by Lynn Kurland
“Is that so?” he asked.
She met his gaze and he was momentarily taken aback by the bleakness in her eyes. Saints, but he readily recognized the desolation. Aye, she’d lost much. Whether that included part of her memory was something he couldn’t tell, but she had certainly lost something dear to her.
A man?
The thought flashed through his mind before he could stop it, but he squelched the impulse to pause and consider the idea. It mattered not to him if she pined after some fool. All that mattered was that she eat so she wouldn’t be an encumbrance to him on his journey. Trying to make peace with Hugh had been a foolish idea. He had no intention of leaving his keep to do anything remotely as foolish again. Aye, the journey had been naught but a misery from the moment he’d left Burwyck-on-the-Sea in a torrential downpour to the moment he’d felt a sudden wave of chivalry sweep over him like nausea and prod him into scooping up a troublesome wench to save her from Hugh’s dogs. He should have let them make a meal of her.
The memory of finding her in Hugh’s fields brought another troubling question to his mind. How had she come to be there alone, without any trace of gear or baggage? Had she merely wandered off, or had her companions left her behind? And if they’d left her behind, was it because she was daft?
Or was she, as Hugh supposed, a faery?
Richard clapped a hand to his head. By the saints, he was the one on the path to madness. The woman had likely just become lost and he had worsened her dilemma by sending her flying off his horse. The least he could do was see her fed until Henry arrived, then his task would be done.
He reached over and snatched an apple from Warren’s pile of sustenance. Without ceremony, he pulled Jessica’s hand free of the cloak and slapped the fruit into it.
“Eat. If you’re weak, you’ll hinder me and I’ve no time for that.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That matters not to me. Eat, lest you provoke me further.”
“I’m not your servant to be told what to do!”
“You’re of less worth to me than a servant,” he said bluntly, “for a servant would do my bidding without question. Put away your foolish womanly sorrows and obey my command. Your trivial cares will not be what keeps me from reaching my home as quickly as possible.”
“Trivial?” she echoed, her eyes wide with sudden pain.
“Aye, trivial,” he pressed on ruthlessly, “as are all womanly cares.”
She opened her mouth to retort, then shut it with a snap. She reached over and took a piece of bread and a hunk of cheese from Warren, ignoring the lad’s bereft look. Then she took the apple and bit into it viciously.
“Do you know what you are?” she said, between bites.
Richard watched the fire in her eyes and found that the sight of it relieved him somewhat. The last thing he needed was a bawling woman to contend with. Not that he was used to contending with women anyway outside the bedchamber, but he supposed if the task was thrust upon him, ’twas better that the wench have a bit of sharpness to her tongue.
Then again, perhaps ’twas better he return to his former position of wanting her to be meek and tractable. Surely she would be easier to cow if that were her mien.
Richard suddenly had the desire to throw up his hands and retreat to the safety of a sentry post. He had no idea which way he would have preferred the wench before him and it irritated him to find he was even having such a foolish debate with himself. He cared nothing for the handsomeness of her face, nor for the fire in her eyes. He had a bloody keep to build and no time to be distracted by some foolish girl who had obviously gotten separated from her company and wandered onto Hugh’s fields.
“A month,” he muttered. “I can endure this for a month.”
“Well?” she demanded. “Don’t you want to know?”
He suspected he didn’t, but there was no sense in her thinking he was afraid to hear her assessment of his character.
“What am I?” he asked reluctantly.
“A chauvinist.”
Chauvinist was no word he’d ever heard before and he prided himself on having learned a great deal on his travels. He looked at her with narrowed eyes.
“A chauvinist?”
She nodded, taking another bite of apple that made him very relieved she hadn’t take a like bite out of his backside.
“Aye,” he said, deciding suddenly to assure her he was familiar with her term for him, “that I am. You would do well to remember it.”
“I doubt I could forget it, even if I wanted to.”
Somehow, he had the feeling chauvinist was not flattering. And, torn between admitting his stupidity and saving his pride, he walked away. The wench was eating. He’d won that battle.
He remained on the far side of the camp until most of the men had settled down to sleep. No fires had been lit. The warmth would have been pleasant, but it also could have meant unwanted and unforeseen arrows in the back. Life instead of comfort was never a poor trade.
He rose and began to walk, having no destination in mind. To his discomfort, he found himself again standing over Jessica. She was trembling even beneath his cloak. Warren lay next to her, sleeping peacefully. Richard didn’t stop to think, he merely reached down and stripped away his brother’s blanket. The boy woke with a curse, then shut his mouth hastily. He lay back down and stared up at Richard, mute.
Richard ignored the look in his brother’s eye, something he suspected might have been reproach, and draped Warren’s blanket over Jessica. He didn’t remain to see if that helped her at all. That he had even made the effort to look after her galled him. No one had ever cared for his comfort; why should he bother troubling himself for anyone else?
Two turns about the camp only succeeded in landing him back where he’d started. He looked down at Jessica and saw again in his mind’s eye the bleak look in her eye he’d seen that afternoon. She had lost something very dear to her, and despite himself, he felt a kinship with her because of it. He’d lost his innocence and any hope of joy. What she’d lost was a mystery, but he had the feeling he would find it to be grave indeed when he learned of it.
That thought pulled him up short. As if he would trouble himself to question her! Yet he found the thought of it almost irresistible. After all, he would have the keeping of her for almost a month. There was little sense in not having a bit of diversion after he had labored long and hard during the day.
He lowered himself to sit on the ground next to her. She trembled still. With a sigh, Richard gave her the blanket he’d reserved for himself. He could do without the warmth. He’d slept many a night without a cloak in his youth for reasons he didn’t care to think about overmuch. Just the memory of his father’s pit was enough to make him shiver.
Or at least the memory had been in the past. The pit had been filled and his father’s hall reduced to rubble. Nothing awaited him on the seashore but his own partially completed keep. Whatever memories he would have would be ones he made himself. His father had no more power over him.
He unclenched his fists when he realized his blunt nails were nigh to drawing blood from his palms.
5
Jessica stared at the broad back of the knight who rode in front of her. She had all the stains on his heavy woolen cloak memorized. Forcing herself to do so was what had kept her from becoming hysterical the day before. Today, life was better. She was only mildly interested in how his coat had become so soiled. She had too many other things to worry about—namely, trying to keep herself from falling headfirst into a black depression. There was a particular reason for her fear of that, one she didn’t have to think about too hard to remember.
It was the fact that despite her high hopes of finding herself back in her comfortable bed at Henry’s estate, she had woken between two people who belonged in those musty books in the medieval history stack at the public library.
Things had not improved from there.
There hadn’t been any more pay phones lining the road today t
han there had been yesterday. She hadn’t seen anything even remotely resembling a town either. A few gatherings of crude huts here and there, but nothing that would boast something as ordinary as a phone. Too bad. She’d had such plans to lay into Henry for having somehow thrown her into such an amazing reenactment of medieval times.
Crying had seemed such an inadequate way to express her distress that she’d settled on shivering violently. That had only earned her a lecture from Richard de Galtres on the frailties of women in general. He’d also thrown another blanket around her. She wasn’t sure which she preferred less: when he was ignoring her or when he was treating her like a recalcitrant child. What she really wished was that he’d treat her to a one-way ticket back home.
To the twentieth century, that is, because as much as she wanted to hope differently, she knew she couldn’t deny the truth much longer. The facts were all around her.
She was stuck.
In medieval England.
With a man who wasn’t exactly what she’d always wished for in a Prince Charming.
Her mother would be frantic. Jessica could just see the scene at home when she was supposed to have been back in New York, calling for her weekly check-in. Her grandmother would be in the kitchen, either cooking or stitching. Her mother would be puttering around the house, periodically dropping in to look at the phone, as if by her very will alone she could make it ring.
But it never would.
Unless Henry had already called and broken the news of Jessica’s disappearance.
Jessica closed her eyes and said a small prayer that somehow time worked differently in different centuries and she would be home before her mother had to get that phone call.
“Merciful saints above!”
Jessica opened her eyes in time to find that the company had halted. She reined her horse reflexively and looked at Warren, who rode to her left.
“What is it?”
Warren looked faintly puzzled. “Home. I think. I don’t remember the outer wall being this far from the keep, though. And ’tis far taller than I remember it.”
“Maybe you’ve just forgotten how it looked the last time you saw it.”
He flashed her an embarrassed grin. “Perhaps.” He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Can you smell the sea? By the saints, I’ve missed it!”
Jessica couldn’t smell much beyond sweat, leather, and horses, but she didn’t bother to say as much. If Warren thought he was smelling something other than those things, he was more than welcome to the fantasy. Jessica pulled both Richard’s cloak and his blanket more closely around her and wondered if she’d ever warm up. Part of her chill might have come from her suppressed panic, but most of it came from just the air around her. Oh, and the fact that she’d just spent the last two nights camping out without the necessary gear, like a suite at the nearest Hilton.
She had the feeling she was going to hate medieval England much more than she’d hated girls’ camp.
She had to get back to her time. Maybe if she wished hard enough for a swine like Archie, she would be hurtled back to 1999. Unfortunately she couldn’t seem to muster up as much enthusiasm for him as she had managed to for that unknown man who would value her as he valued himself. Not that that wish had come true. As Richard de Galtres continued to remind her, she was nothing but a trouble he would be glad to get rid of as soon as he could.
And that presented her with an entirely new set of problems.
Her very mention of Henry’s name had somehow convinced Richard and Warren that she was the king’s cousin and any denials were met with skeptical looks and Warren’s fingers creeping up to his temple, where he would tap meaningfully. It was really starting to get annoying. But that wasn’t the worst of it. What was worse was the thought of being presented to the king of England and trying to explain to him why he didn’t know her. If he didn’t burn her as a witch, he would probably toss her in his dungeon and then she’d never get home.
No, keeping herself out of the royal sights was definitely high on her list. But even higher was figuring out how to get home. She suspected that the best thing to do was try to head back to Hugh’s castle, but she remembered vividly her last encounter with him and she wasn’t looking forward to having another. She wasn’t sure how she was going to work it, but she would have to get back to his garden without being noticed. That would take planning and it would probably take a disguise.
And that was why she was still traveling with Richard’s company. She would spend a few days at his house, gather her thoughts, and work out her plan. At least she kept telling herself that was the reason she was still there. That she was simply too overcome to do anything but be carted across England was something she didn’t want to think about too much.
The company began to move again and she moved right along with them, even though her first instinct was to bolt the other way. The closer they drew to the wall, the harder she found it to breathe.
It was no wonder Hugh didn’t like Richard. The outer wall of this place alone made Hugh’s castle look like a cheap imitation. Whoever had built this wall had intended that it keep all enemies at bay by its sheer size alone. It had to have been at least thirty feet tall. Jessica looked up and didn’t bother to keep her mouth from hanging open. She continued to stare up as they rode beneath a heavy metal portcullis. The spiked edges at the bottom of the gate made her nudge her horse ahead quickly. She had no desire to be impaled by one of those.
The tunnel was long, maybe fifteen or twenty feet. Which meant . . . she caught her breath. The walls were that thick? She looked behind her as they exited the tunnel. What army could ever hope to topple that protection? She turned her face forward and stared over the dirt field that greeted her. She saw men jousting, others honing their skill with the bow. To her left were several crude huts. Bodies hovered near the doorways, dogs came close and barked at the horsemen who kicked at them with curses. Jessica could only stare in amazement. The poverty and the living conditions she saw were appalling. How could Richard allow his people to live like this?
The inner wall wasn’t quite as tall as the outer, but who was measuring? It was still impossibly high and, she noted as she rode through the gate, impossibly thick. Obviously Richard had no intention of being murdered in his bed by marauding neighbors.
The inner bailey wasn’t exactly what she’d expected. Though medieval English history hadn’t exactly been her thing, she had seen artists’ renderings of medieval court-yards and remembered them to be full of all sorts of interesting buildings.
Richard’s inner bailey looked more like a quarry. There was a crude wooden building to her left that obviously served as the stables, for men were leading their mounts to it. Other than that, the only things of interest were the enormous piles of rocks, and the huts and tents hugging the walls. A small patch of ground looked to be trying to sprout something edible but Jessica had her doubts it would succeed.
Then she lifted her eyes to the corner of the bailey and found that something—probably horror—was squeezing her chest so tightly she couldn’t breathe.
It was a round tower.
It wasn’t that the castle didn’t have three others in its corners. It was just that this one was so much bigger than the others. It should have looked out of place, but it didn’t. The frightening thing about it was that she knew what it looked like from the seaward side.
That view was courtesy of that Victorian painting she’d seen in Henry’s gallery.
If she’d entertained in the back of her mind some lingering doubt that she hadn’t actually traveled back in time, she entertained it no longer.
Richard’s guardsmen had departed, leaving her sitting atop her horse in the midst of the bailey. She knew she should have dismounted, but she wasn’t sure she could. She thought about asking Richard for help, then she saw the look on his face and decided that silence was definitely the better part of valor at the moment. He was advancing on a young man who held a mallet in his hands. She couldn’t h
elp a little sigh of relief. She wasn’t the one going to be getting yelled at.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Richard bellowed.
The other man flinched. “Starting the hall, my I—”
“I can see that, you fool!” Richard thrust out his hand and pointed at what looked to be framing for something very large. “That looks remarkably like wood.”
Well, his powers of perception were right on, Jessica noted.
“Of course, my lord. The hall will be fashioned—”
“Of stone,” Richard finished, jabbing his finger in the man’s chest. “I told you no wood! What must I do to make my wishes clear? No wood!”
“But I cannot see the harm in it,” the man said hastily. “That is how ’tis done, my lord.”
“Aye, a century ago!”
“But, my lord de Galtres—”
“The hall will be made of stone. Saints, boy, haven’t you seen the abbey at Seakirk? ’Tis made of rock, not twigs! Now, either you build my hall thusly, or you pack your gear and hasten through my gates before you sour my humor further!”
The architect made Richard a hasty bow and scuttled off without further comment. Jessica dismounted slowly, then found herself almost knocked over from behind. She regained her balance in time to see Warren come to a skidding halt in front of his eldest brother.
“Where is everything?” he exclaimed. “What have you done with the hall? What have you done with everything it took Father so long to build?”
The look in Richard’s eye made Jessica back up a pace. She wondered why it didn’t have the same effect on his younger brother. Richard looked at Warren coldly.
“I tore it all down.”
The way he said those five simple words left Jessica with no doubt that he took a vicious satisfaction in just being able to utter them. The why behind them was something she didn’t want to discover.
“How could you?” Warren cried out. “How could you ruin my home?”
“It’s my home now,” Richard said, lifting his shoulder in a casual shrug. “If you don’t care for it, leave. It matters not to me what you do.”
