Till There Was You

by Lynn Kurland

  She walked Rex up the way from the gates to the stables, then continued to walk him in a circle as her cousins tended their mounts. She found, much as she might have wanted it otherwise, that she simply couldn’t stop moving. If she did, those dark, terrible things would lay their hands on her and never let her go.

  She wondered, absently, if she was going to lose all her wits before her doom found her.

  “Mary?”

  She realized Thaddeus had come to stand in the middle of her circle. She couldn’t answer him. She could only stare at him, mute.

  “Maryanne, shall we stay?” he asked, his expression very grave.

  She could only shake her head.

  “Your horse is weary,” he said quietly. “Put him away, love, and come inside the hall. We’ll wait.”

  “Nay,” she croaked. She cleared her throat. “I’ll be well, Thad, though I thank you for the consideration.”

  He smiled, pained. “As you will. But make haste. We’ll come look for you else.”

  She nodded, then continued to walk Rex in a circle until the last of her cousins had honored her wishes and gone inside the great hall. Her father didn’t come out to look for her. Her mother was likely keeping Suzanna of Styrr from causing an uprising in the kitchen with her complaints. There was no one in the courtyard but her and her horse. It was tempting to get back on him and ride until he couldn’t run any longer.

  Only there was nowhere for them to run to.

  She sighed, then led Rex into his stall and put his tack away. She brushed him far longer than she needed to simply because it gave her something to do with her hands. She stood with him for as long as it took him to finish his grain, then resigned herself to the necessity of supper. She pulled the stall door shut behind her, then turned to leave the stables.

  She ran bodily into Geoffrey of Styrr.

  He said nothing. He simply looked at her with eyes that were so full of evil that she did something she never did.

  She took a step backward.

  A shadow loomed up behind Styrr. She would have screamed, but she realized there was no need.

  “My lord,” Zachary said coldly, “I think you’re missing supper inside.”

  Styrr spun around to face him. “You, here again.”

  “To keep the lady Mary safe, as it happens.”

  Mary heard a sound escape her. She wasn’t sure if it was a half sob she hadn’t been able to contain or if it had been a hastily stifled sound of relief. She clapped her hand over her mouth and backed up again as Zachary walked around Styrr to put himself in front of her. He turned to face Styrr.

  “Anything you care to say to her, you can say to me.”

  “I wouldn’t spare the breath.”

  “Then perhaps you should retreat inside and warm yourself comfortably by the fire,” Zachary suggested. “Before something untoward happens to you.”

  “Is that a threat?” Styrr asked with an ugly laugh. “How dare you.”

  Zachary said nothing, but his hands down by his side clenched briefly. If Styrr noticed, he said nothing of it. He only sniffed disdainfully.

  “Toy with her now, if you can stomach it, smith, but I will have her in the end.”

  He shot Mary a look of promise, then turned and strode away. Mary watched over Zachary’s shoulder until he was gone.

  Zachary turned and took her by the shoulders. “Did he hurt you?”

  She shook her head, but she could say nothing. And then she didn’t care to say anything. Zachary gathered her against his chest and wrapped her in an embrace that left her breathless—and not simply because he was holding her tightly. She wasn’t sure why he’d come back. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know why he’d come back. She was simply relieved he had.

  “My betrothed has no manners,” she managed finally.

  “He isn’t.”

  She lifted her head and looked at him. “What?”

  “He isn’t.”

  “Don’t you mean he hasn’t? As in any manners?”

  “No, I don’t mean that at all,” he said, his expression perfectly serious. “I mean he isn’t your betrothed.”

  “But I’m going to wed him.”

  “When hell freezes over,” he said. He pulled away and took her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked as she trotted to keep up with him. “Zachary, wait!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said shortly, “I forgot to ask you if you were interested in wedding him.”

  “Of course I’m not—”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “To talk to your father.”

  “That is kind of you,” she said weakly. She had no idea what had changed his mind, where he had been for the past week, or why the hell he had chosen now to return and rescue her. She supposed it was enough to know he was willing to try again.

  He swore. Quite inventively, truth be told. She supposed it might be best to simply not offer any more opinions on his chivalry at the moment.

  He didn’t seem particularly inclined to discuss it, either. He merely strode across the courtyard, pulling her along after him.

  Or at least he did for a bit. He stopped and stepped in front of her so quickly that she ran into his back. She peeked around his shoulder to see Jackson standing there in front of the steps, his arms folded over his chest, as if he’d been a bloody gatekeeper determined to see that no one but those who pleased him passed by.

  “Move,” Zachary said shortly.

  Theo and Samuel immediately appeared to her right, their eyes alight with something akin to pleasure. Connor, Thaddeus, and Parsival came loping down the stairs, as if they’d been waiting for just such a confrontation.

  Jackson’s expression was stony. “Release my cousin.”

  “Get out of my way,” Zachary growled.

  Jackson drew his sword. Mary found herself pushed into Parsival’s arms and pulled out of the way. She started to speak, but Parsival tightened his arms around her so quickly that she squeaked instead. She jerked away from him with a curse. By the saints, when would these louts ever treat her as a lady instead of just another of them?

  Likely when she started wearing skirts.

  She was certain Zachary would die, then she felt her mouth fall open as she watched him kick Jackson’s sword out of his hand and send it flying up into the air. Zachary leapt up and caught it before Jackson could, then flung it away. In the next heartbeat, he had Jackson flat on the ground with Jackson’s arm wrenched behind him, his knee in Jackson’s back, and his free hand pressing Jackson’s face into the dirt.

  And then he told Jackson just what he could do with himself in very vile terms.

  “Ohhh,” Samuel said, his eyes wide.

  Theo purred in satisfaction.

  Parsival leaned close to her. “Ah, but he has made no friend there, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Shut up,” she whispered miserably.

  Jackson had several things quite a bit more violent than that to say.

  Zachary let him curse for quite some time before the fight seemed to go out of him. Zachary finally released him and leapt well out of Jackson’s way. Mary thought it was best to do something besides stand to the side of the battle and wring her hands. She jumped in front of Zachary just as Jackson lashed out, narrowly avoiding being hit as a result.

  Zachary, predictably, pulled her behind him.

  “If you want more of me, then you can have it,” Zachary said shortly. “After I’ve talked to your uncle. I don’t want to make it so you can’t get up again, but I will if you don’t back off”

  Mary wasn’t quite sure what back off meant, but Jackson seemed to come to terms with the meaning, if not the actual words.

  “When you leave my uncle’s solar, you’d best pray you have someone very skilled to guard you,” Jackson said, his chest heaving. He dragged his sleeve across his mouth. “You unchivalrous whoreson.”

  Mary watched Zachary shrug, as if he’d heard worse.
He reached for her hand and pulled her toward the steps. She looked over her shoulder in time to watch Thaddeus grin as he said something to his elder brother, who then dashed after him with murder in his eye. Connor and Parsival only smiled at each other, then trotted up the stairs behind her.

  Within moments, she found herself standing in front of her father’s solar. Zachary rapped smartly.

  “I’m busy!”

  Zachary cursed, then reached for the latch. Parsival caught his wrist.

  “You shouldn’t,” he said mildly.

  Zachary considered for a moment or two, then pulled his hand away and rapped again against the wood.

  A moment or two later, Robin himself jerked the door open. His eyes widened only briefly. Mary tried to pull her hand from Zachary’s before her father might note that and school his features any more than he had already, but Zachary wouldn’t release her. She looked at her father helplessly.

  He only stood back and allowed Zachary inside. Zachary pulled her along inside after him. Mary looked over her shoulder in time to watch her father shut the door in the faces of her cousins. No matter. They would stand there with their ears pressed against the wood anyway.

  Styrr was sitting in a chair by the fire, nursing a mug of something and looking particularly comfortable. He couldn’t have been there more than a handful of moments, but he gave the impression of having been there for most of the evening already. He might not have looked so comfortable had he watched what Zachary had done to her cousin not a handful of minutes earlier.

  Her sire walked over to his table and leaned against it. His hands were merely curled around the edge of it, not grasping it furiously or fumbling for a blade, so perhaps that boded well.

  “Well?” Robin asked. “What could possibly be so important that you need to interrupt my parley with my daughter’s future husband? And, if I might ask, why the hell are you holding my daughter’s hand?”

  “I’m protesting the marriage.”

  Mary felt her heart stop. It took her a moment or two before she managed to take any breath at all. She looked at her sire, but he was only watching Zachary with mild curiosity.

  “Are you indeed?” he asked.

  “I am indeed.”

  “On what grounds?” Robin asked, lifting an eyebrow in challenge. “Consanguinity?”

  “Incompatibility.”

  Styrr guffawed. Mary looked at him and thought his laughter might have sounded a bit forced. He looked at Robin lazily.

  “Throw him out, my lord, and let us return to our pleasant conversings. Listening to this peasant chatter on is going to ruin my appetite.”

  Mary watched her father glance at Styrr, then turn back to Zachary.

  “Incompatibility is not a reason to pass up a perfectly suitable marriage partner,” he said slowly. “Have you any other reasons to put forth, or shall I do as Styrr suggests and throw you out?”

  Mary looked up at Zachary. She had absolutely no idea what he intended next. He’d already tried to convince her father of Styrr’s perfidy, but would he try again with the man sitting right there? Surely he hadn’t been loitering near Styrr’s hall to look for things to use against the man. She had assumed he had started for home.

  Apparently she’d been mistaken.

  Zachary gave no sign of what he was thinking. He simply returned her father’s look evenly, as if he wanted to make certain Robin knew he was serious.

  “Well?” her sire prodded. “You don’t want Mary to wed with this man here. Your reason?”

  Mary looked up at Zachary and watched his mouth move. It took her a moment to realize what he’d said.

  And when she did, she thought she just might faint.

  Chapter 15

  Because I want her for myself .

  Zachary knew he was really going to have to learn to keep his mouth shut. Soon. Before he got himself into a situation he wasn’t going to be able to fast-talk his way out of.

  He’d meant to say, Because the man over there isn’t good enough for her, or, Because I want your daughter to be riding your horses when she’s sixty.

  Instead, he said what was the absolute truth.

  He had the feeling that what had been a very long week had just gotten a lot longer.

  He wished desperately for pockets and the time to shove his hands in them and think. He supposed he could take a couple of minutes and review the events leading up to his current pot of hot water. It might help him regroup.

  Things actually hadn’t gone so badly during his first day’s travel from Artane the previous week. He’d made great time, avoided being robbed or gang-pressed into a bit of sowing on some lord’s property, and enjoyed several meals that Wyckham’s obliging cook had packed for him during a brief pit stop there. He’d had every intention of reaching the fairy ring, hopping inside, then clicking the heels of Robin de Piaget’s oldest pair of boots together a few times to get himself back to Scotland. Modern-day Scotland.

  He’d reminded himself during that first day of all the reasons he couldn’t stay. He’d given himself all of Jamie’s Time Travel Ethics lecture series verbatim. He’d considered the ramifications of both pulling Mary out of her time and pulling himself out of his. He’d considered them all very seriously. And at the end of each round of arguing with himself he’d arrived at the same place.

  He couldn’t cheat Fate in either century.

  He had tried that before, with disastrous results. That wasn’t an experience he relived when he could help it, but it had seemed appropriate at the time.

  It had all happened on a surprise trip to what Jamie dryly referred to as Puritanical New England. They had arrived just in time to see a young woman on trial for witchcraft. They’d tried to save her.

  They had failed.

  The aftermath had been particularly unpleasant, resulting in a harrowing escape back to the future. He had argued with Jamie for days about the outcome, but Jamie had dug in his heels and insisted that Fate should be allowed to play her hand as she saw fit, no matter how unpleasant that hand might be. Zachary had disagreed.

  And then he’d made the almost fatal decision to take matters into his own hands.

  He’d managed to get himself back to the proper time period, but his arrival had been off by about twenty-four hours. It had been a nightmare trying to avoid being seen by his other incarnation while attempting to rescue a girl whose turn on the world’s stage truly had been destined to be a brief one. He’d managed not to leave a body count behind, but he’d done so by failing to accomplish what he’d set out to. Despite his best intentions, the girl had met her fate and he’d set in motion a chain of events that had his other self and Jamie almost finding themselves burned at the stake right after her.

  And he’d almost died himself in a bitter New England winter waiting almost two weeks for the time gate to decide he’d learned his lesson.

  Jamie hadn’t said anything at all when he’d dragged himself back into the keep, freezing and half starved. He’d only shaken his head and gone to fetch Zachary something warm to drink.

  Zachary had reminded himself of all that on Day One, been resigned to the truth of it, then carried on with his plan to go to Falconberg and do what he knew he needed to.

  And then Day Two had dawned, taking with it his good sense and any hope he’d had of looking at the situation rationally.

  All he’d been able to see was Mary de Piaget’s lovely green eyes, the way wisps of her dark hair fell along her jawbone, the way her hands looked in his as they’d danced. It was one thing to read about someone in a book and know she had died young. There was regret, surely, but it was an academic sort of regret that passed probably more quickly than it should have.

  It was another thing entirely, however, to actually know the woman herself, to have seen her master an enormous horse, to know what she sounded like when she laughed.

  He hadn’t known that girl in seventeenth-century America, but he knew Maryanne de Piaget.

  Day Three had bee
n absolute hell. Every hoofbeat that took him farther south was like the pounding of a giant hammer with his head as the anvil. He came to the point when he’d merely stopped his horse, sat there, and cursed.

  He’d thought about Styrr marrying Mary in her father’s chapel. He’d thought about Styrr taking her north, to that barren bit of soil he was so proud of, to a keep that seemed to suck all the sunlight into itself. He’d thought about Styrr taking Mary into his arms, up the stairs, and into ...

  He’d had to stop there before he cracked his teeth from gritting them together too hard.

  He looked at the facts, then very deliberately decided to ignore them. He had turned back and ridden the way he’d come. It had been the height of foolishness, the very depths of irresponsibility, but he couldn’t any more have stopped himself than he could have managed to continue on. He had to keep Robin de Piaget from unwittingly sending his daughter to her death at what he was convinced would be Geoffrey of Styrr’s hands. No matter the cost. He simply had to.

  All he’d planned to do was convince the man that it was better that Mary be allowed to just live out her life in peace without a husband.

  He’d never intended to offer for her himself.

  “And just what is it, smith,” Styrr said, his tone dripping with scorn, “that you propose to bring to such a union? Your skill with hammer and tongs? Your ability to move large quantities of horse droppings in a short amount of time? Your exceptional prowess with the sword?”

  Zachary dragged himself back to the present with an effort. He was still standing in Robin de Piaget’s solar, still holding Robin’s daughter’s hand, still needing to make his case beyond that initial admission.

  “A pile of stones that are still standing because of good fortune,” he said, looking at Styrr evenly, “is not exactly an accurate measure of what a man is, my lord. Why don’t we make this a bit more personal? Meet me on any field you choose and I will best you.”