Out of the Blue (A Regency Time Travel Romance) Read Online Free

descent.
    The narrow staircase turned in a tight circle
to her right, with the stone steps coming out at an angle from the
inside wall. Cassandra shivered in her vee-necked sweater and
miniskirt as each step took her farther into the belly of the White
Tower, away from the sunlight, and wished she hadn’t left her
jacket behind at the hotel. Her scraped knees stung with each step
she took, but she had to go on, just like the courageous,
dim-witted female in every bad Gothic novel she had ever read; the
heroine who, all alone, and while the reader screamed “No! You idiot, don’t go in there!” holds up her candle—or, in this
case, her cigarette lighter—and enters the prerequisite forbidden room.
    “When you get home, Cassie, you’d better make
an appointment to see Mother’s shrink,” she told herself, speaking
out loud in order to calm her racing heart, “because this is
definitely getting weird. ”
    The lighter grew unbearably hot between her
fingers and she let it go out, plunging herself into complete
darkness. Anyone with a brain, she told herself, anyone with a
single drop of common sense, would turn back now, locate sweet Miss
Smithers and a couple of Band-Aids, and suffer through the rest of
the tour.
    It was impossible. She had to go on. The
stairway had, ridiculously, become a small mountain to climb, on
Cassandra’s quest to prove to herself that she could at last get
away with breaking the rules. At least that’s what she told
herself. She certainly wasn’t going to dwell on the growing feeling
that she was no longer the commander of this particular
expedition.
    Bracing her hands against the walls, her
steps unsteady as she fumbled for footholds on the narrow, uneven
stones, Cassandra continued her descent until, to her great relief,
she detected a soft bluish glow somewhere below her, lighting her
way. Her relief was quickly tempered by the realization that
someone had to have turned on the light and that, once again, she
was going to be caught doing something she shouldn’t be doing.
    “So, what else is new?” She gave another
defiant toss of her head and pushed on. No one was going to yell at
her, or clap her in irons in the dungeon next to the rest rooms.
After all, she was an American, and everyone knew Americans were
just a little crazy.
    The blue light grew brighter, but it didn’t
hurt her eyes. It was a soft, nonthreatening blue, not in the least
harsh, and it seemed to rise around her from all sides rather than
shine up at her. She felt warmed and comforted by the light, yet
strangely excited. How New Age, Cassandra thought wildly. Shirley MacLaine would love it.
    Looking down, she realized that she could no
longer see her feet, for the light had somehow changed to a cool
blue mist. I must be near the water, she told herself,
searching for an explanation that wouldn’t send her screaming for
Miss Hammond.
    Cassandra took three more steps before
realizing that she was no longer on the stone staircase but had
reached a small, oddly shaped room that had no windows. She looked
about for one of the handy-dandy signs that would tell her where
she was, but the mist had risen above her head and she couldn’t see
anything but blue.
    Oh, God, I’ve really done it this time.
Shirley might get off on this stuff Cassie, but your knees are
rattling—so if you’re going to get hysterical, now’s the time. She drew in a quick breath, not daring to move as the mist invaded
her nose, her mouth, her ears, smothering her.
    And then she was floating, no longer able to
feel the hard stone floor beneath her feet. Clapping her hands over
her eyes, and fighting the impulse to call for her mommy, Cassandra
Louise Kelley, twenty-five-year-old woman of the world, threw back
her head and screamed.

Chapter 2
    P eregrine Walton
stood stock-still, his fists jammed on his hips. “Marcus, you’re
insane. Totally insane. You do know that, don’t you? I mean,
I just thought—seeing as I’m your best friend