LADY EVER AFTER: A Medieval Time Travel Romance (Beyond Time Book 2) Page 11

  “Collier!” Kneeling beside his brother, he gripped his chin, turned the gray-cast face toward him, and drew a sharp breath. A clotted fissure slanted across Collier’s temple and ran back into hair matted with blood.

  “Is he…?” the housekeeper whispered.

  James lowered his ear to his brother’s mouth. Moments later, he saw the slight rise of Collier’s chest and, as he thanked God, felt the exhalation against his cheek. “He’s breathing.”

  He reached for his cell phone—the one he had left in his car. With a grunt of frustration, he looked over his shoulder. “Call an ambulance.”

  As Matilda’s broad-heeled shoes tapped out a retreat over the hardwood floor, James called again, “Collier!” and lightly slapped his jaw.

  Receiving no response, he considered transferring his brother to the bed. However, since it might do him further harm, he sat back on his heels. And became aware of a weight on his chest—or was it his heart? Though for years there had been so much ill between the brothers that at best James felt aversion for Collier, at worst contempt, something rose in him that made him desperate to fix what appeared to be very broken.

  Hating the helplessness that would surely leave him vulnerable, he forced himself to think elsewhere—beginning with what had transpired here.

  An immense framed picture lay facedown on the other side of Collier, and when he looked up, he saw mounting hooks were partially pulled from the wall above the fireplace.

  How had the picture come down? And was it the cause of Collier’s injury?

  Noticing the sword on the hearth whose polished blade reflected something dark red in color, he guessed it was the one their father had willed to his younger son as a companion piece to the unsightly painting that had no right to be as valuable as it was—even if the woman hidden there was the legendary Catherine Algernon.

  He returned his gaze to the picture that lay amid colorful pieces of paper. It was the right size, and as obsessed as Collier was with the painted-over portrait, James knew that if he turned it over, violet eyes would stare out of the landscape—otherworldly eyes that always unsettled him for how alive they appeared for one slain so long ago.

  Frowning, he reconsidered the sword and nearly laughed at his imagination’s suggestion the red on it was blood rather than a reflection. For one thing, the color was not at the point. For another, it was on both edges in two places left and right of the blade’s center. And yet…

  He confirmed Collier continued to breathe, then moved to the hearth. When he ran a finger over the discoloration on one edge of the blade, it flaked away to reveal silver beneath.

  Dried blood. Meaning foul play? Or…?

  He turned back and saw blood even before he opened his brother’s hands to reveal sliced palms.

  As he cast about for the reason Collier had taken hold of the blade, he saw more blood stained the carpet where a corner of the picture’s frame rested nearby. The picture had to be the cause of Collier’s head injury.

  Had he intentionally pulled it off the wall? If so, why?

  James stepped around his brother and carefully turned the heavy picture onto its back. Discovering Collier had finally succeeded in having the portrait restored, he abruptly straightened.

  Though the mystery of Catherine Algernon—a woman dead long enough to be nothing but dust—had always bored him, he avidly took in her long, auburn hair, violet eyes that dominated alluring features, red rose on her gown, and graceful hands in her lap.

  He frowned. There was something familiar about her, as if—

  A current of air moved across the scattered paper, causing them to flutter. When he picked up a piece and it disintegrated, he corrected himself. Not paper. Old paint. And farther out was a larger flake with small flowers dotting its surface.

  The finest restorers had been unable to remove the top layer of paint without damaging the portrait beneath. Surely Collier hadn’t done it himself. But what other explanation? And what had impelled him to risk his prized possession?

  Recalling the housekeeper’s account of his brother’s return home, that she had given him his mail and Collier’s raging had commenced shortly thereafter, James scanned the room again and located a pile of correspondence on the mattress—unopened, though nearby lay an envelope whose flap was torn back. And its contents?

  There—crumpled paper to the right of the hearth.

  He retrieved it, smoothed it open, and read the painfully short letter. Aryn was dead.

  James knew the name and recalled the grainy photo that had appeared in the tabloids six or more months ago. It had shown Collier emerging from a New York theater holding the hand of a lovely, short-haired woman whose high heels elevated her to his chin. She had appeared to be laughing and, miracle of miracles, Collier was smiling so broadly his teeth showed. The caption: Collier Morrow with latest love, Aryn…something or other.

  James jerked his gaze to the portrait, next the framed photo whose shattered glass he had ground into the carpet upon entering the room.

  The hairs on his arms standing, he strode forward and snatched up the photo. Smiling up at him through a shard of glass was the woman from the theater. Now he understood why the face of Catherine Algernon was familiar.

  What the bloody hell was going on? It made no sense—

  He cursed. Sense or not, what mattered was getting Collier medical attention. Returning to him, peering into his gray face, James shouted, “Matilda! Where is that accursed—?”

  “The ambulance is on its way, Mr. Morrow.”

  Wondering how he had missed the clack of her shoes, he looked around. Standing in the doorway, hands clasped at her waist, wearing a strangely serene expression, she said, “How is he?”

  “Comatose, I’d guess.” James swallowed. “How long was he away from the house, and where was he?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “I wouldn’t know. I’m filling in for his regular housekeeper while she’s on holiday.”

  He thrust the photo toward her. “You’ve never seen this woman?”

  She crossed the room, frowned over Collier’s still figure, then leaned forward to examine the photo. “The young lady has an uncanny look about her, as if…”

  “As if?” he said more harshly than intended.

  She straightened, raised and dropped a shoulder. “As if from another time, another place.”

  James gestured at the portrait of Catherine Algernon—and was astonished by words that had no business coming from his mouth. “That time? That place?”

  Matilda’s head bobbed as if with surprise, causing the dark lock on her brow to shift. “Why, I believe you’re right, Mr. Morrow. Exactly that time. And place.”

  She humored him, he resentfully mulled. Did she think him peculiar?

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Morrow.” She laid a hand on his shoulder that he was too wound up to feel. “I’m sure that, in the fullness of time, your brother will come out of this better than before.”

  Before what? he wanted to ask, but she turned and called over her shoulder, “I believe I hear the ambulance.”

  As her shoes pattered over the wood floor outside the bedroom, he looked back at Collier and said low, “You had better come out of this better than before, little brother, or I’ll make your life…” He squeezed his eyes closed. “…my life more miserable.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Northern England

  May 1464

  Collier glanced at Catherine where she sat beside him. She had hardly touched her food.

  Neither did he have an appetite, though more because of the meal. The venison was edible, but the rest ought to be scraped into a garbage disposal. In a trencher—a carved-out piece of stale bread whose crust was dappled with mold—wilted vegetables floated in a yellow-brown broth.

  He grimaced. Until supplies arrived, this would have to do. He only prayed no one was laid low with food poisoning.

  “It finds no favor with you?” Catherine asked.

  This being the first time s
he had initiated conversation since confronting him on the use of soldiers for menial work three days ago, she surprised him.

  He followed her gaze to his platter, then looked to hers. Though trenchers were typically shared between two, he had said nothing each time she was served one separate from his.

  As she herself had only picked at this day’s offering, he said, “Does it find favor with you?”

  She lowered her spoon. “I am simply without appetite.”

  From her tone, he was more responsible than the food.

  He leaned back and waited until the others’ trenchers bottomed out, then stood and signaled an end to the meal.

  In the ensuing commotion, Catherine moved toward the kitchen.

  Knowing she would be occupied there for some time, he went abovestairs and entered her chamber. With the light of day’s end filtering through the windows, he paused to remember the night of his arrival in the fifteenth century.

  He had been certain it was Aryn on the bed. Certain she was a dream from which he would soon awaken. But with each passing day, he was more convinced he had been wrong on both accounts.

  Reminding himself of the reason he once more trespassed, he crossed to the trunk at the foot of the bed. It took only moments to determine the contents were clothing and there was no false bottom beneath them.

  So where had she hidden the coin? He patted down the mattress and peered beneath the bed. Nothing. What of the hidden passages? Might she have stowed Strivling’s wealth within them? As he turned toward the tapestry, something propped in a far corner of the room and draped with a cloth caught his eye.

  Though he doubted Catherine would leave the coin in such a conspicuous place, curiosity drew him to it. He lowered to his haunches, and as he lifted a corner of the cloth, his heart sped. He knew what was beneath.

  He pulled off the cloth. The portrait was the same as when he had looked up through the flakes of paint drifting down around him—unfinished and without trace of the landscape that would be painted over it. The only noticeable difference was the vividness of the colors. Even in the dim, the violet eyes were so dark they were nearly purple, the auburn of the hair was richer, and the red of the rose more intense. It was Catherine Algernon as she had appeared just before her death in 1464.

  A death he had reversed when he was snatched from the twenty-first century. As he lightly traced the face of the woman who looked like Aryn, he thought how strange it was that the one with whom he had fallen in love would not be born for half a millennium—and yet, in that distant future she was already lost to him.

  He touched the red rose, trailed his fingers over Catherine’s hands. And froze when he heard, as if from the end of a long tunnel, a woman’s voice. But just as he determined it was too despairing to belong to the one who had abandoned her sons, that same voice called his name and he felt himself tugged toward the portrait.

  Certain he must have lost his balance, he gripped the frame to steady himself.

  Then his brother’s voice. Loud. Angry.

  And pleading in a voice that should be long forgotten.

  This time it was no tug Collier felt. Like iron to magnet, he was pulled forward. Wrenching back and upright, he found his release from whatever force sought to drag him away.

  “Bloody hell!” he rasped. Was the portrait a way back?

  Keeping his distance, he stared into the painted eyes of Catherine Algernon. If the portrait was a portal, did he wish to return to a world that didn’t require him to gird a sword and be prepared to use it? Or should he remain here with a woman who was not Aryn—who loathed him as much as James and cared for him as little as his mother?

  He frowned. Had he not resisted the portrait’s pull, what would he have found on the other side? Were James and his long-absent mother truly there? If so, what were they doing together besides arguing? And was it possible Collier was also there—hadn’t simply disappeared?

  He breathed deep. Regardless of his presence or lack of presence in his world, regardless of what he wanted, he couldn’t leave the fifteenth century. At least not yet. He had put Catherine back into history, and until he could persuade her to keep her head down—securing as good a future for her as possible—he wouldn’t leave her. Would not fail her as he had failed…

  “Aryn,” he said on his exhale.

  From where she peered through the space between door and frame, Catherine pondered what she witnessed. Upon discovering Gilchrist in her chamber, she had nearly burst in, but the way he stood looking at her portrait had caused curiosity, uncertainty, and fear to displace anger. Now appearing to address the painting, he spoke that woman’s name again.

  Was he of the devil? An evil invoked by the ungodly Edward to assure his wrongful claim to the throne of England? Gilchrist was dark enough, especially with his new growth of beard.

  Superstitions pricked by the Church’s teachings, she stepped back and halted when the floor creaked.

  A moment later, Gilchrist flung open the door. “Catherine.”

  She glared. “What do you in my chamber?”

  “Looking for something.”

  “As told, the coin is not in my possession.”

  “I believe it is, and I intend to find it.”

  “Then you will be searching a long time.” She glanced beyond him. “Are you finished trespassing?”

  “For now.”

  “Then good eve.”

  He inclined his head, stepped past her, and strode down the corridor.

  As she shouldered the door closed, she looked to the trunk Gilchrist had surely delved, then her bed he would have searched, lastly the portrait. With the cloth removed, the canvas reflected her image like a mirror—or nearly so, for her likeness was several sittings from being completed. And would never be.

  Where her betrothed now dwelt he had no need of the portrait his father had commissioned as a wedding present. Poor Lambert.

  Though older than Catherine, he had always seemed more of a younger brother than a man whose children she would bear. Like his father, who had looked to Hildegard for approval and guidance, Lambert had looked to Catherine. He had been weak, but she had cared for him. And she missed him. If not for the murdering Yorkists, he would be with her now.

  Heart heavy, she traversed the room. As she retrieved the cloth, her gaze fell to the rose standing red against her unpainted bodice.

  She smiled in remembrance of the artist’s objection when she had directed him to give color to the sketched rose before all else. Had the canvas not been so white, she would not have insisted, but the white rose was the heraldic badge of the house of York.

  Catherine touched the red, unfolding petals, then draped the cloth over the portrait.

  She did not need the hidden passages. She would do what needed to be done by daylight. And she would do it soon.

  What had Catherine seen? Collier wondered as he stared at the wall the masons would begin work on tomorrow. Had she come upon him during his search of her chamber? Afterward? Had she seen the portrait pull him toward it? Had she heard him speak Aryn’s name?

  When he had found her in the corridor, she’d quickly hidden wariness behind anger. Whatever she had seen or heard, it caused her to fear him more. He could well imagine how her fifteenth-century mind construed what she had witnessed. If he wasn’t more careful, he would find himself the target of a witch hunt.

  Weary from too little sleep and too many worries and responsibilities, he rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. He needed a shave, but in the absence of electric shavers and multi-blade razors, it would have to wait.

  With the sound of the sea breaking on the rocks below, he descended the wall-walk and returned to the keep.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Retaliation did not come in the form of a dagger to the back. It came in the guise of a load of stone being raised up a scaffold. Blessedly, a sixth sense warned Collier and he lunged from beneath the hailing stones. But though he escaped with only bruises and scrapes, the girl ladling
water for the workers had not.

  If only I had seen her, he wished past the anger shoving him down its gullet. But even so, he couldn’t have reached her in time. She had been alive when the men carried her to the keep, but it was unlikely she would live past the hour.

  He brushed a thumb over the rope’s frayed end. He was certain it had not been worn through. Just as he was certain he knew who had cut it.

  He searched out the mercenary on the wall. From the set of Walther’s shoulders, he was just as angered by what had happened—though only because it was the girl who had fallen victim to the accident.

  As Collier took the wall-walk steps two at a time, Walther narrowly eyed him. Then, as if confident he had nothing to fear from a man reduced to one fighting arm, he drawled, “A pity. The girl was good with that ladle of hers.”

  Collier swung, but the mercenary sidestepped and punched the hilt of his dagger in his attacker’s belly.

  Though Collier’s slung arm nearly caused him to lose his balance, he quickly recovered.

  “Come, Gilchrist.” Walther beckoned with his blade.

  Never had Collier been as grateful for his mixed martial arts training than he was in this century. He evaded the dagger’s sweep, captured the mercenary’s wrist, and twisted his arm behind his back, forcing him to his knees.

  As those around the walls and in the bailey watched, Collier applied more pressure on the bones beneath his fingers and was rewarded by the dagger’s release.

  “You murdered her,” he growled.

  Walther strained to free himself. “I know naught of what you speak!”

  “You cut the rope.”

  “You are mad! I am a knight of noble birth, killing only in service to God and my king.”

  Collier pushed the man’s arm higher. “And your service.”