The Peculiar Pink Toes of Lady Flora

by Jayne Fresina

  The pavement had become soft, dewy grass and she was barefoot, because that other passing soul had taken her shoes. Had stepped right into them.

  So that was what happened to Lady Flora. But who would ever believe her?

  * * * *

  The door opened. Goody Applegate was waiting for her in the hall, reaching with both hands to guide her over the threshold.

  "There you are! Where have you been?"

  "Out walking."

  "In this fog?"

  "It was pleasant weather when I left. I think."

  "But Rosie, look at your feet! Barefoot in winter? What could you be thinking?"

  She looked down at her toes, pink with cold and damp from the wet grass. Where were her shoes and stockings? Rosie. Was that her name?

  Once it had been. She remembered everything now. She understood it too.

  For centuries she'd been traveling, drifting on that vast ocean of time, and in between each adventure she came back here to be refreshed and sent on her way again.

  The other woman closed the front door. "For pity's sake! Run into the scullery and dry your feet. There are some clean stockings hanging by the kitchen fire. Take off your apron, tidy your hair and put on some shoes. It will soon be time for another adventure."

  But she did none of these things. Not this time. Instead she took the old lady's hands in hers and said, "I want to go back to him."

  Goody Applegate's eyes widened.

  "I love him. I want another chance."

  * * * *

  The old lady poured wine into two glasses, and they sat before the fire while she dried her stockings.

  "How did this happen, young lady? You're not supposed to remember."

  "I'm afraid I've been compromised, Goody Applegate. I found the portrait that he kept of me and it jogged my memory."

  "Alas, we try to prevent collisions of this nature, but sometimes it is unforeseen. Accidents do happen."

  "But why am I here? Why have I had all these adventures? Does this happen to everybody?"

  "Oh, no, my dear, only to those souls who have work yet to do. My immortal seeds. Spread and drifting all over time."

  "Immortal?"

  "Everlasting, reborn time and time again. You have a wonderful opportunity, my dear, to experience so many lives, not just one. You are special, one of only a few chosen from an infinite number. It is a great privilege. One that a great many others would wish to know."

  She closed her eyes and saw him again, waiting for her. Come back to me.

  "I don't want to go on wandering alone forever," she said simply. "I want to live just one life with the man I love." Tears pricked her eyes. "That's all I ask. With all my heart and soul."

  Goody Applegate placed a hand over hers. "Be sure you understand, my dear. If you go back there to him— if you choose that life over any others— there can be no more chances. No more fresh beginnings. That's all you shall have. That one life. You will give up immortality."

  "But I can live that life with him?"

  "Yes. If that is what you choose." Goody Applegate smiled in her gentle way, her eyes full of tiny stars. "You are not the first of my seeds to choose one life over all the many more they might have known. They too have come to the end of their adventures, the end of the bottles on the shelf. I shall miss you, my dear, but it is not for me to deny you that happiness. If you are sure."

  Yes, she was sure.

  If she went back, some things would turn out differently, but she could still befriend Francis Chelmsworth and Persey. She would still be there for them. And what of Nicholas? Well, as fate decreed, he would be born to Amelia Stanhope, who did not want him. Rosie Jackanapes, therefore, could seek her out, make her a handsome offer, and take the child off her hands, raise him as her own. With Fred, of course. All of it with Fred.

  "But...those other seeds," she asked. "There are many of them like me? Travelers? Pirates?"

  "Only very few. Some you know, in fact. Or have known."

  "And you?"

  "Oh, I stay here, my dear, to look after them all whenever they come home. Somebody has to be in charge." The old lady gave a hearty sigh and took a large gulp of wine. "I suppose I had better look for your replacement."

  So that was that. Rosie Jackanapes gave up all her many lives to live just one and all for the man of her dreams.

  Would you do the same?

  "The fog is coming," her guardian whispered. She did not need to look through the window. Apparently she felt it. Why would she not, since she had made it all? "Better put on your shoes. And for pity's sake, keep them on this time. It's very hard to explain painted pink toes to an eighteenth century gentleman."

  Should she apprise Goody Applegate of the fact that she did not intend to keep her shoes on for long in his presence? That things had a habit of falling off her person when she was alone with him?

  Hmm. Perhaps not.

  Surely the lady ought to know all that anyway. From the shake of her head and the resigned sigh as she held out a pair of shoes in vain and too late, Goody Applegate did know. All too well.

  * * * *

  She reached out, fumbling through the dark. Ouch, she stubbed her toe and hit her knee on something. A chair? People laughing, getting louder.

  Be brave, you're a pirate are you not? Take another step.

  Suddenly she felt the air change, grow warmer. So many hands spun her around. Faster and faster. Then she was released and she stumbled up against something tall.

  He grabbed hold of her before they both fell.

  Reaching up, she felt a silk stock knot, a collar, a chin. Firm and square. Lips opened in a startled exclamation.

  "Might I inquire what you think you are about, stroking my face, madam?"

  Her fingertips had grazed his teeth— or was it the other way about? A shiver trickled down her spine like the sensual kisses of wicked, trespassing lips. With a gasp she pulled up her blindfold, just as he removed his hands from her waist.

  Fred. Her darling Fred.

  In the fluttering candlelight he was just as she remembered him. Just as he'd always been. Far more handsome than he ever realized.

  Probably a good thing that he was ignorant of his own peculiar beauty, she mused.

  "Yes," she cried. "Yes, I will marry you."

  Someone in the crowd laughed uneasily. The others held their breath, not even the candle flames moving now, nervous and upright as sentinels.

  He looked down at her, confused, startled. But there was a little twitch at one corner of his mouth and just the glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. The hint of shy amusement. Nobody else would see it or recognize it for what it was.

  "Madam," he muttered stiffly, "we do not know each other. Yet. Do we?"

  "Ah. That's what I should have said the first time you proposed."

  "The first time?"

  Rosie smiled, so happy to be back again. "It doesn't matter. We will get to know each other this time and in a little while you will ask me. You'll see. I just thought I'd save you the trouble."

  Still quizzical, he muttered, "How kind."

  "My name is Rosie, by the way." She whispered, hand extended in greeting. "Don't tell anybody. I'm supposed to be Lady Flora Chelmsworth and they'll be angry if they find out I told. The real one's gone off, you see, and nobody knows where. You'd better call me Flora. How d'you do?"

  Cautiously he took the hand she offered, gripping only the fingertips. "I fear I'm not entirely certain how I...do."

  "Never mind. You will be. I know we're going to be very happy together." She beamed. "It's an instinct I have. I'm excellent at predicting the future."

  "And you see us together in it, do you?" He was looking at her as if he thought she might have bumped her head.

  "Oh, yes," she replied. "In fact, I see us in it with several babies and an adopted son. And some very good friends. And a rather fat dog. And a vineyard."

  He squinted. "A vineyard?"

  "You have one at Darnley Abbey. Did
n't you know? Ask Plumm. He'll tell you all about it."

  There, in a roomful of astonished, scandalized folk, she pushed up on tiptoe and kissed him square on the lips.

  "Who the devil are you?" he murmured, his hands bold enough now to claim her waist again, this time deliberately rather than by accident.

  "The woman with whom you're desperately in love, of course."

  "Ah. Naturally." Another little smile. Followed by a frown. As if he couldn't quite decide. His fingers tightened their grip on her waist.

  Well, at least he didn't argue. It was a good start. A very good start.

  He may not be entirely sure yet of who she truly was, or how she came to be there in his hands, but he knew he was in love.

  She told him so, and the way she said it could leave him in no doubt.

  "But madam," he muttered, looking down between them. "Where, might one inquire, are your shoes?"

  "I forgot them."

  "And your toes are painted pink."

  "Yes, but don't worry. It will fade in time."

  She was right. The color on her toes did fade, as did all her other memories of lives once lived.

  Because now she had found what she spent so long searching for, drifting on the ocean with her telescope in hand. And, just as she promised Goody Applegate, she lived that one life and that one love with all her might.

  * * * *

  Halfpenny Plumm put his book and the little diary away in a box and locked it. He would never show them to anybody else, but it was a story he had to write out in some order for his own peace of mind. Otherwise he would go mad.

  He straightened his wig, poured himself a brandy, and breathed a sigh of satisfaction.

  She might not remember now, but he did and he would never forget the pirate who once let him sail on her ship. Other folk had come to believe that Captain Rosie Jackanapes was mere fiction, but he knew differently. He was there.

  And now, so were you.

  Also from Jayne Fresina and TEP

  Souls Dryft

  The Taming of the Tudor Male Series

  Seducing the Beast

  Once A Rogue

  The Savage and the Stiff Upper Lip

  The Deverells

  True Story

  Storm

  Chasing Raven

  Ransom Redeemed

  Damon Undone

  Pumpymuckles – A Deverells Story

  Ladies Most Unlikely

  The Trouble with His Lordship’s Trousers

  The Danger in Desperate Bonnets

  The Bounce in the Captain’s Boots

  A Private Collection

  Last Rake Standing

  The Peculiar Folly of Long Legged Meg

  The Peculiar Pink Toes of the Untamable Lady Flora

  The Mutinous Contemplations of Gemma Groot

  Slowly Fell

  Slowly Rising

  (COMING SOON)

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jayne Fresina sprouted up in England, the youngest in a family of four daughters. Entertained by her father's colorful tales of growing up in the countryside, and surrounded by opinionated sisters - all with far more exciting lives than hers - she's always had inspiration for her beleaguered heroes and unstoppable heroines.

  Website at: jaynefresinaromanceauthor.blogspot.com

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