“Lord Harwich, it’s me, Maggie…Maggie Montgomery.” She didn’t know why she told him her last name. She hoped it would produce some kind of reaction in him. It did.
He tugged on his reins and looked down at her. “Montgomery? Are you any relation to Lady Eleanor?”
Maggie drew in a deep breath. So, even here the question prevailed. “A distant relation, my lord.”
He startled her and made her heart leap when he dismounted and landed on his feet in front of her. He looked her over with cool, curious eyes, making Maggie wonder how she looked. She reached up to feel her hair tied at the temples and secured at the back of her head. The rest hung loose down her back. Who brushed her hair?
It was no easy task.
She felt his gaze on her and lowered hers. Not low enough, for she found her gaze fastening to his decadently carved lips curling into a grin. Could she touch him? Kiss him?
“Many make such claims, Lady.”
He didn’t recognize her. He had no reason to, since he knows her as a ghost in the future, but his detachment pierced like an arrow, nonetheless, making her want to double over.
“It isn’t my name that matters,” she told him as all traces of humor left his face. “I’m not your enemy.”
“My enemy? Why do you bring up such unpleasant things?” His voice pulsed in her ears, resonant and vital. “Many believe it a form of confession of guilt when someone protests before the subject is even brought up.”
Maggie swallowed and forgot to breathe as he gave a nod to the brute still blocking her. She felt a beefy hand clasp her nape and drag her away. “Oliver!” she cried out.
He turned to look her way, casting the brute a subtle warning to lower his hand from her neck.
The instant she was free, she stomped her foot and had a mini meltdown right there on the cobblestone streets of Harwich. She glared at the brute, vowing in her mind that no matter how grimy he looked, she’d take a bite out of him if he put his hands near her again.
“Tell me how you dare call out my Christian name?”
And this one! She turned to glare at Oliver, the shell of the ghost she left. Allowing his vassal to be treated so poorly! It was unforgivable, really. But she’d forgive him this once. “You don’t know what my heart has been put through over you, Ghost,” she murmured too softly for anyone to hear. And she’d obviously go through more for him. What if she was allowed to be here to warn him? She wouldn’t stop.
“I’m Mag…Magnolia.” It was what he called her. “I’m here to help you, my lord.” She couldn’t help him when he was falling, but now it wasn’t too late. “You exist in the future, Oliver,” she said quietly, but he was still close enough to hear. “But you’re no longer alive. You roam Graven’s halls alone and filled with hatred and revenge against the one who took your life.”
The first thing she noticed was the vibrancy in his eyes, the naturally coral color of his cheeks. This was him alive. She wanted to grab on to him and not let Eleanor anywhere near him. For an instant that she wasn’t sure was real or not, she thought she saw a flash of something—perhaps recognition in his gaze.
“Who took my life?”
This was it. It might get her in trouble, but it could be a way to save him. “Your wife.”
And then, whatever she saw in his gaze was gone, replaced by a hollow chuckle. “Are you a witch?”
“No. But I know how she kills you.”
He slid his gaze to another fit looking brute on the other side of her and nodded his head. “Bring her to the dungeon.”
“What?” She struggled against brute number two. He barely moved in response. “Wait! Let me go! Lord Harwich, listen to me, please!”
“I will,” he called out to her as he leaped back on to his horse. “You’ll come to the fortress, but you will not be a guest.”
“But the dungeon? We’re friends!”
He cantered his horse to her and offered her a mocking smile. “Friends? You are friends with a dead man?”
“Yes,” she answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “A dear friend.”
He looked as if he might burst into laughter, or at least cast her another derisive chuckle. She knew how she sounded,especially to a sixteenth century man. But he didn’t laugh, or even smile. Did he believe her? Oh, please let him believe her!
When he was to give his reins a flick, she stopped him. “Please, not the dungeon, my lord.”
His gaze lingered on her for a moment and then shifted to the man beside her. “To the dungeon.”
