Knights (38 page)

“I shall not interfere with Lyn’s romance,” she said, at long last, and a bit stiffly. A new thought occurred to her, and she looked down at the precious book, which she still clasped. “Did he know about this volume?”

The professor cleared his throat. “I have no idea,” he said. “Lyn is a scholar, as well as a physician. Doubtless he has read many books in his time, as I have, and thus cannot readily remember them all.”

Gloriana said nothing. She did not allow herself to believe for a moment that Lyn would have withheld information that might be vital.

Arthur executed a little bow. “Before I go, I must
thank you for verifying and recording that history for me. I wrote a check—drawn on an American bank and made out to both you and Kirkwood. I believe Lyn’s sister, Janet, has kept it, with the things you left behind.”

“Thank you,” Gloriana said. Of course she would need money, for herself and the babe, if she could not find her way back to Dane once and for all. How ironic it was that she held a vast fortune of her own in the medieval world and was all but indigent in this one.

“Farewell, then,” the professor said, and went out.

Gloriana was half wild to read the book and discover the secrets it contained, but she knew she would not be able to concentrate until she’d calmed down a little. Another irony, she thought, rising and putting on the clothes Marge or Mrs. Bond had left for her. She went out to the kitchen after that, to forage in the oven for the dinner Arthur had mentioned, and quickly realized that the cottage was empty, except for her.

She sat down at the table to eat and found the food tasty and quite wholesome, if a little on the dry side. It was certainly an improvement over the crude and ofttimes unsanitary fare of her own century, and she knew she would miss it—along with the ready and seemingly endless supply of hot water and the miracles of modern medicine.

After finishing her meal, Gloriana washed the plate and utensils and put them in their proper places in the cupboard, then went back to her room and curled up in the chair in front of the hearth to read the book Professor Steinbeth had given her.

It was a short volume and crystal clear to Gloriana. She devoured it whole, in great, wide-eyed mental
gulps, before turning back to the first page and beginning all over again.

The author never gave her name, but that was of no moment to Gloriana, who felt a kinship with the long-dead woman because their experiences were so similar.

The “witch” had been born in the fourteenth century, just as Professor Steinbeth had said earlier. As a child, she was sent to the abbey near Hadleigh Castle to study, and while wandering the grounds one day, she had passed through a gate and immediately suffered a headache so crippling that she had fallen to her knees, retching and blinded by the pain.

When her vision cleared, the little girl found herself in the same and yet a very different place, a world pulsing with sound and fury. She had been taken to an orphanage by the authorities, where she was well cared for and soon adopted by a middle-aged couple, who were devoted to her.

Gloriana felt a pang reading that part, for the story was so like her own, except that the time periods were reversed. When dear Edwenna became her mother, she had known the first true happiness of her life. Whatever befell her, she would always be grateful to a kind Fate for delivering her into the hands of that gentle woman to raise.

At no time had Gloriana missed her true parents, and even now she felt no curiosity about them, no desire to establish contact, though she sometimes wondered what they’d made of her initial disappearance, so long before. Had they mourned her, or worried—or, more likely, simply been relieved that she was no longer their responsibility, even indirectly?

Gloriana laid a hand to her abdomen, just beginning to swell in accommodation of the child, and silently
vowed that her son or daughter would never have to question her love, even for a moment. But a new fear presented itself in the wake of that silent promise: there was a possibility that, once this babe was born, the two of them could be separated, just as she had been torn from Dane’s side.

She closed her eyes, feeling sick, and then forcibly turned her thoughts back to the book before her. The woman had grown up in the twentieth century, married, and moved to America, where she pursued a career as a teacher and poet. On occasion, she had returned to England and stood near the ruins of the abbey gate, working up her courage to pass over into an earlier time. Although she had been happy in her new identity, she had yearned for a glimpse of the friends she had known within the sacred walls.

In this enterprise, however, she was unsuccessful; on the first visit, she found only primeval forest where the nunnery should have been. On the second expedition, she arrived in the year 1720.

The woman had returned to the twentieth century and resumed her life, never to make the transfer again. Her conclusion was that, having found its rightful place in the universe, her spirit had chosen to settle itself there.

A little disappointed that there was no talisman mentioned, no magic potion that would carry her back to Dane, never to be parted from him again, Gloriana was nonetheless certain that she had found a way to go home.

She was tired, but could not rest, for her mind was abuzz with reckless schemes. She would put on her own gown, she decided, so as not to stand out unduly when she reached her destination. She had only to
find that star-crossed gate again, in whatever state of ruin it might be, and step over the threshold.

There was, of course, no guarantee that she would not arrive at the wrong time in history, as the woman in the book had done. Still, she had to try—something inside pressed her toward that end, something separate from her love for Dane, but just as deeply rooted m her soul. She felt a new urgency to return, sensing that she might never have another opportunity.

Leaving behind an oxblood ruby set in a ring of woven gold, the only piece of jewelry she’d been wearing when she’d suffered her last spell and left Dane calling her name in that rain-dampened meadow, Gloriana took various medicines from Lyn’s surgery cupboards and the well-stocked medicine cabinet in the bathroom, along with a thick book on first aid, a volume on herbal remedies, and, finally, a small amount of cash from a leather box on his desk in the study.

She left a note for Lyn, apologizing for the necessary thefts and expressing the hope that the gem she’d left would suffice as compensation, along with Professor Steinbeth’s check, which he was to keep for himself and use as he saw fit. After thanking Lyn for all his help and bidding him a life of joy, she signed the paper and hurried out of the cottage, carrying the purloined items in a plastic grocer’s bag.

The money covered her cab fare to the ruins of the abbey, which, like Kenbrook Hall and Hadleigh Castle, was little more than rubble now.

The summer sun shone bright on Gloriana as she made her way between the broken walls and uneven paving stones, searching for that one special place—it must have been near Elaina’s courtyard—where she had crossed over as the child Megan. She prayed silently all the while that the magic would still work,
that she might find her right place in time and never have to leave it again.

When she found what was left of the gate, however, she hesitated, her heart thudding in her throat, for there was a sense of permanence in this undertaking. She could not help glancing back at the world she hoped to depart and never to look upon again. She did not want to live there, and yet she had no doubt that the place would seem very good to her if she missed her mark and wound up in the wrong niche of time.

Then, resolved, clutching her bag of stolen miracles, Gloriana squared her shoulders, raised her chin, and walked through.

Nothing happened.

There was no headache, no darkness, no change at all. The world looked the same as it had before—a jet passed overhead, leaving a stream of white across the azure sky, and out on the paved highway beyond the crumbled outer walls, a car tooted its horn.

Gloriana stood still for a long moment, dealing with her disappointment. Then she recalled the witch’s tale, and decided to try again. She would simply go back to where she’d started and pass through the gate once more.

She drew a deep breath and stepped forward.

This time, the world seemed to tilt at a dizzying angle, though only for a moment. There was no pain, no black sickness, only a violent inner shift that made her breath catch and her heart skitter over a few beats.

The walls rose whole and high around Gloriana, and the sky was darkening with twilight. She heard the nuns singing their lovely chants in chapel—vespers—and swallowed a sob of mingled relief and dread. There was no way to know what year or century she
was in, and instinct warned her not to make herself known.

Gloriana made her way out of the abbey through a postern gate and immediately turned her gaze toward Kenbrook Hall. It looked much as it had when she and Dane had been imprisoned there and conceived their child in the Roman baths hidden beneath, but that was no indication that she had managed to return during her husband’s lifespan. The hall had been a fortress for the legions once and had not changed greatly over a period of nearly eight hundred years.

Biting her lower lip, Gloriana turned to Hadleigh Castle and the lake. There were lights blinking in some of the windows, but it was already eventide and growing darker by the moment.

Carefully, Gloriana tied the plastic bag up under the skirts of her gown, affixing it to the lacework in her chemise.

There was but one way to find out if Dane yet lived, and Gloriana’s suspense was too great to put the task off until the morrow. Following the hidden path through the woods and around the lake that she and Edward had blazed as children, she proceeded toward Hadleigh Castle and her destiny.

Moonlight spilled over the waters, but Gloriana did not stop to admire its silvery dance, as she might have on another occasion. Her mind was fixed on finding Dane, and naught else.

Perhaps that was why the rider was almost upon her before she realized she was not alone on the path. With a little cry, Gloriana jumped to one side just before she would have been trampled by a horse.

“Who goes there?” demanded a familiar voice, as the rider reined in and then leaped deftly to the
ground to face her. “God’s breath, Gloriana—
is that you?
”

Edward’ Joyous tears rushed into Gloriana’s throat, all but choking her and making it impossible to speak. With a sob, she flung her arms around his neck and planted copious kisses all over his face.
Edward
.

He was alive.

He thrust her back to look at her, his eyes narrowed, his exquisitely drawn features gelded with moonglow. “Have you gone mad, wandering about in the dark like this? And where have you been—we’ve searched the whole of the countryside for you’”

Gloriana struggled to regain her composure, but there was no succeeding—all she could do was laugh and weep and snuffle ingloriously. Edward stood before her, hale and hearty, which meant that Dane and Gareth and dear, dear Elaina were yet among the living. By the grace of God and His angels, she had managed to return in time to make a difference.

“Well, I’d better get you back to home and hearth,” Edward said, sweeping her up onto the horse and mounting deftly behind her. “Dane is certain that Merrymont has kidnapped you, and if Gareth hadn’t locked him up in the dungeon, he’d be out tearing the man’s holdings apart stone by stone, searching for you.”

Gloriana rested her head against Edward’s shoulder and laughed insensibly before lapsing into a spate of hiccoughs. “Just—take me—home,” she managed to say, and Edward reined his mount back toward Hadleigh Castle and spurred the animal with the soft heels of his boots.

“How long have I been missing?” Gloriana asked, in a small voice, when they were passing over the
drawbridge and into the lower bailey, where the tournaments were held.

Edward looked even more worried than he had before. “You don’t know where you’ve been, or what you were doing?”

She hesitated while the sights and sounds of her beloved world entered her through every pore and follicle. “No,” she admitted as they progressed through the village at a slower pace.

“You were walking in the graveyard at Kenbrook Hall yesterday morning,” Edward said. “Your handmaiden, Judith, was bringing you a wrap, and bent on begging you to come back in and sit beside the fire. Something distracted her—just for a moment, she swears—and when she looked again, you had vanished.”

Yesterday morning
. For all that had happened, or seemed to happen, in the interim, she had actually been separated from Dane for only about thirty-six hours’ He would not remember her last visit, when she had been parted from him in the meadow behind Kenbrook Hall; for him, that had never happened. Neither, of
course
, had his fatal encounter with Edward. Hadleigh’s fever had not come upon him, and Elaina was surely as well as could be expected, given the chronic nature of her illness.

“I—I must have struck my head,” she said, for she could not tell Edward or anyone else what had really happened. Even Dane must remain in ignorance, for he would not believe the truth.

“You are safe now,” Edward replied with supreme gentleness, “and that is all that matters. Kenbrook will be beside himself with joy.”

No doubt apprised by watchful guards that Edward was returning with Lady Kenbrook in tow, Gareth was
standing in the private courtyard when they arrived. He was attended by several men-at-arms, who held torches aloft. A servant stood nearby with an oil lamp.

“Where is Kenbrook?” Edward asked. “I have brought his wife.”

Gloriana slipped down from the saddle before anyone could help her, even before Edward, himself an expert horseman, had managed to dismount. She gave her elder brother-in-law a greeting similar to Edward’s, flinging her arms around his neck and planting a great, smacking kiss on each of his cheeks.

“You’re alive’” she crowed.

Gareth gripped his erstwhile ward by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length, searching her face. “God’s blood, Gloriana—of course I am alive’ It is you we’d nearly given up for dead. Where in the name of all that’s holy have you been?”