The Night Mark(59)

“Why in God’s name would I be angry at you?”

“For what happened back in the barn.”

“I’d be near as worthless as your husband if being inside a beautiful woman made me angry.” Carrick’s fists were clenched, and in the lantern light she saw the corded muscles flexing in his arms. Anger, yes. But not at her. At himself?

“I know you’re trying to be true to your faith, and I’m not helping,” she said.

“Nobody is to blame but me. I got carried away and carried you with me.”

“I like it when you carry me.”

“Faith. Love, please...” Carrick rested his forehead against the door frame, sighed and looked at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said and truly meant it this time. “I know we shouldn’t. I know it’s wrong for a lot of reasons. It’s just...”

“What, lass?”

“You remind me so much of someone I loved a long time...well, in a different time.”

“He must have been a fool.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you loved him, and any man you loved ought to be by your side right now.”

Faye smiled sadly. “He died.”

Carrick didn’t look impressed by that.

“Nothing in the world more foolish than dying when a girl like you is in love with him.”

Faye laughed softly and touched Carrick’s face. He let her. She knew nothing more would happen tonight. It was safe to touch him. She stroked his beard. It was a well-groomed beard, not much more than thick stubble, and she could feel the contours of his face through it. The strong jaw, strong chin...just like Will’s beautiful face.

“He didn’t have a beard,” Faye said. “Once, he did, but only for a couple weeks. I told him it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard of, but he swore it brought him luck.”

“It worked,” Carrick said.

“Did it?”

“You loved him, right?”

“More than life,” she said.

“Then it worked.”

“Carrick...” Faye blinked back her tears. There was only one other man she’d ever known who’d said such sweet things to her, and he wouldn’t be born for another sixty-six years.

“I’m trying to protect you,” he said. “What happened in the barn... If I got you with child...”

“I couldn’t stay here, could I?” Faye asked. Of course she couldn’t. An unmarried woman pregnant in 1921? She’d have to go away, far away, to protect herself and Carrick. If not, the scandal would be enormous. She would be a pariah. And Carrick would never forgive himself for doing that to her.

“I should go up,” he said. “I am going up. Right now.” His gaze shifted and it seemed he wanted to say something more, but stopped himself. “Good night.”

Faye had so much to say to him, so much to ask him, and yet all she could do was what Faith would do in her place, and that was say, “Good night.”

Carrick gave her another look without speaking, then turned and walked away down the hall. Even his walk was like Will’s walk, with that loose-in-the-hip rolling amble. Carrick might be a lighthouse keeper, but he walked like a baseball player. She almost called him back to her. Old habits died hard. Faye shut the door at last and crawled into bed. She curled up into a ball and whispered into the deep, dark quiet.

“Will, baby? He looks like you and he talks like you and he touches me like you. Is he you? Or am I just crazy?”

Of course there was no reply because Will was dead. Except this was 1921 and Will wasn’t dead in 1921. Will wasn’t dead in 1921 because Will hadn’t even been born yet. Maybe that was why she couldn’t hear his voice in her head the way she could sometimes back in 2015. Or maybe she didn’t need to hear his voice in her head because she had Carrick’s.

She rolled onto her back and stared out the window at the beam of the lighthouse. She counted the seconds—one, and the light went off. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

By seven she was asleep.

Faye dreamed, and in her dream she wore a black dress and a black veil over her face. Widow’s weeds, but she wasn’t a widow.

Though in the dream she wanted to be.

Faye crept through a long hall of an old house, a cavernous house, a house like a hotel with brass-and-crystal chandeliers hanging from the polished-mahogany ceiling. The floors were marble under her feet. The furniture fine and fancy. The bars on the windows were iron, like the heart of the man who owned the mansion, like the heart of the man who owned her. This was a house of wealth and privilege, and in the dream Faye had to escape it or she would die there.

And it wasn’t the dying part she minded so much anymore, but she refused to die here. She would not die here.

She walked past a room and saw a man facing a window, and outside the window was a garden, and in the garden hung a swing. She couldn’t see the man’s face, but in the dream she didn’t want to. In her dream she never wanted to see that man’s face again.

Faye knew she had to walk past the room that held the man, and that if he caught her, he would kill her, and if he didn’t, she could be free.

She took a step. One. The floor did not creak. She took another step. Two. And the floor did not creak. She took yet another step. Three. And the floor did not creak. By the fourth step she had passed the open doorway without the man seeing her. Now she had to make it to the street.