by Gwyn Cready
He felt something being guided around his waist.
“Hold that,” she commanded.
The wool was far less polished than his trousers, and yet the weave had a lovely hand, neither too thick nor too thin, with a pleasant worn-in smoothness.
She removed the belt from his trousers and tightened it around his waist. The ministrations, performed in the alley, with her bending before him, brought sparks of heat to his cheeks. Or perhaps it was the prickle of cool air on his thighs. Whatever it was, it certainly added to the sense of being well and truly alive that this world seemed to offer.
Could he really be more than three hundred years in the past? When he tried to consider the idea, his thoughts veered away, as if it were a bottomless pit his mind wouldn’t let him disappear into.
Serafina finished the adjustments she was making to the fabric, and when she straightened, he found himself looking directly at her.
“This is the first time we’ve seen eye to eye,” he said with a laugh, trying to hide the awkwardness.
She mmphfed. “Take off your sark.”
“My huh?”
She shook her head, impatient with his stupidity. He noticed her eyes got bluer when she was angry.
She took the first button under his collar and undid it.
Oh, my shirt!
He wanted to tell her he got it now, that he was not the imbecile she imagined, but nothing short of death would persuade him to interfere with her precise and beguilingly short-tempered unbuttoning. He wished the shirtfront ran to his ankles.
She tugged the fabric off his shoulders as if he were a recalcitrant child and pulled a length of snowy fabric from the things she had stuffed under her arm.
“Goodness,” he said. “You come prepared.”
She glanced behind her and replied sotto voce, “I told you last night to keep this on.”
“Perhaps,” he said just as quietly, “we found a pressing need to remove it.”
He took the linen from her hand and slipped it over his head. The shirt—or sark as she called it—was exceptionally long. When he tucked it in, the tails fell nearly to his knees.
Serafina tightened the laces at the split neck.
“Mama, are they going to kiss?” the boy asked.
Gerard realized his mooning must be obvious and cleared his face.
“Or clash, I expect,” the woman said, repositioning the musket. “Either way, he hasn’t a prayer of defending himself. Do ye need an escort to St. Giles, by any chance?” she asked Serafina. “Your man has the look of an errant bridegroom, and I have had enough of those to last a lifetime.”
“Och, he’s not my man.” Serafina reached for the loose ends of the plaid wool and lifted them to his shoulder. “Though I seem to have been tasked with his care.”
Gerard thought of the ring. He turned to look at her hand and saw the gold band was gone. “Wait, are you married?”
Serafina paused in the middle of knotting the corners. “What a question! No.”
The other woman raised a disapproving brow. “Och, now ye ask?”
But there was something in the way Serafina had answered and in the odd frisson he’d gotten at the mention of St. Giles that made him certain his gut was onto something.
Serafina held out a pair of thick knee-high socks.
“Ah, that’s a girl’s pair,” he said.
“Would ye rather wear yer skin to blisters?”
He took the socks from her arms as well as a pair of rough leather shoes. “What the hell is this?” He held up two narrow straps of leather that he found inside the shoes. “I know what we’d use them for where I come from, but I somehow doubt that’s your intent.”
“They’re garters,” she said, rolling her eyes. “For your stockings.”
He donned the accessories grudgingly. He also grabbed his trousers from the cobbles and was thrilled to discover his contact case in the pocket with the contacts still inside.
“Well, I’m dressed to your exacting standards now,” he said, putting the first contact in while the women stared in fascination, “and I think with the thorough search you’ve just concluded, you’ve established I represent no risk.” He put in the second, and the world transformed from a blurred panorama of strangeness to a clearly delineated one. “Might we take the rest of this discussion to the closest dining establishment? I’m starving, and I have some very pressing questions to ask you.”
Serafina turned to the woman and curtsied prettily. “Thank you for your help.”
The woman made a noncommittal noise and lowered the musket. “He has nae weapon, aye. But if I were ye, I wouldn’t assume he represents nae risk.”
Seven
Serafina scanned the faces of the Royal Mile crowd, not only to ensure the men at the Hollow Crown hadn’t followed them but also that Gerard was passing for a Scot. It was with the greatest surprise that she saw he seemed to be, though she could barely look at him without seeing the dissonance of clashing culture in every detail. His hair was too short, his pace too swift, and he walked as if he were at all times sharply aware of the balls between his legs. She had to admit if she put aside her worry, he did look rather dashing in the plaid. It was one of Duncan’s. She hoped Duncan didn’t mind.
She felt the weight of the ring in her pocket. She needed time to sort this out. And she desperately needed to get to the docks. She cut her gaze to Gerard and realized he’d been watching her.
“What am I doing here? How am I going to get home? And who was the guy cross-examining us in the inn?”
“Keep your voice down,” she said. People’s heads were turning, and the men from the docks could be anywhere. “He’s the steward of a clan chieftess named Abby Kerr. She’s my friend, and he’s her sweetheart, but ye canna tell anyone.” She dragged him into a tavern called the Squeak and Blade.
Gerard’s eyes bulged. “Did I really just see a pig with his throat being cut on the sign over the door?”
“The establishment is well-known for its pork.”
Even putting aside the sign, it was not quite as fine a place as the Hollow Crown, but it was clean, the proprietor greeted them effusively, and a variety of sausages sizzled on the brazier over the hearth. She hoped the presence of the other diners would keep Gerard in check. She ordered a pot of coffee.
“Why am I here?” he asked. “Why am I in this getup? You haven’t answered my questions.”
She shifted. There was no easy way to begin. “You, it seems, are the answer to my…well, my…”
“Prayers?”
The brown in his eyes lightened to a honey glow. He really could have been related to Edward, she thought, amazed at Undine’s magic. They shared the same tousled waves, elegant cheekbones, and deep-set eyes, though Gerard had that fascinating hole in the middle of his chin. It reminded her of a whirlpool she’d seen off the coast of Norway with her father, the strong currents tumbling wildly into the unknown below.
“What?” He saw her looking at his chin and his hand went to it.
“Nothing. And, no, you did not answer my prayers. ’Twas my invocation.”
“Your invocation, eh?”
She swore she saw his chest puff.
“And how exactly am I the answer to your invocation?” It was clear he’d decided the answer involved a secluded bridal bower and a jug of wine.
“’Tis not what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything.” He waved the innkeeper over and selected half a dozen sausages from a platter. “I worked on a spot—er, ad—advertisement—for a bandage company once with a Sleeping Beauty theme. You know, spells, pricks, the handsome prince who must awaken the heroine with his kiss.”
“Indeed?”
“I’m just saying I know the general idea.”
Both he and Edward radiated a dangerous charm, she thought. But Edward’s
danger was that of a sharp-toothed sea monster, ready to swallow you whole, while Gerard’s reminded her of a young tiger rolling a ball toward you. You realized you might be in danger at some point, but all you wanted to do was play.
The man dug into the first sausage with the precision of a stone mason engraving marble. She wondered how he could eat. Her wame was still feeling the effects of the whiskey and herbs.
“I am not familiar with the story,” she said, “though I am relieved to say there are no princes, no bandages, and certainly no pricks in this tale.”
He swallowed and raised the corner of his mouth. “Not a one?”
“No. And, if I may say, what a dreadful idea for an advertisement. Who would want to look at bloody fingers?”
“We got half a million views,” he said, spearing another coin of sausage, “but I’m sure you’re the expert. So, this invocation, what did it involve?”
“Whiskey and some fairly repugnant herbs.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
The tip of her nose tingled with heat. “Oh. I see. Well, I needed a man—”
He snickered.
“—to help me secure something important.”
“A line of credit? A loose rope on your tent? Fifty-yard-line tickets to the Giants?”
She stared at him. “Giants?”
“Serafina.”
It was the first time he’d said her name, and she was taken aback. When a Scot said it, it was like a growl that started with a hiss and ended with a bark. Edward’s precise pronunciation rendered it empty, the husk of a thought. But this man, with his odd, seductive S and lyrical vowels, made it into a tiny and effortlessly enchanting musical phrase.
“My future,” she said. “I need your help to secure my future.”
* * *
Her future? Gerard couldn’t begin to think what that might mean. Behind him, the tavern door opened as it had half a dozen times since they’d sat down, but this time Serafina stiffened.
“Oh, God.”
Gerard turned. The man, in trousers and a long gray coat, who swept his gaze around the room, looked entirely unassuming. “What?” Gerard demanded.
Serafina stared hard at the tabletop. “I think that’s the man whose ship we stole.”
“What?”
His near-shriek turned heads. Fortunately the man had returned his attention to his friend outside, who was considerably better dressed, with a finer coat, walking stick, and copious ruffles at his neck. He spoke energetically, and the other man let go of the door and it fell shut.
When Gerard turned back, Serafina was gone. This was problematic on several levels, not the least of which was he had no money to pay for his meal. He waited for several minutes as he finished his sausages, then signaled the innkeeper.
“Where’s the ladies’ room?”
“Ladies are welcome in this room so long as they don’t attempt to procure business or insist on a chair for their parcels.”
“No, I mean where do they go to the bathroom?”
The man’s brows shot up. “I couldna say. I would never discuss bathing with a lady.”
“A piss,” Gerard said sharply. “Where do they go for that?”
“Oh, that.” The man jerked his thumb toward the back. “There’s a pot in the alley.”
“Thank you,” Gerard said, rising. “Did you see the men at the door a moment ago?”
The man shook his head.
“Thanks.” Gerard was already feeling guilty about having to run out on the bill. “The sausages were great, by the way.”
“Pig’s face. That’s the secret ingredient.”
“I can see why you keep it a secret.”
Gerard laid his fork across his plate, an attempt to suggest he would be returning shortly, but before he could turn, someone tapped his shoulder. He found himself face-to-face with the well-dressed man from the street.
Once or twice a year, Gerard would spot a fellow out of the corner of his eye on the streets of New York who he thought resembled him. That tingle of surprise and fascination would diminish as a better angle revealed the face was different or the coloring hadn’t been quite what he’d first thought. Such was the case with the man before him, who, while by no means an identical twin, sported the coloring, the build, the deep-set eyes—even the wavy hair.
The man scanned Gerard’s face, evidently noting the resemblance himself. He made a smug hm. “That woman you were with, where is she?”
Gerard was not in the habit of being questioned, not by a man who seemed to regard Gerard as a clod of excrement he’d accidentally trod in, and certainly not by an Englishman who said “woman” as if he’d meant something much worse.
“Why?”
The man stiffened. “That’s not your concern.”
“And her whereabouts aren’t yours.”
Red-cheeked, the man took a closer read of Gerard and his clothing. “You’re not even a Scot.”
Gerard wasn’t sure what he meant, though it was clearly not a compliment. “Not a Scot, no. But I do take some comfort in the fact I’m not an Englishman either.”
The man’s face turned to ice and he gripped his walking stick. “She is not what you think. Do not be taken in.”
“Being outsmarted doesn’t always mean you were taken in. It may just mean you’re not very smart.”
The grip on the walking stick tightened, and Gerard half expected the man to strike him with it.
Sensing an imminent fight, a few of the patrons had risen from their chairs, and the man mastered his anger. “If you see her, tell her—”
“Your message is immaterial. I may not see her again, but if I do, I won’t pass it along.”
The man looked left and right, assessing the number of people who had witnessed his humiliation. He made the tiniest bow. “I see I shall have to give her the message myself,” he said and left.
Good luck with that. Serafina didn’t seem the type to waste a lot of time on assholes—as Gerard himself had so recently discovered.
He caught the eye of the innkeeper, and leaned in the direction the man had gone.
The innkeeper shook his head. “Can’t help ye on that one, laddie. Not the sort of customer we usually get in here.”
Gerard sidled up and stuck out his hand. “I’m Gerard Innes, by the way. You didn’t, by any chance, happen to see where the woman I was with went, did you? Hair like wildfire. Tongue like it too, come to think of it—”
“Oh, I know the lass. Verra striking. Did she abandon you?”
“So it seems. I’m just going to check the alley.” He coughed guiltily. “May I add that my impolite behavior in your establishment—just now or even in the future were I to do something to annoy you—is in no way reflective of the delight I took in your sausages.”
“’Tis verra kind of you to say, sir.”
“And might I suggest… Well, perhaps it’s not my place—”
“Let it never be said John Dawes is not open to suggestions.”
“Well, Mr. Dawes, might I suggest that you would be well served—very well served—by changing the sign in front to that of a plate piled high with sausages, and that you might consider—when weather permits, of course—doing your grilling outside. The scents and sounds of sausages cooking over a fire are among the most alluring in life. I have no doubt you could triple your income.”
Dawes looked stunned. Gerard wondered if he’d overstepped his bounds. But then Dawes broke into an expansive smile. “I like your ideas, sir! I like them verra much.”
“And you might—well, this may be too much even for an open-minded man like yourself—but you might consider changing the name of your establishment to the Squeak and Sizzle—you know, like the sound of sausages on the grill?”
The man whooped. “Och, what an idea!”
It wasn’t much, but Gerard prayed the wisdom of an award-winning creative director might offset the unrecompensed breakfast. He headed toward the alley, hoping to find Serafina. He’d had about all of the Scottish hospitality he could take—especially hers, which seemed to consist of jerking him out of his present, denying she knew him, forcing him into this ridiculous getup and ditching him. And if he’d actually had a hand in stealing a ship, the sooner he got back to French-press coffee, garments with legs, restaurants with ladies’ rooms, and that one-thousand-dollar-a-night suite, the sooner he could put the past behind him.
After adjusting the shifting and unwieldy fabric at his waist for the dozenth time, he headed for the exit the innkeeper had indicated, which sat at the end of a long hallway. He was nearly there when a door behind him opened and he heard one of the room’s occupants, a man with a basso profundo voice, say breathlessly, “Undine, do you have time for another? I’m happy to pay for a second.”
Undine, the woman whose “magic” had done this to him, was a whore?
“I’m exhausted, gentlemen,” she said.
And a hardworking one at that.
Gerard doubled back as half a dozen men quit the room.
The James Brown of promiscuity.
Then he looked inside. The den of iniquity was, well, just a den, though a rather large one, with an energetic fire burning at a hearth at one end and a long desk in the center. Undine, a slim, cool blond, sat enthroned there, surrounded by a dozen men and women. They sat in chairs or milled around the desk, and their attention was focused on her.
“One more,” someone begged.
“You know perfectly well I am available for consulting at my home in Drumburgh,” she said. “Come to me there. I will lay out your fortune in rich detail for you to digest at an agreeable pace and with no one to hear but you and your conscience.” The audience chuckled. “This”—she gestured to the cards laid out in neat rows on the desktop—“is mere showmanship.”
“I have a shilling—two, if you make it entertaining,” said a man in a dark coat.
“Keep your coins, sir,” she said, eyes flashing. “I’m not a dancing bear.”
“Perhaps,” Gerard said loudly, “you’d consider telling the fortune of the man who has been forced to travel a considerable distance because of you.” He made his way through the crowd to the table.
