The rosemary had grown rampant along the eastern wall, its needle-sharp leaves glistening with dew. He broke off a sprig, crushing it between his fingers, inhaling the scent that always reminded him of better days. Of the kitchens at court, where he’d secretly learned to coax magic from common ingredients. Before everything had turned to ash.
A sound made him freeze.
Someone was moving through his garden. Moving carelessly, trampling through beds that had once been his mother’s pride, crushing delicate shoots beneath?—
“Saints preserve me,” he breathed, staring at the most peculiar sight his eyes had ever beheld.
A woman stood among the lavender, but unlike any woman he’d ever seen. Her hair fell in dark waves around her shoulders, unbound and uncovered like a maiden—or a wanton. But ’twas her garments that made his jaw tighten with suspicion. She wore... hose. Men’s hose, but clinging to curves that were decidedly feminine. And over this shocking display, some manner of tunic that bore strange markings across her chest.
A thief, then. Some brazen creature who thought to mock proper dress while she pillaged what remained of his coffers. The very audacity of it made his blood heat.
“What in the name of all the saints are you doing in my garden?”
The words thundered from his chest before he could temper them. The woman spun toward him with a startled cry, nearly losing her footing on the rain-slick stones. When she straightened, he found himself looking into eyes the color of rich earth, wide with what appeared to be genuine confusion rather than fear.
Most women cowered when he spoke thus. This one merely blinked at him as if he were the intruder.
“I’m... I’m lost?” She said, her voice carrying an accent he couldn’t place. Not French, not Flemish, not any tongue he recognized from his travels.
“Lost.” The word tasted of disbelief on his tongue. He stepped closer, noting how she held her ground despite his size. Foolish wench.
“And I suppose you became lost inside my garden walls by mere chance? What manner of...” He gestured at her shocking attire, at a loss for words that wouldn’t be blasphemy. “What are you wearing? What do those symbols mean?”
She glanced down at her tunic as if she’d forgotten what she wore. The strange markings seemed to shimmer in the gray morning light—sorcery, perhaps, though she looked more bewildered than threatening.
“It’s about coffee,” she said, and again that odd accent. “It’s a joke. About coffee and books.”
Coffee. He’d heard the word whispered among merchants who dealt in the most exotic of Eastern goods, that such a thing existed in Constantinople, but what manner of jest could be made of it? And books—what woman spoke so casually of learning? He blinked. She could read?
His hand found his sword hilt. “You’re a thief. Or a spy. Which is it?”
“I’m a food blogger!”
The words meant nothing to him. Absolutely nothing. He stared at her, this strange creature in her shameful garments, who spoke in riddles and stood in his garden as if she had every right to be there. The morning air carried the scent of rain and rosemary and something else—something warm and unfamiliar that seemed to cling to her skin.
“A what?”
“I write about food. On the inter—I mean, I’m a cook. Sort of.”
A cook.The words hit him like a physical blow, and something dark and bitter rose in his throat. Of course. Of course, someone would send him a cook, today of all days, when the six-month anniversary of his disgrace weighed heavy on his soul. When the memory of Guy’s betrayal cut fresh as any blade.
“Someone sent a cook,” he said, and his voice had gone deadly quiet. “To mock me.”
“No one sent me!” Her voice rose, carrying a note of desperation that might have moved him if he weren’t so furious. “There was this cookbook and lightning and I woke up here?—”
She stopped abruptly, spinning in a slow circle, taking in the crumbling walls, the wild garden, the mist-shrouded hills beyond. Her face went pale as fresh parchment, and Tristan braced himself for the inevitable swoon. Women always swooned when faced with aught too overwhelming for their delicate constitutions.
But instead of crumpling gracefully to the ground, she planted her hands on her hips and glared at him with an expression that could have curdled milk.
“Where are the cars?” she demanded. “The trains? Planes? Buses? Hell, I’d even take a bicycle or a golf cart at this point.”
He stared at her blankly. The words meant nothing—complete gibberish. “I know not of what you speak.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Where the hell am I?”
The profanity made him blink. What manner of woman spoke thus? “You are at Greystone Castle,” he said carefully, watching for signs of madness.
She rolled her eyes—actually rolled them, like a petulant child. “In Kansas?”
