Chapter 4 #2
“You could—hic—turn your back.”
“I might miss an assailant.”
Great, a lecher with scruples. Julianna considered her alternative, which was to smell like a sewer for the foreseeable future, then turned her back on her uneager protector and took stock.
She set her bag aside, then took off her shoes and tried to discreetly pull down her nylons.
They were almost a total loss, though she supposed holes were better than completely bare legs, so she put them in a pile to wash.
She took off her jacket and wondered if a good dunking in a cold stream would violate the dry-clean-only dictum on the tag.
There appeared to be no other choice. Her skirt followed, adorned as it was by bird poop and other unmentionable substances.
Her blouse only had minor damage, so she started with that first, ignoring the fact that she was kneeling in the mud with her back to a man, wearing only her slip.
She’d had better days.
She also could have wished for much firmer thighs as she leaned over and dunked her head into the water.
The touch of the icy stream sent her headache into another dimension entirely, and she thought she just might faint.
Before she could truly give in to the impulse, she felt strong hands on her arms, holding her back from a complete tumble into the stream bed.
An ungentle hand washed her hair for her, then wrung the water out with an expert twist or two.
Julianna soon found herself back on her feet, squinting up at a man substantially taller and broader than she, who apparently wasn’t bothered by a little rain.
She wiped the water out of her eyes, took as good a look as her pounding head would allow and realized, with a start, that while her rescuer might have been grumpy, he was extraordinarily good looking.
His hair was dark as sin—and as the thought ran through her mind, she realized that she had perhaps read one too many of Elizabeth’s romances.
Since she’d only read one, perhaps even that had been too much for her.
Too bad she didn’t write them. The man in front of her would have been good hero material.
He had an amazing pair of light gray eyes, a chiseled jaw and sculpted cheekbones.
Yessir, she would definitely have to tell Elizabeth about him the first chance she got.
She also suspected shoulders and arms that looked that substantial even in chain mail didn’t come from a desk job. He made her feel fragile. She sensed that, miraculously, the extra ten pounds on her thighs were melting into insignificance.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
“Um-hmm,” she said, unable to suppress the start of a smile.
She noticed, quite suddenly, that her hiccups had gone the way of her common sense.
Well, if she had to get thrown back into some alternate reality, or off into some rustic land that time had forgotten, this was certainly the way to go. “Thank you.”
He grunted. “Damned vow.”
But his grumbling didn’t stop him from dumping all her clothes into the stream and swishing them around in a particularly manly fashion—quickly and not very carefully.
Julianna would have protested his less-than-gentle treatment of her two-month-salary suit, but then again, she wasn’t having to wash it and watching her rescuer do her laundry was wrenching another smile from someplace very tender inside her.
He had all her dripping things in one great paw, and then he turned purposely toward her bag.
And her smile faded abruptly.
She dove for it just as he did and for the second time in recent memory she felt as if she’d dashed her head against a rock.
She straightened, rubbing her head only to find him doing the same thing.
She scowled at him, received a scowl in return, then found herself beginning to sway.
She really had to stop abusing her skull or she’d be in serious trouble.
She watched the ground beginning to come toward her and closed her eyes in self-defense.
Great, all that washing up and now she was going to get all muddy again.
She soon found herself, however, not on the ground but held up on her feet by a pair of very strong hands.
With her bag firmly clutched to her chest, of course. Not even a potential slide into unconsciousness was enough to make her let go when Godiva was at stake.
“I’ll carry that,” he announced, looking at the bag purposefully.
Couldn’t he think about anything else? “You won’t,” she stated with equal firmness.
“I’ll not maul your sacred relics.”
She looked up at him skeptically. She’d seen him starting to look through her bag with the methodical impartiality of an NYPD veteran. His apparent lack of respect for her comfort food was enough to forbid him any further access. Who knew what else he might choose to discard?
He sighed, rolled his eyes heavenward and, before she could squeak out a protest, swooped her up into his arms and was striding back toward the crumbling church, her clothes and shoes grasped carelessly in one hand.
“Oh, my,” she said, putting her hand to her heart in a Southern Belle gesture she had never before used in her life.
Dire circumstances brought out the best in a woman, apparently.
He grumbled something at her, and it took a moment or two for her to work it out. When she did, she started to laugh.
Chivalry is never convenient.
He looked at her, seemingly startled, then frowned and continued on his way.
Julianna found herself deposited back where she’d started.
Her clothes hit the floor next to her. She stood, shivering, and watched as the man fetched a blanket from his gear.
He came over to her with an easy gait and draped the blanket around her shoulders.
“Oh,” she said, nonplussed. “Thank you.”
He grunted, then turned and nudged his dozing companion with his foot.
“Up, Peter,” he said. “Keep watch. No fire, understood?”
“But, my lord, where go—”
“To sleep, child. You’ll manage for an hour or two.”
The boy named Peter gulped, then jumped to his feet.
He accepted the man’s sword with scrawny, quaking arms and a great shiver.
Julianna watched as the knight—and she could hardly call him anything else after watching him draw that medieval broadsword with the big fat red gem winking like blood in the hilt—turned his back on them both and went to the other side of the chapel.
He rolled up in his cloak and soon was still.
Whether he slept or not, she couldn’t have said.
One thing was for certain: He wasn’t about to answer any of her questions.
And she had plenty of questions. Such as where was she really?
Why was everyone currently speaking languages that were popular eight hundred years in the past?
Why were there horses defecating not twenty feet away and no one thought it was weird?
That didn’t begin to address how she was going to get out of where she was and back to where she should have been. She looked at William’s back and decided that he wasn’t going to be of any use on any of those problems at present.
She looked to her right. The priest had propped himself up with his back against the altar and was drooling as he dreamed.
That left the scrawny kid in front of her, who looked at her as if she’d just been released from an insane asylum. Great. Bad enough that he thought she was crazy. Worse yet that he was holding the sword.
The only bright spot was that he did look hungry. Maybe it was time for a serious foray into the depths of her bag. Surely there would be something there to sway a teenager. She could hold lunch in her hand and use it as a bribe for information.
She sat down as gracefully and as modestly as she could, keeping her eyes on the unstable-looking sword bearer.
She wondered what would possibly entertain the kid.
She had her Godiva, of course, but she had the feeling that would be wasted on him.
If his boss thought it was poison, he probably would too.
Okay, so chocolate was out. She contemplated the contents of her bag.
Scarf, Dick Francis mystery, dog-eared copy of The Canterbury Tales for long subway rides, and dire-dire-emergency bottle of pop she never touched.
For all she knew, it might save her life one day.
She had her Day-Timer with its special section of games for those bored in meetings, and a pair of Cole Haan pumps that never touched anything rougher than Berber carpet.
There was her sketchbook and a pencil case full of colored pencils.
Oh, and what she’d purchased at the health-food store.
She suspected carob-covered carrots were not the way to this kid’s heart, but it was the best she had, so she would make do.
She pulled out the crinkly bag, held it in her hand and looked Peter in the eye.
“Now, Peter,” she said in the don’t-give-me-any-crap voice she reserved for civil servants and the super of her building, “I have a few questions for you. . . .”