I crossed to the window display and picked up the hardcover text she’d waved at me. It was called The Tudors: England’s Most Notorious Royal Family. My stomach wound into a painful ball. Mom was trying to connect with me on something she could never understand. I flicked to the section about Nicholas the Ironheart, deliberately squinting to blur my vision as I braved a few words, jittery at what I’d find.
* * *
The marriage of King Nicholas I and Princess Henriette of France was divisive and gave rise to civil conflicts that spilled across the border.
* * *
I snapped the book shut, every inch of my skin burning.
Why did it still say that King Nick married Princess Henriette and not me?
A woman bouncing a toddler on her knee kept scoping out my kirtle like I was some sort of matinee show. I blocked the offending book from my mind and hurried into the quiet corner of the library, relieved to find it vacant of prying eyes. After settling into a cushy armchair, I wedged the activated charcoal bottle beneath my arm and wriggled into a position comfortable enough to sleep in. Even if someone did see me vanish, at least it wouldn’t be caught on camera. I jerked at the memory of the sleeping pill still sitting in the ring casing—I’d completely forgotten it last time! My fingers reached for the tiny latch, but the pill would make me groggy when I arrived back, and I needed to be fully charged to help Lucy. I decided to try to fall asleep without it first.
It turned out that I didn’t need the pill: it took less than thirty minutes of meditating to send my shattered body into a power nap, but I woke back in the library in a disoriented spiral of nausea. I’d never regret pushing the ring’s limits to try to save Lucinda’s life, but if I never saw Nick Tudor again, I’d never get over it. The pattern of dozing off and waking in the library chair repeated on loop until the sky outside had darkened and the library had begun to empty. The woman with the toddler was long gone. If I didn’t time travel soon, I’d be sleeping in a snowbank and probably waking up in a Boston emergency room.
I kissed the glassy tip of the table-cut diamond and slid my hand into the warmth of my bodice, my palm resting over my heart.
Come on…please. Take me home. I want to go home.
I smelled the sublime scent before I even saw him. My sluggish eyelids cracked open at the familiar aroma of rose oil and the heat of a crackling fire. I scrambled onto my elbows, searching the dim candlelight. It was nightfall at Hampton Court, and my husband, Nick Tudor, was sitting right across from me.
A gasp of shock shot from my throat like I’d been punched in the stomach. The love of my life was home safe!
But Nick didn’t even move, let alone speak. He just sat in his gilded armchair, blinking at me with a lifeless expression.
Something was terribly wrong—something even worse than Lucinda’s poisoning.
20
“You’re back,” I said with a high-pitched cry. “You’re okay.” I rolled out of the bed, tripping over my skirts, which had twisted around me. My head ached from the malfunctioning time travel, and my balance was off.
Nick stayed frozen as I fell onto him. I folded my arms around his pearl-colored doublet, breathing him in. My skin throbbed with heat, and the world spun. My Nick.
He didn’t respond—not so much as a flinch. I pulled back, searching his face. There were no signs of injury. “Oh, thank God,” I said, clinging to him again. “I was freaking out.”
The bedchamber was as quiet as a graveyard, except for Nick’s steady breathing.
“Babe?” I said, pressing my hands to his cheeks and angling his face to look at me. His seawater-colored eyes were blocks of ice. Was this PTSD? Or worse—had he come back from his war as the implacable Nicholas the Ironheart?
I climbed off him. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
He aimed a finger at the plastic bottle protruding from the bed sheets. “What is this?” he said evenly.
All the air fled my body as I remembered. “It’s for Mistress Parker.” I reached for the bottle. “It’s medicine from my time. She was poisoned.”
“I am acquainted with Mistress Parker’s condition.”
“Is she still…is she alive?”
“To my knowledge.”
His eyes flickered to mine, and our gazes fused like magnets. After a moment, he looked away, climbing out of the chair to distance himself from me.
He poured himself a cup of wine and waved the flask at me, but I shook my head. When he took a long swig, still not showing either happiness or relief at seeing me, I felt like throwing the bottle of activated charcoal right at his head.
“Is something wrong?” I said with deliberate terseness.
Nick didn’t reply. He just turned toward the elaborately carved shutters shrouding the lattice window.
“Nick!” I snapped. He spun to me and glared. “What’s wrong with you?” I said. “We haven’t seen each other in months. I didn’t even know if you were alive, and not a second has gone by that I haven’t wished that you were standing here right now. And now that you are, the only thing you have to say is about this freaking bottle?” I shook it at him.
I expected fireworks in response, knowing my husband’s temperament, but he just silently poured himself more wine.
I exhaled through my teeth and reached for an empty cup. Nick watched me from the corner of his eye as I filled it to the brim. I took a giant sip of the sweet liquid before unscrewing the cap from the plastic bottle and emptying as much activated charcoal powder into the wine as the instructions directed.
Nick whirled to face me, both brows raised.
“Mistress Parker has to drink this immediately,” I explained without looking at him. “It’s a remedy for poison from my time, but it might not work. It’s probably too late. Still, I’m going to try. It has to be better than bloodletting and leeches.” I slid the plastic bottle beneath his bed, hiding it from the chamber attendants. We could get rid of it later. I grabbed the cup containing the medicine and headed for the doors. Nick seized my wrist to stop me, swiping away the cup of charcoal-infused wine with his other hand.
“You are my wife; you are not an apothecary,” he said, dropping the cup onto the oak table. Before I could blink, he dug out the plastic bottle from beneath the bed and tossed it into the burning hearth.
“Nick!” I chastised, covering my mouth. It didn’t take long for the licking flames to consume the plastic, sending up a disgusting, lethal stench.
Nick paced away, coughing into his armpit. When he’d settled his throat, he called for a page. A sweaty-faced boy arrived within seconds.
“See to it that Doctor Norris administers this remedy to Mistress Lucinda Parker without delay,” Nick commanded with a rasp, handing the boy the cup containing the activated charcoal. “The queen is in need of supper,” Nick added while facing the carved stone mantel, swirling red wine in his cup. The page bowed and scampered away.
“I wanted to give that to Lucinda myself!” I exclaimed as Nick shut the bedchamber doors.
“I will have the linens made ready so you may wash,” he said with his back to me. “You may then take supper.”