Page 32 of I Know You

Everything swirls around me. Ben’s hand starts to slip away. I hold it as tightly as I can, adding my other hand for good measure. I still tumble to the floor when we land.

“Up we go,” Ben says, hauling me to my feet.

I feel dizzy. I look around. We’ve landed in a different room, one crowded with chairs and couches. I don’t spot a bed, so I’m guessing it’s some kind of receiving room and not someone’s bedroom. Ben dashes to a window, ascertaining our position in the house, before coming back to me.

“We’d better get out of here,” he whispers, pulling me toward the door. He opens it cautiously.

A girl cries out. Ben swears under his breath.

“What are you doing in there? Who are you?” her voice demands.

“We were shown in over half an hour ago,” Ben replies. “We’ve been waiting for Mr. McCann.”

The girl’s expression changes. “Oh, dear. I’m sorry Mr. … er?”

“Johnson,” Ben snaps. I try not to laugh at the feigned irritation in his tone.

“I’ll go find Mr. McCann right away, Mr. Johnson. If you’ll wait in the parlor…?” She motions toward the door we’ve come out of.

“If I must,” Ben huffs, turning to go back in. He waits a few seconds and then cranes his neck to watch the girl disappear down the hall. “Come on.” He yanks me out of the room. “The fact that the maid recognized the name means we landed in the year we thought we would.”

We dart through the house until we come to the front door and slip out. Ben takes my arm once we’re walking down the street, and I accept it as second nature now. He smirks at the little sigh I let loose.

“I don’t know much about the twenties, darling, but I think you have much more independence than 1901. Chin up—You!” He stops a boy on the corner. “Will you take a dollar for that paper?”

The boy’s eyes light. “A dollar, sir?”

Ben nods and yanks out a bill, taking one of the papers from the boy.

“Sure you don’t want more than that?” the boy asks, looking guilty.

“No, thank you.” Ben nods at him and pulls me forward. “Just as we suspected…” he mutters. “July 25th, 1928.”

Him saying the date makes me take in the streets around me with more vigilance. The glamorous-looking cars with their round headlights and body styles only a slight step up from Model Ts. Women in skirts that swish around their knees, enjoying the warm summer sun beating down. Men in slacks and suit coats, and even the most underdressed wearing button up shirts, and everyone’s head adorned with a hat of some kind. The sidewalks more crowded with people than the streets are with cars.

“Well, it’s good to know that I won’t stick out like a sore thumb and that all those episodes of Downton Abbey weren’t a total waste,” I say. “What are we going to do first?”

He glances at me. “First? Catch a ride to Gracewoods and visit William. It will take a day or two for me to access some funds. I’ve only got about fifty dollars on me, and … I’m going to have to go back and talk to Mr. McCann about his visitors and track down where our guy went after he got here.”

I smile at his plans and the way he goes after the task at hand. He might have put up a fuss, but he’s enjoying this. Having the almost surety that I can get us out makes this trip easier.

He gets us a cab, and we both settle in for the ride, eyes glued to the sights around us—well, Ben’s, and for the most part mine as well, but I also enjoy watching him take in everything around us with excitement.

The city finally gives way to the greenery and more expansive grounds of bigger estates of the Hudson River Valley. The cab slows and turns into a long drive. The house is large, a beautiful red brick with white trim and black shutters, with two L-shaped wings spreading out from the main portion. When the cab comes to a stop at a grand-looking front door, I’m so busy admiring it I don’t have to tell myself to wait for the cabbie to open my door, and I automatically take Ben’s hand to step out when he offers it. The house is breathtaking, surrounded as it is by maple trees.

“I told you he did a good job with the money on his own,” Ben says in a low, proud voice as we mount the steps. I let him enjoy his admiration without reminding—and embarrassing—him about the part he played in making it happen.

A butler shows us in and takes us into the library to wait for William, and my nerves make me fidget. It’s been over twenty years since we last saw him. Will he recognize us? Should we try to explain why we haven’t changed while he’s grown older?

“What should we say?” I ask Ben from my perch on a settee. The furniture in the room is boxy-looking, chairs and couches with dark wood frames artfully mixed with older pieces like chaises that must have been in the house for years, all set about in groups of three and four, some in front of the tall windows letting in the gorgeous sunshine filtering through the leaves of the trees. On the other three walls are bookshelves reaching high into the vaulted ceiling of the room.

“I plan on telling him the truth,” Ben says. “William is a good friend, and it’s about time he learned the real story—especially after I disappeared without a word for over twenty years.” He runs his fingers over the brim of his hat, turning it over and over as we wait.

The heavy wooden door of the library swings open before I can reply to his plan. William strides in and freezes a few steps inside the door. His brow furrows, and his lips mouth, “How?” By my calculation, he’s only in his mid to late fifties and still looks young, except with wrinkles around his eyes, gray hair sprinkled heavily at his temples and less so throughout his head, making his blond hair appear sun-bleached rather than gray. He’s thickened around the waist, but only a little, as men do when they age, and he’s still good-looking.

“Ben? Miss Granville?” he says, coming forward as he shakes his head and holds a hand out to Ben. “Why, I swear neither of you have aged at all. Are my memories clouding my vision?” He lets loose a deep chuckle as he and Ben embrace, patting each other on the back.

More footsteps following William into the room draw me away from the scene of the men reuniting, and I understand his flabbergasted response at our appearance for a moment as I meet the gaze of a young man in the exact image of the William I had known before at The Villa, handsome as his father had been and as dapper as Ben is in a pair of dark slacks, a shirt and tie, and a sweater vest. He winks, and I smile in a soft way I have dozens of times at his affection⁠—