Chapter 8 
Chapter 8
Kit was looking for ways to avoid finishing a stack of bills when he spotted Margo on one of the real-time screens on his office video wall. She was sitting beside a pebbled fishpond in Edo Castletown, staring into the water and looking so vulnerable and alone, Kit felt his heart thump.
He shoved back his chair and headed downstairs, pausing only long enough to slip on shoes. He didn’t even change out of the vintage kimono he habitually wore while working. Kit wasn’t sure what he’d say to her, but maybe the excuse of just getting to know her better would suffice. She was trailing one fingertip in the clear water when he arrived.
“Hi.”
She glanced up. Her eyes widened slightly. “Good Lord. You’re wearing a kimono?”
Kit grinned. “I’m running away from paperwork. I, uh, usually try and wear the most comfortable thing I own when I have to tackle stacks of bills or government forms. Mind if I join you?”
“Oh. Sure.”
“Such enthusiasm,” he tut-tutted, settling down beside her.
She tucked knees under chin and stared at the colorful fish. “I’m tired,” she admitted, “and hungry. Malcolm thought it might be nice to eat a couple of sandwiches on the Commons. So I picked a spot.”
“Malcolm?”
She grimaced. “He watched my lessons today.”
Ahh . . .
They fell silent for a few moments, just watching the fish make lazy circles above artistically arranged slate-blue pebbles. Finally Margo glanced up sidewise. “You don’t like paperwork much?”
Kit rubbed his nose. “No. Tops a whole list of things I loathe.”
She smiled. “I guess everybody’s got their own list, huh?”
“What’s on yours?”
She rested chin on knees again. “Oh, stuff.”
“Like for instance?”
“I dunno. Snow, for one. Minnesota winters suck. Snow gets old real fast. Especially when you’re too old to make snow angels in it. All that’s left is cussing because the roads are closed and you’re late to wherever it is you need to be.”
Kit smiled. “You sound like eighteen going on forty-two.” She stuck out her tongue, prompting a chuckle. “I was twenty, you know, before I saw more than a quarter inch all at one time.”
“You’re from Georgia. Doesn’t snow much.”
“Just what do you know about me? I mean, besides what’s in all the tabloids?”
Margo grinned. “They’re awful, aren’t they? I think my favorite was the one where you were abducted by mad scientists from way, way up time and they altered your sex and you got pregnant and then they changed your sex back and sent you home after you had the baby.”
“Oh, good God, you’re kidding?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Nope. They even had a picture; you were out to here.” She indicated a very pregnant stomach. “I love what they can do with computer graphics programs, don’t you? The little old ladies that buy those things in the grocery stores actually believed it.”
Kit just groaned. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t go up time much these days.”
Margo chuckled.
Kit decided the time was right, but he hesitated anyway, reluctant to destroy their fragile rapport. “Margo . . .”
She looked up again. “Yeah?”
“Would you tell me about my . . . I don’t even know if I have a son or a daughter.”
The sparkle vanished from Margo’s green eyes. She swallowed and turned her face away. “Daughter. You had a daughter.”
“Had?”
Margo wouldn’t look at him. “Mom died. A few years ago.”
The ache of losing something he’d never had a chance to cherish left Kit struggling against sudden tightness in his chest. He blinked rapidly several times, fighting a salty sting behind his eyelids. How had Kit’s only child died? His daughter . . . She couldn’t have been very old, if she’d died several years ago. An auto accident? Catastrophic illness?
“What was her name?” Kit whispered, trying to keep his voice steady. “What did she look like?”
Margo didn’t answer for a moment. Then, in a low voice, “Mom’s name was Kitty.”
Quicksilver pain flashed through him. Sarah had actually named their child Kitty—
“She had hazel eyes. Kind of sandy-colored hair. When I was a little girl she laughed a lot. Look, I know . . . I know you want to hear about this and I want to tell you, but—” She blinked rapidly. Kit realized quite abruptly his grandchild, too, was on the verge of tears.
“Margo?”
She turned away again. “I was the one who found her. Can we talk about something else? Please?”
How old had Margo been when her mother died?
Kit wanted to ask a thousand questions, but Margo wasn’t ready to answer them.
“What about your grandmother?” Kit tried, remembering with cutting clarity the last time he’d seen Sarah.
Margo sniffed. “I’ve never seen her. Mom ran away with Dad when she was seventeen. I’m not sure Grandma van Wyyck even knew where Mom was or that we existed. I . . . I had a picture. But everything I had was stolen. In New York. I even had to buy new shoes.”
Kit, too, mourned that photograph’s loss. “What was the picture like? How did she look? Did she seem happy?”
Margo seemed to come back from someplace even farther away than Kit had been. She studied him for a long moment. “You’re still in love with her. Aren’t you?”
Kit managed a pained smile. “Does it show?”
“Well, you’re crying.”
“Am I?” He swiped at his cheeks. “Damn . . .”
Margo dug in a pocket and held out his hanky. She’d laundered it somewhere. “Here.”
Kit managed a shaky laugh. “Thanks, imp. You’ve rescued my reputation as an unflappable time scout.”
She started to say something, then stopped.
“What? Whatever it is, say it. Or ask it.”
Margo frowned. “It’s nothing much. Just . . . Everything I ever heard or read . . . Mom used to say you grew up a dirt-poor Georgia boy, had to scrap and fight for everything you had. I used to think about that, sometimes. It made me proud, knowing you’d made it, but . . . I always thought . . .”
“You thought I ran out on Sarah van Wyyck? Because she stood in the way of my plans?”
She flushed, but her silence answered the question.
“I loved your grandmother very much, Margo. But sometimes even when people love one another, they have different dreams, different goals. Your grandmother’s life and mine . . . it didn’t work. Probably never would have worked. But I still loved her, even when she left me.”
Margo’s eyes widened. “She left you?”
Kit cleared his throat. “At the risk of sounding like my granddaughter, mind if we talk about something else?”
Margo blinked. Then she said, “I guess we all have stuff it hurts too much to talk about, huh?”
“Yeah. I guess we do.”
She gave him a funny little smile. “Did you ever go back to Georgia?”
“No. I didn’t really see much point. You plan on going back someday? To Minnesota?”
Her face hardened. “Yeah. I do. But not for very long.”
“Unfinished business?”
She sniffed. “Something like that.” She shook herself slightly. “Anyway, that’s about it for my life’s history. I had a twin brother, but he was killed in the big quakes caused by The Accident. That’s when my folks left California and moved to Minnesota. I don’t really remember it. I was just a baby.” She shrugged. “I grew up, left home, came here. The rest isn’t worth telling.”
Kit thought it would have been, but didn’t want to press the issue. He’d already learned more than he’d dared hope. A daughter, a grandson—both lost to him—and a granddaughter who didn’t like snow and thought tabloids were stupid and was the kind of person who’d go back and settle old scores. Or maybe debts. Just what sort of unfinished business did she have and with whom? She was hardly old enough to have made the kind of enemies Kit had occasionally made.
An affair of the heart, maybe, despite her protestations that she hadn’t been jilted. A man didn’t have to jilt a girl to make her want to come back and settle affairs. Sometimes all he had to do was fail to notice. Or fail to act. Or maybe it was simply that she needed to repay someone who’d helped her buy that ticket to New York.
Or . . . Maybe someday she’d trust him enough to tell the rest.
Kit spotted Malcolm heading their way from Residential, an honest-to-goodness picnic basket slung over one arm, and decided to let his granddaughter have her picnic without Grandpa hanging around. “Well, here comes your lunch date. I guess I’d better tackle that paperwork. Just do the fish a favor and don’t flip Malcolm into the pond between the sandwiches and the desserts?”
The sparkle came back to Margo’s eyes. “Okay. Although after what Sven did to me, I don’t think I could flip a soda straw into the fish pond.”
Kit rumpled her hair affectionately. “Good. Proves you’re doing it right. See you at dinner, imp.” Her smile brightened his whole mood. “Okay.” Kit returned Malcolm’s wave, then headed back up to his office. Very deliberately, Kit switched the camera view on one particular video screen, leaving his grandkid her privacy. Besides, with Malcolm Moore as chaperon he didn’t really have anything to worry about. Kit chuckled, recalling the full-blown panic in Skeeter Jackson’s eyes when he’d cornered that worthy and made matters crystal clear, then settled down to the bills in a better frame of mind than he’d enjoyed in days.
Two days into Margo’s weapons training, Kit started getting bad news. First came the altercation on Commons when a drunken tourist accosted her. She flipped him straight into a fishpond, almost as though deliberately recalling his advice not to toss Malcolm into one. Bull Morgan had not been amused when the drunken idiot turned out to be a billionaire who threatened to sue. Fortunately, Margo’d had plenty of witnesses for Kit to counter-threaten with sexual assault charges. The billionaire had slunk away down time on his tour, muttering into his expensively manicured beard.
Kit told Margo, “Next time, try not to dislocate shoulders or drown importunate perverts. Nothing excuses his behavior, but there’s such a thing as overreaction.”
She had sulked for hours. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. Frankly, if he’d been there, the jerk might I’ve suffered more than a wrenched shoulder and a publicly humiliating dunking into a goldfish pond. But as a scout-in-training, she had to learn self-control and alternative methods of extricating herself from sticky situations.
Then he checked in with Ann and Sven.
“She has the attention span of a two-year-old,” Ann Vinh Mulhaney complained. “Either she doesn’t want to learn or she’s afraid of the guns.”
“She wants to learn, all right,” Kit said grimly. “But she wouldn’t admit to fear of a live cobra in her shower stall if she thought I’d halt her training over it.”
Ann frowned. “That’s not good.”
“I know.”
Kit ran a hand through his hair. After their heart-to-heart by the fishpond, Kit knew it would be doubly—triply—difficult if he had to tell Margo her dreams weren’t going to come true. His heart was still in his throat just thinking about letting her scout. He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost her, too. But he wanted as much as any other grandfather on the planet to make his grandchild happy. If he had to tell her two days into training that it was hopeless . . .
“Is there any hope?”
The tiny firearms instructor hesitated. “Well . . . maybe. Her hand is very steady and she has a good eye. When she’s actually shooting, she scores well. But she won’t apply herself to the learning. Has she been doing her homework?”
Kit frowned. “Homework? Not unless she’s doing it in the library. She drags in like a half-dead cat, gulps supper, then collapses for the night. I didn’t think it was possible to wear out an eighteen-year-old.”
Ann didn’t smile. “She needs to study. She keeps forgetting basics, like working the pump on the pump shotgun. Then she gets angry with herself when it won’t function like a semiautomatic. The double-action revolver isn’t a problem, but the self-loading pistols . . .” Ann just shuddered. “I haven’t even tried historical firearms yet. I don’t dare.”
“Great. I’ll start working her on basic firearms mechanical actions while she eats.”
“Good. She needs it.”
The story was much the same from Sven. The stocky martial arts instructor saw him coming from across the weapons range, clearly considered ducking out the nearest exit, then visibly braced himself.
‘That bad?” Kit asked without preamble.
“Kit,” Sven growled, “you got a big problem in that kid.”
“You don’t need to tell me that. All I get these days is trouble. Let me guess. She won’t apply herself to the learning.”
“Oh, no,” Sven shook his shaggy head. “She’s nuts to absorb the stuff, fast as I can teach her. And she’s good, for a novice. Problem is, her attitude stinks.”
“What about her attitude?” Kit asked tiredly. “In a thousand words or less.”
Sven’s evil grin came and went. “Rough, is it? Teenagers. If they weren’t so cute, we’d drown ’em.”
“The cuter they are, the bigger the occasional desire to hold their heads underwater. So what is Margo’s problem?”
“No patience, no feel for Aikido. She just wants to make the moves like an automaton and hurry on to something else. Kit, that kid is in one damned big hurry to do something and I’m not sure it’ll be healthy once she does it.”
Great. Sven was waxing philosophical about his only grandkid, who was in a tearing hurry to die. He wondered if her impatience were part of her general personality, part of that mysterious unfinished business she’d mentioned, or just eagerness to get past the lessons and into something she could consider an adventure?
“Maybe she just wants to get down time,” Kit sighed. “In her place, I would. Here she is on TT-86 watching the tourists go places she can’t and all I let her do is read books and take lumps from you and Ann.”
Sven pursed his lips, looking faintly like a thoughtful bulldog. “Could be, I guess. She’s young, wants an adventure. Maybe you should give it to her. Settle her down.”
“Give her an adventure?” Kit echoed “You mean send her down time? Before she’s ready?”
Sven shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I’m not talking about a scouting trip. Send her on a tour. The Britannia Gate is due to open soon. Outfit her for a tourist jaunt and send the kid to London for a few days. Might take the itch out of her trousers, give her a taste of what it is she’s letting herself in for.”
“I can’t go with her,” Kit pointed out unhappily.
Sven’s sympathetic glance didn’t help much. “Stinks,” he agreed. “So send Malcolm. He owes her a guided tour, anyway.”
Kit sharpened his gaze. “He what?”
Sven widened his eyes innocently, then chuckled. “Well, now, so Grandpa doesn’t know all. I’m disappointed—and surprised you hadn’t heard. They a bet. Malcolm thought she’d end up liking the shooting; she said she wouldn’t. They bet on it.”
“What in God’s name did they bet? Margo’s broke. I know. I won’t give her an allowance until she’s earned one.
Kit trusted Malcolm as far as any man would with a granddaughter who looked and behaved the way Margo did; but he couldn’t imagine what she might have wagered—and given the effect she had on men, he knew the male libido well enough to imagine the worst, even from Malcolm.
Sven patted his shoulder. “Not to worry. Scuttlebutt has it she bet her life story against a guided tour.”
“Her life story? Huh.” The rest of Margo’s life story was something Kit would have paid a ransom to hear. “Too bad Malcolm lost.”
Sven grinned. “You said it. There’ll be other bets. I’ll start her on bladed weapons next, but I’d like her to settle down before then. Think about the Britannia Gate. Might do her some good.”
“Yeah,” Kit said glumly, thinking about that billionaire and the fishpond “But will it do the rest of us any good?” Sven just laughed at him. “Your grey’s showing, Grandpa. How about a sparring session?”
Kit considered it, then shook his head. “No, I think I’ll take your advice. Which means I’d better hunt up Malcolm before he accepts a job to Mongolia or someplace equally improbable. Thanks, Sven.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Kit found the freelance guide working the newcomers who planned to do the London trip. He waited until a curvaceous young thing had turned him down, then approached while Malcolm was looking bluer than a well-aged round of Roquefort cheese. “Any luck?”
Malcolm grimaced. “Nope. Time Tours is getting nasty about sharing business with freelancers.”
Kit made a mental note to “lean” a little on Granville Baxter. There was enough money to be made for everyone. Malcolm’s freelance business didn’t hurt Time Tours’ profits in the slightest. “Tell you what. I’d like to hire you.”
Malcolm just stared. “You? For Pete’s sake, why?”
Kit laughed. “Let’s wet our throats someplace and talk business.”
“Well, sure,” Malcolm agreed readily. “Anytime you want to pick up the tab, Kit, you just holler.”
The Prince Albert Pub was the handiest place to sit down and cool their thirst. The interior was a good bit cleaner than most genuine Victorian-era pubs, the prices were moderate for La-La Land, and the place was virtually empty in the post-lunch-hour vacuum. They found a table near the front windows and sat down.
“Have you eaten yet?” Kit asked, glancing at the menu. “I worked through lunch.” Then he grinned sheepishly. “You’re a good excuse. I’m playing hooky from paperwork day.”
“Oh, ho,” Malcolm chuckled, picking up his own menu. “Better not let Big Brother find out.”
Kit grimaced. “Paperwork sucks,” he said eloquently, half quoting Margo. “Hmm . . . I haven’t had kippers in years.”
“Never could abide them.”
“A Victorian time guide and a born Brit and you can’t abide kippers? What’s the world coming to?”
“A better sense of what’s edible, hopefully.”
Kit laughed. “Then for God’s sake, don’t order lunch in medieval Edo.”
Malcolm shuddered. “Once was enough to convince me, thank you. I’ll stick to steak and kidneys, any day of the week.”
“Beats some of what I’ve eaten,” Kit agreed. He set his menu down and flagged a waitress. They ordered lunch and started emptying glasses of dark ale.
“So, what’s on your mind?” Malcolm asked.
“Margo. What else?”
The younger man just grinned. “Anything in particular or everything in general? Or both?”
“Both, actually,” Kit admitted, “but her lack of progress in her studies, particularly.”
Malcolm’s smile vanished. “She isn’t stupid, Kit. What’s the problem?”
“Sven thinks she’s too hyped on going down time to concentrate.”
The time guide sat back and fiddled with his glass, leaving a series of wet rings on the wooden tabletop. “He could be right,” Malcolm said slowly. “That probably isn’t all of it, but he could have something, there. Going down time is all she talks about.”
“How much time are you spending with her?”
Malcolm flushed. “Not enough to warrant that tone, Kit. But I worry about her. I figure if she’s with me, she’s not falling prey to someone like Skeeter. And you know we get sharks through here every time Primary opens.”
Kit knew. He relaxed. “Yeah, don’t we just? Any feel for how she’s coming with her lessons? Ann and Sven are under-whelmed.”
Malcolm shook his head. “No, we don’t talk much about her studies, not the bookwork part of them. Mostly she asks questions about my experiences down time or what I know about yours. She’s . . .” He hesitated.
“She’s what?”
“I don’t know. Guarded, I guess. She doesn’t let the thorns down long, if you catch my drift.”
“Tell me about it. She sleeps on my couch, eats my food, showers in my bathroom, and about the only thing I can get her to relax and talk about is how much fun it is living in La-La Land. Do you have any idea how many obscure television celebrities that girl knows by sight?”
Malcolm chuckled. “Really? Well, she did want to be an actress. But then, what little girl didn’t at some point in life? As I recall, my sisters went through the ‘I’ll die if I’m not an actress’ phase shortly after the ‘I’ll die if I don’t have a horse phase and the ‘I’ll die if I’m not an Olympic figure skater’ phase.”
Kit grinned. “I didn’t have any sisters. Sounds like I missed out on all the fun. But seriously, Margo and I have had only one real heart-to-heart since she’s been here and what I found out then . . .” He shook his head. “She’s so full of hurt, she doesn’t want to talk about any of the million or so silly little details I’d give the Neo Edo to know.”
Malcolm sighed. “I figured as much. What are—” He paused, visible startlement passing over his mobile features, then pressed a hand to the back of his ear. “There’s no gate due to cycle—is there?”
Kit felt it too: that sub-harmonic sensation which heralded a gate opening nearby. Whatever it was, it was out of phase—and from the feel of it, this was one big gate.
“New gate!”
“Right!”
They scrambled for the door and all but collided with the Prince Albert’s owner. “Where is it?” Peg Ames demanded breathlessly. She was holding her head. “Mother Bear, that’s going to be a big gate. That hurts.”
It did, too, much worse than the Porta Romae—which was La-La Land’s biggest active gate. ’Eighty-sixers converged on the Commons at a dead run from storefronts, even from residential corridors. Several carried scanners designed to search for the unstable fields that heralded a gate’s arrival in the temporal-spatial continuum. Tourists looked bewildered. They huddled in groups, holding their ears. A klaxon’s strident SKRONNK! echoed off girders and concrete walls in a mad rhythm. Someone had sounded the special alert siren activated only during station emergencies. The last time that siren had sounded, the semi-permanent unstable gate under the Sherman’s coffee shop had endangered the lives of more than a dozen rescue workers.
Station Security converged from various points around the Commons. Several men and women in innocuous grey uniforms arrived in their wake, carrying everything from capture nets to tranquilizer rifles and riot shotguns. Discreet black lettering across grey uniform pockets read Pest Control. Their stalwart corps had risen considerably in status ever since an outbreak of Black Death on TT-13—and that wooly rhinoceros fiasco on TT-51—had been traced to station managers’ refusals to pay for adequate pest control services. Nobody argued now with anything a Pest Control officer requisitioned.
Bull Morgan, a stocky man who wore his suit like a casino pit boss wore a scowl, shouldered his way through the crowd, a fireplug on legs. Worry had creased his brow above a nose broken in one too many fist fights. Mike Benson, head of La-La Land’s security, followed in the Station Manager’s wake, blue eyes narrowed as he scanned the air for the first telltale sign of the new gate’s location. He spoke urgently into a walkie-talkie.
Bull high-signed someone with a scanner. “Has anybody—?”
“Oh, shit!”
A dozen scanners were pointed straight upward.
Then the ceiling opened up. A chronometer board vanished into blackness. The air dopplered through the whole visible spectrum in a chaotic display. Kit clamped hands over his ears in reflex action, even though the gesture did nothing to damp out the sound that wasn’t a sound. Everyone—tourists and ’eighty-sixers alike—backed away from the area, leaving wrought-iron benches empty near the center of Victoria Station. The gate widened, ragged and pulsating unsteadily near the edges. It shrank visibly, then expanded with a rush like an oncoming freight train, only to collapse back toward its center again just as fast.
It didn’t take a sophisticated scanner to determine this gate’s condition. It was visible to the naked eye.
“Unstable!” Malcolm shouted.
Kit just nodded and hoped to hell nothing fell through it from a height of five stories. Even the floor pulsed angrily in the backlash of sub-harmonics. The gate widened savagely once more. Blackness swallowed more and more of the ceiling, crept outward and engulfed the upper level of the nearest wall, taking catwalks with it. Biggest damned gate I’ve ever seen . . .
Ragged light flared: lightning bolts against a backdrop of black storm clouds, seen in miniature through the gate’s distortion. For a split second, Kit glimpsed what looked for all the world like a rain-lashed seacoast. Then driving rain spilled into TT-86. Tourists broke and ran for cover under the nearest storefronts. Kit narrowed his eyes against the sudden deluge. Another wild gust of rain burst through, soaking them to the skin. He lifted a hand to protect his eyes—
Something enormous crashed through.
“LOOK OUT!”
Whatever it was, it let out a scream like a frightened schoolgirl then plunged five stories toward the floor. Kit threw himself backward as it dropped straight toward them. A long, sinuous body impacted messily less than three feet away.
A gout of blood and entrails spattered Malcolm. “Aw, bloody damn!”
Another drenching gust of rain blasted through the gate, washing spattered onlookers clean. A trail of gore and broken bone stretched twenty feet across cracked cobblestones and smashed benches. Before Kit could cast more than a cursory glance at it, another dark shape dove through. This one was winged.
“Holy—”
A defiant scream like bending metal echoed through the Commons. A smaller winged shape darted through the black madness, then another and another, until a whole seething flock of wildly gyrating winged things darted frantically amongst the girders, lightning sizzled through and struck a catwalk near the fourth floor. Blue fire danced across steel gridwork. Thunder smashed through the station, shattering upper-level windows. Glass tinkled in sharp slivers on the cobbles. Then the gate collapsed,
It vanished, almost in the blink of a stunned eyelash. A final drizzle of rain drifted down in a bewildered sort of mist to settle into forlorn puddles. Silence—profound and complete—reigned for a full heartbeat. Then someone pointed and someone else screamed. An enormous shape with leathery wings skimmed low above the crowd. Kit dove instinctively for the floor. My God . . .
Its wingspan was nearly the size of a Learjet’s. It snapped a long, sharp beak with a clacking sound like striking two-by-fours and passed less than a foot above the nearest “streetlamp.”
This time, ’eighty-sixers broke and ran. A silver underbelly caught the lights as it winged around toward the ceiling. Dark markings in black and grey mottled its back and wings. An enormous, broad vertical crest was patterned like moth’s wings, with huge eyespots and scarlet streaks. It snapped at a tourist on the third floor and narrowly missed her head. The woman screamed and hugged the catwalk. Pest Control tracked it with shotguns.
“DONT SHOOT IT!” Bull yelled. “TAKE IT ALIVE!” Half a dozen Pest Control officers swore, but dropped shotguns in favor of big capture nets. Kit scrambled up and grabbed the edge of the nearest net. Malcolm latched onto another section and lifted it in readiness for the beast’s next pass.
“What is that thing?” a nearby Time Tours employee gasped.
The enormous animal soared toward the ceiling on thirty-foot wings, scraping a catwalk with one wingtip.
Sue Fritchey said calmly, “Looks like a Pteranodon sternbergi to me. Damned near as big as a Quetzalecoatlus—and that’s the biggest pterodactyl we know about. That gate opened right into the Upper Cretaceous. Here it comes! Ready . . . wait . . . wait . . .”
Kit hung onto his nerve and faced down a lethally sharp beak as the giant pterosaur swooped directly toward them. The head and neck alone were longer than Sven Bailey was tall. Kit’s lizard-brain, that portion of the human cranium that controls fight-or-flight reactions, was screaming “RUN!” at the top of its lungs.
Kit ignored it.
Sue was still cautioning them, “Wait . . . almost . . . almost . . . NOW!”
A dozen men heaved the big net. It tangled in leathery wings. Another net hit it, settling over the sharp beak and soaring crest. The huge pterodactyl came down hard in a mass of screaming, struggling beak, wings, and claws. Someone fired tranquilizers into it, three shots in rapid succession. Bull Morgan darted over to help hold the nets. A powerful wing lifted Kit off the ground and tried to fling him back toward the shattered cobbles, but he hung onto the rope. Malcolm came loose and vanished from Kit’s immediate awareness. Kit thought he heard a cry of pain and an explosive curse, but he was abruptly confronted by a baleful scarlet eye and a snapping, up-curved beak that severed half-inch hemp fibers like spaghetti strings.
One of the Pest Control officers darted in with a coil of rope and risked hands in order to rope the sharp beak shut. A twist of the pterosaur’s neck lifted him off the floor and sent him flying, but the ropes around its beak held. The tiny crimson eye rolled murderously; then, slowly, that wicked little eye began to close. By the time the tranquilizers had taken effect, Kit was bruised and battered, but La-La Land had quite a zoological prize. “Good work,” Bull said, panting slightly. “What’re those?”
He pointed toward the ceiling. Sue Fritchey was studying the smaller winged figures—perched now amongst the rafters—through her field glasses. “Those over there are Ichthyornis, looks like. Little primitive birds, beaks full of teeth, about the size of a seagull. Fish eaters. They’d be about the right time period and ecosystem to come through with a sternbergi. Must be twenty of ’em up there. And over there,” she swung the glasses around, “we’ve got about fifteen little pterosaurs the size of crows. Hell, I have no idea what those are. Those, either.” She’d swung the glasses around toward a pair sitting by themselves near the rafters. “They look like predators of some sort, but I’m not sure. Could be fish eaters, but the beaks look wrong. Far as I know, there’s nothing in the fossil record anything like what I’m seeing.”
“Are there enough of any of those things for a breeding colony?” Bull asked sharply.
“Maybe. Those two by themselves, probably not. Those pterosaurs, though, and the Ichthyornis flock . . . Close to critical failure of the gene pool, of course, but we’ve rescued species from that close to the brink. Depends on the number of breeding—or gravid—females up there. It’s hard to sex birds without plumage differences to go by and I’m not seeing any. And I have no idea how to sex pterosaurs.”
Nobody cracked the obvious jokes.
“Any danger to the tourists?” Bull asked, glancing unhappily at the damage and the white-faced tourists still cowering in storefronts.
“Dunno. Probably not, unless the animals feel threatened. I doubt they would unless somebody went after ’em. Birds, anyway, aren’t as violently reactive as, say, killer bees, although the pterosaurs may be. Not as likely, but we just don’t know.”
“Then we don’t disturb them until we get additional expert advice,” Bull decided. “Next time Primary cycles, send for whoever you need. Those things eat fish? Okay, stock all the fishponds in the station and keep ’em stocked. Watch the little buggers and let me know if they put anybody in danger. Well, more danger than being spattered with dinosaur droppings.”
The Pest Control crews chuckled. Sue Fritchey said, “They’re not dinosaurs, they’re pterosaurs and proto-birds. But don’t worry, we’ll handle it.”
Bull nodded, then glanced at Malcolm and Kit. “Thanks for the help, boys.”
“Glad to pitch in,” Kit smiled. “It’s not every day even I get to wrestle a giant pterodactyl to the ground.”
Bull chuckled. “Point taken. You all right, Malcolm?”
Kit looked around. The young guide was nursing his wrist. “Yeah, just bloody bruised.”
Bull peered closely at the wrist, which was visibly swelling. “Have Rachel look at it and don’t argue. My tab. I’ll call her.”
Malcolm sighed. “Thanks, Bull. Me and my lousy luck.”
Kit grinned. “Don’t think you get out of this job so easily.”
Malcolm gave him a sour glance. “What job? You haven’t even told me what it is, yet.”
Kit formed a sling from Malcolm’s shirt and suspended his wrist at chest height. “What I had in mind was nursemaiding Margo through the Britannia Gate.”
Malcolm stared, then eased the sling into a more comfortable position. His eyes had already begun to glow. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. Speaking of dead, what the devil was that thing?” He jabbed a thumb at the creature which had fallen through the ceiling. Judging from the remains, it had been all teeth, tail, and claws. Several tourists had crowded closer already.
Sue Fritchey waded in. “Sickle-claw killer of some kind, about the size of Utah-raptor, but a different species from the look of it. We didn’t know they’d survived that late into the Cretaceous. Just be real glad it’s dead.”
Malcolm shivered absently. “Am I ever. Say, that thing is warm!” He leaned over for a better look.
Sure enough, heat was rising from the dead sickle-claw.
“Yep,” Sue said, moving back after a cursory glance. “Get back, please.”
“But, it’s warm! Surely you can appreciate what this means for the scientific debate over ornithischian endothermy!”
Sue glared at him. “Yes, I do! I also appreciate that it’s a cooling corpse. Its parasites are going to start leaving in droves—and I don’t want anyone finding a tick the size of their own pinkie or a pinworm the size of a ballpoint pen! Jimmy, scour and disinfect this whole area!”
Malcolm moved hastily away. Tourists abandoned attempts to see the dead ’raptor and crowded around the netted pterodactyl instead. Pest Control was bringing up a forklift hoist and a large wooden pallet to transport it.
“C’mon, hero,” Kit said, taking Malcolm’s elbow. “Let’s clean you up and look at that wrist.” He steered Malcolm through the crowd and hustled him off to Rachel Eisenstein’s infirmary. She fussed over the wrist, told him he’d sprained it heroically and warned him, “Don’t tackle anything more strenuous than dinner for a couple of days, okay?” She suspended his injured wrist in a real sling. His shirt, retired from sling duty, had begun to dry, revealing tears and gore stains. The rest of him, however, was squeaky clean; Rachel had given him a bath in disinfectant and new clothes.
“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted her with his unbandaged hand.
“Good,” Rachel smiled. “Now, scoot. I have work to do. Some of the tourists were hurt during the ruckus and others are having hysterics. Unstable gates,” she grimaced, “are not conducive to integrated psyches. Wish I’d been there to see it. Just my luck I was stuck on call and couldn’t leave.”
Kit sympathized, then they left Rachel to the demands of her profession. Once in the corridor, Kit said, “You never did answer. Are you game for the Britannia Gate?”
Malcolm chuckled thinly. “You should know without having to ask. Where shall I take her? A night at the opera? Or maybe a stay in the East End to discourage girlish romantic fantasies?”
“I leave that to your discretion and wisdom. I would suggest we collect my granddaughter, though, and head over to Connie Logan’s. Kid’ll need a good down-time kit.”
Malcolm nodded. “Are we playing tourist for this trip or am I getting her ready for her role as disguised boy?”
Kit considered. “Again, use your discretion, but I’m inclined to think a little of both.”
“So am I. I’ll, uh, meet you at Connie’s,” he said. “In, say, fifteen or twenty? These pants Rachel gave me, uh, pinch.”
“Make it the Prince Albert and we’ll finish lunch before we collar her.”
Malcolm grinned. “Whatever you say, boss! You may shower me with free food and money all you like.”
Kit just snorted. “I’d tell you to go soak your head, but you already did. See you at the Albert.”
Connie Logan’s establishment was—in keeping with La-La Land’s reputation—one of the true first-class Outfitters in the business. Connie was young for it, barely twenty-six, but she’d started with an advantage. A theatrical aunt who’d owned a small touring company had raised her in the business of historical costuming, then died and left her with an inventory, a room full of cloth waiting to be turned into historically accurate clothing, considerable skill as a seamstress and designer, and enough money to attract venture capital.
Connie Logan was sharp, creative, and a delight to ’eighty-sixers. They often laid wagers on what she’d be seen wearing next. The sign over her doorway was short but effective: Clothes and Stuff. A few tourists were stupid enough to prefer shops with fancier names, but not many. On their way across the Commons, Margo admitted that she hadn’t been inside yet.
“I hate to shop when I’m too broke to buy anything,” she admitted. “It’s depressing.”
“What about that barmaid’s dress?” Her cheeks colored. “Skeeter gave me money for that. He told me to buy it in Costumes Forever because the prices were better. I, uh, haven’t been shopping since.”
“Well, you’re in for a treat, then.” Kit smiled, but he wondered privately if this scheme would help or only exacerbate matters. When he steered her through Clothes and Stuff’s doorway, Margo spent a full minute in the center of the main aisle just staring. Then she gave a low sound of utter ecstasy, turned in a complete circle to gape at shelves, display racks, and glass cases, then ended with a wide-eyed, “Shoppers freaking paradise!” She thereupon bolted for the nearest dress racks. Malcolm took one look at Kit’s face and convulsed with silent laughter.
“Oh, shut up,” Kit groused. “Some help you are.”
“Kit, you have to admit, there’s a pretty darned funny side to this. She’s eighteen. She’s female. She’s just been given an expense account in heaven.”
“Oh, great. Make me feel better.” Malcolm’s long face creased in a wide grin.
“I suspect the Neo Edo can support it.”
“Huh. Your taxes aren’t due next time Primary cycles.”
Malcolm’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, yes they are. I just don’t have enough income for it to matter.”
Kit thumped his shoulder. “Just wait. I’ll take care of that little problem.”
“Thanks,” Malcolm drawled. “I’ll go from owing zip to owing a third of whatever you pay me.”
“Well, I could just pay you two thirds of what we agreed on. . . .”
“Fat chance. A man’s got his pride, after all. Hey, look, Connie has a new line ready for the London season.”
He wandered off to do his own window shopping. Intrigued as always by the contents of Clothes and Stuff, Kit cruised the aisles as well, just to get a feel for what they’d need. Neat racks displayed costumes appropriate to La-La Land’s resident gates. Costumes were situated in carefully arranged groupings, neatly labeled as to geographic location, exact time period, and appropriate occupation or social occasion. Items could be either rented (for those on a budget) or purchased (for those with essentially skys-the-limit funds).
Shelving units and glass cases held every manner of accessory, including an astonishing variety of footgear, belts, undergarments, gloves, fans, hosiery, hats, coats and cloaks, appropriate equivalents of the modern handbag, jewelry, timepieces, even items designed to conceal weapons: shoulder holsters for guns and knives, belt holsters and sheaths, ankle rigs, even garter-belt sheaths and holsters. One entire case was devoted to wigs and false hairpieces in every conceivable shade, most attached to hairpins or combs to be added as necessary to elegant coiffures. Every one of them was styled after authentic period hairpieces.
Another section of the shop included appropriately designed luggage, lighting equipment from candle lanterns to oil lamps, sanitary and survival gear, tools, weapons, even historically appropriate eyeglasses. One employee on Connie’s payroll did nothing but grind prescription glasses and long-wear contact lenses to order for those who needed them.
If it had existed down time and people had used it, or if it was necessary to survival and it could be disguised, Clothes and Stuff stocked it or was prepared to manufacture it.
Connie herself, in direct contrast to her shop, was anything but neat and organized. She emerged from the back where she kept her office and design studio, noticed Kit, and waved. Kit chuckled. Beneath a hand-basted kimono that gaped open because she hadn’t tied on an obi to hold it closed, she was clad in bits and pieces of Victorian undergarments. She wore hobnailed Roman “boots” on her feet and an ancient Meso-American feathered headdress appropriate for a jaguar priest over long, glossy black hair. Her eyes, a startling Irish blue, sparkled as she came across the shop, clomping every step of the way in her ancient footgear. “Hi, Kit! What brings you in?” He met her beside a glass case containing lace-and-lawn caps, feathered and plain fans, plus silk, leather, and cloth gloves while Margo emitted the most outlandish sounds he’d ever heard a female make off a mattress.
“What do you think?” he smiled, nodding toward the enraptured figure pawing through a rack of ball gowns. “Margo, of course. I’m sending her down the Britannia Gate with Malcolm. Sort of a trial run just to get her feet wet, give her a taste for time travel.”
“Good idea. Hang on a sec, would you? These feathers itch.”
She lifted off the headdress. The glossy black hair came with it. She shook out her own hair, then vanished into the back. When she returned, the kimono had gone as well, replaced by a set of cowboy-style leather chaps, worn over woolen drawers and a boned corset. Occasionally Kit had known her to change clothing five times during the course of a twenty-minute conversation as she tried out various new creations. Across the room, Margo noticed. She stared for a full thirty seconds, round-eyed, then returned to her window shopping with another silly squeal as her attention rested on something else utterly wonderful.
“Very becoming,” Kit drawled.
Connie laughed. “They’re hideous and the corset is cutting me in half, but I had to be sure the busks and side steels were bent to the right shape before I had William stitch the cover closed.”
“And the chaps?”
“The customer said they chafed him. I’m testing them out to see what the problem is.”
“Uh-huh.”
Kit, like most ’eighty-sixers, had eventually realized that when she was working, Connie Logan was completely unconcerned about her appearance. And since she worked most of the hours she was awake—“What do you mean, do something fun for a change? I love designing clothes!”—Connie Logan was at first glance the most eccentric loon in a time station crammed full of them.
Kit thought she was the most charming nut he’d ever known.
Even he deferred to her encyclopedic knowledge.
“London, is it?” Connie asked, peering toward Margo, who had discovered the Roman stolas with their richly embroidered hems. “What’s the program? Simple tour? Teaching experience? Test-run scouting trip?”
“All of the above. I leave the outfitting choices to you and Malcolm.”
“But not to Margo?” Connie smiled.
He rolled his eyes. “Let’s see what she picks on her own and judge from that.”
“Fair enough. Rent or buy?”
“Rent what’s rescuable when they get back. I’ll buy what’s ruined.”
“Okay.” Her glance traveled beyond Kit’s shoulder to a group of tourists selecting accessories for the dresses they carried, “Oh, damn . . .” She bolted past Kit’s shoulder. “No, no, no, not that fan, that’s an evening fan for the opera, what you have there is a morning dress for strolling and paying calls. You’d stick out like an idiot, carrying that around London. Here, what you need is this, or this, or maybe this . . . And that pair of slippers is completely wrong, what you need are these side-button boots. Size six? Hmm . . . a little narrow, I think. Try this six-and-a-half.”
The astonished tourists gaped at the figure Connie made, her girlish pudginess stuffed into a lawn shift, woolen combinations peeking out from under several layers of petticoats, the tightly laced corset which created unsightly bulges both above and below, topped off with the leather chaps—tied on over the petticoats. The Roman “boots” were icing on the cake. “Uh . . . thank you . . .”
They accepted Connie’s choices a bit reluctantly, but obediently sat down to try on the boots.
Connie came back shaking her head “If they’d just read the signs . . . You have to watch ’em like hawks. Let’s check on Margo. Oh, Lord, she’s already in trouble. . . .”
And Connie was off again, before Kit could open his mouth to add a single comment.
“No, no, Margo, not that; you’ve got a charity schoolgirl’s cap paired with a lady’s tea gown. . . .”
“Malcolm,” Kit waved to get the guide’s attention, “get over here! Connie’s on the warpath and we need some decisions!”
Malcolm, looking for all the world like a truant schoolboy caught in a candy store, hastened over. “Sorry. Just catching up on the newest down-time styles.
“There’ve been changes in top hats since last season—they’re more tapered from crown to brim—and the new dress lounge coats are magnificent, with that new rolled collar. But did you see those hideous woolen jersey Jaeger suits?” Malcolm shuddered. “They wore those things in July and August, even while exercising. No wonder people died of heatstroke.”
“Malcolm, I didn’t know you were a clothes horse,” Kit teased.
The guide—currently dressed in faded jeans and a cheap T-shirt—grinned. “Me? Never. But I’d better update my wardrobe before I step through the Britannia Gate or I’ll look like an old fuddy-duddy.”
“You are an old fuddy-duddy,” Kit laughed, “and so am I. Let’s get this over with. Gad, but I hate shopping.”
“Only when you’re not stepping through the gate,” Malcolm smiled.
“Too true. Now, about what she’ll need—”
An animal scream lifted from Commons, high and piercing, followed an instant later by a woman’s shriek of terror. Kit and Malcolm jerked around, then ran for the door. Surely another new gate hadn’t opened? The warning klaxon hadn’t sounded and Kit hadn’t felt the telltale buzz in his skull bones. Someone started cursing. Then Kit rounded an ornamental garden plot and found a woman in medieval regalia staring at the ceiling and sobbing in rage.
“They killed her! Goddamn them, they killed her!”
The men with her, also dressed in medieval garb, were struggling to soothe terrified, hooded falcons on their arms. One bird had already sprained a wing trying to escape its jesses.
“Who killed whom?” Malcolm blurted.
A few spots of blood on the concrete and a couple of feathers gave Kit the clue. “I’d say those two bird-things Sue couldn’t identify made lunch of this lady’s falcon.”
The lady in question affirmed Kit’s guess in most unladylike language. Malcolm coughed and turned aside to hide a grin. Pest Control came running, Sue Fritchey in the lead.
“What happened?”
The woman whose valuable hunting falcon had just become a paleo-hawk’s dinner told her—scathingly.
“Uh-oh. I was afraid of something like this. Where are they now? Ah . . . there. Okay. Jimmy, Bill, Alice, we need capture nets and tranks, stat. We let those things keep feeding, we won’t have any pterosaurs or Ichthyornises to study. And maybe a tourist will get hurt.”
That last had clearly been an afterthought. Kit hid a grin. The tourist who’d lost her falcon began demanding reimbursement. Someone called Bull Morgan to mediate.
“C’mon, Malcolm. Looks like the fun’s over. We have a trip down time to plan.”
Margo, not surprisingly, hadn’t even heard the ruckus. She was still flitting from rack to rack, cooing and all but drooling on the clothes. Even Connie was laughing at her. Kit shook his head. An unlimited expense account in heaven . . .
“Well, let’s see what our prodigy’s chosen, shall we?”
“Don’t I get an opinion?” Margo demanded. The three faces ranged against her grimaced simultaneously. If Margo hadn’t been so flaming angry, it would’ve been comical. “Well, don’t I? I’m going to be the one wearing these!”
She held out the ridiculous embroidered smock, the baggy pants with their hideous flap front that fell open if the buttons popped loose—never mind the rags she was supposed to tie around her knees to hold the pants off the ground—then kicked at the scuffed, wide-toed leather boots. The shapeless felt hat was so pitiful she couldn’t even bring herself to look at it.
“This is only one of the outfits you’ll be wearing,” Malcolm Moore told her, sounding infuriatingly patient.
“But they’re ugly!”
“You’re not in training to be a fashion model,” Kit said sternly.
Margo subsided, but not happily. “I know.”
“Now, about the choices you made,” he continued, “Connie has a few words.”
“Starting with the ball gown,” the outlandish outfitter said, hanging it back on its rack. “The first word is ‘No.’ Your job isn’t to go down time and party it up. It’s to learn scouting. If you want to revisit London later for a vacation, on your own time and money, fine. Until then, the party dresses stay here.”
Margo sighed, “All right I’m supposed to go down time and be miserable.”
“Not at all!” Connie said, somewhat sharply. “You have a remarkably negative attitude, Margo, for someone who’s been given the chance to go down time for free. Britannia Gate tours cost several thousand dollars each.”
Margo felt her cheeks burn. She hadn’t thought of it quite like that. “I’m sorry. It’s just I got so excited when you said I could go and that we could pick out clothes . . .” She turned an appeal for forgiveness on Kit. “I’m sorry, really I am. I was just so disappointed after I saw those,” she pointed to the glittering silks, velvets, and satins, “then you said what I would get to wear was these.”
The humble farm clothing—men’s farm clothing—lacked only mud to make the hideousness complete.
“Apology accepted,” Kit said quietly. “Once you learn your trade, Margo—and you have a great deal yet to learn—you can play dress-up as often as you like. But not while you’re on the job. Never while you’re on the job.”
Margo felt like crying. She’d been rude and ungrateful—her temper always got her into trouble—and they were being desperately nice to her. It wasn’t a situation she was accustomed to. She felt lost as to how she ought to respond.
Connie Logan said more kindly, “Here, let’s see what else we can find. Malcolm, what about having her pose as a charity girl?”
“We’d need a chaperon for that,” Malcolm said slowly, “but I like the charity girl idea. Her hair’s short and that’ll either have to be disguised or explained. Charity-girl is the perfect cover. As for a chaperon, I could hire someone from an agency and rent a flat for the week we’ll be there.”
“I don’t understand,” Margo said. “What’s a charity girl? Why would that make a good cover story for my hair?”
“Poverty-stricken children—orphans, children with destitute parents—were sometimes taken in by charitable institutions,” Malcolm explained. “There were dozens of schools supported by patrons and patronesses. Children wore uniforms and numbered badges to identify them. Because sanitation was a problem and head lice were common, even girls’ hair was cut short.”
“Head lice?” Margo grabbed the sides of her head, instinctively trying to protect her scalp from an invasion of vermin.
Kit cleared his throat. “Sanitation in Victorian London was quite a bit better than many places you’ll end up as a scout. Head lice—and other nasties—can be eliminated once you get back.”
Margo just stared, overcome with an intense desire to be ill. She hadn’t thought about lice. The more she studied for this job, the clearer it became there was a great deal she hadn’t thought about.
“Well, I’m not quitting,” she said stubbornly, straightening her spine. “Nobody ever died from being dirty.”
Malcolm exchanged glances with Kit, who said repressively, “Millions have done just that. The point is, you keep yourself as clean as you can and deal with medical problems when you return. If you return. Why do you think you’re required to receive so many inoculations before coming to a time terminal? Up time, we don’t even vaccinate for smallpox any longer. It’s an extinct disease. However, in someplace as relatively sanitary as Denver in the 1890s you could still contract it. Not to mention lockjaw or blood poisoning from a simple cut or scrape. So you take your medicine, keep yourself clean, and hope you don’t come back with anything Medical can’t handle.
“Now, I think this charity-girl idea’s a good one, but that leaves us with another question, Malcolm. Namely, how to explain your association with her. You’re known in London.”
“Fairly well, in certain circles,” Malcolm agreed.
“So people will know you wouldn’t have a reason to associate with a charity girl of eighteen. And her accents all wrong, anyway, to pose as a British orphan.”
“The few people I know down time believe me to be an eccentric gentleman from British Honduras—which helps explain away the occasional wobble or two in my accent.”
Margo blinked. He’d sounded astonishingly British during that sentence, which he hadn’t before. In fact, given the small amount of stage training she’d had, she’d have bet everything she owned it had been genuine, not affected.
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?” He sounded American again, as American as Minnesota winters.
“Sound British? I thought you were American.”
Malcolm grinned. “Good. I’ve studied hard to sound like that. Heading down time to Denver with an English accent isn’t a good idea. Fortunately I have a quick ear and years of practice. But I was born in England.” He cleared his throat and glanced away. “I survived The Flood, actually.”
Mar go said breathlessly, “The Flood? From The Accident?”
Malcolm rubbed the back of one ear. “Well, yes. I was just a kid. We lived in Brighton, you see, near the seaside. We ran a little tourist hostel during the summers.
My family was lucky. We only lost my elder brother when the house caved in.”
Margo didn’t know what to say. The English coast had been wiped out by tidal waves. All the coastlines of the world had been hit hard. Several dozen cities had been reduced to rubble and the ensuing chaos, rampant epidemics, and starvation had reshaped world politics forever. Margo hadn’t been old enough to remember it. She forgot, sometimes, that most of the people on this time terminal did remember the world before the time gates and the accident which had caused them.
She wondered quite suddenly if that was why her father had been the way he was. Had he blamed himself all those years ago for her brother’s death, then found himself unable to cope with the changed world? She shivered, not wanting to sympathize with him, but something in Malcolm’s voice had triggered memories of her father during his more sober moments. The look in her father’s eyes during those times echoed the desperate struggle not to remember she saw now in Malcolm’s dark eyes.
“I’m sorry, Malcolm. I didn’t know.”
He managed a smile. “How could you? Don’t dwell on it. I don’t. Now, what were we saying? Oh yeah, my background. The people I know down time think I’m a gentleman from British Honduras, with no visible means of support and no daily job to distract me from gentlemanly pursuits. I just happen to have a lot of wealthy, scatterbrained friends who pay me visits from the other side of the water, particularly America.” He grinned. “That way it’s natural for my tourists to gawk at the sights. Londoners in the 1880s considered Americans boorish provincials just this side of savagery.”
Margo sniffed. “How rude.”
Connie laughed. “Honey, you don’t know the half of it. Victorian Londoners took class consciousness to new extremes.” She gestured to the Britannia section of her shop. “It’s why I carry such a varied line of costumes for the Britannia Gate. Clothes said everything about your station in life. Wear the wrong thing and you become a laughingstock—”
“Or worse,” Kit put in.
“—or you just blend into the background and become invisible.”
Malcolm nodded. “Yes. But you have to be careful. The wrong clothing could get you hauled off to jail or Bedlam Hospital to be locked in with the other madwomen.”
Margo shivered. “What about this charity girl stuff, then?”
“Well,” Malcolm said, glancing at Kit, “given my reputation as something of an eccentric, it wouldn’t be out of character for me to sponsor a young girl who’d been orphaned in a cholera epidemic, say, or by one of the tropical fevers that laid so many Europeans low in Honduras. You could be the child of some deceased friend or even a relative. A niece, maybe, brought back to England for schooling.”
Kit was nodding. “I like it. All right, choose something appropriate. Connie, why don’t you fit her out while Malcolm and I update his wardrobe? If he’s going to keep up his reputation in London, I suspect he’ll need a new item or two. And you’ll need a couple of ‘incognito’ getups as well, I think, so your down-time friends don’t recognize you when you two go slumming.”
Connie beamed. “Help yourselves. Gosh, I love it when scouts and guides put their heads together and go shopping!”
Kit groaned. Malcolm laughed. “Don’t worry, Kit. I’ll try to be gentle with your budget.”
“Pray do, sir,” Kit drolled. “It isn’t unlimited, you know.”
They strolled off in the direction of the men’s clothing. Margo watched them go. “They’re . . .” She paused, suddenly embarrassed.
“They’re what?” Connie asked curiously.
“Nothing,” Margo mumbled. She’d been about to say, “They’re really sweet, aren’t they?” but had stopped herself just in time. She’d gotten where she was by being tough and uncaring. Now wasn’t the time to let down her guard, not with her dreams within grasp. But she couldn’t help thinking it. They were sweet. Even Kit, when he wasn’t glowering at her for whatever she’d done wrong most recently. A flash of insight told Margo he glowered because he didn’t really know how to talk to her.
That was all right. She didn’t really know how to talk to him, either, not without a whole retinue of defenses in place. A smart mouth and a lifelong habit of sarcasm—skillfully combined with pouting frowns and winning smiles—weren’t exactly the most useful skills if she wanted to learn more about this man as a human being, rather than a legend.
Get real, Margo. Remember the fishpond. Try to get better acquainted with him—with either of them—and you’ll have to talk about yourself. The less said on that subject, the better. For everyone concerned.
Margo sighed unhappily, earning a long, curious look from Connie, then she shook herself free of the mood and said brightly, “Okay, about this charity-girl costume. Show me!”