Once Upon a Rose
Page 17
Kit--I mean, the duke. She sent her own
physician to him, and sat by his bedside until
I could return."
Deanie kept her head bent, not wishing to see
the king's displeasure as she praised the queen. But
Deanie felt it necessary. The king had no idea
what kind of a woman fate and diplomacy had
gifted him with.
Slowly, she raised her eyes. The king wore
an expression of mild befuddlement. "The queen?
She nursed Hamilton?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Deanie hastened
to add. "The queen has been most kind to both
myself and the duke." Deanie wanted to elaborate,
but she instinctively knew he was not ready to hear
such lavish commendation. Perhaps the king could only
tolerate a little of Queen Anne's praise at
a time.
The king frowned, and his black gaze slid
to his wife. "We are most pleased," he
announced to everyone in the hall, to Anne in
particular. "We are most pleased
indeed," he repeated. "I will visit
Hamilton anon." Then he patted Deanie's
hand and rejoined his wife.
Even from across the vast hall, Deanie could
feel the hatred blazing from Cromwell.
She had waited long enough.
That blasted bell-jingled clown of the queen's was
tumbling across the floor, much to the rapture of his
audience. Deanie ground her teeth, wondering when
she could at last leave the hall for Kit's room
below. Finally she was given the subtle nod from the
queen. She could leave.
She raced through the corridors again, much the way
she had run hours earlier when she had heard of the
king's arrival. Her slippers skidded on the
corners, and she bunched her gown in a handful between
her legs to get to Kit as soon as possible.
Grabbing the archway of a door to prevent herself from
slamming into a wall, she turned down the
hallway. Still breathless, and puffing a wisp of
hair away from her eyes, she entered Kit's
room.
"Whew!" she said, breathing hard and slamming the
door closed. "Talk about a bunch of stiff
shirts. Or should I say stiff doublets."
The room was brighter than before, illuminated by at
least a dozen thick yellow candles. Then she
saw Kit.
"Hey." She grinned, pleased beyond all
reason he was sitting up. "Did the barbers
finally leave you alone?"
"Indeed, they have left us all alone,
Mistress Deanie." The sonorous voice
came from King Henry, who was seated in the same
chair she had earlier abandoned.
"Your Majesty," she curtsied, flustered by the
unexpected presence of the king. She had seen him
retire, leaving the Great Hall with a simple
nod to his bowing subjects, and had assumed he
was going to his own chambers.
"Please, Mistress Deanie. No
fanfare." The king gestured to the other chair.
"We are amongst friends."
With only slight hesitation, she ducked into the
chair, her hands folded primly on top of her
lap. The three of them looked at each other,
sharing a sudden awkward silence as Deanie
struggled for something to say.
"How are you feeling?" she asked
Kit. Simultaneously, Kit spoke:
"I'm feeling much better."
The king chuckled. "Mistress Deanie, can you
hand us that piece of paper by your foot?"
Perplexed, she glanced down. Beside the leg of
her chair was a sheet of beige parchment, folded
into an oblong shape. She reached down and passed
it to the king.
"Your Majesty, I do not think ..." Kit
began. He had a strange tone to his voice,
beyond the exhaustion of the injury and illness. Her
eyes snapped to his, a questioning frown on her
face.
"Nonsense, Kit." The King laughed.
"Has your cousin seen the trick? Mistres
Deanie, this is most cunning. Show us again how it
works. The duke can always find means of amusing us.
Show us, Kit."
He passed the parchment to Kit. For a moment
Kit did nothing but lean back against the pillow and
close his eyes. Suddenly Deanie was alarmed.
"Kit, are you feeling ill?" She reached out
her hand to touch his forehead, but his skin was cool.
"Show us the trick," the king repeated, the note
of impatience unmistakable.
Taking a deep breath, Kit opened his eyes
and stared at her for a few moments. He did not
smile, but the hollows of his cheeks seemed
to deepen, as if he were under a great strain. Then,
without tearing his gaze from hers, he began to fold the
paper, again and again, into slender triangles.
"Ha! Now make it fly; Kit!" The king
seemed like a child, his fat hands clapping together in
delight. "What do you call it again? What was the
word, Kit?"
With a single motion, Kit launched the paper
into the air. It soared above the bed, then looped
down into Deanie's lap. She stared at it, not
believing, her hands trembling.
"It is called, Your Highness," Kit said,
his voice flat, "an aeroplane."
"Yes!" Henry thundered. "An
aero-plane! Most ingenious."
For a moment Deanie thought she was going to be
ill. The color drained from her face, leaving her
a deathly white. The only sound she could hear was
the fierce pounding of her heart.
"Mistress Deanie, fear not," said the king,
noting her sudden pallor. "This is not black
magic or sorcery. The Duke knows
many feats of engineering, unparalleled in the world of
science."
"A paper airplane," she said numbly.
The sound of a knock on the door pierced the
air. One of the senior butlers entered the room,
his face grave. "Your Highness." He bowed.
"The earl of Essex requests your attention. It
is a matter of the utmost importance, Sire."
"Cromwell has sent for us?" The king was
astounded, the paper airplane forgotten.
"By God, I shall see him fall." Gone was the
jovial monarch. The king in his fury rose to his
feet, oblivious to Kit and Deanie, and strode
from the room in two great bounds. The manservant,
cowering at the king's heels, followed him through the
door.
Deanie was staring straight ahead, her mind
reeling.
"I was going to tell you, Deanie," Kit said
gently. She did not respond, and he continued:
"I was born in 1917, in Kent. My father was
killed in the Great War, so my mother raised myself
and my older sister, Caroline. Are you listening?"
She swallowed. He reached over to her, and
blindly she took his hand. She was still trembling.
"How did you get here?" Her voice was
strangely hollow.
"Through the maze. Deanie, there is something
about the
maze--it is a portal of sorts. I've been
trying to get back to my own time. Every chance I
get while I'm here at Hampton, I enter the
maze, hoping to find the portal once more. When
I met you I was trying to find my way back
home."
With a deep breath she looked at him. "What
year are you from?"
His callused fingers folded over hers. "I
came here in 1940, and I've been in this time for
ten years."
Slowly, he drew her toward him, his good arm
encircling her as she reached his side.
Mechanically, she leaned against him, her arms
folded against herself as if for protection. For a long
time she said nothing and simply closed her eyes,
her head tucked against his chest. He stroked her
hair with a soothing, hypnotic rhythm.
"How did it happen to you?" Her voice sounded
more even.
Her head rose slightly as he took a
deep breath. "I was a pilot in the
RAF, the Royal Air Force. I was to fly
my last sortie, to keep the damn Luftwaffe
from invading England. We were waiting for you Yanks
to join us. You did, right?"
"Yes," she murmured against his shirt. "But
I was no whiz in history."
"History?" She felt him smile. "Gad,
but I feel old. Hitler lost, right?"
"Oh, sure. He shot himself in a bunker at
the end. He was a real nut by then."
"He was always a nut." Kit looked up at
the ceiling, the flickering shapes made by the candles
against the wood. "Do you recall what year the war
ended in?"
Deanie thought for a moment. Kit's hand tightened
into a fist before she answered. "It was 1945. There
were all these fifty-year celebrations when I
left."
"My God!" Kit's arm tensed. "How did
we survive? We were about done in by 1940."
They remained silent, each lost in thought.
"You were a pilot?" Deanie's question jarred the
quiet.
He nodded.
"That must have been scary as all get-out."
At first she thought he hadn't heard her.
Finally he spoke, his voice was rough and low.
"By the time I came here, most of my chums were
gone. Chaps I'd gone to university with, good men
all. I don't know why I survived, why I
lived and they didn't. I still miss them. They
haven't been born yet, and I miss them."
He cleared his throat, and she remained silent.
"That's why it was relatively easy for me when
I came here. A joust is nothing compared with a
duel in the sky. I suppose I attracted the
king's attention because my style was even more reckless
and foolhardy than his own."
Deanie raised a hand to her eyes and rubbed
them, as if trying to massage sense into her jumbled
thoughts. "I knew you were different from the rest," she
said at last. "Right from the first, you accepted my
story of where I came from. Now it makes sense
--at least the reason you were so kind to me."
"If I was kind, it was because I understood what
you were experiencing."
"Oh."
He smiled. "At first, Deanie, that was the
reason. Almost immediately, it came to me that I--
well, I had grown fond of you."
She tilted her head up, her lips brushing
along his jaw. "Really?" she asked, trying
to keep the pleading tone from her voice.
He turned his face to hers, and she closed her
eyes, eager for the feel of his mouth against hers.
Instead, he dropped a distracted kiss on her
forehead. "Tell me, what happened exactly
when you came here through the maze?"
Startled, she opened her eyes and glared at
him. "I thought I told you everything."
"From the beginning, Deanie. Maybe we can
figure out how to get back." His tone was eager,
full of hope.
"Okay ... let me see. We were filming a
music video, and I entered the maze."
"It was spring for you, but I came here on
September 11, 1940." His brow creased in
thought. "Perhaps the sun is the same distance from the
earth in spring as it is in the autumn. About what
time was it?"
"Close to sunset. We were about to quit for the
day, because we had already lost the best light."
"The same with me," he said, his hand stroking her
hair again. "It was time for me to leave for my
mission, and the sun reflected off a pair of
goggles in my hand."
"And I was carrying the soda bottle," she
added excitedly. "Did it make blue-white
lines, like a triangle?"
"Exactly! It was a prism, but it seemed
to be almost alive."
"I wonder if we go back there at sunset,
whether the same thing could happen again."
"You came in spring, I arrived in the
autumn." He spoke softly, as if thinking
aloud. "If there is some significance in the time
of the year, the placement of the sun, we can only
hope to catch the same alignment."
"Then we need to hurry, Kit. It will be
summer soon. If we miss it now, we might
have to wait until fall to try again."
"We can't wait," he warned. "The whole
court will be on its ear by then, and we may not
survive."
Deanie raised her head. "It might work, you
know."
"But if it does, we have no guarantee that we
would land in our time. I came from 1940, you are from
a half century later. God only knows what
year we would emerge."
"Maybe we should just stay here," she wondered
quietly.
"Oh, hell," he muttered. "Cromwell's
out to kill us, the king wants to make you his
mistress, and at any moment either of us can contract
the plague or be charged with witchcraft." He
glanced down at his shoulder, which was beginning to throb
with molten pain. "We have to leave England,
Deanie. We cannot stay here--it has become far
too dangerous. Perhaps you should flee to Spain
alone. I could join you--"
"No," she said with finality. "I will stay with
you, Kit." He did not respond, and she
suddenly felt embarrassed. "After all, you have
been so, um, helpful. It would be rotten for me
to duck out on you now."
"You needn't stay from a sense of obligation."
His voice was tight. "You are not required to pay
me back."
He had become still, no longer stroking her
hair. The arm about her shoulders was tense, as if
he was reluctant to touch her.
She swallowed and looked down at her hand, her
palm resting on his chest. Her fingertips were still
callused from years of playing the guitar, yet she
was exquisitely sensitive to his every movement.
He seemed to stop breathing. Beneath her hand she could
feel his heart bea
ting heavily, painfully.
An overwhelming ache welled up within her
throat, theatening to choke her with its intensity. Why
was she acting like this? Why was she being so dishonest with
Kit, with herself?
"Kit," she whispered, her voice wavering,
"I lied."
She felt him glimpse down at her, but he
couldn't see her face. "What did you lie
about?" He spoke softly, his breath ruffling her
hair.
"I lied because I didn't tell you the truth."
He sighed, a little of the tension flowing from him.
"That is the usual definition of a lie, Deanie.
What did you lie about?"
Turning her face toward his chest, she inhaled
the familiar scent of him, the feel of his shirt
and the muscles of his chest, allowing his warmth to give
her the courage to speak. "I don't want
to leave without you because I love you."
For a moment they both remained motionless.
Deanie cringed, waiting for him to push her away--
or worse, to laugh. Her hand clutched
his shirt, gripping with all her might against whatever
his reaction would be. Every second seemed
exaggerated, a slow-motion agony of waiting.
Slowly, hesitantly, she allowed herself
to look up. His lips were tight, the hollows of his
cheeks prominent, causing his face to take on a
harsh, fierce appearance. His eyes gazed
straight ahead, a burnished sheen reflected in
the clear depths. She thought perhaps he had not heard
what she said, and for a fleeting instant she was
relieved. Then she saw him blink.
A single tear escaped from his right eye.
It traced a path across his lean cheekbone, and
as he turned toward her, it slid onto her hand.
His words flowed as a single breath. "My
God, Deanie. How I love you."
With that his mouth was crushed against hers, and she
felt his hand fan out against her back. Startled,
dizzy with a strange warmth that seemed to spiral
through her abdomen, she relaxed against him.
His mouth, those lips she had dreamed of touching
since first she saw him, pressed against hers with a
sweet, firm need. He shifted, putting most
of his weight on his uninjured shoulder, and as he
moved her tongue grazed his teeth. Through her
exploding haze of passion she could feel the single
crooked tooth, the gleaming imperfection that had
haunted her every moment.
He pulled away and stared at her. A strand of
her hair fell across her face, and he gently
pushed it back. "Deanie," he said softly.
She opened her eyes, glazed with desire,
unseeing.
"Deanie, we can't."
He too was breathing hard, and a glimmer of
perspiration dotted his forehead.
"What?" she answered groggily.
He groaned, pulling her against him again. She
reached up to kiss his glorious mouth once more, and
he laughed.
"Deanie, at any moment either the king or
Cromwell may enter unannounced." He
swallowed.
That stopped her, and she was unable to repress an
involuntary shiver. His hand caressed her arm.
"It just doesn't seem important now,
Kit. Cromwell and all those guys seem so very
far away."
"That's a dangerous way of thinking." His eyes
slid to hers.
"I just want to stay here forever." She sighed, a
slight smile on her lips.
"Please listen to me. Now, more than ever, we
must decide what we are going to do. Perhaps we should
escape tonight. If we flee to Manor
Hamilton, we could buy ourselves some time. I have
men there, servants who are loyal to me."
"Are you well enough to travel?" Deanie cast a
worried glance at his shoulder, and when she saw it
she immediately jumped off the bed and reached for a clean
cloth. Their embrace had caused the wound to start
bleeding again.
"I'm fine." His good arm remained in the open
position, where she had just been, but he too frowned
when he saw the shoulder. "Damn."
She dipped the cloth into the water and pressed it
against the wound to stem the bleeding. "How far away
is Manor Hamilton?"
"About fifty miles," he admitted.
"Great. How will we get there? Fly in one of
your paper airplanes?"
He grinned. "If you only knew how
marvelous it sounds to hear you say airplanes.
Ouch."
"Sorry."
Then he stopped smiling. "You must leave first,
Deanie. I can't travel just yet. It would be
folly to attempt a journey of such length with this
blasted shoulder."
"No." She refolded the damp cloth. "I
don't want to be separated from you."
"Nor I from you. But it may be our only way
out, barring the maze. And that may very well fail."
"I just have this awful feeling that if we are
separated we may never get back together."
He thought for a moment. "I believe Suffolk
knows a duke in Spain, and I am acquainted with
some diplomats from Queen Katherine's court who
have returned to Spain. I wouldn't want to slow you
down, and with me bleeding all over the continent we
couldn't get far enough to be safe."