Timeless (18 page)

“Hmm. That’s a good one.”

“I admit I am nervous about how Violet and Henrietta and the others will react to Father adopting me,” Clara said, biting
her lip. “But he says there is nothing they can do to object. He says Henrietta wouldn’t dare leave him over it, for fear of what society would say. And even if she and Violet do shun me, as long as I have Father, it’ll be all right.”

“I bet they’ll get over it and grow to love you,” Michele said encouragingly. “You’ll be a good influence on those snobs!”

Clara covered her mouth, giggling. Just then, one of the maids knocked on the door.

“Dinner is about to be served, Miss Clara. Will you be requesting a tray again this evening?”

“No, thank you. I’ll join the family downstairs.” Clara grinned at Michele.

Before heading to dinner, she gave Michele another hug. “Thank you so much. You are the kindest ghost I could ever hope to meet.”

“Thanks.” Michele laughed. “Good luck, Clara.”

Michele lingered in the room after she left.
Clara’s so lucky she has a real family to have dinner with every night
, Michele thought wistfully. As she pictured the solitary dinner in her room that awaited her back in 2010, the loveless atmosphere in the Windor Mansion of her time, she felt a fresh surge of pain. She had to get out of the house. She had to try to escape the dull ache inside her.

“M
ichele!”

Her heart leaped as she looked up. She had just passed through the Windsor Mansion gates and was heading toward the Walker Mansion—and there was Philip, grinning ecstatically at her. Michele raced toward him, overcome with emotion. But before they could embrace, he grabbed her hand and led her to the back of the Walker Mansion, where no one would see him. Once they were alone, he pulled her into his arms, kissing her lips and hair and eyelids.

“You’re back!” He broke off, looking at her with concern. “What’s the matter? Have you been crying?”

Michele looked away self-consciously. Philip tilted her chin toward him.

“Tell me. What’s wrong?” he asked soothingly.

“I’m just—” Michele swallowed hard.

Philip stroked her hair. “It’s all right. Go on.”

“I’m so alone,” Michele whispered. “Except when I’m with you.”

Philip held her closer. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t have—I don’t have any parents.” Suddenly, Michele’s tears broke forth with sobs. “And I might as well not even have grandparents. I just—I feel like I don’t have any family in the world, like I’ve just been thrown out there to fend for myself.”

Philip stroked her trembling back, kissing the top of her head. “I’m sorry … so sorry,” he murmured. “I know what you mean. I feel just the same.”

Michele wiped her eyes. “Aren’t we a pair?”

Philip leaned his forehead against hers. “Someone once told me that friends are the family you choose. So here’s an idea—I’ll be your family, and you can be mine.”

Michele felt a warm glow inside her. She gave him a watery smile. “Okay … That sounds nice.”

“Now, it’s time we cheer you up,” Philip declared, the sparkle returning to his eyes. “I’m taking you on a proper date.”

“Um, where can we go?” Michele replied with a giggle. “No one else can see me. They’ll think you’re pretty crazy if you try to get a table for two at a restaurant.”

“I have an idea,” he said with a wink. He took her hand and
led her into the Walker Mansion, down the stairs and into the servants’ quarters. Philip swung open the door to the kitchen.

“Mr. Walker!” “Oh, my goodness!” “What are you doing here?” The cries rang out among the cook and the scullery maids, all of whom looked stunned at the sight of Philip in their kitchen. Michele gave Philip a bewildered look. What was the big deal?

“Oh, do relax. Surely there is nothing wrong with me visiting the kitchen now and again,” Philip said cheerfully.

“But the masters and mistresses of the house never come down to the kitchen!” the cook exclaimed. “It’s not proper for you to see us. You know that, Master Philip.”

“Well, it’s about time we disrupted that silly tradition, don’t you think?” Philip smiled. “Now, I was wondering if you might prepare me a picnic basket. Maybe enough food for two, as I am extra hungry tonight.”

Michele grinned. A turn-of-the-century picnic! What a perfect idea.

“Isn’t it rather late for a picnic?” the cook asked. “I’m not sure your uncle would—”

“Oh, I just need some fresh air and time alone to think,” Philip said, improvising. “And please, there is really no need to tell my uncle.”

“Well, all right,” the cook agreed. She quickly put together a basket as Philip called out suggestions: “The best cheeses, salami, and fresh bread—oh, and chocolate truffles too!”

After the picnic basket was fully stocked, Michele and Philip ran up the stairs to the main quarters of the mansion. Staying
close together, they walked into the still, starry night toward Central Park. Michele was nearly dizzy from all the stimulation to her senses. She was mesmerized by the passing sights of old New York at nightfall while her heart raced from Philip’s scent and the feel of him next to her. They walked past the twenty-story emerald-topped Plaza Hotel and into the park through Scholars’ Gate at Fifth Avenue. As they entered the park, Michele’s heart rate picked up even more. She wondered what this famous landmark would be like one hundred years earlier.

The pastoral, picturesque landscape was just as Michele knew it, its wide, rolling meadows contrasting with a woodsy, untamed hiking area known as the Ramble and the more formal walking grounds, called the Mall. There was the park’s most famed monument, Belvedere Castle, with its Victorian structure towering atop giant rocks. Surrounding Michele and Philip was the comfortingly familiar meandering lake. But the silence and emptiness of the park made it feel like an altogether different place. Even in all the movies she had seen that featured Central Park, Michele had never seen it empty but for two people. Yet tonight it looked like they were the only ones there.

“It’s like our own private sanctuary,” Michele said, marveling, to Philip.

As they walked through the park, Michele didn’t see any playgrounds or boathouses, and the Great Lawn was missing too.
They haven’t been built yet
, she realized. Philip led the way to the grassy Cherry Hill, which overlooked the eastern edge of the lake and the romantic cast-iron Bow Bridge, the star of many Manhattan-set movies. As Philip spread a blanket over a
patch of grass for them, Michele stopped to admire the fountain at the center of the hill, a granite pool with a black and gilt cast-iron structure in the center, topped with a golden spire and round lamps.

“What are you concentrating so hard on?” Philip chuckled, gesturing for her to sit beside him.

“I just … I can’t
believe
I’m here with you. I want to remember every detail of tonight. So I can relive it whenever I want,” Michele answered shyly.

Philip smiled at her. “Why not write it down, then?”

Michele’s cheeks turned pink. “It’s funny you say that.”

“Why?” Philip asked.

“Because … I actually do write. I’ve been writing poems and making up lyrics to songs since I was a little girl. My secret dream is to be a professional lyricist for singers and Broadway shows,” Michele confided, smiling. “But I mean, I have no idea if I’m any good at it. The only person I’ve ever let read my work is my mom, and she loved it. But then, she was my mom, so how could she not?”

“I can’t imagine you being anything but wonderful at it,” Philip said encouragingly. “You have a poet’s soul, the way you see and understand things, even things one hundred years in the past! How could your writing
not
be great?”

Michele felt her heart lift at his words.

“You know, I had stopped writing after my mom died,” she said suddenly. “My writing was something I’d only ever shared with her. It was … our thing. When she died, I felt like I lost my writing too, like I was permanently blocked. But then, after meeting you, it … well, it all came back.”

“Really?” Philip’s eyes warmed. He touched her cheek. “What did you write?”

“Lyrics to a new song,” Michele said shyly.

“Oh?” Philip looked even more interested. “What is the song called?”

“Um… ‘Bring the Colors Back,’ ” she answered with an embarrassed giggle.

Philip grinned and kissed her.

“I like that title. You a lyricist, me a composer—you and I make a complete song.” Philip sat up straighter, looking excited. “That’s it! We have to write a song together. Perhaps I can try to find a melody for ‘Bring the Colors Back.’ ”

“That—that would be amazing,” Michele said slowly. “But …” She was too embarrassed to finish the sentence, but the idea made her nervous. What if Philip thought her writing
sucked
? Clearly sensing her hesitation, he smiled at her.

“I’m sure I’ll love it,” he said reassuringly. “You’ve told me a secret, so I will tell you mine. I haven’t repeated this yet, since I know my mother and uncle won’t approve—but after I graduate this June, I’m going to pursue a full career as a composer and pianist. In fact, I’m expected to attend Harvard next year, but … well, I’ve been accepted to the Institute of Musical Art here in New York, which is the nation’s best music college. And that’s where I intend to go.”

“Wow!” Michele exclaimed, beaming at him.
That’s Juilliard!
she thought, remembering from her own college research that Juilliard had originally been called the Institute of Musical Art.

“I want my life to have a purpose. Do you know what I mean?” Philip looked intently at her. “Something more
meaningful than simply accumulating more wealth through the family holdings. I know Mother expects me to graduate Harvard and then help Uncle run the business, but she will be in for a bit of a shock when I enroll in music conservatory instead. I only hope that between that and … well … breaking off my engagement to Violet, she can forgive me at some point.”

“Breaking off your engagement?” Michele repeated. “You—you’ve decided on that, then?”

Philip nodded seriously.

“Philip, are you … sure? About Violet, I mean.” She bit her lip anxiously. “I feel like I’m disrupting your whole life.”

“But in the best way,” Philip countered. “Don’t you see that my life needed to be disrupted?” When Michele didn’t answer, he continued, “I was never in love with Violet. We were simply friends who had grown up together, whose parents intended on creating even more wealth by marrying us. That’s how all New York society marriages work—but it’s not for me. I need my music, and I need—well, after finding you …” Philip flushed, suddenly looking awkward. “Well, how can I be expected to marry someone else now?”

“I know,” Michele said tremulously, taking his hand. “That’s how I feel too.”

After they’d finished their picnic, Philip and Michele crossed Bow Bridge into the sumptuously designed split-level Bethesda Terrace, with its ornate stair rails and sculpted carvings. They climbed the stone staircase leading from the upper level to the Bethesda Fountain plaza. Sitting beneath the fountain and its statue, Angel of Waters, Philip took Michele into his arms and
kissed her for what could have been minutes or hours—Michele had lost all sense of time.

“What do you think it all means?” she asked suddenly. “You know—the fact that we both recognized each other before we met, and you can see me when no one else can besides Clara?”

“That we belong with each other?” Philip suggested, pulling her close again.

“But … how can we? How can we really be together when I don’t truly exist in your time, and you can’t even get to my time?” Michele swallowed hard. “Sometimes it seems like a cruel joke.”

Philip was silent for a moment and then he turned to her, his eyes intense. “We met for a reason, so I know that whatever … whatever force brought us together can keep us together somehow. And until we have a permanent solution, we have these moments. So many people never get to experience this—it’s rare in my time. It may not seem like it, but we are lucky.”

Michele smiled as his words sank in. “You’re so right.”

Hand in hand, they walked out of Bethesda Terrace on the majestic tree-lined path of the grand promenade. As they proceeded under the canopy of overhanging American elm trees, Philip suddenly leaned in to give her a kiss, and Michele found that she couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t control the fluttering, thrilling sensation inside her.