Time Travel 02 Nothing but Time

by Angeline Fortin

  No, he should just leave the woman be. It was a monstrous old house. He could likely go for months before he saw her again.

  Yes, he would just leave her be.

  Chapter Ten

  “I’d like a word with you, if you don’t mind.” Harrowby’s voice broke through the laughter and silence descended in the kitchens as everyone turned and looked at him. Everyone except the maid he’d met the previous evening. She didn’t look about at all. Instead, she tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling as if she were praying for strength.

  The other maids all bobbed a nervous curtsey as they shared curious looks wondering which of them was being summoned. “W-who, my lord?” One of them, bolder than the others, asked.

  Again reminded that he didn’t even know the name of the woman he’d been kissing in the library, the earl fought back his own flush of embarrassment and gestured sternly to her.

  Marta poked Kate in the ribs and, with a sigh, Kate turned back and reluctantly pulled off her bonnet. Stalling, she took her time handing it over to Marta.

  Here it was. The sacking.

  In her entire working career, Kate had never been called before the boss and it was humiliating for it to be happening now in front of everyone. She had a good, respectable employment history and had worked responsibly in every position she’d ever had from the front counter at Burger King to her internship at the CDC. All her bosses had had nothing but good things to say about her efforts and work ethic and Kate wasn’t about to let a step down take those basic qualities from her. She’d worked hard since she’d been here, determined not to let Hendricks have a reason to fire her and then, in one night, she’d given this man a multitude of reasons to do so.

  Kate offered Marta a tight smile. “You go on, Marta. I’ll catch up with you later.” When I have all the time in the world to waste.

  “Are ye sure ye don’t want us to wait?” Marta whispered nervously.

  “I’ll be fine.” Kate patted her arm and followed after the earl as he turned and led the way out of the kitchens and on a long walk through a half dozen other rooms.

  It was a long way and Kate felt the distance like a Dead Man’s Walk with only her execution awaiting her at the end. Her heart was pounding by the time they reached the earl’s private study. Harrowby closed the door behind them and gestured to a chair near the desk but Kate couldn’t do it. Instead, she stared dazedly around the room not really seeing the details but just feeling the impression of the dark paneling and neutral décor. A man’s room. Her boss’s office. Kate shook her head in self-disgust. She had never been fired before and didn’t want to be fired now. She stood in front of the desk staring down at it when he spoke behind her.

  “I didn’t get your name last night,” Harrowby spoke softly into the room. Internally he couldn’t help but curse himself for giving in to his baser urges after only a few hours’ resolve.

  At first, the maid didn’t speak but after a moment, to his surprise and no little offense, she turned away from him to stare out the window. “Didn’t get yours either,” she said conversationally as if she were unaware that she had left him flabbergasted.

  “I am Harrowby,” he finally answered, his voice reflecting the nobility of the position.

  “And I am fairly certain that that isn’t actually your name,” she answered finally, giving him a glance over her shoulder. Her green eyes danced for a brief moment before a shadow descended over them.

  “Brandon.” The word emerged sounding almost awkward as if it had been forced out or long unused and Harrowby supposed it had. Even before gaining the title of Earl, few people had ever referred to him by his given name including his parents. He had been Mr. Ryder to almost everyone. Most men he considered friends referred to him as Ryder but he felt compelled to add, “A few of my old friends called me Brand.”

  She turned again meeting his gaze from across the room, this time twisting her hands unconsciously. Other than that small sign of discomfort, she did not fidget or even shift on her feet. “Kate,” she replied finally. “Or Katie, if you’re inclined.”

  Katie seemed much too tame and girlish to Harrowby for a woman of her seemingly strong measure of self-confidence so Kate it would be. “Just Kate?”

  “Kate Kallastad.”

  “That’s an unusual surname. Danish?”

  “Norwegian,” Kate corrected.

  Surveying her dark hair and snapping green eyes, Harrowby couldn’t help but add, “You don’t look Norwegian, Miss Kallastad.”

  “Only down my father’s side. According to my mom’s research, I’m what you might call a mutt.” Kate shrugged with a hesitant smile. “A little bit of everything all mixed together. I’ve got some German in me, French, Irish but there’s a little English in there, too.”

  “Ahh, a result of the emigration to America by so many around the world, I assume.”

  “Yes.” Kate looked at the earl curiously. “In grade school history, they refer to it as the Great American Melting Pot. I suppose that offends your blue-blooded sensibilities.”

  The earl shook his head. No, there was nothing at all about her that offended his sensibilities. She might have been a gypsy outcast and he would have still found her appealing. It wasn’t as if she would be the mother of his children, after all. He simply wanted her. Again, he felt the inappropriateness of the attraction and wondered at his own motives for instigating this meeting. “I would like to apologize for last night, Miss Kallastad.”

  She tilted her head slightly accepting the offer. “Me, too. I shouldn’t have accused you like that. It wasn’t fair to you given what I had already…ummm, so are you going to fire me then?”

  “Fire you?”

  “You know? Sack me. Give me the boot?” Her normally bold gaze was shadowed by dread and Brand was almost saddened to see her formidable self-assurance waver.

  “Not at all,” he hastened to assure her. “What is past is past. We will let it rest.”

  Kate’s shoulders sagged for a moment in relief. What had she been thinking talking back to him like that when she was already on the chopping block? Didn’t get yours either? Was she trying to give him even more reason to fire her? The worries of the day must have dragged her down past a point of exhaustion beyond her labors and lack of rest if that was the best she could do at guarding her tongue.

  Talk like that would only lead to the uncomfortable circumstance of having to go back to David. He would smile knowingly that she’d been fired, maybe even mock her inability to hack it in this job. Then she would be forced to live with him again, to feel with weight of his expectations on her. Even if Lowry gave her another position, the others hadn’t come with room and board. This was the position that guaranteed those things. This one.

  Thank God, she hadn’t been fired! The earl looked as regretful as she felt and Kate figured that she better get on the ball with learning her new place in this world lest she risk another moment that would leave her future in peril. She needed to be nice to this man. Treat him as she would any other boss she’d ever had. She’d not give Mrs. Hendricks or the earl any reason to think less of her. Not when she’d worked like a dog to prove it to the housekeeper and to herself that she could excel in this endeavor as she had done in everything else she’d done.

  “Thank you… my lord.” The words emerged haltingly in a way that demonstrated she was very unused to them. “I appreciate that sincerely.”

  “Enough of that now.” Harrowby shook his head. Though his words were forgiving, the tone held more of a brittle command than an absolution. He went on, “Any fool can see that you know nothing of British hierarchy if you falter over simple titles. Do you even know the different forms of address? No, don’t take offense,” he said, as if he saw the argument coming from her. “Just ask one of the others to help you with it. Not for me, but for your own benefit, yes?”

  “Okay,” Kate relented. “You’re right. I know nothing about it at all. I’ve only been in England for a few months. It’s all
pretty new to me.”

  An understatement to say the least.

  “Where are you from?” Still, there was that odd, crisp solemnity to his voice, but Kate could hear the curiosity beneath it. Hands locked behind his back like Captain Bligh on the deck of the Bounty, he strolled further into the room, in command of his private space. In his neat suit, razor-edged creases to his trousers and with his hair tamed, he looked nothing like the animalistic male who had prowled the library floor the night before. Harrowby looked as much the earl as he had when arriving the previous afternoon, contained and austere.

  Harrowby moved to a pair of chairs near the fireplace indicating that she should take one with a gesture of his hand. Kate shook her head hesitantly, her eyes darting toward the closed door. Better to end this with her job still intact, she thought, but the earl insisted. “Please, sit.”

  Kate took a seat perching just on the edge thinking again that this earl was nothing like the man she’d met the previous night, she thought. That sensual man in the library – before she offended him at least – had been relaxed and sexy. Though he was still magnificently handsome, there was a stiffness to his posture and vocal inflection that Kate was uncertain how to deal with.

  When he sat, it was on the edge of his seat, his back straight with one leg bent just a bit farther back than the other reminding Kate of old paintings showing the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Formal, even in casual conversation, yet… wired. It was as if his raw masculinity was contained within the confines of his proper morning suit but only just barely. Kate could feel the energy radiating from him. Whether it was his rank or just this time in general that provided that odd combination, Kate wasn’t certain.

  Idly she wondered what catalyst might spark the ignition of the more fascinating persona the earl had exhibited in the dark of night. “I’m from the United States. I told you that.”

  Harrowby said nothing but gave a little roll of his eyes that brought a reluctant lift to Kate’s lips. “I’m originally from Minnesota. I grew up in Edina which is a suburb of Minneapolis.”

  Harrowby tried to picture a map of the Americas but gave up and rose, moving to a large globe in the corner and spinning it around trying to find the right spot. He must have taken a bit too long, because Kate joined him there stabbing a finger at a spot right in the middle of the vast east/west expanse of the nation.

  “There,” she said pinpointing the location for him.

  Harrowby considered the position far from the high population areas of the east and west coasts or even Chicago, which he had heard was becoming quite a metropolis. “Seems rather remote,” he commented, his voice losing some of its starchiness. “Surely there can’t be much for civilization in such an area.”

  “You’d be surprised,” she returned dryly in that way that made the earl feel as if he were missing something. “It’s more urban than you’d think.”

  “What brought you to England then?”

  Since Kate could hardly tell him that a time machine had done the trick, she merely shrugged and led the way back to the chairs where she dropped more comfortably this time giving the impression that her fears were diminishing.

  Harrowby saw her cross her legs under the long skirts with surprise. He’d never known a woman to do that! Woman sat upright on the edges of furniture and perhaps crossed their ankles. Never one leg completely over the other! Moreover, Kate even let her leg kick out again and again tossing the bottom of the skirts up over and over giving him repeated glimpses of her ankles, calves and petticoats. If it had been another woman doing so, he would have considered the action one of sexual provocation, but somehow Harrowby simply knew that this woman had no idea what thoughts her action incited.

  Resolving to keep his eyes on her face, he sat back across from her and waiting for a response. There was something she wasn’t saying, he was sure of it. Something she didn’t want to say about her reasons for being in England. “Well?”

  “I got a job near Oxford working with a scientist there,” Kate offered, seeming reluctant to expand upon that brief description, but her words only served to inflame his curiosity.

  “A scientist?” His brows rose again in astonishment. “Doing what?”

  Harrowby felt certain that the intriguing Miss Kallastad had been nothing more than a domestic, a housekeeper perhaps. His thoughts must have shown clearly on his face because her brow furrowed into a frown and, as if to make it clear that there was much more to it than that, she added, “Research.”

  “Research?” he repeated.

  “You needn’t look so surprised,” she chided. “Women do have brains, you know, though the employment agencies here don’t seem to think so. I would wager I have more education than you do.”

  Harrowby snorted. He’d seen many fine examples of ‘educated’ females in his life. His mother and sister were very well educated by nobility’s standards, being versed in a variety of languages and the arts with some knowledge of history and mathematics but it wasn’t at all comparable to the standards of a man’s education. Most girls attended public schools until their early teens, learned how to write, read and do some basic arithmetic but for the largest percentage of women in Britain, that was it. A select few women might attend classes at the universities but there were no degrees available for them.

  Oh, there had been some talk recently about opening a university for women in Cambridge but that was surely far away and even then it was unlikely that they would have many truly academic courses available.

  Kate might think she was well-educated and perhaps she was, but she was still a woman and there were simply limits to what she could learn. Given that knowledge, he was even more shocked when she continued. “We were exploring new means to cure diseases.”

  If anything his brows rose even higher. “Really? Where? I must confess I went to Oxford myself. I wasn’t aware that there were any facilities of that type on campus.”

  His new maid inhaled sharply and, as if she were aware that he had caught her in an obvious lie, told him, “The lab was a private one and privately funded, not an extension of the university.” Harrowby was still skeptical and it must have shown on his face because she continued, “The lab was a ways south of town but there was an accident and it is now gone.” He couldn’t deny that those words held the ring of truth. “I had nowhere to go, so I came here to get a job.”

  “Why not go back to America?” he asked curiously. “Back to your family?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “I have no family anymore.” The words were softly spoken and so full of grief that Harrowby at once regretted asking the question.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Is it anyone’s fault really?” he asked prosaically.

  “Yes it is,” she replied bitterly, seeming lost in thought for a moment before she shook off the moment of anger and despair like shedding a cloak. Her spine straightened as she again met his eye. “Anyway, I’m here now and this is where I’ll stay. Working for you, it seems.”

  “And yet you seem genuinely displeased by this. Why?” he asked. “I believe that you mentioned last evening that you were unused to servitude.”

  “It just isn’t what I planned to do with my life,” Kate told him but seemed to catch the unintentional insult since she rushed to add, “But I’ll do a good job, I promise. You won’t have any reason to regret not firing me.”

  Harrowby waved off her assurance more curious about what her plans had been, yet all the while wondering at the reason for that curiosity. He’d never dreamed of conversing so casually with a person in his employ before. He’d never even asked these questions of his long-time valet, Timson. It was a shocking deviation from form but Harrowby couldn’t stop himself from asking, “You planned to do research then as your life’s work? How does one prepare for such an occupation? Have you studied?” This last in a tone that bespoke a measure of doubt expecting now that she would explain that she was merely
an assistant or even maid to those who performed the work.

  “I did and I have. I graduated from MIT as a matter of fact.” Kate frowned as if becoming aware that the letters might not mean anything to Harrowby, and they didn’t. “Umm, have you heard of it?”

  “I can’t say that I have,” he told her. “What is it?”

  “The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It’s a private research university outside Boston.” She bit her lip in a thoughtful way that charmed Harrowby instantly. Clearly, she was only searching her memory but the action captured his entire attention so fully that he almost didn’t hear her next words. “I think they call it Boston Tech or something like that right now, but it’s very prestigious. I remember something about Harvard trying to integrate it into their technical college at some point.”

  “I have heard of Harvard,” Harrowby offered at length, understanding that she was trying to tell him that she was a women of true education, the type normally reserved for men of means, and that she trained to work as a professional in the sciences although he wasn’t entirely certain he believed her. How could he? It went against everything he knew. He had heard of schools in America where women might obtain a medical degree and such but they were institutions serving women only. He’d simply never heard of a coeducational university before. “And you graduated from this MIT, you say?”

  “I did. I have a Master’s Degree in biochemistry.” Setting his surprise at her claim of a university degree aside for perhaps the United States had different educational standards, Harrowby focused more on the science he had never heard of though Kate seemed very proud of it. He knew chemistry, of course, had even taken a course or two on the subject himself.