“It was my pleasure. And I know it was Agatha’s too.”
“Without them I might still be falling asleep in Psychology. Instead, a few months later I got my first paying job. A man by the name of Frank Rogers, a friend of Charles’s, asked me to locate a bird that was said to be buried in the amazon. Frank and I agreed on a price and a timeframe and I had my dad’s lawyer draw up a contract. My stroke of genius came when I asked for a bonus if I retrieved the bird in half the time.”
“Genius,” Lucy said, only slightly sarcastically.
“Right?” Will agreed. “Anyway, I did my thing. Researched the artifact, talked to the locals, and found the golden bird in less than half the agreed upon time.”
“What kind of bird was it?” Lucy asked. She’d done extensive research on several species of birds.
“It looked like a hummingbird, but it had some name that was supposed to be sacred.”
“Interesting,” Lucy said, taking another sip of tea. She could tell him that in some cultures the hummingbird represented joy and playfulness, but it also represented resiliency and the ability to travel great distances. She didn’t. No point, anyway. He probably already knows, she thought.
“It was.” Will leaned forward. “Even more interesting was that Charles’s friend paid me a giant chunk of money. And I realized that tracking down ancient artifacts others couldn’t find was something I totally loved. Plus I’m good at it, and it pays extremely well.”
“He found his life’s work,” Mr. Kincaid said dryly.
“I did,” Will agreed just as his rectangle thing chimed.
“What is that?” Lucy asked, staring at it.
“That is not supposed to be at the table,” Mr. Kincaid said.
Will picked it up, ignoring Mr. Kincaid’s comment. “It’s a phone, a computer, a camera, and so much more. The noise you heard tells me I have a text from a particular girl.”
“What’s a—”
“Right. They didn’t have smart phones in eighteen fifteen.” Will’s superior smirk was back.
“True, but there are plenty of smartasses. Just like you. In fact I’m sure you’d fit right in. They’d call you a rake and all of the mothers would tell their daughters to steer clear. Of course that would make the daughters desire you above everyone else.” She shook with irritation. The gall of such an insufferable man. “May I see this smart phone?”
“You can see it but I doubt you’ll be able to figure it out.”
“Insufferable.” Lucy was beyond vexed. He didn’t know she was something of a tinkerer.
Mr. Kincaid laughed heartily. “William, I’ll bet you a hundred dollars she’ll figure out how to use the phone before the night is over.”
Will smiled. “You have yourself a deal, Charles.”
“All right. Give it to me.” Lucy held out her hand and Will placed the phone in it.
“Just be careful. It isn’t a rock. If you drop it, it’ll break.”
Lucy lowered her voice and made a face like that of a caveman. “Lucy no drop. Lucy eat.” She brought it to her mouth and pretended to bite down.
“Funny,” Will said but he didn’t seem amused.
Mr. Kincaid on the other hand was laughing so hard he had to hold his sides. When he’d calmed down, he rose and tossed his napkin on the table. “Why don’t we retire to the billiard room? Will and I can play a game of pool while you discover all the amazing things a twenty-first century device can do.”
“I’m in, if you’re sure you don’t mind getting beat by a man less than half your age.” Will pushed his chair into place under the table.
“Lucy?” Mr. Kincaid asked.
Her total focus had been on the phone. It didn’t seem like much. “Lead the way, gentlemen.”
“Excellent.”
A servant came in as they exited. He was maybe Lucy’s age, dressed in black pants, a white shirt akin to those worn by men of her time, and a black tailcoat. For the briefest moment he reminded her of Dashel. His hair and eyes were dark brown. This man was paler than Dashel though, probably because Dashel spent a great deal of time outside with his horses and various other activities. A pang of sadness gripped Lucy’s heart. She poked at it, wondering if she did in fact have feelings for him after all. But as she walked out of the dining room behind Mr. Kincaid and Will, she realized it was the familiarity of him she missed. With her grandmother gone Dashel was her only friend aside from her maid Harriet and her sister, Ellen.
Lucy steeled herself, remembering her grandmother had promised the locket would take her to her true love. That was bound to happen soon.
If it hasn’t already, she thought and immediately squashed that notion. It wasn’t Will. He was barely tolerable. Sure, she found him somewhat interesting, when he wasn’t going on about himself, but that meant nothing.
To test the theory, she took the locket from its resting spot and opened it. With a timid hand she touched the strange charm. It warmed beneath her finger but it didn’t take her elsewhere, which meant she was right where she was supposed to be.
“Blast,” she whispered closing the locket and tucking it away. Her true love certainly wasn’t Mr. Kincaid, but it definitely couldn’t be Will either. Insufferable buffoon!
Or could it. Her grandmother’s words when they’d been discussing Dashel floated back to her: There’s no friction between the two of you. No heat.
That was true enough. If friction was the way to tell if theirs would be a passionate relationship then Will was definitely the one. They way he exasperated her could start an inferno in an instant.
SEVENTEEN
SMART PHONE TROUBLE
MR. KINCAID opened a door and went inside. Will lingered as though he waited for her.
When Lucy reached him, he spoke softly. “Did I mention how incredibly beautiful you look in that dress?” His eyes started on her face. Like a caress he slowly ran his eyes over her cheeks and hair before making their way down past her neck and the rounded collar of her dress that exposed a bit too much for Lucy’s tastes. When his eyes reached her feet they slowly began travelling back up. Heat radiated off her and her lips parted. Will continued speaking. “You’re not what I usually go for…”
That stopped her fuzzy feelings short and she clenched her hands around the phone, trying to crush it while her body shook with anger. Will came forward causing Lucy to back up until she reached the wall.
“What’s wrong, Lucy?” He leaned down, resting an arm against the wall above her head. His body held her captive. She felt as if fireworks were going off in her heart. It raced wildly and in that moment she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to catch her breath again. Will was so close she could smell a hint of lemon on his breath from the water he’d drunk earlier.
She thought he might kiss her. Her first kiss. Did she want such an obvious rake to have the pleasure of her first kiss? As if to emphasize just how much of a rake he was, the phone Lucy held made the funny noise. Will had a text.
From one of his girlfriends. One of how many? She wanted to be the only woman her true love thought of. If Will had more than one girlfriend already, it seemed unlikely that he might choose to only be with her.
Lucy huffed out a breath as she pushed past him. No, Will was definitely not the one. He was just the buffoon who would take her to her true love. That was all. She heard him chuckle and that made her blood boil. How dare he? No one laughed at her and got away with it.
“Have you played pool before, Lucy?” Mr. Kincaid asked as he took a cue from its holder on the wall.
“No, but we have a billiard room at our estate in Sothersby. My father and brother enjoy the game.” She didn’t tell him that her father thought it was a man’s game and hadn’t allowed her play, even though she’d wanted to.
“Would you like to try?” Mr. Kincaid offered her the cue in his hand.
Lucy had watched the game many times and she did want to play, but first she wanted to discover the secrets of Will’s smart phone. “Not now
. I’m going to try and win your bet.
“Ha,” Will said, coming around the table and picking out a cue.
Mr. Kincaid shot Will an irritated glance. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
“I will, thank you.” Lucy, ever conscious of her manners, carefully sat on one of eight oversized leather chairs that lined the room. The walls were painted a golden yellow. Intricately carved wooden details painted in a darker yellow accented the walls. They framed oil paintings. The pool stood in the room’s center. Directly above it coming from the ceiling hung a large light fixture. Against the far wall was a large glass serving area. Shelves lined with liquor covered most of it. On either side were cherry wood cupboards and underneath hung glasses. The countertop was white and ran nearly the length of the wall. Seven barstools with silver legs and black seats lined the bar.
Will went to one of two windows in the room. “Mind if I open these?” he asked.
“Go ahead. You know you don’t have to ask.”
“Awesome.” Will cracked one of the windows sending the sound of the waves and the saltiness of the ocean rolling through the room.
“You racked them. I’ll break,” Will said.
Lucy decided she would ignore Will until he left. Once he was gone she could ask Mr. Kincaid more questions. Like whether or not he knew when she would meet her true love.
She turned her attention to the contraption Will called a phone. In truth the rectangular thing in her hand terrified her. She’d talked a big talk, but she didn’t know what to do now. Except read the text. It said: Glad ur back in town. Let’s hang tonight. Call me. Several of the words confused her. What was ur? She said it in her mind slowly. It occurred to her the girl meant you are. Then there was the word hang. Let’s hang tonight? What did that mean? And hang what? She hadn’t the slightest inclination. Finally there was the word, call. What precisely did she want Will to call her? Easy?
Perhaps this situation was comparable to when a potential suitor was to call on her? Lucy had been taught to write correspondence in primary school. Doing so was an important part of being a lady in society. But this cavalier text seemed highly inappropriate. If she could discover how to properly work the blasted phone she’d tell the girl as much.
Below the text a vertical line flashed, and below that were letters.
“I wonder…” Lucy thought of a response and pressed the letters accordingly. It was slow going because the letters were all jumbled up and some of them were shaped oddly; but she got out what she wanted to say:
Dearest Mimi, I find your text forward and unbecoming of a lady. Should you wish to speak with a gentleman my recommendation would be to have a suitable patron introduce you lest you be considered easy. Whilst you speak in such a brash fashion, no gentleman of breeding will consider you more than tripe.
Above the letters was a box with the word SEND. She pressed it. Only a moment passed before the words, Text Sent appeared across the top.
“Incredible.” Lucy was proud of herself. She’d sent a text. What else did this phone do? Will had said it did a lot of things. Not that she knew what any of the words meant. The idea that the smart phone had more potential forced Lucy to continue. She noticed a round button near the bottom of the phone. She pushed. The text disappeared and a bunch of smaller boxes with strange pictures took its place.
She was about to press one of the boxes that had a lowercase f on it when the phone started ringing. Startled, she dropped the phone and then quickly picked it up, searching to see if Will noticed. He had.
“Answer it,” he said.
She looked at the phone. A portrait of a blonde female in scarcely a stitch of clothing appeared. It said Mimi across the top. Lucy guessed it was the same Mimi she’d just sent the text to. Perhaps the woman was upset and wanted to talk about it. Lucy marveled at how quickly she received a response. She felt certain if her mother or father saw such a device they would consider it the work of the devil. In her time such a thing could take several hours at least, possibly days or even weeks. “I most certainly will not,” she said, shaking her head nervously.
“I’m busy. Go ahead.” Will gave her a lopsided smile that she felt in her knees.
“Run your finger across the bottom, left to right. Then put the phone to your ear and say hello,” Mr. Kincaid added.
“Right.” She followed his instructions as she pulled her long, still slightly damp hair away from her ear and over the opposite shoulder. “Hello?”
“Who the hell is this? Where is Will?”
Lucy should have been upset by the tone in the woman’s voice. It was apparent she wasn’t happy, but all Lucy could do was smile. “It’s fascinating. I can hear her.” The woman sounded as clear as if she stood next to Lucy.
“She can hear you too,” Will said, an amused expression on his handsome features.
“Oh, right.” Lucy cleared her throat and sat up straight. “I’m Lucy Channing and I’m learning how to use Will’s phone.” She paused and waited for Mimi to respond. There was only emptiness. “Are you there, Mimi?” Lucy noticed Will’s head jerk up when she said Mimi’s name.
“Are you sleeping with Will?” Mimi asked.
“Good gracious no. Whatever would give you that idea?” Lucy brought a hand to her chest, embarrassed the woman would be callous enough to ask or assume such a thing.
“You have Will’s phone. I’ve been dating him off and on for two years. He’s never allowed me to so much as touch it.”
Lucy realized both men were no longer playing but watching her. She cleared her throat again. “I can assure you Will and I are not…” She paused. It was apparent Mimi liked Will, but there was a certain way people addressed each other. Surely things hadn’t changed so much in two hundred years. She’d noticed right away that she would have no female chaperone, as was the custom in eighteen hundred and fifteen. But then she remembered, Mr. Kincaid was actually her grandfather. He was family. That was all propriety demanded. She felt an immediate sense of relief. “Mr. Godwin and I just met. There is nothing happening between us, I promise you.” As the words left her lips, she wondered if that was a lie. There was friction between them and if she were altogether honest with herself, she liked the way her body seemed to hum around him.
“Fine. Can I talk to him?” Mimi asked, her tone less angry, more relaxed.
Lucy held out the phone. “Mimi requests to speak to you.”
“Tell her I’m in the middle of a game and I’ll call her back later.”
Dread circled Lucy’s belly. Will was giving Mimi the cold shoulder. That was disrespectful. “Please forgive Mr. Godwin. He is playing a game of billiards and unable to—”
“Yeah, I heard him.” There was a triple beep in Lucy’s ear.
“Mimi?” Lucy asked. She pulled the phone from her ear. Across the bottom were the words Call Ended.
“She’s gone,” Lucy lamented, feeling badly for the woman. “Maybe you should call her back now?”
“I’ll call her in a while. Nothing wrong with that.” Will lined up his shot and took it. The white ball sailed across the green flannel covered table and struck another ball, knocking it into one of the six pockets.
“Where I’m from, treating a lady with such indifference would be considered vulgar and offensive.” Lucy didn’t appreciate his cavalier treatment. If that was the way he treated someone he known for two years, she couldn’t imagine how he would treat someone he had only just met.
“I guess it’s a good thing Mimi isn’t a lady.”
Lucy gasped. Such disrespect. She was done—with him and his blasted phone. “I concede. For now.” She held out the phone and a bright light flashed into her eyes. “By Providence, what was that?”
Will took the phone from her hand. “You took a selfie,” he said, putting his phone in his pocket.
“What’s a selfie?” Lucy asked, then looked away. “Never mind. I do not want to know.” Her head ached.
“Aw, that’s too bad.” Will took
it and put it in his back pocket.
“Temporarily,” Lucy reiterated. Then to Mr. Kincaid, she said, “Apologies for losing your bet, Mr. Kincaid.”
“Pay up, Charles,” Will said, chuckling. He put his hand out, bending his fingers toward himself.
Mr. Kincaid slapped his hand. “I don’t think so. My bet was that she would figure out how to use your phone. Lucy texted, took a phone call, and even a selfie. I’d say she accomplished the parameters of my bet.”
Will laughed. “I suppose…” He bent over the table, striking another ball with the edge of his stick. Lucy watched the ball fall into a pocket. “You’re right. Guess that means I owe you.”
“How about you do me a favor instead?” Mr. Kincaid suggested, walking around the table.
“What sort of favor?” Will lined up another shot and smacked the end of his cue into the white ball, which then hit a ball with a green stripe. It landed in a pocket on the other side of the table.
Lucy knew from watching her father and brother that one player played with solid colors and the other played with stripes. There were only two striped balls left on the table. Will was winning.
Figures, Lucy thought.
“As you know, I’m an old man—” Mr. Kincaid began dryly.
“You’re the youngest old man I’ve ever met,” Will interrupted. He shot and the ball sank in the corner pocket.
“Well done,” Lucy said, clapping. But quickly she stopped. She didn’t know why she’d gotten excited. It was just a game of billiards.
Will gave her a gorgeous smile. It took her breath away.
“As I was saying,” Mr. Kincaid began again. “I’d like you to show Lucy around New York.”
Will moved around the table, lining his stick up with the final striped ball. “What, like be her tour guide? Why would I do that?” He jammed the stick into the white ball. It struck the final striped ball, which sailed toward the pocket, but didn’t go in. “Damn.”
Across the Ages (Across the Ages Book One) Page 9