Twin Speex: Time Traitors Book II (43 page)

“I… I think I know what you mean.” He heard her laugh. “Could you have ever imagined this, Uncle Matthew?”

It wasn’t a question really in need of an answer, so he just shook his head and replied, “Check in with us when you get home, my dear. You know your aunt won’t be easy unless she sees you.”

Another laugh and, “Rightio,” before she rang off.

The radio popped and screeched again as she disconnected. Matthew adjusted the dials to a much more manageable fuzzy white noise.

He stood up from the iron stool he used to operate the receiver and walked over to the comfortable old armchair situated in the corner. He sighed as he sat back into the cushions and, crossing his arms over his ample stomach, rested his chin on his chest. It was his typical thoughtful pose, and it is in this attitude that Abigail found him.

“Good grief, Matthew, It’s frigid up here!” she exclaimed in her cheerful way, coming into the hut with a heavily laden tea tray. “At least open the vent.”

She set the tray down and flipped the lever to a vent built into the red brick of the chimney. It was an invention of her own design. Matthew had one too many times passed along a nasty cold to her before she determined to find a way to prevent it. The system used the constant heat from the kitchen chimneys and the winds that blew across the rooftops to draw hot air into the small space. It certainly warmed the room, but also prompted Matthew’s protests.

“Abigail, the machinery works best when cold,” he complained, getting up to close the vent.

“Sit back down,” she ordered. “A few degrees of warmth won’t hurt it, and I’ve got something to talk to you about.”

He agreed reluctantly and with poor grace, but his mood improved when she poured him a hot cup of tea and put before him a thick slice of gooey butter cake.

A slim, birdlike woman, Abigail perched on the iron stool and sipped at her tea. She looked around the rickety hut with its cracks and chinks through which icy drafts found their way and suppressed an urge to suggest for the hundredth time that they plaster the walls. She knew the dilapidated state of the hut was a deliberate ruse, just as their house had been all those years ago. It had to look innocuous and benign, something that would contain nothing more dangerous than rabbit hutches or pigeons cages. The surveillance state had only grown in intensity over the last few years and, while they were generally considered a harmless old couple, it didn’t make sense to let down their guard even a little.

She put her cup down on its saucer and said, “I don’t think it’s entirely fair to keep Reginald in the dark like this.”

Matthew looked up at her over the rim of his teacup. He sat back and rested his hand with the cup on the arm of the chair. “Yes, I agree. Reginald deserves to know what is going on, but my dear, I’m not sure he would believe us. And I certainly don’t want him speaking to his father about it.”

“Do you think he would?” She looked skeptical. “Particularly where Clem is involved?”

“I don’t know…” he trailed off, hesitant.

They sat in communal indecision until Abigail stood and placed her teacup on the stool. Pacing up and down the small space, she declared, “As much as I’d like to believe there is another more democratic world wavering on some alternate plane, I can’t say I’m actually looking forward to its displacing this one.”

“My dear, what can you mean?” Matthew sat up sharply, sloshing some of his tea onto the upholstery. “You see the suffering around us, the deprivation of so many. And it’s only going to get worse. It has already!”

She shook her head and came to kneel down beside him, taking his free hand in her own. “It’s not that.”

Matthew stood up and pulled her to her feet looking down at his beloved wife of many decades. To his eyes, the wrinkles had not diminished the fineness of her skin nor had the gray shot through her dark hair lessened its shine. He saw with some concern the unshed tears in her eyes. “What is it, then?”

“What will happen to us, Matthew, in this new world, this real timeline? Where do we fit in? Will we have our life together? Do we even exist in the same era, at the same time? Will we pass each other on some crowded street and never look in the others’ direction?” She was crying now, and Matthew wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close.

She swallowed and shook her head, stepping back to look up at him. “And Clem… I know she hasn’t thought of it. She and Reginald…”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “What is the alternative, Abby? Do we buy our own happiness at the expense of so much suffering?”

She breathed deeply and wiped the tears from her eyes. “No. But this… this operation we’re involved in, it could all go so very badly so very quickly.”

As if to prove the presentiment of her words, the radio popped and crackled. A soft and menacing voice said, “What have we here?”

The radio screeched, and a sound like the peeling of glue off plastic emanated from the receiver. Matthew could imagine him standing in his study, cold light streaming in from the skylight. In his hands he held the fragile, delicate craft.

It must have been an unlucky happenstance. He had probably found it resting on a piece of furniture. Only a few turns of the rubber band, and he would send it soaring upwards again. But this time his fingers must have brushed a little too roughly the underside of a wing, dislodging the tiny cells. He would look at the fragile vessel with new eyes, eyes that were bereft of light and emotion, and see it for what it really was.

“How very clever of you, Matthew,” the voice purred with a deathless breath of humor. And for once, the sound of his voice came through loud and clear.

Thirty-One

CLEM BLUSHED AND brought a hand up to smooth her hair into place. It was a gesture she rarely used and often found annoying in others. She also found it ineffective. While it concealed her face until the blush subsided, it was really to no purpose. Once one blush disappeared, another flushed across her face. Fortunately, the other three people waiting at the hackney stand were too occupied to notice a young woman fidgeting with her hair.

Their preparations for the next night’s mission had not taken long, and Clem had used the extra time to visit Reginald in his rooms at the university. He stayed there most nights, although he could also sometimes be found at his parents’ house. Clem had crossed her fingers in hopes he would be there. She knew the floor and number having once dropped off a book for him from Uncle Matthew on her way to the hospital. That day, she had only entered by the lobby and left it at the reception desk since young ladies weren’t allowed past the first floor. She had barely noticed the restriction at the time, having early on concluded that Reginald was just a pompous buttinski whom she worked hard to ignore. But this evening, she had needed to speak with him before her courage deserted her.

A hackney pulled up to the curb, and the next person on line, a respectable middle-age lady, turned to her and asked, “Would you happen to be heading to the Upper West Side? I’ve an appointment on Ninety-Sixth Street in the Bloomingdales District, and I’m ashamed to say I’ve left the house without enough for a cab. Do you fancy sharing?”

Clem looked at the woman as the cabby called out impatiently, “Come on now, I ain’t got all night.”

She was dressed neatly, yet simply in a gray woolen dress that skimmed just above the ankles of her everyday boots. An equally simple shawl was thrown over her shoulders. In contrast to this sober outfit, a deep maroon porkpie hat sat at a rakish angle on her head. Her expression was one of polite inquiry, but Clem could see the pinch of desperation at the corners of her eyes.

“Certainly,” Clem assured her, “I just need to be put down a few streets before.”

The woman smiled with relief, and they both entered the cab, each taking a seat opposite the other. Neither spoke, and Clem stared out the window as her thoughts drifted back to her encounter with Reginald.

Clem had crossed her fingers and boldly entered the university apartments via the servants’ entrance. She encountered no objection to her presence and assumed her hospital uniform was the reason. They must believe I am here in some official capacity, she had thought, careful to keep her face from reflecting the glee of successfully subverting custom and male authority. Her crossed fingers must have done the trick; because Reginald’s astonished face appeared as he opened the door to her knock.

“What…?” he stammered with adorable confusion as she pushed him back into his room. How strange that everything he did was now adorable, instead of insufferable. She barely suppressed a laugh, putting a finger to her lips and closing the door.

“Oh my!” Clem had giggled breathlessly. “That was sooo easy!” She removed her hat and threw it onto a chair.

The room was richly furnished and tastefully decorated as befitted the heir to a dukedom. The heavy wooden dresser and wardrobe were pushed up against one wall and another was host to a large fireplace. A lovely roll-top desk facing the window was strewn with papers, and it looked as if Reginald had just vacated the chair, as it was pushed out from the desk.

“You can’t be here,” he declared, the heightened expression in his eyes and his hands resting firmly on her shoulders seemed to say otherwise. “If you’re caught, we’ll both face sanctions.”

“What are they going to do to
me
, Reginald? Forbid me from studying at the university?” she replied laughingly, knowing full well that this was already prohibited to most of her gender.

She looked up at him, and her heart gave a little skipping lurch. It was clear he’d been running his hands through his hair as it was quite nicely tousled. He had discarded his school tie, and his crisp, white shirt was opened at the neck where she could see his pulse beating with hypnotic rapidity.

Their surroundings blurred around her, and his face came into sharp focus. She didn’t quite know what it was that surged through her, but the urge to act upon it was irresistible.

The first tentative kiss quickly morphed into something more urgent and much more exciting. Clem’s hands seemed to have a mind of their own as they shakily undid his remaining buttons, and Reginald made astonishingly quick work of the many hooks down the back of her dress.

She stood in her chemise, and his lips brushed her neck making her knees almost buckle. He picked her up and carried her to the large and suitably plush and richly appointed bed. Clem laughed in sudden self-awareness at the absurdly romantic picture they presented.

They rolled onto the bed, but she held him off momentarily diverted by her bare feet. “Reginald, when did I remove my boots?” she asked propped up on one elbow.

“Um?” His attention was fixed on the slender strap of her chemise which had slipped off one shoulder to reveal a breathtaking expanse of breast. “What?”

“My boots? When did I remove them?”

He struggled up on his elbows and looked down at their feet and blinked. “I haven’t the slightest idea. I can’t even remember if I was wearing shoes when you came in,” he replied with a self-conscious laugh.

She smiled at him softly and made a little circular hand gesture that seemed to encompass them both. “This is all pretty crazy.”

He sat back on his knees and looked at her seriously. “Do you want to stop? I would understa—”

Clem pulled him down on top of her and kissed him so hard and deeply that thought and speech were forgotten in a flurry of touch and feel.

She murmured something and pushed him away from her again.

“Yes?” he said through his ragged breathing, “What?”

“The implant, do you have one?” she asked, equally out of breath, “For birth control.”

“Of course, don’t you?”

“No.” She looked away from him and drew a little into herself. “When I first arrived in the city, I went through the health exam like any other debutante. But Uncle Matthew wouldn’t allow the implant. He was afraid because of… well, because of my heritage that they would put something in that might permanently damage me.”

He looked down at her, confused. “You mean to keep you from… from ever having children?”

“Yes,” she answered him bluntly.

Reginald was speechless at the infamy of such an act, but then another, almost equally disturbing, thought struck him. “So you haven’t…?” He shook his head slowly and looked at her questioningly.

“No, I haven’t.”

He drew in a shaky breath at the responsibility that now fell heavily upon his shoulders—a woman’s first time. He had heard this situation recounted to him with varying degrees of terror by his friends. His own lack of practiced expertise was a distinct drawback.

“Okay—” he began, only to have her wiggle out from under him and sit up.

Clem boldly drew the chemise over her head and cast it aside. Any thoughts of his own inadequacies were swept away in the crashing desire that washed over them both, and Reginald had spent the next two hours demonstrating quite effectively how easy it was going to be for them to make babies.

That is why Clem had been late. And why she now sat in a darkened coach hoping her blushes were no longer visible to the casual observer.

“I’m sorry, you were saying?” Clem looked over at the woman, belatedly conscious that she had been speaking to her.

“Where do you want to be let down, my dear?” the woman replied.

“Oh, Sixty-Ninth Street is fine.” She nodded politely to the woman. “I’ll walk the rest of the way. It’s not far.”

Clem absently looked away, but then a warning triggered in her subconscious, and she looked back at the woman. Something had changed. Her expression which had seemed mild and benign only moments before had shifted. It was subtle, but Clem detected a cruel lift at the corners of her mouth and a mocking glint in her eyes. The rakishly tilted maroon hat, which had appeared so out of place with the rest of her modest garb, Clem now saw as a true reflection of the woman’s nature.

“Look, we’re almost there,” the woman declared, the cab slowing at her knock on the roof.