Page 5 of The Tides of Time (Storm Tide #1)

D arkness enveloped Lili. And silence. Pain.

Memories flashed like lightning through her mind. Herself in Saint Catherine’s Church. Géraud’s angry eyes. Water. A blaze of green. Then nothing but black.

She was too warm to be in la Manche . Warm and dry.

With effort, Lili pulled her eyes open. She was lying on a bed in a small room. The smallest sliver of light peeked out from behind heavy curtains, slightly illuminating a small room. She was on a bed, under a quilt. An empty chair sat near the window. A heavy-laden bookcase was pressed against the opposite wall.

She knew this room, though her mind hadn’t recalled it immediately. A lighthouse. In England. With a kind, older lighthouse keeper. And a suspiciously barbed younger one.

Lili managed to sit upright, though her muscles and joints protested. Was she ill? Injured? She didn’t think so. It was more ache than true pain.

She slid off the bed. The bare floor chilled her feet as she crossed to the window and opened the curtains a little more. It was too light for morning. How long had she been asleep?

A thick stand of trees stood tall across a narrow lane below. Some of the treetops came even with her window, which was not on the ground floor. And she didn’t see any other homes or buildings tucked in among the trees or in either direction down the lane. Above, the sky was clear and bright.

Under other circumstances, the view would have been serene. But flashes of Géraud’s rain-drenched face twisted in anger refused to allow her heart any peace. Had he been swept overboard as well? She hadn’t seen him in the inky darkness of the raging sea. She couldn’t have. Not until she’d emerged in inexplicable daylight.

Daylight.

Her night on the sea had passed in the blink of an eye, the storm rushing away with it. Had being plunged into the frigid water impaired her mind’s ability to correctly perceive the passage of time, making hours seem like moments?

No. She couldn’t have remained afloat for hours. Yet it had been daytime when Armitage had pulled her from the water. The night had been gone. The storm had been gone. The ship had been gone.

Lili let the curtain drop back into place, dimming the room once more. The past months of countering the Tribunal révolutionnaire and defying the Comité de Salut public had rendered her far more at home in the protective embrace of shadows.

But Armitage of the Lighthouse needed to be kept in figurative light, where she could keep close watch. He’d grown angry and accusatory so quickly. Too quickly. And he’d pretended not to know about the Tribunal révolutionnaire. The upheaval in France and the bloodshed accompanying it was well known in England. She had too much correspondence with émigrés to have any doubt on that score.

He knew, but he’d pretended he didn’t. Why?

She needed a better understanding of the sort of man he was. Short of asking him, how was she to gather such information?

Her friends in France had depended on her to learn anything and everything she could before they’d joined in her rescue missions. They’d hidden people, arranged for passage, offered diversions. So many risks, but never without knowing what they were facing. Théodore Michaud, Sabine Germain, the Legrands, Pierre Tremblay, and so many others. They were the part of France she would miss most, yet they were also the reason she’d left.

Géraud had sorted out that she was the one slipping people out from under his nose. He would soon have sorted out who it was that had been helping her. Fleeing had not merely kept her safe; it had saved all of them. It might very well, however, have landed her in a different sort of danger.

She turned back to face the room. She reached behind her and pulled the curtain back just enough to make the space visible and traversable. This space was part of Armitage’s home. It ought to offer some insights.

She moved to the bookshelf, then knelt in front of it. Books came dear. For Armitage to have a collection of them meant he wasn’t likely living on the edge of poverty. And which books he had would offer some insights into the man who had gathered them.

Of course, these could belong to Armitage’s grandfather. Lili liked him far more than his prickly grandson.

She tipped her head to the side, allowing herself a better angle to study the spines. She could read and write English, though not nearly as well as French. It was an ability best kept secret in France at the moment.

From the shelf, she pulled a book. She opened it, flipping past the first leaf. A sketch adorned the two facing pages—one depicting what appeared to be a palace or castle in a forbidding landscape. The book’s title was emblazoned on the other page: Bleak House. She knew the word bleak . It was fitting for the inhospitable place shown on the opposite page.

“Charles Dickens” was identified as the author. She hadn’t heard of him. But then, she was not at all familiar with English writers. Though she was literate in both languages—French more than English—she didn’t read books. She hadn’t access to any, though she had seen a few, even looked inside several.

Beneath the title was a drawing of a boy and a dog and a man carrying something. There was an oddity to their appearance, though that was likely owing to the roughness of the drawing. Did most books contain bits of art such as this?

Her eyes slid to the bottom of the page. London: Bradbury and Evans, Bouverie Street. Likely the place where the book was created. 1853.

She blinked.

1853.

That was identified as the year of its creation, yet that couldn’t be correct. The years were numbered differently in France now, but she knew the year in England. 1793. She knew it.

How could this book have been created sixty years after the current year?

Her hands shook a little as she flipped through the pages. What she hoped to find there, she couldn’t say. A note indicating it was all a jest? A message of apology for the error?

What she found was more drawings, and those drawings only confused her further. Even the roughhewn nature of the sketches couldn’t hide that the women shown there were dressed far differently than she had ever seen. Their silhouettes and layers, even the hats upon their heads, would look shockingly odd in any and every corner of Paris.

Lili told herself it was merely that the English were an odd people, but she knew that was not the case. None of the people she had helped make their escape to this country had needed to change their style of clothing in order to fit in. English fashions echoed French ones; they had for centuries.

She set the book on the floor beside her and pulled another book from a shelf. Its publication date was written in Roman numerals, which she didn’t know how to decipher. But another book on the shelf proclaimed it had come to be in 1867. The next book said 1870. Then 1868. 1865. Another from 1870.

She searched book after book, and not a single one listed its publication date before 1853. More rough sketches showed people in bewildering clothing. Clothing from a future time.

“ Cela n’a aucun sens, n’est-ce pas? ”

Lili looked around the room in movements more frantic than she would have preferred. Staying calm was one of her strengths. It had kept her alive through the dangerous rescues of seventy-six people.

The books had to be lies. But what was the point of that? What could possibly be accomplished by creating books like this?

She needed to think more clearly. The new France had been built on a foundational embrace of logic and reason. She saw value in that approach. But there were things in life that defied logic.

Her parents’ tragic deaths.

Her brother’s decision to be an agent of death.

A room with falsified books filled with fraudulent publication dates and depictions of people who baffled her mind.

Now, with her suspicions heightened, she saw other indications in this small room that all was not as expected. She found no flint for lighting the fire. The furniture was strangely ornate for a home she suspected was not plush with money. There were no quills on the small writing desk, yet it did have what looked like an artist’s paintbrush with a pointed end, shaped very like the end of a quill. And it was stained with what appeared to be ink. She’d not seen anything like it.

And books with impossible dates.

Lili firmed her spine and her resolve. She was not easily felled.

There were two explanations for what she was seeing: either someone had gone to great lengths to deceive her, or she was no longer in 1793. Why someone would undertake the former, she couldn’t begin to guess. Yet the latter was impossible. Utterly and completely impossible.

What did she do now? The only sensible explanation was that someone was intentionally misleading her. Yet no one here knew her. She hadn’t told them her history or what she was running from. Lying to her in such a strange way wouldn’t accomplish anything.

But leaving behind one’s own time and arriving decades in the future simply didn’t happen. It didn’t.

She wouldn’t be sunk by the weight of unanswered questions. Even with the oddities here and there, nothing was so unfamiliar that she couldn’t find a means of navigating it.

Lili spotted her dress lying over the spindle-back chair in the corner. With hesitant, hopeful fingers, she tested the dryness. Not a bit of damp remained. Underneath it was her chemise, petticoat, and stays, all dry as well. She’d lost her pocket while she’d been battling the waves.

Stains marred the dress and underthings, but nothing was so tattered that it wasn’t usable. And the dress had been mended. There were even two patches. Armitage’s grandfather had seen to it that her only bit of clothing had been repaired. The unlooked-for and unexpected kindness had, no doubt, come from him. He’d shown himself to be thoughtful.

Lili donned her clothing, with her muscles and limbs protesting every movement. As she did, her thoughts returned again and again to the drawings in Bleak House. Why would the unnamed someone who had placed the apparently counterfeit books also take the time to imagine strange fashions and even depict them?

Was she meant to actually believe she had found herself sometime after 1870? What would happen if she refused to go along with the ruse? What if going along with it, essentially declaring that she believed herself to have been pulled through time, would be used as a reason to denounce her, to toss her back out into the water or into an asylum?

It seemed so far-fetched a thing, to convince someone of something mad and then punish them for that madness. But the past months in France had been filled with machinations she would not have believed previously. People invented stories of crimes in order to see others arrested. People falsely testified in order to see someone convicted. People informed on others using lies and half-truths in vain attempts to avoid their own executions. Just because she struggled to comprehend the lengths people would go to in the pursuit of vengeance or reprieve didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. France had taught her, in fact, that it could and too often did.

She would simply have to be careful, watch every word, calibrate her behavior and responses to what she saw from the people she interacted with. She had always been good at extemporizing when necessary. She would call on that skill again.

Her stockings were not included in the pile of newly dry clothes. They must not have been salvageable. And she didn’t see her boots either. The thick stockings she’d been given to use were there though. She pulled those on as well, grateful for the warmth they immediately brought.

A person could face a great deal if their feet were dry and warm. She could face even more if her stomach were not empty. Food was likely to be found in the same room where the grandfather had made tea. She hadn’t gone in there the day before, but she’d guess it was a kitchen.

How likely was she to cross paths with Armitage of the Lighthouse in her search for a bite to eat? She didn’t overly wish to be bombarded with animosity with so much spinning in her thoughts. But she hadn’t much of a choice.

Animosity. He had been very confrontational from almost the moment they’d reached the lighthouse. Could he be the one doing all of this? To what end?

Lili tiptoed from the room. Every squeak of the floor under her stockinged feet echoed off the walls, complicating her efforts to listen for him.

1870 . She shook her head in frustrated disbelief as that year tossed itself at her mind once more. That was impossible. Why, then, did she keep wondering about it?

No one came into view in the stairwell, the tiny entryway, or the parlor. She didn’t hear voices. The next doorway took her to a small kitchen, as she’d predicted.

An apple sat on the worktable. A bit of bread lay beside it. Lili’s stomach argued loudly in favor of taking advantage of the discovery, but she knew in her mind that she hadn’t the right to purloin food in someone else’s house. She was a traitor according to the Tribunal and a thief according to Géraud, but she wasn’t actually a criminal. And she wasn’t heartless, no matter that she often had to act as though she were.

She needed a plan for navigating what she couldn’t predict. She could insist the language was confusing her; that would allow her time to formulate responses as needed. Of course, Armitage and his grandfather already knew that her grasp of English allowed her to be conversant. But they spoke English oddly. She could lean on that if need be.

The clothing would be more difficult to explain.

Clanks and thunks sounded from beyond an open door on the far wall of the kitchen. Lili took the few steps required to reach it.

Armitage stood on a stepladder at the base of a small, high window. He was pounding at the windowsill. His cotton work shirt clung to him, heavy with sweat and smeared in places with grease and dirt. He was strong, muscled, powerful. And he already thought the worst of her. She was right to be wary.

His gaze darted to her for the length of a single breath. He didn’t look surprised to see her. But he did look a little less than pleased.

Are you displeased enough to be laying a trap?

“I do not wish to interrupt.” For just a moment, she wasn’t certain if she’d spoken in French or English. But that would actually be a helpful mistake, so she didn’t dwell on it overly much. “May I have a bit of bread?”

His frown wrinkled his forehead. His gaze didn’t leave her face, as if he were trying to sort something out by staring long enough.

His scrutiny was not at all welcome. “I haven’t any bread of my own,” she said, “else I’d not be asking for yours.”

“Yet your fill.”

“ Je suis désolée, monsieur. You have unfamiliar words.”

He hadn’t looked away, and his gaze hadn’t grown any less studying. Heaven help her if he saw more than she dared allow. “You’ve not spent a fit deal of time in this part of England, it seems.”

She thought she knew what he meant. “I have not been to England at all.”

Disbelief tightened his mouth. “But you speak English.”

Lili kept herself still, not letting him see that he was unknowingly helping her. “A little, but my English is not what I would like it to be, malheureusement. ”

“Your English is better than my French.” It was an unexpected moment of ... humility? Friendliness? She wasn’t certain of the right description.

And she didn’t at all know how to respond. Acknowledging the kind moment, even to emphasize her language difficulty and help her story moving forward, might invite more scrutiny than was wise. Ignoring it might simply antagonize him more.

He saved her the trouble. “Us has food enough.” He turned back to the window he was working on. “Eat what you’d like.”

His reluctantly extended generosity didn’t feel particularly heartfelt. “I will eat only what I need.”

He pounded once more at the base of the window, and it opened. “I’m not one for cheeseparing, Lili from France.”

“I would not object to a bit of cheese with the bread.”

Armitage lowered his hammer. “No, it means—” He shook his head. “I don’t know the word in French. Cheeseparing means ‘stingy.’”

She didn’t know that word either, so she shrugged a bit. Feigning a lack of understanding was proving frustratingly unnecessary.

He stepped down from the ladder, then walked past her, motioning for her to follow him back into the kitchen. She did so but at a safe distance. Kitchens held knives after all. And she didn’t yet know how untrustworthy Armitage might be.

Lili kept near the door, watching as he pulled a plate from a shelf.

“You’ll find us are painfully fancy here.” Armitage held the plate. Its edges were chipped, and the pattern was worn almost off. “The extravagance of the utensils’ll make you swoon.”

A touch of a smile emerged before she could tuck it away. She usually appreciated humor. But it shone a light on how unpredictable he was proving to be. That made her nervous.

Armitage set the plate on the table. “Might as well step inside. I don’t bite.” He took a knife from a drawer.

She kept where she was. “What do you do?”

“Man a lighthouse.” He cut a bit of cheese from a wheel and set it on the plate. “I read a main lot.” He then cut a generous slice of bread and set it on the plate as well. “I look after my grandfather, though him’d not appreciate me saying it that way.” Armitage placed an apple next to the knife. “Thissen don’t make a fine meal, but it’ll do you good.”

“ Je suis reconnaissante pour la nourriture. ”

His mouth twisted a bit. “I didn’t hear a ‘ ne ... pas’ in there, so I’ll assume you aren’t refusing the simple fare.”

She inched closer to the table but didn’t take her eyes off him. He wasn’t standing worryingly near the knife, nor did he glance at it. That seemed a good sign.

Still wary, she lowered herself into the chair. She took up the knife in her right hand and the apple in her left. Her mind and body felt heavy, slow. Her hands shook, a dangerous thing when attempting to use a knife. She was clearly more weakened by hunger than even she had realized. Being weak was a risk.

Armitage held a hand out. “You’ll cut off a finger trembling like you are.”

She pulled away from him, keeping tight hold on the knife.

His brow arched upward. “If you’d rather I didn’t cut the apple for you, I’ll not fight you on that.”

“I will keep le couteau. ”

“That’s ‘knife’?”

She didn’t nod; she suspected she didn’t need to.

He held his hands up, palms toward her. “I’m not in the habit of stabbing people in my galley, if that’s what is worrying you.”

“Where do you usually stab people?”

A laughing smile tugged momentarily at his lips. “I don’t.” He motioned with his head toward her plate. “Eat your fill, Lili from France.”

“Thank you,” she answered, “Armitage of the Lighthouse.”

He dipped his head. His dark hair flopped forward a bit, drawing her attention to it. She’d not paid much heed to the way he wore his hair, but she couldn’t help doing so now. It was not long and tied back with a queue but barely reached his ears and only just curled at the base of his neck in the back. And he had side whiskers growing out a bit onto his cheeks, something she’d not seen on the men of Paris. He’d even left some stubble on his jaw and chin and above his upper lip, as if he’d not taken time with his razor that morning. Was that a common thing for men of this time and place? Surely it wasn’t also part of an elaborate ... jest.

If she could get more information than she had, she would be more likely to navigate her situation successfully. Armitage hadn’t quitted the kitchen entirely yet.

“How long have you lived at this lighthouse?” she asked him.

“I was born here.”

“When was that?” She picked at the slice of bread on her plate, hoping to give the impression of mere causal interest.

Armitage remained a step away, watching her with a wary look that likely echoed the one she’d often worn since her arrival. “1848.”

1848. He claimed to have been born in 1848. That was more than fifty years in the future. By 1848, she would have been more than seventy years old. But he very much appeared to expect her to believe the year he had so easily and casually supplied.

“How old are you now?” She kept her tone from reflecting the suspicions she felt.

His narrowed gaze undercut her faith in her ability to act. “Twenty-five.”

He was, then, claiming that she currently found herself in 1873. Eighty years after she’d left Paris. Eighty years, though only a single day had passed.

He had to be lying. He had to be. But to what end? Was it indeed a trap to give him reason to be rid of her? Why not simply toss her out of his house? He had every right to do that without these machinations.

1873 . He’d not hesitated or needed to think about the year he’d asserted he was born, and his current age brought the year he claimed this to be within the right range for the counterfeit books she’d found.

She set the knife down on the table, worried at how much her hand was shaking.

This was a baffling ruse. It had to be, because the only other explanation was something impossible.