Love's Labyrinth (12 page)

“At Oxford, last I heard. I intend to send a letter to him today.”

“Then, Geoffrey, there’s plenty of time. You won’t hear back from Dee in the time it will take me to arrive in Calais, conclude this business in London, and return. It will all be finished in a fortnight. And then you and Dr. Dee can send our two guests back to their own time, our fortunes will be restored, and all will work out happily. Surely you see the wisdom?”

“I like this not. Can’t you see how difficult it is for both of them? How different this is from anything they know?”

Nicholas waved an impatient hand. “That’s as may be. But the dark one—Olivia—she fit in well enough to please the Queen herself. Let her come with me. You and the tall one—Alison—you can stay here and work with Dr. Dee.”

“Nicholas, I beg you—”

“As I’ve begged you to cease your endless dabbling into things best left alone?” Nicholas shook his head. “Not this time, little brother. This time one of your experiments may actually have some use for both of us. And I intend to take every advantage.”

“What if she won’t do it?”

“We’ll have to convince her she must do it.”

“How? These women aren’t like the ones you and I know. They aren’t like any other women we’ve ever met, or could meet. Can’t you see how different they are, in outlook and in temperament? They’ll not be ruled by any man.”

Nicholas hesitated, then grinned. “Ah, Geoffrey, you’ve spent too much time with your pens and parchments. No woman is ever ruled by a man. But very often, there are ways to convince them to do as they’d be bid.”

“How?”

“Make her believe it’s her idea, of course.”

“And just how will you do that?”

Nicholas adjusted his doublet and straightened his shoulders. “Leave the managing of Mistress Olivia to me.” Geoffrey rose to his feet and started for the door. “Where are you going?”

“To find Mistress Olivia and tell her you wish to talk to her. Shall I tell her to come here?”

“No, I’ll wait for her in the garden. We’ll walk a bit.”

“I thought you wanted them to stay out of sight.”

“Ah, but this is a matter best broached beneath the open sky. And besides, women love flowers. Even Her Majesty remarked upon the beauty of our gardens.”

Geoffrey shook his head in disbelief. “You may well think I’m mad, Nicholas. I only wanted to transcend time. You want to transcend a woman’s mind. You’re not only as mad as I am, you’re more of a dreamer than I ever expected as well.” With another little shake of his head, Geoffrey was gone.

He was waiting for her beneath the trees that lined the path that led to the maze. Olivia’s heart beat faster when she caught sight of him. He wore only the simplest of clothing—shirt and hose and a plain leather doublet—but the rough clothing could not disguise the lean contours of his body, nor the width of his shoulders. His face was half in the shadow and half in the light, and the stark planes of his high cheekbones and his slim, straight nose gave him the appearance of a Renaissance prince. Which, she thought wryly as she approached, in some ways he was. She smoothed her own shirt, consciously forcing her face into a semblance of composure. He looked up as her feet crunched on the gravel.

“Mistress Olivia.” He bowed, more formally than he ever had before to her, and Olivia’s heart gave a little leap.

Stop that, she scolded herself. Yes, he looks like a Medici prince, but you’ve got nothing in common with him. You barely speak the same language. “Lord Nicholas,” she murmured in return. “Geoffrey said you needed to speak to me? About something important?’”

“Yes,” he said, looking suddenly as uncomfortable as she felt, “it is a matter of very great import, and—” He broke off, and suddenly Olivia saw the resemblance between the two brothers. In the shadowy light, he looked much younger, younger even than Geoffrey.

“What is it?” She cocked her head, genuinely puzzled.

“Will you walk with me?” He indicated the path.

She nodded and they fell into step together. She was aware that he consciously matched his longer strides to hers, yet there was a certain hesitancy about him that surprised her. When a few minutes had passed in silence, she said, “What do you want to say to me, Lord Nicholas?”

“I—I—you must forgive me, mistress. I am not usually so awkward or at a loss for words.”

“This situation is awkward, to say the least.”

“Aye, at the least.” He gave a short laugh that sounded nervous. “There’s no way to ask you this but directly. The truth be told, Mistress Olivia, I need your help.”

She stopped in the middle of the path and turned to face him. They were in the full sunshine now, and the light revealed the blue-black highlights in his hair, and the way the little hairs curling on his chest peeked through the open collar of his shirt, but his eyes were still dark, shadowed pools. “My help? How in the world could I help you?”

Nicholas sighed. “It is not easy to explain, especially to someone who isn’t of this time.” He shook his head and seemed once more at a loss. “But you…I noticed at once you see more comfortable than your sister—your friend, I suppose she is—and you did please the Queen greatly. And so I come to you to ask you for a favor. A very great favor.”

Olivia stared up at him, completely puzzled. “Well, what is it? As we’d say in the future, spit it out!” She laughed softly, trying to ease his tension.

A ghost of a smile lifted his lips, and he glanced back at the house. “Come, let’s walk a pace. I think better when I walk.” He made as if to start off again, but this time it was Olivia’s turn to stare at him. “Yes, mistress? I said something which sounded odd to your ears?”

“No.” She shook her head, waving her hand, seeking to regain her composure. “Not at all. But that’s what my father used to say. My father was a great scholar, you see, and he was most fascinated by this period of history.”

“Ah.” He raised one brow and gave her a long, searching look. “Then perhaps you will understand.” He held out his hand. “Please come.”

She placed her hand timidly in his. His smooth, strong palm closed firmly around hers, and he turned it, pulling her closer, so that it appeared they strolled arm in arm down the long, curved path. “It begins with my father, mine and Geoffrey’s. He was a good man—if somewhat hard, and he meant to be a good man. But like so many good men, he was led astray by his own passionate beliefs. He stood strong under Protestant Edward, the present Queen’s brother—who died young. But under Mary—under Catholic Mary—his beliefs took on the tinge of the fanatic. He’d struggled so long. I suppose.” Nicholas paused, and she could feel the deep sigh he suppressed run through the length of his body.

“At any rate, he did not endear himself to those who are now currently in power. And thus his fortunes suffered greatly. He died greatly impoverished, lucky to have anything at all to leave to me.” He paused again, looking around. “This house you see—it is nearly all that’s left of a patrimony once as great as any in England. I have worked all my adult life—for the last fifteen years—to restore what I can of my family’s fortunes. I fought with Leicester in the Low Countries, spent time at court, courted the favor of any who could help me. And now, at last, I think I have an opportunity to prove my loyalty once and for all to the Queen and all her court. And so I need your help.”

“But what can I do? You yourself said our very presence here was a danger—and I agree with you. Knowing what I know about this time and place, I can’t imagine—”

“I want you to pretend to be my wife.” He blurted out the words.

“What?” She stared up at him in amazement, doubting she had heard the words correctly.

“I must go to Calais in four days’ time. There, I am to meet with an agent of the King of Spain and intercept plans for the invasion of England. But this agent is expecting a married man, a man supposedly on pilgrimage with his wife, and thus—”

“You want me to go with you to Calais and pretend to be your wife.”

“Aye.”

There was a long silence. Finally she said, “But what about Geoffrey? Alison? What if Geoffrey is able—”

“To send you back?” Nicholas shook his head. “Aye, mistress, and I suppose it’s possible Geoffrey could build us a machine to fly us to Calais, but I doubt it’s likely in four days’ time.”

“Isn’t there anyone else?”

“Quite simply, no. There’s no one who’s as disinterested in the outcome as you—no one I could trust in the way your very disinterest makes possible. I could hire a whore, but that would hardly serve. And what lady do you think would travel with a man who was not really her husband?”

Olivia frowned. “Are you suggesting I’m a woman of low morals, sir?”

Nicholas opened his mouth as if to speak, then hesitated. “Forgive me, mistress,” he said after an awkward pause. “That’s not what I meant to imply.” He drew a deep breath and his shoulders heaved. He looked around desperately, as though seeking the words, and Olivia felt sorry for him.

“I know that isn’t what you meant,” she said softly. She placed her hand on his arm. He looked down at her, a surprised expression on his face. “Come, let’s walk and tell me more.”

They started off again, and as they walked, Nicholas shook his head. “In truth, mistress, perhaps you should tell me if you find my request outside the bounds of anything you would consider proper. I see that I’ve neglected to consider your feelings. Forgive me.”

It was Olivia’s turn to look up at him with surprise. A feeling of sympathy swept over her, a desire to help this man in any way she could. What was it about him that made her feel such deep sympathy for his plight? Was it merely that he was someone out of the past her father had made so real that she felt as though she knew Nicholas and his brother already? Or was it something more, something that transcended time and history and all the years that lay between them? “It’s very plain to see that you have a lot on your mind.”

“On my mind?” he repeated, turning the unfamiliar idiom over on his tongue. He smiled suddenly, as understanding lit his eyes, and she saw that without the habitual expression of care, he appeared much younger. “Very well put, mistress. Indeed, I have a lot on my mind. And I know I’ve been a less than gracious host to both you and your friend.” He drew another deep breath and paused on the path, dragging the toe of his boot in the gravel in a gesture nearly identical to Geoffrey’s. The brothers were a lot alike, Olivia realized with a start. Both pursued their passions with a single-minded intensity.

“What is the world like in your time?”

For a moment, Olivia was surprised by his sudden question. She cocked her head, thinking how to describe the world on the eve of the twenty-first century to a man from a world still lit only by fire. “It—it’s very different, in some ways. And in some ways, still remarkably similar.”

“What do you mean?”

His eyes were locked on hers, and the intensity of his expression took her breath away. She deliberately tried not to think about how good-looking he was, with the faintest haze of beard darkening the cleft in his chin, and the strong cords in his throat where the lacings of his shirt gaped open. Suddenly, she was very aware that the hose exposed the shape of her legs in a manner to which he could hardly be accustomed.

“Well,” she hesitated, searching for words. “People haven’t changed much. Not at all, really. There’re still wars—over the same things, even. People arc still fighting over religion and land and money—the names have all changed, but you’d recognize a lot. The world seems a lot smaller than it must to you—we can go places much more quickly because we have machines to travel in.”

“Can you fly?”

She laughed. “Well, not personally—no one’s grown wings, yet. But yes, there are machines called airplanes that fly—all the way around the world, some of them. I came to England from America on a plane.”

“But the language you speak—it’s the same as mine, no? Or close enough that we understand each other.”

“English has spread all over the world. I doubt there’s a country left that hasn’t absorbed English words into its native tongue. It’s funny, but the English language is probably England’s greatest gift to the ages.”

He stroked his chin. “And does this all”—he waved his hand— “does this all seem strange to you?”

She gazed around. Behind them, the great house rose from the sheltering branches of the great trees. In the distance, she saw the softly rolling hills, green with the summer’s bounty, the long, even rows of crops in variegated rows of green and buff and brown. The gardens lay around them, the low stone walls guarding neatly laid-out beds of vegetables, herbs, and flowering shrubs. “In some ways, yes. But I have something of an advantage, I guess you could call it. My father was a historian. A scholar, he studied history—and his favorite period was Tudor England, especially the years under Elizabeth. I was his research assistant until just a few months ago.”

“What happened?”

“He died. It was an accident, quite sudden. He slipped on a patch of ice, hit his head, and died. No one expected anything like it to happen—he was very healthy, and just about to publish his greatest and most consuming work. That’s why I came to England from America, you see. I came to finish my father’s work.” She paused briefly and then went on. “My mother died when I was born. There was nothing else I needed to do.”