Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (22 page)

“
Bought?” Aurelia arched a
brow skeptically. “No Viking exchanges hard-won coin for whatever
he desires.” She waggled the banknotes at him. “Nor even used
vellum.”

Bard’s brow darkened. “You don’t really
expect me to believe that your father is a Viking, do you?”

“
No longer,” Aurelia
conceded. “But he went a-viking when he was a young man, as does
every man worth his salt.” She fixed Bard with a considering
glance. “Did you not go a-viking in your youth?”

“
I’m not that
old.”

Aurelia shrugged. “Old enough to be done
with such things.”

Bard’s lips tightened. “I went to
university.” At Aurelia’s blank look, he continued. “School.”

“
But your tutor did not
teach you of Micklegarth!” He was lying and Aurelia did not care
whether he knew that she knew it. “All men go a-viking.”

Bard grimaced and shook his head. “No one
does that anymore.”

Aurelia was unconvinced. Any inadequacies in
his upbringing did not reflect the world as she knew it.

“
Perhaps not in your sorry
kingdom!” she maintained archly. “My relations do precisely thus
and with great success.” She turned to sweep away, not at certain
where she was going and could not resist a parting shot. “Of
course, they are truly men, not mere barbarians.”

And she turned to stalk away.

Aurelia did not get far before Bard caught
at her elbow and pulled her to a halt. His piercing gaze locked on
hers and Aurelia braced herself against his ability to read her
thoughts. “Wait a minute. Your relatives can’t be Vikings!”

Aurelia tossed her hair, proud of her mixed
descent. “Of course, they are!”

“
You mean they’re from
Scandinavia,” Bard corrected. “They have Viking ancestry, but
aren’t actually Vikings any more.”

His words recalled Aurelia to her senses.
What was she thinking? She would destroy any chance her cousins had
of surprising him with their attack!

“
Of course, you are right,”
she said hastily. “I have no Viking relatives.” She giggled
foolishly. “Indeed, I have no relatives at all! They are all dead,
except for my sire.”

Aurelia pivoted and marched quickly down the
street. Bard seemed to have rooted to the spot behind her and she
hoped desperately that he was not seriously considered what she had
said by error.

Had her fickle tongue betrayed her
relations’ plans?

*

Aurelia became aware as she walked that many
eyes were on them. Behind lacy curtains and in shadowed doorways,
people had paused to watch their arrival and discussion. Even now,
heads were bending together and Aurelia heard the whispers
begin.

She wondered whether they were calling her
the king’s new whore and felt her cheeks heat.

Stones crunched as Bard strode up behind
Aurelia and he caught up her elbow with a proprietary gesture. “I
thought we had that all straightened out,” he growled. “No more
playing dumb.”

Aurelia lifted her chin proudly. She tried
desperately to think of something to say and failed.

Bard, apparently undeterred by her silence,
steered her into an adjacent building. Bells tinkled as he opened
the door - obviously a crude copy of Julian’s alarm - and she knew
they would be caught as intruders.

“
You cannot simply barge
into peoples’ homes!” she hissed and tried to step back into the
street.

Bard determinedly pushed her forward. A
slender older woman inside the home watched the transaction with
interest and Aurelia’s cheeks burned even more hotly. Bard smiled
for the woman with all his usual charm.

“
It’s a store,” he muttered
through his teeth. “Anyone can come in here.”

“
A store?”

“
A shop. Where a merchant
does business.” His voice was gritty with impatience. “Where they
sell their merchandise.”

Understanding dawned. “Oh! There was once a
merchant who brought his wares to Dunhelm on his back,” Aurelia
whispered, her gaze dancing over the goods displayed. “But my sire
oft told of the merchant’s stalls in Micklegarth.”

Baird breathed a sigh of relief. “Right.
Just like that.”

“
May I help you?” the woman
asked.

Bard loosened his grip on Aurelia. “You must
be Marge. I’m Baird Beauforte, from Dunhelm.” Aurelia hated how the
woman’s manner became coy once she knew who had crossed her
threshold.

The vain cur had to have every woman
groveling at his feet!

Bard gestured easily to Aurelia. “This is
Aurelia - perhaps you’ve met?”

“
We have not met,” Aurelia
said stiffly and the woman shook her head in turn.

Bard looked disappointed, though how he
imagined Aurelia would know a merchant from his kingdom, Aurelia
did not know.

“
Well, Aurelia needs a few
things.”

“
I see. Lost
luggage?”

Aurelia did not know what that meant, but
Bard quickly agreed. The woman erupted from behind the table with
purpose in her step. She scanned Aurelia, then fixed Bard with
bright eye.

“
Anything in particular we
have in mind?”

“
I’m sure that your advice
will be invaluable to the lady,” Baird said smoothly. He dropped
into a chair by the door and scooped up a wad of colorful vellum.
“You do take American Express, don’t you?”

The woman smiled.

And Aurelia wondered what in the name of
Odin had just been transacted.

*

It quickly became clear that the merchant
woman had been hired by Bard to assist Aurelia in choosing more
garb. Though she could have found the intimation that she did not
know her own mind insulting, Aurelia was soon glad of advice. The
array of colors, the choice of fabrics, the variety of cut of the
garb in even this one shop was completely overwhelming and Aurelia
was grateful for the woman’s patient guidance.

She argued briefly with Bard about his
buying her garb, but he was adamant that she was his
‘responsibility’, at least until her father was found. He was
obviously trying to win her approval, but the prospect of shedding
his whore’s chemise was simply too tempting to be refused.

Aurelia settled on the familiar, or at least
the closest thing to it that she could find. Their leggings were
made of a wondrous stretchy matter and were wrought in the most
delightful array of bright colors. These were no herbal dies that
Aurelia knew! And if the cloth was woven of wool, then even the
spinners had been bewitched by Julian’s spells. Aurelia had never
felt fabric so smooth.

This merchant, too, insisted on the same
“undies” that the whore had tried to foist on Aurelia. She finally
conceded to the briefs, but would not have anything to do with the
harness for her breasts.

They had tunics and shirts of gossamer
fabrics, though none had the embroidered hems Aurelia so favored.
She imagined another merchant sold lengths of embroidery, or
perhaps one was expected to do that oneself. The merchant had a
great creamy sweater, not unlike Bard’s own, and Bard insisted on a
burgundy cloak of the same strange fabric as his.

Aurelia liked the pockets and the strange
manner of fastenings, though she was skeptical of the merchant’s
claim that it would repel the rain.

She found but one dress - and that at Bard’s
insistence - that she could bring herself to wear in public and its
texture was well familiar. ‘Wool challis’ the merchant called the
fabric, though the design wrought upon it was as marvelous as that
on Marissa’s sheet.

The ‘paisley print’ was all blues and greens
with a touch of purple, the very colors of the sea and the sky
around Dunhelm. Though it had no embroidery, the hem and cuffs were
bordered in the same magical way as the overall pattern.

And no man could see through it. Its hem,
though a far cry from the floor, hung just below Aurelia’s knees.
The merchant matched the dress with a short jacket of boiled wool
with the most wonderful silver buttons Aurelia had ever seen.

Bard’s eyes glowed when she came out of the
little chamber to which she had been dispatched to change. Aurelia
felt a perverse tingle of pleasure that he found her pleasing.

She knew it was only because he had finally
acknowledged her beauty, not because his approval in itself
mattered in the least.

“
Shoes,” Bard said simply
when she thought he might say more, his gaze dancing to her bare
feet as though he could not help himself from gaping at
them.

Aurelia wiggled her toes playfully and
marveled at the way he caught his breath.

Was it possible that she had some effect on
him?

The merchant summoned another merchant who
evidently made shoes, for he brought a variety of awesome footwear
for Aurelia’s perusal. She flatly refused the whore’s shoes that
they all encouraged her to try - obviously her role in Bard’s life
had been mistaken! They were of fine enough leather, but the spikes
under the heels made it nearly impossible to walk.

She liked instead a marvelously wrought pair
of purple leather shoes. They had virtually no heel but were
delicate and feminine. And they matched the hue of her dress
perfectly.

Bard had considerable opinion about the
matter of sensible boots and she let him argue with the shoe
merchant. He got down on his hands and knees, to Aurelia’s
amazement, to check the fit of what he called ‘hiking boots’.

They were comfortable indeed, but Aurelia
could not help but catch her own breath when Bard closed his hand
around her ankle. He checked the solidity of her stance, then fired
a glance through his lashes so hot that it nearly stopped her
heart.

She stared back at him and her mouth went
dry. A snippet of the dream trotted through her head and she
wondered whether it had been Bard’s dream she witnessed.

The prophecy nudged at Aurelia’s memory but
she would not heed its foolishness.

Nonsense! There was nothing that said it had
been his dream she shared! Why, it could have been the priest’s -
indeed it would have been far more reasonable for the priest to be
meddling with her dream power.

Or trying to steal it.

But there was a knowing in Bard’s gaze that
set a heat simmering deep within Aurelia. She broke free of his
grip and fled to the ‘change room’.

Aurelia dressed hastily in the boots, the
burgundy tights, a teal shirt and the sweater like Bard’s. She
returned to the shop to find her ‘Gore-Tex’ on the counter,
everything else folded and packed away in great bags. Bard was
handing a gold card to the merchant, a card not unlike Julian’s
talisman.

To her relief, he did not so much as glance
her way and she took the opportunity to gather her wits about
her.

The woman toyed with the card, something
beeped, then she smiled at Bard. “Thank you so much for your
patronage, Mr. Beauforte.”

Bard scrawled on the paper she gave him,
then handed it back to her. The woman smiled again and handed back
Bard’s card. She beamed at Aurelia and handed over their packages.
“Have a lovely day, dear.”

They left the shop without any coin or fancy
vellum changing hands.

Aurelia snorted under her breath, Bard’s lie
obviously exposed. “And you say you do not go a-viking.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
You did not pay for those
wares!”

“
Of course I did!” Bard had
the grace to look sheepish. “Or, at least, I will once the bill
comes.”

But Aurelia had not been born the day
before. “That is the import of your note? That you will pay later?”
Bard nodded, but Aurelia laughed. “That merchant was well fooled by
your charm, but I know a-viking when I see it!”

She poked the new king solidly in the chest
with her finger. “You are a rogue, sir, and people will learn soon
enough the manner of your dealings. Even Vikings do not pillage in
their own towns.”

Bard’s lips thinned. “Look, just because you
don’t have a credit card doesn’t make one a bad thing. They’re
handy and as long as the debt doesn’t get out of hand, are
useful.”

That meant just about nothing to
Aurelia.

“
And now,” Bard said
firmly. “We’ll ask about your father.”

Aurelia though had more immediate concerns
on her mind. They had been in the shop a good while and such
decision-making was always a tiring business. She scanned the
square as her stomach grumbled loudly.

“
Have you charmed anyone in
this village with a good kitchen?”

Bard looked confused.

“
I am hungry,” Aurelia
clarified. “Where can we eat?”

*

Hungry?

Baird couldn’t believe it. After the
breakfast she had put away?

But Aurelia was serious.

He sighed with resignation and steered to
the pub, where she consumed a fish-and-chips lunch in short order.
Baird barely ate half a dozen bites of his, because his cell phone
kept screaming for attention.

By the time Aurelia began making his lunch
disappear as well, Baird knew reality couldn’t be avoided any
longer. The plumbers couldn’t go any further without the placement
of the fourth septic tank being solved and it wasn’t going to
happen without him being there.

Baird didn’t want to even think about how
much it was costing him to have all those plumbers sitting around,
doing nothing more productive than twiddling their thumbs.

Baird watched Aurelia eat and wondered how
she would take to this change of plans. After all, he had promised
to help her find her father today.

But Dunhelm was calling. And the huge
financial obligation of this resort could not be ignored. Baird
leaned forward and watched Aurelia carefully for her response,
hoping this would be easier than he thought it might be.