When he stayed standing, she risked a tiny sip. “It’s dry.” Very dry when she had braced for sweet. “And tastes a little bit like white wine.”
“Mead is made to preference.” Oliver took a sturdy glug. “Some is sweeter, some is dryer.”
“Huh!” Mead didn’t totally suck and it carried a nice little buzz with it.
Arrow stood up and barked. He dashed over to the door and pawed at it.
Oliver peered out the window. “Ah.” He stuffed his hands into his belt. “My mother is coming.”
“Your mother?” Laura bolted up right. Please God don’t let his mother suffer from the same delusion.
“Indeed.” Oliver paced back to the window and peered out. “My mother is…strange.”
Great! Laura drained her mead.
The cottage door flew open. “Oliver.”
Laura jumped, her heart pounding.
A middle-aged woman in a plain dress of ugly brown fabric stomped into the cottage. Some sort of white cloth covered her hair. She tried not to stare but Laura had never seen an honest-to-God wimple. The woman was wearing a wimple, like this really was medieval times. The buzzing in Laura’s ears got louder.
The woman stopped in front of Oliver and made a grab for the sword. “Thank you Lord, you brought it back.”
“Aye, Mother.” Oliver evaded her snatching hands. “How long have I been gone?”
“All of winter and the following spring. De Wolfe resides at Questing for the summer.”
The woman spoke different, like she might come from another England. Or another time in England.
The cottage swirled and went black.
Chapter Seven
Oliver caught Laura before she slid off the bench. Hoisting her, he carried her over to the bed. Having been through the shock of realizing he’d travelled through time, he did not envy Laura the coming days.
“Who is she?” Mother’s eyes bored into his back.
Ah, now there was a question he had no idea how to begin answering. “She is from a different time. The future.”
“I gathered that much.” Mother sneered and plucked at Laura’s clothing. “She is dressed oddly, like a boy.”
“I can assure you she is not a boy.” Nay, Laura Rose was all woman. All desirable, beautiful woman.
“Is she yours?” Mother made a harsh sound. “Is she breeding?”
“Nay on both counts.” Not for want of him wishing she were his. This trip through time would not have advanced his courtship. Or the breaking into her home and kidnapping her.
With a soft groan, Laura opened her eyes. She looked at him and then Mother. “So, not a dream?”
“I’m afraid not.” Oliver fetched her a beaker of water.
Mother blocked his way back to Laura. “She should not be here. You need to rid us of her.”
“She can hear you.” Laura struggled into a sitting position. Her hair had escaped its band and hung about her face.
“Oliver!” Mother gripped his forearms. “She has to go. You can trust nobody with what you must do.” She jerked her head in the direction of Questing Castle. “His spies are everywhere. They watch constantly.”
“She is not De Wolfe’s spy.” Oliver hadn’t missed this about Mother. She never saw him as her son but only as an instrument of her revenge. “I already told you, she came with me from the future.”
“She’s a distraction.” Mother dug her nails in.
Disengaging Mother, he took the water to Laura and she sipped it.
An unhealthy pallor still clung to her skin as she glanced past him to Mother. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“That might prove difficult. All things considered.”
A near smile ghosted over her face. She looked at Mother. “I’m Laura. Doctor—”
“She’s my wife.” God help him but it was all he could think of to keep her safe from Mother and her De Wolfe obsession. “Laura is my wife who I brought back with me. Laura this is my mother, Elewys.”
Both women gaped at him.
Laura recovered first. “I am not—”
“Laura is shy.” Oliver threw his arm around her shoulder and tugged her against him. “We have not long been married.”
With a scowl, Elewys examined Laura from top to toe. “She won’t be much of a breeder with those scrawny hips.”
“Why thank you.” Laura stiffened against him.
Mother sniffed and turned away. “Does she cook at least?”
“No, she does not.” Laura smacked a huge fake smile on her face.
Elewys put her hands on her hips. “Then you clean.”
“Not if I can help it,” Laura said.
“Then why would you marry her?” Frowning, Elewys shook her head. “She’s probably barren, does not cook, does not clean and is completely witless. Why would you marry such a useless woman?”
Oliver hid a wince. Eight hundred years of female emancipation shimmered in the air between Laura and Mother.
Laura wrapped her arms around his waist and leered at him. “I have other talents.”
“Trull!” Elewys spat.
As much as he’d like to explore Laura’s other talents, this conversation could go nowhere good. Oliver stood and approached his mother. “I think we will all be better for some food.”
“Which I must cook?” Mother glowered around him at Laura.
Laura gave her a syrupy smile back. “If you’d like to survive eating it.”
From a keg tucked in one corner, Elewys dragged out a haunch of cured ham.
“I will need more wood.” Elewys sawed at the ham. “And some eggs. Also the mushrooms I picked yesterday and a few tomatoes from the garden.”
“I’ll get them,” Oliver said.
Laura scrambled off the bed. “I’ll come with you.”
“You stay.” Elewys jabbed the knife at her. “We needs speak.”
Laura crept closer to Oliver. Her eyes screaming at him to let her come. However, Mother had that look about her that shouted her determination to speak to his “wife” alone. “Trust me,” he whispered to Laura. “You’re good with crazy and I won’t be far. I know her and she won’t give it a rest until she has her say.”
“Will I survive?” Laura eyed the knife Mother wielded over the ham.
Oliver cupped her chin. “I wouldn’t leave you alone with her if I thought otherwise.”
“Okay.” She swallowed a nodded. “But you owe me.”
Oliver stopped with the door open and winked at her. “A debt I will be happy to make good on.”
Laura stared at the door shutting behind Oliver. She wanted to yank it open and run after him, beg him not to leave her side.
The evil orange cat blinked at her from across the room. At the hearth, Elewys attacked a small pile of potatoes. “So,” she said, scattering peelings across the table. “You do not cook or clean. What is it you do in this time of yours?”
Laura mentally hauled on her big girl panties. She could do this and Oliver was right, she handled the unhinged everyday. Besides Elewys didn’t look like she could run that fast. As psychology might take too much explaining Laura pared it down. “I am a healer, of sorts. A mind healer.”
Elewys stared at her, then grunted and dropped her potato pieces into a wooden bowl of water. “Are minds so broken in your time that they need healing?”
Laura couldn’t deal with the time thing yet. If her mind so much as veered close to it, she nearly went toes up again. “Can I help you?”
“Can you peel?”
“I can learn.”
Elewys pushed the pile of potatoes and a small knife closer. “Take off the skin without losing too much of the flesh and then cut them into pieces.”
Were they bonding here? Oh, joy!
Elewys grabbed a large covered bowl from beneath the table. From inside she pulled something white and blobby and arranged it into an oval. The smell of yeast tickled Laura’s nose.
Laura stopped peeling and watched the bread
making process. She might not be able to cook but she never missed a Masterchef episode.
“How long have you and my son been married?”
“Not long at all.” Close enough to the truth. “Very recently, in fact.” So recent as in not at all. She didn’t understand Oliver’s hasty declaration, but he knew his world better than she did and she had to believe he had a reason.
Elewys placed the dough on a wooden paddle, then she shoved the paddle into a small opening in the bricks beneath the fire.
“My son needs a good woman,” Elewys said. “Someone to make a home for him.”
Presented with the opportunity to unravel the mystery of Oliver, Laura made an encouraging noise.
“He has not had an easy life. Neither have I.” Elewys wiped her hands on her apron. “I have done what I can for him, but his father has cast him aside.”
“Cast aside?” Ears wide open, Laura kept her gaze on her potato chopping.
Elewys paused for effect. “Oliver is a bastard.”
“Uh-huh.”
“A bastard whose father refuses to acknowledge him.” Movements sharp and jerky, Elewys added butter to a large pot and scooped Laura’s chopped potatoes into it.
Laura’s therapist antenna pinged. “How did that make you feel?”
As if nobody had ever asked her that question, Elewys blinked at her. “I feel nothing for William de Wolfe.” She gave the potatoes a vicious jab and then set them over the fire. “The cur rutted on me fast enough. Pursued me until he won me, got me with child and left.”
“He abandoned you?” Women in this time didn’t have easy lives. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“I don’t know why you’re sorry.” Elewys looked baffled. “It wasn’t you doing the rutting.”
True, and it would be so much easier to empathize if Elewys weren’t such a bitch. Ashamed of herself, Laura yanked that thought back. Calling Elewys a bitch came perilously close to victim blaming. The woman had lived a hard life. A few rough edges were to be expected. “He didn’t know about the baby?”
“Oh, he knew all right.” Elewy’s creepy chuckle made Laura’s hair stand on end. “I told him. I took his son to him as soon as I could rise from my birthing bed. A good lad, strong and sure.” Slam went the knife as Elewys hacked through ham. “He grabbed the two of us and threw us out of the castle.” Slam. “Refused to see me.” Slam. Hack. Slam. “Would not even hear my name spoken.”
“He had someone throw you out the castle?” Laura kept an eye on the knife.
“Nay.” Elewys speared the coals in the hearth. Sparks flew and the coals flared bright orange. “He twisted my arm, and threw me from the castle. I held Oliver to my breast so he would not be hurled to the ground and die.”
“Ah.” Either de Wolfe had refused to see her or manhandled her. Time to dig a little deeper. “So you took Oliver to his father and he refused to see you?”
With a start, Elewys tossed salt into her frying potatoes. “At first. He refused to see me at first. Then as I would not be turned aside, one of his men took me to him. Big, handsome fellow but colder than the north wind.”
“What happened next?” Not to be insensitive, but the smell of frying potatoes made Laura’s mouth water. Also, she wasn’t buying Elewy’s story.
“He refused to look at his child. Refused to even acknowledge we had lain together.”
“De Wolfe refused?”
“Did I just not say so?” Elewys scowled.
“Yes, you did.” Laura gave her therapist’s neutral smile. “I am only trying to understand.”
“Then understand this.” Hands on the table, Elewys got right into Laura’s face. “De Wolfe tried to kill his own son. Oliver and I have hidden for years from that man. Hidden until Oliver was strong enough to exact his own justice.”
“De Wolfe tried to kill Oliver?”
“He chased me down.”
“Once you had been cast from the castle?”
“Aye.” The glitter in Elewys’s eyes hardened. “He climbed on that huge horse of his and chased us down. I ran for my life and the life of my child, but he kept coming. De Wolfe’s sword was raised, thirsty for blood as he pursued us. I escaped him.” Elewys turned back to the hearth. “I hid all night in the forest, protecting my weak babe from wild animals and driving rain. In the morn, while de Wolfe slept, I sneaked away with Oliver, and kept us hidden until the time came.”
Laura could drive a truck through the holes in this story, and that disquieting fervor lighting up Elewys made her professional instincts snap, crackle and pop. Oliver might be perfectly sane, but Mama? Not so much. “What does de Wolfe look like?”
“The devil.” Elewys spat on the floor.
Food preparation, basic hygiene? Laura couldn’t stop her shudder.
Elewys stared into space, lost in her mind. “Dark hair forged in the fires of hell. Eyes of wicked gold that see in the dark.”
“Gold eyes.” Hazel eyes maybe? A pale hazel?
Elewys had a lot more to say about devil eyes, some of it rather poetic, all of it undeniably crazy. What the hell was Oliver doing out there? She cut across more Satan-spiel. “How old is Oliver?”
Elewys scowled. “Old enough to have a wife.”
Damn. If Oliver’s level of education when he arrived was anything to go by, Elewys probably couldn’t count.
The door opened and Oliver came in with his arms full of wood. Hair ruffled by the wind, he looked strong and capable.
Oliver caught her staring and raised his eyebrow.
Laura shrugged. She had no idea where to start. As matters now stood, Oliver wasn’t insane at all, not even slightly delusional. Everything he’d told her had been true.
She did a snap turn about from that thought. She was so not ready to go there.
Being that Oliver was probably as sane as she was, she didn’t feel quite so bad about her inappropriate urges. That, however, opened up a new batch of questions, and ones she didn’t feel up to attempting. Breakfast seemed like as good an idea as any.
Chapter Eight
All things considered, Laura thought she did rather well for her first day in medieval England. Even if thinking that still gave her vertigo. They spent a quiet day with Oliver gently introducing her to her new reality. Fortunately, Elewys disappeared after breakfast and reappeared in time to make dinner.
Now it was bedtime and medieval sleeping arrangements left Laura a lot twitchy.
With a smug smile, Elewys retreated to a blanket in front of the hearth. “You are married now, Oliver. You and your new wife needs take the bed. I will be happy right here.”
Dinner hadn’t been that bad. Fresh baked bread, and a meat stew packed full of fresh veggies, all washed down with more mead. Laura might become a fan of the mead. It made the bad parts go fuzzy round the edges.
The only bed in the house hulked in front of her and her mead buzz evaporated.
Silently laughing at her, Oliver stood on the other side. Prick. He hauled his tunic over his head.
Oh, my, he’d put his gym time at Deer Fallows to good use. Plus the wood chopping, stone hauling, soil tilling that must go on in this time. Ripped, cut, decadent and far too real.
He went for his belt.
Laura made a face at him and shook her head. Those stayed on or she wasn’t getting into the bed.
Elewys lay with her back to them.
Eyebrow raised in a silent question, he cocked his head.
“On,” Laura mouthed.
Grinning, he slid beneath the fur cover. He opened the other side for her and patted the bed with a smirk.
Removing her Nikes, her only concession, she slid in track pants, hoodie and all.
“You’ll get hot,” Oliver whispered.
The warm brush of his breath on her neck sent delicious shivers down her spine. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” He lay back with his arms tucked beneath his head.
Outside, wind through tree branches replaced traffic n
oises. Crickets set up a constant buzz. She thought she heard an owl hoot. Something yelped and she started.
Oliver rolled closer to her. “It’s a fox.”
“Is it okay?”
His chuckle shook the bed as he shifted nearer and his body warmth wrapped around her. “It’s barking to its young.”
“Too close.” She stuck her elbow out.
He retreated.
Sweat slid down her sides. They had real fur on this bed, and it heated up with them beneath the covers like an oven. She wriggled and managed to get her socks off.
Oliver huffed onto his back. His elbow bumped hers and he lifted his hips.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking my pants off.” After a bit more thrashing, he dropped them onto the floor beside the bed.
“Put them back on.” Laura edged away from a naked Oliver.
He rolled closer. “It’s how we sleep. Here.” He tugged at her hoodie. “You will boil in this, and you have something on beneath it.”
“I’m not getting naked.” She shoved his hands away, but she did have a T-shirt on under her hoodie, so she pulled it off and dropped it on the floor.
“Fine.” He put his mouth next to her ear. “But so you know, my mother will expect me to make love to my wife.”
“With her in the room?” Dear God, that was better than a cold shower.
He laughed. “We are not so precious in this time. We do not hide our natural desires behind closed doors and pretend they do not happen.”
“That is the most pathetic line to get lucky I’ve ever heard.” She elbowed him in the gut. “And what’s with the wife thing anyway.”
He shrugged. “This is a different time. Women do not travel on their own. We needed my mother to accept your presence here or she could make life very difficult for you.”
“She’s making it easy?”
“Come, Laura.” He hooked an arm around her waist and cradled her with his body. “Your virtue is safe with me.”
Laura wriggled. Her butt brushed his crotch and she froze. “That had better not be what I think it is.”
Oliver shook her with his quiet laugher. “Don’t think about it.”
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