by Cate Lawley
She grinned at him, the tiny dimple in her right cheek peeking out for a moment. "All right, then. Let's tour a well-regarded rose garden."
He couldn't help but laugh, because she made his rather dull outing sound as if they were embarking on a grand adventure. And maybe it was with Elizabeth at his side.
Chapter 8
A delicate hint of roses drifted close with each puff of breeze. Even the garden was circumspect. No loud colors or showy blooms in this Victorian refuge. Beth stifled a laugh. The absurdity of the situation kept creeping up on her at the most inopportune moments. And she had to be careful. Inappropriate behavior had consequences in this world that she could barely begin to fathom. She certainly didn't want to embarrass Edward or create difficulties for him. Difficulties, for the man who wasn't real. Changing her behavior—that wasn't actually happening. For the man who wasn't actually here. Preoccupied by the paradox, she stumbled on the path.
Edward steadied her, paused, and only continued forward when she gave him a reassuring nod.
Beth's heart broke a little bit. If this wasn't real—and it couldn't be—then the feelings she'd experienced weren't either. The entire situation was ridiculous. The Victorians were staid, and chauvinistic, and backward, and yet…Edward wasn't. She felt cherished, respected, and very much in control. Notwithstanding the confining clothing and some modification in her public behavior, she'd been as free and open with Edward as she ever was in her modern life. The greatest difference between the two worlds was the attentiveness Edward had demonstrated and that she'd found utterly lacking in the modern men she'd dated. They never seemed to hear her. Too busy tapping on a phone, or trying to find the next witty phrase, or interpreting her words before they even left her mouth.
"Perhaps we should curtail our visit and return to town early," Edward said. She must have looked confused, because he added, "You've been silent. I thought perhaps you were overtired."
And that was another reason Beth was certain she was in a dream. Edward expected that she would be talkative, because she usually was and he knew her that well. After one afternoon? Impossible. "No, not tired. Just thinking. Although—" Beth peeked around to see if anyone was with earshot.
"You can speak freely. We've drifted behind the large group of children with their nannies, and the Misters Johnson have fallen increasingly further behind over the last half-hour." Edward leaned close and, in a conspiratorial tone, said, "The elder Mr. Johnson is relying rather heavily on his cane today, and I don't believe it's due to aching joints."
Beth nodded and tried not to laugh. The elder Mr. Johnson was plastered. He'd been taking swigs from a flask of "tonic" that almost certainly contained hard liquor. "Tonic is code, I'm guessing? Maybe for vodka or gin?"
"Brandy, most likely."
"Some things don't change." Beth shook her head. "I'm sure it's impolite to say, but I'm starving. What are the chances we can sneak away for a meal?"
"Excellent." Edward immediately changed course and steered her back the way they'd come. "I've already had the coachman procure a basket, so a meal awaits in the carriage. We need only find an inviting spot to enjoy it."
"You know me this well because you actually are me. I mean, you're a figment of my imagination. And as a figment, you know everything I know." Beth spoke more to herself than to Edward, so she was surprised when he replied.
"I know you so well because we've spent time together. And as anyone who spends time with you would know, you're frequently peckish."
Beth was baffled. Why would her dream self remember Edward with less clarity than Edward remembered her? And how did she reconcile the several visits Edward remembered with her one night of sleep and a single montage of events? She kept putting questions aside to enjoy the moment, only to so immerse herself that she forgot this was a dream. It couldn't be healthy, maybe not even safe. What if she didn't wake up? "Oh, no. No, no, no." Beth stopped, horrified by a thought.
Edward covered the hand she rested lightly on his arm with his own and rubbed the top of her gloved hand with his thumb. "What's wrong? Is it time? Are you leaving?"
Confused, Beth met his gaze. "No. I mean, I don't think so." She could feel her fingers trembling under his hand. "What if I'm in a coma? What if the reason this all seems so real is because I'm unconscious and my brain is in overdrive? Or…what if I'm dead?"
"That cannot be." Edward reached down and touched the side of her face with his gloved hand. "You are here. You may come from your time without notice and fade away with just as much mystery, but when you are here—you are real. Of my own existence, I can only say: I know of no way to prove to you that I am no figment. I can only say that I think, I exist, as a whole man in your absence." He looked away. "I feel in your absence." He turned back to her. "I miss you when you're gone."
Beth closed her mouth. "You do?"
Edward took an audible breath, and the intimacy of the moment broke when he exhaled upon a broad smile. "Don't sound so surprised. You are excellent company." He pivoted back to face the path and walked on as if nothing had happened.
Beth didn’t know how to reply. Didn’t know how to say that he, too, was excellent company. Why was that sentiment so difficult for her to share?
Only after they continued to walk along the path for several seconds did it occur to Beth how risqué Edward's behavior might have been. He'd touched her face right out in the open. Even though she liked old books, she was hardly up on old-world etiquette—but wasn’t that type of behavior frowned on in the uptight days of Queen Victoria? What would Edward's friends think of the situation?
Not that she'd met Edward's friends. They seemed to only encounter people he treated as acquaintances.
They were close to the house, where the main path rejoined a secondary path leading to the front of the house. Edward excused himself and flagged a servant. After a brief conversation, he returned. "I've made our excuses, and our coach is being brought around. But I'm afraid you have a headache."
"Ah, no problem. I can have a headache. Who exactly do these people and your friends think that I am?"
"I'm afraid I've drifted away from my few close friends over the last two years, so inventing a fiction was simple enough. I manufactured a distant relative, as it's well known among my acquaintanceship that I have no close family. Escorting a young, eligible woman—even a distant relative—so frequently and with such familiarity…" Edward trailed off, as if the topic might be upsetting to her.
Beth bit her lip and raised her eyebrows. "They think we're sweethearts?"
"I would never presume to call us such," Edward said. "But yes. Perhaps a more accurate representation of public opinion is that we have an understanding."
Beth shook her head. "An understanding? An understanding of what… Oh, never mind. They think we're engaged." At Edward's head tilt, she tried again. "Engaged to be engaged?"
"Of a sort." Meeting her eyes briefly, he asked, "Does that bother you?"
"If it keeps the gossipy masses happy and preserves your reputation, then I'm on board with it."
Edward's lips tipped up. "The gossipy masses?"
"Sorry. How can you stand my modern language? Everyone here speaks so…"
"Formally? Stiffly? Without freedom?" Edward's smile had disappeared. "You remind me of my sister. No, she didn't speak as you do. Not even a little. But she was a free spirit, like you."
Beth again didn’t know how to respond. A free spirit? Her? The more she considered it, the more she liked the label. Maybe here, in her dream world of fancy dress and formal speech, she was a free spirit. The thought made her surprisingly happy.
They'd arrived at the carriage, and Edward handed her up the steps. She was distracted from her musings as she settled herself in the carriage—a time-consuming event given the confining and yet voluminous nature of her clothes. After she'd smoothed her skirts into some semblance of Victorian respectability, she realized two things. First, and most surprising, she believed. Or at least a part o
f her believed. Maybe a small part. And maybe not in Victorian England or time travel, but in Edward. That even a tiny kernel of her practical self could believe in the possibility that Edward was a real person—that was a significant shift in her world view. She'd have to chew over what it meant later—if she remembered everything. She crossed her fingers, sent up a little prayer, and wished, because she wanted to remember.
Her second realization concerned Edward, as well, but it had to do with his past. Something—a big something—had happened two years ago. Big enough to push Edward away from close friends, and for him to remove himself from society. It had been clear to Beth that the people with whom they'd interacted were pleased to see Edward out and about—as if he hadn't been in some time.
What exactly had happened two years ago to have such an effect on a man who was so socially adept and obviously well liked? He didn't seem to dislike people, just the opposite. And he certainly seemed to enjoy her company. Beth didn't think it was his sister—though that certainly was a possibility. It was a mystery. But a mystery for another time. The yeasty smell of fresh bread caught her nose. She was starving.
Chapter 9
Beth blinked in confusion. She'd been eating, had finished a fabulous meal with…with that man. They had stopped to eat, but had stayed inside the carriage because Beth didn't think she could manage a blanket on the ground. She'd been laughing; she wasn't sure why. He'd handed her a linen napkin…
She buried her head into her pillow. What was happening? She'd been in a carriage—a very real carriage, with velvet seats and soft cushions. She could still feel the breeze that pushed through the small windows brushing her cheek.
But if that were true… That simply couldn't be true. Corsets and elaborate updos. Carriages and horses. Men with beautiful manners. One man who listened, truly listened. Beth growled and pulled her pillow over her head. These dreams were intruding on her real life. Not okay. Worse, it was silly and wrong. She didn't need to dream about a better life; her life was fine. Better than fine. Her life was full and rewarding and—
She yanked the pillow off her head and looked at the clock on her nightstand. "Ugh." She'd overslept. Worse, she didn’t remember ever going to bed. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa. Weirder and weirder.
The ring of her cell had her hopping out of bed. Hopefully, it was her morning appointment canceling. After a quick glance at the caller ID screen, Beth answered the phone and dropped back down on her bed. "Hey, Hillary."
"So, any crazy dreams to report?"
Beth squished into her down comforter, contemplating how much she should say. "I guess so. It's the oddest sensation. I'd swear they were memories." Beth squeezed her eyes shut only to see the face of a nameless man. "Obviously they're dreams, but they feel like memories. Swiss cheese memories, since big pieces are missing, but still memories."
Hillary didn't laugh, and she didn't tease. "Why do these dreams feel different?"
The practical question only amplified the oddness of it all. Beth tried to put her finger on what exactly made these last few nights' dreams so real. "I remember feeling how heavy the cloth of my dress was, how the yeasty smell of fresh bread made my mouth water, what the breeze felt like on my cheek."
"I don't dream in that much detail—or if I do, I don't remember when I wake up. But it must be possible, because you are."
Beth's phone buzzed. Her backup alarm, telling her if she hadn't hopped in the shower yet, now was the time to do it. "I have to run. I have a client appointment this morning."
"Okay—but let's talk later. And Beth? Try to come up with anything you've changed lately. Diet, exercise, late night TV—that kind of thing. You never know what indigestion can do to a girl."
"I will. Promise." After Beth hung up and hopped into the shower, she realized there was something new in her life. Both nights, she'd gone to bed reading the journal of an unknown Victorian man. Relief swept through her. Of course the journal had something to do with her dreams. The overlap between journal author and mystery dream man were ridiculously obvious. Both were Victorian gentlemen alone in the world. Add a little romantic imagination, a complete lack of romance in her real life, and the dashing, considerate man of her dreams was born. It was so obvious in the light of day.
Unfortunately, her reprieve was short. It occurred to her as she headed out the door for her appointment that there was one glaring and decidedly odd detail that was still unexplained. She hadn't mentioned it to Hillary, because it seemed so…well, it made her uncomfortable. Just as she could remember the physical sensations of rich cloth touching her skin and the taste of buttery bread on her tongue, she could also remember the emotional connection she had to her unnamed suitor. A thrill of joy at seeing him for the first time after a long separation, a lightness of spirit when they shared laughter, a thrum of excitement when he kissed her hand, and the soft glow of warmth that sharing his company brought her. Those feelings were real. She sighed. They just weren’t for a real person.
Beth feared Hillary would find that unsettling, even creepy. But Beth just wanted to hold tight to those feelings, because letting them go… Letting them go felt wrong.
Chapter 10
Edward rolled over onto his side. His mattress was lumpy, his pillow hard, and the room too cold. Yet his bed and pillow were the same as yesterday, his room warmed by a fire, and his evening routine was unchanged. Elizabeth—she was the cause. She'd disappeared a week previous and hadn't returned, and her disappearance had weighed on his mind.
He shouldn't have become involved. His friends—what few remained after his wife's passing—would believe him insane, or Elizabeth a visitor from the spirit realm. But he knew her to be no spirit. She interacted with not only him, but also his acquaintances. That should be sufficient evidence that she was of this world. She had no more propelled herself into the past than he had pulled her. Her confusion and dismay aside, she couldn't even remember his name—additional evidence of her innocence in the events that had unraveled thus far. Why return to a past with a man she didn't remember? Although that wasn't strictly correct. She had some memory—but not of his name.
Edward fell asleep puzzling over the conundrum of Elizabeth's incomplete memory and time travel accomplished without the aid of a Wellsian time machine.
When he awoke, Edward rested on a refreshingly comfortable settee. The cushions were most extraordinary, more like a bed than a settee. His fascination with the cushions disappeared the moment he realized he had no memory of waking, leaving his bed, or dressing. He looked around the room and recognized nothing. He'd woken in an informal parlor, the objects inside familiar but touched by strangeness. Oddly shaped furniture, a crisp painting housed behind flawless glass, a photo in startling color… Where was he?
He swung his legs off the settee and onto the floor. As he did so, he noticed that even his clothing looked and felt wrong. The strange fabric, his bare arms—the general indecency of his costume—boggled the mind. A tremendous rumble echoed through the room, drawing his attention to another wonder, a huge window with glass so fine, it appeared to be air. Too late, he stood before the window staring out into a street where little appeared to be moving, and certainly nothing that would make that raucous noise. Houses with tiny, plain gardens, lined up in a row of sameness, looked back at him. As his mind struggled with the significance of the alien homes, a box sped down the street. He took an involuntary step back from the window.
Heart thudding in his chest, he turned back to the settee. The photo. Edward returned to the small table next to the settee and picked it up. A moment in time captured, full of color and life. A photograph, but so different from those hanging on the wall in his own home. The photo showed a young woman with a tidy, almost severe, appearance standing close to an older man in an oddly tailored suit and an older woman displaying a good expanse of bare leg. But these were merely passing thoughts. The young woman held his attention. Elizabeth. A younger, less feminine version of the woman he'd come to know, bu
t there was no doubt that the woman in the photograph was his Elizabeth. She was covered from shoulder to toe in a long, black, bulky garment, similar to the robes of a university student.
He knew it. He'd traveled into the future, to Elizabeth's world. He thought back—2016, she’d said. He replaced the photograph gently on the table. Perhaps he hadn't, strictly speaking, known. On some level, however, he'd felt a spark of awareness when he'd awoken in such a strange place. But it had taken time for him to sift through the various differences. Adjustment aside, it was disorienting being inside an unknown building, in an unknown town. Perhaps he should have a look outside.
He got so far as unlocking and opening the front door, but before he could exit, his gaze fell upon a woman across the street leaving her home. She lifted her hand and waved excitedly at him. Edward reciprocated the gesture in a more subdued manner before retreating back inside the house. He had no understanding of this society. Perhaps it was no surprise that a gentleman exited Elizabeth's home, or perhaps he had created some unintended difficulty for her. A crack pierced the air followed by the rumble of another motorwagon—not quite so fast, not quite so shiny, but still startling in its foreignness. The door thudded shut after him with more force than he'd intended.
Edward knew exactly what the speeding metal boxes were. He'd seen a motorwagon before. He'd even ridden in one, though they were hardly common. But the leap from the open-air carriage of his own time to the boxlike speed demon of this one… One traveled at a brisk pace, but the other raced down the street as fast as a galloping horse. He rubbed his eyes. Or like a machine from the future.
