She couldn’t keep from smiling at him. She looked at Rosie and blushed again. The older woman smiled at her, and then at Michael.

  “I haven’t given my heart to anyone in a very long time,” he told Charlotte. “I don’t know the first thing about dating anymore—in any era.” He flicked his sapphire gaze to Rosie and laughed at himself before returning his attention to Charlotte. He sighed and his smile faded a bit. “I’ve felt stale for a long time. Everything inside,” he pointed to his torso and his head, “had become old and musty. And then you banged into me on your way from pi—” his gaze darted to Rosie and he cast Charlotte an apologetic look.

  “She knows,” Charlotte told him. She’d told Rosie everything. Rosie knew what having a family meant to Charlotte, but it was more than that. She wanted a loving husband. Someone who couldn’t live without her. She wasn’t sure if that man was Preston. Of course, he hadn’t come for her because he’d been shot in the leg. She was glad he hadn’t come.

  “She was difficult to ignore,” Michael told Rosie.

  “She always has been,” her foster mother replied with a warm smile aimed at Charlotte.

  Aye. She had to make herself difficult to ignore or they would forget her altogether.

  “I feel as if I’ve woken up,” Michael said, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. “You’re doing it, Charlotte. You’re waking me up. I think about you all the time.” He shook his head and laughed at himself. “Even when I’m with you. It’s crazy.”

  “I think about you all the time, too,” she confessed and then felt like weeping.

  He wouldn’t forget her.

  “You’re making me want things I haven’t considered before, like a wife and a family. I just need to absorb it all without the prospect of being pulled back at any moment eating up my thoughts.”

  Charlotte couldn’t speak for a moment. She thought if she opened her mouth, it would open the floodgates and her tears would rush forth from her eyes.

  “Well,” Rosie said, filling the silence and preparing the rest of their supper, “I think that answers your questions on where he stands, Charlotte.”

  “Aye, it has,” Charlotte answered and took his hand. But how safe would his feelings keep her when he found out she was a Horseman? She would lose him and that would be worse than never loving him in the first place. Not that she loved him. Did she?

  Chapter Twenty

  Charlotte watched Michael laugh with Rosie and Warren and their friends while they all sat around a fire in the yard and ate supper. Rosie used one of the hare carcasses Michael and Charlotte bought her and made her delicious rabbit stew with fresh, warm black bread slathered in honey from Bromley. Warren had some homemade ale in his shed, but Michael didn’t drink any.

  When Charlotte questioned him about it, he told her that drinking was a problem for him in the past. He wanted a different life here.

  He planned on staying. She wanted to rejoice, but his heart would change for her soon. She didn’t want it to but there was nothing to be done. He might actually be her true love. He could lock her away until they hung her. She couldn’t think of it. Not today.

  She was glad Rosie and her friends liked Michael. She was glad he’d confessed his heart in front of Rosie and saved her the trouble of repeating it and not getting each perfect word correct. She liked the sound of his laughter. It was deep and authentic, as if it came from his belly. It made others want to laugh along with him. She noticed that his laughter came more easily in the last few days.

  Since he came here.

  Sadly, too late to stop it, she realized she was, indeed, falling in love with him while he laughed and ate with her friends. How could her heart betray Preston like this? She looked around at all the food. There was enough for the neighbors, Robbie and Alice Brinton and James and his wife Rebecca Houghton and more. Michael had done this. The thing she had always wanted Preston to do. Feed the less fortunate with her. She couldn’t imagine sharing such a desire with someone she loved. She couldn’t imagine how much they could get done together. She certainly could and would stop robbing if there was no reason to do it. She was older. It wasn’t the kind of attention she wanted from her father. She’d known it for a long time. She did what she did for attention from Preston now. Not her father.

  Michael caught her eyes and smiled at her over the flames. She smiled back. Every part of it was genuine. She hadn’t trusted anyone in so long that she was still afraid to make the leap. But she trusted him to catch her.

  He made his way over and nudged her with his shoulder. “You’re quiet. Pensive,” he said for her ears only.

  “Just watching you.”

  “And thinking.”

  Her smile widened. “About you. What else?”

  He chuckled and buried his hand in his hair to pull it away from his face. “Well, now you have to tell me what you were thinking about me.”

  “Very well,” she gave in with a giggle. “I was thinking how I love feeding my friends with you.”

  “I am enjoying this with you as well,” he said in his sorcerer’s voice. “We can do it more often.”

  “We can?” she asked wide-eyed and excited. “Where would we get the money?”

  “I told you. Charitable events. Your father could have one of his gatherings and invite all his friends. They can donate. They all look like they have money.”

  “What if they don’t want to be charitable?” Charlotte asked him. “I don’t know about some of them caring about the less fortunate the way we do.”

  “We’ll figure it all out, love. We…”

  She didn’t hear the rest. Did he just call her love? Was he falling in love with her, too? Oh, this was happening too fast. A few hours ago, Preston was the man she was still waiting for. Now, she only wanted Michael. Was her heart so fickle to love a man yesterday and a different one today?

  No. She had stopped loving Preston long ago. There was no passion between them. He only wanted what she could rob for him and for what kind of trouble her father could get him out of. Coming to think of it now, her father had done much for Preston, for her sake. He hated the cocky viscount, but he had whichever justice of the peace was involved drop all charges. For her.

  What would Michael think of that if he knew?

  She thought about how disillusioned he had become with his world. She didn’t want that to happen here. The longer he stayed, the worse it would be for him if he didn’t know the truth about some things. She had to tell him. Tell him everything, and then if these magical people came to bring him back, he could make a better decision as to if he wanted to stay or not.

  “Michael?”

  He turned from clapping for Rosie and Warren when they got up and began dancing to a merry tune sung by Robbie.

  “’Tis not important,” she told him, joining him in the clapping. He was so happy tonight. She wouldn’t take it from him. She would tell him when they returned home.

  She refused to think about anything else and, instead, enjoy the happy time with the people she loved.

  She danced when Rosie pulled her up and laughed at Michael’s protests when she pulled him up next.

  They danced together and then switched partners with Rosie and Warren. When the other women insisted on dancing with Michael, Charlotte knew the ladies were a bit drunk. Michael was patient and courteous with them all, making her proud to show him off to Rosie.

  They ate and laughed and danced some more. Michael even sang a ballad about them being champions, which they all learned quickly and sang along.

  They finally put out the fire well into the night. Rosie wouldn’t hear of them traveling home at such a late hour and invited them to stay in the empty cottage of their other neighbor, Enid Albertson. Enid, a widow, died last year from a malady of her stomach. Most likely caused by hunger. Rosie brought them fresh linens, washed this morn, for the bed. The small, single bed.

  “I can sleep on the floor,” Michael offered after Rosie made the bed and left them alone.

  Charlotte nodded, not really wanting him to sleep there, but loving him for honoring her.

  “But tomorrow,” he said, pulling off his jacket and justaucorps, “I will speak to your father about making you my wife. You have until then to decide if you want me or not.” He turned away to throw his clothes over a small chair.

  His wife. He was ready to give her everything she wanted. Should she tell him how he made her feel? Or hide it and deny him such power over her? “Michael?” She stepped forward while he stripped of his black shirt next and tossed it aside.

  Her eyes beheld him colored with images of everything from the Lord Jesus and crosses, to crisscrossed guns, a snake, and two long, square vertical towers with a stairway coming from them, leading up his side to his heart. She wondered if she was brave enough to climb up. “I already know what I want,” she told him, touching his arm. He turned to look at her. “I want you.”

  He took her in his bare arms. She ran her hands up and down the corded sinew in his forearms, the interplay of muscles in his back. “You frighten me, man of the future,” she whispered across his painted chest. “Your determination to fix what is wrong here is admirable. But I am wrong, too, Michael. I have done many things—”

  “Now you will no longer have any need to do them, right?”

  “Right,” she whispered with a smile and tilted her face up to receive his kiss. She would tell him the rest another day, when his mouth wasn’t so hungry yet controlled for her.

  What if she took off her clothes? What would their skin feel like pressed together? But he wasn’t her husband yet, though it was his intention and, to many churches, a betrothal was as good as a marriage.

  Michael’s mouth was like a hot brand on her skin. When he traced a path over her chin and down her neck, his dark scruff tickled and scratched. His tongue set her on fire, making her want to rake her teeth over his skin, his muscles.

  When he scooped her up in his arms, she didn’t fight him but coiled her arms around his neck, even for the moment it took to carry her to the bed.

  He set her down on the fresh-smelling bed and backed away to finish undressing. He kicked off his own boots, glad to have them over the pinching shoes in his room. He looked eager to be near her and climbed into bed next to her in his jeans. Close to her.

  This was it. She was giving herself up to Michael. An investigator from the future sent here for some purpose, perhaps to find his true love, as Mr. Simeon said. She didn’t care about any of it now. She only cared about this moment with him in it.

  “Michael?” she asked shyly “What are the women in the twenty-first century like?”

  “They are not like you,” he told her softly, tenderly, lifting his fingers to her hair.

  “Is that a good thing or bad?”

  “It’s a good thing. They fit into their time. You don’t.” He touched his hand to his healing nose. “My nose can attest.”

  She laughed and then groaned when he buried his face in her neck. She sat up and pulled at her laces of her gown. The stays came undone with a loud breath from her. There were some laces in the back that Michael sat up and pulled with his teeth. More of her came loose, as if answering the call of his touch.

  She took a deep breath and pulled herself out of all her layers. She lay back down and smiled joyfully when he spread himself over her and pressed his hot mouth against her throat.

  She felt the hard desire between his legs. He was abundant, as she suspected. The weight of him against her legs made her want to instinctively sit on him.

  But surely, he would stretch her to bursting.

  She’d never gone this far with Preston or anyone else. Never had she surrendered beneath the weight of a man. Or opened her legs so wantonly. Inviting, begging him to fill her with himself.

  She had no idea what she was asking for. But she held on to his shoulders and rubbed herself against his jeans and the thick lance bursting to be free.

  He moaned like a wounded bear and moved away from her.

  He slipped his hand between them and freed himself from the confines of his pants.

  She gasped feeling his hot flesh on her. She felt herself became wetter. Her body was preparing itself for him. Rosie had told her what she knew about being intimate, which wasn’t much. Her friends had taught her more. Still, doing it was something altogether different.

  She ran her fingers through his hair and directed his face over her breasts, where he sucked until she almost begged him to suck somewhere else! She stayed open to him when he played with her tightening nub. He controlled her, titillating her with his fingers, his mouth, his tongue.

  She cried out into his mouth as he guided himself to her opening and then pushed. He came almost instantly, soaking her and making it easier to get inside her.

  With all the touching and rubbing, Charlotte began to feel a sizzling thread of pleasure like nothing she’d ever felt before. It was coming from her muscles convulsing around him, or trying to. He was pushing in. She opened her legs wider and cupped her hands around his bum.

  He came again and slipped into her to the hilt, pushing her open until she thought she would cry out. But pain soon turned to pleasure, and she drowned in the tides of it.

  He laughed and almost filled her for a third time when they had to hold their hands over each other’s mouths so Rosie and the others wouldn’t hear them from their cottages.

  “’Tis like nothing I’d ever imagined!” Charlotte said between short breaths as he separated them and fell beside her on the bed.

  “I’m glad you liked it,” he whispered hoarsely. “It will last longer in the future.”

  She liked the sound of him next to her in bed, after…she blushed at her own thoughts and memories already emblazoned on her mind.

  “There are many other ways to do it,” he told her.

  She knew of some. She’d had to listen to Sebastian and Preston’s other friends enough times when she rode with them.

  She’d wanted to become a Horseman. She’d begged Preston to let her and, finally, he’d agreed. She became one of them. She was The Dark Horseman, holding up carriages with them for months before Preston let her lead a hold up. It was a disaster. The Earl of Chester had been killed. She’d watched Sebastian kill him because the earl had pulled down her kerchief and saw her face, saw who she was.

  “What is it?” Michael rose up on one elbow and wiped his thumb across a tear falling from her eye.

  “I was thinking of my past.”

  “You will miss it?”

  She shook her head and rose up on her elbow to face him with more tears rolling down her face “No. I regret much of it. Save for being able to help Rosie and some others, I’m sorry for it. I have not been able to tell anyone my feelings, Michael. I was a fool. I—”

  A loud rapping came on the door.

  Michael hurried out of bed and reached for his jeans. “Yeah?” he answered through the door, pulling his pants up.

  “Michael!” Rosie screamed on the other side. “We are being attacked!”

  Upon hearing this, Michael flung open the door and Charlotte leaped out of bed, already halfway dressed.

  He looked outside the door, then pulled Rosie inside. “Stay here! Both of you!” He grabbed for his pistol, loaded and ready to fire. One shot. He’d better make it good.

  He hurried outside, barefoot and bare-chested. Someone’s hut was on fire. The people he’d had supper with tonight were running for their lives.

  He had to get them to safety. He sprinted toward them. Someone shot at him. He ducked and ran serpentine the rest of the way. He found Robbie and Alice and raced to get to Rebecca. Her husband, James, was trying to fight against two figures. There was no sign of Rosie’s husband, Warren.

  Michael had no more time to search for him. James needed his help. Michael didn’t think about how he would fight guys with swords, he just ran into the fray. His pistol was still good for smashing into the back of someone’s head. Which is what he did to the first one he came to. The second guy had a bit more time to prepare now and lifted his sword high when Michael turned on him. Michael shot him in the belly and then took his pistol and bullets. He did the same with his first victim.

  He went to James and made sure he was all right.

  “Our home!” James cried, keeping his focus on the flames.

  “Hey!” Michael gave him a little shake. “Your wife is alive. Keep her safe!”

  He left him and went in search of Warren. He heard a sound to his right and spun around, ready to kill.

  When he saw Charlotte in the firelight, he scowled. “Go back to the house. They’re shooting!”

  “I will not leave you out here!”

  “Go! I won’t have you killed!”

  Someone rushed by. A shadow. But it was difficult to see with smoke rising and only flames and moonlight by which to see. For one instant, the shadow came into view as clouds and smoke both passed by. The man slowed and looked at Charlotte. He wore a kerchief over his face, but Michael recognized him. It was the man who had escaped the mill. Why did his gaze settle on Charlotte as if he knew her? He hadn’t looked at her that way the first time they’d met. Unless they were hiding the fact that they knew each other.

  Did she have anything to do with him escaping the mill? She had been late to supper. He wanted to clutch his belly. No. This was all just a trick of the light. The man hadn’t looked at her. She didn’t know him or aid him. He was behaving like a madman.

  Still… “Go back to the house, Charlotte,” Michael said, keeping his eyes on the shadow as the man hurried away.

  She went without another word. Michael didn’t go after the assailant but rushed to Rosie and Warren’s cottage. It was just starting to burn, a gift from the man who’d escaped.

  Someone appeared beside him with a bucket of well water and threw it at the flames. Charlotte. He should have known she wouldn’t obey a command. Rosie and her friends appeared next, each doing what they could to keep Rosie’s house from burning down.