She hurried to the king’s table and told him who the man was. Henry recognized him and ordered that Nicholas be untied immediately.

  His orders were carried out and Kes ran to him and leaped into his arms, home again.

  “Did you do it? Did you ride away from him?” she asked, needing to know. She didn’t want angry, time traveling knights after her and Nicholas.

  “Aye. I did it. He was making threats when Henry’s lance went through him.”

  “And did Henry see you walk away?”

  “He did.”

  “And he hated it.”

  They both spun around at the sound of Henry’s voice with his soft French tones. “I do not enjoy watching such a difficult decision being made and carried out. You stepped away from your king. Why?”

  It was a fair question. Why would another king trust him?

  “He did not value life,” Nicholas told them “He did what he wanted and took the counsel of fools.”

  While he spoke, Henry nodded. “How will we mend the holes this place now represents?

  “Show the people that you care for them, even the lowest born,” Nicholas told him. “They have had an untrustworthy king for almost two years. Give them something new. Earn their loyalty.”

  They all had dinner together and Nicholas was surprised and grateful that Henry seemed to like him. He figured he had Lizzie to thank. “I told him everything about you,” she said at dinner, sitting close to him, “and how much my father and my family loved you.”

  He pulled her in under one arm and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you, Lizzie. I am in your debt.”

  “Nonsense, Brother. I just want you to be happy.”

  “And I want the same for you.”

  “I am. Henry is very kind and attentive. I’m happy to say that he has won my heart.”

  He looked at her and quirked his mouth. “Who would have ever thought our hearts could be won?”

  They smiled at each other and then laughed.

  “We must come to Scarborough as Richard did and live with you and Kes for a month or two.”

  “We would enjoy that.” He smiled and she squeezed his arm and gave his shoulder a quick kiss.

  He looked at Kestrel sitting on the other side of him, speaking to Charlie. He smiled and she caught a glimpse of it. She stopped talking and turned to him. She looked as breathless at the sight of him as he was of her.

  “Let’s leave here soon,” she purred, moving closer to him. “I want to be alone with you.”

  He lifted his hand. “Sire?”

  Henry Tudor looked his way. “My wife and I wish to retire. It has been a trying time.”

  “Ah, yes. Of course,” he said with a knowing smile while Lizzie giggled behind him. “You may go.”

  He took his wife’s hand and left the hall with her. He’d paid for two small rooms at the town inn. The other for Elia. Nicholas had a tent, but he thought his wife would prefer sleeping in a bed. They walked together in the twilight.

  “’Tis difficult to believe that Richard, the last Yorkist king, is dead and that I had much to do with it.”

  “You simply did not fight for him—”

  “I led him onto the field.”

  “Nicholas.” She stopped walking and turned to him. “Do you think he was a good king?”

  “I do not think he was a good man. How then could he be a good king?”

  “Right. It is not your fault he died. It’s his fault.” She smiled and he felt as if he were falling in love with her all over again. It happened often. He no longer fought it. In fact, he thrilled in it.

  “Will Henry be any better?” he asked her. After all, she likely knew.

  “He will do more for England than Richard in restoring the country’s economical, er, financial… England will no longer be poor.” She laughed softly. “I can’t think right when you’re looking at me.”

  “I cannot stop looking at you. How about Elizabeth? Will she be happy?”

  She nodded. “Henry loved her very much. It’s written that he locked himself in his room and wept wh—”

  He stopped and looked at her. “When she died?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? How does she die? Does Henry have anything to do with it?”

  She shook her head. “She dies in childbirth.”

  He paled and turned away. “She was young then.”

  “Nicholas,” Kestrel said with tears filling her eyes. “I don’t want to say anything more. I’ve already said too much.”

  He nodded and stepped back. So, Elizabeth dies young. He wanted to go back to the hall and spend more time with her.

  He saw two people coming toward them. Elia and Charlie. His first officer was good to escort her to the inn.

  A breeze from the right brought with it the faint scent of apples and something else. Something that made the hairs on his body stand up. He turned to his wife and saw two men mounted on great warhorses appear out the shimmering air to her right. The horses were draped in trappings depicting a dragon. The men wore leather armor and had long two-edged swords dangling from their belts.

  Silvery mist clung to their horses’ legs. Nicholas guessed who they were, though his mind told him it was impossible.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Instantly, Nicholas took hold of Kes’ arm and pulled her behind him. He reached for his sword, but her hand stopped him.

  She couldn’t let Nicholas kill Sir Gawaine. And if anyone had a chance of killing Nicholas, it was this brutish knight.

  Mr. Simeon had warned her about telling too much. Now they’d come after her. What were they going to do?

  “Mr. Green,” she said, doing her best to sound calm as she stepped around her husband, to his side. Not out of reach. “May I call you Sir Gawaine?” She cut her gaze to Luke. “Sir Lucan?”

  “What do you want?” Nicholas demanded, unafraid against the legendary knights.

  “We want the future telling to cease,” demanded Gawain right back.

  “Yes! Yes!” she held up her hands. “I’m sorry about that. It won’t happen again. I think we can—”

  “Do you listen to her conversations?” Nicholas asked incredulously.

  He had a point. Were they listening? She gave them an angry stare and crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you plant something on me?”

  They were already shaking their heads, but it wasn’t in defense of them spying. “You are diverting the problem. Ms. Lancaster—”

  “She is Lady Scarborough,” Nicholas told them. There was a warning thread in his voice that was steadily growing. “If I were you, I would stand away from her.”

  Sir Gawaine flicked his gaze to Sir Lucan and chuckled softly, which produced a low growl from Nicholas.

  “Let me get right to the point. Ms. Lancaster,” Sir Gawaine said impatiently. “We want you to return home—to your time. The future came too close to changing with you here. We are here to make certain that you go back.”

  She turned to Nicholas. She could go back? Back to her father, her friends, her job? Back to painkillers and cellphones and social media. “Nicholas, would you—”

  “Ms. Lancaster,” Sir Gawaine said, interrupting…and perhaps reading her thoughts, “you must go as you arrived. Alone.”

  “Can’t you send him after me?”

  “No. It only works every twenty years in any century.”

  She was looking at Nicholas when Gawaine spoke. The alarm in her eyes was set directly on him. Alone? Leave him? “No.” Her voice shook. She turned to the ancient knight. “I can’t.”

  “You must,” Sir Gawaine told her. “You will no doubt disrupt time if you remain here. It should not be too much of a concern for you. ’Tis believed that you might have been brought here by mistake. The brooch has been known to malfunction.”

  She laughed. “What? Mistake? Sir Gawaine, nothing in my life has been so perfect for me. Nicholas has brought love into my life, and isn’t that what your king wanted for others because he never had it for himself? How can my coming here be a mistake?”

  “You have said too much,” Gawaine said and unsheathed his sword.

  Nicholas’ blade was out in an instant. Charlie’s was next.

  Kes leaped between them and heard Nicholas swear.

  “Stop it!” she demanded. “There doesn’t have to be any fighting. “I told you I won’t say another word. You can listen to my words or my thoughts, or whatever it is you do. If I speak of the future, you can send me back. But give me another chance.”

  Gawaine was already shaking his head. “’Tis not up to me.”

  “Just a minute now,” Kes told them. “Do you mean to tell me that you came into my life and turned it completely upside-down without thought or concern for me or my family, snatched everything away and left me to my own defenses and then you expect to waltz back into my life and do it all over again? Now, you suddenly talk about filling my place? You made mistakes, didn’t you, Sir Gawaine? And I must pay for them? Should I demand to speak to Lady Morgan or Lady Viviane?”

  They actually cast each other nervous looks. Good. They deserved to shake in their pants a little bit.

  She wasn’t leaving Nicholas and it was time these two knew it. He looked drained of color when she met his gaze, so maybe he needed to know it, too. “Now, you can go and find someone else to take to the future with you, because it won’t be me. I won’t leave my husband. I couldn’t live without him.”

  They looked as if they wanted to say more—to deny her, but then they both looked at Elia, oddly, at the same time. “She may go in your place.”

  “What?”

  “No!” Nicholas turned to her. “No.”

  “The ladies want her,” Sir Gawaine said.

  Nicholas spun around on him. “Find someone else!”

  Gawaine and Luke drew their swords and Nicholas and Charlie drew theirs.

  “Stop it this instant!” Elia warned them through tight lips. “Kes and I will not put up with this much longer. Now speak patiently with each other or we will leave.”

  The men stared at her in silence for a moment.

  “I will gladly show you patience, Elia,” Nicholas was the first to speak. “Please do the same for me. Do not consider this.”

  “But I do,” she told him. “I want to go ahead and find Charles Lancaster and help him heal if I can.” She looked at Kes and smiled.

  “Give this until morning to decide,” he allowed, “and if you do decide to go, at least you will have given me a little more time with you.”

  She nodded and looked at Sir Gawaine.

  “Wait,” Kes interrupted. “You said the brooch wasn’t working right. What guarantee is there that she will go to the correct time?”

  “If she doesn’t,” Luke told her with a handsome smile. “We will go get her and try again.”

  That didn’t sound too promising. Kes gave Elia a worried look. Elia smiled at her in return.

  “We’ll talk more about this, yes?”

  “Yes,” Elia echoed with a tender smile.

  Kes hated to lose her. She couldn’t imagine how Nicholas must feel. She was sorry she had told him about Elizabeth.

  “We shall meet you outside the inn in the morning,” Gawaine announced. “You will give us your decision then.”

  They agreed, albeit, Nicholas did so sounding more like a bear than a man. He dismissed Charlie when his first vowed to keep what he’d seen and heard to himself. In fact, Charlie admitted with a laugh that he didn’t understand what in blazes they were all talking about anyway.

  The three of them continued on to the inn in silence. Kes felt responsible for Nicholas’ pain. If she hadn’t come here, he wouldn’t have to give up the woman who’d been like a mother to him.

  Oh, what would Elia do in the twenty-first century? If she insisted on going, Kes wouldn’t let her go in blind. The shock of everything would be too much. She had told Elia much already. Come to think of it, Elia always wanted to hear about her century.

  When they arrived at the inn, Nicholas ordered three tankards of ale to be brought up to one of the rooms.

  They had much to discuss.

  Nicholas and Elia sat in two of the chairs by the hearth in the room, while Kes sat at the edge of the bed.

  Elia listened patiently to Nicholas’ thoughts and concerns and did her best to explain to him that this was what she wanted, no matter the risks.

  “I have no regrets, Nicky. Not one. But I want my own adventure now. ’Tis being offered to me. I must accept it.”

  “But we will never see each other again,” he lamented. “’Tis like you are dying.”

  Kes wiped her eyes. There had to be a way to find some good in this this.

  “Find my father.”

  Elia nodded. “I will do my best.”

  Kes smiled and left the bed to kneel at Elia’s chair and took her hand. “I feel very happy about it. You can tell him about me. Tell him I told you about the time my appendix nearly burst when I was a baby, and how I wanted to marry a cartoon dog when I was a little girl. That should help him to believe you.”

  Elia laughed. “All right, but what is appendix and a cartoon?”

  Kes explained both, once again realizing how terribly shocking the twenty-first century was going to be. “Listen, Elia, when you get there, depending on where you land, just keep a clear head. If you are outside, remember East Sixty-second Street. Find a way to get there even if you have to walk. You’ll need money. You can ask people. There will be a lot of people. Oh, a lot, Elia.”

  Her friend smiled, as if to reassure her.

  “When you find East Sixty-second…say it. East Sixty-second Street.”

  “East Sixty-second Street.”

  “Good. Look at the doorways on the buildings. Find the number fifty-five. Go inside. You will see a man at a desk. Tell him you’re there to see Art Lancaster. If he tells you my father is away, tell him a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

  “That is pretty.”

  “It’s a line from a Shakespearean play. It’s a code my dad and I use to let the doorman know to let me in. If you know the code, you can get in. Now this is a lot to take in, so let’s practice while I tell you about cars and lights and horns.”

  “Do you think he could have something to do with this whole King Arthur thing?” Elia asked her.

  “Because his name is Arthur?” Kes laughed softly. “I doubt it, but he has always been very knightly.”

  “His name is Arthur?” Nicholas looked up.

  “Yes. Charles Arthur.

  “Oh, what an adventure that would be,” Elia laughed. “But you said your father never remarried after your mother died.”

  “Maybe he has been waiting for you.”

  Elia actually blushed. Kes looked at Nicholas and smiled. He didn’t smile back.

  That night, when Elia went to her own room, he lay awake holding Kes in his arms while he told her stories of his childhood with Elia. They made love slowly, quietly, lost in the comfort of each other’s embrace.

  Morning came too soon, though Kes had to smile at Elia’s contagious happiness. Even Nicholas found himself smiling.

  Sir Gawaine waited alone outside the inn. When he saw them, he pulled something from a fold in his cloak. “What is it going to be, Ms. Lancaster?”

  “Elia is going,” Kes told him. “And you better get her to the right place. Preferably, my father’s apartment.”

  After a long, teary farewell, and a few grumbles from Sir Gawaine, the knight handed Elia the brooch and told her what to do. She took it, waved goodbye, and opened her mouth. “Pendragon.”

  The air shimmered for an instant and then Elia was gone. The brooch fell to the ground.

  “Hell.” Kes heard Nicholas mutter and watched him walk away.

  Sir Gawaine reached down and plucked the brooch into his hand then he disappeared.

  Would Elia find her father? If she did, would her father believe her?

  Kes had every intention of sending Mr. Simeon to find out, and she thought about sending a letter with him. Surely letters were allowed. If everything worked out well, she and her father or she and Elia could correspond.

  She hurried to catch up to her husband and slipped herself under his arm. He kissed the top of her head. “You refused to go back.”

  “As long as I’m with you, I’m happy,” she told him. “I wasn’t about to go back to the future without you.”

  “I know what you gave up for me, my love.”

  “And I know what you gave up for me, Nicholas. Now come, let’s go back to Scarborough and lock ourselves away for a week.”

  “I like that idea,” he said softly and leaned down to kiss her.

  She would never grow tired of the taste of him, the feel of him against her, in her arms.

  When he withdrew, she lifted her hand in front of them and tilted her head to his shoulder.

  “Smile!” she said and posed for a picture only their eyes could see.

  Epilogue

  One month later…

  Kes stood with King Henry in her dress, previously owned by Queen Berengaria, and looked around at the great hall. It had been decorated for a celebration of her and Nicholas’ marriage by Claire and the rest of her friends. They were told they could go as lavishly as they wished. And they did. White lilies sprinkled with bluebells were hung everywhere and were set in vases at all the tables. There were musicians hired all the way from Wales, servers and bakers hired from the best English houses, wine from the orchards of Sicily. Before long, tongues began to wag throughout the castle about how much the earl loved his lady.

  He stood beside her now in dark blue, snug fitting trousers, boots, and a short coat over his shirt. He made all her dreams come true.

  He’d done everything that she asked, including providing better seeds for the farmers. The scullery maids had gloves for scrubbing and the laundresses got them, too, since their hands were frequently in lye soap. Everyone had days of rest and whatever was left over in the castle kitchen each night was given to the servants.

  Kes wasn’t sure it would be possible but she was happy. She worked with authentic artifacts her father would die for. Four days a week, Nicholas rode her to Walter’s on his horse and picked her up six hours later. It gave them time to miss each other and it gave her time to spend with Walter, one of her dearest friends.