by Carola Dunn
Jodie clung to Giles’s arm as they waited for the front door to open.
Chapter Seven
A footman opened the door. Giles gave their names and he and Jodie were ushered into a narrow hall, decorated on one side with a hunting tapestry and on the other with a family portrait overflowing with children.
“Her ladyship is expecting you.” The footman opened another door. “Mr. and Miss Faringdale, my lady.”
There were three people in the drawing room: an ancient lady, thin and twisted with rheumatism, sitting on a sofa; a tall, blond gentleman, standing by the window; and an elegant woman in her late twenties, with reddish-brown ringlets and green eyes, who stepped forward to greet them.
“Good heavens, it really is you, Dr. Faringdale.” Her accent was pure New England. “Or is it ‘my lord?’” She stopped in confusion.
“Plain mister here, Dr. Brown—Mrs. Brown. Or better just Giles. This is…my half-sister, Judith.”
Jodie stared, also confused, then dropped a hurried curtsy. There was a moment of silence.
“Well?” said the old lady.
Mrs. Brown started. “Allow me to present you to Lady Bestor. And this is Harry—Lord Font.”
The tall gentleman bowed. Jodie curtsied again, feeling increasingly silly, then turned back to Mrs. Brown.
“You’re Cassandra? The physicist? Excuse me, it’s ridiculous but I pictured you in a white coat like scientists wear on tele…Oh!” She glanced in alarm at the other two strangers.
The old crone winked at her. “Not to worry, missie, I know all there is to know.” Her sharp eyes turned to Lord Font. “Or all I need to know, at least. Well, Harry, now I’ve satisfied my curiosity I’ll leave you in peace.” She reached for her cane. “Help me up.”
Lord Font reached her in one long stride, and laid his hand on her frail shoulder. “Do not stir, Aunt Tavie. We shall entertain our guests in the dining parlour. Please come this way, Miss Judith, Mr. Faringdale.”
We, Jodie noted, following him, our guests. And that was a monstrous intimate look he gave Mrs. Brown as he seated her at the long oak table.
She was beautiful. God send she was spoken for.
They exchanged stories. Mrs. Brown had also come to the past by accident. With the aid of her calculator and a competent assistant in Lord Font, she had returned home before deciding that the nineteenth century was more to her taste.
Giles sat back with a sigh of relief. “You have a calculator, then, and the calculations already done. All we have to do is plug in the figures for a slightly different time and place.”
Mrs. Brown and Lord Font exchanged glances. “I fear not,” said the latter. “Cassandra destroyed everything.”
In the deathly hush, the cry of a hawker in the street was plain: “Hot, hot, hot—pudding hot!”
“The Flying Pieman,” said Lord Font irrelevantly.
At any other time Jodie would have been intrigued. Now all she could do was say in horrified tones, “Destroyed? Everything? But why?”
Mrs. Brown shrugged her shoulders. “Harry hasn’t much faith in the law of Conservation of Reality. We were afraid they might be found and used to alter the time stream.”
“I have to agree with Lord Font,” Giles said unwillingly. “I’m sorry, Dr. Brown, but I just don’t think it can account for more than minor changes. It’s our bad luck that we arrived after you got rid of the calculator. Still, at least you have a theory that you know works. I take it you are willing to help us?”
“Of course,” came instant affirmation from both.
At once Giles became businesslike. He untied the roll of papers he had set before him on the table and shuffled through them. “I have drawn up designs for a slide rule cursor. If we can have it made, it will greatly help in redoing your calculations. I’d like you to check my drawings.”
“I don’t know anything about slide rules,” Mrs. Brown confessed. “I was brought up with calculators. But Harry used his slide rule to check all my figures.”
Lord Font pulled Giles’s papers towards him as Giles grinned crookedly at Jodie and said, “You see the advantages of an old-fashioned education.”
That was the last notice anyone took of her. Lord Font went to fetch his slide rule, and the two twentieth-century physicists began a discussion of twentieth-century physics that might as well have been in Greek for all Jodie understood. In fact, some of it seemed to be in Greek. She heard talk of tau-space and epsilon-something-else and when they spoke of pi it was not the Flying Pieman they meant.
Pi r squared, thought Jodie idly. The circumference of a circle. No, probably the area. It was as bad as volts and watts and ohms, which they seemed to have moved on to now.
“Oh’m goin’ ‘ohm,” she said experimentally.
“See you later,” said Giles. “But look, Cassandra, if you consider…”
Jodie did not stay for the end of his sentence. She found a certain satisfaction in flouncing from the room. You couldn’t flounce in pants.
The footman brought her pelisse, a dark-chocolate velvet coat lined with white sarsnet and luxuriously trimmed with ermine. Like her gown, also borrowed from Emily, it fitted close over the bodice then fell from a high waist to her ankles. Her feet were snug in her own boots, bought two hundred years hence with English weather in mind. To hell with Giles. It would be better on her own because she could stop and look at anything that caught her eye.
“The gentleman…?“ suggested the footman with an anxious air.
“He will be here for some time yet.”
“A hackney, madam?”
“No, I shall walk, thank you.”
Shrugging, the man opened the door for her.
Jodie set off in a mood of thorough disgruntlement. How could she have been so stupid as to suppose that Giles would not be attracted to that woman only because he did not picture her dancing the night away? She was beautiful, to be sure, but it was her mind he admired. She was a colleague, his equal in the esoteric realms of subatomic particles where the music of the spheres played for dancing quarks and neutrinos.
Pleased with the image, Jodie began to take an interest in her surroundings. This was her field of expertise, and when she reached home again she would be an unequalled expert on daily life in the Regency period. She beamed at a passing couple. The gentleman smiled back; his companion scowled and hurried him onward.
Left on Hay Hill, a short block then right on Berkeley Street, and Berkeley Square lay ahead. Jodie had noted their route carefully.
The traffic in the square had increased considerably since they passed through in the barouche an hour ago. Gunter’s was a-bustle, with waiters running to carry orders to carriages parked under the leafless trees of the central garden. The original fast food drive-in, Jodie thought with a grin.
A young man in a tight-waisted coat with hugely padded shoulders returned her grin. Doffing his glossy beaver, he bowed as far as his dangerously high shirt points allowed.
“Buy you an ice, miss?” he enquired.
Jodie was tempted. What harm could she come to in this busy place in broad daylight? Then she realized that all the women in sight were studiously avoiding looking at her, while several men, on the contrary, were looking only too hard—the sort of look that moved from face to feet and back again, pausing en route.
“Or perhaps a drop of something stronger?” her accoster suggested insinuatingly.
Hot-faced, she brushed past him and hurried on, narrowly avoiding a dashing tilbury that swept out of Bruton Street. Perhaps this had not been such a great idea after all. Come to think of it, young ladies in Regency romances were forever being told not to walk alone in London.
The wretch had taken her for a lightskirt. No, she needed stronger language than that: the son-of-a-bitch had taken her for a whore.
She was slightly out of breath when she turned the corner from Davies Street into Grosvenor Street. There was a high perch phaeton outside the Faringdales’ house, the horses’ heads hel
d by a small boy in livery, and a tall gentleman was just turning away from the door. As he strode down the steps, she recognized Lord Thorncrest.
“My lord,” she called, hurrying. “Thorncrest, wait!”
He swung around, frowning, but his face cleared when he saw her. “Ah, the little American. Good day, Miss Judith.”
“Good day. I’m sorry, I daresay I ought not to have shouted to you like that.”
He was amused. “To be sure, I am not accustomed to being accosted by females in the street—at least not in this neighbourhood. However, I shan’t complain since otherwise I might have missed you, which would have been a devastating blow.” He glanced beyond her. “You seem to have mislaid your companion, ma’am.”
“I am alone.” Jodie was annoyed to feel herself flushing again.
“Indeed.” The black eyebrows rose. “American customs are very different from our own.”
“Perhaps our streets are safer for unaccompanied females,” she retorted.
“In that case I must infer that America boasts few females as captivating as Miss Judith Faringdale.”
“From which I infer that England boasts many.”
The earl laughed. “That was ill considered,” he acknowledged. “True, beauties we have aplenty, yet to find such wit and spirit united with charm and loveliness is rare indeed.”
“Then doubtless you will be glad of the opportunity to study the phenomenon further. Will you take me to see the sights of London, Thorncrest?”
“I never drive females.”
Jodie sighed. “What a pity. I shall have to summon a hackney.” She stepped back, looked around, and was raising her arm to wave to a passing hackney-driver when Lord Thorncrest caught her hand.
“Very well, you abominable girl. In view of the fact that we shall soon be related by marriage, I surrender. Where do you want to go?” He helped her climb up into the high carriage. His tiger jumped on behind and they started off.
“I want to see everything Londoners do for amusement.”
“Everything, Miss Judith?” he drawled, his dark eyes challenging her.
Jodie refused to be cowed. “Everything,” she said firmly, hoping she was not letting herself in for more than she bargained for. Emily had said his lordship was a confirmed rake….
~ ~ ~
“Where is Miss Faringdale?” asked Lord Font, returning to the dining room with his slide rule.
Giles and Cassandra looked at him, then at each other. “I think she said she was going home,” Giles admitted sheepishly. “I wasn’t really listening.”
“Did she take a hackney? Did Culpepper go with her?”
“Culpepper?”
“Aunt Tavie’s abigail,” Cassandra explained. “I don’t know, Harry. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“It’s not far. Jodie’s no wilting violet.”
“‘Tis scarcely proper, however, for a young lady to walk alone.”
“If she chooses to, there’s not much I can do about it,” said Giles.
“Are you not her brother?”
“As a matter of fact, no. We only met the day all this started.”
Lord Font looked shocked. “It is not my place to find fault,” he said stiffly.
“Don’t be a fussbudget, Harry,” Cassandra admonished him. “Jodie’s a twentieth-century American, not a delicate young lady.”
“It’s not actually dangerous for her to be walking alone, is it?” Giles was beginning to worry.
“Probably not,” the baron conceded, “in broad daylight in this part of town.”
“As long as she doesn’t wander off to do her research. She’s a historian, you know, and this happens to be her period. Perhaps I ought to go after her.”
“If she didn’t go straight home, you won’t know where to look anyway,” Cassandra pointed out impatiently. “Can we get on with figuring out how to approach these calculations?”
Giles took notes while she explained how she had worked out the details of her return to her own time. It was going to be a long job without a calculator, especially as he and Jodie would be going from a different place, with different equipment at the other end.
“Would it not be easier just to go from Font Hall?” asked Harry.
Cassandra laughed. “Dr. Jenkins would have a fit if two total strangers suddenly appeared in his lab. If you don’t arrive during working hours, you will find yourselves locked in, waiting to be found in the morning. No, we’ll try it from Waterstock first. Harry, how soon do you think your instrument maker can get the new and improved slide rule made?”
“That depends on how much we can pay him.”
Harry and Cassandra both looked questioningly at Giles, who suddenly realized that Lord Font was not dressed in the height of fashion but on the contrary looked somewhat shabby.
“The present Lord Faringdale is rather flattered to have a man of science in the family,” he said, “and is inclined to be generous. Since Charlotte—Lady Faringdale—pointed out that in effect I’m drawing on my own inheritance, I haven’t scrupled to take advantage of his willingness to pay our way. Tell your man to give the cursor top priority. Conservation of Reality or no, the sooner I get Jodie away from this place, the better.”
Harry Font glanced at Cassandra and laughed. “I know what you mean,” he agreed.
~ ~ ~
Walking home, Giles watched as carefully for any sign of Jodie as he ever had for an anomaly in a computer graph of the accelerator. He felt guilty for letting her go alone, for not following as soon as he realized the impropriety. Still, he thought with annoyance, she was the historian, she ought to have known better. She must learn that the independent spirit which was admirable at home might prove hazardous here.
He had better deliver a warning as soon as he reached the house. The prospect made him groan. She was not likely to take kindly to the lecture.
“Is anyone in the library?” he asked Frederick as he took off his top coat. “Please tell Miss Judith I should like to see her there at once.”
“The book room we calls it here, sir, it being smaller than the one at Waterstock.” The footman took his coat. “I don’t think as Miss Judith’s come in yet. My lady and Miss Emily’s waiting for her to go shopping. And his lordship said to tell you he’s ready to be off to White’s soon as you wants.”
“Jodie’s not home yet? Hell and damnation. Where is everyone?”
“In the back parlour, sir.”
Giles strode down the hail to the parlour. Charlotte and Emily were busy at their needlework, while Roland thumbed impatiently through a copy of Blackwood’s Magazine.
“Disgraceful!” he muttered. “Oh there you are, Giles. I vow I do not know what the world is coming to when they allow such things to be published.”
“I am glad you are come,” Charlotte welcomed him, laying aside her embroidery with a placid air. “Emily and I are longing to show dear Jodie the shops.”
“Jodie isn’t with me,” said Giles, his voice harsh with worry. “She set out alone before me and I gather she’s not home yet.”
“Oh dear,” said Charlotte faintly. “Wherever can she be?”
Chapter Eight
“Thank you, my lord, I have had a simply splendid time.” Jodie smiled up at Lord Thorncrest, very much aware that he had not released her hand after helping her down from the phaeton.
“It has been my pleasure, Miss Judith. I assure you, I have seen more of London this day than in my entire life.”
“More of the unexceptionable side of London perhaps. I hope it was not too shockingly dull for a Nonpareil like yourself.”
“On the contrary, ma’am. If everyone could see the British Museum in such enlivening company, there would be no getting near the place.”
“Well, you were unexpectedly knowledgeable company.”
“I am not entirely given over to sporting pursuits. I fear you think me a sad rattle, but I have been known to open a book upon occasion.”
“I expect you
read Lord Byron’s poetry. You are a friend of his, I collect. I wish you will introduce me to him.”
He looked at her oddly. “Perhaps.”
Jodie remembered that the poet was in utter disgrace at present, and somewhat disreputable at the best of times, no fit acquaintance for a respectable young lady. “Will you come in for some refreshment?” she asked hurriedly. “I expect Charlotte and Emily are home by now.”
He drew a gold watch from his fob pocket and opened it. “Pray make my excuses, I am expected elsewhere. I shall call on the morrow and hope to find the ladies at home.”
Escorting her to the door, he knocked, then raised his hat and bowed over her hand. She felt the pressure of his lips through her glove.
Surely the custom of kissing a lady’s hand was obsolete by now, she thought. A gentleman was supposed to make only a token gesture in that direction. However, she was not about to object to the real thing from so handsome a gentleman as Lord Thorncrest. It was not as if Emily cared for him.
As the door opened she smiled at him again. “Good day, my lord, and once more thank you.”
He nodded, touched his hat in salute, and ran down the steps, his elegant clothes unable to conceal the powerful vigor of every motion. Jodie recalled a phrase from some Regency she had read: “he strips to advantage.” She was prepared to wager that the earl stripped to advantage.
Potter’s shocked face brought her back to earth. He couldn’t have read her mind!
“Miss Judith, everyone’s in such a worry.”
“Oh dear.” She was instantly contrite. “I ought to have left a message. It never crossed my mind that they might wonder where I was.”
The butler’s seamed face softened. “Never you mind, miss. All’s well that ends well, though I don’t doubt there’ll be a peal rung over you. The family’s in the back parlour.”
Jodie trod down the hall with considerable trepidation. If Roland treated her like an incompetent child, she was not sure whether she’d be able to hold her tongue. She and Giles were greatly indebted to the viscount and would find it difficult to manage without his support, but there were limits to her patience.
