Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

a grate.”
    Marcus held the torch high and used his free
hand to brace himself against the rough ragstone walls. “It was a
female,” he said, the pressure he’d felt in his chest all day
nearly crushing him. He reached into his high-top Hessians and
pulled out his stiletto. “Come on, Perry, stay close behind
me.”
    “Well, if that don’t beat the Dutch. And
where did you think I was going to be—in front of you?”
Perry, bent nearly in half, held on to Marcus’s coattails as they
negotiated the last turn in the staircase and entered the small
chamber. Once his feet were safely on the stone floor he peeked out
from behind Marcus, who had replaced the stiletto in his boot and
was now standing very still and straight.
    “Good Lord, Marcus,” Perry exclaimed,
bug-eyed as a strange blue mist evaporated into the air. “You were
right. It is a woman. And the chit’s naked! ”
    ~ ~ ~
    Cassandra heard a male voice and knew she had
been discovered breaking the rules. She should have realized she
wouldn’t get away with it; she never got away with it. Still
pressing her hands against her eyes, she struggled to envision how
Sheila would have handled the situation, for as surely as Cassandra
was freezing her pinched toes off in the damp room, facing possible
disaster, Sheila give-’em-hell Cranston could have stepped in this
same mud puddle of trouble and still come up smelling like a
rose.
    But she wasn’t Sheila. She was Cassandra, and
she’d have to fake it.
    She lowered her hands to find that,
thankfully, the strange, frightening blue mist had melted away and
the small room was now lit by a brightly burning torch held by—“Oh,
my God!”
    Cassandra blinked, shook her head, then
blinked again. She walked over to where the men were standing, the
tall, handsome one very stiff and straight, the shorter, pudgy one
seemingly trying to hide in the shadows behind his companion.
“Hello there,” she said, forcing a careless tone into her voice,
hoping they would overlook her outburst. “I guess I’m out of
bounds, aren’t I, guys? I’ve heard of Mounties coming to the
rescue, but we’re not in Canada, are we? But don’t you both look
terrific! What are you dressed up for? I didn’t know they gave
performances here. Disney World comes to jolly old England,
what?”
    Cassandra shut her mouth, feeling as if she
were giving her impersonation of Alice’s Ugly American husband.
    The men made no move to answer her, which
convinced her she had been rude, if not unintelligible. Fear did
that to a person, she reasoned, then pushed on, knowing she was
behaving like a first-class idiot.
    She inspected the two men and their
anachronistic attire, walking fully around them before standing in
front of them once more. “Regency Era, isn’t it?” she asked
conversationally, having taken note of their tight buckskins, trim
jackets, and intricately tied starched neckcloths. “They’re very
good. I was an assistant editor of our Regency line for nearly two
years, until just last month, actually, so that’s why I recognize
the clothes—from the cover art, you understand. Do you know it used
to take those guys hours to get their neckcloths just right?
You have to know a lot about that era in order to be an effective
editor. I’m not surprised they chose to dress you in Regency
clothes; it was quite a wonderful time in your history, wasn’t it?
Did you have to learn to tie them yourselves, or are those
clip-ons—you, know—like the ties?”
    Still neither man spoke, although the tall
one had begun to smile down at her in a most disconcerting way. The
light cast by the torch he carried really wasn’t very good and it
cast weird, flickering shadows on the walls that were beginning to
give her the creeps. The quiet, staring men were giving her the
creeps. As a matter of fact, the whole cold, damp, dark place was
getting on her nerves, and she longed for the bright lights and
spiked pink hair of King’s Road.
    The men stood