A Wife In Time

To her right, two bearded men—one with a black beard, the other with a red one—were talking about some book they’d recently purchased. It took Susannah a moment to realize they were talking about none other than Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper.

To her left, two women were speaking about the joys of matrimony. “It has ever been my opinion that a woman must learn to relinquish self and live for another in order for her to have a truly happy marriage.”

“Verily so. Perhaps that’s why Elsbeth wasn’t happy in her marital situation. But to have things end so tragically....” The words were a mere whisper now, and Susannah had to strain to hear them. “The scandal is unimaginable. Such things simply don’t happen in our circles.”

The other woman nodded. “I wasn’t sure about attending tonight’s function, but we’d accepted months ago. My husband said that tonight was primarily a business gathering and therefore wouldn’t be inappropriate, considering the circumstances. My etiquette manual said nothing about an instance such as this, so I was left to depend upon my husband’s judgment in this matter.”

“As you should in all things.”

Susannah’s feminist blood was boiling, but there was no time for that now. She was getting curious looks from several of those attending the gathering. Looking at the other women present and comparing her dress to theirs, she realized that her outfit was off by a couple decades or more. And no one had a purse the size of hers. They all had dainty little reticules dangling from their wrists, while her shoulder bag felt like it was the size of New Jersey. The bottom line was that she was attracting attention, and she certainly didn’t want to do that.

Nodding at Kane, who was a short distance away, she shot her gaze toward the door in a hopefully discreet indication that it was time to make a fast exit. To her relief, Kane got her silent message and a minute later they were outside once again.

“So what did you find out?” Kane demanded.

“That the women of this era were downtrodden and brainwashed,” Susannah tartly replied.

“Wonderful. That’s extremely helpful.”

“Okay, so what did you find out?”

“That they’re still talking about the first baseball game held under electric lights in June of last year. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, of all places. Oh, and that a horse named Buchanan won the tenth annual Kentucky Derby a few days ago.”

“That’s it?”

“No. I also found out these people dislike Republicans and they don’t approve of the way the government is being run. I didn’t recognize any of the names they mentioned. Even though it’s been twenty years since the Civil War ended, apparently they still have a few lingering carpetbaggers from up north to contend with.”

“We’re lucky we didn’t land in the middle of the war,” Susannah noted.

They were walking as they talked. The night was still and the air thick with humidity. Susannah could feel her hair going berserk, corkscrew curls forming in rebellion against being unnaturally restricted. Sure enough, a hairpin slid down and dangled over her left ear while several strands of her hair spiraled in uncontrollable wildness. Muttering under her breath, she jabbed the hairpin back in place.

“Are you listening to me?” Kane demanded impatiently.

“Not really,” she readily admitted. “And you can stop glaring at me. You’ve done it so often in the past twelve hours that I’ve become immune to it.”

To her amazement, he actually smiled at her—a slow, riverboat gambler’s smile that made his blue eyes gleam in the gaslit evening. He looked dashing. She remembered thinking so when she’d first seen him at the party earlier.

Then she’d seen that fateful blue light, a lighter blue than his eyes, she absently noted. His smile really did have a devilish edge to it. She hadn’t expected that. Nor the breathless feeling it caused.

Of course, after zipping back 111 years in a single step, who wouldn’t be breathless? It had nothing to do with his smile, she silently defended herself. Or his incredibly blue eyes.

“Wha-at—” She had to pause to clear her voice. “What are you looking at?”

“At you. You’ve got a hairpin hanging over your eyebrow.”

“Where?” She automatically reached up.

“No. It’s over here.” He brushed her left temple with his index finger. The merest of touches and yet it branded her with unexpected intensity.

“Yes, well...” She cleared her throat again. “We need to decide what to do next.”

“That answer is obvious. The first thing we have to do is get some nineteenth-century money,” Kane stated.

“And how do you propose we do that?”

By this time they’d reached another area of fairly heavy foot traffic. As before, Susannah only saw one other woman in the area. She was standing in front of what appeared to be a tavern of some kind. While Susannah was no expert in nineteenth-century fashion, she sincerely doubted that the amount of bare leg and petticoat the blowsy blonde was showing was appropriate for anything other than a lady of the night.

Seeing Kane, the other woman’s eyes lit up. With dollar signs, no doubt, Susannah cynically reflected.

Kane noticed the woman, too, which aggravated Susannah for some reason. “What are you going to do?” Susannah addressed her mocking question to Kane. “Ask her what year it is?”

The woman apparently overheard them. “What year do you want it to be?” she asked Kane while moving closer to walk her fingers up his shirt buttons. “I can do whatever you want. Cost you only two bits.”

“Such a bargain,” Susannah noted caustically. “Cheap at half the price.”

“Watch who you’re callin’ cheap!” the woman loudly exclaimed.

A man with a white apron tied around his waist came outside to investigate. “Now, Polly, you know better than to accost the customers. You know how the boss feels about that. He’s trying to run a proper place now.”

“Aw, Jed...” The woman’s voice turned wheedling.

Jed ignored her. “Do come on in, sir. And please excuse Polly’s boldness. Polly, take your friend—” the man pointed at Susannah “—and move along.”

Susannah couldn’t believe her ears. In 1995 Kane called her a Mata Hari, and here in 1884 she was being mistaken for a streetwalker! Clearly she was suffering from an image problem. Was it her perfume? she wondered with wry amusement. Her walk?

Don’t go off the deep end on me now, she lectured herself, snapping out of her momentary reverie to curtly say, “I am no friend of Polly’s.”

“That’s right,” Kane confirmed. “She’s with me.”

“Begging your pardon, sir. I didn’t mean no disrespect. It’s just that we don’t get many decent women in here.”

“Well, you’re about to get one now,” Susannah haughtily informed him, striding through the doorway, only to stop in her tracks at the force of fifty lascivious eyes turned to focus on her.

“What happened to keeping a low profile?” Kane dryly inquired in her ear.

She told herself her shiver was caused by the fifty-or-so eyes still trained on her. But the truth was it was caused by the feel of Kane’s warm breath tickling her ear. Since she’d always been ticklish that way, it was no big deal. Or so she told herself.

Getting out of this bar was a big deal, though. And something she planned on doing immediately.

But Kane had other ideas. Sensing she was about to bolt, he circled her arm with his fingers. “You’re not going anywhere. I told you that we need money.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “Well, I’m not about to earn it the way Polly out there does!”

For one split second his gaze slid down her body as if he were mentally undressing her. It was what the twenty-five other men in the room had done when she’d first walked in. But where their looks had turned her stomach, Kane’s heated look curled her toes. And the feel of his fingers on the sensitive skin just above her elbow was creating more-than-justifiable havoc.

“Stop jumping to conclusions,” he reprimanded her, his cool voice decidedly at odds with the intimate look he’d just given her. “Stay here a minute.”

Without further ado he released her in order to stroll over to the bar where he began speaking to the bartender—Jed, the streetwalker had called him. Susannah stood nearby, close enough to Kane that the other men in the room wouldn’t get any ideas about approaching her themselves, but too far away for her to hear what Kane and Jed were quietly discussing. While waiting, she fanned herself with her right hand. It was incredibly warm in the tavern. Downright stifling, in fact.