Mary Balogh - Timeswept Brides

The war occupied their minds these days. The summer of '64 had started out with high hopes, but Jesse suspected that Confederate advantages wouldn't last long. He'd finally completed his mission into Memphis-without risking Amanda. As she had predicted, General Forrest staged a daring raid into Memphis. His brother Bill had ridden into the lobby of the Gayoso House on his horse, and Forrest's other brother Jesse had driven Washburn from his quarters in the wee hours of the morning. All of Memphis had rocked with laughter at the Yankee commander publicly fleeing in his nightshirt.

Even though she offered to tell him, he'd not allowed Amanda to reveal the ultimate end of the war. He believed in his choice, and he wanted to feel free to give it his all.

"Jesse?" Amanda said softly, and he looked down at her and smiled. "I love you," she whispered.

"Then come with me."

"To the attic?" she protested when she saw where he was taking her, and he grinned as he shut the door behind them.

"It's the most private spot in the house right now. Besides, I feel like this is where it all began for us."

Glancing around, Amanda nodded. "I feel the same. There is something special about this place, though I think it was the gown that brought us together-Jesse, look."

"What is it?" he asked when she bent and picked up a small white object and held it up to the light from the open window.

"I think it's the missing button to Deborah's wedding dress."

Jesse took it from her when she held it out. It rested on his palm, pale and luminous and dangerous. Time hovered in his hand, beckoning. Looking up, he met Amanda's steady gaze and saw the question in her eyes. He took a deep breath, then strode to the open attic window and flung the button out into the yard. He turned around, half expecting Amanda to be angry.

She was smiling. "Does this mean you think I might be tempted to leave? Not a chance, Jesse Jordan. You're stuck with me forever."

He grinned. "I can think of worse fates."

Then she was in his arms, and as he bent his head to kiss her, he had the thought that he had to be the luckiest man who had ever lived in any century.

Lindsey House, present day

On the third floor of the guest wing, with a light spring rain streaking the windows of the English manor house, Amelia Jamison thought about destiny.

"Pick a card," her friend Penny Bickham urged. She laughed. "Any card." The tarot deck was fanned out on the Oriental carpet, shadows from the flames in the fireplace dancing over the intricately patterned wool.

Amelia's hand trembled only slightly as she finally settled on one. She trusted Penny completely, since the day they'd first met as college roommates. Since that time, they'd gone in separate and very creative directions. She to England because of her work in manuscripts at the British Museum, and Penny to fame and fortune in New York as an incredibly talented floral designer.

Amelia slowly turned the card over and immediately regretted it. The Death card in the Waite deck stared back at her, the dark skeleton astride his white warhorse, the battlefield littered with bodies.

"Appropriate for the night before a wedding, don't you think?" She tried to put a humorous spin on the whole thing, desperate not to reveal how terribly apprehensive she was about marrying Hugh.

"It's not what you think it is." Penny pushed her dark, chin-length hair behind her ears and leaned forward, studying the card. "If it had been the Tower-"

They both stopped, aware of someone else in the room.

"I brought you some tea," the maid announced as she came in, tray in hand. "Mrs. Edwards thought you might like a little something before retiring."

"I do love the Brits," Penny muttered as she gathered up the cards. "There's nothing a cup of tea won't cure."

"Tell me about that card," Amelia insisted. She stood, dusted off the seat of her skirt, then sat in one of the chairs flanking the fireplace.

"Total transformation," Penny said as she sat down in the overstuffed chair across from Amelia. "Which, considering that tomorrow you'll be a married woman, is entirely appropriate."

"But it doesn't mean anything bad."

"No. People just get all creepy when they see the word 'death.' It can represent the death of one sort of consciousness and its replacement with another."

"Hmmm." Amelia busied herself cutting slices of the rich chocolate sponge cake, then pouring them both cups of strong black Indian tea.

The maid hovered in the doorway. Amelia, aware of her presence, didn't have the heart to ask the young woman to leave. She'd been in service to the Lindseys for several years, and had been assigned the task of helping Amelia get ready for her wedding day.

Which was tomorrow. Her classic bridal gown, carefully pressed, hung in her bedroom closet. The caterers had then-elaborate preparations under control, the calligraphers had long since finished with the place cards, and the musicians were hopefully getting a good night's sleep and would do their very best tomorrow.

Penny would be in the garden at dawn, carefully selecting the most perfect blooms for her bridal bouquet. Penny's designs were exquisite, and this one would be a masterpiece. Calla lilies, French tulips, and full-blown peonies. She would also pick sweet peas and violets, hand wiring them into the all-white bouquet Amelia had decided upon, then carefully braiding narrow white satin ribbon over the stems.

"Which will look lovely with your fair coloring," she'd assured Amelia. "Hugh will be absolutely enchanted with you; I'm so glad you chose white flowers."

All was ready for the morning. Now the great house slept, with numerous guests tucked into their rooms, of which Lindsey House had plenty. Almost a hundred and twenty.

Everyone seemed to be sleeping quite peacefully. Except Amelia, who was panicking.

"It's not a bad card, Amelia, honestly. Now, if it had been the Tower-"

Amelia shot her friend a look, and Penny, sensitive to a fault, instantly stopped talking.

"Is everything all right, Annie?" Thank God she'd remembered the girl's name. An American, Amelia had trouble adjusting to the concept of her own maid. It just wasn't the way things were done across the Atlantic.

"No." The girl took a deep breath, and Amelia could see the effort it cost her to speak out. "No. It-it makes me nervous, miss, the talk of these cards and speaking of the tower."

"Why?" Penny asked, clearly fascinated.

"There's a-history to mis house," Amelia began.

"Centered around the tower?"

Annie hesitated. "Yes, miss."

"You know about this, Amelia?"

"Hugh told me about it."

"Tell me." Penny settled back in her chair, cup of tea in hand. Her expression was interested, but she certainly wasn't the sort of person who took delight in misfortune.

"An earlier descendant of Hugh's… forced to marry a man she didn't love, she-" Amelia hesitated.

"She took her own life, she did," Annie finished for her as she cut another piece of the chocolate sponge for Penny. "Hung herself in the tower room. Couldn't go on."

"Lovely," Penny muttered. "And this is appropriate conversation on the eve of your wedding?"

"I don't look on it that way," Amelia said. When she'd first come to Lindsey House, it had been to authenticate a series of letters. John Lindsey, Hugh's grandfather, had called the museum in London where she'd been working. They'd farmed the assignment out to her; she'd taken the train up and fallen in love with John, the great house, his dogs and horses, the garden, Mrs. Edwards's teas, everything.

Then John had called his grandson home, and Hugh had fallen in love with her. So much so that he'd asked her to marry him. And here she was.

She loved him. That wasn't the problem. It was simply that Amelia didn't have a whole lot of faith in the institution of marriage. "Forever," when your mother had gone through six different husbands, didn't have a whole lot of meaning.

But marriage to Hugh Lindsey would be forever. He was a strong man, and his grandfather had told her the story of how his beloved grandson had brought the family out of destitution through his financial wizardry. Hugh worked in London, and had almost killed himself in order to make the money to keep Lindsey House in the family. Not for him, the practice of taking in boarders, making a bed-and-breakfast out of the estate. He also refused the idea of giving tours or opening a gift shop.

What he'd done was far more difficult. He'd exhausted himself, working at a frantic pace, using his skills to the fullest, taking the last of the Lindsey money and turning it into a small fortune. Enough to bankroll the bigger fortune he still planned to make.

The only thing missing from Lindsey House was a bride for Hugh. A mother for the children whose shouts and laughter would soon fill the halls. The continuation and rebirth of a dynasty.

"Something happened," Amelia said quietly. "No one is entirely sure what. She couldn't go on; he couldn't go on without her. He took his own life two years later."

"It's sort of romantic, in a macabre sort of way," Penny mused. She shuddered. "But it gives me the creeps. Where is this tower room?"

"In the south wing," Annie answered. She'd started to gather up their tea things, and Amelia took a last hasty swallow of the strong tea before setting the fine bone china cup on the tea tray. The maid was clearly uneasy at the turn this particular conversation was taking.

"I'd like to see it before I leave," Penny said.

"That can be arranged."

"You'd better get some sleep, or you'll look like death in the morning-no reference to the card intended."

"I know. Can you find your way back to your room?"

"Easily. I'll see you in the morning."

Amelia retired, but couldn't sleep. Close to midnight, she left her bedroom and headed toward the south wing, and the tower room.

She'd never been afraid of the room, even given its rather grisly history. John had converted it into a small library, where he indulged his passion for tracing the Lindsey family history. He was the archivist, he'd told her when she first arrived. It mattered to him, to know where he came from-and what had happened to all the Lindseys throughout time.

Now, knowing exactly what she wanted to find in the tower room, Amelia sped swiftly along the hallway, her slippered feet making no sound.

Inside the small, circular room, she went to its center, to a massive teak table with a wooden box on the right side. Opening it, she stared at the packet of letters. Letters that had belonged to Jane Stanton, and the man who had loved her, Jonathan Lindsey.

That last letter. She'd read them all, feeling there was one letter missing, the one in which Jane should have explained why she hung herself. Impossible, that she should take her own life, cause so much pain, and not even offer a reason why.

She'd never given Jonathan any explanation, but from the letters he continued to write to her after her death, it was clear he knew. Yet he never alluded to it directly.

The last letter Jonathan wrote, in which he laid bare his soul to the woman he loved, a woman dead two years, was the one that had finally broken her. She'd been moved to tears.

The elderly John Lindsey had watched her reaction as she'd sat with the letters for the first time, and had smiled as she'd looked across the room at him through her tears.

"Quite a man, wasn't he?" he'd said. "Like my Hugh."

She'd nodded, overcome with emotion. Even now, before taking that final letter out of the wooden box, she knew its contents, had read it so many, many times that it was committed to memory. The words had been burned into her soul.

My dearest Poppet,

I find that I cannot go on without you. Though I've never considered myself a weak man, life no longer has any meaning without you to share it with me. I'm tired, and I want to go home. To you. I'd thought I would come home to you each evening, but instead the nights at Lindsey House are not to be borne. You are everywhere, my darling, yet nowhere.