by Alicia Ryan
“I’d really appreciate it. I promise I’m not a thief or a mental patient.”
“Are you a whore?”
“What? No, absolutely not. Who taught you that word?”
The boy shrugged. “Sometimes they’re still out this time of morning. My brother always tells me to stay clear and not let them anywhere near my paper money.”
She smiled. “I won’t take your money.” Even as she said it, she realized she had a big problem. She had no money, no ATM card, not even any ID. Wherever she was, and she didn’t for a minute believe it was London, she was currently at the mercy of a ten-year-old newspaper boy.
He held out a hand to her, and she took it gratefully.
“We’ll keep to the back streets,” he said. “Maybe it’s still early enough no one will be out. And hopefully my brother is still awake.”
“We’re going to your brother’s?”
The boy nodded as he led her down the alley into an increasing darkness. It wasn’t just the absence of lamp light. A heavy layer of soot seemed to have leeched into every flat surface. Roxanna soon stuck to keeping her eyes on the street in front of her. Picking her way barefoot among cobblestones and trash and—she wasn’t sure what else—required all her attention.
“My brother runs a club not far from here,” the boy was saying. “It’s not really for ladies, but most of the gentlemen should have cleared out. Jackson may still be up doing the tally.”
Jackson. Roxanna committed it to memory since she had the feeling she’d soon be throwing herself on his mercy.
She looked at her young protector. “What’s your name?”
He turned and smiled at her, revealing gleaming, if charmingly crooked, teeth. “Lance,” he said. “It’s short for Lancelot.”
“Well, you’re my Lancelot today, that’s for sure. And if you can champion my cause to your brother, I’ll be forever in your debt.”
He frowned as they turned a corner. “Do you have any money?”
Roxanna’s heart sank, and her footsteps slowed. “No,” she said, “I’m afraid I don’t.” She looked down at her flimsy, sodden attire. “My purse doesn’t seem to have made the journey with me.” She met his warm gaze. “How much trouble am I in?”
He shrugged. “It would have made things easier with Jack. He’s fond of money.”
“Not so much with rescuing damsels in distress?”
“We’ll convince him to help you. Don’t worry.”
He led on but then turned back to her again. “Say, where are you from? Do you know you talk funny?”
She snorted. “So do you.” That gave her pause. The kid did have a pronounced English accent. “I’m from America.”
His eyes widened. “And you don’t know how you got to London? Maybe you were kidnapped!”
He was decidedly excited at the prospect, and Roxanna didn’t want to disabuse him entirely. Hell, for all she knew, she had been kidnapped. For that matter, maybe the old woman had been right and she was now in some version of outer space that did look suspiciously like London—only...
“Lance, can I ask you an odd question?”
“You can ask me anything.”
“What day is it?”
“December the first, miss. December 1, 1815.”
Roxanna’s head spun, coming back around to the old woman’s words from last night. She tried to think back. Maybe the old woman had drugged her?
“Hey, miss, what’s your name, if you don’t mind?”
She dragged her eyes to Lance’s face, taking in once more his strange, dated attire. No sneakers, no jeans, no hoodie or t-shirt. She swallowed, and something sunk from her throat to her stomach with a jarring thunk. She hoped it wasn’t acceptance. There was just no way...
She remembered he’d asked her a question and decided to focus on that. “I’m Roxanna. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He beamed at that, warming her shivering, soaking self-esteem, and led her on toward his chosen destination.
Sunlight was beginning to creep over the row houses between which they ran, for they were going at a full run now. To keep her out of sight, Lance explained. It was also helping her warm up, so she didn’t complain.
He turned once more and stopped short at an uncompromising wooden door in the back of a rather fine looking house. Or at least it appeared to be a house. The top two stories were all red brick, but the bottom floor had a façade of large flat, white stones.
Lance pounded on the door, and it was eventually opened by a bedraggled young man.
“Lance, what–” The man’s voice broke off when he saw Roxanna. “What in God’s name is that?” He pointed in her direction.
“She needs help,” Lance told him. “She’s been robbed or kidnapped or something. See,” he said, waving a hand toward her leg, “she’s injured. She’s from America, and she doesn’t even know how she got here.”
The man she presumed was Jack ran a hand down his face. “I can’t believe this.”
“That makes two of us,” Roxanna put in. She extended her hand. “I’m Roxanna Collins.”
He didn’t take her hand. “I see you remember your name right enough.” He cast disbelieving eyes over her half-naked form. “I don’t know how you came upon my brother, but dragging a boy into whatever turns your life has taken is inexcusable.”
“Jack, it was me what came upon her,” Lance said. “I found her lying in the street. Right face down, she was.”
Jack looked at his brother and then back to Roxanna. “I want nothing to do with you, but if I turn you away looking like that, you’ll not live out the day, and my crazy little brother might get hurt in the process.”
He stepped back. “So you’d better come in, but if you steal anything, I’ll cut off your hands in payment, do you understand?”
Roxanna nodded and slipped past him into a wood-paneled hallway. To her right, over Jack’s shoulder, she was surprised to see an enormous kitchen.
“Is this a supper club?”
“You’ve never heard of Padworth’s?”
She shook her head. “Not very familiar with...um...London.”
“Padworth’s is a gentlemen’s club. Of a sort. It provides the nobles who have too much money or time or both with entertainment—drinking, smoking, gambling, and, yes, eating.”
Well, that wasn’t a shock. She might not know where or when she was or even if she was awake, but clubs she did know a thing or two about. “What do you do here?” she asked Jack.
“He does all the real work,” Lance offered, parroting what Roxanna assumed Jack had confessed in more private moments.
Jack frowned, and Roxanna noticed how brotherly the pair looked—the same wavy dark hair, warm brown eyes, and thin lips that looked ready to smile or frown at a moment’s notice.
“I tend bar a bit and manage all the accounts. Every member has an account that gets tallied up at month-end based on his winnings and expenses. Plus membership fees.”
He turned into the kitchen and pulled a black dress from a hook beside a tall, wooden pantry. There were several dresses to choose from. Behind each one hung a white apron. “Jeannie’s uniform might fit. It can’t be worse than...” He motioned up and down with his hand to encompass her general state of disarray. “It will certainly be warmer.”
“Thank you. Is there some place I can change?”
Jack nodded and led them further down the hallway, pushing open a polished wooden door to a small room with two desks, three chairs, and a gleaming oil lamp. Red carpet was an opulent addition. “Here—you can dress in my office. We’ll wait in the hall.”
Shutting the door firmly behind her, she stripped off her two wet garments. Though not overly modest, the idea of getting rid of her only pair of panties caused her a moment of unease. Oh, well, she thought. She could hardly demand to have them laundered.
She used the apron to dry herself off, wring some of the water out of her hair, and wipe off her face. Then she wrapped her wet clothes up in it and put o
n the black dress. It buttoned up the front and was almost too tight, but she managed to cover herself. If it was indecent, it was ten times better than panties and a t-shirt.
Jack and Lance both faced her when she opened the door.
“You look almost pretty,” Lance said.
Roxanna laughed. “Thanks. I feel horrendous.”
“Is it true you have no memory other than your name and that you’re from America?” Jack asked. “You don’t know where you’re staying in England? Do you remember who escorted you here? Wouldn’t you have come with your family?”
She took a deep breath. “Definitely not my family. I’m...uh...I’m an orphan. I have an aunt, and we live in...California, but she doesn’t have the means to bring me to England. That much I’m sure of.”
She hated to lie, but she needed them to believe the critical parts of her story. And she needed them to feel sorry enough for her to offer their help. Until she found a way to get back home. Or wake up. Or get a grip back on her sanity. And the unmistakable sound of clopping horse hooves outside the office window wasn’t a comfort. Her dream world was becoming decidedly too real.
“So you don’t know anyone in the city?” Jack asked.
She shook her head.
“And you don’t have any money.”
“Do I look like I have any money?” She kept her chin up, looking him in the eye, noticing he didn’t let his eyes drop either. Apparently her dirty, rain-soaked form wasn’t that much to look at.
“Is there anything you can do?” he asked. “Can you cook? Clean? You can’t depend on Padworth for charity.”
A smile crossed her face. “I can sing.”
Jack shook his head. “We don’t have singers here.”
Roxanna laughed. “Why don’t you listen to me and then decide whether or not you have singers here.”
Jack’s brows shot up, and he gave a rueful smile. “Sorry. It doesn’t matter how good you are. This isn’t a drawing room, and the lords don’t pay to hear women sing. For that, they can go to the opera or any old house party.”
She thought for a moment and decided to take a risk. He’d either love the idea or throw her out on the street to become the whore his little brother had almost mistaken her for. “I can give them something they can’t get at any of those places,” she said.
Jack’s eyes narrowed on her. “What are you proposing exactly?” He looked down at his brother. “And can we discuss this in front of Lance?”
“Why not in front of me?” Lance demanded. “Let her sing.”
Jack eyed her again but nodded.
Roxanna stepped back into the room, called up a tune in her head, then belted out a low ballad. Powerful and scorching, it amounted to a declaration of modern womanhood and all the contradictions contained therein. It was modern, and it was frank—not explicit, but frank. Well, maybe “goddess on my knees” could be considered explicit. If the size of Jack’s eyes were anything to go by, nineteenth century London hadn’t heard anything like it yet. Her voice reverberated around the tiny room, and with every note, Jack’s smile got wider. When she finished, she smiled at Jack and launched into a few bars of “Closing Time” just to show she could do light as well as intense.
Lance clapped enthusiastically.
“I’ll have to talk to Mr. Padworth,” Jack said, “and I can’t make any promises, but if you can do that again, maybe you’re right and he will decide we should have a singer.”
Chapter Three
Andrew’s form went from solid to smoke as he finished the incantation. All the candles around him flickered out, leaving the study in total darkness.
Darren didn’t need light to see. “Is that it?” he asked.
It was a long moment before Andrew responded. “I’m not sure. I think so.”
Darren sensed his familiar’s weakness and reopened the holes in his wrist. The wispy cloud of smoke moved over to him. No visible action took place, but the beaded blood disappeared, and Darren could feel the pull on his energy. He’d fed earlier tonight in anticipation of this. Fed, but not killed. That was Andrew’s rule. It had taken some time before Darren had been able to master it, but as long as he kept trying, Andrew stayed. If he failed or gave up, his better half had resolved to abandon him to his own devices and go off to wherever it was souls were supposed to go. Darren didn’t know if he actually could leave him, but they’d made a truce, and Darren had learned to feed with restraint. His victims were mostly the desperate women who hung around the worst parts of town. They neither knew nor cared what he did to them, and he rewarded them handsomely.
Andrew’s form took on a recognizable, though still transparent, shape.
“Can you tell me now,” Darren asked, “what you mean by ‘I think so’?”
“I told you I’ve never tried anything like that before. It’s considerably more complicated than conjuring up a little sun protection for you now and again. I didn’t realize until about halfway through the spell what I was doing. That girl you’ve become so enamored of—she’s not just somewhere else, Darren. She’s somewhen else.”
“What?”
“She was in another time altogether. She doesn’t reside anywhere in 1815. She’s never been thought of, or her parents, or her parents’ parents.”
“That’s not possible. What are you talking about?”
“She was in the future.”
Darren’s eyes gleamed. “Was?”
Andrew nodded. “I’m pretty sure I managed to get her here.”
Darren looked around the room. “And by ‘here’, you mean...?”
“Well, that’s the tricky bit. The spell took so much out of me, I may have been a little less than specific at the end. She’s here alright, but I don’t know where, except that she’s somewhere in the city.”
Darren’s hands clenched into fists. “You might as well have left her in the future, Andrew. How am I going to find one girl in all of London? One girl with no idea how she got here. For Christ’s sake, she could be dead already.”
Andrew shrugged. “You found her in the twenty-first century. Surely you can find her in a few square miles.”
Darren sighed. “You’re saying maybe I’ll dream of her again and get some clue where she is?”
Andrew nodded. “Or you could just walk around sniffing. You did say her scent was unmistakable.”
“Have you noticed your spells have a habit of never going quite according to plan? And you’ve taken so long that it’s now almost dawn, and I can’t go anywhere for hours?”
“You asked me to do something no familiar twice my age could do, and I brought the girl to your backyard. I don’t want to hear any complaints. The rest is up to you.”
***
Jack sent Lance back to his street corner with an admonition to sell extra papers to make up for the time he’d lost traipsing through the streets with a naked urchin. Then he settled Roxanna in a tiny bedroom on the ground floor. “This will only be temporary, mind. But I don’t know what else to do with you until Padworth gets here. You’ll have to keep the maid’s uniform for now, but you can get some rest and get cleaned up. I’ll come for you when I’ve told him that I’ve let you in. He usually comes in around eleven. If you need the water closet, the one for staff is just down the hall.”
Oh, thank God, she thought. Indoor plumbing. “Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked.
“Most nights I’m home by now, and I don’t come back in until evening, but for your sake, I’m making an exception.”
“Isn’t there somewhere you can get some rest?”
“My head may drop onto my desk before breakfast gets here, but I’ll be fine for one day.”
He shut the door, and Roxanna made use of the wash basin in a recessed space that looked like it used to be a closet. Stripping off the maid’s uniform, she washed herself and her hair, dried off with a thin linen towel and went and lay down across the top of the bed. She felt guilty disturbing things any more than she had to. She’d already taken s
ome poor maid’s uniform; she didn’t want to put any of them to extra trouble. She did eye the small wood stove in the other corner of the room but decided that would fall into the ‘too much trouble’ category.
Her mind refused to focus on what might have happened to her. Any explanation she came up with beggared belief. So she slept, welcoming an end to her whirling thoughts.
Sometime later, a knock sounded at her door. “What?” she rasped, not yet opening her eyes.
“Oh, my.” Jack’s voice sounded from the open door, which promptly slammed shut.
Roxanna sat up, realizing she’d just given him a view of her sleeping, naked backside. Rubbing the sand dune sized goosebumps on her arms and legs, she got up and hurried to shrug into the clinging, black maid’s dress. She opened the door to find Jack still blushing. Funny he hadn’t seemed so uptight earlier, she thought.
“You’re dressed,” he commented, allowing his eyes to drop to her now clothed figure.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “I was still half asleep when you knocked.”
“And do women always sleep...like that...in America?”
She couldn’t decide if he looked scandalized or hopeful. “Not always, but in case you missed it, I didn’t show up with luggage.” A thought occurred to her. “We’ll have to point out to your boss that his singer will require a little upfront investment. I’ll need clothes, and at least until I can save some money, a place to stay.”
Jack nodded. “Let’s have you sing first. Then we’ll butter him up for the rest.”
Mr. John Angus Padworth made Roxanna think of Mrs. Butterworth as soon as she clapped eyes on him. It wasn’t just the slight similarity of name, but every part of him was round. He was a fleshy snowman, clad in gray pants, a cream-colored vest, and a matching gray coat. She supposed they didn’t call them jackets yet. She almost let out a giggle at the thought that her shameless habit of reading regency romance novels on her afternoons off might for once serve her in good stead. Literature was totally overrated. Maybe that was where this crazy dream had come from? That thought calmed her. Anything that made a modicum of sense was calming. She was dreaming, and her scattered brain had seized on regency England for its little adventure.
