Page 21 of A Dark and Stormy Knight (A Knight’s Tale #3)

I t was early when Cara felt herself being shaken awake.

It took a moment to remember where she was, and the candle hovering around Gillian’s face told her exactly who was waking her.

Cara smiled. “Why do I feel like I’m camping, and we’re about to raid the snack drawer and tell ghost stories?”

Gillian muffled a giggle. “Come on, I want to talk to you.”

Cara glanced at Lady Helena who snored very softly, and then at Amelia and Dori on their pallets on the floor, both of them unmoving.

“What time is it?”

“Who knows? But I did hear a cock crow, so it’s got to be coming up on dawn soon.”

Cara quickly pulled a dress over her head. She slipped shoes on, and soon they were both out in the hall.

“We’ll have to be quiet as you never know where people have bunked down for the night.”

Cara followed Gillian down the darkened hallway, the candlelight casting shadows that revealed and receded with every step they took.

They descended a curved staircase that eventually came out into a large kitchen.

“Who goes there?” A woman’s voice asked, and a figure rose from the floor near a gigantic fireplace on the opposite side of the room.

Gillian lifted the candle high.

“Lady Marshall and Lady Cara.”

The woman’s bulky white nightgown glowed in the darkness.

“Are you hungry? I could make a bowl of porridge if thy stomach needs settling.”

“Thank you, Cook, but we are headed to the chapel to pray this morning.”

“Of course, my lady.”

There was a whole lot of disapproval in those words, but Gillian ignored her and went to the back door to lift the bar.

Cook sprinted across the room, much quicker than Cara would have believed possible.

“Let me get that, my lady. As you well know, Lord Marshall has forbidden you to lift aught.”

Gillian’s scoff made it plain what she thought of that, but she stepped back and let the other woman lift the bar.

As Cook made a disapproving noise, Gillian and Cara went outside to face a cool September morning.

Gillian twined her arm with Cara’s, and they huddled together for warmth as they walked along an alley, and then ducked underneath a low archway.

They were back in the courtyard and Cara could see the chapel across the way, a candle burning brightly in one window.

She glanced around but didn’t see a single soul.

“Now, what are we doing, exactly?”

“We have an appointment.”

Cara glanced at the darkened keep with its imposing double doors, half expecting Kellen or Wallace to come out at any moment, and catch them in the act of ... what? Going to church?

It was Cara’s turn to giggle. When they quickly crossed the hard-packed earth of the courtyard and arrived at the chapel, Gillian knocked softly on the door.

It opened almost immediately, and Cara recognized the priest who sat with them the night before.

“Come in, come in,” he gestured them inside where there was a fire crackling happily in a hearth near the front by a podium.

There were a few benches scattered about, and the walls glowed a dull orange color in the candlelight.

“Have a seat, right over here.” He led them to a table with three chairs around it and a candle glowing brightly in the center.

Cheese, crackers, and mugs had been set out, and the priest was quick to pour them each a drink, and he bustled around seeing them settled before he sat down himself.

“Now, Lady Marshall, you know I’m always willing to accommodate you, day, night, or at the ungodly hour of dawn. Tell me what this is about, and perhaps we can all get a bit more sleep before your husband comes to find you, and sends me to perdition for my part in this.”

Gillian smiled, her eyes twinkling at the priest. “Oh, come now, my husband is a teddy bear and will hold you completely blameless if we’re discovered.”

The priest looked at her like she was a wacky, but lovable child. “I will agree he can be a bear, and I prefer not to disturb His Lordship and save myself from attack. Now, what is this about?”

Gillian lifted a hand. “This is my new friend, Lady Cara Jones.”

The priest nodded at the formal introduction but gave Gillian a questioning look. “Aye, so you said.”

“She’s from California.”

At that the priest, who’d been reaching for cheese and crackers, let his hand thump to the table and sat up straight, his hand falling to his lap.

He drew in a breath, said nothing, looked at Cara, then Gillian, and then closed his mouth.

He blinked a few times, and then drew in another breath. “I don’t suppose that is located in your America, is it?”

“Why, yes, it is.”

“Some seven hundred years from now?”

Gillian smiled. “You are quick this morning.”

“What has Lord Marshall said of this?”

Gillian waved a hand in the air and then ended in a shrug. “Some things are best left unsaid.”

“He does not know?”

Gillian smirked. “No need to burden him with unwelcome news, is there?”

Cara snickered. “Anyone want to explain what the problem is, if Gillian here is also from future America?”

“It’s not exactly a problem per se, it’s just that Kellen will lose his freaking mind.”

“Again, I have to ask the obvious. If you’re from there, then why can’t I be as well?”

“Because he’s afraid I’ll find a way back home again and leave him forever.”

Cara’s eyes widened. “Oh, my gosh, he’s keeping you prisoner here?”

Gillian’s laugh was genuine and amused. “No, I’m with the man I love, and I’m here to stay. It doesn’t stop him from worrying however, and, in fact, just last week I met another of our ilk at Stirling Castle. As predicted, Kellen lost his mind.”

“There’s another one of us?”

“Yes, Samantha Ryan, and she’s a professor of antiquities in New York City.”

“What happened to her?”

“I don’t know. I’ve written to her, but it’s too soon to hear back yet.”

“This is just unbelievable. What is happening here?”

“Well, for my part, I had an heirloom ring that brought me to this place. Samantha said she had a bejeweled crown, and it looks to me as if you’re wearing a fabulous necklace that would certainly qualify as antique.”

Cara’s hand went to her throat and touched the necklace that now seemed so much a part of her.

“You can’t get it off, can you?”

Cara shook her head. “I can’t.”

“I can help you with that. But first, I’ll let the priest here tell you about Saint Cuthbert.”

Cara turned her attention to the priest who cleared his throat importantly.

“Saint Cuthbert was a priest who did many a good deed. Since Lady Marshall here has come to us, I’ve made it my business to look further into the man’s life to learn why he was a saint, what he did with his life, and what happened to him.”

When he paused, Cara was quick to insert, “And?”

The priest threw a pleased glance in Gillian’s direction before answering.

“And, it seems that for all his good deeds, the man had a mischievous side.”

“And?” Cara said again, she just knew she was about to find out the man was a devil worshiper or something, going around and cursing jewelry so as to entrap innocent women in some evil scheme.

“And, I will return shortly.”

The priest got up and went through an arched doorway and Cara turned to Gillian. “Can I just get the condensed version and go back home?”

“Do you really want to?”

At that, Cara sat back in her chair. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I? Can I?”

Gillian placed an elbow on the table, her face in her palm, and looked like the cat who caught the canary. “I mean, Lord Wallace Wolfsbane.” She wolf whistled. “I wanted to go home at one point as well, but, Lord Kellen Marshall.” She shrugged. “So, what do you do?”

Cara wasn’t sure she liked the implication. “I go home, that’s what I do. Resume my life as a Hollywood makeup artist, if I haven’t been blackballed at this point, and live happily ever after.”

“With who? Do you have a significant other?”

Wallace, kissing him, popped into her head. No one had ever made her feel the way he did. Safe, protected, aflutter.

She so easily drew smiles from him, and it made her feel like a magician or something when she did.

With little effort on her part, she raised his spirit, drew him out, got him talking, and kissed him pretty much whenever she wanted.

If given the choice, she might take him home. Who else did she have? Nate? The man she’d thought was a friend, who’d attacked and backstabbed her?

There was a huge hookup culture on Hollywood sets, one she’d always found distasteful. They made movies about falling in love, emotional relationships, heartfelt feelings, all the things she was finding with Wallace that had been absent in her life, and the lives of her friends.

She held her parents up as a standard, proof that true love existed, but she’d never experienced it herself.

Until now.

Gillian watched every emotion flit across her face with an understanding smile.

“But how could you stay? It’s so primitive and raw.”

Gillian’s smile widened. “Exactly.”

Cara laughed, understanding the other woman meant her husband.

“What if something happened to him? Could you go back then?”

“Don’t even say that. Don’t even put that out there. I’m here, I’m happy, and I’m not worrying about the future.”

Cara envied the other woman her resolve.

Her love life, too, for that matter.

How would she feel if she did go back home, and Wallace was no longer part of her life?

An aching emptiness had her rubbing her chest. Wallace strong, competent, worried about his people, his family, and so gorgeous he made her teeth ache just thinking about him.

He seemed equally caught up in her.

Could she give everything else up? Her family? Her career? Basic sanitation? Junk food? She didn’t think she could.

Especially her parents. She was their only child, and the thought of grabbing her own happiness and leaving them to pain and misery, wasn’t an option.

But what about Wallace? If she left it would gut him, and she found she couldn’t stand the thought of it. It would be one more betrayal in a long line of them.

“Is it possible to go back?”

Gillian sighed. “Did you bleed on the necklace at any point?”

Cara blinked, surprised by the question. When she’d been trying to remove the thing, and the clasp pierced her finger. She raised her thumb up to look at it, and it still had a tiny, inconsequential scab. “Yes, I did. I was worried I’d get in trouble for bleeding on the thing.”

Gillian chuckled. “That’s one of the steps. You have to bleed on the thing, and you have to be on sacred ground that’s been blessed by Saint Cuthbert when you do it.”

Again, she thought back to stumbling up against the touching stone at Stirling, and Lady Helena’s story. “What else?”

“That’s it.” Gillian waved a hand. “Bleed on the sacred object and you’ll be able to take it off.”

Cara touched the necklace at her throat and then looked at her thumb again.

She rotated the necklace around, found the closure, and willfully stuck her thumb on the sharp edge of the catch until it hurt.

Eyes wide, Gillian lifted her hand. “Wait!”

“What?”

“If you take it off here, in the chapel, you’ll go home immediately. If you bleed on it and you’re not on sacred ground, it’ll just come off. Are you ready to go home?”

Cara raised a brow and shot Gillian a glacial stare. “And when were you going to tell me that little tidbit?”

Gillian laughed. “I just did.”

Cara prepared to say her goodbyes, not quite believing, but willing to give it a try. She could go back, take the necklace to its rightful owners, call her parents, see if she still had a job.

Get her life back.

She raised her hand to the necklace again, but hesitated ... and then ... didn’t remove the necklace.

Apparently, she wasn’t ready to go home quite yet.

She still had reparations to make, didn’t she?

She couldn’t just leave Wallace when he might still need her help.

She rubbed at the small amount of blood, smearing it between thumb and fingers until it was gone, and then she sighed.

“You’re staying?” Gillian asked.

“For now.”

“Yay!”

“You know what’s weird? I mean weirder? Wallace’s mom, Lady Helena? She touched a stone in England somewhere, and saw the future. She claims to have met Saint Cuthbert.”

“What? You are kidding me? Do you think there are women from this time, ending up in the future?”

Cara shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea. She said she saw the future right before she married Wallace’s dad. Cars, buildings, modern clothing, things like that.”

“That was me too. One moment modern times, and the next medieval. And vice versa when I went back again.”

“Say again? When you went back?”

Gillian nodded. “I went back the same way I came. With the ring, on holy ground, a bit of blood.” Her expression was a bit impish, and a bit guilty. “Obviously, I came back again.”

“I thought I was still on a Hollywood set when it happened,” Cara said slowly. “There was no dizziness, no flash of light, nothing like that. I was just one place and then I was another.”

Gillian leaned forward, an earnest look on her face. “I would love it if you stayed. I absolutely adore it here; my life is amazing.”

She glanced at Cara’s necklace. “If Kellen knew about this he would freak out!”

“Well, please don’t tell him.”

“Your secret is safe with me. So, what’s the plan?”

Cara probably ought to go, right now, just leave while she had the chance. Who was to say when she’d be on sacred ground again, blessed by a certain saint?

“I don’t like that I can’t take it off.”

“You could take if off in your room. You could sew it in your pocket. I could get you some supplies.”

She was really going to stay, wasn’t she? For just a while longer? She was going to try and help Wallace, make things right for him.

The priest came back, carrying some papers, and resumed his seat once again.

“Here we are,” he said, and spread the papers onto the table. The edges curled and he spread his hands along them, holding them down in a practiced gesture.

“After Lady Marshall married Lord Marshall, I took it upon myself to find what information I could about Saint Cuthbert and his miracles.”

“Miracles?” Cara asked, feeling numb.

“Yes. I honestly don’t know why I had not done it sooner, as Saint Cuthbert’s reputation for visiting this particular chapel was well known and humbly acknowledged. I wrote to the diocese in London, to the monks at St. Bartholomew’s, and have several other letters out and am still awaiting responses. Here is what I found.”

He ran his hands along the paper once more and began to read. “My dear Elliot,” he glanced up at both women. “I will skip to the part that is pertinent. “Saint Cuthbert lies in a Norman cathedral along the River Wear and is the center of pilgrimage.”

He looked up. “I did know that bit.”

He cleared his throat. “Lindisfarne monks chose the peninsula to settle with the body of Saint Cuthbert, and the city was founded with divine intervention.”

He looked up, smiling, nodding. “Aye, what think you of that?”

Both of them must have looked suitably impressed because he continued. “Miraculously, his bier came to a halt at that location and would not be moved. He appeared to a certain monk telling him where he was to rest his bones. Bones which are legendary for their powers of healing.”

“Lady Helena saw him on her wedding day,” Cara said quietly.

Father Elliot’s mouth dropped and he looked floored. He quickly crossed himself. “I believe another miracle is in the making.”

He looked at both of the ladies somberly. “Canonization is not an easy process. As the man lived some two hundred years previously, and was sainted some fifty years after his death, he was obviously quite a heroic figure.”

Both women nodded and that seemed to satisfy him.

He continued. “He has been declared venerable, and a role model of Catholic virtues. After his death there was evidence of miracles from those drinking from the nearby river.”

He shot Gillian and indulgent glance. “I myself would like to present Lady Marshall as a miracle, and now you as well, my dear, as further evidence of Saint Cuthbert’s reach.”

He licked his lips and looked a bit nervous. “However, Lord Marshall has forbidden me from doing any such thing, and as Saint Cuthbert has already been proclaimed a Saint, I will not interfere, though perhaps if I outlive Lord and Lady Marshall, I might yet produce further evidence of his miracles.”

Gillian leaned forward and grabbed him by the shoulder, giving him a slight shake before leaning back to grin at Cara. “He’s Saint Cuthbert’s number one fan.”

“Shall I call him Annie Wilkes?”

“Call me Father Elliot,” he said earnestly. Both girls looked at each other and laughed, leaving Father Elliot confused.

“Sorry, inside joke,” Gillian said. “So, anyway, what you’re saying is that Saint Cuthbert, miracle worker that he is, left a bunch of places scattered throughout England and Scotland and we’ve traveled through time to basically what, meet our soulmates?”

The priest nodded eagerly. “Yes, I do believe that is so.”

The phrase struck Cara, causing an emotional reaction she wouldn’t have expected. She wanted to challenge Gillian over the use of the word, to deny that Wallace was her soulmate and insist he was someone she’d just met, but instead, felt a pang in her heart, like something unfurling, as emotion ripped through her.

She crossed her arms and looked down, unwilling to let the other two see the emotions she battled.

She liked Wallace, a whole lot in fact. Loved the way he looked at her, how he made her feel, loved to flirt with him and kiss him.

In all honesty, she’d never had these feelings for anyone.

Was it because he’d saved her when she’d been attacked?

Or was it the way that he was working so hard against villains and thieves with impossible odds?

As hard as he fought, this honorable, just, hard-working man, who was everything to his mother, sisters, his people, had never won.

According to the history books, Rupert Dinsdale had come out on top and Wallace had lived out his days in disgrace.

Because of her? Because she’d landed where she had? When she had? Ruining it for him?

And then she’d do what? Go on her merry way and forget about him in the twenty-first century?

No. Flipping. Way.

There had to be some kind of cosmic reason she was here, probably to help him set things right. Maybe she was supposed to give him the necklace, and with that wealth he could regain a portion of what he lost?

Or, perhaps she could talk to the king herself. Sweet talk him into giving Wallace another chance. People tended to like her, and Wallace, well, he wasn’t one to hide his feelings. The king probably didn’t want his gloomy face around, making things dark and dreary when he was trying to have a good time.

Maybe she could intervene. Somehow.

What was she going to do? Stay and help him? Or prick her finger like Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, close her eyes and let the hero take care of it himself? Not happening.

“You mentioned supplies earlier. Any chance you have any beauty supplies? I’ve already put together a few things that might work. If we’re going to face king and court, we’d all need to look our best.”

Gillian squealed and clapped. “I could help you with that.”

The door was flung open and both Kellen and Wallace stood there, looking at the three of them, the dawn light at their back.

Kellen, expression black, didn’t say a word, but strode forward, lifted Gillian in his arms, and walked away with giggling wife.

Which left Cara looking at Wallace, all of her feelings for him still close to the fore.

This wonderful, strong man, fighting for justice and his people, while at the same time looking at her like she was the only thing in his life that brought him joy.

In that moment, she was so glad she hadn’t left.

She gave him a soft smile, and apparently, it was all he needed to emulate Kellen’s actions, and he surged forward, gently lifted her in his arms, and strode out the door.