Sydney sat sideways on the window seat, with one knee bent and resting on the striped seat pad. She pushed aside the brightly colored cushions and rested on one hand. “You need to breathe, London. You look like you’re about to puke.”
“I am about to puke,” London confessed. “What if I get this wrong?”
Sydney gave a tiny shrug. “So, you get it wrong. You jump back here and try again.”
London stared at her, her heart ramming against her chest. “What if—”
Sydney lifted her hand. “No. Stop that. You will what-if yourself into a stroke if you keep this up. You’ve done dozens of compound jumps, for months now, mapping the timescape for me. The only reason this jump is any different is the personal stakes you have in it. You want it to go right for Remi.”
London swallowed. “The fire…the tiny window of time…”
“You have to trust that the bookmark will be there for you and it will be the right bookmark. You need to find your confidence. You’re a natural jumper, London. You are good at it, even though you don’t know it in your bones yet. You are the one who will teach Neven how to jump, remember? He was a superior jumper because of your training. He survived all the jumps Tira made him do because you taught him how to survive. You have the instincts you need to do this.”
Some of the tension in London’s middle eased as she considered the sense in Sydney’s words. She had forgotten that somewhere in her future, she would have to jump back to Neven in the past, when he was still a young adult, and teach him how to navigate time safely.
“Take a breath,” Sydney said. “I mean it. Breathe in. Let it out. Slowly. Go on.”
London obeyed her instructions and felt the natural calming effects of endorphins and fresh oxygen. “I must remember this when I’m back in time and you’re not to hand.”
Sydney smiled. “You’ll do fine.”
“You know that?”
“I don’t have to jump to the future to check, if that’s what you mean. You’re smart, London. Smarter than me and Taylor. If things go wrong, you’ll sort it out. That’s all you have to remember—to adapt and figure things out.”
London nodded.
“Keep breathing,” Sydney added. She glanced across the room as movement at the doorway caught London’s eye. Veris was there, with Remi and Neven, speaking in low voices. More last-minute advice?
Then Neven and Remi came into the room, to stand in the middle of the rug, facing London.
It was time.
Alex, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, and Rafe and Brody trailed into the room behind Veris. They assembled behind the sofa that faced the fireplace, staying well out of the way of the rug where Remi and Neven stood. This would be the informal arrival chamber for their return, then. London glanced through the window at the paling sky, noting details. They would help her come back to this moment.
Then she got to her feet and moved over to where Neven and Remi stood.
Neven rested his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t say anything, but his fingers squeezed gently. His eyes were warm. Reassuring.
London took another deep breath. “Shall we?” She lifted her arms.
Remi and Neven stepped into the circle her arms made and twined their arms behind her back as she took their waists.
London glanced around the room.
“We’ll be right here when you get back,” Veris said. “We won’t move from this spot.”
It was strangely reassuring. London looked at Remi and Neven.
“Ready,” Remi said. His voice was rough.
Neven nodded.
London took a last breath, flexed her knees and felt Remi and Neven lean toward her, so she could take them with her.
She jumped.
Chapter Five
Estate of Monsieur le Duc de Sauveterre, twenty-third Duc de Sauveterre, Sauveterre-Saint-Denis, Department of Lot-et-Garonne, Republic of France. November 1798.
The solidness of Remi’s and Neven’s bodies under London’s hands and against her arms was vastly reassuring.
London blinked, trying to absorb every single detail all at once. The room they stood in was silent and dark. Through a tall window to her left, moonlight blazed, painting on the floor a bright rectangle cross-hatched with finer shadows. She saw the darker outlines of furniture beyond the glowing rectangle of light.
The cloth she could feel under her fingers, the garments Remi and Neven wore, were not the soft cotton of the twenty-first century. The fabric felt thicker, stiffer, and rough to the touch, but it was too dark to see any details.
“Something’s wrong,” Neven whispered. “I can’t smell smoke.”
“No mob outside, shouting,” Remi said grimly, his voice just as quiet.
London’s heart slammed against her chest. She had made a mistake, after all.
She bent to put her hands on her knees, gasping softly. The fabric under her knees was thick brocade. And she couldn’t bend. There was a corset beneath the brocade and her sleeves were tight, binding her upper arms. The corset didn’t help her draw a deep breath the way she wanted to.
Neven rested his hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine. We’ll figure it out,” he whispered. “Remi, where are we? Do you recognize the place?”
Neven was taking over. London had let them down, so he was compensating. Fixing things.
Adapt and figure things out, Sydney had said.
“This is my house,” Remi said. “Only, it is all wrong. It is November—feel the chill? And the full moon is there. Those two things are right. Where is the fire, though? The mob? Maybe this is the wrong day.”
Neven’s fingers pressed against London’s shoulder. “Did you jump to a bookmark, London?”
“It was there,” she said, her voice hoarse. “It was the only one in the right place—it was like a lighthouse in the dark. Unmistakable.”
“Then we are meant to be here,” Neven replied. “We must explore the house, try to figure out what is going on.”
“I will go,” Remi said. “If I’m seen, they’ll mistake me for my earlier self. You two will just raise the alarm.”
“You can’t go alone.”
“We can’t all go,” Remi said. “Stay here with London. Let her recover. I won’t be long.”
He moved to the door, passing through the moonlight. He wore a long coat in a dark, sober color that the moonlight distorted. It might be brown—London couldn’t tell. She felt a moment of surrealism. Remi wore an outfit similar to those she had seen in countless versions of Pride and Prejudice, with the stiff high collar and cutaway coat. His knee-high boots gleamed with polish.
Of course. This was 1798, and in England, King George was slowly going mad with the royal family’s genetic disorder. In a year or two, his son would rule in George’s stead, and the Regency period would begin.
The clear logic of the thought helped London pull herself together. She straightened, for trying to bend was not comfortable at all. She took as deep a breath as she could.
Remi opened the door, slipped out into the darkness beyond and shut the door softly, making no sound.
London turned to Neven. “This is the right year, at least,” she said softly.
“Sub-vocalize,” Neven murmured. “Your voice is too high and light. It will carry.”
London nodded and turned to examine the room. It was small, with bare floorboards and a small rug in front of a cast-iron stove in the corner. A single chair sat in front of the stove. A bookcase with a glass door was against the wall beside a second, closed door. That door was narrower than the one Remi had stepped through.
There was little else in the room to tell her its purpose. London didn’t know much about this period. What she did know was English history. France was almost a black box to her. Everything she knew about revolutionary France she had learned from Remi in the last few hours.
Neven bent to peer at the books behind the door. It was dark, although his vampire vision would let him read the spines without difficulty.
“Voltaire. Of course,” he murmured.
London moved over to the window and looked out.
The full moon was bright enough that she could see this room was at the back of the house. From the drop to the ground, she judged it was possibly on the third or fourth floor. There was no grand drive for carriages to use.
A quarter mile away, perhaps a bit more, was a dark line of trees. Between the trees and the house ran regimented black rows, four feet apart. Grape vines.
The ground between the rows of vines was white with frost.
Far to the right, moving among the trees, London could see a river glinting in the moonlight. That would be the Garonne.
The door opened and London turned to face it, pleased that Remi had taken little time at all to reconnoiter and return. Yet the door was closed.
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” Remi demanded.
London put her back to the window. The smaller door was thrust open and Remi stood with his hand on the handle. He wore no jacket and his shirt sleeves were rolled up.
With a jolt, London realized that this was not Remi. It was his earlier self, Denis, who should have been out on the drive in the front of the house, held down by villagers while this house burned…
Neven was no longer crouched in front of the bookcase. He had flitted silently into the shadows, the way vampires managed to disappear and remain invisible while in full sight. She had been spotted, standing in the moonlight. Neven had not and was the card up her sleeve.
Remi’s hand dropped from the door handle. “Lucienne? Is that you?”
London drew in a breath, surprised all over again. Adapt and adjust, she reminded herself. “You know me?”
Remi—Denis, she reminded herself—stepped fully into the room, glanced over his shoulder and shut the door. “Yes, of course I know you.” He spoke with a softer volume than before, as if he was just as anxious not to rouse anyone else in the house. “I have been waiting ten years for you to return.”
Return.
He moved over to the window and stepped into the moonlight, forcing her to turn to face him, which put her full features into the light, too.
“Yes, it is you,” Remi—Denis—declared. “You have come back, at last. Just as you promised.”
London cast about for a cautious response which would not give away too much. She was flailing, trying to understand the swiftly shifting facts. “I said I would return…” she murmured. That was safe enough, at least. Who was Lucienne, though?
Denis looked exactly like their Remi. Only, she could see his hair was even longer and tied at the back of his neck with a dark ribbon. He wore a full, long waistcoat over the shirt, but he had discarded the jacket. This room must be attached to a private suite, then. He had been relaxed in the privacy of his bedroom and most likely had come to investigate the soft sounds in a sitting room where no one else should be at this time of night.
He lifted his hand and for a moment London thought he would touch her face, yet he held his fingers a few inches away. “You did say you would sound confused, when we next met,” he murmured. “Where is the other?” he added, looking around.
Was he looking for Neven?
“Someone primed him in the past,” Neven said, moving out of the dark shadows in the corner, where he had been hiding. He moved over to the window. “Do you know me, too?”
Denis stiffened as Neven spoke, then relaxed. “I don’t know you. I knew you would be with Lucienne, though. You are Neven.”
London smothered her shock. Adjust and adapt, she reminded herself one more time. “We’re in a loop,” she said to Neven.
Neven nodded.
“Yes, that is it,” Denis said, his tone one of agreement. “I remember now. A loop. This is the beginning of the loop for you and the end of the loop for me.”
Neven pushed his fingers through his hair. “This is a new one, even for me,” he muttered. “Who told you about the loop?” he demanded of Denis.
“Lucienne, ten years ago.” Denis turned his hand, which still hovered near her face, so his fingers pointed toward her. He lowered his hand. “I told no one, just as you said,” he said, speaking to London. “I did exactly what you told me to do and it worked.”
“What did she tell you to do?” Neven said swiftly.
The main door to the room opened and Remi stepped in. Their Remi. He paused just inside the door, taking in the three of them by the window. “What the hell?” he breathed, in English.
Denis turned to face him. “There you are,” he said, sounding relieved.
Remi adjusted faster than London had managed. He strode toward them and threw his hand out, to gesture toward the house on the other side of the door. “There are hundreds of people here. Commoners, poor folk, sleeping on the floors.”
Denis nodded. “Which is what Lucienne insisted I do. We have been sheltering and feeding the homeless and the poor ever since.” He turned to London. “Everything you said—the revolution, the death of the King, the famine, the rise of the common man, it all came to be, just as you said. I no longer doubt you, although I did for many years, and most people thought I was crazy. Now they believe I am a visionary, that I saw what was ahead when they did not. It saved us. It saved my family. I have waited for this moment to thank you. Now you are here, I do not know where to begin to adequately communicate my gratitude.”
“I think you just did,” Remi said dryly. Then he gave a soft sound and moved the three of them so he was standing behind London and could look at Denis directly. He made a soft sound of surprise.
Denis studied Remi just as closely. “I see now why people mistook you for me. You and I could be brothers. Ten years ago, I looked younger, while you have not changed at all.”
London opened her mouth to explain why that would be. Neven squeezed her arm quickly. She closed her mouth once more, realizing why he was silently warning her. Caution. Just because this Denis appeared to know about time travel, she could not reveal everything yet. He was a contemporary and no matter how much he looked like and sounded like Remi, the two of them had only three decades in common. Remi was a completely different man, with different reactions and opinions.
Neven was reminding her of that.
London let out the breath she had taken to speak, remaining silent.
“We should return,” Neven said, keeping his voice down. “Our reason for being here has changed. We have closed the loop, as Denis has indicated. We should leave before anything is further complicated.”
“Must you?” Denis was speaking to London, not Neven. “I would speak with you some more. I have waited a very long time for this moment. I have done everything you asked of me. You would deprive me of your company, after that?”
London glanced at Neven and Remi. Wariness was beating at her. They should go back.
Remi gave a soft, harsh exhalation. “Would I…may I peer upon your children, monsieur?” he said to Denis. His tone was polite, hiding any eagerness, which might startle Denis and make him cautious.
“No, Remi,” Neven said sharply. “The more interactions we have…” He couldn’t complete the thought without giving Denis far too much information about who they really were.
It was London’s turn to squeeze an arm in warning. She gripped Neven’s and closed her fingers tightly. He glanced at her.
Denis smiled. His smile was soft and warm and jolted London all over again, for she recognized it. It was the expression Remi often wore when gazing upon Jason. “It would be my pleasure,” Denis told Remi. “Although they sleep soundly and I will not have them wakened, you understand?”
“Perfectly,” Remi replied. “To look upon them will be more than enough. After that, I will return here. Then we must leave.”
Even though his tone was reasonable and his voice even, London’s heart broke for him. Remi had come here thinking they would return with his children, rescuing them from death by fire. Now he must give up that ambition and return home empty han
ded. It was a wonder he was not tearing the place apart, now he was thwarted so close to achieving his heart’s desire.
“Go with him,” London murmured to Neven. “Just in case…”
Neven nodded. “You stay here, where there is no one to see you. The less we move around the better.”
She nodded.
“This way,” Denis said, moving over to the bigger door. He opened it and held it aside for Remi and Neven. The three of them stepped out. The door closed, leaving London in the silent room.
She moved over to the chair and sank into it, carefully keeping her back straight. The brocade, which she had first thought was a dress, she now had time to study and learn that it was, in fact, a coat. The dress beneath was a soft cheese-cloth type fabric which she guessed was muslin. There was another layer beneath the muslin, too, which slipped and slid against her thighs. Was it a silk shift? Both the coat and the dress had waistlines up high beneath her breasts. The corset pushed her breasts up and made the most of them—it was better than any push-up bra she had ever worn. It was far more comfortable, too, for the support was supplied by the full garment, which came down to her hips, instead of a single tight band of elastic around her torso.
The brocade was a deep green color which gleamed in the moonlight. A single button held the coat closed over her breasts. When she sat, the coat parted on either side of her knees.
She thrust one foot out and was startled to see a low-heeled leather boot that rose to mid-calf. She had expected a flat slipper and white stockings. Although, white stockings did rise above the boot and she lifted the hem of the dress and the undershift to reveal her knees. The stockings stopped just above her knees, held there by green ribbons tied about the tops of them.
London dropped the dress back down over her knees and reached up to touch her hair, exploring with her fingers. Her hair had been piled upon the back of her head, and two ringlets hung from the mass, dangling down over her shoulders. Two thin braids, wound with ribbons, crossed over the top of her head in front of the pinned mass of curls at the back. They laid an inch apart on the crown, and ran together behind her ears.
Kiss Across Blades Page 6