Of course, because I never left the house during these backward trips in time, I never encountered Richard de Mornay, although I did see him several times riding in the fields behind the house. I also knew that Mariana had, on at least one occasion, returned to Crofton Hall. I knew this because the book I was reading changed from Shakespeare to Fletcher, and because I held in my mind the memory of Richard's company on my last visit, when we'd walked to the center of the great maze, thick with the smell of rain-washed yew, then lost our bearings on the way out again so that we turned laughingly this way and that, seeking in vain the elusive opening.
He had kissed me then, too, as he had that day in the Great Hall, and the memory of that kiss brought a burning flush to my cheeks. I had run the whole way home in the rain, and Rachel had taken one look at my dripping gown and shining eyes and deduced instantly where I'd been. She smiled at me, a sad, forgiving little smile, and I knew she would not tell. 'One of us, at least, should have some happiness,' she had said.
But while Richard de Mornay had undoubtedly kissed Mariana Farr, and on more than one occasion, they were not yet lovers. I was so certain in my own mind that they were destined to become lovers, that I found myself increasing the frequency of my trips backward. What had started as a weekly ritual became a daily one, and by the last week of July I was spending two or three hours each morning lost in the seventeenth century.
I explained my morning seclusion to everyone by saying that I was working on my drawings, but nobody seemed to take much notice, anyway. Geoff rarely rose more than an hour before midday—his excuse being that he stayed up late at night reading—while Tom was kept unusually busy with his parish, and Iain applied himself so diligently to his farming that I hardly saw him. Vivien, too, had begun to disappear some mornings, although no one was entirely sure where she went. On occasion, her disappearances extended into the afternoons, and when Geoff and I stopped in at the Lion on the last Saturday of July, we found Ned tending bar by himself. 'No good asking me,' Ned told us, pulling our pints with a disgruntled air, 'I haven't a clue where she is. No one ever bothers to tell me anything.' He returned to his newspaper, and since there was plainly no more conversation to be had at the bar, Geoff and I retired to a table by the window.
Jerry Walsh did not share his son's taciturn nature. He hailed me cheerfully from the crowded corner table. 'Hullo, love! How's life been treating you?' he asked me, in a voice robust with drink.
I smiled back and assured him that life had been treating me fine.
'Hooked up with this troublemaker, have you?' He jerked a thumb at Geoff, and shook his head in mock sympathy. 'You want to watch out for him, darling, he's a real heartbreaker, he is.'
Geoff grinned. 'You mind your words, Jerry,' he warned the older man good-naturedly, 'or I'll tell the girl the stories I've heard about you.'
'Fair enough,' Jerry said. He winked broadly at me, and turned back to his rollicking table-mates, several of whom glanced with interest in our direction as they drank their pints, no doubt speculating on the potential of this latest piece of gossip. 'I saw young de Mornay with that artist girl in the pub today ...' would, I wagered, be the opening to many a teatime conversation that afternoon.
'So,' I said to Geoff, continuing the conversation we'd begun on our way to the pub, 'you'll be off to France again in September.'
'For six weeks.' He nodded. 'Some of that will be business, unfortunately, with our office in Paris, but then I'll be headed down to Antibes, and the boat. And my mother might be in Spain, in September, or so she says. I may nip down and visit her for a few days. I don't know.' He hadn't often mentioned his mother, in the months I'd known him.
'Does she have a house in Spain, then?' I probed, in my best casual tone.
'No.' Geoff shook his head. 'She lives in Italy, mostly, these days. But she mentioned something about Spain last time she rang—Pamplona, I think it was.'
'Where the bulls are?'
'Yes.' His mouth twisted wryly. 'Rather an ordeal, visiting my mother, most of the time. She's always trying to fix me up with her friends' daughters, trying to get me married off. I expect she means well, but it's bloody tiring.' He changed the subject. 'What would you like me to bring you back, for a present?'
'I don't need anything.'
'Rubbish. Now, what would you like?'
I thought about it. 'Well,' I told him, 'you might bring me back a couple of those huge coffee cups that they use over there. You know, the breakfast cups, that hold gallons of coffee. I've always wanted some of those.'
'Then,' Geoff promised grandly, 'you shall have some. How would an even dozen suit you?'
I laughed. 'Two would be plenty, thanks. Besides, they'd never let you back on the plane with a dozen of the things.'
'I don't fly commercial airlines, my dear,' he reminded me, his eyes forgiving my ignorance. 'I can carry whatever I like. Besides, you've got that huge dresser in your dining room, and no dishes to fill it with, so it's a dozen coffee cups whether you like it or not. Any other requests?'
I smiled wickedly at him. 'Somehow, I have a feeling this would be the perfect time to ask for that Louis Vuitton luggage I've always coveted, but I won't push my luck.'
'Whyever not?'
'I'm afraid God might strike me dead for being greedy,' I explained, and Geoff laughed.