LADY EVER AFTER: A Medieval Time Travel Romance (Beyond Time Book 2) Page 14

  Halting, he looked up the cliff face. Right of center, the rock was rougher and heavily veined with cracks, offering hand and footholds aplenty. But no harness. No rope. Nothing to catch him if he fell.

  “Y-you are b-bleeding.”

  He followed Catherine’s gaze to his hands. His fingers were raw from the handholds he had fought to keep. And they would bleed more before he got her out of this mess. Odd how dull the pain was.

  “They will heal,” he said and returned his attention to the cliff.

  He was going up, and his acceptance of that brought a flood of memories.

  Reaching for the lip of rock overhead. Curling fingers around it. Pulling himself up. The rock breaking away. Losing one foothold, then the other. Lurching downward. The snap of the rope going taut. The harness tightening. The link failing…

  As he had lain broken on a hospital bed, he had vowed his climbing days were over, that even if his body was put back together, he would never face another rock.

  Aryn had said he would.

  Pained by the memory, he opened and closed the hand of his injured arm. Would it hold him?

  “Wh-what is it?” Catherine asked.

  He urged her to the cliff base and turned her to him. “I have to leave. The only way—”

  “Leave?”

  “There’s no adequate shelter, and it will only get colder.”

  “I do not u-understand.”

  He nodded at the cliff. “I’m going up there, but I’ll be back for you.”

  “How?”

  “I have to climb it.”

  Her wide eyes slid up the sheer rock wall. “You c-cannot.”

  “I can.”

  Her teeth clicked. “P-pray do not leave me, Collier.”

  “I’ll return for you.” He pulled the mantle closed around her. “I promise.”

  Her gaze moistened further, and she dropped her chin.

  “Trust me,” he said, then tilted her face up and covered her mouth with his. Something to warm them both until he returned.

  Not surprisingly, her only response was to lean into him.

  Collier drew back, and when she started to lower to the rock, pulled her up. “You have to keep moving—walk, run in place, whatever you can manage. It’ll keep you warm. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  Would she do it? She looked too weary, but the sooner he got up the cliff, the sooner he could get her to safety.

  He swung away, but quickly came back around. “Even if you start to feel warm, don’t remove any of your clothing.” It wasn’t uncommon for a person with hypothermia to develop a sensation of extreme warmth once they began to lose consciousness. “Do you hear me?”

  Another nod.

  Feeling the cold, but knowing the climb would warm him, he chose his first handholds, tested their strength, then found his footholds. At least there was one good thing about the thin-soled boots he found so uncomfortable—they were flexible enough to allow him to feel the rock and bend to it. Providing he could withstand the elements, he would make it.

  God, he once more called on the only one who could help them, if I don’t make it, let my efforts point the way to Catherine. Save her.

  Once more assailed by images of his last climb, he silently commanded, Focus. Let nothing come between you and the rock. Just you and the rock.

  As Catherine watched Collier begin his ascent, she clutched the edges of the mantle closed. She was so cold. What had he said? That if she kept moving she would stay warm?

  Thoughts thick and muddied, she took a step forward and another, but she was too stiff. And it hurt. Nay, he must have said she should not move. That she should rest.

  She slid down the rock onto her haunches and peered up at where he clung to the cliff twenty feet above. Huddling there, she watched this man who had changed her life more than once do the impossible. Of course, what he had done in bringing them out of the cavern had also been impossible. Now, without a rope, he steadily climbed.

  Was it magic? Witchery? Of the devil? Did it matter? All she wanted was for him to return to her. And to be warm again.

  The wind whipping hair into her eyes, she lifted a hand to push it aside, but her fingers ached unbearably. With a great shudder, she began rocking herself back and forth.

  A short while later, she saw Collier attempt to make it over a ledge. He leaned out with an outstretched arm, gripped the ledge, grabbed it with the other hand, brought a foot up, and began pulling himself over. Then he went from sight.

  Never in her life had she felt so alone. But at least she had stopped shivering and was beginning to warm.

  Perhaps she ought to sleep away the time until Collier returned. Aye, and when next she opened her eyes, he would be here. His promise kept.

  Ah, dear Lord, I am tired. Her lids fluttered closed. So very tired.

  It was a miracle Collier was sighted three-quarters of the way up the cliff—just as he summoned what he feared was the last of his strength. Sending thanks heavenward, he watched the rope plummet toward him. And land well out of reach.

  He could climb to it. He had come this far. What was another ten feet? He looked to where Peter Duby leaned out over the battlements, nodded, and began traversing the wall.

  Hands throbbing, he jammed his fingers into a crack, secured them in the tight space, and changed footholds. Still, he was several feet from the rope, and the next available handhold was a long reach away.

  He stood up on his toes and pulled his body close in to the rock to attain maximum extension, but it wasn’t enough.

  Heart pounding harder, he acknowledged there was only one way he could make it to the handhold. A dynamic move. For an accomplished climber, it was common enough and carried little risk—providing one’s equipment was good and whoever controlled the rope was alert. But he had neither. If he didn’t make it, he would take a fall no amount of medical expertise could save him from.

  Catherine is waiting for you to keep your promise, he reminded himself, then forced his thoughts to a singular focus and lunged. At the dead point, the apex of his movement when his body was weightless for a split second before falling, he grabbed the handhold. It held.

  Heaving a sigh of relief, he jammed the thumb and index finger of his other hand into a thin crack and smeared both his feet against the rock. Once stable, he reached for the rope and secured it around his waist.

  A few more minutes, Catherine, he silently promised and looked up the cliff face to where Peter Duby awaited a signal. Collier made eye contact. Then knowing he wouldn’t be heard above the wind and rain, he pointed down.

  The soldier tilted his head questioningly.

  Collier jerked his chin and pointed again. Time was too precious to waste on being pulled up. Duby and the others would understand soon enough.

  Slowly, the rope began to feed out.

  Now the easy part. Pushing off, he rappelled downward, landed his booted feet to the rock, and pushed off again. And so it went, all the way down the cliff face. As he neared the bottom, he picked out Catherine’s huddled figure.

  Throughout the climb, he had refused to look down, knowing it would break his concentration, but he had feared he would find her like this.

  Upon reaching the ground, he quickly removed the rope and ran toward where she sat against the rock with her head bent to her knees. He called to her, but she didn’t respond.

  Heart constricting further, he assured himself she was well, just cold and tired. But when he crouched beside her, lifted her chin, and called her name, her head lolled. And though her skin was icy, she didn’t shiver. Her body had given up trying to warm itself.

  Pain split him open—much like when he had learned Aryn was dead.

  “God, not Catherine, too,” he prayed and, putting his ear to her mouth, didn’t draw breath as he tried to detect her own breathing. It was thready, but present.

  Quickly, he fashioned a seat harness from rope—loops for his legs, a sling beneath his buttocks, and tied around hi
s waist. Then cradling Catherine, he gave the rope a jerk.

  The slack was drawn up and their journey began. Knowing in Catherine’s state, her heart might snap at the slightest jolt, he carefully walked his legs up the rock.

  One more miracle, he prayed. One more.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The wait had become intolerable. And so it was over. Like it or not.

  Collier thrust open the door and entered the suffocatingly warm chamber.

  The three women beside the tub looked up, and the eldest hurriedly stepped in front of the tub. “You should not be here, Sir Collier.”

  He moved his gaze past Tilly to Catherine who was supported in the bath by the other two, her chin on her chest. “Anything?” he asked.

  Tilly folded her hands over her abdomen. “She has warmed, and her breathing is deeper.”

  He stepped farther into the room.

  “Our lady is not presentable.” Tilly hastened forward. “You must needs leave, sire.”

  He peered down at her. “She is to be my wife.”

  “Aye, to be.”

  Did she believe him a rapist the same as Catherine? “I assure you, your lady’s virtue is in no danger.”

  He saw more than felt her touch his arm. “There will be talk.”

  “Let there be.” He stepped around her and, ignoring the nervous stirrings of the maids, knelt beside the tub.

  Seeing color had returned to Catherine’s face, he lifted a hand to test its heat, but reminded his fingers were bandaged, leaned forward and laid his cheek against her brow.

  She was warm. Now if only she would awaken.

  “You are no longer needed,” he told the younger women.

  They looked to Tilly who had come to stand behind Collier, then relinquished their lady and withdrew.

  Supporting Catherine beneath the arms, he felt water seep through his bandages. It was hot, just as he’d ordered, and the buckets nearby attested to the heated water periodically added to sustain the temperature.

  “Prepare her a place before the fire,” he instructed Catherine’s maid.

  “’Tis in bed my lady ought to be.”

  “She has hypothermia, Tilly. Now that she’s warmed, her temperature has to be kept constant.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Hypothermia?”

  “Just do as I ask.”

  While she removed the covers from the bed and arranged them on one of two chairs before the hearth, he considered Catherine’s face. Would she awaken?

  “’Tis ready, sire.” Tilly appeared at his side holding a towel.

  Gaze averted, Collier lifted Catherine and her maid quickly draped the towel over her. When he lowered Catherine into the chair, Tilly arranged the covers around her charge.

  “I will send for you when she awakens, Sir Collier.”

  “I’m staying, but you may go.”

  She straightened. “I should leave her alone with you?”

  He met her gaze and thought how kind her eyes were. “After all that’s happened, do you truly believe I would harm her?”

  Her hesitation so slight as to be imagined, she shook her head. “I have been watching you.”

  As he knew.

  “Methinks you begin to care much for my lady.”

  More than expected, he silently admitted. “I am not her enemy. All I want is to keep her safe.”

  She glanced at his bandaged fingers. “I believe that has been proven. However, you must consider appearances. Already you bring talk upon yourself and our lady just by being in her chamber. Were I to leave you alone…”

  “I will deal with it.”

  “Very well.” She bobbed her head, causing the dark lock to spring forward, then started to withdraw.

  “Tilly?”

  “Sire?”

  “That’s short for Matilda, isn’t it?”

  She blinked, then smiled wide. “Mercy, ’tis so long since I have been called by my given name, I near denied it.”

  Though it was hard to proceed with caution, Collier said, “I feel as if we’ve met before—that is, before I came to Strivling.”

  “Usually when I am told that, it is so.” She glanced up at the distinctive lock. “Thus, ’tis very possible we have met. Another time…another place.”

  Gripped by those last words, he said, “You have served Lady Catherine long?”

  “Since her birth. But before that, I was with the Wynlands. You know the family?”

  Those whose medieval roots went deeper than the Morrows’, of greatest note Baron Fulke Wynland, who had administered his nephew’s holdings until the young man assumed the title of Earl of Sinwell. In Collier’s twenty-first century, he had met two of the descendants—the redoubtable matriarch over a business transaction, and Hunt Wynland, who had attended university with James.

  “I mean no disrespect, sire, I but thought it might be at Sinwell we happened on each other when you were a child and I still a fairly young woman.” Tilly touched the forelock. “Even then I had this.”

  “I’m not offended,” Collier said. “I was simply trying to place the Wynlands. Though I have heard of them, I haven’t been to Sinwell.” Fifteenth-century Sinwell, he silently amended.

  “Then it must needs remain a curiosity.” Bending, she fussed over her lady’s covers, causing Catherine to murmur something and turn her face toward the fire.

  Tilly looked up. “Your name on her lips, Sir Collier. That portends well for my lady’s future and yours.”

  Collier’s mind moved to the draped portrait whose presence he had heretofore refused to acknowledge—a portal that could return him to his future, which had seemed the better alternative to one in which he forever looked upon Aryn in the person of one who viewed him only as her enemy. However, after all that had happened today, perhaps Catherine would begin to trust him—might even come to feel for him. And perhaps not.

  “Does it portend well for her future, Tilly?”

  She frowned. “You do not believe it, Sir Collier?”

  He was unaccustomed to revealing his insecurities, even to those whose age and experience could save him from monetary and emotional mistakes, but he sensed she cared deeply for Catherine, as if she was far more than a maid—like a mother his own had not been.

  Before that reminder of the woman who had abandoned James and him closed him up, he said, “When Catherine looks at me, she sees a conquering Yorkist who must be vanquished. In her I see a conquered Lancastrian who must accept the end of King Henry’s rule. That is a great divide, and I don’t understand why I’m in a position to try to cross it.”

  A beatific smile replaced her frown. “That divide is nothing to the God of all.” She tilted her head. “You do believe in Him, do you not?” At his hesitation, she prompted, “He who can bring out of any storm even those utterly lost to it?”

  As Catherine and he had been lost to the sea and wind—until his prayers were answered. “I believe.” He glanced at Catherine’s restful face. “Even so, I don’t know how to reach her.”

  Her smile turned sympathetic. “As much as we prefer God to scatter His truths on the surface so we have but to scoop them up and congratulate ourselves on our reach, methinks our wondrous Lord prefers that we search deep, for is that not where the heart lies?” She stepped near and so softly laid a hand on his arm he felt only its warmth. “You will find your way, as my lady will find hers. And when those ways cross, you both have only to stand still to bridge the divide.”

  Collier thought how otherworldly she seemed, but before he could further delve that possibility, she turned and crossed the room. At the door, she said, “Tell me, Sir Collier, how are your dreams?”

  Dreams—what he was no longer convinced this was. “Why do you ask?”

  “Have you ever dreamed something that later came to be?”

  Where was this leading? “I don’t believe so.”

  She glanced at Catherine. “My lady has such dreams, though she will not own to it. I have wondered if she dreamed of your com
ing.”

  Catherine a soothsayer? Able to foresee events? He recalled the night he had apprehended her when she had stolen through the darkened hall. He had asserted Walther would have killed her had he not stepped between the mercenary and her, and he’d seen in her eyes she knew it as well. Was it by way of dreams?

  Tilly clicked her tongue. “Ramblings only, Sir Collier. Pay me no heed.” She raised her skirts, stepped into the corridor, and closed the door.

  Though he wanted to call her back and press her for an explanation, he dropped into the chair beside Catherine. And yielded to bone-deep fatigue.

  She was warmed through, as if by a summer’s day. And to think she had feared she would never again feel this way…

  Catherine opened her eyes, and as she looked from the covers bundled around her to the softly crackling fire, flexed her fingers and toes. They ached, but she could feel them. Why had she not awakened when Collier returned for her?

  She looked around and there he was. Legs stretched out, hands draped over the arms of a chair near hers, he slept.

  Trust me, he had said, and as promised, he had come back for her.

  As she stared at him, something unfolded in her heart. Was it that which Hildegard had warned made slaves of women, grinding their spirits beneath the heels of men? Which Hildegard had claimed her own son was unworthy of?

  Catherine waged a battle between the past and the present—between what she felt and should not—then turned back the covers. And discovered that except for a towel damply molded to her, she was unclothed.

  She snatched the covers back over her. Had Collier seen her thus? Nay, Tilly would not have allowed it. He must have entered the chamber after the maid had settled her lady in the chair. But where was Tilly now?

  Catherine grasped the covers at her chest, sat forward, and slowly rose. Holding the chair to steady herself, she looked around. It was gathering dark, but there was no question Collier and she were the chamber’s only occupants.

  Did Tilly truly trust this man alone with her lady—and in her chamber, no less? Unbelievable. Collier would have had to forcefully remove the woman. But that was also unbelievable.