Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24
“What’s that?” Miss Calliope said, striding to Max’s side and leaning closer, her long braid falling over her shoulder onto his arm, and his heart skipped a beat, that she wasn’t shy of him, nor afraid.
Her fresh scent of rosewater filled his nostrils. The sound of her voice, the heat of her body, filled the rest of him. “It’s the king’s seal,” Max said.
“Which king?” Creede said. “Your father or Prince Hugo’s?”
“Both,” Max said. “It’s been passed down from king to king for the last two hundred years.”
Mrs. James poured a finger of whiskey from Bart’s bottle into an empty lemonade glass and took a sip, a ray of sun slanting across the sofa. “That’s all well and good,” she said, “but it’s Calliope here I’m more concerned about. Will Prince Hugo’s nastiness lead him to tell false tales about her?”
Max’s heart wrenched.
Bart’s fist clenched. “Not if I beat the hell out of him first.”
She gave her eldest son a motherly smile of pride. “I would like to do the same, Bart, but any violence on our part directed at him will cause more talk than I care to have. I won’t have him marring Calliope’s reputation.”
Max knew this was a big deal. Hugo kidnapping Miss Calliope could put her reputation in harm’s way, right as she was being courted by so-called honorable men from respectable, wealthy families.
“I won’t allow the Evil Prince to interfere with my daughter’s future,” Mrs. James said, her grip on her lemonade-whiskey glass tight enough to whiten her knuckles, and Max knew she was shaken by what had happened. Like a mama bear, she’d nearly exploded with anger when she’d heard what had happened to her daughter. Like a society matron, of whom he’d experienced many, her main goal was the protection of a young woman’s reputation.
“I suspect the Evil Prince is as desirous that nothing is said about the matter as you are, Mrs. James,” Max said.
“It’s June,” she said. “Any man who braves an armed household to rescue my daughter is allowed to call me June.” A glitter of tears filled her eyes, angry tears, a determined expression on her face, determination and a desire to harm Hugo every bit as much as the rest of them wanted to.
But Miss Calliope’s reputation had to come first.
“We must remember Calliope’s suitors,” June said. “Their families are arriving in Mule Stop tomorrow from Denver and Cheyenne. They’re already on their way. I’ve arranged with the town council for them to stay at the Calder house, now the family has moved to Cheyenne.”
“Annabelle Calder married a big cattleman down there,” Miss Calliope informed Max. “Last year in May. Her parents moved south to be near her and her new husband. They left the house for the town to use as they saw fit, seeing as all the trouble their family caused everyone. The church provides accommodations there, for a fee, but it’s fancier than the boardinghouse for folks who need fancy, and more respectable for families than the rooms above the saloon.”
“Cally’s safety is more important than any inconvenience to the suitors and their families,” Bart said. “We can protect her better here at the Sky Top.”
“But we’d miss the town dance,” Livia said. “People in Mule Stop would notice if we weren’t there. If word gets out about today, folks will draw conclusions, and spread rumors. They need to see Cally being her normal self. They need to see all of us enjoying ourselves and socializing with the prominent folks in Mule Stop. And if the charming Duke of Balmont escorts her to the town dance” —she glanced at Max— “then surely nothing could have happened, no matter what the Evil Prince—or any of his servants—tries to say. Not when she’s respectably chaperoned by her respectable mother and brother and sister-in-law.”
Creede nodded. “That could do the trick. Folks around here are ready to disbelieve anything Prince Hugo might say about a local.”
Max crooked his elbow at Miss Calliope, in silent invitation to the dance. “It will give us some time for some psychological warfare against Hugo, too,” he said as she took his arm.
“What’s that?” she asked, grinning up at him, her hand warm through his plaid cotton sleeve.
“We let him fret over what we’re going to do in retaliation for kidnapping you,” he said. “He’ll be looking over his shoulder for the next few days for an attack.”
Sometime later, Max retired to the side porch of the guest cabin, which was freshly cleaned, courtesy of Mrs. Zandt’s assistants, and into which he’d just finished moving, now that the suitors were gone. Tipped back in his straight-backed chair, his boots crossed at the ankles and propped up on the porch rail, he watched the Summer River rush and dance at the bottom of the high, grassy slope the cabin sat on. Water spray sparkled in the sun as the river hit the boulders in its path, the sun straight overhead, hot and blinding just past the shade of the porch roof.
On the other side of the water, the Sky Top Mountains rose tall and majestic, the secluded porch—tucked above the curve of the river as it right-turned from the bunkhouse to flow along the east side of the main ranch house—like its own small oasis.
A slight, hot breeze ruffled the thick green leaves of the tall cottonwoods on his side of the river. The scent of pine from higher up the opposite slope came on the heated air. Hard to believe it had only been that morning that the suitors had left the Sky Top.
Hard to believe it had only been that morning that Hugo had kidnapped Miss Calliope.
A rush of rage hit him anew, rage still simmering in his chest, rage still burning in his arms, in his fists. If it wouldn’t have possibly had massive repercussions in his own time, to his own parents and siblings and their families, he’d have gone back to the Crown that morning as soon as he’d made sure Miss Calliope was safe at the Sky Top. He’d have gone back to defend her, to defend her family’s honor.
To defend his own family’s honor, against Hugo’s dastardly actions that day.
Dastardly. Max knew it was an old-fashioned word, but it fit Hugo’s deeds that morning. It had been bad enough to hear stories about him when Max was growing up. But to have seen in person what Hugo was capable of…
The memory of the panicked determination on Miss Calliope’s face when Max had first burst into that second-floor bedroom at the castle, her body half out the window, would stay with him all his life. The flinch that had crossed that panicked determination when he’d entered was another.
Had she flinched at the sound of the opening door, because she’d thought for an instant that Hugo had returned? Or had she’d seen in Max’s face the resemblance to Hugo, and had mistaken him in that instant for his ancestor?
Would that momentary flinch be her memory of Max? Would she shy away from him, always being reminded by the sight of him of what Hugo had done?
His heart wrenched. The thought haunted him.
His gaze strayed up the opposite slope to the nearest of the Sky Tops, the peak tall and snow topped and gorgeous in the sunlight. He hadn’t seen much of her since they’d returned from the Crown. After they’d all finished the midday meal in the parlor, June had taken her for a horse ride up onto that peak, June turning out to be as good a horsewoman as Miss Calliope.
A smart move, he thought, getting Miss Calliope away. She was most at home atop her stallion Apollo, and there was no denying this ranch was the most peaceful place he’d been on earth. When he returned home, he’d do everything he could to make the Crown in his century have the same level of peace and quiet and respect for nature.
In the meantime, he had to do something about Hugo.
Hugo would be furious about now, raging at his employees for allowing a fire to engulf the half-built stable and the shed full of building supplies. He’d be wondering, too, at the coincidence of his cousin, the Duke of Balmont, showing up just at that moment, and disappearing just as quickly. He’d be wondering whether his cousin had been involved in the fire and the rescue of the young woman Hugo had abducted.
He’d be plotting his own revenge on the rescuers, his arrogant mind believing he’d been the one who’d been wronged, not the other way around.
Somehow, though, Max didn’t think Hugo would act right away. He’d know Bart was watching him. He’d know that the whole James family was as unlikely to talk to others about his kidnapping of Miss Calliope as he was—Hugo hated to lose, and Max knew for a fact he’d been warned by his father the king about the consequences of any bad reports of his behavior in the Americas.
Even so, Bart had set out sentries around the primary access points to the Sky Top in case the Evil Prince decided to raid the ranch.
A knock came at the cabin’s front door.
“Over here,” he called out from the side porch, his gaze on an eagle circling lazily above a ridge on the mountain slope.
Quiet footsteps crossed the front porch, then came around the corner—Livia, still in her high-necked blue day dress and carrying a small wicker picnic basket.
Max leaped to his feet, a broad smile coming to his face.
She held out the basket. “Snickerdoodle cookies and slices of Flora’s famous lemon pound cake, directly from the hand of Flora herself, plus a canteen of fresh lemonade and a silver flask of Bart’s best whiskey.”
Max laughed. “What’s the occasion?”
“She’s decided you’re the only reason Cally was rescued this morning without bloodshed, and she had a lot to worry in that regard, given how fond she is of Cally and Bart and Sam.”
Max sobered. “Bart and Creede could have pulled it off.” And he wondered if he’d changed the future that morning by rescuing Miss Calliope, and if the change would be good or bad for all concerned.
“Do you think they could have even gotten inside that castle?” Livia said.
He set the basket on the small square wood table beside his chair and gestured her to the white-painted rocking chair on the other side of the small table. “You’re saying my resemblance to Hugo saved the day. Prevented the bloodshed.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “Don’t you think so?”
The resemblance—damn, it still haunted him. To look nearly identical in feature and body to someone so clearly evil… “She flinched when she first saw me. Miss Calliope.”
Livia rocked slowly back and forth. “You realize that’s the highlight of the story she’s been telling everyone. How the door began to open, and for an instant she flinched back against the window frame, thinking it was the Evil Prince returning, then you came into sight as you stepped inside, and she knew in an instant she was safe.”
His throat tightened. “She’s saying that?” His voice sounded constricted. “Are you sure she’s not just trying to put a good face on it? She was damned shy of me on the ride home.”
“For the Prince of Partydom, you’re being awfully obtuse.” She leaned forward in the rocking chair, her brow furrowed. “How are you doing, other than worrying about Cally equating brave, fun, honorable you with the awful Evil Prince?”
How was he doing? His shin was sore, where he’d whacked the castle windowsill climbing out after Miss Calliope. There was an ache in his fist, where he’d socked the guard outside the room in which she’d been held captive.
An ache in his heart, when he thought about leaving all this behind.
When he thought about leaving Miss Calliope behind.
“You realize,” Livia said, “that was the second test.”
“The…?” Max looked up from the silver flask he’d picked up from the basket at the thought of never seeing Miss Calliope again. “I beg your pardon?”
“The second test. For Cally’s suitors. They have to sneak into an ogre’s fortress and steal away something magical. In this case, someone magical. I suspect you’d agree Cally fits that description.”
“Hugo, too, as the ogre,” he said, realizing she was speaking of the three tests June had devised for the young men seeking her daughter’s hand in marriage.
Marriage.
Damn it. He didn’t want to court anyone. He wasn’t looking to marry. Not yet, despite his parents’ hopes. He just wanted Miss Calliope to smile at him with her impish grin, and race him on her stallion, and…
His heart bumped. He wanted her approval. Her admiration.
He wanted her .
He shook his head at himself. What the hell was he thinking? He couldn’t stay in the past—everyone said so.
He didn’t want to stay in the past. He liked the future.
He just didn’t want to leave Miss Calliope.
Damn it.
He glanced again at the eagle. The young woman who had beamed at him in the parlor not an hour ago was as beautiful and enticing and heart-stoppingly joyful as any he’d ever met. More so.
He was falling for her, hard.
He had already fallen. The wrench he’d felt in his heart when he’d seen her half out the window at Hugo’s castle had told him everything he needed to know about his feelings for her.
His feelings.
Damn.
“The third test,” Livia said, “is to slay a fire-breathing dragon.”
Max’s eyes narrowed. He knew exactly which dragon to slay.
Or to detooth and declaw. There was the family line to think of.
He turned to Livia. “You know, I can’t decide whether you’re my fairy godmother or just an amused bystander.”
She laughed.
“But it’s impossible,” he said.
“Stopping the dragon?”
“Thinking that completing June’s three tests will get me anywhere.” Not that there was anywhere to get. He took a large square tin decorated with a field of purple wildflowers from the basket and pried off the tight-fitting lid. Inside were stacks of cinnamon-laced cookies and slices of moist cake, the scent of lemon wafting out. He offered the tin to Livia.
She took a cinnamon cookie. “I agree,” she said. “Until today, I doubt you were the kind of husband she had in mind for her daughter.”
A sense of affront and hurt pride hit him. “My intentions in regard to Miss Calliope have always been honorable.”
She bit into her cookie. “No one has doubted that.”
“Not even Bart?”
“Bart is a protective older brother. He treats everyone that way who he thinks is interested in her. The issue here is that you’re going back to your century in a week or two or three. June—and Bart—want a more permanent relationship for Cally.”
“ You stayed.”
“Someone else went back in my place.”
He broke a thick slice of lemon pound cake in half and bit into one half, the taste of sweet, moist, dense cake flooding his mouth. “Then I’ll do that, too.”
“I don’t think it’s something you can plan in advance,” she said. “And there’s no guarantee I’ll get to stay here forever.”
Silence fell over the porch for a long moment.
“Don’t you have responsibilities at home?” she said.
“Of course,” he said. “Didn’t you?”
“No,” she said. “Not really. Not anything someone else couldn’t do.”
And that was the crux of it. Max was his father’s heir. His sisters Penelope and Leonora, the next two in line, had been clear they desired no part of being a ruler. His youngest sister, Christina, felt differently, but their father had strong feelings about wanting his son on the throne.
It was up to Max to carry on the family line.
“If you weren’t from the future,” Livia said, “I’d encourage the match. But you are from the future. I don’t want her heart broken.” She leaned back in the rocking chair, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t want people to talk, either, speculating whether she’s a fallen woman after you’ve left.”
“A fallen woman?” The thought appalled him.
“It’s different here. You know that. Women are expected to come to their husbands untouched.”
He glanced back up the mountain slope. Somewhere up there, Miss Calliope was riding her stallion, and even with the distance between them, he could feel the tug at his heart. “What if I choose to stay?”
“According to Doc, it’s not your choice.”
“I will say again, you’ve been allowed to stay.”
“From what I’ve heard, that’s unusual. Most folks go back to their own time.”
He glanced again toward the mountain where Miss Calliope was riding, his whole life seeming to be reordering itself in that moment. “Perhaps I’ll be exceptional, too.”