The Changeling Bride (32 page)

“March. Wilhelmina Regina March.” Tears stung her eyes, even as speaking her own name aloud gave her courage. It had been so long since she had said it.

“Why did you claim to be her?” His voice was soft, as if he feared the answer she might give.

“Because I am her.”

“Do you mean that you have forgotten who you really are?”

“No. I know who I am. I’ve always known.”

“You can tell me if you do not remember things, if there are blanks in your mind. Louise has already said you do not act as you usually do.”

“I do not act like Eleanor because I am not she.”

His grip tightened on her hand, then he abruptly released her and stood, stepping away from the desk, his back to her. When he turned to her again he looked like she had cut his heart out. “That was not the answer I was expecting.”

The tears gathering in her eyes spilled out over her cheeks. “It’s time I told you. I don’t want to lie any longer, not after yesterday.”

“So where is Eleanor Moore, if you are not she?”

“Eleanor died of the influenza, a few days before the wedding. No one knows that, not even Louise.”

“And how did you come to replace her?”

Elle shrugged helplessly. “It wasn’t my choice. I did not plan this, did not want it. If I had known any way out, I would never have married you, would never have pretended to be someone I wasn’t. I had a life of my own, and all of it,
all
of it was taken from me.”

“Was it Eleanor’s father who planned this?”

She gave a shaky laugh. “If only it were that simple. He doesn’t know either. No one in Eleanor’s family knows. I’m from the U.S.,” she explained. “The United States of America.”

He stared at her. “Your accent.”

“Yes, West Coast American. But the complete truth is harder to believe. . . .” she trailed off.

“I am waiting.”

She paused on a held breath, then expelled it. “I’m from two hundred years in the future, Henry. I think Lady Annalise asked a bunch of fairies to bring me here, to marry you. She’s the changeling in the tapestry story, who had the boon she could use if ever she needed it, and she used it to bring you a wife.”

His expression spoke eloquently of his complete disbelief.

“Listen, Henry,” she waved her hands in front of her, eager to explain now that she had begun. “It all started when I began to feel watched whenever I left my apartment, and then someone, probably another fairy, gave me a coupon for a free husband. I went hiking in the woods with Tatiana . . .” She continued the story, speaking more and more rapidly, until she came to the day of the wedding. “And so you see, I’ve been fumbling about, trying to make a go of everything, when I had no idea what I was doing, or if I was meant to stay here, or even if I wanted to stay here. And you found me in the woods
in the fairy circle—they had trapped me there, and I think they must have led you to me somehow. How
did
you find me, Henry?”

He put his thumb and forefinger to his brow, rubbing as if he had a headache. “This is what you believe to be the truth?”

“I don’t believe it, Henry. I know it. And you’d know it, too, if you were willing to think about it. I know it sounds incredible. Here, I can try to prove it to you. I know about French and U.S. history, although I’m not so good with dates. Ask me a question. And dental work!” She opened her mouth wide and stuck in her index finger, tapping at a molar. “Have you ever seen a filling?” she garbled around her finger.

“I think we need to get you some help.”

Elle jumped off the desk and came towards him. “No, Henry, go talk to Lady Annalise. She’ll tell you, she has to, now that I’ve figured it all out.”

He grabbed her wrists, holding her away from him. “Elle, there are no fairies, and you are not from two hundred years in the future. You are ill, and you are not thinking clearly. I should have seen that before.”

“Look at my tooth!” She opened her mouth again, angling her head so he could see in. “No one here has anything like that.”

“I have a friend who is a doctor. He knows a great deal about the new treatments for disorders of the mind.”

“I’m not crazy.” She struggled in his hold, but his grip only tightened.

“It is for your own good, Elle. Trust me.”

“Trust you! To send me to an asylum? They’ll drill holes in my head or put me in chains. How could that be good for me?”

“That is not what is done, not anymore. I would never let anyone hurt you: I owe you too much.”

“Owe me?” Was that all he felt for her, a sense of obligation? She stopped struggling. He wrapped his arms
around her, and she drooped within his hold, tears streaming down her cheeks. He didn’t love her; he felt an
obligation
to her. She was just another responsibility.

He stroked her hair, murmuring in her ear, “It will be all right.”

But it wasn’t going to be all right. All her hopes, her willingness to forget about going home these last few weeks, her delusion that something tender could grow between them, it was all based on nothing. She knew that now. It was over.

Chapter Twenty-three

“Directly after luncheon, milady?” Marianne asked, her brow furrowed.

“Yes, if you please.” Never complain, never explain. It should be her new motto.

The maid curtsied and left the library as Louise came in. Elle smothered an impatient sigh. She had things to do.

“Ellie?”

As she drew closer, Elle could see that the rims of her eyes were pink, her lids swollen. “Louise?”

Louise ran the final few steps between them and enveloped Elle in a hug. “I spoke with Henry,” she said into Elle’s ear. “Have no fear that I will abandon you.”

Elle patted Louise’s back. “I am . . . comforted to hear that.” She tried to disengage Louise, succeeding only after the distraught young woman had planted a firm kiss on her cheek. “I could not have wished for a better sister.”

Louise’s lips turned up in a trembling smile, even as her eyes filled with tears. “That is the kindest thing you have ever said to me.”

“Then perhaps losing half my wits has left me a better person.” Seeing the girls’s uncertainty, she added, “ ’Tis a joke, Louise.”

“I suppose it is good that you can find some humor in this.”

“My, will you look at the time? We’ll miss our meal if we don’t hurry.” She linked her arm through Louise’s and dragged her out of the library and away from the possibility of further hugs and tears.

It was, Elle thought, a sorry group of pretenders who sat down for the meal. Lawrence and Freddie were apparently unaware of her supposed mental imbalance, but both seemed aware that all was not well, and were trying to hide the awareness behind a false cheeriness.

The conversation was desultory and without interest for any of the participants until the main course arrived. Clarence set down the four large plates along the center of the table, and a stunned silence fell on the room.

“It’s called pizza,” Elle said. “It’s a traditional Italian dish. I asked the chef to make a variety, so you could try them all.”

“I have never seen the like,” Lawrence said.

Freddie sniffed the air. “It smells good.”

“How does one eat it?” Louise asked.

Elle slid her eyes to Henry, who raised his eyes from the pizzas to her. She had the eerie sense that he was not there behind his eyes, that his soul was far away. At last he stirred.

“I imagine one eats it with knife and fork,” he said.

Elle served herself a slice of margarita pizza. “One may do so,” she said, and then lifted the slice in her fingers. “Or you can just do it like this.”

Freddie was the first to follow suit, and the first to emit a deep groan of satisfaction. “ ’Tis indecent,” he said
after swallowing, “that anything should taste this good.”

Elle watched the others taste and enjoy the new food, listened to their compliments, to their chatter as the tension loosened under the spell of pizza and wished she could go back one day, to when she could pretend to herself that she was a part of this group. Yesterday, she would have laughed and savored the pizza even more than they did.

She looked down at Henry, and saw his jaw working with mechanical regularity, his face expressionless. She doubted he even knew that he ate.

Yesterday, as the song said, was gone.

“Mr. Greene! Mr. Greene, are you in here?” Elle called through the heavy foliage of one of the greenhouses. Marianne had told her the name of the head gardener, and confirmed that the staff knew better than to filch so much as a mint leaf from his domain.

She went past the lemon trees and through a door into another greenhouse, this one with smaller plants warmed by the same braziers that burned around the trees. She glanced idly at the plants, moving towards the door in the center of the building, but then stopped at a familiar leaf and hint of red.

Strawberries. She lifted one green serrated leaf with her fingertip, exposing the small, half-ripened berry beneath. There were several plants, only a few with berries that showed any hint of color. Mr. Greene would thrash anyone who dared to steal one, she was sure.

She cast a look over her shoulder. No sign of him. Using her nails she clipped off the ripest of the berries, and slid them gently into her pocket.

“Milady?”

She jumped, her face flushing. She took a deep breath and turned. “Ah, Mr. Greene. I was looking for you.” She walked towards him, forcing him to turn and walk with her, away from the stripped plants.

“Did you want more lemons, then?” he asked, and she saw him try to turn his eyes back to his plants.

“No, I have quite enough for the present, thank you. It is your expertise I must draw on now,” she said, leading him further down the aisle and back into the lemon tree building.

He grunted.

“I am trying to locate a plant called pearlwort.”

“And what would you be wanting that for, milady?”

She ignored the question. Never explain. “I would be deeply appreciative if you could show me a sample of such a plant. If we have it in our gardens, of course.”

His eyes narrowed on her, but he seemed to take the hint. She was the countess here, not he. “I know of a patch of it.”

Elle slowly exhaled the breath she had been holding and followed him out into the overgrown part of the garden. He led her to a short path, with a mossy plant growing between the paving stones.

“Here be your pearlwort.”

“What? That moss?”

“Aye. Some call it Irish Moss, but ’tis not a true moss. It grows little white flowers, whence it gets the name pearlwort.”

“I see. Thank you, Mr. Greene. You’ve been most helpful.”

He took the dismissal for what it was and left her. She waited until he had gone, and then, careful of the strawberries in her pocket, knelt down and plucked several strands of the plant from between the paving stones.

This time, she would not be the one trapped by fairy magic.

Elle sat in a chair pulled into a corner of the newly clean library, eyes fixed to the small table next to the open windows. On the table sat a bowl of milk, a crock of honey, a dish of butter, fresh bread, and a saucer with
the precious strawberries. The book said they especially loved strawberries. On the table as well sat the bridal necklace from Henry, the gold, jade, and amber glowing warmly in the sun. No fairy could resist.

Or at least she hoped that was the case.

Tatiana lay dozing on the sofa, the back of it hiding her from sight of the window. All was ready.

Elle clenched her jaw, fighting down her own reluctance to do this. Her fate here was all but sealed. If she were dragged off to an asylum, she could always pretend to get better and abandon her “delusions,” and she would be returned to Brookhaven. She would be left with no type of life she wanted to live, though. She would be watched for any sign of unusual behavior, and she did not even know how to behave in a way these people would find normal. She would be mistrusted and whispered about, and if she ever bore children she would not be allowed to raise them as she pleased.

She had to leave. She would return home, where she belonged, where she could forget that she had been foolish enough to love a man who could not know or accept her.

She felt a familiar chill at the back of her neck. She had become preternaturally sensitive to the feeling of not being alone, and the skin at her nape told her that was exactly the situation now.

She shifted her eyes from the table to the open window. It was there, a face down at the corner, only this time there was no distorting glass, and the daylight revealed its features. The fairy was androgynous, but the cap of short curling hair hinted that it might be a male. He was looking at the table with wide, nervous green eyes.

She was almost afraid to move or speak. The youth himself did not frighten her, but the thought that he might disappear again did.

He silently lept up onto the windowsill, then reached
out a thin hand and stroked the necklace. Nimble fingers plucked a berry from the saucer and brought it to his mouth. The rest quickly followed.

Elle silently urged him to the milk.
Drink it. Drink it
.

He reached out for the bread, taking several bites, then put it back and dipped fingers in the honey and the butter, licking it off his fingertips.

The milk. Drink the milk
.

He tore the bread into pieces, a child playing with his food, dabbing it in the honey and the butter and then popping it into his mouth. And then, at last, he raised the bowl of milk in both hands and drained it.

Elle closed her eyes for a brief moment.
Thank you, God
.

She rose from her chair and walked slowly towards him. He looked a bit befuddled, and just cocked his head at her as she approached. “Good day,” she said softly. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

He didn’t answer.

“I won’t hurt you. Can you stay and talk to me a little? I’m so very sad and lonely.”

He blinked at her, then finally spoke. “You were fighting,” he said, and his voice was high and musical.

“Yes, this morning. You heard that?”