Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) (9 page)

Her speech completed, and her entire body
shaking with nerves, Cassandra sat back in the chair and waited for
Marcus to explode and maybe order her out of his house before she
could contaminate the rest of the inhabitants, and to hell with his
intention of “experimenting” with her.

But he surprised her.

“I see,” Marcus said after a long, pregnant
pause. “I think I understand now, Cassandra. Women of your age—your
time
—have decided to be just like men. You go to university,
you fight wars, and you live alone and work in places so dangerous
that you must take preventative tablets for fear of being violated.
And the name you give to all of this is ‘equality’?”

“Right.” Cassandra grimaced. “Only it doesn’t
sound quite as logical the way you say it. Um—did I mention that
we’ve gotten the right to vote in elections?”

Marcus laid down his notebook, “No,
Cassandra, you have not mentioned that. My felicitations on yet
another feminine accomplishment. But I think I’ve heard enough for
this morning. Before I ask any more questions I will comprise a
list from which to draw on. For now, I think we must prepare to
introduce you to the rest of the family. You’ve already met
Peregrine Walton, my good friend who has been living with me since
his parents died, leaving him penniless. He is a good sort, but
rather simple, so that I wouldn’t want you to tax his mind with too
many stories of your time. I would ask the same consideration of my
aunt Cornelia—actually, she is not my aunt, but I call her ‘Aunt.’
She would doubtless have a strong attack of the vapors if you were
to apprise her of the truth of your circumstances.”

“Of course,” Cassandra answered
automatically, watching as Marcus rose and began pacing the carpet,
his hands clasped behind his back. Did he have to be so very
handsome? Modern men could learn a lot from the way Marcus spoke
and carried himself—and the way his pantaloons, or whatever they
were called, clung to his shapely legs. “I won’t give myself away.
I’m to be Perry’s American cousin. Nothing more.”

“Very good. It also goes without saying that
Perry and I are to be the only two people who know the truth about
you. It could be dangerous if the wrong sort of person were to
discover the true circumstances behind your appearance in London.
In order to be assured that you will not bring undue attention to
yourself, thus putting all of us at risk of being declared insane
and locked away in some asylum, you will spend the next few weeks
under my tutelage, learning the ways of young misses in what you
call Regency England.”

He stopped pacing and looked at her
piercingly. “Why do you call it Regency England, Cassandra? What is
England called in 1992?”

Cassandra felt herself beginning to relax.
Marcus hadn’t liked hearing about her lack of virginity but, by and
large, she believed he had taken the news rather well. “As I’ve
explained, Marcus, I work as an editor. A book editor. Many of the
books I edited—until my promotion, that is—were romance novels
about England during this time. You know, like Jane Austen? She has
been published by now, hasn’t she? Good. Anyway, these particular
books are set in the time the Prince of Wales was Regent, from 1811
until he became king—around 1820, I believe.”

Marcus looked somber. “I see. So poor mad
George does eventually die. There are many of us who have begun to
believe he will live forever, locked away in his own world,
unknowing of what goes on around him.” He was silent a moment
longer, then asked, “But why would anyone write romantic novels
about England in our time? Lord, woman, we’re at war!”

Cassandra smiled. “Yes, Marcus, but it was a
romantic war. Any war one does not fight in personally is a
romantic war, didn’t you know that? Besides, there were so many
lovely things about the Regency Era. Your fashions; your wits and
eccentric characters, like Beau Brummell and the others; the lovely
lives you led, full of balls and parties; the great works of
literature, with Byron, Shelley, and the rest—oh, I don’t know,
Marcus. But they are lovely books in our Mayfair line, with lots of
humor and, of course, happy endings.”

“Eccentrics. I believe you mentioned that
word last night. You seem to have a fixation with the word. I agree
that we have a few strange characters stumbling about the place.
Poodle Byng. The Green Man. Romeo Coates. But doesn’t every age
have its share of eccentrics?”

Now Cassandra laughed out loud. “We’ve got
Michael Jackson and Zsa Zsa Gabor but, trust me, it’s not the same.
Besides, you English are still full of eccentrics, even in 1992.
Almost every story of eccentrics to make the news either comes from
California—if it’s about aliens or weird religions—or from England.
Yours usually have to do with pigs, oddly shaped vegetables, or
crop circles. Marcus? May I meet your aunt Cornelia now?”

The marquess shook his head. “I told you I
had spoken with her, but that was last night. Corny doesn’t rise
before noon, and leaves her chamber at two or three. You’ll meet
her later, before dinner. For now, I suggest we adjourn to Bond
Street and a modiste I have favored in the past.”

“For your mistresses, Marcus?” Cassandra
heard herself asking before she could think to guard her tongue.
“Do you keep a Covent Garden warbler, or do you run with married
women who have already given their husbands an heir?”

She watched, bemused, as Marcus’s face filled
with color. It was obvious he had not flushed in embarrassment, but
in anger. Righteous anger. “You impertinent little chit! Surely, if
you have any knowledge of this time in history, you know that you
should not speak that way to me. No—don’t interrupt. You cannot
claim ignorance in this matter, even if, in your time, you consider
yourself free to do or say anything your
emancipated
mind
can conjure up. And if you were to say something like that in
public! You would be immediately ostracized, which would do my
planned experiments no good at all. But I refuse to allow your
willfulness to defeat me. Perhaps I should send Perry out to bruit
it about that you are pretty enough, but no more than an amicable
dunce. It would certainly save me a lot of trouble.”

Cassandra felt her chin begin to wobble as
both her courage and her bravado melted under the heat of Marcus’s
anger, leaving only her fear. How could she be so difficult? After
all, it wasn’t his fault that she had traveled through time and
landed on his doorstep. It was her own stupidity, her own decision
to break the rules, that had landed her in Regency England. At
least Marcus seemed to believe there was some reason behind her
trip through time. She needed him. She couldn’t cope with any of
this without him.

“I—I’m sorry, Marcus,” she said, rising and
walking around the desk to face him head on. “Truly. I’ve been an
ass.”

“You don’t say
ass,
” he said from
between clenched teeth, his green eyes flashing. “You don’t smoke
those strange cigars, you don’t swear, you don’t let on that you
know the war is going to end or that King George will die. You
don’t yell ‘fire’ if you are standing in the middle of a blazing
room. In short, you are to keep your mouth shut tight unless I am
by your side, at which time you will speak only when spoken to and
think
before you so much as say ‘thank you’ when someone
offers you food. Do you understand?”

“I understand,
my lord,
” Cassandra
responded, nodding and trying desperately to keep from bursting
into tears. She delved into her store of Regency phrasing. “I am to
be a pattern-card Regency miss, a ‘milk-and-water puss,’ a
well-behaved creature who has feathers for brains and has nothing
more weighty on her mind than her outfit for the next ball and the
wish to catch herself a suitable husband. God—and people think the
Regency was romantic? I might as well be in jail!”

Marcus put a finger beneath her chin and
tilted her head up to his, so that she felt an unexpected shiver
climb her spine. “It will get better, Cassandra, I promise you. I
will teach you. And in turn, you will teach me. And then, between
us, we might be able to find some rhyme and reason for your
presence in that room in the White Tower and, with that knowledge,
find a way to send you back to your own time.”

Cassandra’s chin wobbled once more. “Don’t be
too nice to me, Marcus,” she warned, trying to smile. “I think I
can carry this off, if only you aren’t too nice to me. Otherwise, I
might just start blubbering.” She took a deep, steadying breath,
then continued, “Can we go to Bond Street now? Maybe if I were to
have some clothes that fit I might feel more like the Regency miss
you want me to be. I promise to be good—and quiet.”

Marcus bowed, then smiled in a most
sympathetic way and held out his arm to her. “We’ll have one of the
footmen fetch your cape and your abigail, my dear Miss Kelley, and
be on our way.”

She longed to throw herself against him,
weeping. Blinking back tears, Cassandra allowed herself to be
directed down the hallway toward the foyer. “Marcus?” she
questioned as they walked along. “Why do you call it the White
Tower? It isn’t white, not in my time, and not now.”

Marcus motioned to one of the footmen, who
sprang into action as if he knew exactly what his master required.
“It’s simple, my dear. When William the Conqueror came to England,
he ordered the tower erected to impress the local populace of his
intention to stay as their ruler. Although the structure is of
ragstone and limestone, and very impressive, once it was finished
he had the whole thing whitewashed. He said that white would make
the tower appear larger and even more imposing.”

Cassandra giggled as Rose appeared with a
cape and draped it over her shoulders. “And old Willie was right,”
she whispered to the visibly baffled marquess as they stepped out
into the gray London day. “It’s the same argument I used on my
mother last summer when she wanted to buy white slacks.”

C
assandra was
floating at least a full inch off the ground as she descended the
wide, winding staircase and crossed the foyer just as the dinner
gong rang, and headed for the footmen guarding the doors to the
drawing room. It had been a long day, but it had certainly not been
boring.

From the moment she and the marquess (and
Rose, serving as her abigail) stepped onto the flagway and climbed
into the waiting carriage, Cassandra’s senses had been inundated
with sights, sounds, and smells so rich in the history she loved
that she had completely forgotten the fact that she didn’t want to
be here. No wonder historians called London “the Metropolis,” the
center of the world. None of her necessary reading and research for
her duties as editor of the Mayfair line, not even any of her best
authors’ works had prepared her for the reality of the London
streets.

Grosvenor Square seemed to be a haven of
order and quiet, lined on all sides with many-storied mansions, and
in the center was a fenced circular garden around which people
traveled to or from their destinations by carriage, on horseback,
or on foot. The dirty snow that clogged the gutters and the pall of
chimney smoke that hung over the area did nothing to cool her
enchantment.

Once out of the Square the scene changed
rapidly, the streets now clogged with horse-drawn vehicles of every
size and description, the coarse shouts of drivers taking the place
of blaring taxi horns in this Regency Era version of a rush-hour
traffic jam.

And then they were riding down Bond Street,
and the marquess was pointing out buildings of interest as well as
commenting on the fact that London was “rather thin of company” at
this time of year, although this was changing, as carriage loads of
debutantes and their hopeful mamas were descending on Mayfair
daily, to ready themselves for the spring Season.

Stepping out of the carriage in front of a
rather nondescript-looking building near the bottom of Old Bond
Street, Marcus was quick to usher Cassandra inside a tall building
no more than twenty feet in width. It was a small pocket of
feminine delight neatly tucked between two larger buildings, one of
them housing an art gallery and the other a haberdashery.

Marcus was immediately greeted like visiting
royalty by a middle-aged Frenchwoman whose fading beauty was
artfully masked by a heavy application of paint and powder.
Cassandra was left with no choice but to stand quietly by as the
two had a rapid-fire conversation that quickly outstripped her thin
repertoire of high-school-freshman conversational French.

It was the last moment of peace Cassandra was
to have for the next three hours.

Halfway through her conversation with the
marquess Mme. Gerard whirled to face Cassandra, visually measuring
her up and down with, to Cassandra’s mind, all the cold calculation
of a racetrack tout.

“From ’er head to ’er foots, m’lord?” Mme.
Gerard questioned, walking fully around Cassandra, lifting a lock
of her short, shaggy cut and
tsk-tsking
as if Cassandra’s
forty-dollar splurge for a haircut on Fifth Avenue just the
previous week had been a terrible mistake.

“And from the skin out, Mme. Gerard,” the
marquess said in English, glaring at Cassandra as if to dare her to
contradict him. “Hats, gloves, shoes, hose, walking dresses, riding
habits, ball gowns—
undergarments.
We will need at least
three complete outfits today from your stock, more if you have
them, and half the total order in a sennight. The rest must be
completed within the month.”

This statement brought another torrent of
nearly indecipherable French from Mme. Gerard. Cassandra was only
able to catch a few words, such as
“Impossible! Inconceivable!
Outrageux!”
and, lastly, “
How
much, m’lord?
Oui,
m’lord.
Naturellement, bien entendu.
Of course, of
course.”