Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (20 page)

19

“Are you alright,
Ella?” Adele stood by the front door, tugging on her leather gloves. After an
hour’s lesson with Lawrence, Ella knew Adele usually took a long walk alone.
She said it helped clear her head of all the things Lawrence seemed intent in
putting in there. “I’d love some company.”

Ella joined her
at the foyer and picked up her bonnet. To Ella, it looked and felt like a small
wastepaper basket adorned with velvet ribbons. “That sounds great,” she said,
jamming the hat on her head and letting the ribbons dangle.

Adele followed
her. “Wrong way, Ella,” she said. “If you continue that way you end up at the
wharf. We don’t go that way without an escort.”

“Fine,” Ella
said, switching directions and walking next to Adele. The shoes she wore fit
her foot high over the ankle but had no arch and were thin-soled. Ella had to
admit they were pretty. In fact, they were perfect for sitting in a parlor
reading. Less so for afternoon walks.

“Do you want to
talk about it?”

Ella gave her a
sidelong glance. “How old are you?”

“I know about
what happens between a man and a woman, if that is what you’re asking. Are you
worried about your wedding night?”

Ella pulled her
skirt away from her body and received an immediate look of censure from Adele.
How does she walk in these things?
It
was so hot, Ella felt the stickiness of the heat and humidity trapped against
her skin by the heavy brocade cloth. It was all she could do not to grab the
skirt by the hem and carry it front of her to cool her legs. “No,” she said.
“The wedding night is the least of my worries.”

“How so?”

“I don’t think I
love Lawrence.”

Adele stopped
walking and her mouth formed a perfect “O.” Her eyes were wide but blinking
rapidly.

“I don’t even
know
him,” Ella said. “I barely remember
him and I certainly never remember telling him I’d marry him. I mean,
seriously, we’re nothing alike.”

 
“Are you feeling…do you really think you
may not love him?” Adele said in a horrified gasp. The color in her cheeks had
risen to a sharp pink.

“Yeah, I really
do. In fact, I think he’s kind of an ass.”

“Oh, Ella! I
can’t bear to hear this. Lawrence adores you.”

“Adores me flat
on my back you mean.”

They turned at
the end of Main Street where it intersected with a smaller, less traveled road.
A man in a horse cart plodded along going in their same direction. Ella thought
he might be asleep or drunk, the way he sat hunched over the reins.
Oh, well, I suppose the horse knows where’s
he’s going.

When Adele looked
at her in confusion, Ella explained. “He told me that we have expressed our
love physically and since I have no memory of that—”

“Oh, stop! No, I
don’t believe it. Lawrence would never,
never
attempt something like that.”

 
“Okay, well, I hate to disillusion you
but he attempted
exactly
that last
night when everyone in the house was asleep.”

Ella felt tiny
beads of sweat develop on her upper lip at the thought that Adele might
actually faint in the middle of the street. “Sweetie, are you going to pass
out? Because we need to find a park bench or something then.”

“You must tell
him
no
,” Adele said, her face
blushing so red that Ella wondered if she might have a heart condition. “I am
appalled. I am heartbroken that he is the kind of man…and that you could
allow—” Adele began to fan herself with her clutch purse.

“I allowed
nothing
,” Ella said grimly, her face
reddening with the memory of just how far Lawrence had gotten before she shut
him down. “But I don’t want a repeat performance.”

“Is it
possible…are you afraid you may not be able to control yourself?” Now Adele
really did look like she was about to pass out.

Ella couldn’t
help but snort at the notion. “No. I am not afraid of that.” Ella didn’t
consider herself frigid. And she didn’t think Lawrence was unattractive. But
the truth was her body had not responded to his touch.

 
“Look, Adele. I’m sure it’s my fault. I
should’ve laid down some ground rules with him in the beginning.”

Adele reached out
to take Ella’s arm whether for support or to lead her, Ella wasn’t sure. Adele
turned them to retrace their steps back to Main Street. When she did, Ella saw
a trio of pelicans flying low over where the harbor must be. Watching them in
graceful flight, gliding in unison without once flapping their wings, she was
struck by how free they were.

“I should say
so,” Adele said. “Everyone knows men are weak. If you have allowed him to…to…”
Adele glanced meaningfully in the general vicinity of Ella’s body as if she
were radioactive.

“I know, I know. I’m
going to talk to him.”

“Because I don’t
know how it is where you come from—”

“Adele,” Ella
said firmly, “I’ll handle it.”

“I was going to
say,” Adele said primly, clearly stung by Ella’s interruption, “that I have
heard cases like this from Papa and, trust me, it never ends well.”

Ella frowned.
“What do you mean? It never ends well for whom?”

“Well, whom do
you think? A woman who gives herself to a man without the protection of
marriage? Or even one who would prefer to live alone rather than as someone’s
wife? Does that sound sane to you?”

Ella didn’t
answer. She had a sick feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.

“In
this
part of the world,” Adele said,
looking steadfastly ahead and not sparing a glance at Ella, “a woman like that
would be institutionalized for her own good.”

The word hung
between them like an obscene threat.

Institutionalized
.

Suddenly, Ella
felt the thick and oppressive heat evaporate and for the rest of the walk home
she felt quite chilled.
 

That evening Ella
tried to imagine how Lawrence would react when she told him the engagement was
off. Did he really have money that belonged to her? It didn’t matter. She had
enough jewelry to sell to keep her comfortably. The bigger question, as soon as
she rid herself of the distraction of her engagement, was
how do I get back to my own time?

After her walk,
Ella returned to her room, bathed and napped. She packed her few meager
possessions in her valise and set about preparing to dress for dinner. Although
she didn’t think she’d be flung out into the streets after she broke the
engagement, neither did she believe she’d be welcome to stay long.

Whether or not her
talk with Lawrence would prompt the good Judge to take steps to have her
committed would be a tangle she would attempt to unknot tomorrow.
Hell, I’m dressing like Scarlett, might as
well think like her.

Before her talk
with Adele, she thought it might be possible to get a job of some kind. There
were shopkeepers in Key West, to be sure, but they did seem to all own their
own shops. What other kind of work could she possibly hope to find?

I’ll find something
,
she thought with growing irritation as she tried to clip the fake extensions
into a hairstyle that looked remotely like some she had seen on the street.
And I won’t be here long.
I’ll find my way back to 2013. Somehow.
There must be a way. I found my way here, I can find my way back again. Maybe
the Cubans know something? Aren’t they into voodoo and magic?

She let her arms
drop to her vanity table in defeat, a long tendril falling from her hair.
I don’t even know if what happened to me is
magic. Maybe I’m a part of some kind of government science project that cracked
the time space continuum
. She glanced out the bedroom window, dark now with
the evening.
But if that’s so, then I
really am stuck here.

Is my Dad wondering where I am?
She pinned one of her emerald brooches
to her blouse and looked at her reflection in the mirror.
Is there anybody else in 2013 who would care?

Am I being too hasty giving Lawrence the heave-ho? He would
take care of me. He would give me a home
. Her eye caught the reflection of her unmade bed in the
mirror.

No. There was nothing there. No heat. No magic.

She stood up and
nodded with satisfaction at her reflection in the mirror. The gown was low-cut with
the tops of her breasts nearly cresting the lace-trimmed bodice. Her face took
on a determined countenance, her mouth set stubbornly.

I’d rather they lock me up with all the other sex-crazed
unmarried women than marry Lawrence Bingham.

Lawrence made
moony eyes at her all through dinner. Ella listened to Adele, a little more
subdued than usual, and her father hold up most of the conversation and tried
to enter in when she could. His Honor Robert Morton loved to tell stories at
the dinner table, and even after only two days Ella realized he was starting to
repeat himself.
 

“Well, Miss
Pierce, I trust you are feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you,
Judge. And again, I am so grateful for all that you’ve done for me.”

“Of course, my
dear. After all, you are to be the wife of a young man I think very highly of.”

The servants
appeared silently at her side to open lidded dishes for her while she placed
broiled fish and potatoes on her plate. The china must have come a very long
way, perhaps England.

Everything that
was in Key West had come a very long way, she reminded herself. There was
nothing naturally here but mosquitoes and fish.

Ella forced
herself not to glance at Lawrence. She knew he was preening with pride.

“I’ve noticed you
spend long days at your office,” Ella said, sipping her wine. “A lot of trials
to settle, I suppose?”

Morton laughed.
“Well, not in the way you might think.”

“Papa is the sole
Federal district judge in Monroe County,” Adele said, looking fondly at her
father. “He’s very important.”

“Nonsense, my
dear,” Morton said but when he looked at her, his eyes twinkled and shone with
love. He turned back to Ella. “Do you know much of the history of the island
you find yourself on, Miss Pierce?”

Ella shrugged. “Not
really, I guess.”

“We have a unique
geographic feature here on Thompson Island.”

“Southern most
tip of the US?” Ella ventured.

Lawrence
applauded. “Very
good
, my dear,” he
said, nodding and grinning until Ella wanted to toss her sorbet bowl at his head.
“
Very
impressive.”

“Yes,” Morton
said, “but even more extraordinary is the fact that we are the tip of a long
line of islands that extend from the mainland and Fort Dallas on the east
coast.”

“Fascinating,”
Ella said, eyeing Lawrence and wondering if it was better for him to drink a
lot before she had her talk with him—or not at all.

“To our west is a
line of shallow coral reefs—”

“The Florida
Reef. Right, Papa?”

“Exactly. Two
hundred miles long and stretching all the way to the Dry Tortugas but it hides
many dangers.”

“Dangers how?”

“Well, it is full
of hidden shoals and coral outcroppings with a powerful current. The
combination makes for very precarious crossings.”

“But ships do it
all the time, don’t they?”

“They do, Miss
Pierce, because the Florida Strait is a major shipping route, but they do it at
their peril.”

“They shipwreck
on the reef
all
the time,” Adele
said. Ella couldn’t help notice that Adele looked at Lawrence when she spoke
but he rarely looked up from his plate unless it was to gaze adoringly at Ella.

“At least once a
week,” Morton confirmed.

“And people die
in these shipwrecks?” Ella noticed that Lawrence seemed to be knocking the wine
back pretty good.

“They do, but the
bigger problem is that once the ships wreck upon the reefs they are easy
targets for pirates.”

“Pirates?” Ella
felt her heart accelerate. Why did the notion of pirates excite her? Was she
looking for a pirate?
 

“Absolutely.
Dastardly cutthroats who would as soon kill you as help you across the street.”

 
“You are upsetting my intended, sir,”
Lawrence said. “Perhaps we could change the subject to something more
suitable?”

“I’m fine,” Ella
said firmly. She turned back to the Judge. “So you’re in court all day hearing
trials of captured pirates?”

He laughed
heartily. “Oh, no, my dear. I must say our Commodore Porter is doing an
effective job of rounding up the brigands, most of whom, I fear, do not survive
the process. No, my days are spent determining who may or may not profit from
the salvage from those unfortunate vessels smashed upon our shoals.”