“I already respected Rosalind immensely,” he says, “but seeing this, my awe for her has grown. I cannot imagine what it was like for your sister, trapped in this world.”

“Nor can I,” I say, tears prickling my eyes.

His arms tighten around me. “But she survived the ordeal, and she now returns to this world despite it. That makes her the second most remarkable Hastings sister I know.”

I nod. “Yes, Portia is quite remarkable.”

He chuckles under his breath. “You know that I meant you, but I should not set Portia in last place, even if it is a very difficult competition. While I do not know her as well as I do Rosalind, I hope to rectify that at Christmas, if I might lure Portia into conversation. She has been very quiet with me, and I am endeavoring not to take that personally.”

“Do not. Portia has been rather reserved for even me these last couple of years. She—” I wave a hand. “I will not burden you with my family troubles.”

“It is no burden if I hope to someday be part of that family myself. Perhaps a marriage license would help. Might I sneak that into your Christmas stocking?”

He says it lightly, but I know he is not entirely joking. I twist in his arms and kiss his cheek. “You may consider it for my Easter basket. As for Portia, take that medical book with you, and you shall not be able to get rid of her.”

That makes him smile. I have two sisters. Rosalind is the oldest, married with a son and a newborn daughter. Portia is next, and like Nicolas, she is trained as a doctor, though also without the formal schooling. In her case, she has been unable to obtain that formal schooling because of her sex. In his, he was supposed to obtain it in France, but the revolution put an end to that, and in my own time, as a Black man, he would find it as difficult a goal as Portia does. Still, both are—for all intents and purposes—as qualified as any medical professional, through apprenticeships, practice and study.

“Then I know what I will buy her,” he says. He looks down at the road below. “Yet we would need to locate a bookshop.”

“Which might be the one thing to tempt me out of this room.”

“We will contact Bronwyn with the device she provided.”

He means the “cell phone,” as she calls it. Rosalind says it’s a “mobile phone” here in England. As if things were not complicated enough . . .

The phone sits on the desk. It is a wonder among wonders, and I find myself both spellbound and daunted. Apparently, it does many things—things that make my head ache thinking about them—but for us, it is intended as a way of instantly communicating with Bronwyn or her husband, William, who are in the twenty-first century, preparing for the holidays.

I have only called Bronwyn once, to test it. I also might have been unable to resist randomly hitting numbers until someone answered . . . someone who spoke a language neither Nicolas nor I recognized, and we realized we might have been speaking to someone halfway around the world. My head also hurts thinking about that.