She stood gripping the handle as if only it kept her firmly anchored to the earth. He stood on the hearthas if turned to stone.
“Are you Miss Borland?” he asked at last.
“Yes.” She drew breath. “You are the Earl of Everett?”
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Daphne,” she said. “And yours?”
“Andrew.”
“I can prove your innocence,” she said with a sudden rush of eagerness. “I found the jewels yesterday morning. They were hidden where Sebastian said theywere. They were in a secret compartment beside thefireplace in his room. Margaret thought of that roomwhile I was still sharing her thoughts, so I knew whereto look yesterday morning. It took me a whole hourof poking and prodding. I thought I would never findthem. It was not that I wanted the jewels. I wantedto prove your innocence. And the reality of what hadhappened. I found them. A whole fortune in gems. Ihave them in my room. Now everyone can be toldthat you were innocent.”
“That Justin was,” he said.
“Yes.” Her burst of eagerness faded and she leaned her head back against the door.
“You look so much the same,” he said. “And you sound the same.”
“And you.”
He took a step toward her and stopped. He heldout one hand toward her. She looked at it and hesitated. He was a stranger. She had never met him before. She looked up into his face—his familiar and beloved face. He was Justin. She loved him.
“Oh,” she said, and she abandoned the sanctuary of the door and hurtled across the room. His otherarm was out, too, before she reached him. Both closedabout her as her arms circled his neck and her faceburied itself against the elaborately tied folds of hisneckcloth.
“God!” He held her so tightly she could scarcely breathe. “You even feel the same.”
She tipped her head back and stared up at him in wonder. Up into his blue, dearly familiar eyes. Hewas the same man. There was no difference at allexcept for the length of his hair and the style of hisclothes.
Even his kiss was the same. His mouth was open when it met hers so that she was enveloped in moistheat. His tongue probed gently against her lips andaccepted the invitation of her opened mouth to pressinside. She felt the flaring of a familiar passion—anda familiar tenderness—and knew with the instinct oflove that it was something shared.
And then they were looking at each other again, each exploring the other’s face with wondering, hungry eyes.
“I have been consumed by grief,” he said. “It seemed foolish to blight my whole life with love for awoman who has been dead for a century, but I couldnot stop thinking of you and longing for you. I knewthat I must acquire Roscoe Castle at any cost. I hadto own it and keep it as a sort of shrine to you. Evenif it meant marrying the new owner—Miss Borland.”
“I had to keep it, too,” she said, “even at the expense of marrying a stranger. I have wished and wished for two days that I could have died with Margaret. Or that if I really was Margaret I could havestayed dead.”
His eyes smiled into hers. Justin’s eyes. “It happened to you only the night before last?” he asked.
“And three nights before that,” she said. “Nothing bad happened that first time except that I could notget back there for three more nights and thought Iwould never see you again. I felt stranded across anocean of time.”
“We just made love that first time?” His eyes were still smiling into hers. Daphne could feel herselfflushing.
“Yes.”
“It was wonderful, wasn’t it?” he said.
Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire. She nodded. “How did it all happen to you?” she asked.
“I considered buying Roscoe Castle because my father had always wanted it and your grandfather was always hinting about selling,” he said. “But there wasalways that enmity between our families. He was onlyteasing us, I believe. After the first time I called onhim, two months ago, he told me to look around tomy heart’s content. And so I wandered about thecourtyard and into the north tower and up the stairsand found myself in another world in the middle ofthe night although it was supposed to be afternoon.I found myself clothed differently. And then I heardor felt you come up the stairs and I hid behind thedoor. When I first saw you, looking like someoneout of another century, I wanted to ask you who youwere and what was happening. But I found myselfspeaking someone else’s thoughts and feeling someone else’s emotions. Although they felt like mythoughts and my emotions, too. And then we madelove. You were my wife, I discovered. And I lovedyou more than life.”
It had been Andrew and Daphne making love as well as Justin and Margaret, then? Or were Andrewand Justin one and the same person? Were she andMargaret one? “There was no stone wall at the bottom of the tower stairs?” she asked.
“Not on that occasion,” he said, “and I did not know there was supposed to be. Not until I went therethe next time and the next and found no way up. Thatwas when I asked my mother about Roscoe Castle.She revels in piecing together stories of the past. Ilearned that I had got somehow involved in eventsthat really had happened.”
“But you did go back again?” she said. “You know about our death—about Justin’s and Margaret’s.”
“I called after your grandfather died,” he said. “I went at the bidding of the executor of his will, Mr.Tweedsmuir, since it seemed that the will had something in it that concerned me. Of course I went to thetower before returning home—for weeks I had beensick with longing to find you again. And I found youand loved you. And lost you.”
