The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📗

informed Bella that her head ached and asked her to please make her excuses. Then Julia kept to her room. It was a glorious evening, and if she were in the country she would have struck out on a walk, or saddled Marigold and gone for a good, long gallop through the golden light and unfurling shadows.

Instead she curled up in the armchair by her window, looking out into the branches of the plane trees. Birds were settling in for the evening. Julia realized that the trees were populated, just as a city is, by different characters. Pert sparrows, cocky magpies, elegant turtle doves. She watched them for a while as they flitted up and down, strutted along branches, argued over matters that were clearly of enormous importance but were comprehensible only, she supposed, to birds.

She snuggled down into her chair, tired, as if she had actually walked a long way. She’d had no idea that loving was so completely physical. Somehow she had imagined it being contained, confined to the nether regions, as writing is confined to the hand. She had thought that the rest of the body and perhaps even the mind simply went to sleep until the event was over. How wrong she had been. He had kissed the backs of her knees. She had explored him with hands and kisses. She had gripped his shoulders, his behind, his strong arms, and clung to him for dear life, crying his name as she shattered.

She closed her eyes. Her body was tired. But if there was a change, it felt more emotional than physical. She was calm, in soul as well as in body.

That calmness could not last. He’d said he loved her and she believed him. She had answered him with the truth. She loved him, too. They loved each other. But he was still keeping confidences from her, and she from him. Indeed, betwixt the two of them, they had licked the platter of secrets clean. He was a time traveler caught between an Ofan mistress and a Guild master. Both mistress and master were seeking the Talisman. As for Julia, his supposedly Natural love? Julia smiled to herself, too content to not see the humor in the situation—she was the Talisman they sought, and Nick didn’t know it.

Julia curled still more comfortably in her chair. It was a conundrum. One she couldn’t solve tonight. She felt herself drifting into sleep, the happy satisfaction of her body and soul winning over the confusion of her mind.

Some time later—the room was duskier—she opened her eyes from a dream. She and Nick had been in the tack room in the stables at Falcott House, and he was searching for a favorite currycomb. She asked him why he didn’t just leave brushing the horses to the groom, and he said that in his new life, he had become used to doing everything for himself. He was desperate as he searched, tossing the tackle here and there in his single-minded desire to find what he was looking for. Then, when he finally found the palm-sized tool, he turned triumphantly to show it to her. But it wasn’t a comb at all. It was a small hedgehog, curled up in his palm. She stepped forward to see the animal, and it uncurled to reveal its pointed little nose and beady eyes. It looked straight at her and said, in Grandfather’s voice: “Then you shall be orphaned after all.”

She stretched, remembering the dream. Grandfather was such a hedgehog. And Julia was an orphan. She had been since she was three months old. Her mother and father were dead. So why had Grandfather said “after all”? Julia mused on it, almost tumbling again into sleep . . . then suddenly she sat bolt upright. Grandfather had said exactly those words, just a few moments before he died. You shall be orphaned after all . . . you shall be orphaned after all . . . what if instead he had been saying that she would be Ofan after all? Grandfather could play with time. Had he known these people, these Ofans? Had Grandfather been Ofan himself?

Julia got to her feet and stared blindly out of her bedroom window. Pretend, Grandfather had said. Pretend, and trust the angels to watch over you. You shall be Ofan after all. Was it a message? Pretend to be something other than you are. Do not reveal that you are the Talisman. Find the Ofan and trust them to watch over you.

Miss Blomgren was Ofan.

The sky had darkened yet another few shades. The birds in the trees were quieter. All across the city, the bells were tolling seven o’clock. Julia adored bells, the way each one had its own distinct voice. “My America, my Newfoundland.”

Several new worlds had risen up on her horizon today.

The bells rang on.

* * *

Julia stayed up late, thinking about her mother, whom she very rarely considered; thinking about Miss Blomgren; and thinking about the Ofan . . . but most of all, she was thinking about Nick Davenant. She drifted off sometime after her bedside candle guttered and went out . . . and now it must have been very late in the morning indeed, for the maid had been in to build up the fire, and the logs were fallen to embers. Julia remembered that she had made a plan to meet Nick after breakfast in order to tell all. Instead she had slept the morning away.

She swung her legs out of bed and saw that there was a note slipped under her door, the paper folded in half. Julia swooped on it, knowing it would be from Nick. It was.

He had received word that the lords were finally voting on the Corn Bill today, and he was desolate to postpone his appointment with Julia—but he had to go and vote against it. She would of course rejoice with him that he need not wear his robes in order to make this hopeless stand against the inevitable; he would be allowed to raise his futile protest dressed