Time Travel Romances Boxed Set

by Claire Delacroix

  Her father would have liked him well. Confronted with her destiny and finding naught to protest, Aurelia stretched to her toes and kissed Baird Beauforte full on the lips.

  *

  Chapter Twenty

  Baird awakened to the sound of rain drumming against the window. He tucked a dozing Aurelia tighter against his side and watched the dark clouds roll across the horizon.

  All was right in his world. Not only had he found Aurelia, not only had he proven himself to her, but she had somehow surmounted her fears and faced the reality of her father’s demise. Her protective illusions had fallen away like scales from her eyes and she was whole and healthy again.

  Everything was going to be fine.

  He still couldn’t explain the weird dreams that had plagued him since coming to Dunhelm, but it didn’t matter any more. Baird only knew that he felt more complete than he ever had before.

  And this was just the beginning.

  The old king’s love from Baird’s last dream resonated in his heart. Baird had never experienced love like that, but now he had a benchmark to measure his own feelings against. So, the dream had helped him, really. This was all new ground to him, but for Aurelia’s sake, Baird was going to give it his best shot.

  He knew somehow that Aurelia was the woman for him - a woman with so many intriguing puzzles he would never figure her out completely - and if nothing else, Baird was learning to listen to those weird gut instincts.

  He bent and brushed his lips across Aurelia’s forehead, smiling as her eyelids fluttered open. Her small hand landed on his chest in a proprietary way that filled his heart to bursting.

  “Sleep well?” he asked, letting his thumb caress the soft sweep of her shoulder.

  “Mmm,” Aurelia nestled against him. “But I’m hungry.”

  Baird laughed out loud. “It figures, princess.”

  She looked up at him with twinkling eyes. “I like how young you look when you laugh.”

  “Will you give it a rest? I’m not that old!”

  A wicked glint lit her sapphire eyes. “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  Aurelia waved off this confession. “A mere babe.”

  The comment piqued Baird’s curiosity because he was sure she was younger than him. “And how old are you?”

  “What year is it again?” When Baird told her, Aurelia made a great show of counting it out on her fingers. “By nearest reckoning, eleven hundred and ninety-eight.”

  Baird blinked, but Aurelia wasn’t joking.

  His heart sank to his toes. She was supposed to be over all of that! Baird’s vision of a glowing future disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  She couldn’t still be nuts.

  Baird swallowed his trepidation, rolled to brace himself over Aurelia and cupped her shoulders in his hands, carefully choosing his words. “Princess, I thought you understood that your father is dead,” he said gently.

  She smiled. “I do.”

  Baird was encouraged. “Then, you don’t have to pretend to be someone out of a history book any more. Right?”

  “There is no need to pretend anything. I now know the truth.”

  “Great. Do you know who you are?”

  Aurelia snorted. “I always knew who I was. I am the Princess Aurelia, daughter of Hekod the Fifth, King of Dunhelm and Lord of Fyordskar over the sea.”

  Baird blinked. “But…”

  Aurelia interrupted him cheerfully. “But what I did not know was that the prophecy of my birth - one which I always believed to be nonsense - has come true.” Aurelia offered her thumb as proof. “I did indeed prick my thumb in the middle of the whorl and I did indeed sleep until my true love - you - awakened me.”

  Baird took a deep breath. “Princess, you can’t be twelve hundred years old.” He borrowed Julian’s comment, but left out the sarcasm. “You would be very dead by now.”

  Aurelia arched a skeptical brow. “Do I look dead to you?” Baird could only shake his head. Her eyes darkened and she rolled her hips mischievously beneath him. “And do I feel dead, Baird Beauforte?”

  Baird bounced out of bed, not trusting his body to remain impartial in this debate, and shoved a hand through his hair. “Aurelia! This is serious!”

  “And I am serious, make no mistake.”

  She was.

  Baird swallowed. “Are you saying that you really are Ursilla’s story, after all?”

  “Of course not!” Aurelia propped herself up on her elbows, her golden hair tumbling across the pillows. To his amazement, her gaze was perfectly clear.

  She was convinced of her thinking, even if he wasn’t.

  “My tale must have been the inspiration for Ursilla’s story.” Her lips twisted. “Trust me, there were none who ever called me Gemdelovely Gemdelee and lived to tell of it. What a woeful excuse for a name!” She rolled her eyes, but Baird didn’t share her amusement.

  He frowned at his toes, unsure how to proceed.

  “You came to me! You are the one,” Aurelia insisted in a weird echo of Luan’s certainty. “You are the one who came to awaken me. It’s all true. Can you not see? It makes perfect sense!”

  “Not to me,” Baird said stubbornly. “It doesn’t make any damn sense at all.”

  “Baird, you must face the truth. We are destined to be together, just as in Ursilla’s tale. You have come and awakened me from a long slumber and now our fates are tied together.”

  “Aurelia, that doesn’t make any sense. That’s crazy talk.”

  “I am not crazy.”

  “Right.” Baird heard the undercurrent of panic in his own voice. A part of him found her argument dangerously seductive, but Baird wasn’t going to listen to that.

  Oh, he could pick ‘em, that was for sure.

  He jabbed a finger through the air at her. “If you’re twelve hundred years old, then how can you speak and understand plain old English? Nobody spoke that here then.”

  She couldn’t refute that!

  But Aurelia did.

  “I have the gift of tongues,” she asserted without hesitation. She folded her arms across her chest and tossed her hair. “Once I heard you and Julian talk, I could understand and converse in your tongue.”

  “Well, that’s handy if you’re going to sleep for ten or twelve centuries!” Baird shoved a hand through his hair. “Aurelia, listen to what you’re saying!”

  His voice hardened with determination. “Do you not remember that I spoke to you in the Pictish tongue first? Then I tried Gaelic and Briton and finally Latin, but to no avail.”

  She smiled, obviously to reassure him. His gut urged him to believe her - which make Baird just as crazy as Aurelia was.

  It was time to get the hell out of here.

  Baird snatched up his jeans and fought to get into them as he backed away from the bed. “Look, maybe we can get you some help around here. We’ll find someone you can talk to about losing your father. It could straighten things out in your mind.”

  Baird stuffed his arms into his shirt and made for the door.

  Aurelia’s words, so low with disappointment, brought him to a halt. “You do not believe me.”

  Baird sighed. He turned back to face her, not liking that he was responsible for the disappointment in her eyes.

  But he couldn’t lie to her. “Would you believe me if this was the other way around?”

  Aurelia frowned thoughtfully. “No,” she admitted softly, then chewed her lip as she studied him. “How could I prove this to you?”

  “You can’t.” Baird heard his own frustration. “No one lives for twelve hundred years. It’s that simple.” Baird rubbed his temple and had no idea how to make all of this come right. “Look, Aurelia, I’ve got work to do. Can we talk about this later?”

  Though what they would talk about, Baird had no idea. Her disappointment was tangible, but Baird determinedly marched out of the room.

  A couple of hours wasn’t going to evict the last of Aurelia’s delusions. On the other
hand, her strange conviction had done nothing to diminish Baird’s feelings for her. What could he do?

  Believe that she had just had a twelve hundred year snooze?

  Right.

  *

  Baird strode impatiently down the hall. Aurelia might turn him inside out, she might be sexy, funny and cute, smart as a whip, she might give him fantasies of a perfect future together unlike anything he’d ever imagined, but she was flat out nuts.

  His eleventh foster mother’s doomsaying came to mind: lucky at cards, unlucky at love.

  Maybe he should take up gambling.

  Didn’t it just figure that Baird would be dealt a winning hand in all the material signs of success? Until he had come to Dunhelm, he would never have complained about the balance, but now Baird felt a yawning hole in the very middle of his life.

  And the one women who could fill it was bonkers.

  Baird nudged open his door, freezing in the foyer with the sense that he was not alone.

  “Baird, darling, I’ve been waiting just forever for you!” Marissa rolled from the bed and strolled toward him in a black lace negligee and satin mules frothy with ostrich feathers. Her hair was pinned up in artful deshabille, her lips were red, her eyes were knowing. A waft of exotic perfume preceded her arrival and made Baird’s nose tickle.

  She carried a pair of crystal glasses. “I thought a little aperitif might be in order, darling. We can start with sherry - it’s so British, don’t you think?” Marissa chuckled throatily and walked her fingers up a stunned Baird’s bare chest. “And then, darling, we can see where things go from there.”

  Baird’s nose twitched, he sneezed violently and completely ruined the ambience of the moment.

  Marissa was undeterred. “Have you caught a chill, darling?” She leaned closer and pouted with false concern. “Well, darling, I’ve just the thing to warm you right down to your toes!”

  This was the last thing he needed right now.

  “Marissa, this is not appropriate.”

  She chuckled throatily. “Well, Baird, darling, I have never wanted to be appropriate with you.” She hooked a finger through his unbuttoned shirt and tried to draw him into the room. “I see you’ve started without me, darling, but we can certainly progress from here.”

  “Marissa, I’m serious.” Baird glowered. “Please leave.”

  She pouted. “You don’t really mean that, darling. Why, we’ve had almost no time alone and - “

  Baird’s tone was non-negotiable. “I’m asking you to leave.”

  “And darling,” Marissa’s gaze hardened. “I will make my staying well worth your while.”

  “Out,” Baird declared flatly. He pointed into the corridor, what might have been a dignified pose ruined by the sock and shoe dangling from his grip.

  Marissa looked him up and down, obviously making a point of observing his state of dress. “Well! I see. Is that how it’s going to be?”

  “That’s how it is.”

  Her eyes glinted, then her smile turned brittle. “Mark my words, darling, you’ll soon be bored with that little package and come begging for more sophisticated fare. Even Darian, sweet boy that he is, was asking when you and I would tie the knot. It seems obvious to everyone but you that we’re absolutely perfect for each other.”

  “Get out now!” Baird roared.

  Marissa sniffed as she swept past him, both sherries firmly in her grip. “I suppose there’s no accounting for taste, is there, darling?”

  Baird’s only answer was the firm closing of the door. He emphatically shot the deadbolt home and trudged toward the shower, pausing on the way to shove open the window to fumigate the cloud of Marissa’s perfume.

  Women. Who in the hell needed them?

  *

  Aurelia heard Baird’s door open and to her dismay, Marissa’s voice carried to her ears. Aurelia could not make out the other woman’s words, but she did not have to.

  Baird had gone back to Marissa.

  It was not fair! How could he deny the truth between them?

  Aurelia flung herself across the room and let herself weep. She had lost her brother and her father, she had lost her home and everyone she had ever known. And now she had lost the man who was supposed to be hers for all time.

  Well, Aurelia was not going to let him go that easily.

  Baird was the one, she knew it in her heart. But he was skeptical of the power of his own intuition. He did not trust what he could not hold within his hands. Aurelia sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  Would she not have been skeptical in his place?

  She would have, she knew it. The prophecy sounded like mere whimsy to the ears of a clear thinking person. Even she had put no stock in it until the truth had been undeniable.

  Somehow Aurelia had to persuade Baird of the truth. If the prophecy intended for they two to spend their days and nights together, it was clear that prophecy needed a little help.

  Fortunately, Aurelia knew exactly what to do.

  *

  Darian was bouncing like an enthusiastic pup when Aurelia came down to the hall that evening.

  “You’ll never guess what I found today in the well,” he declared as soon as they sat down for dinner.

  Darian looked expectantly around the table, but no one responded. Marissa looked sour, Baird dissatisfied and Aurelia was certainly not in the mood for small talk. She was impatient for night to come so that she could convince Baird of the truth.

  And angry with him for going from her to Marissa. She never would have imagined that he could be so shallow and cruel!

  Darian’s enthusiasm was unruffled by the lack of response. “Well, I just have a couple of Polaroids of it. Didn’t want to disturb it.”

  “Well, what is it?” Julian asked, when no one else did.

  With a triumphant flourish, Darian produced a shiny image of something so familiar that Aurelia’s breath caught in her throat. “See?”

  The image was of Aurelia’s crossbow, half buried in the dirt. The gutting was gone, the nut lost somewhere over time, but she would have known the inlaid wood anywhere. Her sire had commissioned the design especially for her when he thought her skill warranted the gift.

  She had taken it to the walls that last morning. Aurelia touched the image, but it was flat, though the crossbow was complete in every detail. She swallowed, not daring to ask about this stiff square and its magic, and passed it to Julian.

  “What is it?” Julian asked idly.

  “I don’t know, but it’s old, that’s for sure.” Darian’s voice throbbed with excitement.

  Baird fired a cold glance down the table. “Don’t you follow strict processes for removing and dating artifacts? I had assumed that this was going to be a systematic investigation.”

  Darian fidgeted. “Well, you’re right, of course. I was just so excited!” His features brightened. “And isn’t it beautifully made? I’m sure that someone can figure out what it’s for.”

  “It’s a crossbow,” Aurelia said tightly.

  Darian looked surprised. “I don’t think so, Aurelia. You see, it would have to have a firing mechanism and we know that Picts didn’t use crossbows…”

  “They most certainly did.”

  “I thought wood disintegrated in damp places,” Baird commented frostily, passing the Polaroid to Marissa.

  “Well, well, it does. Usually.” Darian toyed with the print now back in his possession. “Maybe it’s not as old as all that.” He eyed Aurelia speculatively. “How could this be a crossbow?”

  He was baiting her and Aurelia knew it, but her temper was such that she responded anyhow. She plucked the print from his hand. “Gutting from here to here, and here to here. A revolving nut here, it’s held this way and fires like so.” She squinted at the image. “There is the nut, fallen into the dirt directly beside it.”

  They all stared at her, but Aurelia returned to her meal.

  “And Pictish?”

  Aurelia fired a glance at him, daring
him to challenge her. “Dating from the arrival of the first Vikings.”

  Darian smiled patronizingly. “Aurelia, the Vikings took possession of the Orkney Islands in the eighth century or so…”

  “And Hekod the Fifth claimed Dunhelm, among the first to land in these islands. He married a Pictish woman, the crossbow is from that time, therefore the Picts used crossbows.” Aurelia ate her dinner with resolve, not tasting a single bite of it.

  “Uh, well! You certainly seem to know a lot about the period,” Darian acknowledged.

  Aurelia shot a glance at him. “You could say that I have lived it.”

  Marissa laughed nervously. “More silly stories of prophecies for us, darling?”

  “Prophecies?” Darian looked to Aurelia with open curiosity.

  But it was Marissa who answered, her eyes bright with malice. “Yes, Aurelia has this charming fantasy that she actually is a Pictish princess. Baird found her in the well, didn’t you, darling?”

  “That’s enough,” Baird said tightly.

  Marissa ignored him. “You know, Darian darling, it was the cutest little story.” She laughed harshly again. “But then, doesn’t every little girl dream of starring in her own fairy tale? It’s so much easier than actually growing up.”

  An awkward silence settled around the table.

  Darian cleared his throat, apparently uncertain whether to laugh or believe Marissa. Something flickered in his gaze, though, that gave Aurelia an instinctive understanding of Baird’s dislike of this man.

  “Well, then, perhaps you’d like to help me excavate the site?” Darian leaned closer and smiled charmingly. “I could use all the expertise I can get and if we’ve got an extra fan of the Picts in the ranks, it would certainly help.”

  If Aurelia had not heard Baird go to Marissa, she would never have agreed.

  But agree she did.

  “I would delighted to help you,” she said proudly.