Twin Speex: Time Traitors Book II (21 page)

She opened the door and walked in. A small window dimly lit what looked to be a cramped dressing room. The vanity with its large mirror had a theatrical feel as it was covered with bottles and pots of makeup and face paint. Racks were hung with all manner of clothing, and the shelves were stuffed with shoes, wigs, and even prosthetic noses. Ettie bent to pick up a patched and ragged coat that had been discarded on the floor and remembered Marta’s words:
“They said a vagrant, some homeless person, had seen Mister Odell go in before he said…”

Ettie was abruptly jerked from her semi-catatonic state by a knock at the door. She held her breath and searched her memory. Yes, she had locked the door behind her. She dropped the coat and walked quickly into the bedroom, throwing a glance out the window. She saw a red napkin hanging on the railing and Pablo staring up at the apartment. His little face was scrunched up in concern that she might miss sighting the Earl of Westchester and gaining several points on her friend.

“Shit!” she exclaimed under her breath.

The knocking had stopped, and her stomach clinched sickeningly as she heard the rattle of a key in the lock. Ettie looked frantically around the room for a weapon and, with a short, semi-hysterical laugh, realized they were not in short supply. Grabbing a heavy truncheon from its hook on the wall, she squeezed in behind the bedroom door where she had a limited view of the parlor through its hinges.

Ettie heard the door open and sucked in her breath as she saw him walk into the middle of the room. His back was to her, but she easily recognized the broad shoulders and careless grace of Charles Drake, Earl of Westchester. She pressed herself hard against the wall when he turned, and her heart lurched into her throat as he walked toward the bedroom. He stood just within the doorway, separated from her by only inches. Her eyes bore into the solid wood of the door in a futile effort to see through it. She dared not breathe.

A gloved hand gripped the bedroom door and pulled it back. Ettie’s pent-up breath was released in a mighty swing of the truncheon. She saw the wide, surprised look in his eyes as the blow connected with his shoulder and sent him crashing back into the dresser. She gripped the heavy bat and ran toward the apartment door.

Ettie had almost reached it when two short arrows whizzed past her and burrowed into the doorframe next to her. She stopped abruptly, her chest heaving. She felt the muscles between her shoulder blades contract and waited with bated breath for the next one.

“Ettie,” he said in a low, constrained voice she barely recognized. “I want you to put the bat down and turn around slowly.”

“No!” She was terrified and her voice shook. “If you’re going to shoot me, just shoot me in the back. I’m not going to face you helpless while you kill me!”

“I’m not going to shoot you at all,” his voice was gruff with emotion. “I would never… I’m not going to kill you. I just…” He cleared his throat. “I just need you to be calm and put down the bat.”

She didn’t turn around. “Put down the bow, or whatever it is, first. Kick it over there.” She nodded to a potted fern that was just within her peripheral vision.

He did as she asked, and she saw from the corner of her eye a small crossbow-like weapon skitter across the floor. But still she hesitated. “You could have something else. I… I can’t know.”

“Ettie.” His voice was tense, yet weary. “I’m unarmed. Right now you could attack me with that thing, and I would have no way to defend myself. Trust me.”

“Trust
you
!” She turned abruptly, practically choking on the words.

He stood in the middle of the room, his hands empty at his sides. His hat had been knocked off when she’d hit him, and she noted through the fine tailoring of his jacket that his left shoulder was drooping. His face was pale, and his jaw was clenched in pain. The fine brown eyes were both hard and pleading. He held that look for several seconds more before stumbling backward and fainting upon the sofa.

*

“His pulse is steady, but he still looks pale.” Clem stepped back from the sofa and snapped shut the small pocket watch she held in her hand. She cocked her head to one side in a delicate, birdlike gesture of confusion. “There’s nothing broken, and the blow didn’t dislocate his shoulder. Honestly, Ettie, I think he’s suffering more from lack of food than anything else. He may even be a little dehydrated.”

Ettie was standing on the other side of the sofa looking down at the stricken man. But at this, her head jerked up to stare intently at the girl. “What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

“Well,” Clem began hesitatingly, “…I mean, he’s weak, and certainly the blow didn’t help. From the looks of his skin, I’d say he’s had very little to eat or drink in the last few days.”

Ettie looked down at him again, a worried frown creasing her brow. They had stripped him down to his trousers and bandaged the injured shoulder, all without him waking or even fluttering an eyelid.

“Then we should get him to the hospital. If he’s dehydrated, he’ll need some intravenous fluids, or something.”

Clem shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. They will definitely ask questions if we come driving up to the emergency entrance with an unconscious Earl of Westchester.”

“Well, we just can’t leave him here!” she snapped, then pushing the heels of her palms into her eyes quickly apologized, “I’m sorry.” She dropped her hands back down to her sides and looked across the sofa at her friend. “I don’t know what that woman will do to him if she finds him here like this. He’s a bad guy, Clem, but I don’t want him dead.”

Truth be told, Ettie wasn’t sure what she wanted. After seeing Charlie faint, she had almost joined him in unconsciousness, so great was her relief. She had stood for several minutes, trying to regain some measure of composure. When his breathing deepened and his limp body slid over sideways, she ventured to search his pockets for the apartment key.

Her unease at being there with an injured man was heightened by the fact that she didn’t know when or if the unknown woman would return. With the key in hand, she had rushed out of the apartment and back across the street to the café. She was accosted almost immediately by Pablo.

“Did you see him?” he had asked excitedly, “Did you see him?”

“Yes, Pablo. Thank you. I’m sure to win.”

He smiled and nodded his head decisively in a strangely adult gesture of acknowledgement.

“But now I need another favor.” She sat down at one of the tables and felt her legs begin to shake beneath her long skirts. Beatrix sensed her distress and rested a heavy paw on her thigh, looking up at her with unblinking yellow eyes. Ettie pulled out her palmavox and the slip of paper Clem had pressed into her hand that night at the hospital. “I’m going to need you to watch Beatrix just a little longer,” she had told him as she dialed the number.

It had taken the girl less than an hour to arrive at the little neighborhood café. Pablo kept Bea while Ettie and Clem cautiously reentered the apartment to find Charlie still out cold on the sofa where Clem now stood assessing his condition.

“I think we have to wake him,” Clem said. “There is no other way. We can’t carry or even drag him out of here.”

“But how?” Ettie asked. “If it wasn’t for his breathing, anyone would think him dead.”

Clem rummaged around in the large leather bag she had brought with her and pulled out a vial of…

“Smelling salts,” she pronounced triumphantly. “My aunt got them from the doctor when she complained of feeling faint, but she never uses them. Too strong… she says they burn her nose.”

Ettie looked uncertain, but Clem was determined and anxious to be out of there. Once they had gained entrance into the apartment, Clem had gone first into the bedroom in search of something that could be made into bandages and a sling. The sight of that room and, most particularly, the portrait, had produced in her an intense feeling of urgency. A brief explanation from Ettie regarding the painting and the woman to whom the apartment belonged, only added to her anxiety. Clem didn’t want to stay there even one second more than was necessary.

“Listen, Ettie,” she insisted, “we don’t know when this woman will return. We can’t stay here, and neither can he. I really believe the earl is too weak to harm us.”

Ettie wasn’t really worried about that. She felt certain that, given what had passed between them, Charlie didn’t want to hurt her. But Ettie wasn’t at all sure she was up to finding out what he did want from her. She knew Clem was right about this though; they had to get out. She nodded and agreed, “All right.”

Clem sat down on the edge of the sofa and slowly waved the vial under Charlie’s nose. At first, it seemed to have no effect, but then he stiffened and wrinkled his nose, turning his head abruptly away.

“Lord Westchester,” Clem pronounced in firm tones, “Lord Westchester, you
have
to wake up.”

She waved the vial again under his nose. This time he started violently and swatted her hand away with his good arm. “Wha… what!” he exclaimed, but still wouldn’t open his eyes.

“Lord Westchester,” she repeated, “wake up.”

Like a hypnotist’s subject, his eyes popped open with a glassy stare. He blinked several times before opening them again to a more normal aspect. He saw Ettie bending over the back of the sofa and smiled seductively. “Ettie, darling, why still dressed?” Ettie’s cheeks colored as Clem shot her a sideways glance and an amused smile.

Making another pass of the vial under his nose, Clem demanded, “You must wake up completely.”

This final whiff brought him totally, if profanely, to his senses. “Bloody hell! Stop with that disgusting mixture!” he yelled and then groaned as he tried to sit up. “Wha… What—?” He leaned back, his memory returning.

He looked up at Ettie. “Who is this girl?”

“A friend,” she told him curtly. “Listen, Charlie, whose place is this? Why did you come here?”

She had made her voice as hard and emotionless as possible, but it fooled neither Charlie nor Clem. She couldn’t hide her hurt and anger.

He breathed in deeply. “I don’t know her name.
She
… she is very dangerous.”

“Then we should leave, and now,” Clem pronounced, getting up and shaking out her skirts. “Can you stand?” she asked him, and then turned to her friend. “Help me get him up.”

Ettie didn’t budge. She still wanted answers. “How is she so dangerous? And why…,” her voice faltered, “why does she look like me? That painting…”

He closed his eyes and sighed wearily. “She has at her disposal technology that… that is extremely powerful. It’s… it is difficult to explain—”

“Oh, I already know a great deal, Drake,” she declared, her mouth tight with fury.

He swallowed convulsively. The derisive tone and disrespectful use of his surname had sounded just like Odette. “How do you know?”

“I read Odette’s journal. The one she sent to Odell. It seems when it comes to the women in my family, you’re just one big, fat liar.”

“Odette?” He knew Ettie had somehow found out, but from Odette? It was all too much for him. He fumbled to pull on his shirt.

“I loved Odette. I don’t expect you to believe me. She wouldn’t have. But I had no choice. I betrayed everything, everyone I cared about, just to survive. And in the end, I died anyway.”

Clem had been standing and listening with incomprehension to this astonishing confession. “What the—?”

“Not now, Clem.” Ettie waved an impatient hand. She leaned intently over the sofa and asked, “What does this woman have to do with me? With Odell? Odette didn’t mention her in the journal. Where or when does she even come from?”

He shook his head wearily. “I tell you, I don’t know. I don’t know how she did it, or where she got the technology. I was on a mission to recruit Odell, and she showed up at my door. It was like…,” he continued through gritted teeth, “…it was like I was reconstituted into another person. With memories of lives… other dimensions. I’m not sure even your brother could explain it.”

Ettie straightened up and, taking a deep breath, said, “Wait here.”

She walked into the bedroom, and the two people in the parlor heard something crash to the floor and splinter. Backing up into the room, Ettie dragged the painting within its shattered frame across the floor. She dropped it down in the middle of the parlor and strode into the kitchen. She came back carrying a large butcher’s knife and proceeded to rip the canvass to shreds.

When she had finished, Charlie said matter-of-factly, “She’ll kill you for that.”

“She’ll have to find me first.”

Seventeen

AVA STOOD IN a shift with a long-sleeved linen shirt over it as Evelyn handed her what looked like a quilted vest.

“Just put it on and lace it up the front,” she instructed her.

Ava took the proffered garment. She slipped it over her arms and pulled the ends together in front, tightening it with the lacing. It weighed similar to a warm jacket and had a firm structure, but was overall comfortable.

“Is this some type of corset?” she asked.

Evelyn’s head popped out of the dress she had just pulled over her head. “Sort of, it gives shape and support, but there is no real stiffness in the material. Undress, or undergarments,” she explained at Ava’s confused look, “varies depending on the type of activity planned. The quilted jump is typically for day-to-day wear, a corset is for a more elegant silhouette, and full stays for formal events.”

“I never knew there was any difference,” Ava replied, not looking up as she struggled to pull the silk lacing through the tiny eyelets.

Evelyn laughed and reached over to help her. “Here, let me do it. It takes some practice to get it exactly right.”

She pulled, expertly crossing the lacing and tying it just above the waist. When she was unable to wiggle her finger in between the garment and Ava’s body, she nodded and declared, “Perfect. You shouldn’t be able to fit a finger between the shirt and the jump. That way it gives you the right amount of support.”