Richard of Burwyck-on-the-Sea? The same Richard the tour guide had been talking about?
She took a deep breath.
It was impossible.
And then the explanation hit her. She laughed a little, almost giddy with relief. This was obviously some kind of thing put on by some medieval reenactment society. Lord Henry had gone to great expense and effort to have them come to his house and put his guests in a less-than-modern frame of mind. Lord Henry probably had a cousin who was the earl of Burwyck-on-the-Sea and his name was Richard. Maybe Henry had taken pity on her for having to put up with Archie and he’d chosen her as the first victi—ah, the first participant.
Well, no sense in not playing along. Jessica certainly wouldn’t want to be accused of being a bad houseguest. She looked at Warren de Galtres, or whoever he really was, and tried to keep the indulgence out of her smile.
“Of course he is,” she said, nodding. “You’re Warren, he’s Richard, and I’m having a really great time. Where are we going?”
“Home, of course,” Warren replied.
He looked a little confused, but she chalked that up to him being male, about sixteen, and in sore need of a bath. Those three things alone were enough to confuse anyone.
“And home would be Burwyck-on-the-Sea?” she asked. They probably had a tour bus waiting there to take her back to Henry’s house. The idea of going to Burwyck-on-the-Sea by horse was a little extreme, but she could handle it. She’d ridden horses before. She wasn’t all that sure how the events of her awakening that morning fit into the picture, but that was probably something she could complain about to the management when she had a chance.
“Where else would home be?” Warren asked, looking even more baffled than before.
“Good point,” she agreed. She held out her hand. “I’m Jessica Blakely. Nice to meet you.”
He looked at her hand as if he didn’t have a clue what to do with it, so she pulled it back before she embarrassed him any further.
“Whence come you, then?” he asked.
“Lord Henry’s house, of course,” she said. Medieval reenactment or not, there was no sense in giving out more information than she needed to.
Apparently her announcement had more force than she had anticipated. Warren’s eyes bugged out and his jaw went slack.
“Henry?” he said, and it came out as a squeak.
“Yes, Henry,” she said, wondering why the name was causing such a stir. “I’ve been staying with him for the past couple of weeks.”
That didn’t appear to be making things any better.
“Well, he invited me,” Jessica said, starting to feel a little defensive. So what if she was just a tag-along guest. She was still a guest.
“Merciful saints above, you’re kin to the king,” Warren said in tones of awe.
King? Well, if they wanted to think of him that way, that was fine with her. Maybe Lord Henry had an ego problem and that little tidbit had been put into the acting contract to soothe him.
“If that’s the kind of title you want to give him,” she told Warren with as straight a face as she could manage, “you go right ahead.”
“Then you must be very close kin indeed, if you speak of him so familiarly.”
“Actually I just met him,” Jessica confided. She looked at Warren and wondered just how brainwashed the kid was. “Look,” she said in a low voice, “he’s really not the king. He’s just a lord. I don’t know who’s been telling you differently, but I wouldn’t believe them.”
Apparently the brainwashing had been a bang-up job because Warren looked as if she’d just told him the sun was going to change colors from yellow to hot pink with turquoise polka dots. He swallowed convulsively a time or two, then he paused. After another uncomfortable-looking swallow, he suddenly smiled.
“You’ve had a bump on your head, haven’t you?” he asked.
“Well, now that you mention it—”
“I’ve heard of men forgetting things after a blow to the head.”
“I guess that happens,” she agreed.
She didn’t think he could look any more relieved.
“Then I will instruct you on the way of things,” Warren said importantly. “So you don’t mistake our liege for someone else again. And then perhaps we might discover your true origins and send you on your way so our lives will not be troubled further.”
The fact that he didn’t look shocked at his own rudeness left Jessica with no doubt that it was “Richard” who had put the words into the boy’s mouth.
She really would have to have a talk with the troupe’s boss. Rudeness to paying customers—even if it was Lord Henry paying and not her—shouldn’t be tolerated.
“Great idea,” Jessica said. “Why don’t you tell me all about current events?”
“Gladly,” Warren said, his voice taking on a very pedantic tone. “Henry, the son of John Lackland, now sits the throne. As you know, he’s sat the throne for some thirty years now. He’s quite the builder, but I don’t know how many care for the course he’s chosen for the country. My father never did and I daresay Richard doesn’t much either.”
Well, one thing she could say for the kid, he was certainly convincing about his historical details. He sounded like Henry’s tour guide.
“Interesting,” she said. “Go on.”
“I daresay Richard’s peers aren’t overfond of the king either,” Warren continued. “Though I suppose once we’re home, it will matter less what goes on around us—at least to me.”
“By home, you mean Burwyck-on-the-Sea,” Jessica supplied.
“Aye,” Warren said with a nod. “You see, I was born there, but my father sent me away with Hugh when I was a wee lad. My sire died over three years ago. I thought Richard would come for me sooner, but he’s been pressed by other concerns.”
Jessica found herself with the sudden urge to give Richard a swift kick in the behind. Then she remembered it was just acting and smiled faintly. The kid was good, she would give him that. He almost had her going.
“The saints be praised I must needs remain with Hugh no longer.” He smiled apologetically. “Hugh’s hall smells like a sty, I know. Home will be better, I promise you.”
“So, are you happy to be going with your brother?”
“Aye,” Warren said, but his face fell. “I fear he isn’t as pleased. He’s an important lord, my lady, and has much to see to. But I vow I’ll be no trouble to him. I’m skilled with arms and I’ll stay out from underfoot.”
“I’m sure he’ll come around eventually,” Jessica said, her mind just locking in on something Warren had said. “So, who did you say was king these days?”
Warren smiled reassuringly. “Henry, my lady. Your kinsman.”
Here we go again, she thought, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. “And that would make the year what?” she asked.
“The Year of our Lord’s Grace 1260, my lady. And I’m finding it to be a sweet year indeed.” He smiled sunnily. “’Tis the year of my liberation.”
From Hugh or from the local sanitarium? was on the tip of her tongue, but she found she couldn’t give voice to the words. She looked around and tried to reconcile what she knew had to be true with the fantasy Warren had been spouting.
1260?
Yeah, right.
Or maybe I’m just so strung out on whatever was slipped into my morning cocoa yesterday that I’m actually thinking of going along with this medieval mumbo jumbo, she thought wildly.
“Lady Jessica, are you ill? You look powerfully pale. I’ll tell Richard—”
“No,” she said quickly. “Let’s not bother him. I’ll be fine.”
Just as soon as I get a firm grip on my hysterics. All right, so she’d seen Somewhere in Time and loved it. So she’d read all those time-travel books and fantasized about it. That didn’t mean it was happening to her. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t stuck back in a place with no phones, no fast food, and no Bruckner.
Good grief, no music! She alm
ost started to cry. No Brahms. No Rachmaninoff. They hadn’t even been born yet. She was stuck with all that Gregorian chant she couldn’t stomach. Bach wasn’t even around!
Strong fingers closed around her upper arm and gave her a hard shake.
“Are you going to faint?” a curt voice demanded.
She looked next to her. Richard, the alleged lord of Burwyck-on-the-Sea, had suddenly appeared and was looking none too pleased with her. Was this the same Richard who didn’t want his sea view obscured? She was beginning to be sorry that she’d paid so much attention to that tour guide.
“Lady, are you going to faint?” he repeated, shaking her again.
“No,” she croaked. “No fainting.”
“Good. We’ve three days of hard riding ahead of us and I’ll not have you slowing down the progress. Warren!”
“Aye, my lord,” Warren said, snapping to.
“If she faints, drag her up out of the mud and catch up as quickly as you can.”
“Of course, my lord!”
And with that, Richard, who Jessica couldn’t believe had enough depth to care about a sea view, spurred his horse on and again took his place at the front of the company.
“I’m dreaming,” she said. “This is all a bad dream. I will wake up soon and find this was all a hallucination brought on by bad cucumber sandwiches. Then I will sue Lord Henry for pain and suffering and buy myself an eleven-foot Steinway and a house big enough to put it in.”
Warren looked at her as if she’d just sprouted horns.
“And I will never again do any kind of wishing upon any kind of heavenly body,” she finished.
He crossed himself, edged away from her, and left her contemplating the surrounding countryside, which was starting to look more medieval by the hoofbeat.
Then again, maybe more wishing would be called for.
Jessica closed her eyes and began to do just that.
But she had the feeling she wasn’t going to be any more successful than she had been the last time.
4
Richard stood at the edge of his camp and watched with satisfaction the sight before him. This was what he understood, this manly business of exchanging glorious stories of war around the fire, sharpening weapons, rising when the duty fell to you to walk the perimeter of the camp and watch for enemies. Aye, ’twas a good life, the one before him, and he was proud to take part in it. He looked over the men he’d brought with him and was pleased to see that they attended to their duties with precision and care.
Well, mostly.
Richard didn’t want to look at the handful of men who didn’t fit the mold, but he could hardly help himself. They were, after all, his personal guard.
He looked at his captain, John of Martley. Currently John sat with his head bowed, sharpening his sword. Richard suspected that the pose was less than comfortable, but he also suspected John was doing his best to ignore the two men arguing with each other over his head. Perhaps the habit came from being the youngest of a large family. Martley was in vassalage to Burwyck-on-the-Sea and John had escaped his home and his lack of prospects at an early age to come serve Richard’s father. More was the pity for him, Richard had always thought, but a lad did what he had to.
John’s hopes for a good meal had been few when Richard had met him again on the continent many years later. Richard had taken one look at John’s skill with the blade and offered him a position in his guard. It was not below a youngest son to accept the like, and John had done so without hesitation. Richard had never been sorry for his choice. John was a good soldier and a loyal friend. And he had the necessary ability of being able to ignore whatever foolishness was going on about him. Such as the present madness.
Richard scowled at the man on John’s left. Sir Hamlet of Coteborne was the son of a man who had guarded Queen Eleanor. Richard had stumbled across Hamlet trying to hold his own against a dozen men he had offended in an inn in the south of France. Apparently Hamlet was convinced that southern men could not possibly woo as well as anyone born north of Paris, and he was not shy about saying the like to anyone who would listen. Unfortunately he had been unsuccessful in trying to convince his audience to agree with him. The final straw had been trying to teach them the proper way to compose wooing verse. Richard had joined in the fray simply for the sport of it, but soon learned that Hamlet fought much better than he sang.
Richard didn’t bother to interrupt the current diatribe. Hamlet wouldn’t have noticed him anyway. When the man took a mind to enlighten those around him upon the finer points of wooing, there was no stopping him.
“And I say,” Hamlet insisted, “that ’tis the left leg you stretch out when bowing to your lady, not the right!”
“Nay, damn ye, ’tis the bloody right—”
“The left, you fool! Then should you have to draw your sword and instruct another on proper courtly comportment, you are balanced aright!”
Sir Hamlet stood to demonstrate this and managed to wallop his unfortunate student full in the face with his blade as he flourished it.
Richard turned his attention to the man now lying on his back, struggling not to howl. Sir William of Holte was a man of few words, but mighty with weapons of all sorts. Less mighty, however, with his wits—which was why he often found himself drawn into these kinds of discussions. Then again, perhaps it was the less-than-pleasing visage of his that caused him to want to assure himself he had his manners aright. ’Twas a certainty he would never win a woman without the like.
Joining John in the sharpening of his warriorly gear was the final member of Richard’s guard, Godwin of Scalebro. Richard watched the man work on some painful-looking implement of torture and found himself glad yet again that he had never been on the receiving end of Godwin’s ministrations whilst the man was at his work. He could torture like no other, though Richard had found little use for those skills. The threat was often enough to intimidate and Richard was pleased to have that threat at his disposal. Unlike Godwin’s former employer, Richard kept the man well supplied with the sweet pastries he craved and that seemed to be enough to ensure his loyalty. Richard considered it a small price to pay.
He looked at his little group and indulged in a small feeling of satisfaction. Despite their small flaws, they were fine warriors all. He had earned their loyalty and was grateful for it. Richard nodded approvingly. This was a sight he was accustomed to and one he felt very comfortable with.
Yet somehow he was less than comfortable. There was something not right, something out of place, something that didn’t belong in his orderly world of men and horses.
He wandered the camp again, then came to a stop and looked down at that something. She sat on the ground at his feet, wrapped in his cloak yet still shivering. He had to admit that looking at her gave him the shivers as well.
Kin of the king. Why was he not surprised?
He had grilled Warren thoroughly, once he’d convinced his brother that Jessica could not possibly be possessed and that the bump on her head had likely addled her wits. Warren had divulged that she came from a village called Edmonds and that she was related to the king. Other than that, she had revealed none of her intimate details.
Richard gave her noble status a bit more consideration. In truth, her relation to the king made his task easier. Henry was rumored to be coming north within the next month. All Richard had to do was keep Jessica fed and relatively happy, deliver her to the king when he arrived, and then be done with the tale. Perhaps Henry would think it a favor and Richard might have a boon of him.
Though the only gift he could think to ask for was to be left alone to enjoy his peace and quiet.
But he would have no bequest at all if Henry’s kinswoman was aggrieved by his treatment of her. ’Twas a certainty that she didn’t look very comfortable at present and that forced a scowl to his features. By the saints, he had no time to dance attendance on some woman’s whims for the next month! He had a hall to complete before the chill of winter set in truly. And he wou
ld also have to think on hiding enough of his stores to see his garrison fed for the winter, as he was certain that when Henry arrived, he and his retinue would deplete whatever of Richard’s larder was uncovered and vulnerable to the eye. He sighed deeply. There were times he wished Hugh had been the eldest. It would have saved him a great deal of grief.
He looked down at his current trial and frowned again. Naught but her face showed from inside his cloak. Warren sat next to her, shoving food into his mouth as quickly as it would go. Apparently Warren had decided that just because Jessica had lost her wits was no reason not to enjoy the fairness of her visage. Either that or he felt he stood a better chance of filching food from Jessica than from anyone else. There was certainly no doubt that Jessica wasn’t eating. That might not have bothered Richard another time, but it did now, for it meant she would slow him down. By the blessed saints, a woman was a bother!
He squatted down before her, taking her chin in his hand and lifting her face upward. “You need to eat. You’re pale.”
“I’m perfectly fine,” she said curtly.
He was surprised by her tone, unpleasantly so. The woman was not as meek as she should have been, given the circumstances. He had saved her, hadn’t he? To his mind, that demanded a bit of gratitude.
“You don’t look sound,” he retorted.
“I’ve had a few shocks today. I won’t hold you up, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Though her answer was a good one, he didn’t care for the delivery. It was more than clear that her father had done nothing to teach her her place. Never mind her supposed kinship to the king. Richard was a lord in his own right, with several holdings to his name. He preferred not to think on the condition of most of them, but that was beside the point. He deserved a bit of respect just the same.
“Richard, remember,” Warren said, tapping his head meaningfully.
That was hardly an excuse for such cheek, but perhaps Warren had it aright. Richard looked at Jessica, wanting to hear for himself that she had suffered some kind of wound to her wits.