Kingdom Come (58 page)

Her mind began to short circuit; she could see the dead prince on the floor but she refused to believe what her eyes were telling her.  It was like she was unable to process the truth.  The door to the chamber opened and the knight who looked so much like Bud was standing in the doorway, shock all over his face at the scene before him. But Rory couldn’t summon the energy to defend herself; she just stood there, unmoving, feeling oddly unstable as the world around her began to rock. 

It was then that she noticed the chamber turning peculiar shades of gray.  It was almost like she was looking at the walls from underwater; they were undulating, turning darker. It gradually occurred to her that they weren’t turning darker;
she
was. She was fading. A glance to her hands showed the truth; like a ghost, she could see through them. Her greatest fear was coming to past as somehow, someway, she had altered the future.

Generations of those who came before her were now altered, DNA that used to exist no longer existing. Somehow it carried down family lines as those who should have been killed as the result of John’s reign and subsequent English history were no longer dead. Those who should be living were no longer living.  Her world was changing before her.

“No!” she suddenly cried, trying to grasp for walls that were no longer solid, now like clouds. Her hands slipped through them. “Please don’t let me die! Please… don’t let me go! I don’t want to go!”

The walls faded into oblivion and Rory with them. The sounds of her cries echoed off the old stone, still remaining, even though her body had vanished like a puff of smoke.  In seconds, she was gone and the future world as she knew it also vanished. All that was left was a dead prince and a knight with a gaping mouth.

The knight with the ice blue eyes would swear to the day he died that Lady Hage had been but a dream. He couldn’t explain it any more than that, not even to her devastated husband when the man had shown up with an entire army to retrieve her.  The woman had disappeared right before him.

But Kieran knew what had happened. God help him, he knew.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Six months later

Present time; the University of California at San Marcos

Bud Dietrich had entered the class towards the end, watching the lovely professor at the head of the class discuss the Methodology of Preliminary Excavation.  It was a lower level class that was packed full of archaeology and anthropology majors, young kids with bright minds and big dreams.  Bud tucked himself into the back of the class, seating himself at a desk as the class ended and the students filtered past him. A few greeted him, knowing Dr. Dietrich on sight. The man was practically a legend around the school. Big digs and a big reputation followed Bud wherever he went.

But he wasn’t thinking about digs or reputations at the moment. His gaze was fixed on the pale woman who was putting her papers back into her briefcase at the front of the class. As the last few students trickled out, he rose from the desk and made his way to the front of the class. He smiled faintly when big hazel eyes noticed him.

“Hi,” he said.

Rory neatly put the last of her papers in the case and closed it. “Hi,” she responded.

He watched her lowered head as she fumbled with her purse, opened drawers and put pens away.

“Got time for lunch?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No,” she replied. “I’ve got papers I need to grade before my six o’clock class.”

Bud wriggled his eyebrows. “Running a little late on that, aren’t you?”

Rory was forced to agree. “Yep,” she shrugged. “But I’ll get them done. I always get them done.”

Bud sighed faintly, watching her lethargic and unenthusiastic body language; ever since that incident on that rocky beach in Nahariya, Rory hadn’t been the same.  Having Kieran Hage killed in front of her by a lightning strike had a devastating effect on her. At least, it was the general opinion by all who witnessed the event that Hage had been vaporized. But Rory told a different tale, one so amazing that the only person she had told it to was Bud. Anyone else would have thought she had lost her mind.

 Everything about her tale had been vivid to the last detail, a story that had been so great and fantastic that it was beyond the wildest novels.  She’d even had a baby in this crazy tale, a son to carry on the Hage name. She and Kieran had been deliriously happy. Trouble was, the entire happening was impossible. Somehow, the lightning strike had affected Rory’s mind and that crazy tale had come forth. But she did have a rather odd rope burn on her ankle, an infected wound that had looked strange and raw.  Bud still didn’t know how she could have gotten it all she would tell him was that it was because Prince John had tied her up.

He tried to push all of that out of his mind as he attempted to convince her to have lunch with him.  He didn’t like to leave her alone these days because she was so emotionally brittle.

“I promise that lunch won’t take long,” he encouraged her. “I have a request from the higher-ups I’d like to talk to you about.”

Rory stopped putting things away and looked at him; her lovely face was without color, devoid of joy

“What request?” she demanded.

He sighed faintly. “Can we talk about it over lunch?”

Her features tightened. “No. Tell me now.”

He scratched his crew-cut blond hair. “Dr. Buitoni is taking a leave at the end of the semester. His wife is sick, you know. He wants to spend some time with her. They want to know if you’ll take his class.”

Rory frowned. “He teaches Medieval History.”

Bud nodded slowly, averting his gaze. For some reason, he just couldn’t look at her. “With your expertise in the field, they were hoping….”

She slammed the drawer on the desk and cut him off, grabbing her purse and her briefcase as she pushed past him. “No,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to do it.”

Bud tried to stay calm as he followed. “Rory, honey, Medieval History is right up your alley. You know it like….”

She suddenly stopped, whirling on him. “No, I don’t know it, Bud,” she hissed. “You know I don’t know it anymore. What the history books say happened in Medieval England is not the history I know. I told you that. It’s not the same. It hasn’t been since that day in Nahariya.”

They’d had the same argument for the past six months. It never got any better. She wouldn’t return to the dig in Nahariya, instead choosing a professorship at the university. The love she’d had for excavation and archaeology seemed to have gone out of her and she pigeonholed herself in a classroom. So the university had put Dr. David Peck in charge of closing down the Nahariya dig and offered Bud an opportunity to go to Cyprus on a high-profile excavation.

But Bud had turned the offer down simply so he could remain with Rory. He was deeply worried for her with everything they had been through. He just couldn’t leave her, but at times, it was trying. He grunted softly to her statement, with lagging patience.

“Honey, whatever made you think that John Lackland lived to be king, spawning generations of Plantagenets from his paternal line, is just some wild dream you had,” he repeated what he’d told her many times. “Do you know what a horrible king he would have been and how England would have gone to the dogs? It would have been devastating. Whoever murdered that man did the world a favor.”

“It was
me
,” she hissed deliberately, her hazel eyes flashing. “I’ve told you a hundred times that it was me. I did it. I changed history!”

Bud sighed and averted his gaze, scratching at his head again. He just didn’t know how to respond to her when she got like this.

“That’s impossible and you know it,” he told her. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. Something has happened to you and I just can’t fix it.”

Rory stared at him, feeling that familiar sick feeling come over her again. The guilt, the anguish, the sorrow… she sank down into the nearest chair, feeling overwhelming desolation. She felt like a fool, the one person in the history of mankind who had actually changed the course of history and no one believed her.  Maybe it was a good thing. She was guilty as sin and paying the price every morning that she woke up in this horrible modern world without Kieran beside her.  

“John had a son who reigned as Henry the Third,” she muttered. “Henry had a son named Edward the First who was arguably the greatest king in English history.  And Edward had a son who….”

“John wasn’t king, honey,” Bud crouched in front of her, gazing up into her beautiful, weary face. “He was murdered before Richard returned from the Crusades. When Richard died, the royal line came from his oldest living sibling, Matilda, who married Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria. Her eldest son was Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine who would go on to be the future King of England. The entire English line descended from him. Do I really have to explain this again?”

Rory looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “That’s not what happened,” she whispered. “Bud, you remember Kieran, right?”       

“Of course.”

“And you know he was a knight from Richard’s Crusade, put into a suspended state by an alchemist until I woke him up.”

Bud averted his gaze, scratching his neck as he thought on his answer. “I know you believed that’s who he was.”

“Are you seriously telling me that after everything we went through, you still don’t believe he was who he said he was? I thought you believed, Bud. I really thought you did.”

Bud opened his mouth to reply but a soft knock on the classroom door interrupted him.  Both Rory and Bud looked up to see a man in a dark suit standing in the doorjamb. He smiled weakly when Rory and Bud looked at him.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, taking a step into the room. “I was told I could find Dr. Rory Osgrove here.”

Rory stood up, quickly wiping the tears from her eyes. “I’m Dr. Osgrove,” she replied. “How can I help you?”

The man stepped into the vacated classroom, echoes from his expensive shoes bouncing off the ceiling.  He was dark-haired, middle aged and very corporate looking.

“My name is Marc Tillery,” he introduced himself. “I’m sorry if I’m intruding, but I’ve tried calling a few times.  I’ve even sent a couple of emails but I got no response.”

Rory cocked her head, her brow furrowed with faint recognition. “Emails? I don’t think I….”

He interrupted. “I work for the firm Trent, Rosskopf, Sheppard and Jones in Los Angeles,” he said. “I represent some international clients that….”

It was Rory’s turn to interrupt him.  She pointed a finger at him. “I recognize that name,” she said. “You sent me a couple of emails about representing an international client who wanted to get in touch with me.”

“Right,” he nodded quickly. “It began to occur to me that in sending you those emails, it sounded like one of those internet investment scams so I thought I’d better come personally.”

Rory nodded her head, somewhat suspicious yet not without interest. “You’re right; it did sound like a scam,” she said. “The emails were pretty vague and generic. I just deleted them.”

Marc grinned. “I figured as much,” he gaze drifted over the very pretty if not somewhat exhausted-looking woman. “I know they were vague, but I didn’t want to put too much into writing. Emails can be hacked and all. But it’s not a scam, believe me; in fact, it’s all very strange but totally legitimate so I was hoping to have a moment of your time to explain.”