Timestruck (3 page)

Without any effort on her part she turned
over again, and this time she noticed a structure directly below
her, set in the largest of the cleared areas. A wooden palisade
surrounded a group of buildings made of pale, creamy stone. Right
in the middle of the enclosed space was a two-story building with a
higher tower at one corner. As she revolved in the air, Gina
glimpsed what looked like a garden, with a few small trees and
neatly laid out beds of colorful flowers.

If it were possible to breathe, she would
have sighed, for she experienced an intense longing to explore that
handsome central building and to sit in the garden under the trees
when they were in bloom. It was a ridiculous idea. She knew nothing
about gardens, and she didn’t know if those were the kind of trees
that ever bloomed. The longing she felt was the futile, last-minute
daydream of a woman about to perish. And yet, so strong was the
emotion that tears started in her eyes as she relinquished the
thought.

She kept looking at the garden until she
suddenly realized that she was about to crash through the red-tile
roof of the big building. The tiles were just a few feet away. She
was falling faster now, and she discovered that she could breathe
again. She filled her lungs with one frantic gulp of air and let it
out in a last, despairing shriek as she fell through the roof.

“No!”

Gina landed hard on a bed. She was aware of a
mattress bouncing under the sudden impact and of a sound like that
of ropes creaking. Someone was occupying the bed, and her
precipitous arrival knocked the breath out of him. She heard his
gasp. Of course it was a man; with her luck, it would be a very
angry man. She had fallen face down, but she was quickly tossed
over onto her back, with the man firmly on top of her, holding her
thighs between his. Her wrists were wrenched up over her head and
pinned there by hands so strong they were like iron shackles. With
her body pressed against him from shoulder to thigh, she could feel
that he was a very manly man, and he had a deep, loud voice. His
outraged roar almost broke her eardrums.

“What in the name of all the saints are you
doing? I was asleep!”

Gina was so astonished to find herself still
alive that she couldn’t speak at first. She looked upward, bemused,
to find the ceiling of the room intact, with nary a sign that she
had just crashed through it. She blinked a couple of times before
she realized that the jolt of her landing had banished the mist
obscuring her vision. With perfect clarity she saw her coat drift
through the ceiling and watched it float down to cover both her and
the man under a swath of black leather.

With another roar the man threw off the coat,
just as Gina’s heavy purse thudded to the floor beside the bed.
There was still no sign of a hole in the ceiling.

Early morning light was pouring through a
pair of windows at one side of the room, so Gina was able to see
with unusually sharp vision the man who held her pinned to the
mattress. He was staring at her as if he could not believe what his
eyes beheld. Still holding on to her wrists, he shifted position so
his astonished gaze could take in all of her, from her short dark
hair to her black turtle-neck sweater and black leather miniskirt,
to her black tights and boots. Then he moved on top of her again
and looked directly into her eyes.

Gina stared back into silvery gray eyes that
were like mysterious, bottomless pools of ice water. His lashes and
eyebrows were brown, but his hair was blond, cut to just below his
ears. He was a handsome man, with a long, straight nose and a
square jaw, and he had definitely been working out regularly,
because he was a mass of hard muscle pressing down on her skinny
body.

His mouth was beautiful. Perfectly chiseled
lips curved upward to meet a tiny line at either side of his mouth.
Gina guessed he was a person who smiled a lot. She caught a quick
whiff of a slightly piney fragrance. He smelled good, too. Her nose
seemed to be working overtime, just like her eyesight.

The unknown man’s weight on her was not
unpleasant; it was almost welcome. For just a moment Gina reacted
to his closeness with unaccustomed warmth, relaxing a little in his
grasp, almost as if she trusted him. Her lips parted in an
involuntary invitation. She moistened her dry lips, and she saw how
he watched the slow movement of her tongue.

That was the instant when she remembered what
she hated most about men.

“Get off me, you jerk!” She heaved with all
her strength. The man didn’t move an inch. To her fury, he just
grinned at her. Then, slowly, as if to make it plain that the
action was by his choice and not by her command, he rolled to the
side of the bed and sat there.

“Who are you?” he demanded. He was no longer
shouting. His voice was lowered to a pleasant level, but his eyes
were narrowed, and Gina realized he was regarding her as if she
were an enemy. “You are not one of the maidservants. I have never
seen you before.”

She couldn’t blame him for being annoyed.
After all, she had dropped into his bedroom while he was sound
asleep. She disliked being wakened abruptly, and it was pretty
clear that he felt the same way.

“Who are you?” she asked, rubbing her
forehead with one freed hand, trying to clear her mind. What,
exactly, had happened?

‘What are you?” he countered.

“What do you mean, what am I? You have eyes.
Can’t you see I’m a woman?”

“I can see that you appear to be a woman. I
also note that you bear no weapons, unless you carry a knife hidden
in those very impractical boots.”

“Where am I?” she asked.

“In my bedroom,” he said. “I assumed you knew
as much. Answer my questions. Who are you? Did Fastrada send
you?”

“Who is Fastrada?” The instant she spoke she
could see that he thought he had made a mistake. It was apparent to
her that he wished he hadn’t mentioned that peculiar-sounding
name.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “What kind of
language is this we’re talking? How do I know how to speak it, and
how do I know it’s not English?”

“I understand now,” he responded. “You are
mad. Who but a madwoman would dress as you do? Who else would claim
that she doesn’t recognize the language she is speaking as if she
was born to it, or dare to say she doesn’t know who is the queen of
Francia?”

He put out a hand to touch her arm. Fearing
he’d try to restrain her again, Gina scrambled to the wooden
footboard of the bed, as far from him as she could get. It was
impossible to get out on the opposite side from him, because the
side of the bed was pushed against the wall. In fact, the bed
looked like a studio couch or one of the fancy daybeds Gina had
seen in upscale furniture advertisements.

“What I need to know,” the man said, his
words drawing her attention away from consideration of his bed, “is
how a madwoman found her way into my private chamber without being
stopped by the guards. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
he added in a gentle tone, as if he didn’t want to upset her.

“Don’t patronize me!” she shouted at him.
“You want to see mad? I’ll show you mad! Let me out of here. So
help me, if this is some kind of trick, I’ll sue you for everything
you’ve got.”

“You are the one who leapt on top of me,” he
said quietly.

His reminder of the way she had arrived in
his room quelled her brief bout of belligerence. Gina was suddenly
too terrified to think rationally. She had no idea what was
happening, or where she was, or who the handsome weirdo in the bed
was. He ought to be ashamed of himself, talking so calmly to a
woman he didn’t even know when he wasn’t wearing a stitch of
clothing.

“Oh, dear,” she whispered, gaping at the
unclothed, obviously very strong man whose muscular presence on the
edge of the bed was preventing her from escaping. He didn’t seem to
be aware of his own nakedness, but she was having trouble keeping
her eyes focused above his waist. “Do you think you could get
dressed?”

“That is the first sensible thing you’ve
said. It’s an excellent idea, too.”

His smile was devastating. It lit up his face
and made his eyes glow. She could almost forgive him for calling
her a crazy woman. She watched with great interest as he rose to
pick up a loose woolen tunic and pull it over his head. The way his
shoulder muscles rippled was truly fascinating. It wasn’t until he
had the plain blue garment on that she realized she should have
seized the opportunity to escape from the room while he was
distracted. But if she did escape, where would she go?

“Please tell me where I am,” she said.

“I will do so, if in return you will tell me
how you came into my bedchamber unchallenged by my
men-at-arms.”

“It’s a deal.” That wasn’t exactly what she
said. In the strange language they were speaking, which she
understood perfectly, though she could speak nothing but English,
the word she used was closer to
compact
, or
firm
agreement
.

“You are in Francia,” he said.

“That tells me exactly nothing. Where in
Francia?” Though she said
France
, the word came out as
Francia
, and she knew somehow that the word she’d wanted to
use didn’t exist yet. What was going on?

“This household is in Bavaria,” he said.

“That explains the mountains.” She had seen
the movie version of
The Sound of Music
. In her confused
state she was eager to seize on any hint of the familiar. “Are we
near Salzburg?”

“Nearer to Regensburg.”

“I don’t know that place.”

“Don’t you?” He looked at her as if he didn’t
believe her. Or as if he still thought she was crazy.

“Tell me how I got here.”

“That,” he said, “is something you have
agreed to explain to me.”

“I’m afraid I can’t explain it. I was hoping
you’d know.”

“Conversation might be easier if you reveal
your name,” he said with a faint smile. “I am Dominick, lord of
these lands, loyal noble to Charles, king of the Franks.”

“Do they call you Dom or Nick?” she asked,
stalling for time while she tried to figure out if he could be the
crazy one.

“Dominick will do,” he replied with a
firmness that told her not to try to use a nickname.

“I’m Virginia McCain,” she said. “People call
me Gina.” She spoke absently, not looking directly at him, her gaze
on the object that stood propped against the wall at the end of the
bed where Dominick’s pillows were. It was a long, wide, ornately
decorated scabbard. The shape rising above the scabbard was
unmistakably a sword hilt. It would be easy enough for Dominick to
reach out and grab the sword if he were attacked while in his bed.
He could have used it against her. But he hadn’t.

“Where do you live, Gina, when you are not
creeping into the bedchambers of sleeping knights?” he asked.

“I’m from New York,” she answered, her throat
dry and her eyes still on the huge sword.

“I know of Yorvik, in Northumbria,” Dominick
said. “Alcuin came to us from Northumbria. If you are a friend of
his and you are in Francia to see him, why are you not in
Regensburg? You will find Alcuin there, with the king. You see, I
am trying to convince myself that you are not entirely mad and that
you have a reason for visiting me so unexpectedly,” he ended with
an encouraging smile.

His teeth were white and even. He really was
a handsome man. Gina tried to force herself to stop admiring him so
she could pay attention to what he was saying.

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned a
king,” she told him. “The last king of France that I know of had
his head chopped off on the guillotine. I think it happened a
couple of hundred years ago, while the Scarlet Pimpernel was trying
to save the aristocrats. I don’t know much about history and
literature and all that liberal arts junk. I graduated from a
technical high school.” Seeing his bewildered expression, she
stopped to catch her breath. She was talking too much because she
was so scared.

“I already know you think I’m crazy,” she
said, lifting her chin in defiance of the quaver in her voice.
“Well, I’m beginning to think you’re nuts, too. Maybe both of us
are locked up in the loony bin, and we just don’t know it.”

“I am not an acorn.” He looked deeply
offended.

“That’s not exactly what I said. It’s the way
your language translates. What is this language, anyway?”

“Frankish.” He was frowning at her.

“Let’s start all over,” she said, and made
herself smile at him as if she wasn’t ready to die from terror.
“According to you, we are in Bavaria, speaking Frankish, and you
are Dominick, lord of this place. Does it have a name?”

“This is Feldbruck.” He was still frowning at
her, but he displayed no sign of impatience. He just stood there
beside the bed, wearing nothing but his thigh-length tunic, his
eyes on her face as if he was trying to decide whether she really
was a madwoman or just a lost and confused traveler. His bare legs
were long and straight, his feet narrow and elegant. And clean. So
were his hands.

Gina repressed the urge to stretch out her
own hand and touch him. Then she marveled at herself for wanting to
get that close. She usually made a point of staying well out of the
reach of any man.

“All right,” she said, trying to make sense
out of what had happened to her. “Now, you say you have a king
named Charles. Does he have a number after his name? Real kings
usually do, you know.”

“He is Charles, son of Pepin, and he does not
need a number. There is no other ruler like him.” The words were
spoken with quiet pride.

“Son of Pepin? That’s a name I do know. When
I was a kid, there was a Broadway play about Pepin.” A chill went
down her spine. “Dominick, what year is this?”

“It is the Year of Our Lord 792.”