Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Marie opened her eyes. She blinked against the light from the candelabra that rested on a nearby desk.
She wasn’t in the ballroom anymore. She was lying on a settee with a cool cloth draped across her forehead.
She heard her father talking in a quiet tone.
If she was right, he was discussing the wedding breakfast.
Her father sat in the chair next to her.
Edward and his father were sitting nearby, too, but the chairs were arranged in such a way that Edward and Lord Palmere were facing her father, rather than her.
She was glad of it. How embarrassing. She had fainted—actually fainted!
—right in the middle of the ballroom. Everyone out there had to be laughing at her.
She’d be surprised if her name wasn’t printed in the next edition of the Tittletattle.
Now Edward would be ashamed to be seen in public with her.
She would never live this humiliation down.
She wanted to groan but refrained so that she wouldn’t attract the attention of the three gentlemen sitting in the room.
“I was able to get some blackberries,” her father was saying. “I think those will be a good addition to the waffles.”
“Edward loves blackberries,” Lord Palmere replied. “He would eat them every day if he could.”
Marie glanced at Edward since he didn’t add anything. She noted that he offered a polite smile. What did that smile mean? Was he bored? Was he anxious? Was he happy?
No, he wasn’t happy. He probably wasn’t bored. But he could be anxious. Anxious with dread. Because he was stuck with her, like it or not.
“I believe that’s it for the menu,” her father went on.
“It all sounds delicious,” Lord Palmere assured him. “I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.”
The two gentlemen laughed. Edward didn’t laugh along with them, but he did continue smiling.
Marie felt a sense of dread welling up within her.
Edward didn’t want to marry her. He would because of the arrangement, but he would spend the rest of his life secretly wishing he had married a lady who wasn’t prone to fainting during a dance.
If she had been able to maintain a good conversation prior to said incident, she might have had a chance.
This arranged marriage was a terrible mistake.
She wished she hadn’t talked her father into it.
Her father glanced her way and noted that she was awake. “Marie, my dear, do you feel well enough to sit up?”
His soothing tone helped to ease her humiliation. But only a little. She removed the cloth from her forehead and sat up. She couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact with any of them. A maid hurried over to her and took the cloth.
“Are you feeling all right?” Lord Palmere asked.
She offered a nod.
“That’s a relief,” Lord Palmere replied. “Edward and I worried you had taken ill.”
“No,” she forced out, still unable to look anyone in the eye. Instead, she focused on the hands folded in her lap. “It was hot in the ballroom.” Never mind the fact that she was unbelievably clumsy, boring, and pathetic.
“We should have sat on the veranda,” her father spoke up. “This is my fault. I know how she gets when in crowded places like ballrooms.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Father,” she hurried to argue. “I insisted on coming here this evening.”
“I wouldn’t say you insisted,” her father said.
“You agreed to it when I asked if you would be willing to meet Edward here this evening.” He leaned toward her and gave her hand a reassuring pat.
“I promise that there won’t be anyone but family at the wedding tomorrow, and all the windows in the drawing room will be open. ”
“That will be nice,” Lord Palmere inserted. “We might even hear a couple of birds. One has no need of instruments when listening to their music.”
Lord Palmere had said that for her benefit, she knew, and she forced herself to look at him and smile her appreciation. She was afraid to look at Edward. She didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes.
“I’d better take my daughter home,” her father spoke up. “We have a lot to do in the morning.”
“Of course,” Lord Palmere agreed as he and Edward rose to their feet.
Marie’s father held his hand out to her, and she allowed him to help her to her feet.
“It was a pleasure to meet you,” Edward told her. “I’m looking forward to the wedding.”
He was lying. He was only being polite. There was no way he could sincerely anticipate their union, not with what a poor wife she was going to make.
She supposed she ought to be glad he was as considerate and kind as her father said.
At least he was pretending to be happy about the upcoming marriage.
She couldn’t think of anything to say that would not make things worse, so she settled for returning his smile.
She tried not to notice how timid her smile was.
In fact, there was a slight tremble to it.
If she wasn’t careful, she was going to start crying.
She had made a terrible impression tonight, and it was one she’d never recover from.
“We’ll see you both tomorrow,” Lord Palmere told her and her father.
As the two left, a couple of tears slid down her cheeks.
Marie told her lady’s maid not to help her undress. She would do it herself tonight. But first, she would wait until her emotions settled.
She sat at the vanity of her bedchamber, wrapping the handkerchief around her fingers and blinking the last of her tears away. “If only I was someone else,” she muttered under her breath. “Then I could secure a love match.”
“Finally! I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever say those words.”
Marie gasped and spun in her chair. A lady dressed in…in… Well, Marie wasn’t sure what the lady was dressed in. She was covered in some kind of silver robe with a hood pulled over her face. The robe seemed to sparkle, but Marie figured that had to be a trick of the candlelight.
The lady pulled back her hood. Dark, wavy hair fell over her shoulders.
Something silver and glittery lined her eyelids, and her lips were covered in a light shade of pink.
There was nothing excessive about the applications the lady had used to decorate her face, but Marie thought the lady’s beauty was accentuated because of them.
“Who are you?” Marie asked as she rose to her feet. She scanned the room but didn’t see any open doors or windows. “How did you get in here? Why are you here?”
The lady held her hand up to stop her from asking more questions. “I’ll answer everything. Give me a moment.”
The lady lifted one of her hands, and Marie saw that she was holding something like a pocket watch.
It was silver and round. Instead of simply checking the time, however, the lady tapped her finger on the surface of the thing.
Marie was tempted to get closer to see exactly what the lady was doing but was too afraid to approach her.
Marie clutched her handkerchief and held it to her chest. This townhouse was full of servants.
No one had heard or seen this lady come into her room.
Yes, Marie had fainted at the ball, but she hadn’t lost her wits.
This lady had appeared in this room out of nowhere, and she carried a strange device with her.
The lady finished tapping the item then lowered her hand and smiled. “I am Junior Overseer Tove Sagan of the Timeline Management and Research Corporation, or TMR for short. I come from the year 2530. I am applying for the Senior Overseer position. I have been assigned to work on your case.”
Marie stared at her. If she could figure out what this lady was telling her, she might be able to make sense of what was happening.
Tove gave her an understanding smile. “My supervisor warned me this would be difficult, given the technological limitations of your time period and all. Even we don’t engage in time travel very much.
We have to be careful about such things because we don’t want to upset the sequence of events on a national or global scale.
Only a select few can do the tasks we do.
I had to train five years just to become a Junior Overseer, and then I had to take eight tests to prove I could handle that position. ”
Again, Marie couldn’t make sense out of what she was hearing.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter if you grasp all of this or not,” Tove continued. “The important thing is that I do the job I’ve been assigned to do.” She paused then added, “I am here to give you a different life.”
Marie’s eyebrows furrowed. “A different life?”
“We’ve been reviewing your life for quite some time, and we think you will be a good experiment.
Now, I don’t mean that to be condescending.
We do not view you as a guinea pig. We know you are a human being whose feelings are to be respected.
That is why I will not do this without your permission.
We believe you are the ideal candidate for this experiment. ”
Marie took a moment to grasp what this lady was telling her. “You want to do an experiment on me? Like cut me open or something?”
“No, there will be no cutting. This is a psychological experiment. We are interested in how one’s perception of things can change the outcome of one’s life.
I believe we’ll be able to learn a great deal from you.
Take this evening, for instance, the thoughts and feelings you experienced have been recorded in your diary.
That same diary, and the others you wrote in your future, were all rich in thought and emotion.
Because of that, we could analyze how those thoughts and emotions affected your perception of the events that happened to you. ”
“Happened to me?” Still, Marie could not grasp what this lady was telling her.