Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Ten: In Which Jessie Loses a Fight

I was escorted back to the same front parlour.

It looked as if nothing had changed but my hairstyle and dress. Mr. Lewis was seated as before in his plush chair, his absurd matchstick legs poking out from under his bloated waistcoat, a sherry clutched in his hand. His face was composed, not at all the huffing red mask it was earlier.

Mr. Lewis heaved to his feet, waved off the maid, and made a sardonic leg as I walked in. I did not curtsey back. He frowned, and walked over, hand out to touch but I ducked under it and turned to keep him in my sights, my face still closed and posture rigid. He frowned again, but only said, "You look much more acceptable."

His eyes slid down to my gloved hands; inappropriate for indoors, the maid had said, but I insisted. They were all I had left of that Captain Goodenough I once was so fond of. That Captain Goodenough I had been so sure had been fond of me in return.

Sherry was offered in a cut crystal glass by some roving attendant I hadn't spotted upon entering the room, and probably wasn't meant to spot. I hesitated, but Mr. Lewis glared so I took the glass.

If I was going to get through this evening, smiling pleasantly and hating Mr. Lewis in my mind and despising the traitorous, absent Captain Goodenough in my heart while refusing to acknowledge that the same organ was also aching fiercely for him, and trying to figure out how to get out of here, out of this house and out of this time, and mostly out of this danger, then a little alcohol would not be amiss. My thoughts and feelings were already so muddled, there was no way that the booze could make it worse. It might even make it better, give me that strange desperate clarity that only the deeply drunk sometimes achieve.

If nothing, it would at least keep me warm if I lost my senses and bolted tonight.

At least it would keep me numb. God, I was sick to death of numb.

* * *

There was wine, and sherry, and some sort of light supper involving cold meats and warm potatoes and another vegetable that was over-cooked. If I was going to have to live in Georgian England for the rest of my life, I was teaching the house cook how to make a stir fry, or vegetables in parchment, or grilled, dammit. There were much better ways to serve vegetables than boiled to death.

Over dinner, I was talked over and about more than talked to, and I made myself stay silent and poke morosely at the tidbits on my plate. I was certainly not hungry. I vaguely recalled the goblet near my elbow never emptying.

Mr. Fletcher arrived at the door with a bill of lading for Mr. Lewis - "In the usual warehouse, sir" - but more importantly, also with my brown coat, my tee shirt and blue jeans and my Converses. A small handkerchief was passed to me, filled with my ID cards and cellular telephone, and I placed them on my lap. The rest was taken away, to where I didn't know, but propriety in front of a virtual stranger meant that Mr. Lewis couldn't order the handkerchief package away as well.

Thank god for Mr. Fletcher, then.

I kept a firm hand on the handkerchief knot after the boy left. The supper was cleared away, and while Mr. Lewis was describing some sort of grand plan for a country estate or other - something about not being able to cut down specific trees, the law, the desire for a lawn, I didn't really give a fuck, I was directed to the room's rigid sofa. It was nothing like the big squashy chesterfield I had grown up sinking into and jumping on. This sofa was was dainty, and forced you to sit upright, corset or no. And I drank more sherry. I was getting drunk, and steadily more morose. I didn't care.

If I couldn't be happy then at least I could be unfeeling. Sick to death of numb I might have been, but it was better than stewing in that awful, furious rage that thoughts of the Captain's betrayal brought on.