Chapter 13

Imogen wandered around the castle courtyard, resigned to the fact that while she was acquiring lots of quirky ideas, she wasn’t going to be able to use them anytime soon because she was hopelessly trapped in the past. She wasn’t sure how far in the past because she hadn’t dared ask anyone the current date.

There were two things that made life seem a little more bearable. First, she’d had a decent dinner and a safe night’s sleep the night before. Of course, her dreams had been troubled by an endless hunt for power cords and perturbing siblings, but maybe she couldn’t have expected anything less. Her search for either the evening before had proved fruitless. All she’d gotten herself was handwringing from Bartholomew and a never-ending string of alarmed looks from everyone else.

Second, Phillip de Piaget had promised to get her home.

She’d been clinging to that offer as if it were all that stood between her and a life without modern sanitation and a decent Internet connection, which she supposed it was. Phillip hadn’t said when he would help her, or even how, but since she was fresh out of ideas, she was more than willing to let him see what he could come up with. It was very strange to think of turning her future over to someone she didn’t know, but maybe dire circumstances called for unusual solutions. Until then, maybe the best thing she could do was soak up the local culture and stay out of the way.

She was currently being accompanied by Rose and those blond boys, Theo and Sam. Imogen paused, then turned to look at them. Twins were unusual, but identical twins carrying swords and stirring up mischief in a medieval castle—

She felt her mouth fall open. Maybe jet lag had been more debilitating at the time than she’d feared, but she could have sworn one of those boys had to be related to that gorgeous guy who had stuffed her underwear back into her suitcase in King’s Cross station. Talk about a family resemblance. And that guy had used some interesting language, hadn’t he?

She shut her mouth with a snap. If she didn’t pull back on those reins, her rampaging imagination was going to run so far away with her that she would never get back to where she needed to be.

Rose touched her arm. “Let’s go to the lists, shall we?”

“Sure,” Imogen managed, grateful for the interruption. She chalked her speculations up to not enough sleep and an intense desire to try to fit puzzle pieces where they surely weren’t meant to go, then followed Rose to what looked to be an all-out battle.

All right, so she’d worked mostly on movies where romance abounded and sappy scripts were the order of the day. That didn’t mean she hadn’t seen prop rooms. She’d brought coffee to casting people interviewing stuntmen who were boasting about their fighting skills. She’d even gone so far as to watch the bonus features on several DVDs where the details of fight-scene choreography had been revealed. But she’d never seen two guys really look like they wanted to kill each other.

She declined an invitation to venture farther into the lists. She was more than happy to stay on the outskirts where she could make a break for it if the show got too intense. That and she’d already been clunked on the forehead with a sword. It was something she really didn’t want to repeat.

She realized one of the twins had brought her a stool only because she almost backed over it and went sprawling. The tweenager apologized profusely and with such genuine regret, she couldn’t hold it against him. She also couldn’t hold herself up on her feet once she realized that one of the combatants was none other than Phillip de Piaget, the guy who couldn’t possibly have anything to do with anyone from that gigantic castle she’d seen on her way north to Edinburgh.

Rose sat down next to her stool on a bench that the boys subsequently produced. It had also seen much better days, but she supposed that shouldn’t have surprised her. The whole castle needed some serious remodeling. Maybe that was why Heather of Haemesburgh had orchestrated her being trapped in it with no hope of escape—

She almost fell off her stool. Had Heather orchestrated her whole nightmare for something that ridiculous?

Imogen stared at her surroundings with an entirely new eye. If the Heather of the future was—and she could hardly believe she was allowing herself to even consider it—the Heather of the past, then surely she would know all about the condition of the castle. She might have been looking for someone to fix up the place while she was masquerading as a very rich, very well-dressed modern noblewoman. She was probably just tapping her foot, waiting for Imogen to take care of staging the place so she could rush back in time and... what? Return to no running water and no Internet?

“He’s very good.”

Imogen realized one of the boys was speaking to her. The second thing that occurred to her was that she understood him more easily than she would have the day before. Maybe all that time with Bartholomew the scribbler had done her some good. He’d been fairly enthusiastic about tidying up her French, but when he realized she could understand rudimentary Latin, his joy had been visible. That had given her a headache for more than one reason, actually, because where the hell in the world was she that Latin was a happy experience for a teenager?

“Well, of course he’s very good,” said the other one. “He’s Uncle Robin’s son after all.”

She listened to the twins discuss Phillip, critiquing him as ruthlessly as any modern kid would have pulled apart an action hero. Only Phillip de Piaget looked a bit like he was about ready to kill someone, so she wondered why they dared say anything at all.

“You are unaccustomed to this.”

Imogen looked at Rose sitting next to her and wondered just what that gal was accustomed to. “Um, no,” she managed. “We don’t do this every day at home.” That was an understatement, but there was no point in trying to explain it. “Do you?”

“I don’t,” Rose said, “but that is only because I’m a woman. I do exercise with the bow, though even that was a hard-fought battle with my sire.”

Imogen could sense that there was a topic that was going to get her somewhere pretty fast. She left off watching Phillip try to kill the guy who was trying to kill him, then shifted to look at Rose.

“Your father was all right with a bow,” she repeated, “but not a sword?”

“Aye, but he’s fairly forward-thinking.” She smiled. “That, and my mother is very strong-willed. She insisted that I be allowed this boon. My sire generally lets her have her way in things.”

“Sounds like a great guy.”

“Oh, he is,” Rose agreed. “I daresay that has much to do with why I’m not already wed, though my years weigh heavily on me now. ’Tis difficult to find a man as reasonable as my sire.”

“But you’re so young,” Imogen protested.

“A score and four,” Rose said. “Very old indeed.”

Imogen supposed it was probably best not to mention she was twenty—er, a score and six herself. But since they were talking numbers, maybe there was no reason not to get a few details. She could hardly believe she was even willing to consider her current situation anything but an elaborate hoax created by her evil siblings—she realized she was still clinging to that hope—but she’d spent two nights sleeping on hay, and she was looking at a guy in chain mail who was using a medieval-looking broadsword like it was a fencing foil. She took a deep breath to stop any lustful thoughts in their tracks and turned back to her new friend.

“And what does the current monarch think the appropriate age is for women to marry?” she asked casually, hoping she wasn’t accidentally inquiring about the location of the local witch tribunal. It wouldn’t have surprised her to have had her second eldest brother arrange that kind of thing for her, being the dastardly lawyer he was.

“Henry?” Rose shrugged. “He’s too busy fretting over the loyalty of his barons to worry about that.”

“Loyalty of his barons,” Imogen repeated, wanting to make sure she was getting that right as well.

“Aye,” Rose said. “There are stirrings amongst the nobles for more rights for themselves and less for the king.” She smiled. “But such is life in the Year of Our Lord’s Grace 1254, wouldn’t you agree?”

Imogen felt herself begin to shake. She looked at Rose and realized that the edges of her vision were beginning to blur. It was the oddest thing she’d ever had happen to her.

1254. That just couldn’t mean what it sounded like it meant because that would mean she was eight hundred years out of her comfort zone...

···

She woke, only then realizing that she’d been asleep. Or maybe she’d fainted. She wasn’t sure which it was, only that Phillip de Piaget was leaning over her, looking at her with alarm.

“Don’t stab me,” she croaked.

He looked at the sword in his hand, then handed it off to someone. “Are you ill?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“Oh, no,” she said, though she supposed she wasn’t going to be sitting up for another few minutes. She wasn’t ill. She was absolutely, positively, unarguably crazy.

It was a comforting realization, really. She’d been worried that she wasn’t being a good sport about the whole reality show thing. She’d deliberately pasted on smiles when she felt like screaming, on the off chance that some director or other was hiding in a back room, watching her remotely to see how she did under pressure. She had held it together long past when she would have liked to have freaked out, simply to deny any potential brother or sister the pleasure of having a really great story to tell about that time they’d put their baby sister in a castle full of horse manure and watched her go bonkers.

1254.

It wasn’t possible, but unless everyone was in on the joke, it was the truth.

She accepted help up from the twins and did her best to perch back on her stool without tipping it over. She looked at the boys, mirrors of each other, and guessed they were pushing ten. A guy stood behind them, probably about eighteen, who had to have been their older brother. He wasn’t the guy who had helped her in King’s Cross, though he certainly could have been related to that knight in shining armor.

She laughed. A knight in shining armor. She was certainly going to be surrounded by those in 1254, wasn’t she?

“Phillip, should we bring her something to drink?” one of the twins said nervously.

“Aye, she looks unhinged,” said the other one.

“If you can pry wine away from the priest, do so,” Phillip said, looking unsettled himself. “She’s had a shock. Rose, what did you say to her?”

“Nothing at all,” Rose said. “I just waxed poetic about the desirable qualities of my sire. Perhaps her sire is not so perfect.”

“My sire is an ass,” Imogen said before she thought better of it. She looked at Rose. “I think I said that right.”

“I think you did,” Rose agreed with a smile. She looked at her cousin. “Phillip, we’ll take care of her. Go back to your labors, if you like.”

Imogen concentrated on breathing in and out. It occurred to her that she was breathing in and out some pretty medieval air and for some reason that made it more difficult to tolerate. That could have been because of the pervasive scent of horse manure, but then again, maybe not. Maybe it was the smell of panic—

She found herself with her head between her knees and from there it seemed like a pretty easy thing to just take a little roll into the muck. That was a mixed blessing to be sure. She now had mud—she hoped it was mud—in her hair, but the upside was she also had mud—she still hoped it was mud—covering up the personal ad on her backside. Her father, Mr. Motivation himself, would have approved of her positive outlook.

She again had help getting back up on her stool. She pushed her mud-slathered hair out of her face, then decided that was probably about as good as it was going to get for her with any attempts at grooming. Phillip watched her for a moment or two before he exchanged a pointed look with Rose and walked back out into the middle of the yard. Imogen knew that look. It was the sort of look one person sent to another that warned the one receiving the look to keep an eye on the crazy person in the vicinity. She sat up a little straighter and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. She wasn’t crazy, she was overwhelmed and slightly out of her depth.

And Phillip de Piaget was out of his mind. She watched him go at the guy in front of him again with his sword and was tempted to warn him that it might not be a good idea, but she supposed he knew what he was doing. The twins, however, seemed to have a slightly different opinion.

“He would be better with his own sword.”

“Sam, that is his own sword.”

“Nay, Theo, I speak of his knighting sword,” one of the twins insisted. “It has magical properties.”

“Don’t be daft. ’Tis just a sword. Steel does not have magical properties.”

“But that was Great-Grandfather’s sword. There is much history and other things attached to it.”

Imogen leaned back against the stone of the wall, hoped her hair would dry and flake soon enough, and let her mind wander. She listened to Sam and Theo discuss the magical properties of Phillip’s sword and wondered if she could possibly be understanding them correctly.

A magical sword?

She looked at Rose. “What are they talking about?”

“Phillip’s sword,” Rose said. “’Tis rumored to have properties beyond the norm. I daresay those rumors were too tempting for those here at Haemesburgh to ignore.”

Imogen uncrossed her eyes long enough to look at Rose in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“The lads stole Phillip’s sword. It seems to have gone missing recently, which I’m sure irritates him greatly.”

“What does it look like?”

Rose shrugged. “Much like a sword, I suppose. There is a stone in the hilt, though.” She smiled. “’Tis the color of my eyes, which happen to be the color of my grandmère’s eyes. Romantic, isn’t it?”

Imogen would have put her head between her knees again, but she knew where that led. She concentrated on breathing in and out carefully so she didn’t suck in anything that was dripping from her hair. She had the feeling she might have an idea what Phillip’s sword looked like because she’d seen it resting in the spot behind the lord’s chair in the great hall behind her.

Damn that Lady Heather. And speaking of Heather, she supposed that was something she could clear up right then. She looked at Rose. “What does Heather look like?”

“The lady Heather?” Rose asked with a frown. “Again, I’ve never seen her. I’m not even sure Phillip has seen her. We could ask her men, I suppose.”

Imogen almost told Rose not to bother. She could almost not wrap her mind around it, but she was beginning to suspect that she might be the best one to ask about the missing lady of Haemesburgh.

“She has never appeared at the gates where she wasn’t covered with manure and other off-putting things,” Rose continued, “which didn’t add to the inducement to wed with her.”

“Did someone want to wed with her?” Imogen asked.

Rose looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Phillip did, of course. That’s why we’re here.”

“He was going to marry her?” Imogen asked in surprise.

“That was the plan,” Rose agreed. “He offered for her several years ago. Actually, he signed a betrothal with her father several years ago.”

Imogen could hardly believe her ears. Phillip de Piaget had wanted Heather to marry him and she’d ditched him? What was she, nuts? She looked at Rose in disbelief. “Why aren’t they married already?”

“She hasn’t seemed to care for the idea, hence the flinging of things over the wall at him. Cesspit offerings, for the most part.”

Imogen looked at Phillip. The only thing she thought she would ever fling at that guy there was herself. She shook her head. “He’s gorgeous and she’s an idiot.”

“He can be a bit of a prig now and then.” Rose smiled. “Too tidy, you know, and focused on things that might be tedious to a maiden, such as building an empire, training more intensely than his sire, making appearances at court.”

“Sounds awful,” Imogen said, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. “And you said appearances at court. In London?”

“Or wherever Henry finds himself, but aye, most there.” Rose looked thoughtfully at Phillip. “Heather was young, though not overly, and I think the thought of being wed to an Englishman might have troubled her.” Rose shrugged. “She isn’t here, her father isn’t here, and her brother isn’t here. Her father is reputedly dead, and we haven’t found her brother’s remains anywhere. Heather’s whereabouts are a mystery.”

Imogen stopped just short of snorting. Again, she had the feeling she knew exactly where that runaway bride was. Worse still, she had an even clearer feeling that Heather was not about to give up the luxury of a driver and French press coffee for a one-way ticket back to the Middle Ages, all of which left her in a bit of a bind. It occurred to her abruptly that Heather hadn’t sent her back to the past on a whim; she had sent her back as a substitute. It was tempting to indulge in a lengthy contemplation of what it might be like to be Phillip de Piaget’s bride—

Nope, she couldn’t even begin to go there. He might have been good looking and chivalrous, but he was also out there hacking at a scruffy-looking knight—one of Haemesburgh’s natives, she guessed—and looking as if he meant business with that hacking. Life and death in medieval mud was just not for her.

Well, there was obviously going to have to be a switch, but that wasn’t without its problems. First, she was going to have to find Heather and convince her to come back. Second, she was going to have to convince Heather to cough up Phillip’s sword so she could go back. Third...

Well, third, she was going to have to figure out a way to get back to the future so she could try to see to numbers one and two. And she had the feeling getting home wasn’t going to be the easiest of the three tasks.

She had no idea even where to start. It wasn’t as if she could simply look at Rose and say, hey, I need to get back to the twenty-first century; don’t suppose you’d have any one-way tickets lying around in that quiver of yours, would ya? She supposed she could ask around for a list of spooky British sites and go investigate those. But she wasn’t sure she dared go on her own, and just how was she to get Phillip to come with her, never mind his having promised to help her? Hey, studmuffin, how about you leave off your empire building long enough to help me get home?

She paused. That actually sounded less crazy than it might have otherwise. She could tell him that she knew where his sword might be hiding—

And then he would want to know why she knew and where she thought it was and that would likely end badly for her. She couldn’t say she was up on the current level of tolerance for paranormal happenings, but if seasoned cab drivers were still freaking out about it eight hundred years in the future, that didn’t bode all that well for it presently.

No, she would bide her time. Maybe she could talk someone into helping her get back to Edinburgh. Lots of spooky stuff happening there. She would get back to civilization, wander around until she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, then she would somehow get herself from one century to another. The exact mechanics of that were still in question, but she would work on that.

One thing was for sure: Heather of Haemesburgh had quite a few things to answer for.