"Emma! The carriage!"

And there it was, at the end of the dirt road. The road she and Hugh had just walked this evening, three of the house dogs at their heels, Charlie in her arms because his legs were too stiff, Hugh's arm around her…

Tears blurred her vision, but her legs kept moving because she didn't know what else to do.

She assisted Jane into the carriage, then climbed in after her. There was nothing for her here at this Lindsey House, more than two hundred years in the past. She'd been flung back in time, and who knew if she'd ever see anyone or anything familiar again?

The horses started up, and the carriage bounced around horribly. Amelia gritted her teeth, then gave up on that idea when a bone-jarring jounce almost caused her to bite off her tongue. Though she and John were both fascinated and passionate about history, neither had ever romanticized it, and she longed for the safe confines of the Range Rover.

"It won't be much farther now," Jane whispered. She sounded so very pleased with herself.

"Until what?"

"Oh, Emma, don't go off like that again! Jonathan's mother would have let your aunt go had she not been so terribly accurate with those visions." She sighed, then sat back on the seat. The small lantern on the one side of the carriage illuminated her animated face. ' 'I must confess, I'd love to see what the future has in store for Robert and me-"

"Robert?" Her tongue suddenly felt thick, her head filled with cotton wool. "Robert? I thought you loved Jonathan-"

The look on Jane's face stopped her cold.

"Jonathan? Jonathan? To marry him and live that carefully planned out, boring life in that huge old house? Oh, no, not for me! I want more than that, I told him-"

"Does he know about-"

"Robert?" Jane laughed, then glanced out the carriage window, eager to see where they were in their journey. "No." Her expression grew thoughtful. "Even though I didn't want to be Jonathan's wife, I couldn't bear to hurt him. He thought we were betrothed, and I let him continue to think it until tonight. Tomorrow, once he realizes I'm gone, he'll find another girl, much more suitable than I am."

Amelia was quiet, thinking of the letters. Of that last letter. Those passionate words. Jonathan had loved this Jane Stanton, no matter how hard-hearted and cold she seemed to Amelia now.

She ventured a guess. Perhaps this Emma, this woman whose body she'd appropriated, would have known both men.

"I think you're tossing away a good man."

Jane gave her an incredulous look that instantly told her she'd overstepped her station in life. The girl had an incredibly expressive face; it registered her emotions quite clearly.

Once again, Amelia found herself an American misunderstanding British customs. Obviously, this Emma was a maid. Jane's maid. Amelia, in the first shock of tearing through time, had overlooked the plainness of the wool dress she was wearing. But now, seeing the way Jane related to her, there could be no doubt concerning her station in this life. She couldn't meet her mistress's expression and glanced away, embarrassed.

"I'll thank you not to trouble me with your opinion on this matter."

"As you wish."

But now a sense of foreboding grew, a sense that their carriage was racing toward a more sinister future than either of them could anticipate. Amelia stared out the carriage window at the dark forest flashing by; she swayed in rhythm with the drumming of the horse's hooves. It was almost hypnotic, what that sound did to a body.

Something was very wrong. Jonathan had never alluded to what had happened to Jane, what had driven the woman he'd loved to take her own life, but Amelia had a horrible feeling that she was going to watch Jane's life unfold in front of her as if it were some sort of program on television.

What was it Hugh had said to her that day in the garden? / believe we are our own destiny. Through who we are, the choices we make day by day.

She had the strangest foreboding that Jane was about to make a choice that could possibly cost her her young life.

Was this Robert a murderer? Would he make it look as if Jane had committed suicide? And why was there never a mention of a maid named Emma in all the work she'd gone through, the letters, various correspondence, the journal, the estate records? She didn't remember an Emma; it was as if the servant had never existed.

But now you don't exist, except in her body. And perhaps in time your consciousness will fade, to be replaced by this woman's…

She didn't know what to think.

The rain was coming down harder now, lashing the carriage, pounding on its roof, causing the driver to whip the reins down on the horses' rumps, urging them faster. Amelia tried to rid her mind of the thought of the carriage overturning; the idea of a broken bone or worse in the eighteenth century didn't bear thinking about.

She closed her eyes, trying to shut everything out.

"Do you have the sight?"

It took her a moment to realize that Jane was speaking to her. She had to be referring to Emma's aunt.

"Can I see the future, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"No. I've never had a vision in my life." But I get feelings, and I have very bad feelings about this night, Jane, about what's going to happen to you-and to Jonathan.

She thought of all the novels she'd read about time travel, how she'd lazed afternoons away speculating what she would do if she were ever able to leap through time. Now that she was actually doing it, there were two things she was sure of. One, that a person was never ready for such an experience. And, two, that it wasn't as terrific as might be expected. Time travel was as romanticized as the past.

"Do you wish you could? See into the future, I mean."

"No." And Amelia realized what she said was true- she knew the future now, and felt the impossible burden of knowing what was to come and being unable to stop or alter it in any way. For you couldn't alter the future, you couldn't make people's choices for them, of that she was sure.

And even as headstrong and fiery as Jane was, she'd come to like her in a strange way. She didn't want to see her die. The portrait artist who had captured Jane on canvas hadn't captured her spirit, her strength, her determination. If someone could have shown her how to channel all that energy before tonight, if someone had taught her how to make decisions more carefully…

The carriage slowed, and Amelia realized they were pulling into an inn. She didn't recognize where they were; the actual building must have been torn down before she was born. She and Hugh had ridden the horses for miles; she would've recognized this place.

The carriage horses clattered into the stable-yard, and she and Jane were inside the inn shortly, standing by the main entrance, assaulted by the smells of smoke and burning grease, roasting beef, the sour tang of ale, the aroma of too many unwashed bodies.

Jane went forward boldly, and the innkeeper's wife seemed to know what she was talking about. She showed them upstairs, and the two of them entered the small room beneath the eaves. A young girl started a fire, and Amelia stood silently by, not sure if she would be allowed to warm herself by the flames. The night was starting to catch up with her; she could feel exhaustion stealing into her bones.

More than anything, she wanted to go to sleep and wake up in the present, in her bed at Lindsey House, with the most pressing worry on her mind the thought of whether her makeup and hair would do for her wedding day.

That existence seemed so long ago. Time was relative; it could swirl and flow like a river, elongating some moments and throwing others into sharp relief. As long as she had her own consciousness, she could remember, she could keep Hugh and her father and John and even the terrier Charlie alive in her mind and heart.

"Go on," Jane said quietly as the innkeeper's wife and the young maid left the room. "You can sit by the fire." She had taken off her cloak, and now, with more light than she'd had all night, Amelia got her first real look at Jane Stanton.

She was beautiful.

Amelia could understand Jonathan's passion for this woman. Her skin glowed with vitality, her red-gold hair seemed to have a life of its own. Her green eyes were alive with emotion, slightly tilted at the corners like a cat's. Her lips were full, her bones elegant, her body small but lush. Vibrant. Energetic. Filled with passion. Jane Stanton was a woman any man would want. Why hadn't she wanted Jonathan?

"Robert should be here shortly."

"What do you plan on doing?" Amelia heard herself saying. She could already guess.

"We're going to run away and be married." Jane smiled at the thought, lost in her dreams. "I couldn't marry a man simply because it was arranged." Her voice caught fire with urgency. "No one asked me what I wanted. No one thought of how I might feel."

"Not even Jonathan?"

This stopped her, and Amelia knew that Jonathan Lindsey had cared what this woman thought. How she felt. He'd been an extraordinary man in an extraordinary age.

"He-did. He asked me once, what I thought about our being betrothed to each other."

"Did you tell him?"

"I couldn't find the words. But he should've known!"

"How did he feel about you?"

Jane smiled then, and Amelia could sense genuine affection in her expression. "He told me he'd loved me since we were children, and looked forward to our marriage." Now she sounded uncertain of herself and her plans, and Amelia seized the moment.

"And Robert?"

Jane seemed to glow with emotion. "He loves me; I know he does. I can't describe to you the way I feel when I'm with him; it's as if I burn with a rare fever-"