The simple admission deflated her anger. “Well, now might be a good time to start.”
He gestured to a stone bench built into the inner wall of the battlements, sheltered from the wind. They sat, not quite touching, the stone cool beneath them.
“Tell me, then,” he said. “Who is Beth Anderson?”
She took a deep breath, wondering where to begin. “I’m a teacher. I teach... alchemy, I guess you’d call it, though we call it chemistry. I help young people understand how the world works, down to its smallest parts.”
“And your family?”
“My father is a scientist too, an alchemist of sorts. My mother is a lawyer, always traveling for work.” She smiled faintly. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”
Her voice caught, and she focused on the glint of sunlight off the water, not on the ache behind her breastbone. “It was just me and Dad most days, as my mom worked a lot. He taught me to climb trees and fix broken things, to ask questions and never stop until I had an answer. He made me believe the world could be decoded, taken apart, and understood.”
He studied her face. The keen gray of his eyes softened, though worry still razored a line between his brows. “They must miss you.”
“They might not even realize I’m gone yet.” A wry smile ghosted across her lips. “Dad’s probably lost in his own head, staring into a beaker and wondering where the macaroni went. And Mom’s likely buried in legal briefs in Philadelphia. We can go weeks without speaking sometimes.” She sighed. “But yes. They’d be terrified, if they knew I was, well. Here.”
They sat in silence a moment, the easy hush broken only by the wind sighing through ivy growing between the stones.
“And you?” Her voice was gentle, coaxing. “You lost your father, Eleanor told me.”
Baldwin’s jaw flexed, the muscle ticking like a clock. “Aye. I had sixteen summers. He was a good man, stern, but fair. I try to remember his lessons, though Glenhaven demands much. It is easy to forget oneself in duty.”
A stillness fell between them, but not an uncomfortable one. She glanced at Baldwin from beneath her lashes, emboldened by the quiet.
His eyes, grey as the lake on a cloudy day, studied her face. “And now? Do you wish to return to your home?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Sometimes I miss hot showers and antibiotics and being able to look things up instantly. But other times...” She gestured at the view before them, the lake glittering in the sunlight, the forest a tapestry of greens. “I haven’t taken a vacation in a long time. It’s nice to have a break.”
“Vacation? Never mind, he said.” Then he was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “I cannot promise to understand all that you are. But I will try to know who you are.”
The simple promise warmed her more than it should have. They sat in companionable silence, watching a hawk circle lazily over the lake.
Down below, a flash of movement, a stable lad dashing across the lower yard, pulled her back to the moment. “I should go help Eleanor,” she said, rising as if the spell between them might break if she stayed.
“Beth.” His voice caught her with the barest snare of longing.
She half-turned.
His gaze flicked to her loose braid. “Wear the ribbon, act as if you belong. Tell no one aught you should not. And if you need me—” A muscle in his jaw worked, as if he fought the words reluctantly on his tongue. “Send for me. At once.”
Unwilling to trust her voice, she simply nodded and turned away. As she climbed down the stairs, she pressed a hand to her heart, as if she could steady that wild rhythm inside her chest. For the first time since she’d tumbled through light and storm, she wanted, truly wanted, to stay. If only for one more day.
That night,Beth couldn’t sleep. She paced the corridor so she wouldn’t keep Eleanor awake, thinking of the strange twist of fate that had brought her here. No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn’t figure out what exactly in the experiment had sent her through time. Maybe if she could recreate the experiment?
From the window at the end of the corridor, she could see the castle courtyard, eerily quiet now after days of frantic preparation. Tomorrow it would be filled with horses and knights and royal retainers. Tomorrow she would have to pretend to be someone she wasn’t, anything but a time-displaced chemistry teacher with a penchant for saying the wrong thing.
She leaned her forehead against the glass, watching her breath fog the pane. What if she couldn’t do it? What if she made a mistake that endangered not just herself, but Baldwin and Eleanor too?
The thought of bringing trouble to Glenhaven, to these people who had, despite their suspicions, taken her in, made her stomach clench.
“I don’t belong here,” she whispered to the empty room.
But as she finally went back into the chamber and crawled into bed, pulling the heavy woolen blanket up to her chin, a small voice in the back of her mind whispered back... then why does it feel like you do?
CHAPTER 8
Baldwin paced the length of his solar, the leather of his boots creaking against the rush-strewn floor. His jaw ached from clenching it so tightly. The royal party would arrive within the hour, and everything, from the newly polished silver to the garlands of summer flowers adorning the great hall, stood ready for inspection. Everything except the one element he could not control.
