Heroes Live Forever (Knights in Time) (3 page)

“When?”

“Tonight.”

Basil kept an eye on the stairs watching for Elinor. She’d returned from lunch that afternoon and finished emptying all the boxes in the kitchen. Afterward, she’d gone upstairs but left the lights on in the drawing room. He hoped she’d return to unpack the boxes in there.

Elinor didn’t disappoint him. He looked up as she came down and went straight to the stereo. He joined her as she rifled through the stack of albums and pulled one out.

“She’s playing that plague music again,” Basil said to Guy. “The one about Saturday night fevers.”

The knights leaned over to get a better look at the cover. A man in a white suit posed on colored boxes, while a mirrored ball appeared ready to drop onto his head. Elinor lingered over the picture before removing the black disc.

“Surely, she can’t find this skinny fellow handsome. He’s so—common,” Basil said.

“Probably French,” Guy said with a measure of disgust.

The record dropped down and as the first notes played, Elinor began to hum and sway. The white man’s shirt she wore covered all the essential spots, as long as she stayed moderately still. She danced over to one box, opened it, and then moved to another. The shirttail flipped back and forth as she sorted through their contents. Flashes of lacey panties popped into Basil’s view where the garment rode high.

Guy’s gaze slid from Elinor back to Basil. “Do you think it odd we find ourselves,
such as we are
, so drawn to some mortals? I’d have thought that sort of feminine attraction might have ended or have no validity for us now.”

“Elinor has joyousness, a generosity of spirit, a kind nature. That’s in and of itself, a strong enticement.” Basil followed her as she worked, moving nearer as she sorted through the boxes. “There’s a pleasing grace about her.”

Elinor removed two large paintings from their containers and set them against the sofa. She picked off the fragments of packing material stuck to them.

Basil studied the artwork. The first was a beautiful woman in a long white gown. A dark-haired man in chain mail and surcoat knelt before her. The lady held a sword to his shoulder as though knighting him. It was titled,
The Accolade.

“Interesting paintings, don’t you think?” Basil asked, curious how Guy would interpret Elinor’s choice.

“I think I’d rather bed the wench than be dubbed by her.” Guy peered over to where Elinor was dusting the frames. “Though, I’d not mind having her dub me.”

“You are confusing dubbing with tupping.” Basil joked back and went to the sofa. “In my experience, women and swords are a bad combination.”

The second picture, called
Godspeed
, showed a company of knights passing through a castle portcullis. One knight on horseback was stopped. A young woman with reddish gold hair bent to tie a fringed silk favor to his mailed arm.

Basil tilted his head and critically appraised the works. “This is her ideal of what knights were like. This is the vision she is enamored with and has stamped on her heart.” A pensive sadness touched his eyes as he studied the art. Basil’s gaze lifted to Elinor. “Oh milady, sometimes it was this lovely, but more often, it wasn’t.”

Long legs and more of the frilly panties revealed themselves as Elinor bent and picked up the empty picture boxes. Basil’s attention fixed on her. He took his time letting his eyes travel downward from her bottom, the length of her thigh, over her firm calves then back up in slow appreciation.

Elinor half-hummed, half-sang along to another song.

“Rhiannon,”
Guy said and smiled over at Basil. “I went to Wales once, on king’s business, to sort out a problem on the border. One of the loveliest ladies I ever bedded was a Welsh maid I met there named Rhiannon.”

Basil was fascinated as Elinor’s hips rolled to the rhythm of the music. Primitive in his opinion, and boldly sexual, he wanted the dance and song to go on and more. He wanted to slide his hand over every place his gaze touched. He wanted to know if her flesh was as smooth and warm as he imagined. He wanted to make her heart race with his caress.
He wanted.
The resurrected sensation astonished him.

Elinor danced over to the table and gathered her hammer, nails and a pencil then danced back without missing a beat. She laid the hammer and nails down and held the pencil in her mouth.

She stepped onto the sofa and raised the first picture to the wall. She struggled, staggering a bit in the soft cushions with the unwieldy painting’s weight. She positioned the picture and pencil marked a spot on the wall and then lowered the painting. Elinor hammered a nail in and with a small grunt lifted the painting up. She rocked back and forth on the cushion, barely managing to maintain her footing.

Basil laid a palm under the bottom of the frame while Elinor hooked the wire over the nail.

“Well, that was easier than I thought,” she said, and then shuddered. “Ooh.” She brushed the back of her legs vigorously and inspected the sofa.

She sidestepped across the sofa, squinted to gauge the distance between the pictures. She marked another spot and then hoisted the second painting.

Guy positioned himself behind Elinor on the left, while Basil stood on her right. Each took a corner of the frame and lifted as she raised the picture.

“I must be getting used to the weight,” she muttered. She lowered the picture long enough to hammer a nail into place. Once again, the knights lifted the corners. Elinor hung the piece with ease.

The knights lingered close to her.

“Ugh, spiders!” Elinor cried in a strangled voice as she swatted, rubbed and shook her head repeatedly. She jerked back hard, lost her balance and tumbled backwards.

Strong arms caught her.
Strong arms?
Before that curious thought formed in her confused brain, she found herself upright.

Elinor blinked several times, trying to get her bearings.

“I didn’t feel that. I’ll look behind me and see no one is there,” she reassured herself not wholly convinced. Prepared for flight over fight, she spun around.

A man stood a few feet away. At least what was visible looked like a man. He appeared to be a knight, similar to the one in her painting, except semi-transparent. She gasped, momentarily more stunned than afraid. The knight seemed as disconcerted as she was shocked. Two ebony eyebrows slashed downward into a harsh frown as he stared back. He composed himself. The fleeting moment where he looked rattled, gone.

He wore mail and a dark blue surcoat with a leopard embroidered on it in bronze silk. The metal links gleamed and the tunic appeared fresh pressed. Tall, with shoulder length hair, in the soft lamplight, his eyes were as black as his hair. He had a hawkish nose. A bump at the bridge and slightly crooked, it looked like it had been broken and not properly set. The flaw suited the harsh jaw line and high cheekbones. She smiled to herself. Her mother often teased her about her attraction to men with large noses. The distracting thought was short lived and she focused on the strange figure.

“Milady.” The corners of his mouth tipped in weak smile. “I would’ve liked us to have met under better circumstances.”

He’d spoken with an English accent she couldn’t place a region to. There was a rich, old world quality to it like strong imported coffee. The exact voice she’d have associated with the knights in her paintings.

A sinking feeling grew stronger as she began to put two and two together. The paintings, the ones she loved were the last things she saw before falling.

“Oh, my God, I’m dead!”

Elinor searched the area around her. Her words came in a breathless running commentary. “Where’s my body? People who’ve had near death experiences say they floated above their bodies. Shouldn’t I see my body too?”

“You’re not dead. You’re fine,” the knight said.

“I didn’t think I’d go this young.”

“Elinor—”

She slid her hand tentatively over the back of her neck.

“Did I break my neck?”

“Elinor--”

The sinking feeling faded as she struggled to accept her death with dignity. “My poor mom, first my grandmother, now me-“

“God’s teeth, woman. Will you listen?”

“This will devastate her.”

“You’re not dead!”

His raised voice grabbed her attention. No longer semi-transparent, the knight appeared solid now. “My God...” She backed up until her calves touched the sofa. “What...who...are you,” she stammered. “How do you know my name?”

“You’re not dead,” he said. “Why would you think that?”

“I fell off the sofa. Clearly, I’m dead and seeing angels or...I’m in a coma, that’s it.”

She’d always believed angels were androgynous and...blonde. Masculine and rugged looking with his inky eyes and hair, the angel before her walked out of a fanciful daydream.

“Why else would a figure from my favorite painting come to life? Quite honestly, I’d say it’s very thoughtful to send me an angel dressed like a knight. I guess you felt I wouldn’t be scared this way.” She sighed. “At least my death was painless.”

Elinor thought for a moment then pointed an accusing finger. “You swore. Angels aren’t supposed to swear or raise their voices.”

“I can assure you of two things. I’m no angel, and you aren’t dead or in a coma, whatever that may be. You’re very much alive and I’m very much a ghost.”

She analyzed what he told her. Her body wasn’t lying on the floor, so she probably wasn’t dead. There were no fuzzy edges to her vision, like she imagined accompanied a coma. This was a hoax, she concluded.

“Lucy put you up to this, didn’t she? Well, I don’t appreciate the fact you broke into my house to play this stupid trick.” She pointed to the door but kept her eyes on the man. “Get out. Go. Now, before I call the police.”

He shook his head. “Lucy didn’t put me up to anything, Elinor. I’m telling you the truth. I’m a ghost.”

“How do you know my name, if she didn’t tell you?”

“I’ve always known your name.”

It was late. Her patience was exhausted. And, this bloody actor was in her house. He had to leave or she’d have no choice but to call a constable. “Out!”

“This is not going well.” Another voice, invisible, whispered loud enough for her to hear.

“Appear for her.”

“Who are you talking to?” Elinor considered the intruder with wary curiosity.

A brown-haired knight in mail appeared. A fraction shorter, he was handsome in the traditional sense, the way the first knight wasn’t. His surcoat was scarlet and charcoal grey with a swan embroidered on the front.

“Oh. My. God. In the movies, this is where the heroine faints.” She wasn’t that fragile. Elinor lowered her head, and as unobtrusively as possible, measured the distance between her and the front door. Her heart beat triple time against her ribs. She wondered if her feet could move that fast.

The first knight smiled. “You said you wanted to meet a ghost and voila, twice as many as you hoped for.”

The second knight winked at her.

If they weren’t sent by Lucy, and if she wasn’t dead, they were either truly ghosts or none of this was real. She went with the logical answer. “I banged my head when I fell, and I’m hallucinating.” Something the first knight said clicked in her mind. “When did you hear me say I wanted to meet a ghost?”

“I overheard you speaking with your friend. I figured you’d be happy we weren’t headless apparitions.”