Alice Kemp was no more his now than she had been a year ago. Or two hundred.
Mr. Arbuckle cleared his throat. “The item you carried, my lord, takes the physical place of the coin they carried. That is the only reason you were allowed to bring something that is not from this time period.”
Weston wanted to know why the coin chose that particular item, the locket, but feared the answer would be something to do with the absurdity of time and space continuity or whatever Arbuckle had called it.
Or, he would have feared it if he believed a word of this story. Still, there was the issue of his traveling by coach for hours only to magically arrive where he had started.
And what was so important about a damn coin? Questions. He had a hundred. Weston pressed his lips together and waited for an answer to the first one.
“If you will come with me now I will prove that you have moved through both space and time.”
“But I have a dozen more questions,” Alice insisted.
“I am sure you both do, Miss Kemp, and I will do my best to answer them, but first I want to establish the truth of what I say, if you please. The changes in London will convince you better than I ever could with words.”
Mr. Arbuckle walked toward the door. Weston followed him, anxious to see the proof.
“I cannot go out in public wearing this!” Alice had not moved from the spot.
Both men paused. Mr. Arbuckle did not open the door.
“Miss, I assure you that no one will be at all shocked. The jeans you are wearing are typical for all English women.”
“Jeans?” She looked down at the offending garment. “Do they now name their items of clothing?” Her tone indicated that her question was more sarcasm, the kind she had deplored in him.
“Alice. We have traveled two hundred years into the future and you choose to quibble over an item of dress?”
“Quibble!” Now she was insulted. “You know as well as I do that what people wear can seal their fate in society. Beau Brummell has proved that.”
“Miss Kemp, please do trust me in this,” Arbuckle urged. “No one will think it unusual for you to be out and about dressed as you are. You are wearing essentially what Miss Amy and Mr. West were wearing when they traveled back in time, as they are wearing what you wore. So you see it is perfectly normal.”
Weston could not control a burst of laughter. “‘Perfectly normal’ are the last words I would use to describe this situation.” He turned to Alice. “Come, my dear, have you not always wanted to experience the comfort of men’s dress? Now is your chance.”
“Dress as a gentleman? Never. No more than you have wanted to dress in skirts, my lord.” But with a sigh Alice moved toward the door. “Very well. But I will box the ears of anyone who dares insult me.”
“I know that you are entirely capable of taking care of yourself,” Weston said, “but I assure you, Alice, that I shall do more than box ears if anyone should insult you.”
Alice turned her head away quickly, but not before he saw the hint of a smile.
CHAPTER THREE
As they made their way into the passage toward the front door a woman was coming up the stairs. “Are you done with the tea things, then, sir?”
A servant. This woman was a servant of some kind, but dressed in a way that made it look as though she were trying to copy her betters.
“Yes. We are done.” She was looking at him, but it was Arbuckle who answered. “Mr. West and Miss Kemp will be back shortly.”
“Very well, sir.”
Weston gave a brief nod when the servant glanced at him for confirmation. As the housekeeper moved into the next room to clear the tea table, Arbuckle whispered, “I beg your pardon, my lord, but the housekeeper—Tandy is her name—knows nothing of what has happened. And since you look exactly like Mr. West and not at all like the current earl, I thought it best to address you as him.”
“Yes, I see,” the earl answered, and then looked at Alice.
She nodded. “We will have to be careful what we say when she is around.”
“Which is not that different from our day, is it?”
Alice nodded with a small smile that brought an inordinate amount of joy to his heart.
Turning his attention from Alice, he made his way to the front hall. As they walked down the stairs that circled the entry hall, Weston noted that, while the place looked the same, the decor was different.
“It looks familiar, but parts of it are not at all as I recall,” Alice whispered to him, and he smiled at the intimacy, nodding.
Yes, he had no doubt this was his town house. The Rembrandt hanging at the landing proved it. He knew it was the same place, but so much around it was different, and for the first time the earl wondered if Mr. Arbuckle might be telling the unholy truth.
Did he even need to say that the next few hours were the most amazing of his life thus far? He knew the memory of this terrifying, horrifying, incredible look at the future would astound him forever.
There was the obvious. Thousands of horse-free carriages, which Arbuckle called “cars,” some large and some small, filled the roads. Conveyances called lorries took the place of carts, but still managed to block traffic as much as the old horse-drawn drays had.
Buildings were tall, huge. The lifts they rode on made stairs unnecessary except for emergencies. There were still pockets of small homes. Mayfair retained much of its nineteenth-century look. Even Berkeley Square was still there, if marred by the hideous building that was the American Embassy.
“What surprises me as much as the change,” Alice said at one point, “is how much has remained the same.”
Indeed he had noticed that too. London remained a hub of the world. People of all nations were on the streets, some hurried and on business, others shopping at a leisurely pace. He was delighted to see that the Burlington Arcade remained, with some of the same shops he frequented.
And Hatchards!
The bookstore still had pride of place on Piccadilly. Alice suggested they go inside, and Mr. Arbuckle agreed.
There were books displayed in far more dramatic ways than in his day, when stacked books near the door had been the only announcement of new publications. Now there were stands as tall as he was, with bright, even bold, covers. He moved from one to another, running his fingers over the smooth paper covers of three or four different books. No more leather covers. And authors seemed to crave publicity, as their pictures were a prominent part of the back cover.
One of the displays particularly caught their attention. The book was Alice in Wonderland, and Mr. Arbuckle explained that it was a perennial children’s favorite.
“That could be a story about us, Weston. For this London is, indeed, a wonderland.”
The earl turned to their guide. “How did this Alice reach her Wonderland? Was it by time travel as well?”
“No, my lord. She fell down a rabbit hole.”
“I did that once too,” Weston said with a laugh. “Well, my horse did. He fell in the rabbit hole and escaped unharmed, but it left me more dizzy than clearheaded. For a day I saw two of everything. Was that Alice in Wonderland’s experience as well?”
“No.” Arbuckle shook his head.