Lucy screamed and screamed as she went up the stairs. Men were shouting and she swore she heard one man say there was a ghost. It was almost as if she could only reach through the wall separating them, she could reach the men.
She kept climbing the stairs, fear giving her strength as she heard a scrabbling behind her.
“Witch. Sending your familiar after me. I will kill you.” Lucy looked over her shoulder to see Clement. His face bloody and one eye missing. He was almost to her. She reached for the door, flung it open and sighed in relief. She was on the battlements she knew so well. There would be guards here.
An awful smell filled her nose, and Lucy knew he was almost to her. Where were the guards?
As she leaned over the wall to look for anyone, Clement grabbed hold of her dress and spun her around. She felt a sharp pain and fell against the stone. As she sank down on the bench, time seemed to still. The sound of Clement screaming, the sound of the ocean…all faded.
A violent shuddering racked her body. It seemed to start in her feet and travel up through her spine. Lucy felt like she were the beaters of a mixer clacking together. Turning round and round. Tiny whimpers escaped. She couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t control her body.
As if from a great distance she saw William running toward her, a look of fear on his face. Everything started to fade, melting into a watercolor painting. And then it was as if she were watching two movies at once.
She could see William and the men. See William and Clement fighting. But she also saw what looked like electric lights. And what she swore were cars in the distance.
And in that moment Lucy knew she could make the choice. Knew why she couldn’t go back all the other times she’d tried.
It wasn’t his blood staining the stone by the bench. It was hers. And now her blood was on the stone, she could go home.
Lucy reached out with both hands.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
William heard the call of the raven and looked upward toward the sound. The bird was flying around the battlements. And as he searched he spied a figure. By the saints, ’twas Lucy.
He’d sent the guards out to search for her, so there was no one on the battlements to save her. They’d searched and searched and found no trace, and now he knew why. There was another set of secret passages. How many bloody secret passages could one castle contain?
Clement had used the passages to come and go without being seen, probably since William banished him. Cold fury filled him as he took the steps to the roof two at a time. As his foot touched the last step, he reached out, as if he could cross the distance and stop the blade.
Lucy fell back against the stone with the cry of a wounded animal. William’s mind went blank; the only command urging him onward was to save his beloved. He tucked, rolled and came to his feet, knees bent and perfectly balanced with sword in one hand.
In the time it took him to draw breath, his sword arm flashed down and ran his half-brother through. As Clement died in his arms, he looked up, eyes full of disbelief. “Well done, brother, you killed me first.” Then he slumped in William’s embrace, silent forever.
William was beyond sadness. An emptiness filled him as he let go of Clement’s body. He turned to aid Lucy.
“Nay! Do not go!” She started to fade in front of his eyes.
The raven cawed and landed on the stone wall near Lucy, and William felt the hair on his arms stand. There was something strange about the bird. Something otherworldly.
William could almost see through Lucy. He had a moment when he thought he should let her go back to her own time. To learn the fates of her sisters. Make a new life in an easier time.
But the selfish part of him, the part that loved her, and would lay down his life for her gladly, bellowed deep within him like a mad beast.
William reached out.
His hand went through her. A calm he experienced in battle fell over him. William ignored the terrible cold and reached with both hands until he touched warm flesh.
“She is mine! You cannot have her!” With a great cry, he pulled with all his might. A cold pierced his bones, held his heart in its grip, and he knew he was stealing her back from the future.
As he held her in his arms, waiting for her to come to her senses, he prayed she would not despise him for the rest of her life. For he had stolen her from time itself. A voice whispered on the air that it was her only choice. She would not have another. Lucy now belonged here in his time. The overlarge black bird called out as it flew off into the moonlight.
Lucy had had it up to here with fainting and waking up in strange places. She opened her eyes a fraction. She was no longer in the tiny, dark room. The faint smell of horse and male made her nose twitch. Soft, worn linen under her fingers. She was in her own bed. In a chair next to her, William slumped, eyes closed.
The movement woke him. He knelt beside the bed.
“In truth, I watched you fade.” He took her hands in his and held them so tightly she heard the bones crack.
“Can you ever forgive me? I kept you from going home.”
She saw the agony in his eyes. The love he felt for her. Certainty filled her heart. She loved him, but—
Lucy took a deep breath. “Did you kill your wife?”
She waited for him to answer, trying to decide what she would do if he said yes. The doorway between here and the future was closed. When she’d been in the middle of the cold and saw both worlds, she knew this was her one chance. He’d pulled her back from her own time.
So if he said he killed his wife? She could think about scenarios all day and night, but in the end she couldn’t know how she would react until he answered.
William made a noise in the back of his throat. “I was married once. Georgina was very beautiful.” He looked at Lucy with love in his eyes.
“But she was not beautiful on the inside. She was cruel and treated everyone she met with scorn. Our marriage was not a happy one. I was away fighting most of the time. She married me for my wealth and reputation on the battlefield. Even then I had attained great wealth tourneying and fighting throughout the lands.”
He paused as if he needed time to breathe. To fortify himself. Clear green eyes bored into her, and she could count the tiny gold flecks within them.
“I did not murder her. Georgina had a lover. A man she met in the village. He was poor and she found him a position on our small estate. They concocted a plan. She would fake her death and run away with him.”
She sat still listening to him, afraid to move until the story was done. William worked a knot out of her hair.
“I knew she wasn’t dead. The woman should have left her clothing and jewels behind if she wanted me to believe she was dead. Her maid sobbed out the tale. She helped Georgina pack, saw her off in a carriage. The poor girl died of a fever a few weeks later, so she could not clear my name. By the time I caught up with Georgina, the fever had taken her. Her lover was desolate and took his own life in grief. I found them together.”
The only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire.
Lucy’s heart soared. She was wrong. William was nothing like Simon. He was different. With him she could truly be herself. And isn’t that what we all really want in life? Someone we can be ourselves with. Instead of believing true love existed, she’d let her fear rule her life for so many years. Anything to avoid the risk of opening up to another person and getting hurt in return. What an idiot she’d been. True love did exist, even if she had to fall over seven hundred years through time to find the man meant for her.
“I believe you. I’m sorry you have had to live with people thinking you murdered your wife.” She pulled him close, and he climbed onto the bed next to her.
“When I was…fading, I could see you in front of me. And at the same time, I could see my own time. I knew I had a choice to make—I could choose which life I wanted. My heart had already made the decision when I reached out for you. You took hold of me at the same time, and I think tha
t’s why I stayed.”
William slid off the bed and went down on one knee. He reached into the pouch at his waist and held up a ring. “I will give you all that I possess. I will love you until the end of your days. Know that I will spend every day of my life making you happy.”
She gasped. The band was gold and inset with an emerald as big as her thumb. He slid it on her finger, where it fit perfectly.
Underneath his grumbles and rough edges was a good man. She would take a knight in tarnished armor any day.
“Will you marry me, Lucy Merriweather?”
Her hand trembled as she looked at the ring. It felt right on her finger, warm and comforting.
“When you truly love someone, you listen and accept them for who they are, past and all. I should have come to you after those women told me the story. Instead I ran. I let the fear I felt over what I had been through in the past cloud my judgment.”
Her voice broke. “I’m so sorry. In the future when you make me mad, and I know you will”—Lucy wiped away tears of happiness—“I will come to you and we will talk. You are not your past. I am not my past. Together we will build a future.”
He gathered her in his arms, his voice rough. “I will love you through this life to the next. I will love you for centuries so somehow you will know to come back to me.”
A single tear fell. “Every choice I made led me to you.”
The love she felt for William washed over her. “My future is here. In the past with you.” Lucy said a prayer for her family. She had mourned them enough and it was time to let go. She would never forget them, would always love them.
And then she heard the raven. Whom she had come to think of as her own special bird. A thought made her smile. She would write a letter and find someplace safe to put it in the castle. Maybe, just maybe, if her sisters weren’t dead…they would come looking for her. Find the letter. And know that she was happy. She had found her happily ever after.
Chapter Thirty
Six Months Later
Lucy was almost certain, but now she knew for sure. The only thing to make finding out more perfect? If her family were here to hear the news. William entered their chamber, swept her into his arms and kissed her soundly.
“You’re looking well today, wife.”
She beamed at him. William hesitated for a moment, clearly realizing he was supposed to notice something. “Did you perchance make a new dessert for me?” The man had turned into a total sugar hound.
“No. Something better,” she said.
“Better than dessert?” William looked dubious.
Lucy took his hand and placed it on her stomach over the slight bulge.
“You’re going to be a father,” she told him, her eyes full of love for her husband.
William looked shell-shocked. He stood there with his mouth opening and closing, breathing through his mouth.
“By the saints.” Then he picked her up and carried her to the bed. “You should rest. If it’s a girl, we shall name her after one of your sisters.”
Lucy felt tears of happiness run down her face. “And if it’s a boy, should we name him after your father?”
William’s happiness dimmed. “Not after what he did to my mother. His infidelity broke her heart. If it’s a boy, we will name him after your father. Would you like that?”
“Very much. And when we have the next one… If it’s a girl, I’d like to name her after your mother.”
William looked pale. Then recovered with a brilliant smile. “Let’s fill the hall full of children. Wait until I tell the men. Wymund will have the babes fighting in the lists before they can walk.”
“Even the girls?”
William grinned at her. “Even the girls. ’Tis good for a girl to know how to take care of herself. Though she’ll always have the men watching over her.”
Her husband pulled her close and they stood there in the room content. A fire crackled in the hearth while snow fell outside. Life was perfect.
Lucy had found her very own knight. In slightly tarnished armor. She kissed her husband.
Fairy tales do come true. Happily ever after exists, but only if you’re willing to fight for it.
Chapter Thirty-One
Present Day - Holden Beach, North Carolina
Melinda Merriweather slammed the laptop shut so hard the table wobbled. “Have you seen the story?” Without waiting for her sister’s answer, Melinda ranted, “It says—and I quote—Simon Grey, Lord Blackford, and his American guest, Lucy Merriweather, were lost at sea after a crumbling wall at Blackford Castle gave way and they plunged to their deaths. The treacherous currents swept the bodies out to sea.”
She arched a brow at her youngest sister, the anger stretching her face tight. “What a load of horseshit. We are going back.”
“No. I can’t deal with seeing that desolate place again.” Charlotte shivered. “That place oozes sadness and heartbreak.”
She pushed her chair back and stood to look out at the ocean. “She’s gone, sweetie. We have to accept it.” Charlotte put a hand on the glass. “I can’t stay here. Everything reminds me of Lucy.”
Melinda didn’t want to hear the rest, but Charlotte hurried on as if she knew. “So I’m leaving. But I’m not going to England. I need to get away. Far away. There’s a gig in Djibouti and I’m taking it. I leave tomorrow.”
How could Charlotte not want to go back? There had to be something the authorities had missed. They’d flown over as soon as they were contacted about Lucy. At that time, Melinda and her sister had been so distraught she couldn’t think straight. Poor Aunt Pittypat died of a heart attack the same day Lucy went missing.
The cops found Lucy’s phone smashed on the rocks. But her purse was in the small cottage on the property, along with all her clothes. Melinda didn’t think her sister would leave her purse and passport unattended. The facts made sense, yet something felt off.
A feeling was enough. Melinda was going back to England and not leaving until the feelings of wrongness went away. Lucy would’ve done the same for her.
Melinda opened up the laptop again and started to make plans.
Books by Cynthia Luhrs
Listed in the correct reading order
THRILLER
There Was A Little Girl - coming soon!
THORNTON BROTHERS TIME TRAVEL
Darkest Knight
First Knight
MERRIWEATHER SISTERS TIME TRAVEL
A Knight to Remember
Knight Moves
Lonely is the Knight
THE SHADOW WALKER GHOST SERIES
Get the Entire Shadow Walker Series
Lost in Shadow
Desired by Shadow
Iced in Shadow
Reborn in Shadow
Born in Shadow
Embraced by Shadow
The Shadow Walkers Boxed Set Books 1-3
The Shadow Walkers Boxed Set Books 4-6
A JIG THE PIG ADVENTURE (Children’s Picture Books)
Beware the Woods
I am NOT a Chicken!
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About the Author
Cynthia Luhrs is the
author of the ghostly Shadow Walker novels and the Merriweather Sisters Time Travel Romance novels set in medieval England. Her idea of a perfect day is no interruptions and the freedom to live in her head all day, writing to her heart's content, a glass of sweet tea next to her as she creates the next book. Of course her tiger cats frequently disrupt this oasis of serenity.
A Knight to Remember: Merriweather Sisters Time Travel (Merriweather Sisters Time Travel Romance Book 1) Page 19
