by Susana Ellis
“I’m sure you are mistaken,” she soothed. “I will see to them and sort it all out. In the meantime, do come down and show your father your lovely new frock. I'll be back directly.”
She dashed in the direction of the schoolroom, squeezing Annabelle’s hand as she swept past her.
The door was locked from the inside. Putting her ear against the door, she heard the girls’ giggling, and another sound she instantly recognized as the singing of a certain interactive toy that was all the rave among children in the twenty-first century—a big red furry beast who could hug and dance and do any number of things that toys weren’t supposed to be able to do in the Regency era.
“Emily! Theo! Open the door. Now!”
There was a gasp and the unmistakable sound of children scurrying around to cover up the evidence of their misbehavior.
“Yes, Miss Lloyd.” But the door remained closed.
“Girls! Open this door!”
When the key finally turned in the lock and Emily pulled open the door, the room was pristine, but both girls were staring down at their feet.
“Now girls, I'm pretty sure I know what you’ve been doing. Lady Pendleton gave you some very special toys, did she not?”
The girls exchanged surprised glances. “Special toys? What do you mean, Miss Lloyd?" asked Theo, wide-eyed and innocent-looking. Emily, however, was staring down at her feet.
Helena drew her arms across her chest. “Don’t try to pull one over me, girls. You have a Big Hugs Elmo in there, and I want to see it.”
Both girls looked dazed. “You know about—?” began Emily.
“About interactive toys? Yes, I do,” she said, glaring at them. “That you had some of them here? No, I did not. Where are they?”
Theo led her to a locked cabinet hidden under a window seat. “Mama keeps them locked away for when Granny visits, but I saw where she put the key the last time.” She looked at Helena with a plaintive expression. “You won’t tell her, will you?”
Helena rolled her eyes, but it was Emily who answered. “Of course she will, you numbskull! Mama and Papa will be so vexed with us!" Chin quivering, she gave Helena a soulful look. "It was Theo's idea. To stay home and get out the toys. We couldn't do it with Annabelle here, you see."
Helena closed her eyes and opened them again. No, it wasn't a nightmare. Inside the cabinet with the big red interactive Elmo were other toys, including a rather dated Game boy device, a plastic Rubic’s cube, a Barbie doll complete with a closet full of clothes and accessories, and a box full of assorted batteries.
Emily held up the Barbie doll. “She’s wearing a ball gown Granny made for her, and some glass slippers from the Cinderella kit. Do you know if they have real glass slippers in the future, Miss Lloyd?”
Helena was momentarily speechless.
“You are from the future, are you not, Miss Lloyd? Emily and I thought you must be, with the funny way you talk.” Theo’s face was flushed with excitement.
“And Granny sent you!” Emily added triumphantly.
Helena wanted to throttle them. And their foolish grandmother as well. But now she had another problem. A big one. James and Annabelle had burst into the room and were staring incredulously at the fuzzy red toy in Theo’s arms.
Perfectly good times
Make you feel special
Hug someone you love
To show you care
Nothing says I love you
Like a Big Monster Hug.
James’s mouth fell open. “What is that—thing?”
Helena wished she could rewind the past ten minutes and remember to lock the door behind her after entering the room. She swayed on her feet.
"I-I think I need to sit down," she said, sliding into the nearest chair. Pressure was building up in her chest, and she was temporarily unable to react.
Annabelle approached Theo and Elmo with glowing eyes. “What else can he do?”
Theo turned him upside-down and Elmo giggled and said, “Okay, that’s enough of Elmo being upside-down.”
She handed him to Annabelle. “Now turn him right side up.”
“Elmo’s right-side up! Thank you!” said the toy.
Annabelle laughed. “I’ve never seen a toy like that,” she said. “Can he do other things?”
James moved toward his daughter. "Get away from that—thing!" he ordered.
Annabelle started to cry, and Helena finally recovered her bearings.
"Too late," she said. "Let her play. The cat is out of the bag." She rose to her feet and whisked him out the door and down the stairs toward the drawing room. "We must talk."
"You aren't going to believe this," she told him as she firmly closed the door of the drawing room.
James rubbed his temple. "I don't believe it now," he said blithely. "What is that thing? Where did it come from?"
"It's a toy."
"A toy that talks? I've never heard of such a thing."
Helena took a deep breath. "Of course you haven't. Because it came from the future."
James looked at her with narrowed eyes. "What did you say?"
She swallowed hard. “Elmo is from the future, and so am I.”
There. It was out.
James became very still.
“Perhaps you should sit down,” she offered.
“I believe I shall remain standing,” he said coldly. “Have you been into Sir Henry’s brandy, Miss Lloyd?”
Helena shook her head. “No, but I think perhaps I should send for some. I believe you could use a glass, Mr. Walker.”
“Perhaps later,” he said. “At the moment I’m rather… intrigued by your astonishing statement. Please do go on, Miss Lloyd. When you say you are from the future, what do you mean, exactly? That you can hop from one era to another? That you have magical powers? Are you a fairy or—some sort of sorceress?”
Helena bit her lip. “I know it sounds incredible. Even where I come from, time travel is thought to exist only in one’s imagination. I wouldn’t have believed it either, if I had not met Madame Herne that day in the sandwich shop.”
James looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Perhaps I shall sit down after all. After you, Miss Lloyd.”
After they had seated themselves, he straightened his shoulders and said, “Do tell me, Miss Lloyd. If your extraordinary statements are true, from where exactly did you come, and for what purpose?”
Helena shrugged half-heartedly, took a deep breath and told him what he wanted to know.
* * *
Afterward, as James rode back to Melbourne Manor with Annabelle in front of him, he was stunned and appalled by what he had heard. He wouldn’t have believed any of it had not Sir Henry and Lady Sarah returned home unexpectedly and confirmed Helena’s assertions. Shock, anger, betrayal, disappointment—all of those emotions and more had flooded his consciousness, to the point where he didn’t know what to think of it all. He’d collected Annabelle—against her protests—and hauled her back to Melbourne Manor away from the home of the people he’d thought were his close friends. And the woman he’d planned to make his wife—a woman he discovered he hadn’t really known.
“Why can’t I play with Elmo, Papa?”
“Forget about Elmo,” James said shortly, knowing it couldn’t possibly be done. “I’ll buy you a dozen new toys next time I go to London.”
“I want Elmo!”
By the time they returned and he handed her over to Mrs. Fenwick, he was exhausted from trying to manage his daughter’s sudden temper tantrum.
“I’ll send the carriage tomorrow for Fanny, who will have Annabelle’s things packed up by then. Farris will collect her horse from the stables.”
Mrs. Fenwick gave him a look of bewilderment as she led the furious child up the stairs.
Oh God, what would he tell her when she inquired about the source of Annabelle’s ire? Being a servant as she was, he wasn’t required to tell her anything at all, but their relationship was much more than that, and the last thing he wanted to
do was wound the one woman who had lent stability to his life over the years.
He looked at his reflection in the hall mirror with tired eyes. His hair was slightly mussed and his face haggard, but otherwise he looked the same as when he’d left, only a few hours ago, expecting to propose marriage to the lovely, outspoken American who haunted his dreams.
From the future? Really?
Impossible. And yet… there had been clues, he realized. The way she talked was American… and yet it wasn’t. Her reluctance to discuss her background. How could she tell him she’d been born in 1989? The odd vocabulary the children had begun to emulate. Her indignation with the idea of arranged marriages and aristocratic privilege and the status of women. No doubt the nineteenth century seemed very provincial to a woman from two hundred years in the future. No wonder she’d decried all interest in the state of matrimony. According to her, there were many more options for women two centuries into the future. She’d come only to discover the truth about her parentage… and then he supposed she’d be returning to the place she knew.
Oh, she hadn’t actually said that, but he could read between the lines. What were the chances that a woman who’d grown up in a world that had miraculous inventions such as—talking toys, for God’s sake—would elect to remain in a world that must seem backward and primitive to her?
“Forgive me, Eliza, but I don’t wish to discuss it at the moment,” he told the housekeeper when she appeared in the doorway of the study to inquire about “Elmo” and why he’d brought Annabelle home in such a precipitate manner. “Send Philbin for more brandy, if you would. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.”
Mrs. Fenwick’s lips pursed with disapproval, but she nodded coolly and left her master to his misery.
* * *
The room was so dark that he thought at first he had lost his sight. He used his hands to follow along the wall in search of an exit. Instead, he bumped into another wall, and so it went until he realized the room had no doors or windows.
“Papa, please come back! I love you, Papa! Don’t leave me all alone! I’m afraid to be alone!”
Annabelle! Where was she? Her voice resonated in the dark emptiness. He wanted desperately to go to her and reassure her that he wasn’t going anywhere, but the more he clawed at the walls, the more impenetrable they became. When his hands could no longer sustain the pain, he began kicking, and finally, pounding his shoulder into the wall with the force of his entire body. Annabelle’s crying grew louder and more frantic. James sunk to the floor and wept, weak and bleeding and utterly heartbroken.
“Are you ready to start living again, James?”
The voice was Anne’s. He couldn’t see her, but he could smell honeysuckle, her favorite scent. He'd wished he could give her the silks and jewels she craved, but he hadn’t the means, and his pride would not allow him to accept gifts from either his family or hers. If only he had really listened to her and set aside his blasted pride!
“I’m sorry, Anne. So sorry. If only I could turn back time… I’d do things differently, I swear!”
His voice was raw and shaky and his heartbeat was racing so quickly he thought it would burst out of his chest.
Annabelle’s wailing grew louder.
“Our daughter needs you, James. Why do you not attend her?”
James held out his bleeding hands. “I-I can’t. I’ve tried.”
“Have you?”
James thought of all the times he’d refused his daughter’s pleas to accompany him on his rounds, all the times he’d pawned her off on governesses and nursemaids, and how little attention he’d given her. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her, but she reminded him so much of Anne, and thoughts of Anne brought with them such unbearable self-loathing and guilt that he occasionally wished he could end it all, so that he could find her and beg her forgiveness.
“You have it, my love. I was more to blame. If I had not been afflicted with an illness of the mind, I should have been deliriously happy simply to be the wife of a good man who cared for me. But alas, the ribbon of time unrolls as it will.”
“I did love you, Anne.”
“I know. But it’s time to forgive yourself and go forward with your life. Let yourself love again, for yourself and for our daughter.”
James leaned back and let the relief sink into his bones. His thoughts were jumbled and he felt lightheaded, and he wanted nothing more than to embrace his daughter and never let her go. Helena’s face popped into his mind. He knew he loved her with all his soul. But would love be enough? Would a modern woman from the twenty-first century ever be content to live her life as the wife of a mere gentleman farmer?
Anne’s gentle laughter reverberated through the room, and suddenly he awoke.
His hands were whole and not bleeding, and he was still slumped over his desk, an empty glass and brandy bottle nearby. Ah, that was why his head hurt like devil! The lamp had burned out long ago, but he could see the first hint of dawn through the window. It had all been a dream. Had it not?
But the lingering scent of honeysuckle gave him room to doubt.
14
Newsome Grange
Kingswood
Kent
Later that night
“I know how you must feel, my dear, but don’t you think you should wait a while longer and give him a chance to reflect? I was quite taken aback myself when my wife first confided to me about her mother's extraordinary adventures. And when she brought back the toys, I was ready to throttle her! But the children had already played with them—Pandora’s Box had been opened—and my wife convinced me the situation could be managed.”
Sir Henry took a deep breath. “It was our fault, of course. We should never have invited Annabelle to stay with us had we anticipated the deviousness of our daughters.”
Helena shook her head, her stomach tied up in knots. “No, no, do not berate yourself, Sir Henry. Children are far more observant than most adults realize. And James—Mr. Walker—he was clearly appalled. I do not believe he will ever be able to reconcile himself to-to…" Her voice failed.
She felt broken inside. Her eyes were red from tears shed in the privacy of her room as she recalled the look of shock and betrayal on James’s face as he’d stomped out the door with a screaming Annabelle in his arms. Would it have been any different had she told him sooner? Perhaps. Perhaps not. No doubt he thought her a witch of some sort—or a Bedlamite. Not someone he wanted to influence his daughter. And certainly not to be his wife, which she had hoped he'd been about to do.
Had he been about to propose to marriage? He’d certainly put a great deal of effort into his dressing for a man just returned from London come to visit his daughter! Not to mention the heated look in his eyes when he looked at her and bade her to stay with him while Annabelle dressed. Her very nerve endings had tingled with excitement in the hope that he was about to declare himself. And then—disaster.
“He’s equally furious with us, you know. I daresay he’ll get over it. Hope so, at least. He’s a damned fine friend and neighbor, and they aren’t so easy to find.”
“Have a care with your language, Henry.”
Lady Sarah swept in, her face drawn and tired.
“The girls are tucked in for the night at last.” She shook her head at Helena. “They are very sorry for their actions, Helena. They never meant for Annabelle to find out; that’s why they stayed home while you took her to the modiste's. They locked the door as their grandmother does when she allows them to play with the toys, and they expected nobody would be harmed.”
She collapsed into a chair. “They are more distressed about Annabelle’s departure than the loss of the toys.” She rolled her eyes. “I took them away and put them in a safe location until Mother comes and we can discuss what to do with them.”
“Toss ‘em in the fire,” suggested Sir Henry.
Helena perked up. “Not the batteries,” she said. “Someone could get hurt.”
Lady Sarah shrugged. “I d
on’t know. I’m too tired to think about it any longer.”
She turned to Helena. “I know you must be devastated, my dear. Clearly there was an attraction between you and James, and I think it would be a spectacular match. It's just so vexing that he's gone off in a to-do, and it's all due to my children."
“Come now, Sarah. It’s your damned mother’s fault, and you know it!”
“Henry!” The color drained from Sarah’s face. “How can you speak of my mother in such a blasphemous manner?”
Sir Henry ran his hand through his hair in an abstracted manner. “This wretched predicament is her fault, Sarah. She’s the one who brought the bloody toys in the first place, and let the children have them without even asking our permission! In all frankness, I have to question her judgment. She’s had children of her own; surely she knows they can’t keep secrets—especially one like Granny’s travels through time.”
He rose from his chair and began pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. “It was inevitable, I suppose, that the secret should come out. I have to wonder what Walker will decide to do with this knowledge. If he says anything, I don’t imagine anyone will take him seriously. He has no proof, after all." He drew his eyebrows together. "Rumors don’t require proof, however, and such rumors have been known to taint families for generations.”
His wife broke into tears, and she slapped away his hand when he tried to comfort her. “You need not say anything more, Henry. I take your meaning well. You blame my mother, but in truth, you mean to say you’d never have wed me if you’d known this about her!”
Sir Henry frowned. “I never said that,” he protested. “The whole of society knows she’s eccentric. They just don’t know the extent of eccentricities.”
“So I’m right!” she said, her voice quaking. “If you’d known, you’d have run far away and married that mistress of yours instead!”
His ears turned red, and that’s when Helena mumbled her excuses and crept out of the room.