“We have money,non?” Nicolas says. “Sufficient funds for this excursion?”
I nod. Rosalind had given us each two hundred pounds, which seemed ridiculous. Then her husband, August, snuck Nicolas another five hundred “just in case.” In case of what? Getting trapped in this world and needing to purchase a small dwelling? Then, on the drive to the hotel, I saw giant signs advertising what looked like apartment flats for the bargain price of a quarter million pounds. Now I am half-afraid to set foot in a bookshop for fear I’ll faint when I see the prices. On the other hand, as an authoress—author, Bronwyn would correct—Idohope book prices have kept apace.
“I believe we can safely descend into the maelstrom,” Nicolas says. “Perhaps, if we work up the courage, we might even slip into a shop for a bite to eat, as it does appear to be nearing teatime.”
I am about to answer when a knock comes at the door. We both pivot to stare at it. Or, at least, to stare in the direction of it. The room is big enough to hold a family of six... and Bronwyn warned that it was quite small by her North American standards. It has its own water closet, with running water, a tub and a booth for showering. It also has a front hall, where the door is located.
The knock comes again.
“Hello?” I call, chastising myself for the tremor in my voice. That is not the voice of Miranda Hastings. But in this unfamiliar place, I feel as I did when I first stepped onto the shores of Martinique, uncertain and more than a little unsettled.
“Ms. Hastings?” a woman’s voice calls back. “It’s your concierge service.”
The wordconciergesounds French, and while Nicolas is teaching me his mother tongue, I do not yet know this term. He whispers, “It means the caretaker of the hotel.”
He raises his voice. “We are quite fine, thank you.”
“Dr. Dupuis?” she says and then rapid-fires a line in French that has his brows rising.
“She says she has a package and a message for us, one that is, as she says, ‘time sensitive.’ If we are ‘resting,’ there is a robe I may don to answer the door.”
My brows shoot up higher than his. Not only does the concierge seem unconcerned about us sharing a room and not a surname, but she expects us to answer the door in adressing gown?
Nicolas only shrugs and goes to the closet, where he pulls out two white dressing gowns. One thing I learned about his eighteenth century is that it is more relaxed about such things than the nineteenth. And apparently, the twenty-first is even more so.
We don the dressing gowns. I’m relieved to find mine easily wraps around me. I am considered quite plump in my world, and I do not fit into most ready-made clothing. From what I have seen, I am not so outsized in this world. While there are many who look as if they might have the Victorian fabled “twenty-two-inch waist,” people come in all shapes and sizes, and I only hope that means they are all equally accepted.
Speaking of acceptance, while I did notice a few sideways looks at Nicolas and me on the train, we did not attract nearly the attention we do in our own times, as a Black man and white woman. When Nicolas opens the door, the concierge—a gray-haired woman—barely flicks a glance over us.
She asks how we’re finding the room. Nicolas replies. Growing up, Rosalind often grumbled that the “cat never seizes your tongue, Miranda, and sometimes, I wish it would.” Of the three Hastings sisters, I was the first to speak, however daunting the circumstances... and however impolitic my opinions. Yet in the last few months, I’ve found myself allowing Nicolas to speak for us. That has nothing to do with being the woman in a relationship and everything to do with being... well, the less worldly one.
At one time, I would have laughed at that. I am a hundred times more worldly than other women of twenty-six. I had done all the things women of my age and position are not supposed to do, from traveling alone to nourishing a career, not to mention having sex out of wedlock. But for all that, I was still, in many ways, Shakespeare’s Miranda, as Nicolas once put it, “trapped on her island and dreaming of more.” I’d never traveled farther than France. I’d never lived alone. I’d never done millions of things that men do.
Nicolas might be only a year older than I, but he is a marquis’s son who has traveled the world as a physician on a pirate ship. It is difficult to matchthatfor life experience, and I have found myself, in situations such as this, deferring to him. Is that uncomfortable? I suppose I ought to be. I’d once have bristled at it. But I trust him to speak for us and to see no weakness in doing so until I have my “sea legs” in the world.
It turns out that the concierge in an English hotel is not the caretaker of the building. Rather, she is the caretaker of the guests. In this case, Helen—as she introduces herself—is the caretaker of us specifically, having been retained to see to our needs while we are in London.
I doadorehaving wealthy friends.
“You must feel free to contact me about anything,” Helen says. “Any questions you might have about anything at all. Mr. Thorne has warned that you have been abroad for years, doing humanitarian work, and the return to England may be somewhat...”
“Disorienting?” I say.
She smiles at me. “Precisely. It is my job to help you with anything. It is also my job to leave you alone as much as possible so that you might ease into your return.” She holds out two small calling cards. “My number. You may text or call. For now...” She lifts two rather large boxes from the floor. “These are for you. Mr. Thorne has said you’re to begin with the envelope as it contains time-sensitive information.”
Nicolas hands me the envelope and then takes the boxes. We thank Helen for her time, and she retreats. Once the door closes, I shed the heavier robe from over my silk one and settle onto the bed with the envelope.
Nicolas takes the lid off one of the fancy boxes. After a moment’s pause, he lifts out a dress, and my breath catches.
Rosalind warned that clothing in this era is very different. Personally, she prefers it, and when she’d driven with Bronwyn to the train station, she’d been wearing scandalously formfitting “leggings” with a long sweater and knee-high boots. Knowing how much I like trousers, she’d bought me a pair of “jeans,” which I must admit are not terribly comfortable, chafing in odd places.
I might prefer trousers to dresses, but the trousers I am accustomed to wearing are far more comfortable—and better made. The “jeans” had been a disappointment. What Nicolas pulls from that box is not a disappointment. Yes, it’s a dress, but I still appreciate a fine one, and this one is fine indeed.
It reminds me of dresses I saw in our sojourn in the 1950s. It has a simple fitted bodice with a scalloped deep neckline and three-quarter-length sleeves. The bodice ends in a wide belt over a flared skirt that will fall only to about knee length. The fabric looks like red velvet, and I cannot resist rubbing it between my fingers. A dark green underskirt peeks out from the bottom and through a front slit.
“So where are you to wear this delightful confection?” Nicolas asks, waving at the envelope.
I ignore him and open the second box. Inside is a pair of men’s trousers, of the sort I saw on men outside. There’s also a tie, shirt and jacket, which would make for a rather drab ensemble if the jacket were not a gorgeous green crushed velvet to match my underskirt.