Candace Camp - Promise Me Tomorrow

“Camp has again produced a fast-paced plot brimming with lively conflict among family, lovers and enemies.”

—Publishers Weekly on A Dangerous Man

“Romance, humor, adventure, Incan treasure, dreams, murder, psychics—the latest addition to Camp’s Mad Moreland series has it all.”

—Booklist on An Unexpected Pleasure

“Entertaining, well-written Victorian romantic mystery.”

—The Best Reviews on An Unexpected Pleasure

“A smart, fun-filled romp.”

—Publishers Weekly on Impetuous

“Camp brings the dark Victorian world to life. Her strong characters and perfect pacing keep you turning the pages of this chilling mystery.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Winterset

“From its delicious beginning to its satisfying ending, [Mesmerized] offers a double helping of romance.”

—Booklist

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PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE CHILD LIFTED HER HEAD SLEEPILY AND looked at the man across from her in the carriage. She blinked, then scowled.

“You’re a bad man.”

The man glanced at her and sighed. “Hush. We’re almost there.”

His face was shadowed in the dim light. He was almost skeletally thin, and he fidgeted constantly. Marie Anne knew that Nurse would have snapped at him to sit still and behave himself.

“I want to go home,” she said plaintively. Everything was so confusing. It had been for weeks. She missed John, and she missed the baby. Most of all, she missed Mama and Papa. She remembered That Night and the way her mother had hustled her out the door and along the dark, scary street. She remembered the familiar scent of Mama’s perfume as she squeezed Marie Anne to her chest, whispering “Take care, ma chérie.” Mama had been crying, and Marie Anne knew that it was the bad people in the streets who made her cry.

“I want to stay with you!” Marie Anne had wailed, clinging tightly to her mother. That had made the baby cry, too, and try to scramble out of Mrs. Ward’s arms and back to their mother. Only John had stood stoically silent and still.

“Oh, chérie! If you only knew—I wish you could, too, but it isn’t safe.” Her mother, more beautiful than any other woman in the world, had wiped the tears from her cheeks and tried to smile. “You must go home to England. To your Mimi and Granpapa. You will like that, won’t you? Mrs. Ward will take you. You know Mrs. Ward. She’s Mama’s ami, and she will take good care of you. She’ll see that you get to Mimi’s house in the City. Papa and I must stay here and get Granmama and Granpere to leave. But as soon as we do, we will join you at Mimi’s house.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, my little love. I promise.”

“Where’s Mama?” Marie Anne asked now, turning to her companion accusingly, “You said we were going to see Mama.” She had cried and kicked when he’d carried her from her bed earlier, until finally he had told her to be still, that he was taking her to her mother.

“We are almost there,” the man repeated glancing out the window.

Marie Anne looked out the window, too, and saw that they were approaching a large building. But it was not their home, nor even Mimi’s large house in the country or the tall white one in the City. It was a huge squat block of gray stone, far too ugly, she knew, to be anyplace where Mama was. Tears filled her eyes.

“That’s not Mimi’s.” For a little while, she and her brother John had been at Mimi’s home in the City. Mrs. Ward, Mama’s friend from Paris, had taken them there, and at first Marie Anne’s sad heart had lifted joyfully, thinking that she was going to get to see her beloved grandmother. But then That Woman had whisked them away, taking them outside and to another house, where the Awful Man was. She had seen him before, but he was not the sort who spoke to children, and she wasn’t sure who he was.

Then That Woman had fed her something and tried to give John something, as well, but he was too sick. She had left them in a room, with John twisting and turning on his bed, sweating and shaking. It had scared Marie Anne to see him like that; it had scared her to be there without any grown-up. But it was even scarier to be away from her big brother, traveling through the dark night with this stranger. Why had Mrs. Ward left them with That Woman? Why had she taken the baby, but not John and Marie Anne? Where was Mimi?

She began to cry, although she did not want to in front of this odd, jittery man whom she did not know at all. “I want Mimi,” she said, her voice trembling. “I want Nurse. I want Mama!”

“Later, later.” His voice was impatient, and he barely waited for the carriage to stop before he unlatched the door and jumped down. He reached for her, but Marie Anne backed away, her heart thumping. The ugly building loomed outside, and she was certain she did not want to go there.

“No. No!” The word ended in a shriek as he wrapped one arm around her and dragged her out.

She screamed and began to struggle. “Mama! Papa!”

He carried her inexorably up the front stairs to the door and banged the heavy knocker. It was some minutes before the door was opened by a scowling servant, and some time more before a large, stern-looking woman swept into the entryway, a dressing gown wrapped around her and a nightcap on her head.

The sight of her was enough to freeze Marie Anne’s sobs in her throat. She stared at the woman, ice forming in the pit of her stomach. The woman was tall and heavyset, with none of the beauty and warmth that lived in Marie Anne’s mother and grandmothers. This woman’s eyes were pale and cold as metal, and her face was grim, dominated by a predatory beak of a nose. She looked at Marie Anne as though she knew every naughty thing the girl had ever done.

“I found her,” the jittery man was saying. “She was on the side of the road, obviously abandoned. I didn’t know where else to take her.”

His words were enough to jolt Marie Anne out of her fear, and she cried out indignantly, “That’s a lie! I wasn’t on the side of the road!”

The woman clapped her hands together so loudly that both Marie Anne and the man jumped. “Enough!” Her voice cracked like a whip. “Don’t presume to correct your betters, child. You will soon learn that here you speak only when spoken to, and you do not contradict an adult.”

Her tone made Marie Anne’s heart thump inside her chest, but she squared her shoulders and thrust out her chin. She was not the sort to knuckle under without a fight. She thought of the way her father would ruffle her hair and chuckle, calling her his tiger.