Through The Leaded Glass (18 page)

“
My lady?” Beatrice touched her
arm. “Are you well?”

No she wasn’t. But since there wasn’t a
graceful way to get out of this invitation, she plastered a smile
on her face as big and as fake as her engagement ring. “Probably
just something I ate that didn’t agree with me.” Given Cook’s lack
of hygiene, that might be the truth. “Let’s go to the
solar.”

***

Kate was greeted with a chorus of “welcome, my
lady”s when she and Beatrice arrived in the chamber as four women
looked up from the fabric they were working on, only one of whom
looked familiar. She was reminded again of all the responsibility
Alex carried as lord of this castle.

“
We’re glad you can join us,” said
one of the women. Lady Hampton, if Kate remembered
correctly.

They wouldn’t be when she bled all over the
thing. How the heck was she going to explain her utter inability to
sew a straight line?

“
You can’t?” asked another
woman.

Oops. She’d said that out loud. “Um, well…
it’s been so long that I’m not certain I remember how. The sisters
felt we could best serve the Lord by… um… nurturing the earth.”
Sure, she knew how to garden. “We spent most of our time working to
provide food for those less fortunate.” She strove for her best
apologetic look.

“
An exemplary cause,” said Lady
Hampton, pulling another chair into their sewing circle. “But
perhaps you could tell us a story instead?.We have heard all of
ours many times.”

Points to the woman for diplomacy.

“
Certainly. What would you like to
hear?”

“
A love story,” sighed a young
woman to her left.

“
Hah! You would remind those of us
without husbands of our state, child?” said a crotchety old woman
whose gnarled hands did a much better job with the needle than Kate
could ever hope to.

“
Pay them no mind,” said Lady
Hampton. “Mistress Anne has no expectation of romance and wears her
bitterness for all to see. Would she but change her disposition,
she may find her opportunities greater. And Mary over there—” She
pointed to the young romantic. “She is newly married.”

“
And free of Wexham, the monster,”
said Mistress Anne. “Three wives and twice as many daughters have
met with accidents. One wonders what fate would have befallen them
had they been male. ‘Tis fortunate our Mary did not wed
him.”

“
How’d you get out of it—I mean,
why didn’t you?” asked Kate.

Mary studiously stitched another couple of
stitches. “There was talk of Lady Marston. Her lands are greater
than mine.”

“
A fact for which you should be
thankful,” said Mistress Anne. “And from all your sighing and
mooning over your husband, one would assume you have fared
well.”

“
I have. Even better than I had
wished for.” At that, Mary set down her needle and put her hands on
her stomach. “And now I shall have someone else to moon
over.”

Kate tried to hide the envy at Mary’s
announcement while the rest of the women congratulated the
mother-to-be. She loved the idea of adopting Emma, but she hoped to
one day know what it was like to carry a child.

Lady Hampton clapped her hands. “Now, ladies,
‘tis unseemly to speak of such things until the lady Kathryn
marries our lord. Let us hear her story instead.”

“
Very well.” Kate folded her hands
in her lap. “There once was a girl named Vivian—”

Um, no. Julia Roberts’s character was a hooker
in that movie.

Take two. “There once was a girl by the name
of… Juliet.” Ah, yes. This was a safe tale and one more in line
with their medieval mindset anyway since it was based on the legend
of Tristan and Isolde. “Her young man was named Romeo.”

Thank God for her film class graduate
assistant that year. They’d watched Olivia Hussey’s Juliet three
times that semester so she knew the whole thing by heart and was
able to ramble off the famous balcony scene, the family feud, all
the accompanying angst, and that pivotal scene in the tomb, without
once worrying about any anachronisms. “When Romeo found Juliet in
her tomb, he thought she’d died. Hee couldn’t live without her, so
he took a vial of poison from his cloak and drank it. Then he fell
on top of her, joined forever in death.”

Mary sighed. “I love that story, no matter the
names. It’s so romantic.”

“ ‘
Tis pure drivel,” said a male
voice from the chamber’s entrance.

Kate didn’t have to turn to see who it was.
There was no one else with a timbre that made her spine
tingle.

“
Lord Shelton,” Mistress Anne
clucked. “You know better than to visit this hen coop. And
eavesdropping, no less.”

“
Come now, Mistress Anne.” Alex’s
smile took the sting out of his tone. “Surely you don’t begrudge me
the company of my intended.”

“ ‘
Tis not my place to begrudge you
anything, my lord.”

Alex smiled again and Kate felt her stomach
twirl. The man did have a potent smile.

And touch. And kiss…

“
Then, by your leave, Mistress
Anne, I shall spirit my lady Katherine from your good company.” He
nodded at the women. “Good day, Lady Carlton. Lady Hampton. Lady
Arden.”

“
Lady Arden?” Kate squeaked as she
left the room. “Lady
Mary
Arden?”

Alex nodded.

“
But… but… Uh oh.” Kate caught her
toe as they headed into the corridor and she stumbled.

Alex caught her arm. “What troubles you,
Kate?”

That
troubled her. One touch and her
knees threatened to give out
again
in a way that had nothing
to do with her stumbling.

She flounced her skirts to dislodge his hand.
She needed a clear head so she wouldn’t make things worse, but,
geez, talk about a gaff… “I messed up, Alex. Somewhere in the
future, Mary Arden’s son or grandson is going to become a famous
playwright and I’ve just given her one of his most famous
works.”

“
That nonsense about lovers killing
themselves? I can’t believe the man will be successful with such a
story.” A tallow candle in the sconce on the wall flickered as Alex
walked past. Drafty place.

“
Trust me. William Shakespeare will
become one of the most famous writers ever with that story.” She
blew out a breath. “What if she’d been someone else? Mary Poe. Or
Mary Chaucer. Mary Shelley. I
really
need to get home before
I cause any more trouble. Any word on the window? And what about
the gypsies? Did we find them yet? What if we never find them,
Alex? What if I’m stuck here?” The panic attack was back, and it
didn’t look like it was going to leave anytime soon. Kind of like
her.

“
Don’t fear, Kate. You will go
back.”

“
How can you be so sure? We’ve made
zero progress on that front.”

“
Kate, do you believe that all of
this, you finding my ring, your friend coming here, the window
disappearing, do you think it is mere happenstance?”

“
Of course it is. It has to be. You
can’t tell me you think this is fate, do you? No control over our
own destiny?”

“
There is coincidence and there is
Fate. This is another thing altogether.”

“
What, witchcraft?”

Alex grimaced. “Don’t jest about such things.
No, Kate, I believe your situation may be the work of a higher
power.”

She put her hands on her hips. Poor God; he
got blamed for so much. “What?
He
doesn’t have enough to do
that He’s going to rearrange some century markers in His spare
time? I highly doubt that, Alex.”

“
Mock me if you will.” Alex led her
through a stone archway into another corridor. “Yet my son’s life
has been spared. That, to me, is divine intervention. There is a
purpose to you being here. For you as well, remember? Have you
thought about what it is you are missing from your life that you
must find before you leave?”

She had and he was standing a foot in front of
her.

No
way
. Alicia was out of her mind to
think she’d come here to find a man. No matter how much her body
hummed to life around him, there was no way Alex was what she was
missing in her life. He couldn’t be, logistically or emotionally,
because if he were, that’d mean she’d have to give up everything
she’d worked for, everything she wanted, her life, her daughter,
her sense of self—and
that
she would hold onto more tightly
than anything.

No, Alex wasn’t what was missing from her
life. He couldn’t be.

“
I’m working on it, Alex. You just
keep working on the window.”

He tilted her chin up. “Kate, remember this.
My family’s motto is that the measure of a man is but the strength
of his words. When I say I’ll do something, it will be
done.”

That was what she was worried about—he’d said
he’d marry her.

***

This was getting better and
better.

Through the tiny opening in the wall, he
watched them leave the corridor.

Divine intervention—he’d never been called
that before. He liked the sound of it.

Once they left, he blew out the remaining
candle through the eye slit and slid away from the
opening.

He had more divine providence to
engineer.

***

“
Come along, William.” Kate tugged
on the pudgy hand in hers, and headed toward a gnarled apple tree
in the orchard. The sun was heading west as it filtered through
gold, red, and brown leaves tinged with the tangy scent of crushed
apples. She’d found him in his room soaking the new rushes and
decided medieval day care could use a few improvements. And she
could use the practice. She’d brought him outside, along with the
requisite contingent of guards, made leaf piles for him to jump
into, taught him tic-tac-toe, then they’d worked on skimming stones
on the pond until she wore him out.

So now she leaned against the tree and settled
him in her lap. “Here you go, William. Ready for your
story?”

William plopped himself into position, one
cheek resting against her chest, his right thumb pumping furiously
as he sucked on it. “Yes, pease.”

She couldn’t resist kissing the top of his
head. He smelled of sticky apples, mud, and that sweet little kid
smell. Someone ought to bottle that fragrance. “Okay, then. Let’s
see.” A dozen fairy tales ran through her head and she tried to
pick one that wouldn’t scare him. Those Grimm brothers must have
had one nasty childhood to concoct some of their
stories.

“
There once was a girl who was
traveling through the forest and grew very tired. So she went in
search of a cottage…” By the time she was on the third “Who’s been
sleeping in my bed?” William was asleep. She rested her head back,
feeling his soft body rise and fall against her.

This is what it could have been like.
If Jay The Ass hadn’t been an ass. If he’d honored their vows and
the promises he’d made.

But he hadn’t.

The measure of a man is but the strength of
his words
. If only Jay had prescribed to that train of
thought.

That’s
what she was missing from her
life. Not a man—any man—but a man who stood behind his word. Whose
promise meant something. One she could count on, plan with, dream
with. It certainly hadn’t been Jay, and it couldn’t be Alex, no
matter what Alicia’s plan was. Not unless she could bring him back
with her.

Kate snorted and looked around. Yeah, time
travel had worked so well for her she should definitely try to pull
someone else through the tear in the time-space
continuum.

William wiggled in his sleep. Make that two
someones.

Kate sighed and rested her head against the
tree trunk again, staring up through the branches to the little
patches of sunlight dancing on the last of the green leaves. A crow
swooped beneath the thin canopy, its blue-black feathers reminding
her of Alex’s hair, how it’d felt between her fingers.

How he’d felt between her thighs.

It was her turn to wiggle. It’d been great,
but it shouldn’t have happened because it couldn’t lead
anywhere.

“
Anywhere but a bed.”

The image shocked her into turning her
head.

Alex’s image was even better because he was
real.

“
What… what did you say?” Her
throat dried up and she licked her lips.

His gaze flew to her mouth with an intensity
she could almost taste.

Wanted to taste.

“
I said, Kate, that my son will
sleep anywhere but a bed.” He dropped to his haunches beside her,
his crimson cloak billowing out from broad shoulders, while
buff-colored thigh-hugging pants left nothing to her
imagination.

And she had a very active
imagination.

Especially when he brushed a stray curl from
his son’s cheek, his fingers so close to her breast.