Touch of Enchantment

by Teresa Medeiros

  "How were you wounded?" she asked, nodding toward his bandage.

  "Escaping."

  He certainly wouldn't win any congeniality awards. "Escaping from where?"

  She thought his expression couldn't become any more murderous. She was wrong. "From this dungeon."

  Tabitha winced, suddenly comprehending the enormity of what she'd done. If she hadn't intercepted him, he would be well on his way to freedom by now.

  "This Brisbane fellow doesn't seem to be terribly fond of you. What did you do to him?"

  "What did I do to him?" he repeated, the soft rasp somehow more alarming than a full-throated roar. "What did I do to him?"

  Before Tabitha could take it back, he rose and staggered toward her. She scrambled to her feet. But he didn't touch her; he didn't have to. He simply backed her against the wall with the sheer force of his will, leaving her helpless to do anything but look into those smoldering eyes.

  She remembered learning long ago that the men of previous generations had rarely achieved the heights of her contemporaries. Her classmates had giggled, envisioning an army of dwarves riding Shetland ponies. She realized now how naive they had been.

  This man might be no more than half an inch taller than she was, but he exuded raw virility. There was something unnerving yet exhilarating about standing toe-to-toe with such a man.

  She tried to lower her gaze, but he caught her chin in his hand and tilted her face upward, his grip as steely as his voice was soft. "Why don't I tell you what Brisbane did to me?"

  "If you'd like," she offered timidly.

  "While I was defending the cause of Christ against the infidels in Egypt, he laid siege to my father's castle. After he'd starved several of the inhabitants of the castle to death, including my stepmother and infant sister, he stormed the keep and torched the village. His henchmen slaughtered all the men of fighting age and raped the women, from the oldest crone to the most innocent child."

  The blood drained from Tabitha's face. He went on.

  "When I set foot on Scottish soil for the first time in six years, Brisbane's men ambushed me and carted me off to this dungeon where their lord was gracious enough to inform me of the fate of my family."

  Not really wanting to know the answer, she whispered, "Your father?"

  "Died of apoplexy before the castle surrendered. Twas most likely the shock of my stepmother's death that killed him."

  Tabitha swallowed. Hard. "No wonder you're in such a bad mood. You're probably suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome or unresolved grief. Perhaps a good psychotherapist…?" She stammered to a halt. His unflinching gaze made her psychobabble sound unbearably trivial.

  For some inexplicable reason, his grip on her chin gentled. "Brisbane took my home. He took my family. He took my freedom. He left me with nothing but my honor. And you, my lady, handed that to him on a silver platter when you defended me with my own sword and allowed his men to make mock of me."

  Raven's a craven!

  Ravenshaw's a boor! Defended by a whore!

  "What was I supposed to do?" Tabitha protested. "Let him cut you down in cold blood?"

  "Aye," he replied without hesitation. "At least I would have died with my honor intact."

  She wanted to denounce his archaic reasoning, but the image of this proud knight driven to his knees at his enemy's feet was too fresh in her memory.

  She was horrified to feel her throat closing. "I'm sorry," she said fiercely, returning his glare, trying to hold back tears.

  Sir Colin of Ravenshaw was not a man to be melted by heartfelt apologies. He stilled the trembling of her lower lip with his thumb before turning away from her. "Not half as sorry as I, my lady."

  Tabitha huddled in a corner of the cell, transfixed by the waning torch flame. She'd been watching it burn for a long time and knew it would be only a matter of minutes before it smoldered to ash, leaving them in darkness. She thought longingly of the contents of the Gucci purse she'd left in her apartment – a travel flashlight, a half-eaten Twinkie, a pack of sugar-free gum. Although only hours had passed since Brisbane had locked them away, she could no longer remember the last time she'd eaten or drank or slept.

  Probably because it had been several centuries in the future.

  What would Uncle Cop make of her disappearance? Would he call the police or would he assume the envelope he'd given her had contained some crucial information about her parents' whereabouts? He had no way of knowing she'd discovered her mother's amulet. It saddened her to realize that it might be days before anyone even noticed she was missing. She had no close friends and her coworkers at the lab were probably celebrating the absence of their perfectionist boss.

  Sir Colin hadn't spoken a single word to her since their earlier confrontation. His silence only deepened the frigid chill until Tabitha could feel it sinking into her very bones along with the icy fear she could no longer ignore. If her parents hadn't arranged this bizarre encounter, then that meant they weren't safe at home, chuckling at her predicament. They were still missing, perhaps even… She shuddered away the possibility, refusing to consider what she couldn't accept.

  It wasn't until Sir Colin's soft snores pierced the eerie hush that she dared to creep over and make use of the bucket, her cheeks burning the entire time.

  She shuffled back to her corner to find the torch fading. No longer able to stifle her shivers, she inched closer to the knight's shadowy form. She'd felt lonely most of her life, but she'd never felt quite so alone. She couldn't blame Colin for hating her. It had taken her only a few careless minutes in this century to destroy a reputation he'd labored on for a lifetime.

  The torch sputtered. She bit her lip, willing it to keep burning. With a hissed sigh, the flame collapsed, losing the battle against the darkness.

  Tabitha froze. She'd survived New York blackouts before, but she'd never endured a darkness so palpable. It pressed down like a lead weight. It seemed to her that they weren't so much imprisoned as buried alive. She forgot to breathe, so paralyzed with fear she didn't even realize the rhythmic snores had also ceased.

  Then it came. The dreaded skitter of claws on stone.

  Forgetting courage and pride, Tabitha launched herself in the general direction of Sir Colin, coming up hard against his side. She cowered against his broad, warm body, waiting for him to yell at her or push her away or make fun of her fear.

  For a long moment, he didn't move or say a word, every muscle in his body as rigid as stone. Then with labored sigh, he drew her into his arms and rested his chin on her head.

  "Don't be afraid, lass," he murmured. "I'm too tough for the rats to eat and you're too scrawny."

  No one had ever called her scrawny before. Tabith rested her cheek against his chest, marveling at how quickly her teeth stopped chattering. His chain mail should have been cold, but the body beneath radiated heat like a furnace.

  As the tension began to melt from her muscles, she wondered if Brisbane would leave them to die in the place. Would someone unearth this cell centuries from now to find their bones seemingly entwined in a lover' embrace? Somehow that seemed the unfairest cut of a since the man holding her so tenderly was nothing more than a stranger who despised her.

  Sighing wistfully, she reached into her pajama shirt and closed her hand around her mother's amulet. " wish…" she whispered, just before drifting into sleep.

  Chapter 7

  Tabitha's mother had warned her more than once about eating chocolate before bedtime.

  She should have listened, Tabitha thought, as she snuggled deeper into her fat, fluffy pillow. Her dreams had been populated by a cast of bizarre characters, including a brimstone-snorting stallion, a fey sadist dressed like Elvis in his rhinestone-cape period, and a surly knight with bedroom eyes and a brooding smirk, who'd spent most of her dream waving an enormous sword at her. She found the latter by far the most disturbing. She'd never relished being dominated, yet who could this provocative satyr be but the Freudian embodiment of her most prima
l sexual desires?

  Groaning, she tossed back the eiderdown quilt and fumbled for the alarm, hoping to mute it before Vivaldi could blare in her ear. Her reach was thwarted by something tangled around her waist.

  She glanced down, expecting to find a cotton sheet wound around her midriff. Instead, she discovered a well-muscled forearm dusted with crisp, black hairs. Tabitha stared at it in fascination, dumbfounded by the novel experience of having a warm male body nestled against her backside. He arched his back and mumbled something into her hair, molding himself even more firmly to her rump. She gasped with fresh shock. A very warm, very male body.

  Since she wasn't in the habit of surfing bars for one-night stands, there could be only one conclusion.

  She hadn't been dreaming. She was actually imprisoned in a medieval dungeon with a surly barbarian.

  Doubly confused, she blinked at the water-pocked walls. If this was a dungeon, then why were they snuggled in an Ethan Allen cherry sleigh bed? Why was the air warm and toasty instead of chill and damp? She tried to wiggle out of Colin's embrace, but his possessive grip only tightened. He finally grunted a sleepy surrender and rolled to his back, an intriguing hint of a sulk playing around his stoic mouth.

  Tabitha sat up on her knees on the plush mattress, her eyes widening as she surveyed the transformed cell. Wall-to-wall Berber carpet covered the mottled flagstones. A ceramic heater roosted in the corner, merrily radiating heat although its cord was plugged into thin air. A Tiffany lamp cast a burnished glow over the knight's slumbering form.

  She clapped a hand over her mouth, her initial wonder eclipsed by an all-too-familiar dread. "Oh, hell," she whispered. "What have I done now?"

  Her nose twitched in an involuntary response to the enticing aromas drifting up from the satin-draped table at the foot of the bed. A table laden with all of her favorite foods from the restaurants where she so frequently lunched, brunched, and dined. There were Hungarian tortes drizzled with strawberries from the Cafe Des Artistes, browned sea scallops in a creamy risotto from 44, juicy fried chicken from Sylvia's in Harlem, creme brulee from Le Cirque, blinis from the Russian Tea Room, and an entire pyramid of her guilty little lunch secret – steaming Big Macs. Tabitha moaned as her empty stomach contracted.

  She buried her face in her hands, trying to figure out how she could have authored such a disaster. She remembered drifting toward sleep in Colin's arms, succumbing to her vague and dreamy longings for warmth and light and food. Closing her hand around her mother's amulet…

  Before she could pursue that thought, Colin stirred in his sleep. She looked frantically around the tiny cell, seeking somewhere to hide the result of her fantasies. She even leaned over and peered under the bed, as if she might actually be able to stuff everything under it and distract him from noticing the bed itself.

  When Tabitha righted herself, she found Colin propped up on the pillows, eyeing her rump appraisingly.

  She glanced down, suddenly afraid she'd wished herself into a skimpy Victoria's Secret teddy. She was relieved to find she was still wearing her frumpy flannel pajamas, though they didn't stop Colin's drowsy scrutiny. His heavy-lidded gaze drifted lazily downward, then up again, finally coming to rest on her puzzled face.

  The corner of his mouth lifted in a sheepish curl and Tabitha thought for a moment he might actually smile at her.

  But his attention was caught by the scents wafting up from the table at the foot of the bed. As he surveyed the feast, his habitual scowl reappeared, only to be slowly replaced by an expression of terror.

  He scrambled out of the bed in a blind panic, jerking the flowered sheet around his waist as if he were naked instead of fully clothed and partially armored.

  "What manner of trickery is this?" he demanded, backing away from her until his shoulders struck the cell wall.

  Forced to improvise, Tabitha shrugged. "I don't know. It was all here when I woke up. Maybe you have an ally in Brisbane's court who wanted to make your captivity more comfortable."

  She inched toward the table, prodded by her empty stomach. Now that the jig was up, she didn't see any point in depriving herself.

  She chose a plump chicken breast. But before she could bring it to her lips, Colin crossed the cell and smacked it out of her hand. It landed on the carpet with a juicy plop.

  She dolefully looked at the fallen morsel. "Do you think it might be poisoned?"

  "Worse," he said, signing a cross on his breast. "Enchanted."

  Tabitha managed to smile weakly. "Enchanted?"

  "Aye." The husky timbre of his voice sent a strange shiver through her. "I've heard many a tale of bold and true knights who partook of enchanted food only to fall under the spell of the enchanter for all eternity."

  She wasn't hypocrite enough to chide him for being superstitious. "Well, since we're probably going to be spending eternity right here in this dungeon…" She snatched a Big Mac and bounded off the opposite side of the bed, cramming a bite into her mouth before he could stop her. A moan of sheer delight escaped her. Processed cheese had never tasted so delicious.

  Colin watched her devour the steaming hunk of beef, hunger obvious in his eyes. She held out the remainder of the burger. "Go on. I think it's safe. I don't feel the least bit beguiled."

  After a moment of hesitation, he reached across the bed to accept her offer. He peeked under the sesame-seed bun and scowled at the pickles, then tore into the burger. Tabitha admired the flash of his delighted grin, thinking he didn't have bad teeth himself for a man with no access to a Long Island orthodontist or twice a year cleanings.

  While she settled cross-legged on the bed to feast on fried chicken, Hungarian tortes, and a stack of crisp, succulent blinis, Colin polished off that Big Mac and two more. His wound no longer seemed to be troubling him and she was beginning to think his collapse the day before was due to dehydration and lack of food rather than blood loss.

  She hadn't considered the consequences of introducing a medieval knight to American junk food. Suppose Colin gave up slaying dragons to open the world's first fast-food restaurant chain? What if she had changed the course of history by hardening the arteries of her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather?

  "You're no relation to the McDonalds, are you?" she asked, eyeing him warily.

  "I should say not," he replied through a mouthful of burger. "My great-grandfather fought against Clan MacDonald when they tried to steal Malcolm's crown."

  "Good." She celebrated by downing an egg cream from Rumpelmayer's ice cream parlor.

  Still chewing, Colin resumed his suspicious examination of the cell. "No man could have done such mischief as this while I was sleeping. An Egyptian in Mansourah tried to slit my throat once when I was napping in the sun and I had his heart in my hand before it had even ceased beating."

  Tabitha licked away her egg cream mustache, her appetite deserting her. "I'm sure whoever's responsible didn't mean you any harm."

  "Harm or no, that doesn't explain how they lifted me from the floor to the bed without arousing me."

  She averted her eyes, trying not to remember precisely how aroused he'd been when she'd awakened. "I know how they could have done it," she said with what she hoped was conviction. "They probably drugged us. We did both drink the ale, you know."

  Her attempt to divert Colin's suspicions failed miserably. He turned his narrowed gaze on her. "Aye, but you refused the pottage, didn't you? You insisted I eat your portion as well as my own."

  "I wasn't very hungry," Tabitha lied, realizing too late that he'd just watched her polish off half a chicken.

  He took a step toward the bed, pointing an accusing finger at her. " 'Tis past time you told me what you were doing in that meadow. Did Brisbane use you to bait his trap?" To her relief, he swung away from her to pace around the bed, dragging a hand through his unruly hair. "He'd rather toy with me than kill me, wouldn't he? Perhaps he even allowed me to escape from the dungeon the first time. That would explain the
ease with which I retrieved my armor and sword. He knew I'd never break under torture, so he set a woman in my path, thinking to prey on my weakness."

  Tabitha might have laughed at being cast in the role of temptress, but her amusement fled when he knelt on the bed next to her.

  He cupped her cheek in his hand, gazing deep into her eyes. "Is that what Brisbane believed? That I wouldn't have the strength to resist your big gray eyes? That I'd be swayed by the freshness of your scent?" He ran his thumb across her lips, its callused tip parting them to evoke a primal shiver. "The softness of your lips?"

  Tabitha's mouth went dry. She couldn't manage even a squeak of protest.

  Colin's hand slid around to her nape, tightening even as his voice softened. "If I find out you're one of Brisbane's whores…"

  At that moment the door crashed open, and Colin jumped to his feet.

  A squat guard stood well back from the cell, as if fearing an ambush from the man within. His disembodied voice grated like iron on stone. "Follow me, Ravenshaw. My lord demands your presence in the bailey. And bring the whore," he added as if in afterthought.

  "I am not a whore," Tabitha snapped for both of their benefits as she scrambled out of the bed and followed Colin from the cell. "I'm a Ph.D."

  A second guard was gripping a haggard old man by the elbow. While his companion clapped a pair of iron manacles on Colin's wrists, he thrust the toothless fellow into their abandoned cell and slammed the door.

  As the crossbar fell, Tabitha heard the old man exclaim, "Praise be to God! I've died and gone to paradise!"

  The guard shook his grizzled head. "Batty old fool. He'll be dead soon enough with nothin' but gruel and rats to eat."