by Sarah Hegger
Elewys slipped into the cottage, slammed the door behind her and pressed her back against it. “We must go now. What are you waiting for?”
As much as the “we” in that sentence pained her, Laura nodded. “Let’s go.”
“You cannot come with us.” Elewys screwed her face up into a sour expression.
“Neither of you are coming.” Oliver fiddled with the binding on his sword. “Revenge is no place for a woman.”
“I think history would disagree with you on that one.” Laura kept her gaze locked with Oliver’s. No way in hell was she letting him and that sword out of this cottage without her. And no way in hell was she letting Elewys go with him. Even her name sounded kind of twisted.
“You are determined?” Oliver had the whole scary, growly thing down pat.
“I am.”
“You stay here.” He pointed at his mother. “Three of us will draw too much attention.”
Elewys puffed up. “But—”
“Stay.” Sword strapped to his back under his tunic, he stomped out of the cottage, muttering some words that he certainly hadn’t learned in this time.
Elewys jumped in front of him, cupped his face, and tugged his head closer to hers. “Go with God, my son. Know that justice stands at your shoulders, and right will guide your sword hand.”
If Elewys had spoken about anything other than hacking another man to pieces, Laura might have found it all rather poetic. She prodded Oliver in the back. “Let’s go.”
The glare Elewys shot her could have scorched her undies. If she was wearing undies, but her one and only pair hung on a bush outside to dry, and apparently medieval women went commando.
The day heated as they walked. Hot and sticky, Laura wanted to rip her dress in half. Dammit! What was this thing made of? Because it itched like all hell. So much for natural fibers. When she got back, she intended to find the first hipster she could and tell them all about stupid natural fibers. Or maybe Elewys had put some of her nasty juju on the dress before grudgingly loaning it to Laura.
Square, grey and impenetrable Questing Castle stood on a rise. Past and present coalesced into one giant mental twist. The castle looked nearly the same, minus the gift shops and touristy restaurants clinging like barnacles to its outskirts. Where there should have been roads, traffic, and street lamps was a moat, which stunk to high heaven. The ghosts of buildings that had sprung up and flanked the castle in the eight hundred or so years since, yawned in the still empty spaces.
“You all right?” Still sulking with her, Oliver hadn’t said much since they’d left the cottage.
Laura concentrated on breathing in and breathing out. “Just give me a moment.”
The castle gates stood open to the steady trickle of people moving in and out. Except the people looked all wrong, wore all the wrong clothing, carried the wrong things in their hands.
She’d pay good money for a Japanese tour guide with one of those plastic dinosaurs on a stick, leading his tour through the gates, talking ten to the dozen as he outlined the history. History she had just become a part of. Wasn’t there some sort of physics issue coming into play here? She’d watched enough Dr. Who to know you couldn’t mess with the past and expect the future to stay the same. Not wanting to mess with the butterfly effect, she skirted a young woman carrying a basket of apples.
“His pennant flies.” Oliver pointed to banner fluttering in the unenthusiastic morning breeze. “He is here.”
“Oh, goodie!” Because fate wouldn’t do her a solid and have de Wolfe on the other side of the country.
“I could always leave you here.” Oliver looked far too hopeful for her peace of mind.
Laura got it together. Or close enough. “Forget it, big boy. Where you go, I go.”
“Bloody hell.” He grabbed her hand and hauled her over the drawbridge. “Women have gotten a lot more mouthy over the years.”
This from a man with a mother like his, and dear God what the hell was that smell? It scoured her nostrils and made her eyes water. What did they put in the moat water to make it stink so bad? She nearly asked Oliver but, as she had a strong feeling that she really didn’t want to know, she kept her question to herself.
Watching the flow of people, guards with big pikes stood at the gate.
Please don’t let them see the sword; please don’t let them see the sword. They passed within arm’s reach of the guard on their right. Laura held her breath, and didn’t breathe again until they passed inside the castle walls.
“Where to now?” Questing Castle was huge, and de Wolfe could be anywhere. Maybe they could spend the day wandering around and never find him. A girl could hope.
“It was his custom to spend this time with his family, in their private gardens.”
Well, shit. Laura trotted after Oliver
Oliver seemed to know where he was going, because he led them through the people, around the side of the castle, and into the walls. Yup, into the walls. A small door opened onto a winding staircase that ascended onto the ramparts. From here, he strode forward passing more guards.
One guard glanced up and then went back to playing a game with his buddy.
“Ho!” A voice stopped them.
Heart in her throat, Laura turned.
A tall, broad helmeted guard approaching them.
Tension radiating through his hand into her, Oliver stopped.
“What are you doing here?” The guard looked Oliver and then her up and down.
Oliver shrugged. “I wanted to show my wife the view from the north wall. They say you can see Scotland from there.”
“Well, you cannot.” The guard palmed his sword. “Get along with you.”
Oliver’s hand tightened around hers.
“Please, sire.” Laura stepped forward and batted her lashes at the guard. “I only wish to glimpse it for the merest of moments and then we shall be on our way.” She leaned closer and giggled. “I am newly come to this region, and I have heard tell great stories of the legendary William de Wolfe. Methinks I sought only to catch the veriest glimpse of such a man’s view.”
The guard frowned at Oliver. “Your wife speaks funny.”
Sue her. She didn’t speak freaking Chaucer.
“Her people are Welsh.” Oliver shrugged.
The guarded nodded, as if that made sense. “All right then, but be quick about it.”
“Thank you, kind sir.”
Oliver jerked her hand, snapping her head back. “Try not to speak.”
“What are you bitching about? I saved your ass.” A little gratitude would be nice.
8
Below Questing’s walls, on a swathe of bright green grass, a family enjoyed the warm day. “That’s your big bad Wolfe?”
William de Wolfe was a big man with dark hair, broad shoulders and a barrel chest. Over his clothes, he wore chain mail. The man had been…was a knight. What else would he wear? He made those guys who did the Vegas show look kind of pathetic. He had his arm around the woman’s shoulder, one child tugging on his hand, while another skipped ahead. Smiling and laughing, he didn’t look like the sort of guy who would chase down a defenseless woman and her infant and try to kill them. Lunging, he made the boys shriek and run away with delighted smiles.
Age could be hard to tell, but Laura put him at no more than thirty-five, which meant that Elewys had either been seducing little boys, or lying through her teeth. Not to mention, she just couldn’t see Elewys and de Wolfe getting it on. It took all types and predicting what others found attractive was harder than picking winning lottery numbers, but she couldn’t see the smoking hot knight below them with Elewys.
Face grim, his big hands white-knuckle clenched on the wall in front of them, Oliver was tense enough to pluck. He whispered the words like a prayer. “William de Wolfe.”
Elewys had certainly done a number on her son. Even Singen would have paused in his assessment of Oliver’s mental health had he seen the look of determination on Oliver’s face.
“Who is that with him?” Laura pointed to a tiny, pretty, blonde woman.
“His wife.” Oliver spat the words. “He married a Scottish whore.”
“She’s beautiful.” Laura needed him to see the family below him as people.
“Aye.” Oliver rammed his palm into the wall. “She has bewitched him, wrapped her whore hands around his cock and leads him about by it.” Oliver opened his mouth and Elewys had come out.
With the woman deemed a Scottish whore, Laura pointed to the two young children with the couple. “Are those their children?”
“Aye.” Oliver flinched. “Twin boys. They carry his name.”
“Oliver.” She had to get through to him somehow. “Look at me.”
He scowled at the family having a harmless picnic.
“Look at me.” She grabbed his chin, and forced his head around. “I want you to try something for me. Can you do that?”
“If you don’t wish to see blood, leave now.” As he stood his dark eyes had turned colder than stone. “Once I get down there, it will happen fast. De Wolfe is armed. I will have a mere heartbeat to strike first.”
“First try this one thing.” Eye contact was imperative and she tugged him back down to where she kneeled behind the rampart. “Then I will go and leave you to do what you think best.” Not a chance, but he didn’t know that.
He jerked his chin away. “What?”
“I want you to look at them again. Not yet.” She put her hand to his cheek and kept him facing her. “When you look at them this time, I want you to imagine that you don’t know who they are. Imagine you’ve never seen those people before and tell me what you see.”
“This is pointless.” Oliver pounded his thigh. “I know who they are. They have to die.”
“Maybe they do.” Laura kept her tone as even as she could manage. Elewys had used her son’s childhood to snake her twisted logic into his mind. In about ten minutes Laura had to undo as much as she could. “But do this for me anyway. You owe me this.”
“What?” He blinked and the rage in his face receded a tiny bit.
“For dragging me back in time.”
“You held on to me.”
“You broke into my house and kidnapped me.”
He huffed. “Fine.” He stared over the wall again. “I see a man, a woman and two children.”
“Pretend I can’t see them and describe them to me.”
“The man is tall, a knight, dark hair. He is carrying one of the children on his shoulders.”
She wiped her sweaty palms on her dress. They trained hostage negotiators for this kind of thing, not young shrinks who weren’t so sure they wanted the job anymore. “What does the child look like?”
“Like a child.” Oliver tossed her an aggrieved glance.
“How old would you say he was?”
“I don’t know.” Oliver growled. “Maybe two or three.”
“Good. Dark hair, light hair?”
“Dark.”
A delighted child’s giggle floated up from the garden.
“Now he is laughing,” Oliver said. “De Wolfe—”
“Uh-uh.” Laura shook her head. “You do not know this man. You don’t know what his name is.”
“Fine.” Rolling his eyes, Oliver took a deep breath. “The man,”—pointed glare—“is toting the child on his shoulders and making him laugh.”
“Who else do you see?”
“His wife, a blonde woman, who is carrying the other child and laughing with them.”
“What does she look like?”
“Pretty.” Oliver shrugged.
“Do you think they are a family?”
“Laura.” Oliver spun in his crouch and faced her. “This is fucking stupid. I need to kill that bastard.”
She kept her voice firm and nonjudgmental. “Are they a family?”
“Yes!”
“Do you think they are a happy family?”
“For God’s sake...yes!”
Okay, baby steps. She put her hand on his knee to make the human connection. “So, what you are looking at is a mother, father and two children. Right?”
“Right.” Oliver frowned, and went back to staring.
One of the children shrieked, his piping voice carrying clear as a bell. “Chase me, Da. Chase me.”
The woman laughed. “Be careful, William. Do not toss him so high.”
Oliver breathed hard, his chest rising and falling. He dropped his forehead onto the crenellations with a thunk. “He is William de Wolfe, the man who abandoned my mother and me. He wants nothing more than to kill us.”
Laura scooted closer and entwined her fingers with his. “He is also a father and a husband. A man who plays with his children and makes them laugh.”
“He never did that for me.” Oliver raised his head, anguish stamped on his features.
Laura wanted to soothe away that hurt and make it all right again, but first she needed him to absorb. “Oliver. Look at that man again. How old would you say he was?”
Oliver frowned. He reared back as if she had struck him and stared at de Wolfe. “I am not sure. My mother says he was very young when she met him.”
“He looks like he could be your brother.”
“Nay.” Oliver dropped back onto his butt. He shook his head. “That cannot be right.”
“Before you kill him, and make that woman a widow, and those children as fatherless as you are right now, do you not think we should get the answers?”
Oliver said nothing on their long walk home. Laura left him to his silence, ready to talk if he needed to. He’d made a huge shift today and these things took time to process. Medieval England was pretty, all nature and unspoiled landscape. What a pity all this had been lost in the years following.
As they approached the cottage, the door flew open and Elewys came running. She stopped in front of Oliver, face flushed. “Is it done?”
“Nay.” Oliver sidestepped her and went into the cottage.
Eyes flashing, Elewys turned on Laura. “What did you do?”
“I reasoned with him.” Laura moved to go around her.
Elewys jumped into her path. “You have interfered where you had no right.” Spittle flew from her mouth. “William de Wolfe must die. Oliver needs this.”
“Oliver needs this?” Laura stepped past her. “Or you need this?”
“They are one and the same,” Elewys said.
So not true.
Oliver came out of the cottage again carrying an axe. “I’m going to do some clearing.”
“I’ll come with you.” Alone with Elewys, really not an option right now.
He shrugged and stomped into the surrounding treeline.
Laura followed him. As he got to work, she perched on an overturned log.
Oliver stripped small shoots from a young tree.
“What are you doing?”
He glanced at her and went back to his tree. “We need more land for planting. I need to clear this area.”
A small glade of younger trees nestled between their larger cousins, the canopy so thick it filtered the sunlight in a green haze. “It’s pretty here.”
Oliver stopped his work and glanced about him. “If we don’t have more land, we can’t plant enough to get us through the winter.”
She did understand. Life in this time revolved around practicalities. “I know that. But in my time, places like this are so hard to find. We’ve pretty much destroyed most of them.”
Oliver nodded, finished stripping the sapling and braced his axe. Stilling, he looked at her. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure?”
“Why did you stop me?”
Ah. She had expected this. “I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.”
“How could I regret killing de Wolfe?” He hefted the axe. “After all he has done to me.”
“Oliver.” Laura stood and approached him. She needed to tread carefully. “Even if everything you and your mother say is true, I thi
nk you would still regret killing him.”
Frowning, he dropped his head.
She touched his arm. “Nothing can change the past, and nothing can right it either.”
Shutting his eyes, he breathed deep. “What about justice?”
“You are so sure killing him would be justice?”
He swore and tossed his axe to the side. “You and your damned questions all the time.” He crowded closer. “You pick and pick at a thing. Asking all these questions all the time. I am not a man of your time, Laura.” He grabbed her arms and yanked her closer to him. “I am not some ballockless puny excuse for a man with a weak stomach.”
For the first time since she had woken with him in her bedroom, Laura felt truly scared. She’d pushed Oliver, perhaps too far, too fast, but she’d had to stop him from killing de Wolfe. “Oliver, you need to let me go.”
“You spend a lot of time telling me what to do.” His face tightened in anger. “Oliver do this, don’t do that. I am a man, Laura, not a sheep.”
“I know that.” A very big man and standing far too close. “But right now you are frightening me.”
“Am I?” His grip loosened. “We can’t have that, can we?”
His mood changed so swiftly she barely caught it. From anger to something far more disturbing. Something that burned as hot and as wild.
Laura’s response was instinctive. Her libido recognized what her mind refused to. He desired her.
“Am I frightening you now?” His voice stroked her. “Your face is flushed.”
Along with other parts of her. She felt the heat of his gaze all over.
He slid his hands under her hair and cupped her head. “Do you know what I thought when I first saw you?”
She shook her head. One brief moment they had passed in the hall. Pinned beneath Seth, Oliver had fought with such fury, fighting against the effects of the drug.
Laura had stopped to see the new inmate.
Oliver’s gaze had snapped to hers, and he’d stilled. Just briefly, but the drug had caught up with him and he’d passed out.
His thumbs brushed her jawline. “In the midst of all that chaos stood you. The loveliest thing I had ever seen.”