Through The Leaded Glass (6 page)

But then, she’d never exactly experienced
this
. And how would this go over if she missed her
appointment with the adoption agency?
Sorry, but I was off
gallivanting around fifteenth century England. Can we
reschedule?

Yeah, that’d go over real well. She’d have to
kiss Emma goodbye. Figuratively, because they wouldn’t allow
anywhere near her daughter after that. She needed the window. It
had
to be the key to this mess because the ring was doing
diddly-squat and she’d been alive and well and hanging out in PA
until she’d touched that thing. Which meant she had to humor him
enough to be able to get to it so she could get out of
here.

“
Okay, Alex. Why do you have this
ridiculous notion we should get married?”

“
How did you come by my
ring?”

“
I already told you. I’m not a
thief. I’m an Assistant Vice President for a highly respected
advertising firm. And while that holds quite a bit of sway where I
come from, I doubt there are people lining up to hire any around
here. And female ones, at that.” She shook her head. Thirty-some
years of women’s lib, ninety-plus years of the right to vote, and
in one fell swoop she was back in the days of chattel. And after
she’d taken such pains to divorce the one man in the twenty-first
century who’d still thought of his wife that way. Oh, the
irony.

She wasn’t about to re-live it. “Alex, really.
Here.” She pulled the ring off and held it in her palm. “Take the
ring back. Tell Lady Aubridge she’s mistaken. Or that I stole it.
Or ran away. I don’t care what you say, I just want to go find my
window and get out of here.”

Alex looked at it, then back at her. He said
something, but she didn’t understand a word.

“
What?” she asked.

He said something else. More
gibberish.

“
Speak English, please, Alex. I
don’t understand Vulcan. Or Hobbit.”

Alex stopped mid-sentence and tapped his ear,
then uttered something which sounded familiar. Sort of. Sort of
middle English…
Medieval
English.

Kate put the ring back on. “Say that
again.”

“
Say what, Kate? And what language
did you speak? It didn’t sound like any I am familiar with, though
it does prove you have some education—”

“
I’ve got more of an education than
you can imagine. And it was English all right, just not the one
you’re used to. Turns out—” She wiggled her finger. “I think this
ring is a translation device.”

“
A what?”

“
It lets us understand each other.
Your English is different from my English, and I couldn’t
understand you when I took it off. See?” She took it off and
started reciting the Pledge of Allegiance—something he wouldn’t be
familiar with.

Alex shook his head, took the ring, and slid
it back onto her finger. “You’re right. I couldn’t understand you.
You should wear that at all times.”

She sighed. “Quite a turnaround from ‘mine,
all mine.’”

His lips tightened. “Then you should be
pleased since you wanted it so badly. And now you’ll have it. As
well as the rest of the Shelton jewels.”

Kate thought about strangulation, but tossed
the idea aside. She was pretty sure murdering a peer of the realm
incurred the death penalty these days. “How can you marry me? You
didn’t even know I existed until an hour ago.”

The fact that she
hadn’t
existed here
an hour ago was beside the point.

“
Actually, I did know. I just
didn’t believe it.”

“
Oh, right. The gypsy. So what did
this seer-of-all have to say about me?”

“
That you would have what I’d
lost.”

“
And from that you get I’d have
your ring?”

“
But you do.”

“
That’s beside the point. Do you
really believe in fortune-tellers, and soothsayers, and
witches?”

Alex crossed himself. “We don’t speak of
witches.”

Oh. Right. They probably burned them at the
stake in this century.

Kate ran a shaky hand over her forehead.
“Look, I get that you’re doing what you think you should do, but,
trust me, it’s not. What we
should
do is find my window and
send me home.”

“
I’m afraid we can’t do that, Kate.
I need you.”

Those words wouldn’t be bad to hear from the
other side of a bar. Or in her bed. But most of all, in the
twenty-first century. Not
here.
Not
now
.

“
Alex, you don’t even know
me.”

“
A fact which shall be remedied
within the hour. Nick and Tristan will find out all I need to
know.”

“
Good luck with that.” It’d be
amusing if it weren’t so, well,
not.
“Look, my... my lord.”
She tried out the phrase then decided that—medieval mores
aside—there was no way she was going to subjugate herself by
calling someone her anything, let alone
lord
. “I appreciate
the honor, but I’m not marrying you. I shouldn’t even be here.” She
twisted the ring.

“
Why not?” He sounded genuinely
surprised. Of course, the guy was an earl. Probably not used to
women turning down his marriage proposals, impassioned or
otherwise.

“
You’d never believe me if I told
you.”

“
Humor me because it will take
quite the story to convince me. You don’t fully comprehend the
power of Lady Aubridge’s rumors.”

She opted not to go for the whole enchilada
with the time travel thing. Witches and all… “I need to get home to
my daughter.”

His smile faltered. “A child? You have a
husband?”

Yeah, sure, why not? That’d put an end to his
marriage plans. “Yes. I do.”

He arched an eyebrow, which was an entirely
too sexy look on him. “Inventive, Kate. And precisely what the
gypsy said you’d say. She also said that it’s not true. You don’t
wear a ring.”

That’s because she’d rubbed her skin raw to
remove the reminder that she once had.

Alex brought her hand to his lips. “One other
than mine, that is.” He kissed it.

Chivalry was alive and well and sexy as hell
in the fifteenth century—and became a full-on inferno when he
turned her hand over to kiss her palm.

She shivered as his touch sent fire licking
over her nerve endings, and she wanted to sink into that massive
chest and have him wrap his arms around her and lose herself in the
feel and scent and taste and touch of him—

Oh Lord, she was in trouble. She could
not
want this. Forget that it—he—was a complication she
didn’t need; she was stuck in the fifteenth century and had to get
home. She had a life, a child, a job.

But then he slid his fingers into her hair and
tugged her lips to his and the next thing she knew, he was kissing
her. Or she was kissing him. Someone was kissing someone and, oh,
boy, she suddenly no longer cared what century she was
in.

He cupped her cheek, his thumb teasing the
corner of her mouth, curling delicious tendrils of want through
her. She gasped. She wanted this, if only for a few seconds. Just a
taste. A nibble…

Alex dragged her into his lap, and there was
no denying that he wanted more than a mere nibble.

What
was she thinking? “We can’t do
this.”

“
Of course we can.” He tugged her
closer and nuzzled the hollow beneath her hear. “As you’ll find out
once we are married.”

Married
. The word was as effective as a
cold shower.

“
Alex, I’m from five hundred years
in the future.”

“
What?” His hands dropped into his
lap and Kate had to grab his shoulders to keep from falling
backward.

She winced. Her delivery, one of her strong
points in the boardroom, needed some fifteenth century
refinement.

Oh, God, the
fifteenth century.
She
moved off his lap and back onto the bench. “I’m guessing the gypsy
didn’t tell you that part, but it’s true. I’m from over five
hundred years in the future. And if you hadn’t just kissed me
senseless I probably wouldn’t have said anything.”

“
That’s not possible.”

“
An hour ago, I would have agreed
with you.” Now? Notsomuch.

Alex ran a hand over his mouth and propped the
other on his thigh. “This is absurd. What you say can’t be
true.”

“
And fortune-telling is? Look, I
know it’s hard to believe, but I’m telling you the truth.” She
patted his arm. “Just this morning I was in my car with the radio
blaring and a plane was flying overhead—and you have no idea what
I’m talking about, do you?”

“
No, I don’t, and I find your
attempts at jests laughable.”

“
Then why aren’t you
laughing?”

He glared at her. Poor guy. He was stuck with
witches and magic while she had science on her side. Science
and…

Kate dug into her pockets and pulled out her
credit card. “Look at this.” She put it on his palm.
“Plastic.”

Alex looked at it. “What does it
do?”

“
Here? Not much. But where I come
from, it’s like money. You use it to pay for things.”

He arched an eyebrow. “This?” He flexed it.
“It’s too easily broken to have value.”

“
Hey! I need that.” She grabbed it
out of his hands, then held out her cell phone. “Then there’s this.
You talk to people with it.”

“
Like the ring?”

“
No. You can talk to people
anywhere. Even on the other side of the world if you
want.”

“
The other side? There is no other
side. The world is flat.”

Oh, right. Columbus hadn’t sailed yet. “Okay,
well then, you can talk to someone in the next city if you
want.”

“
How?”

Kate tapped the screen, but nothing happened.
Great. Time travel must have sucked the battery dry. “Never mind.”
She shoved it back into her pocket. There had to be
something…

Remembering her running shoes, Kate sat back
and raised her gown.

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Seduction will not
make me forget your claim.”

“
Look, Mr. Arrogant, I am not
trying to seduce you.” She wiggled her foot. “Take a gander at
these. Rubber soles. I’m pretty sure you guys don’t have rubber.
That ought to prove that I’m telling the truth.”

Alex took the shoe from her foot and traced
the sole. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“
That’s because it hasn’t been
invented yet.”

“
What else will be invented? More
of those ineffectual items you gave me?”

“
Hey, those things work in my
world. Just like cars, planes, trains, machines... A lot more you
can’t begin to guess.”

“
So tell me.”

Kate thought for a minute. Fourteen
eighty-seven? One of the Henrys was on the throne, no one here had
ever heard of Elizabeth I, and they still believed the earth was
flat. What damage would she do if she started revealing history as
she knew it?

“
I don’t think so. I might change
the course of history and heaven only knows where that could lead.
Take these soles as proof. No one has discovered rubber, yet they
exist. Same as the plastic card I showed you.”

The expression on his face mirrored the hollow
feeling in her stomach. “Travelling through time is not
possible.”

“
That’s what I thought, yet here I
am.”

“
But you can’t really be from the
future.”

She thought for a few seconds. “Fourteen
eighty-seven, right? Okay, let’s see. Who’s on the
throne?”

Again with the brow-raising. “Wouldn’t you
know?”

She huffed. “I’m a little rusty on the dates,
okay?”

“
Henry Tudor.”

“
The first?”

He snorted. “The
seventh
.”

“
I meant the first Henry Tudor. So,
he’s Henry the eighth’s dad. Okay. If I remember, he beat out
Richard the third at the Battle of Bosworth Field,
right?”

Alex nodded. “The battle was at
Redemore.”

Kate sat up straight. She knew what to tell
him now. Thank goodness for her junior year history professor. The
man had been a fanatic about British history and Kate had held on
by the skin of her teeth to pass the class. She’d worked especially
hard on her final paper about the end of The Wars of The
Roses—Henry’s Red Lancastrian emblem versus Richard’s White Yorkist
one.

“
All right, but remember, you asked
for this.” She squared her shoulders. “Richard was the guardian for
his two nephews, the heir and spare for the throne. When their
father died, Richard, effectively, ran the country.” She held up
her hand. “I know. It’s already happened. And since Henry’s on the
throne, that means the two princes are missing.”

Alex’s face shuttered. Obviously, the history
books hadn’t lied about people’s feelings when the young heirs to
the throne had disappeared.