Chapter 6 #3
“ ’Tis in the past, Julianna.” He sighed and dragged his free hand through his hair. “Saints, but I cannot think of it now.’Tis a pity, though, for it made me a good warrior.”
“Climbing over—hic—walls?”
He shook his head. “Nay, lady. Having no one to care for but myself.”
“What’s changed?” she asked. “Find someone recently?”
And then she clapped her hand over her mouth on the pretense of trying to stop her hiccups. In reality, it was the only way she could stop the words that seemed to be spewing out of her mouth without her permission.
William stopped and turned to look at her.
She found, suddenly, that the words had ceased to flow as quickly as they’d started to.
Even her hiccups disappeared. A silence fell until all she could hear was the call of the occasional bird and a bit of wind blowing gently through the trees.
But she couldn’t look to see where the wind was blowing or what birds were carrying on their sporadic conversations.
All she could do was look at the man in front of her: a medieval knight with a sword at his side and her bag over his shoulder who was looking at her with an intensity that left her weak.
“Aye,” he said at length. “I have.”
“Really,” she managed. “Who? Peter?”
He shook his head.
“The priest?”
He shook his head again, and damn him if he didn’t reach out, slide his hand under her hair again and move closer to her.
Julianna swallowed with a gulp. She wanted to get a definitive answer out of him, but she found herself becoming quite distracted by his hand tangling gently in her hair.
It was a most mesmerizing feeling, and she found herself absorbed by it—and the sheer amazement that she’d actually found someone who was single, handsome and gallant.
Never mind that he was in the wrong century entirely.
He smiled down at her, and she thought the sheer wattage of that smile might just start up her unfortunate reaction again. But before she could catch her breath to make any kind of hiccuping noise, he bent his head and kissed her.
Heck, who needed to breathe?
“Perhaps,” he said at length, when he lifted his mouth from hers, “our good priest had more sense than I suspected in the wording of his vow.”
“Were you supposed to rescue a maiden in distress?” she asked, wondering if he would notice if she started to fan herself. Who knew that kissing out in the rain could generate such internal heat?
“Aye, I was.”
“And rescue her from dragons?” she added, wondering in addition if he could feel her knees becoming wobbly.
“There was nothing about dragons. I suspect the only foul thing I will be rescuing you from is the foodstuffs and drink in your sack.” He smiled down at her. “Let me be about the reclaiming of my hall, then we’ll see to a decent meal or two.”
All right, so it wasn’t a proposal. It was an invitation to dinner, and who knew where that might lead?
Besides, Julianna was starting to wonder about the advisability of living on bottled water and carob-covered fruits and vegetables.
The sooner William got on with his little project, the better as far as she was concerned.
“I have a stun gun you could use,” she offered.
“How does it go about its work?”
“You poke someone with it and it leaves them senseless and drooling.”
“So does my sword,” he said. “Let us go back. I’ll manage well enough on my own.”
Maybe it was for the best. For all she knew, William would point the thing the wrong way and there he’d be, senseless and drooling, and then she and Peter would be the ones trying to pick up his sword and do damage with it.
“So,” she said, as they walked back to the hall, “what’s next?”
“I daresay I have little choice but to climb over the wall and murder him in his bed.”
She stopped still. “You said you weren’t—”
He bent his head and kissed her again so quickly, she didn’t see it coming. And when he stopped and simply looked down at her, she found she just couldn’t say anything at all.
“I’ll return,” he said.
“But—”
“I’ll return, Julianna. I vow it with my life.”
Great. She had just hooked herself up with a medieval knight bent on murder and mayhem. Her mother would have fainted dead away at the thought.
She wondered in passing how Elizabeth would have reacted to the news: Oh, by the way, on my way to your castle, I paused in the Middle Ages and found myself being rescued by a knight. A very handsome, attentive, manly knight . . .
She very much suspected Elizabeth wouldn’t have been surprised. But she wondered what Elizabeth’s advice would have been. Stay in the past, or try to get home? Hmmm, ask a complete romantic if she should fall in love, or go back home and look for a dead-end job?
Julianna wondered absently if she could survive the rest of her life without a flush toilet.
Or with a man who thought nothing of risking his life in the seemingly riskiest of ways. Well, if she was going to be any good at this time period, she would just have to suck it up and trust him. She took a deep breath.
“All right,” she said, lifting her chin. “Do what you have to.”
“You’ll be here when I return?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say Where else would I go, but she stopped herself just in time.
She took another breath. The pond was deep and she had no idea what was lurking on the bottom, but there was no sense in not jumping in with both feet.
“I’ll be here.” She paused. “And that’s my choice.”
He smiled again, and she wondered why in the world he didn’t have a line a mile long of girls waiting for that look. Then again, maybe he didn’t show it to very many people.
“Have you ever had a girlfriend?” she asked.
“Women?” He looked dumbfounded. “Dozens.”
“Why didn’t you marry any of them?”
He laughed and shook his head. “By the saints, lady, you have no fear of me, do you? That isn’t a question many would dare ask.”
She only waited. If he had some major flaw, it was best she know about it now.
“I’m not overly wealthy,” he said, looking amused. “I have too many scars from battle. Or perhaps ’tis I was waiting for the Future to spew you back at me. Does that satisfy?”
Before she could find any good response to that, he had kissed her again and then was leading her back to the chapel, still shaking his head and smiling.
What else could she do but the same?