Page 108 of No Place in Time

Julian.

He stood in the doorway, his dark coat neat, a dimpled smile on his face. His eyes moved through the room with the unhurried attention of a man taking stock. They found her on the floor. He smiled.

“There you are,” he said. In his hands he held a glass. He extended it toward her. “Time for your wine, my dear. Drink up.”

The face above her seemed to ripple, the sharp lines of Julian’s smile softening into a round, uncertain mouth. His dark coat bled into the shape of an apron.

It was a girl, her maid, holding a basin of water and looking down at Cecily with wide, worried eyes.

“There ye are, my lady.” Edith’s voice was small and worried. “Time fer yer mornin’ meal. I knocked but there was no answer, so I… are ye alright? Should I fetch someone?”

Cecily realized she was sitting upright in her own bed. She pressed her hands flat against the mattress. Her own ceiling above her. Her own room. The familiar dark wood, the familiar smell of the rushes, the sound of the household stirring below.

She was home.

“I’m alright,” she said. Her voice came out steady, which surprised her. “It was a dream. I’m alright.”

Edith curtsied, still uncertain. “Cook says breakfast is near ready, my lady.”

Cecily looked at the girl’s face for a moment longer. Edith, not Julian.

“Thank you, Edith,” she said. “I’ll be down shortly.”

∞∞∞

The day before, it was Edith who saw Cecily arrive home first. The maid had been crossing the yard with a bundle of linen and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Cecily walking across the courtyard toward the front door. The linen nearly slipped from her arms.

“My lady!” Her voice came out as a half-whisper, half-squeak. “Ye’re back. Ye’re here.” She looked wildly toward the hall. “They’ll want to know. I must tell them.”

“Go,” Cecily said gently. “Tell them I’m coming.”

Edith was already running, clutching the linens as she raced inside.

Cecily stood outside for a moment before following Edith inside. Malethurst Hall, her home, looked the same. The smell of the kitchen fires drifted across from the east wing. The sound of servants singing inside, slightly off-key. She’d grown up with these sounds. These smells.

Now they struck her with a force she hadn’t expected. It was so good to be home.

She reminded herself again that she’d only been gone four days from this time. But she—her body, her memories, her soul—knew it had been much longer. She’d experienced a lifetime in those four days.

She thought of her Uncle Stephen with fondness. Some day, when she was long gone, he would inherit Malethurst Hall. Then she thought of Isabel, who had wept at her own wedding, who had slipped coins into Cecily’s hands and told her to run. Cecily could not bear what that thought meant. If they had changed history, would Isabel exist in the future?

Cecily straightened her back and took a slow breath. She knew what was coming. She was ready for it.

Her mother appeared in the doorway before Cecily had taken three steps toward the hall.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then her mother crossed the yard in a way that had nothing ladylike about it, quick and unguarded and entirely unlike the composed woman who presided over the household with such quiet authority. She pulled Cecily into her arms so tightly that it was difficult to breathe.

“You foolish, foolish girl,” Rosamund said into her hair. Her voice was muffled and unsteady. “Do you have any idea, any idea at all—”

“I know,” Cecily said. “I’m sorry, Mother.”

“We searched everywhere,” Rosamund said. “Your father rode out himself. Three times.” She pulled back just far enough to look at Cecily, hands gripping her shoulders, eyes moving over her face as if checking for damage. “You’re not hurt?”

“I’m not hurt.”

“Where were you?”

“I was at Grandfather’s.”