Chapter 6
Dominic
“Iwould feel much more comfortable if you joined me on the bed,” Dominic said, dropping the lid back over the plate of rice mixed through with vegetables and chicken Rayna had brought in.
The tray of food was placed on the mattress next to him, while Rayna made herself comfortable on the table with the pillow he’d offered her after she’d refused to sit next to him.
He’d assured her he wouldn’t touch her, but that hadn’t swayed her.
And as much as he quietly accepted her choice, it pricked at his conscience.
He hoped she didn’t think he was a cruel cad who’d force himself on a woman. He admitted he’d lost his head a bit, clinging to her in a game of cat and mouse in a way that wasn’t very proper or gentlemanly, but he would never have gone further until he had her agreement.
“I’m fine here,” she said, lowering the glass of water from her lips, having picked it up again. “I won’t have to crane my neck talking to you like this.”
“As you wish.”
Cradling the glass in her lap, she straightened, suddenly looking rather like one of his lawyers when he called upon them to discuss his finances.
“First, before I explain where you are, can you confirm that you’re Lord Dominic Evander Jonathan Thorne, the eighth Marquess of Norland, from the southern Region of Vindall, aged thirty-one, born first of January 604 PR? ”
A laughing smile bloomed on his mouth at the way she recited everything. “Yes, that is me,” he said, then tilted his head. “But why is it that you know so much about me while I only know your given name? I feel at a great disadvantage, so would you kindly level the soil for me?”
“My name is Rayna Faez. I’m twenty-five, and I was born on the twenty-sixth of March.”
“Is your family titled?”
“No.”
Nonetheless, she was poised and well-educated, Dominic acknowledged, which meant she likely came from a wealthy family. Maybe she was distantly related to someone in the peerage, or her father was a common-born man who’d made his fortune in a trade of some sort.
Dominic’s gaze then slunk from her left hand to her neck. “You are not married?”
It wasn’t a traditional practice, but it was becoming increasingly fashionable to give engagement rings and lockets. Considering her age, though, Rayna wasn’t wearing either.
She blinked as if she hadn’t quite understood his question before her brows puckered. “Why is that relevant?”
He frowned in return. What the deuces did she mean?
“It is relevant if I have compromised you as a result of our interaction,” he said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing I have brought ruin to your name. And if you are married, then I owe your husband an apology for what I did. Unless you are a widow?”
She rolled her eyes, completely dismissing the idea. “Well, I’m neither married nor a widow, and you haven’t compromised me either, so don’t feel inclined to offer me marriage. Although I wouldn’t agree to marry you even if you did.”
Shocked by her bluntness, a loud laugh bubbled in his throat, threatening to burst out. Never had a woman expressed such certain disinclination to have him save her from ruin.
Not that he’d ever accidentally or purposely ruined any lady, but he was exactly what the marriage mamas of the ton were after for their daughters as the bearer of a title that could be traced a couple hundred years back to royalty.
Not to mention, he’d expanded his family’s wealth through what some considered less noble activities for a lord.
But at least he wasn’t buried in debt like the fools who refused to accept that old incomes of the peerage were losing profitability.
And he knew he was bullish sized in a way that was intimidating for delicate ladies and not at all fashionable, but he wouldn’t have said he was bad-looking.
He certainly wasn’t ailing, and he had all his teeth.
But of course, Rayna Faez was nothing like the ladies he knew and clearly couldn’t care less about his marriageable qualities. And bloody woods, it was refreshing. She was a beautiful novelty, but not the kind that was so easily forgotten upon discovery.
“I see,” Dominic muttered, more to himself than to her.
Rayna’s eyes narrowed as she considered his reply, but her expression levelled quickly. “Now that that’s out the way, can you tell me the last thing you remember before you woke up and found yourself here?”
His wonder of her sobered. “Not in entirety, no. I remember riding out to meet a man at the edge of the city, not far from my country estate.”
She nodded. “That man was River Harris, right? He told you he’d like to show you the horses he was breeding in a nearby land in hopes of breeding them with your own, and to discuss potential investment for an international horse trade, didn’t he?”
He searched her gaze to discern whether it were actually true, but she wasn’t giving anything away.
“That is what he said before I agreed to meet him. But I take it that was all just a ploy to lure me out. We had hardly exchanged a few words before I assume he knocked me unconscious. I vaguely remember a white light, then darkness. And then I woke up to find myself here.” He scanned the room before stopping on her again. “But where exactly is here?”
“I will get to that—”
“I assume from your accent we are in northern Khaas, but why am I here? And who exactly are you, River, and those men in white costumes? Are you after money? Or are you holding me hostage at the request of someone else?”
“No, we’re not after money, nor are you being held hostage. It might’ve been easier to explain everything if it was that simple. But unfortunately, it’s not.”
Rayna paused, seemingly giving him a chance to comment, but he quietly waited for her to explain further. She was being rather ambiguous, and he didn’t know how to feel about it.
“River and I are researchers,” she eventually said. “Historians, to be exact. And those people in white are guards. They were wearing the suits to protect you.”
Protect me?
Dominic nearly scoffed at that. All they’d done was tie him down like he was an untamed animal and repeatedly stick some sort of sewing needle in his arm that had weakened him until he lulled to sleep. He wouldn’t call that protection. Far from it.
In his dogged silence, she set the cup of water down by her feet, then stared him dead in the eyes. “I told you I was born on the twenty-sixth of March, didn’t I? But I didn’t give you a year.”
That caught his attention, and he frowned, his back lengthening in puzzled apprehension.
“My full date of birth is twenty-sixth March 851 PR.”
He recoiled as a low, disbelieving laugh rumbled from him.
Well, that explained why this beautiful woman was unmarried.
A pretty face didn’t change the fact she was a positively balmy bluestocking.
Gosh, did she really think he’d believe she was from the future, or that River had somehow taken him to the future? As much as those odd physicists and inventors liked to rave about creating time machines, everyone with a sane mind knew such a thing was impossible.
But Rayna didn’t wear the fanatic glow of imagination in her eyes as she stared at him. In fact, her features were still set in sure lines, and there was an openness in her charcoal gaze that slowly killed off Dominic’s amusement.
She was dead serious. At least, she thought she was.
“That’s not possible,” he said, his voice firm but low with caution.
“I know it sounds impossible, but it’s true.”
“It’s completely absurd, is what it is.”
Rayna stayed quiet for a few hard beats of his heart before she let out a slow breath.
“River and I are part of a group of historians that work with a team of scientists, who created something called the POTeM—the Past Only Time Machine—that allows us to travel back in time to learn about different periods, such as the Tregency period you’re from.
We also sometimes bring people to the present to help us with certain research projects, and this time, River chose you. ”
Impossible. It’s impossible. Time travel is impossible.
Those words kept circling in Dominic’s mind as he listened to her speak. He wasn’t a fool who naively trusted whatever someone told him, far from it, but there was something about her calm, assured demeanour that was making it hard to doubt her words.
His lips pulled apart, but only a silent puff of air came out, so he closed his mouth again. “What do you mean by ‘present’?” he found himself asking. “What is today’s date?”
“It’s the twentieth of May 876 PR,” she answered. “You’ve been here two weeks, so you arrived on the sixth.”
More than two hundred years. Two hundred and forty-one, to be exact. That’s how many years he’d supposedly time travelled. That was…
“Do you have proof?” he said.
Rayna nodded, then stood up and turned towards the black screen opposite them. “Can you send in the digital clock?”
He followed her gaze and realised his guess that the screen was a window of some sort had been correct. “Is there someone on the other side?”
Her cheeks coloured and jaw rolled stiffly. “Yeah. Several.”
“We saw everything,” a young man’s voice abruptly echoed around the room, making Dominic jump in his skin. The same confused fear of the past fortnight ripped through his chest as he threw his head around, searching for where the sound was coming from.
“I suggested we give you two some privacy, but—oomph.”
As the man’s voice turned into a grunt, a clank came from the slot in the wall by the door through which trays of food and other bits had been given to Dominic daily.
“Thank you to whoever hit George,” Rayna said, sauntering towards the door.
She opened the slot and pulled out a black box of some sort. She swivelled around to return to him but quickly stuttered to a stop.