by Tamara Leigh
“To see if I am only dreaming. It’s a silly thing we do where I come from to test whether a person is dreaming or awake.”
He almost smiled. “And?”
“I’m still here. I’m not dreaming. You’re real.”
“I am relieved. You will tell me more of this world from which you come?”
“Now?”
“If I am to wait ‘till our wedding night to have you in my bed, I will need a distraction.”
She laughed. “And a better place to tell my tale than here.”
He led her to a chair before the fireplace. As they would have days. . .months. . .years ahead of them, Kennedy began at the beginning, a regular Scheherazade.
She couldn’t sleep, at first because of Fulke’s proximity that stoked her senses even while they lay apart on the bed where they had moved when enough of the tale was told for one night. Later, it was the chill creeping about the room that kept her awake. And now it was fear of the pull. When it came, she must be conscious. And if it didn’t come soon? Dread it though she did—the fear that she might not escape it—she wanted it over with so she could go on with her new life. She had to believe she would.
“Nay,” Fulke muttered.
It was too dark for her to make out his features where he lay on the opposite side of the bed. Was he awake?
“Fulke?”
A sound rumbled from his throat.
A dream, then—rather, a nightmare, or at least something disturbing. Kennedy moved nearer and stroked his bearded jaw. “Wake up.”
He grumbled.
“Fulke.” She shook his shoulder. “You’re dreaming.”
He drew a sharp breath. “Nedy?”
She caught the bare light reflected in his eyes. “It’s me.”
He pulled her so tightly against him it was as if he meant to absorb her through his skin. “You are here.”
“I am. Was it a very bad dream?” she spoke into the crook of his neck.
His tense silence revealed a vulnerability she had not previously seen in this warrior. But then, as she knew well, dreams could be powerful, sometimes enough to change lives—in her case, give life.
“’Twas of fire,” he said. “John and Harold in the midst of it, smoke pouring from beneath the door.”
A chill deeper than that which breathed through the open windows pricked Kennedy’s arms.
“I could not reach them.” He pulled back and she felt his gaze search the dark for her face. “Amid blackened walls, you came to me, held me, then disappeared like summer snow.”
Then it wasn’t a dream, but a memory of that other past which her return would have wiped clean?
“I waited on your word that you would return to me, but you did not. Then death came for me.”
“How did you die, Fulke?”
“A noose, tighter and tighter ‘til dark dragged the light of day from my eyes.” His hair brushed her cheek as he shook his head. “So real a dream I have never had.”
She laid a hand to his cheek. “It wasn’t a dream. John and Harold did die in the fire. In your grief, you sent for me the morning after—tomorrow—and when I left you it was to bring myself back to an earlier time that I might save your nephews.”
His silence was thick.
“Do you understand, Fulke? What you believe to be a dream happened. All of it—as it would have had I not been able to return. But it’s over now. Leonel can’t harm John and Harold. They’re safe.”
“What of you?” he asked tightly. “Will you leave me again?”
Would the pull take her? Could she beat it as Mac had done? She had to. “Not if I can help it.”
“Can you?”
“Mac did it. I can too.”
“Then ‘tis as he told, that you must die there to stay here.”
“It’s true. I have a brain tumor.”
Fulke slid fingers through the hair at her temple. “Here the tumor is gone?”
Was he holding his breath? “I’ve never been healthier.”
His tension eased. “You and Crosley ask much of me. However, as I am unable to find another explanation for all that has happened, I shall no more say ‘nay’ to you.”
She huddled nearer.
He kissed her nose. “You are cold. I shall light a fire and we will sit and talk some more.” He stood, and she heard his feet fall across the chamber. He opened the door, reached around it, and retrieved a torch from the corridor. Though weakened by its long burn into the night, it lit the chamber enough for Kennedy to take better note of it than she had earlier.
She dropped her feet over the mattress as Fulke moved before the hearth. The structure was large, its presence made larger by the thick mantel above the sheltering cavern. In fact, it seemed everything about the room was on a massive scale: armchairs, tables, stools, carved chests, tapestries and, of course, the bed—big enough to hold dad, mom, and a passel of children.
Kennedy touched her stomach, tilted her head back, and considered the canopy. With its sheer white fabric stretched overhead and falling in swells from the frame, it was all that was soft about the room. Something more was needed. Flowers would be nice. She looked to the floor and sighed. “Fulke?”
“Hmm?” He urged a fledgling fire with a poker, straightened, and kicked a scattering of rushes from the hearth.
“Why hay?”
“Hay?” He set the torch in a wall sconce to the left of the mantel, leaned down, and poked some more.
“The rushes on the floor. Except for in stables, I’ve never seen it used for floor covering.”
He looked over his shoulder and grinned. “’Tis truly a different world in which you lived. Tell me, what is it you use there to keep the chill from the floor and scent the rooms?”
“Carpet is the top pick, but rugs over tile and hardwood are a good alternative.”
His split eyebrow rose. “An entire keep carpeted? That I should like to see.”
She laughed. “The average house is nowhere near as large as this. In fact, I’d guess four of them could fit inside your hall.”
He leaned the poker against the wall and moved toward her. “Then they are quite small, though not as small as a peasant’s cottage.”
“It’s all relative.”
“’Tis what?”
She went through the motions of erasing the comment from the air and considered the rushes again. With the exception of the clearing around the hearth, they were strewn throughout the chamber.
Fulke halted before her. “You shall miss your carpet?”
“Not really, though it certainly isn’t as dangerous as—”
Dear God!
CHAPTER THIRTY
Kennedy could not move for what might prove precious seconds. Like the historians, she had made an assumption. Perhaps a deadly one. Despite the malfeasance that hung over Sinwell, had no one ever considered the fire might have been an accident? It might not have been of Leonel’s doing but of a stray spark.
“What is it, Nedy?”
She jumped up and darted past Fulke. “I may have been wrong.”
“Of what do you speak?”
“Leonel. . .the fire.”
When she reached the door, Fulke caught her shoulders and dragged her around. “Tell me!”
“It may not have been Leonel who set the fire. It may have been an accident.”
Though his face moved from confusion to disbelief, he released her and flung open the door.
At a sprint, Kennedy followed him down the dimly lit corridor and up the stairs to the third floor where she had been brought in that other past. At the landing, they were met by a thready haze.
Fulke started shouting for his men, Kennedy praying as they ran to the first chamber from which the smoke issued. She halted alongside Fulke. He pulled his palm from the door, having assured himself there was no fire on the other side.
“Stay here!” He thrust the door inward.
Smoke puffed out—fed by a red glow in the darkness beyond. As he disappea
red inside, somewhere in the room, a child coughed.
She couldn’t just stand here! Vaguely aware of boots on the stairs that announced Fulke’s men, she dropped to all fours.
Where was the bed? A memory of Fulke hunkered down amid the blackened ruins guided her as she crawled in under the smoke. The crisp rushes pricked her palms, but soon ash would be all that remained of the eager fuel. When she and Fulke came out, all this might be ablaze. A firebreak was needed.
She swept the rushes left and right, clearing a path as best she could. Though she kept low, the choking smoke wound her nasal passages and coated her mouth and throat. She wheezed and coughed.
“Go back, Nedy!” Fulke bellowed.
She couldn’t—not only for the boys but for him. If any died, especially the king’s daughter, he might yet carve words into prison walls.
“I have them both!” Fulke shouted as he passed nearby. “Curse it, Nedy!” He coughed. “Come out now!”
He had his nephews, but not Lady Lark. Though he had remembered that other past in the guise of a dream, he hadn’t mentioned anything about the king’s daughter, and neither had Kennedy gotten around to telling him of the woman’s fate. Thus, he wouldn’t know the lady was here until it was too late. But where was she? Had she been in bed with the boys? Pulled a chair alongside and fallen asleep?
Blinded by the dark and smoke and increasingly warmed by the fire that snapped up the rushes to the left of her path, she bumped into the bed. She dropped her face to the floor, sucked the bit of air there, and called, “Lady Lark!”
“She is not within,” Fulke answered her.
He was wrong.
As Kennedy worked her way around the bed, sweeping her arms before her in hopes of landing a hand to a human form, Fulke’s feet thumped the floor.
“Where are you, Nedy?”
She inhaled another breath from the floorboards and winced. Her throat burned, brain was turning to mush, and she felt as if she were floating away. I am floating away! It was the final pull, and it meant to steal her from Fulke.
“Nedy!”
“I’m here!” It came out weak, made her painfully aware that if she didn’t succumb to the pull, the smoke would finish the job. The pull growing more insistent with each creep of her body across the floor, she continued forward.
“Go away,” she pleaded. “Please, go away.”
She touched legs, but not of a human. Head reeling, she groped a chair leg upward and, in the seat, found who she was looking for—until it registered that the thigh beneath her hand belonged to a man. And when he moaned, she knew. Not Lady Lark but Mac who had sat beside the boys’ bed, the past having been altered by his release from the tower.
“Mac!” Her voice sounded distant, her limbs felt disjointed. “You have to”—a cough barked from her—“get out of here.”
He moaned again.
“Nedy!” Fulke shouted.
“Here!” Though she was losing feeling in her arms, she wound them around Mac, heaved, and landed on her back with him on top.
“What. . .?” Mac rasped like a rusted up gear.
Somewhere in the room, something fell heavily and was met by a leap of flame.
Kennedy shoved Mac off of her, crawled to his head, and positioned herself to drag him down the cleared path.
The pull yanked, determined to return her to her death.
I’m not going! But then, why was she drifting away from herself? “No!” she cried and, keeping as low as possible, gripped Mac beneath the arms and pulled.
“Nedy.” Fulke was on his hands and knees beside her.
Though she knew he held her arm, his hand on her felt whisper light. She was losing the battle, about to slip through his fingers.
“We must—” He hacked and began pulling her from beside the bed.
She longed to throw herself in his arms, to cling to him, but she couldn’t. “Not without. . .Mac.”
“What?” Disbelief stilled him, urgency moved him. He felt past her and found Mac’s inert form. He pushed her. “Go toward the light!”
She peered through the smoke. There was no mistaking the fire to the right, nor its intensifying heat that plastered her gown to her skin. But directly ahead, a light slashed side to side. Fixing on the voices beyond the room, she lowered her head and sipped tainted air. It was then she felt the pain stir behind her eyes and knew it was the tumor.
“Go, Nedy!” Fulke shouted across the yawning years.
She was leaving him. “Please, God, not now that I have found him.”
As her arms and legs sprawled beneath her, she was pulled opposite. Up. . .up. . . Then suddenly forward, bumping against another figure. Mac? Was Fulke dragging her too? Not that she could stay. . .
Her heart broke, spilling its aching contents. The dream was gone. Or would soon be. All was lost.
“Nedy!” Fulke’s voice echoed as if from across a deep canyon. “I have you. You’re safe.”
He could still see her? Was holding her? It seemed so, but as she was nearly outside herself, the rest of her would follow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, then whimpered as pain tore through her head.
“Open your eyes! I will not lose you.”
He seemed nearer. Was that his breath on her face?
“Fight it, Nedy!”
She longed to, but how? It was strong, would split her in two before letting her go. Another pain splintered her skull, bringing with it a strong sense of her mother’s presence.
“Nedy!”
She thought it was Laurel’s voice, but couldn’t be certain. She hurt so bad.
“It’s all right for you to go, baby. Jack’s here with me.”
Kennedy felt divided, in both places at once and yet neither.
“I’ll be fine,” Laurel said softly.
“Mom. . .” Kennedy squeezed the hand in hers—whosever it was.
“I love you, Nedy.”
She sighed, and the tearing in her head went out on her breath. No more hurt. Thank you, God.
“Nedy!”
Fulke was still here? She reached herself backward, strained to feel him, to hear him.
“Do not leave me!”
Moisture fell to her cheek. Tears? For her? Fight it! she commanded the shallow breath in her lungs, the ebbing of her heart, the slowing of her mind, the weakening of her limbs. So much to live for. Claw your way back.
Claw she did, refusing to yield to the ease of death. She would go on—in another time, another place, but she would live. She would be the wife she longed to be, would stand beside Fulke and be his partner in life. She would make children with him, love them as she had been loved, teach them, see them grow to adulthood, hold their children. And Fulke would be at her side until she died a very old woman.
Voices. At first they were murmurs, but they grew louder and anxious, and somewhere she heard coughing and the sound of children crying. The boys? Soothing words spoken by Lady Marion. Mac’s gruff speech.
Then breath. Kennedy gasped, filling her lungs with wonderfully cool air. Arms were around her. Fulke’s face was near, his breath mingling with the smoke that clung to their bodies. Yet the pervasive scent was not repugnant, for it meant more than fire. It meant she was back.
“Look at me, Nedy.”
It was as if her lids were sealed, but she forced them open. “Fulke,” she croaked as his shadow-deepened face came into focus.
A smile lifted his mouth. “Aye.”
Night was behind him, she realized as she caught torch light in his moist eyes—eyes that wept for her. She stared into them, warmed herself by their fire, and found herself there. She touched his bearded jaw. “I—” She turned her face away and coughed.
Fulke pulled her to sitting and thumped her back. When the coughing subsided, he eased her against his shoulder and pressed a skin of wine to her lips.
Nothing had ever tasted so good. As the moisture wet her mouth, she looked to the keep at Fulke’s back. He had carried her outsi
de, away from the smoke and fire that billowed from the third floor. Out of harm’s way. Back to life—a life that would be so beautiful.
“Enough?” he asked when the last drop slid over her bottom lip.
She nodded. “Are John and—”
“The physician and Lady Lark are with them. They are frightened, but look to be well. Methinks Crosley will soon recover.” He nodded to the left.
Kennedy peered beyond him, startled at the number of men and women who ran past toting buckets of water. Hard to overlook, especially with the excited din they raised as they rushed up the stairs to the keep, but until that moment they had existed only as white noise.
Mac was propped against the wall of the keep ten feet away. He sat in a circle of pulsing light cast by an overhead torch. Marion was beside him.
He grinned weakly. “You made it.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“I knew you could do it.”
She looked beside him to where the physician knelt alongside John and Harold. The little boys were wide awake. Though their sooty faces were tracked with tears, each clutched to his chest what looked to be an assortment of action figures.
“You saved them,” Fulke spoke into her hair.
She tilted her face up to his. “Not without you. And Mac. It all began with him.”
Regret rose on Fulke’s face. “I was wrong in believing of him as I did.”
“As he was wrong about you. But neither of you could have known.”
He swept the hair back from her face. “I am a stubborn man. Can you make of me something more?”
She smiled. “I don’t want to change you. The man who told me he loved me is the only one I want. You.”
He lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was short, but breathless. “As you are all I want, Kennedy Plain.”
For the first time, he had used her uncut name. It sounded odd, as if it belonged to someone else. “Why did you call me Kennedy?”
“’Tis your name, is it not?”
“It is.”
“Then surely I ought to use it?”
“I prefer Nedy.” Not only had there been warmth and love attached to the familiar name by which her mother had called her since childhood, but the words of love that would nevermore be carved into stone had been for a woman known to him by that name. That was who she was.
