Shadows Fall Away (15 page)

I realized I was staring like an idiot and holding things up. She cleared her throat and bobbed her head to the gap between us and her family, who were at the end of the reception line.

Genie guided me smoothly towards the uniformed maid, who was dispensing crystal glasses of sherry. “Do try not to embarrass me,” she said as I took a glass to help with the onset of nerves.

I looked at her and downed the sherry, which I didn’t particularly like. “I’ll try not to drool,” I snapped, handing the empty glass off to another passing servant.

I frowned as we circulated through the crowd. Was that really the Phoebe Trambley I knew and loathed actually smiling and surrounded by a small circle of men that barely included her official date, Captain Walters?

One of the men in the little clique said something that brought a soft laugh from Phoebe. “You are far too wicked, Dr. Palmer.”

I wanted to pinch myself because I couldn’t believe this was Genie’s miserable sister.

Genie jabbed me in the back with her fan. “You
are
my escort for the evening, are you not?”

“Sorry, I was just—”

“Ignoring me, Mr. Stewart. That’s what you were doing.”

I decided not to take another glass of sherry from the maid making the rounds. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Beg pardon?”

“I heard you say something to that older lady at the church the other morning about when you get back from North something-or-other.”

Genie nodded. “Yes. Mother, Phoebe, and I are going to Northampton to see one of Mother’s friends from the service. They’ll be visiting a fortnight, but I’m just accompanying them for the day. I shan’t be staying.”

“And they’ll let you ride the train home all by yourself?”

She smirked. “Yes, and in the passenger cars as well. With other people. One day you should try it. I’m sure you would find it quite different from riding with the baggage. Or do they make you ride with the cattle in America?”

“Ha ha.” I searched for that maid with the drink tray, figuring I should get drunk if she planned to be pissy all night. There was no maid, but I did see Captain Walters detach himself from the group around Phoebe and join Dr. and Mrs. Trambley and another older man I’d seen in the reception line. They approached Genie and me in battle formation.

“Ah, here, he is.” Dr. Trambley indicated me with a nod of his head.

He introduced the man with him as Dr. Blithestone, the chief administrator of the hospital.

“As you may or may not know,” Dr. Blithestone said, “We are trying to rally support for a veteran’s wing at the hospital. Most of the current veterans’ facilities are to the west of the city, hardly convenient for many of the poor lads. It was Mrs. Trambley’s suggestion, actually, and a capital one at that. Dr. Trambley suggested perhaps you might use your influence with the press to encourage this scheme.”

“Seems like a good idea,” I said. “But I don’t have any influence with the press, certainly not the mainstream ones.”

Genie chimed in. “It’s well and fine to provide for the veterans but you ignore the rest of the populace—”

Mrs. Trambley took on a look like an old cartoon character ready to shoot steam out her ears.

“Oh no, Eugenia. Not another tirade about the women whose pestilence is half the reason we need the veterans’ wing!”

“It would make sense to have a clinic for women, too.” I added.

“Not a word from you, young man,” Mrs. Trambley cut in.

“You could easily train nurses to do those exams and simple treatment,” I said.

Everyone turned and stared as if my fly was open.

“And why not?” Genie faced her mother. “You and the Nightingales certainly proved that nurses were capable of extraordinary things.”

“I’ll not have you use me that way!” Mrs. Trambley snapped. “We were at war. We tended our gallant lads who were wounded in honorable battle! No…not…”

I shook my head. “The simple solution is to have all those ‘gallant lads’ of yours keep their junk in their pants and not cheat on their wives or girlfriends.”

“Good God, man!” Captain Walters erupted. “Keep a civil tongue in your head.”

Mrs. Trambley snorted her contempt and addressed our little group with a frigid expression. “No, it is those vile women who are to blame. Was it not Eve who first ate the apple and learned of good and evil? Because she arrogantly took the knowledge for herself it has been a woman’s duty to help men overcome their baser instincts not fill them with corruption and disease.”

“Let he who is without sin,” I muttered.

Mrs. Trambley glared at me.

I shrugged. “Wasn’t it Adam that God made the deal with, not Eve?”

“But Adam
told
her what God had said!”

I rolled my eyes. “So, what, God was too good to talk to Eve Himself?”

A chorus of startled gasps cascaded around those who’d overheard the comment. More than a few heads turned my way, but I didn’t care.

“Woman was created to serve man, to obey him!” Mrs. Trambley insisted.

“I’m sure that’s what Adam told Eve. I would have, in his place.” I noticed the shocked expressions on everyone’s face. Even Genie’s. A clergyman approached our gathering crowd like he was on a holy crusade and I decided a quick retreat was in order.

“I’m, sorry,” I mumbled. “Excuse me.” I threaded my way through the room and darted out into the dimly lit courtyard.

Behind me, I heard the subdued outrage my too-modern comments caused ripple through the partygoers. I leaned against the wall and stared at the sky. “I’m really sorry, okay? I’ll try to keep my big mouth shut,” I said, just in case anyone up there listened.

I’d never get used to being in Victorian society. It irritated me too much. I supposed I should have been enjoying having women know their “place” but the fact of the matter was it was a pain in the butt. In my own time, I’d have already tried to get Genie to make out and might have succeeded. Crap. That was so not a good train of thought to have.

Genie glided up next to me. “Are you truly such an addle-brained, pudding-head, or a man well ahead of his time?”

“I’m so far ahead of this time you wouldn’t believe it.”

I wondered when she’d gone from awfully pretty to bordering on beautiful. I noticed her cheeks blush so I shifted my attention to stop studying her soft looking shoulders, that attractive hint of boob.

“And what you said about training nurses to attend women, which was that, forward thinking or pudding head silliness?”

“Temporary insanity. It makes perfect sense, but it’s perfectly impossible.”

“And why is it impossible?” Genie demanded. “Do you think women incapable of it?”

I finally looked back at her, tried not to admit how her presence made me feel or the way her formal speech and accent added to the overall attraction. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t think they could. No, it’s impossible because people like your mother and father and all the politicians will fight it every inch of the way.”

She toyed with her fan a moment; her face glowed. I was having trouble keeping my thoughts out of the gutter, especially when she stepped closer.

“And what,” she asked, when she was nearly brushing against me, “do you think of Mother’s assertion that women must help men quell their base impulses?”

Without thinking, I slid my arm around her waist and pulled her close. The boning of her corset felt strange and exciting beneath my hand. I slid my other hand up the back of her head and ran my fingers through the loose curls pinned up at the nape of her neck.

She stiffened at the touch but seemed frozen in place, her breath warm upon my face. For a minute, I thought I felt her tremble as if she wanted me to kiss her, maybe even do more than that right there in the garden.

My body was up for it but my mind snapped into focus. I pushed her back, slipping away from the wall to put some distance between us.

I was breathing hard.

She simply stood there, staring at me.

“I’m sorry.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “I shouldn’t have.”

It was a full minute before she answered. “But I wish you would have,” she said softly then turned and hurried back into the house.

***

Genie

I pushed my way as politely as I could through the crowd.
Damn, damn, damn him!

Mother grabbed my arm to bring me up short. “Did you locate your Mr. Stewart?”

I glanced back through the open French doors to the garden where Mark lurked in the shadows, still watching me. I turned sharply away. “He said he’d find his own way home.”

“Thank God for that! At least the young man has a small portion of shame.” Mother dragged me toward the foyer where Father’s protégé, Jack Palmer waited.

I fumed with impatience until the carriage was brought around and everyone was seated. The sharp crack of the whip made me jump and Father leaned over.

“Is everything all right?” he asked solicitously.

“All right?” Mother burst out. “Her escort was the most shocking and blasphemous scoundrel on Earth and you ask if everything is
all right
?”

I merely stared out the window.

Shocking was the right word, the only word one could use. The way he put his hands on me in such a familiar manner was something that simply wasn’t done. And yet…

Why did he have to choose that moment to remember to act like a gentleman? Why not a moment later, after he might have kissed me?

***

Mark

I didn’t see any easy exit at the rear of the house so I went back, sticking to the edges of the room. There was a bit of a bottleneck and I watched an astonishing set of gray mutton-chop whiskers attached to a short, balding man head towards me through the crowd. There was a gleam in his eye that reminded me way too much of Aunt Agatha. And that couldn’t be good.

He had his hand extended long before he got within shaking range. “Mr. Stewart, yes? So glad to make your acquaintance, young man! I hoped to ask the Trambleys how to contact you and, marvel of marvels, here you are yourself! This is indeed fortuitous!”

“If you say so.”

“I understand you’ve wisely forsaken the Trambleys’ company for the remainder of the evening. Might I prevail upon you to accept the hospitality of my own home for a drink?” Without waiting for an answer, he put his hand on my shoulder and steered me through the crowd. “We could share something more bracing than sherry. Are you a whiskey drinker by any chance?”

“Nothing for me, thanks. I should probably think about heading home.”

“No matter,” the man continued. “You seem an unusually perceptive young fellow. Just the sort I need to help stimulate my thinking on some rather perplexing scientific problems. You have no idea how difficult it is to find someone who can see to the heart of the matter without being entrenched in maintaining the
status quo
and supporting outmoded models. Such individuals are rare indeed, who are not only perceptive but forward-thinking and, who are not complete lunatics.”

He gave a quick laugh that struck me as having a touch of the crazy to it.

We arrived outside and stood under the portico as the man’s coach was brought around and I seized a momentary lapse in his monologue.

“I’m not sure I’m all that qualified. Science was not one of my best subjects, Mr.—”

“Hawkesmythe. Cedric, of course.”

“Of course.” Who the hell was Cedric Hawkesmythe?

Hawkesmythe chuckled again and patted me on the back. “Oh, it’s not that I expect you to be conversant with scientific principles themselves. No, not at all. I am within a hair’s breadth of a breakthrough yet it eludes me. I am merely hoping that in posing hypothetical questions you might help me identify flaws in my logic, that you might provide a sounding board. I am convinced you can help shake my brain until the answer pops out. But, understand the science? No, no, not at all, my boy, not at all.” He paused, his face flushed with excitement and maybe even a bit too much of the whiskey he’d mentioned. “Who can understand the mechanisms of it—or even believe it’s truly possible?”

“Believe what?” I asked.

“Why, time travel, of course!”

I stared as the man climbed into the carriage. Did he know? Could he help me?

“Come on, then. Hurry.” Hawkesmythe gestured madly.

“You believe in time travel?”

“I believe in everything being possible.” Hawkesmythe leaned forward. “Of course believing it’s possible and making it work—well there are gaps you know.”

I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. “Gaps. Sure.” I let my mind wander as the aristocratic “mad scientist” tore off into one tangent after another. I stopped thinking of Genie when Hawkesmythe rapped me on the knee with his walking stick.

“What are your thoughts? About the elementals.”

Having no clue what he was talking about, I fell back on good on B.S. “I don’t really have an opinion. I guess.”

Hawkesmythe frowned and tapped his cane on the coach floor. “Well it must be of Nature itself. Something light—no light emitting or refracting. Yes. Refraction is always good.”

“Refracting like a prism?”

Hawkesmythe whipped his head around.

“It was just a thought. Probably not a good one.”

“But it is a most interesting idea. Yes. Yes, it is. And crystals are thought to vibrate, are they not?”

“I suppose.”

“Yes. Vibration. I’m afraid I’ll have to be a cad and beg off that drink invitation. Where would you like my man to drop you?”

I told him about my room over the tea shop and he tapped on the carriage roof and relayed the information to the driver.

Then he stared out the window muttering to himself about quartz and rubies. I was glad when the carriage pulled up near the tea shop.

“Thanks for the lift.”

“Keep pondering, young Stewart. Never stop pondering.” Hawkesmythe tapped the coach roof with his walking stick and the driver headed off again.

I glanced up at the sky as I made my way around to the apartment entrance. “You’re killing me, you know this, right?”

A cloud drifted to the left revealing a twinkling star I was sure came out to mock me.