Some Enchanted Dream: A Time Travel Adventure (Seasons of Enchantment Book 2) (6 page)

"The Eiffel Tower, though," she said as she sat forward slightly to look out into the distance. "It just doesn't look right to me."

"Is there a proper way that hideous monstrosity should look?" That tower was not a magnificent stone obelisk or an elegant copper domed cathedral, it was a garish painted mass of metal rising defiantly above the city. It didn't conform to the Paris he recalled from his youth.

"It's not supposed to be red." Tara gestured toward the gaudy structure. It's supposed to be black. Why is it red now?" She looked to him as if for an answer.

"I cannot say." He was as perplexed as she. "Do you mean to tell me this thing is still standing in your future time?" It was a sobering thought.

"Yes, it is a famous landmark. That's why Dan knew where we were. He saw the tower in the sky and called it." She sank down beside him and nudged herself under his arm to cuddle against him again. Her searching movements lightened his heart.

Adrian wanted to kiss her, but refrained. Kissing might be interpreted as cold and unfeeling, given their recent loss. Instead, he let his fingers caress her forearm where her sleeve ended, allowing them to glide lightly from elbow to wrist, and back again.

She reverted to silence. He held her close, and savored the feeling of having her near him.

The sky darkened. They could no longer see anything aside from the river Seine and the halo of light in the far horizon where the sun's rays still reflected in the clouds.

Quite suddenly, the city streets lit up, inch by inch. Adrian watched as the boulevards became visible in a grid pattern before his eyes. It was as if an army of lamplighters had orchestrated their efforts to light the modern gas street lamps at the same moment.

And then, that red monstrosity lit up slowly, from bottom to top, like a coordinated symphony of lights playing instead of sound. Was it candles? No. Gaslight?

Adrian removed his arm from about Tara's waist and leaned forward. The brilliantly lit tower was breathtaking. The night hid the ugliness of the thing, and the lights made it glow above the city like a majestic arrow piercing into the heavens.

"Oh, my God,
yes
!" Tara stood and leaned out of the opened window. "The Paris Exposition. They lit the tower for the first time back in the 1880's. I forget the exact year. Electricity was just starting to be used, and . . ."

Ignoring her reference to the past as it was actually the present time for them, Adrian rose and placed a careful arm about her so she would not lean out too far in her excitement. "What, pray tell, is electricity?"

His question went unanswered as she laughed aloud. Tara turned from the illuminated tower to face him, her eyes filled with a rare excitement. "You truly have no idea, do you? Electricity is a modern miracle. It's the start of something huge that will take over the world--electric lights, television, computers . . . oh, but that's way far ahead of us, my dear eighteenth century man."

"What is electricity," he asked again, perturbed by her reference to his place in history. 

"Well . . ." she scanned the room and gestured about with her hand. "It beats dim candlelight, for one. And messy oil lamps that have to be cleaned and refilled. It's like having a piece of the sun brighten your rooms at night. With just the flip of a switch, you have instant lighting, bright lighting."

He glanced about the room, noting the lone oil lamp that glowed from the small table, and the candleholders with slender wax columns still waiting to be lit by a flame. "You are saying it makes these common household devices obsolete?" The concept was hard to grasp. "How is light created without a flame?"

Tara made a helpless gesture. "I don't know. Ask Dan, he could explain it better. It's a giant leap forward for mankind, it's the future, Adrian. Once you have electricity, you'll never want to be without it."

He nodded, simply to be polite. He had no greater grasp of this modern invention than before Tara tried to explain it to him. "Are you hungry, my sweet?"

Her eyes danced a little with amusement as she tilted her head to look up at him. "Yes. Are you going to ring for something to be brought up from the kitchens, my lord?"

"Would that I could," Adrian huffed in a long, frustrated sigh. "What do you suggest?"

As soon as he asked, he was sorry. Her look said it all.
Helpless dolt
.

"One of us will need to go out and purchase something to eat, be it soup, sandwiches, or a roasted chicken at one of the neighborhood cafes and bring it home."

That was not what he wanted to hear, as the 'one of us' clearly implied it would be him. Tara could not go out alone at this time of night to purchase food. He was rather hoping something would already be here for them, cooked and ready to eat.

"And buy a bottle of wine, too," Tara directed, taking on a dictatorial demeanor. "Buy a chicken--a
cooked chicken
mind, you. If you can't find that, buy some cheese, fruit and bread. Riley bought me a meat pie at noon, but I doubt that food stall is open at night."

An hour later, Adrian returned home with their dinner. He felt like a bloody footman. Fortunately, he only had to go one street over to find a restaurant willing to sell him a whole cooked chicken, a bottle of wine, and a hunk of cheese. A loaf of long, narrow bread was added to his bill, and he managed to walk easily on the level street with the booty in a wicker basket.

He missed the days of creeping silently in the night, a masked leader fighting for a just cause. Nearly one hundred years later, would Ireland be free? Perhaps, when Tara recovered, she could take him to present day Ireland so they could find out.

Men lurked in the shadows here and there, laughing, cursing, and drinking cheap liquor. The darkened streets had a distinct presence of danger. During the day Montmartre was a busy place, but the people were friendly, jovial. At night, the shadows gave way to a different Montmartre, a more sinister threatening place. It seemed as if eyes watched him from every arched door and open alleyway. He shrugged the deep wicker basket handle up onto his shoulder, clutched his cane, and reached into his pocket for his pistol.

Damn, he wished he still had his sword.

Once he overcame the flights of stairs and entered their humble lodgings with the required meal, he found Tara gazing out the window toward the illuminated tower. Her expression was morose. He suspected she was pining for her own time and the modern conveniences she and Dan spoke so often about with a wistfulness in their voices.

"Come, I've brought what you requested, love. Don't linger at the window, you'll catch a draft and become ill." It was May, still, the nights became cold. He'd close the window before they retired.

She did as he asked, slowly, with a distant look on her face. She was lost in memories. Her fluid movement to the table in her long, billowy bed gown made him pause to admire her. She was so beautiful, and so lost at the moment with the loss of their child.

The scent of baked chicken filled the room. He paid extra to have the cook cut up the carcass for ease of eating, being uncertain as to the contents of their meager shelves. He wasn't sure they had forks or knives, and sparing Tara the inconvenience of having to rip the chicken apart with her fingers and eat barbarian style seemed worth a few extra shillings. He pulled the chair out for her, a habit learned from his life as an Irish lord.

A grimace twisted his mouth as he looked about the shabby little room. Here, he was plain Mr. Dillon, vagabond traveler with limited coin.

"What is it?" Tara asked, noting his displeasure. "You look upset."

Adrian shook his head. No reason to disturb her with his misgivings about their future here. "I'm tired, pet. The stairs prove cruel to my healing hip."

Tara, the darling of his heart, nodded, but she held his gaze with more perception than he cared for. "Thank you," she whispered, and then pointed behind him to the open cupboard shelves. "Plates, and forks, if you would, my lord. And cups for the wine."

Indeed
. Without needing to rise, he reached behind him to find the items and placed them on the table. His privileged status as a wealthy lord was never more obvious at this moment. No one, including Tara, was going to wait on him. Not unless he gained access to his hoarded funds at the bank and could pay for the honor of being 'served'. He pried open the cork and poured the cheap wine into their tin cups and handed her one.

"To freedom," Tara lifted her cup to him. "And to life. May it be a long life, my lord."

He touched her cup with his own and drank to her toast, humbled by the reality before him as he scanned their rude surroundings.

The price of this freedom, nay, the price of escaping the hangman, was indeed steep.

Chapter Five

This was
Le Heure Verte
.

Dan was enchanted by the phrase. The Parisians actually had a name for the time of day when everyone indulged in a glass of green liquor.
L'heure Verte
. The Green Hour.

He was sitting at an outdoor table on the terrace of the Cafe Veron on Blvd Montmartre, sipping absinthe with two men he had met in the tobacco shop that afternoon.

Never one for art, Dan couldn't name the famous fellow who had painted an outdoor cafe' scene at night, he only remembered the guy had flaming red hair and was supposed to have cut off his ear and gifted it to some poor lady he admired. Mad fellow, that, but his paintings from this time were worth millions in the future.

I'll ask Tara about the fellow, surely she'll know his name
.
Wouldn't it be a hoot if they could meet that famous painter?

He was mimicking his companions, taking small sips of the bittersweet drink of vibrant green that had an hour of the day named after it. Some drank it with water to soften its bite, but these fellows preferred it straight up.  Dan tasted licorice, lemon balm and some other delicate flavoring that tickled his senses.

"Where are you from, good fellow?" Dan's companion asked politely. Arthur Bellows was the man who had directed them to their present lodgings the other day. Bellows hailed from England. He was spending a year in Paris, trying to establish himself as an artist.

"America," Dan answered, rolling his lips and letting his tongue dart about them to garner another taste of the unusual drink. "I was visiting my daughter and her husband in Dublin. They decided to come to Paris on a whim. It seemed a pleasant diversion."

"I salute their effort at spontaneity," Mr. Paul Gouffe' said with bold authority. "Didn't they realize every room in Paris would be let for the Exposition?" The man had a nose that seemed more broken than hooked. His face was grave, his hair black and his beard bushy and full. His comrade, Mr. Bellows, had a countenance that was smooth shaven and his manner was quiet and cultured. "The world has come to bow at our feet. We are the city of light." 

An odd pair, these two, but friendly toward a stranger, Dan conceded.

"Paul, don't be so hard on the fellow," Arthur argued. "Here's to you and your daughter, Sir. May your dreams become manifest in our fair city of light." Arthur raised his small glass toward the tower glowing in the distance, the Eiffel Tower, and they drank to his toast.

"It is the time for dreams, no?" Paul, the burly fellow, gestured about. "Take me? I've left my stuffy life as a bank clerk to become a painter. We must all embrace our dreams,
oui
?"

"Yes. And if only you could find patrons for your primitive nudes," Arthur laughed, and slapped the brute fellow on the shoulder. "Then you'd stop complaining about not having two sous to rub together in this glorious city of light."

Paul's face, coarse and unpleasant as it was, grew red, signaling trouble. He stood up, and tossed his empty glass to the curb. The noise of it shattering made the men at the tables around them turn to look. "M'sieur Bellows, you insult me with your jest in front of our guest!"

"Paul, sit. I meant no insult to you and you know it. You tell everyone here night after night how you cannot sell your glorious paintings to the salon, how you need to find patrons to fund your next trip around the world, so why the pretended offense if I tell the same story to a visitor in our midst?" Arthur argued.

Murmurs about them, mostly in French, gave Dan the uneasy feeling a fight was about to ensue between the gruff Mr. Gouffe' and his more temperate English friend.

A long string of French exploded from Paul's ruddy lips like a wind storm. He glared at Arthur. Arthur stood up, appearing to take issue with the Frenchman's hot words.

"Gentleman," Dan rose and extended a hand toward each of them. "Don't ruin my first evening out in Paris with a brawl. I should like to hear more about your paintings, Paul."

"Not tonight," the Frenchman hissed and lumbered away from the open cafe.

"He is a hot headed chap," Arthur explained as they took their seats again. "Doesn't take much to set him off. He'll be off to visit one of his whores to soothe his ego."

Dan nodded, but didn't comment. The fellow had been so jovial earlier that afternoon when they met in the tobacco shop. He was sullen and ill tempered this evening. "So, he paints nudes, does he?"

"This is Paris. We all paint nudes. To the beauty of the female form." Arthur lifted his glass once again in a toast.

Dan couldn't contain his grin. This place was turning into paradise. "Here, here."

A waiter came out bearing a tray of cooked meat, and a woman followed with plates and forks. Dan swallowed hard, realizing he'd not eaten since before noon and it was now past six in the evening. He patted his pockets. "How much? I'll toss in half."

"No." Arthur held up a thin hand with long fingers. "You are my guest tonight, Mr. Wilson. And my father, the ill-humored Earl of Leicester, is the benefactor for our feast. Eat, friend. Eat. Drink. Celebrate. This is Paris, after all. And we are her suitors from afar, come to court
Le belle dame sans merci
, The beautiful woman without mercy."