Time Travel With a Rude English Boy from the Nineteenth Century.

PAYTON’S POV

We landed in a heap on polished oak floors. I studied the hallway of what seemed to be a modest house with floral wallpaper, oak furniture and sunlight that streamed through a stained glass window. Upon further inspection, the land outside of the window was green, healthy and blooming with vibrant flowers not indigenous to America. The house reeked of lovely perfumes, and medicine.

"Deja vu," I heard Dacre groan as I jumped up and raced down the foreign corridor. I lobbed off my uncomfortable shoes and leapt to my feet.

"Payton," Dacre called as he scrambled up. "Payton, wait!"

I could not oblige. My heart raced as I gathered my skirts and ran down the hallway to the room at the end of the hallway, the one with the door cracked open and whispered conversations leaking through the hinges...

I burst through the door and collapsed into the familiar surprised man who sat in a chair pulled up to a bed. "Dad!" I sobbed into his chest, inhaling his familiar scent of vanilla and nutmeg. "Dad, I've missed you!"

The figure hugged me back so fiercely, I was afraid I was going to snap in half. "My girl," he laughed joviously as he ruffled my hair. "My beautiful daughter has grown so much!"

I pulled back and laughed, tears still blurring my vision. I engraved his face into my mind, his messy dirty blonde hair and loving brown eyes and his large, clumsy hands. "Dad, when you left I took care of myself! I've mastered martial arts, and I got a scholarship and I've been working on my art, even though no one is buying... God, I've missed you!" I cried while hugging him tightly again.

"Beautiful," a voice sighed from the bed. I gasped and looked into my own bright blue eyes. "She's beautiful," the woman smiled, her platinum blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders in silk waves.

My breath caught in my throat. "Mom?"

DACRE'S POV

Payton's father was that modest man with the kind smile? She clung to him like she was afraid he would dissipate into the atmosphere. She was sobbing like a lunatic, and not the least bit abashed of it. My heart clenched unexpectedly. I had never seen Payton so... happy.

A voice from the bed distracted Payton from her father. A middle-aged woman lay in bed, so fragile. The woman was pale, with blue eyes that seemed too dull for someone of her beauty. Her hair was a blonde so light, it almost appeared white. Despite her heavenly beauty, something was off. Her face was drained of all color, her eyes sunken and her ribs protruding from beneath her soft blue nightgown.

As a thief and peasant of London, I have seen death many times. From the luster in her once bright eyes, I recognized the stale scent of illness wafting in the room. I knew enough to recognize that this woman was right on Death's doorstep.

"Mom?" Payton asked shyly.

The woman smiled divinely and took Payton's tanned, healthy hand in her gaunt one. "Dear, I've always dreamed of meeting you. Your father always talked about you like you were the Sun itself, and now I know he was right." She peered over Payton's shoulder to me. I hovered in the doorway, uncomfortable in this stranger's house.

"And who is this?" she laughed. The sound was as faint as her soft voice. I stared solemnly at this dying woman. "Is it the Moon? Payton, my Sunshine, have you found your Moon?"

Astoundingly, a small blush spread across Payton's cheeks. "Mother," she fumbled, the word awkward and foreign to her tongue, "this is Dacre Dalton, the best thief in London. He helped me be able to meet you, but he tricked me..."

"A thief?!" her father cried.

"A thief," her mother mused. "I don't think he's the thief here, Payton."

"What?" she asked as her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Well, isn't obvious?" her mother laughed. "Payton, you've snatched his heart right from under his nose! The way he sneaks looks at you, so adoringly."

"Oh, I see it now!" her father laughed, a booming sound compared to her mother's soft, melodic voice. "Don't you see, Payton? He's absolutely smitten!"

I ducked my head before a flush crossed my face. Dacre Dalton, THE best pickpocket in London, smitten? The thought! Rubbish! Burying my hands into my trouser pockets, I looked out the window to avoid their gazes, hating that my cheeks were probably pink. "I'll be outside," I mumbled incoherently before ducking out of the room.

It seems I could breathe again when I opened the hallway window and jumped to the garden outside, away from the house and Payton's awful, nosy dying parents.