Sparks of Light

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Sparks of Light Page 24

by Janet B. Taylor


  “If your children were going to die because of some stupid mistake you could easily prevent, wouldn’t you want to know of it?”

  Collum’s tight lips opened as he started to respond. Then he saw me and swallowed back whatever he’d been about to say.

  “It’s not as simple as that, Phee,” Mac responded in a calm, reasonable voice. “Jonathan wants to know absolutely nothing of his own future or that of his family. You heard him say so yourself.”

  “Aye, but you can’t seriously believe that extends to the accidental murder of his own babes, can you?”

  Wearing black tuxedo pants and undershirts, Mac and Collum were ransacking a buffet, balancing china plates piled with crustless sandwich triangles and petite pastries.

  Phoebe saw me. “Here,” she said. “Hope agrees with me, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. We have to find some way to tell him. We can’t just let it happen.”

  While Phoebe graced her brother and grandfather with a triumphant see-I-told-you-so look, I was smiling at Doug, who grinned back so big, his cheeks lifted the wire spectacles. He started to get up but I waved him back.

  “Don’t get up.”

  I leaned down and gave him a fierce hug. Doug’s liquid brown eyes looked huge behind the magnified lenses as he shook his head. “Gah, Hope. I was that scared when you didn’t come down the chute after me. Then I heard you scream, and I tried to climb back up. But the damn chute was too steep. I—​I’m sorry for leaving you there.”

  His face, guilt-ridden and miserable, tore at my heart.

  “Douglas Eugene Carlyle.” I gave my best Aunt Lucinda impression, earning a smile from him and a massive, grateful grin from Phoebe. “I would have murdered you twice over if you’d come back for me. Besides,” I said, dropping the awful accent, “they would have gotten you too, and who knows what might’ve happened. I’d say we’re both pretty lucky.”

  “Agreed.” Mac spoke through a mouthful of pastry. “We’re all here. We’re all safe now. And that’s the end of that. Now it’s time to discuss what comes next. We have”—​he glanced at the intricate clock on the mantel—​“seventeen hours and thirty-eight minutes until we must be back inside that dreadful cattle tunnel. And we haven’t even spoken with Tesla yet, much less convinced him to destroy the device. So let’s start—”

  A knock on the door interrupted him. Collum, whose keen eyes hadn’t left me since I’d entered, gulped down the rest of his lemonade and went to answer it.

  Sniffing the air, I moaned. “Is that coffee?”

  Phoebe started to get up. “You sit. I’ll get it.”

  “Och. Oh, no ye dinna.” In my most outrageous burr, I said, “You’ll be a-stayin’ right where ye are then, lassie. I’ll be fetchin’ a cup o’ the bean fer meeself, ye ken?”

  She and Doug exchanged a look before bursting into roars of laughter. “Wh-what?” Phoebe wheezed. “What in blazes was that?”

  I tried to look insulted. “Um, that was Moira? Hello?”

  Mac—​whose laugh reminded me of the sound my horse makes when she has a gas pain—​bent, hands on his knees. “Oh, my sweet girl,” he said, shaking his head. “I love you dearly, but ye sound more like a leprechaun with tonsillitis than my darling Moira.”

  I scrunched my face at them, but I was grinning when I turned to pour the rich coffee into my cup. As I watched the cream swirl and disperse, I felt my energy begin to return.

  “You gotta admit,” I said, plopping in a few sugar cubes, “I’m getting better, right?”

  By the time they quit laughing, I was snugged down on the opposite sofa, slippered feet tucked beneath me as I sipped.

  Collum returned from the small foyer, laden to his chin with a variety of white, ribbon-tied boxes and a stack of creamy envelopes clamped between his teeth.

  “No, no. Don’t mind me. Stay. Enjoy your comedy hour. I’ve got it,” he grumbled through the mouthful of ivory paper, then bent and let the envelopes drop to a table.

  “Ooh! What’s all this, then?” Phoebe jumped up and began pawing at the packages, causing Collum to juggle and stumble or face dropping the whole lot.

  “Dammit, Phee,” he grunted at his sister. “Hold your water.” He dumped the boxes on the sofa beside me. “Here. Have at it, you animal. The boy who delivered them said it came from Madame Belisle.”

  Phoebe began mauling the lovely heavy cardboard, shop paper, and painted teakwood boxes, snarling the ice-blue ribbons into hopeless knots.

  Collum looked over at his sister, shaking his head, though I thought I saw his features soften with fondness. “She’s always been like this,” he told me. “I remember one year, couple of days before Christmas, there were all these presents under the tree, aye? Phoebe was just a wee thing, but she kept sneaking in to unwrap them, even after Gram took a wooden spoon to her.”

  Across the room, Mac nodded, grin widening with the memory as Collum went on.

  “Well, we got up Christmas morn to find that she’d woken during the night. Gone downstairs. And unwrapped every single one. Knowing she’d have her hide tanned again once Gram found out, she tried to rewrap them so we wouldn’t know.” Collum barked a laugh that pulled wide grins from everyone in the room. “Da had to cut the tape out of her hair.”

  Phoebe looked up at her brother, a scrap of the brown shop paper stuck to her chin. “I remember that,” she said. “Took months for my bangs to grow back out. But I got an Easy-Bake Oven. Gram wanted to make me wait to play with it, but Da only laughed and said that if I was that determined, then it wouldn’t matter where they hid it, I’d only find it and end up burning the house down around our ears.”

  Doug chuckled. “I was still in Edinburgh when that crime was committed,” he said. “Though I do recall my first Christmas at the manor when a certain redhead somehow convinced me to spend the night hiding behind the drapes because she’d decided to find out if Santa Claus was real.”

  Mac’s shoulders shook as he laughed. “Aye, and as I remember it, the two of you fell asleep. When we couldn’t find you the next morning, we spent hours tearing the house clean apart searching for you. Moira got herself all worked up, convinced you had somehow gotten down into the Dim’s cavern and been whisked back in time, never to be seen again.”

  The four of them exchanged more comical, nostalgic stories. And though I smiled along, I squirmed at the sharp little ache that pinched at me, wondering what my life would’ve been like had Mom brought me to Christopher Manor to live, instead of marrying my dad and moving to America. If instead of sedate Christmas mornings with my new books . . . always books . . . I had been one of those hiding in the drapes, or having my bangs snipped to the scalp.

  That’s a twisty path, I realized. Your what-if road is too freaking crooked, Walton; better step off. If you let yourself follow it, you’ll start thinking things like . . . What if Mom had never found me? What if she hadn’t brought me back with her to this time?

  What if I’d never been taken from the sixteenth century? What if I’d spent all my Christmases with the man and woman who’d given me life? What if I was now nothing more than a bit of dust and bone, beneath a crumbling headstone in some old parish churchyard, like Bran said? What if. What if. What if? No. That is a path I do not want to tread.

  Mac passed out the envelopes. “One for each of us, looks like.”

  I hefted the thick vellum. Inside the envelope was a stiff card, embossed at the top with a swirling V. The gilt-engraved invitation read:

  The company of Miss Hope Randolph is requested to attend a soiree at the home of William K. Vanderbilt, on the evening of Wednesday, 13th of March, current year. 8 o’clock p.m.

  Number 660 5th Avenue,

  New York City, New York.

  At the bottom, scrawled in a childish hand: I do so hope you will come. Consuelo V.

  Phoebe whooped as she ripped hers open. “You did it, Hope! We’re in! You must’ve made an impression on Connie.”

  “Yeah.” I smiled
through the pang of guilt. “Yeah.”

  I knew I’d had no choice, and besides, what I’d told Connie Vanderbilt hadn’t been a complete falsehood, had it? I wasn’t being shipped off to Scotland to marry some guy I barely knew, of course. But the rest of it? That I understood.

  There was an expression for it. In my own time, casual overuse had stolen away most of its original meaning, leaving it flabby and worn as an old sock.

  But for Connie, the condition of being “hopelessly in love” existed within a very literal context. Like most women from time immemorial, she had no choice. No hope. Her history was already written, and she would never, ever end up with the man she truly loved.

  Would a future Viator one day look upon me with the same pity I felt for her, knowing that—​for Bran and me—​the phrase fit all too well?

  My hands were shaking as I turned to the packages beside me and began ripping into them, hiding my face from the others as I emulated Phoebe’s careless abandon.

  “Whoa.” Fabric whispered in the sudden quiet as Phoebe tugged out a shimmering ball gown of frothy azure tulle. She held the exquisite garment up against herself. “Gotta give it to old Frenchie,” she said. “She might’ve been a hateful old bird, but she knows her way around a needle and thread.”

  Chapter 37

  MY OWN MADAME BELISLE CREATION DID A PRETTY damn good job of disputing that assertion.

  I spread the gown across the couch and stepped back, thinking some distance might make it look a bit less repulsive.

  Yeah. No.

  “The bloody thing looks like a strawberry and kiwi smoothie left out to spoil in the sun,” Collum commented.

  “Thanks,” I said, with a face-melting glare. “That helps.”

  “Boy, Hope, you must’ve slagged off that old bat but good,” Doug said, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t joking.

  “We could switch?” Phoebe offered. “I’d just need to cut the length off that one and add it to mine and—”

  “That’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll survive. Who cares?”

  I did. I cared. I knew I shouldn’t. I couldn’t stop staring, though the taffeta skirt’s riotous floral pattern seemed specifically designed to scorch the retinas. Silk, in the approximate shade of an overchewed piece of bubblegum, made up the bodice. Added to that, the wads of white and magenta lace that capped each sleeve looked like bandages crusted in old blood.

  I averted my eyes. Told myself to stop being ridiculous.

  Bigger fish to fry, Walton. Way more balls in the air, or some other worn-out metaphor.

  But I was going to a ball.

  A freaking ball.

  And . . . maybe I just wanted to look pretty? For once.

  Phoebe’s eyes had narrowed. They flicked from the gown to me and back again. Hands on her hips, she shook her head.

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “Just . . . no.” She stood, walked over, and snatched the gown in one hand and yanked me up off the sofa with the other. “No dawdling, Hope, we’ve work to do. Thatta girl. Hurry now. Rock and roll.”

  “What exactly are we doing?” I asked as I stumbled along behind her.

  “I,” she said, “am playing fairy godmother. And you, my love, are Cinda—​bloody—​rella.” At the door to my bedroom, she stopped and yelled over her shoulder at the guys, “Scissors, stat!”

  She made me put it on. When I stepped out from behind the patterned screen, she blew out a long breath.

  “Jesus wept.” She covered her mouth in mock—​or maybe real—​dismay.

  “Right?” I answered. “But can you really fix it? We don’t have much time.”

  She whistled. “What did you do to that stuck-up old croissant, anyway?”

  I could only shrug as I moved in front of the full-length mirror. “Oh God, it looks like a wound infection.”

  “Hmm.”

  My head shot up. I knew that “Hmm.” Phoebe was studying the dress, teeth sunk into her bottom lip. I’d been blown away by my friend’s capabilities under pressure more than a few times.

  “The sleeves. They go first.”

  I hugged her so tight, she squeaked. “All right, all right. Where are my blasted scissors?”

  We ignored Collum’s irritated knocks and Doug’s sporadic time checks. The whole thing took less than thirty minutes. By the time Mac intervened, we were both ready.

  Phoebe threw open the bedroom door. “Come in, then, and tell me what you think.”

  “It’s a dress, Phee,” Collum snapped as he stalked through. “I don’t give a . . .”

  He looked in my direction, and did not finish the thought.

  “So it looks okay?” I asked. “She hasn’t let me see it yet.”

  Bobbing his head up and down, Collum said, “Aye, you’ll do.”

  “Thanks.” I said it with sarcasm, but I didn’t really care. I knew it was better. Anything was better.

  “Voilà!” Phoebe pulled off the sheet that she had placed over the mirror.

  I blinked at the transformation.

  “Whoa,” I said. “You. You are amazing.”

  Phoebe had first ripped off the sleeves. At her direction, I’d then removed the topmost petticoat so she could strip off a layer of crinoline. The ivory now swirled in drapes over the flattened skirt, muting the migraine-inducing pattern. After shearing away every thread of lace and extraneous ribbon, only dainty silk now held up the much-lowered bodice.

  The design was fresh and delicate. Instead of being overwhelmed by the gaudy ornamentation, my pale skin and dark hair emerged. Ribbons encrusted with seed pearls were threaded through my gathered hair. I turned from side to side, enjoying the tickle as stray curls brushed my now-bare shoulders.

  Phoebe smushed in beside me. Her reflection grinning at mine.

  “You,” she said, “are going to send the lads to their knees.”

  “Not once they get a look at you.”

  I wasn’t lying, either. In shimmering tulle that matched her eyes, Phoebe was simply stunning. Auburn hair curled and was swept back with jeweled combs. Silver threads glinted, showing off her curves. She was so vibrant that if anyone thought too hard about it, they’d realize she was playing dress-up. Phoebe MacPherson simply burned too bright for the staid Victorian age.

  “Jesus, Coll,” she called as she saw her brother still gaping at me. “Close your mouth, aye? You’ll catch a fly.”

  The sun was well set by the time Jonathan Carlyle returned.

  “What did you find out, Mr. Carlyle?” Collum asked, before the man had even removed his gloves and shiny top hat.

  Jonathan dropped his things on a tabletop and tilted his head at the crystal decanters of liquor grouped on a table nearby. “May I?”

  After pouring two fingers’ worth and taking a significant slug, he turned back to us.

  “My dear friend Tesla, being of a somewhat recalcitrant nature even at the best of times, was in a state of agitation I have rarely witnessed. He initially refused to be disturbed in any way, barring even my entrance. When he finally allowed me in, I—​I tried to explain how I’d changed my mind about the enhancement. How I’d been deceived as to the motives of the people who brought me the plans. How I regretted having brought them to his notice.”

  Jonathan winced. “We, ah . . . we very nearly came to blows over the matter. This, from a man I’ve known for fifteen years. Niko was quite vexed and—​upon my arrival—​was behaving in a manner that could be considered odd, even for him. I do not yet know the source of this distress. The good news, however, is that he shall be in attendance at the ball tonight. Even Nikola Tesla cannot so insult his benefactors as to withdraw from the occasion.” Jonathan shot back the rest of the whiskey. “I have, at least, persuaded him to ride with us, where you shall speak with him at your leisure. He awaits us now.”

  Jonathan set the glass down on a small table next to me. From the remains of the drink rose a sharp alcoholic scent. But beneath the sting lay more subtl
e notes. Peat and smoke and heather. The scent of the Highlands. The back of my throat ached suddenly with missing it . . . with missing home.

  “Are all the security measures we set still in place?” Mac asked.

  Jonathan nodded. “Yes. Men front and back. Sergeant Peters was grateful to add his skills to the crew we hired. They’ve been apprised only that there is a chance of vandalism, but they are ready for any sort of approach. Though I employed them, even I had difficulty in getting past.”

  “And what did you tell him of us?”

  Jonathan sighed. His head seemed to sink down into his shoulders, and I could tell that lying to his friend had cost him. “Only that you were old and dear family friends. People I trust beyond measure. And that you are aware of our . . . situation.” Jonathan Carlyle pressed his lips together, obviously reluctant to speak, but unable to stop himself. “But I feel I must ask . . . The fire? All of Niko’s work destroyed? Is it . . . is it truly inevitable? I admit, it pains me greatly to know this and yet be unable to stop it, or even warn my friend.”

  Mac bowed his head. Collum stared out the window.

  Doug, who’d so longed to visit Tesla and his lab, looked devastated. Tonight, his great hero would lose everything he’d ever worked for. “Jonathan,” he said. “I am as sick about Professor Tesla’s lab as anyone can be. You’ll know that in the time from which we come, I am the caretaker of his . . . y-your . . . our device. I’ve studied the man and his inventions my whole life. And while I want more than anything to preserve his life’s work, the fire tonight is one of those things we call a sentinel event. A historical incident too well documented for there to be any kind of alteration.”

  Phoebe rose to her feet and took Jonathan’s hands between her own. “I wish we could tell you a different tale. You’ve no idea how much. But as we explained in the beginning, it is from you, yourself, that we’ve learned the rules on how this all works, aye?”

  Collum and Mac exchanged a glance. Mac stood first. “You’ll remember, Jon, the fragments from your own journal we showed you when first we met?”

 

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