“Very much.”
“Then let us be off before we both change our minds. Our friends have set us on a treasure hunt, and I would hate to disappoint them.”
I amninety percent certain that August lies behind our outfits. My brother-in-law is the fashionable one. He’s also the one who would delight in tossing us into the streets dressed like peacocks among wrens.
In Victorian England, our outfits would be downright sedate—except for my bare lower legs. The colors are bold but not flashy. The problem is that in twenty-first-century London, business attire appears to come in three shades: black, charcoal gray, and slightly less charcoal gray. Oh, there are splashes of color—a woman in a gorgeous turquoise jacket, a man with vibrant lime-green hair—but between my coat, boots and hair bow, I do rather stand out. I will also say that my lip color—which would be truly scandalous in my time—can be seen on a half-dozen other women, along with even brighter shades that make me decide I will ask Bronwyn or Rosalind where I might buy some to take home for private use, along with more stockings.
We follow the directions, as the snow falls softly around us. I try not to gawp as we walk, but it is a near-impossible task. One moment, we are passing a shop that I recognize from my own London, and the next, we are passing a metal-and-glass slab of a building that I am uncertain whether to call remarkable or remarkably ugly. And all the shops have modern goods in them—fashions and housewares and jewelry and even one devoted entirely to cheese, of all things. When we pass displays of wristwatches, Nicolas slows.
“They are very practical,” I say.
“They are.”
“You could take one home and tell people it is French.”
He laughs under his breath, but he cannot quite pull his gaze from the display. Then he stops short.
“Is that... is that the cost?” he says.
I follow his gaze to one where a tag has slipped from under it. On that tag, it says...
“A thousand pounds?” I squeak. “For that, it had better allow timetravelas well.” I hook my arm through his. “I rather like the one William lent you. You should forget to return it. One expects such behavior from a pirate.”
We continue on, picking up the pace, as we are only halfway down the list of directions. We soon turn onto a street I know very well. It looks very similar in this time, replete with adorable shops selling adorable goods. Here, every window is decorated in its holiday best, electric lights flickering and more colorful pedestrians making the rounds of holiday shopping.
“After lunch, there is something I must show you,” I say. “It is near here, I think, though I may have to search. I have not seen it since before Rosalind married.” I lift the note. “Oh, we are to be counting shops now. Our destination is in three, two, one...”
I stop short with a gasp as I clutch Nicolas’s arm.
“Rosie’s?” he says, looking up at the sign. “This could not be...”
“Rosalind’s shop,” I breathe as tears fill my eyes. “Oh, Nico.” I squeeze his arm. “That is what I was going to show you, though I was certain it would sell shoes or some such by now. It is hershop.”
Of course, it is not exactly her shop. A hundred and eighty years have passed since my sister opened a bakery on this spot. It had been truly a scandalous thing for a young woman of her age and breeding, but our parents had died in an accident, and she had two sisters to raise, very little to raise them on and one skill with which to do it. One incredible skill, worthy of such an endeavor.
Rosalind’s, it had been called. Is it possible that it is sheer coincidence that it still bears a variation on her name? And that the delicious smell of baked goods wafts from it?
Nicolas slides off my glove to clasp my bare hand, and in that moment, we are alone on the sidewalk, the bustling shoppers rendered invisible by the spell of memory. I reach out to press my fingers against the glass, and I am thirteen again, hearing Rosalind tell us she has rented this tiny shop for a bakery. I’d barely listened as my gaze tripped over my surroundings. I’d been little more than a child. I had no inkling of what this shop meant for my sister—not the dream it represented or the risk. The memories glide forward, and I am a few years older, working at the front counter and still peering past the windows, impatient for the end of my shift so I might wander and spend my shillings. More years pass, and I am twenty, come to collect Rosalind after a long day of work, and she is telling me of a man who came to buy pastries for his lover and ended up leaving without them... after an hour wasted trying to engage Rosalind in flirtatious conversation.
“Men,” she says, with an eye roll. “He tried to tell me he was an earl’s son and his name was August, after the emperor. I’m not sure which was the more ridiculous claim.”
“Augustus,” I say, only half paying attention. “The emperor’s name was Augustus.” I don’t hear what she says after that—my mind has already jumped forward to dinner and whether I can persuade her to spend a precious crown dining out.
I look over at Nicolas. “I paid no attention to the shop when Rosalind had it. It was her pride and joy, and a tremendous accomplishment, and I was too busy thinking of everything else. I never realized how difficult it must have been for her until I was much older. Until this shop was out of her life.”
His hand tightens around mine. He could remind me that I was a child. He could make excuses for my selfishness, but he only says, “I found it hard to see my older siblings’ struggles until I was grown. They seemed to breeze through life, while I stumbled and staggered, and when they helped me to my feet, I only resented needing the assistance.”
I nod. “Yes, Rosalind slipped into the role of parent, and I saw only how she ordered me about and acted as if she were my mother. I did not see that she had tobemy mother.” I look up at the sign over the shop. “I wish I had understood the significance of this place better when she had it, but I understand it now.”
“And that is enough. Shall we go inside? I believe we have a reservation.”
He opens the door. Inside, the counter is the same one I’d learned to hate for the hours I was expected to work behind it. It’d been a mere handful of hours, I should point out, while my sister had been there from before dawn to after dusk. I will apologize properly when I can, and for now, the fact that Rosalind led me here means she has forgiven my youthful selfishness.
When Rosalind had her bakery, there was the counter, plus rows of shelves and a few tables to the right, where shoppers could rest their feet with a nibble and a cup of tea. In this new version, a curtain divides the bakery from the dining area, with a silken rope that politely asks us to wait to be seated.
A young woman appears from behind the curtain, and when she does, I have to bite my cheek to keep from laughing. She’s dressed as if she belongs in my world—or, I suppose, the modern idea of what someone from my world might wear, which looks like a young parlor maid’s uniform, complete with a frilly mop cap.
“Miranda Hastings,” Nicolas says. “I believe we have a table reserved.”