by J. D. Robb
As he watched, her impossibly long eyelashes fluttered, and he smiled at the green eyes he had never forgotten, any more than he had forgotten how she felt against him.
“Weston?” She asked more than said his name, and as her eyes cleared she moved to a sitting position. “Where am I?”
She brushed at the pants with an expression of disgust, if not outright revulsion. “Showing the outline of my legs is very embarrassing.”
“Yes, Miss Kemp, I am sure, but I can explain if you both will give me your attention.” The gentleman was wringing his hands again.
As was typical of Alice Kemp, she went on as if she had not heard him. “Where are we and why am I here?” She looked from the gentleman to Weston. It was not a friendly look. It was more like a glare.
Weston stood up and began to circle the room. The mantel that had needed paint last night was now a green marble. The room looked well-kept and dusted. “Now. I want explanations now.”
The man nodded, a series of short rapid movements that showed he was ready to comply.
“First, my name is Mr. Arbuckle. Until today and for many years, centuries even, I have been the caretaker of a magic coin. It was placed into my keeping in the early nineteenth century, where I was born and raised, and I have been responsible for it ever since. I have not always been in control of it, but I have always been responsible for it. But that is another story entirely.”
Weston rolled his eyes. If he was not mad, then this man must be.
“Listen, please, my lord.” He turned and bowed to Alice. “And you too, miss.”
“How do you do, Mr. Arbuckle. I am Miss Kemp. It appears I have been kidnapped and have no choice but to listen to your fantastical story. Luckily, I have always had a fondness for fairy tales.” Her disdain was obvious. She stood up and moved to the fireplace and chose the sharpest poker in the lot. “If I do not like what you have to say I want to assure you that I am more than capable of defending myself. Is that perfectly clear?”
Now that was the Alice Kemp he loved. She had a unique way of taking command of a situation. He did his best not to react at all.
“Yes, miss. Yes,” Arbuckle said as he took a step back, even though he was not within striking range. “And my story will sound fantastical, but will be amazingly easy to prove.”
Alice—he really should try to think of her as “Miss Kemp,” but once you have held a woman in your arms and made love to her it was almost impossible to think of her with any element of formality, so “Alice” it was—lowered the poker but moved closer to the library door.
Weston wanted to understand as much as she did. With that, the earl turned to the gentleman and narrowed his eyes. Arbuckle seemed innocuous enough. Portly, with a ring of hair surrounding a bald dome. Eyes a soft if aging blue. He had the air of a man of ideas rather than a man of action. He was not a physical threat, to be sure.
“My lord Earl and Miss Kemp.” Arbuckle bowed to one, then the other. “You have both traveled in time from your country home, my lord, to your town house in London. The year is not 1805 but 2005.”
CHAPTER TWO
“We have traveled through time. Of course we have,” Weston said. “Why did that never occur to me?”
“Weston, stop being sarcastic,” Alice commanded. “That is not the way to find answers.”
“Indeed, my lord, it is odd, but I can explain.”
“Explain away, but can you prove it? How do we know that you are telling us the truth?” Weston walked to the windows that looked over Green Park.
He turned around on his heel. “The park looks just as it did in 1805. The library is the same.” The earl reconsidered. Hadn’t he just noticed that the mantel was different? “Except for the mantel and that box on the desk and that odd-looking glass on the wall.”
“Yes, my lord. The box is a computer, an instrument that transfers information, and the item on the wall is a screen that shows pictures on demand. Would you like to see how they work?”
“Definitely not,” Weston said at the same moment that Alice said, “Yes.”
“Prove it, sir. Prove we have time traveled,” Alice demanded.
“Wait, Alice.”
“Wait for what, Wes?”
Alice had called him Wes. Did she even realize it? The verbal gesture inclined him to agree to anything she asked.
“Mr. Arbuckle”—Weston nodded to the man—“before you prove this time travel to us I want to know why we would have made this leap through time. What purpose would it serve?”
“Thank you, sir,” Arbuckle said, drawing a deep breath. “Do you see your portrait, my lord?”
Weston turned to the wall—so the artist had finished. It looked a bit different than it had last he saw it. “Indeed.”
“Do you see the coin on the desk next to your hand?”
“Yes.” There was a coin, a small train and the locket that was in his pocket now. “But when was that coin added? I thought the painting was completed yesterday.”
“The man and woman who took your places were sent back in time for the sole purpose of bringing that coin to you.”
“Took our places?”
As Weston was about to toss out at least five more questions, Arbuckle raised his hand. “Yes, two people have traveled to your time from theirs. That is, from the time that you are in now. And, my lord, the space-time continuum demands that Miss Amy and Mr. West’s physical bodies be replaced while they are time traveling, um, that is, to maintain the balance of space and time.”
“That is ridiculous,” Weston insisted.
“Absurd it may sound, but truth it is. I want to assure you that this is only temporary. You will return to your own time and place. And when you do, you can only go back with . . .” Mr. Arbuckle stopped abruptly and asked, “Did you bring something with you, my lord? Miss Kemp? A belonging of some kind?”
Alice looked down at her new clothing and shook her head. Weston was about to do the same when he remembered the locket. He debated lying, as he was not at all sure that he wanted Alice to know that he still had it, but the situation they were in made such a lie seem petty. He nodded and drew the locket from his pocket. “This came with me, though I cannot precisely say that I brought it.”
“Wes,” Alice said, and he could not decide if she was touched or surprised until he looked at her. The softness in her eyes was his answer. Yes, Alice, I have kept it, and I always will, until I can convince you to wear it again and forever. He spoke with his eyes and knew she understood when she looked away and down.
Alice Kemp was no more his now than she had been a year ago. Or two hundred.
Mr. Arbuckle cleared his throat. “The item you carried, my lord, takes the physical place of the coin they carried. That is the only reason you were allowed to bring something that is not from this time period.”
Weston wanted to know why the coin chose that particular item, the locket, but feared the answer would be something to do with the absurdity of time and space continuity or whatever Arbuckle had called it.
Or, he would have feared it if he believed a word of this story. Still, there was the issue of his traveling by coach for hours only to magically arrive where he had started.
And what was so important about a damn coin? Questions. He had a hundred. Weston pressed his lips together and waited for an answer to the first one.
“If you will come with me now I will prove that you have moved through both space and time.”
“But I have a dozen more questions,” Alice insisted.
“I am sure you both do, Miss Kemp, and I will do my best to answer them, but first I want to establish the truth of what I say, if you please. The changes in London will convince you better than I ever could with words.”
Mr. Arbuckle walked toward the door. Weston followed him, anxious to see the proof.
“I cannot go ou
t in public wearing this!” Alice had not moved from the spot.
Both men paused. Mr. Arbuckle did not open the door.
“Miss, I assure you that no one will be at all shocked. The jeans you are wearing are typical for all English women.”
“Jeans?” She looked down at the offending garment. “Do they now name their items of clothing?” Her tone indicated that her question was more sarcasm, the kind she had deplored in him.
“Alice. We have traveled two hundred years into the future and you choose to quibble over an item of dress?”
“Quibble!” Now she was insulted. “You know as well as I do that what people wear can seal their fate in society. Beau Brummell has proved that.”
“Miss Kemp, please do trust me in this,” Arbuckle urged. “No one will think it unusual for you to be out and about dressed as you are. You are wearing essentially what Miss Amy and Mr. West were wearing when they traveled back in time, as they are wearing what you wore. So you see it is perfectly normal.”
Weston could not control a burst of laughter. “‘Perfectly normal’ are the last words I would use to describe this situation.” He turned to Alice. “Come, my dear, have you not always wanted to experience the comfort of men’s dress? Now is your chance.”
“Dress as a gentleman? Never. No more than you have wanted to dress in skirts, my lord.” But with a sigh Alice moved toward the door. “Very well. But I will box the ears of anyone who dares insult me.”
“I know that you are entirely capable of taking care of yourself,” Weston said, “but I assure you, Alice, that I shall do more than box ears if anyone should insult you.”
Alice turned her head away quickly, but not before he saw the hint of a smile.
CHAPTER THREE
As they made their way into the passage toward the front door a woman was coming up the stairs. “Are you done with the tea things, then, sir?”
A servant. This woman was a servant of some kind, but dressed in a way that made it look as though she were trying to copy her betters.
“Yes. We are done.” She was looking at him, but it was Arbuckle who answered. “Mr. West and Miss Kemp will be back shortly.”
“Very well, sir.”
Weston gave a brief nod when the servant glanced at him for confirmation. As the housekeeper moved into the next room to clear the tea table, Arbuckle whispered, “I beg your pardon, my lord, but the housekeeper—Tandy is her name—knows nothing of what has happened. And since you look exactly like Mr. West and not at all like the current earl, I thought it best to address you as him.”
“Yes, I see,” the earl answered, and then looked at Alice.
She nodded. “We will have to be careful what we say when she is around.”
“Which is not that different from our day, is it?”
Alice nodded with a small smile that brought an inordinate amount of joy to his heart.
Turning his attention from Alice, he made his way to the front hall. As they walked down the stairs that circled the entry hall, Weston noted that, while the place looked the same, the decor was different.
“It looks familiar, but parts of it are not at all as I recall,” Alice whispered to him, and he smiled at the intimacy, nodding.
Yes, he had no doubt this was his town house. The Rembrandt hanging at the landing proved it. He knew it was the same place, but so much around it was different, and for the first time the earl wondered if Mr. Arbuckle might be telling the unholy truth.
Did he even need to say that the next few hours were the most amazing of his life thus far? He knew the memory of this terrifying, horrifying, incredible look at the future would astound him forever.
There was the obvious. Thousands of horse-free carriages, which Arbuckle called “cars,” some large and some small, filled the roads. Conveyances called lorries took the place of carts, but still managed to block traffic as much as the old horse-drawn drays had.
Buildings were tall, huge. The lifts they rode on made stairs unnecessary except for emergencies. There were still pockets of small homes. Mayfair retained much of its nineteenth-century look. Even Berkeley Square was still there, if marred by the hideous building that was the American Embassy.
“What surprises me as much as the change,” Alice said at one point, “is how much has remained the same.”
Indeed he had noticed that too. London remained a hub of the world. People of all nations were on the streets, some hurried and on business, others shopping at a leisurely pace. He was delighted to see that the Burlington Arcade remained, with some of the same shops he frequented.
And Hatchards!
The bookstore still had pride of place on Piccadilly. Alice suggested they go inside, and Mr. Arbuckle agreed.
There were books displayed in far more dramatic ways than in his day, when stacked books near the door had been the only announcement of new publications. Now there were stands as tall as he was, with bright, even bold, covers. He moved from one to another, running his fingers over the smooth paper covers of three or four different books. No more leather covers. And authors seemed to crave publicity, as their pictures were a prominent part of the back cover.
One of the displays particularly caught their attention. The book was Alice in Wonderland, and Mr. Arbuckle explained that it was a perennial children’s favorite.
“That could be a story about us, Weston. For this London is, indeed, a wonderland.”
The earl turned to their guide. “How did this Alice reach her Wonderland? Was it by time travel as well?”
“No, my lord. She fell down a rabbit hole.”
“I did that once too,” Weston said with a laugh. “Well, my horse did. He fell in the rabbit hole and escaped unharmed, but it left me more dizzy than clearheaded. For a day I saw two of everything. Was that Alice in Wonderland’s experience as well?”
“No.” Arbuckle shook his head.
“Shall we purchase a copy?” Alice asked, and made to lift one from the stand.
“You may, if you wish, but you will not be able to take it back with you. If you take something with you, then you must leave something behind. The space-time continuum, you know.”
Weston’s expression must have looked as confused as Alice’s did, because Arbuckle shook his head. “Of course you have no idea what I’m talking about. As I said before you can only go back with what you came with, and that would be the locket. Unless you wish to leave the jewelry behind?”
Weston shook his head. Arbuckle nodded. Nothing was said, but each understood the other.
“If the people pretending to be us must leave the coin, what will they bring back?” Alice asked, as though she had not witnessed the silent commune.
Mr. Arbuckle shrugged. “They will think of something.”
“It will be a challenge to see if we can discover what it is they chose to bring with them.” Alice’s smile hinted that yet another adventure awaited them.
“Indeed,” Weston agreed, though he would agree to almost anything when she smiled at him like that. His smile must have been too suggestive, since Alice turned from him and picked up the nearest book, obviously only pretending interest in it. The book was a large volume called The Annotated Pride and Prejudice.
He stepped closer as though he wished to look at it with her, when all he really wanted was to inhale the lovely vanilla and rose scent she favored.
Alice dropped the book and moved to the other side of the table, clearly more upset than charmed by his nearness.
In the name of all that was holy, he did not know if his presence was welcome or not. Did she really want nothing more to do with him? If so, why had she been at Westmoreland in the first place?
CHAPTER FOUR
Arbuckle must have sensed the tension, because he announced in a too-cheerful voice, “I think you will be happy to know that Miss Austen’s works still sell very well.�
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“Miss Austen?” Alice asked, grabbing on to the conversational gambit as if it were a lifeline.
“Jane Austen,” Arbuckle elaborated, “the author of Pride and Prejudice, the book you picked up.”
Weston was as much at sea as Alice. He had never heard of an author by that name. “A female author? Most likely she wrote gothic novels, the kind of books in which I have no interest.”
“Oh, Weston, do not act so superior, as if you never have read Defoe’s satires.”
Arbuckle picked up the copy of Pride and Prejudice and opened it to the front page. “My apologies. Pride and Prejudice was not published until 1813. It seems you have a treat waiting for you. I do believe at first she wrote anonymously, but the Prince Regent greatly admired her work, and eventually she became known to the public.”
“The Prince Regent? What happened to King George III?” Weston felt some concern. A regent meant the king was still alive but incapacitated in some way. “Did his brain fever return, or did another would-be assassin come too close to success? When and for how long?”
Arbuckle waved his hands as if trying to make Weston’s questions disappear. “Oh dear, oh dear. I know you cannot change history, as this event was always meant to happen, but I don’t know how much we should discuss or if I must watch my words.”
Sensing his real distress, Weston nodded. “I will not press you. The king has been ill several times. For the moment I will assume it is another one of those occurrences.” Mentally, he decided he would find a history of the last two hundred years and inform himself.
That thought was the launching point for an idea that could make this time travel worthwhile. But this was hardly the place to discuss it, for it would, no doubt, upset Mr. Arbuckle even more.
“Since we cannot purchase anything here I suggest that we leave and find a coffeehouse, Mr. Arbuckle,” Weston suggested.
