She shook her head. “She dies in childbirth.”
He paled and turned away. “She was young then.”
“Nicholas,” Kestrel said with tears filling her eyes. “I don’t want to say anything more. I’ve already said too much.”
He nodded and stepped back. So, Elizabeth dies young. He wanted to go back to the hall and spend more time with her.
He saw two people coming toward them. Elia and Charlie. His first officer was good to escort her to the inn.
A breeze from the right brought with it the faint scent of apples and something else. Something that made the hairs on his body stand up. He turned to his wife and saw two men mounted on great warhorses appear out the shimmering air to her right. The horses were draped in trappings depicting a dragon. The men wore leather armor and had long two-edged swords dangling from their belts.
Silvery mist clung to their horses’ legs. Nicholas guessed who they were, though his mind told him it was impossible.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Instantly, Nicholas tookhold of Kes’ arm and pulled her behind him. He reached for his sword, but her hand stopped him.
She couldn’t let Nicholas kill Sir Gawaine. And if anyone had a chance of killing Nicholas, it was this brutish knight.
Mr. Simeon had warned her about telling too much. Now they’d come after her. What were they going to do?
“Mr. Green,” she said, doing her best to sound calm as she stepped around her husband, to his side. Not out of reach. “May I call you Sir Gawaine?” She cut her gaze to Luke. “Sir Lucan?”
“What do you want?” Nicholas demanded, unafraid against the legendary knights.
“We want the future telling to cease,” demanded Gawain right back.
“Yes! Yes!” she held up her hands. “I’m sorry about that. It won’t happen again. I think we can—”
“Do you listen to her conversations?” Nicholas asked incredulously.
He had a point. Were they listening? She gave them an angry stare and crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you plant something on me?”
They were already shaking their heads, but it wasn’t in defense of them spying. “You are diverting the problem. Ms. Lancaster—”
“She is Lady Scarborough,” Nicholas told them. There was a warning thread in his voice that was steadily growing. “If I were you, I would stand away from her.”
Sir Gawaine flicked his gaze to Sir Lucan and chuckled softly, which produced a low growl from Nicholas.
“Let me get right to the point. Ms. Lancaster,” Sir Gawaine said impatiently. “We want you to return home—to your time. The future came too close to changing with you here. We are here to make certain that you go back.”
She turned to Nicholas. She could go back? Back to her father, her friends, her job? Back to painkillers and cellphones and social media. “Nicholas, would you—”
“Ms. Lancaster,” Sir Gawaine said, interrupting…and perhaps reading her thoughts, “you must go as you arrived. Alone.”
“Can’t you send him after me?”
“No. It only works every twenty years in any century.”
She was looking at Nicholas when Gawaine spoke. The alarm in her eyes was set directly on him. Alone? Leave him? “No.” Her voice shook. She turned to the ancient knight. “I can’t.”
“You must,” Sir Gawaine told her. “You will no doubt disrupt time if you remain here. It should not be too much of a concern for you. ’Tis believed that you might have been brought here by mistake. The brooch has been known to malfunction.”
She laughed. “What? Mistake? Sir Gawaine, nothing in my life has been so perfect for me. Nicholas has brought love into my life, and isn’t that what your king wanted for others because he never had it for himself? How can my coming here be a mistake?”
“You have said too much,” Gawaine said and unsheathed his sword.
Nicholas’ blade was out in an instant. Charlie’s was next.