I supplied the name. “Sir Walter Elliot.”
“That’s right. Helene said he had a tie just like this. It is important to have it stand, not to wilt. I have seen pictures of my grandfather. I am sure he must have worn a tie like this too. It is hard to tell in the very old pictures. They are grainy and I only have the one. Untied, this strip of linen reaches to my knees. And—”
Helene joined us and laid a hand on his arm. He gave a soft sigh.
“You are the picture of beauty and health tonight,” she said to me.
Herman patted his chest again. “I did not say this, but it is true. That was very wrong. Here I am talking about my own tie and I have not done the compliments of the evening.” He pulled my hand to his lips, and with a wink he kissed it.
“I didn’t feel neglected.” I twirled for them both. The deep-brown dress with its accents of red and rose billowed slightly as the weight of the embroidery kept the hem close to my slippers. As I spun, I noted all the other dresses glittering like pale gems in the candlelight, and I felt dark, dramatic—almost mysterious.
“And you . . .” I stopped daydreaming and regained my equilibrium. I tapped the jewels on Helene’s wrist. “You are very glamorous.”
“Why not?” She flourished her wrist. “Mrs. Jennings was rich, after all. Perhaps not this wealthy, but who’s to know? Here, have one.” She pulled off a huge bracelet circled in paste gems. If real, each diamond would have been at least ten carats.
“I don’t think Catherine Morland had any money.” I laughed as she fastened it on my wrist.
“It does not matter. Every girl needs a little diamond glitter.” She then patted her husband’s chest. “And my dear husband is a perfect Sir Walter, do you not think?”
“Did he look as dashing in his vest and neckcloth?” Herman stepped away before receiving an answer. He preened in the mirror above the mantelpiece and fluffed his neckcloth. He then ran his hands in slow, measured strokes down his chest.
“He’s a wonderful Sir Walter,” I agreed. “I’m reading that one right now. Austen’s description of him struck me; something about vanity being the beginning and the end of Sir Walter’s character. I liked the way she phrased that.”
Helene and I watched her husband for a long moment.
“Is he playing that up on purpose?” I whispered.
Helene shook her head and took a sip of her champagne. “That’s what makes it so enjoyable.”
Chapter 17
I started the evening angry and anxious. I ended it as close to content as I’d felt in . . . I couldn’t cast back to a time. Even Fridays out with work friends never felt so relaxed. After dinner, Gertrude led us to the ballroom merely to show us what was in store for the next evening. Mrs. Jennings had wanted a mere dance; Gertrude was planning a ball.
Isabel’s eyes brightened when she spied the grand piano in the corner. “One song. Can you play us one song, Mary?”
I looked at her. After the incident in high school, we had never talked about the piano again. It was as if we both knew it was a line we didn’t dare cross—our friendship wouldn’t survive.
As I walked to the piano I wondered if Nathan was now another such a line. If we would survive, not him, but the lie of him. I glanced down at my watch. Fourteen hours.
I selected a piece and began, not as adeptly as I would have liked. My fingers felt stiff and clumsy on the keys. Isabel turned the pages for me.
“I shouldn’t be doing this. This isn’t what these people paid for.”
“Hush. No one who has the pleasure of listening to you could find anything wanting.”
I compressed a smile. I only recognized Mr. Darcy’s line because it had involved a piano and I could relate to Lizzy in that scene. She knew full well the deficiencies in her playing, but like me, she hadn’t taken the time to practice. I focused on the music in front of me and imagined that’s what this was—a practice session.
At the last note I glanced up. Everyone had gathered near. Helene began to clap.
“Play another and we shall dance.”
Isabel sprang into action and led an impromptu lesson in nineteenth-century country dances, and I warmed to the music.
During my third piece, Isabel determined her pupils were ready to step out on their own. They paired up and she found herself without a partner. With a sigh she lowered herself onto the bench beside me and resumed turning the pages.
I almost felt sorry for her. Until halfway through “Turner’s Waltz,” when Grant arrived. I heard her gasp before I caught sight of him. He was stunning. There was no other way to say it. He was dressed in Regency-style regimentals. At least, I assumed the British army didn’t still wear such tall hats and bright-blue coats. He removed his hat and shot me a wry glance as he led Isabel from the bench beside me to the floor.
I returned to the music and was soon swept away by Turner, Haydn, Mozart, and an Irish jig. Lost within music I hadn’t played in the two years since my mom had died and hadn’t felt for years before that.
I added a final flourish to the jig, sending Clara into giggling fits while Aaron and Grant stomped and swung the women around like Texans in a bar dance. The Muellers confined themselves to clapping and an occasional foot tap—not because they were surly, but because they were exhausted. And Gertrude stood on the edge of it all with a small smile and bright eyes.
Yes, the music worked its magic, as did the people—Gertrude’s emerald-green silk with pearls woven through her silver hair; Helene’s diamonds dancing in the candlelight; my own wrist looking equally dazzling; the Lottes dancing, mesmerized by each other; and Isabel and Grant, dancing a final and closing waltz as Sonia and Duncan snuffed the candles in the ballroom.
After the others went upstairs, Gertrude and I sat back down and discussed the next day’s plans over a cup of hot cocoa. She brought me to the Blue Room to lay out Nathan’s clothes together.
When she flipped on the light, I gasped. “I wish we could’ve stayed here. I love this room.”
It was slightly smaller than ours, with blue toile wallpaper and matching curtains. Not frilly curtains, straight ones with clean lines and right angles. The area rug was bright blue woven with navy. It was thick and chunky as if made from the ropes that rigged ships. It was a man’s room, a sailor’s room, clean, neat, and comfortable. An imposing wood-framed bed sat in the center of the interior wall, a wardrobe filled one corner, and an armchair and ottoman another.
“I’m glad you like it. It was my brother Geoffrey’s room. The Green Room was mine.”
“It’s so comfortable. Not that ours isn’t exquisite, it’s just that . . . I have three brothers. I guess I’m more used to this.” I ran my fingers down the drapery, then remembered Isabel’s admonishment: Do not weigh the draperies. “Do the rooms look like they did when you were a child?”
Gertrude scoffed. “Back then the wallpaper was peeling, the paint around the windows disintegrating. The lead frames had warped at least a century earlier, and right up in that corner there was a leak that dripped nine months of the year. Geoffrey used my blue sand pail to catch it until we were teenagers. Then he mounted a catching system made from a canvas tarp and garden tubing. It was all a mess. I don’t remember a time it wasn’t . . . Wait here.”
She returned moments later with a rolling portable wardrobe. She unzipped the canvas side and began withdrawing coats.
“Not that one.” I scrunched my nose at the coat she laid on the bed. “I promise you it’s too large. He’s more narrow, and taller. Do you have anything slimmer?”
She looked like she wanted to laugh, but instead she pulled out three more coats.
“These two.” I laid aside a dark green and a bright blue.
She then pulled out shirts, neckties, and three pairs of breeches. “Too small? Too big?”
I shrugged. “How would I know?”
“I have no idea.” That time she did laugh.
. . . A company of clever, well-informed people who have a g
reat deal of conversation.
The line from Persuasion came to me on a shaft of morning sunlight. I recalled the enchantment of the previous evening, then let it drift away as I watched the sunbeams strike our room’s many shades of green.
I stretched and glanced to Isabel’s bed. She was gone—again. I took a deep breath. Day two. I reached for my phone to send a quick text to Dr. Milton when another thought hit me.
Nathan. I calculated the time. Five hours.
I pulled a dress from my wardrobe, this time a rich cream one with blue detailing. The fabric was sumptuous, a soft thin wool, and it fit. It dropped long enough to reach my toes, and the front pleats made me look like I had cleavage. I twisted my ponytail into a bun and secured it with the stretch of electrical wire I’d used on Isabel’s hair the night before. I even dabbed on blush and mascara.
Showtime.
I stepped into the gallery. Then I felt it—a shock of pure energy. It was noiseless. There was no change in pressure or sound. It simply felt like a charge reverberating through and around me, like when the guys in the lab set off experiments to see if my hair stood on end when I walked in the door.
I looked down the stairs and there he was, right below me, looking around but not up. Four hours early.
I closed my eyes, thankful for a moment to allow the heat in my face to cool. I shifted my weight to step back when a chuckle reached me.
“Look at you.” The words were soft, almost flirtatious. I backed away further.
I took a deep breath and stepped forward. “You’re early.”
“There was a seat on an earlier flight out of Dallas.”
I leaned over the railing. “Stop grinning like that. Wait till you see what you have to wear.”
Nathan looked good. He always did. That perfect mix of hipster prep—jeans and Chacos, thin oxford-cut shirts and worn belts, and a touch of Texan thrown in—hair cowboy messy. It was cut short, allowing for only minor ruffling, and, like now for instance, he was often five o’clock scruffy. Thin and fit, lanky and mobile—his body moved with the same facile energy that moved his mind. And he was good at his job. That appealed to me—competence always did.
I stopped cataloguing him as he climbed the stairs; my litany of his attributes felt like a good-bye. He was dating Isabel. And as he neared, her descriptors filled my mind. TCG. A little boring, but really nice . . . Does something financial for work . . . Quiet . . . Hair you want to run your fingers through, if it was a little longer . . .
Okay, that last one fit.
“So you’re TCG.”
Nathan’s step hitched. He stepped up the final stair and stood facing me. He’d walked the entire way in silence. “I take it you’ve heard of me.”
I shrugged. “She said TCG worked as a finance consultant and was . . .” I stalled, embarrassed. I never used Isabel’s nicknames. They were descriptive, informative, often brutal, and always private. He’d only learned his—or thought he had—by accident.
I shook my head in apology. “It doesn’t matter what she said. I never made the connection. The surprise was on me.” I bit my lip to stop anything more from coming out. I sounded hurt, surly, and immature. I wanted to be more than that.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes.” I felt the tension between us release with the clarity of why he was here. “For all this craziness, when you see her you’ll agree. She is safe and well, wherever she is up here.” I tapped my temple. “But if she’s not back in the twenty-first century in two more days, I’m flying her home, and then I don’t know.”
I felt Nathan’s hand slide down my arm and clasp my own. I watched our hands bound together for a moment before remembering who and what he was—Isabel’s.
I turned away, pulling my hand from his, and headed back toward the Blue Room. “Gertrude, the manager, is gone this morning, but she and I discussed everything and she’ll formally check you in later. Follow me and I’ll show you your room.”
I glanced back. He hadn’t moved. His face was shadowed, as if something dark or unpleasant had passed by.
“She’s good, Nathan. I promise.”
He registered my reassurance with a look of surprise.
“This is it. The Blue Room.” I tapped the brass plate centered on his door. “We’re in the next room. It’s green.” I twisted the knob and swung the door wide. “Welcome to Regency England.”
Nathan followed me into the room. He scanned it thoroughly, then picked up a pair of socks from the bed and dangled them in front of me. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Silk stockings.” I reached for them. “Real silk. I’m not sure cotton could get this white. Aren’t they nice? And you use this garter thingy to keep them up.”
“Nice wasn’t the word that came to mind.” He looked back to the bed. “I wear all this? At once?”
“Yes.” I opened the wardrobe where Gertrude and I had hung the other clothes. “There are two more outfits in here, and more stockings and stuff in these lower drawers. I recommend you wear your own underwear or boxers or whatever . . .” I felt my cheeks warm. “But you can do what you want.”
“Good to know.”
“I had to guess your sizes.”
He held up the blue coat. “You did great.”
“And . . .” My words toppled over his, but standing there made my heart race, my body heat, and my skin itch in the wool dress. “If you know any Austen, it all goes easier. The guests here are really nice, but they throw around names and quotations like WATT throws acronyms. We all have characters. I e-mailed you that, but if you haven’t chosen one, you could be Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility because we have two characters from that book, Margaret Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings, or that guy from Persuasion . . .”
“Captain Wentworth?”
“The other one; the younger Walter Elliot. We’ve already got an old Sir Walter, so that might be fun.”
Nathan closed the distance between us. His face was a disconcerting few inches from my own. “Are you mad at me? What have I done?”
“I—No. Why?”
“Those are terrible men, Mary. I’m a little worried you put me in their camp. Couldn’t you pick Darcy or Knightley or Ferrars? Edward, not Robert.”
“Not Knightley. I mean . . .” No way would I suggest a Mr. Knightley to pair with our Emma. “Hey, you know your Austen.”
“I’ve told you. English major. Three sisters. Those movies were like background noise growing up.” He laughed at my scowl. “I take it engineers aren’t required to take nineteenth-century literary criticism. But . . .”
He paused to capture my attention and placed a finger under my chin to keep it up. I’d been looking somewhere near his Adam’s apple. I changed my focal point.
“You are mad.” He moved the finger to rest between my eyebrows. I felt the tension I held there.
“I feel like a fool.” My face flamed as I backed away.
“Mary—” He stepped toward me. His eyes held a look of pity—and that made everything worse.
“You don’t owe me anything.” I backpedaled to the door at a faster rate than he advanced. “You change and then we’ll go find Isabel.”
His outstretched hand dropped with his nod.
I stepped into the gallery and shut the door behind me.
Chapter 18
Nathan finally stepped from his room. I’d spent the time pacing and was certain that in a half hour I had worn down the carpet more than the previous 258 years.
Military style, I turned on my heel at the gallery’s end to find him watching me. He had chosen the green coat rather than the blue, and I’d been right; it suited him. But he was clutching the waistband of his pants—breeches—in one fist. The pants sagged within his death grip, and I could tell they itched. He fidgeted as if trying to keep the fabric from touching his skin too long.
“You look good.” I walked back toward him as far as the stairs, then headed down.
“Hang on. You can’t just walk away.”
<
br /> I paused. He had both highly-polished-black-leather-shod feet firmly planted.
“Can we take a second here? These are going to fall down.” He pulled the waistband out a good eight inches from his body.
I came back and pushed his shoulder to shift him around. “Hold these up.” I handed him his coattails as I caught at the back of his breeches. “There’s a cord like a shoelace back here and . . .” I pulled it and tied a tight bow. “There. All better?”
He faced me and put two fingers under the waistband. “Perfect. Now this.” He flapped at his necktie. “Is this right? It was super long.”
“Almost.” I stepped close and undid his pathetic knot. “Mr. Mueller told me he had to wrap it around three times . . . Here . . . Then . . . Another bow.” I finished and pulled it tight as well. “You smell like bubble gum.”
He lowered his face to mine. We’d never stood so close.
“I’m allergic to mint. Do you want a piece?” Before I could think of an answer, he raised his hand, paused for a second, then threaded his fingers through my hair. My eyes almost slid shut at his touch.
He pulled away my black ring of electrical wire, and my hair toppled about my shoulders. “Sorry. It was falling out.”
I grabbed it. This time, more embarrassed than ever. “I couldn’t find a real hair band.”
He lifted a section of hair and gave it a light tug. “Despite your dress, I’m glad you haven’t forgotten who you are. Though I must say . . . Something is different about you.”
“What?”
“I can’t put my finger on it yet, but give me time.”
I nodded and led the way to the stairs.
Give me time . . . Time. Our timing was off. How many times had I read that line? Or heard it in movies? Time was never neutral and often felt dangerous. Either we think we have all the time in the world, or time moves too fast or too slow; a shock can stop time; fear or impending pain can slow it. Time never simply is . . . And no matter how much you want to hang on to it, time runs out. I glanced back to Nathan. Our timing was off or it had run out. I had none to give him—so I let him go.
The Austen Escape Page 14