Page 62 of No Place in Time

“Of course,” Cecily said.

She went to her chamber and closed the door behind her. Then she sat on the edge of her bed and pressed both hands over her mouth, because if she didn’t, she was going to laugh, or cry, or both, and she could not explain any of it to the household.

He had come back. He had come back, and he had been searching for her.

She stood and crossed to the small glass on the wall. She looked at herself—really looked. She had sensibly pinned back her hair, the way she wore it every day. Her dress was plain and practical. She looked like a housekeeper, not a lady of the house. Not the girl he had known. She wondered if he would still want what he saw.

She unpinned her hair and let it fall. Better. She turned her face one way, then the other. She wondered what he would think when he saw her. Whether he would know her at once, or whether she would have to remind him. Whether he would seem different. Whether she would seem different to him.

Whether he would still—

She stopped that thought before she could finish it.

But she allowed herself one moment. She remembered the scent of pine and woodsmoke on his clothes, the rough calluses of the hand that cupped her jaw. The brief, uncertain press of his lips before he pulled away, his eyes wide as if startled by his own courage.

She pressed her fingers to her lips and told herself firmly to stop being foolish.

Then she smiled into the glass anyway, because she couldn’t help it.

He was coming. He was out there somewhere, and he was coming for her.

She had to be ready.

34

CECILY

1299

The priest’s voice was kind. That was the worst part.

“I publish the banns of marriage between Sir Julian de Veyron and Lady Cecily de Malet, that if any of you know of any impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, you are to declare it.”

Cecily stood straight beside Isabel. She did not, could not, look at Julian. The priest’s voice rolled on, the same formula spoken at countless weddings, the same words that bound countless women to lives they did not choose.

The words lodged in her throat: I object.

But nobody cared what she thought, or what she wanted. Around her, heads nodded. Someone behind her murmured approval. Her uncle stood two paces to her right, his expression one of quiet satisfaction, as though a difficult problem had finally resolved itself.

She fixed her eyes on the altar and kept her hands folded and her breathing even, and told herself this was not happening, even as the priest’s voice made it more real with every word.

Outside the church, the sunlight felt jarringly bright. Cecily moved as if in a trance until Isabel took her arm.

“Don’t look so miserable,” Isabel said. “It’s only the banns, not the wedding.”

Cecily attempted a smile, but it fell flat.

“Come with me on my rounds,” she said gently. “You will need to know the tenants. It will soon be your responsibility.”

The words, kindly meant, landed like a sentence. Her responsibility. This life, this estate—a cage slamming shut around her.

“Alright,” Cecily said with no real enthusiasm. “I’ll come with you.”

∞∞∞

They rode in a small carriage under a bright sky. The fields on the Veyron estate showed dark soil where they’d been newly plowed. Tenant children ran ahead of the carriage’s horse and then scattered when it drew near.

Isabel spoke easily as they went. “Our tenants are good people,” she said. “I give sugar treats to the little ones. Julian can’t be bothered, of course. He’s always too busy with more important things, so he says, and he leaves it to me to see how the tenants are faring.”