Before the Fire Read online

  “That’s right,” Jack insisted, maintaining a tight control of the captive, “and it will take another witch to bring her back to all of us.”

  The crowd cheered.

  “But why?” George asked, practically speechless. “Why should any of you care?”

  Girty O’Malley eyed him up and down frowning. “By Saturn’s rings!” she cried.

  Saturn’s rings?

  “Don’t ye know how much the countess has done fer the lot of us?” Girty finished.

  Feeling he should know the answer, and ashamed because he didn’t, the earl slowly shook his head no.

  “She cured me gout,” Girty insisted, inclining her head to confirm her words.

  “She cured the ache in me bones,” an older man called out.

  “She spent time with me after me husband died, helped chase away the tears she did,” yet another cried out.

  “She gave me self-respect,” Charlotte announced.

  “She gave me Bessy and me Megan guid work and guid wages,” Aron added.

  The crowd broke into a sea of roars, each of them trying to be heard above the others to enumerate the countess’s good works to the earl. Finally, after long moments, it was little Jamie McClure, the very same lad who fashioned Kane a new crown of dandelions every day, who stepped forward and called the gathering down to silence. “We could stand here all night and still not say enough what’s good about our lady. The point is, me lord, we are wantin’ her back and we are getting’ her back this very night.”

  Alex and Melea grinned and hugged each other affectionately as the crowd once again thundered their applause.

  James looked to the witch. The beautiful woman appeared to be shaken by the villagers’ speeches. Was she considering it? Was she truly a witch? Could she bring Lady Blackmore back?

  Jack Turgot cut the witch’s binds from her hands and ankles then removed her gag and let it drop to the ground. Aron nodded to his soon to be son-in-law, then shouted to the crowd. “Everyone form a circle aboot the bonfire and join yer hands!”

  Dazed, George and the others did as instructed. The earl reached for Bessy’s hand and held it securely in his own. He looked down at her and winked, inducing the girl to blush prettily.

  As the lords, lady, and commoners constructed their pagan circle, little Jamie McClure handed out dandelion crowns to everyone in the assembled group. “Put them on, all of ye!” the lad shouted. “We best take no chances!”

  Amused, George took a quick gander about him, admiring the dandelion crowns one and all—himself included—were now wearing. It was humorous, and infinitely touching, to see everyone, even his liveried servants with their finely tailored garments, sporting these ridiculous flower talismans.

  Little Jamie McClure handed a dandelion crown to the witch, who accepted it with wide eyes, then ran to the edge of the ring and took his place. “Do yer magic!” Aron called out to the witch. “Bring her back!” another yelled.

  The witch bit her lip and tapped her foot distractedly, as if trying to reach some inner decision. Apparently having reached one, she took a deep breath, shoved the circlet of flowers onto her head, rubbed the palms of her hands together, and took a deep breath.

  The crowd went still.

  Chapter 43

  “Are you certain we should enter on the outskirts of the village rather than in the mansion itself, Kane?”

  “I’m positive, Linder. One of the servants might see us if we materialize out of thin air within the grounds. At least this way we won’t make a scene.”

  “Okay. Then let us walk to the platform to engage.”

  * * * * *

  The witch bit her lip, looking up to the heavens as if seeking divine intervention. She should be looking toward the ground for the help of the wicked demon beasties her kind no doubt called upon in these situations, Jack Turgot thought grimly as he watched her. Well, mayhap she was a good witch. ‘Twas possible. Or so his mum had always claimed whilst in her cups.

  The witch clapped her hands together, apparently having received the inspiration she had been looking for. She foisted her arms dramatically into the air, clearing her throat to speak. She darted her eyes this way and that, no doubt sizing the lot of them up for their potential as pagan sacrifices to the dark spirits. Or so some of the onlookers believed as they shifted on their feet and averted their gazes, fearing their fates if they dared to make eye contact with the silver-eyed witch.

  George watched her curiously, wondering absently what was going through the mind of the woman with the burgundy tresses. He had never precisely believed in witchcraft before, but then again, he hadn’t believed in time travel until he’d fallen in love with a woman who’d been born centuries later than he had. Anything was possible. He wanted to believe it. And if this silver-eyed chit told him to stand on one foot and meow like Sir Scruffy, he’d give it a shot if it meant being reunited with Kane. Why the bloody hell not?

  Alex and Melea clasped onto the hand of the other like lifelines. She had a good feeling about this. There were many worlds in the known galaxies of the twenty-fifth century that relied upon magic and mystique to accomplish the same feats that technology-based societies such as earth did. Witches were real. Sorcery was a reality of life. Perhaps this woman was of their breed.

  James took in the scene around him feeling oddly charged. He knew this had to be the workings of overactive villein imaginings, yet the very air about him felt static. He watched the comely wench’s every move, his heart picking up a beat when she flailed her arms into the air.

  The witch widened her eyes as if telling a particularly frightening ghost story to a group of easily spooked children. She spoke her incantations with a theatrical air usually reserved for the stage. “Roses are red, the night is black, the Countess of Blackmore we all want back.”

  She chanted her words over and over, inducing the crowd with hand gestures to repeat the ritual with her. At first, no one spoke a word. And then, as if breaking the spell that held the gathering’s collective tongue, Melea began to chant with the witch. “Roses are red, the night is black, the Countess of Blackmore we all want back.”

  And then George joined in. And then Alex and James. Aron and Bessy. Jack and Marshall. Megan and Girty. And then the others. All of them, young and old, male and female, English, Irish, and Scottish, noble and common. They chanted in unison, their words like a chorus offered up to the fates:

  Roses are red, the night is black, the Countess of Blackmore we all want back.

  Roses are red, the night is black, the Countess of Blackmore we all want back.

  Roses are red, the night is black, the Countess of Blackmore we all want back.

  The chanting picked up from soft to loud to fever pitched.

  Roses are red, the night is black, the Countess of Blackmore we all want back!

  Roses are red, the night is black, the Countess of Blackmore we all want back!

  Roses are red, the night is black, the Countess of Blackmore we all want back!

  The air encircling the gathering grew fuzzy and tense. There was a charge about it that none save Melea, George, and Alex could give a name to. It was fero-nitrum, they were certain. It was witchery, the others believed.

  A huge puff of smoke materialized out of the mist, inducing the crowd to disband hands and cross themselves in disbelief at what they were all witnessing. Aron MacAllister dropped to the ground and said a Hail Mary, praying to the saints that they hadn’t inadvertently conjured up some heathen god of the dark arts who would devour the lot of them whole.

  From the mist and the smoke, stepped a regally dressed and very pregnant Lady Blackmore. She was accompanied by a nobleman whom none save Melea recognized. All at once, the crowd broke into a fit of cheers. George’s heart palpitated rapidly, his jaw agape.

  Bewildered, Kane and Linder looked around them. The commander felt for his laser-c, preparing to draw it if any of the primitives sought to hurt them. Before he could even think to do anything about it,
a gorgeous brunette caught his eye. The vixen did things to his heart he hadn’t realized a heart could still do at fifty earth years. She smiled demurely at him and he knew then and there that he wouldn’t leave this place without her. Later, he would find out her name was Charlotte. For now, he turned back to his companion. “So much for appearing where none might see us,” Linder muttered to Kane.

  Kane, on the other hand, was paying her commander no attention. She was looking for George.

  As if from a dream, or more like a fantasy, her earl materialized from the belly of the cheering crowd and walked slowly toward her. Her heart pumping out blood damn near faster than it could pump it back in, she smiled at him tentatively, waddling toward him as she did so.

  George felt the tears gathering in his eyes, but didn’t care. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Everything about him felt surreal. He knew the crowd was cheering, yet he heard nothing save his own breathing. He saw that his wife, a woman barely pregnant when fate had snatched her so cruelly away one month ago, was now close to the end of her confinement. He saw it, knew it made no sense, yet he didn’t care. He just needed her. He needed to touch her, to know she was really here.

  She waddled up to him, tears streaming down her face. Smiling so brightly it hurt his eyes and squeezed his heart, she repeated the first words she’d ever spoken to him, though this time with a different surname: “Greetings humanoid. I am called Lady Kane Blackmore. By what name do you go?”

  He couldn’t help it then. The tears came. They came and they came and they came and they came. And what’s more, he cared not a lick. He removed the crown of dandelions from around his forehead, placed it atop his wife’s shimmering blonde hair, and pulled her into his arms.

  The crowd went wild.

  The witch fainted.

  * * * * *

  “Absolutely amazing.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Even I didn’t realize that was possible.” Melea released her husband’s hand and strolled over to where Kane sat, securely ensconced on George’s lap in the Blackmore study, cooing to the son she hadn’t held in seven months.

  “Did you miss your mummy, Alexander James?” She clucked her tongue and nuzzled his face until the tiny viscount gurgled and cooed for her. Sir Scruffy meowed from his place atop the earl’s chair.

  Satisfied her son remembered her well and good, she turned her attentions to Alex, Melea, and George. “I wasn’t aware of it either. Here I was, gone seven dreadfully long months,”—she reached behind her and stroked her husband’s cheek—“and then Linder informs me that only a month would have passed in this time.” She smiled up to George. “If being apart was anywhere near as awful for you as it was for me, I’m glad you endured only a month and not seven as I had to.”

  George grasped Kane’s hand tightly, then kissed it. “I’d have been mad by the time you returned, my love.”

  Alex poured himself a glass of port. “We’re just lucky that the villagers were present when you made your miraculous reappearance, Kane. Otherwise, I have no notion how the deuce of you would have went about explaining away your advanced state of pregnancy to everyone’s satisfaction.”

  George laughed. “I don’t care to speculate.” He shook his head in awe, unable to fathom how it was possible to become a father twice within three months, and by the same woman no less. “You’re due any time, you say?”

  Kane nodded.

  He shook his head, chuckling.

  Melea took Alexander James, the young Viscount Brent, from Kane’s arms and held him up before her. “I hope I have one just like him. His eyes are sinfully beautiful. He’s going to break many a woman’s heart, this one.”

  Alex smiled, walking toward his wife to join her. “Amazing, is it not? My godson has eyes both green and blue with a chip of gold in the middle of each that looks suspiciously like a dandelion.” He turned to Kane and grinned, the talk of dandelions having brought another subject to mind. “By the by, where is your commander?”

  Kane chuckled. “He’s fallen in love and has determined to take his prey back to the twenty-fifth century with him.”

  “Who’s his quarry?” George asked.

  “Charlotte.”

  He threw his head back and laughed.

  “Speaking of love, or at least lust,” Alex remarked dryly as he rubbed his wife’s back, “did the lot of you see James fawning over the witch?”

  Melea giggled.

  Alex released his wife’s back and placed his hand over his chest in mock horror. “What’s this? Did my domineering, shrewish, harridan of a marchioness just do something feminine like giggle?”

  Kane couldn’t help it. She clapped her hand over her mouth and did a little giggling herself. A sound that George had missed so very much.

  Melea frowned. She thumped her impossible husband over the head with her free hand, but couldn’t stifle the grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “He did look moonstruck, didn’t he?”

  “Too bad the witch disappeared after he helped her up from her swoon,” George noted.

  Alex grinned. “James will find her, doubt it not.”

  “Who was she anyway?” Kane inquired softly, genuinely intrigued to discover the answer after hearing the entire story.

  Melea contemplated that question for a Nuba-second before responding. “To be honest, I think she is one of us.”

  “What?” George sat up straighter in his seat, careful not to do an injury to his wife’s pregnant form.

  “Really?” Alex asked.

  Melea nodded. “I don’t think she was from the twenty-fifth century or even remotely thereabout, but her clothing triggered a memory from our injectable, Kane. I think she heralds from another time.”

  Kane squinted her eyes as she considered the matter. “You may be right. Nineteenth century? Twentieth?”

  Melea grinned. “One of the two.”

  Chapter 44

  Four months later

  “Come sit with your granddad you wily little rascal.” Viscount Blake took Viscount Brent’s chubby little hand into his own. He pulled the too-curious toddler down into his lap, forcing him to picnic with the rest of the family on the barge floating down the Thames.

  George chuckled. “My little miscreant is always getting into mischief. Mayhap ‘tis best if we didn’t let him wander the boat.” He handed his daughter a chunk of dandelion cheese—which she actually seemed to like—from the picnic basket and allowed her to slobber on it. He then placed a kiss lovingly atop the tiny blonde head sitting in his lap.

  Lady Julia scooped Lady Emeline Blackmore out of her son’s embrace and placed her granddaughter in her own lap. “Grandmummy has missed you, precious. My but we get bigger and bigger every day.”

  Emma giggled, her green-blue eyes with their dandelion gold flecks sparkling, then showered her beloved grandmother’s cheek with kisses.

  “You two spoil the children rotten.” Kane softened her rebuke with a heart-stopping smile aimed toward her parents within the law. She, Melea, and Alex had just come from the other side of the boat where the marquess had been busy pointing out landmarks such as Oxford as the barge continued its promenade down the Thames.

  “I say,” Chester sputtered, “it’s a granddad’s right.”

  “And a grandmum’s,” Lady Julia added haughtily. She turned her regal gaze toward the Asherbys and informed them in no uncertain terms that they could expect the same when Melea’s time was at hand. Which was in two months now, to be precise.

  George laughed. He helped his thrice-pregnant wife down to the floor of the barge that she might partake of some sustenance. “Eat this, my sweet. You need the nourishment.”

  Lady Julia laughed. “Goodness, but I should say she does. You really need to give the poor gel a break after this birthing, Georgie.”

  “The old man can’t help it if he’s all the stud,” Alex quipped.

  “Good luck prying those two apart,” Melea grinned.

  “Come come, my d
ear,” Chester teased his wife, “you know how it is to be a lady so in love you can’t seem to help yourself.”

  At everyone’s laugh, Lady Julia picked up her fan and swatted her exasperating husband over the head, albeit lightly.

  Kane laced her fingers through her husband’s as she popped a piece of dandelion bread into her mouth and gobbled it down. Grinning widely, she wiggled her eyebrows at her husband. He chuckled. “Oh! I almost forgot!” Kane added excitedly.

  “What’s that, my love?”

  “Before Linder and his permanent companion Charlotte left for the twenty-fifth century, the commander ran a pregnancy screen on me.”

  “And?” the group asked as one.

  “I’m having twins.”

  “Twins?” they screeched in unison.

  She shook her head in the affirmative. “Another boy and another girl.”

  The clan of family, through marriages, bloodlines, and emotions, expelled a series of “awwws” at the announcement made by the woman who had brought them all together in the first.

  “I say,” Chester sputtered, “the deuce of you breed like rabbits.”

  “Like zilches,” Melea giggled. Realizing she’d giggled yet again, she glared at her husband to make certain he said nothing of it. Alex winked, clasping her hand in his own.

  George laughed. He kissed his wife affectionately on the cheek, the wind from the Thames wafting through their hair. A man couldn’t possibly be happier than he, he thought sentimentally. “Mayhap ‘twas a gift from the witch.”

  The group chuckled at his jest.

  Kane looked at her children sitting contentedly in the laps of their grandparents and smiled. She picked up a piece of dandelion cheese and popped it into her mouth. Life before the wars, before the fire, was bliss indeed. She squeezed her husband’s hand and declared after swallowing, “or mayhap it’s because of the dandelions.”