A Lady Out of Time (Helen Foster)

by Caroline Hanson

  “Is that how you learned about my design? The auction house?”

  “Like I said, my father is interested. I’d heard they would be sold at auction. I would very much like to buy them.”

  He made an empty-handed gesture. “I’m afraid I’ve already sold them, Miss Foster. That’s why I didn’t go through with the auction.”

  “Who did you sell them to?” she asked, stomach plummeting like a plane falling out of the sky.

  “Baron Colchester bought it; he’s part of a philanthropic group.”

  “Part of his efforts to help people include buying weapon designs?” Helen asked harshly.

  He shrugged. “Why not? You would like me to believe you want the plans for your father. Although what use he might have for them out on the prairie, I cannot imagine. The plans are useless, a good idea, and maybe someday someone would be able to make good on them, but now…we just don’t have the skill.”

  “Whatever they are paying you, I can pay you more.”

  The Duke had been a large silent presence, standing in the corner of the room. But when she offered Mr. Black more money, he straightened and took a step closer.

  Mr. Black appeared genuinely apologetic. “I’m sorry. It’s done. It took a while for the money to arrive from overseas, but I gave them to him yesterday.”

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “1500 pounds. The Baron is here tonight. If you would like to meet him, I would be happy to arrange that. You two might hit it off. Strangers in a strange land. He sounds more German than Prince Albert.”

  As if Helen had time to meet him. No, she’d be better off keeping her interest a secret, and then stealing the plans from Colchester.

  “What could the plans do,” Edward asked, “if someone could make them work?”

  Mr. Black frowned. “It’s a cannon, but it would be very fast and light with the ability to revolve at an unbelievable speed.”

  “Would it be used by the military then? The army or the navy?”

  Mr. Black nodded.

  She took a step towards Mr. Black, offering her hand, desperate to stop Edward from asking more questions and coming to his own conclusions. She could practically see him thinking, reaching conclusions about what her plans might be. “Thank you so much for meeting with me. It really is an honor to meet you.” After a brief moment of hesitation, he took her hand, and Helen tightened her grip, shoving electricity into him, feeling it flow down her arms like hot acid cascading down her skin. The pain of using her skill was intense, and always left her drained. She hated doing it.

  He shuddered at the contact, his body going into spasms as he tried to pull away from her. A hoarse gurgle came from his throat, and Helen locked her knees so she didn’t fall down, watching as his eyes rolled back into his head. She overloaded his synapses, creating a short-term memory loss. When he woke up, he’d have no memory of the last several hours.

  “What are you doing to him?” the Duke asked, urgency making his voice loud. Using energy this way made Helen hot, raised her body temperature to about 120 degrees. In the right light, one could see it shimmering off her, like heat off pavement.

  “Stop,” he said, voice near a growl as he came close.

  “Almost…done. He…fine,” she said, unable to make her mouth coordinate the sentence when all of her energy was focused on Black.

  The Duke reached out to touch her, and she tried to move away, unable to manage more than a step. Mr. Black fell, toppling to the ground and Helen followed him, not wanting to break the contact yet. She didn’t have the strength to catch herself, crashing to the floor with him, the connection severing. Was it enough?

  The Duke touched her then, placing his hand on her exposed arm. The power was dissipating, but he swore when he touched her, probably getting a fierce zap at the contact. “We have to go now….” Damn, thinking was hard. “He won’t remember…this,” Helen said thickly.

  She felt sick, lightheaded and clammy, her body hot but covered in a cold sweat. Her stomach heaved and she retched, shaking hard. This wasn’t right. She should be able to do this ten times over, fry the Duke next and make him forget all this, still with the energy to break into Colchester’s house. Spots swam in front of her eyes.

  Edward’s voice was close, but she couldn’t hear what he said. Her ears were ringing, and she realized her eyes were closed. She opened them, surprised to see that Edward was sitting right next to her.

  This is bad.

  He touched her face, the feel of his evening gloves against her skin soft and strange. He’d put gloves on. Smart man. “You’re very smart,” she mumbled.

  “Oh, I doubt that,” he said, the words hard and clipped.

  And then the world went gray around the edges, the ringing turning shrill. She needed to get those plans. She couldn’t be weak right now.

  And then she lost consciousness.

  Chapter 14

  Edward stared stupidly at the sight before him. He touched Helen’s forehead, shocked at how hot she was. She was burning up, worse than a fever. He called her name, but she didn’t respond in any way. He squeezed her hand and then tapped her lightly on the face. “Wake up, you blackmailing little fool.”

  Nothing. But she was alive. In any other situation, with any other woman, the assumption would be that she’d fainted, or worse, been struck by an illness so violent that it gave her a fever and caused her to lose consciousness within moments.

  Don’t be obtuse.

  And this was no ordinary woman. This was the bane of his existence. He’d seen…something, although he wasn’t sure he had any rational explanation. As he crouched beside the two unconscious bodies, he replayed the last few moments in his mind. His blackmailer had gotten the information she wanted. She’d touched Black on purpose, and her touch harmed him. And when Edward touched her, her skin had been hot and sent a flash of painful heat through him. She’d knocked Roland Black unconscious.

  He heard laughter outside the door and leaped up, dashing over and turning the lock just before someone tried the handle. After a few moments, they moved on, Edward’s heart hammering in his chest.

  He couldn’t imagine what people would say if they walked in at this exact moment—him standing over two bodies. “Wait a moment,” he muttered to himself as the answer came to him. Why the hell was he locking himself in here with them? He had a legitimate option of opening the door and walking away. If he were lucky, Black would say Helen had attacked him, and Black would send her to Newgate for attempted murder, solving his problem for him. Good riddance to her.

  He went back over to Black, eyeing him thoroughly to make sure he was, in fact, still alive and then grabbed him under the arms, dragging him to the couch. The man weighed a ton. He placed Black upright on the couch.

  Now he could leave. So why the hell was he just standing there, staring at his blackmailer’s pert features? What if he left her here and she came to harm when Black woke up? He couldn’t leave an unconscious woman. He had the peculiar urge to laugh. Was he actually going to go out of his way to help his blackmailer? He was certifiable.

  He looked at the window, wondering if he could get himself and Helen out of here. Edward opened the window and peered out, the street and a long line of carriages visible a few hundred yards away. They were on the ground floor.

  Edward bent down, going to one knee so he could scoop her up into his arms. And he froze. This was the moment of decision. This action was irrevocable. A way out was before him, and he was going to rescue her.

  Do be smarter than this.

  But he wanted answers. If he left her here, he wouldn’t get them. And she still had the diary, after all. He had to have that blasted diary. Decision made, he gathered Miss Foster in his arms, surprised she was so…portable. The force of her personality and the strength coursing through her was so magnificent, that he couldn’t believe she was actually light enough for him to carry down the street. Getting out the window proved awkward, keeping them both from banging thei
r heads on the window frame proved impossible, and Edward could already feel a knot forming on the side of his head.

  She shivered in the cold air, but otherwise gave no indication of waking up as he shifted her and set off across the lawn. He felt as if he were being watched, every sense he had attuned to the possibility of someone interrupting their escape. If he had been forced to describe his emotions at that moment, he would have been unable to. A curious mixture of anger and excitement, confusion and severely misplaced lust. It all conspired to make him feel alive and heightened.

  He slowed his pace as he approached the carriages, shifting Helen so that he was carrying her in what he thought might be a slightly more dignified manner. Assuming such a thing was possible. He stood up straight, his expression imperious as he became visible to a waiting coachman.

  The coachman’s eyes widened in surprise, his gaze flicking from Helen to Edward and back again.

  “The Duke of Somervale’s carriage. Is it in front of you or behind?”

  The man blinked in surprise. His accent was thick. “I’m not sure, sir. I could…go check?”

  “I would be grateful,” Edward said, “and I would be even more grateful if you didn’t say anything about…this.”

  The man nodded. “I imagine you would, sir.” His accent was thick and Northern. He jerked his head towards Helen. “I had a woman like that once. Once she started drinking, there was no stopping her until she was too soused to lift the cup.”

  The Duke smiled tightly. “Quite.”

  “She’s a beauty. I can see why you’d put up with it. The coachman’s gaze lingered on Helen’s form, and Edward felt a primal urge to snarl at the man like an animal, stopping himself by sheer force of will.

  He turned, blocking the man’s gaze, feeling his pulse pound as he reined in his temper.

  “It’s quite cold out here. I’ll just put her in the carriage to wait,” Edward said, voice shaking from the effort to remain pleasant. The coachman opened the door, moving out of the way as Edward shifted Helen onto the seat. He put her down as carefully as he could, frowning at how pale she was.

  “Here,” Edward said, and he pulled out a pound coin. “For your troubles.” The man nodded, taking the money eagerly. The coachman took off, weaving between the carriages as he searched for Edward’s carriage.

  “Bloody hell!” he said, so loudly a horse whinnied in response. He’d covered his coat of arms. It would be impossible for the man to recognize his carriage.

  How could he have forgotten? Fury arced through him, and various violent options appeared in his mind. From shouting at the coachman, to driving his fist into the metal carriage, to opening that carriage door and shaking Helen awake. He was so angry he didn‘t trust himself. And he wasn’t even sure who he was angry at. Her, of course. She was responsible for all of this. Taking his money, forcing him to bring her here, to be a party to a crime she committed. But mostly he was furious at himself. For…God, he could barely put it into words. For using him, for rattling his existence and the carefully ordered life he lived. For introducing this excitement and emotion into his life and threatening everything he knew. She was annihilating his life.

  He hadn’t lost his temper since he was eight years old. Hadn’t lashed out and acted like an undisciplined animal since he learned the difference between being a man and being a monster.

  Well, since the day his father had broken his mother’s arm.

  That was the day he’d decided what type of man he was. He remembered it as the clearest, purest moment in his entire life: my father is a monster, and I won’t be like that. It didn’t matter how angry he was, or even how much he had been wronged. There was a way to behave, and that was the end of it. It didn’t matter how provoked one was, there were no exceptions. Yes, this situation challenged him. It made him want to lose control and do any number of things. But she’d already stripped away his birth; he’d be damned if he’d let her take his identity too. That was all there was to it. It was as simple as that. He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension, and smoothed his hair which he had disheveled during his mad pacing.

  After several minutes, the coachman came back, out of breath from running up and down the carriage line. “I found it.”

  “Did you? I forgot to mention that the crest was covered.”

  He huffed. “Oh, that’s alright. Jimmy and I have met at the pub a time or two.”

  It shouldn’t come as a surprise to him that the coachmen knew each other. Servants gossiped.

  “He’s stuck at the back. It’ll be a minute.”

  Edward gave the man another coin as they waited for his carriage to get out of line and make its way to them. While they waited, the coachman began to tell him all about Big Sally, his former love who’d loved her gin more than her man.

  Edward stared at the lanterns in the driveway as the coachman talked, listening almost despite himself as the details of the coachman and Big Sally’s courtship unfolded. His lip twitched, and it felt like the inside of his chest itched. He cleared his throat, felt the peculiar sensation inside his chest increasing. He distinctly heard the words ‘slap and tickle’. And that was when he started to laugh.

  Chapter 15

  It was dark and cold, and wherever Helen was, it smelled strongly of tobacco. She was sitting in a carriage. How the hell had she gotten here? Where was Edward? She pulled the shade aside, seeing Edward standing next to a coachman. They appeared to be waiting for something.

  The ball. They were still at the ball, and somehow he’d gotten her out of there and into this carriage.

  She needed to get the hell out of here. Helen moved slowly and carefully towards the opposite door, the world tilting around her in a slow rotation. If she were very lucky, she could sneak away and Edward wouldn’t see her. The door opened on silent hinges and she stepped down onto the street, bracing herself against the door as the world continued to turn too fast. Helen listened for a moment, surprised when she heard Edward’s deep laugh.

  She moved quietly away from the carriage, compartmentalizing the pain and trying to separate herself from it. The pain was one thing, the tiredness another. She felt as though every step was complicated, like wading through mud in her ridiculously heavy dress. She came to where the carriages met the street, wrapping along the side of the block and all the way down. Now what?

  One of the drivers saw her and whistled. Helen turned to him, blinking in the dark. “Do you need a lift? I’ll take you where you need to go.”

  She looked at the fine carriage suspiciously. Why would he go out of his way to offer to help her? “They’ll have to throw my master out, he won’t leave a party until he has to. I can take you and be back in a trifle.” He winked. “But it’s not cheap.”

  Of course, he wanted money. It was a motive Helen understood. She reached into her pocket, finding some coins. She handed him several, and his eyes went wide. Helen was in no condition to wonder how much she had given him; she wasn’t sure she could have added them up even if she’d wanted to, she felt so sick. She’d pay anything to be back in her room, tucked up in bed. “Where to?”

  “The Savoy,” she said, trying to enunciate. He opened the door and she climbed in, falling asleep almost instantly. Helen jerked awake when the carriage stopped. She blinked and had a moment of severe disorientation, and she didn’t even argue when the coachman helped her inside the hotel lobby. Her feet trudged along of their own volition, and somehow she found herself standing in front of her door.

  Her hands trembled as she took out her key. She opened the door, shutting it behind her and dimly wondering if she’d paid the coachman. She couldn’t remember. The walls were covered in light-blue wallpaper, her bed right in front of her. Only four steps away. She took two and then gave up, falling to the ground and into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  ****

  When she opened her eyes, the sun was up. Light was streaming through the windows, and she could hear activity from the street below. Newsboys shoute
d the headlines; their words garbled through the glass. Horses neighed, the whole press of humanity happening beneath her window.

  Oh God, she was on the floor. Her whole body ached and felt bruised. Her head pounded. It was like a hangover but worse. She shouldn’t be this wiped out from using her abilities. I probably shouldn’t have traveled through time either. She tried to stand, determined to fall asleep in her own bed this time, but her skirts got caught under her and she stumbled. Her skin itched from the corset, and she’d never been so desperate to take a deep breath in her life. But she didn’t have the energy to call for a maid to get her out of her clothes.

  With a groan, she pulled back the covers and slipped beneath them, her eyes closing instantly. She couldn’t stop thinking about how much she wanted to be undressed. How pathetic was it that she couldn’t even undress herself? Tears spilled down her cheeks, making the pillow beneath her wet.

  Oh shit, was she crying? Crying over wearing an uncomfortable dress? This is a whole new level of pathetic. When was the last time she’d cried? Not when she’d found out she was leaving her entire world behind. Not when Mary had given her a fierce hug, her expression so empty that it was clear she already felt like Helen was dead and gone.

  The moment she’d left, she’d been dead. Dead for two hundred years. Helen took a deep breath, hating herself for being weak. It was useless to cry over something she couldn’t change. “I won’t do that,” she mumbled, and cleared her mind, aiming for blankness and sleep. She saw Edward’s face instead, harsh and handsome, how pissed off he’d looked when she had talked to Black. And then she slept again.

  Chapter 16

  It was the click that woke her. Her shoulders tensed and she strained to listen. Her heart raced, and she focused on evening out her breathing. She didn’t have time to leap out of bed and hide, her door was already open. She pretended to sleep, opening her eyes the tiniest slit, shocked to see that it was the Duke letting himself into her room.