“What about your father? Did you try talking to him?”
“Aye,” she nodded, “till I was blue about the lips, but all that got me was the back of his hand and a week’s worth of bruises.”
“Your father hit you?” Nick stiffened beside her; his voice had gone deep and quiet.
“’Twas not unusual,” she said matter-of-factly. “He is fond of the drink, ye ken. I am told he was a great mon once, respected among his people.”
“What changed?”
“My mother died upon the childbed. I doona think he has ever quite forgiven me for that. He loved her verra much.”
Nick gaped at her. “How could he possibly hold you accountable for that? It wasn’t your fault, Isobeille. Sometimes bad stuff just happens.”
“Mayhap, but I dinnae help matters. I tried te be a dutiful daughter, but dinnae always do as I should, and men doona want a disobedient woman. Unmarried at four and twenty like an old maid! I am naught but an embarrassment te him, and I think he was glad te finally find a mon willing te have me. Te gain some coin was a fine bonus as weel.”
When Nick said nothing more, Isobeille sighed, interpreting his silence for agreement. “I dinnae want te wed Sir Galen, nor did I wish te remain under my father’s hand. I ken ‘tis wrong of me te wish for such things, but upon return te the village from the great feast ‘tis exactly what I did. Each night, as I awaited Sir Galen te return for me, I sat beneath the stars and prayed for deliverance. ‘Twas on my last night when I suddenly felt verra drowsy. I must have fallen asleep, and when I awoke, ye were saving me from the great silver beast.”
Chapter 5
It took a moment for Nick to realize she was talking about the bus, and with that realization came a flood of impossibilities, hitting him fast and hard.
“Isobeille,” Nick said slowly, keeping his voice calm and level, “what year was it when you fell asleep?”
“’Twas the year of our Lord, 1414.”
Nick blinked. He took a breath, letting that sink in. It wasn’t really as much of a shock as it should have been. Maybe he’d already been thinking somewhere along those lines way back in the far recesses of his mind, where things like time travel and great silvery dragons were still remote possibilities.
A long silence stretched between them, with only the muted sounds of the busy street far below to fill in the space.
“I have already figured out that I am no longer in that time,” she finally said quietly. “May I inquire as te what year it is here?”
Nick’s brown eyes met hers. “2014.”
Isobeille inhaled sharply, no doubt doing the calculations in her head. “I have travelled six hundred years through time?” she asked, her voice a bit weak and shaky.
“It would appear so.” Nick tilted the bottle and drained the last of his beer, infinitely glad he’d had the foresight to postpone this little chat until after his stomach was full and he’d kicked back a few. He felt surprisingly calm, considering.
“Ye are taking this verra well,” Isobeille said carefully, mirroring his thoughts. “Do ye think I am daft?”
“Honestly? I’m not sure what to believe. It all seems pretty... incredible.” Understatement of the year, that, sniped a slightly dazed (and perhaps buzzed) part of his brain.
“Aye, that it does,” she agreed. “But do ye no’ believe that sometimes prayers are answered?”
Did he? It was a legitimate question. He’d grown up going to church every Sunday, doing the Sunday school thing, learned all about faith and prayers and mysterious ways. It was his job, though – the shit he saw every day - that really put his faith to the test.
After a couple of years of arriving at nearly every kind of horrific scene imaginable, he felt pretty secure in the knowledge that there was a higher power at work, though he was a little fuzzy on the level of involvement, especially when it came to things like personalized prayers. Some people, it seemed, had guardian angels looking out for them. Others, not so much. And then there was the whole “be careful what you wish for” scenario, which seemed to describe Isobeille’s situation perfectly.
“Sure,” he answered finally, “but I’m not sure I’d consider being picked up out of my own time and dropped in front of a cross-town bus a good thing.”
To his surprise, Isobeille laughed, lifting some of the heaviness that seemed to have settled over them.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways. Mayhap I was put there for a purpose.”
“What possible purpose could God have for placing you in the path of almost certain death?” Nick honestly wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass. It was a valid question.
Isobeille considered that for a moment. “Weel, had I not been placed there at that verra moment, ye wouldnae have saved me.”
Her words rang like the finest crystal throughout his head. “Are you suggesting –“
“I amnae suggesting anything,” she said, laying her hand upon his arm, sending ripples of warmth into him before she realized what she was doing and pulled her hand away. He had the sudden urge to take her hand and put it right back where it was. “Nor would I presume te think I ken what the Lord intended. I am only telling ye the truth as ye asked and as I said I would.”
She was so different from anyone he had ever met. So... unjaded. Yet if everything she told him was true, she had every right to be copping a major attitude. Beaten by her father? Sold into marriage? Dropped barefoot and vulnerable into one of the toughest cities in the world six hundred years in the future? He’d be pissed off as hell. But Isobeille didn’t seem angry at all. If anything she was handling this all remarkably well, with grace and gratitude.
“Fair enough. Hey, for what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s wrong of you to want more.”
She smiled serenely. “Thank ye, Nick. Ye are a verra good mon te be doing all this for a woman ye dinnae ken.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he settled for giving her hand a little squeeze. It was weird, but helping Isobeille really didn’t feel like it was all that much of a hardship. Isobeille was sweet, intelligent, naïve, gentle. The word “docile” came to mind instantly, and it fit surprisingly well. Nick ignored the stirrings within, certain that they were only a natural reaction to all the things she had told him.
Those unfamiliar feelings didn’t mean anything. Especially when Nick had always been attracted to strong, independent women as a general rule. But inside, he was still a man. And surely any man would feel that tug of want to protect her, keep her safe, show her that there were some decent people still left in the world.
Right?
They cleaned up together, avoiding any more talk of Isobeille’s past by mutual, silent agreement. Isobeille insisted on doing the dishes since Nick provided dinner. He tried to explain that ordering pizza really wasn’t a big deal, but she was having none of it. She was so thrilled with the sink and the concept of running water – not to mention the dish soap and the bubbles it made – that he didn’t have the heart to refuse. Instead he just grabbed a towel and helped. It was kind of nice, he thought, doing something incredibly normal in the midst of so much weirdness.
“So I have been yammering all night,” she said, blowing another blast of bubbles into the air and grinning as she watched them drift slowly back down to the counter. “Tell me of yer beloved.”
“Gloria?” Funny, he really hadn’t thought much about her all night.
“Aye. She is verra lucky te gain the attention of such a mon as yerself. I would wager she is bonnie, isnae she?”
“She is beautiful,” he agreed. “And smart. She’s apprenticing for a major newspaper while working on her Master’s.”
“She has a master?” Isobeille asked. “Is she indentured, then?”
Isobeille was so easy to be around that he was finding it hard to remember that she was from an entirely different world (at least theoretically). He patiently explained that a Master’s degree was a form of higher education. She was greatly impressed.
“Ah, what a wonderful age,” she sighed wistfully. “That women can earn a wage and be schooled. Can they own land, then, too?”
He laughed, though inside he was still feeling a little shaken. “Yes. Women can do anything men do. If someone tells a woman she can’t do something simply because of her gender, it’s called discrimination, and it’s against the law.”
“Verily?” She asked, incredulous. It seemed a small thing to believe, especially to a woman who expected him to accept that she had time-travelled from medieval Scotland, but what did he know?
All too soon the dishes were done and Nick couldn’t think of a good enough reason to keep her awake any longer, especially when she looked like she was about to fall over from sheer exhaustion. After retrieving pillows and blankets and making up the sofa for her (she threatened to leave if Nick insisted upon her having his bed even once more), he reluctantly bid her a good night and headed into his bedroom.
Well, that explained why she wasn’t wearing shoes, he thought later as he lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling. Her father must have sensed how unhappy Isobeille was; the man required her to give them to him whenever he went anywhere, reasoning that without shoes she would be less likely to run off. Strange how it was that thought that struck him out of everything else he had heard. His head was still spinning.
Nick set his mind on a mental replay, reviewing what had to be the most bizarre evening in his entire life. Despite the fact that he had been an active participant, it was still difficult to wrap his mind around it. It read like the rejected outline of a Back To The Future script, or maybe a Dr. Who episode:
Save hot Scottish chick from certain death. Check.
Bring said Scottish chick home. Check.
Share pizza and beer with Scottish chick. Check.
Discuss time travel and her life in 15th century Scotland. Check.
The scariest part of all? He believed her.
There wasn’t any one thing that made him decide that Isobeille was not completely batshit insane as he had originally feared. It was the whole package, really. Her manner of dressing. Her speech. Her total cluelessness about the world around her. The look that she had given him after that first bite of pizza – the one that made him feel like he’d just given her a box of diamonds instead of a Mario’s Pepperoni and Extra Cheese.
Nobody was that good of an actress, especially since he could actually feel her emotions as she spun her story. And what a story!
What was perhaps even harder to stomach than the whole travelling through time thing was the thought that anyone could treat Isobeille that way. Sure, he’d only known her for a few hours, but it had been enough for him to know that she was quite possibly the sweetest, most compliant woman he’d ever met. That might also go a long way in explaining why he felt so protective of her all of a sudden, or the irrational anger he’d tried so hard to hide as she told her tale.
Especially when she brought up the stoning thing at the very beginning. He had been only marginally sure that she was joking about that, but now he wasn’t so sure at all. Jesus. Did they really do that kind of thing? Then again, if he remembered his history correctly, up until a couple hundred years ago, most cultures had some pretty brutal ways of dealing with anything out of the ordinary.
There was absolutely nothing ordinary about Isobeille or the things she had told him.
Like when she’d been talking about her life, and why she hadn’t fit in. Nick had been so flabbergasted by her words that he couldn’t respond. Old maid? Unwanted? Disobedient? What kind of people could ever view her like that, freaking idiots?
And what was the deal with her old man? It was hard to get past the fact that a father would try to sell his daughter, especially one as seemingly sweet and gentle as Isobeille. At the same time he had to wonder what kind of man would “buy” a girl like Isobeille. He absently totaled the cash in his wallet and the little bit he had in the bank, wondering if it would have been enough...
Maybe the knight really wasn’t such a bad guy; maybe he, like Nick, had seen his protective instincts rise to the surface and thought he could offer her something better. It still didn’t excuse the whole ownership thing or the breeding of heirs, however. Obviously, based on the little he knew about Isobeille so far, wherever she was from was pretty old-school in terms of technological advances. And clothing. But backwards village or not, that shit just wasn’t right.
Nick exhaled heavily. Why the hell did he even care so much?
Maybe it was the approaching holiday that was making him so sentimental. Or maybe it was the fact that he was feeling a little lost himself these days. Whatever the reason, he definitely felt a strange connection to this peculiar woman, and it wasn’t unpleasant.
The irresistible urge to see her again gripped him, though he had only left her barely an hour ago. Maybe he just needed to ensure that she really did exist, that he hadn’t made the whole thing up in his own mind.
Exiting his bedroom quietly so as not to wake her, he looked to the couch. His heart dropped when he saw the pillows and blanket scrunched up in the corner, the irrational thought that maybe he should have thought to have taken her shoes, too, popping into his mind before remembering she didn’t have any to begin with. Then his gaze was drawn to the window, where Isobeille sat in the deep sill, her knees drawn up close to her chest, staring out into the night. With her hair loose and sleep-tussled and wearing his oversized college football practice jersey, she was quite possibly the most adorable looking creature he’d ever seen. Would have been, if he hadn’t seen the incredibly lost expression reflected back at him in the glass.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked finally, because it was impossible to remain on the far side of the room any longer. She was like a powerful magnet, drawing him closer.
She shook her head. “My apologies. I dinnae mean te wake ye.”
“You didn’t. I’m having a little trouble nodding off myself.”
He moved slowly toward the window, wanting to be close but not to crowd her. They remained in companionable silence for a little while. Lying in bed, Nick had thought of a hundred different things to ask her, but he suddenly found himself at a loss, unable to think of a single one. Instead, he contented himself with simply keeping her company.
It was no hardship. The moonlight cast a silvery glow over her dark red locks, making them look as if they were covered in fairy dust (or what he imagined fairy dust would look like based on years of Disney animation).
“It must be hard for you,” he said finally. “To process all this, I mean.” To be in one world – the only one you had ever known – one minute, in a completely different world the next – it was beyond his immediate comprehension. While lying in bed and thinking upon all that she had told him, he came to the conclusion that he would not have handled the situation nearly as well. Hell, he probably would have jumped through that window by now, instead of just staring out through it.
She didn’t answer right away; he thought maybe she wouldn’t. He was about to go back to his room and leave her to her thoughts when she said, “Nay so much as ye might imagine. Truth be told, I dinnae really feel much a part of my old world, either. I amnae verra good at doing what I am told and have an unnatural curiosity about things, ye ken. Both are poor qualities for a woman te have.”
She turned briefly, offering him a slight, sad smile. “I even managed te rile ye a few times, and ye are mayhap the kindest mon I have ever met. I but wonder if there is anywhere I do belong.”
When had she riled him? He frowned, thinking over the events of the evening. His first words to her had been yelled into her face. Granted, he hadn’t known then what he knew now (or thought he knew), but that just made the fact that she’d trusted him so completely that much more incredible. She must have been scared witless as it was, but then to find herself tackled by some guy and yelled at and dragged through a world that had to have been nothing less than terrifying to her? It boggled the mind.
In his defense,
though, it was better than getting flattened by a bus.
“Come here,” he said, coaxing her onto the sofa with him. After a moment’s hesitation, she left her perch and slid down beside him. His arm went around her shoulders and she leaned tentatively against him. He ignored the sense of rightness that flooded through him, noting that it was just a natural reaction to doing something good for someone in trouble. Those kinds of feel-good vibes are what prompted him to become a paramedic in the first place, or so he told himself.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” he said quietly. “About Fate or God or whatever put you here, in this place, in this time, for a very specific reason. And I think you were right. You belong here, Isobeille.”
He didn’t say so, but he was thinking about himself, too. If he hadn’t felt the overwhelming need to help out at that accident at the end of the day, he wouldn’t have been running late, he wouldn’t have missed his date with Gloria, and he wouldn’t have been in the right place and time to keep Isobeille from being hit by the bus.
And she wouldn’t be next to him right now.
Her response was a soft sigh. Nick continued to hold her, trying not to think about just how perfectly she fit against him, or how right she felt beneath his arm. It was only a byproduct of circumstance, nothing more.
“But what will I do?” she asked. “It appears that I had not given much thought te what might happen if my prayers were indeed answered. I suppose that shows a great lack of faith on my part.”
“We’ll figure something out,” he said, stroking her hair as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Before long, her breathing became deep and rhythmic, and he knew she had finally fallen asleep. Grabbing a throw, he covered them both and leaned back, easing her with him gently so he would not wake her. He yawned, feeling warm and strangely content. As his eyes began to close of their own accord, he promised himself he’d go back to his own room in a few minutes...
Maiden in Manhattan Page 4
