Kohl, Candice - A Twist in Time.txt
Page 36
Her fingers brushed the paper she had laid out.
Hesitating, she considered writing a note to Andrew.
Hell, not a note, a book—a book about what he meant to
her, about her dilemma, about the decision she’d been
forced to make and how it killed her to make it.
Judy never picked up the pen. Her feelings were too
huge to condense on paper. Besides, no matter what
she confided, Andrew would inevitably feel as hurt and
betrayed as she’d have if he left her.
Judy felt herself shutting down. People had to feel
like this, she thought, when they were dying, letting
go. She was letting go. And going numb. At the moment,
she didn’t even feel her bad tooth throbbing.
Purposefully, she moved about the room snuffing all
the candles save one. Then she lay on the bed to wait
awhile longer before she made good her escape.
An hour passed, and the door opened. Holding herself
very still, through slitted eyes Judy watched Andrew’s
silhouette, backlit by the torch in the hallway. He
hesitated on the threshold, and she wondered what
she’d been thinking earlier. That he wouldn’t come to
bed all night? Of course he would. And now that he had
come, could she still leave him?
She must. She could endure a lot of things, even
the damned toothache, but not Andrew falling out of love
with her. Better she live a lonely, loveless life without
him than watch his love transform into indifference or
disappointment.
“It’s all right.” Judy spoke up suddenly but kept her
voice low. “I’m not asleep, Andrew.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“A little,” she lied.
He drew closer and stopped at the side of the bed. “Is
the pain keeping you awake?”
“No. I’ve slept off and on.”
“Did you eat?”
“I...can’t remember.”
He sat on the edge of the mattress. Judy inhaled
through her mouth, which made her molar throb. The
pain gave her the courage to say, “Andrew, I hate to ask
this of you, but...”
“What? Anything, and I shall do it.”
“Could I sleep alone tonight? If the mattress jiggles
even slightly, my tooth hurts terribly.”
“Of course.” He stood. “Forgive me, dearling. I did
not think.”
“It’s not your fault. Honest to God. None of it’s your
fault.”
She felt tears pooling in her eyes and hoped Andrew
wouldn’t notice.
“I will sleep in your old bedchamber. If you need me,
Judith, that is where I shall be.”
He hadn’t noticed. “Thanks,” she whispered, looking
up at him, trying to memorize his face. But the room
remained dim, even with the light from the hallway,
and her vision had become distorted with her tears.
Barely able to make out Andrew’s features, Judy
wondered if that would be her fate, to recall her husband
only as she saw him this evening, merely a blurred
image fading into shadow.
He took her hand, kissed it, and turned to walk
away.
“Andrew!” she called after him impulsively.
“Aye?”
“Remember that night at the Ackworths’, when I
bargained with Lord Geoffrey so you could have the
dagger?”
“Of course. I shall never forget it.”
“Andrew, that’s what I do. You’re a knight and a
seneschal, so I understand what you do. I just—just
wanted you to know what I do.”
“Very well, Judith. Rest, now.”
***
Andrew couldn’t get Judith’s words from his head—
what a strange little speech she’d made. At first, he
credited it to her pain and weariness. But later, he
suspected something more lay behind it. His pulse
racing and his heart thudding, Andrew ran to their
chamber, throwing open the door.
Judith was gone. He saw immediately that she didn’t
lie abed, and a quick sweep of the room with his gaze
assured him that she remained nowhere within.
“Damnation!” he muttered. “The bone-fires, the
solstice!” He whirled around and bolted back out the door
and down the stairs.
Earlier, the evening had been warm and still, the
sky sprinkled with stars. But now Andrew felt a breeze
toying with his hair as he crossed the bailey on his way
to the gate. The peasants’ fire, high and bright and
crackling upon a nearby hill, belched sparks as it licked
the sky. Though he glanced at the blaze and saw many
people thronged around it, he didn’t head in that
direction. He knew exactly where to go—to a spot behind
the postern wall.
“Judith!” he shouted when he spied her sitting cross-
legged in the dirt, wearing the tunic and chausses he’d
first seen her in, with her satchel clutched to her bosom.
“Judith why are you here?”
“Andrew!” She gestured, warding him off. But he
grabbed her hand and clutched it, sitting on the ground
beside her.
“You want to return to your own time,” he accused
her, understanding the truth now. “You want to leave
me. Judith, why?” In the moonlight, he saw her tears.
On his face, he felt his own tears.
“I don’t want to leave you,” she insisted, shaking
her head. “But I have no choice. I thought I could stay,
but I can’t. I can’t!”
“You can.” He came to his feet, crouching, and pulled
her hand. But she refused to stand, refused to come
with him. Instead, she wrenched herself free and
clutched a fistful of grass, as though it would anchor
her to the earth.
“I can’t,” she said again. “I don’t belong here, Andrew.
I tried to make it work, for your sake and mine, but
everything’s going wrong. I’m losing my sense of self,
and if I’m not the woman I was anymore, I won’t be the
woman you love.” She tilted her chin and blinked up at
him, raising her voice to be heard over the noise of the
nearby revelers. “I couldn’t bear to watch you fall out of
love with me!”
The wind gusted. It blew Judith’s short hair away
from her face and then back into it. For a moment, the
world grew darker as a cloud scuttled across the moon.
“Ne’er would I not love you! For all my days, you’re
in my heart!” he insisted. He fought a wave of panic
with a surge of fury.
“I’m not going to argue with you, Andrew!” Judith
shouted, for despite their proximity, the wind had begun
to roar and tear at the trees. “If I can make it, I’m leaving
here. God willing, I’ll return to a time and a place that I
belong.”
“No!”
“Oh, Andrew, please!” she begged. “I have to leave, I
don’t have any choice! Just—just remember me. The
way I was, and how happy we were together. And find
someone else to be that happy with again. Forever!”
He opened his mouth to speak but was silenced by a
sudden awareness that the earth beneath him quivered,
pulsing with an energy like the heat of the sun. Fearful,
he again tried to drag Judith away, nearer the shelter
of the wall. But she resisted, catching him by surprise
with a purposeful shove. He lost his balance, fell and
rolled.
Debris blew into his eyes, so for a moment, he saw
nothing. But he heard her voice above the din: “I love
you, Andrew Laycock!”
“I love you,” he returned, unsure he’d spoken aloud
as he scrabbled back onto his hands and knees, looking
for Judith.
She had gone. He was alone.
Twenty-four
Judy came to under a marbled gray sky. Since birds
chirped in the trees, she sensed dawn was drawing
near. That was all she sensed. Afraid to look around to
see if her surroundings had changed, she didn’t have a
clue as to the time or the place.
Her chest felt like a chasm of despair. She had
sacrificed so much. If her attempt to fly through time
again had failed, Andrew would probably reject her for
trying to leave him, for wanting to go. If, however, she’d
succeeded, the next fifty or sixty years were going to
prove agonizingly long, without him to live with and to
love.
Andrew wouldn’t have left me out here all night, not if
were still there, in the 13th Century.
That thought jolted Judy upright. Before she lost her
nerve, she turned to glimpse the castle wall. The oily
shadows were dissipating with the rising sun, but she
saw no wall—only stones, low and jagged, a ragged ruin
of what had once been a tall, solid rampart.
Her breathing came in harsh little gasps, and she
could feel her heart pounding. By God, she’d done it!
She’d come home!
But what if she hadn’t? What if it were another
decade, or even another century, either long before or
after her own? She would have lost everything then.
Not only Andrew, but her life, her career, and her family.
The sky grew opalescent, lighter and more blue.
Anxiously, Judy looked all around, not only at the
remains of the keep behind her, but at the hills before
her. Below, nestled within those low, rolling hills, she
spied Wixcomb, all quaint and charming, just the sort
of place people would visit to stay at an ancient old inn.
Hope surged in Judy’s breast, but she tempered it
with rational logic. It might be 1910 or 2150, she didn’t
know. She couldn’t count on anything. She would only
learn the truth if she got to her feet and hiked down the
hills to the manor house. But apprehension held her in
place. Not knowing for certain seemed far better than
knowing for a fact she had aimed wrong and landed
elsewhere in time. How did she know if her fervent
thoughts last night, as the wind picked up and the
starlight disappeared, had directed her to All Saints Day
in 1998? God knew, she hadn’t been able to concentrate
as she’d left Andrew behind.
She hugged herself, though not because she felt
chilled. In fact, the temperature seemed rather warm
for autumn in England. Alert, she glanced around again.
Tall grass grew in the meadows where sheep grazed
lazily. The trees appeared heavy with bright green
leaves.
She felt a sharp pain pierce her heart. She had
missed the mark. This wasn’t her time after all. I’ve
lost it! My God, I’ve lost everything!
Dreading confirmation of her fears, she remained
where she sat, clinging to her tote. Her tooth hurt again,
though not as badly as in previous days. Maybe that black
alder concoction had helped, after all. Hopefully, no
matter what the year, she’d dropped herself down into
an era where at least there were dentists.
Movement caught Judy’s eye. It wasn’t the sheep.
No, it was a dog, a pair of dogs—liver and white spaniels,
bounding up the hills toward her from the direction of
town. And a man! A hiker, it seemed, wearing khaki
shorts, tan boots, white crew socks, and a baseball cap.
Judy couldn’t make out the insignia on the cap, but as
he drew closer, she saw that his white T-shirt bore the
distinctive logo of a Hard Rock Cafe.
“Thank you, God,” she muttered, realizing she’d
returned to a time somehow close to her own. Heck, if
she’d landed early, she would make sure to snatch up
some Microsoft stock, Judy thought wildly, hoping to beat
back that keen sense of loss still gnawing at her. How
would getting rich ever compensate for losing Andrew?
Dabbing at her eyes because tears blurred her
vision, Judy peered at the man approaching. Did he...?
Yes. He wore a Cleveland Indians cap! He had to be
Viscount Laycock.
She scrambled onto her knees, sitting back on her
calves. And he broke into a run, the dogs romping before
him and reaching Judy first.
“Duke? Duchess? Is that who you are?” she asked
the hounds, scratching their ears and deciding to
become a dog person after all.
Then she looked up at the fellow who’d stopped
abruptly a couple feet away. “Lord Laycock, I’ve never
been so glad to see anyone in my life,” she admitted. “I
was afraid I—I’d missed...that I’d get stuck...Then I
thought maybe I dreamed—Have I been gone very long?
‘Cause I—I feel that I have been. I met someone, and
we...well, maybe I didn’t. I just don’t know anymore.”
She knew she was babbling like a nut case. Dropping
her head, she covered her face with her hand, trying to
get a grip. It seemed doubtful she ever would. How could
she be so happy yet so miserable, so glad to be in her
own time yet so lonely without her husband?
“Here.” Stiffly, Laycock thrust his upturned hand
beneath her face. In his palm lay two tiny, yellow pills.
“For your pain.”
“What?” Confused, she looked up at him again. The
guy hadn’t changed a bit, or had he? His shades were
dark, not amber, his cap looked new. And was there a
bit more gray in his sideburns?
“They’re from my dentist. Wash them down with
this.” He handed her a plastic water bottle.
Bemused, Judy took the pills and popped them into
her mouth. As she swallowed them down with a squirt
of water, she had the most curious sensation that the
viscount’s hand seemed familiar to her touch. Oh, no.
Not more weirdness. I can’t take anymore weirdness. And
I sure as heck am not acquainted with Viscount Laycock’s
hands!
“You always come this prepared?” she asked lightly
with a smile, attempting to sound normal under these
exceptional circumstances. “Because it just so happens,
I have a major toothache.”
“I was aware your tooth pained you sorely, Judith.”
Her heart stopped. Th
e world did, too, for an instant.
Even the birds stopped chirping, and the sheep stopped
bleating. “An...drew?”
“Aye. Aye!” He fell to his knees as he threw off his
cap and yanked away his sunglasses. She saw the tears
streaming down his cheeks just before he grabbed her,
held her, and began kissing her face a hundred times.
Yet all those kisses weren’t enough. She wanted more.
“Andrew? Andrew, how can it be you?” she demanded,
afraid to believe what she saw, what she felt. He couldn’t
be here, he couldn’t, not like this, not in shorts and a
Hard Rock T-shirt! “While I flew through time, were you
reincarnated or something into Carla’s Lord Laycock?”
“Nay, wench.” He held Judy’s face in his hands and
looked at her lovingly, adoringly, as he shook his head.
“I am Carla’s Lord Laycock—and your husband, too.”
She took a deep breath, peering back at him. “But
you’re older, Andrew. You were older than me when I
first met you, and younger back then, back when we
were in your time.”
“Indeed. I’m thirty-six.”
“What!”
“Do you want the whole story immediately, or would
you prefer to go to the inn?”
“I want to rip off your clothes and make mad,
passionate love to you. But you’d better explain
everything right now. I’m pretty shaken up, actually,
and incredibly confused.”
Andrew drew Judy onto his lap and held her close.
“When you left on that summer solstice,” he began, “I
was furious with you. I told myself I hated you more
than I ever did Chandra. For months, I sulked and
brooded, or picked fights with strangers and family alike.
But in time, I overcame my pain and anger. Gradually,
I came to understand that despite our love, you couldn’t
live in my time because you had no purpose there. You’d
been afraid you would become someone I couldn’t love
anymore.”
“Judith,” he continued, “I realized that I needed you
beside me, or else I would be lost. Of course, I’d have
been pleased had you stayed with me in the year we
originally met, when I remained surrounded by all that
was familiar to me. I didn’t care,” he said with a smile,
“if you had blonde hair or dark, glossy lips or painted
toenails.”
“You don’t think I left because of that!”