But the moment of truth was coming, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to proceed.
“All right,” her mother said, “you’ve been lying to me for two months. Where were you?”
Jessica took a deep breath. “I wasn’t lying. I said I was in England.”
“And I’m the one who got the phone call that said you weren’t,” Margaret said briskly. “Then you show up back in New York with no time to explain anything to me. You have time now. Spill the beans.”
Her grandmother nodded, her hands working ceaselessly. Jessica looked at the lace spilling down from her shuttle and wondered if that was the kind of knowledge she should have been acquiring all her life. Being able to make lace wouldn’t have been a bad thing in the Middle Ages. It made her wish she had spent more time in the library.
“Jessica . . .”
Jessica focused on her mother. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “But you’re going to have to use your imagination a little.”
Her grandmother looked at her from watery blue eyes. “I just wanna know who got you pregnant, girlie.”
“Mother!” Margaret exclaimed.
“Well, look at her, Meg. She’s pale as a ghost.”
Jessica sighed. “I got married.”
“What!”
Jessica was afraid her mother was not going to have a very good afternoon.
“I was standing in Lord Henry’s garden,” she said. “I somehow got sucked back in time to the year 1260, where I met a man named Richard. He was fixing a gash in my side that nearly killed me and we sort of got married to distract ourselves. Then we decided that it was what we wanted.” Jessica put her hand over her stomach. “This is result of that.”
Her mother’s jaw had slipped down a notch or two. “Back in time?” she repeated.
“1260,” Jessica supplied. “Ask me almost anything and I can tell you about it. Oh, this might prove it.” She pulled up her shirt and showed her mother and grandmother her scar. “See?”
Her grandmother Irene peered over her bifocals with keen interest.
Margaret, on the other hand, slipped from her chair in a dead faint.
“Not pretty,” Irene noted.
Jessica sighed. It certainly wasn’t.
• • •
Her mother walked around for two days, shaking her head. Jessica waited for her to come to terms with what she’d learned. It was the truth, no matter how hard it was to swallow. She couldn’t do anything to make it more palatable. Her mother would have to accept it or not by herself.
On day three, her mother came into the kitchen, where Jessica was playing canasta with her grandmother, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
“All right,” she said, rubbing her face, “I think I can take the whole story now.”
“It’s a good one,” Irene supplied.
“Thank you, Mother,” Margaret said with pursed lips. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy it as much as you apparently have.”
Irene looked at Jessica. “Kids give their parents that kind of sass back in those dark ages?”
“Not that I heard,” Jessica said, smiling.
“Hrumph,” Irene said, sitting back with her winning hand. “You lost anyway, Jessie. Go ahead and tell your mama the story. I’m going to go make a snack.”
Margaret sighed a long-suffering kind of sigh, then looked at Jessica. “Go ahead. I’m ready.”
And so Jessica told her mother everything, from Archie’s hauling her up the castle steps, to Richard’s doing the same thing a month later after she’d flipped him the bird. She described dancing guardsmen practicing their wooing and squires who didn’t want to be squires. She told her mother about the poverty, the cold, the necessity of knowing how to camp.
And then she told her mother about Richard, about his rough exterior and his tender heart. She told her of Kendrick, of Artane, of the king’s visit, of meeting Abby. She left nothing out and found that in the telling of her story, she realized again just how much she missed the life she had led.
And the man she had left behind.
By the time she had finished with every detail, no matter how small or insignificant, it was well into the afternoon and she and her mother had moved to comfortable overstuffed chairs in the family room. A fire burned in the fireplace and Jessica sat curled up with her favorite blanket around her.
“Well,” Margaret said, when Jessica had finished.
Jessica nodded.
Margaret looked at her with a grave smile. “I don’t think he would have married Henry’s godniece.”
“Maybe not, but I didn’t have the luxury of sticking around to find out.”
“He probably could have gotten you away from Hugh.”
Jessica sighed. “Maybe, but to what end? He would have lost everything that meant anything to him.”
“Isn’t that what happened anyway?” Margaret asked gently.
“Oh, Mom,” Jessica said, feeling her tears start again. “I just don’t know what the right decision was.”
“Then again, maybe you did make the right choice. Maybe he would have had to give up his castle and you would have spent the rest of your lives in poverty.”
“We could have gone to France.”
“I didn’t think he had any friends there.”
Jessica sighed and rubbed her forehead with one hand. “He didn’t. He doesn’t.” It was all ground she’d covered hundreds of times already since she’d returned to the States. “Besides, Mom, it’s a moot point. I can’t get back there. And even if I did, he’d be married and then where would I be?”
Her mother was silent for a moment. “How do you know he would have married her?”
“He would have.”
“Would he?”
Jessica paused. “I think so.”
“You could go to the library and check.”
Jessica shook her head sharply. “I don’t want to know.”
“Jess, honey, you’ve got to find some kind of peace about this. The only way you’ll find that is if you learn what happened.”
“What good would it do me?” Jessica felt the overwhelming urge to put her head in her mother’s lap and bawl her eyes out. “I couldn’t get back to him anyway. I might find out that he never married and then I would spend the rest of my life kicking myself for having taken two stupid steps backward when I should have gone forward. Besides,” she repeated, “I couldn’t go back.”
“Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?”
“Couldn’t.”
Her mother took a deep breath. “Are you sure?”
Jessica swallowed, hard. “I’m afraid to try.”
Her mother reached out and took her hand. “That’s a lousy reason not to grab every moment of happiness you can, Jess. Trust me. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish I’d spent more time with your dad, or told him I loved him two dozen times a day instead of only a dozen. But if only’s don’t do you any good. I don’t have the chance to change my future. You do. Don’t let what you don’t know stop you from living your life without the regret of not having tried.”
“But—”
“That baby needs a father,” Margaret continued. “It needs its father.”
Jessica had no answer for that.
“Enough motherly lecture,” Margaret said, rising. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“It’s raining.”
“No better time for one. You just camped in the Middle Ages for two months and you’re afraid of a little rain?”
Well, at least there would be a hot shower to come home to. But it was a luxury Jessica would have traded in a heartbeat for the chance to enjoy one of Richard’s fires.
She shook her head, rose, and followed her mother from the house.
• • •
A week later Jessica stood at the window of her apartment in New York and stared down over the street. The converted warehouse was in a bad neighborhood. There were times she wondered why she still had her piano—though that at least was probably to
o heavy to steal. Funny, she’d never felt so vulnerable with Richard around. There was something to be said for having a husband who was handy with a blade.
She continued to stand at the window as shots rang out in the dark and a siren soon sounded in the distance. She had to get out of New York. Life wasn’t good here. Maybe she would move back to Seattle.
Or maybe she’d go to England. Could there be a need for composers in that cute little town of Burwyck-on-the-Sea, the one with the crumbling castle nearby?
A knock sounded, making her jump. She blew out a breath, then walked over to the door.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Dakhota. A book came for you today.”
She opened her door slowly and saw her neighbor, safety pin in his ear and neon-blue hair, standing with a package in his hand. He grinned.
“Here. Have a good one, babe.”
Jessica took the book and shut the door, bolting it hastily. She took the book and walked over to the couch. It was from Lord Henry. She opened the package and took out a card.
Dearest Jessica,
I stumbled upon this, and thought it might do you some good. You seemed so distraught about leaving and all. You’re welcome to return whenever you like. Cheerio and all that.
Regards,
Henry
It was a book on the history of Burwyck-on-the-Sea. Jessica’s hands shook as she looked at it. She had purposely avoided the library for the simple reason that she just didn’t want to know anything. She couldn’t bear to read about Richard’s life, his wife, his children, his death. No, she didn’t want to know anything.
Then again, the not knowing was killing her.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. If she opened it, she would know. If she found that Richard hadn’t married the girl, then she would know she’d made a terrible mistake. So what if he’d had to give up Burwyck-on-the-Sea. They could have gone to France, or even Italy. He could have painted full-time. She could have found work composing. She could have become a court composer, he a court painter, and they would have made glorious love each night after creating works that would have gone down in history as masterpieces.
She stared at the book in her hands and felt pieces of her life slip into places she’d never thought they would go. In an instant she made up her mind.
She would go back to England.
She would go back to Richard if it took her the rest of her life to get there. And if she couldn’t wish herself back to him, she’d hang around Burwyck-on-the-Sea until he came to his senses and did the wishing. She didn’t need Henry’s garden or Hugh’s front yard to get her where she needed to go. She just needed herself and her own strength of will and belief in Richard’s love. He hadn’t meant what he’d said. She’d heard him cry out her name just before he’d faded from her view. He hadn’t wanted to let her go.
She took out a pen and a piece of paper. She’d make a list of all the things she couldn’t live without, things she would take with her back to Richard’s time—things that would probably get them both burned at the stake if they fell into the wrong hands. Knowledge was one thing, but a good CD player was another. And she’d also add a few things for Abby de Piaget. A trip to the Mini Mart was the least she could do. Jessica felt the first smile she’d smiled in four months creep over her face.
She refused to think about the possibility that she might not be able to do what she intended.
40
Richard lay on his side in the alcove of his bedchamber and cursed the candle that threatened to go out. It spluttered with the wind that ever seemed to find its way through the shutters. All he needed was a few more minutes and this part of the painting would be finished. And not a bloody moment too soon. He’d been on his back in the alcove for a solid month and he was growing more convinced by the day that he would never walk properly again as a result.
“Finished,” he said, putting the final brush stroke on the tiny sea creatures tumbling about in the surf.
In answer, the candle spluttered violently and went out.
Richard heaved himself to his feet and hobbled over to the hearth. He cast himself down into the chair and prayed that just sitting for a moment might ease the aches in his body.
He knew sitting would not ease the ache in his heart.
It had been three months since he’d watched Jessica disappear before his very eyes and still he could not think on her without weeping. If John hadn’t been lingering about to train the men, the entire garrison would have fallen into ruin. Richard had spent the majority of his time in his bedchamber, painting. It was less humiliating to weep in private than in the lists.
He’d begun painting his walls partly to distract himself and partly because he’d promised her he would. Perhaps someone would write about it in a book and she would read of it in her time and know in her heart that it had been for her.
He’d tried not to wonder what they would say about the length of his life. It was all he could do to survive each day as it came knowing that he had loved a woman he would never see again. He didn’t want to speculate about how long he would be leading such an existence.
He leaned his head back against the chair and thought back over the past three months. They had passed in something of a haze, but he remembered well enough the important events. Henry had come banging upon his front gates after a month, demanding his chess set and declaring his intention to inflict his godniece on one of Robin’s hapless relations. Richard had given up his precious possession gladly, especially if it meant Henry would leave him be for a few more years.
He had also sent Godwin to Merceham to determine Hugh’s state of affairs. The keep had been overrun, the peasants surly, and Hugh barricaded in his bedchamber, chewing on his straw mattress to survive. Richard had almost wished Godwin had left the wretch to his misery, but Merceham was Richard’s holding when it came to the end of the tale, so he had difficulty seeing the place become completely uninhabitable. He’d given Godwin the opportunity of becoming lord of Merceham and Godwin had accepted. Such a lofty title also came with the burden of Hugh, but Richard reasoned that if anyone could keep Hugh in check, it would be the former Torturer of Navarre.
Richard suspected Hugh didn’t appreciate the change, but he’d heard no complaints.
Gilbert’s sire had sent apologies on a weekly basis for Gilbert’s foul deed and informed Richard that the lad had been foisted off upon a remote group of friars. Richard could only hope that the lads were hard-of-hearing. He suspected that not even the prayers Gilbert’s sire had bought on his behalf would ascend to heaven with Gilbert’s screeching to drown them out.
All of which left him with a hall yet to complete and a ring from his lady sitting on his hand which she hadn’t been there to give to him. Richard looked down at the heavy ring with its deep emerald and wished with all his heart that Jessica had been the one to place it on his hand. How, by all the saints, was he to survive the rest of his life without her?
He rose with a curse, strode over to the window, and threw open the shutters. The sky was cloudless and the stars heavy in the firmament. He glared at the heavens and snapped out the rhyme Jessica had taught him:
Star light, star bright
The first star I see tonight.
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have this wish I wish tonight.
I wish I had my love!
He finished it with a roar. “Damnation,” he snarled, “how is it I am to live without her now?”
The heavens were silent. It wasn’t as if he expected anything else. He’d been asking the same question for weeks now, and with no answer. He put his hands on the sides of the window enclosure and bowed his head. Saints, not even the wind was enough to blow his foul mood from him.
He should have followed her more swiftly from Artane. He should have killed Hugh with a crossbow whilst his brother held Jessica captive. There were a score of things he should have done differently, but he hadn’t and he had only himself to
blame for it.
He looked up into the heavens again and wondered if it might be possible to wish her home. Was it too late to try, in truth?
For all he knew, she had returned to her former life as a composer and given him no more thought. If only she were once again in the England of her day—even at Merceham if need be. If he wished strongly enough, might he not wish her back to him?
He considered it until his face was numb from the cold and his wits just as sluggish. He closed the shutters with stiff fingers, then turned and sought his fire.
He would think on it on the morrow. Perhaps the answers would come to him then.
• • •
Jessica stood just outside the front door of a small hotel in Burwyck-on-the-Sea and watched the sun beat down on the castle walls. The town was named for the nearby castle—or so she’d been told by the proprietress upon her arrival. The woman had been full of other interesting touristy facts, such as the dimensions of the round tower, and the lives and loves of the illustrious lords who had dwelt there.
It had occurred to Jessica that she might be able to add to the woman’s store of facts, but she had refrained. She’d listened politely, but in reality she had wanted facts no tourist would be interested in. Did they ever lose people, just have them vanish poof! with no explanation? Were the walls of the great hall in such bad shape because of decay and pilferage, or was it because the hall had never been finished in the first place?
Jessica wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the outline of the castle against the noonday sky. The strangeness of the sight was yet another thing to add to the strangeness of her life the past few weeks.
She had packed up her apartment, sold her piano, and quit her job. She’d said good-bye to her mother and grandmother and gotten on the plane to England. Getting to Burwyck-on-the-Sea had been an adventure with all that wrong-side-of-the-road driving business, but she hadn’t been about to lose her life on the freeway when she had so much of it left ahead of her.
She was going home.
She wasn’t going to let a little thing like time stand in her way.
And so there she found herself, staring up at Richard’s home and praying the next time she saw it up close, it would have his men manning its walls.