Chapter 3 The Duke’s Dilemma
I wake to silk.
Real silk—cool, smooth, and offensively expensive.
For one blissful second, my brain tries to call it a hotel. Then I register the canopy bed, the painted ceiling, and the fact that I am wearing a borrowed nightgown.
Panic comes fast. Someone undressed me. My hoodie and jeans are gone. So are my shoes.
So is my phone.
I pat the nightgown anyway, like persistence will conjure pockets. Nothing.
The room is warm firelight and lavender soap, the kind of comfort that only exists for people who have never been arrested for wearing trousers. On the washstand: a basin, a cake of soap, and beneath it a chamber pot.
I stare at the chamber pot.
It stares back.
“So we’re doing this,” I whisper.
There is a knock at the door.
My entire nervous system leaps.
“Miss?” a voice calls, female and young. “May I come in?”
I freeze. My mind scrambles through options: hide under bed, pretend I’m dead, scream for my mother across three hundred years.
“Yes,” I manage. “Wait—”
The door opens anyway.
She sweeps in like a gust of enthusiasm dressed in muslin.
She is about eighteen, with dark hair in glossy curls and eyes the exact shade of delighted trouble.
Her dress is pale blue, high-waisted, with little puffed sleeves.
She looks like she belongs in a painting and also like she would absolutely sneak out of the house to do something she’s been explicitly told not to do.
She takes one look at me, standing barefoot in a nightgown, clutching the sheet like it’s armor, and her face lights up.
“You’re awake!” she exclaims.
Her accent is crisp, her voice bright. She sounds…genuinely happy, like she’s found a stray kitten and not a disoriented woman in pants who allegedly fell out of the sky.
“Yes,” I say cautiously. “I’m awake. Who—”
“Oh! Forgive me.” She dips into a curtsy that is far too graceful for someone this excited. “I am Lady Beatrice Ashbourne.”
Ashbourne.
My brain kicks, catching. Duke of Ashbourne.
So I’m in his house.
Which is…better than the watch-house.
Possibly worse, in a completely different way.
“I’m Emma,” I say. Then I remember the century I’m in and add, “Miss Hart.”
Beatrice’s eyes flicker, as if she’s comparing my name to something she’s been told. “Miss Hart,” she repeats. “Yes. My brother said you are…a relation. From America.”
I swallow hard. “He did.”
Beatrice beams, as if this is the most thrilling thing that has happened all season.
“We have never had an American in the house. Not a real one, anyway. And certainly not one who—” Her gaze drops briefly to the nightgown like she’s trying to reconcile it with the story. “Well. You are very unusual.”
“I get that a lot,” I say, because if I stop making jokes I might start screaming.
Beatrice steps closer, not threatening, just curious. “How do you feel? My brother said you fainted in the carriage. Mrs. Finch was quite put out about it.”
“Mrs. Finch?” I repeat.
Beatrice waves a hand. “Our housekeeper. She does not approve of fainting unless it is done decorously and on a chaise.”
That is…fair.
I lick my dry lips. “Where is your brother?”
Beatrice’s expression shifts, a little more cautious. “In his study. He has been awake since dawn. He—” She hesitates. “He was worried.”
I almost laugh. The duke worried about me. That’s adorable.
It’s also probably a lie designed to keep me calm.
My stomach growls again, loud enough that Beatrice’s brows lift.
“Oh!” she says, brightening immediately, as if hunger is a solvable problem and not a symptom of existential displacement. “You must eat. Mrs. Finch sent tea and toast. And there is broth, if you prefer something gentler.”
She gestures to the tray. The sight of food makes my mouth flood with saliva.
Then my brain catches up and supplies the obvious question.
“Beatrice,” I say slowly, “who undressed me?”
Her eyes widen. “Oh!”
Heat floods my face like I’ve been dunked in boiling water.
“I mean,” I rush on, because now I cannot stop, “I know I fainted. But I woke up in—this—and my clothes are gone and I just—”
Beatrice’s cheeks flush a little too, though she looks more amused than embarrassed.
“Mrs. Finch and Molly,” she says quickly.
“Molly is my maid. You were filthy, Miss Hart. And you were shivering. We could hardly leave you in—” She makes a helpless gesture, as if the memory of my jeans offends her sensibilities. “In that.”
So. Women.
I exhale, relief loosening something in my chest.
“All right,” I say, trying to sound normal. “Thank you.”
Beatrice studies me again, head tilted. “You truly do not remember? My brother said you spoke oddly. And you seemed frightened.”
I do remember. I remember too much.
But I cannot say, Yes, I fell through a temporal rupture and watched my mother’s hand slip from mine while reality folded like paper.
So I do what Kitty told me to do.
I invent.
“I was robbed,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “I…hit my head. I think I’m still confused.”
Beatrice nods solemnly, as if this makes perfect sense. “How dreadful. But you are safe now.”
Safe.
The word is both a balm and a trap.
“Where are my clothes?” I ask. “And…my things.”
Beatrice hesitates. “Mrs. Finch has them. She said she will not return them until my brother decides what is to be done.”
My stomach tightens. “What is to be done?”
Beatrice’s smile wobbles slightly, just for a second. “Well. You cannot simply…go out. Not dressed so. And you cannot stay in a watch-house. My brother is very particular about responsibility.”
I stare at her. “Responsibility.”
“It is his curse,” she says with a sigh that is dramatically long for someone who has clearly been alive for approximately five minutes. Then she brightens again. “Eat. You will feel better. And then I shall show you the house.”
“That sounds like kidnapping with snacks,” I say.
Beatrice laughs, delighted. “It is not kidnapping if you are invited.”
I sit on the edge of the bed because my legs have decided to stop cooperating. Beatrice pours tea with practiced grace and hands me the cup.
The tea is weak. Of course it is. British tea is always either so strong it can dissolve metal or so weak it feels like someone waved a leaf over hot water and called it a day.
Still, it is warm.
I sip. My stomach complains, then grudgingly accepts.
Beatrice watches me drink and immediately begins firing questions like she’s trying to catalog the entire continent of America in one sitting. I answer what I can, invent what I must, and let her enthusiasm fill the room so my fear has less space to breathe.
She stands abruptly. “Come. You should wash. My brother will want to speak with you once you are properly—” She glances at the nightgown. “Once you are less likely to faint again.”
“What if I don’t want to speak with your brother?” I ask.
Beatrice’s smile turns sly. “Then you should certainly speak with him, because he will speak with you regardless.”
Wonderful. Even in 1817, men are consistent.
Beatrice rings a small bell on the table. A minute later, a maid appears—older than Beatrice, with a wary expression and hands that look competent.
“Molly,” Beatrice says, “help Miss Hart wash and dress. And mind your tongue. She is a guest.”
Molly takes in my tangled hair, bare feet, and the way I’m holding myself like a frightened animal. Something softens in her eyes.
“Yes, my lady,” she says.
Beatrice squeezes my hand quickly, as if we are conspirators. “I shall return,” she whispers, then sweeps out again with the same gusty energy.
The door closes, and suddenly it’s just me and Molly.
Molly clears her throat. “If you’ll step behind the screen, miss.”
I do, because at this point I am too tired to fight. Molly pours water from the pitcher into the basin, adds more from another jug, and hands me the cloth.
I wash my face, my neck, my arms, and feel a wave of grief so sharp it almost knocks me over.
This is what passes for hygiene here. A basin. A cloth. No shower. No toothpaste. No deodorant. No—God, no.
I glance at the chamber pot again and decide my dignity is officially on life support.
Molly washes me with a basin and cloth, then produces a stack of undergarments and the thing that wants to be my enemy: stays.
I protest. She laces me into them anyway, with the brisk sympathy of someone who has no time for my twenty-first-century lungs.
A simple day dress follows. My hair is pinned up into something that suggests I am not feral.
I keep reaching for pockets that aren’t there.
Molly leads me downstairs and knocks on a door.
“Enter,” a man’s voice calls.
The duke’s voice.
My stomach tightens.
Molly opens the door, and I step into a study that smells like leather and ink.
The Duke of Ashbourne waits by the hearth in shirtsleeves and waistcoat, his cravat still infuriatingly perfect. His gaze sweeps over me—dress, pinned hair, bare feet—then settles on my face.
“Miss Hart,” he says. “How do you feel?”
“Hungry,” I admit. “Confused.”
“Understandable.” He pauses. “Your clothing is in Mrs. Finch’s keeping.”
My stomach tightens. “And my things?”
“Also kept,” he says, carefully neutral. “For the moment.”
I swallow down the panic and force out the lie Kitty handed me like a weapon. “I was robbed. I hit my head.”
His eyes narrow slightly, skepticism wrapped in manners. “You speak oddly.”
“I am having an unusual week,” I say.
For a heartbeat, something almost like amusement flickers across his face. Then it’s gone again.
“Miss Hart,” he says, “I cannot release you into the street. Not in your condition, and not without protection. For the moment, you will remain here while I make inquiries.”
“And if there is no one to inquire after?” I ask, because it’s easier than saying I do not belong in this century.
His gaze holds mine. “Then I will find you a respectable situation.”
Respectable situation. A gilded cage with clean sheets.
I look away. “I need to go home.”
“To America,” he says, as if tasting the word. “That will not be simple.”
Before I can respond, the door opens, and Beatrice slips in without waiting, a grin already on her face.