by Lynn Kurland
He walked out into the passageway and into Margaret.
Literally. He reached out to steady her and caught an armful of mail. Alex met her eyes and groaned silently. Where in the twentieth century would he ever find anyone who could hold a candle to her?
She jerked her arm away. ''Pay more heed to where you are going," she said curtly.
"Margaret, I have to go."
"Then go."
Don't you care? was on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't say it. What difference did it make? He couldn't stay and he couldn't take her with him. Was this his just desserts for a poor career choice?
"I wish I could stay...."
"You can't wield a sword," she said. "Of what use are you to me?"
Never mind trying to convince her that indeed he could wield a sword and that he'd learned his technique from one of the most ruthless Scottish lairds of the fourteenth century. He simply nodded.
"You're right. And anyway, I need to go."
"Then go," she said, pointing to the stairs. "And be quick about it."
He wanted to kiss her. He would have if she hadn't had her knife halfway out of its sheath. So instead, he gave her a look he hoped said everything he'd never be able to say, then he turned and walked carefully down the steps.
George was standing near the door. "Off again?"
"I think it will work this time," Alex said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.
"I wish I had the entire tale."
"Trust me. You wouldn't want it."
And with that, Alex pulled the hall door shut behind him. He retrieved Beast from the stables and headed across the drawbridge as the sun started to rise. He was tired. He was even too tired to enjoy thoughts of wringing Jamie's neck, which was the very first thing he would do when he got home. The least his brother-in-law could have done was to put a warning label on that map. Warning: Time-traveling in medieval England only leads to intense heartbreak. Proceed at your own risk.
Alex pointed his horse west and tried to think of home.
All he could think about was Margaret.
Ten
Margaret stood on the battlements. It was the place she always came to think. Staring out over her land usually gave her much needed perspective when the events in her life seemed too overwhelming. This eve standing on the wall gave her no relief. She could not stand on the east wall without remembering how Alex had kissed her there. Sleeping or awake, the feel of his mouth was branded on hers.
At least he was finally gone. She'd watched him ride off from her current position on the battlements. She hadn't wanted to do it, but she'd forced herself. Seeing him leave would be the only thing that would convince her he'd made his final choice.
And that choice was not her.
"Fool," she whispered.
She turned away from the east and walked the perimeter to the west wall. She stared out over her baileys, looking at the glow from small fires here and there. The smith's hammer no longer rang out. Her men no longer trained in the outer bailey. True, it was well past time to cease working, but the keep seemed somehow deserted. Or maybe 'twas she who was deserted.
She had lost three of her brothers with one missive sent from the king's scribe, yet it had not pained her this much. She'd buried her eldest brother, then her father a pair of months later, and she'd never felt this alone. She'd known what her task was and what she would have to do to see it accomplished. Never once had she allowed herself the luxury of sitting and thinking about how her life might have been had she not been mistress of Falconberg.
Alex was to blame for having shown her how life could be. And blame him she would. If he had never come along, she never would have relaxed her guard. She never would have sat with a man simply to speak of nothing of consequence. She never would have known how it was for a man to look at her and see just Margaret. Saints above, how she wished she had never kissed him! Her mouth would never forget how it felt to be under his.
"My lady?"
Margaret turned to see her page Timothy standing hesitantly next to her.
"Aye, lad?"
"The child screams for Lord Alex. I was sent to fetch you."
"Saints, what know I of children?" Margaret asked.
Young Timothy only shrugged, looking as helpless as she felt.
"Very well," she said with a deep sigh, "I will do what I can."
It turned out that very little was what she succeeded in doing. The child, Amery, as she learned was his name, wanted Alex, and there was no convincing him that he could not have what he asked for. Margaret tried to reason with him, but her words fell on deaf ears. He seemed incapable of sitting still and listening to her. The child screamed and wept and generally behaved very poorly. Margaret was hardly surprised. Alex had already ruined her life. It seemed that he'd left behind a gift that would soon ruin her ears.
"Saints!" she exclaimed, after what seemed hours of listening to the young boy carry on. "I cannot believe this is one of my people! Surely children here are raised not to be so fractious."
"Actually," George said, from where he stood near the doorway, shielding his ears with his hands, "he's one of Brackwald's peasants."
"That does not surprise me," Margaret grumbled. Then she jerked her gaze to her captain. "What mean you by that?"
"The peasants who were slain were his, not ours."
"I thought Brackwald had attacked our people."
"Nay. He attacked his own, wearing your colors."
"The whoreson," Margaret breathed. "By the saints, the wretch will stop at nothing." She looked down at Amery, who, blessedly, had ceased to howl. He was staring up at her, as if he expected to be packed off at any moment back to Brackwald. "Do you understand me?" she asked. She had no idea what intelligence a child this young possessed. He seemed to have little vocabulary outside of "Aweks" and "Whaa."
In answer, the child held out its arms, as if it wished to be picked up.
Margaret frowned. "I've no time to humor you, Amery. You will stay here, but you will behave without me tending to you." She wagged her finger at him for emphasis. To her horror, the boy latched onto her finger and used it as a means to hoist himself up onto her lap. "Wait, by the saints," she spluttered.
The boy arranged himself on her lap, took hold of her long braid in one hand, stuck his thumb in his mouth and stared up at her.
Margaret looked at George for aid. He only held up his hands and backed out of the chamber.
"Wait!" she called. "Help!"
The passageway became, quite conveniently, empty. Margaret vowed heads would roll as soon as she'd managed to extricate herself from this predicament.
Amery snuggled closer, then closed his eyes and let loose a little sigh. Well, perhaps the lad had worn himself out. Margaret leaned back against her chair and put her arm around the boy's back. No sense in not giving him something to lean against. For all she knew, if she didn't he would fall to the floor, and then she would have his screaming to contend with again. Aye, and there was no sense not to secure his feet as well. With both arms around him, he surely wouldn't take a tumble. She nodded to herself over that and leaned her pounding head back against the chair.
Saints, what a day. She sincerely hoped it would be the last such day she would pass in her lifetime.
She felt herself begin to relax, though she fought it for quite some time. The last thing she wanted was to relax her guard enough for thoughts of Alex to creep back into her mind.
Somehow, she was overtaken by them just the same. What could it hurt to dream of him one last time? A few last thoughts, then she would put him from her mind forever.
She fell asleep with tears running down her cheeks.
Alex woke, stiff and sore. He looked up at the sky. No jets flying overhead. Of course Jamie lived so far north a jet was fairly rare. And the estate was so large, you could go for days without even hearing a car.
Neither of those things made Alex feel any better— mainly because he suspected he wasn't on J
amie's land.
He sat up, shivering. Wherever he was in time, it was obviously still February because there was frost on the leaves he'd used to cover himself with the night before. Damn it anyway, what was the deal? He'd spent the bloody night in that faery ring, thinking himself into a migraine, trying to get himself home.
It obviously wasn't working.
He'd started to panic around three a.m. An Eagle Scout could still tell time even by medieval stars. It was about four a.m. that he realized he just wasn't going anywhere. He'd tried to sleep then, hoping he would dream himself home. It didn't look like that had worked, either.
Alex dropped his face into his hands and groaned. He was stuck. There was just no other conclusion to come to.
He'd used every ounce of lawyer's logic the night before to solve his dilemma. He'd considered the sun's position, the weather, the innermost desires of his heart. He'd factored in Jamie's nonpresence, what he'd accomplished in medieval England, the fact that he needed Twinkies to survive. He'd contemplated his own checkered past, the restitution he'd tried to make, the change of heart he'd had. He'd given thought to Elizabeth's experiences with Jamie's forest, how she hadn't wanted to leave the first time, how she and Jamie had traveled forward in time seemingly because they wanted to stay together. Alex had examined his own heart.
And he'd done his damnedest to ignore the effect Margaret of Falconberg had had on him.
It wouldn't work with her. It couldn't work. He would screw up history if he stayed. She needed a medieval guy. He could certainly negotiate the inner workings of the modern automobile, but that didn't exactly qualify him to start fixing things around the castle.
But what other choice did he have?
He shook his head sharply. No. He would not allow that damned faery ring to control his destiny. He could get home if he really wanted to. The gate in Jamie's forest was always open. He'd used it twice and had had no trouble. It would work for him again if he wanted it to.
But did he?
He moved backward to lean against a tree where he could examine his choices more comfortably. The way he saw it, he could either chance a trip to Scotland or remain where he was and work things out with Margaret.
You never know when you'll have to go back to the Middle Ages and rescue me from too much beer and wenching.
His own words came back to him, words he'd said to Jamie after hearing Jamie's own time-traveling tale.
He'd just been kidding!
Did he want to be rescued? To go back to what? His car? His bank account? Fiona MacAllister? As if she were even an option! For all he knew, Zachary had hoodwinked her into believing he was a tidy, responsible citizen with prospects. What he had waiting for him in the twentieth century were just things, material things he could live without.
There was his family, though. Alex smiled wistfully. He would miss Christmas reunions in Seattle with kids and sleeping bags strewn from one end of the house to the other. He would miss his brothers and Elizabeth. He would miss flying home to sit in his parents' kitchen and chat with his mom over brownies and play a little one-on-one with his dad in the driveway. It would be hard not to pick up the phone and hear them on the other end.
But lots of people took jobs in faraway lands with bad phone service and rotten mail delivery. Staying wouldn't be much different than that. And much as he loved his family, they couldn't replace the chance to have a family of his own.
With Margaret.
He turned over in his mind what it would mean to stay. There were the obvious things, of course, like day-to-day living. He'd always liked camping. He could do it for the rest of his life and probably be very content. That was about the level of civilization he was dealing with. He had some rudimentary medical skills, thanks to his dad's insistence. He was full of common sense. He could make a few improvements to Margaret's castle without completely throwing off England's progression to the industrial age.
But that wasn't what would make staying worth it.
Margaret was the prize.
Alex rubbed his hands over his face. How could he even contemplate walking away from her? How could he have actually imagined he would have succeeded? He would have spent every minute of every day of the rest of his life kicking himself for having been too cowardly to grab the best thing that had ever walked into his life. The century was irrelevant. Everything else was unimportant. There was nothing in this century or any of the others that could possibly hold a candle to her.
Why had he been stupid enough to try to believe otherwise?
He rolled to his feet and stretched. He would go back to Falconberg and fix what he'd broken. Margaret would be furious with him, but he would prove himself to her. Maybe he wouldn't be of any use to her as a swordsman, but he could certainly give her surgeon tips on germ control. Maybe he could help out in the kitchen. Maybe he could marry her and be her baron consort.
He straightened with his saddle in his hands. Could he marry her? Or would the king laugh at the idea and give her to Edward anyway?
"When hell freezes over," he muttered as he swung the saddle onto Beast's back. He would lie like a rug if he had to to convince Richard he was good husband material. Yes, there were many things he'd do before he let Edward get his paws on his future wife.
Assuming, of course, he could keep her from decapitating him long enough to convince her she should marry him. For all he knew, she might actually come to want him again. He smiled, feeling better than he had in hours. His fate was in his hands again.
He did, of course, studiously avoid the thought that scared the hell out of him: He would live and die in medieval England and no one would be the wiser.
Alex swung up into the saddle and turned Beast back to Margaret's hall. Maybe he could get himself inserted into the history books. At least his sister would stumble across him while doing research. His family would know he'd been well and happy. He couldn't ask for more than that.
His good mood lasted until he could see Falconberg in the distance, then his bravado began to dissipate. His arrival had all the earmarks of a doozy of a humiliating moment. Margaret would throw up her hands over it, probably after suggesting he take up residence in her dungeon. Margaret he thought he could handle. It was George that made him nervous. He had the distinct feeling he wouldn't get away with any more hedging. Sir George of York would have the whole story, or Alex knew he probably would become very familiar with Margaret's dungeon. Damned faery ring. It had caused him a severe amount of stress.
He reached the castle almost too soon for comfort. The drawbridge was half up, but it lowered as he approached. Well, so far, so good. The guards saluted him as he rode by. Men trained in the lists instead of gathering together to capture him. That was a good sign.
George was standing in the doorway to the great hall. Alex dismounted, and a teenager immediately appeared to take his horse. Alex looked at George and smiled weakly.
"Mornin'," he said, trying to sound casual.
George very slowly and very deliberately folded his arms over his chest. Alex had seen that move before on his father. George really meant business this time.
"My lord," he said slowly, "I pray you, come to a decision and carry it out! This is a most distressing habit you have begun."
Alex sighed. "I'm here for good this time, George."
"I fear I require the entire tale," George stated.
"I think—"
"The entire tale this time, my lord."
"Maybe I should talk to Margaret first. I owe her that much."
George's look darkened. "The sun will not set on this day ere you have given me what I demand."
"Yes, sir."
George grunted. "Young Amery will be happy to see you. He was less than pleased to have you leave."
"Well, I don't know that I should get invol—" He shut his mouth abruptly at the look on George's face. "I'd be happy to see the little tyke. Where is he?"
"One of Cook's maids has the keeping of him. A young girl with a
n endless supply of energy."
Alex smiled. "I'll just bet." No sooner had he said that than he heard a high-pitched, childlike scream of joy. He turned and saw Amery trundling across the inner bailey as fast as his little legs would carry him, followed by a girl of about twelve who looked completely exhausted. Alex scooped Amery up and winced at the choke hold the little boy put on him.
"Aweks, Aweks, Aweks!" Amery cried, over and over again.
It was enough to make a grown man get misty-eyed. Alex buried his face in Amery's freshly washed hair and breathed deeply. This was a good thing. Living in the Middle Ages would be a good thing. He could adopt Amery.
And why not? It wouldn't mess with history's time line. If Alex hadn't been there to rescue him, Amery would have died. He could adopt the boy, marry Margaret and live happily ever after.
Well, he would worry about it later. Now what he had to worry about was convincing Margaret to let him stay. And he had to convince himself that keeping his hands and his mouth away from her until he could convince her to trust him again was a good idea.
"Where's Margaret?" Alex asked George, rubbing Amery's back soothingly.
"Off stirring up mischief."
Alex's hand froze of its own volition. "By herself?"
"Nay. She took a handful of the more reckless lads."
"Good grief, George, why didn't you stop her?"
One of George's eyebrows went up. "Such concern you show, my lord."
"Look, I never said I didn't care about her. I just said I couldn't stay and marry her."
"Yet, here you are."
Alex growled in frustration. "She could get herself killed!"
"She's quite skilled at seeing to herself."
"Well, I don't think she's quite herself lately," Alex muttered. "Do you have any idea where she would have gone?"
"Aye. She will have gone to ride the borders. She hasn't been gone long. We'll find her." He nodded to the men who were saddling up near the stables. "I thought you might care to go have a look, so I had the lads prepared once we saw you were coming back home."