“Beth?” His voice broke on her name.
“The future can burn,” she said, stepping toward him. “I choose you.”
In three long strides Baldwin reached her, wrapping his cloak around her shivering form, pulling her against the solid warmth of his chest. His hands cradled her face, thumbs brushing away raindrops or perhaps tears from her cheeks.
“You stayed,” he breathed, disbelief and joy warring in his voice.
Beth leaned into his touch, her eyes never leaving his. “I couldn’t leave you.”
The kiss, when it came, was neither gentle nor hesitant. Baldwin’s mouth claimed hers with the hunger of a man granted life after accepting death. His arms encircled her completely, lifting her onto her toes as she wound her fingers into his wet hair.
Rain poured around them, but neither noticed. Baldwin’s heart thundered against hers, and Beth thought distantly that no scientific discovery, no equation or experiment, could ever match the perfect chemistry of this moment.
When they finally broke apart, breathless, Baldwin pressed his forehead to hers. “Why?” he asked simply.
Beth smiled, her fingers tracing the strong line of his jaw. “I wanted to see if I could recreate the experiment. To know it was possible.” She glanced at the scorched circle where the portal had been. “But knowing and choosing are different things.”
Baldwin’s arms tightened around her. “And you choose...?”
“You,” she said simply. “This life. Our life.”
He kissed her again, softer this time, a promise sealed in rain and lightning. When they parted, Beth looked at the burned remnants of her experiment, now a blackened mark on the stone.
“That life was waiting,” she said quietly. “But I’m done waiting.”
Baldwin took her hand, his fingers interlacing with hers. Together, they walked back toward the shelter of the castle, leaving science and portals behind in the storm.
EPILOGUE
One Year Later
Golden afternoon sunlightslanted through the trees, casting dappled patterns across Beth’s journal. She sat beneath the ancient oak that had become her favorite retreat, her back against its rough bark, knees drawn up to support the leather-bound book Eleanor had gifted her at Michaelmas as she looked out over the lake. The pages no longer held the frantic scribbles of a woman desperate to return to her own time, but rather the measured hand of someone who had found her place.
She dipped her quill into the small pot of ink balanced precariously on a flat rock beside her. The breeze ruffled the pages, and she pressed them flat with her free hand, the emerald ring on her finger catching the light. Queen Elizabeth’s gift. A reminder of a life that now seemed both yesterday and a lifetime ago.
“The seasons have turned completely since I first arrived at Glenhaven,” she wrote, her script flowing more confidently than it had a year ago. “The leaves are beginning to flame into copper and gold once more, and I find myself marking timedifferently now. Not by classes and semesters, but by the rhythm of the castle, the cycles of planting and harvest, the festivals that punctuate our days.”
She paused, watching a pair of swallows dart overhead. In the distance, the lake shimmered like hammered silver.
“I still dream of my laboratory sometimes,” she continued. “Of plastic beakers and electric lights, of my parents’ voices. But I wake to Baldwin’s arms around me, to Eleanor’s laughter echoing down the corridor, to Maggie’s bread baking in the kitchen, and I know I am where I belong. The cost of my past is measured equally against the richness of my present. I have lost time, but gained love. I have lost certainty, but discovered faith in myself and my heart.”
Beth closed the journal, tying its leather cord with fingers that bore the calluses of a different life now, one marked by herb-gathering and occasional archery practice with Eleanor, who still insisted Beth learn to defend herself “properly.”
A shadow fell across her, and she looked up to find Baldwin watching her, his gray eyes warm with affection. He had shed his formal attire after the morning’s business, and wore only a simple linen shirt and breeches. His dark hair was tousled by the wind, and the severe lord she had first encountered had softened into a man who smiled more easily, who laughed with his household, who had learned to trust again.
“Writing your scientific discoveries, my lady?” he asked, lowering himself beside her with the fluid grace that still made her heart skip. “Or perhaps plotting some new experiment to terrify the stableboys?”
Beth nudged him with her shoulder. “That wasonetime, and the smoke was hardly noticeable.”
“The horses disagreed,” Baldwin said solemnly, though his mouth twitched. “As did Sir Roland, who still claims his eyebrows have never grown back properly.”
“Roland exaggerates,” Beth said, tucking her journal into the pocket of her gown. A compromise between medieval fashion and practicality that Eleanor’s seamstress had created at Beth’s insistence. “Besides, you were impressed when I showed you how the metal reacted to the acid.”
“I was impressed that the metal basin survived your ministrations.” Baldwin took her hand, his thumb tracing the curve of her palm. “Though I confess, I find your enthusiasm for discovery far more appealing than I once did.”
“You mean you no longer fear I’ll burn down Glenhaven in pursuit of scientific advancement?”
“Oh, I still fear it,” Baldwin said, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “But I’ve accepted it as a small price to pay for keeping you.”
