Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (21 page)

“
No. Do you want
it?”

Aurelia tucked in as soon as Baird pushed
the plate her way. She used neither knife nor fork, to his
surprise. She ate even the eggs with her fingers by sliding each
one carefully onto a piece of toast. She was quite graceful about
it and both men watched with fascination as she methodically
cleaned the plate.

Baird had to hand it to her - she never
missed a beat.

“
What is the matter with
you?” Aurelia asked, looking from one to the other. “Have neither
of you learned to eat with any grace?”

Before Baird could summon an answer to that,
Elizabeth appeared at his elbow, her hands buried in thick plaid
potholders.

“
Oh, lass! I’ve just
brought your oatmeal and you’ll be all filled up!” Elizabeth was
obviously crestfallen, but Aurelia accepted the steaming bowl
appreciatively.

“
It smells
wonderful!”

“
And here’s a cup for your
coffee, lass. Mr. Preston, here’s your oatmeal, as well.” Elizabeth
folded her hands together, her eyes hopeful. “Unless you’ll be
wanting tea? Talorc always has a hot cup of tea in the
morning.”

Aurelia flicked a glance over the woman’s
expression, then smiled. “I would love to have this tea,” she said
graciously and Elizabeth, transported with delight, raced back to
her kettle.

Aurelia looked to the men and shrugged
philosophically. “It was of such import to her,” she murmured, then
slid a spoon into Elizabeth’s trademark oatmeal.

The substance was so thick that Baird was
convinced they could use it for mortar on the brickwork. He had
only faced it with success once and was not entirely sure that it
was edible.

But Aurelia’s oatmeal disappeared in record
time. Julian was slower but when Aurelia cast a longing glance at
his bowl, he possessively pulled it closer. “You can have my
haggis,” he muttered, and Aurelia’s eyes lit up.

She eyed Baird for a long moment. “Your
charm is markedly lacking this morn,” she commented finally, then
tilted her head to watch him like a perky sparrow. “Are you irked
with me?”

“
He’s just not a morning
kind of guy,” Julian confided. “His bark is definitely worse than
his bite.” He eyed his employer. “Though today, he’s barking - and
looking - a bit worse than usual.”

“
Thanks for the character
reference.”

“
Least I could do.” Julian
smirked.

“
I thought perhaps you
might have slept poorly,” Aurelia suggested quietly. She watched
Baird steadily, her blue gaze seeming to see more than Baird would
have liked.

He actually felt like fidgeting.

“
Were you troubled by
dreams last night, King Bard?” she asked softly, her eyes wide. “I
had a most unusual one, myself.”

Baird’s heart lurched, but her fathomless
eyes revealed nothing. How could she know?

She couldn’t!

Baird jabbed a finger through the air at the
woman he knew was the source of his troubles. “Let’s get one thing
straight, princess. I don’t dream.”

“
But everyone dreams,” she
protested. “It is a natural part of sleep…”

Baird impaled her with his sternest glance,
the one he had perfected in the boardroom and which sent most men
running for cover.

Aurelia didn’t even flinch.

“
I don’t dream,” Baird
insisted. “Never have. Never will. And that’s final.”

Aurelia frowned, but Elizabeth brought the
teapot in that moment. Although Aurelia looked unimpressed at first
sip of the beverage, once she had dropped a third of the sugar
bowl’s contents into her cup, she seemed to like it more.

Baird told himself that he was irritable not
only because it was morning, but that his head hurt and, just to
add insult to injury, the one who had drunk the most showed the
fewest ill effects.

Maybe it was just his headache making him
more grumpy than usual. He sipped his coffee, well aware that he
had affected the mood at the table.

Just the mention of that dream had Baird all
jangled up inside once more. Dammit, this wasn’t like him and he
wasn’t going to put up with it. He was going to find Hekod today,
if only to end his obligation to that man’s daughter.

But first, Aurelia had to get something to
wear. There would be hell to pay if Marissa didn’t get her Karan
dress back. Baird would rather that happened sooner than later.

To Baird’s amazement, Aurelia consumed the
better part of all three breakfasts before sitting back with a
sigh. She surveyed the men and patted her stomach with contentment,
treating them both to a sunny smile.

Baird drained his cup and pushed impatiently
to his feet. “Come on, princess. Let’s get into town and find you
some clothes.”

*

The cab Baird had ordered was waiting in the
circular driveway in front of the hotel. It was one of the boxy
black cabs typically found in London, but looking more than a
little the worse for wear. Garth, its driver and owner, leaned
against the bumper, reading a tabloid and smoking his pipe.

There was a rumor that Garth, disenchanted
with the London scene around 1970, had headed north with his cab,
vowing not to stop until he found some place simpatico. Whether he
had chosen this island or simply run of Britain to explore was
unclear, but here he had remained.

It could be said that Garth matched his cab,
for both were a conglomeration of the unexpected. The once
all-black cab had gotten a brilliant yellow front quarter panel at
some point in its life and the front bumper which should have been
chrome had been removed to make space for an electric winch. The
muffler and tail pipe hung low enough that they scraped the ground
at regular intervals, and obviously nothing more than divine
Providence kept them attached to the car.

Garth had confided once that the sheep were
terrified at the sight of his cab.

Baird couldn’t blame them.

Garth himself was as mismatched as his cab,
but a genial sort beneath his crusty exterior. He had a penchant
for wearing a blue plaid shirt with orange shorts that were an
unwelcome reminder of the psychedelic sixties. The ensemble
coordinated with a pair of green Wellington boots, none of it
varying, regardless of the weather.

It was frightening to think that a man could
have more than one pair of shorts like that. Baird didn’t want to
know.

Garth’s carrot orange hair always resembled
a severely abused brillo pad and his eyebrows seemed to crawl
across his brow with a life of their own. His nose was permanently
red and it was no real surprise that the phone number for Garth’s
Cab Livery was exactly the same as that of the Boar and Thistle
Pub.

Garth had taken it upon himself to give his
conveyance the decoration he thought it deserved as the island’s
sole taxi for hire. The inside had originally been upholstered in
crimson vinyl, but now that interior had seen better days. It was
patched with mismatched strips and lavished with mementoes of
Prince Charles’ wedding to Lady Diana Spencer.

A cross-stitched cushion illustrating the
glorious event was sealed in plastic for all time and held a
position of honor in the center of the back seat. Stickers and
posters covered the interior walls of the cab.

Aurelia’s eyes rounded like saucers when she
climbed in and Baird couldn’t blame her. He’d had a good look
himself when he first stepped into Garth’s cab.

Garth started the vehicle and the pair of
commemorative teaspoons hanging from the rear view mirror
shuddered. The cab coughed, farted, wheezed, then settled into an
approximation of a consistent hum.

“
Where you off to today,
guv?” Garth came complete with a diluted variant of a Cockney
accent.

“
Just into town.” Baird
leaned forward as the car slid into gear with a whine. He thought
he heard Aurelia gasp, but then, he had been surprised that this
dilapidated cab could actually move, as well. He braced his elbows
against the back of the front seat. “Is there a women’s clothing
store there?”

Garth whistled through his teeth. “You’ll be
needing to see Marge, I’ll wager. She’s the only one as follows the
trends.”

Baird shrugged, hoping that Marge had
something worth buying. “Then, Marge’s place it is.”

Aurelia caught her breath when Garth cleared
the resort’s new gates and accelerated to a dazzling twenty-five
miles an hour. The sheep ran in all directions, fleeing in terror
before Garth and his trusty cab.

Aurelia looked as spooked as the sheep. She
gripped the armrest as though she was seeing her life pass before
her eyes.

“
Don’t be afraid,” he said
in a low voice that Garth wouldn’t be able to hear over the
grumbling engine. “He’s not that bad a driver.”

“
I am afraid of nothing!”
Aurelia retorted, though her death grip on the armrest said
otherwise.

“
Right. Half Viking. I
remember.”

Baird settled back in his seat and wondered
whether Aurelia had only been used to horses and carts. He
certainly hadn’t seen a lot of cars out here and this might just be
another unfamiliar experience for her.

At any rate, shopping would cheer her
up.

It worked for women everywhere.

*

The strange chariot carried them away from
Dunhelm and around the curve of the coastline. After Aurelia gave
up looking for the horses that pulled the chariot, she was amazed
at the smooth black surface of the road that had recently been a
track in the dirt, riddled with ruts. The only thing familiar about
the scene before her was the slope of the land and the hundreds of
foolish sheep, bolting in every direction.

Aurelia attributed this to Julian’s magic,
because she could think of no other reasonable explanation.

The chariot lurched to a halt in the midst
of a cluster of stone homes that Aurelia did not recognize. There
had been no dwellings here, she knew very well, though these looked
soundly rooted to the spot.

A stone cross rose high in the middle of the
cobbled square, a reminder of the ascendency of Julian’s faith. It
was amazing that so much could have been constructed so quickly -
let alone that it could look so aged.

Aurelia wondered again how much time could
have passed while Julian’s herbs kept her sleeping.

Could it have been an entire year? Her
father could be far across the sea if that were so!

Aurelia watched with fascination as Bard
doled out pieces of vellum to the driver. That remarkably garbed
man grinned from ear to ear as he closed his hand over the
notes.

“
Thank you, guv! You’ll
know where to find me when you’re set to go back!”

Bard nodded, flicking a wry glance Aurelia’s
way. The driver winked, left his chariot where it stood and trotted
toward a building wrought of dark wood with wattle and daub
between.

The Boar and Thistle read the sign, though
Aurelia could make no sense of that.

Aurelia slanted a glance in Bard’s direction
to find him looking thoughtful. “Why is he so glad to have vellum
from you? Is it scarce in your kingdom?”

Bard glanced to her in what must have been
surprise. “It’s money. I was paying him for the ride.”

Aurelia frowned. “With used vellum? What
merit is it to him with its surface already covered?”

Bard studied her for a long moment. “It
really is like stepping back into the middle ages around here,
isn’t it?” he murmured finally.

Aurelia did not understand the
reference.

“
It’s money, paper money.”
Bard pulled out a couple of banknotes and she studied them with
curiosity. “I guess you still barter for most things.”

Aurelia looked up with surprise.
“Barter?”

“
You know, trade some of
this for some of that. My oats for your hay. That kind of
thing.”

Aurelia shook her head. “We grow our own
oats and hay. You must have found all the stores when you took
Dunhelm.”

Why would Bard pretend he knew nothing of
this?

“
What about your
clothes?”

Gods and goddesses! Did the man understand
nothing of domestic matters? What kind of upbringing had he
had?

“
We have sheep, as you well
know,” Aurelia explained patiently. “And my father employed many
spinners and weavers to make cloth, dyers to color it and
seamstresses to make garments of it. Were I not nobly born, I would
know to do it myself.”

Bard snapped his fingers as though
remembering something. “What about that cloak you told us about?
The one made of the fabric your father brought from
somewhere…”

“
It was samite. From
Micklegarth. We cannot make such fine cloth here and it was a
treasure to be cherished.” Aurelia’s eyes narrowed suddenly as she
realized that her cloak had disappeared.

Had the whore taken it for her own?

“
Right. Wherever that
is.”

Aurelia was incredulous. “You do not know of
Micklegarth?”

“
No.” Bard shrugged,
looking untroubled by the stunning inadequacy of his education that
admission revealed.

“
How could anyone know so
little of the world?” Aurelia demanded. “Even I have had enough
teaching to know Micklegarth!”

Bard looked grim again. “Let’s just say
we’ve had enough of this colonial stuff, all right? I’ve had a
perfectly good education, even with the remarkable omission of your
Micklegarth.”

Aurelia folded her arms across her chest,
unconvinced of that.

Bard shoved one hand through his hair. “My
point is that wherever Micklegarth is, your father must have bought
that samite stuff there.”