He shoved the dagger into his waistband and nudged the stallion into a gallop. Brisbane pounded on the rail and howled, "Stop him, you imbeciles!"
His guards either stood gaping, paralyzed with shock, or ran in ineffectual circles, stumbling over one another in their efforts to gather both their gear and their wits. Colin bent low over the stallion's neck, clearing the fence with magnificent ease.
Tabitha was on her feet, cheering as wildly as she ever had at a New York Giants game, when she realized he was abandoning her to her death. She gripped the railing, the chaos around her fading to a dull roar. Unexpected tears stung her eyes, but she frantically blinked them back. She didn't have any right to be disillusioned. This was no fairy tale and even a knight's gallantry must have its limits. She could hardly expect Colin to sacrifice his own life for a woman he barely knew and didn't even trust.
But none of those rational arguments eased the desolate ache in her heart as she watched him race across the meadow and up the grassy slope toward freedom.
At the crest of the hill, he wheeled the horse around and sat silhouetted against the sky, his dark hair billowing in the wind.
Brisbane paled. An eerie hush fell over the crowd, as if they were all holding their breaths.
Although she knew it was impossible from that distance, Tabitha would have almost sworn Colin was gazing right into her eyes. Her heart began to pound in her throat. She clenched the rail, wanting to hope, but knowing she would hate herself for it when he turned his back and rode out of her life forever.
This time he didn't bother with a battle cry. He simply drove the stallion straight down the hill, his thundering charge scattering the panicked guards.
Tabitha's heart sang with exultation.
"He's mad," Brisbane breathed, the strangled note of admiration in his voice unmistakable. "The bastard is utterly mad."
Sir Colin added credence to that assessment by aiming his horse straight for the gallery stairs. The admiring cries from the ladies behind Tabitha erupted into squeals of terror. As the horse lunged up the stairs, rocking the entire platform, several of them dove over the rail, their veils rippling behind them like colorful kite tails.
Brisbane shot Tabitha a murderous look, plainly torn between breaking her neck before Colin could reach her or diving to safety himself. Tabitha helped him make his decision by planting a foot firmly in the middle of his solar plexus. He crashed through the rail instead of over it, hurtling through the air to land in the sand with a satisfying thud. She tore off the coronet of flowers and tossed it on his chest, thankful for the self-defense lessons Uncle Sven, Lennox Enterprises's towering Chief of Security, had given her.
Then Colin was there, his hand extended, his golden eyes blazing brighter than the sun. Tabitha had no time to ponder her fear of horses, no time to do anything but seize his hand and allow him to drag her up and astride the horse behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist, clinging for dear life.
He guided the horse around only to discover that several of Brisbane's more foolhardy guards had blocked the stairs, their swords drawn for battle. Tabitha had no idea what he intended to do until he urged the horse to prance backward, leaving a clear shot between them and the splintered rail.
"Hang on," he shouted.
"Oh, God," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut and burying her face against the feverish warmth of his back.
Beneath Colin's gentle mastery, the stallion soared off the platform as if winged. The sensation of weightlessness might have actually been exhilarating if Tabitha hadn't been convinced they were about to crash in a heap of torn flesh and shattered bone.
They hit the ground with an impact that jarred her teeth, but the horse miraculously kept its feet, stretching its powerful limbs into a canter.
They were racing up the hill when a terrible thought struck Tabitha. She pounded on Colin's shoulder, oblivious to his grunt of pain. "We have to go back! I forgot Lucy. I can't abandon her a second time. Brisbane will eat her for sure!"
"Are you mad, woman?" Colin shouted over his shoulder. He made no attempt to slow the horse's flight until she reached around him and tried to grab the reins.
He wrenched the horse to a shuddering halt and twisted around to glare at her. "I should have let Brisbane have your pretty head. 'Tis plainly of no use to you."
Tabitha didn't even notice he'd called her pretty. She was too embarrassed by her clogged throat and the pink she could feel creeping into her nose. In less than twenty-four hours, she'd traveled over seven hundred years into the past, been captured by a sadistic madman, thrown into a rat-infested dungeon, and threatened with decapitation. She didn't think she could bear losing Lucy as well.
"Oh, please," she said, dabbing at her nose with the ermine-trimmed hem of Brisbane's cloak. "You're a knight, aren't you? Rescuing damsels in distress is supposed to be part of your job description."
He gazed into her pleading eyes for several seconds, a muscle in his jaw working savagely, before biting off an oath she hadn't even realized existed yet and swinging the horse back around.
She clung to him as much out of gratitude as desperation as they charged back into the fray.
"There she is," Tabitha shouted when she spotted the bell-capped jester sprinting for cover, the yowling kitten tucked beneath his arm like a football.
Colin never even slowed the stallion. He simply leaned sideways in the saddle and plucked the kitten from the jester's grip, leaving him staring after them in blank astonishment. Lucy immediately clawed her way up Colin's wounded shoulder and glared at Tabitha as if to say, "What the hell took you so long?"
Tabitha laughed through her tears, even as Brisbane's archers sent a cascade of arrows whizzing past their heads.
As they galloped toward the distant horizon, leaving the shouting and chaos far behind, she rested her cheek against Colin's back, going limp with relief.
"My hero," she murmured, sobered to realize she was only half joking.
PART TWO
Bewitched
Love distills desire upon the eyes, love brings bewitching grace into the heart…
– Europides
Chapter 9
Tabitha kept her arms twined trustingly around Colin's waist as he drove the stallion deep into the winding maze of the forest. The canopy of branches laced together like the ribs of some mighty dragon, weaving an illusion of eternal twilight. The hoofbeats and frustrated curses of their pursuers would fade, then swell, then fade again as Colin led them on a merry chase through copse and thicket. Lucy huddled in the cup of Tabitha's hand, cradled securely against Colin's taut stomach.
The roar of a waterfall nearly masked a triumphant shout as one of Brisbane's men spotted their trail.
"Duck!" Colin shouted.
When Tabitha's frantic gaze encountered no sign of a woodland fowl, she obeyed just in time to keep her head from being lopped off by an overhanging ledge. Cool spray drenched her skin as Colin drove the stallion into the yawning mouth of the cave tucked behind the screen of rushing water.
Colin gave her little time to adjust to the hazy half-light. He flung himself off the horse without a word of explanation, dragging her with him. He wrapped his arms around her as he slammed his back against the cavern wall, draping them both in shadows. The stallion stood motionless, as if he'd been trained to do so by an infinitely patient master.
Tabitha held her breath as two men passed so close to the mouth of the cave that even the spill of water failed to muffle their disgruntled voices.
"Bastard couldn't have just disappeared."
"You'd best pray not 'cause the master'll have our heads if we go back without 'im."
Tabitha bit back a cry of pain as Lucy dug her claws into her arm.
Colin cradled the back of her head in his broad palm, pressing her face to his chest. Her first absurd notion that he was trying to cop a feel collapsed when she realized that one squeak from her or the cat and they would be trapped at the mercy of Brisbane's men.
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Their forced intimacy should have been awkward. But there was something disarmingly natural about standing in Colin's arms, feeling the powerful throb of his heart beneath her lips. His crisp chest hairs tickled her nose, forcing her to swallow a sneeze. His well-muscled frame could have been modeled from tensile steel, but an inexplicable languor melted through Tabitha, making her feel warm and cherished and safe from all harm for the first time in her life.
The menacing hoofbeats receded, but the tension failed to melt from Colin's body.
His hand crept around to cup her cheek, alerting her to a more subtle danger. But the warning came too late. He didn't even have to tilt her face upward to find her lips with his own. They were already there – tingling, moist, and parted in an invitation. Tabitha hadn't even realized she'd extended until it was too late to rescind it.
His mouth brushed hers in a dry, chaste caress, his bottom lip too persuasively soft to belong to such a hard man. Lost in a daze of pleasure, Tabitha considered calling back Brisbane's guards. From a practical viewpoint, she'd be better off losing her head in this century than her heart.
Lucy must have agreed, for she scrambled out of Tabitha's grip, yowling at the top of her tiny lungs. Tabitha and Colin sprang apart, the curious spell that had bound them broken.
Colin glared at her, his chest heaving, his hands clenched into fists. She felt a brief pang of regret that her kiss hadn't turned him into a frog. A frog might have been easier to deal with than a hundred eighty pounds of disgruntled male.
She scrambled to fill the awkward silence. "There's really no need for alarm or apologies. A false sense of intimacy is a completely normal psychological reaction to the stress of sharing a life-threatening experience." She smoothed her hair back from her burning cheeks, laughing shakily. "The relatively common phenomenon explains why traditionally during wartime, so many hasty marriages are made and babies conceived – "
He crossed his arms over his chest and arched one eyebrow, challenging her to continue. She snapped her mouth shut, wishing she'd kept it that way.
His scowl darkened. "You talk much, lass, but say little. How is it that you have a glib answer for everything except where you came from in the first place?"
Tabitha's mouth fell open. He'd taken up the threads of their earlier conversation as if they'd never been interrupted by a joust, the threat of decapitation, or a headlong flight from disaster. She'd dealt with I.R.S. tax attorneys who were less focused.
This time there was no dungeon guard to blunder to her rescue and no escaping Colin's bright, fierce gaze.
Suspecting this wasn't the opportune moment to confess she was a time-traveling witch, Tabitha seized upon something Brisbane's jester had said. "I was traveling with a band of mummies."
Colin blinked at her. "Mummers?"
"Yes, mummers," she echoed.
"Ah." He nodded, not looking the least bit convinced. "And what did you do with these mummers? Perform the pantomime? Rope dance?" His gaze strayed ever so briefly to lips that were still tingling from his kiss. "Swallow swords?"
Tabitha felt as if she were swallowing an entire lance as she struggled to come up with some diversion she might actually perform if pressed. Her ballet lessons had ended in disgrace when she'd gotten her oversized foot stuck in the barre and she'd been kicked out of the girls' chorus at her private school when she fell through the risers during a Christmas recital.
"Magic," she finally blurted out in desperation. "I did magic."
Colin cocked his head to the side. "Indeed. And might I entreat you to perform one of your tricks?"
"I really couldn't." She shook her head as she backed away from him, hoping her panic would be perceived as modesty. "I wouldn't want to bore you."
"You've yet to bore me, my lady."
Unsettled by his frank gaze, Tabitha backed right into the horse, who shied away from her. She didn't trust her mother's amulet enough to risk a genuine wish. She doubted she'd survive an hour in this wilderness if she accidentally turned Sir Colin into a waffle iron.
Remembering a simple trick her daddy had taught her when she was a little girl, she extended her hand. "Do you have a coin?"
Colin made a great show of patting his bare chest.
"I'm afraid I haven't a farthing to my name at the moment."
Tabitha chose a small, flat rock from the cave floor as a substitute. "Watch my hand," she intoned in what she hoped was a mesmerizing approximation of her mother's husky voice. "No matter what happens, don't take your eyes off my hand."
He dutifully complied as she rolled the rock between the fingers of her right hand, dropping it twice before establishing a respectable rhythm. "Watch closely, sir, and you'll see this magical stone disappear before your very eyes." She opened her hand with a flourish. "Abracadabra!"
The rock flew out of her grip, hitting him squarely in the temple.
Tabitha winced. "Sorry. Let me try again."
Colin rubbed his head, eyeing her warily. "Perhaps we should wait until I can retrieve my helm."
She found another rock and repeated the procedure, stage fright making her fingers even more stiff and clumsy than usual. This time when she extended her hand and shouted, "Abracadabra!" the rock had vanished.
Flushed with pride, she swept Colin a triumphant bow. He caught her wrist and turned her hand palm-down to reveal the stone wedged firmly between her thumb and forefinger. Up went that infuriating eyebrow again; down went Tabitha's spirits.
"Spoilsport," she muttered, jerking her wrist free of his grip.
"You're not very gifted, are you?"
She was surprised by how much his gentle observation stung. Resisting the temptation to grab the amulet and show him just how gifted she could be, she decided to turn his pity to her advantage.
She conjured up a wistful sigh. "That's why the mummers kicked me out of their troupe. Because I was such a terrible embarrassment to them."
His eyes narrowed, his speculative gaze warning her that Sir Colin of Ravenshaw was not a man to be fooled by either illusion or deceit. But before he could challenge her fable, a distant shout forced them to round up kitten and horse and seek a new hiding place to prevent the cave from becoming their tomb.
Roger Basil Henry Joseph Maximillian, Baron Brisbane, strode through the winding passages beneath his castle, affecting a swagger to disguise the limp bestowed upon him by Colin's treacherous whore. He despised revealing any sign of weakness to his inferiors.
"This had best be good," he snapped. "If you've summoned me from my bath for naught, I'll have Cook boil you in tomorrow's pudding."
The two dungeon guards quickened their pace until they were almost skipping, eager to stay out of striking reach. They'd learned from harsh experience that their lord's angelic countenance hid a devilish temper. A temper worsened by Ravenshaw's spectacular triumph on the jousting field and daring escape. Over half of their master's guards had already come crawling back, trembling in their boots and vowing their quarry had vanished into thin air. Accusing them of blaming their own ineptitude on fairies and "haints," Brisbane had ordered the lot of them flogged.
Less than eager to join their groaning comrades in the gatehouse, the guards rushed forward, one sweeping open a cell door while the other tugged at the greasy forelock creeping out from beneath his helm.
"I've never before seen the like, my lord."
"Aye, master, 'tis a riddle only you can solve."
Brisbane swept into the cell, took one look at its occupant, and said, "He's dead. What else do you need to know?"
The corpse lay on his back in the bed, his toes turned outward and a blissful expression on his wizened face. Brisbane poked the old man's bloated belly with one fingertip, his aristocratic nostrils flaring in distaste.
"Who is this fellow? What was his crime?" Roger had had enough on his mind with Colin's return. He could hardly be expected to keep track of all the mewling peasants he sentenced to death or lifelong imprisonment.
"Poachi
n', my lord," chirped one of the guards. "He claimed to be starvin'. Et one of the castle rats, he did."
Brisbane shook his head sadly. "Poor sot would have done well to remember that gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins."
The guards exchanged a wary look. "Precisely our point, my lord," the bolder one said.
They gestured as one to the table at the foot of the bed. Brisbane's eyes widened, his jaded attention finally engaged. Although it was obvious a sizable dent had been made in the feast, the table still contained enough food to feed an entire garrison of soldiers. He glanced back at the corpse, realizing for the first time that the object clutched in the old man's gnarled hand was a chicken bone, sucked clean of its tender flesh.
Baffled, he peeled back a hunk of bread to reveal a cold patty of meat. He swiped a finger through its creamy orange glaze and brought it to his lips. "Mmmm," he murmured thoughtfully. " 'Tis a special sauce."
One of the guards drew off his conical helm, elbowing the other into sheepishly following suit. "'Twas more than the old wretch's gullet could take."
Brisbane's troubled gaze wandered from the beaming corpse to the stained-glass lamp shade, the plush rug, the opulent bed. "Aren't these appointments a trifle bit luxurious? When I had the stonemason design the dungeon, I had something a bit more… Stygian in mind. You know – iron manacles, piles of rotting bones, slavering rats."
One of the guards marched into the corridor and flung open the door of the opposite cell to reveal the exact scene his lord had just described. A herd of squealing rats raced for the walls, their feral eyes gleaming bloodred in the gloom.
Brisbane grinned. "Ah, now that's much better."
The guard returned to his companion's side. " 'Twas this very cell Ravenshaw and his lady shared before we locked up the old man in their place."