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CHAPTER SEVEN

Liz hurried through the swirling mists toward the plantation house. Sprinting up the wooden steps and across the veranda, she let herself in the back door and slipped down the central hall toward the stairs, intent on ridding herself of the mourning brooch and bracelet. They were Elizabeth’s mementos, and Liz believed they belonged in her trunk, along with the other memories of Michael she’d so carefully preserved.

But before she could reach the stairs, a masculine voice halted her. “A moment of your time, if you please.”

Liz pirouetted toward the open doorway of the candlelit library. Realizing she’d really botched it this time, she had an insane desire to run the other way.

But she could tell by his voice that Garrett would only follow her, growing angrier by the minute as she sought to escape his summons.

Liz suppressed her trepidation, squared her shoulders and stepped gracefully across the library threshold. And paused.

How could she have forgotten in a single afternoon what a hunk Garrett Rowland was? Everything about him was perfect. At least on the outside. The inside was harder to fathom, she decided as she slowly advanced into the room.

“You saw him today, didn’t you?” Garrett asked.

Rather than confirm his suspicions concerning Calvin, Liz said, “I didn’t know you were home.”

“Obviously,” he said, his voice thick with menace. Sprawled in a wingback chair, he rolled an empty glass between his palms. Liz shot a sidelong glance at the Waterford brandy decanter on his desk. It was unstoppered and empty, while a plate piled with a serving of jambalaya sat untouched beside it. Catercorner on the desk rested the cloth-bound ledger she had searched for earlier in the day.

Smoothing her palms along the side panels of her skirt, Liz said, “I’ll have Mrs. Crawford warm your supper for you.” Sensing that the jewelry might upset him, she edged toward the desk in hopes of escaping Garrett long enough to stow it away

She knew he watched her like a hawk as she sidled across the room toward the plate, though the oil lamp’s wavering light phantomed his features. Feeling at a distinct disadvantage, she longed to flip a switch and flood the room with the gaudy glow of a hundred-watt bulb. Was it only yesterday she’d taken shadow-chasing light at the touch of a button for granted? And air-conditioning? Short skirts? Microwave ovens? Headache tablets?

How long was she expected to remain a misfit in an alien environment, in a tug-of-war between two men she hardly knew?

“Mrs. Crawford has already left for the evening,” Garrett said, jarring Liz from her mental reverie.

So, she was alone in the house, with no one to act as buffer between her and Garrett. She stopped in the center of the room, halfway between the door and the plate.

“Then I suppose I could—” she began.

He scowled, the crow’s-feet around his eyes deepening. “I’m not hungry.”

“But—”

“The food is of no consequence. Leave it!” he exclaimed impatiently, raking his fingers through his already tousled hair.

Thoughts, like wary adversaries, circled in Liz’s head as she watched him rise from his chair. His disdainful gaze immediately fell upon the brooch—the very thing she’d wanted to hide from him. A sardonic smile flitted across his lips as he strode toward her. He stopped when he was practically toe-totoe with her.

The scowl that had begun at his mouth spread to his eyes as he glared down at her. She swallowed, wanting to tell him that he was invading her space, and that she’d appreciate it if he’d just back off!

Under the circumstances, she didn’t quite dare. He appeared weary, harassed—and far too volatile to cross just now.

“What a lovely piece,” he said, though from the sound of his tone and the lowering of his brows it seemed he thought the brooch anything but lovely.

Liz’s hand strayed to the brooch Calvin had pinned to her gown. She realized it wouldn’t matter at this point if she explained she’d been under the impression the unsigned, black-bordered note was from him. He wouldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized her own cousin’s handwriting—she could only carry the amnesia bit so far before someone caught on to her.

Liz stepped back, first one pace, then another.

“The brooch…arrived today.”

“By special messenger?” His gaze challenged hers. She wanted to tell him Dr. Breninger had dropped it off. But under such a direct and biting onslaught, she knew, she couldn’t, because he would see through the lie.

“No. Calvin brought it,” she admitted, lowering her hand to her side.

His mouth twisted in disapproval as he advanced toward her once again, cutting her off from the doorway.

“It seems you insist on repeatedly defying me where your cousin is concerned.”

She’d never stopped to consider why Garrett would ask to meet her at the gazebo when he could just as easily have seen her at the house when he returned. Now she could have kicked herself for not realizing something didn’t quite make sense.

“You’ve got it backward, Garrett. Calvin came to me. I didn’t go running to him.”

“And because he defied me, it is permissible for my wife to do so, as well. Is that what you’re saying?”

She shook her head. It seemed she had a knack for putting her foot in her mouth. “Not exactly.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll be betrayed by my own wife! I’ve compromised my integrity and my livelihood on your behalf. My God, a man can be pushed only so far before he does something—”

Garrett stopped suddenly, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Recalling Calvin’s warning concerning Garrett’s explosive nature, Liz instinctively retreated until her back was literally against the wall. In his present temper, he might go berserk if he discovered she’d not only seen Calvin, but visited the tomb, as well. And then what would she do? She was in the house with him. Alone.

Garrett matched Liz’s steps until he was so close to her his breath blew across her perspirationdampened skin, cooling the sensitive area above her breasts. Now she wished she hadn’t unbuttoned the bodice of her gown and folded it back to expose the top of her shift. It put her at a distinct disadvantage, for the summer warmth was nothing compared with the heat radiating from Garrett’s eyes. Heat that branded the swell of her breasts, making it difficult for her to breathe normally.

Glancing furtively toward the door, Liz shifted in an attempt to draw away from him. He would have none of it, stepping closer still as he flipped the cloth of her bodice upright to better inspect the partially covered brooch.

Liz wondered frantically whether, if worse came to worst, she could race ahead of Garrett up the stairs and lock him out of the bedroom. And then what? Did she sit and wait and sweat until he found a key? Or kicked the door in? Or could she climb out the second-story window and shimmy down the tree without breaking her neck?

She doubted it. And even if she could, what then?

Liz glanced up, surprised to see a hint of amusement playing in Garrett’s eyes. Was it possible he knew her thoughts? That he was actually enjoying watching her squirm? What kind of man was he?

Liz told herself that she must not allow Garrett to further unnerve her. Lifting her chin a notch, she said, “Calvin wished you well.”

Garrett’s sharply sardonic expression scared her. “Hah! I just bet he did. I suspect the man would give his good leg to see me dead. Do you have any idea what your precious cousin has been up to?” he hissed.

Liz shook her head at the man towering above her.

“Then allow me to apprise you of the latest developments. I received a telegram by courier from New Orleans this morning.”

“I didn’t see a courier.” She wished he would move back a step, but he remained too close. And he was too unpredictable for her to take the initiative and move away from him.

“He came and left while you were sleeping.”

“Oh.”

“The bank president in Baton Rouge refused to transfer my funds to an account I opened in the city. I rode into New Orleans, only to find I must travel to Baton Rouge and sign for the transfer in person.”

So that’s why he was gone all day, Liz thought, wondering if the fire in her wastepaper can might have been an accident. Wondering if she’d overreacted because smoke to her was worse than any bogeyman.

“I would bet my last dollar Calvin Trexler is somehow responsible for this day,” he concluded.

“I don’t think Calvin would intentionally gum up the works,” Liz said slowly, wondering if she could relax and let her guard down now that his anger seemed somewhat defused.

Garrett frowned. “Gum up the works?”

Liz realized she’d been thinking aloud. She’d have to watch her slang, she admonished herself. Garrett already thought of her as unbalanced. If she started talking in strange tongues to boot, he might check her into the nearest loony bin.

“I mean, I don’t think Calvin would do that,” Liz amended quickly.

“I don’t care what he’s convinced you of, he would and he did.” Garrett’s words were fierce, contemptuous and venom-filled, fed by acute frustration.

“But how?” she asked, feeling as if she were walking on eggshells as she watched his anger rise again.

“My lawyer in Baton Rouge warned me Calvin and the banking authorities in New Orleans were as thick as thieves. By God, I should have listened to him when I had the opportunity!”

“Are you saying Calvin is corrupt?” Impossible! As a tour guide, she knew his credentials were impeccable.

“I understand your divided loyalties. I do not condone them, however. The man is devious. He intends to thwart me at every turn. He thinks that by withholding my funds he can force me to sell off…”

As if he’d said more than he wanted to, he allowed his words to trail off.

“Perhaps it’s just a mix-up. Things happen,” Liz said.

“Where Calvin is involved, they most certainly do,” Garrett agreed scathingly.

“What makes you think he had anything to do with this?” she asked in a hushed tone. Even in her day of modern, computer-aided banking, financial institutions made mistakes.

His jaw tightened. “Because, my dear, I have something he wants. Badly.”

“I beg your pardon?” Liz said, surprised in spite of herself. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re implying.”

“Only that you look quite fetching today,” he said with a longer-than-acceptable glance that made her distinctly uncomfortable and curiously elated at the same time. “There is a carelessness, a sweet disarray, about you that I’ve not seen before.”

She was disheveled because she’d been scared stiff. But he didn’t need to know that. Let him think it was natural, she decided as he continued.

“Any man would be, shall we say, tempted to compromise you. Even Calvin.”

Liz didn’t want to be so easily flattered by the backhanded compliment, and yet she couldn’t help herself. His choice of words sounded so literary…so cultured…so very romantic. Even when he was angry, he somehow managed to navigate the complex labyrinth of her heart and hit home each and every time.

It was disconcerting.

Exhilarating.

And dangerous, she reminded herself. Garrett Rowland might sound like Romeo. He might even look like Romeo. But according to Calvin, he had the heart of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In addition to that, she was alone with him in a day and age when men considered it acceptable to force their wives to perform their “duty.”

Garrett captured her hand, physically bridging the tiny gap between them as he examined the braided-hair bracelet. When she would have pulled away, he resisted, weaving his fingers through hers.

“Calvin doesn’t think of me as a woman to be…compromised.”

“I beg to differ. Attraction between cousins is not uncommon.”

Maybe in your world. But not in my genetically enlightened one, Liz thought, saying instead, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.”

“Perhaps I am. You can only push a man so far,” he rasped softly. Twisting a loose curl from her chignon around the finger of his free hand, he asked, “Why did you do it?”

Before she could gather her scattered thoughts and respond coherently, he continued. “Why marry me? Is it because I resemble Michael that you consented to make my life a living hell?”

Why hadn’t she noticed before the way his voice level dropped low, and soft, when he was uncertain? Liz wondered. Was it because until now she’d never seen him uncertain about anything?

Liz glanced into his eyes, seeing a haunted expression that disturbed her. As if she were the one who had him cornered, rather than the other way around.

Her gaze darted to the portrait over the mantel.

“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly, with an attempt at a lightness she was far from feeling. She had no idea why Elizabeth had married Garrett. Judging that the best defense was a good offense, she asked, “Why did you marry me?”

He laughed. The sound was far from pleasant.

He laughed. The sound was far from pleasant.

Liz wasn’t sure she knew what he meant. She did know that pride made people do and say things they might later regret. And that, much to her chagrin, she was suffering from a total lack of it, for, even in her fear, she was thinking what a handsome man Garrett was. And how she wished they’d met under better circumstances.

Liz said with bravado, “I know that pride has been the downfall of many prominent men throughout history.”

“And you hope it proves to be mine, as well,” he bantered, tightening the curl of her chignon almost to her earlobe. He used it to tug her face even closer to his.

For a split second, Liz could have sworn Garrett intended to kiss her. She saw it in his eyes, sensed it in his touch, as a heady rush of anticipation coursed through her body.

He wasn’t fooling her with his somber expression. He’d felt it too. In that instant, Liz experienced another startling revelation—Garrett Rowland was a man who hadn’t been happy, really happy, in a very long time.

Sympathy and raw desire warred with her better judgment.

Liz almost leaned into Garrett’s embrace.

Almost opened her mouth to his.

Almost.

She caught herself just in time, reaching up to disengage the curl from his fingers.

She belatedly realized nothing she said tonight would make any difference. He was too angry for her to reason with him, too intent on intimidating her, on making her pay for Calvin’s assumed treachery and Elizabeth’s supposed betrayal.

Even if she threw caution to the four winds and explained that she was a time traveler and reluctant impostor, she doubted he was of a mind to listen to something so outrageous.

Fearful that she must somehow discover the answers to the questions and veiled innuendos that surrounded Garrett before she would be allowed to return home, Liz realized she needed to buy herself some time. Time in which she need not be constantly on guard, furtively looking over her shoulder while expecting the worst from Garrett.

Deciding to try one last time to relieve the tension between them, Liz drew an imaginary X across her chest with her index finger. “I swear, I’m not a threat to you, Garrett. Cross my heart and hope to—”

She broke off abruptly, stricken by the realization of what she’d been about to say.

Liz knew her eyes must have reflected her consternation, for Garrett’s answered hers with a dark flame that seared straight through her skin to blister her very soul.

“Die,” he finished for her.

Liz felt suddenly so weary she wasn’t sure she could beat her way out of a wet paper bag, much less resolve their obvious differences tonight. Finally, before her composure slipped completely and she dissolved into tears, she said, “I’m tired. It’s… uh…been a long day. If you’ll excuse me….”

For a fleeting second, she thought she saw concern replace the hostility in Garrett’s eyes. “Go to bed. Things will look better in the morning,” he suggested, in a voice that held an almost tender quality. Then, as if he’d suddenly realized he’d made some kind of un-pardonable slip, his voice hardened again as he added, “They always do.”

He abruptly released her hand, stepping back and away from her.

Concealing the movement in the folds of her skirt, Liz flexed her bloodless fingers, staring out into the darkened hallway.

“Will you be coming up soon?” She hated to ask, and yet she felt she must know.

She forced herself to look Garrett directly in the eye. An impassive expression shadowed the straight lines of his autocratic countenance, but his eyes suddenly turned as cool and hard as topaz.

“Is that an invitation?”

“You know it isn’t.”

“I didn’t think so.”

He studied her intently for a moment before advising her, “I’ll be up later. Leave the bedchamber door open.”

Shaken, Liz realized that if Garrett took it into his head to exercise his husbandly “rights” tonight, if he decided not to take no for an answer, there was no one to protect her from him. Worse still, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d want to be protected, if it came right down to it. She didn’t like the idea of being alone in an enormous bed, in a strange room and a dimly lit house.

She wanted to go home. As soon as possible, before things grew any more complicated. Before she became so deeply involved, or so resigned, that she became stuck in the past.

Liz grappled with her feelings, glancing up to find Garrett smiling ruefully down at her. As if prompting her to action, he handed her the spatter-glass lamp from his desk.

She hesitated. “If I take the lamp, you’ll be left in the dark,” she said, wondering why in the world she cared one way or the other.

He laughed shortly. “The darkness agrees with my twilight disposition. You should know that by now. Besides there is a full moon. The natural light is enough…more than enough.

He was being poetic again, Liz thought. It was one of the things about him that touched her, swayed her toward him against her will. That made her long to feel a wall pressed against her back with no avenue of escape from him readily available.

Garrett must have sensed her inner turmoil, for he repeated slowly, “Go to bed, Elizabeth.”

He took her shoulders, turned her around and gave her a little push in the right direction. “Go— now.”

Fearing her voice might crack if she attempted to once again remind him to call her Liz, she simply nodded.

Plagued by doubts, she mounted the stairs to Elizabeth’s bedroom, wondering how Rowland Plantation had managed to fall under the spell of such a dark enchantment.

Once inside, the bedroom felt too close and the night too oppressive, even with the door wide open. To combat the mugginess, Liz crossed the room and raised the double-hung widow as high as it would go. Light from a white moon spilled through the protective curtains, mimicking the lace with patterns that laved her skin as she stripped down to her cotton shift. She opened the trunk and dropped the brooch and bracelet inside, then hung the indigo gown in the wardrobe, pointedly ignoring the sheer peignoirs.

Still thinking of Garrett and his accusations against Calvin—and, more importantly, of their near kiss — Liz brushed back the mosquito netting and climbed into the huge feather bed, wondering if perhaps she might be suffering from PMS. It always made her do and say things contrary to her nature and seemed to temporarily increase her sexual desire….

But no, it wasn’t the rise and fall of hormonal levels that made her do and say the things she did. Garrett was the cause of her emotional and physical frustration. She might as well admit it and stop making up invalid excuses. The man titillated her. Aroused her. Attracted her—like a moth to a flame, as her grandmother Hayden had been fond of saying. And if she wasn’t careful, she was going to get her wings singed but good.

Tense and apprehensive, Liz lay awake, peering beyond the netting, through the semidarkness, and out into the hallway. It seemed extremely quiet without the benefit of a radio or television. Breathing in short, shallow breaths, she listened to every squeak, every groan, every creak, as the house settled in for the duration of the night.

She dozed fitfully while straining her ears for the added sound of Garrett’s footsteps on the stairs. Wondering if he might yet demand from her his conjugal rights. Wondering whether or not, if push came to shove, she had the stamina to deny him something she herself wanted.

Garrett paced the library, berating himself for leaving Elizabeth alone with only a weak-willed housekeeper to supervise her movements. What was it about Elizabeth lately that taxed his composure and sent him reeling toward the limits of masculine endurance? It hadn’t always been that way. Of that he was positive.

Garrett twirled on his heel, staring at the elegantly appointed portrait over the mantel. Elbow propped on his fist, chin resting across his knuckles, he studied the painting critically by the full light of the moon streaming in the window.

It was a superb piece of work. Michael had procured the best immortalizer available in New Orleans to capture the image of his beautiful bride on canvas. Still, the painting didn’t quite do her justice. Her eyes seemed a sultrier brown in real life. Her lips more sweetly curved and alluring. Her hair fairer, more lustrous. The column of her throat more finely turned. The upper curve of her breasts…

No, in that respect, at least, the artist had captured her to perfection. The softly rounded mounds rose high. Proudly. And torturously.

Garrett whirled away from the painting and glared at the empty brandy decanter on the desk, acutely aware of her, even with his back turned toward her image. In his mind’s eye, he envisioned her lithe body. Her moistly parted lips. Her devastatingly expressive eyes, which appeared guileless one moment, shrewd the next.

His growing need for her was a contradiction within itself. Desire tore at him, causing his temper and temperature to soar. He prided himself on his self-control. Lived by it. Demanded it of himself. She’d destroyed that, encouraging him to act like the animal his family had branded him during the War.

Damn Calvin Trexler! And damn Elizabeth for making him want her so desperately… excruciatingly…without half trying.

What would she do if he ascended the stairs, undressed down to bare skin and slipped into bed beside her? If he pulled her into his arms? If he kissed her inviting lips? Laved her throat? Teased her breasts?

He could do all those things. And he might. But only on his own terms.

Perhaps there would come a time when she put her grief for Michael aside and he could tell her she set him on fire. That he’d wanted her since the moment he dragged her from the river, wet and pliant and fighting for her life. That the spark he’d seen in her whiskey-brown eyes had ignited something within him that had been buried away for years. Something that had grown by leaps and bounds with each and every confrontation between them since that moment.

But the time wasn’t now because it would give her too much power over him.

There was something about Elizabeth that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. And he’d be damned if he was going to be led into a trap before he figured out what it was about her that touched him against his will!

Garrett slammed his fist on the desk. The ledger book he’d shoved to the corner of the desk when he could no longer stand to contemplate it toppled off. It smacked to the floor, opening to a seemingly endless line of figures. He stared at the total for a moment, acutely aware of the jeopardy Rowland Plantation faced if the crops failed this year.

He slowly bent and retrieved the book. Closing it with a snap, he tossed it atop the stack of bills awaiting his attention.

The plantation was dangerously low on capital, and it was imperative that he make the trip to Baton Rouge in the morning and sign for a transfer of personal funds from bank to bank. Funds necessary to their survival over the next few months.

If only the trip were not so supremely ill-timed.

Elizabeth had clearly proven today that he could not risk leaving her behind and open to the influence of a cur like Calvin Trexler. She suddenly seemed so much improved—both physically and emotionally. He couldn’t take a chance on her swaying back the other way. Back toward a world of grief and pain and laudanum-induced sleep. Things that couldn’t possibly be good for the baby she carried.

He was stuck with a woman he couldn’t trust farther than he could throw her, and a cousin-by- marriage bent on ruining him, one way or the other.

Only one solution remained. Though it meant they would be thrown into an atmosphere of even more intimate contact, he would make Elizabeth accompany him to Baton Rouge—for the sake of Michael’s unborn child.

He would deal with Elizabeth after the baby arrived.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Liz awoke, immediately realizing she was still in the past. Garrett, freshly shaved and fully dressed, relaxed in one of the bedroom’s claw-footed chairs, long legs stretched before him and crossed at the ankles. He sipped from a steaming china cup.

Yawning, Liz asked, “What time is it?”

Garrett nodded toward the red-gold light filtering through the curtains. “Dawn,” he said, an edge to his voice.

Liz turned her heavy-lidded gaze toward his side of the bed. The silk quilt was smooth, the feather pillow undented.

“You didn’t come upstairs last night,” she commented.

“I had work to do in the library.”

Liz had the distinct impression that Garrett was methodically working his way around to telling her something she didn’t want to hear. Feeling slightly self-conscious, she sat upright in the bed, punching her pillow up behind her back and tucking the covers about her waist.

“No sleep?” she asked.

“As I said, I had business to attend to. Ledgers don’t add themselves.”

“You must feel like death warmed over,” Liz said, although in actuality he looked quite handsome, with his damp hair slicked back away from his face, his sleeves rolled to the elbows and his shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest. Handsome, and quite pleased with himself, as he stared at her for a moment over the rim of his cup.

“Is that concern for me I see in your eyes?” he asked. He casually reached for the silver pot on the table and tipped it to fill a second cup.

Her hand fluttered to her chest, and she felt her skin grow warm, as it invariably did under his acute surveillance.

“No, it’s concern for me. I know what I’m like when I don’t get my eight hours. I can imagine what you’re like.”

“You needn’t worry that I’ve been lying in wait to nip your head off again this morning. As a matter of fact, I had a swim before daylight to ensure my good humor. They say exercise is good for the soul— soothes the savage breast, so to speak.”

“I thought it was beast,” Liz said.

“Beast? I don’t think so—not according to William Congreve,” Garrett said thoughtfully.

Liz didn’t have the faintest idea who William Congreve was, but she didn’t need a crystal ball to tell her Garrett was up to something. He was far too cordial. Too solicitous. Too…agreeable this morning.

She felt herself tensing.

“Beast, breast, whichever…same difference,” Liz said, recalling her inadvertent dip in the mighty Mississippi and the hands of the beast on her breast as he forced water from her lungs.

“You sound a bit tense,” he said. “Here, have a few sips of this. Perhaps it will help.” He surprised Liz by offering her the cup he’d poured.

“I can tell this is going to be a bang-up day,” Liz said sarcastically, her apprehension concerning Garrett growing by leaps and bounds.

He arched a brow questioningly. When she failed to respond he asked, “Bang-up?”

“First-rate,” she explained.

“Ah, you mean excellent. Indeed it will be,” he agreed.

Liz accepted the cup gingerly, sniffing at its contents and wondering what Garrett meant. But the aroma wafting from the cup in her hand soon sidetracked her thoughts.

Coffee. Wonderfully rich, fresh-brewed, mouthwatering coffee. Not hot tea.

Garrett had remembered. Not only remembered, but acknowledged her preference.

Liz paused for a moment, savoring the heady steam and thinking of the stainless-steel brewing machines in the cafés throughout the French Quarter that spat out eight different flavors of perfectly brewed coffee at a dollar fifty a cup. Café au lait was her first choice. But this didn’t smell bad. Not bad at all.

When she hesitated before tasting it, Garrett drained his cup and reached over to refill his from the same silver pot.

“Don’t worry,” he said, settling back in his chair. “There’s no laudanum in it, if that’s what’s bothering you.” As if to prove his statement, he took a healthy swig from his cup.

“That wasn’t what I was thinking.”

“What then?”

It was strange how cozy they seemed this morning, Liz mused. Like an old married couple. Only they weren’t old and they weren’t married. And they didn’t know each other well enough to be so darned companionable.

What was he up to? No good, most probably. Therefore, she’d best not let down her defenses entirely, Liz told herself.

“I don’t normally drink coffee black and without a sugar substi—uh, sweetener.” Liz followed Garrett’s lead, sipping from her cup. “But this is good.”

He actually smiled, and for the first time Liz realized he had dimples. They softened the harsh lines of his face, overshadowing the scar marring his smooth cheek.

“I’m glad you approve. I made it myself before the housekeeper arrived. And, speaking of Mrs. Crawford, as soon as you’ve finished your personal toilette I’ll send her up to help you pack your portmanteau.”

Wondering if there was a medical term for a psychopath with redeeming qualities, Liz slowly lowered the cup away from her lips. Here it comes, she thought.

“My portmanteau?”

“I’ve run up the signal flag this morning,” he stated matter-of-factly.

As if that was supposed to mean anything to her, Liz thought.

“Signal flag?” she asked, lifting the cup once more to her lips.

“Out on the boat dock—to alert the captain of our intention to board. I plan to take the steamer into Baton Rouge. And I’ve decided that you shall accompany me.”

Surely Garrett wasn’t talking about packing an overnight bag and taking a steamboat ride down the Mississippi River! Liz thought.

“Impossible,” she sputtered into her coffee.

He frowned. She saw the question in his eyes before he voiced it.

“Impossible? Are you saying you don’t own a portmanteau? I could have sworn you did.”

Liz didn’t know if Elizabeth had owned one or not. And even if she had, Liz had no intention of packing it. She’d turned down Calvin’s invitation to escape the plantation so that she could remain near the tomb. She certainly didn’t intend to turn right around and depart the estate hugging Garrett’s arm.

But she couldn’t very well tell him that.

“I’m trying to explain that I can’t leave the plantation right now.” She chased through her mind for a feasible explanation for her defiance, in her agitation nearly sloshing her coffee onto her shift. “I’ve got some things that have to be done today. You see, the garden is in such, uh…lousy shape. I thought I’d do some pruning.”

“Lousy shape?” he asked, as if she’d spoken to him in Swahili.

“Weedy. Overgrown. In desperate need of attention,” she elaborated.

“The garden has waited these past few months. It can wait a few days more.”

“No, it can’t! For real.” The words tumbled off her tongue and over her lips before she could properly weigh and measure them. “I mean, I hate to put the skids on your travel arrangements, but the weeds are strangling the rosebushes. The Spanish daggers are drooping. The, uh…holly is wilder than a —”

“What do you know of gardening?” he asked interrupting her.

“I have a shotgun duplex full of potted—” She stopped herself in the nick of time. Garrett didn’t want to hear about her pink splash hypoestes. Her aloe. Her cactus. Her airplane plant. Her whiskey begonias and crimson geraniums. “I mean, people tell me I have a green thumb.”

“Elizabeth, you never cease to amaze me.”

I never cease to amaze myself, either. “Liz. I asked you to call me Liz,” she said, struggling to maintain a modicum of her own identity.

“Where in the world did you ever learn such strange phrases? Death warmed over. Shotgun duplex. Green thumb.”

Not in your world, that’s for sure. “I’m half-awake. I…don’t know what I’m saying.

“Half the time, neither do I,” Garrett said dryly. “But that is neither here nor there. Drink up. We leave for Baton Rouge within the hour.”

“Seriously, I can’t be ready in an hour,” she said. Perhaps if she stalled, the steamer would leave them behind.

“We will breakfast on the steamer,” he said.

“I’m not worried about break—”

“I want you with me,” he said, with a cold authority that brooked no opposition.

“But I don’t want to go. Not just now.”

“Mrs. Crawford told me the doctor pronounced you—”

“Fit as a fiddle,” Liz finished for him. She’d never dreamed the cliché would come back to haunt her so vividly.

“Therefore you have no alternative, Elizabeth.” His words were measured, chiseled in concrete and reinforced with steel as he pointedly ignored her request to be called by the name she preferred.

Startled by the rush of irritation that momentarily clouded her brain, Liz said, “You only want me with you so that you can keep an eye on me—and I’ve asked you more than once to call me Liz.” Her voice sounded far more curt than she’d intended.

Garrett placed his empty china cup in its matching blue saucer and spun them across the table like a Frisbee. To Liz’s relief, they stopped just short of the other side.

“You’re quite full of yourself this morning, aren’t you?” he ground out.

“Am I?” she asked, thinking, I’m certainly trying to be full of myself, not Elizabeth.

Garrett nodded. “Most definitely.”

He vaulted from the chair and moved to stare moodily out the window toward the river. Hands pushed deeply into his pockets, he continued, “I thought the idea of a trip into the city would please you. I’d imagined it to be one of your favorite pastimes. The ledgers do not lie.”

Liz wanted to tell him to chill a minute and give her time to think and to curb the unreasonable annoyance she felt. She wasn’t a spendthrift, and she hadn’t run up an exorbitant amount of bills for personal gratification, because she wasn’t Elizabeth Rowland!

But then, Garrett didn’t know that. And right now she dared not attempt to appraise him of the situation.

Calming somewhat, Liz finally managed to say, “I’ve…changed recently.”

He rotated on his heel to gaze at her. “You’re saying that I’ve misjudged you?”

“You don’t know me well enough to misjudge me,” Liz said quietly.

Expression dark, he declared, “I’ve made my decision concerning Baton Rouge. Don’t force me to do or say something you’ll regret.”

I’ll regret?” Liz glanced at the ivory-handled knife riding on his hip.

After only two days in his company, she could tell by his erect posture, his set jaw and his compressed lips that Garrett was bracing himself for battle—if it came down to that. But she wouldn’t oblige him. She wasn’t up to one. Not this morning. Not when she had awakened in the past for the second morning in a row. Not with so many questions running like water through her mind. Questions she wished she could turn off with the twist of a handle like the chlorinated tap-water back home.

How many more dawns would the light of a nineteenth-century sun rouse her from sleep? Liz wondered. How many more lazy summer afternoons would she play mistress to an antebellum estate that didn’t really belong to her? How many more trips would she make to an unobliging family vault where stale roses draped a wooden coffin? A place she must now overcome her fear of after being trapped inside it.

And how many more nights would she be consumed by fearful anticipation as, alone and unprotected, she awaited Garrett’s footsteps on the staircase?

The answers were suddenly more daunting than the notion of a steamboat trip down the Mississippi with Garrett Rowland.

She would just have to go along with him and bide her time. Though she’d never been any good at waiting.

Liz sighed. “How long will we be gone?” she asked at last.

“Several days.”

Days spent away from the plantation. Away from the tomb. Away from a chance at escape.

“How many? Two? Three? More?”

“A day and a half. Perhaps two,” he said, visibly relaxing.

“Two?” She could zoom down to Baton Rouge from the Crescent City in an hour on I-10. Of course, that was in her time, not Garrett’s, Liz reminded herself.

“New Orleans to St. Louis one way takes four days, and that’s at full steam and racing the wind…so pack accordingly.”

Pack accordingly. If only Garrett knew packing accordingly to her meant a black silk dress and heels, a couple of T-shirts, shorts, jeans, tennis shoes, a bra and several pairs of high-thigh panties.

What would “pack accordingly” mean to Elizabeth? As much as she hated to admit it, Liz supposed just this once she’d have to lean on Mrs. Crawford for guidance.

An hour later, Liz stood on the dock, gowned in the umber gabardine traveling dress, minus the bows, and a sun-shielding straw bonnet that made her feel like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Elizabeth’s portmanteau at her feet and Garrett at her side. He wore a tailored broadcloth suit, and a panamalike hat tipped at a jaunty, devil-may-care angle, which she found acutely attractive.

d at a jaunty, devil-may-care angle, which she found acutely attractive. Keep your mind on the boat, she told herself each time she caught herself sneaking a peek at the handsome man beside her. A man any woman would be proud to walk beside.

If she dared.

“Here she comes, right on time,” Garrett said. He pointed toward the bend in the river.

Liz squinted. “There’s a man standing on the deck with a telescope.”

“He’s looking for the flag.”

“Look, the boat’s turning this way.”

“They’ve seen us. Good.”

Together they watched as the flat-bottomed paddle wheeler maneuvered toward them, tied up to the riverbank and lowered its wooden gangplank for them to board. Wasting no time, Garrett took her elbow and assisted her across the wooden plank, probably because he was afraid she’d break and run, Liz suspected.

The deck shuddered and shimmied beneath her feet when she stepped aboard, almost unbalancing her. Garrett’s grip tightened as he steadied her.

Eyes wide and confidence shaken, Liz asked, “What was that?”

Garrett cast her a perplexed look.

“What was what?” he asked.

“That rumbling sound. For a minute, the deck felt like it was breathing,” she exclaimed, thinking how notorious steamboats were for catching fire.

“The engines are beneath our feet,” he explained.

“Yes, of course. I knew that,” Liz amended quickly, wishing she hadn’t asked the obvious. Naturally the engines would make the deck shudder.

She’d been boating on Lake Pontchartrain. She’d crossed the Mississippi on a great purring ferry. She’d even taken a cruise ship from New Orleans to Jamaica. But she’d never ridden a steamer. It was fascinating the way the twin stacks belched smoke and fiery sparks as the boat eased away from the dock and headed northwest, using its paddle wheels to churn the water into spume as it navigated the treacherous sandbars that dotted the channel. She marveled at the red-and-white superstructure, the gay flags fluttering in the breeze, the triple decks.

But most of all she marveled at Garrett’s face as, with a teakettlelike shriek from the whistle and a cough of the engines, the helmsman guided the ship out into the flood-deepened waters of the river and away from Rowland Plantation. His expression eased perceptibly with what she could only term as genuine relief.

He must have felt her eyeing him, for he said, as he relinquished her to a man attired in a spotless white uniform, “The porter will see you to the stateroom.”

“Where will you be?” Liz asked uncertainly.

Their gazes briefly met. “I’m going to the purser’s office to pay for our passage. I’ll be along shortly.”

“Shortly,” she repeated softly. She glanced away first, almost guiltily, unable to suppress the feeling that she’d glimpsed something she shouldn’t have. Something buried deep within Garrett. Something painful and personal and not easily shared. Maybe one of the demons responsible for his dark moodiness.

The sensation was most unsettling.

Liz watched Garrett tip the porter. The man in turn shouldered their luggage and headed along the main deck toward a set of stairs leading up to the promenade deck. Liz had no choice but to follow him as Garrett disappeared through one of the many doors that graced the oblong superstructure.

A few moments later, the porter escorted Liz into a long, narrow cabin sumptuously furnished with Brussels carpet, gold-framed paintings, a tufted settee and linen shades. And brass-framed twin beds.

“Have a nice trip, ma’am,” he said as he backed from the room.

A polite smile curved her lips. “Thanks,” Liz said.

After he had gone, she untied the satin ribbons bisecting her jawline and tossed the bonnet Mrs. Crawford had insisted she wear onto one of the beds. Decorum via the perfect chapeau had gone out with the Jackie Kennedy era, Liz thought as she pulled the pins from her hair and ran her fingers through the dampened tresses.

Of course, with the summer sun beating down on her head, a broad-brimmed straw hat did have its advantages. The spencer, however, had absolutely nothing going for it, she decided as she shrugged from the tight-fitting jacket and added it to the growing heap on the bed.

Liz stretched and strolled to the window to peer outside her plush, hotellike room. She watched a flock of mockingbirds flit among the branches of the oaks along the banks. A pair of snowy egrets waded through the shallower waters in search of minnows. A beaver with a water-slick coat scampered near a dam of fallen saplings. She even saw a fawn standing at its mother’s side in the shadow of a spreading magnolia on the lawn of a Greek Revival plantation house. With wide, innocent eyes, the doe gazed out across the water toward the lethargic steamer.

Along with the wildlife, Liz spied men fishing along the river. With the water high, the paddle wheeler passed so close to the bank that at times she felt she could almost reach out and touch the tips of their poles. No fiberglass rods and metal reels. No nylon line and artificial bait. Only cane, and string, and wiggling bloodworms.

The abundance of wildlife along the Mississippi, the harmony of nature and the languid life-style of these people only serv

CHAPTER FIVE

Conscious of her gown’s trailing skirts and of the soft leather slippers she wore, Liz carefully negotiated the staircase down to the central hall with her breakfast tray in her hand, wishing she still possessed the skid-proof tennis shoes she’d lost to the gluttonous Mississippi River. She’d almost made it to the last step when she slipped and would have fallen, if not for the balustrade.

The dishes on the tray toppled, and Liz tried unsuccessfully to catch them before they rolled off the fluted edge. Wobbling off its tall base, the porcelain teapot hit the floor with a shattering crack. It died a quick and brutal death.

“Oh, no,” Liz groaned, gently gathering the sharp pieces, only to glance up and find the keen-eyed housekeeper watching her.

“I broke the teapot,” Liz explained unnecessarily, extending the spout toward Mrs. Crawford.

“Yes, ma’am. I can see that. You didn’t cut yourself, did you?” she asked, rescuing an unbroken cobalt-blue china cup.

“No. I’m so sorry.”

“No harm done. It was an old thing, anyway,” the housekeeper assured her as she took the spout from Liz’s fingers.

“Yes, I know,” Liz said sadly. That was what hurt so much. She loved old things. Next to her absorption with Garrett, prompted because she was at heart a sleuth, that was one of the primary reasons she’d volunteered at the homesite—so that she could enjoy the priceless collection of antiques on a continuing basis. And here she’d broken one of her favorites. Ordinarily it was encased in glass, untouched, protected. She wondered if the veilleuse-théières now no longer existed in the future. Or if it did in jagged bits and pieces of porcelain.

I’m damaging the past and therefore the future, Liz thought. I have to get home. And soon!

Mrs. Crawford took the tray from Liz, saying, “I’ll just get rid of this, and then we’ll begin—”

“No, don’t trash it!” Liz cried.

The housekeeper looked stunned. “What?”

“I mean, don’t throw it away. Please, put all the pieces in something and put them…somewhere.”

Mrs. Crawford hesitated. “Where would you have me put them, ma’am?”

Somewhere safe, so I can ask the new curator about piecing them back together when I get home. If I get home.

“How about in a box…up in my room.”

“A hatbox, ma’am? One from your wardrobe?”

“That’ll work.” Liz had recognized the rosewood wardrobe as part of the collection at the homesite.

“I’ll see to it right away.”

Poor Mrs. Crawford. She must think Elizabeth’s illness has turned her into an eccentric, Liz thought as she watched her reorganize the items on the tray.

The housekeeper paused. “I’ve straightened up in the library…drawn back the drapes to let the sun in, opened the jalousies to let out some of the cigar smoke. I did not touch the clutter on Mr. Rowland’s desk, however.”

“Fine,” Liz agreed, trying not to sound too anxious, though she could hardly wait to view the daguerreotype of Michael and Garrett. She had no qualms about riffling through his books and papers, either.

Liz turned to the left at the bottom of the staircase.

Mrs. Crawford scooted around her, preceding her down the hall to a familiar set of paneled pocket doors. She ushered Liz through them, quietly sliding the doors closed behind her.

The essence of the high-ceilinged room was the same as Liz remembered—troweled plaster walls, rosettes in the ceiling, a brown cypress floor that would eventually turn black from years of polishing— but there the familiarities ended.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, Liz realized she’d been introduced into a library utilizing none of the furnishings from the homesite collection.

Instead of open-shelved bookcases lining the walls, a single rosewood breakfront bookcase supplied the room with hardcover reading materials. Beside that stood a baize-covered mahogany card table complete with matching chairs. A masculine-looking kneehole desk, littered with paperwork, and his well-used leather armchair dominated one wall. A cloak-draped coatrack postured in one corner. And, rather than a settee, a pair of tapestry and velvet wing chairs hugged the hearth.

As she’d suspected, however, a daguerreotype of Michael and Garrett as young men graced the Carrara mantel.

But something else caught her attention—something both fascinating and frightening. An elegantly appointed full-length portrait framed in carved gilt was displayed above the oak mantel clock.

Never before had her displacement been so graphically enforced, Liz thought, her gaze riveted on the startling oil on canvas. She felt as if she been dashed in the face with cold water.

The model for the portrait was none other than Elizabeth Rowland. She was dressed in Lincolngreen silk, holding a bouquet of Cherokee roses, and wearing a sparkling ruby necklace at her throat and an etched wedding ring upon her slender finger. Though her own features were more refined than Elizabeth’s—her hair honey-blond rather than dishwater, her eyes a deeper brown, her lower lip fuller— Liz now knew for certain why she’d won the homesite’s look-alike contest.

There existed between them an uncanny resemblance. She and Elizabeth could have been sisters. No, it was more than that. Liz didn’t like to think it, much less say it aloud, but they could almost have been…

“Mirror reflections,” she marveled. She stepped more deeply into the room, to better study the woman fate had ordained she impersonate.

Elizabeth’s lips had a slightly petulant tilt that Liz knew hers lacked. Her eyes were more rounded and her teeth less straight—at least they appeared, to be judging by the portrait. Yet she had the same decisive chin, the same oval face, and a similarly fair complexion.

Still, it was their figures that astonished Liz the most.

No wonder Elizabeth’s clothes fit me, Liz mused. She’d heard of body doubles, but this was ridiculous! It gave her the creeps. It was now crystal-clear to hear how Garrett had mistaken her for Elizabeth.

Liz reached for the daguerreotype. A young Garrett, face unscarred and smiling, stared back at her. He seemed happy, and yet a haunted expression marred his beautiful eyes.

She tentatively traced the lines of his face and body, wondering why his arm was in a sling. Had he been a rambunctious teenager? Had he fallen from a tree, or perhaps a horse, Liz wondered, recalling the huge black stallion he’d seemed to control as easily as a rocking horse. Or had he and Michael gotten into a tussle, as siblings were prone to do? And if so, who had been the victor?

There was so much room for speculation….

Liz almost jumped out of her skin when Mrs. Crawford eased the library doors apart and stuck her head inside.

“I’ve put the broken teapot in a hatbox in the wardrobe, as you requested.”

“Good,” Liz managed, in a strained voice.

“Pardon me, but is everything all right, ma’am?” the housekeeper asked from the doorway

Liz cleared her throat, replacing the daguerreotype on the mantel. “Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?” she asked distantly.

“No reason, ma’am, it’s only that…uh…I thought I’d best let you know the doctor has arrived. He’s outside on the veranda, asking to be received.”

Great! Liz thought. The moment she’d been dreading had finally arrived.

Liz took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, rubbing her arms, which had been wrapped in an unconscious hug about her upper body.

“Give me a minute and then show him in.”

Liz hurried to the wing chair facing the door and eased into it. Sitting ramrod-stiff, she smoothed her skirts across her lap, pasted a smile on her lips, and waited.

Within minutes, a gallant old gentleman who reminded her of Colonel Sanders stepped into the room. He stopped short when he saw her, bowed with a practiced flourish, then advanced toward her chair, hand extended.

Mrs. Crawford stood like a sentinel by the door.

“My dear,” he chortled, taking Liz’s hand in his own gnarled one and patting her knuckles. “Mrs. Crawford told me you were up and about. I can’t tell you how charmed I am to see it for myself. I’ve been concerned about you.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Liz said with a gracious smile. She tactfully extracted her hand from his.

“I take it the morning sickness has ceased?”

He reached for her wrist this time, looking toward the rosette on the ceiling as he calculated her pulse.

“I guarantee it,” Liz said.

“And what of the melancholy?” He released her hand to pull up an eyelid and gaze into her eye.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, considering.”

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Like a rock.” Normally.

“I suspected as much…. Eyes as clear as a bell. Taking walks to help with the circulation?”

“As often as possible.”

“Stick out your tongue, my dear.”

Liz did so, somewhat apprehensively.

“Good color there, too.”

“Is she eating her calf’s liver Mrs. Crawford?” he asked over his shoulder.

“No, sir,” the housekeeper said from the doorway.

The doctor frowned at Liz. “You should be, you know. It’s good for the baby.”

“I don’t like liver,” Liz remarked.

“That’s all?” Liz asked. This was the strangest doctor’s visit she’d ever participated in.

“All what, my dear?”

“All there is to the examination?”

“Well, what did you expect?”

Liz almost laughed. Her fears had been entirely unfounded. She should have realized that in a day and age when women weren’t allowed to show their ankles, an doctor’s examination would be only cursory. How women had survived childbirth with such haphazard prenatal care was a mystery to her.

ory. How women had survived childbirth with such haphazard prenatal care was a mystery to her. “I’m so happy you could stop by, Doctor,” Liz said, ignoring his question. It was true. Perhaps now Garrett and Mrs. Crawford would get off her back.

“Glad to do it. Send Garrett around, if you need me. Otherwise I’ll plan to see you again this same time next month, as he’s instructed.”

I certainly hope not! I have no intentions of hanging around here that long. “Yes, you do that.”

“By the way, I passed Garrett on the River Road. Seemed in a mighty big hurry.” Dr. Breninger said. “He was preoccupied—did no more than nod in my direction.”

Liz wondered fleetingly if Garrett had timed the incident with the wastepaper can in the hope that the doctor would catch her overwrought and prescribe further sedation for her. If he had, he’d be bitterly disappointed when he learned the doctor’s verdict.

“You’ll have to excuse Garrett,” Liz said, because the doctor seemed to expect a response from her. “He’s had a lot on his mind lately.” Mainly how to get rid of an unwanted wife.

Liz rose to escort the doctor out, but Mrs. Crawford beat her to it.

“I’ll see the doctor to the door,” the housekeeper offered.

“Thank you,” Liz replied. She heard the front door open and close. Presently, Mrs. Crawford reappeared.

“I’ll be out back in the kitchen if you need me, ma’am,” she said.

“I won’t be needing you.”

With the raising of a brow, Mrs. Crawford asked, “No tea today, ma’am?”

“And what might your calendar be, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Liz smiled. Mrs. Crawford didn’t fool her one bit. Obviously Garrett had asked the housekeeper to keep an eye on her for him. The woman wouldn’t have been so bold otherwise.

“I think I’ll rest here for a while, perhaps catch up on my reading, and then I plan to take a stroll down by the river.”

“I’m not so sure Mr. Rowland would—” the housekeeper began.

Liz interrupted her. “You heard Dr. Breninger. To quote, I’m ‘fit as a fiddle.’ And he as much as prescribed long walks for my circulation. Now, if you’ll excuse me…and close the door behind you,” she said firmly.

Mrs. Crawford gave a curt nod and backed out of the library.

Liz sat for some time in the wing chair, gazing up at the portrait of Elizabeth, finally turning to Garrett’s desk when she felt sure that the housekeeper was otherwise occupied in the kitchen

The clutter Mrs. Crawford had referred to turned out to be a mass of sympathy letters, along with an equally large stack of bills held together with a brass paper clip. It seemed Michael’s creditors had fallen on Garrett like a flock of vultures, Liz thought, flipping through the paperwork. Many of the bills were duns from millineries, seamstresses, and jewelry shops—duns with staggering totals.

Now wait just one minute! Something wasn’t adding up here, she thought, reviewing the lists of feminine purchases.

Nothing she’d found in Elizabeth’s trunk had suggested she was such a spendthrift. Perhaps that was what Garrett had been referring to earlier, when he mentioned Elizabeth’s shopping sprees to Natchez. He must have been attempting to sort through the bills and ledgers and settle some of the accounts this morning, though by the look of things it would take a pretty penny to get the estate out of debt.

Liz jiggled a few drawers, hoping to find the ledger book Garrett had mentioned. She quickly discovered that he kept all the drawers except one locked, and the unlocked one contained nothing except an inkwell, blotting paper and a stamp box. She’d learn nothing of personal value from the desk, she decided. She had, however, discovered the kind of financial pressure Garrett must be living under.

Why didn’t he sell the plantation? Pay off the creditors with the profits? Get out from under the gun?

Liz realized the answer to that question, at least, was relatively simple. Though he would not admit it, he had loved his elder brother. And his brother had loved Rowland Plantation.

And Elizabeth.

Tossing the bills atop the sympathy letters, Liz left the desk altogether, wandering over to stand before Elizabeth’s portrait again. Oddly disheartened, she stared into the eyes of the true mistress of Rowland Plantation.

“What sort of woman were you, Elizabeth Rowland?” Liz asked aloud. “What did you do with all the clothes and jewelry those bills imply you owned? The facts seem so elusive, so contradictory.

“Did you really love Michael to distraction, as the historians believe?” Liz asked the life-size portrait. “Were you happy together? Were you thrilled to be carrying his baby—the Rowland heir?” She sighed. “Or is my sympathy misplaced? Were you simply a heartless troublemaker who disappeared and left me holding the bag?”

The clock on the mantel chimed loudly, breaking into Liz’s thoughts, demanding her immediate attention. Her gaze drifted from the portrait down toward the clock’s glass face.

Four o’clock in the afternoon already? Where had the day gone? She’d have to get on the ball if she planned to visit the tomb before Garrett returned.

Liz made it out the back door, across the veranda and down the path beyond the free standing kitchen, only to be drawn back to the small brick house by the aroma of jambalaya simmering on a wood stove. Enthralled with the contents of Elizabeth’s trunk and anxious to begin her search for the path home, she’d hardly touched her breakfast. Now her stomach grumbled in acute protest.

Telling herself she could use an energy pick-me-up, she dallied in the kitchen long enough to sample a dish of the highly seasoned mixture of chicken, sausage, shrimp, oysters, tomatoes, and okra poured over a bed of fluffy white rice.

Her visit, and the praise she bestowed on the food seemed to mollify Mrs. Crawford. Once she finished eating, Liz had surprisingly little trouble slipping down the quarter-mile oak alley toward the last place in the world she really wanted to visit—the Rowland family vault.

Buck up, kiddo, Liz told herself as the tomb came into view. It’s your ticket home. “I hope,” she added aloud as her steps slowed to mincing proportions.

Today, in the late-afternoon light, the tomb seemed almost benevolent with its solid plaster veneer and its fresh coat of white-wash. Not half as imposing or brooding. And definitely less sinister.

But looks could be deceiving.

A brilliant flash of crimson shot through the trees, startling Liz—a redheaded woodpecker fed by hunger and bent on destruction. Claws extended, it landed under the eaves of the vault. She listened to its rapid peck-peck-pecking, wondering if its sharp little bill had contributed to the wood damage the restoration society in her century was pledged to restore. Thoughts of the bird took her mind off other matters. Off her fear of approaching the tomb. Of what it might hold for her today.

Or what it might not hold.

Liz took a tentative step toward the vault. Then another. And another. Until she stood a yard from the marble door.

Nothing happened.

Of course nothing’s happening, Liz admonished herself. You sheltered inside the doorway during the storm. Not out here, three feet from the doorjamb.

She shuffled closer. Still nothing happened. No keening. No blackness. No nothing.

“This isn’t doing me a bit of good,” she said out loud.

Liz exhaled, clenching her fists at her sides. She had to open the door and step within. That was all there was to it. If she wanted to get home badly enough, she’d open the door and ease inside. She had to make herself do it. She couldn’t stay here. Not in the past. Not with Garrett Rowland, pretending to be someone she wasn’t, forfeiting her own destiny for that of a woman who had lived a century before her.

She wouldn’t do it; she couldn’t do it.

She had to move while she had the chance.

Go for it! she told herself, forcing her hands to unfurl. She released the outside catch and flattened her palms against the cool marble panel, making her muscles strive, her feet move forward.

Liz suddenly sensed a presence behind her. Before she could wheel around, she felt a large hand splay across her back. Cruel fingers dug into the soft flesh between her shoulder blades. Fingernails pinched her skin, compelling her to move forward in order to keep her balance. The pressure against her spine intensified as she was propelled against her will through the partially opened door and into the dank mustiness of the Rowland family vault.

Before she quite knew how it happened, the door slammed with a horrifying thud behind her, sealing her within the profound and stifling darkness.

Blinded by the truancy of the light, Liz fumbled at the door. She frantically traced the width and height of the wooden doorjamb with the tips of her trembling fingers. Over and over and over again

Finally, with a severe sense of terror that stilled her hands and stabbed at her heart, she acknowledged that the door possessed no latch on the inside.

CHAPTER SIX

Horrified, Liz turned away from the door and stretched out her arms, intent on discovering another means of escape from the black netherworld. Her fingers met with something hard and unyielding. Something with cold metal handles and squared sides. Something shrouded in a blanket of dried blossoms that rustled like crushed tissue paper when her hands brushed against them.

Liz felt the blood drain from her cheeks.

A flower-draped coffin! Michael Rowland’s coffin.

“No,” Liz croaked. She shook her head as she backed away from the coffin, coming abruptly up against the slick, moisture-laden inner wall of the vault. Silently she cautioned herself not to hyperventilate. Not to give in to hysteria.

“This place feels…like a…sauna,” she whispered. Her mouth felt as dry as chalk dust as she nervously thumbed open the buttons at her throat, trying her utmost not to panic. Her statement was echoed eerily back at her, strained and unfamiliar, as if rasped by the voice of a stranger.

Slumped against the wall, Liz strained to see through the pitch-blackness, while the ensuing minutes whittled away at her peace of mind and her badly shaken composure. It was too dark for her eyes to adjust. She fought the panic welling within her, suffocating her in her own fear.

Don’t be ridiculous! Think positive! There’s nothing in here that can hurt you. And the vault isn’t hermetically sealed. You can breathe! Now breathe! Deeply. Hold it. Now exhale, slowly, Liz coached herself as she tensed and relaxed her fists.

It was a foregone conclusion that sooner or later Mrs. Crawford would come searching for her, Liz told herself. Probably sooner rather than later, knowing Garrett’s housekeeper. Then all this would seem like a bad dream.

As the fire in the bedroom did now.

A coincidence. An accident. Just one of those things.

Liz swallowed, listening to her heart as it pounded madly in her ears.

Only this wasn’t an accident. She’d felt the fingernails digging into her back, forcing her forward. And she’d never forget the sensation of the door being slammed against her. Never!

Lord, how she wished she had her cordless phone, so that she could dial 911 for assistance! She wished plenty of things right now. Most of all she wished she didn’t once again suspect Garrett of arranging this incident to frighten her into behaving. If he’d come home early to discover her visiting the tomb, he’d have been incensed, she reasoned. Perhaps enough to play a callous trick on her as a warning.

At least she prayed it was a warning, rather than an out-and-out attempt at relieving himself of the burden of an unwanted wife.

In all probability, Garrett was waiting just outside the marble door, listening for her to start screaming her lungs out. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, Liz thought.

By the time she had slowly counted to 5,250 Liz had changed her mind. Screaming didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. If nothing else, it might relieve some of the anxiety she felt inside.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

She cleared her throat and tried again. Finally her vocal cords decided to cooperate.

The words came out softly at first, growing stronger with each passing second, until her cries sounded like those of a banshee on the prowl. “Help! Somebody out there, help me! I need help! I’m locked in and I can’t get out!” Liz punctuated her cries by pounding on the door with the flats of her hands.

To her relief, within minutes the door swung inward. Liz started, blinking at the infusion of dusky light, like a bat disturbed in its cave by the direct beam of a flashlight. She inhaled deeply of the summer fragrances borne into the vault on the wings of a cooling breeze—fresh water and clean air and the ethereal fragrance of roses swelling around her.

“Elizabeth? Is that you? Good God, it is you! How long have you been trapped in there?” a welcome voice asked.

“Not too long…an hour, maybe. I’m…not sure,” Liz said as she tumbled gratefully into Calvin Trexler’s comforting arms.

“Thank heavens I heard you call out. It was a good thing I decided to come to the gazebo this way,” he murmured, gently smoothing a tendril of hair from her eyes.

“Someone pushed me inside and shut the door,” Liz explained in a tremulous voice, nearly in tears now that she was free.

“I’m here now,” he reassured her with a warm smile. “You are safe.”

It was obvious Elizabeth’s cousin was concerned for her, that he wanted to help. She wanted to trust him. Not only that, she feared she might really go nuts if she didn’t voice her suspicions about Garrett. If she didn’t confide in someone. And Calvin was the logical choice.

“I’m afraid Garrett is trying to kill me,” Liz confessed in a rush.

Calvin’s eyes narrowed. “I have advised you repeatedly that you cannot trust the man, but you refuse to listen.”

“I had ample time to think about things in the vault,” Liz faltered. “Garrett carries this knife in a sheath at his waist, and when I contradict him he rests his fingertips on the hilt as if he’d love to use the blade on my throat.”

“Despite what you believed when you married him, he harbors no love for you or the child you carry. You finally understand that now, don’t you?”

“I think so,” Liz said, hoping to learn more about Garrett from him by allowing Calvin to fill in the blanks.

“If only you had listened when it happened the first time.” He gave her a tight bear hug of assurance. “I could have saved you from this episode.”

Liz realized she had to be careful. By all accounts, Calvin had been extremely close to Elizabeth. Closer than Mrs. Crawford. Or Garrett. Perhaps almost as close as her husband, Michael. It would be so easy to make a misstep with him and incriminate herself.

“I’m afraid I don’t remember being shut inside the vault before today,” she said.

Calvin looked incredulous. “You do not recall the incident at Michael’s funeral? Barring the fact that the minister rescued you rather than me, it was a mirror reflection of Garrett’s recent attempt to frighten you.”

There are lots of things that seem fuzzy since my fall in the river,“ Liz hurriedly informed him.

“Well, fancy that—gaps in your memory,” Calvin said.

Liz nodded.

“I have heard of that before. During the War. Sometimes men with head wounds would suffer from it.”

“It—” Liz began

Calvin interrupted her. “You poor, brave, dear. When I think of the hell that blackguard has put you through in the name of brotherly love, it turns my stomach.”

As he spoke, Calvin slipped an arm around her waist. With a short sigh, he drew her down the twisted garden path, toward the gazebo and the benches lining the interior.

“Tell me, sweetheart—do you recall how you fell in the river the other day?”

History said she could trust Calvin with the truth, Liz reminded herself.

“Garrett was angry because Eliz—I’d visited the tomb. I was running from him. I accidentally tripped off the dock.”

For a moment Liz thought she saw a rush of relief on Calvin’s face, but she quickly realized she must have misread his expression. Garrett had her so shaken, she could hardly think straight.

“I am glad I sent the note to you this morning,” he said, settling down beside her on one of the seats, his arm securely around her shoulder.

Taken aback, Liz stared at her hands, more confused now than ever.

“You sent the note? But how? I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” he assured her gently. “You thought I would not dare cross Garrett, even though I vowed to you that I would return to the plantation.”

“You shouldn’t be here, not after the way he—”

“I am not afraid of Garrett,” Calvin said quickly. “Not when it comes to you. I hold you in high esteem, Elizabeth. You have always been special to me. Even as children, playing in the stockroom of our fathers’ mercantile in the French Market on Decatur Street.”

He paused, as if recalling something especially pleasing to him.

“And in the Vieux Carré, how you would dance and sing to entertain the elite as they promenaded through the square toward Saint Louis Cathedral and their stuffy religious services. You were such a pretty little thing. Always laughing. Always gay. Always so amusing.”

She’d never done any of those things, Liz thought. But she couldn’t tell Calvin that. He would think she’d gone off the deep end.

“But how—” she began.

Seeming to interpret the question before she had completely formed the thought, Calvin interrupted her. “My horse is tied over yonder, in the forest. I decided to remain overnight with friends, farther down, along the River Road…to be near you, Elizabeth. Just in case you needed me.”

“Why take such a chance? Garrett might have seen you. What would you have done then?” The imaginary confrontation played over and over in Liz’s mind, like a film clip. It wasn’t a pretty scene. She couldn’t help cringing.

“I would have crossed that bridge when I came to it…if I came to it,” Calvin commented.

There was a hint of something elusive in his voice. Something she couldn’t quite clamp on to. Before she could consider it further, Calvin dug deep into his coat pocket and extracted a velvet-wrapped parcel.

His hazel eyes alive with excitement, he said, “I brought you something.” He unwrapped the parcel and pressed a small jeweled casket into Liz’s hand.

“I stopped by the jeweler’s in New Orleans a few days ago, but I never got around to presenting this to you. It is one of the reasons I felt I had to see you today. Please, go ahead, open it,” he said encouragingly

Liz lifted the lid and peeked inside. A mourning brooch fashioned from a lock of sable hair shot through with gold thread and framed in black enamel and seed pearls, rested on a cushion of plush red satin. Encircling the brooch was a matching bracelet of braided hair.

There was no doubt in her mind that the hair, so like Garrett’s in color and texture, had to be that of Michael Rowland.

Liz almost grimaced at the macabre pieces of memorabilia. Glancing at Calvin, who was rigid with expectation, she consciously turned her frown right side up.

He visibly relaxed. “You are pleased. I knew you would be the moment I saw them,” he said.

“They’re…something else.”

“I realize you had these commissioned several weeks ago. I also know Garrett is keeping a tight rein on the purse strings, so I took it upon myself to collect them for you.”

Calvin proceeded to lift the pieces from the box.

“Consider them a gift—from me to you.”

Liz knew Calvin was attempting to be thoughtful, and she appreciated his generosity and kindness in purchasing the items for his cousin. But the jewelry made her skin crawl. How could anyone ever get over the tragedy of a life cut short when wearing such intimate reminders? It was morbid. And potentially unhealthy. At least as far as she was concerned.

“Here. Allow me. I want to see how they look on you.”

Hesitant to disappoint him when he was so obviously pleased with the gift, Liz reluctantly presented her arm for him to loop the bracelet around her wrist, staring at the gold clasp created from a miniature of Michael framed in pearls.

“Quite a nice likeness,” he commented.

“I suppose so,” Liz responded. Brooch in hand, Calvin glanced at the bodice of her gown. She saw the direction his gaze had taken, realizing belatedly that a nineteenth-century woman would never show her bosom before late evening. It just wasn’t done.

“It was hot…inside the vault,” she said quickly, reaching up to fumble with the buttons of the bodice.

“I am sure it was,” he said, not unkindly. “Do not look so stricken, Elizabeth,” he added, impatiently sweeping her hands away. “Social dogma is of no consequence between us. We have known each other far too long for such as that.”

He pinned the brooch to Elizabeth’s indigo gown, near Liz’s collarbone, tentatively slipping his fingers beneath the material to ensure that he did not stick her. Their gazes met, and Liz saw a warm flicker of something register in his eyes—a glimmer of the longstanding friendship he’d mentioned, she guessed.

“You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble,” she said politely.

“It was no trouble,” he replied with an indulgent smile.

“Well…thank you.”

“You are most welcome.”

“I appreciate the thought.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

His expression suddenly grew quite serious. “You are so formal today, so cautious with me,” he said in a pained voice. “Is this what marriage to Garrett has done, driven a wedge between us?”

“I…don’t know what to say,” Liz said. It was true. She didn’t know how to respond to him.

“I want you to remember that I am one of the lucky ones, Elizabeth. I have come up in the world since the war. My investments have paid off admirably. I am—how shall I put this without being indelicate?—financially secure. Suffice it to say, I now move in the finest circles in New Orleans. No door is closed to me, Elizabeth.”

Liz didn’t have the faintest idea what Calvin was getting at. Before she could question him, he blithely supplied the answer.

“I could take you away from all this…now, if you want.” A frown of concern marred his fair complexion. “All you have to do is say the word. Garrett has a volatile temper. It cannot be easy living under the same roof with him.” He cast her a hard look.

Calvin had hit a vital spot. No, Garrett wouldn’t be easy to live with…not on an extended basis. Not because of his legendary temper, but because he aroused in her something she would rather not face just now. A darker, more remote side of herself that she had never known existed.

Avoiding his eyes, Liz glanced toward the Rowland family vault. She had been incarcerated inside the tomb for nearly an hour, and yet she had remained firmly entrenched in the past. Still, she felt convinced the tomb was her only key to returning to the future.

If she left the plantation with Calvin, she had no doubt but that there would be extreme repercussions —she might jeopardize her chance to return to her own time. Therefore, she had to remain with Garrett, even though history had taught her that Calvin was an honorable man and that she could feel secure in his company.

“My needs are adequately provided for,” she said finally, although she knew there was nothing she needed more than a good friend right now.

“Your needs? What of my— Oh, never mind!”

Calvin’s angry vehemence, like a gray cloud passing over the face of a golden sun, surprised Liz. She glanced up into his guarded eyes.

He shuffled his feet beneath the bench, studying her with a quiet regard that might have left a weakerwilled woman shattered and clinging. Finally, he said in a softly coaxing voice, “Do you not think you are carrying this obsession a bit too far? I can do more for you and the child than Garrett can. Besides, the man can be explosive. You have seen that for yourself.

“I’m safe as long as I carry Michael’s child,” Liz said, though the words sounded ludicrous to her. She was safe only as long as she could keep up the pretense, and she knew it.

The upward slant of his fair brows gave Calvin a sensitive appearance. That, in conjunction with the defeated look in his eyes, told her she’d wounded him with her rejection.

“Come with me, Elizabeth,” he pleaded, arms stretched forward, palms up.

Liz was touched by Calvin’s gift and by the fact that he cared enough about her—about Elizabeth—to try to take her away from Garrett and the danger he represented. But as tempting as his offer sounded, she couldn’t leave the tomb and the doorway back to the future.

Liz bowed her head. “I can’t.”

“Cannot—or will not?” he asked grimly.

Liz bowed her head, wondering why Calvin was pressing the issue. In his time, divorce was a horrible burden for a woman to bear. Why wouldn’t he be concerned with his cousin being branded with the shame?

Because he intends to shelter Elizabeth, she told herself.

The problem was, she wasn’t his cousin. She could put her trust in him, but she couldn’t do as he suggested, because it wasn’t in her best interests.

“Both,” she answered honestly.

He dropped his hands to his sides.

“I came here in the hope of talking some sense into you. I can see now the futility of my visit. You are not ready to relinquish your hold on the Rowland family,” he said with elaborate casualness.

“I guess not.”

He folded his hands across his chest. “You are determined to see this thing through?”

“To the best of my ability,” Liz said softly, though she realized they weren’t talking about the same thing. Calvin was talking about marriage and babies; she was talking about finding a way back to her own century.

Calvin gazed out over the garden, saying in a distant voice, “Strange how quickly the weeds take over an untended garden, strangling the more tender plants.”

Liz followed his lead, glancing out across the chaotic garden.

“It doesn’t take long without a gardener’s care,” she said.

“Exactly,” he said.

Calvin turned toward Liz again and caught her hand. Flashing her a shy smile that said he forgave her for turning down his offer, he raised her fingers to his mouth and gallantly brushed his lips lightly across the back of her hand.

“So be it, then. I shall give you some time to think over my proposition.”

“I won’t change my mind,” Liz warned him

“Perhaps not. We will meet again soon, regardless,” he promised, reluctantly releasing her hand. “And, by the by, wish that husband of yours all the best for me.”

Liz arched a brow at Calvin.

“I mean it,” he said.

“I doubt that. You don’t give a fat ra—uh, a fat fig—about Garrett Rowland.”

He actually chuckled. “You know me too well,” he said, adding more gravely, “Take care, sweetheart.

And with that, Calvin tipped his hat and carefully descended the steps of the gazebo, favoring his right leg.

Left alone, Liz pondered her conversation with Calvin. At best, the encounter had been unsettling, leaving her drained and uncertain. At worst, she’d practically alienated the only friend Elizabeth seemed to have in this world.

Liz remained in the gazebo, watching Calvin limp toward the forest without benefit of his cane. She watched as he melted into Louisiana’s dense summer foliage, until the sun was a mere memory of itself and the mists rising from the Mississippi River curled inland toward the garden. Until she could no longer put off the inevitable.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Have mercy on my soul!” an astonished voice exclaimed from the doorway. “Whatever are you about, ma’am?”

Life-giving oxygen assailed Liz’s senses. She swayed forward, peering through the haze as it writhed, fighting against the hallway’s ventilating effect. A wide-eyed, horse-faced middle-aged woman in black teetered as if frozen on the threshold of the bedroom. She wore a darned apron and carried a weighty breakfast tray.

Liz dashed toward her, nearly upsetting the tray as she snatched up the veilleuse-théière, removing the teapot from its night-light warming base and dumped its contents into the wastepaper can. The fire sizzled out, and the aroma of scorched chocolate replaced that of burning skin.

That accomplished, Liz turned on her rescuer. “I presume you’re the housekeeper.” Her voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched, and her throat was parched and scratchy from the smoke.

“Y-yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Crawford stammered, an incredulous expression punctuating her reply.

“Do you have a key to the door?”

“No, ma’am,” the housekeeper said. Thawing, she advanced cautiously into the room.

“But it was locked from the outside. How did you get in?”

“It wasn’t locked.”

“Yes, it was.”

“I had no trouble opening it, ma’am.”

“Are you sure?” Liz asked.

“No…I mean, yes, ma’am.”

Liz fired another question. “Has the door ever stuck before? I mean, so that you couldn’t open it from the inside?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Did you see anyone in the hallway when you came up the stairs?” Liz asked. She moved to replace the porcelain teapot on its base upon the tray and to select a glass of milk instead. She downed the soothing liquid in one clean gulp.

No, ma’am. No one.”

“Positive?” Liz asked. Licking the milk from her upper lip, she set the empty glass aside, moving to examine the door.

“Positive, ma’am,” the housekeeper responded.

Determined to discover what was going on, Liz jiggled the doorknob, opened and closed the door several times, and tested the mortise and retractable metal tenon that had earlier held the door in a fixed position. The door worked perfectly.

A deep frown furrowed Liz’s normally smooth brow. Liz shivered involuntarily.

“What about Mr. Rowland?” she asked as her heart finally decelerated to its normal rhythm. Garrett was moody. She’d learned that from her tour-guide training. She’d also learned from the history books of his known deviousness.

Mrs. Crawford balanced the tray on one hand while she suppressed a cough with the other. “I believe he’s left for the day.”

“But we planned to ride together this morning,” Liz said, telling herself she couldn’t trust him. That she dare not let her guard drop where he was concerned.

“I wouldn’t know about that, ma’am,” the housekeeper said, placing the tray on the dining table.

Mrs. Crawford was watching her closely—too closely. Had she been hired solely to keep house? Or was she Garrett’s spy…a keeper for Elizabeth? She had to be, Liz decided. Otherwise, Garrett would never have felt comfortable leaving the plantation for the day.

Liz contemplated Mrs. Crawford as she crossed the room, pulled a nail from the sash, twisted the latch and easily lifted the window. She used her apron to fan fresh air into the room.

Like a disembodied spirit weary of resisting an overzealous exorcist, the smoke glided outside to disperse in the atmosphere of the open yard.

Bidding it a silent and heartfelt farewell, Liz fought to regain her equilibrium. That accomplished, she redirected her attention to Mrs. Crawford.

Hoping she didn’t appear to be in need of chronic supervision, Liz finally asked, “Did Mr. Rowland tell you where he was going?”

Mrs. Crawford appeared momentarily confused. “Mister Rowland isn’t in the habit of confiding in me, ma’am, though I have a message for you,” she replied.

Another faux pas—probably only the first of many

In nineteenth-century America, a servant wouldn’t be taken into the master’s confidence, especially a female servant, Liz told herself. Where was her brain? She’d best find it, and start using it, if she planned to survive out of her own element

Liz drew herself up to her full height. “Well, stop dilly-dallying and let’s have the message,” she said. She incorporated her most imperious tone as she attempted to cover her mistake by acting and speaking as she thought Elizabeth might.

The housekeeper stopped fanning to reach into her ample apron pocket, extract a sealed envelope and extend it to Liz.

Liz gingerly accepted the envelope, which was marked Elizabeth. She peeled the seal open with her fingers and slipped out a sheet of black-bordered stationery. It was the first time in her life she’d opened someone else’s mail.

Liz felt almost criminal as she took a deep breath, unfolded the note, and silently read, “Meet me in the gazebo an hour before sunset.” The words were penned in slanting letters that slashed the page like knife strokes. It made Liz think of the ivory-handled blade sheathed and resting upon Garrett’s muscular thigh. Did she dare meet him in the rose garden? Did she dare not?

If only Garrett had not been a prime suspect in Elizabeth’s murder. If only she could be sure of his intentions. If only they’d met under more promising circumstances, in another time and another place.

Her time. Her place.

If only there weren’t all these unanswered questions hanging over her head like so many guillotines.

Liz glanced again at the bold handwriting, so like the man himself. How arrogant of him, not to even bother to sign the note.

“Did Mr. Rowland tell you how long he’d be away?” she asked, wishing to reaffirm the strange summons she’d read.

Rubbing her nose with her index finger, Mrs. Crawford said, “As I recall, he mentioned something about nightfall, ma’am.”

Liz refolded the note, replaced it in the envelope and tossed it on the writing desk. She’d have ample time to stroll down to inspect the tomb and see what she could dig up in the way of a ticket home—before the extraordinarily charismatic and potentially dangerous Garrett Rowland returned to dissuade her.

“Have you known Mr. Rowland long?” Liz asked speculatively, intent on gleaning as much information as she could while she had the chance, just in case she needed it at some later date. Not the biographical stuff, but the deep-down nitty-gritty that only those closest to him could accurately recount.

Liz felt she knew the basics—at least, what the historians believed to be the truth—but something told her she didn’t know the whole truth. Not yet, anyway.

There was a lot of information on Elizabeth’s cousin Calvin. He’d become prosperous after the Civil War. A pillar of society. A man to look up to. He’d cared deeply for his cousin, keeping her welfare at heart to the bitter end. He’d been the one to accuse Garrett of duplicity in Elizabeth’s disappearance, and he’d been responsible for bringing him before the court of inquiry, only to be stunned by his acquittal. Later, he’d sponsored a school for well-bred ladies in memory of Elizabeth,

There were documented details available on Michael and Elizabeth, as well. A portfolio of love letters. A personal Bible.

But there was next to nothing on the mysterious Garrett Rowland beyond the legendary hearsay. He was a gambler who survived by his wits. A maverick. A loner. A man who lived by his own rules and sense of morality. Proud. Resentful. Perhaps murderous.

“I haven’t known Mr. Garrett long, ma’am.”

Liz glanced up, looking directly into the woman’s dark eyes. “But you are familiar with the family?”

The housekeeper shot her an oblique smile. “I should think so.”

Liz watched as she strolled to the rosewood wardrobe and selected an ankle-length brocade dressing gown, much like Garrett’s shorter smoking jacket.

“Perhaps you’d like to put this on, ma’am, so you can enjoy your breakfast while it’s still hot.”

Liz shrugged into the dressing gown without comment. The material felt heavy and unfamiliar, yet oddly comforting. Almost as comforting as Garrett’s large hand encompassing her frailer one. Or the warmth of his body when he’d held her in his powerful arms, forcefully ministering to her river-chilled body….

Liz shook herself. It would be sheer insanity to trust Garrett Rowland. She must remember that, if nothing else.

“Tell me, do you live here on the premises or in a…a village, or something like that?” Liz asked as she tied the drawstring tightly about her waist, giving the knot a final pat, as if it were somehow a talisman against her wayward thoughts.

Mrs. Crawford looked puzzled. “I have a cottage a mile or so down the road. Don’t you remember?”

“I’d…forgotten. I’m afraid I seem to have trouble remembering things lately,” Liz said, falling back on the same line she’d sold Garrett.

“Not so peculiar. I should think extended illness would have a tendency to cause such things,” the housekeeper said.

Her tone was far too patronizing for Liz. She didn’t need mothering; she needed information concerning Garrett. She also needed to gauge where Mrs. Crawford’s loyalties rested.

Liz said, “I’m better now.”

“Of course you are. I can see that with my own two eyes. You have a decided blush to your cheeks that was missing yesterday.”

Liz couldn’t decide whether the woman was being kind or condescending, so she let it slide.

“So…exactly how long have you been with the Rowland family?”

“Well now, let me see.” Mrs. Crawford puckered her lips as she slowly recounted the years on her fingers. “Going on thirteen summers I suppose. Old Mr. Rowland hired my late husband as an overseer. When he passed away, I stayed on as housekeeper. Times were hard, what with the end of the War and all.”

Liz’s heart sank as she recalled that at age sixteen Garrett had run away from home to join the Union army—before Mrs. Crawford’s time, it seemed.

Warming to her subject, Mrs. Crawford continued. “When Old Mr. Rowland and his wife died in a carriage accident, it was…uh…the eldest in the household, home from the War, that kept me on as housekeeper.”

Noting the housekeeper’s reluctance to mention the name of Elizabeth’s dead husband, Liz prompted her. “And later?”

Mrs. Crawford’s expression clearly indicated she’d rather not continue the discussion, though she finally responded cordially enough. “Why, I’ve the same arrangement with Mr. Garrett as I did before— cottage and board.”

So, in a backhanded sort of way, Garrett had inherited the housekeeper, along with Elizabeth, Michael’s unborn child, and a failing plantation he would probably just as soon have seen go down the tubes. For a man who’d spent his adult life footloose, fancy free, and avidly skirting responsibility, he was now in it up to his disarming blue eyes in responsibility, Liz surmised.

Liz had not failed to notice that while they’d been talking, the housekeeper had worked her way back across the bedroom toward the wastepaper can. Now she peered inside. Shaking her head and clucking her tongue, she retrieved a piece of tightly balled vellum from beneath the writing desk.

“What’s this, ma’am?” she asked as she unwadded the sheet. “Why, it’s a page from your lovely leather-bound journal. So that’s what you’ve been burning. Now, why ever would you want to do that? I thought you treasured that book. Such an expensive wedding gift, too, with paper so dear.”

Sensing a juicy tidbit of information, Liz perked up perceptively. “From Garrett?” she asked, more sharply than she’d intended.

The housekeeper swallowed, the color in her own cheeks high.

“From Mr. Garrett?” Liz reiterated, forcing her to answer though she realized the older woman would rather avoid the question altogether.

“Why, no, ma’am. The journal was a specially commissioned gift to you from, uh…from Mr. Michael,” she explained finally. She pronounced the name softly, almost carefully, as if she expected Liz to dissolve into a fit of uncontrollable weeping.

Liz resisted the impulse to assure her that mention of the name did nothing more than arouse her curiosity. And to explain that someone else had burned the journal. Perhaps to frighten her, perhaps to destroy documented information—she wasn’t sure which one. But now that she was calm, she realized the fire had been superficial. The burning book cover had created the smoke, and as soon as it disintegrated into ashes along, with the journal’s vellum pages, the danger would have died away to less than nothing.

Which meant the fire had been intended as a psychological rather than a physical threat.

“I… There were personal things in it I didn’t want anyone to see,” Liz said hurriedly. She snatched the vellum from Mrs. Crawford’s fingers, in hopes of discovering a clue to the diabolical reasoning behind the incident. But the page was blank.

The housekeeper looked so astonished, Liz felt compelled to apologize for her rash behavior. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me. I’m afraid I haven’t been myself lately.” It was the understatement of the century, present or future, Liz thought.

The expression on Mrs. Crawford’s face cleared somewhat.

“I quite understand. No need to apologize, ma’am. I’ve been widowed myself—twice, in fact. Then again, you’ve got something I never had to wear upon your mind and make the situation all the more difficult.”

“What’s that?”

“Why, a babe on the way, of course.”

“Oh, that.” So, her suppositions had been correct. Garrett had wasted no time in apprising the housekeeper of the precarious state of Elizabeth’s health, as well as the pregnancy.

“Which reminds me. Mr. Garrett asked Dr. Breninger to stop by later this afternoon.”

Dr. Breninger! The same Dr. Breninger Garrett had threatened to contact before she fell in the river? And she’d imagined things couldn’t get any worse! The last thing she needed right now was an obstetrical examination. If word got back to Garrett that she wasn’t pregnant…

She’d just have to think of an excuse to avoid Dr. Breninger. But how? It would look suspicious if she locked herself in her bedroom. Garrett would ask questions. She’d have to explain her actions, and she couldn’t. Not now, possibly never!

Liz closed her eyes in an attempt to collect her thoughts, to plan her next several steps. When she reopened them, the housekeeper was lifting the lid of the trunk at the foot of the bed. “Which gown would you like for me to put out for you?”

A vision of Garrett, crushing the blue pegnoir in his strong hand, popped into her head. Liz had had enough of people choosing her clothes for her.

“You needn’t bother. I’ll pick out the one I want to wear.”

Mrs. Crawford’s eyes clouded, and for a moment Liz thought she was actually going to protest. Then she relented.

“Yes, ma’am. I suppose…if you insist.”

“I do.”

Still, she hesitated. Liz belatedly realized that Garrett had probably leaned on the housekeeper to help with Elizabeth, and that the housekeeper might be genuinely concerned for her.

“Really, it’s all right.” I’m all right!

“Very well.”

Mrs. Crawford crossed the room, hesitating once again at the door. “Please, if you don’t mind, no more fires today, ma’am.”

Liz almost smiled. “No more fires.” If I have anything to say about it, that is.

“I’ll show the doctor up when he arrives.”

“No,” Liz said quickly. She had no intention of allowing the doctor’s visit to become even remotely intimate. “I’ll come downstairs.”

Mrs. Crawford raised a brow at her. “The house wants cleaning, ma’am. It’s been shut up for a while now. I’ve only just finished this bedroom and the library. As for the parlor—”

le now. I’ve only just finished this bedroom and the library. As for the parlor—” Liz cut her short. “The library will do nicely, Mrs. Crawford.” Once inside the library, perhaps she’d feel as if she were on an even footing again. After all, she was a librarian.

“But, ma’am, I…” Mrs. Crawford paused.

“Speak up. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Uh, yes, ma’am. It’s just that you’ve never greeted visitors in the library.”

Before Liz could bite her tongue, she asked, “Why not?”

As if she couldn’t believe her ears, as if Elizabeth had never asked her anything of particular importance before now, Mrs. Crawford croaked, “You’re asking me for my opinion, ma’am?”

Liz nodded.

The housekeeper looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, I suppose it’s because you always considered the library a man’s domain, too masculine for the likes of a fashionable young lady…reeking of cigar smoke and brandy and fish stories, as you called them. Why, Mr. Garrett spends hours in there, poring over the ledgers. He meets his business associates there. He sometimes even takes his meals there. But you never—”

“The library will do nicely,” Liz said, interrupting her.

The Rowland family library was the perfect spot to learn more about the darkly handsome man she’d supposedly married. And she could hardly wait to get a good look at the daguerreotype on the mantel. It had always fascinated her, and she’d never really had a chance to study it in depth, because the room was always roped off at the door with red-and-gold cording.

That should adequately occupy my thoughts until I can slip down the oak alley to the tomb and…

“I’m afraid Mr. Rowland might disapprove if we use the library,” the housekeeper said, breaking into Liz’s partially formulated thoughts.

It suddenly occurred to Liz that Mrs. Crawford’s loyalties resided in her own sense of security, that she was a woman accustomed to straddling both sides of the fence on an issue, and that she’d do what she must to maintain her position at Rowland Plantation. In this particular situation, however, Liz had the upper hand, and she knew it. And she wasn’t above using it as a means to reach her own ends, either.

Liz decided to bluff her way through Mrs. Crawford’s obvious misgivings. Calling on her natural sense of authority, she firmly reminded, “But Mr. Rowland isn’t home, and I am.”

It’s the moment of truth. Show your true colors by making a choice. Stand firm or back off

“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Crawford responded tightly.

Liz relaxed, allowing a sigh of relief to escape her lips. It felt absolutely wonderful to win this clash of wills and regain some semblance of control over her life; she’d just have to worry about Garrett’s displeasure later.

“See you shortly, then,” Liz said in parting, hoping to hurry Mrs. Crawford along. She had much to do, and little enough time before sunset to accomplish it.

The housekeeper exited the bedroom, muttering to herself about the taxing whims of high-strung, pregnant, newly remarried widows, and the questionable absences of their husbands.

Driven by the prospect of shortly returning to her own time, Liz enthusiastically turned toward Elizabeth’s trunk, gazing down at the neatly arranged, tenderly preserved tissue-papered contents.

It was like peering into the heart of an open wound.

Revolted, yet intrigued, Liz stepped forward and knelt somewhat reluctantly before what amounted to part and parcel of another woman’s personal life.

Elizabeth’s trunk contained treasures the new curator of the homesite’s historical museum might willingly give his right arm to obtain intact, Liz decided. Things lost to age and time and the general insensitivity of modern man.

She took her time sorting through the trunk. After all, if she was to impersonate Elizabeth for even an afternoon, it couldn’t hurt to know something about her, Liz rationalized, subduing a nagging sense of guilt.

The crisp rose-colored tissue paper protested with a whisper of a sigh as Liz lifted out a trio of gowns and placed them on the foot of the bed. The first was an expensive number fashioned from ebony silk, the second an umber gabardine traveling dress studded with frilly bows and boasting a matching spencer, and the third an indigo cotton day dress cut in crisp lines and edged with smart black braid.

Funny, Liz thought. She’d expected a woman of Elizabeth’s status to own more than three gowns. Perhaps there were others in the wardrobe, as Garrett had suggested. But she didn’t have time to look now. The number of gowns Elizabeth owned was really irrelevant.

Liz dug deeper in the trunk.

Arranged beneath a layer of undergarments and pliant leather-soled slippers, she discovered a book by the Reverend W. K. Tweedie entitled Home, A Book for the Family Circle, complete with its own tasseled bookmark. Beside that rested a stereoscope and a stack of three-dimensional photo cards.

A reticule of crushed red velvet held an amazing array of memorabilia—from a broken string of amber beads and a shell cameo to an empty ebonized pillbox and a miniature china mule purchased at the world’s fair. Liz also uncovered an inlaid leather workbag complete with a wooden darning egg, rapierpointed scissors, needles and thread and a mother-of-pearl thimble secreted inside an acorn case.

And then there were the really personal items. Soulful things that silently recounted the installments of Elizabeth’s life. The kind of stuff that made Liz’s heart twist slightly and her breath catch in her throat.

Like a wax doll with a stuffed calico body and shiny glass eyes.

A creased advertisement from a Saratoga resort, and a jar of sand from some unknown shore.

A headache bag filled with dried mint, vanilla and spices.

A Confederate medal for bravery, pinned to a woman’s lace handkerchief.

A heavy album bound with metal clasps containing pressed rose petals faded with age to the rusty red of dried blood, a collection of dance cards, two of which had been ripped in half, several valentines, and a handwritten marriage proposal tattooed with tears.

And, doubly poignant, an incomplete layette for a child who had never been given the opportunity to draw its first breath. A baby entirely overlooked by history, for Liz had read nothing in the tour guide’s manual about Elizabeth’s pregnancy.

All represented pitiful reminders of Elizabeth’s life with Michael, yet nothing tender was included to acknowledge her marriage to Garrett. What had she thought when she discovered she was pregnant with Michael’s child…perhaps on the eve of his funeral? Had she panicked at the thought of raising the child alone? Had she been forced into marriage with Garrett during a period when she was vulnerable and overly susceptible to the powers of persuasion?

Liz could almost feel Elizabeth’s suffering. Her despair and confusion.

It drew her.

Gnawed at her.

Beseeched her.

And it also scared the hell out of her, because the more deeply she became enmeshed in the past, the more convinced she became that some tragic fate had befallen Elizabeth!

Suddenly uneasy, Liz hastily repacked the trunk with everything except the indigo day dress, a clean shift and slippers, gently easing the lid shut, as if in doing so she might somehow close off her own thoughts.

Poor Elizabeth, Liz mused, despite herself. How ghastly it must have been for her. Her life had been nipped in the bud, along with that of her unborn child. She’d been cheated, and she deserved to have her mysterious disappearance and death resolved. She deserved…

Liz tried to blank out the thought that seemed to bombard her from every angle, tried to defy the sympathetic stirrings of her heart.

Someone needs to investigate. But that someone isn’t me!

Liz dropped her robe and peignoir to the floor and shrugged into the cool shift and the businesslike indigo gown. She had to be objective. Methodical. Practical-minded. Pragmatic!

“I deserve to go home, before I get hurt for being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Liz muttered aloud. If she stayed too long, she’d have to start wearing some sort of padding beneath her clothes to simulate an advancing pregnancy. And at the end of nine months…well, Garrett would be genuinely surprised when she delivered a bouncing baby pillow.

She imagined his knife would come in pretty darn handy then. She could almost feel the cold blade against her throat right now.

Of course, at the appropriate time of the month, she could fake a miscarriage. Then again, Garrett would probably accuse her of neglecting herself at the expense of the baby. Besides, she despised lying. It made her feel cheap.

Of course, at the appropriate time of the month, she could fake a miscarriage. Then again, Garrett would probably accuse her of neglecting herself at the expense of the baby. Besides, she despised lying. It made her feel cheap.

“It’s really not ethical to get involved here, anyway. When I get home, I’ll do some in-depth research at the library, comb the homesite for clues. Uncover the ways the legends were right, and the ways in which they’re wrong,” she told herself as a form of self-pacification

The bottom line was that she feared knowingly tampering with the past. She might be able to uncover the hidden truths, to bring someone to justice, if she played the sleuth long enough, but at what cost? If she changed the past, might it not also reflect on the future, and where would that leave her? Would it close her avenue of escape? Could she become entrapped in Garrett’s world forever?

Get your priorities straight! she cautioned herself. But even as she fought it, Liz felt her resistance weakening, sensed herself being sucked, atom by atom, into a past thick with shadows.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Update pleaseeeee!!!!

Finally!!!  Please update again soon.

i need more please ????????????????????????????????

CHAPTER THREE

Liz’s eyes fluttered open to discover the hand holding hers was attached to a body stretched out beside her. A man’s body, freshly shaved and smelling tantalizingly of soap mixed with bay rum, fully clothed and taking up a considerable portion of the unfamiliar bed. With his piercing sky blue eyes closed, Garrett Rowland didn’t appear as sinister as history had painted him. Then again, murderers never did, Liz ruminated.

Moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, she decided to bluff her way through the inevitable confrontation with an attempt at humor. “You sure know how to keep a girl in line. That’s a great left hook you’ve got there. I feel as if I’ve been worked over with a set of brass knuckles.”

Garrett slowly opened his eyes to the sound of her voice. His blank expression was speedily replaced by a faint, sleepy smile that relieved the normal severity of his tanned countenance.

“What would a lady know of brass knuckles?”

“A lady would know they would hurt if she got hit with them. And I hurt,” Liz said, eyes shining fervently, unable to believe she was still tangled in the past.

“I don’t doubt that,” Garrett drawled. As if he couldn’t help himself, he reached over to lightly smooth an unruly curl away from her forehead. The action was unconsciously seductive.

CHAPTER THREE

Liz’s eyes fluttered open to discover the hand holding hers was attached to a body stretched out beside her. A man’s body, freshly shaved and smelling tantalizingly of soap mixed with bay rum, fully clothed and taking up a considerable portion of the unfamiliar bed. With his piercing sky blue eyes closed, Garrett Rowland didn’t appear as sinister as history had painted him. Then again, murderers never did, Liz ruminated.

Moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, she decided to bluff her way through the inevitable confrontation with an attempt at humor. “You sure know how to keep a girl in line. That’s a great left hook you’ve got there. I feel as if I’ve been worked over with a set of brass knuckles.”

Garrett slowly opened his eyes to the sound of her voice. His blank expression was speedily replaced by a faint, sleepy smile that relieved the normal severity of his tanned countenance.

“What would a lady know of brass knuckles?”

“A lady would know they would hurt if she got hit with them. And I hurt,” Liz said, eyes shining fervently, unable to believe she was still tangled in the past.

“I don’t doubt that,” Garrett drawled. As if he couldn’t help himself, he reached over to lightly smooth an unruly curl away from her forehead. The action was unconsciously seductive.

He seemed entirely ignorant of the influence his nearness exerted on her—the rush of pleasure she experienced at his touch, the illicit thrill of dabbling with something potentially dangerous, like lighting firecrackers on New Year’s Eve, even though they were outlawed. Then again, perhaps he was as much a master at hiding his emotions as he was his questionable past.

His voice dropped low and husky as he commented, “Do my eyes deceive me, or has your hair dried fairer than I remember it?”

Body stiffening, Liz primed herself to pull away, though, oddly enough, it was the last thing she felt inclined to do. “It must have been the river water.”

“Wouldn’t that make it darker?”

Fear of him suddenly resurfaced, and she said hastily, “Don’t change the subject. Did you, or did you not, hit me?”

Garrett withdrew abruptly. “No matter what sordid tales Michael might have related to you before he died, I did not hit you. There are more subtle ways to control a disobedient wife. You whacked your skull against the writing desk when you swooned. I had no idea that marrying you necessitated the added cost of installing a fainting couch in the house.”

“I fainted? Impossible,” Liz said, with all the vigor her languid mind could muster. “I’ve never fainted in my life.”

“You did this time. The bruise proves it,” he assured her.

Stretched flat on her back, Liz tipped her pounding head slightly to gaze squarely into Garrett’s eyes. Her own eyes narrowed in concentration. “Do you have this effect on all the women?” she questioned, drawing his face into sharp focus, thinking what beautiful eyes he had—for a lunatic.

Garrett met her gaze eye to eye. “Only the ones I’ve made love with.”

Mesmerized, Liz’s breath caught in her throat. She hated being vulnerable, and at the moment she felt more so than at any other time in her life. She might just as well be honest with herself, she decided. To her dismay, an undeniable chemistry existed between them. Regardless of the fact that history had branded Garrett a murderer. Despite the fact that he repelled and fascinated her at the same time.

“I think this is where I came in. Or, should I say, went out.” Liz bunched the ivory silk bed covers up to her chin as best she could with Garrett reclining on top of them.

“I admit the consummation of our marriage wasn’t the most fulfilling encounter either of us has ever experienced, but we agreed it was necessary so that the marriage couldn’t be annulled on a technicality.

“What do you mean?” Liz squeaked, desperately attempting to assimilate his words into her mind.

The present situation was inconceivable. Not only did he think she was married to him and carrying his brother’s child. Garrett Rowland actually believed they’d been intimate. More astonishing and disconcerting still was the fact that fate expected a contemporary woman to step into Elizabeth Rowland’s shoes without batting an eyelash.

The whole thing was just too bizarre…totally absurd…and well beyond her acting capabilities. And it wasn’t as if she believed in the supernatural possibility of time travel, even though some people professed everyone had a double somewhere, and she might be Elizabeth’s.

Garret brushed back the mosquito bar veiling the bed, breaking into her chaotic thoughts and tugging her back from her silent reverie. He stretched, rising with an easy athletic grace Liz found amazing, considering his reputation as a man who played cards all night and slept all day.

Day!

It suddenly dawned on Liz that milky morning sunlight was filtering in through the lace curtains. Just outside the lead-paned window, in the crown of an old poplar tree, a flock of ravens vocalized, while inside the bayberry candle guttered into a waxy puddle of its own design.

Where had the night gone?

“Oh, good grief! It’s Monday morning! I’m late for work!” Liz exclaimed, jumping up, only to dive beneath the covers again when she recalled the sheerness of her blue gown.

Trapped in time and more than a hundred years away from her job, concentrating on the mundane made her feel less displaced and helped keep her mind off more important matters. Consciously combatting the creeps, she worried about how her co-workers would proceed at the library without her. It was far easier than thinking about the day in store for her here in the past.

A glint of something dubious lurking in the depths of his eyes, Garrett all too soon pulled her abruptly back to his reality.

“The house can wait. You’ve got all the time in the world to put it in order. You’ve had a rather difficult time of it up until now, and you need all the rest you can get.”

“What I need are some clothes!” she countered. She felt at a definite disadvantage—a woman was always better able to cope when fully dressed!

Liz experienced a moment of panic, the same sort of helpless sensation she felt when the alarm clock failed to go off and she overslept, when she knew there was nothing she could do to prevent herself being late for work.

“I’ve got things to do that can’t wait,” she insisted. Like jog on down to the tomb and hitch a ride back to my own time.

“If it will pacify you, I suppose there’s no harm in helping the housekeeper start the cleaning this morning. I’m sure Mrs. Crawford would appreciate the assistance, and it might help your state of mind to stay busy.”

“Exactly. Now, how about my clothes?”

Garrett cocked an eyebrow at Liz. “Some of your dresses are in the wardrobe. The others are folded in the trunk at the foot of the bed. You haven’t unpacked them yet.”

Liz glanced at the iron-banded leather trunk. “How silly of me to forget. It’s been the, um…move back from, uh…Baton Rouge, I guess.” And what a move! Whoosh! All the way from the twentieth century on the tail of a mystical lightning bolt!

“I realize it’s been difficult, leaving behind your personal maid.” He squared his shoulders. “The fact is, I simply couldn’t afford her.”

Calvin had implied Elizabeth possessed a substantial dowry. Liz could only surmise Garrett was too proud to take more than he needed for the bare necessities.

Calvin had implied Elizabeth possessed a substantial dowry. Liz could only surmise Garrett was too proud to take more than he needed for the bare necessities.

“Believe it or not, I can dress myself.”

A smoldering glow danced in Garrett’s brooding eyes. “Do tell,” he commented appreciatively.

Glancing down at her gown, then over at her undergarments, which were drying by the open window, Liz groaned silently.

She had a million important questions, but could think of only one at the moment. “Did you put the nightgown on me?” she asked, her voice soft and resonant.

“It seemed a good idea at the time. I didn’t feel like battling a case of the ague, to top everything else you’ve put me through.”

Noting the cleanliness of her bare arms, Liz slanted a glance at the commode and washbasin. “I suppose you engineered the sponge bath too,” she commented, goose bumps rising on her flesh at the idea of his hands smoothing a washcloth over her body. Hands that could be gentle enough to bathe a woman without waking her and yet, according to historical records, murder without remorse.

“I closed my eyes,” he responded in a deep voice.

Liz stated in a breathless voice, “Then you, Garrett Rowland, must be inhuman.”

“I’ve been called that before, along with unmerciful brute, devil, beast, wretch…you name it.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll pass. I’ve heard it isn’t nice to bite the hand that feeds you.”

Garrett forgot himself so much as to laugh out loud, fine lines crinkling at the corner of his eyes.

“Strangely enough, I find you more of a challenge this way. Besides which, it’s a definite improvement over the weeping creature I wed,” he said, moving toward the bedroom door.

Left tongue-tied by his abrupt admission, Liz could only stare after him.

“Speaking of nourishment, I’ll have Mrs. Crawford bring up breakfast in a little while. Eggs? A beefsteak? Milk toast? A beignet? Coffee? Chocolate? Which do you prefer?” he asked over his shoulder.

Liz hesitated.

Turning to face her, he scowled. “Come now, I swear, no matter what your cousin has been telling you, I won’t lace your meal with arsenic. As for the laudanum, the doctor prescribed it. If you feel well enough to leave it off, I won’t force it on you this morning.”

“Have you been forcing it on me?” Liz felt compelled to ask.

He glared at her. “I said I’d leave it off this morning.”

“I’m not sure I should trust you.”

“I’m not sure you should, either, but you have no recourse,” he said tightly.

True. With Calvin gone, she had no one to turn to, Liz reasoned, feeling suddenly ravenous. She hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before—tofu stir-fry and a garden salad washed down with a bottle of carrot juice purchased from a health-food store located off the interstate near the homesite exit. And in her present situation, it was mandatory she keep up her strength. One never knew what fate might throw at one next.

“I think I’ll have a little of each, if you don’t mind. I feel like a big breakfast,” Liz said.

Garrett turned, a quizzical expression crossing his face as he backed the remainder of the distance to the door. “You haven’t eaten that much food in weeks.”

“I guess I’m finally on the road to recovery,” Liz countered, feeling self-conscious, for herself and, oddly enough, for Elizabeth Trexler, who had married Garrett as a convenience and wound up with far more than she bargained for.

He paused, his fingers resting negligently on the silver doorknob. Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Perhaps later this afternoon you’d like to take a ride over the estates with me. The tenant farmers I’ve employed should be moving into the cabins near the south field. I’m sure their wives would appreciate a visit from you. You might even find a suitable girl to come around once a week and assist with the heavier household chores, since Mrs. Crawford is likely to be the only full-time retainer within the house for quite some time.”

Liz had an overwhelming desire to explain that he was mistaken about her. That she shouldn’t be hiring new employees in place of his wife, reasonably priced or otherwise. That she was a time traveler, drafted at random as a stand-in for the genuine article.

But she didn’t have any proof. Her gown, with its precise sewing-machine stitches and its perfect buttonholes, her petticoats, with their modern zippers, even her tennis shoes and footie socks, had been lost to the river. Rather than look crazier than she already felt, she’d simply have to play along with fate’s practical joke while accumulating as much knowledge as possible, in the hope that it would assist her in returning to her own time before she created irrevocable damage in this one. Or vice versa.

“An outing might be…nice.” Maybe some fresh country air will help to clear the cobwebs out of my head, Liz thought.

He paused. “I never thought to ask you before now. You do know how to ride, don’t you?”

Her grandmother had been a firm believer that lessons made the child—all kinds of lessons. So Liz had been given art lessons for a time. Horseback-riding lessons, until she’d fallen off a frisky gelding as they sailed over a jump, breaking her collarbone in the process. Viola and piano instructions throughout private school and well into college. She’d even dabbled in the world of dance, though fencing would have been her preference, given the choice, Liz thought. Her grandmother had preached the necessity of lessons until the day she passed away in her sleep; Liz had been a grown woman, well endowed with lessons by that time.

“I do. Hunt-seat,” Liz said. Thank goodness for Grandmother Hayden.

Garrett seemed gratified by her affirmative response. “I have an appointment in the library with the estate ledgers this morning, but I should be finished going over them in time to meet you at the stables by nine. Can I assume that you will behave while I wind up my financial business? That you won’t be tempted to try another stunt like that dip in the river?”

“That was an accident.”

“Regardless, I’d like your word that you’ll behave.” His eyes questioned her integrity.

Liz frowned. Unaccustomed to being the object of someone’s distrust, she said, “To the best of my ability.”

“That sounds dubious,” Garrett said.

Liz shrugged. What more could she say? That even though she resembled his Elizabeth, the clockworks inside were entirely different. That she was not now, and had never been, suicidal. Nor did she plan to allow outside circumstances to drive her to such an extreme.

“I can see by the petulant set of your chin, you don’t intend to be pressed. I suppose that’s a good sign.” He hesitated. “I must warn you not to underestimate me, Elizabeth. I’ll brook no more nonsense from you.” His hand rested on the hilt of the knife at his waist.

Liz fidgeted under his easy surveillance. She’d come to terms with the fact that she’d somehow managed to travel backward in time. She had not come to terms with her association with Garrett Rowland, however, or to the unpredictability of his mood swings.

“I’ve been a burden to you since the wedding, haven’t I?” Liz asked, wishing the moment the words were out she hadn’t spoken so boldly

“It’s no secret I’d rather have been shot than marry.”

“You blame…” Liz stopped, swallowed, then began again. “You blame me for this, don’t you?”

Undoubtedly Garrett had decided he’d had enough, for he did not deign to answer her question. Instead, he said, “By the way, I’ve never seen a birthmark shaped like a pear before.”

Liz turned twelve shades of pink, but not from embarrassment at Garrett’s having viewed the strawberry birthmark on her hip. She blushed because in her heart of hearts, as depraved as it might seem, she wished she’d been awake to enjoy his ungentlemanly ministrations. Despite everything, she was physically drawn to him, and she was woman enough to admit it to herself.

“I thought you said you didn’t look.”

“I lied,” he confessed. He twisted the doorknob, opening the door and crossing the threshold.

“Garrett?” Liz asked swiftly just before he closed the door behind him, scrambling from the bed to stand in the center of the room, wrapped in the silken bed cover as if it were the finest of imperial cloaks.

He stuck his head back inside. “Yes?”

“I know this is going to sound absurd. But you see, I’ve been in and out of it so much lately, what with the funeral…and the, ah, the wedding, and the drugs and all, that the days have sort of blurred together and become sketchy.”

Garrett raked his fingers through his sable hair. “What are you asking of me?”

Chin up, careful to maintain an even voice, Liz finished the improvisation. “That you fill me in.” Perhaps if he did, she could get an approximate fix on the date.

Garrett inclined his head, indicating that she should go on.

Compelled to find out a little bit about the woman she’d somehow replaced, Liz willed herself to continue. “Exactly how long have we been married?”

Solemn-faced, Garrett said, “Three weeks yesterday.”

“What about the customary year of mourning?”

Garrett’s mouth compressed into a thin line. “Let’s just say I can be most persuasive when I want to be. Acquiring the special license was mere child’s play.”

“Do I have a ring?” she asked, attempting to keep the lines of tension from her face.

Liz could have sworn he flinched before saying, “You refused to wear any other than the gold band Michael gave you—an heirloom from our mother.” His words held a faint note of mockery—whether for himself or for her, she wasn’t sure.

Liz stared down at her left hand. Her fingers were bare.

“It seems I’ve…um…lost it,” she said in a small voice.

Garrett glanced at her hand, the scar on his face coloring. “So you have. How extremely charming,” he noted, mood swinging in an abrupt about-face, sarcasm dripping from his tongue.

“Perhaps it’s down at the tomb, or even somewhere in this bedroom,” she said quickly, fishing for an explanation for having lost a ring she’d never seen, much less possessed.

“Perhaps it’s down at the tomb, or even somewhere in this bedroom,” she said quickly, fishing for an explanation for having lost a ring she’d never seen, much less possessed.

“I’ll look for it,” she offered lamely.

“See that you do. It’s been in our family for generations.”

Without further ado, he closed the bedroom door between them. She stared at the smooth surface of the cypress door for several long moments, holding her breath, waiting for a key to scrape in the lock. She relaxed when, instead of a key, she heard Garrett’s footsteps receding down the stairs.

He’d taken her at her word, after all. But she had no way of knowing how long it would last. If he ever found out she was an impostor…

Liz contemplated the leather trunk, temporarily rejecting the notion of dressing. Fighting a sudden weariness that was almost as draining as the river’s current had been, she crossed the length of the bedroom. Crawling back into the rosewood bed, she curled into the fetal position in the center of the feather mattress, arranging the bed cover over her head. With a deep, heartfelt sigh, she wondered aloud beneath the muffling material, “Why me? How am I supposed to deal with this?” And then, more softly still, “If I’m here, where the heck is Elizabeth right now?”

Could her appearance have displaced Elizabeth Rowland? Liz wondered. Might they have switched places? While she was worrying about climbing aboard a horse and meeting Garrett’s tenant farmers, might Elizabeth simultaneously be concerned over driving a car through morning traffic to a job at the public library?

And, though her mind shied away from it, Liz finally admitted there remained an even worse scenario to contemplate—that she’d somehow popped into the nineteenth century at the moment of Elizabeth’s murder. Which left things wide open to all sorts of ghastly supposition.

It was not the smoke, but rather the scent of Cherokee roses, that awakened Liz from a deep sleep. Opening her eyes, she swam to the surface of consciousness, only to realize that a stifling haze hovered about her. For a split second, she sensed a malevolent presence in the bedroom. And then she heard a whisper of movement, the creaking of a floorboard, and the telltale click of hardware as the door opened and closed.

Her breathing labored, she sniffed the air. Something about it reminded her of the sickening smell of burning skin.

Something’s on fire!

Liz automatically glanced toward the fireplace. Nothing more than dead gray ash remained of the merrily burning logs. Heart palpitating, Liz untangled her legs from the covers, springing from the bed. She scanned the room, searching for the source of the fire. Orange flames licked at the crushed sheets of vellum brimming the brass wastepaper can.

Spying the commode, Liz stumbled toward the washbasin, only to find it empty of water.

Throwing her hand over her mouth, she pivoted toward the can. If she could pick it up, she might be able to toss it into the fireplace before the circular rag rug, and possibly even the flooring beneath it, caught on fire.

Sprinting to the bed, she yanked the pillow case from the feather pillow, fashioning a sort of pot holder for her hand. Advancing on the wastepaper can, she bent from the waist, feeling the flames singeing her hand through the material. She quickly recoiled, backing up until the bed frame stopped her retreat.

She was panicking now, her thoughts veering toward escape. Tossing aside the pillowcase, she dashed to the door, frantically twisting the knob.

Locked from the outside.

Liz jiggled the silver knob, simultaneously using her weight in an attempt to somehow wrench the door from its frame. The hardware held firm.

“Someone! Anyone! Help! Let me out!” she screamed, hammering on the wooden panel.

She pressed her ear to the door. Silence reigned in the hallway.

Spinning, she darted to the window. She could see Garrett below in the yard, strolling toward a huge black horse. She beat at the sash in an attempt to raise the double-hung window. As if sealed from the outside, as well, it refused to budge.

He’d said he wouldn’t lock the door. He’d told her she could ride with him. Had he lied on both counts, simply to gain her confidence, to lure her into a false sense of security? To what end? Or had he perhaps seen the real Elizabeth, thus discovering he’d been duped?

Liz’s mind raced like a cornered doe, even as her eyes darted toward the wastepaper can.

What about a more simple explanation?

Garrett had probably realized from the way she’d been acting and the things she’d said that she feared fire. Could this be one of the macabre jokes Garrett was famous for? A means of control over her? Or perhaps he was angry with her. Might he have entertained second thoughts concerning their outing since he learned about the missing wedding ring?

Or maybe he was simply fed up with the notion of marriage in general, felt suffocated and confused and panicked—as she did now.

Liz clawed at the wooden muntins, rattling the panes, attempting to attract Garrett’s attention. She could have sworn he glanced up, yet he mounted the horse and trotted out of the yard anyway. Too late, she thought of throwing the shaving mug through the glass.

Coughing and clutching her throat, Liz wheeled away from the window.

Trapped just as her poor, dear parents had been! she thought as tears rolled down her cheeks and the noxious smoke thickened, overpowering the scent of roses.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I really love this story! It has the right amount of comedy, angst and just plain deep feels to keep me wanting to read more!!!

Constructive critism below:

"She had already admitted her crush on him and she had even come to accept the fact that it will all be for not (naught) in the long run; "

" while Sesshoumaru rose (raised) an eyebrow" you would use "rose" like this as it is past tense (Sesshoumaru's eyebrow rose in inquiry.)

"Alexis was the first to advert (avert) her gaze and gave Kagome a wide smile,"

I am sure you may already have a beta reader, but I would love to help you out if you would like. I don't want to make a nuisance of myself by correcting everything... :-D I do hope that you continue to write and look forward to seeing more.

Really hoping that you finish the story! 

More?

HI, I just read your first chp on this story.. something caught my eye that I thought I would point out.

“Since this class focuses on Cultural differences we will be getting to know each and every student personally throughout the semester and my one hope is that you all can learn to be culturally inept"...

I think the word you meant to use was "Adept" which is very skilled; proficient.

I hope that you can use this as constructive and I will continue to read.  I am intrigued to see what happens next. :-)

This is a really great FanFic!! I really love the steady pace that you are using to help develop the characters and the plot of the story. I hope you update soon. I'll try to check up on this story as often as I can to see how it progresses. Overall, it's a really compelling read and I really love it.  

<3 Thanks for sharing your talents :) 

Ooooooo yes Sesshomaru take charge , don't hold back lol

I loved it XD Please continue!!!

I like how you use the lyrics in your chapters so smoothly. Know what else is smooth... The dance theyr bout to have, maybe it will turn into something more (just like their relationshi). I can't wait to see what happens next :) yes there are still those waiting!

Awe

Im so glad nothimg bad happen to kagomr and that she ran into sessh while there. Im glad you updated and look foresrd to the next one

 Thanks for the update! I hope you don't abandon this story! :)

Finally an update, yay.  This was a great chapter, I wonder where Inuyasha is, maybe trying to pull a prank on Kagome.  Anyway please update again soon.