A Christmas Keepsake (15 page)

“It was my intention ” His pained gaze rested on Nancy’s vivid brassy hair, and he permitted himself a slight shudder. Pointedly, he returned his attention to Christy and bowed to her once more. “Mr. Wickes, miss. I have the honor to serve Major Holborn as his valet.”

“Of course.” Christy held out her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you. And I’m glad you’re here. He didn’t hurt his arm any more today, did he?”

A muscle twitched in the valet’s cheek, and he stared at her hand. After a moment, he took it. “Thank you, miss. And no, miss. He did not reopen the wound.”

“Good. Excuse me, I’ve got to go check on the table.” She passed him, aware she had probably just broken every social rule on the book. She only hoped she hadn’t offended him too much.

The meal proved to be a lively affair, the boys full of their day’s treat. No fear of their hot chocolate and gingerbread affecting their appetites, Christy noted; they ate everything in sight. She leaned back in her chair, listening to their excited chatter, watching their animated faces. This was no normal orphanage. This was more a home. She was very fortunate to have fallen into such hands.

When they finished eating, Nancy and Mrs. Runcorn directed the boys in their cleanup. Christy tagged along, and stacked dishes on the shelves after Alfie dried them. Mr. Wickes, she noted, tended to the pots and pans, which in no way diminished his supercilious expression.

“Above ’isself, ’e is,” Nancy informed Christy in an undervoice. Her gaze rested on the valet, and she sniffed. “Keeps to ’isself over there, wont ’ave nothin’ to do with the likes of me ”

Nancy returned to scrubbing the large wooden table, and Christy glanced over her shoulder to where Wickes hung a frying pan on its metal rack. The valet glanced at the girl, then immediately looked away.

Christy bit her lip and accepted another damp plate from Alfie. Poor Wickes. He might have convinced Nancy he despised her, but he didn’t seem to have convinced himself. An ever so proper gentleman’s gentleman and an ex-pickpocket? Her smile faded. In this era, that was probably as impossible as a duke and a chambermaid.

The last cup returned to its place, they put away their scrubbing brushes and hung the towels to dry. Wickes declined Mrs. Runcorn’s invitation to join them in the sitting room, and took himself off to the major’s chamber to arrange his things. The others trooped up the stairs to play a divination game before bed.

Already, Major Holborn and Mr. Runcorn arranged apples and knives for the boys on the table. The children swooped down on these, jockeying for positions, arguing over who got the largest apple or the sharpest knife. The major silenced this squabbling with a word, and the boys went to work.

Christy stood in the doorway, her gaze resting on his
dark auburn
head as he bent toward the youngest of the boys, helping him pare his apple in one long piece. Considering someone tried to kill him just a couple of hours ago, he appeared amazingly relaxed. In fact, she would swear he enjoyed himself. In his position, she’d be terrified.

She went to his side, unable to stay away, and took the chair next to him, near the hearth. “They are certainly involved in this, aren’t they?”

He shot her a humorous smile. “We have changed the rules a trifle. The original game supposedly showed the initial of one’s true love. They do it for the first letter of their future jobs or apprenticeships.”

Alfie finished his spiral, held it aloft for the others to see, then tossed it over his shoulder. “What is it?” He spun around for a better look.

“A ‘C,’ ” Jem declared.
“You’re goin’ to be a chimney sweep, you are.”

“I don’t want to be,” Alfie cried.

“Why not a clerk?” Christy suggested. “Or a constable..”

“Or a corporal,” the major added, joining in the game. “What else can you think of that begins with a ‘C?’ A cook?”

This diverted the boys, and they became more outlandish in their suggestions for each of the letters. At last, Mrs. Runcorn announced it was past their bedtime, and sent them upstairs. Sammy opened his mouth to protest, but the major cut him short by threatening to pull an inspection on them in fifteen minutes, with dire consequences if they weren’t asleep. Laughing, the boys ran to their preparations.

“Which is a wonderful change, we usually have at least one straggler,” Mrs. Runcorn said with a sigh.

“I’ll withdraw also, if you don’t mind.” The major rose. “I cannot neglect my work.” He retreated down the hall to the study.

Christy watched him go, then mounted the steps to her room and closed the door firmly behind her. Major Holborn planned to work, presumably on his book.

Curious, she drew the copy of
Life in London
out of its hiding place in the bottom of her clothes cupboard and unwrapped it from her royal blue sweater. For a long moment she stared at the title page, studying his name in print, then she turned the pages over one at a time, scanning the typeset words. The lines remained clear, the words solid and unchanging—except for a rare, occasional one that blurred.

She passed sixty-odd pages that way, then turned the next into Chapter Eight. Part of this first sheet remained legible, the rest shifted before her eyes. A light-headed, dizzy sensation swept over her as her fingers traced the letters, trying to force them to hold a single shape.

This must be the section he currently wrote. He had yet to complete it in final form, so the words continued to shift between the possible alternatives. The same held true for those few words in the earlier chapters, which either he or a publisher would change before printing.

She leafed through the next fifteen pages, and at least half of the words altered. He still had a lot of rewriting to do, she surmised. She turned another, and froze; the type ran out after only three lines. The rest was blank.

Startled, she flipped through the remaining forty-odd pages of the book, but they remained empty, all the way to the end. She closed the volume and stared at it. The section he had yet to begin. Her history, his future. As yet uncast.

She hugged herself, cold with more than the icy chill of the December night. St. Thomas’s Eve, December Twentieth, the night of divination. How appropriate. Which course would events take? She had always assumed history was a given, once lived it couldn’t be changed. Yet here she was, knowing events to have occurred one way, and seeing before her the evidence that they could alter.

If this revolution came about, would that be the reality she knew, the one she tried to preserve, the one
all
history books would record? And what else would change? The ripple effect through time boggled her mind. How many subtle differences would there be?

Would she even exist, or would history create different patterns that would prevent her parents—or grandparents, or even great grandparents—from ever meeting? Would she simply vanish? Then would the effect be retroactive, so she never came to this time at all, since she never existed? One little change now, and how very different life could become two hundred years in the future.

Her gaze returned to the volume she clenched in her hand. During the next week or two, James Holborn would either record a house party he had yet to attend, or riots would break out in the streets. And somehow, his actions, and probably her own, would determine the course of history.

She opened the book once more, to the last pages with writing. As she watched, several lines ceased their shifting and became solid. She swallowed. He worked on it now, put something in its final form. A shimmering line formed on the almost blank page.

What did he write?
The word “pistol” stood out for one moment, then vanished into a hazy blur. She didn’t remember anything about guns in the printed book, at least not until she reached Chapter Ten and the tale of the rioting. A chill crept through her that refused to be banished. Had they begun on the sequence of events which would lead, ultimately, to bloodshed and death?

She had to stop him from recording more of his danger, from recording anything having to do with violence, lest that version become the permanent one! She shoved the book into the reticule which hung at her wrist, grabbed up her candle, and shielded it as she ran from her room, down the stairs to the study where the crackling of a fire and the warm glow of light indicated someone worked within. She pushed wide the partially open door, then stopped on the threshold.

James Holborn sat at the writing desk, quill in hand, his brow creased in a frown as he studied the page before him. Her gaze fell on his scrawling copperplate.

“What are you writing?” she demanded.

He looked up, and his eyebrows rose in polite inquiry. “I am finishing a chapter of my book.”

“I know that, but—”

“You do?”

She bit her lip. “I mean, I saw you weren’t quite done with it. Naturally you’re polishing it a bit.”

His gaze rested on her face. “What has distressed you?”

“Why are you writing about pistols?” she blurted out.

All expression faded from his face. “How did you know I was?”

She closed her eyes, aghast. How could she have been so
dumb
as to say that? But it was all she could think about.

He rose and came around the side of the desk and positioned himself directly in front of her. “I asked you a question, Miss Campbell.”

“It—” She broke off, not able to come up with a single explanation, believable or otherwise. She clutched the ribbons of her reticule, then glanced down at it. She shouldn’t have brought the book with her...

“What have you in there?” He caught the cloth bag.

She tried to pull it back. “Nothing. It—it’s just a book. Your earlier one.” He met her frantic gaze with a penetrating one of his own, and she looked away, desperate. She couldn’t let him see it.

“May I?” He dragged it from her wrist and pulled it open.

“No!” She caught at it. Or did part of her
want
him to see the book, to end the pretences between them, to warn him of the dangers that threatened ahead?

He pulled the bag free of her grasp and drew out the thin leather volume. “It is certainly a eaten-up copy, isn’t it?” He turned it over, and his expression froze. “
Life in London
,”
he
said at last. “That was not the title of my first book. Rather, it is the one I have considered for the manuscript on which I currently work.”

For one long, heart-stopping minute, his gaze rested on her stricken face. At last he lowered it to the book, and leafed through the pages. Silence filled the study, broken only by the crackling of the fire. Then he looked up once more at her, and she fell back a pace under the force of the anger in his flashing eyes.

“I think, Miss Campbell,” he said, his tone rigid, “it is time for those explanations you avoid so well.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

This time, James determined, he would not be put off, not be distracted by Miss Campbell’s taking ways or her lovely eyes and enchanting smile. This time, he would force the truth from her.

Slowly, as if compelled against her will, she looked up to meet the challenge of his gaze. She looked away at once, her shoulders slumping. For a long minute she stared into the fire, and seemed to draw courage from the glowing coals. “You’re not going to believe what I have to say,” she said, her voice so soft he could barely hear.

“Very probably not,” he agreed. “I have never met anyone like you, before. And this”—he tapped the book—”this, my dear Miss Campbell, defies logical and reasonable explanation.”

A slight smile twisted her lips. “You’re not kidding.”

“Do you have any idea how it feels to leaf through the pages of a published book that
isn’t
published—let alone finished—yet? This is impossible.”

“I’d noticed. The whole situation is impossible.”

He sat back on the edge of the desk. “I’m very much looking forward to what you will have to say about it.”

“Right.” She drew a deep breath. “Just for a moment, consider the possibility I come from a time two hundred years in the future. How does that hit you?”

“Do you want the truth, Miss Campbell?”

She grimaced. “No. I just need you to believe me.”

“I’m listening, let’s leave it at that.”

She crossed to the fireplace and stared into the flames. “I really do come from the future. I’m a rare book and antiquities dealer, which is how I got into this mess.” She spun about to face him. “I
flew
to England, Major Holborn. On a ship that travels through the air. It’s powered by engines that—oh, damn, you don’t even have
steam
engines yet. How am I going to explain gasoline? Never mind, but it only takes hours, rather than weeks, to cross the Atlantic.”

“Indeed.” He folded his arms and allowed his lip to curl. “Are you certain you are not a writer of lurid novels, Miss Campbell?”

“Only if you’re the writer of ones that shift their lines,” she shot back. “I came to England for a purpose—for an auction at Sotheby’s. I bought that book—” she gestured toward it—”as part of a lot. The first nine chapters stayed solid. The rest shifted back and forth between two very different versions. From Chapter Ten on—the part you’re about to start writing. The part that’s blank now.”

His fingers whitened on the volume. Pointedly, he glanced at the mantel clock. “It grows very late for fairy stories, Miss Campbell.”

“Fairy tales? Look at your book again, Major. Is that a fairy tale? The type is shifting, isn’t it?
Isn’t it
?”

He gritted his teeth, then unclenched his fingers and leafed once more through the pages. It wasn’t possible, it simply wasn’t
logical
yet the letters altered themselves, forming different words and sentences. The basic content remained the same, except one version read in a more polished form, as if he had cleaned up his notes...

Hell and the devil confound it! If he weren’t careful, he’d find himself believing this nonsense. “What do you claim the rest of the book is about?” With an effort, he kept his voice even.

“Neither version ever got clear enough for me to really read it. I only caught glimpses of them.” She hesitated, then plunged on. “One described a Christmas house party, at which a number of government officials were present.”

“And the other?”

She paced to the chairs, and clutched the back of one. “The other spoke of riots and bloodshed in the streets, and a revolution like the one the French had.”

“This is nonsense.” He surged to his feet and started to slam the book onto the table, only to stop himself with it halfway down.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe any of this. That’s why I’ve avoided your questions.” She brushed the dark curls from her eyes in a frustrated gesture. “Remember how crazy I acted on that first day when you met me? How would you feel if you suddenly looked around and found yourself transported back to
Sixteen
Hundred, and the buildings and landmarks you knew had vanished, and everyone dressed and talked
differently
?”

He crossed to the fire and stared at it for a long moment, then turned back to her. “Have you any explanations about why this should have happened?”

“Only a pretty scary one. I checked other books written at this time, and none of them shifted like this. And I showed your book to other people, and they only saw the tale of the house party. The words only changed for me, and only in your book.”

“And your conclusions?”

“As far as my time is concerned—and for that matter, as far as all other books from
this
time are concerned—no revolution takes place. I can only assume some action on your part—and possibly on mine—either causes or prevents the rioting. History seems to be in our hands.”

“That is quite a responsibility you choose to place upon my shoulders, Miss Campbell.”

“I didn’t make the choice. I wish I’d never gone to that damned auction—
or
seen your stupid book. Then history could have just gone on without me.”

“History.” His lips twisted into an ironic half smile. Was that the way she thought of him? Some ancient relic from the distant past? The devil, she had him doing it, almost believing this ridiculous story of hers.

His gaze strayed back to the book, and his frown deepened. There might almost be some justification for that belief. He raised his gaze to her once more. “If you’re really from the future, how did you get here?”

‘That snowdome you made.”

“That—” He broke off. “Do you mean snowball? What you would make if you pack a handful of snow for throwing?”

“I wish. Don’t you remember, I described it to that man in the curio shop? The place where I bought it—except that was two hundred years in the future? It’s a glass ball, filled with a liquid, usually with a scene inside and little flecks of something white. When you shake it, the flecks drift down on the scene like snow.”

“And?” he prodded.

“This one showed a man and woman ice skating, with a carriage and gray horse in the background. As I looked at it, the couple danced—the same dance you showed me today.”

“And what did you mean about my making it?”

She drew a shaky breath. “It had your signature on the bottom. The figures were cast from silver and enameled, to keep them from tarnishing in the liquid.”

He set his jaw. “I do cast in silver, and I sometimes enamel the pieces. Jewelry making is a hobby of mine. Anyone could have told you that. I have never, though, made such an object—indeed, I have never heard of such a thing before.”

“Well, you’d better get to work on it. You dated it Eighteen-Ten, which gives you only a couple of weeks to complete it.”

“And what makes you think I intend to do anything of the kind?”

“If you don’t, it won’t exist in the future to bring me back through time.”

“Which is the best argument I ever heard for
not
carving any wax for the next month,” he shot at her.

She shook her head. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

He strode to the window and gazed out at the snow falling in the narrow alley behind the house. “If I don’t make it, what happens to your history, then? What happens to you?” He glanced over his shoulder at her.

She sank onto the chair. “I don’t know. Maybe you have a revolution instead of a house party. It’s the book, though, not the snowdome, that shows the potential disaster. What if you don’t finish it, so it’s never published?”

His gaze fell on the manuscript pages scattered on the table, then transferred to the volume he still clutched. No, it was his work, what he believed in. Only his death would prevent him from finishing it. Only his death...

Icy tentacles crept through him. Only his death, which someone seemed very determined to bring about.

He dragged open the book, watched the shifting type, studied the blank pages at the end. Nothing was settled. It was true, he didn’t yet know what he would write in this section. He had no plans, though, to attend a house party—and certainly no intention to witness a revolution in the streets.

A revolution in the streets. Some part of him feared that possibility already. A chance existed, a very real chance. Sir Oliver Paignton, Lord Farnham, Viscount Brockenhurst—their comments at St. Ives’s dinner party returned to haunt him. If Prinny, with his spendthrift ways, became regent, would the poor of the city rise up in protest, demand a portion of that vast fortune he wasted on frivolities to obtain the basic necessities for themselves?

A revolution, like the one in France.

And somehow, he was involved, or it would not be his book alone which altered its words.

“Rioting,” he repeated aloud, and turned to face her.

“Something is going to happen within the next couple of weeks, and I don’t know what it is,” she declared. “That regency bill?”

He shook his head. “I have nothing to do with that. I have no influence in government circles—much to my regret. My sole influence rests with the people who have read my writings on civil reform. If, as you suggest, this matter hinges on me, then it must be these writings that are responsible.” His fingers clenched on the book. “I will do everything in my power to prevent such a bloodbath in England.”

“Got any bright ideas?”

He drew a deep breath, considering his options. “I think,” he said at last, “we will do best to speak to Saint Ives.”

“Your cousin? Why?”

“He takes a considerable interest in government policies, gathers about him men of influence. All of the people at the dinner party—except us—were important in the government.”

“Then you think these are the men who might cause—or prevent... Her voice trailed off as she sat up, her eyes sparkling, animated. “Could they be induced to prevent problems? To possibly pass a bill—”

“Or
not
pass one,” he interrupted her. “Confound it, I have been blind! My writings on social reform combined with Prinny’s taking the regency will be the destruction of England! Come on.” He grabbed her hand and started for the door. “Get your bonnet and pelisse.”

“Where are we going?” She hurried after him, barely keeping up with his long strides.

“To Saint Ives. I want a word with him, and I want you to listen.”

He threw open the door, propelled her down the hall, and took the stairs two at a time. By the time he’d fetched his greatcoat and beaver, she had only just reached her chamber. He waited while she collected her things, then helped her into the pelisse.

“Will he still be up?” she asked.

He gave a short laugh. “Knowing Saint Ives, he will be entertaining again this night. He rarely seeks his couch before three in the morning.” He started down the stairs, then realized she wasn’t following.

“Is this safe?” Lines of worry creased her lovely brow, her features so expressive of concern—for him.

“It’s a chance I’m prepared to take,” he said. “Are you coming?”

For answer, she followed him.

The icy night air chilled him to the bone as he stepped onto the front porch. What it did to Miss Campbell in that flimsy gown he didn’t want to think. At least her pelisse was of sturdy wool.

It wasn’t going to be easy finding a hackney, despite the fact it lacked only twenty minutes before eleven. No jarvey with any respect for his life lingered on Golden Lane—or anywhere in St. Luke’s, for that matter.

He quickened his stride, then slowed as her ragged breathing reached him through the muted stillness of the snow-filled darkness. He strained his ears for the sound of pursuit, but none came. He cut down Barbican Street, and at last they emerged onto Aldersgate. Here, a number of carriages—some of them hackneys—passed.

The fourth he signaled stopped for them. He bundled Miss Campbell inside, then gave the direction of his cousin’s house. The driver raised an eyebrow at this exalted address, cast a speculative eye over the major, then jerked his head for his passenger to enter.

“Not on his usual route, I should imagine,” Miss Campbell said.

James acknowledged this, then fell silent, staring out the window. What a devilish situation. He couldn’t abandon his life’s work, yet to pursue it might result in a far worse situation than existed now. Should he act—or do nothing? Which course led to the preservation of England—and the betterment of the lower classes? This remarkable—and possibly mad—young woman couldn’t tell him.

At last the driver pulled up in Portman Square and let them down. James paid him, then strode up the stairs, drawing Miss Campbell with him. He knocked, then waited, one hand shoved in his pocket, the other about her elbow, and wished it weren’t so damnably cold.

At last the door opened. Doring stared at him, surprise flickering across his normally impassive countenance. “Major Holborn!” He stepped back and gestured for them to enter. “His lordship is entertaining this evening.”

James nodded. “I expected as much. Might I have a word with him alone, please?”