It was a moment I knew I wouldn’t forget, and not only because it was certifiably insane. The room was silent save for the breathing of the two people in the world I cared for the most. Two people who had nothing in common—apart from me—and who’d probably never see each other again. As I lay with my eyes pressed shut, I imagined the wedding Nick and I could have had here in my time. Something casual and intimate, with Mom and Nick shooting the breeze about cheese and my maddening stubbornness. Mia would be there, and our friend Josh, and gawd, maybe even Dad. They’d all think I was on crack for getting married at the age of eighteen.
And while my mom watched my boyfriend and I fall asleep together, her face revealing how uncomfortable she was with this, the soothing vision of a modern life with Nick Tudor lolled me to a peaceful sleep.
7
The moment I opened my eyes, the spell broke. Nick was out cold with our fingers still tightly fastened. Mom sat drooped in the chair, gently snoring like one of the elderly ladies at the rest home.
“Mom!” I hissed. “You have to look at us.”
“Hmm? I know,” she grunted, shifting to straighten her back. “I worked last night.”
Luckily, I’d become a world-renowned guru at falling asleep on cue. The blackness returned within minutes.
The next time my eyes peeled open, Mom was watching us closely. Both Nick and I had fallen asleep, yet we were still in my Hatfield bedroom. I tried to explain to Mom that the ring had recently began acting strange, and might take a few attempts to make us disappear, but she was already in the doorway.
“I think it’s time we get some help,” she grumbled. “I can’t deal with this anymore.”
“No!” I pleaded. Nick stirred and rolled onto his back beside me.
“I won’t tell your dad about this,” Mom said as if to reassure me. “But, I am going to call a psychiatrist in Boston.” She returned to the bedside for a quick feel of my forehead before clomping down the stairs.
I swore at the ceiling, and Nick shifted to face me, cuddling me with both arms. “We must sleep, Emmie,” he said groggily. “I am out of time.”
I lay there, examining his dozing face. He’d done his best to help me, and my mom wasn’t his biggest problem. A Tudor king couldn’t melt into thin air without all hell breaking loose, so there were two possible scenarios here: Nick and I could fall asleep and disappear together, leaving things unfinished with my mom—but at least she now knew I wasn’t at the bottom of the Connecticut River. Or, I could let Nick travel back to his time alone, and remain here to sort things out with Mom. Before returning to get me later, he’d have to explain the abrupt absence of his bride-to-be to the likes of Norfolk, and potentially be consoled by Lucinda ‘Lucy’ Parker. How about no.
The choice was clear. I wasn’t going back to two-timing the different centuries. I’d already made my choice, and being with Nick was still the right decision for me.
“We need to fall asleep again as fast as possible,” I said, burrowing into the heavy warmth of Nick’s arms. “Carol Grace on the rampage can be a dangerous thing.” I was still dopey with tiredness, and the protective cocoon of his embrace soothed me back to sleep.
Hours later, an earthy sweetness tickled my nose. I turned my face away from the rose-scented sheets and onto my back, sighting billowy mounds of black velvet punctuated with red and white Tudor roses. Nick lay beside me, staring at the canopy.
We were back at Hampton Court Palace.
Nick’s concerned eyes found mine, his fingers slipping into my hand. “Are you well?” he said softly. Leaving Mom behind in that state had clearly freaked out the both of us.
I tucked my free arm behind my head, letting my jumbled thoughts crystallize. I guess I’m not going to see my mom again for a good while. What would happen to her?
“Emmie?” Nick pressed gently.
“I’m a bit sad to have left my mom that way,” I admitted.
He lay still, aside from the fingertips circling my palm. “I share your sorrow. You are fortunate to have a mother who cares for you so.”
I twisted to look at him. Nick’s capable maturity made it easy to forget that he’d lost a mother of his own. His mom, Queen Elizabeth the First, had died soon after giving birth to Nick’s little sister Kit. My finger traced his facial features, many of them gifts from his handsome father, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester. “I bet your mom would give anything to be here with you,” I said.
He shrugged. “My mother would yearn for her throne, but to see me not.”
“That’s not true.”
He smiled bleakly. “Elizabeth was born to be a glorious prince. Despite her many troubles—her mother’s beheading, betrayment by her father, imprisonment by her sister—Elizabeth yet won the throne with pride and might.”
“She was amazing. Just like her son.”
His voice drooped with sadness. “A son who snatched his mother’s fortune and promise. Elizabeth wedded my father only because she was with child, Emmie…with me. If my birth had not come to pass, my mother would never have married beneath her station. If she had not then sought a second heir—my sister—then God would not have called Elizabeth away. When all is said and done, it is I who caused Queen Elizabeth’s untimely death.”
I cupped his trembling face. “No. Your mother loved you and Kit more than anything; I know it. You’ve had so much to deal with for someone so young. Too much.”
He dropped his chin to my shoulder. “We have both felt loss, have we not? But we have one another now, and that remedies my heart in great measure.”
“Mine too.”
I relaxed a little as his long fingers played with the blue diamond on my thumb. “You spoke the truth when you said that this ring has become strange,” he said. “Once again, we awakened no fewer than two times before it carried us back here.”
“I’m glad you agree.” I inspected the diamond for any signs of change. “I still think a soothsayer could help us out with some answers. Maybe someone like Agnes Nightingale?” I made a pleading grin. Last time we’d spoken about this, Nick had spurned the idea of paying the soothsayer a visit. “If it’s too risky for you, we could start with an astrologer,” I suggested, remembering what I’d been reading about the more accepted sciences in the sixteenth century.
Nick’s teeth pressed his bottom lip. “To speak plainly, Emmie, I bid you consider that we destroy the ring.”
For a second, I couldn’t process the words, like they were in a foreign language. “Destroy it? Why?” That’d mean never going home again. Never seeing my mom again. Ever.
Peach sunlight cast diamond-shaped shadows across Nick’s strained face through the leaded window. “If the claims are true, this ring was enchanted to ruin me. Now it has plainly become impaired. We have no knowledge of what its sorcery may yet do. Must we wager our lives on it?”
I could barely speak. “There’s no evidence to suggest the ring could harm us in any way.”
“But do you not agree that the ring has become fickle?”
“If by that, you mean ‘acting a little weird’, then yes. Of course.”