Always

by Jude Deveraux

  “Ah,” Adam said, seeming to be at a loss for anything else to say. “Shall we go?” he said to Jack as he stood up.

  “Ready when you are,” Jack answered, standing up, also.

  Darci put down her glass and stood, too. “I can’t possibly wear this. I’d trip on the skirts.” She smiled at Adam. “In my time, women wear trousers.”

  “Tight ones,” Jack said, grinning. “Real tight.”

  Adam didn’t smile. He looked Darci up and down. “You cannot possibly go with us,” he said. “Jack and I will find the statue and bring it back here.”

  Adam seemed to assume that his decree was final, so he turned toward the stairs.

  “Mr. Drayton?” Darci asked. “How many times have you been in the tunnels?”

  He looked back at her. “Never.” He knew about what she was hinting and smiled. “However, I do know the combination to the safe. I gave the safe to Fonty so we’ll be able to open it when we find it.”

  “Great,” Darci said as she sat back down in the chair. “You don’t need to sneak into the tunnels and you don’t need a guide through them. I can stay here by the fire and sleep. However, I’m curious about your plan. Since we’re on a deadline and you don’t want to waste time getting lost in that maze, maybe you’ll go to your friend and tell him you need the little statue. What does it matter that he believes it has given him all his good fortune? Will you tell him you want to destroy it to get the key inside? Maybe you should tell him the truth, that you need the key so your new friends can go back to the twenty-first century. Oh well, I’m sure that you and Fonty are such good friends that he’ll believe you and will happily hand over the statue to you. For old times’ sake, of course.”

  Adam turned to Jack. “Do all the women of your time talk like this?”

  “She’s one of the nice ones,” Jack said. “I had a girlfriend who turned a gun on me when I told her I was going somewhere without her. Of course, she was an FBI agent and outranked me and we were on assignment, but still…” He shrugged.

  “What did you do?” Adam asked.

  “Tied her to a chair and put tape across her mouth. She wouldn’t go out with me again after that, though.”

  “Interesting,” Adam said as he looked at Darci in speculation.

  “Don’t even think it.” She smiled sweetly at Adam. “You want me to try to come back, don’t you? If you leave me here tonight I promise that I won’t even try.”

  Adam looked at Jack. “I don’t envy you your time. Tell me where we went wrong that this has happened to women.”

  “Don’t give them the vote, don’t let them drive and, above all else, don’t let them read romance novels. They start comparing you to some guy in a book. And, trust me on this, you’ll never live up to the standards of Hawk and Ethan.”

  “Could you two stop with the male bonding and get me some pants to wear?” Darci said as she headed for the stairs. “If I’m going to be your guide, I need something besides fifty pounds of skirt swirling around my legs.”

  While Adam was shaking his head in disbelief, Jack said, “You wouldn’t happen to have any firearms around here, would you? This isn’t the time of the blunderbuss, is it?”

  “It seems that what you have found in machines you have lost in civility,” Adam said.

  Darci paused on the stairs. “Maybe we should have a talk about child labor in Victorian times,” she said.

  “You have nothing in your time that needs social reform?” Adam asked on the stairs behind her.

  “While she gets dressed, let me tell you about terrorism,” Jack said. “I think we males need to stick together.”

  Darci tried to smile, tried to tell herself that now was different from the last time she’d been in the Camwell tunnels. Now there was no woman with powers that she’d gathered from acts too heinous to think about. Now all that was there were men armed to the teeth with guns.

  But the worst thing was that, this time, Darci would be going into the tunnels with no powers of her own. There’d be no more laughing and teasing as she’d done at the candy machines. She’d felt safe then because she’d known that no one was near them. This time she’d just have her eyes and ears, and her memory of what was where.

  As Adam led them to the stairs to the attic, where he said they’d find trunks full of clothes, she offered up a prayer for protection.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “THIS IS THE MOST RIDICULOUS SITUATION I HAVE ever encountered,” Adam was muttering under his breath as he expertly handled the horses of the buggy. It was full night, with only a quarter moon, but both he and the horses knew the way to Camwell.

  What he was complaining about was the fact that Lavender was in the backseat with Jack. She’d sobered considerably since dinner, but Adam was angry because she had on a costume that they’d found in a trunk in the attic. Jack had called it a “belly dancing costume,” and he and Darci had come up with the idea of putting Lavender in it and using her as a diversion for the armed guards. Her lower face would be veiled to protect her identity. However, her extraordinary purple eyes would still show.

  Adam had been horrified at the whole idea. There was little fabric in the costume and Lavey’s midsection was bare. “She cannot possibly wear that,” Adam said. “Her father would call me out. If I allowed this, any judge would order me hanged. Lavender Shay is a young woman of sterling repute.”

  “Until this afternoon,” Lavender said, sleepy-eyed, still a bit tipsy, and grinning wickedly at Jack. She took the flimsy costume out of Adam’s hands and declared that she’d like nothing better than to wear it. “And dance,” she said.

  The men had left the women alone in the attic for about thirty minutes while they dressed—or, in Lavender’s case, undressed.

  But Lavender had nearly chickened out. “I can’t do this,” she said, her hand over her bare belly. “I can’t possibly…”

  “You can’t fool me,” Darci said. “You love it! Good grief, but you look like a Victoria’s Secret model.”

  “Do you mean Queen Victoria?”

  “More or less. Queen of men’s hearts, in this case. Lavey, you look great. Wearing those corsets all these years has given you abs modern women would kill for. Have you ever seen a belly dancer?”

  Lavender blinked at Darci as though to say, You’re kidding, aren’t you?

  At Darci’s gym, she’d once taken a few classes of belly dancing, so she showed Lavender a couple of moves. Within seconds, Lavender picked it up as though she’d been dancing for years. “This has to be a past life thing,” Darci said, and again vowed that if she ever got her powers back, she was going to start looking into the past more.

  Darci wrapped a long cape that looked like molting seal skin around Lavender’s shoulders and they both went downstairs. In the library in front of the men, Lavender started to giggle. She thought Darci was more odd-looking than she was because Darci was dressed as a boy. She had on plaid wool trousers that reached to her knees, tall socks that disappeared under the trousers, and heavy shoes. On top she wore a white shirt with stiff collar and cuffs, and a pair of navy blue suspenders. She’d happily removed the artificial bun from the back of her head, combed out her hated ringlets, and tucked her hair up under a big newsboy cap. She felt the best she had since she’d arrived.

  “Not a bad little tush there,” Jack said when he saw Darci, making Adam frown in a way that reminded her completely of her husband.

  Not to be outdone, Lavender dropped the heavy cloak to the floor and stood before them in an outfit that was conservative to Jack and Darci’s modern eyes, but Adam was shocked. Women of good repute did not wear flimsy garments that showed their bare middles.

  “Shall I dance for you?” Lavender asked, her eyes lowered halfway.

  “Yes!” Jack said.

  “No!” Adam said as he picked up the cape and put it back around Lavender’s shoulders.

  Ten minutes later, they were all in the buggy and riding toward Camwell.

  “I d
on’t like this,” Adam said. “I should have done this alone. I could have found the safe and brought the statue back on my own.”

  “Those tunnels are a labyrinth,” Darci said. “I was taken from…room to…room.” Her voice slowed as she remembered that horrible night in the tunnels.

  “Did you actually kill people with your mind?” Adam asked softly so only she could hear.

  “Yes, but I don’t like to think about it, and I’ve never talked about it,” she answered.

  “Why have you been given such power?” he asked.

  “In my time there are people who would like nothing more than to have the ability to kill with their minds. In the wrong hands…” He gave her a sidelong look.

  “Yes,” she said. “In the wrong hands an ability such as mine could do much evil—which is why I’m glad I have it and not someone else.” She was trying to make a joke, but Adam didn’t smile. Like my Adam, she thought. He always had the ability to see to the very core of a matter.

  “Why was this ability given to you?” Adam asked again. “And what are you to do with your such power?”

  She thought for a moment. “Only in the last months have I begun to ask myself that. When I was growing up all I wanted was love, and as an adult I wanted the same thing. When I had my husband and my daughter and all my family near me, I was content. I wanted nothing else. I was even trying to learn to cook!”

  “But what about this talent that God has given you?”

  “I did some work for the FBI—to help the government—and I visited hospitals, but nothing much. Adam didn’t like for me to do much because I tend to jump into danger.”

  “Like now,” he said as he turned a curve.

  “Yes, but then my husband was always walking into danger. He and my father would use the mirror—”

  “The Mirror of Nostradamus?”

  “Yes, that one. They’d find problems in the world and fly somewhere to right them.”

  “And that’s what he was doing the day he disappeared?”

  “I guess so. He was never able to keep me from knowing what he was doing, but he did that day. And now I don’t know where he is or how to find him. I know he’s alive, but he’s in a coma, I guess you’d call it. Not asleep, not awake. Suspended animation. And for all that I’ve searched, I’ve come no closer to finding him.”

  “Perhaps it’s the journey itself that has been the goal. Have you learned anything while on your search?”

  Darci looked at him, wide-eyed. “I couldn’t begin to tell all that I’ve learned.” She thought about her time in Alabama with Linc and what she’d seen and done there. And she thought of the last days with Jack. “I think what I’ve learned most is that my ability is a gift. I have always hated it. I’ve used it as little as I could because I hated being a freak, and hated being…” She took a breath and made herself say the words. “The Hillbilly Honey.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s a name the papers gave me. They hinted that I killed my rich husband and his sister for money.”

  “But money isn’t your problem, is it?”

  Darci smiled. “No. My father made experiments to see if I could pick stocks that would make money. I could, and easily. The irony of that is that I met my husband because I desperately needed money. Had I known that I could merely run my finger down a stock market sheet and make thousands upon thousands, I never would have met him.”

  Adam was quiet for a few minutes. “This is new to me and it’s difficult for me to actually believe all that you tell me, but if any of it is true, then I think there’s been a reason for your husband’s disappearance. You say you’ve learned much in your search for him. Perhaps you needed to learn these things.” He sighed. “I wish I could find the reason for my wife’s death, and I wish I could find out why her spirit appears to others but not to me.”

  “Your grief probably won’t let her leave the earth,” Darci said. “If you could release her, she might be able to leave this plane.”

  “And perhaps if you stopped searching for your husband he could die,” he shot back.

  They sat in silence for a moment, then Darci looked at Adam in the moonlight and they smiled at each other. Neither was going to give up holding onto the person they loved so much.

  Minutes later, Adam stopped the carriage and Darci knew where they were. Not far down the road was what would someday be known as the Grove. It would become an expensive resort, but now it was just a collection of derelict old buildings that looked as though they were about to fall down. She wondered if Fontinbloom Nokes used the money he made from the garnets to restore the buildings.

  Adam got down and helped Darci to the ground, while Jack got Lavender out. She’d sobered up more and from her swollen lips, it looked as though she and Jack had done a lot of kissing while in the back of the buggy.

  “I was thinking,” Jack said quietly, knowing the sound of his voice would carry in the still night air. “I should stay with Lavey. I can’t leave her alone with a bunch of men with hands and guns.”

  “I don’t think you should do this at all,” Adam said sternly. “I think you two should stay here while Miss Marshall and I go into the tunnels and search for the safe as quickly as possible. Truthfully, I think I should go in alone.”

  “No,” Jack said firmly. “You two need us. Lavey and I’ll make so much noise that the attention of the guards will be on us. Do you have a plan of how you’re going to get in? You can’t very well walk in through the front door.”

  “There’s another entrance,” Adam said.

  “Through the floor of the icehouse,” Darci said quickly and was rewarded by a little smile from Adam.

  “Yes. You used it before?”

  “No. It was used only for storage when I was here, but I felt that there had once been a connection to the tunnels.”

  Jack pulled a rifle from the back of the buggy and handed it to Adam. “Breech loading,” he said to Darci. “Hot off the assembly line—except that I don’t think assembly lines have been invented yet.” He looked at Adam. “When we get out of this I can tell you a few things that could make you a fortune.”

  “No thanks,” Adam and Darci said in unison.

  “The men work night and day in the tunnels so they’ll be lit, but as we make our way across the fields to the icehouse we’ll be in the dark. Will you be all right?” Adam asked Darci.

  “Yes,” she answered, then looked at Jack. At the moment he felt like the brother she’d never had. “You’ll make lots of noise, won’t you?”

  “Lots and lots,” he said softly. “I wish I could go with you, or that you could stay with Lavey and I could go in your place.”

  “Are you getting soft on me?” Darci asked. “Wait until I tell Greg!”

  “I’m staying here in this time, remember?” Jack said, grinning at her, then he gave Darci a sisterly hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re a real pain, you know that?”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said, then Adam turned and she followed him into the darkness. She said nothing as they moved through the underbrush in the direction of the old houses. When she’d been with her Adam and had had her powers, she’d talked and made noises. She knew when there was danger close by. But not now. Now she followed Adam as closely as possible. Neither Adam nor Jack had mentioned giving Darci a rifle, but in the attic, in the bottom of an old trunk, she’d found a dagger. It was small and sharp, and the hilt had been decorated with jewels—fake or real, she didn’t know. She’d shoved it in its scabbard inside her pocket. With every step she took, she could feel the stiff case against her leg.

  After a while they reached a clearing, and Adam held his arm out to keep her from moving out of the brush. He listened and when he gave the signal, they both ran toward an old building and pulled open the creaking door. Once inside, they leaned against the wall and waited to see if anyone had heard the door.

  As she stood there, Darci’s eyes adjusted to the interior darkness, and she was glad she had no power. Th
is building would someday be converted into a guest house where she and her Adam would stay. If she had power now, she knew that she’d be feeling him and she couldn’t risk that right now. The man was too much like her husband, too much of a temptation.

  She stayed still when Adam began to move about the room. She could barely see his outline, but she knew that he was inching along, trying to find what was left of the trap door. “Careful!” she whispered. What if the door had rotted away and he fell through the hole?

  After a minute, she felt his hand reaching for hers. When she took his hand, a feeling of safety came over her, and she clasped it as though it were a life jacket.

  “I’ll go down first, but stay close to me,” he whispered into her ear and she nodded.

  It was difficult for her to let go of his hand, but she had to. She could feel more than see as he started down a ladder. Maybe it’s a rotten ladder, she thought, but when it didn’t break under his weight, she let out her breath. When Adam was partway down, he put his hand on her ankle and tugged to let her know she was to start down the ladder.

  All the way down he covered her body with his. He was much taller than she was so he tested each rung before he allowed her to step on it, and he protectively surrounded her each step of the way.

  Darci tried not to think of the closeness of their bodies. It had been so very long since she’d been this near to a man. Temptation, she thought. That’s all this man is. He’s temptation. He’s not real, just someone to tempt me. Who is doing this to me? she wondered. And why?

  When Adam’s feet touched the ground, he reached up, took her by the waist, and lifted her down. Unnecessarily, he motioned that she was to follow him. When her foot touched water, he grabbed her hand.

  “There’s an underground stream here,” he whispered, “so stay as far against the wall as possible. I see a light ahead.”

  She nodded and he took his hand away, then he began inching his way along the dirt wall. Darci kept her hands on the wall, feeling the rocks that protruded, now and then feeling a creepy-crawly thing, and she had to suppress her revulsion.