by Bess McBride
“Ellie thought wrong. I am simply assisting Miss Douglas to return to her time, nothing more. On that score, I may well seek your advice. However, I must make it clear that I did not ask for her presence in my life, I did not seek it, and I will consider myself well rid of her when the time comes and she returns to her home.”
Stephen rose abruptly from his seat and began to pace, aware that Robert watched him with surprise but hardly caring.
“I do not know how you managed when you discovered that your wife was from the future. I simply cannot imagine. One moment, your life is steady, uneventful, perhaps a bit empty, but set on a true course of logic and sanity. Then, one day, a person appears—a woman—and your world is turned upside down with no way to know which way is up or which way is down.”
“Do you refer to me or yourself, Stephen?” Robert asked quietly.
Stephen barely heard him. “Do you know how many matrons thrust their eligible young daughters at me? How many simpering looks I must endure every time I attend a function?” He ignored Robert’s knowing nod of understanding. “I do not flatter myself that it is for my winsome personality or my rugged manly looks. It is for money. Always for money.”
Robert nodded.
“And so I have not yet married. I have not yet found the woman whose soul speaks to me, whose words warm my heart, whose smile brightens my day.” Stephen paused, and stared out the window. “And then Miss Douglas appears, unbidden, unwanted, and I cannot think straight, I cannot control my temper and I cannot make her stay.” He turned back toward Robert and slumped into his chair, spent.
When Stephen spoke again, his voice was quiet. “I apologize, Robert. How silly of me to go on like some besotted romantic fool. I hardly know the woman.”
“It may not surprise you to know that I understand your struggles, Stephen. You will remember I too was sought after as an eligible bachelor for much the same reasons as you. I too longed for a woman who touched my heart, but I was not expecting that woman to be from the future. I loved Ellie from the first moment I saw her, and I also feared I could not keep her, that she would return to her own time—whether she wanted to or not.”
“In my case, I was fortunate that Ellie chose to stay with me, that Ellie was able to stay with me. In this we differ though, and I cannot imagine how you must feel right now, Stephen. Ellie has told me that Miss Douglas’s mother is ill, and that she must return to her own time to be with her.”
Stephen nodded heavily. “Yes, she wishes to leave at once. My plan at present is to take the train east tomorrow to see if she can somehow re-create the events and reverse the process to return home.”
“Tomorrow! That soon?”
“Yes, as soon as possible. That is her wish.”
“Good gravy, man. I am sorry,” Robert said.
“Do you think it is possible to return her to the twenty-first century?” Stephen asked.
Robert shook his head. “I do not know. Ellie and I have not dared taken the train since, for fear of losing her to the future.” He looked toward the door. “Where is Miss Douglas now?”
Stephen gave a short laugh. “Probably making her way to the train depot on foot. I am afraid I was short with her about her adamant desire to leave at the earliest opportunity.”
“Do not blame yourself, Stephen. I have never known you to be mean spirited, so I assume this is a temporary aberration. Women can do that to you.” Robert smiled.
“I hope it is temporary,” Stephen said with a crooked grin. “I am not used to such strong emotions, and I find them exhausting—exhilarating but exhausting.”
Robert checked his pocket watch and rose. “That sounds like love, Stephen. Go patch things up with Miss Douglas, take her to dinner. Perhaps if her mother’s health improves, she will consent to return—if she can.”
Stephen rose. “But you said Ellie had never tried to return. Is it not then likely that if Miss Douglas returns, she will not be able to come back again?”
“I think the phenomenon is extremely unpredictable, Stephen, and we cannot know what will happen. I am sorry.”
****
At about that moment, Dani marched down the road toward where she thought the train depot might be. She stumbled over her skirts occasionally, and Ellie’s loaner boots hurt like the dickens, but she was heading to the train depot. Take that, Stephen Sadler!
She’d left a note for him and one for Susan to prevent them from worrying. She suspected Susan would fret, and she didn’t want to hurt the young girl who was so enthusiastic about planning a wedding reception. So, she told her she had gone to visit Ellie. Susan wouldn’t know Dani had no idea where Ellie lived but knew it was nearby. Stephen? She’d told him the truth—that she was mad, walking off steam, and heading to the train depot to check on departure times.
By her fuzzy calculations from the night before, given her confusion and disorientation, she deduced that if she were on Queen Anne Hill, and the train depot somewhere along the waterfront on modern day Alaskan Way, then she probably only had a three-mile walk. Not too far at all. And just right for an angry woman.
What she hadn’t calculated on when she left Stephen’s elegant mansion on a hill was that there were no sidewalks of note, the roads were dirt or more aptly mud given a probable early morning shower, and that Queen Anne Hill was much steeper in 1901 than it was in present day.
She had assumed that if she headed straight down Queen Anne Avenue, she would run right up to Elliot Bay and find the train depot somewhere along the waterfront further south. It had sounded easy when she’d stormed out of the house in a huff a half hour prior.
Her visions of sauntering down to the pier while waving at fellow strolling pedestrians went by the wayside as she negotiated mud puddles and saw no other people on her way down the steep hill. Seattle in 1901 was somewhat civilized, she could tell by the brick buildings of the city center barely visible through a haze of pollution and chimney smoke, but the city lacked the finesse and polish that would come later in the twentieth century.
She neared the bottom of the hill just as rain began to fall. She had no umbrella, and no hat. She turned to look back at the hill, unwilling to climb back up until she’d found the train depot.
Dani grabbed her skirts and hurried down the muddy road paralleling the waterfront. A sign marked it as Railroad Avenue. She didn’t remember seeing the road in modern day Seattle. She’d lowered her head to keep rain from her eyes, with the odd thought that she had finally run into other people in the form of carriages sloshing down the wet road, their large wheels throwing up mud.
A particularly large chunk of mud hit her in the face, and she cried out and stopped to wipe her face with her sleeve. She surveyed the clothing Ellie had lent her with guilt, thinking the shoes, stockings and skirts were ruined by the mud.
Dani looked around to orient herself but could see no familiar landmarks. The rain came down faster, and she clutched her skirts again and ran down the road.
She spied a two-story building on the right and beyond it, a steam locomotive. The train depot! She turned onto the property, past wagons and carts to hurry toward the entrance to the building nearest the railroad tracks. A large shed roof covered an outdoor waiting area which was empty. She attempted to run under the overhead but found herself mired in the mud, thicker and dense in the ruts where carriages probably awaited passengers and supplies on a regular basis.
“Crap!” she yelled as she bent over to free her feet.
“Your language, woman!” Stephen shouted behind her through the driving rain. “Here, let me!”
“Oh, Stephen! I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so stuck! Where did you come from?” Dani cried out.
“From the house, silly! Where else?”
Dani looked at Stephen, his beautiful well-tailored clothing muddied as he kneeled to free her feet. She couldn’t bear to leave him. How could she leave him? But how could she stay?
“You know, Stephen, I think I love you.” Dani couldn’t ho
ld the words back. Even to her ears, they seemed ludicrous, hasty, impossible. Maybe she was just grateful he had rescued her from a city much rougher than she remembered. Maybe she just loved him with all her heart.
“What?” Stephen stilled and looked up at her. Her feet were still stuck, and the thick clay-like mud encased his hands.
“I said I think I love you, but will you please not stop until my feet are free?” Dani reached a hand to his back for support as she threatened to topple over.
Stephen’s face shone, even in the pelting rain, and he returned to work on her feet. “I think I love you too, Dani!” he muttered, struggling to scrape the mud from around her ankles.
Dani heard his words and thought she could float though her feet were trapped. Stephen freed her feet, picked her up in his arms and carried her over to the wooden platform beneath the shed roof of the waiting area.
He set her down on her feet, and ignoring their public surroundings, kept her in his arms and kissed her. Dani wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close.
“Sir, is there anything I can do?” Stephen’s driver ran under the overhang. Stephen broke away and let Dani go. She plopped down onto a bench, her skirts heavy with mud and rain, and her emotions in turmoil. She stared at the train on the tracks and absently ran her fingers across her lips while Stephen spoke to his driver.
“Well, Miss Douglas,” Stephen said, taking a seat beside her, his driver having entered the train depot. “We are a fine pair.”
And indeed, he looked worse than a chimney sweep, his hands and trousers muddied, wet hair plastered to his face, the rest of his clothing soaked.
“Where is your hat, Miss Douglas?” he asked. He reached a tender hand to brush her soaking wet hair from her face. Dani’s bun had slipped down to her neck.
“I didn’t wear a hat,” she said in a bemused tone. The tender touch of his hand threatened to bring her to tears. Well, closer than she was already.
“All ladies wear hats, my dear,” he said softly. “It keeps the sun from their faces and the rain from their eyes.”
Dani turned to him with a watery grin, partly from rain, partly from unshed tears. “Very funny.” She wanted nothing more than to bury herself in his arms.
“My driver has gone to find a towel to dry your face. You were probably not aware, my dear, but I had sent the driver here earlier to purchase our tickets for tomorrow. The train leaves at seven. You had only to ask.”
“I know,” Dani said with a grimace. “I was mad. I wanted to take a walk, and this seemed like a good place to walk to.”
Stephen shook his head, his fingers toying with a tendril at the nape of her neck.
“I think not. It is too dangerous for a lady to walk about alone. My heart almost stopped when I read your note.”
“What are we going to do, Stephen?” Tears finally spilled over and down her face, lost in the moisture from the rain.
“I do not know, my love.”
“Here, Sir!” Samuel, the driver, arrived with two clean linen towels. They wiped their faces and hands.
Stephen rose and helped Dani up. She thought he might pull her into his arms again, but he looked beyond her to several people who had come out of the station to stand on the platform.
He picked her up in his arms again and carried her over to where the carriage waited. Stowing her safely aboard, he climbed in after her and wrapped his arms around her as the carriage rocked and rolled while the driver maneuvered the wheels through the mud of the train depot yard and out onto the road.
“Where was that train going?” Dani asked, looking out the window back toward the depot.
“To Portland, I think, but not back toward Montana...or Chicago. That train leaves tomorrow. So, we have tonight together.”
Dani, still wrapped in his embrace, nuzzled his neck. “Come with me, Stephen,” she whispered, the idea just forming. “Come back with me.”
Chapter Six
Stephen stiffened for a moment, and pulled away to look at Dani, but he didn’t let her go.
“You mean to your time? Forever?”
Dani, knowing she probably just asked the impossible, nodded.
“I cannot,” Stephen shook his head. He turned to stare out the window. The rain seemed to be easing. “I cannot leave Susan.”
Dani pulled away and buried her face in her hands.
“Oh, Stephen, I’m so sorry! I forgot about Susan. How stupid of me to suggest that! I’m so sorry.”
Stephen pulled her hands from her face and bent to kiss her lips again.
“Do not be sorry, Dani. Were it not for Susan, I might just consider it. Perhaps I might have asked Robert and Ellie to see to my estate such that it was still intact in your time. But I cannot leave Susan behind, and I cannot force her to come with me.”
“I know, of course you can’t.” Dani shook her head. “How could I have fallen in love in one day? What is it about you?” She smiled tenderly.
“I have asked myself the same question over and over. How can I love you when I do not even know you?”
Dani pressed herself back into his arms and laid her face against his chest.
“You know me, Stephen. You may not know what music I listen to or what books I like to read or whether I sleep on my side or my back, but you know me.”
“Yes, you are right. I feel I do know you, enough to know that I love you, and my love will for you will only grow.”
“It might not grow if I’m gone, Stephen.” Dani hated to point out the obvious.
Stephen turned his head away again.
“Do not remind me. We still have tonight.” He sighed and seemed to pull his shoulders back. He turned to her with a forced grin. “You have yet to tell me how you have come to fall in love with me in only a day. Am I so charming?”
Dani beamed. “Yes, you are, Mr. Sadler. You are just about adorable.”
Stephen’s cheeks bronzed and he coughed.
“Adorable? I am not a puppy, Madam.”
“Yes, you are. You’re adorable like a puppy, and charming, and such a gentleman, and loving, and tender, and caring, and very handsome, and quite, quite unique. I’ve never met anyone like you,” Dani finished. She took his face in her hands and kissed him. Dani suspected he was shocked by her boldness, but she couldn’t hold back.
“And you are a brazen woman, Miss Douglas,” Stephen said on a laugh as she let him up for air. “But I quite enjoy it.”
On their arrival at the mansion, Susan hurried outside to greet them as they climbed out of the carriage. Dani sympathized with the driver who would no doubt have to clean the carriage inside and out.
“What has happened to you? Stephen, you rushed out of the house so fast, I did not hear where you were going, but I assumed it had to do with Miss Douglas.” She stared at them aghast. “I thought you went to visit Mrs. Chamberlain, Miss Douglas. Surely, her garden is not so poorly cared for that a walk rendered you thus.”
Dani laughed at Susan’s quip.
“No, I...uh...I got caught in the rain and fell in a mud puddle on my way to her house, I’m afraid. Your brother was kind enough to fish me out, but as you can see...” She gestured to Stephen’s mud-caked clothing.
“I also took a tumble,” he finished with a broad smile. “We are a sight, the pair of us. Let us wash and change clothing then I shall take you all to dinner at the Hotel Seattle.”
“Me?” Susan asked with an incredulous look on her pale face. “But you have not let me leave the house in a month.”
“I think you are well enough for some festivities, my dear.” Despite Susan’s protests, Stephen wrapped a muddied arm around her shoulders and Dani’s shoulders and shepherded them inside.
Twenty minutes later, Dani stepped into the steaming water of the white porcelain claw foot bathtub in the bathroom adjacent to her room. A young Irish maid named Bridget had brought a wrapper of Susan’s and collected Dani’s muddy clothing to launder. She fervently hoped the clothing survived with
out stain to be returned to Ellie.
Dani scrubbed her hair with a lavender-scented soap, and marveled that they actually had hot and cold running water in 1901. A shower had been too much to ask for, she knew, and she managed to wash her hair and scrub the mud off her body. She luxuriated in the deep tub with the thought that maybe life at the turn of the century wouldn’t be as hard as she had originally thought. The fact that the man she loved lived in this century and not hers certainly made it much more attractive.
She stepped out of the tub, dried herself with a large towel and slipped into Susan’s pink embroidered silk wrapper—far more luxurious than her own fuzzy robe at home. Bridget had laid out the extra evening dress Ellie brought and shoes borrowed from Susan who fortunately shared the same shoe size. Bridget offered to return to help her dress but Dani self-consciously declined.
A check of the clock on the mantle revealed she had about thirty minutes before they were due to leave. Dani eyed the orange silk and cream lace dress Ellie had provided, no doubt not realizing that Dani was a redhead. She hoped she could figure out how to get it on as she’d been distracted when Ellie helped her dress earlier and hadn’t paid attention. Maybe it had been a bad idea to send Bridget away.
Twenty-eight minutes later, huffing and puffing from her exertions with her hair, Dani lowered her hands and twisted this way and that in the mirror. The dress was on, though she wasn’t sure everything was as buttoned and zipped as it needed to be. Her stockings were up, garters in place, and Susan’s shoes were on her feet albeit pinching her toes. Her hair was wrapped, twisted and stuck on top of her head with the stickpin Ellie had provided earlier.
A soft knock on her door caught her attention, and she opened the door hesitantly.
Susan stood outside looking charming and ethereal in a pale blue dinner dress of a similar style to Dani’s. She held a sprig of white silk roses in her hand.
“May I come in?”
Dani stood back. “Yes, please! Maybe you can tell me if I’ve got my clothes on right.” She grinned. “I should have taken Bridget’s offer to help.”