Lost Passions Read online

  Lost Passions

  Book 2 of the Timeless Affection Series

  C.R. Jane

  Contents

  Lost Passions

  Join C.R. Jane’s Readers’ Group

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Author’s Note

  Sneak Peek

  Copyright

  Blurb

  Remember Us This Way Soundtrack

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Join C.R.’s Fated Realm

  Other Books by C.R. Jane

  Lost Passions

  Book 2 of the Timeless Affection Series

  C. R. Jane

  Lost Passions by C. R. Jane

  Copyright © 2019 by C. R. Jane

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, and except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For all my wonderful readers, thanks for loving Juliet.

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  Blurb

  Lost Passions

  The past. Is it ever really like we imagined it was?

  Juliet is haunted by her memories. The centuries have passed, but her love for the five men she has lost still burns within her soul. When disaster strikes again and Juliet is once again thrown into the whirlwinds of time, she is unexpectedly given a new chance to reclaim lost love. Juliet soon discovers however that sometimes, the past is better left to rest. Can Juliet overcome the years that have been stolen from her, or will she lose her lost loves for good?

  Through it all, the question remains. If you lived forever...could you love forever?

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  This is Part 1 of a 5 Part Sequel. Juliet’s story is too long to be resolved in one book, so please don’t go into this book thinking she will have all her problems resolved. Each sequel will take part in connecting the characters and Juliet’s different lives.

  For now...fall in love with (come on, did you really think I was going to spoil it here).

  Love, C.R.

  Now I lay me down to sleep,

  I pray the Lord my soul to keep;

  If I should die before I wake,

  I pray the Lord my soul to take.

  -A Christian Child’s Prayer

  Prologue

  I’m suffocated by the awareness of regaining my physical form. I fall to the ground; the sharp sensation of the rocky ground brings me back to life. I’m confused for a moment as I struggle to stand up, my mind unable to comprehend what has happened. I stare around at the lonely landscape spread out before me, a far cry from the seaside cliffs that I was in a moment before. The minute passes, and the terrible realization hits me that I’m all alone once again. Gripping my head between my hands, I escape into myself. My heart rolls in my chest, galloping ahead of me into a future I don’t want to have. Alone. A page turned to close out one chapter and open another. It’s never felt more final than in this moment. Small whimpering cries begin to beat out of my throat, and I push them into tremors.

  No one will come for me. No one cares that Juliet Caris is suffering in silence, alone. So unbearably alone, without any of the people that I need more than anything in the universe. The grip on my sanity loosens. I think of the man I just left behind. I’m never to feel his heat, his body, his kiss, his strength, his love ever again. I fall slowly over the cliff of reason. What feels like hours fly by, and it’s not until I hear a familiar voice that I struggle above oblivion.

  “Juliet.”

  Chapter 1

  There’s a low hum that vibrates through the air. I still can’t feel anything—relief would be too simple, joy not enough. Fear transitions into doubt and the smallest inclination of hope. There’s too much to wish for, so I construct a wall of numb disinterest around me. The well of emotions that could swing either way is too deep to deal with. I’m afraid of them, afraid to feel anything, so I stare without acknowledgement at the bright green eyes I’ve come to love so much. Liam is here with me.

  “Juliet?”

  He reaches for me, yet my only movement is to tilt my head as if in contemplation. I’m not thinking, I’m stuck, paralyzed by the raw sting of a new reality that’s hard to believe.

  “You’re here,” I whisper.

  The air stills around us, and neither of us moves. I allow my eyes to rake up and down his body, taking in details of his figure. He’s just as beautiful as ever, more beautiful if I’m being honest with myself, because he’s unbelievably standing in front of me, not lost to a past that I can’t reach. He stares back at me intensely, studying my face as if he’s seeing it for the first time.

  I feast on him, still unable to comprehend that he’s standing here. Was everything a dream? Or is he a specter sent to haunt me in my misery.

  “I’m here, baby.”

  He reaches for me, and this time I take his hand. Warmth radiates into me and it’s only then I recognize how cold I am. A shiver snakes down my spine and I can’t be certain if it’s from the chill or his simple touch. Liam. Now I’m found. I see him and feel him, yet an air of disbelief still hovers close by.

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispers, and I whimper, the closest I can get to a wail. I want to cry, the emotion so close to exploding from me. I can feel the shiver turn into a shake, but I push that down too.

  “Easy. We’re okay.”

  “Come here.”

  He tugs, and I scramble next to him, throwing my arms around him. My lids flutter closed when his heat envelopes me and I sink into the hard lines of his body. I feel the slide into unconsciousness take me away. My last thought is that I’m home.

  This dream is heaven. Liam’s deep timbre rumbles underneath me, whispering comforting words and bringing with it a serenity I never hoped to feel again. I revel in the cadence of his words, letting them soak into every crevice and wash away some of the pain. Wait . . . his hands . . . feel him? Heat expands not just at the site of his touch, but around and through me. Where I was cold, I am now warm and comforted. The electricity ever present between us travels down my spine and into each extremity. In the soft exploration of touch, I feel the hard length of his body next to me, my arm draped over his mid-section. Solid, defined muscles of his abdomen rise and fall beneath me, and I can’t help but burrow into the crook of his shoulder. I clutch him tight. A small gasp, and warmth presses into my hair.

  “Baby, wake up,” he whispers. At the caress of his hands I wake up…

  And realize that it was all a dream, a product of a mind that has officially splintered into a million pieces. Never to be made whole again.

  He’s not here. I’m all alone.

  A wail seizes my chest. I sound more l
ike a wounded animal than a human as the sound erupts from inside of me. It’s the sound of my soul dying. I let out another wail that’s abruptly cut off from what sounds like a carriage approaching me from behind.

  A carriage? I haven’t been to a time that had one of those in a long time...since Gabriel in fact.

  As stupid as my heart is, it can’t help but leap at the idea that I could be back in Gabriel’s time somehow. I try and stifle the sobs that are erupting out of my mouth. I can’t get answers if I seem like a mad woman.

  Looking behind me at who is approaching, I lose my breath momentarily. The carriage approaching isn’t one that was used in Gabriel’s time. It’s one that was from my time...from James’s time.

  I get up off the ground where I’ve been kneeling, still hiccupping hysterically but spurred on by a hope that’s so strong it squeezes my chest, making it so that I can’t breathe.

  The carriage comes closer, close enough that the hope in my chest grows exponentially when I see that the driver of the carriage is dressed in period appropriate clothes, a linen shirt with deep cuffs and a long-pointed beard.

  I’m sure I look crazed as I run towards the carriage, and I register his look of surprise as he pulls on the reins to stop the horses before they can run me over.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I say desperately, a sob caught in my throat. He looks at me with increased concern. “What is the year?” I beg, reaching out to him beseechingly.

  He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “The year?” he asks, and my spirits for some reason rise even more hearing his accent.

  “Yes,” I respond in a choked voice.

  “Why it’s the year 1439, madam. Are you alright? Where are you from?” he asked, looking me up and down confusedly.

  Looking down at my outfit I realize that I’m still wearing the jeans and t-shirt that I had been wearing when I left Boston. A pang hits me at the thought of Liam. But I brush it away. James has to be my thought. If I could return to James...I could possibly return to all of them.

  The thought is almost more than I can bear.

  I think quickly of a response. “There was an attack on my village that caused a fire. These were the clothes we were forced to wear after everything we owned was burned.”

  He nods like I’ve made perfect sense, the idea that I could be from a different time obviously not occurring to him.

  “I’ve heard that the French have been “experimenting” with new fashion. I’m not sure why they would want their ladies to look like the menfolk,” he responds, and I try to hide my grimace. I had forgotten just how male controlled of a society my growing up had been.

  “Where are we?” I hurry on, desperate for more information.

  The worry on his face grows at my question. “Windsor,” he says slowly.

  I cry out this time in a relief that’s so great it cannot be measured. What was despair a moment ago has morphed into a feeling of anticipation that threatens to overwhelm me.

  “Please sir, you must take me to the castle. Is the Prince in residence there?” I ask, clasping my hands in front of me like I’m in prayer.

  "Milady, is there anyone I can take you to? Do you need a doctor?”

  "Please just answer the question," I snap, barely able to hold on to any semblance of sanity at the moment. I could feel the loss of Liam sitting deeply in my bones, waiting to rise up again and drown my mind in despair. I had to hold off my anguish at losing him for as long as possible until I could see James again. Then I could figure out how it was possible I was finally back in a century that I had been before and how I could see Liam again.

  "Are you not from around here, madam?" he asks. "The last King died two years ago. Prince James is now King James."

  That would make everything more difficult. The Prince abdicating was one thing. James had been prepared to do that if we couldn’t marry before. But the King abdicating, well that was a whole other matter.

  Not that I should be thinking about that. There was a good chance that James would take one look at me and want nothing more to do with me.

  I had loved James passionately. But I had also found that same type of love with four other men that was just as deep and real as my love story with James. There was no way I would be able to forget them and just start a happy life with James now that I knew that it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to be reunited with them.

  But again, I would think about all of that later.

  "Can you take me to the castle?" I ask desperately. A little voice inside of me feels guilty at the fact that I wasn't going to see my father first. We hadn’t had the best relationship, but I felt like he had done his best after my mother had disappeared. I'm sure it was a blow to him when I had unexpectedly disappeared.

  Despite the love that I had for him, it didn’t compare to the overwhelming urgency I had to see James again. I could disappear again at any time, and while it was sad to say that I could live without seeing my father again, I would quite literally not survive if I didn’t see James again after being so close to him.

  I had to get to him.

  The man analyzes me, I'm sure wondering if I was going to commit an act of treason against the monarchy in my unsettled state if he were to take me to the palace. Fortunately, the fact that I was a frantic mess ultimately must have appealed to his greater sympathies and won him over because he signals for me to hop onto the bench next to him on the carriage. I pull myself as quickly as I can onto the bench.

  The situation was an example of how different things were depending on what time period you were in. It would've been with great hesitation that I would've gotten into a car with a stranger in modern-day Boston. And now here I was basically hitchhiking with a stranger. Hopefully my memory of how safe the 1400s were for the gentry class was accurate. Although with how desperate I was feeling at the moment, probably no threat to my safety would have prevented me from trying to get to James.

  The man tries to ask me questions as we ride along, but I keep my answers short and vague. I'm sure there is a lot of information that I could be getting from him, finding out how things have changed or stayed the same in the years that I’ve missed... but all I can think about is reuniting with James.

  Six years didn't seem like very long compared to everything that I had gone through, but it could've been a lot to him. I was practically a child when I had met him, there’s so much about me that has changed over the years, and not necessarily for the better. When we fell in love, I was young and naive, swept along in a love story with my real-life Prince Charming. I was many things now...a murderer being one of them.

  I didn't even know if he'd be able to recognize the person I was now. Hopefully I could convince him that at least some form of the Juliet that I used to be was still inside of me. Hopefully that was true.

  Our love couldn’t be lost like everything else in my life.

  I had forgotten how slow horses were as a form of transportation. What was most likely only a 20-minute journey by car took a few hours by carriage.

  Part of me wished it had taken even longer though when I saw the towers of Windsor Castle appear in the distance. Seeing the walls that surrounded the castle brought me right back to my first meeting with James. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. Nervousness like I've never experienced courses through my body.

  "Well, this is it," my benefactor, whose name I had found out was Henry, said to me. He was still looking at me like he was unsure if he had done the right thing by bringing me here.

  "You’ll never know how much you saved me today," I tell him in a quivering voice, a sudden onslaught of gratitude coming over me for this stranger who had taken a chance on me...the crazy girl.

  His face softens. "I hope you find whatever you're looking for," he says to me kindly.

  A tear slides down my face. "I hope so too."

  Chapter 2

  I didn't look back at Henry as I approach the front gates of the palace although I could feel his eyes following me as
I walk, I’m sure curious...and a little afraid at what I was going to do.

  Armed guards are stationed all around the walls, much more than I had remembered from my time here before. Suddenly, I realize how stupid I was to think I could just waltz right in to see James. He was the freaking King of England now.

  It was unlikely very many people at the castle remembered me from before. James and I had only been betrothed for a short time before I had disappeared, it hadn’t even been announced yet. I wasn’t sure how I was going to convince the guards to let me in as a nobody.

  I hear Henry take off in his carriage somewhere behind me. It feels like a safety blanket has been ripped away from me despite the fact that I didn't even know him. I’m once again all alone.

  But that was the usual for me.

  I’m stopped outside the new, foreboding looking iron gates by one of the guards.

  “State your business, madam,” the tow-headed guard says to me in a rough voice. This guard obviously did not recognize me.

  "I need to see the King." I tell him urgently, crossing my arms in front of my chest self-consciously as I remember once again what I’m wearing.