A Murder in Time(30)

“Rose?” she whispered.

“Aye?”

“What . . . what year is it?”

Kendra couldn’t see Rose’s face, but sensed by her sudden stillness that she’d shocked the girl. She couldn’t blame her. If someone had asked her that question, she’d have thought the person was off their rocker.

“You mean, w’ot day?” the girl asked cautiously.

“No . . .” Her throat felt tight with apprehension, but she managed to push the words through. “I mean, what year is it? I’ve been ill, remember?” she added lamely.

“Oh. Of course.” Still, Rose hesitated, as though trying to deduce what illness could possibly have wiped away someone’s memory to such a degree. “’Tis 1815,” she finally replied, her voice soft and anxious in the darkness. “Do you remember now?”

“Yes . . .” she lied, closing her eyes against the reality that she refused to accept.

“Sleep well, miss.”

Kendra said nothing. She doubted whether she’d sleep at all. But exhaustion soon weighed her down, pulled her under, and she slept, dreaming of madness and murder.





8

Kendra woke to the rustling of clothes, the padding of feet, and the general hustling of movement. For just a moment, she thought she was back in the hospital, and the never-ending rotation of pill-prodding nurses.

“Annie?” she murmured, rolling over and opening her eyes to the gray light of morning.

“Nay. My name’s Rose. Remember?”

“Jesus Christ. You’re not a figment of my imagination?”

“You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Rose reprimanded primly. Yet when she glanced in her direction, she softened the words with a smile. “You’d best ’urry, miss. Mrs. Danbury’ll wanna speak with you before you attend your Lady.”

My Lady?

“What time is it?” Kendra pushed herself to a sitting position, warily watching Rose, who was already wearing a cotton blue floral-print dress, unbuttoned down the back. She moved to an old-fashioned washstand that Kendra hadn’t noticed last night tucked between the armoire and wall. Briskly, the girl poured water from the pitcher into the washbasin. Her eyes sought Kendra’s in the small swivel mirror.

“’Alf-six,” she answered, splashing water on her face. “The staff usually breakfasts at ’alf past eight, but Mrs. Danbury changed our schedules for the party.” Snatching the towel draped across the washstand’s inbuilt rack, Rose blotted away the moisture. She brushed her teeth using what looked like a primitive toothbrush that she wet and dipped in a jar filled with white powder. Then she pulled out and unfolded a small screen, which baffled Kendra for a moment until she saw Rose reach under the washstand for the chamber pot.

Kendra turned away to give the girl some privacy, and tried to ignore the tinkling sound of nature’s call. Grimacing, she realized that she’d have to make use of the chamber pot as well.

A chamber pot, for God’s sakes!

“If you button me, I’ll do the same for you,” Rose offered as she popped back around the screen, brushing her tumbling dark brown hair. With an efficiency born of practice, she twisted the mass into a tidy bun and began stabbing long, lethal-looking hairpins into it.

Swinging her legs over the side of the small bed, Kendra stood and shivered, both from the chilly morning air and the fact that her delusion was still going on.

“Ooh, whatever ’appened, miss?”

Kendra glanced around and saw that Rose was staring at her scars. She shrugged. “You might say they’re reminders.”

“Reminders of w’ot?”

“To be more careful.”

She ducked behind the privacy screen and awkwardly used the chamber pot. Afterward, because she had nothing else, she dressed in the same garments as yesterday, turning obediently so Rose could button her.

“Maybe I have a brain tumor,” she murmured, staring at the wall.

“W’ot?”

She sighed. “Nothing. I’m just babbling. Trying to fight off hysteria.”

“May’ap you shouldn’t. Babble, I mean. I know you’re from America, but . . . may’ap you shouldn’t.”

“You might be right. They’ll lock me up in a loony bin, if I’m not there already. Turn around.” The buttons on Rose’s dress were like smooth pebbles against her fingertips as she pushed them through the buttonholes. Sighing again, she sat down to lace up the half boots. “Figment or not, you’re a nice girl, Rose.”

Rose smiled uncertainly. “Thank you. And, um, may’ap . . .” she hesitated.

Kendra lifted a brow. “Spill it.”

The girl looked confused, glancing around. “Spill w’ot?”

“Oh, God—sorry. I meant, go on. I know you have something else to say.”

“Aye, well, may’aps you shouldn’t ask people w’ot year it is, either.”

“Good point. Thanks.”

This time the maid’s smile was tinged with relief. “I know you’ve been ill, but if you say such things, folks’ll think you’re a bit daft.”

Kendra refrained from admitting that she was feeling a bit daft, simply nodding instead and picking up the abandoned hairbrush as she wandered to the window. It was small and not all that clean, but it offered a sweeping view of the English landscape that rolled gently into the distance, seamed with hedges and dotted with thick copses. An early morning mist clung to the ground, offering its own enchantment. In normal circumstances, she would’ve enjoyed the view.