Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

“Pretty much,” Amy said. “Why don’t you find the painter and talk to him about his work? Maybe you two could…” Amy was looking at Zoë as though she’d never seen her before.

“Could what?” Zoë asked. “Paint by duet? Maybe I could set up a school and train some of these roving painters in modern techniques.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Amy said, still looking at Zoë in wonder.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was just thinking about something. You know that it’s been said that there are no coincidences. Maybe you came back with me for a reason.”

“And that reason was…?”

Amy smiled brightly. “To let you give lessons to these bad painters who travel around and make rotten pictures. I think you should go talk to Russell.”

“Russell being the painter?”

“Yes.”

“And since you can say his name that means he’s not of the upper classes.”

“He certainly isn’t.”

“So how do I find him?”

“He’s usually in the stables this time of day. Beth—that’s Tristan’s young sister and who he’s painting—goes out riding now, so Russell hangs around the stableyard.”

“Waiting for her?” Zoë asked. “Amy, what are you up to? Is he in love with his subject? The master’s nubile sister?”

“Maybe,” Amy said. “But I think you should make up your own mind.”

“Okay, I’ll go so you can get back to baking your four-an

d-twenty blackbirds or whatever. What does this Mr. Russell look like?”

“It’s Mr. Johns. He’s Russell Johns. You haven’t heard of him, have you?”

“No. To my knowledge, his work didn’t make the art history books.”

“Maybe you can fix that,” Amy said. “You could give him lessons.” Her eyes were sparkling as though she were enjoying a great joke. “Russell is…” She hesitated.

“He’s what?”

“Little,” Amy said. “Little and scrawny and has terrible teeth. You can’t miss him. He’s probably with the head stableman now. If you can’t find him, ask someone. I have to go,” she said, and headed downstairs before Zoë could say another word.

“Why do I get the idea that a joke is being played on me?” Zoë said aloud. She hadn’t been given much time to think about the bizarre idea of time travel, but if she had, she was sure she would have thought it would be different from this. She would have thought that they’d be three frightened, disoriented women who needed one another. Instead, Faith had disappeared as though she lived here and knew just where she wanted to go, and Amy! Zoë couldn’t wrap her brain around the way Amy was acting, as though she were some freak of nature who lived comfortably in two time periods with hundreds of years between them.

“I think I’m the only sane one,” Zoë said aloud as she left the dining room and turned left. She was in the huge central hall of the house. The floor was of black-and-white marble. There was a heavy table in the center that was probably medieval, and an enormous marble-encased fireplace in one wall. The ceiling was decorated in a geometric design comprising a large oval with curved-sided triangles around it.

The front door was open and she saw a couple of men walking past. She started to ask them where the stables were, but then she saw a wide gravel path that looked well used and she decided to follow it. She wasn’t looking forward to a confrontation with the scrawny Mr. Johns. If his lordship, the master, was any indication of the state of women’s rights around here, the little man would refuse to believe that a woman so much as knew which end of a paintbrush to use.

As she walked, she began to calm down. She was used to living in places that she didn’t know, and over the years she’d perfected her ability to settle into someone else’s home and make it her own for the time she would be staying with the family. She’d also learned how to say no. When the mistress of the house asked her if she’d “mind” putting in a load of clothes while they were out, she told her she did mind and wouldn’t do it. Never once had she been fired for her refusal to do more than make portraits.

Some of the families she’d loved and some she had run from. She still sent postcards to a couple of them, always letting them know where she was and what she was doing. It was the closest thing she had to a family. In all the years since she’d been out of the hospital she had never once been tempted to marry some guy and have her own home. She’d never admitted it to Jeanne, but it haunted her every day to think what she could have done to make an entire town hate her.

When Zoë got to the stables, she stopped and looked at the beautiful stone buildings, with the horses sticking their heads out of the stalls to look at her. She thought what a shame it would be that someday these would probably be turned into tiny houses. She thought of the two world wars that were coming and she shivered.

“Too cold for you?” came a deep voice. “Or did someone walk over your grave?”

Zoë turned to see a tall man, with broad shoulders, and a muscular body. He looked like he’d worked outdoors all his life. He had strong features, with bright blue eyes. His black hair was a thick mane and there was a dimple in his chin. Zoë had seen more handsome men, but she’d never seen one whom she was more drawn to. If she’d met him in her own time, she thought she just might have asked him to go home with her immediately.