The River of No Return Bee Ridgway (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📖

“It is the yearly celebration for Guild members who live in and near London.”

“Why is it here, in the City?”

“Ah! You are not so stupid. That is a good question. Consider. In the twenty-first century anyone who is rich can be powerful, yes?”

“I suppose so. They must also have ambition and intelligence. But money opens all doors.”

“Exactly.” Arkady twirled his stick. “But here and now, in Britain in 1815 . . . Would you, Lord Blackdown, nod to a man simply because he was loaded down with gold?”

Nick looked down the length of Ludgate Hill to where the smoke-blackened dome of St. Paul’s rose like an ominous moon. The City would change almost beyond recognition across the coming two centuries. Empire would swell it, then German bombs would flatten much of it. Then it would rise again, in glass and steel. “Of course I would not,” he said. “I could not. Nor could you.”

“Indeed. That is why the ball, it is here. In 1815 Guild members are wealthy, they are educated—as it always has been and will be. But they are forever outside of English society. Guild members—they cannot say who their parents are. They make their way without a name. They are foreigners. You will never find a Guild member at Almack’s or White’s. In the City, that is where you will find them.”

Nick shrugged. “Fine. Are you worried that I will sneer at them? You know me better than that. I have not drowned and I will not now. I like the coming egalitarian world, Arkady. I approve of it.”

“Yes. It is a pretty vision, this egalitarian world you speak of. But I wonder. Will you approve of what comes after your beloved 2013?” Arkady slowed his steps, his boots ringing on the cobbles. He spoke more quietly. “But we are not talking of the coming world. We are talking about the Guild. Remember what most Guild members think: There is no return. But you and me? We are from the future. So you do not say to anyone that you are in the Guild. Tonight you are a Natural who arrived in 1815 by living through 1813 and 1814. Lord Blackdown, he knows nothing of time travel. I am your loud friend Count Lebedev. I too am a Natural. We are the so illustrious guests of Monsieur Bertrand Penture.”

“Got it,” Nick said. “Pretend to be an ignorant toff.”

“Yes. And the Guild members there, they too will be pretending. The party will appear to be a gathering of foreign merchants and their wives. Monsieur Penture, he imports from the Orient. His ships have returned from China, and now his investors, they are all richer than they were before. They have a party. We come to the party. Everyone is happy.”

“And that’s all? You dragged me back two centuries to send me to a party where I am to pretend to know nothing?”

“Ah! No! And now we get to it. Tonight we begin to find a traitor. The Ofan are strong in London. Penture, you see, he is the new Alderman. He is ambitious. He wants to chase the Ofan out of the nineteenth century. But first he must know who is who. Who is good and who is bad. Before the war, there must come the spying, and so we need you. That is why we come out tonight.” Arkady took Nick’s arm. “Tonight you begin. It must be tonight because tomorrow, I am gone.”

Nick looked at Arkady in some shock. “Where are you going?”

“Back to Devon, but of course. I must go back and ask questions of this Lord Darchester, the mysterious and sadly crazy earl. He is, perhaps, the key to what we seek.”

“The Ofan,” Nick said. “And the skills they are developing. Mr. Mibbs.”

“Yes, the Ofan. But not Mr. Mibbs—I do not believe he is important, this man who dresses funny.” Arkady waved a dismissive hand. “Alice, she is concerned. But me? These things you say he can do—they are not possible. Making people feel things. Controlling emotion. This is not Ofan behavior.”

“It happened.”

“Bah. Forget about this Mibbs. He is far away in the future, following some other nice-looking young man. We are here, now, and so are the Ofan. You have a job to do in London, and I have a job to do in Devon. I must know how great is the talent of this earl. I must find out what the Ofan know of him. It should not take me long. Then I will return. But for two weeks, perhaps, I am gone. And while I am gone, you must work.”

Nick sighed, packing away the desire to defend his honor over the Mibbs affair. It was hard, now, to recall the incident with any clarity; so much had happened since then to upset Nick’s understanding of what emotions even were, and what they were for. Since that day Nick had actually jumped along the flow of feeling and lived for several weeks in the past. Indeed, his emotions had been so overwhelming upon his return that he had almost drowned again in this era. And Arkady, sex-obsessed pain in the ass though he was, had been his faithful guide, leading him forward, warning him of the dangers. Maybe the old buzzard was right. Maybe Mibbs was just a guy in a crazy outfit. “All right,” Nick said. “I’m ready to put my shoulder to the wheel. But I don’t know anything about the Guild in this time. How am I supposed to recognize Ofan? And what do I do with them when I find them?”

“My priest.” Arkady put his arm around Nick’s shoulder, and his voice was tender. “Your job is not so big. You are not the James Bond, who knows everything and has the fancy car and the license to kill. No. You have a very small, very precise job to do for us.”

Uneasiness tingled along Nick’s spine.

“You are attending this party because