A Home for Helena (The Lady P Chronicles Book 2) by Susana Ellis Read Free Book Online

surprises."
    "Well…," Helena began. Mrs. Herne really was a stranger, after all.
    Mrs. Herne rolled her eyes. "The guest bedroom has a key," she offered. "Just in case you're worried about me being an axe-murderer."
    Helena chuckled at the thought of the affable gypsy brandishing an axe. "All right. Fine. And thank you," she added, feeling rather ungrateful.
    But she did lock her door that night. One could never be completely sure about people, not these days.
----
    B y noon the next day , Helena and Mrs. Herne had determined a plan of action. Mrs. Herne and her associate judged the locket to have been created in the late 1780's, at the renowned jeweler, Rundell & Bridge, the miniatures painted sometime later.
    "So if I was born around 1790, I should be the age I am now in 1817," mused Helena. "And that is where I should go to find out where I came from."
    "Yes. And how fortunate that my good friend Lady Pendleton will be there to assist you!" Mrs. Herne exclaimed. "I happen to know that she was in Town that year. Truly, my dear, you could not have a better person to help you with your investigations."
    "Mrs. Pendleton."
    "A time traveling friend of mine. From the Regency."
    Mrs. Herne paid little attention to Helena's qualms. Seating herself at a small writing-desk, she pulled out paper and pen and began making a list of things for Helena to do to prepare for the journey, including the best choice of safe places to "appear", preferably not in the middle of a busy street where she could be run over by a vehicle, as had happened with her own mother.
    Not a very reassuring thought.
    "There is an element of danger," Mrs. Herne said absently. "But that's true whether you stay or go. Stay and you may get flattened by a lorry, or a plane might fall on you. Go, and you may just find out what you've wanted to know all your life. C'est la vie."
    Easy enough to say for a woman who seemed to be immortal.
    By the time she left Mrs. Herne's and checked into a hotel—the agency, alas, having no room for her after all—her head was spinning. Was she really considering making an attempt to travel through time? To beg assistance from some time-traveling woman called Lady Pendleton who didn't know her from Adam? But then, Mrs. Herne was pretty much an enigma too. Was she a fool to trust either one of them? Perhaps, but it wasn’t like she had to jump off a cliff or otherwise risk her life to do it. All she had to do was to clasp a certain gold-flecked black stone tightly in her hands and concentrate on thinking about where she wanted to travel.
    “But you must truly wish it,” Mrs. Herne cautioned. “Reflect on your desire to be reunited with your true family and live the life you were meant to live.”
    And how to return if things didn’t work out in the nineteenth century?
    Mrs. Herne waved her hand in the air. "Simple. It's the same procedure. If you should lose the stone, though, Agatha will help you. Lady Pendleton. Or you can drop by my shop on Gracechurch Street. But you might not find me there right away. I believe I was traveling a great deal that summer. You have a better chance with Lady Pendleton. She knows the drill.”
    And what if she couldn’t find Lady Pendleton?
    “Oh well, you’re a bright girl. Smart, educated, and used to getting around on your own. Keep your wits about you and learn from your surroundings. You’ll be fine.”
    Would she? Helena recalled Claire Fraser being branded a witch in Outlander and briefly wondered if they burned witches at the stake in the early 1800's. Or had they been planning to dunk her, before Jamie came to the rescue?
    Mrs. Herne was frowning. “That was a work of fiction, nothing more. That Gabaldon woman never time-traveled herself or she would know how it's really done."
    It was eerie how easily the gypsy lady read her thoughts.
    “If this is where you belong, you’ll adapt. In time.”
    Helena didn’t like the sound of “if.”
    But in the end, she couldn’t resist. The