"And this item," he asked quietly, pulling back the cuff of his glove to reveal her digital watch, "from your wrist?"
"My watch," she replied, more haltingly now, taken aback by his reaction, and growing more distraught by the minute.
He stared blankly. In lieu of an explanation, Magda took his arm and tried to reset the buttons, but the watch merely continued to blink 12:00. "The time, it tells the time," she added, her voice growing manic.
"A miniature clock, is it?"
She nodded frantically, and his normally cavalier manner suddenly stilled. "Where is it you're from?" he asked. "Who are you to have such precious objects?"
Suddenly it became very important to Magda that she be able to set the time. She was done with this… this experience. She needed to be home, needed everything back to normal, needed to be away from this unsettling man who was the focal point. If she could just get this one thing to work normally, she thought, then everything else might jar back into place.
Frantic now, Magda dug her nails over and over into the watch's tiny black buttons. "I… I can't seem to reset it."
A relentless beeping shocked the carriage, its modern screech shrill in contrast. The numbers still flashed midnight. Magda's throat ached with the unshed tears she realized she'd been convulsively choking back.
"I don't know what happened. I was cleaning a portrait, your portrait, and suddenly I'm…" A sob escaped her, and with a deep shuddering breath. Magda's tears finally came in a rush. Hysterical now, she rapidly glanced from James to the carriage interior and back again, as if there might be some way to wrap her head around the situation if only she'd find it. "I dreamed myself back in time, but I can't seem to wake up."
"In time?" James grasped her hand hard, quieting her fingers that still fumbled wildly with the watch. "When is it you think you're from?" His voice was tender, and the cavalier good humor that ever animated his features flickered out, replaced by genuine concern.
Magda looked at James as if finally focusing on him. She said in a quiet but steady voice, "I live in New York City. In twenty-first-century America."
The carriage came to an abrupt stop, and James caught her easily before she knocked her head against the wall of the coach.
The need to flee consumed her. Rational thought was pushed out of her mind, and all Magda could think was that she needed to run, to escape once and for all from this nightmare.
Before the footman could open the door, Magda dove at th e latch and tumbled out. Cool mud gave beneath her feet and oozed into the fabric of her shoes, and she stood for a moment, dumbfounded by the oddly recognizable sensation.
Chaos whirled around her in a cacophony of foreign sounds and movement. The inside of the carriage had been insulated from the clamor of the town, and Magda stumbled forward as her brain attempted to connect the two.
A strong arm seized her from behind. James had her tightly about the waist and tugged her to him just as a horse trampled by, its rider cursing unintelligibly, close enough to fill her nostrils with the earthy smell of horse and to feel the whoosh of its jangling harness in her hair.
Almost run over, again. Her eyes darted up and down the street. But no taxicab in sight here.
James breathed heavily, his cheek warm against her chilled skin. She crumpled against his strong chest. No modern buildings. So many horses…
His thumb stroked absent circles on her upper arm. She perceived the very real pounding of his heart through her wool dress. Not a dream.
Not New York. Just carriages and horses and period clothing as far as the eye could see.
The past.
James held her firm as she fainted in his arms.
Chapter 6
"She needs a doctor, James!"
Magda had half heard the woman, clearly agitated, carrying on for some time in a hollow drone, as if speaking from the end of a very long tunnel. Her voice, surprisingly deep for a female, slowly resolved into intelligible words that pierced Magda's consciousness.
"You have a care," she shouted, "who you bring under your roof, young man!"
"I'm no longer a young man, Margaret," James replied wearily, "and you're not our mother to speak to me so."
" You have a care" she enunciated, heart set on continuing her train of thought, "who you bring under your roof! You are not the only one bearing the name of Graham of Montrose."
"Last I checked, dearest sister, your name is now Napier." "You understand my meaning!" Magda heard a swat, sounding much like a glove hitting a man's head. "And you are lucky I called today, or you might have made an ill-informed decision. Now you will get that maid in here and send for a physician at once!"
"No doctor." Magda's eyes fluttered open, and once again her first sight was James, sitting at her side, a cool cloth pressed to her wrist, concern etched in the corners of his eyes. He gave her a quiet smile that shut out the incessant nattering in the background.