Page 67 of Her Scandalous Pursuit

There was her grandmother, who would at least believe her, but she would make far too much of it and interpret the thing in whatever way suited her. She would say it proved her theory that they were descended from Anne Ballew.

The thing was...what if her grandmother was right?

They had found nothing to prove that Anne Ballew was the dowager duchess’s ancestor, but neither had they found anything that proved she was not. Absence of proof wasn’t really proof. What if Anne Ballew’s line had gone down from mother to daughter for multiple generations, ending now with Thisbe and her sisters? The woman was speaking to her descendant, reminding Thisbe that she owed her very existence to her ancestor.

It made as much sense as anything else in this strange situation. Unfortunately, that was none at all. Dreaming about a woman who’d died centuries earlier went so far past the realm of reality that it teetered on the edge of madness. Yet here she was, a heretofore rational woman, attempting to reason out what the nightmare Anne Ballew wanted of her.

The woman had asked for help. “Help me, save me”—something like that. Or maybe it had been “save him.” Had she mentioned a child? Thisbe wished now that she had written down the exact words right after the event. It would make sense if, in the throes of her death, Anne’s last thought had been of her child. But what could Thisbe do about it? Anne and any child of hers had been in the ground three hundred years.

And now here she was, calling the nightmare figure “Anne,” as if she knew her. As if the figure were not a figment of Thisbe’s own imagination. As if one’s dying wish could travel down through the centuries into a dream.

She tried to put the problem of her dreams out of her mind, but she kept returning to it, like a tongue to a sore tooth. After a night spent tossing and turning—though, thankfully without dreams—Thisbe arose early and went up to her great-uncle’s room, carrying a breakfast tray for him.

Knocking softly, Thisbe opened the door a crack—it was always problematic whether Bellard would either hear a knock or answer it—and peeked in. Uncle Bellard was seated at one of the tables with a large book before him, and was scribbling away on a piece of paper.

He looked up and smiled. “Ah, Thisbe. Is it time for breakfast already?” He glanced toward the windows. “I should open the drapes.”

“I’ll do it.” Thisbe set the tray on the table and went over to draw the drapes on the row of windows along the far wall.

When she returned to her uncle, he had plowed through half his food. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“You missed dinner last night.” Thisbe sat down across from him and poured their tea.

“Really?” He tilted his head, considering the matter. “I believe I did. I’ve become quite caught up with this search for your ancestor. I followed some of the side paths that I didn’t yesterday—still no Ballew, but Cornelia was doubtless right in saying her family would have changed their name.”

“Do you really think we’re descended from Anne Ballew?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.” He beamed. “But it’s terrific fun tracking them down. Now, tell me what brought you here so early in the day.”

Thisbe took a fortifying sip of tea. “Uncle Bellard, you are the most intelligent person I know.”

“Why, thank you, dear.” He patted her hand. “But it’s rather hard to judge such things. Henry is very bright, and my sister as well, though Hermione has put her brain to no good use.”

“I wanted to ask your opinion about something. I’ve been having this dream. Well, dreams.” She told him about her dreams, the portrait of Anne Ballew and her wild suppositions about the connection. After finishing, she asked, “Do you think that any of that is possible? Or is it pure madness?”

“I don’t know, dear. I suppose it could be either.” Bellard seemed unalarmed by the possibility that she had lost her mind. “Let’s consider these dreams. First, you dreamed of being at the stake, then of being in the fire, and—”

“Well, actually, I had another strange dream before that,” Thisbe said. “It wasn’t about fire or Anne Ballew, but it was peculiar and vivid, like the others. It was very vague, but I felt as if something was hunting for me, trying to reach me, and then I—Something grabbed my leg, and I woke up.”

She refrained from mentioning the nail marks she had found on her leg afterward, just as she’d omitted the blisters and raw fingertips that had mirrored her other dreams. Those things were entirely too strange to tell anyone, even her open-minded uncle. He popped up from his chair to pull a book from the shelves.

“I see.” He contemplated what she had said. “So the first dream is of something searching for you and ultimately latching onto you. Then you experience the binding and the fire as if you are the one at the stake. And lastly you see Anne Ballew in the same situation.”

“So if our alchemist’s spirit, for want of a better term, had found a way to communicate with you, the first dream could be her search for you. And then she found you. And when you experienced the fire...”

“She was inside me?” Thisbe’s voice rose to a squeak. “Controlling me?”

“Not possessing you, no, but perhaps trying to, um, establish her actual identity.”

Thisbe stared. “Which she accomplished in the last dream, when I saw her at the execution.”

“Exactly.”

“But, Uncle Bellard, that’s—that’s preposterous.”

“Oh, yes.” He nodded cheerfully. “But it’s quite interesting to think about, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. But it doesn’t make it any less insane.”