“Ah, yes. Of course,” he said with a knowing smile while Lizzie giggled behind him. “You may go.”
He took his wife’s hand and left the hall with her. He’d paid for two small rooms at the town inn. The other for Elia. Nicholas had a tent, but he thought his wife would prefer sleeping in a bed. They walked together in the twilight.
“’Tis difficult to believe that Richard, the last Yorkist king, is dead and that I had much to do with it.”
“You simply did not fight for him—”
“I led him onto the field.”
“Nicholas.” She stopped walking and turned to him. “Do you think he was a good king?”
“I do not think he was a good man. How then could he be a good king?”
“Right. It is not your fault he died. It’s his fault.” She smiled and he felt as if he were falling in love with her all over again. It happened often. He no longer fought it. In fact, he thrilled in it.
“Will Henry be any better?” he asked her. After all, she likely knew.
“He will do more for England than Richard in restoring the country’s economical, er, financial… England will no longer be poor.” She laughed softly. “I can’t think right when you’re looking at me.”
“I cannot stop looking at you. How about Elizabeth? Will she be happy?”
She nodded. “Henry loved her very much. It’s written that he locked himself in his room and wept wh—”
He stopped and looked at her. “When she died?”
“Yes.”
“How? How does she die? Does Henry have anything to do with it?”
She shook her head. “She dies in childbirth.”
He paled and turned away. “She was young then.”
“Nicholas,” Kestrel said with tears filling her eyes. “I don’t want to say anything more. I’ve already said too much.”
He nodded and stepped back. So, Elizabeth dies young. He wanted to go back to the hall and spend more time with her.
He saw two people coming toward them. Elia and Charlie. His first officer was good to escort her to the inn.
A breeze from the right brought with it the faint scent of apples and something else. Something that made the hairs on his body stand up. He turned to his wife and saw two men mounted on great warhorses appear out the shimmering air to her right. The horses were draped in trappings depicting a dragon. The men wore leather armor and had long two-edged swords dangling from their belts.
Silvery mist clung to their horses’ legs. Nicholas guessed who they were, though his mind told him it was impossible.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Instantly, Nicholas took hold of Kes’ arm and pulled her behind him. He reached for his sword, but her hand stopped him.
She couldn’t let Nicholas kill Sir Gawaine. And if anyone had a chance of killing Nicholas, it was this brutish knight.
Mr. Simeon had warned her about telling too much. Now they’d come after her. What were they going to do?
“Mr. Green,” she said, doing her best to sound calm as she stepped around her husband, to his side. Not out of reach. “May I call you Sir Gawaine?” She cut her gaze to Luke. “Sir Lucan?”
“What do you want?” Nicholas demanded, unafraid against the legendary knights.
“We want the future telling to cease,” demanded Gawain right back.
“Yes! Yes!” she held up her hands. “I’m sorry about that. It won’t happen again. I think we can—”
“Do you listen to her conversations?” Nicholas asked incredulously.
He had a point. Were they listening? She gave them an angry stare and crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you plant something on me?”
They were already shaking their heads, but it wasn’t in defense of them spying. “You are diverting the problem. Ms. Lancaster—”
“She is Lady Scarborough,” Nicholas told them. There was a warning thread in his voice that was steadily growing. “If I were you, I would stand away from her.”
Sir Gawaine flicked his gaze to Sir Lucan and chuckled softly, which produced a low growl from Nicholas.
“Let me get right to the point. Ms. Lancaster,” Sir Gawaine said impatiently. “We want you to return home—to your time. The future came too close to changing with you here. We are here to make certain that you go back.”
She turned to Nicholas. She could go back? Back to her father, her friends, her job? Back to painkillers and cellphones and social media. “Nicholas, would you—”
“Ms. Lancaster,” Sir Gawaine said, interrupting…and perhaps reading her thoughts, “you must go as you arrived. Alone.”
“Can’t you send him after me?”
“No. It only works every twenty years in any century.”
She was looking at Nicholas when Gawaine spoke. The alarm in her eyes was set directly on him. Alone? Leave him? “No.” Her voice shook. She turned to the ancient knight. “I can’t.”
“You must,” Sir Gawaine told her. “You will no doubt disrupt time if you remain here. It should not be too much of a concern for you. ’Tis believed that you might have been brought here by mistake. The brooch has been known to malfunction.”
She laughed. “What? Mistake? Sir Gawaine, nothing in my life has been so perfect for me. Nicholas has brought love into my life, and isn’t that what your king wanted for others because he never had it for himself? How can my coming here be a mistake?”
“You have said too much,” Gawaine said and unsheathed his sword.
Nicholas’ blade was out in an instant. Charlie’s was next.
Kes leaped between them and heard Nicholas swear.
“Stop it!” she demanded. “There doesn’t have to be any fighting. “I told you I won’t say another word. You can listen to my words or my thoughts, or whatever it is you do. If I speak of the future, you can send me back. But give me another chance.”
Gawaine was already shaking his head. “’Tis not up to me.”
“Just a minute now,” Kes told them. “Do you mean to tell me that you came into my life and turned it completely upside-down
