So, with the right hand doing the flinging… She charged up the hill and inched along its edge, on the lookout for a shiny glint of silver.
An odd, pounding noise sounded behind her, and the ground vibrated slightly. What could…? Oh God, no. She wheeled around, her pulse beating frantically, and yep, the hugest, scariest war horse she’d ever seen galloped straight for her. She assumed it was a war horse, well, because it was so…large, and it had…Jiminy Cricket, it had chainmail on it. And, of course, some guy on its back, with chainmail and some kind of tunic, as well as a clothes-iron-shaped shield and friggin’ sword.
Her muscles tightened, shivered, and she almost—swear to God—peed herself.
She scrambled down the ravine. Find the case. Find the case. And the scary man on horse would be gone. She slipped and landed on her ass, sliding the rest of the way, her hands scraping and stinging on the rocks.
The horse stopped above her, snorting loudly. She scowled over her shoulder—was she about to get skewered? Cuz she’d want to know. Not that she could do much against a muscle-bound, medieval guy bent on running her through with a sword. Or worse. Except find that case. She had maybe twelve feet of distance on him.
He lifted his helmet free with two mail-clad hands, the clang of metal against metal loud, and let it fall to suspend from a chain at his belt. Helmet removal was a good sign, wasn’t it? At least it wasn’t sword removal. The early afternoon sun shone from behind him. She couldn’t see his face.
Gibberish popped from the dark shape. Coupled with his arm pointing away from the castle.
Er, what the hell kind of language was that?
Fear and a bit of oh-shit-what’s-happening slithering through her, she rose and faced him. “What?” Peering right and left with only her eyes, she searched for the stupid case. Her only salvation.
He cocked his head and spouted more nonsense. Slower, sure, but still nonsense. She edged back and continued to search the ground, pebbles clicking against rock as her shoes scattered them downhill.
More gibberish, but it grew closer. She looked up. He’d dismounted and was stomping down the hill.
Oh, hell no.
She sprinted along the ravine, praying she’d see her case but knowing she probably wouldn’t. Blood pounded in her ears, as jarring as her frantic footfalls along the hard ground. She sucked in short gasps of air as his steps drew closer. C’mon, all those gym sessions had to count for something.
A strong arm clamped around her waist, yanked her back against a solid wall of chainmail-covered man, and lifted. She slid down his body until his forearm nudged the underside of her breasts. She instantly stilled, breathing still panicked, because she’d read enough romance novels, and damned if she’d be one of those annoying heroines who got all feisty unprovoked. Pissing off someone who hadn’t yet hurt her would be epically stupid.
He inhaled sharply. Melodic, darkly-rich words vibrated from his chest to fill her ear, his warm breath sending chills across her skin. She could hear the question in them, but not knowing what he so softly demanded, she remained frozen.
She’d need any ally she could get, because yeah, she’d gone and wished herself back in time. All because she’d second-guessed her plans.
He grunted and marched up the hill, easily carrying her against him. At the top, he whistled and…his horse came to him. Of course. Then he draped her in front of a saddle like none she’d ever seen, jumped on, and galloped across the rocky terrain. But not before she saw her case, winking in the sun as they passed.
“Hey— Wait! Shit.”
Oh, crap, this was not comfortable. She clamped her jaw tight, afraid she’d bite her tongue with all the jouncing. Brief flashes of scenery and activity stuttered by. Flash—a white flower between two rocks. Flash—a cluster of colorfully clothed people. Flash—a woman with two children, one on her hip. Flash—a man driving a donkey laden with baskets. And all, all of them, hurrying. Hurrying in the same direction, into the castle. Behind its walls.
That couldn’t be good.
Sir Robert Beucol kept a steady hand on the lady’s back and steered his destrier up the outer bailey steps, his horse’s iron shoes ringing against the stone. He nodded gruffly to a sentry and clattered across the drawbridge over the natural ravine, through the gate, and into the bailey, the lady thankfully quiet. For lady she was, despite wearing strange hose and an oddly shaped cloak. In truth, he’d mistaken her for a young lad bent on play, when all sensible townsfolk were heading for safety.
The Welsh were uprising again.
His task had been to ensure all were within the inner curtain wall, and this benighted fool had defied good sense. Robert had tried instilling some into the lad, but the one word he’d uttered had confused Robert further. English, mayhap, but the peasant tongue was an unfamiliar one. No doubt one of Good King Edward’s new colonists. All the more reason to herd him to safety.
Patience spent with the lad’s antics, he’d wrapped his arms around the boy. And was hit with an armful of soft curves and feminine scent. Not a lad, then.
God keep him, remembering the feel of those soft curves pushed against him shot lusty thoughts through his body and stiffened his privy counselor. Heavenly, she’d smelled, like the lushest fruit. Obviously one of the wealthier colonists. He halted any further conjecture and allowed cool determination to cleanse away any flicker of desire. He could ill afford such a dalliance.
He led his mount at a trot to the keep’s stables, eliciting a drawn-out moan from the lass.
“Guy.” He motioned to one of the stable lads, his voice curt, cold. “See to Perceval,” his Anglo-Norman French crisp in the October air. Once dismounted, he removed the lady from her perch.
Once on the ground, she wavered and stumbled into him. He put a hand to her shoulder to steady her but pulled it away and stepped back the same moment she flinched, chin raised. The space between them coiled with sharp knowing. He stilled, mouth dry. Now able to behold her clearly, he noted she possessed clear skin, shining, hazel-colored eyes wide from fear. Raven black hair, shorn halfway to her shoulders, exposed a long, graceful neck. A higher-than-normal forehead jarred, but as he stared, he realized her features complemented each other to make a pleasing whole.
Though the short hair hinted at a criminal past, no rough hand had created that straight, pleasing line. Strange.
At his unusual licentious reaction, he swallowed and stepped away, fists clenched. God’s balls, he needed not the distraction of a comely wench. “You are safe now.” He was pleased to hear his usual clipped, no-nonsense delivery. “Locate your kin, and aid in the castle’s defense.”
Her eyes widened anew, and she began speaking, but its meaning he could not fathom. Yes, the coarse Saxon tongue, for certes, though in cadence oddly flat. One thing was clear: her voice, while pitched low and seemingly calm, held a note of panic and urgency.
“Guy, do you speak English?”
“A little, sir, but the devil only knows what he’s blathering about.”
The lady kept talking, hands twisting before her, but he had no more moments to spare, pleasing face or no. Sir Robert Staundon awaited his scouting report. Assignment to this backwater of a royal castle had not been part of his plan. Matters were moving too slow. How could this possibly bring him to the attention of his king? Attention he desperately needed if he were to restore his family’s land.
Enough.
“I must go.” He bowed and strode to the middle tower, ignoring the trickle of guilt at abandoning her. What in all of Christendom gave him cause for guilt? She was safe inside the castle walls, was she not?
Inexplicably, the weight of her stare prickled along his back, and it took all of his control not to turn around and behold her once more.
He shrugged off the guilt. She must be new to the frontier and frightened by the rush to defense. The quicker she learned that life in the English settlements was never secure, the better.
Katy stood with her mouth open, fighting the numb
ness that froze her muscles, and watched her abductor walk away. Okay, so he wasn’t her abductor.
The numbness, the fluttering panic that agitated through her was nauseatingly similar to only one other time in her life. The time when shame had been a hot, confusing, constricting emotion as she played with her Barbies on her bedroom floor in their North Carolina beach house. Tears made dark patches on her dolls’ clothes. Shame that she’d thrown a temper tantrum. At her own birthday party.
Her family was already teetering, threatening to fall apart—her eight-year-old self had discerned that much. And she'd gone and pushed them over the edge with her selfish indulgence of emotions. If she'd kept better control, maybe her family wouldn't have self-destructed. But no.
And a temper tantrum over what? She had no clue now. All she could remember was the shame, the Barbies, and the knock on her door.
Her mom had entered and said Dad had left and would never return. The Barbies in Katy’s hands dropped to the floor. She stared while inside this panic raged, even more forceful. Her parents had been arguing for a while, threatening divorce. But she hadn't thought them serious. Until that day. The day she’d indulged in a temper tantrum during her birthday party and her father walked out of her life. Ever since, she’d made damn sure to keep her emotions, and every other aspect of her life, under control. Ever since, she’d prided herself on keeping everything just so—she’d ensured that she gave no one cause to leave her again.
And now, with this knight’s departure, that same panic enveloped her—that same feeling of abandonment, of loss. Which made no sense.
The kid near the stable—Guy?—stared at her, especially at her shoes and jeans, his baby-cheeked face and round eyes the archetype across time of gawking teenagers.
Oh God. She needed to find period clothes, and quickly, before anyone else noticed her. That the scary dude hadn’t looked closer had been pure luck.
She held her hands palms out and eased back. She wouldn’t notice her shaking hands, oh, no. Over her shoulder, an alley lay between two stone buildings. She sidled along the stable wall, keeping her eye on Guy until he shrugged and ran into the stables. At the alley, she dashed to the dead end, whipped around, and slid to the cold ground, legs shaking.
Being temporarily stranded in the medieval era wasn’t the scariest part.
No. The scariest part?
When Sir Chainmail set her down and locked his gaze with hers, that dream-skin she’d worn all day shifted, merged, snapped into place with a resounding click.
Chapter Four
“By the hand of my friend,” said Kai, “often dost thou utter that with thy tongue, which thou wouldest not make good with thy deeds.”
- from The Mabinogion, an ancient Welsh romance
I’ve gone back in time.
Think, Katy. And, uh, calm down. She pressed back against the castle’s cold stone wall. The short, cobble-lined alley opened onto an astonishing slice of her new world.
Her heart did the oh-shit dance, popping panicked dots of sweat across her skin. She lifted a hand. It shook. Eyes screwed shut, she thunked her head several times against the stone.
Breathe. Breathing should help.
In. And out.
Sir Medieval Warrior had yanked her from a chance to return to her time. Under the bristling battle armor, was there any hint he might understand, might help?
His face appeared in her mind—the face she finally and clearly saw by the stables. A tight-fitting, quilted hoodie covered his head, a lock of black hair curling along his brow. Oh, and what else…
The black horizontal slashes of eyebrows, which shouldn’t have looked right on his face, but did. The honey-brown eyes, sharp cheekbones, Roman-straight nose, and the hint of a strong jaw under the skin-tight, wrap-around cloth hoodie.
The strength and power and do-me-now virility radiating from those eyes, nose, chin, oh, hell…from everything—yes, she’d felt that zing between them. Her shoulders where he’d touched her still tingled. Crap.
But he had one flaw, thank God—a mustache and what looked like a beard tucked into the tight hoodie. For her, bearded men had never put the bounce in her flounce.
Then the sunlight had caught the thick scattering of reddish-brown freckles across his forehead, oddly making him look vulnerable, and almost she’d told him to go ahead and knock her over the head and have his wicked way.
Except for one thing. Well, besides being wildly out of character and inappropriate.
His eyes. Flat, emotionless, cold, those brown eyes radiated a soul-deep disillusionment and clashed with the immediate warmth she’d initially felt. It was jarring—so like her dream knight, but…not.
No. No help there. She shoved Sir Chainmail from her mind and let the nearby sounds settle over her—the odors she couldn’t avoid. Frantic shouts in an unknown language pierced the air. Animals bleated, what sounded like a flute piped, and dominating all, a noxious brew of rotting straw, horse manure, and the cooking smells of medieval-y foods.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh. God. She opened her eyes. Time to evaluate. Obviously, she was in medieval Wales, as this was the same castle, only spiffier. But what was the language?
In high school, she’d had to memorize the opening of Canterbury Tales, and while not modern English, the words had been somewhat understandable. The first two lines she could still remember:
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
She mentally patted herself on the back. All right, but what came out of Sir Chainmail’s mouth didn’t sound Chauceresque, or like any version of Welsh she’d heard on her vacation.
If only she’d paid more attention in history classes. One date stuck: 1066, the Norman invasion. If this were after, could he be speaking a dialect of French?
Oh, that’d be sweet. Finally her French translator job would have an application outside work. Perhaps his was a Norman dialect of medieval French, which presumably differed from modern French as much as modern English did from Middle English.
Latin. Didn’t they still speak Latin?
Her stomach growled. Enough about language. Top priority: blend in, and these clothes shouted not-from-around-here. But stealing made her cringe.
No. No time for scruples—this was friggin’ survival. It didn’t take a PhD in Medieval history to know being different spelled trouble. Being found with modern, unexplainable items was too risky. What was their punishment if she got caught stealing? Probably better than being suspected a witch.
Spying several wooden, waist-high barrels stacked against the wall, she scooted behind them, shielding her from the alley’s entrance. She dumped the contents of her humongous purse on the ground. Fear crawled over her scalp, tightened her neck and shoulders—too many things outside her control.
No. Concentrate on small tasks.
Fingers shaking, she sorted the contents into useful and not-useful/dangerous-to-be-caught-with piles. Her phone went into the latter, along with anything modern. Including, sniff, her mini-planner. The red poker chips…
The useful pile was pitifully small: a pair of nail clippers. Everything else—money, ID, everything she depended on in her own world to survive—was useless.
Her engagement ring. She twirled the golden band around once, twice, the cool slide against skin, one side slightly heavier with the stone, familiar, comforting, encompassing all her dreams. How many times had she spun the stone around with her thumb in moments of anxiety, moments when she’d fought for control of her emotions?
No. Her ring must also be hidden.
Sorry, Preston. Swallowing hard, she slipped the flashy ring past her knuckles and zipped it inside a purse pocket.
She shed her coat and snipped off the manufacturer tags with the nail clippers. Dare she do more? She darted a glance around the barrels—few people passed by and none looked her way.
Screw it, she’d risk taking off her clothes.
She whipped off her sweate
r, bracing herself against the chill wind swishing down the alley and over her bare skin. She clipped off its tag, took off her bra, and scrambled back into her sweater. Later, she’d do the same with her jeans and underwear. Please no one find me before then. She threw the incriminating tags into her purse, along with the items in her useless pile, until she reached her phone. She lit the screen. Comforting, colorful icons mockingly glared. So much of her life was contained in this thing. She glanced up to the battlements and bit her lip. And now completely useless. Completely useless in making her feel connected and in control.
With a resigned sigh, she turned off the phone and snuggled it securely inside her purse. The same with the mini-planner.
Next, her sneakers. Too risky. And Preston had found humongous purses pointless? Ha! She stuffed her sneakers inside, a French-manicured nail catching on a clasp. Too conspicuous. Snip, snip, she cut them short and stashed the clippers in her purse.
Now, where to hide her purse? Isabelle had needed to prove her time-traveling story, and so Katy wouldn’t throw away that opportunity. Besides, she wasn’t checking into their Extended Stay Suite—as soon as she found her case, she’d get her purse and skedaddle from the past to the present. Easy, peasy.
But first, a hiding place. Above, the sloping thatched roof hung low. She peeked down the alley, rose, donned her coat, and clambered onto the barrels and then the roof. She lay flat, heart pounding. The only risk of being seen was from the castle walls.
She crawled across the roof and shoved the purse into the crevice between the roof and wall. The earlier shouts grew urgent, and the flute stopped, which acted like a record screech on her heart. What the heck? She edged forward to the roof peak, and surveyed the main area.
Along the walls, knights and crossbowmen—crossbowmen!—patrolled its length. By the well, a bucket brigade distributed full buckets at random spots. No, not random. At each thatched roof.
Must Love Chainmail Page 3