“Perhaps we can speak alone?”
“No,” Nicholas refused. “We will have no secrets between us.”
“You my speak freely, Mr. Simeon,” Kes assured him, not having any idea what he was about to say.
“Very well,” he gave in. “They called you Kestrel Lancaster.”
“What?” Nicholas demanded.
Kes’ heart felt as if it were giving out.
“’Tis a mistake!” Nicholas boomed. “She’s no more a Lancaster than I am.”
The dream just turned into a nightmare.
“Sir Lucan said they checked, and double checked that they had the right person. Miss Kestrel Lancaster. They found you in New York in twenty nineteen. That is you.”
She could feel Nicholas’ eyes on her, but she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t.
“Kestrel?” Nicholas asked.
“Yes?”
“Is it true?”
She couldn’t lie. Not anymore. Somehow, he would find out the truth and she would look worse.
“Are you a Lancaster?”
“Yes.”
Chapter Nineteen
Nicholas stood bythe window of his solar the next afternoon and looked outside. The sun shrank away from the thick, charcoal clouds that looked like gloom come to life. Lightning lit up the sky and made the hair on his neck stand up. Thunder shook the castle walls reminding those inside how meager their lives were.
He grabbed his sword and left the solar. He wanted to be out there, in the force of nature, feeling its power coursing through him. He felt the rage and white-hot anger of betrayal. He needed a way to release it before it overcame him.
He headed for the doors above stairs. The doors that led to the wall and the bridge, and ultimately, the coastal village.
He flung open the door and walked out into the rain like a storm unto himself—one even more dangerous than the one he was stepping into.
She’d betrayed him. All this time…all this time knowing how he felt about them. His mortal enemies!
She’d tried to speak to him. She’d even had Elia and Elizabeth try to speak to him for her, but he wasn’t interested. She’d lied to him about something so important. She was his enemy. She tried to say she was afraid to tell him the truth, but no. She didn’t tell him because she came here with a purpose—to convince him not to fight for Richard. Well, he would not only fight, he’d win for the House of York and then he would throw Kestrel Lancaster out.
He strode to one of the practice fields, his hair dripping around his face from the pouring rain, his boots sinking into the soggy earth.
He wanted to fight. He might ride out to battle a few days early. For now, swinging at a post would help.
He wasted no time smashing his blade into the hard red oak post. How could he have allowed himself to fall for her? She seemed so innocent of it all. Who did she answer to? Or was it more complicated than that? Had Richard won the battle at Bosworth Field and the Lancasters from the future sent Kestrel here to change history?
He was tired of these maddening thoughts of time travel and being able to change history. It wasn’t right. And what about King Arthur’s knights? Would Sir Gawaine come here and try to take her back to her century?
Just thinking of it made him feel like he’d accepted the fact that he’d gone quite mad. King Arthur? Camelot? Magic? Gah! All of it was exasperating.
He smashed his blade into the hard wood post from the right, the left, from above and below. He struck hard and fast, swinging, jabbing, ramming. He fought with savage desperation. He imagined Gawaine or Lucan in front of him, trying to take her. He cut deep into the oak, his blade slicing through. It took him some effort to yank his sword out of the wood, but he did so with a deep grunt.
She was a Lancaster. They killed his family. And now he had fallen in love with one.