by Nichole Van
She raised her head as they neared and then froze, staring at him with a raised eyebrow. Determined not to be put off by such rude behavior, Timothy touched his hat in the barest of greetings, permitting the slight nod of his head to communicate his elegant breeding.
Her head swiveled as he passed, and he was quite sure she said something like, “Hey Jen, is there a Jane Austen festival going on right now?”
Which made not one iota of sense on any level.
Perhaps he was finally losing his mind.
But as he moved farther into town, such reactions and people became more commonplace. People whirling to stare at him pass.
Men, women and children all dressed similarly in those dark blue trousers with various types of coats and . . . tunics, for lack of a word to describe them. There seemed no consistency in hair length between the sexes . . . or, quite frankly, hair color. He had seen a woman with blue (blue!) hair step out of one of those carriages, waving to the person inside.
There was also no clear distinction between classes. Where were the gentlemen and ladies in their finery? No where did he see a single horse or cart of any sort.
The Old Boar Inn drew into sight. Or, at least, he recognized the building with its white-washed plaster exterior and dark crossing beams. But gone was the wagon yard and bustling ostler. And instead of the head of a grizzled boar, the sign over the entrance stated:
The Shining Dog
Dog Grooming and Tearoom
‘Grab a cuppa with your puppa’
Timothy stood transfixed. Surely his mind had finally cracked.
Bewildered, he turned, taking in the rest of the street. Next to The Shining Dog, a window front with the words ‘Hopping Holidays’ above it advertised a four-day weekend in Boston starting at only three hundred pounds, exclusive of airport taxes and fees. All departing from Heathrow.
Which, if Timothy’s memory served him right, was a tiny hamlet west of London.
Why would one start in Heathrow when going to Boston? And why travel for months to only stay four days at a cost of three hundred pounds? Such a journey would surely be only a tenth of that amount.
The window next to Hopping Holidays was equally confusing. It sported images of children’s faces with the words ‘Have You Seen Us?’ written above. The text written in the middle was baffling.
Thousands of fostering children wait for suitable adoptive families. If families aren’t found, children can be lost in the system. It is estimated that over two hundred children have vanished without a trace—
Jabbering voices erupted from The Shining Dog. Timothy whirled back to see three slim women walk out. They were dressed much like Miss Fleury had been with severely shortened skirts and hair hanging loose. All three sported those precarious-looking shoes and cosmetics on their faces. Most interesting, the women were foreigners, clearly from the Far East. China, perhaps?
One of them looked in his direction and then froze, squealing with delight and clutching the arm of her companion. She pointed excitedly, talking quickly. All three women staring at him now, grinning widely.
Timothy looked behind him. Surely they weren’t this excited to see him?
But apparently, they were.
Within seconds, the women surrounded him. They held those odd rectangular things in their hands and were talking in a language he didn’t understand. One of them waved her hand and called to someone else across the street. Two more similar women turned toward them and then excitedly crossed the street.
Two minutes later, Timothy was surrounded by seven (or was it eight?) petite dark-haired women. The first girl (woman?) who had seen him kept saying something that sounded like ‘Mr. Darcy. Photo?’
When Timothy did not respond (which how was he supposed to know how to respond to such a phrase, assuming he had even heard her correctly?), she finally gave an uncaring shrug, snatched his arm uninvited and stared at her companion with a wide smile. The companion nodded and held up her rectangular box and touched it, giggling excitedly.
Bewildered, Timothy watched as the women eagerly traded places. The first one now holding up her own thin box while the other woman clung to his arm.
The next five minutes proved more of the same. People grabbing his arms, turning him this way and that, everyone holding up those ridiculous rectangular boxes. He was quite sure at least one of them had pinched his . . .
A blush rose in his cheeks.
The entire group dispersed once everyone had a chance to stand next to him and smile at a box. Perhaps this was some sort of odd Chinese ritual? And if so, why did one of the women stuff a piece of paper into his waistcoat pocket before they all hurried off?
Frowning, he pulled the paper out. The face of an unfamiliar woman peered back at him. A woman with a crown atop her head and the words twenty pounds next to her head.
A twenty pound note?
And a queen?
Timothy took more steadying breaths. Swallowing. Trying to fight back that choking feeling. He stuffed the note back into his waistcoat pocket, if only to spare himself the sight of his shaking hands.
It only partially helped.
Finally, he loosened his neckcloth. A horrid breach of etiquette, but it seemed the only way to get air into his lungs.
Focus. He could focus.
He just needed to get to Kinningsley.
He started walking up the street again.
Around the corner, the parish church stood exactly where it always had with its simple Norman-era body and gothic-inspired steeple. Looking comfortingly unaltered, though perhaps more careworn around the edges. The same stone fence encircled the graveyard. So not everything was different in this dream . . . or whatever this was.
Perhaps Kinningsley would be exactly as he had left it.
Turning away from the church, he continued up the road. Two more buildings down, Timothy froze in front of what appeared to be a bank.
A board of sorts hung in the window beside the door, gleaming with red numbers which fluctuated every few minutes. The top number was in pounds sterling. That was easy enough. The next number appeared to be United States dollars . . . was this currency conversion? Like a currency exchange?
And if so, what was a euro?
Raising his head, Timothy read the top of the board, that sense of suffocating returning with a vengeance.
Exchange for March 20, 2015
The numbers practically shouted at him.
Two hundred years. That’s what Miss Fleury had said.
Trying to slow his breathing, Timothy slowly pivoted, taking in the street one more time.
Time travel? The very thought was . . . just . . .
Inconceivable.
And, yet . . .
The logical side of his brain asserted itself. Powerfully.
If this were a hallucination, it was frighteningly consistent. He had yet to see anything which would contradict the hypothesis that he had indeed traveled two hundred years into the future.
Everything, though outlandish and wildly different, conformed to known physical laws and norms.
He hadn’t seen any fish swimming through the air. Nor spotted people walking upside down from ceilings.
Even though every part of him howled at the thought, he was a scientist in the end. And when faced with an enormous contradiction, he applied the idea of Occam’s Razor.
The simplest solution was probably the correct one.
And based on that, he was in the future. Having traveled from 1815 to 2015.
But how? And why?
And what did this mean for himself, Kinningsley and the viscounts Linwood? What about Miss Heartstone and his financial crisis?
He needed to return to his estate, to see his fine house with its pedimented columns and cream-colored stone, a wide expanse of lawn in front . . .
Timothy continued up the street nearly at a run.
Kinningsley was located three miles outside of Marfield. Timothy knew this. But, according to his pocket watch, ne
arly two hours had passed, and he had yet to find the turnoff to his estate.
Granted, everything had changed. In 1815, the road was a pastoral pathway through woodlands and the occasional tenant field.
In 2015, the street was a busy thoroughfare lined with low red brick houses. Enormous vehicles passed him, rumbling the ground underneath his feet with their weight. Most of the large carriages sported the words ‘Helm Enterprises’ on their sides with a picture of a clipper ship underneath.
He paused in front of a walled garden, trying to get his bearings. Through the house opposite the road, he could make out the top of the hill which rose beyond the long drive, leading to the front doors of Kinningsley. But surely, even now, he should be on Linwood land . . .
Shaking his head, Timothy crossed the street and continued on, passing three more houses. Another loud roar sounded behind him and he turned his head . . . just in time to see a large carriage barrel through a deep, water-filled hole. Drenching Timothy from head to foot.
The cold water shocked the breath out of him.
Too angry to speak, he stood in stunned silence, arms held out from his body, water running off the brim of his hat, dripping from his great coat, mud splattered over his waistcoat and buckskins. His tasseled Hoby boots surely ruined.
He wiped the dirty water from his face with a soaking gloved hand.
And then he saw it. The gates leading to Kinningsley. Directly across the road. Stone pillars with carved lions in front and an arched gate with the Linwood coat of arms hanging above.
But it was all wrong . . . the pillars were worn and overgrown with ivy and moss, barely recognizable. And though his coat of arms still hung from the top of the gate, the metal had lost its luster and sat in weathered dinginess. The gate looked like it hadn’t been used in years.
Even worse was the white sign affixed to the gate with damning words written in bold lettering:
Helm Enterprises
Headquarters
Transportation and Logistics
Main entrance 100 yards
The bottom of the sign had an arrow pointing to the right.
Timothy wasn’t sure how long he stood staring at the sign.
It just . . . couldn’t be.
No. No. No.
He refused to accept this.
He turned and strode the requisite hundred yards to the ‘main entrance,’ feet squishing in his boots with every step.
One hundred and three yards later, he stopped in front of a more obviously used gate. Wide with thick metal horizontal bars attached to a high stone fence on either side, the gate completely blocked access to the land beyond. Peering through the opening, he saw low utilitarian buildings and a paved road curving off. Beyond the buildings, several tall industrial chimneys rose, belching smoke and steam.
He couldn’t see the main house. Should he have been able to see it from here?
He couldn’t remember.
The terrible shaking/choking sensation returned. Timothy tried to swallow against the tight vise around his chest. Pressed his shaking hands against his thighs. But to no avail.
A few minutes later, he found himself crouching on his heels, still sopping wet, doubled-over, hat on the ground, hands threaded around his head, gasping in long, loud breaths.
It was his worst nightmare come to life. His lands turned into a factory, the Linwood name polluted and gone.
No legacy. No heritage.
Rule #1: A gentleman will ensure that the next generation is raised in a manner worthy of the Linwood name.
Ah . . . the irony.
This was why lords did not dabble in trade. This was why his father had been so fiercely adamant that Timothy squelch that part of him.
Because this was where a love of machinery led . . . to shattered honor and no inheritance to pass along.
Choking and gulping in convulsive breaths, the devastation washed through him. He could practically hear his ancestors howling in their graves.
How had this come about? Did he, Timothy, end up stuck in 2015, leaving his estate in 1815 rudderless and vulnerable to such exploitation?
Without Miss Heartstone and her sixty thousand pounds, was this what his heirs were reduced to?
The panic swamped him again at that thought.
Gasp. Swallow. Breathe.
Or just hold on and pant through the emotion. Which seemed to be what his body insisted on doing.
But his next thought was even worse—
What if he did return home, married Miss Heartstone, sacrificed his every hope and dream and desire on the altar of the viscountcy, and this was the result anyway?
Was his entire existence for naught?
Chapter 9
Duir Cottage
Afternoon on spring equinox
March 20, 2015
Cobra had been thorough in his questioning—Jasmine gave him that much. He had plumbed her mind for every last morsel of information, dredging up a long forgotten memory in the process.
Water chimed, falling gently from the marble fountain into a shallow pool below.
“Papa! You’re home!”
She lifted her head to watch a rugged man with brown hair cropped short gather her dark-haired sister into his arms. Jasmine squealed and ran to join them.
Joy. Happiness.
A fragmented memory, but something new, nonetheless.
Cobra had found the courtyard to be interesting, as it implied she might be from Florida. And the name, Minna, gave him something to go on. He promised to be in touch in a couple days.
So basically . . . wait and see.
After hanging up with Cobra, Jasmine did the breakfast dishes, straightened up her art supplies, threw in a load of laundry, pondered sketching some general ideas but ended up doodling a cute saying she had found on Pinterest (When in doubt, wear red. It turned out super darling with the words nestled inside a couture red dress . . .) and then decided it was probably time to clean the cottage’s two bathrooms . . .
As she finished scrubbing the second vanity, she admitted to herself she was in full-on avoidance mode.
Voluntary cleaning of bathrooms was usually an obvious tell.
Linwood had vanished.
And the only place he surely hadn’t gone was back home to 1815. That she would have noticed.
But since he had walked out the door while she chatted with Cobra, she hadn’t seen a single sign of him.
Soooooo . . . what?
Why should she care?
He was a grown adult who, despite his snooty personality, did not seem lacking in the smarts department. He knew where she was. And probably could find Duir Cottage again. He was familiar with the area, after all. Granted, the area of two hundred years past, but . . . whatever.
So he had decided to leave?
Great. Good riddance.
Not her problem.
She repeated the phrase approximately fifty-two thousand times as she doodled words and scrubbed bacon grease and shined chrome.
Not. Her. Problem.
But . . .
What if he were hurt? Struck by a car or something?
She pondered the possibilities as she stomped out back to the old stables. She contemplated driving the (sleek, gleaming, please-don’t-dent-me) BMW for about two seconds and then rejected the thought.
Better to just use Emme’s bike.
Why was she doing this? Linwood didn’t deserve her concern. Most definitely didn’t want it.
Gah! She was soooooo done with the whole must-mother-everyone thing. Someone somewhere had to have an addict recovery program for it.
Like ‘Twelve Steps to Mother Addiction Rehabilitation.’ It would be a support group. Where they all took turns making brownies for each other and asking (cautiously, solicitously) if everyone was keeping up with the program, staying on task, needed any help . . .
See. This just outlined her very problem. She should turn around, go back inside, let Linwood solve his own problems . . .
But
. . .
What if he had been arrested? The man didn’t even know what a telephone looked like. They would probably haul him off to a mental hospital, and then how would she find him?
That was her line of thinking as she pedaled onto the main road into Marfield and belatedly realized she really should have put on a coat instead of the too-thin sweater she sported. (Which was darling, by the way, with its mother-of-pearl buttons and lace cuffs which offset perfectly the scalloped collar of her dress . . . She was heading off to find a cough handsome cough viscount, for heaven’s sake. She hadn’t thought about the weather. C’mon, a girl had to do what she had to do.)
The wind picked up, cutting easily through her clothing. Clouds gathered ominously.
Just what the day needed.
Her cheeks were surely red and wind-blown as she wound her way through town, looking left and right.
Nothing.
Had he been mugged?
For what, though? His fancy hat? His scathing wit?
Jasmine smirked.
Not likely.
Probably, Linwood had insulted some innocuous woman who was just walking by and accidentally bumped him with one of those cloth, eco-friendly, Food Co-op bags. Some sweet old lady named Ethel who had just nipped into town to purchase shortbread biscuits and some Earl Grey for her afternoon tea and had picked up a few grapefruit on a whim because they were in season and on sale (well, last week, anyway . . . maybe they still were) but now her bag was super heavy walking home and Ethel hadn’t brought her roller-cart-basket-thingy—because, hello, biscuits and tea were not rolling basket purchases and how was she supposed to know that grapefruit would still be on offer?—then Ethel bumps into his high-and-mighty-ness Lord Linwood who lets loose a whole cartload of nineteenth century snobbery on the poor woman, reducing her to tears and then her grandson, Freddy, happened by and . . .
In the end, Jasmine only had to ask five different people.