She’d never in her life seen anyone look more skeptical. He shook his head slowly, as if it had just been confirmed to him that she was several peasants short of a full work crew.
“That’s not the half of it,” she said, pressing on against her better judgment. “But I don’t think you’d believe the rest of the story.”
“I don’t believe this much of the tale,” he said.
“Then you really won’t believe the rest. And even if I tell you the whole thing, you’ll probably either toss me in your dungeon or burn me at the stake. And I’d really rather avoid both.”
“Are you a witch?”
“No.”
He looked at her closely. “Are you an outlaw?”
“No.”
He grunted. “I knew that was too easy an answer to the riddle. Very well, if you are neither of those things, then what have you to fear from me?”
“You aren’t exactly shy about giving in to your temper.”
“And if I vowed to keep it in check?”
“I don’t think you could.”
“Damn you, Jessica, I demand you give me the tale!”
“See?” she said.
He took a deep breath, releasing it very slowly. Then he looked at her again.
“Tell me,” he said calmly. “Nothing, and I vow I mean that truly, nothing you say could possibly surprise me. In the space of less than a se’nnight my life has run afoul of more trouble than I saw in ten years of warring, and you have much to do with that. You’ve stolen my horse three times and fair ruined him for battle. He wants nothing but to eat and be petted. You obviously have no concept of how a castle is when run properly, so I can only assume the rest of your tale will be equally as hard to swallow. But I will attempt it. Go on, while the blood pounding in my head has quieted enough to allow me to hear your words. Go on,” he said, gesturing for her to do so.
“You’re sure?”
A muscle twitched in his cheek and he had to take another breath before he answered, but he sounded calm enough.
“Aye. Give me the tale.”
“You asked for it,” she muttered under her breath. Maybe telling him the whole story wasn’t such a bad idea. He would probably think she’d lost all her marbles and he’d be so glad to get rid of her that he’d take her to Hugh’s and put her on the time-travel train himself.
She hitched up her hose and drew a long straight line in the dirt. She made a hash mark at the left end.
“This is the birth of Christ. The Year of Our Lord Zero, right?”
He nodded, his eyes flicking from the line to her face and back down again.
She made another hash mark near the middle of the line. “This is the Year of Our Lord 1216, when John Lackland, son of Henry II died. Right?”
He nodded again, more slowly this time.
She made another mark. “This is the current year. What is it?”
He looked at her sharply. “1260.”
“Right. 1260.”
She looked back at the line and gathered her courage. Then she made two more marks toward the right end of the line. She didn’t dare look at his face.
“This is the Year of Our Lord 1971,” she said, pointing to the first mark. “And this, this last mark is the Year of Our Lord 1999.” She lifted her eyes and looked at him. “I was born in 1971. The day you rescued me, I had been standing in the garden of a friend of mine and the year was 1999.”
He looked down at her line, up at her face, then turned and walked away. She watched him stop, rub the back of his neck, and stare down at the ground. He stood like that for several minutes, then he walked away a little more, stopped, and assumed the same pose. Jessica didn’t even think about trying to make off with his horse again. After having been witness to his leaping from one moving beast to the other, she was almost convinced there was just no way to outrun or outmaneuver this man. If she got to Hugh’s, she would get there because he wanted her to.
Suddenly he turned, walked back to her, and rubbed out her line with the toe of his boot. Only then did he look down at her. He looked very unhappy and his eyes were the color of a stormy sea again. It wasn’t exactly what she’d been hoping for.
“That blow to your head,” he began.
“It wasn’t that blow to my head!” she exclaimed.
“Then you’ve been troubled by dreams—”
She cut him off with a sharp shake of her head. “I told you it was hard to believe—”
“Impossible to believe,” he interrupted.
“Go back to your castle and look at my clothes. They’re how men of my day thought clothes of your time should look. You won’t find material of that kind coming from a home loom.”
“The cloth is very fine,” he conceded, “but you could have purchased it in the East. Constantinople is very civilized. I know, for I’ve seen its wonders for myself.” He looked her over carefully. “Then again, perhaps Hugh had it aright and you are a faery.”
“I’m not a faery!”
“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose I never believed that anyway—”
“Look, I don’t have any proof you’d believe. Unless,” she said, struck by a sudden bit of inspiration, “unless you’d like to hear about the future.”
He dismissed her words with a wave. “You’ve nothing to tell me that I could not divine for myself. The world will not last another fifty years.”
“Wrong.”
He glared at her. “Man will not live to see the year 1300. The Lord will come again and burn the world to cinders. That is what the priests say.”
“Well, on that score, they’re wrong.”
“Blasphemy,” he breathed.
“Fact,” she said crisply. “I can’t vouch for the year 2000, but I’m telling you that 1300 will come and go without incident. Though I’d say those who make it past 1300 will wish differently after they come face-to-face with the Black Plague.”
“The what?”
“Plague. It will sweep through England and wipe out entire villages.”
“Impossible,” he said, but he was starting to sound a little less sure of himself.
“Is it? You don’t know the half of it. If the plague isn’t bad enough, wait until England starts having wars over religion. You’ll lose priceless treasures in monasteries, all for the sake of wiping out popery. A few hundred years later you’ll have wars, bigger and uglier wars than you’ve had now, when a single weapon can destroy thousands of people.”
“Cease,” he said, holding up his hand.
“You want news of your king?” She had never been more grateful for a few quick history lessons from tour guides than she was at present. “Give him a couple more years and then he’ll be facing off with Simon de Montfort. Henry will lose and a little group will be set up to keep him in line. In time that little group will be called the House of Commons and the monarch will be nothing more than a figurehead.”
“Sedition—”
“No, it’s the truth. You can wait four years to see it happen for yourself, or you can believe me now.”
“You spout foolishness.”
“That’s just the depressing stuff. Let me tell you about the good things.” She pointed to the horses. “Someday you won’t need horses to travel anymore. You’ll ride around—well, you won’t be doing it, but your descendants will—in big metal boxes on wheels that move on their own.”
He looked almost stricken. “No horses?”
“Men will cross great distances in a matter of hours, because they’ll fly through the sky in machines called planes. They’ll fly to the moon. They’ll live up in the sky for months at a time on space stations. You’ll sit in your house and look in a black box and see things that are happening on the other side of the world. And wait till I tell you about dessert—”
“Wait . . .”
“Computers, the Internet, CD players, global economies—”
“But . . .”
“Godiva, Häagen-Dazs, angel food cake—”
/> “Enough!” He held up his hands and shook his head sharply. “I can listen to no more of this.”
“But I’ve only begun—”
He took Horse’s reins and slapped them into her hand. “Go. If it means I must needs listen to no more of this witless babbling, then I’ll count myself blessed. Take my horse and go to Hugh’s.”
Jessica was surprised enough to stop regaling him with things he would never see. “Really?”
“Aye.”
“Great,” she said, then she squeaked as he tossed her bodily into the saddle.
“I have no rations to send with you,” he said, turning to the other horse.
“I took the liberty of helping myself at the kitchen.”
Richard turned and scowled at her. “Thorough, aren’t you?”
“If it makes any difference, I think you’re getting lots of good marks for chivalry.”
He positively growled at her. “As if chivalry served me! Look you the lengths it has driven me to this past se’nnight. If I had my bloody spurs in my purse, I would give them to you as well. Now begone! Enough of my day has been wasted upon your fruitless quest.”
“That is a problem,” she said hesitantly, wondering if his patience would permit some directions. “I’m not sure where Hugh’s castle is.”
Richard thrust his arm out. “Take this road until you see one marching off to the west. Take that. Follow your nose. The stench will alert you to Merceham’s location.”
“Well,” she said, taking the reins and wondering how best to express her appreciation for him actually letting her go. “Um, thanks—”
Richard swung up into his own saddle. “I do not want your thanks,” he said curtly. “I want nothing further from you. You’ve been naught but trouble since the moment I clapped eyes on you and I count myself well rid of you and your foolish words.” He waved her on. “Go on. And believe me, my lady, the world will end before the year 1300 and I can only pray the fire catches you before you spread your folly across the rest of this poor isle!”
Well, now that was offensive. “Fine,” she retorted, stung. “I’ll go.”
“Do so, and do so silently!”
But he didn’t move.
Neither did she.
In fact, it was all she could do not to crawl down from the saddle and tell him she’d changed her mind, that she was staying. He was impossibly arrogant, foul-tempered, and crotchety. He’d practically thrown her out of his castle and now he was telling her she was a lunatic.
But he had also rescued her from Hugh and his dogs, apparently searched through several peasant huts to find her the previous night, and now he was loaning her his horse to go three days’ ride from his castle so she could do something that was important to her, and all that without much more than a major bout of grumbling.
Opinionated? Yes.
Sexy as hell? Definitely.
As she looked at him, watching the grumbles pass across his features like thunderclouds across a bright sky, she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
“You are,” she said with a shake of her head, “the most incredible man I have ever met.”
His eyes widened briefly, then they narrowed and his lips tightened. She thought he was going to bellow at her again, when to her surprise, he swung down off his horse and stalked toward her.
Before she could decide what he was up to, he had pulled her down from Horse, grasped her by the arms, and jerked her to him.
“One of us is mad,” he growled, “and I had thought ’twas you.”
And with those sweet words of wooing, he buried his hand in her hair, tilted her head, and proceeded to kiss the socks right off her.
If she’d had on socks, of course.
She made a grab for his hose before both she and the tights ended up in a mushy pool at his feet.
Then as suddenly as he’d kissed her, he thrust her away from him and walked back to his horse. He swung up into the saddle, then glared at her.
“Begone, you troublesome baggage,” he commanded. “I’ve a keep to see rebuilt and no time for a woman.”
She could only stand there and gape at him.
“Very well,” he snarled, “I’ll send a guard along after you if you’re so concerned about your safety!”
She remained speechless.
“Damn you, Jessica, go!” He was practically hopping with irritation. “Very well, I’ll go. And good riddance to you!”
He turned his horse around purposefully.
“The world is round,” she managed.
He glared at her over his shoulder. “What?”
“The world is round.”
He snarled something unintelligible at her and spurred his horse into a flat-out gallop. He didn’t look back and for that Jessica was extremely grateful. He would have seen her trembling from head to toe and that just wouldn’t have done her.
So he was impossible and arrogant and downright unpleasant at times. Underneath all those grumbles was a wealth of chivalry. It was all she could do not to stick around and try to uncover it.
“I do not need any medieval project relationships,” she said to no one in particular.
Richard’s horse bumped her shoulder and she wondered if he was agreeing with her or telling her to hightail it back to Burwyck-on-the-Sea.
Richard was nothing but a speck on the horizon. Well, he wasn’t coming back, so maybe that was for the best. Jessica heaved herself up into the saddle and gathered her courage. She needed to go home. There were lots of things waiting for her there, like indoor plumbing, cable TV, and all those CDs from the music club she’d never gotten around to listening to. She had commissioned compositions to finish and chocolate to eat.
Besides, she sincerely doubted Richard wanted his chivalry dusted off, even if she could find it under all those snarls.
Yes, she was homeward bound and perfectly happy about it.
Yessir, that she was.
10
Richard cursed as he rode his pathetic nag homeward. He could hardly believe he’d exposed himself to Jessica Blakely’s folly for so long. He never should have brought her home from Hugh’s. He never should have spent half the night looking for her, nor should he have rescued her from the peasants’ hut.
And he never, ever should have kissed her.
She was daft, daft and witless, and he wondered what he’d ever done to deserve having her foisted off upon him for so long.
The world was round? Ha.
Richard pushed his pitiful mount hard, eager to be back at the castle, surrounded by things he could control. He turned his mind to the finishing of his keep. If the bloody mason could manage to pile two stones atop one another without them tumbling, perhaps they would have somewhere to shelter from the winter storms.
Boxes that brought tidings from far away whilst one sat in one’s hall? Ha!
Nay, the keep would have to be built as soon as possible, then perhaps he would have his mason begin work on the chapel. If the events of the past few days had been any indication, he was in sore need of spiritual ministrations.
Men who were not angels flying through the sky? Ha!
• • •
By the time he’d reached his keep, he’d had far too much time to think—about Jessica’s foretelling of the future and about her being alone on the road to Merceham. He thundered into the courtyard, dismounted, and called for another horse—preferably one that could reach Merceham in less than a fortnight.
He could hardly believe what he planned to do.
John approached as Richard saddled his new mount.
“Off to do heroic deeds, my lord?”
“Be silent, you fool.”
John handed Richard a satchel. Richard didn’t ask what was in it, but he suspected there were provisions enough for a small journey. John handed him another bag.
“Spare cloak and other clothing,” John said mildly.
Richard snarled out a curse.
“We’ll come along, of course,” John co
ntinued. “In the event that you need aid.”
“What I need aid from is my damnable spurs,” Richard groused.
“’Tis a noble thing you do, my lord,” John said. “We will be honored to escort you whilst you do your chivalric duty.”
Richard looked over his private guard. Most of them were choosing to look elsewhere. Hamlet was staring off into space thoughtfully, his lips moving soundlessly.
“What’s he doing?” Richard asked unnecessarily.
“Composing a heroic ballad based on your adventures,” John supplied. “I daresay.”
“Well, I don’t want to hear it,” Richard said, swinging up into the saddle. “The saints preserve us from any more of his Court of Love ideals.”
Why he couldn’t have had a guard made from grisled warriors whose only amusement came from sharpening their swords, he couldn’t have said.
“I say, William, have you a word that rhymes with jewel?” Hamlet asked with the hoarsened voice of one who had bellowed one too many battle cries.
And William, who never had any words to utter that weren’t variations on some curse or another, said helpfully, “Ah,” then promptly fell silent.
“Try fool,” Richard muttered. “And be certain to apply it to me.”
A woman from the future. Ha!
’Twas possibly the most laughable tale he’d ever heard in the whole of his life, and he had heard many which were hard to swallow.
And there he was, trotting off to rescue her.
Aye, he was a fool indeed.
• • •
It didn’t take long to catch her, nor was he surprised by what he saw.
Jessica was backed up against a tree, surrounded by ruffians. She was being robbed of her supper and likely would have lost her virtue as well if Richard and his men hadn’t dealt the thieves a few well-placed blows.
Of course, ’twas not as clean a rescue as he would have liked. Jessica should have stayed where she was, but apparently the theft of her supper angered her enough that she felt a bit of the vengeance was rightly hers. Her giving chase to one of the ruffians earned her nothing but a blow to the head that sent her slumping to the ground in a dead faint.