by Dee Brice
“Our uncle, Baron de Bourgh, forbids anyone from his house to accompany you.” She sounded relieved at the command to remain here. Diane’s own last name, whispered as if speaking it aloud might summon Satan himself, made her heart thud like funeral drums.
“Accompany me where?” she managed to force out around the lump of fear constricting her throat.
The girl waved a hand. “To your husband’s castle.” When Diane just stared, the girl added, “Somewhere near York.”
Nodding as if she’d known that all along, Diane thought of all the unrest and outright treason Yorkshire had bred. Would she be caught up in events like the Pilgrimage of Grace that had led to so many deaths? Wrong time frame, Diane, she thought, not comforted at all. Other dangers could befall her. Such as some Scottish reiver swooping across the border into England—the Debatable Land, if it existed in this time and place—and stealing her away. Would he ransom her to her husband or to—
“Where is Baron de Bourgh?”
The girl shot her a puzzled frown. “Our uncle is with Arnaud…the Earl, your husband. In Ireland.”
“Of course,” Diane replied as if she’d only been testing the girl—her sister, she supposed. “In all the excitement of the wedding, packing…” Not knowing what other activities might have made her forget where her groom had gone, she shrugged. The scant information did nothing to tell her when she was. William the Conqueror had relied on his barons to rule England while he maintained his French court. Much later, Henry the Eighth claimed part of France as his, but she couldn’t remember if it had been Normandy or some other French province. With some five hundred years separating the two rulers…
Based on her own clothes and those of the servants scurrying about, she figured she was some time prior to Henry the Eighth—which still left a lot of room for missteps and hanging in her path. Oh dear, back to witchcraft?
“I’m going to the chapel,” she announced, realizing this was her last opportunity to try to escape.
“No time,” her substitute groom announced, sweeping her up to settle her in front of him on his enormous horse.
Damnation! She’d been so caught up in trying to learn where and when she was temporarily living that she hadn’t heard him approach. Intending to demand he return her to the ground, she looked up at him.
Eyes the turquoise blue of the Caribbean Ocean twinkled down at her. A wide smile revealed even white teeth and dimples at the corners of his mouth. An errant lock of sandy-blond hair fell over one darker blond, bushy eyebrow. He looked impossibly young and extremely happy to be on his way home.
She wished she were on her way home. The idea that he had an achievable goal while she had nothing had her glaring at him. With a sniff of disdain, she stiffened her spine and stared at the rising portcullis gate.
If she felt a little frightened at leaving somewhat familiar surroundings, so be it. She supposed that other Diane might miss this place. God knew Diane de Bourgh—the modern one—missed her rightful place several thousand miles and who knew how many centuries away.
Adrian de Vesay wanted to shove the sullen woman into the middle of the nearest puddle. Problem was, the nearest puddle was the moat. He doubted the haughty female would forgive him for dumping her in privy waste. Nor would Arnaud welcome him back if the bride developed a fancy to toss Adrian out—along with Arnaud’s six mistresses. An eviction Lady Diane had insisted upon as soon as she’d learned about the Days of the Week, as Arnaud called them.
Adrian’s lips curled downward. His older brother called them by the days of the week because he could not remember their names—his drunken stupor generally so deep he depended upon the woman in his bed to signify what day it was. Sometimes—more often since King Henry had ordered Arnaud to marry Lady Diane—he had more than one mistress in his bed. The results were not always pleasant—for Arnaud at any rate.
Friends rather than rivals, the women pretended outrage and pummeled Arnaud. He was too thick-skinned to bruise much, although he did sometimes sport a black-and-blue eye or swollen lips. But then, so did the women. More often lately as Arnaud’s marriage drew nigh.
What damage the bride might inflict when she learned Arnaud had only moved his mistresses from the castle to the village, Adrian shuddered to think. Given her height, she could easily land a blow or two, surprising Arnaud. Problem was, she was also as slender as a reed, vulnerable to her husband’s stocky build and powerful fists.
Adrian had gained his full height and knight’s spurs before he willingly stood up to his twin brother. Memories of their last encounter had him rubbing his nose—just to make certain it still graced his face. A little crooked, true, but not as misshapen as Arnaud’s. Something else to wonder about the bride’s reaction. Would she find her husband’s appearance as distasteful as she obviously found his? She hadn’t said a word since he’d lifted her onto his horse.
A soft sigh drew his attention to the woman in his arms. Either she hadn’t slept well last night or the gentle swaying of his gelding had lulled her to sleep. Whatever the cause, she slumped against him, making him aware of her rounded buttocks pressing against his groin, her firm breasts rising and falling along his forearms. If happiness lay in the peaks and valleys of a woman’s body, his brother might find in his wife the joy his mistresses had not given him. If truly happy, Arnaud might stop drinking.
Adrian’s cock stirred, rising as the woman shifted. He wished his brother bliss, but doubted Arnaud would find it in Lady Diane. Unless he kept her in his bed all day and night. Not an unpleasant prospect, as long as there were no sharp objects within her reach. She seemed the sort of woman who would fight rather than give in. But mayhap he based that opinion solely on her height. Surrender to Arnaud would serve her delicate bones far better.
Walker Mornay felt an odd surge of jealousy as he watched Diane de Bourgh—de Vesay, he reminded himself—relax in Adrian’s arms. Walker would have married her himself had Henry not ruled in de Vesay’s favor, claiming he had bigger plans for Walker. That the king refused to share his plans with the person most affected by them had Walker gritting his teeth yet again.
He wanted de Vesay’s bride, as much as it galled him to admit it. Her uncle had all but offered her to him, remarking that the virago needed taming. His sly tone suggested beating and raping were the methods Baron de Bourgh preferred.
Walker despised men who used their physical superiority to tame a woman. He preferred a subtle combination of showing his interest, then ignoring the object of his lust. Women despised being ignored, especially after a man had shown unwavering interest. It took little effort on his part, yet earned him a high return that outpaced his investment of time and coin to buy an occasional frippery.
Narrowing his gaze on the woman he intended to pursue, he admitted that Diane de Vesay was more striking than beautiful. Most men would find her height—a few inches shorter than his own six-feet-four—intimidating. He imagined how well their bodies would align while swiving, her honey-and-treacle-colored hair falling in silken waves over his chest and shoulders as she rode him. Her pale-green eyes would lose their hauteur and glaze as their bodies pounded together.
Yet above all her more obvious charms, her walk had first captured his attention. A slight forward tilt of her hips all but invited a man to discover the sweetness between her thighs, to sip her cream before burying his shaft in her hot and welcoming depths.
Walker considered taking her to his bed before Arnaud de Vesay returned from the task Henry had set for him in Ireland. Not that he expected he’d have much luck seducing her before her husband claimed her. After… Ah, there was another tale altogether. Arnaud would try to beat the snootiness from her, leaving her nowhere to turn for comfort but to him, her husband’s liege lord.
A slight smile curled his mouth. He could wait for Arnaud to abuse his wife. Judging by the earl’s history with his mistresses, how could he do anything else? In the meantime, Walker would show her how different things might be with him if she wou
ld but grant him her favors. If she would not immediately yield…well, he had always enjoyed a good chase.
Chapter Three
Be careful what you wish for. Not that she had actually wished to live in the Middle Ages, Diane assured herself even as she admitted she had sometimes wondered what it would be like. Her research couldn’t begin to describe how different the sky looked, so blue it almost hurt to see it. Or how fresh the air smelled—once away from the towns where streets served as open sewers. Those gutters carried away all sorts of odoriferous items too gruesome to list, but so typical of the times she wanted to overcome her modern sensibilities and name each and every one.
She wished she had her laptop to record everything she saw and smelled, touched and tasted. She wanted her video camera so she could recall at will the sounds of birdcalls and the different dialects, of streams rippling over rocks—the noise pure, without the hiss of traffic over pavement and horns sounding folks’ impatience.
True, not everything was sweet and aromatic. In addition to unpleasant smells, she had to contend with riding on horseback. After that first day Adrian had permitted her to ride her own mount. She supposed he thought she’d get lost if she tried to run away once they’d traveled for a day. He thought right. Sure, she wanted to escape, but she also wanted to stay alive, not starve to death or be eaten by wolves—if England had any.
Another irritation was that, despite the long hose fastened by points to her slops—underclothes she thought worn only by men—her thighs felt like two enormous blisters and her butt ached from the hours she’d spent atop an uncomfortable saddle. The slops themselves created issues when she needed to relieve herself. While a man could easily slip his member between the folds, she had to untie the waistband, bundle the fabric and that of her long chainse and riding skirt out of the way, then squat. All the while, she worried that someone would discover her looking absurd. Leaves with which to wipe herself were often out of reach, on branches far above her head. When used, they left her already aching bottom raw.
Which made her first encounter of any length with the dark-haired noble—Walker Mornay, Duke de Beaumont—more than somewhat surprising. Oh, they’d mumbled polite greetings to one another as they mounted their horses, but that had been the extent of her conversation with either noble. So on this particular morning, her poor, raw bottom having brought tears to her eyes, encountering the duke blocking her path made her surly.
“Kindly get out of my way.” She refused to acknowledge him by name or title, either of which would tacitly grant him power over her. So would saying “please”.
“In a moment.” His fingers under her chin forced her to look up at him, into those dark orbs that made her skin go hot and cold at the same time. Holding her chin in one hand, he gently swiped away her tears with a square piece of linen too small to be a handkerchief. Finished, he reached under his tight-fitting tunic then held out a stack of more linen squares.
Undone by his unexpected kindness, she could only gape up at him as he said, “Tuck the used ones into your purse. In a day or two we shall stay with Baron Dupont and you can have them laundered.”
“Th-thank you,” she murmured, ducking her head so he wouldn’t see her embarrassed gratitude. Since she had no coin, the purse hanging from her belt would serve as a handy laundry basket.
Some servant at her uncle’s might have packed the squares amongst her things, she supposed. She hadn’t thought to look, hadn’t had a chance to consider changing clothes. Nor had she had the privacy in which to do so.
They’d traveled at a steady pace, slow enough for the horse-drawn wagons to keep up, covering between six and ten miles each day. Remarkably fast, Adrian had told her.
The duke’s voice drew her attention back to him. “In spring especially—now— leaves are soft. In summer almost the same. Fall makes them brittle and in winter they are absent entirely. It is then that you should plan on carrying these.”
“I don’t imagine I shall do much traveling once I reach my new home.” Unless it has a portal that will take me to my real home. Please, please, please…let me find a way back to where I belong. Realizing she sounded snooty, she forced herself to meet his gaze. “I think these may come in handy even after we reach our destination.” She would bet highborn folks routinely washed with some sort of cloth after putting the garderobe to use.
He looked puzzled for an instant, most likely over “come in handy”. Then he gave a curt nod, turned and called out, “You are most welcome,” as he strode to his saddled horse.
His sarcastic tone almost prompted her to thank him again but she bit her tongue. If anything, he owed her an apology for not giving her the squares sooner. Moreover, he owed her an explanation for his ducal title. If she remembered any of her research correctly Edward the Third created the English title of duke in the 1330s for his oldest son. So either she was confusing her clothing with an earlier era—say 1100—or Walker Mornay was a duke from somewhere else, like Saxony or France. Still, to have such a lofty title meant he had family connections of the highest order. Hell, for all she knew he could be the son of the King of France. But that would make him the dauphin, wouldn’t it?
The whole when question gave her a headache, exacerbated by Adrian popping into her path and demanding, “For what are you welcome?”
Irritated at being confronted by the two men who had spoken fewer than a half-dozen words to her the entire week, she drew herself to her full height and thrust her nose to within a fraction of an inch of his. “For giving me these. Which,” she added, shoving a linen square at him, “is something you—my h-husband’s brother—should have done when we set out.”
He pulled back as if she’d slapped him. “Why would I? It is something you should know about, being your uncle’s lady.”
“Are you insinuating I had a sexual relationship with—with—” She couldn’t even say the word “uncle”. “Is that why the baron didn’t attend the wedding? He didn’t want to see his mis—his doxy married to someone else?” She didn’t even care whether “doxy” was a common word in this time and place. Too angry at being trapped, she couldn’t think straight. Or crooked, either.
When Adrian closed his hands around her shoulders and dug his fingers into her flesh, she reared back, noticing his suddenly pale face. He looked even whiter than he had at their wedding. My proxy wedding, she amended, shoving futilely at his broad, hard chest.
“What is wrong with you? I meant only that you served as his lady of the manor after your aunt died.”
Ignoring the embarrassed blush heating her cheeks, she considered what to say next. She wanted to know where her parents were and why they had sent her away, but then remembered noblewomen fostered just as boys did. But at least she needn’t worry about either man thinking of her—of that other Diane—as a whore. On an inward sigh of relief, she met Adrian’s intense gaze, once more losing herself in his Caribbean-blue eyes. Before seeing her latest cover art, she had always thought blond men too bland, too boyish, too boring—as if they lacked all color. All joie de vivre. Adrian de Vesay put paid to that notion.
For one thing, his hair held a multitude of different colors. Butter yellow and golden wheat and strands the rich brown of pussy willows mixed with pampas grass ecru. Though cut short like the boy’s in that old paint commercial, his hair looked silky and thick enough to sink her fingers into. His eyes reminded her of the crystal-clear, shallow waters around Jamaica. Just now, however, that blue deepened as if he recognized her interest in him and might pursue it. Pursue her.
She had no intention of letting his attractiveness get in the way of getting home. And yet, unwilling to relinquish his attention, she said, “Why did the king send the baron—my uncle—to Ireland? Especially when he—the king—decreed I marry your brother.”
“I know why Henry sent Arnaud there.” Releasing her, he shrugged his massive shoulders, adding, “I have no idea why the baron went with him.”
Liar. His sudden flush told the tale. He k
new exactly why his brother and her—that other Diane’s—uncle had gone to Ireland together. She set that aside and seized the inadvertent clue Adrian had given her.
“Henry?”
“King Henry.” Stepping back, he looked at her as if her brains were seeping out of her ears. “Are you so isolated,” she heard stupid, “you do not know Henry the Second is your king?”
“Of course I know,” she muttered while her mind scrambled for facts. Henry the Second, King of England from 1154 to 1189. The dates gave her a general idea of when she was, although they weren’t very helpful in terms of specifics. The Irish connection, however… Think, Diane, think! Ah yes! Henry Plantagenet asserted his lordship over the Anglo-Norman nobles from South Wales who had begun to conquer Ireland in 1169. As for sending that other Diane’s husband and uncle to Ireland…perhaps Henry sought an Irish heiress to marry one of his sons. Not Richard the Lionheart nor Prince John Lackland. She knew neither of them had married an Irish lass, never mind an Irish heiress. Or did Henry the Second follow William the Conqueror’s habit of granting his nobles estates too far separated to mount a consolidated attack upon him? She thrust the idea to the back of her mind.
Well, she now had a pretty accurate idea of when she was—around 1170 or so—but she still had no idea how she had come here or from where she could get home. She had a vague idea where they were headed, knowing only that York lay in the northeast part of England. Where she’d left from, she hadn’t a clue.
One step at a time, Diane.
When Adrian sketched a bow then headed for his horse, she moaned, her thighs already protesting being spread by a horse’s back. Putting her left foot into a man-at-arms’ linked hands, she swung her right foot and leg over her palfrey’s saddle. Given her voluminous riding skirt and awkwardness in mounting, she thought it a miracle her mare didn’t spook and race away with her clutching at its mane and shrieking like a banshee. But at least she had avoided having to ride sidesaddle. If she garnered any kind of luck at all, she would never, ever, ever visit England when Anne of Bohemia’s retinue introduced the sidesaddle here. Diane recalled seeing a sketch of the contraption. It looked like a cage that trapped a woman’s right leg and made escaping from a falling horse utterly impossible. Sidesaddles seemed like deathtraps to her and, should she have the misfortune to encounter one, she would refuse to ride. Even if it meant suffering a beating from her absent husband.