Boldly, she watched him. He lifted his hand to his hair, his chest. He became acutely aware of how he was walking. As he grew closer to his chair at the head of his table, he decided he didn’t want to sit there with Reg and Adele. But sitting with Miss Locksley was a bad idea. No matter what her story was, it turns out poorly for him.

  He yanked his chair from under the table and sat.

  Adele lifted her hand to her head and then glared at him when her husband spoke. “Nicholas, can you not make your chair screech across—”

  Nicholas pulled himself and the chair in, adding banging to the screeching.

  Now Margaret added her hateful glare with her lady’s.

  Nicholas held up his cup for some ale, ignoring them and Reg’s flaring nostrils.

  “I will sit in my castle however I wish,” he said quietly, calmly. “I will say what I wish and do what I wish, without worrying about offending any of you. You were not invited here. Have you forgotten?”

  Reg looked at Adele. Whatever they spoke in their heads to each other worked because they nodded and softened their expressions.

  Nicholas set his icy gaze on Margaret the maid while a server poured ale into his cup. Margaret was in her late thirties, never married, and wanted Nicholas in her bed more than anything else in the world. That was what she told him anyway.

  His eyes sparked with a challenge. Would she say something about the noise he made? No. She remained quiet.

  The ale was watered down. He would speak to the servers about it later.

  He looked over to where Miss Locksley sat and watched her while she spoke to Elia and the others sitting around her. She seemed to be settling into her new surroundings. She was no longer crying and going on about the future. He hoped.

  She should be sitting with him so that he could manage her conversations. And keep her from the stake. He would speak to Elia about it later. He’d have to make something up. Even Elia couldn’t know their guest’s beliefs.

  These responsibilities on his shoulders didn’t bother him. He had strong shoulders. He was built for this. It was Reg, his only living relative, who hated him since they were children, but liked him enough as an adult to come for a visit and never leave that made his mood so foul.

  He was sorry he’d come inside. Being in the same room with her was as bad as sitting right next to her. He was aware of her. He could see her through his side vision. His neck was beginning to ache from tilting in her direction.

  The only thing that made supper quite extraordinary was an appetizing little cake with some kind of fluffy, stiff sweet mixture atop it. It was set down before him on the table. In fact, one cake was given to everyone at all the tables.

  “A cupcake!” the head server called out and then motioned toward Miss Locksley.

  She stood up. “A lemon and meringue cupcake,” she announced. “It’s a recipe handed down to me by my grandmother. Cook and I made enough for everyone.”

  A few people clapped. Most stared at her and then at her cupcake.

  He held one up and examined it. The meringue, as she called it, was white and sticky.

  “It’s made with egg whites and sugar. And a little cream of tartar which, thankfully, your cook had. It’s quite sweet.

  “Ingenious.” Nicholas didn’t hesitate to sink his teeth into his. He sat back. He’d never tasted anything like it. “Delicious,” he called out and ate the rest.

  He couldn’t help but smile at her again when after her first bite, she came away with meringue on the tip of her nose. Apparently, it was happening all over the hall, for laughter could be heard from every bench.

  Nicholas ached to stand up and walk to her bench. But she was hanging on the precipice of something and he didn’t want to fall with her.

  But finally, he jumped.

  Chapter Seven

  Nicholas stood up, turned his feet, and marched toward her table.

  When he reached her bench, he motioned for Charlie Mayfair, one of the guardsmen, who was sitting next to her, to move.

  “Aye, Commander,” Charlie said and left without another word.

  “You didn’t tell me you were a commander,” Miss Locksley said as he sat.

  He smiled. Slightly. “My fighting skills didn’t prove that I was in command?”

  “I was too busy screaming for my life to notice.”

  He shoved his finger into his ear. “I still cannot hear properly.”

  He had a look at her hair. It was tied back with chicken wire into a tail hanging past the back of her neck. That was it. No pins, no clips, no adornments, just—chicken wire.

  “I was harsh with you earlier, Miss Locksley. Forgive me.”

  “What of your senses?” she asked with a playful arch of her brow.

  He smiled softly and shrugged his shoulders. “They have abandoned me yet again.”

  She stared at his stitched cheekbone and then sank her gaze into his. “You’re going to have a nasty scar from that slice. Who stitched you?”

  “I did.”

  Her eyes opened wider. “You stitched yourself?”

  He nodded and forced himself to look away. He stared into Elia’s curious smile.

  “How did you do it with no mirror?” Miss Locksley asked, tugging on the sleeve of his léine. “Are you crazy or something?”

  “Crazy?” he asked darkly, not liking the sound of it.

  She pointed to her temple and twirled her finger. “You know…nuts…mad.”

  “Mad, aye. I’m mad. I thought it might be you…” He smiled and shook his head. “…but no. ’Tis me.”

  “Oh gosh, what am I laughing at?” she suddenly lamented. She lifted her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. “My life as I knew it, is over.”

  He looked around to see if anyone heard it. “Miss—”

  “Yes. Yes, I know.” She lifted her head and whispered. “I’ll be quiet about it.”

  “’Tis for your own good.”

  He couldn’t forget his results from today. No one knew her. No one had lost her. Kestrel. What kind of name was it?

  “Oh! I almost forgot to tell you,” she told him with excitement now etching her face. “I remembered the name on the brooch!”

  “What was it?” he asked, swearing at himself silently for enjoying her company so much. He could sit here and listen to her for the rest of the night.

  “Pendragon.”

  He raised a brow. “Arthur?”

  “You’ve read of him?”

  He nodded. “I have a copy of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae.”

  He was sure her eyes just misted over.

  “I have a library. You have not seen it?”

  “No,” she breathed, “I would love to though. I’m a historian,” she leaned in and whispered to him. “I’ve never seen such an early edition. My heart is pounding.”

  He had the insane urge to grin at her and not stop. “Your cheeks are flushed.”

  They grew even redder.

  He wished they were alone.

  “I have many volumes that will interest you. No originals, of course, but I do know the king.”

  She laughed, and if they were alone, he might have laughed with her.

  He had the servers bring them wine. They drank and she kept smiling when she caught his eye, or he caught hers. He didn’t smile back. He tried to remain strong and in control, but he hadn’t made it one day avoiding her, without falling under the spell of her eyes, or her voice, or the soft flush of her cheeks.

  “Come.” He finished what was in his cup and stood up. “I will take you to my library.”

  She practically leaped into his arms. “Ready!”

  “Did you like your cupcake?” she asked him as he led her to the castle.

  “I’m saddened that there were no more. I could have eaten another one or two.”

  “I’ll bake more if Cook lets me,” she promised.

  “You will tell me if he causes you any trouble.”

  “He was grouchy when I started but he came around. We’re friends now.”

  He was glad she was making friends, but if she trusted someone enough to tell them…

  What if she wasn’t mad? What if she was as sane as the town chaplain? If this was all real and she traveled through time—no. He simply couldn’t fathom it.

  He led her up the stone stairway to the second landing.

  “Who taught you to read?” she asked.

  “Edward had me instructed privately.”

  “Edward the king?”

  He nodded.

  “Elia told me he raised you after the death of your parents.”

  “Murdered,” he corrected. “They were murdered by the Lancasters.”

  “Yes, of course. Murdered,” she amended, shivering in her spot. “Was he a good foster father?”

  “Aye. He was.”

  “Is Richard very much like him?”

  His scowl returned. “Richard is nothing like him. I assure you, Miss Locksley—”

  “Kestrel.”

  “If your story is true and you are a historian from the future, nothing you have read about Richard can compare to who he truly is. If you ever have the ill-fortune of meeting him, stay away from him.”

  He heard one of the guards outside shouting. “What is it?” he called to another running in the hall.

  “Tis a letter! A letter from the king!”

  *

  Charles Lancaster tossed the letter onto his desk, followed by his glasses. He rubbed his bloodshot blue eyes. There were no leads on his missing daughter. She was gone, snatched away in the middle of the day without a trace.

  Charles considered himself a civilized man but if he got her back, he was going to kill everyone involved.

  What if he was the reason she was taken?

  He looked at the framed photo of her on his desk and wiped his eyes. His beautiful girl. They were going to meet for dinner. Her friends called him long before their date. She was gone. She’d gone into a building and disappeared into an office. But there was no office. No fourth floor. Her friends had to have been mistaken. That’s what the police said.

  But Kes’ father feared something much bigger was at work.

  Chapter Eight

  “You do this every day?” Kes asked Claire, the laundress, while Claire turned clothes with a wooden wash bat in a giant barrel.

  The news of the king’s return in a week turned Nicholas’ mood worse than before. He’d shown her to the library and left her there. She hadn’t seen him again for the rest of the night.

  “Aye, every day.”

  “For everyone here?” Kes asked, incensed while Claire rubbed the soiled garment with lye soap and continued turning.

  “Aye.”

  Either the earl or the king was going to have to do something about this or the help was going to walk out. “I want to help you,” Kes said and reached for the bat. Besides, she needed something to do with her hands. She was going crazy with the need to text! She had so much to say and so many to tell.

  Claire stared at her and looked to Elia standing at Kes’ rear. When Elia nodded, Claire handed over the stick.

  “When was your last day off?”

  “Day off what? M’lady, I really do not think—”

  “I’m fine,” Kes reassured her with a smile. “A day where you didn’t come here to work? A day to rest.”

  “We do not work on the Sabbath. That is all.”

  “And is it just you laundering everything?”

  Claire nodded and Kes fumed. What was the Earl of Scarborough running here? How could he expect one person to do all this? When she complained to Elia, the head maid informed her that Edith, the other laundress, had died of a fever three months ago.

  “Three months!” she seethed.

  “Oh, but, m’lady,” Claire cried. “I do not mind doing it all. I do not want anyone else cleaning the castle garments and linens.”

  Was Claire crazy like so many others here?

  “Why in the world would you not want help?” Kes asked beating a sheet. Then it hit her. Claire didn’t want someone else handling his things. Nicholas’ or someone else’s. That had to be the case.

  “You can keep the things you want to wash and dry and give the rest to someone else. You would be the head laundress. What’s wrong with that?”

  Claire grinned. “Nothing at all. I would like that.”

  “Then I shall speak to Lord Scarborough about it.”

  Elia came to stand close while Claire began to fold the other clothes she’d dried. “Do you presume that Nicholas does as you ask?”

  Kes had to be careful. She liked Elia and didn’t want to step on her toes. “He has avoided me all morning and yesterday, as well. But I will find him today and speak to him about this. He is an intelligent, compassionate lord—”

  “He’s intelligent, aye,” Elia agreed. “But not always compassionate.”

  “He will do as I ask,” Kes smiled at them both. “I have something to bargain with.”

  “Oh?” Elia raised her dark brow. “What is it?”

  “A cupcake. I saved him one last night. Once he heard the king was returning, he left to his duties. But I hid one away in the hopes that he liked them.”

  Elia tossed her a furtive smile. “You are thoughtful toward him.”

  Kes shrugged. “He put a roof over my head and food in my belly. An extra cupcake is the least I can do.”

  “Hmm.” Elia gave her a curious look. “My dear, do you still not remember where you came from?”

  Oh, Kes wanted to tell her. She couldn’t. The threat of burning at the stake was very real here.

  “I remember bits and pieces. I…I think I remember my father. I…” She sniffed and bit her tongue to stop her tears from falling. She hadn’t meant to think of her father. “We were very close. He raised me. Still, I wish I would have called him more last week.”

  “Called?” Claire asked, listening while she folded.

  Kes’ blood drained. She didn’t know where it went but it left her head, her face, her lips and made her feel dizzy.

  “You are pale,” Elia said taking her arm. “Here, sit.”

  “No. I’m ok.” She looked up at Claire. “My father lives a few houses away in our village. We called on each other frequently.”

  “You will see him again, my dear,” Elia promised. “If anyone can find them, ’tis Nicholas.”

  Oh, how she wished it were true. She wondered, while she turned the wash bat and scrubbed the castle linens, if Sir Nicholas, Earl of Scarborough, would go with her. Why would she want him to? He would never fit into her world with her friends.

  That is if she ever got back. She’d asked every woman in the castle if they had a brooch with the name Pendragon on it. None did.

  Elia was busy with Claire, so it gave Kes time to think about her brooding rescuer—and what he was doing in front of her door yesterday.

  She had been returning from sewing in the public solar with Elia and some of the other women who lived here. She wanted to change and go help Cook in the kitchen. She’d seen her knight as she turned the corner in the hall. She’d backed away into the shadows and watched him. He looked tormented pacing before her door. What was he going through? She’d known he’d had a difficult morning. Was it because of her? Or something else? She had been tempted to go to him as he raked his fingers through his hair.

  She hadn’t because he was most likely no different than what she’d left behind. Maybe worse with his antiquated (to her anyway) ideas. She’d sworn off men anyway, at least for a little while. She needed a break after Brian McGill. What was she doing thinking of Nicholas de Marre in any sort of intimate or romantic way?

  But seriously, who could blame her? He was a knight! In armor! He wielded a real, very big, very deadly sword. His naturally provocative smile was unfortunately almost nonexistent, but he’d bestowed it on her a few times now. It was only slight, but still dangerously alluring. If he ever decided to flirt with her, she had no chance against him.

  Kes had learned that grapevines worked the same way in every century. And that kitchens were the best place to find them.

  Her cupcakes had baked while she learned that Margaret, Lady Adele’s maid, fancied Sir Nicholas.

  Kes didn’t think the feeling was mutual. Especially when the maid glared at him at his own table last night. The smile he aimed at her was more like a weapon. Its beauty was meant to entrap and paralyze while he landed the final sting. And the sting? It wasn’t a word. It was him turning his attention away. He hadn’t so much as glanced at Margaret for the rest of his stay there.

  He didn’t hate Kes, and the only reason she cared was because he was the proprietor of the roof over her head. She had seen him standing by the great hall door, as he’d stood before hers earlier. Did he have a problem with doorways? Or was it just hers?

  Before he’d entered the great hall last night, he was looking at her as if he didn’t come inside right away because of her. Why should she affect him in such a way?

  He was a strange one, and hadn’t she had her share of those?

  Oh, but he hadn’t brooded when he’d come over and sat with her. He seemed to hang on her words, and his library! It was filled with treasures though she couldn’t fully enjoy it. When he’d heard King Richard was returning, he’d said very little. Anger and…the source of his hatred etched his face and he’d left before she could ask him what was wrong.

  She finished another batch of linens when she heard his voice outside calling Elia. She bit her lower lip when his footsteps grew louder. She didn’t want Elia to get in trouble for letting her launder the clothes. She certainly didn’t want to do it full-time.

  Elia rushed out to speak to him and hopefully veer his path in a different direction.

  But it didn’t work. He stepped inside the wash house and looked at her standing over the barrel. He quirked his brow at her and gave her a curious look. “What are you doing?”

  It was kind of hard to believe how good looking he was and how masculine he looked in hose. The more she saw of him, the more irresistible he became. She liked the size and shape of him, how he moved and breathed, how he remained still. She liked the way he was looking at her now, as if he couldn’t figure her out.