by Carola Dunn
“Please, Jodie. From what I’ve heard, the streets of London now are not very different from the streets of Manhattan in our time. Your research will do you no good if you’re lying dead in some back alley. Be reasonable.”
“If Dian Fossey had felt that way…”
“Damn Dian Fossey!” He wanted to shake her. Important as her work was to her, its value was academic, not to be compared in his view with Fossey’s discoveries about gorillas. Definitely not worth losing her life for as Fossey had—not that he would ever tell her so. Yet simply being here in 1816 was a risk, and it was his fault that she was here. Torn between guilt and annoyance, he stood up and walked to the window, parted the curtains to glance into the street, then returned to lean against the fireplace mantel.
Jodie watched him in silence. Did she guess how much the thought of her being hurt appalled him?
Postpone the decision, he thought. Maybe he’d be able to take her home before it had to be made. “Let me make enquiries. We may be fighting over nothing.”
“No.” She shook her head determinedly. “It’s not fair of me to leave you worrying about it when you have so much else on your mind. I promise. I will not go anywhere alone.”
“Bless you.” In his relief and gratitude, Giles had to restrain himself from sweeping her into his arms and kissing her thoroughly. “And I promise I won’t decide without consulting you and without very good reason. All right, where and when do we start? You’ll have to get hold of some trousers first.”
“Trousers?” Jodie sounded as shocked as Charlotte would have at the notion. “I cannot wear trousers.”
Giles laughed. “You’d better watch it. You’re really absorbing the values of this society.”
“No, I’m not,” she said crossly, “or I wouldn’t want to go to the Royal Saloon. You just took me by surprise. I guess I will have to dress as a man. Okay, I’ll find some pants and a coat and hat. I’ll have to keep my hair hidden. Drat, that’s going to make things difficult. Even the most old-fashioned gentlemen no longer wear their hair long. What a pity men don’t still wear wigs.”
“Footmen do. How would you like to be my footman?” he suggested teasingly.
“That’s a splendid notion,” she responded, to his astonishment. Excited, she rose from her chair in one swift, graceful movement, and moved to the fire, holding out one hand to the warmth and using the other to punctuate her points. “In the first place, I can get a livery made up, saying it’s for a fancy-dress ball. And no one looks at a footman’s face, so if we meet someone I’ve danced with they won’t recognize me. Nor is anyone who matters likely to try to start a conversation with a footman so there won’t be awkward questions about my voice or accent.”
“Sounds good,” he admitted.
“You’re brilliant, Giles, even if by accident.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. A sisterly kiss. He reciprocated with a brotherly hug.
At least, he hoped it was brotherly. When she stepped back quickly he was afraid he had put more enthusiasm into the brief embrace than he had intended. “If I’m going to be painting the town red with you in the near future, I’d better turn my brilliance back to my equations now,” he said, moving towards the desk.
“It’s much too late. You’ll ruin your eyesight.”
“But Mother, can’t I just finish one eentsy little equation? Pleeease.”
“Oh, very well. As long as you eat your carrots tomorrow like a good boy.” Laughing, she departed.
Giles sat down at the desk and picked up his quill, then set it down again. Leaning back, he tilted the chair and put his feet on the desk, his hands locked behind his head. He gazed into the glowing embers in the grate. He had addressed Jodie as “Mother,” but her remark had first struck him as wifely. It was time he sorted out his feelings for her.
She alternately infuriated and delighted him. Her willingness to argue and her blithe dismissal of danger were maddening. On the other hand, he admired her independence, her dedication to her profession, her cheerfulness in the extraordinary circumstances in which they found themselves. She was kind; look at the way she had taken Emily and Charlotte under her wing. And she was beautiful.
His abdominal muscles tensed at the thought. He wanted her. He had never felt quite the same way towards another woman, this combination of affection and desire…
He swung his feet violently to the floor, letting the chair fall with a thump. If and when they returned home it would be time enough to think on those lines. In the meantime, he must keep his imagination in check and remember that Jodie was his sister.
~ ~ ~
When he first saw her in livery, Giles found it easy to imagine Jodie as a naughty little sister. He had just walked back from Dover Street through torrential rain and was heading for his chamber to change for dinner. Emily peeked out of her dressing room, giggling, and beckoned to him.
“Come and see.”
Intrigued, he followed her despite the discomfort of his damp clothes. “What is it?”
“Hush. Charlotte has gone to some dinner party with Roland, but Matty might tell her.”
Draped in a sheet, Jodie was seated at the dressing table while Emily’s abigail tied back her powdered hair with a black ribbon. Dinah carefully removed the sheet and Jodie stood up. She was wearing a calf-length bottle-green coat, liberally adorned with black braid, beneath which little was visible but a pair of shapely ankles in white stockings.
She bowed. As the skirts of the coat fell open, Giles saw that she had on black knee-breeches, cut full and unrevealing.
“Well, what do you think?” she demanded, mischief sparkling in her eyes.
“That colour doesn’t suit you.” He ducked, protecting his head, as all three females advanced on him with threatening gestures. “No, seriously, you make a passable youth, Jodie. Walk across the room. Women walk differently from men.”
“My hat, Dinah.” Jodie took a black tricorne from the abigail and placed it at a jaunty angle on her head, then pulled on white gloves. She strode across the small room, turned, and looked at him enquiringly.
“Not bad. That coat’s long and loose enough to cover a multitude of sins.” Giles stepped aside as the door beside him began to open.
“Dinah?” Matty peeped in. “Oh, beg pardon, Miss Emily, I just…. Miss Judith? Lawks, what’s to do?”
Giles took cowardly refuge behind the door. Dinah bustled forward and swept the older abigail with her into the hall, firmly closing the door behind them. Approximately two seconds later, three ears were pressed to the door.
“Were that Miss Judith?” Matty asked plaintively. “Or is me eyes playing tricks on me?”
“‘Tis only a fancy dress for a maskyrade, Matty.”
“Dress! Fancy britches more like. And not a word has my lady said to me of any maskewrade.”
“0’course not. Only Miss Judith and Mr. Giles is invited acos—acos it’s that American lady as invited them,” Dinah invented quick-wittedly. “You know, the widow Mr. Giles is courting.”
“Mrs. Brown? What I heard is he’s got a bit o’ competition from Lord Font. I misdoubt she’ll go for the title.”
“More like she’ll take her own countryman.”
Embarrassing as he found the revelation that the servants were gossiping about his chances with Cassandra, Giles was glad that the subject of Jodie in livery had been dropped. He was about to relieve the pressure on his ear and the crick in his neck when Matty took up the thread again.
“That’s as may be. Them Americans is odd folk. You know Miss Judith’s not up to snuff, Dinah. Did you or Miss Emily tell her as it ain’t proper for a lady to wear britches?”
“It’s a maskyrade. No one won’t know who she is.”
“Decent’s decent and indecent’s indecent, maskewrade or no. My lady won’t like it one bit.”
“Now, Matty, there’s no call to be a-worriting her ladyship, in her condition. Miss Judith’s not going to come to harm with her own brother to watch over her.
”
“And him with his head in the clouds and his eyes on the widow,” Matty snorted. “Still an’ all, you’re right ‘bout my lady. It won’t do to have her put in a tizzy in her condition. But you warn Miss Judith what I said, mind!”
“I’ll tell her, right enough. What was it you wanted me for?”
“My lady tore a bit o’ Valenciennes. You’re better at stitching up lace nor ever I’ll be.”
“I’ll do it for you, Matty,” Dinah promised. “Just set it aside. I better get back to Miss Emily.”
The three eavesdroppers hurriedly moved away from the door as it opened, but Emily let the cat out of the bag.
“That was very clever of you, Dinah, to think of saying the invitation was from Mrs. Brown.”
Giles felt his face grow red. “But I’m not courting her,” he said with unnecessary vigour, glancing at Jodie to see how she took his denial.
“What does Matty mean, I’m not up to snuff!” she said indignantly, more concerned, to Giles’s slight disappointment, with the affront to herself than with the suggestion that he fancied Cassandra. “I know perfectly well that wearing trousers is indecent.”
Giles looked at her and started laughing; Emily joined in, and the maid hid a discreet snicker behind her hand. After a moment, Jodie grinned.
“All right, that was a pretty stupid thing to say. I guess Mom was right that eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves.”
“‘Head in the clouds,’” Giles quoted Matty, then sneezed. “Well, there are plenty of clouds out there for me to lose my head in.”
“You are wet through,” Jodie exclaimed. “I did not realize. You must go and change at once.”
“Yes, I’d better. My umbrella blew inside out. It seems to rain every day—I can’t remember such a dismal spring. I hope it clears up soon.”
“It won’t.” Jodie was positive. “I had not thought about it, but 1816 became known as the year without a summer. Tambora erupted last year and threw so much junk into the atmosphere that it’s keeping out the sun’s heat. Frosts in July and…”
“I do not think I want to know,” said Emily, putting her hands over her ears.
Giles agreed with her. If he and Jodie were to be stuck in the past, he had no desire to learn more of the future than the vague overall picture of English history that he remembered from school.
After dinner that evening, they discussed where to start their exploration of the seamier side of London. Jodie wanted to go to the Cockpit, “to get it over with,” but Giles insisted that she must practise the role of footman somewhere innocuous first. Emily supported him. Though shocked by the whole enterprise, she did her best to help, accepting that standards would be different in the future.
Giles was proud of his great-aunt’s understanding and discernment.
In the end, he and Jodie decided to go next evening to the City coffee-houses. Jodie begged off the rout to which the others were going, claiming that she needed to bring her journal up to date. With Dinah’s assistance they slipped from the house unseen.
Giles waved his cane to summon a passing hackney and they were on their way.
Somewhat to his surprise Giles enjoyed their tour of the City coffee-houses, the Rainbow, Jonathan’s, and Don Saltero’s, where merchants and lawyers and clerks dined. He found the business discussions as dull as in his own time, but the political talk and the gossip about the latest news were interesting, particularly in comparison with the views of the Beau Monde. Jodie was fascinated. Her fingers twitched in her eagerness to write down her impressions.
No one spared her a second glance in her livery.
“It worked,” she crowed as they headed homeward. “But I cannot see how anyone could bear to powder their hair. It itches abominably. Thank heaven the Faringdales have a shower bath.”
Dinah let them into the house. Most of the servants were already abed, and the family had not yet returned. With care and luck, Giles decided, they might get away with a few more expeditions.
Anything was better than taking the risk that Jodie might go alone.
Chapter Eleven
The Cockpit was on the south side of St. James’s Park, where the pleasure grounds of the upper classes met the slums of Westminster. The crowd in attendance when Giles and Jodie entered the hall reflected this dichotomy.
Bucks of the Fancy in elegant coats made by Stultz or Milne rubbed shoulders with disreputable characters who looked as if they had found their rags in the gutters. Jodie’s was by no means the only livery present. The hubbub of voices shouting out wagers, or vituperation, or encouragement to the contestants ranged from cant in the refined tones of Mayfair through the slow speech of countrymen to near incomprehensible Cockney. Occasionally, a whiff of sandalwood breached the fetid odour of unwashed bodies and tallow-dipped torches.
“Great,” breathed Jodie in Giles’s ear.
Fighting the urge to hold his nose, he wondered whether she spoke ironically or if the opportunity for research outweighed the atmosphere.
The aisle they stood in was as full of people as the benches on either side. Being taller than most, Giles could see that the tiered seats ringed an arena, where even now a dead bird was being removed and fresh sawdust scattered over a pool of blood. Feeling sick, he turned away.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to find you a seat where you can see,” he said, his head close to hers to be heard above the racket.
“I prefer not to see the ring. Brad took me to a bullfight in TJ once.”
“TJ?” It was really Brad he wanted to know about, but he decided to stow the name away in his mind for future consideration.
“Tijuana. It’s just across the Mexican border from San Diego. The corrida was quite the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen and I’m sure a cockfight is as bad. It’s the people I want to watch here.”
“Unless you close your eyes, you can hardly help watching the people,” he said. “Some of them are pretty disgusting too.”
“‘Ere, mate, watch ‘oo you’re insulting,” genially protested a ferret-faced man in a short coat and a hat with a drooping brim. “Want a tip fer the next main? You lay yer blunt on the blue an’ you won’t regret it, or my name ain’t Jem Bloggs.” With a wink, he slipped away through the crowd.
Giles disregarded this advice. He had little money in his pocket, for despite Roland’s generosity he refused to take a shilling more than he absolutely had to. In theory it might be his own inheritance, but in practice it belonged to the present viscount and was not Giles’s to gamble with.
Grasping Jodie’s braided sleeve, he battled his way along the nearest row of benches tugging her behind him. A broad-beamed fellow who looked like a prosperous farmer stood up as they approached him and hallooed to someone in the opposite direction. Giles dodged into his seat as he stumped away with the irresistible impetus of a rolling boulder, eliciting catcalls as he trampled feet in his path.
There was room for Jodie to squeeze in beside him. She took off her hat and fanned herself.
“I am dying of heat in this coat.”
“Don’t you dare unbutton it.”
She sighed. “I suppose I had best not, though I cannot believe anyone would notice.”
Giles stood up and looked around, carefully averting his eyes from the mayhem going on below.
“There’s more space up higher, but it will be hotter,” he shouted down at her. “Oh hell!” He sat down abruptly. “Lord Alfred, and he’s seen me. He’s coming this way. Keep your head down, Jodie.”
“Lord Alfred? That guy I danced with the other night who trod all over my new slippers?”
“Yes, the one who interrogated me about the War of 1810.”
“1812.” Jodie giggled. “I’ve never in my life heard so many platitudes about international friendship spouted in a quarter-hour. What is he doing here? He struck me as a nice, naïve boy who would not hurt a fly, unless it happened to get under the sole of his shoe.” She jammed her hat on her head, til
ting it forwards to shade her face.
Unfortunately Giles’s neighbour departed at that moment and Lord Alfred took his place.
“Good to see someone I know,” he said, somewhat breathless after his struggle through the crowd. “What d’you think of the sport?”
Momentarily Giles debated his answer. Honesty won. “I consider it an abomination and I’m about to leave. I must confess to some curiosity which is more than quenched, so I hope you’ll excuse me, my lord.”
“It’s those iron spurs they put on the cocks nowadays have spoiled it,” said the young man agreeably. “Give me a good terrier and I’d rather go ratting. Mind if I go with you?”
“Not at all,” said Giles, unable to think of a reason to object.
Jodie appeared to be examining her knees with the greatest interest. He stuck his elbow in her ribs and hissed, “Follow us,” then pushed past her, heading for the exit. At frequent intervals he turned his head, purportedly to speak to Lord Alfred, actually to see if Jodie was managing to make her way after them. The black tricorne bobbed along in their wake.
It was raining when the trio emerged from the building. What rotten luck to land in the year without a summer, Giles thought gloomily, looking around for a taxi. A hackney.
“What say to supper at the Piazza?” suggested Lord Alfred with unabated good cheer.
Jodie tugged on Giles’s coattail, an unmistakable but uninterpretable signal. Probably she wanted to go to the Piazza coffee house, which she had mentioned as a haunt of Byron and his friends. She must be mad. In a well-lit room Lord Alfred was bound to recognize her.
“Thank you, my lord, but I’d best be getting home, if I can only find a hackney.”
“Won’t hear of it, my dear fellow. My man will have my rig round in a trice and I’ll run you home. International friendship and all that nonsense.”
“That’s good of you, only I have my footman with me.” Noting his lordship’s surprise, he added, “I’m not too familiar with the town as yet.”
“So that’s what the fellow’s up to skulking behind us. He can hop on behind with my groom. Here they are.”
