Chapter 5
Helen awoke to the sound of water gently lapping against the shore. She was lying on her side, a bed of mud all around her. At least, she hoped it was mud. It didn’t smell like mud.
Her body was awash in pain. For a while, it hurt to breathe, so she did it shallowly and slowly, trying to keep the pain at bay. After several minutes, she could breathe normally; the pain shifting from one of sharp heat to a dull, warm throb, and she was able to sit up to take in her surroundings. A huge stone bridge was above her, and the River Thames flowed sluggishly by.
Holy shit, I made it.
She was on the riverbank, and if she’d materialized three meters over, she would have awoken in the water, unable to move or breathe, and surely she would have drowned to death. Mission over before it had started. They never would have known what had become of her. She shivered, her teeth chattering in the cold.
It was nighttime and everything was dark, except for the occasional flicker of candles and fire in the distance as people rumbled past in carriages or walked in groups on the bridge above her. Her eyes were heightened thanks to the genetic modifications she had received, and while she could see in the dark better than any human, it was still pretty damned dark. There was no light pollution from electricity, and the stars above were shockingly bright and dense.
She climbed up the riverbank, avoiding bushes and piles of refuse. The area was paved with stones, and the bridge looked brand new. Didn’t that mean she had to be under London Bridge? It had been replaced in the nineteenth century, and this bridge looked new.
She paused, blinking several times as the full enormity of where she was, and when she was, hit her. She’d made it. She’d survived. Helen reached up to push the hair out of her face, her hands trembling with emotion and shock.
There had been a few moments back there where she was sure she was a goner. An overcooked human steak. The thought made her gag.
There was a residential area off to her right, and she walked between the mews, stopping at a water pump to wash the mud off of her. She tried not to think about how polluted the water was. Cholera was a serious problem during this time…during my time. Just another exciting way to die before the mission even starts.
As clean as possible, but feeling like crap and colder than she’d been since her Polar training, she set off to figure out where exactly she was and find the nearest clothing store.
After several minutes of walking, Helen found a clothesline full of damp clothes. The house was still dark. The brick wall came to her chest, and visions of ripping off her toenails and scraping the skin from her chest as she scaled the brick naked came to mind. Not that she had any alternatives. She climbed as carefully as she could, moss and a recent rain making the brick slippery. Slippery was bad. Helen landed on the other side of the wall with a bruising thump. Her palms stung as she moved swiftly to the clothesline.
It didn’t matter what she found, she was going to wear it. Even if it meant she looked like a cross-dressing loon, it would be better than nudity.
Helen found a shift and a dress that was so ragged it was almost sheer. And it was obscenely tight in all the wrong places. It was made to be worn with a corset, but she hadn’t found one. She thought about trying to steal one, or continuing her search for a better dress, but the sun was beginning to rise, the blackness of the sky lightening just a little. People would be up soon, starting their day.
She needed to get going, and no matter what she found, she still wouldn’t look like someone the Duke would normally see. Helen grabbed the extra shift that was on the line, ignored a pair of men’s trousers, and headed back out to the main street. The shift was insurance. She could either sell it or wear it depending upon how desperate her situation became.
She wanted to get to the Duke as fast as possible. The sooner she saw him, the sooner her mission would be complete. And then what? A life of spinsterhood in the country? Adopt a plethora of cats and become the local witch?
Helen crossed London Bridge on foot; the bridge already crowded with people starting the day even though it couldn’t be more than a bit past dawn. Her stomach rumbled unhelpfully. What was she going to do about food? Steal something from a cart or stall and hope she didn’t get caught? Could she wait until she saw the Duke and got the money? Carriages rolled past, and farmers drove carts carrying vegetables and animals into the city. Life surrounded her, from people to animals, germs and bugs. The people were unwashed and their clothing threadbare. Even though Helen had known she was coming back in time, even though she had packed up her belongings and given them away, a part of her hadn’t really believed that she would get here, let alone understood quite how different it would be.
On her last night, she’d been given her favorite meal, like they gave to prisoners on death row. Mary had sat across from her; occasionally wiping tears from her face while they watched the platter of Fettuccine Alfredo begin to congeal. It had been fucking depressing.
Helen shivered again. If she were up to her usual super-powered self, she’d keep herself warm, but that required energy. The trip through time had drained her, leaving her miserably cold and feeling weak.
The weather was no help. It was almost raining but not quite, almost dark but not quite, almost freezing but just warm enough not to be. The weather was miserably indecisive. The funny part was that she’d always wanted to come to England. Had hoped that if they ever took it from the Nazis, she’d get deployed there.
This wasn’t how she’d thought she’d get here.
She had no shoes, and her feet were paying the price. She’d ripped up the shift and wrapped her feet to make socks, the material soaking with dark liquid instantly. Now her feet were cold and blistered, little rocks burrowing between the layers of fabric and pressing into her with each step.
The Duke lived in Mayfair, and getting there took forever. She couldn’t help but look around her, viewing her surroundings in terms of history, almost dispassionately. She couldn’t help but think this was a world other people lived in. As though she’d leave and go back to the reality she knew. As she passed from one neighborhood into the next, she knew that during the Victorian era, London was the biggest city the world had ever seen. That people viewed London with a mixture of fascination and horror, as something incredible that couldn’t possibly survive. A social experiment destined to fail. Never had so many people been crammed into one area.
London’s sprawl went for miles, requiring food to be brought in from the countryside. She passed things she hadn’t known existed, had never thought would exist: carts filled with human excrement that would be taken to the countryside to fertilize fruit and vegetables, groups of children that were near naked, homeless and parentless. They eyed everyone hungrily, looking for a chance to steal or beg for money.
Pools of water and filth were everywhere, impossible to step around. The hem of her dress was black, dragging along the ground and carrying all manner of diseases. Buildings listed to the side, thrown up with haste and with more people and animals crammed inside one room than she’d thought possible.
It struck Helen as odd that people’s homes were mixed in with factories and shops. Breweries and tanneries were next to houses, like cities within cities, the press of humanity overwhelming. She passed people lying in the streets and knew with horrible certainty that they were dead. Men would come by with carts and load them up, take them to a pauper’s grave or sell them to men who called themselves doctors and were always eager to find a body to cut open and study. If she died here, they’d throw her on a cart just like that. Nobody would be willing to pay for her grave; no one would visit her or care.
Eventually, the streets became cleaner, the people better dressed and groomed. She began to pass women in beautifully tailored clothes with amazing hats. The air was no longer thick with refuse and chemicals. Mayfair was quiet, empty compared to the poorer and more crowded parts of town that she had passed. Servants were out, there were still people, but this was civiliz
ed. How rich did one have to be to live somewhere so clean and empty?
The Duke’s house was a mansion. Beautiful and made of white stone. Helen stared up at the banks of windows with the curtains pulled closed, and wondered what the hell she should do next. Should she wait for a more respectable time to visit? Yes, it was still early, but it had taken her hours to get here. And if she waited, he might leave, and then she’d be stuck hanging around for hours. Plus, she was there to blackmail him; the timing of her arrival was irrelevant really. The Duke was going to have a lousy day no matter what time she arrived. Her stomach growled, urging her onwards.
Helen tucked her brown hair behind her ears, smoothing it down nervously. I’d kill for a shower. She walked up the steps and knocked on the massive black door. A hatchet-faced butler opened the door almost immediately. He peered down at her snootily and was about to shut the door in her face when she stuck a foot out, wedging the door wide.
He gasped in horror, either at her dirty feet that were wrapped in tattered rags, or her boldness at keeping the door open. Using both hands, he tried to close the door in her face.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Helen gritted out, bracing herself as she pushed back, the both of them struggling. “I need to see the Duke,” she said, panting at the effort it took to keep the door open. She couldn’t believe how weak she was. Normally she’d be able to shove this door open one-handed. The trip through time had sapped her strength.
The butler’s face was beet red with strain. “Not on your life!” he said, voice near a shout.
That was the wrong thing to say. It would have been more convincing if she’d had enough energy to say it out loud, but every fiber of her being was focused on keeping that damn door from slamming in her face. He abruptly let go, the door crashing open unresistingly. She stumbled into the house, falling on the marble floor as the butler scowled at her from above. Helen felt a sense of short-lived victory.
A man and a woman were descending the stairs as Helen came skidding in. The woman shrieked and turned, running up the stairs as quickly as she could, her yellow skirts bunched in her fists. She was young, barely more than a girl, and she turned so quickly that Helen didn’t get a very good look at her. She wondered if that were the Duke’s sister Amelia or his fiancée. Although the girl had had brown hair, and Edward’s fiancée was blonde. The butler obscured her view, stepping between her and the man on the stairs, swiping at her with a bony hand as he tried to grab her by the arm. Helen scooted back on her bottom, daring a glance at the man who stood frozen on the bottom step staring at both her and the butler in mild astonishment.
So that’s the Duke. He was remarkably good-looking. The painted portraits she’d seen of him didn’t do him justice. Actually, they didn’t look like him at all. He was tall and broad-shouldered with thick dark-brown hair that was ruthlessly styled off his forehead, hair that a woman would want to sink her hands into and muss up, as though disheveling his hair was the same as disheveling him. His face was angular, his cheekbones almost harsh and contrasting nicely with his rugged jawline.
She couldn’t help but blink in shock, even as she threw herself forward and away from the butler’s grasp. Perhaps it was stupid, but she hadn’t really thought there would be any attractive men in this time period. Weren’t they all supposed to be toothless and unwashed?
The butler closed in on her, and Helen cried out, uncertain what to do. She wanted to punch him. But that would be bad, right?
“That is quite enough,” the Duke said, his voice low and cultured. He sounded bored, as if the whole spectacle before him were something he saw every day and was nothing more than a petty annoyance.
The butler froze above her, unblinking, not moving, as if he were waiting for the Duke to say ‛go’ so he could resume his attack. A well-trained dog waiting for his master’s approval. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Duke step down off the stairs, moving towards them in a few leisurely strides. He looked down at her, expression severe, the only indication that this was an extraordinary event was a narrowing of his eyes, as if he weren’t quite sure if she were an illusion.
But hoped to hell she was.
The Duke stared intently at her face, a muscle ticking in his jaw, and she wondered what he was thinking, the seconds stretching out like years. Suddenly, he dropped down beside her, balancing gracefully on the balls of his feet. He grabbed the hem of her dress without looking at her legs and flicked it back where it belonged, covering her bare lower leg and mummy-wrapped feet.
The ridiculousness of the gesture made her want to laugh. Now she knew she was in Victorian England. She’d broken into his house, terrified his sister and attacked his butler, and he was worried about a wanton display of calf.
The Duke rose back up to his feet, adjusting the cuff of one shirtsleeve absently. His gaze bore into hers, and after a long scrutinizing moment, he offered her a hand up.
She wished she knew what he was thinking. His hand was large, the nails trimmed and even buffed, and the idea of putting her grimy paw in his polished one was embarrassing. She picked herself up off the floor, ignoring his hand, so rattled that it didn’t occur to her that a lady would never get up unassisted.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace. I’ll just get her out—”
“I have to speak with you,” Helen said in a desperate rush. “Please, it won’t take long. But I’ve come a very long way and—” The butler grabbed for her, and she stepped to the side, eluding him easily. “Please! It’s urgent! A matter of life and death!” That was true, wasn’t it?
She thought she heard a sigh.
“If she refuses to go, then I’ll just speak with her, shall I? Then she will leave, and the problem will be resolved.” Helen’s mouth hung open for a moment. She’d never heard someone speak like that. His tone was low and deep, the words so precisely spoken and confident that he could have been reading her a menu, and she would have thought it was brilliant oration. In the world she knew, men conveyed confidence and intellect by ordering and shouting. This man didn’t shout. She just knew it. He’d probably never raised his voice in his entire life. Because he didn’t have to. People probably obeyed him without question. His words had a weight to them that indicated he’d never been wrong or ignored. It was unreasonably sexy.
The accent didn’t hurt either.
The Duke gestured down the hallway with an open hand, a large gold ring on his finger with a ruby in the center.
Helen gulped. This is it.
A Lady Out of Time Page 5