Return of the Rose (4 page)

“What?”

“You know, bow and call me your lady. It’s totally unnecessary. In fact, I was just looking for your boss before all hell broke loose.”

His eyes widened.

“Excuse my French,” she said, with another wave of her hand.

He cocked a puzzled brow.

An explosion and screams from the village broke into their exchange. Picking up the cauldron again, she started off, but Hugo leaned over and grasped her shoulder with his large hand. “I’ve been instructed to see that you stay in the castle, my lady.”

“By who?”

“By his lordship.”

“Ridiculous,” she said. “I might be able to help.”

Another man on a horse appeared around the same curve in the road. Morgan cursed her bad luck when she saw it was Emmon, the man-boy who thought she’d stolen his horse.

“Gustaf and his boy are trapped beneath the stables,” Emmon said to Hugo. “We need your help.”

Morgan gestured toward them both as if she were shooing away a couple of flies. “Go on, I’ll be right behind you two.”

Hugo smiled broadly as he leaned over and took the heavy cauldron from her. Emmon leaned low, too, a scowl on his face as he plucked her from the ground and grunted as if she weighed two hundred pounds.

“I’d rather walk,” she protested, but Emmon ignored her, clicking his heels into the animal’s sides. The horse raised its front hooves before taking off, leaving her no choice but to clutch onto the boy for dear life.

As the village came into view and the animal slowed, Morgan jumped from the horse, although she could have sworn she was half pushed. Emmon, she thought sourly, had an attitude problem.

“Stay put, my lady!” Hugo ordered before they rode off, blending into the chaos and taking her cauldron with them.

“Will do,” she muttered. Then she marched off in the opposite direction.

Dozens of people ran back and forth between the river and the burning homes, throwing water on dwellings still in flames. Horses, oxen, goats, and chickens ran loose, adding to the madness. Pitiful cries of children and animals blended together with the sounds of crackling fire.

She approached a group of people huddled in a circle. They all seemed to be talking at once, gesturing and pointing at something on the ground. The horror and panic covering their faces caused Morgan to push her way through the crowd until she saw what the commotion was about. Lying in a woman’s arms was a small boy she guessed to be hardly a year old. He had a bluish-gray tinge to his face and he wasn’t moving.

A movement to her right caught her attention. She looked up, surprised to see the same obnoxious man who’d kissed her in the castle. He carried a small girl, seemingly from the same fiery cottage the baby had come from. The child was a few years older than the boy. Her cry was piercing.

He quickly placed the little girl in a woman’s arms and then disappeared into the thick smoke before Morgan could ask him to help with the baby.

Nobody was doing anything. The baby’s face had turned purple. He was dying right before their eyes. Morgan’s heart lodged in her throat. She bit at her lip, and tried to remember her babysitter’s CPR course from when she was twelve.

Realizing she might be the baby’s only hope, she seized the baby from the helpless woman’s arms and quickly laid the infant on the ground. She tilted his head back and carefully inserted her finger to make sure his tongue wasn’t lodged in his throat. Next, she gave him four quick breaths of air before listening for a pulse.

Nothing. The boy didn’t stir.

“He’s dead!” someone shrieked.

“She killed him!” another wailed.

Ignoring the protests, Morgan proceeded to breathe air into the boy’s lungs. She’d only taken two CPR classes in her entire life but she wasn’t ready to give up. She blew four short breaths into the baby’s nose and mouth. Using two fingers from both hands she gently, yet firmly, pressed two times into his chest beneath his tiny ribs. Another four breaths…massage…four breaths…massage.

It had to work. The baby couldn’t die. She listened for a pulse and prayed to God for help. Four more breaths…massage.

The child’s face wrinkled as he turned bright red. Then he let out a piercing wail, stinging her ears and filling her heart with joy. Tears fell from her cheeks as relief flooded her insides. Never had she been so relieved to hear a baby cry. As she cradled the small boy in her arms, a firm, gentle hand framed her shoulder. She looked up into the brown eyes of the man she’d kissed earlier, and the elation she felt from having saved the boy caused her to smile at the man. He smiled back and the crowd cried out in approval.

~~~~

Hours later when the fire was out and the people without homes had found lodging, Lord Vanguard found himself once again face to face with the maid who had saved the small boy from certain death. “Come,” he said to the maid. “There is not much more we can do here.”

He had no idea why he felt inclined to invite the woman to join him but inclined was putting it mildly. Earlier in his study, he’d been absorbed in his work when she’d entered. But that failed to stop him from becoming mesmerized by the way her eyes lit up at his collection of books. Knowing of no woman who could read or write, he had determined she had come looking for much more than a good read. But it was he who had been taken aback when he kissed her earlier. His chest had grown tight with desire. The fact that this woman gave him even the slightest pause made him uncomfortable. Women were trouble. They had the characteristics of spiders: spinning their webs, waiting for a clumsy fool to fall within their net. He’d seen it happen to too many men: strong warriors transformed overnight, lured into a life of deception and turmoil.

The maid stopped short, tugging her arm free as they approached his mount.

“I don’t like horses,” she said stubbornly. “And I can’t believe you’d think I’d come with you after the way you treated me in the castle.”

He shrugged. Any fool could see that the maid was playing hard to get. An intriguing game, he mused, considering it had been years since any woman had bothered. As he murmured soothing words to his stallion, he decided he had not the time for games. Without giving her another thought, he untied his horse and walked off, leaving her behind.

“Hey!” the annoying wench shouted after him.

Impatiently, he glanced over his shoulder, promptly drawn to the curve of her hips within the absurdly snug breeches she wore. A ponderous sigh erupted as he wondered when he’d started getting soft in the head. “Are you coming, or not?” he asked.

“I don’t even know you.” She plunked a hand on her hip.

“Nor I you,” he said matter-of-factly.

“But you’re a man.”

“Aye,” he said, his gaze caressing every inch of her. “And you are very much a woman.”

Her cheeks blossomed with color, surprising him, for it was usually the inexperienced maidens who blushed, not brazen wenches such as she. He was due to leave shortly to visit the king’s holdings and this wench tempted him sorely. But he wasn’t about to play the fool simply because her eyes sparkled like rare jewels and her silken hair made his palms itch. Frowning, he gripped the leather reins and yanked his horse onward, reminding himself that he cared not whether she followed. He was tired and he needed a rest.

~~~~

Morgan hurried to catch up to him. If she were in her own time she might think twice before going into the woods with a stranger, but she’d seen firsthand how the people in the village respected him and how he risked his life to save those children. Besides, he was an accountant, and he wasn’t exactly begging her to come with him. “Where are we going?”

“There is a lake close by,” he said without glancing her way, “and I am hungry. I thought to share my food and drink but if you have training to get to, perhaps you should be on your way.”

“My afternoon’s pretty clear,” she said, struggling to keep up with his long strides. “And if you don’t mind my asking, what kind of training are you referring to?”

“Your womanly duties at Braddock, of course. Perhaps Matti will start you off with needle or shuttle, though it would depend on your age and other such things.”

She lifted both brows. “Like?”

“For example, how many children do you have…five, ten?”

She snorted. “I’m twenty-four. I don’t have any children.”

His eyes widened. “Most women, assuming they have survived the dangers of childbirth, have had more than a dozen by the time they reach four and twenty.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Are you married? Widowed?”

“Neither.”

He stopped in his tracks and looked her over with growing speculation.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Four and twenty and you have not married? Perhaps you are flawed in some way. Let me see your teeth.”

She shooed him away. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m in great shape. I do aerobics twice a week and I eat plenty of fruit and vegetables.”

He winced as if her words pained him. “It is a strange French accent you have?”

“More like a new-old sort of English.”

“Hmm. I would appreciate your use of intelligible English when in my presence. Now then, do as I say and reveal your teeth to me.”

Morgan rolled her eyes before impatiently flashing him a glimpse of her pearly whites.

He merely grunted before starting off again, following a worn path through patches of dogtooth violets and tall broadleaf trees.

“Wait up,” she called before she caught up to him and walked briskly at his side. “So? What did you think?”

He gave a noncommittal shrug. “I have seen better.”

“Just like a man,” she muttered.

“What is that?”

“Stubborn…hard to please,” she said.

He huffed and said over his shoulder, “It is women who cannot be relied upon, who say one thing yet mean another.”

“Men don’t know how to listen,” she shot back.

“Women talk too much—”

“Men talk with their—”

He glanced back at her when she failed to finish her sentence.

“Oh never mind,” she said, waving him onward, “you win.”

He shook his head, once again fixating his gaze on the beaten path as he kept a steady onward pace.

The man was tough to figure out, Morgan decided. Although he walked and talked with the confidence of a dozen men, he seemed at a loss whenever he looked into her eyes. Maybe he wasn’t as harsh as he liked to appear. That had to be it. Her instincts told her he possessed an inner gentleness that made her soften towards him. “You wouldn’t happen to know Lord Vanguard, would you?” she asked after a few moments of silence passed between them.

“Why do you ask?”

Because she was curious as to whether her head was going to be cut off by the ugly troll. Instead she said, “Because rumors have it that the man’s nasty temper nearly matches his repulsive face.”

He laughed, but said no more. Morgan didn’t know whether that meant the stories were true, or not, but she decided to leave it at that since she would be meeting the hideously ugly lord soon enough. “Do you believe in miracles?” she asked next, filling gaps of silence with questions, something she did out of habit, especially when she was nervous.

“Nay.”

“Why not?”

“Because I believe truth and logic are always involved in occurrences others are quick to call a miracle.”

“What about the birth of a baby? Don’t you think that’s a miracle?”

“Nay. God has created women for such purpose.”

Maybe, she thought, that inner gentleness she’d sensed was a fluke. Either he was preoccupied or he wasn’t used to revealing any sort of emotion. It was hard to tell. But she wasn’t exactly a psychiatrist and she certainly didn’t plan on being here long enough to help this man with his inner self.

As she struggled to keep up with him, she said, “I guess it would be safe to bet then that you didn’t believe in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus when you were a boy?”

They arrived at their destination. He turned and looked down at her, making her feel four feet tall. “You speak in riddles,” he said. “But I can tell you that I believe in naught that I cannot see with my own two eyes.” With that said, he led his horse to the nearest tree and proceeded to tie the leather reins to a low branch.

As she watched him fiddle with his horse, she found herself admiring his iron-muscled physique. She decided to enjoy the moment along with the view and try to think of her time in this new world as an adventure. Until she figured out why she was here and how she was going to get home, it wouldn’t do her any good to panic.

While he secured his horse, she took in a long deep breath of pine-scented air. They had walked far enough away from the lingering effects of the fire. She plunked down on the grass next to the lake’s edge. Birds chirped and squirrels rustled through the trees. If not for the man’s ancient breeches and soft boots with turned down cuffs, she would have thought she was back in her own time.

From the traveling pack, the man withdrew a chunk of crusty bread. Then he untied a leather bag from the saddle and took a drink from it. After giving the animal a pat on the rump, he advanced her way. He handed her a chunk of bread before sitting beside her. The inside of the bread was chewy and had a buttery aroma. Her stomach grumbled.

She took a gulp of the drink he offered and almost gagged as the thick, tangy wine slid down her throat. She was thirsty, though, and it wasn’t long before she acquired a taste for the stuff. For the next twenty minutes, between swigs of wine and nibbles of bread, she stole peeks at the medieval man out of the corner of her eye. Flecks of amber glinted beneath lashes that seemed too long for a man. She took note of the hard outline of his jaw and his thick, dark hair and the way it curled at his neck where a thin scar began, ending inches lower near his collar bone. Apparently he was a man of few words. She wondered what he was thinking and was glad when he spoke and she didn’t have to ask.

“What kind of witch are you that can breathe life into the dead?”

She laughed, a nervous, slightly tipsy laughter, stopping only after realizing he wasn’t laughing with her. She tried to look serious and that made the corners of his mouth tilt upward the slightest bit.