The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (32 page)

“When you return to your home, Mistress Anne . . . or what is left of it . . . I would ask leave to court you. I doubt I am liable to find another woman quite like you.”

Involuntarily, the corner of her mouth quirked up. James smiled back.

“I amuse you? Good. A man
should
be amusing and genial,” he asserted smugly.

She laughed. “You are not likely to find another woman quite like me, no.” Beyond his green eyes and blond curls, she saw the merchant, Phinneas, grunting and groaning his way into the bushes. Her smile faded. “Ugh. He’s making those noises again, the ones he makes whenever he’s about to spend far too much time in the bushes.”

“What, the merchant? Yes, I can hear it, too. I fear between his crumbling sandal and his rumbling gut, he’ll keep us from reaching the raftsman before sunset.” Lifting his gaze from her face, he looked off to the west. “Fill your stomach and your waterskin while you can. Hot weather makes for thirsty pilgrimages, but rain and mud are far more miserable to endure. At least the weather looks like it’ll hold. For now.”

Nodding, aware he had been escorting pilgrimages for at least five years, Anne let him haul up another bucketful while she drained the dregs of her waterskin into her wooden cup. She didn’t say it, but she did think the thoughts uppermost in both her heart and her mind.
I’d love to accept, Sir James. You’re remarkably enlightened for your day and age, and I think I’d enjoy being courted by you, wherever it might or might not lead . . . but I come from the distant future, one which does not involve you. A pity, but for the sake of temporal continuity . . . I have to leave you.

Don’t look back . . . don’t look back . . .

“Anne?”

She almost jumped out of her skin. Whirling, she faced the shadowed silhouette of her confronter. The campfire the others had built was just visible through the trees behind him. “Oh! James . . . uh . . .”

He moved with remarkable quietness. It wasn’t until he was close enough to touch that she realized he wasn’t wearing his armour. He must have taken it off while she had been gathering wood for the fire.

“Where are you going?”

“To . . . to the river, of course. It’s not that far,” she managed as casually as she could, half turning towards it.

“Why?” James asked, moving to intercept her. “And why take your bedroll?”

“Well . . . it’s a warm night, so I thought I’d wash it. And myself. Away from prying eyes. I don’t like the way Phinneas looks at me sometimes,” she improvised. “Like I’m a widow with a fortune for him to marry.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you. My instincts, which I have honed by watching people time and again . . . say that you’re running away from us,” James stated. He cupped her shoulders, his thumbs gently rubbing her through the linen of her summer-weight dress. “Did I scare you off with my stated intentions? You shouldn’t be frightened by me. I meant no harm. I just . . . thought we would well suit each other. I care for you. And I really don’t think it is wise for a woman to try travelling on her own. There are all manner of feral beasts out there. Some of them run on two legs instead of four, you know.”

Anne could have protested that she would be fine. No anthropologist was allowed into the field without completing several courses in basic and advanced self-defence, including courses in the targeted time frame’s weapon styles.
But he wouldn’t believe me, and I don’t have the time to convince him. Not without raising awkward questions.

I’m supposed to leave the group by oh-one-hundred hours tonight, and it’s just half-past twenty-one. How do I distract him so I can get far enough away that I can be picked up and returned to the future without anyone noticing?

He solved her dilemma for her. Sort of. “All right, so it’s been a hot and dusty day. A dip in the river does sound good. I’ll walk you down there. The others should be safe enough, since they have their numbers, the fire and our good yeomen-farmers to keep watch through the first and second quarters of the night. But I’ll not risk you to a wild beast, or a bandit, or even a slip and a fall which might injure your head, or a cramp which might cause you to drown.”

“James, it really wouldn’t be appropriate –”

One of his hands lifted from her shoulder, his finger finding and sealing her lips. “Shh. I insist. Surely the night is far too dark for me to see anything . . . inappropriate.”

That wasn’t entirely true; the moon was waxing towards full. Though its light did shine down in faint silver patches here and there, the forest canopy hid most of its light. Down by the river, which at this part ran north–south, it would shine fully upon the water, and on anything nearby.

“Come.” Sliding his other hand down her arm, he laced his calloused fingers with hers and gently tugged her through the trees. The ground sloped gradually down as they made their way eastwards, until the thickness of the underbrush forced them to detour to the south. A small break in the bushes a modest distance upriver provided access to the water. It was also far enough away that the light and the noise of the pilgrims’ campfire could no longer be discerned.

This is my last night with him,
Anne thought, catching sight of his face in the pale silver moonlight.
And my last and only chance to be alone with him. I’m not being picked up until oh-one-hundred hours. We have time . . . and maybe I can exhaust him into sleeping deeply.

It wasn’t exactly in the rulebook, but neither was it expressly forbidden on this trip. Anne had heard other field anthropologists being given lectures against such things for specific missions, but she hadn’t been lectured. Shrugging out of the rope holding her bedroll together, she untied it with the practice gained from weeks of travel and spread it out over the ground.

James moved closer. “Aren’t you going to wash that?”

“I’ve changed my mind. Besides,” she murmured back, strolling close enough to touch him, to brush her body against his own, “shouldn’t I get it dirty first, before I scrub?”

She could see his frown, thanks to a small shaft of moonlight. James stepped back. “I find I do not quite trust this reversal, Anne. Why were you so coy before, yet so forward now?”

All the instincts of a natural anthropologist, or maybe a psychologist or sociologist . . .
Sighing, she gave him as much of the truth as he could handle. “I’m leaving the group. A friend will be meeting me shortly, and we’ll be on our way elsewhere. I was told that once I reached the river after our visit to the Cathedral, I should diverge and head upriver – and I will be
fine
,” she added as his frown of distrust deepened into a worried look. “This isn’t the first time I have travelled, nor the first time I have struck out on my own, even for such a short distance as this trip will be.

“You
need to stay with the others,” she reminded him. “They’ll need your protection, since it’s still a long way back.”

“And you’re offering yourself to me? What has prompted it?” James asked her.

Anne shrugged. “I decided I’d rather not leave with any regrets. I like you, I enjoy your company, and I desire you. If we weren’t destined to part company tonight, I would honestly consider your offer of courtship far more seriously than circumstances allow.”

He closed the distance between them, slipping his arm around her waist. “Well. If we do enjoy each other’s company, and this . . . dalliance . . . proves fruitful?”

She smiled wryly. “After so many years of barren marriage, I doubt it will.”

Particularly given the birth-control methods all field agents use. . .
There were rumours of certain agents being sent into the past to “acquire” genetic material, but not having been approached herself, Anne wasn’t sure if those whispers were true, or just lascivious gossip.

“I am not your late husband.” Pulling her close, he nudged her with his loins. In specific, with the lump of his manhood. “You may find me to be the better man.”

His line almost made her laugh, except she sensed he meant it in several ways, not just the most obvious one. Softening her reaction into a smile, Anne lifted her hands to his hair. Fulfilling the longing she had suppressed throughout the trip, she buried her fingers in his springy blond curls, enjoying their slightly coarse texture.

He complied with her guiding touch, tilting his mouth into the perfect angle for meeting hers. Then pulled back, apparently startled by the touch of her tongue on his lips. Anne pursued his mouth, rising up on her toes and bringing his head back down to hers. He tasted more like the roasted turnips and rabbit they had eaten than like the mint of earlier, but mostly he tasted like a man. Delicious.

It took only a few moments before he returned her caresses. His own tongue grew more bold, as did the hands on her back, one skimming up to cradle the back of her head, the other sliding down to cup the curves of her bottom. Anne caressed his shoulders, then shifted her hands to the front of his cote-hardie. He had changed back into his travelling clothes this morning, to save his good outfit for the visits to the Cathedral, but even his second-best tunic was made of a finer weave of linen than her own. Unfastening the buttons as they kissed, she reached his belt and fumbled with the knotted leather.

Stepping back, breaking their kiss, James unfastened his belt himself, along with the rest of his cote-hardie. Anne took the opportunity to remove her own girdle and work on her buttons. Their garments fell to the ground, which was sparsely covered in tufts of grass and the felted wool of her bedroll. Moonlight obscured some of the details of his body and highlighted others. She could see scars from old wounds, and the ripple of muscles bunching and flexing when he stooped to remove his shoes.

She bent over in turn, unlacing her sandals and peeling down her hosen, only to blush when she heard him speak.

“God bless widows who know what they want,” he murmured. “God and all the saints. I’ve never been interested in a shy, retiring maiden who knows nothing of the ways of men and women.”

“I thought my behaviour had been rather circumspect and demure,” Anne quipped as she straightened. She pulled the pins and ribbons out of her hair, releasing it so that he could play with it if he wanted.

“Circumspect, maybe, but your experience of the world shows through in all the little things you do.” Moving back to her, he wrapped his arms around her, bringing their bodies close together. “I like it.”

Anne kissed him again. The evening had cooled enough that neither was damp from sweat, allowing their bodies to rub gently together. She enjoyed the crisp-textured hair of his chest brushing against her breasts, the soft press and nibble of his lips. The jut of his arousal rubbing against her belly. Her fingers skimmed through those chest curls, lightly tugging and teasing until he captured her hands and pressed them flat. She could feel the rhythm of his heart and knew it matched her own, faster than it should be, and stronger.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had made love with anyone. At least a year ago. Long enough for each touch, each caress to feel new. Long enough to make her wish for a softer bed than a scratchy wool blanket laid on a somewhat lumpy stretch of ground. The shift of his lips from her mouth down to her breasts distracted her, though. He laved and worshipped them, wringing gasps and whimpers from her as he played with their sensitive tips.

One of his hands caressed her clenching belly, then slipped down between her thighs. Anne gasped and tossed her head back, thumping it against the ground, but the pain was brief and mild; the pleasure of his seeking fingers was too good to resist. Covering his hand with her own, she showed him exactly where she liked to be touched and how firmly he should rub.

James proved a willing student. Between her breasts and her loins, he sculpted her into a squirming, gasping, shuddering thing of bliss with his mouth and his hand. Drifting down from her climax, Anne sighed. “Oh, James . . . I wish I could take you with me . . .”

“If I had my way,” he murmured, kissing a path back up to her lips, “you’d never leave me.”

Lifting her knees, she made room for him. Welcomed him with her lips and her palms and her thighs. He pressed himself home with a sigh of her name and a slow flex of his hips. It felt better than she remembered, much better. Each inward stroke had a near-perfect angle to stimulate everything she liked best about this part of lovemaking. It didn’t take him long to have her gasping and shuddering again, whispering his name until he, too, climaxed and slumped, breathing heavily himself.

He finally rolled off her, but not to abandon her. Instead, James pulled her close, cuddling with her. Sweat made their skin stick awkwardly in places, though the cool air wafting up from the river did its part to help dry them again. But the sweat and the breeze and the lumpy ground under the blanket couldn’t distract her from the warmth of his embrace.

Tired from a long day of walking and a delicious round of lovemaking, Anne dozed for a little bit. She was sure James did, too. When she finally decided to move, inhaling slowly and deeply to wake up a little more, she felt his arm tighten around her shoulders.

“Ready for more?” he murmured, proving he wasn’t asleep.

Her internal transceiver warned her it was getting close to midnight.
But I still have time. And this feels too good to skip a second chance.
Smiling, she pressed a kiss to his collarbone. “Nothing would please me more. Since you’re a scholar at heart, the same as myself . . . let me show you some of the things I’ve learned.”