In the meantime, there would be no baseball, no movies. There were no phones, or internet, or over-the-counter pain medicine.

  He rubbed his scruffy face. Were there razors?

  He sighed through his grinding jaw. Why would someone do this to him? Who was Mr. Green and where was he now?

  Hell, the sun was shining, and bees were perched on flowers that scented the air. It all felt so real.

  He heard a sound and looked to see the heavy wooden front door opening and Charlotte Whimsey stepping out. She went to the stable on the right side of the house. Should he follow her?

  She still wore her riding gown and her hat was back on her head but now she carried a large satchel with her. He watched her disappear into the stable. He was about to step out of his hiding place and go after her, but she suddenly barreled out of the structure on a white and brown horse. She sat sidesaddle but she still traveled with speed. He knew how to ride, having taken lessons since he was eight and his best friend Richie Nolan had signed up for lessons, but he wouldn’t catch up and he had no idea of where he was going. Best to remain here and wait for her to return instead of getting lost.

  He eyed the stable. Another day, if God forbid, he was still here.

  “May I help you, Sir?” someone called out.

  Michael looked toward the house. An older man with gray hair stood in the large doorway waiting for his response. What was he to say? He guessed the truth was best.

  “I’m afraid I’m lost.”

  “Where do you want to be?” the old man called out.

  Michael almost smiled. Poor guy would never believe him. But now what was he supposed to say?

  “No, I mean, I’m really lost. I was…beaten up last night by two guys. They must have knocked me out good, because I woke up some ways away from here, barely remembering anything.”

  He’d been around liars long enough to learn a little from them.

  It seemed he didn’t have to convince the old man because another older man, this one decidedly larger, called to the one at the door and then came forward.

  “What’s this?” he asked in a loud voice, peeping his head out the door.

  He had a head of pure white hair, tied back at the nape by a black ribbon. Was it…George Washington?

  “This gentleman is lost, my lord,” the first man told him. “He was beaten by thugs and remembers little.”

  The lord nearly pushed him out of the way and moved in front of the doorway. “Come in, young man! Come in! Let me have a look at you, then I will send for a physician and have a meal prepared for you. What did you say you were called?”

  Michael wasn’t about to refuse. He felt like hell. “Michael Pendridge. Thank you. I could use something to eat.” He rubbed his flat belly and went to the door.

  The white-haired man’s eyes opened wider, giving Michael a closer look.

  He appeared to be in his early fifties. He was dressed well in flowing gold and scarlet robes. He was roughly five feet ten inches tall, two hundred pounds. Husband or father? Michael wondered.

  “So, where am I?” He asked the most pressing question on his mind as he followed the men inside. The place looked like a palace inside, with antique furniture, paintings, and ornate lampstands scattered throughout. Props, Michael told himself.

  George Washington’s double went as white as his hair. “Ah, forgive John for not introducing me.” The lord of the house threw an angry look John’s way, to which John bustled in his black coat.

  “I’m the Duke of Croydon, Judge Richard Whimsey of the High Court. You are in my home, Croydon House.”

  Judge? Duke of Croydon? Did the judge have any clue that the beautiful lady living under his roof was a common thief?

  “Where’s Croydon?” Michael asked, believing more and more that he was on an elaborate movie set.

  The duke set his curious sable eyes on him—the same color of the woman’s eyes. “England. Ehm, where did you say you were from?”

  Michael didn’t know whether to laugh or hold on to something to keep from falling over. England? Not just a movie set with people speaking in British accents? Impossible.

  “Look, I get it. It’s funny. I’m sure whosever idea this was is having a good laugh, but it’s played out and is over now. Okay?”

  Both men gaped at him as if he just sprouted horns. “What?” asked the duke. “Mr. Pendridge, come to my sitting room and have a seat. You need to rest. John, send for the doctor.”

  “I’m not sick or delusional,” Michael argued, following him. But for the first time in his twenty-nine years, he felt like he needed to sit down. The duke was lying, of course. He knew what was going on. “I’m going to have you all thrown in jail if this doesn’t stop now.”

  The duke produced a cloth from his robes and patted his forehead with it. “What has my daughter done now? John!” he barked an instant later. “Forget the doctor!”

  Okay. She was his daughter. “I don’t care about your daughter, Duke,” Michael said, entering the sitting room with him. “Call this off now and I’ll forget I ever met her.” He probably wouldn’t forget her. He could easily find out her real name and find her.

  “Call what off? What are you saying? Where are you from? I have never heard your inflections.”

  Michael ignored his questions and gave him a warning glare. He threw one to John when he reappeared. “There is a gentleman at the door for you, my lord.”

  “Another one?” the duke remarked, excused himself, and left the room with the butler.

  Michael looked around. Everything looked old, and yet, new. It was a comfortable room but there were things missing. Things like photos in frames, and electrical outlets. He searched for any camera or mics but found nothing. Not even dust.

  The duke returned several minutes later and waited quietly while Michael rose up from his knees and palms in his search for any outlets.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” the duke asked him.

  “No,” Michael replied. Then he countered, “Something important? You look a little green.”

  “’Tis nothing.”

  “You said we were in England.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You’re lying. How can I be in England when I was in New York thirty minutes ago?”

  “New York?”

  “That’s right. You asked me where I was from. That’s where. New York.”

  The duke’s eyes widened. “You traveled here from the new world in thirty minutes?”

  Michael narrowed his eyes on him. “New world?” Where had he heard that phrase before? “What—why are you all dressed like people from the past? Is this one of those historical movies?”

  “Movies?” the duke asked, leading him gently to a chair.

  “What year is this supposed to be?” Michael heard the panic in his own voice and took a seat. He caught the duke motion to John, probably to override the last order and get the doctor.

  “’Tis seventeen hundred and twenty-four,” the duke said softly.

  “Okay,” Michael said, holding up his hands. “I’m done playing along. I want my gun and badge back. For stealing those, I’ll make sure your daughter goes to prison.”

  “Mr. Pendridge,” the duke said as he smiled, though his color had not returned. “If you would calm down I could—”

  “It’s Detective Pendridge. But I think you already know that.”

  “Detective,” the duke intoned, wiped his brow again, and accepted a cup from another servant dressed in brown and gray.

  “That’s right. You know, an investigator. Your daughter robbed me of my gun and badge this morning. She’s a thief and I may begin a case against her. She robbed some people and then pinned the blame on me.”

  He reached for the cup being served to him. His eyes were quick enough to note John’s slight smile when he heard about the lady. So then, the butler, or doorman, or whatever he was in this movie, was aware of what she was capable of and he approved.

  “Are you telling me you don’t know about your daughter’s behavior?” He sniffed the cup. Wine. He needed it.

  “That’s correct. Have you gone to the local magistrate?”

  Michael shook his head. He hadn’t. He didn’t know the laws here.

  “Are you telling me,” her father asked slowly with a methodical look, “that you don’t know where you are or what the year is and yet you claim my daughter stole your gun and badge?”

  Yeah, that sounded bad, Michael had to admit. He leaned forward in his chair and guzzled his wine. What was he supposed to do now? His instincts weren’t honed for this. It was as if there were a gigantic joke going on and everyone was in on it but Michael. He put his head in his hands.

  “All right, Pendridge,” the duke said, seeming to take pity on him. “I will tell you this. There was a man at my door earlier, who claims to have seen my daughter this morning at a square near Sutton stealing from some gentlemen’s pockets. A man in the crowd tried to stop her but she escaped.”

  Michael nodded and looked around again, thinking it no coincidence that things were working out in his favor.

  “You were telling the truth.”

  “That’s right,” Michael muttered.

  “Why do you not tell me where in the colonies you came from?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me,” Michael groaned into his hands. “It’s not called the colonies anymore. When I was there,” he said, looking up from his hands, “thirty minutes ago, the year was—” why was he confessing? Why was he speaking as if this were real? He wanted to see the duke’s reaction. Also, he had to tell someone.

  “—two thousand and nineteen.”

  For a minute, the duke appeared to stop breathing. “You came from the future?”

  “Yes,” Michael confirmed.

  “You understand all this is difficult to believe.” The duke called for more wine.

  Michael held up his empty cup. “What do you think it’s like for me?” he asked.

  “You sound mad,” the judge told him.

  “I wonder it myself,” Michael admitted.

  “You must keep this to yourself. Tell no one else.”

  “Why?” Michael asked, fixing his unblinking gaze on the judge while Whimsey dismissed all the servants but John.

  The two of them sat opposite each other before a large fireplace. John the butler stood behind his lord’s chair.

  “People will not understand. They will think you demon possessed or mad.”

  “Oh, right.” He wasn’t sure at this point that he wasn’t either one.

  “But you may tell me. Let’s hear your story,” the duke allowed. “Start at the beginning.”

  Michael told him about his phone call from Mr. Green to go to some lawyer’s office to pick something up that was bequeathed to him by a distant aunt and would help aid in a missing person’s case. “Well, I get there and this Mr. Green hands me an old, worn down, blackened brooch. I ran my finger over it.” He remembered the strange light, the feeling of having no control over his thoughts. “Pendragon. That was the word on the brooch. I said it and then I was here.”

  “You spoke the name Pendragon and then you were here,” the duke echoed.

  “And he rubbed the brooch,” John added.

  The duke held up his finger and looked at Michael, not the butler. “Ah, but more important is the name Pendragon.”

  “You believe me?” Michael asked, astounded. He realized he needed someone to believe him.

  “I have my own reasons why I believe you.” the duke said in a mild tone. “For you, ’tis real, whether it truly is or is not.”

  “It’s real,” Michael told him in earnest. “I’m telling you the truth. I…uh…understand that it’s hard for you to believe this crazy story. It’s hard for me to believe and it’s happening to me. I’m a New York City detective. I’ve been with the police force for eleven years.”

  The duke whispered, “An officer of the law.”

  “Yeah,” Michael said and continued. “This morning, I woke up in the twenty-first century. I showered—you don’t have showers here, do you?”

  “You mean rain showers? Of course—”

  “No,” Michael said with disgust. “I’m not a plumber, but there are pipes behind the walls in my bathroom, with a showerhead, or a nozzle that comes out of it.” He lifted his hand over his head to demonstrate. “You turn a switch and water comes out and you have a shower.”

  “Fascinating.”

  Michael didn’t know what the duke thought was so enthralling, a shower or that Michael had come up with it.

  “I touched some…I don’t know…magic piece of jewelry and supposedly came back in time almost three hundred years. I was at some square. Maybe I woke up there, but I don’t remember that. Maybe I was drugged, brought to England and dumped on the streets. There was a crowd—all dressed like—do you have more wine, whiskey maybe?”

  The duke nodded and turned to John. “More wine for our guest.”

  Michael was grateful and continued. “I saw your daughter pickpocketing some people. I realized my things were gone, too.”

  “Pickpocketing,” her father whispered somberly. “John, is she home?”

  “No, my lord. She left.”

  “Left? Where did she go?”

  John shook his head. “You know she does not tell me where she goes.”

  “Yes,” her father agreed, “because she is out being a criminal.” He set his gaze on Michael. “I cannot protect her forever.”

  Michael’s gaze hardened on him. “You should not have protected her the first time.”

  “Aye, you are correct. I have many regrets. But…” he paused to take in a deep breath, “we were discussing you. Go on.”

  “That’s it. I told you everything.”

  “Well,” the judge narrowed his eyes and squeezed his chin between his index finger and thumb, “from what you have told me, I believe this Mr. Green is a sort of wizard. It would seem he sent you here to find someone.”

  “Then you do believe me,” Michael said, holding his cup up to have it refilled.

  “Your story is compelling. I like a good mystery,” the duke told him, receiving more wine in his cup, as well. “For instance, Detective, do you know who carries the name Pendragon?”

  Michael thought about it for a minute. His head was mostly clear. The wine wasn’t overly strong.

  “The Excalibur guy?”

  The duke smiled. “King Arthur, aye. King Arthur Pendragon. ’Tis a Cornish surname with many variations in the spelling. Pendridge is one of them.”

  Michael sipped his wine. He wanted to make it last. He had a feeling he was going to need it. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, Investigator, I believe you are a Pendragon, perhaps even an heir.”

  Chapter Four

  Charlotte rode through Sutton, alone, with a knife in each boot and four hidden in other places on her body. Pistols were too big and clumsy to use. She preferred blades. The deadliest being her tongue. The stranger learned that today when he interfered with her work.

  She could have stabbed him but there was something so dangerous and mesmerizing about him. He seemed to have experienced much in his life. His eyes, though quick and perhaps once brilliant like lightning across the night sky, were void of fire and sunken in. He looked as if he could use a few good nights of sleep. She wished him well in her mind and also prayed to stop thinking about him.

  She didn’t want to stab anyone. Things had become so out of control in the past year. She didn’t know how to stop the whirlwind, but she was determined to try.

  It had begun with Preston and doing everything to make him happy. Things had to change. There was too much at stake. She wanted too much. A family. A sense of belonging. Preston promised to give them to her. She would do anything for him because she would do anything for a family.

  She rode past beautiful springs and walnut trees growing around a giant pond filled with trout. Sutton was her favorite place on earth, with forests and farmlands, and homes of brick and wood.

  She continued on to the scenic village with its beautiful cathedral church reaching up toward heaven.

  She wanted to live here, near the trees by the pond. Or near Rosie.

  She quickened her horse’s pace, eager to reach Preston. She didn’t slow again until she arrived at Hayward House, Preston’s elaborately built hideaway for his men. She slid out of her sidesaddle and handed her horse off to Roddy, the stable boy.

  “The stable is full, m’lady,” Roddy announced, his already ruddy cheeks turning redder when he lifted his gaze from the ground and looked at her. “I can leave him outside with the two carriages. I will see to him personally.”

  She handed him two pence and a grateful smile. “My thanks, dear Roddy,” she said and then left him for the house. She knew everyone would be here. They hadn’t left for the last sennight. They were mostly the men who worked for Preston in some form or capacity. Some were moneykeepers (accountants,) some lawyers. Some were less law-abiding, from pickers to Horsemen. None of their wives were in attendance, though there were plenty of females wandering about, drinking and giggling.

  When Charlotte reached the front door, she heard a sound coming from around the house. She followed it, recognizing the voice of her dear Preston.

  She saw him speaking to Sebastian Alexander, Baron of Surrey. Sebastian was a dark-haired, handsome young devil with a silver tongue, and one of Preston’s wealthy friends. Preston had many, and many of them broke the law. Most judges who knew Preston took bribes. Not all did, though. Her father didn’t.

  “The day has just become brighter,” sang dashing Sebastian when he saw her.

  Charlotte had to admit Sebastian was as beautiful as all the ladies gushed about. His hair fell in loose waves to his shoulders. The outer edges of his large, green eyes turned up, giving him a most sultry look. His smile was wide, his teeth, straight and almost white.

  Aye, he was pleasing to the eyes, but he was her friend, and nothing more.

  She quirked her mouth at him, and then at Preston. Had he nothing to say?