Page 67 of Time for You
“Not if he escaped,” Maggie replied.
“I was not kidnapped by Vikings, pirates, or highwaymen,” Henry said before George set off a new round of bickering between his sisters. “But Anne was more accurate than you’d think.”
Lydia sat down, back ramrod straight, on the settee. “Then you should explain. Shall I ring for some tea?”
But Shepard walked in then with a tray of tea and bannocks, as always anticipating his mother’s desires before she even expressed them. “Thank you, Shep,” she said affectionately.
“Aren’t you going to give your brother a hug?” George needled Maggie.
Ever the grump, Maggie glared at him and marched over to give Henry a surprisingly gentle hug. “Welcome back, brother,” she murmured, and he squeezed her tight before letting go.
Lydia poured them all tea and everyone settled down, the only sounds the rustle of the ladies’ wrappers and the soft clink of teacups to saucers. “So, wherever you have been these past five months, it must have been somewhere very far away, for you to not have been able to send word.”
Henry met his mother’s shrewd gaze and nodded. “It was. I was in America.”
“America has the post, if I recall correctly,” Maggie pointed out.
“I was in America, but not in 1885. I was in the future. The twenty-first century, to be exact.”
Anne’s eyes widened as big as dinner plates. “A time veil?”
“We called it a portal, but in brief, yes.”
“We?” Maggie asked. “Who’swe?”
“I made some friends there,” Henry said, feeling worse each time he denied Daphne her rightful place in his heart. “They took me in, kept me safe.”
Maggie and Lydia exchanged a look. “How do you know that’s, er, where you went?” Maggie asked.
“I haven’t gone mad, I promise.”
“He’s got proof,” George said. “I believe him.”
Maggie looked skeptical, but Lydia’s shoulders eased slightly. “I’ll show you when I’m done,” Henry said. “But I need to explain first.”
“I want to know about the time veil. What was it like? Is it still open? Can I go?” Anne asked.
Henry smothered a grin at her eagerness. More than any of them, Anne would be well suited to the future. “It’s like stepping into an abyss—you fall, but only for a moment, and then you’re somewhere else. Some-when else, actually.”
“Why did you choose to go through it?” Maggie asked.
“I didn’t. I thought it was smoke or haze, not a rip in time.”
“And then?” Anne asked.
“I thought I’d fallen and hit my head. I did fall, actually—a woman on a bicycle rode straight into me and knocked me over.”
A womanfelt like a paltry way to refer to the only woman he’d love for the rest of his life, but he had already committed to the omission.
“A woman? On a bicycle?” Anne asked excitedly.
“A woman doctor,” Henry said, and Anne sat up straight.
“A doctor? She was admitted to a medical school as a student, not just an observer?”
“A doctor in every sense of the word,” Henry said, unable to keep the pride out of his voice. “In the future, a lot of women are. There’s a lot of things like that: most women work; they don’t stay home. Not just poor women, but wealthy women, too.”
Lydia raised her eyebrows. “They must have a lot of servants to run their houses.”
