement. For just a moment, she thought she was back in the hospital, and the never-ending rotation of pill-prodding nurses.

“Annie?” she murmured, rolling over and opening her eyes to the gray light of morning.

“Nay. My name's Rose. Remember?”

“Jesus Christ. You're not a figment of my imagination?”

“You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain,” Rose reprimanded primly. Yet when she glanced in her direction, she softened the words with a smile. “You'd best 'urry, miss. Mrs. Danbury'll wanna speak with you before you attend your Lady.”

My Lady?

“What time is it?” Kendra pushed herself to a sitting position, warily watching Rose, who was already wearing a cotton blue floral-print dress, unbuttoned down the back. She moved to an old-fashioned washstand that Kendra hadn't noticed last night tucked between the armoire and wall. Briskly, the girl poured water from the pitcher into the washbasin. Her eyes sought Kendra's in the small swivel mirror.

“'Alf-six,” she answered, splashing water on her face. “The staff usually breakfasts at 'alf past eight, but Mrs. Danbury changed our schedules for the party.” Snatching the towel draped across the washstand's inbuilt rack, Rose blotted away the moisture. She brushed her teeth using what looked like a primitive toothbrush that she wet and dipped in a jar filled with white powder. Then she pulled out and unfolded a small screen, which baffled Kendra for a moment until she saw Rose reach under the washstand for the chamber pot.

Kendra turned away to give the girl some privacy, and tried to ignore the tinkling sound of nature's call. Grimacing, she realized that she'd have to make use of the chamber pot as well.

A chamber pot, for God's sakes!

“If you button me, I'll do the same for you,” Rose offered as she popped back around the screen, brushing her tumbling dark brown hair. With an efficiency born of practice, she twisted the mass into a tidy bun and began stabbing long, lethal-looking hairpins into it.

Swinging her legs over the side of the small bed, Kendra stood and shivered, both from the chilly morning air and the fact that her delusion was still going on.

“Ooh, whatever 'appened, miss?”

Kendra glanced around and saw that Rose was staring at her scars. She shrugged. “You might say they're reminders.”

“Reminders of w'ot?”

“To be more careful.”

She ducked behind the privacy screen and awkwardly used the chamber pot. Afterward, because she had nothing else, she dressed in the same garments as yesterday, turning obediently so Rose could button her.

“Maybe I have a brain tumor,” she murmured, staring at the wall.

“W'ot?”

She sighed. “Nothing. I'm just babbling. Trying to fight off hysteria.”

“May'ap you shouldn't. Babble, I mean. I know you're from America, but . . . may'ap you shouldn't.”

“You might be right. They'll lock me up in a loony bin, if I'm not there already. Turn around.” The buttons on Rose's dress were like smooth pebbles against her fingertips as she pushed them through the buttonholes. Sighing again, she sat down to lace up the half boots. “Figment or not, you're a nice girl, Rose.”

Rose smiled uncertainly. “Thank you. And, um, may'ap . . .” she hesitated.

Kendra lifted a brow. “Spill it.”

The girl looked confused, glancing around. “Spill w'ot?”

“Oh, God—sorry. I meant, go on. I know you have something else to say.”

“Aye, well, may'aps you shouldn't ask people w'ot year it is, either.”

“Good point. Thanks.”

This time the maid's smile was tinged with relief. “I know you've been ill, but if you say such things, folks'll think you're a bit daft.”

Kendra refrained from admitting that she was feeling a bit daft, simply nodding instead and picking up the abandoned hairbrush as she wandered to the window. It was small and not all that clean, but it offered a sweeping view of the English landscape that rolled gently into the distance, seamed with hedges and dotted with thick copses. An early morning mist clung to the ground, offering its own enchantment. In normal circumstances, she would've enjoyed the view.

These were not normal circumstances.

After brushing her hair, she turned to the washbasin, using the water already in the bowl. It felt icy cold against her skin. Did delusions
feel
this real? She stared at her reflection in the pitted mirror. She was paler than normal, making her eyes, below the blunt cut bangs, appear even darker. She didn't like the fragile look of the woman before her, the shimmer of panic twining with fear in her gaze.
Show no weakness.

Behind her, Rose scurried around the room, quickly making the beds. “Did you come with one of the ladies, or did Mrs. Danbury 'ire you for the party?”

“Duke . . . I mean,
the
Duke wanted me to stay,” Kendra said carefully. Since there was nothing else she could do with her hair except let it swing straight and silky to her jaw, she set down the brush and picked up the jar filled with white powder. Sniffing, she realized it was baking soda. She wet her finger, dipped it into the white powder and then scrubbed her finger against her teeth.

“'Is Grace 'imself 'ired you?”

From the girl's thunderstruck expression, Kendra deduced that wasn't normal. Yet Rose recovered quickly, shrugging as she donned her heavy apron, tying it behind her back, “Ah, well. The Duke's known for 'is peculiarities. Oh.” She glanced back at Kendra as she headed for the door. “I didn't mean no insult, miss.”

Was it possible to be insulted by a hallucination? “Right now, Rose, being called peculiar,” she managed to say truthfully, “is the least of my worries.”

The human mind can handle only so much stress. It's why men, women, and children eventually resume their daily business in war zones, shopping while bombs dropped. So it didn't surprise Kendra when the terror and sheer disbelief shrank and transformed into sort of a surreal amazement as she followed her new roommate down the backstairs to the servant's hall. Still, she was grateful that she wasn't required to make small talk as Rose chattered excitedly about the house party. Kendra didn't bother to follow the thread of conversation, but she made the appropriate noises to encourage the girl. Better to have Rose talk, she figured, than to start asking questions. Besides, the one-sided conversation freed Kendra up to concentrate on the problem at hand, which, as she saw it, was one of three possibilities: someone was playing an elaborate hoax on her, she'd had a complete psychological break, or she'd actually been sucked back in time or into another dimension, à la string theory.

She'd almost ruled out the first possibility. Not only couldn't she come up with the
who
—CIA? MI5? KGB?—but she couldn't decide on the
why.
Why would anyone go to the trouble? Why, for Christ's sake, would anyone do it? The conspiracy of people involved and the implementation of such precise details made the whole idea preposterous.

The second possibility, some form of psychosis, sent a shudder through her. The mission she'd given herself—to dispense justice on Sir Jeremy Greene—had been stressful, certainly, and had, in many ways, gone against her own moral code. Had her mind snapped in response? Could she be sitting in some psychiatric ward, her body confined to a straitjacket, while her mind conjured up this alternative reality?

Even as she considered that horrible prospect, everything inside her rebelled. If she'd had some sort of psychotic break, could her mind actually fill in the minutiae that she was seeing now? The young maids busily sweeping the carpets—with whisk brooms, for the love of God—and polishing the heavy furniture in the hallways. Or the footmen in their embroidered, deep blue uniforms and white powdered wigs, carrying in kindling for the fireplaces. She'd concede hallucinating about this period given the costume party, but could she cull from her imagination the sights, the sounds, the
smells
—lemon, linseed oil, and beeswax—that she was experiencing now?

“What's a tweeny?” she asked abruptly, cutting Rose off midsentence.

“Pardon?”

“What is a tweeny?”

“Oh. I told you—
I'm
a tweeny.”