LADY EVER AFTER: A Medieval Time Travel Romance (Beyond Time Book 2)

by Tamara Leigh

  He nearly laughed at himself for feeling like a teenage boy who has just convinced the prettiest girl in his year to accept a date. “Eleven thirty it is.”

  She started to turn away, paused. “In case my morning appointment runs long, ask for my assistant. She’ll make sure your wait is comfortable.”

  “Her name?”

  “Matilda Crosley.”

  Matilda. Coincidence? James wondered. Or did her assistant have a dark forelock amid silver? He wouldn’t be at all surprised.

  He watched Nedy Algernon set off with her dogs, and when she disappeared over the rise, returned his gaze to Collier’s headstone. Though he hurt that his brother was so far gone from now, he was happy for him.

  “I’ll be back,” he said, and for the first time in weeks looked forward to spending an evening not with a bottle of Scotch but a pot of coffee. Soon he would know as much as possible about the woman who should never have been born.

  EPILOGUE

  Irondale Castle, Northern England

  1468

  Catherine looked from her husband’s broad smile to the bundled babe he held. Tender from the delivery of their second son early that morning, she settled more deeply into the chair Collier had carried her to in order for the birthing chamber to be more easily transformed back into the solar.

  “I think he favors you, Husband.”

  Eyes moving intently over little James, he said, “I think he looks more like Antony. What say you, Eustace?”

  The boy drew near, peered into the swaddling clothes. “Mayhap around the eyes.”

  Collier chuckled and looked over his shoulder at the one who hung back. “Come see for yourself.”

  Unable to disguise his unease, Antony slowly advanced.

  Catherine’s heart further warmed at the sight of her brother. In four years, he had more than fulfilled the promise of his boyish good looks. He was tall, broad-shouldered, had a face she doubted few maidens could resist, and a voice so deep even married women must sigh over it. But he remained a fugitive, attainted for acts of treason against Edward’s England.

  He lifted the hand bearing their father’s ring and stroked the babe’s cheek. “A fine lad. Aye, he does look like me.”

  “Then he shall be called James Antony Gilchrist,” Collier said.

  “Two Christian names?” Tilly said as she stepped into the solar with clean blankets and sheets over an arm.

  “Do you not think he deserves more than one?” Collier said.

  “He does, but then everyone shall think they ought to have two—or more—and such a mouthful it becomes.”

  Catherine smiled. Collier had told her of the practice of giving both a first and non-religious middle name, which would not come into widespread use for at least a couple centuries. Of course, if what Collier believed of Tilly was correct, she was already acquainted with the custom.

  Was he correct? As the woman set to changing out the bedding, Catherine ached over how much she missed Tilly. The day Antony had escaped Irondale with King Henry, the maid had disappeared, but she had left behind a note. Your brother needs me now, it had read. God blesses, my lady.

  “Would you like to hold him?” Collier asked.

  Antony looked ready to refuse, but then he smiled and took the babe. He held him a long time, during which Catherine saw yearning move over his face and knew he wanted this—a wife, children, a home. No legend necessary, but a legacy…

  “May I?” he said, and at Collier’s nod, crossed to the big man who stood beside the door. “Little Antony resembles me, do you not think?”

  Severn snorted. “I see it not. Looks like every other babe—red and wrinkled and not at all comely.”

  Catherine nearly laughed. It was good to see Severn again. Once, sometimes twice a year, he, Antony, and Tilly made the crossing from France to England, disguised lest they were recognized. This visit to Irondale had coincided with the birth of James, but it was no accident. Three years earlier, they had visited following Lewis’s birth.

  Catherine considered her three-year-old son in the chair opposite. Curled in his grandmother’s arms, his soft snores were nearly aligned with those of the older woman. It had been an exciting day for them.

  Collier bent near and, taking her hand in his, asked, “How are you feeling?”

  She tipped her face up. “As if no matter what goes wrong in this life, there will ever be something very right about it.”

  He smiled. “I could not be happier, Catherine.”

  “Nor I.”

  He brushed his lips across hers. “You look beautiful.”

  Though after the long, laboring morn, she would not care to peer at her reflection, she knew he did not lie, for such was love.

  “Methinks,” she said low, “you would like to make another child on me.”

  “I would. But for now, I am content to simply be at your side.”

  Her heart swelled further for this man who had journeyed across time to save her. She had his love, two beautiful sons, and no more accursed dreams.

  Leaning forward, she put her mouth to his ear. “I shall ever be grateful you are the more to my tale. That I began and that I shall end with you. Collier. Gilchrist. Morrow.”

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for spending time with Lady Catherine and Sir Collier. If you enjoyed their love story, I would appreciate a review of Lady Ever After at your online retailer: Amazon

  For those who haven’t read the first book in the series, Dreamspell, and want to know more about Baron Fulke Wynland and the Crosleys of Sinwell, I’ve included an excerpt. As for the Wulfrith dagger and the mightiest trainer of knights, visit my website at www.tamaraleigh.com for previews of the first five books in the Age Of Faith series. And for a peek at the sixth book readers have been asking for—that of the redeemed Sir Durand who has waited too many years for a heroine of his own—an excerpt is also included here. Now to finish that tale for its 2017 release. Pen. Paper. Inspiration. Imagination. Away we go!

  Wishing you many more hours of happily-ever-after reading ~ Tamara

  For new releases and special promotions, subscribe to Tamara Leigh’s mailing list: www.tamaraleigh.com

  EXCERPT

  DREAMSPELL: A Medieval Time Travel Romance

  Book One in the Beyond Time series

  PROLOGUE

  London, 1376

  Even I would have killed for thee.

  Dawn lit the words etched in stone, bade him draw near. Aye, he would have killed for her, though not as it was told he had done. Still, this day he would die. For three years, he had languished in this wretched cell awaiting a trial that was only a formality, and yesterday he had been brought before his peers. Now, with the newborn day, the Lieutenant would take him through the city to Smithfield where a noose awaited him.

  He rose from his pallet and crossed his cell to where he had carved the words by which he would soon die. Head and shoulders blocking the light that shone through the small window, he traced each letter through to thee.

  “Nedy,” he whispered, remembering everything about her, from the gentle curve of her lips to her long legs to mannerisms not of this world. More, he remembered the last time they had kissed and the promise she had made him—a promise not kept. But at least he had loved.

  The door opened, but it was not the Lieutenant who came for him. Though the years had cruelly aged the man who stepped inside, rounding shoulders that had once been broad, there was no mistaking the third King Edward.

  “Wynland.” The king inclined his head.

  It was three years since Fulke had been granted such an audience, but he remembered himself and bowed. “Your majesty.”

  Edward peered into his prisoner’s face. “You are prepared to die?”

  “I am.”

  “Yet still you say it was not you?”

  Fulke stared at him, those few moments all the confirmation needed of the idle talk of guards. Edward’s mind was on the wane. Was the recent death of his son, the Black
Prince, responsible? Though not since the queen’s passing seven years ago could he be said to be right in the head, this was worse, as evidenced by his neglect of affairs of state. The great King Edward was no longer worthy of the crown, the power he had once wielded now in the hands of his greedy mistress, Alice Perrers.

  “I trusted you,” Edward said, his jaw quivering in his fleshy face. “When all opposed your wardship of your nephews, I granted it. When my fair Lark was attacked, I would not believe ‘twas you.”

  It was an opening for Fulke to defend himself, but he was done with that.

  “Have you naught to say?” Edward demanded.

  “I have had my say, my liege. There is no more.”

  Edward cursed, turned to leave, and came back around. “Beg my forgiveness and mayhap I shall allow you an easier death.”

  “There is naught for which I require your forgiveness.” This did not mean he did not seek the forgiveness of others. But it was too late for that.

  Anger staining the king’s face, he looked around the cell and lingered on the words that covered the walls. “I was told of this. The troubadours pay well for the guards to bring them these words by which they compose songs of love.”

  Fulke considered all he had carved into the stone these past years—words never spoken.

  “Why do you do it?”

  Feeling a pang at his center, Fulke said, “That she might know.”

  Edward shook his head. “You loved wrong in choosing a woman such as that when you could have had—” His voice broke. “I would have forgiven you anything, except my Lark.” He stepped from the cell.

  As the door swung closed, Fulke stood motionless, each moment that passed drawing him nearer his last. Finally, he crossed to his pallet and retrieved the worn spoon that was only one of many to have lent itself to his writings. Thumbing the rough edge of all that remained of its handle, he eyed the last words he had inscribed: Even I would have killed for thee. They said much, but there was more.

  When they came for him an hour later, the final line read: And now I shall die for thee. As he stood to be shackled, he considered his words carved around the walls. They were for Nedy, wherever she was.

  CHAPTER ONE

  University Sleep Disorders Clinic

  Los Angeles, California

  “I was there,” Mac said amid the tick and hum of instruments. “Really there.”

  Kennedy waited for his eyes to brighten and a grin to surface his weary face. Nothing. Not even a flicker of humor. Dropping the smile that was as false as the hair sweeping her brow, she said, “Sorry, Mac, I’m not buying it.” She turned to the bedside table and peered at the machine that would monitor his sleep cycles.

  “You think I’m joking?”

  Of course he was. For all the horror MacArthur Crosley had endured during the Gulf War, he was an incorrigible joker, but this time he had gone too far. She unbundled the electrodes.

  “I’m serious, Ken.”

  Her other subjects called her Dr. Plain, but she and Mac went back to when she had been a doctoral student and he was her first subject in a study of the effects of sleep deprivation on dreams. That was four years ago and, at this rate, it might be another four before she was able to present her latest findings. If she had that long…

  Feeling the snugness of the knit cap covering her head, she said, “Serious, huh? I’ve heard that one before.”

  The familiar squeak of wheels announced his approach. “It happened.”

  Meanwhile, the clock kept ticking, the minute hand climbing toward midnight.

  “Listen to me, Ken. What I have to tell you is important—”

  “Time travel through dreams, Mac?” She uncapped a tube of fixative and squeezed a dab onto the electrodes’ disks. “How on earth did you hatch that one?” Though she might concede some dreams prophesied the future, time travel was too far out there. “Let’s get you hooked up.”

  “That’s not what I’m here for.”

  She turned and found herself sandwiched between the table and the wheelchair that served as his legs.

  “I’ve been holding out on you, Ken. I would have told you sooner, but I couldn’t—not until I was certain it wasn’t just an incredibly real dream.”

  “Come on, Mac. It’s midnight, I haven’t had dinner yet, and I’m tired.”

  He clamped a hand around her arm. “I’m dead serious.”

  Though she knew she had nothing to fear from him, alarm leapt through her when a tremor passed from him to her. Never had she seen Mac like this, and certainly he had never taken his jokes this far. Was it possible that what he said was true—rather, he believed it was true? If so, he was hallucinating, a side-effect not uncommon among her subjects, especially beyond sixty hours of sleep deprivation. But she had never known Mac to succumb to hallucinations, not even during an episode four months back when his consecutive waking hours broke the two hundred mark. That had complications all its own.

  He released her and pushed back. “Sorry.”

  Kennedy stared at him. The whites of his eyes blazed red, the circles beneath shone like bruises, the lines canyoning his face went deeper. Forty-five years old, yet he looked sixty, just as he had when his two hundred and two waking hours had put him into a sleep so deep he had gone comatose. But he had reported eighty-seven waking hours when he called an hour ago.

  He had lied. Kennedy nearly cursed. She knew what extreme sleep deprivation looked like, especially on Mac. True, he had cried wolf before, convinced her of the unimaginable to the point she would have bet her life he was telling the truth, but this came down to negligence. And she was guilty as charged.

  She consulted her clipboard and scanned the previous entry. Five weeks since his last episode, a stretch considering he rarely made it three weeks without going a round with his souvenir from the war. But why would he under-report his waking hours? Because of the safeguard that was put in place following his coma, one that stipulated all subjects who exceeded one hundred fifty waking hours were to be monitored by a medical doctor?

  Knowing her own sleep would have to wait—not necessarily that she would have slept since she was also intimate with insomnia—she said, “How many hours, Mac?”

  He pushed a hand through his silvered red hair. “Eighty…nine.”

  “Not one hundred eighty nine?”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I would if you’d listen.”

  Realizing she was picking an argument when she should be collecting data, she rolled a stool beneath her. “Okay, talk.”

  He dragged a tattooed hand down his face. “The dreams aren’t dreams. Not anymore. When I went comatose, I truly crossed over, and that’s when I realized it was more than a dream. And I could have stayed.” He slammed his fists on the arms of his wheelchair. “If not for the doctors and their machines, I would have stayed!”

  Pain stirred at the back of Kennedy’s head. “You would have died.”

  “In this time. There I would have lived.”

  Then he truly believed he had been transported to the Middle Ages of his serial dream. Interesting. “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  Was this more than sleep deprivation? Had Mac snapped? “I know it seems real—”

  “Cut with the psychobabble! Sleep deprivation is the key to the past. It’s a bridge. A way back. A way out.”

  She took a deep breath. “Out of what?”

  “This.” He looked to the stumps of his legs, wheeled forward, and tapped her forehead. “And this.”

  Stunned by his trespass, Kennedy caught her breath.

  He sank back in his wheelchair. “In my dreams, I have legs again. Have I told you that?”

  She gave herself a mental shake. “Many times.”

  “I walk. I run. I feel my legs down to my toes. It’s as if the war never happened.”

  She laid a hand on his shoulder. “It did happen.”

  “Not six hundred years ago.”
<
br />   She lowered her hand. “What makes you believe this isn’t just an incredibly real dream?”

  “I don’t know the places in this dream, and I’ve never seen any of the people.”

  That was his proof? Though dreams were often forged of acquaintances and familiar landscapes, it wasn’t unusual to encounter seemingly unfamiliar ones.

  He reached behind his wheelchair, pulled a book from his knapsack, and pushed it into her hands. “I found this in an antique book shop a while back.”

  It was old, its black cover worn white along the edges, all that remained of its title a barely legible stamped impression. She put her glasses on. “The Sins of the Earl of…?”

  “Sinwell,” Mac supplied.

  Kennedy forced a laugh. “Catchy title.” She ran her fingers across the numbers beneath. “1373 to 1399. History…never my best subject.”

  “He’s the one.”

  “Who?”

  “Fulke Wynland, the man who murdered his nephews so he could claim Sinwell for himself.”

  Mac’s dream adversary. Though he had told her the dream arose from a historical account, he hadn’t named the infamous earl or the British earldom for which Wynland had committed murder.

  “I’m in there.” Mac nodded at the book.

  Kennedy raised an eyebrow.

  “Look at the pages I marked.”

  A half dozen slips protruded from the book. She opened to the first and skimmed the text. There it was: Sir Arthur Crosley. Okay, so someone in the past had first claim to a semblance of MacArthur Crosley’s name. What proof was that? She read on. With the King of England’s blessing, the errant knight pledged himself to the safekeeping of orphaned brothers John and Harold Wynland. She read the remaining passages, the last a single sentence that told of Sir Arthur’s disappearance prior to the boys’ fiery deaths.