Consider Me Gone, page 19
part #1 of Time Shadows Series
Who is Adrian?
Romy stopped, startled. Claire could literally hear her thoughts. In this dream you think you're having, Adrian is Antonio.
Claire thought on that one while Romy trawled for bearings. On the same side of the house, also facing the garden and leading to Loo's room, was another guest suite.
Didn't she recall Louisa referring to it as 'the gentleman's suite'? Yes, yes-it had an Indonesian ambience, she remembered, with a hand-carved Bali bed, exotic textiles, and an ensuite flagstone bathroom complete with huge glass shower stall—very manly.
Glass shower stall? Claire asked in her thoughts.
Romy felt Claire marveling all the way down the hall but the moment she paused before the door of the gentleman's suite, the buzzing in her head stopped and, for whatever reason, Claire evaporated.
Romy stood alone, surprisingly bereft. What now? What did she plan to do, anyway? Introduce Claire to Aunt Loo? 'Hi, Louisa, this is Claire..." It was all so ridiculous and impossible, impossibly ridiculous.
And then the door to the gentleman’s suite opened. She took a step back as Adrian's tall form filled the doorway. He stood dimly illuminated by the hall's night lights wearing nothing but a tee shirt and boxers, looking tousled and sleepy yet strangely intense.
Romy held her breath. "Adrian?"
He crossed the space between them in one stride, enfolding her in his arms with all the passion she'd imagined a million times—the strength of his arms, the eager lips, the desire, the want, the need.
From the moment she met him, she'd been craving this man, this moment. "Adrian," she whispered. "Adrian." She'd sink into him, let her envelop her, be his forever and ever…
"Claire," he said, his lips buried deep in her neck, his kisses trailing to her ear.
Claire? Romy stiffened. She wrestled from his embrace and stood back. "I'm not Claire," she whispered. The man muttered in archaic Spanish, begging her not to tease him so. He was just a man of mortal flesh, he said.
“I am not Claire!” she repeated. “Wake up, Adrian.”
“Claire—”
“Adrian! You are Adrian and I am Romy. This is 2021!” Then, realizing he might not understand English under the circumstances, she repeated her words in Spanish. Come to, wake up!”
“Claire, why do you torture me so? Return to my bed, permit me to envelop you in my arms. Come, I beg of you.”
Romy turned and walked away, heart banging in her chest. Perhaps if she wasn’t near him, he’d disconnect from the past. She had almost reached the bedroom door when she smacked into a soft object standing in the hall.
"Romy, wake up," Joquita's voice. Her friend grasped her shoulders and shook her.
"I am awake," Romy said, shrugging her off. "I'm not Claire."
"Okay, okay," Joquita said, pulling back. "You can't blame me for not being sure, and why in hell is the good doctor standing in his underwear?”
Romy turned and made introductions. “Jo, this is Antonio in Adrian.”
At that moment, a light came on down the hall and Aunt Loo came sailing towards them like rose silk steamboat. "What's going on?"
“The past arises!” Joquita exclaimed. "The Doc thinks he’s a Spanish governor.”
And then all eyes turned to Adrian still standing transfixed in bewilderment.
"Sorry, Doc," Jocquita said. "I didn't want to interrupt you two just now."
Adrian gazed around him as if trying to figure out where he was, who he was, while running his fingers through his hair. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about that dive I saw you just make on Romy, I mean Claire, while speaking Spanish in that wickedly sultry accent. Hot. You were in full passionate Spaniard mode, Doc."
"Joquita Bonita," Louise admonished, arriving on the scene. “Stop teasing the poor man. Adrian, are you all right? Sleepwalking can be pretty disorientating."
“So can sleep kissing," Joquita added.
"Sleepwalking? I don’t—" but he stopped himself, looking down at his bare legs before back up at Aunt Loo. "I don't remember getting up."
"Well, you did, all right," Joquita told him. "I arrived on the scene just in time to see you and the Romy Claire duo getting into it."
"Kissing?" Adrian's gaze found Romy's and held. The moments stretched between them counted in heartbeats. She saw the confusion in his face mingled with something else. Desire? Maybe, but not for her. His blood rang with the shared memory of Claire and Antonio’s passion.
“I’m exhausted.” Romy turned, passing Jo and Aunt Loo heading for her room, only when she reached the nob, she forgot that her door was locked. The moment her hand tugged at the nob, pain blasted through her brain. No, she cried. She didn’t want to go back so soon.
25
Claire perched on the edge of her narrow bed waiting for the household to settle for the night. Antonio had left for a dinner engagement with his brother just before seven o’clock. Thus the staff had slightly more time on their hands—no serving of meals, no cleaning up or folding of linen.
Señora Viscaya, however, had thumped the floor with her cane and kept the maids hopping for at least the first hour. The old woman’s angst over Bernardo’s incarceration knew no bounds but, finally, she fell silent and presumably slept.
Claire listened for the clock to strike ten times before leaving her room and hastening down the hall, the house now dark and silent. The clock’s gongs masked her footfall should any squeaky floorboard betray her intent. She took particular care when passing Señora’s room at the top of the landing but then practically bolted downstairs in her stocking feet, holding a single taper to light the way.
Downstairs, she crossed the long corridor that ran behind the stairwell towards the rear of the house, turning often to check for followers. The house remained still.
Once she paused for many moments, her senses peeled for the sound of footfalls. Nothing. She continued on but before reaching Antonio’s study, she stood again listening before proceeding. But the house sat dark and hushed, enveloped in humid air that seemed thick enough to suffocate both man and beast.
Perspiration beaded her upper lip and her pulse throbbed at her temples. At times, it felt as though the very air clotted at the back of her throat.
Forcing in a deep breath, she fished the chatelaine of keys from her pocket and inserted one into the lock with trembling fingers. The resulting click seemed to echo all the way down the hall. She turned the knob and entered, shutting the door quickly behind her.
There.
Holding the candlestick aloft, she gazed around the room. Antonio’s study appeared strangely empty without his presence, as if a singer had been parted from the song. And she missed him, felt for him in her heart, and yet could not falter.
Gripping the candlestick more tightly, as stepped across the floor, heart throbbing loudly in her ears. She must calm herself or risk missing something of import.
What would Monsieur Campeneau seek? What would enflame the Colonists and how would she know if she recognize such a thing?
She could not fail.
She scanned the bookshelves across the room, wondering if anything of note might be found amid the multitude of books the governor carted about. No, she decided. Correspondence would be much more interesting and timely.
Her eyes fell to his desk where the papers had been tidied into neat piles beside the ink pots and quills. The leather-bound diary in which he so often wrote sat full center.
Tip-toeing to the desk, she hesitated, one hand hovering over the book. His most private thoughts and affairs. She thought of how he looked, head bowed, intent about his writing—so studious, so deep in thought and not at all like a warrior planning brutal acts.
Instead, he’d be unlocking the puzzles of the universe. Her mind strayed to memories of the passion that ignited them in this very room, of how he felt deep inside her, riding his passion into her heart. She shivered imagining the warmth of his lips. Enough!
And here she stood ready to plunder his secrets. Her lover, her love. She shook her head. That, of all things, she must not think about. Soldiers do their duty.
Soldiers are warriors by vocation and lovers only in the interludes between bloodletting.
Soldiers do not waver.
Soldiers live to serve.
Fortifying herself, she forced her mind on task. Seeing the letters, she sat the candlestick down and quickly rifled through the bundle knowing, even as she did so, that her efforts would be useless.
Everything had been written in Spanish, of which she could not read more than a few words. On that point, as on countless others, she had lied to the conspirators and no one had ever questioned her. She could understand the spoken word but not the written form. Even Mother Marie had not demanded proof there.
She perspired so heavily, her undergarments felt drenched. Now what? For a brief, foolish moment, she had dared think she’d find some correspondence in French or even understand a few words of Spanish because she could at least read in French. How did the two languages differ so much?
Enough, it seemed for sheaf after sheaf of paper flashed past in a series of meaningless squiggles.
She tossed the letters down in frustration then caught herself and straightened the bundles to the way in which she had found them. Only then did she turn reluctantly turn to Antonio’s diary. This would be no different. He wrote in his mother tongue. Yet, she must find something.
Lifting the volume with something akin to reverence, she carefully leafed through the pages, wetting her lips as she gazed down at his strong, energetic script that reminded her so much of the man himself.
Even the manner in which he crossed his t’s brought him achingly to mind—the cross marks flying from their stems like pennants caught in a brisk sea wind. A mariner’s hand, she thought, recalling his touch. A captain, an admiral, a commander of all that heaved beneath him, whether it be ship or woman.
Call it lust, call it desire, but she knew something else had ensorcelled them both, something she would now forfeit forever more.
Oh, Mother of God, what am I doing? Her fingers trembled.
She made herself study the structure of the entries and slammed the door on every other feeling or thought. Each entry had been dated but some sections covered several pages. Though Claire could not read the words, she could distinguish dates, numerals, and some places, names, enough to know this was no a daily diary but his memoir.
Nothing, however, would be of use to Campeneau and his conspirators. She needed evidence, something to indicate Ulloa a devious scoundrel who would force the French colonists into the yoke of submission. Ignoring her self-disgust, she flipped the pages with increased resolution until she found something promising—drawings.
Drawings? She stared wide-eyed at the sketches Antonio had made throughout the journal. Most were beautifully rendered but indecipherable—lines, circles, strange numbers with little dots and dashes between—but a few seemed ominous. One in particular caught her attention.
Two men stood on what looked to be a hilltop with a strange circle of light beaming down from overhead. She gazed, not comprehending.
What did it all mean? She tried to think. Nothing came to mind but explosions—great bursts of light designed to wound and maim. What else would a naval warrior sketch? Though Antonio did not seem interested in devising new weapons and had never mentioned warfare in any of their conversations. In the absence of anything better, this would have to do.
Of course, it would be risky to tear the drawing from its bindings but, since it appeared dozens of pages from the front, perhaps he would not miss it until much later, a chance she must take.
With shaking fingers, she carefully cut the page from its fellows using a letter opener and folded the piece into her pocket. As she finished, the clock struck eleven times. She completed her task as the gongs echoed inside her head.
One, two, three… Done, it was done.
Only when she turned, candlestick back in hand, did she see the figure standing in the now open door. She gasped, nearly dropping the candle. But she had locked it!
“Yes, I have caught you, haven’t I?” the old woman snarled in Spanish, dangling her own chatelaine of keys. “You filthy spying tart! The governor will hear of this and that will be the end of you! You will hang, traitor! What have you there? Pass it over.”
The old woman, dressed in a white lace nightgown, her nightcap pulled low over her head despite the humid evening, advanced on Claire with her cane upraised.
The old crow told the truth: only death awaited traitors and spies, no matter what the bond between Antonio and herself. Once he knew how she used him, all would come to an end.
Claire took a step back, desperate for sudden insight on what to do.
But she couldn’t just remain there, she needed to move, maybe even run for the sanctuary of the convent before the governor’s return.
Bolting past the old woman and narrowly missing the cane’s downward sweep, Claire dashed down the hall towards the stairs while, at her back, the old woman’s enraged cry clawed the air. Her cane thumped on the floor boards and occasionally whacked the wall as she went.
Surely every maid, every soldier and slave, would hear the ruckus and rush to investigate? But, no, Claire thought, as she took the stairs two at a time, they’d probably burrow deeper in their beds knowing of the old woman’s tyranny and choosing not to hear. And the soldiers outside never paid the old lady any mind.
At the top of the stairs, Claire swung around to see Señora Viscaya humping up behind her, making slow progress with one hand hauling herself up by the banister while the other levered the cane.
“You will not escape your fate, French scum,” the woman said between gasps. “You pretend not…to understand but you get… my meaning, don’t you? You will die… tramp…and I shall pound my cane upon your grave. Give it back! Whatever you have taken… give it back!”
Claire stood watching her, seized by a horrible realization. Mother Superior might not give her sanctuary if it meant Antonio could point fingers at the convent’s involvement. Who else would he assume she spied for if not the sisters?
And Claire did not want to hang. And, above all else, she did not want to witness the shock and pain of that moment when Antonio realized her betrayal—not yet, not so soon.
And did she not have important missions to accomplish—to avenge her family’s deaths, to help free her fellow French colonists and contribute to the coffers of the Ursulines and their charges? And what of this old crow, what value did she have besides making others miserable?
Far at the back of her mind, Claire heard her conscience screaming: Don’t do this, Claire! Don’t do it!
She paused, listening, baffled by the little voice that seemed so real, it was as it another person shared her brain. She shook her head as if to dislodge the intruder, her gaze returning to Señora Viscaya. The old woman had just reached the top step and now clung to the banister gasping for breath.
She still possessed enough vitriol to spit and sputter insults. “Juanita! Carlotta! Get up, I say!” she croaked between coughs, “I have…I have caught a French…whore, a spy. Come--”
Claire, no! Don’t!
But Claire didn’t listen. She lunged forward and pushed the old woman down the stairs with all her strength.
26
Romy may as well be trapped inside a cocoon. It was a membrane thin enough to let in air, light, sound, and a storm of emotions besides, yet too strong to rip through.
As a prisoner inside her soul’s journey, she could not interact; she could not move. Claire’s body propelled her through tortured days with Romy trapped inside, mute and helpless yet screaming with frustration.
And Claire would not listen. She refused to hear. She shoved away every thought Romy pushed at her as if her conscience was attempting to yank away the reins again. Whatever tenuous connection the two had briefly shared, snapped the moment Claire pushed the old woman down the stairs.
Murder. Should Romy live for a thousand more lives, she would never forget the desperate terror in Señora Viscaya’s eyes. That instant when one human looks out at another and silently begs for her life scars the soul. Romy felt the damage to both her and Claire but while Claire turned away, Romy mourned.
Nothing justified murder and nothing justified what Claire planned next, the images of which played like poorly edited movies at the back of their shared mind. Seeing those intentions repulsed Romy but it’s not as if she could escape, despite constant struggling, nor could she stop what had already happened in the past.
A tourist in another’s hell, Romy’s sense of self wavered. And to think she had once longed to plunge full-body into eighteenth-century life and walk down the streets of time.
How could she know how much pain that would cause or the need to claw her way back? Every moment spent in Claire’s life risked her own existence.
And now an emotional storm unleashed around and inside her. She felt herself being sucked further down, anchoring her more firmly to Claire as if chained by her ankle.
Far overhead, she could just glimpse light at the surface of her own time, dimly catch the voices of her friends calling her back, yet Claire held her fast, miring her down into her own trauma.
The little voice in Claire’s head had grown more strident after the old woman’s death, though the actual murder had been easy enough. At first the Señora had clung stubbornly to the banister with her gnarled hands, forcing Claire to pry the fingers from the wood one by one while shoving at the frail body with her own.
She would never forget her face in those final moments—fury followed atop a searing hate—or the manner in which her conscience called out for her to stop. Nothing deterred her, however, and she did not rest until the old woman lay sprawled like a bag of bones at the bottom of the steps.
Briefly stunned, Claire gazed down at the body. Claire! What have you done? What have you done?
