Knights (26 page)

“Ah,” Lyn confirmed, with a smile. “A Yank.” “What’s that?”

“An American.”

Gloriana thought of her squabbling parents again, the airplane ride to England, and the turbulent, unhappy days that had preceded it. Her shudder was involuntary.

Mr. Kirkwood’s eyes widened a little at this, but he did not offer comment. Instead, he raised another subject. “You must think of your future, Gloriana,” he said quietly, reaching over to cover one of her hands lightly with his own. “There is, of course, a possibility that you might never return to—wherever you came from.”

“You believe my tale, don’t you?” Gloriana shaped the question slowly and carefully, but the ability to speak as Lyn and the others did, and to comprehend their words, had by now come to the forefront of her mind.

Lyn helped himself to another morsel of the delicious fried fish. “I don’t have the first idea what to believe,” he confessed good-naturedly. “But I know a princess in the jaws of a dragon when I see one.”

“Some people would say I’m mad,” Gloriana venstured,
wondering if there were indeed dragons in this modern world, as there were said to be in her own. She was warmer than she had ever been in such weather in the thirteenth century, and now that her stomach was full, she felt sleepy.

Kirkwood’s aristocratic jaw tightened slightly at the inference. “I am a physician, after all, and while you may be suffering from a delusion of some sort, you are otherwise quite sane.”

Gloriana felt such relief at this pronouncement that she nearly started to weep again. There had been moments, of course, when she had questioned the veracity of her own mind. “Thank you,” she said in a near whisper, but she withdrew her hand from his.

As it happened, that day was to set the tone of those that followed. Lyn made his rounds, then he and Gloriana drove to Kenbrook Hall and spent at least an hour prowling the grounds. Gloriana was searching for a passageway back to the thirteenth century, and Lyn, though he never said so, was there to lend support and, probably, protection.

After these thorough and always fruitless sojourns, they usually went to the pub for a midday meal. In the afternoons and evenings, when Lyn was working in his surgery or at the hospital in the next village, Gloriana read voraciously and watched the television set. She was trying desperately to make sense of a new and strange environment, but her yearning to return to Dane was unrelenting.

Lyn’s kindness was a comfort, and practically every night Gloriana dreamed she was back in the bed in the tower chamber at Kenbrook Hall, curled against her husband’s side. These visions were so real that she felt wounding disappointment upon wakening to find
herself alone, enduring the loss of Dane over and over again.

Finally, when she had been at Lyn’s house for a fortnight—Marge had gotten her more clothes and taught her to use the washing machine and other latter-day devices—Mr. Kirkwood’s sister, Janet, appeared one morning. A well-dressed woman in her middle years, Janet owned a shop in the next village specializing in antique books and manuscripts. Lyn had told her about Gloriana, she said, and since she was going abroad for a few months, she needed someone to mind her business. A small salary and a flat above the shop would accompany the position.

Gloriana might have protested, quite rightly, that she knew nothing about managing such an enterprise, but she was independent by nature and thus very anxious to make her own way in the world. Although Lyn had never said so, she knew she was imposing on him by staying. Besides, she suspected that despite the more permissive customs of the twentieth century, it was still not quite proper for a woman to live under the same roof with a man who was not her husband, father, uncle, or duly appointed guardian.

“I should like to work for you,” Gloriana told Janet, who smiled and tossed a look to her younger brother that might have meant
I told you so
.

Lyn stood beside the fireplace, one arm braced against the mantelpiece. He had not spoken during the brief interview, but there was something watchful in his manner all the same. And something sad.

“There is no need for you to hurry off,” he said at last, his eyes on Gloriana’s face.

Before she could speak, Janet offered a brisk, “This is a small village, Lynford, and you are a doctor. You must consider your reputation and Miss—and Gloriana’s,
as well.” She turned shrewd but kindly dark eyes on Gloriana. “What is your surname?” she asked. “I don’t believe I’ve heard you say it.”

“St. Gregory,” Gloriana replied. She met Lyn’s gaze. “I am very grateful for your help,” she told him gently, “but your sister is right. I mustn’t go on living here.”

“Nonsense,” Lyn said quickly, and Gloriana noticed that his skin was flushed along his jawline. He was looking at Janet now, and there was an angry glint in his eyes. His next words were cryptic to Gloriana, though Janet seemed to understand them perfectly. “The rules of society have changed since Victoria’s time,” he said in a tight voice.

Janet squirmed a little, sitting there on the leather chair next to the desk in Lyn’s study, but her expression was a stubborn one. Gloriana liked her, though she was intimidating.

“Perhaps they have,” she allowed. “But this is not Los Angeles or Paris or even London. Our neighbors and friends and clients—
your
patients, Lyn—are not sophisticated people. You mustn’t shake their confidence in you.”

Lyn, still flushed, opened his mouth to protest, but Gloriana raised one hand in a bid for silence.

“I do not wish to stay,” she said quietly.

Hurt flickered in his eyes and was subdued. “Very well, then,” he murmured, after some moments of awkward silence. “It is your decision, of course.”

Barely half an hour later, Gloriana was riding through a gloomy drizzle in the passenger seat of Janet Kirkwood’s small, nondescript car. The weather was much as it had been on the day she’d left behind all that was dear and familiar to be thrust into this strange, frenetic time.

“There is something very different about you,” Janet remarked in her quiet and forthright way, as she drove, squinting through the fogged glass Lyn called a windscreen. Little rods worked rhythmically, splashing away the rain, and Gloriana was fascinated for a second or two before she blinked to break the spell. “My brother is quite mysterious where you’re concerned,” Janet went on. “And Lyn is
never
mysterious—the man is as uncomplicated as a teakettle.”

Gloriana sighed and closed her eyes, pretending to be sleepy. In truth, her senses were wildly alert, since there were so many sights and sounds and impressions to stimulate them.

Janet wasn’t about to let her captive evade conversation. “It will take several days, I suppose, to teach you how to run the shop properly. Of course, you needn’t do anything much beyond greeting customers, answering the telephone, and making sure the doors are locked promptly at six. I’ll take care of any bookkeeping or messages when I get back from France.”

Gloriana nodded, but did not open her eyes. “I hope you do not come to regret your choice. I know little or nothing of trade, as I told you before.” Through her lashes, she saw Janet adjust the buttons on the radio, filling the car with soft, magnificent music.

“‘Trade,’” Janet reflected. “What a quaint word, in this context at least. Where do you come from, Gloriana St. Gregory?”

Plainly, there was no hope that a companionable silence might be allowed to settle between them. Gloriana had hoped to listen to the invisible orchestra in peace. “I’m an American,” she said. It was the truth, after all. It just wasn’t the
complete
truth. “I was born
there, I mean. I’ve spent most of my life here, in England.”

Janet steered the car into a wide turn, and Gloriana, caught off balance, sat up straight in her seat, eyes wide.
“Hmmm,”
Janet said, and though there was a note of doubt in her tone, she did not refute Gloriana’s claim.

The shop was housed in a tidy two-story building with gables and a shingled roof. Gloriana felt an affinity for the place, despite the terrible homesickness that never quite left her.

“How wonderful,” she said, admiring the shopwindow, with its display of leather-bound volumes.

Janet smiled, pushed open her door, got out of the car, and unfurled an umbrella, all in nearly the same motion. “Thank you,” she cried happily, rushing for the shop’s entrance and turning a key in the lock.

Gloriana hurried after her, and in a moment, they were inside a cozy chamber bursting with books. There were shelves full, reaching from floor to ceiling, while others were stacked on chairs and tables, counters and desks.

“It
is
lovely, isn’t it?” Janet enthused, shrugging out of her raincoat and hanging it from a peg beside the door. She left the umbrella open on the tiled floor, well away from the books, to dry. “Of course, if Lyn and I hadn’t both been born into money, I wouldn’t be able to keep the shop open. My stock is expensive, and folks who can afford illuminated manuscripts and old diaries are a bit thin on the ground these days.”

Gloriana frowned, confused. She removed her jacket while working out what Janet had actually said and hung it up in the proper place.

Janet gestured toward the rear of the establishment.
“Come along, and I’ll show you where you’ll be staying. As I said, I’ve a cozy little flat just upstairs.”

Gloriana followed, casting looks of longing over the massive collection of books. “Aren’t you afraid to trust a stranger with such—such wealth?”

Janet smiled over one shoulder. “Lyn trusts you,” she said. “That’s quite enough for me. He has good instincts about people, and besides, if I don’t get away, I’ll go berserk. Can’t bear this weather, you know.”

The upstairs flat was indeed pleasant, with a small brick fireplace, comfortable chairs whose like did not exist in the harsher, simpler world Gloriana knew, a television set, and lots of bookshelves. The smaller of two bedchambers was an alcove with high windows, and there was a bathroom, too, with a big bathtub, a commode, and a basin. The kitchen was part of the main living area.

“Do sit down,” Janet commanded cheerfully, “and I’ll brew tea.” She bustled to a cabinet and took out several pieces of bright crockery. “I appreciate this—your looking after the shop on such short notice, I mean. We’ll have to ring Lyn soon, though. He’ll be worried until I let him know that you’re all right, not overwhelmed or anything.”

Gloriana couldn’t help smiling as she lowered herself into one of the deliriously soft chairs. Surely it was a sin to enjoy such creature comforts as much as she did. Like Lyn’s cottage, Janet’s flat was fragrant and warm and almost impossibly clean.

If “overwhelmed” meant what Gloriana thought it did, she certainly qualified. She was learning so many new things, so quickly, that sometimes she thought her head might burst from the pressure. Oh, she was intelligent, and she had been a scholar under Friar Cradoc’s tutelage, but Latin and Greek and mathematics
had been easy in comparison to learning to function in the modern world.

They had sandwiches and tea, and then Gloriana watched in fascination as Janet pushed buttons on the telephone. Although Janet and the others seemed to take such ease of communication for granted, it was miraculous to Gloriana.

Her heartbeat quickened with excitement when Janet handed her the receiver. Gloriana had never spoken over a telephone before, and when she heard Lyn’s voice, she was startled.

“Hello, Gloriana,” he said gently.

“H-hello,” Gloriana responded, somewhat breathlessly. If only there were a device that would allow her to hear Dane speak, as she was hearing Lyn.

“Is my sister treating you well?”

Gloriana nodded, then remembered herself and said. “Yes. Janet is very kind—like you.” It was a little unnerving, speaking to someone she couldn’t see—rather like carrying on a conversation with a ghost.

Lyn assured her that she could ring him whenever she wanted and gave her the number. After that, she surrendered the receiver to Janet again and went to the window to look out.

She was among friends, she knew that. And yet the need to see Dane, to touch him and hear his voice, was an all-pervasive ache. Would she never find her way back to him? Must she resign herself to spending the rest of her life in the latter part of the twentieth century, where she simply did not belong?

The rain continued through the afternoon, the perfect backdrop for Gloriana’s solemn mood. Sorrow notwithstanding, she paid attention while Janet showed her the basics of running the shop—answering
the telephone, when to lock up and when to open for business, how to summon help in case of emergency. Gloriana was amazed that Janet was willing to trust her, a virtual stranger, with so much responsibility. The shop was full of precious things.

“When in doubt,” Janet summarized, much later, when the two women were seated near the shop’s little stove, sipping tea, “just turn the lock, pull the blinds, and take yourself out for a walk or upstairs to watch the telly. It’s mostly a matter of convenience to my customers, my keeping the place open. Some of them get very edgy if I’m away and they’ve developed a penchant for some dusty old tome—they hate to wait, poor dears.”

“What if I make a mistake?” Gloriana ventured quietly. At Hadleigh Castle, before Dane’s return from the Continent, she had been learning to monitor the household accounts, and she had always followed the investment of her personal fortune. The things Janet had shown her, though quite complicated, made sense.

Janet shrugged. “Everyone does, at one time or another. If anything concerning a transaction troubles you, simply ask the client to wait until I come home.”

After that, the subject of business was closed. Gloriana retired to her room, bathed, and went to bed early. She had declined supper and immediately tumbled into a dream so vivid that for a few breathless moments she actually thought she had returned to Kenbrook Hall, and to Dane.

It seemed she stood in the tower room, beside the bed she had shared with her husband. He lay sleeping, the covers tangled at his waist from much tossing and turning, his fair hair glimmering in the feeble flicker of an oil lamp’s wick.