Caught in Time

by Julie McElwain

  CAUGHT

  in TIME

  A Kendra Donovan Mystery

  JULIE MCELWAIN

  To Jeff and Holly

  CAUGHT

  in TIME

  1

  The fog came without warning, swift skeins of milk-white vapor curling across the Yorkshire countryside, ethereal in its beauty. And utterly dangerous, especially if you happened to be barreling down an unfamiliar road in a carriage drawn by a team of four horses.

  The carriage began to slow. Kendra Donovan understood the precaution. It would be hazardous to go faster. And by faster, she meant a top speed of ten miles an hour. Christ, she thought, I’ve driven faster golf carts.

  Impatience had her twitching in her seat. She tore her gaze away from the amorphous cloud that had settled on the landscape, obscuring the rolling hills and moors, and glanced at the carriage’s two other occupants. But if she thought they’d exchange commiserating looks, the kind that commuters shared whenever their journeys were unexpectedly delayed, she was disappointed. Molly, a small figure bundled in cloak, bonnet, and blanket, had managed to wedge herself into the corner next to Kendra and had fallen asleep an hour ago, lulled by the tedious motion of the carriage. Kendra looked next at the man on the seat across from her. Albert Rutherford, the seventh Duke of Aldridge, was calmly reading a book, seemingly unaware of their now glacial pace. But then this was normal for him, she knew. Hell, it was normal for anyone in 1815. She was the odd one out.

  Kendra shifted in her seat again, unable to get comfortable. She’d lost count of the hours they’d spent on the road today, but she knew the days. Three days ago, they’d begun their journey from Aldridge Castle. They still had one more day left before they reached their destination—Monksgrey, one of the smaller estates the Duke owned in Lancashire. Four days, she thought. Four days to travel a route that would have taken her roughly five hours to complete more than two months ago.

  Two months ago—and two hundred years into the future. She should have been used to the concept of time travel by now, but those two words still had the power to make her feel punch-drunk. The natural laws of the universe meant time flowed in a linear fashion—forward. If you ladled hot soup into a bowl, the soup would eventually cool. It couldn’t warm up again—or it shouldn’t.

  But in the field of quantum mechanics, scientists were just beginning to explore the possibility that time could flow both ways. The natural laws of the universe broke down on a quantum level, with subatomic particles behaving oddly, including leaping back and forth in time. But Kendra didn’t exist on a quantum level. She was a person, not a subatomic particle. She should have been fixed on the plane governed by the natural laws of the universe, not thrown into the past, where it took four damn days to travel across England.

  She’d been born at the tail end of the twentieth century. Chuck Yeager’s test flight, which had broken the sound barrier by exceeding speeds of 662 miles per hour, had already been in the history books for decades. By the time she’d graduated Princeton to become a special agent at the FBI, that milestone had looked positively antiquated compared to the military jets that routinely pushed speeds above Mach 3—2,280 miles an hour. Time was the most valuable commodity in her era. Billion-dollar industries had been created by shaving off a second here, a minute there—microwaves, cars, texting, the Internet. In the twenty-first century, speed was as natural as breathing.

  Kendra drew in a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. Her gaze traveled back to the fog-shrouded window. Her stomach twisted.

  This isn’t my world.

  She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. In her world, she’d been the youngest person ever to be accepted into the FBI. The Bureau’s Cyber Division had been interested in her tech skills. Her ambition had eventually propelled her into the Behavioral Science Unit, where she’d been successful in carving out a career as a criminal profiler. She’d been happy . . . well, maybe happy wasn’t the right word, she conceded. But she’d been damn good at her job. Then her life had gone sideways.

  The scars on her body began to throb, hot and itchy. A psychosomatic response, she was certain, to being shot and nearly dying. Bile rose up, hot and bitter, as Kendra thought about the man responsible for her injuries and getting half her task force killed. Sir Jeremy Greene. The British billionaire had all the trappings of respectability. But you had only to scrape off the surface shine to uncover the filth and muck beneath. Illegal narcotics, weapons smuggling, human trafficking—Sir Jeremy had his pointy fingers in plenty of nasty pots.

  Was that when her life had skittered sideways? At the time, she only knew that she couldn’t accept the deal that the government had made with Sir Jeremy, allowing him to keep his freedom and luxurious lifestyle as long as he fed them valuable intel against his viler associates. Such deals were done. Kendra wasn’t naïve.

  And if her own team members hadn’t been casualties in the mission to capture the asshole, would she have looked the other way? Gone on with her life?

  God help her, she didn’t know.

  But hindsight wouldn’t change a damn thing. She hadn’t looked the other way. She’d made plans to take Sir Jeremy out. An eye for an eye was too Old Testament for her. She preferred to think of it as justice.

  She’d planned it so well, so meticulously. But how could she have known that Sir Jeremy’s criminal associates had become suspicious of him, had hired an assassin to put a hole in the bastard’s chest? She wouldn’t have objected to that, if she’d been in her apartment in Virginia, and not standing in the room that Sir Jeremy had been entering. Even now, more than two months later, she could feel the jittery zing of adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream. Her memory wasn’t quite eidetic, but it didn’t need to be for this particular event. The scene was frozen, with stark clarity, in her mind.

  She could still hear the impatient snap in Sir Jeremy’s voice outside in the hallway, still see him as the door swung open. The sheen of silvery hair. The patrician profile. He’d been wearing a nineteenth century costume like everyone who was attending the costume ball at Aldridge Castle. Ice danced down her spine as she recalled the sound—a muted pfft—that had changed everything. The next moment, Sir Jeremy was falling into the room, his once snowy-white shirt blooming crimson. She could smell the raw, coppery scent of his blood filling the air.

  Shock had robbed her of any mobility. She remembered that, too, the endless moment, stretching like a rubber band. The assassin had moved into the room, and his eyes, dark and cold, had locked on hers. Without hesitation, he’d lifted his gun, the barrel elongated by a silencer.

  This was where her memory failed her. She couldn’t actually remember moving when he’d fired the weapon. She only remembered hearing the deadly pfft again, and the Chinese vase shattered into a million pieces next to her as she frantically dove through the hidden door in the study. Her only thought had been to climb the stairwell that had been used for over a thousand years by the castle inhabitants to flee from their religious and political persecutors.

  A cold, prickly sweat broke out on her body now as she recalled the unnatural darkness, the sudden sensation of going around and around on an excruciating spike of pain. The sensation that she was being shredded into a million strands had seemed endless. Her life had changed in that moment. Maybe forever. Unless she figured out how to return to her own time.

  Kendra shivered. The cloth-wrapped warming brick next to her feet that had radiated heat two hours ago was now a block of ice. Yet that wasn’t responsible for the goose bumps. That was due entirely to her bizarre predicament, which kept her trapped in the nineteenth century, like an insect in amber.

  “Does your arm pain you, my dear?”

  The Duke’s voice jolted her out of h
er reverie, and she opened her eyes. She realized she was absently massaging the arm with the old wound.

  She dropped her hand, and straightened. “No, I . . . it’s nothing. Just thinking.”

  The fog outside cast an uncertain light inside the carriage, playing across the Duke’s longish face and rather bold nose, and making his thinning hair more gray than blond. His blue eyes, pale enough to sometimes appear gray, glinted with intelligence. He was a man who held immense power in this world, with his title and wealth. He was also one of the kindest people that Kendra had ever met, regardless of century.

  He asked, “Are you contemplating . . . your America?”

  The careful way he said it made her smile. Her America had become their code for the twenty-first century. She might not be an expert on all the theories of time travel, but she understood human behavior. In her time, if anyone professed to being a time traveler, they would have ended up in a lunatic asylum. Or given their own reality TV show. It was sort of a toss-up. In the early nineteenth century, it would definitely be the madhouse. Fear had kept her quiet about her circumstance. Only two people knew her secret—the Duke and his nephew, Alec, born Alexander Morgan, the Marquis of Sutcliffe.

  “It’s a little difficult not to think about my America,” she confessed, and glanced out the window. If anything, the fog had become thicker. “This is going to delay us, isn’t it?”

  Aldridge shifted his gaze to the window, studying the gray landscape. “I’m afraid so. We’ll need to put up for the night, I think. However, if we begin our journey early tomorrow morning, we ought to arrive at Monksgrey by nightfall. ’Tis only a half-day delay. Unless . . .”

  “Unless?” Kendra wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  He shrugged. “Unless we encounter more fog on the highway tomorrow afternoon, and are forced to seek shelter in another hostelry until Monday morning.”

  Kendra frowned. “Why would we have to wait until Monday?”

  “No well-bred person travels on the Sabbath.”

  How could she argue with that? Sundays in “her America” had become a day of recreation as much as spiritual reflection.

  “We must stay optimistic,” the Duke added.

  Yet whatever optimism Kendra may have had vanished the next minute when the carriage rolled to a stop, swaying slightly as the coachman jumped off his perch. Kendra could hear him muttering to himself, his boots stomping loudly on the ground as he came around to the carriage door. He gave a brief knock before yanking it open. His broad face, ruddy with cold and gleaming with moisture from the swirling mist, peered in at them.

  “’Tis wicked weather, we’re ’aving, yer Grace.”

  Aldridge smiled slightly. “Yes, I can see it is, Benjamin. Yet somehow I don’t think you stopped the carriage to impart your keen observation. Are you about to suggest a course of action? Shall we wait here until it lifts?”

  “Nay. We’d most likely be ’ere till mornin’. And the ’orses are getting skittish, even with their blinders on. Oi thought me and Dylan’ll walk the poor beasts. We got lanterns.” Benjamin hesitated. “Oi’m afraid we ain’t gonna make it far before evening sets in, sir. It’s about five now. But if Oi recollect properly, there’s a village down the road with a good-sized ’ostelry.”

  The Duke nodded. “Let us hope it is not too far down the road.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Benjamin stepped back, but Kendra scooted forward before he could close the door. “Wait. I’ll walk with you.” She needed to move. Her ass had gone numb from sitting for so long.

  The coachman eyed her the same way that most of the servants who worked at Aldridge Castle did. Like she was a freak. Ironically, that was the one thing familiar to her in this era of horse-drawn carriages and homespun clothing. She’d been viewed in a similar fashion by many people in her own time. Her parents had believed that humanity could be improved if intellectually gifted people would marry and procreate, and she had been the result of their personal test of their hypothesis.

  Here, though, she had to deal with another layer of suspicion. When she’d first arrived in the nineteenth century, she’d been mistaken as a servant. Now she was the Duke’s ward. That kind of meteoric rise in status was often met with disapproval and distrust by every level of this society, including the servant class.

  Benjamin scowled at her. “’Tis not a day for walkin’, miss.”

  Kendra could have pointed out that he would be walking. Instead, she said, “I can carry a lantern.”

  The coachman’s jaw jutted out. “’Tis cold outside, miss.”

  “It’s cold inside too.”

  “Actually, walking is an excellent notion,” the Duke said, effectively ending the argument. He set aside the book on his lap and picked up his gloves. “I could use the exercise myself.”

  Benjamin glared at Kendra, obviously holding her responsible for the Duke’s decision. “But it ain’t safe, yer Grace,” he protested, his hand going to the blunderbuss tucked into his belt, nearly hidden by his greatcoat.

  “In that case . . .” Kendra lifted the silk embroidered reticule off the seat beside her, and fished out the muff pistol that Alec had given her two weeks ago. It was a far cry from the Glock that she’d used as an FBI agent, but she knew the dainty weapon, with its polished walnut stock and engraved gold plate, could do some damage—as long as she was within fifteen feet of her target.

  She caught the Duke’s eye, and grinned. “Don’t worry. I know how to use it.”

  “I have no fear on that score, Miss Donovan.” He tugged on his gloves. “This is what you and my nephew have been sneaking off to do in the woods, is it not?”

  Kendra wasn’t given to blushing, but she felt her face grow hot under the Duke’s scrutiny. She and Alec had done more in the woods than perfect her shooting skills with the archaic weapon. Against her better judgment, they had become involved. Just thinking about the marquis made her heart rate increase. Talk about insanity. She didn’t belong in this world with Alec, any more than Alec belonged with her. He belonged with one of the pretty debutantes that the London social season churned out annually. He needed a young lady who knew how to dance a cotillion, ride a horse sidesaddle, and embroider or play the pianoforte, someone who had pretty manners and would never think to utter an expletive.

  Someone who could give him a boatload of kids.

  That, more than anything, was the prerequisite to marriage among the Beau Monde. A young lady must be able to provide a male heir, preferably an heir and then several spares. Infant and childhood mortality were frighteningly high in this pre-inoculation age. Kendra knew she couldn’t promise anything in that regard. One of the injuries that she’d sustained on her last mission had drastically cut down on her odds of conceiving and carrying children.

  In truth, she’d never thought about having kids. She’d been too busy with her career. Now, the possibility of not having children was like a shadow on her heart.

  She shook herself free of such musings. She hadn’t given up hope of returning to her own time, even if she didn’t have a clue how to accomplish that. She was an FBI profiler, not a quantum physicist. But she clung to the hope that something would present itself.

  “I’ve become a very good shot,” she said carefully.

  The way the Duke looked at her, she had a feeling that he was aware of just how involved she’d become with his nephew, but he was at a loss as to how to handle it.

  Benjamin shook his head and mumbled something under his breath about improper females as he withdrew, trudging back to the horses.

  In the corner, Molly stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, and she yawned widely as she sat up. “W’ot’s ’appening?” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, beggin’ yer pardon, yer Grace. Oi didn’t mean ter nod off on ye!”

  Aldridge smiled at the maid. “Do not concern yourself. ’Tis an exhausting journey.”

  Molly rubbed her nose, red from cold, and looked around. “Are we done fer the night?” Her gaze fell on
the gun in Kendra’s hand and she gave a frightened squeak. “’Ave we been ’eld up by ’ighwaymen?”

  “No,” Kendra assured the girl, “we just ran into fog. Benjamin is going to walk the horses, and the Duke and I are joining him.”

  The maid blinked. “Yer goin’ ter walk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oi’ll come with ye, then.” She began folding her blanket into a tidy bundle.

  Kendra said, “That’s not necessary, Molly. You can stay inside.”

  The maid looked horrified at the suggestion. “Oh, but it ain’t proper. Oi’m yer lady’s maid, miss. Oi can’t sit while ye walk.”

  Kendra stifled a sigh. Molly had been a tweeny at the castle, basically a maid-of-all-trades. But circumstances—and Kendra’s own preference—had elevated the fifteen-year-old to lady’s maid. While Kendra would have preferred not to have one, it was damn near impossible for any woman in the upper levels of society to dress without assistance. Molly had been the best choice, though she tended to guard her new rank by being overzealous in her duties.

  “Okay,” Kendra finally said with a shrug. “Suit yourself.”

  They climbed out of the carriage. Benjamin had already lit two lanterns, which he passed to the stable boy, Dylan, and another man, a groom named Stanley. Kendra suspected Stanley didn’t just help Benjamin with the horses, but acted as a bodyguard as well. He had his own blunderbuss pushed through his wide leather belt. Traveling in this era wasn’t just slow, it was fraught with peril, with gentry and mail coaches targeted by highwaymen.

  The Duke’s valet, Wilson, stood nearby, viewing the proceedings with the standoffish attitude prevalent among the upstairs servants. But when he saw the Duke, his eyebrows flew up and he hurried over. “Your Grace, may I be of assistance?”

  Aldridge waved away his solicitation. “Thank you, no. Miss Donovan and I shall be walking—and carrying lanterns, if Benjamin needs assistance.”

  “But, sir . . .” The manservant’s face twisted with horror. “Benjamin said the nearest village is three miles. Your hessians, your Grace. Think of your hessians!”