Always

by Jude Deveraux

  Darci narrowed her eyes at him. “We can do without Jack the Smart Alec, that jerk I met in Greg’s office.”

  “He’s still in here, along with John Marshall. It’s getting a little crowded, though. There’s the haunted Jack who hates his father, the Jack who’s in love with Lavender, and John who’s dull and boring but who is also desperately in love with Lavender.” He looked at Darci. “You know, it’s odd about Lavender calling Marshall dull. He’s inside me and he doesn’t feel dull at all. In fact, he’s done some pretty rowdy things.”

  “Maybe he’s afraid to let her see that side of him. Maybe he thinks Lavender’s a woman of such virtue that all she wants to do is have tea parties. I doubt if he’d believe that she wanted to dance half naked in front of a bunch of miners.”

  Jack gave a one-sided grin. “You should have seen her. She was magnificent. If I didn’t know better I would have thought she was Arabic. I tell you that I got so jealous of those men looking at her that I…I…” He rubbed his palms on his trouser’s legs.

  “You are John and John is you,” Darci said. “You’re separated by a few hundred years but you’re the same.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe I’m just occupying his body. And keeping it. I’m not leaving Lavender.”

  Darci put her fingertips to her temples. “This thinking is hard work,” she said. “It’s much easier to go into a trance and come out with the answer.” When she looked at Jack, he was shaking his head in disbelief, but she ignored him. “What if the spirit lied to us and she wasn’t Lavender Shay? Maybe she wanted to be Lavey so much she thought she was her. What if she thought you were going to marry her? Maybe she thought that if she pushed Lavey off a building you’d marry her instead.”

  “Maybe John did kill Lavey,” Jack said quietly.

  “Remember that the paper said he married someone else after Lavey’s death.”

  “Or maybe he didn’t know that Lavender had been murdered. Do you think he married the murderer? Okay, what we need to know first is who John Marshall had been to bed with.”

  At that, Jack became conspicuously silent.

  “What is it that you don’t want to tell me?”

  Jack ran his hand along the mantel. “I told you that neither John nor I were saints or angels. Only I had a reason for what I did, while he—”

  “Yeah, I know,” Darci said impatiently. “You were the poor little rich boy who didn’t get enough love. You got enough food and you had a best friend and, oh yeah, you had his parents who loved you madly, but your daddy didn’t praise you enough, so you turned to drugs and bad ways.”

  “How has anyone let you live this long?” Jack said with clenched teeth. He stared at Darci and she stared back.

  “Okay,” Jack said at last. “What’s different in John’s case is that it was ‘like father, like son.’ His father likes floozies and his son did, too.”

  “Like you,” Darci said.

  “No, there you’re wrong. I like my women smart and beautiful and talented. I like a woman who gives me a run for my money.” At that, he looked Darci up and down in the manner of the old Jack, but she ignored him.

  “No, I mean, ‘like father, like son.’ You’re just like your father.”

  “I’m what?!” Jack half yelled, then lowered his voice.

  “I’m not at all like my father.”

  “Right,” Darci said, sarcastic. “Let’s see. Your father is cold; you’ve always been cold to people. Your father is obsessed with money; you get upset at the mention of money. Your father has been doing something undercover, evidenced by the items in his secret room, and you do nothing but undercover work. The world thinks your father is a good, kind man but he’s not, and you aren’t what you appear to be, either. So what’s different between you two?”

  Jack’s face was white, and he looked as though he’d been hit with something. His mouth was open, as though trying to get his breath. “You know, I think I liked it better when that angry spirit was hanging around me. Then I was so angry that nothing anyone said got to me.”

  “Who is that angry spirit?” Darci asked. “Who thinks you’re going to marry her? Whose birthday is today and who has a sick father? What woman have you bedded and made her think that there was going to be more?”

  “Not me. John Marshall, remember? I’m the one who had it all and wanted more.”

  “Who have you angered enough that she followed you into the next life—or probably next lives, since it’s been so long. Who has worked to make your life miserable?”

  “Just one woman?”

  At that Darci stood up. “I’m going upstairs to get a couple hours of sleep. You should stay here and think about this.”

  “Okay,” Jack said calmly. “The truth is that I don’t know. I told you that this Marshall character is fading inside me. Or maybe it’s that I’m fading inside myself. Whatever is happening, with every hour I seem to feel him less. Maybe having spent a lifetime surrounded by an angry spirit has made me stronger, or made me more greedy so that I’m taking more than my share. I don’t know. I know that when I woke up in his body, I could feel him and remember what he did, but gradually that’s changed. Now it’s ninety percent me in here and only ten percent him.” He grinned at Darci. “Maybe I should be hypnotized to bring him out.”

  Jack had been making a joke, but as he looked at Darci, his eyes widened. “Can you ride a horse?”

  “Not at all. I fall off the side the minute the creature takes a step. Why do you want me to ride a horse?”

  “This woman you went to, this Simone, the one you’ve tried to keep secret from me. Do you think that she might be able to find out who this person is?”

  “I don’t know. I think she has more power than she thinks she does, but I don’t think she has much.” Darci’s head came up. “Do you think that she might be able to tell us what did happen?”

  “Did, as in hasn’t happened, yet what could happen this afternoon?”

  “Exactly,” Darci said. “You know what I’m wondering? That paper said that Jack married after Lavender died, and he died when his house burned down. Wonder if it was an accident?”

  For a moment, Jack and Darci looked at each other in silence.

  “I’m going to pack my Victorian clothes,” she said.

  “I don’t want to shock anyone in my plus fours. While I’m packing, I want you to go to Adam and get the key and the crucifix, and ask him if we can borrow a horse. Can you ride a fast horse?”

  “I can ride a bucking bronco if I have to. What crucifix?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way to Simone’s house—if I can find it in the dark. How long before it’s daylight?”

  “No more than three hours, I’d think.”

  “What do we do about Lavender?” Darci asked.

  “How about if we leave her here under Drayton’s care? Think he can guard her for us?”

  “I think he can do anything,” Darci said, then saw Jack’s look of speculation. “Don’t start making up things.”

  “I want you to tell me everything that happened tonight.” He gave a little grin. “Maybe you’ll want to stay here, too. Maybe there’ll be a double wedding this afternoon.”

  “No,” Darci said softly. “If at all possible, I’m going home to my family.”

  “You’ll probably get there in another hundred and some years.” Jack was grinning, laughing, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t going to tell him what Simone had said about Darci having only one life and needing to return to the twenty-first century. Nor was she going to tell him that Simone had told her that if a spirit had power, it always had power. When she’d been with Adam under that man’s bed, she’d felt the vibrations between the two objects. Maybe some of her power was coming back to her. Or being released, she thought with a grimace. Maybe whoever had hidden her power was beginning to release it.

  She did, however, tell him in detail about the hiding place where Tom was going to put the magic objects. Jack listened and nodded, liking her plan. “
Now go ask Adam to take care of Lavender,” she said. She wasn’t going to tell Jack that the last thing on earth she needed was to see Adam Drayton in bed. “I’ll meet you back here in ten minutes.”

  As soon as Jack left the room, Darci turned toward the stairs to get her clothes, but, yet again, she had that feeling that she was being watched. She rubbed at her forearms to settle the hairs that were standing on end. A glance at the windows showed that it was still black outside, and she could see nothing.

  Turning, she started up the stairs, but stopped again and looked back quickly. Nothing. For what had to be the thousandth time, she wished she had her powers. If she did, she would know if there was someone outside, how many, and what sex. She might even know what he wanted. If she saw the person, she’d know by his aura whether his motives were good or bad.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated. If she had her powers now she could paralyze whoever was outside, and she’d be able to find out what had happened and what was happening.

  But she could tell nothing. She shivered once, then ran the rest of the way up the stairs. Right now she wanted to be near Jack or Adam, and a rifle.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “LORD A MERCY, CHILD,” SIMONE SAID, “I CAN’T DO that. Even my grandmother would have been hard put to do what you’re asking.”

  “I want you to see if you can tell us what’s going to happen today, and who’s involved. It’s not difficult.”

  “Maybe not for someone with your power, but it’s impossible for me.”

  Darci narrowed her eyes at the old woman. “What is it you don’t want to do?”

  “Change things,” Simone said quickly. “That’s not my place. Maybe that girl is supposed to die today. What right do I have to try to change God’s plan?”

  Darci threw up her hands and looked at Jack, who was lounging half asleep in an easy chair in Simone’s tiny parlor.

  Leaning forward, Simone took Darci’s hand and held it. “You have the box and the key now, don’t you? You should use it to go home. Go now. Hold onto him, open the box, and leave here.”

  “But what about Lavender? You told me that the three of us who came here had to leave together.”

  Simone looked at Jack to make sure he wasn’t listening, then leaned closer to Darci. “There’s a spirit around him now and I don’t think it’s someone who loves him. Who hates him?”

  “I don’t know,” Darci said. “We’ve been trying to find out. I think he must have made some woman think he was going to marry her. She’s very angry, so angry that she follows him into the future.”

  Simone leaned back in her chair. “My daughter knows which women hate which men.”

  Darci’s eyes widened. “Abortion,” she said softly. Of course. Unwanted children. Out of wedlock. She looked at Simone. “Where does your daughter live?”

  “In town.” She smiled. “But right now she happens to be asleep in my bedroom. Perhaps we can wake her up and ask her who hates John Marshall enough to haunt him forever.”

  “Yes, let’s do that,” Darci said.

  “There are seven women on this list!” Darci shouted at Jack over the pounding hooves of the horses. “Seven! You either—”

  “Not me. John Marshall.”

  “Same spirit; different body,” Darci said. “You either impregnated them or they were buying love potions to make you fall for them. What in the world was your appeal? And you said John loved Lavey. So why all the other women?”

  “Ever hear of sex?”

  “I vaguely remember it,” Darci answered.

  “Lavender is a good girl. I couldn’t touch her and there were all those other women offering themselves to me. What was I…he supposed to do? Say no?”

  “But the abortions.”

  “It’s a different time. All that’s a woman’s responsibility, not a man’s.”

  Darci grimaced. “The irony is that Lavey was bored by you, by John. You were treating her like a piece of porcelain rather than like a real woman. All in all, you were a real jerk, you know that?”

  Jack gave a snort of laughter. “It’s a good thing my ego is intact or I’d be hurt by your words. As it is, I’m shedding tears.”

  “It’s the wind,” Darci said. She was holding onto him tightly, trying not to fall off the horse as they rode back to Camwell, and she was thinking of the task in front of them. How did they find all these women in the few hours they had before the wedding? Jack had said it would be simple. All they had to do was ask for birth dates. “And she’ll tell the truth?” Darci said. “A woman who is so full of hatred is going to tell the truth?”

  “Why should she lie about her birth date? The twelfth of June. Simple. Find out whose birthday it is, then we have her.”

  “Then what?” Darci asked.

  “Tie her in the cellar until Lavender and I are married.”

  “And history changes to Lavender dying after her marriage instead of on the day. Wow! That helps a lot.”

  “You could always open your little box and go back now,” Jack said over his shoulder. “But no! You need Lavey and me, don’t you?”

  “You were listening!”

  “To every word. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. So what’s your plan, Little Miss Boss of the World?”

  “I’m not—Okay, so maybe I’ve been called that before. But it was because I used to know what to do. I could look into the future, into people’s hearts, and I could—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. What’s your plan now?”

  “Beats me,” Darci said.

  “Good,” Jack answered. “If you don’t know what to do, maybe you’ll listen. I’m going to go to each of these women and talk to them.”

  “You’re what?! You can’t do that. One of them hates you.”

  “Or loves me.”

  “Same thing. She wants you either in this century or in the next, or the next, and she means to have you. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a powerful hatred. You can’t—”

  At that, Jack pulled the horse to a halt. “You either go along with my plan or I let you off here.”

  “Here” was nowhere, as only the country before cars could be. All Darci could see for a mile down the road in either direction was trees. There weren’t even any farmhouses in sight. Not that a farmhouse would help without a telephone.

  “Okay,” she said, her lips tight. “I’ll do it, but I don’t like it.”

  “That’s all I ask,” Jack said as he nudged the horse forward. “All I want you to do is stay with Lavey all day. She goes to the outhouse, you go with her. Got it? No running off to see any psychics, no playing detective. If you stay with Lavender and never leave her alone, that in itself will change history. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Absolutely,” Darci said, then was silent for a while. “Jack?”

  “Yes?”

  “If we go back to our own time and we’ve succeeded in getting that angry spirit away from you so my powers can reach you, you know what I’m going to do?”

  “No, what?”

  “Cause you real pain.”

  Laughing, Jack kicked the horse to go faster. When Darci had to grab him tighter to keep from falling off the back, he laughed harder.

  “Darci, you’re a dear sister,” Lavender was saying, “but I do need some air. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Darci decided to count to ten, but only got to two. “You can’t see Jack. You can’t leave this room. In one hour you’re going to be married and until that time you’re to stay here and wait.”

  They were sitting in Lavender’s bedroom and she was dressed in the most elaborate white dress that Darci had ever seen. It must have a hundred yards of white silk in the skirt alone. It had taken Lavender’s aunts three hours to get her into the concoction. And once she was dressed, they’d ordered her to stay and sit. She wasn’t to move until someone came for her and told her she was to go to the church.

  Darci was sure the aunts were pu
nishing Lavender for being out all night. Chaperoned or not, Lavender should have been at home on the night before her wedding.

  As for Darci, the aunts were so angry at her that they weren’t speaking to her. They merely looked at Darci, stabbed her with their eyes, then turned away and did something more to Lavey’s dress.

  But the second the aunts were gone and Lavender and Darci were alone in the room, Lavender wanted to slip down the back stairs and see Jack.

  “I know it makes no sense,” Lavender said, “but I must see him. I want to ask him something.”

  No doubt she wants to ask him if he still loves her, Darci thought. She was back in her corset and she was too hot and tired from a night of no sleep to put up with Lavender’s love needs. Her own maid, Millie, had come to the Shay house to jam Darci into a frothy, hot, stiff, itchy dress of—what else?—lavender silk, and Darci was to sit as still as Lavender was. The only good thing about the dress was that she could easily conceal the silver box in a pocket. And maybe an anvil or two, she thought.

  Darci toyed with the gold chain necklace about her neck. When she and Jack had returned from Simone’s house, a young man was waiting for them on the porch. He had a package from Adam Drayton. Inside was a beautiful gold chain and the key they’d found in the little statue. There was a note with it.

  I thought about going to the wedding, but I could not bear it. The necklace belonged to my wife. Please keep it as a remembrance of our adventure. I will bury the crucifix and the garnets from the miners with the egg you mentioned. Please don’t forget our bargain.

  Adam

  “We can’t go outside,” Darci said for the thousandth time as she slipped the chain and key back inside her dress. Lavender was being such a pest that Darci was sorely tempted to tell her that someone wanted to kill her within the next hour. Darci felt the injustice of it all. Not only had she traveled through time to help this woman, she was now slowly roasting inside fifty pounds of silk.

  Opening her mouth to say something, Darci looked up at a knock on the door. It was her maid, Millie.