Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) (8 page)

“No. Of course not,” he countered soberly,
although she couldn’t miss the glint of humor in his eyes.

“ ‘Of course not,’ you say.” She flung her
hands wide in mingled disgust and despair. “So how in hell can you
possibly ask if I slept well? Only a complete
idiot
could be
in my position—in this asinine predicament—and still—
sleep
well!
” She looked around the room distractedly, noticing and
just as quickly dismissing the glass jars filled with, as Perry had
said, some particularly disgusting specimens. “Oh, God. I need to
sit down.”

“Allow me,” Marcus said, motioning to a
nearby chair. But Cassandra had rebounded, sighting two packs of
cigarettes on the desktop. She had forgotten that a second,
unopened pack had been in her makeup case. Close to forty
marvelous, nerve-soothing cancer sticks lay just outside her
reach.

“There is a God!” she exclaimed, sweeping
past the marquess and lunging for the opened pack before he could
stop her in the name of “science.” Grabbing the pack, she quickly
rummaged through the remainder of her possessions, unearthing the
disposable lighter. A moment later, her chin tipped up, her eyes
closed in bliss, she exhaled a thin blue stream of smoke. “Oh, I
needed that,” she said, turning to smile at Marcus, at least
temporarily in charity with the world.

Her smile faded at the look of mingled horror
and revulsion on his handsome face.

“What? And don’t tell me women in the Regency
never smoke, because I won’t believe you. At least two of my
writers’ heroines experimented with cigars.” She inhaled again,
dancing out of his reach behind the desk, just in case he thought
he was going to relieve her of the one pleasure she’d had since
being dumped into this unbelievable mess.

She looked down at the desktop, slightly
embarrassed to see that he had spread out all her private
possessions and snatched up the slim pink plastic case that looked
like a holder for a pocket comb, but in reality held something very
different. A moment later the case containing her birth control
pills disappeared into the pocket of her gown.

“I won’t tell you anything of the sort, Miss
Kelley—Cassandra. But if I might broach a suggestion? If you plan
to blow a cloud in public, be prepared to step lightly as you do,
in order to avoid being toppled upon by the swooning matrons,” the
marquess told her in his deep-throated, cultured English voice. His
smile reminded her that Marcus Pendelton was one extremely handsome
man. Real cover-art material, with slashing black eyebrows over his
sexy emerald eyes, intriguing high cheekbones, aristocratic nose,
and a bedroom smile meant to melt hearts. It was amazing. His teeth
were so straight and white she couldn’t believe that orthodontics
hadn’t yet been invented.

And that body! He was no Arnold
Schwarzenegger, thank goodness, for Cassandra had never understood
the fuss some women made over muscle-bound men, but he had broad
shoulders and a narrow waist, and his pantaloons and skintight hose
showed his long legs to advantage. Objectively speaking, she’d take
him over any current thick-necked Hulk Hogan look-alike cover model
without so much as a blink!

Cassandra inhaled a third time, only to
realize that after three weeks without regularly feeding nicotine
into her system, she was beginning to feel light-headed. Maybe even
a tad nauseated. She crushed the cigarette out in a small dish that
sat on the desk and collapsed into a chair. “There,” she said,
glaring at the marquess. “I’ve put it out. Don’t ever say I never
did anything nice for you. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” Marcus answered blandly, holding
out his hand so that, hating herself for giving in, she could place
the lighter in it. “And, if I may be so bold—the strange case,” he
prompted, pocketing the lighter. “In the interests of science, you
understand.”

“I’d rather die,” Cassandra retorted quickly,
then spread her hands to encompass the remainder of the items lying
on the desk. “You’re free to rummage through the rest of it I mean,
hey—knock yourself out. I was lying. I don’t really have mace. But
this case is mine. You—you haven’t examined it yet, have you?”

Marcus took a seat in one of the chairs
placed in front of the desk. “Don’t you mean, am I aware that you
are not a virgin, Miss Kelley? That is what those tablets are,
isn’t it? A strange method of avoiding pregnancy.
Lo Ovral,
I believe, was the name I read on the printed paper inside the
case. You cannot begin to fathom the length and breadth of the
questions I have been contemplating since discovering that piece of
paper.”

Cassandra didn’t know whether to blush or
pick up the small silver inkwell and bean him with it. “So now I’m
Harriette Wilson all over again, aren’t I? That’s a real open mind
you’ve got there, Marcus. And you call yourself a man of
science?”

“Then I’m incorrect? Shame on me. Forgive me
for leaping to conclusions. You’re right, of course. I am not being
scientific.”

Cassandra sighed, searching for the best way
to attack the subject, not that anything she said could possibly
make a dent in Marcus’s poor opinion of her, his poor opinion of
the women of her time in general. “Look, Marcus—my lord. The world
has changed a lot since your time. I mean—
a lot!
” She
grimaced, knowing anything she said would be an understatement. “A
whole
lot. What seems normal to me has got to be so
off-the-wall to you—I mean, so extremely peculiar to you—that it
would take me years to explain it all. Oh, brother. I can’t believe
we’re having this conversation. I was sure I’d wake up this morning
back in 1992. Rose blew that theory straight to hell when she
showed up in my room with hot chocolate and a chamber pot. Thank
God she told me about the new ‘water closet’ you’ve had installed.
I quit the Girl Scouts because of the outhouses at summer camp. I’m
just not the back-to-nature type. Of course, if I’m going to be
lost in time, I guess I should consider myself lucky. I could just
as easily have landed in prehistoric times, or popped up as the
only female on a Greek freighter. Oh, God, Marcus, stop me. I’m
babbling again.”

Marcus nodded, then rose and walked to a
corner of the room where he pulled a cord, summoning one of the
servants who must have been camped just outside the door. “Coffee
for two, please,” he ordered, dismissing the servant before
returning to sit in front of Cassandra once more. “You do have
coffee in your time, don’t you? Many of our ladies prefer tea, but
somehow I believe you might drink coffee. Perhaps I should write
that information down as well. For Perry’s sake, you understand. I
believe he harbors the thought that people in your time dine
exclusively on chocolate and other delicacies. Spent most of last
night telling me he thought he might enjoy living in such an
enlightened age.”

Cassandra smiled weakly and then nodded,
aware that he was giving her time to collect her thoughts. “Thank
you, Marcus,” she said, in appreciation of both his offer of coffee
and his kindness. She leaned forward, searching through the items
on the desk top until she found a small tin of aspirin. “These are
for pain,” she said, opening the tin. “I have a headache and I’m
going to take two of these tablets when the coffee gets here. Don’t
try to talk me out of it, okay?”

“I wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” Marcus
answered. “Are you going to take one of the other tablets as well?
You should, you know. The literature I read on the printed paper
points out that you are to take the tablets religiously until they
are finished.”

Cassandra’s laugh was more of a sniff. “Oh,
yes, Marcus, you’re right. After all, you never know when I might
decide to jump one of the footmen. We modern women are real
animals.” She knew she was at the end of her cycle and that the
remaining pills were all placebos, but didn’t think she owed the
marquess that much of an explanation.

“You’re angry again,” the marquess pointed
out needlessly. “Women of your time must be extremely volatile. I
suggest that if we are ever to hope for a pleasant association we
get this matter of morals out of the way. Now, please, Cassandra,
tell me about the tablets.”

Before Cassandra could speak, the servant
returned, placed a heavy silver tea service on a nearby table, then
retired. Marcus quickly poured them each a cup of coffee, inquired
as to whether or not she took cream, and then placed a cup in front
of her. “Take your time, Cassandra. After all, we may have years
and years together in which to discuss everything.”

“Years and years. Gee, thanks for cheering me
up, Marcus,” Cassandra said bitterly, downing two aspirin with a
sip of hot coffee. “That’s just the sort of news to make a girl
want to jump right up and dance.” Replacing the cup in the saucer,
she looked piercingly at the marquess, gauging his ability to
understand what she had to say. “All right,” she said at last.
“Let’s talk about women in my time. As I’ve already told you,
things are a lot different. We can go to college. We live away from
home —without chaperons. We work as teachers, politicians,
secretaries, doctors, police officers, lawyers—solicitors, to
you—why, I even have a friend who’s training to be an astronaut,
not that you’d know what that is. In short, we can do anything a
man can do—backward, and in high heels.”

“Hence the female PM,” Marcus cut in, his
expression of dismay almost comical. “How endlessly fascinating. Do
you fight in wars?”

Cassandra nodded. “In America women do almost
everything in the services, and in some countries women fight in
combat. American women will also go into all areas of combat soon,
if we have our way. After all, if we’re going to have bombs dropped
on us we should be able to fight back, right?”

“Amazing.” She noticed that the marquess had
taken up a notebook and was busily scribbling in it. “Have you
fought in a war, Cassandra?”

“No, not unless you count riding the subways.
But we’ll leave war for another time, okay? It would only open
another can of worms, what with smart missiles and nuclear weapons.
Let’s get back to the women of my time. The majority of us don’t
have come-out balls and Seasons and that sort of thing, and we
wouldn’t want them. We go to work, at eighteen, or after college—at
about twenty-two. We pull our own weight. We don’t marry right away
either, at least a lot of us don’t.”

“Why not? All women wish to make an
advantageous marriage. It is what they are raised to expect. My
sister, Georgina, began planning her marriage in the nursery. Has
marriage fallen out of favor?”

Cassandra’s head was aching behind her eyes.
This was impossible. She couldn’t possibly explain her lifestyle to
him. Not this morning. Not today. Not in the years and years he
spoke of so glibly. No one could. “No, marriage has not fallen out
of favor. We women still want marriage. But not right away. We have
our careers to consider. Many women don’t get married until they’re
in their thirties, then go on to have children into their
forties.”

Her last statement seemed to have gotten
Marcus’s full attention so that he stopped as he was about to dip
his pen into the inkwell once more. “Their forties? But that’s
positively ancient! Oh, Sally Jersey may have attempted it,
but—Miss Kelley, I must insist you tell me the truth. It won’t do
either of us any good for you to spite me by spinning fanciful
tales.”

Cassandra instinctively reached for the
opened pack of cigarettes, then thought better of it. “I
am
telling you the truth. We’re talking about one hundred and eighty
years of progress here, Marcus. Thanks to modern medicine, people
routinely live into their seventies and eighties. There’s plenty of
time for marriage and children—although my mother has never agreed
with that theory. She insists that I’m destined to be an old maid.
Last summer, on my twenty-fifth birthday, she showed up at my party
dressed all in black, saying she’ll never be a grandmother.”

“You’re five-and-twenty?” Marcus questioned,
shaking his head. “That won’t do. That won’t do at all. We’ll have
to keep your age our little secret, I’m afraid, as I’ve already
informed my aunt that I wish to launch you into Society next month,
as part of my experiments, you understand. But if Corny finds out
you’re at your last prayers she’ll insist we put you in caps and
seat you with the dowagers. We have been acquainted less than
twenty-four hours, Cassandra, but I am already convinced that your
place is most definitely not among the dowagers.”

Cassandra finally found something to laugh
about. “Your aunt Cornelia and my mother would get along
swimmingly, Marcus. Of course, your aunt would get a little upset
when my mother started to talk about her idea of my becoming a
single parent, as she has all but given up the idea I’ll ever
marry. She read somewhere that I have as much chance of getting
married as I do of being abducted by little green men from
Mars.”

Marcus shook his head. “Stop, Cassandra.
Please, stop. This discussion is getting out of hand. We are simply
going to have to form some sort of agenda for speaking of
individual subjects. This random accounting you are spouting is
getting us nowhere at all. Now, if I accept the notion that women
of your time do not marry until much later in life, can we get back
to the discussion of those tablets hidden in your pocket? As an
unmarried woman and, as you assert, a woman not to be lumped with
the Harriette Wilsons of this world—why in blazes are you carrying
those tablets?”

“You aren’t going to give up, are you,
Marcus?” Cassandra took another sip of the now tepid coffee, then
came to a decision. “All right. I’ll tell you the truth, even
though I know it will blow your mind. You said I wasn’t to talk
about anything but the pills, but I must tell you that we had a
different sort of war in the last twenty or thirty years—my years,
not yours. It was called the Sexual Revolution. Women figured out
that barefoot and pregnant wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. We
went to college, we went to work, we fought for equality, and—and
you’re really going to have to pay attention now, Marcus—we decided
that women can have sex without marriage just as you men have been
doing since the beginning of time. We know all about sex. We teach
it in school, as a matter of fact. So, no, Marcus, I am
not
a virgin. ‘Brad the Bod’ Renshaw took care of that little bit of my
education during my third year of college. And surprise, surprise,
it wasn’t all that great, so I gave it up. I take birth control
pills—those ‘tablets’—because I live and work in Manhattan, and a
girl could get raped living in Manhattan.”