“So I’ll be careful—”
“There is no careful. You are a bull in the china shop of love. You’ll have no way of knowing what you’ve broken or how precious it may be. Any change you enact is not going to be obvious. There will be no great sign reading IF YOU VEER RIGHT, YOU SHALL BE A PRINCESSS, VERSUS IF YOU VEER LEFT, YOU’LL REMAIN A SCULLERY MAID FOREVER.”
“Come on, Roland, don’t you think I have slightly loftier goals than ending up a princess?” Luce said sharply.
“I could venture a guess that there is a curse you want to put an end to?”
Luce blinked at him, feeling stupid.
“Right, then, best of luck!” Roland laughed brightly. “But even if you succeed, you won’t know it, my dear. The very moment you change your past? That event will be as it has always been. And everything that comes after it will be as it has always been. Time tidies up after itself. And you’re part of it, so you will not know the difference.”
“I’d have to know,” she said, hoping that saying it aloud would make it true. “Surely I’d have some sense—”
Roland shook his head. “No. But most certainly, before you could do any good, you would distort the future by making the Daniel of this era fall in love with you instead of that pretentious twit Lucinda Biscoe.”
“I need to meet her. I need to see why they love each other—”
Roland shook his head again. “It would be even worse to get involved with your past self, Lucinda. Daniel at least knows the dangers and can mind himself so as not to drastically alter time. But Lucinda Biscoe? She doesn’t know anything.”
“None of us ever do,” Luce said around a sudden lump in her throat.
“This Lucinda, she doesn’t have a lot of time left. Let her spend it with Daniel. Let her be happy. If you overstep into her world and anything changes for her, it could change for you, too. And that could be most unfortunate.”
Roland sounded like a nicer, less sarcastic version of Bill. Luce didn’t want to hear any more about all the things she couldn’t do, shouldn’t do. If she could just talk to her past self—
“What if Lucinda could have more time?” she asked. “What if—”
“It’s impossible. If anything, you’ll just hasten her end. You’re not going to change anything by having a chat with Lucinda. You’re just going to make a mess of your past lives along with your current one.”
“My current life is not a mess. And I can fix things. I have to.”
“I suppose that remains to be seen. Lucinda Biscoe’s life is over, but your ending has yet to be written.” Roland dusted off his hands on his trouser legs. “Maybe there is some change you can work into your life, into the grand story of you and Daniel. But you will not do that here.”
As Luce felt her lips stiffen into a pout, Roland’s face softened.
“Look,” he said. “At least I’m glad you’re here.”
“You are?”
“No one else is going to tell you this, but we’re all rooting for you. I don’t know what brought you here or how the journey was even possible. But I have to think it’s a good sign.” He studied her until she felt ridiculous. “You’re coming into yourself, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Luce said. “I think so. I’m just trying to understand.”
“Good.”
Voices in the hallway made Roland suddenly pull away from Luce, toward the door. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, unbolting the door and quietly slipping out.
As soon as Roland was gone, the cupboard door swung open, banging the back of her leg. Bill popped out, gasping for air loudly as if he’d been holding his breath the whole time.
“I could wring your neck right now!” he said, his chest heaving.
“I don’t know why you’re all out of breath. It’s not like you even breathe.”
“It’s for effect! All the trouble I go through to camouflage you here and you go and out yourself to the first guy who walks through the door.”
Luce rolled her eyes. “Roland’s not going to make a big deal out of seeing me here. He’s cool.”
“Oh, he’s so cool,” Bill said. “He’s so smart. If he’s so great, why didn’t he tell you what I know about not keeping one’s distance from one’s past? About getting”—he paused dramatically, widening his stone eyes—“inside?”
Now she leaned down toward him. “What are you talking about?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and wagged his stone tongue. “I’m not telling.”
“Bill!” Luce pleaded.
“Not yet, anyway. First let’s see how you do tonight.”
Near dusk, Luce caught her first break in Helston. Right before supper, Miss McGovern announced to the entire kitchen that the front-of-house staff needed a few extra helping hands for the party. Luce and Henrietta, the two youngest scullery maids and the two most desperate to see the party up close, were the first to thrust up their hands to volunteer.
“Fine, fine.” Miss McGovern jotted down the names of both girls, her eyes lingering on Henrietta’s oily mop of hair. “On the condition that you bathe. Both of you. You stink of onions.”
“Yes, miss,” both girls chimed, though as soon as their boss had left the room, Henrietta turned to Luce. “Take a bath before this party? And risk getting me fingers all pruny? The miss is mad!”
Luce laughed but was secretly ecstatic as she filled the round tin tub behind the cellar. She could only carry enough boiling water to get the bath lukewarm, but still she luxuriated in the suds—and the idea that this night, finally, she would get to see Lucinda. Would she get to see Daniel, too? She donned a clean servant’s dress of Henrietta’s for the party. At eight o’clock that evening, the first guests began arriving through the wicket gate at the north entrance of the estate.
Watching from the window in the front hallway as the caravans of lamplit carriages pulled into the circular drive, Luce shivered. The foyer was warm with activity. Around her the other servants buzzed, but Luce stood still. She could feel it: a trembling in her chest that told her Daniel was nearby.
The house looked beautiful. Luce had been given one very brief tour by Miss McGovern the morning she started, but now, under the glow of so many chandeliers, she almost didn’t recognize the place. It was as if she’d stepped into a Merchant-Ivory film. Tall pots of violet lilies lined the entryway, and the velvet-upholstered furniture had been pushed back against the floral wallpapered walls to make room for the guests.
They came through the front door in twos and threes, guests as old as white-haired Mrs. Constance and as young as Luce herself. Bright-eyed, and wrapped in white summer cloaks, the women curtseyed to the men in smart suits and waistcoats. Black-coated waiters whisked through the large open foyer, offering twinkling crystal goblets of champagne.
Luce found Henrietta near the doors to the main ballroom, which looked like a flower bed in bloom: Extravagant, brightly colored gowns of every color, in organza, tulle, and silk, with grosgrain sashes, filled the room. The younger ladies carried bright nosegays of flowers, making the whole house smell like summer.
Henrietta’s task was to collect the ladies’ shawls and reticules as they entered. Luce had been told to distribute dance cards—small, expensive-looking booklets, with the Constances’ jeweled family crest sewn into the front cover and the orchestra’s set list written inside.
“Where are all the men?” Luce whispered to Henrietta.
Henrietta snorted. “That’s my girl! In the smoking room, of course.” She jerked her head left, where a hallway led into the shadows. “Where they’ll be smart to stay until the meal is served, if you ask me. Who wants to hear all that jabbering on about some war all the way in Crimea? Not these ladies. Not I. Not you, Myrtle.” Then Henrietta’s thin eyebrows lifted and she pointed toward the French windows. “Oof, I spoke too soon. Seems one of ’em has escaped.”