His brow knitted while he tried to follow my babble. Talking with Thomas was so easy. I was (almost) myself around him. After a bit, he replied, “Thus my presence at the Tower.”
Before I could comment, there was a rap on the door, and in came a couple of maids with pitchers, linen, and food oh the food my God look at the food.
“Wow!”
“Our thanks,” Thomas said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Please leave …” He looked at me and smiled. “Well. All of it.”
“Of course all of it! What, only leaving part of it was on the table? The theoretical table, not the literal table they’re putting the food on?” It fairly groaned under the weight of the tray and pitchers. “Ohhhhh, where to start? Thomas! Sit your butt back down!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean it. I’ll fix you a plate. Sit on the bed before you fall over again. What do you want? There’s bread here, two different kinds. And …” I sniffed one of the pitchers. “Some beer. Well, it’s 9:00 a.m. somewhere, right?”
“You care not for ale?”
“I’m not used to it. The water is perfectly drinkable in Merka. Only really dedicated drinkers need beer in the morning, or one of my friend Lisa’s professors. Hey! Milk!”
I poured myself a small cup, then hesitated. It hadn’t been pasteurized. Hell, it was still warm. Raw milk, straight from an un-inoculated bovine on a diet of who-knew-what, whose milk could be teeming with any number of things. Listeria. Salmonella. E. coli. Rabies?
Sure, but consider what the milk isn’t teeming with: artificial growth hormones or additives. It can’t be that dangerous, or cows would have wiped us out 1,000 years ago.
I took a breath and took a sip. Then another. Then a gulp, because raw milk was delicious, creamy and frothy and warm, and so rich it was more like a dessert than a drink.
Thomas had been watching me, smiling. “They do not have such things in your world?”
“Not like this.” I topped off the cup and handed it to him. “Here, have some, it’ll perk you right up. Okay, what else?”
“What else” was ravel, a nut-brown chewy bread, and another small loaf of spice bread, a dense dark bread with lots of spices, studded with dried fruit and served with fresh butter.
And a venison pasty, which was especially delicious as I hadn’t had deer meat since before The After. They didn’t have legal hunting seasons yet, which is why venison was even available, and the cook had baked the meat with spices and bacon fat, because the cook was a masterful genius.
There was also something called spermys cheese, in which curds had been mixed with liquid extracted from fresh thyme sprigs, which sounded like it took forever but tasted like glory.
And finally, a tart filled with “yellow tart stuff”. They actually called it “yellow tart stuff”, because “apricot” was too much trouble, I guess. And a cheesecake (I had no idea they’d been around that long) with cinnamon, mace, and ground almonds.
“Ohhhhhhh. Oh, that was good. So so good. Um. Is there any venison pasty left?”
“Only the crumbs that fell into your lap.”
I flapped my napkin, sending crumbs flying. “Everything was so good. Even the super creamy raw milk was so good!”
“You should not be so quick to abandon us for your home shore, then, as the cream eating festivals will soon be upon us.”
“There are … there are cream eating festivals?”
“Oh yes, beginning on Twelfth Night.”
“And the purpose of these festivals is … to eat cream?”
“Yes.”
“You guys built an entire festival around doing something terrific?”
“So it would seem.”
“I love TudorTime,” I said with fervent, cream-craving sincerity. “I really do. I love it when I don’t hate it and right now I don’t hate it.”
Then I remembered Tereza Lupez had hated it, and why, and burst into tears. I was as startled as Thomas—I could count on one hand how often I’d wept in the last three years. Now I was two for two days.
“I’m tired,” I managed by way of explanation, scrubbing my cheeks with my palms. “I never do this.”
“Please. Lady Joan.” I’d gone and sat on his bed once I’d consumed the last of the yellow tart stuff, so all he had to do was sit up and lean over until he had an arm around my shoulders. “You’ve nothing to apologize for.”
“I think,” I blubbered, “after what we’ve been through, you should call me Joan.”
“Joan. Whom the angels send.”
“Not really,” I replied, and cried harder.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Somehow we ended up lying down on the featherbed, facing each other while I sobbed and Thomas made soothing noises. After a minute I said, “This will look odd but don’t worry about it,” then took off my hood and several strands of hair that came with the pins. Then the wig so I could let my hair roam free on my scalp. “Ever try sleeping in one of these? Yuck.”
Thomas slowly reached up like he thought I might flee (possibly while screaming), and when I didn’t move he ran his fingers through my hair, smoothing over the little dents left by the pins. I groaned and tipped my head forward to give him more access. “When were you ill?”
“Huh? I almost never get sick. Except for headaches.”
“Those afflicted with a fever often have their hair shorn. Do they not do that in Merka?”
“Of course they do. What I meant was I never get sick except for that bad fever a year or so ago when I was sick. And also one way back, when I was just a kid. It was so high it literally burned some of my brain!” (I have to stop telling that story like it’s a positive.)
“I like this,” he said, holding up a strand of my hair like a jeweler eyeballing a diamond. “It suits you better than the rest of it.”
“At least the wig had some nice auburn highlights. My natural hair is an exotic hue known as Boring Brown. It’s my fault she’s dead.” Huh. I didn’t know I was going to come out with that until I came out with that.
“Joan …”
“It is. I should have set out straight away. But I was tired of it, and I didn’t trust—I didn’t want to come and because I was a self-absorbed brat, Teresa was run down by a mob. She must have been terrified. And I was—I was home feeling sorry for myself.”
“You are being too hard on yourself,” he said to my temple, still massaging my scalp. “And while I do not know how long your journey takes, I do know that Teresa died—”
“Was murdered. Was run down like a dog in the street and murdered by savages.”
“—almost immediately upon her arrival.”
“What?” I sniffed and sat up. “How d’you know?”
“I spoke with the Tower guards.” At my raised eyebrows, he shrugged. “It helped pass the time. Apparently your friend appeared in a flash of light—an exaggeration, but this is what the guard claimed to have seen—and citizens set upon her almost immediately.”
I winced. “It makes no difference. I still shouldn’t have waited.”
“Perhaps you should pray for guidance,” he suggested.
“Okay. I’ll do that while you rub my head some more?”
He smiled at my hopeful tone. “Of course.”
“Not that I think of you as particularly maternal—”
“I should hope not.”
“—but it’s a little like when my mother would rub my head when I’d get a migraine. That’s what we call a really, really bad headache where I come from. Like, monstrously bad.”
“Ah. I have suffered one or two monsters myself. Come here.”
So I did. Lay back down with him, I mean. I didn’t pray. And after a suitable period of time—I assumed three or four minutes was long enough for a nice prayer—I said. “Amen.”
&
nbsp; Then I grabbed him by the ears and kissed him. Because praying makes me horny, apparently.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Remember earlier when I said I didn’t date much? Needless to say, my go-to seductive moves aren’t especially subtle. Or seductive.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry!” I let go of Thomas’ ears like they were hot pot handles. “This has been the strangest few days, I shouldn’t have done th—what are you—oh.”
Thomas’ technique, by contrast, was first rate. He didn’t even touch my ears. Smooooth. Instead his mouth slotted over mine in a gentle press of lips, while one hand cupped the nape of my neck to keep me steady. After a few wondrous seconds, he broke off. And I definitely didn’t whimper just a bit at the loss.
“Have you gone mad, Joan?” His blue eyes were the world as he smiled and brought our foreheads together. “I have been fighting to keep my hands off you from the moment you told me my accent was awful.”
“I did?” Doesn’t sound like me.
“The day we met. You said ‘your accent is awful, by the way’, which is laughable when one considers your unique patois. Ow! Don’t pinch; you know it’s true. And then you reminded me you had just disparaged my accent. All within two minutes of meeting me.”
Sounds exactly like me. “Got it. Carry on.”
So we did, kissing and sighing and moaning a little for a lovely long time. Thomas kissed like he did everything else, with unconscious skill. I finally had a chance to run my fingers through those auburn locks, thick and dark and wavy, and then I really indulged my kink and went to town on his forearms, caressing them while gently prodding at his mouth with my tongue until he opened with a happy sigh and I tasted milk and apricots and Thomas.
When his hands moved from my waist to my skirt and he started inching the material up, I had to put a stop to it. Bad enough I’d let him see my natural hair; I wasn’t going to try to explain my Wonder Woman underpants.
“You are not being waved in,” I murmured against his mouth. “Sorry.”
“What? Oh. My apologies,” he replied, letting go of my skirt at once. Our make-out session (sounds juvenile, but that’s what it was) had put color in his cheeks, and his pupils were so dilated I could only see a thin sliver of blue around the iris. (Unconscious physiological signs of arousal are so hot.)
I groaned and rested my head on his chest. “Believe me, I wish I could. That we could.” Hey, how about that, I accidentally told the truth again! Because I did want him, and not just because he always dropped everything to help me, and not just because he risked prison for me, and not just because of his forearms, although those were all huge pluses. “I can’t.” Major regret, though. What do you mean there isn’t any more French Silk Pie? levels of regret.
“I would never dream of dishonoring you, Joan,” he said earnestly. “Truly. I would take a blade to my own throat before ever doing such a thing. Ever contemplating such a thing.”
“That’s really not necessary.” (Though, no lie, I loved hearing it.)
“I decided some time ago that I would take whatever you could give and call myself the most fortunate of men.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to …”
“You do not have to explain. About this or anything.”
I leaned back so I could look at him, because I knew he had questions; he was one of the most curious people I’d ever met. His literal job as a scholar was to learn new things, but he’d been content to let me keep my secrets. Until this moment I hadn’t realized what a gift that was.
But he was also wonderful about going with the flow. He wasn’t laid-back, exactly, but he was open-minded and had been able to handle everything I’d thrown at him. That was a valuable trait in every century.
“Thank you, Thomas.” I took his hand in mine, squeezed gently. “This will sound inadequate, but I’m so happy to know you.”
“On the contrary, that is one of the kindest things anyone has ever told me. Certainly no one with hair as short as yours has ever seemed so fond of me.”
“Shut up now. Over the years, I’ve come to realize, the best things in my life are the things I find by accident.” Thomas, Lisa, butter chicken (I’d actually ordered Tandoori chicken), I.T.C.H … the list was long and not-so-distinguished.
Wait. Did I just put I.T.C.H. on my list of best things?
“Joan, I understand the limitations you were quite right to put on our intimacy, but may I hold you?”
Later. I’d think about my list and I.T.C.H.’s place on it later. “Oh, sure. You can do that all you want. I like it. Here, be a spoon.”
“What?”
I pushed and prodded until we were both on our sides and he was tucked up behind me, his knees behind mine and his arms holding me around my middle. He nuzzled the back of my neck, which tickled and surprised a giggle out of me. “I am now a spoon, it would seem.”
“Among other things,” I teased.
“We call this bundling.”
“That’s cute.”
“I will spend every night on Tower Green if it means that afterward you’ll eat half my lunch and then let me hold you like this.”
“So romantic. And I ate barely a third of your lunch.” Or two-thirds. Again: math was not a specialty of mine. I wasn’t sure what my specialty was, just that it wasn’t math. “Go to sleep, Thomas. I know you’re exhausted.”
“I leap to obey my lady’s command.”
I snorted, and ended up dozing a little myself, because the next thing I knew I was wide awake and the shadows in the room had all moved around. Late afternoon? Early evening?
Thomas was still down for the count, his snores occasionally riffling the hair on the back of my neck. Small wonder—he probably hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before.
I eased out of his embrace until I was standing over him like Katie over Micah in Paranormal Activity. (Classic horror!) I watched him snore for a minute (that’s how tired I’d been—I hadn’t heard it until I was awake) and thought about my next move. Stay and have another meal? Followed by more cuddling? Possibly topless cuddling? And then a nice long sleep followed by a wonderful breakfast?
Tempting. But it was just another way for me to hide. Teresa was dead, and I had to go back and say so, would have to admit I had failed her in the worst of ways. Understanding that I.T.C.H. was staffed with incompetent frauds didn’t make that task any easier.
And Lisa deserved an explanation as well. I had promised to tell her everything, and despite my longtime habit of rampant dishonesty, I kept my promises.
And even if none of those things were true, I still couldn’t stay. The food was sublime, as was Thomas Wynter, but I was too fond of the 21st century, its drinking water and healthcare and transportation options and technology, to turn my back on it to bundle with Thomas and travel the world looking for cream eating festivals.
So I kissed him on the forehead and when he didn’t stir, I took the coward’s way out and crept away like a thief, leaving Thomas without an explanation or even a note.
I mean, come on. What did you think I had done?
Chapter Sixty
“I’m back, you pack of fraudulent shitheads.”
The pack of fraudulent shitheads looked delighted and relieved to see me, though I was glad to see most of them had chucked the lab coats and were in street clothes.
“Alone,” Karen noted.
“But at least no one bet on you to die this time,” Warren put in, because he was cluelessly adorable. I knew I should be just as irked with him as the others, but he, at least, never treated me as a glorified temp (laughable, given that most of them were glorified temps). And he cared enough about what I was doing to put up significant amounts of his own money, which was more than I could say about the rest of them. “We thought you might appreciate it.”
“Oh, I do, Warren. I really really appreciate yo
u guys not betting on me to die. Did anyone bet on Teresa Lupez to die?”
Silence, broken by Ian Holt’s, “Oh, shit.”
“The eloquence of a scientist, the lifestyle of a grifter. Yeah, ‘oh, shit’.” I stepped down from the pad. “Things went sideways, to put it very very mildly. But at least I know where they buried her. What?” I asked before anyone could object. “It’s hard enough getting back without trying to unobtrusively time travel with a corpse.”
“Literally no one’s arguing with you.” At my glare, Warren threw up his hands like he was being arrested. “We swear!”
“Mmmm. I assume I was gone about a day and a half?”
Nods all around. One of them even glanced at the clock on the wall, as if mentally confirming I had, indeed, been in the 16th century for thirty-six hours. San Dimas time travel confirmed.
“And can I also assume you have made zero progress, can’t stop the wormholes from gobbling people up, are in too deep so you can’t simply abandon ship and flee to create false identities and new lives, and have no idea what to tell Teresa Lupez’ family?”
“That’s … a fair assumption.” This from Holt, who was playing with his pad and probably thought he looked terribly busy and important when really, he looked as if he was losing at Solitaire. “Though we did make some progress—we can now see you through the gate just before you come back. It’s about a thirty second window.”
“So if there’s a howling mob on my ass, you can see it?”
“Part of it,” Holt admitted. “It’s a small window. So if you’d had a corpse, we would have briefly seen you both. And I have to admit I’m surprised you came back solo. We thought you’d pull it off.”
My expression must have been eloquent and pissy, because Karen chimed in with, “So you get mad when we think you’ll fail and get yourself killed—”
“Get myself killed?”
A Contemporary Asshat at the Court of Henry VIII Page 25