Page 8 of The Tides of Time (Storm Tide #1)

T hat night, Lili dreamed of Paris, of angry mobs and flames leaping from the Bastille, of palpable fear in the streets, of the gruesome sound of the guillotine plying her deadly trade.

And she dreamed of Géraud standing on the deck of a ship, watching as she struggled against a brutal torrent of waves. She called out to him, but he didn’t answer. Then the ocean swallowed him up.

Her brother was so intertwined with the terror of Paris and the danger of her life the past months, yet she didn’t feel fear in her dream or as she relived that bit of her dream later, after she awoke the next day. She felt grief.

Lili forced it all from her mind as she walked with Armitage that afternoon. They were making their way along the narrow lane she’d spied from the bedroom window, winding their way toward the village. She’d had a realization as she’d dressed that morning. Whatever trick was being played on her at the lighthouse would fall to pieces in the village. There she would see the familiar things of 1793 again. She would be surrounded by proof that what she’d been presented among the Pierce men was false, and they would have to abandon the ruse. They might even be forced to admit the reason for it.

Unless the conspiracy was broader than that.

“How well do you know ... la couturière ?” Oh, what was the English word? “ Euh ... the woman who sews clothes.”

“Seamstress,” he provided.

Oui. That was it.

He dipped his head to someone as they reached the edge of the village.

“The seamstress who repaired ma robe , what is she like?”

A smile pulled at his lips. She pushed aside the thought that the change made him rather handsome. “Grandfather and I both know how to do basic mending. Lighthouses need to be self-sufficient.”

“You’re les couturiers ?”

“Isn’t that the word you just used for seamstress ?” His expression of disapproval was exaggerated. He was being surprisingly friendly.

“The masculin equivalent,” she said. “A seamst er .” She shrugged. “I do not know what the English word is.”

“A tailor .”

“I worked for un tailleur for a time,” she said. “He and his wife were very kind to me.” More than merely kind, they were chief among those who kept secrets for her and aided the escapes she had facilitated. And they had provided her with money enough to make her own escape from Paris. “Are you and your grandfather tailors as well as lighthouse keepers?”

“ Basic mending, Lili.” He looked like he might laugh, but he didn’t. “No one’d trust we to do naught but fix small rips or reattach buttons. My mum tried to teach me to do more than that, but I hadn’t her patience. I hadn’t my dad’s patience for it either, come to think of it.”

“Just as you hadn’t patience enough for Barry’s proper name?”

“Barry is the sort to complain about everything,” he said dryly. “Don’t pay he much heed.”

“You sometimes say he not him, or we not us . Sometimes, but not always.” She shook her head. “It is odd to my ears.”

Armitage shrugged. “The South Hampshire way of speaking, I suppose. You’ll discover a heap more oddities the longer you’re here.”

He said that as if she weren’t already surrounded by oddities.

They reached the edge of the village. People called out to him as they passed or from the windows of nearby buildings. Their curious gazes hovered on her almost without exception.

“Do you not mean to explain to them?” she whispered. “Tell the story we have concocted about our mothers?”

“Forcing the topic will draw more attention.”

She knew it best to follow his lead, but she didn’t feel truly at ease. Going along meant trusting him, and she didn’t know that she could. She’d spent too much of the last months mired in peril to take any threat lightly.

The street spilled into a village square. Armitage motioned her to a shop. The sign hanging above the door read Clothier. It was not a word with which she was familiar. But she recognized the word cloth hidden within. Tissu was the French word for “fabric,” but cloth was an English equivalent.

Inside the shop, though, she found not fabric but dresses. Dresses already made . Several were on display. Was this a dressmaker, then, and not a drapery? Even that, though, was odd. Perhaps in England, dressmakers displayed examples of their work in their shops rather than printed plates of current fashions.

The presence of so many “examples” was only momentarily distracting.

Lili stepped nearer to one of the dresses on display, doing her utmost not to stare. No fullness to the sides of the skirt but plenty in the back. There didn’t appear to be a stomacher. The dress was not laced anywhere. And the bodice was not flat in front, pressing the breasts upward, but followed a more natural curve, rounded and full. Even the stays underneath would have to be quite different from what she wore to create that silhouette.

All the dresses in the shop had the same basic shape. A few variations in adornment or slight changes in appearance differentiated them.

This was too much work and would have taken too much time to put in place for her entirely accidental arrival.

A woman, likely the shop proprietress, stepped out of a back room. She wore a dress very much like those on display, all curves and softness, with fullness at the back. Her coiffure was quite different from what Lili was used to seeing as well. Her dark hair streaked in one place with gray was parted down the middle, with ringlets hanging all about, ending at chin length.

“Good day, Mrs. Willis.” Armitage held his cap in his hand. On any other person, it might have been a subservient posture, yet he managed to still look entirely in command of the moment and situation. “Have you anything to hand in Lili’s size?” He nodded his head in Lili’s direction.

“A few things.” Mrs. Willis didn’t keep her curiosity at all hidden. “What is her taste in dresses?”

Armitage shrugged. “Seein’ as her traveling trunk were swept off the ship, I’d guess her’ll wear most anything you can offer simply to have a change of clothes.”

“Came on a ship?” Mrs. Willis’s eyes darted from Armitage to Lili and back several times.

“From France.” Armitage remained entirely calm. “My mum and hers were friends ages ago. Lili’s come for a visit.”

Mrs. Willis turned to Lili. A shy smile seemed the right response while waiting to see if the woman appeared to believe them.

“Was it a terrible journey?”

“ La journée ?” She assumed a confused expression. “The day, it was not terrible .” She, of course, knew the woman had asked about her travels and not about her day, but confusing words that sounded like different words in French would help make her disguise believable.

“Her English is in wavering kelter, I fear,” Armitage said. “The words get jumbled at times.”

“Do you remember much of your Mother’s French?” Mrs. Willis clearly doubted it.

“Not so much as I wish I did,” he answered. “Us is having to do a main lot of gesturing.”

“What does she need?” Mrs. Willis asked with a raised brow.

“A dress. And I think she needs a pair of stockings.”

“Anything else?” Mrs. Willis asked.

Something in Armitage’s expression turned a little embarrassed. “Probably, but I’m a touch brum at the moment.”

“Ah.” Mrs. Willis gave his hand a motherly pat. “And her doesn’t have any brass?”

“I’d thought it might’ve been lost with the traveling trunk, but I’m beginning to suspect her family’s in a bad way and her hasn’t any brass to speak of.”

Lili watched and listened and didn’t entirely understand what was being said. Fortunately, appearing confused about words was part of the role she was playing.

“Her’s a bit shim,” Mrs. Willis said. “But I’ve a dress I think shouldn’t hang off her too terrible.”

“Lili can sew some,” Armitage said. “Her worked for a tailor for a time.”

Mrs. Willis nodded. “I’ll fetch it for she.” She disappeared into a back room.

Lili seized the likely fleeting moment to ask a couple of questions in the quietest voice possible. “The dress, it is already made?”

Armitage nodded.

“This is a shop of already-made clothing?”

He nodded again. “The tailor shop you worked in didn’t offer ready-made clothing?”

She shook her head. That clearly struck him as odd.

The shopkeeper hadn’t returned, so Lili asked one more question. “What is brum ?”

“It means a person ain’t got money, leastwise not much.”

He had empty pockets and was buying her a dress? Her cooking meals didn’t put coins in his purse. But she did need a dress, and she also didn’t have any money. What was she supposed to do?

“ Tissu ... fabric might be less dear than a ready-made dress,” she said. “I can sew my own dress.”

He shook his head. “I saw you shivering while us was walking from the lighthouse. The sooner you’re dressed for the weather here, the less likely you’ll be to grow ill.”

It was logical—and helpful—but she still worried. “I don’t wish to be a burden.”

“Then, don’t grumble at me over this.”

She suspected he was more embarrassed by his lack of wealth than he was actually upset that she had objected to the purchase.

From the back room, Mrs. Willis called out, “This will need altering to fit, but I hope not too much.” She emerged in the next moment holding a dress in a light-brown fabric with darker brown trim. It had the potential to be very drab, yet there was something pleasing in the simplicity of it. “I’ll fetch another if I’ve miseyed.”

Lili didn’t have to try hard to look confused. They spoke so oddly.

“And thesen stockings.” Mrs. Willis held a folded set of thick stockings.

“ Merci .” Lili took the stockings and dress, holding both carefully.

Armitage turned to her. “Best don it for size, Lili.”

“Put it on?” she asked.

He nodded. “ Oui .”

She looked around the shop. “ Où ?”

“Where can she change?” Armitage asked Mrs. Willis.

Mr. Willis showed Lili to a small room in the back. Inside, Lili unlaced the bodice of her dress, allowing her to divest herself of it. She pulled on the brown one. It buttoned in the front, which was very helpful. It fit her, but the bodice lay oddly. Her underclothing was not made for the dress’s strange shape. The extra fullness at the back baffled her entirely.

Why would a charade be taken to such ridiculous lengths? Her mind was beginning to question if it was trickery after all, but she wasn’t ready to even begin to believe any of it could be real.

She pulled on the thick stockings, tying them in place, grateful for a pair that wasn’t absolutely enormous on her.

Lili folded her own dress neatly, then did the same with her borrowed stockings. Painfully aware that she would be scrutinized, she returned to the shop front, watching Armitage and Mrs. Willis for their reactions.

The shopkeeper narrowed her gaze but not in disapproval. It appeared she was ... bewildered. Did the new dress look horrible? Lili glanced down at herself. The dress was a bit large on her narrow frame, but she didn’t think it warranted the dissatisfaction on Mrs. Willis’s face. Armitage had offered only a nod of his head before stepping to the door, clearly ready to leave.

Mrs. Willis crossed to Lili. In a quiet voice, she asked, “Are you in need of a proper corset? The dress fits odd.”

Lili felt certain she ought to pretend she could not translate that. But revealing the stays she was wearing would either play into the hand of whoever was doing all this or would require her to answer questions she wasn’t allowing herself to ask. “ Je suis désolé, Madame. Je ne comprends pas .”

The woman’s shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. She looked at Armitage. “If her manages to tell you of anything else needed, drop by again.”

“Will,” he said with yet another nod.

“ Merci ,” Lili said to Mrs. Willis as she left the shop.

Out on the cobblestones once more, Lili let herself breathe a little more easily, though she did not let her guard down for even a moment. Pretending she understood and spoke far less English than she did had just proven ingenious. It had also stood as testament to the necessity of being very careful. Something as simple as a dress had nearly robbed her of every bit of self-possession she had.

“It’ll be cumbersome simply carrying your old dress and stockings all over the village.” As they walked, Armitage pulled his rucksack off his back. “You can put both inside my bag.” He held it open for her. “It’ll be a tight fit, but it’ll do.”

“ Merci. ” She set her armful inside the bag. “It fits well enough.”

His eyes narrowed on her, just as they had done so often in the first two days of their acquaintance. He slung his knapsack over his shoulder once more. “Why is your grasp of English suddenly so much better than it was in the dress shop?”

He was too clever for her peace of mind. Armitage Pierce would shoot through dishonesty with ease, yet she needed to tiptoe around some crucial truths. “In case she asked questions about ta mére that I did not know the answer to. We are to pretend that connection, oui ?”

There was a moment of hesitation. Only a moment. Then he nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that. A good notion.”

Lili was more than adept at preventing relief from showing in her expression.

He motioned her up the street. “The train station is t’other side of town.”

Train station. Neither of those words made sense in the context. She only knew station to mean a military post, but lightkeepers weren’t, to her knowledge, considered part of any military. And train was strange too. She didn’t think he meant it in the way it was used in the English phrase “train of thought.” And she suspected that if he’d meant “train ing station,” he would have said as much.

Again, her role as confused Frenchwoman was coming entirely naturally.

“Armitage.” A man who seemed about their age stopped him. “You don’t often come to this end of the village.”

“Because I know I’ll find you here.” Armitage’s grin and laughing tone told her that no matter what he’d said, this man was a friend.

The man’s smile widened immediately. “Though you’ll not admit it, you must be breakin’ your heart for not seeing me in so long.” His eyes darted to Lili. “Though seems you’ve a few things happening.”

“This is Lili,” Armitage said. “Our mums were friends, and her’s come to visit Grandfather and me.”

“It be’est a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lili.” The still-unnamed man doffed his hat in her direction.

She looked to Armitage with an expression of uncertainty.

“ Il s’appelle Peter Hopkins.” Armitage’s mouth twisted, and his brows pulled. She’d not seen him make that look of pondering before and found it unexpectedly endearing. A dangerous thing, feeling a pull to a man who eyed her with suspicion. “ C’est un ... friend.”

He was trying so hard to communicate in French and was even managing it a little. And she could allow the village to know she understood a little English. Lili supposed she could put him out of some of his misery. “ Bonjour, Monsieur Peter Hopkins.” She offered a curtsy. “ Je suis ... pleased to meet you. You and Armitage are ... friends?”

Mr. Hopkins nodded. “All our lives.”

She moved her lips silently, as if sorting through the declaration.

“Us has to meet the train,” Armitage said to Mr. Hopkins. “Try not to weep too much at being left behind.”

“More visitors?” Mr. Hopkins seemed both intrigued and surprised at the possibility.

“A lightkeeper-in-training. Him’ll be on Loftstone for three months, poor bloke.”

“Two newcomers so close together.” Mr. Hopkins’s eyes narrowed. “That never happens.”

“And likely won’t ever happen again.” Armitage shrugged. “Give my regards to your Jane.”

“I will.”

Armitage motioned Lili forward with a quick twitch of his head.

“ Au revoir , Monsieur Hopkins,” she said in parting.

They hurried on their way. Once out of earshot, Armitage said, “Between Peter and Mrs. Willis, all of Loftstone’ll know about you and the new keeper by nightfall.”

The new lightkeeper. And Mr. Hopkins had confirmed this new arrival was a stranger. He couldn’t, then, be part of whatever conspiracy might be placing unfamiliar obstacles in her path. In this new lightkeeper, she would have the proof she needed to put an end to this charade.

The shops grew a bit farther apart as they reached the other end of the village. Loftstone really was a very small place. A small harbor sat a bit apart from the row of shops and homes.

Armitage waved at someone else walking toward the village from the dock. “ Bonjour , Captain Travert.”

“ Bonjour , Armitage. Comment allez-vous aujourd’hui ?”

A Frenchman. Zut . Was he sympathetic to the Tribunal? Would he know who she was?

She braced herself.

But the captain simply dipped his head and continued onward toward the village.

“Capitaine Travert,” she said to Armitage, “he has his home here?”

Armitage shook his head. “Him docks his ship, Le Charon, at Loftstone now and then—has for years.”

If she were very fortunate, he would leave port before she had to sort out what to do about him.

They continued walking, approaching what appeared to be a small stone cottage with something resembling a terrace in front. A level area had been created with a floor of wood. An overhang stretched nearly the length and breadth of it. A couple of people stood under the outstretched roof, looking away from the village.

Lili followed Armitage onto the wooden floor. He kept his gaze off in the distance just as the others did. They were watching for something.

Lili took a step closer to the edge of the wooden terrace. On the ground just beyond were two strips of thick metal running parallel to each other, with wide planks of wood beneath, lying at regular intervals. The parallel metal strips extended away from the station as far as the eye could see and then continued on past the station before turning and curving away.

Another inexplicable occurrence. She was growing weary of being so constantly confused.

She looked away only to find Armitage watching her with what appeared to be concern.

“I do not know what those are,” she whispered, motioning subtly toward the metal strips and wood planks.

“Have you ever seen a train?” he asked.

How did she answer that? If this train were something common and familiar, then she needed to pretend she had. If it were possible a woman of this time could have never seen one, she could ask him questions about it.

Before she could decide on her best course of action, the ground beneath her feet began to shake.