Until Forever (23 page)

R
oseleen dragged her feet for an entire week, coming up with one excuse after another to keep Thorn with her—just a little longer. She knew it was doing neither one of them any good to put it off, that she was merely being selfish in wanting to keep him near a bit more. All it was doing was allowing her to become even closer to him, which was making it that much harder to think of sending him away.

So for several days, she didn’t think about it. For several days, she just savored his presence, and stored up memories that would have to last her a lifetime.

She gave John and Elizabeth Humes a vacation, suggesting they visit Elizabeth’s mother in Brighton for a week or so. And she put David off on coming to see her when he returned to England. She didn’t want anyone to disturb her last days with Thorn.

But the time finally came when she knew she couldn’t procrastinate any longer. Knowing that she’d never see him again after she sent him away was making her so sick at heart that she just couldn’t bear it any longer.

And yet, she still put it off by first asking silly questions that she didn’t expect any positive answers to. They were in her bedchamber, not to make love, though that was where they’d spent most of the last week, but just lying on the bed holding each other. She got such pleasure out of just holding him, absorbing his heat, feeling his gentle caresses that weren’t meant to stimulate, merely to communicate how much he liked touching her.

Roseleen’s fingers were strolling slowly through the hair on his chest when she asked him, “Is Blooddrinker’s Curse breakable?”

“Nay, ’twas a finely wrought sword to begin with, but the curse has made it indestructible.”

“What about the curse?” She grinned up at him. “Is that breakable?”

He became very still of a sudden. “Why do you ask that now, Roseleen?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m just curious. I suppose I should have asked sooner. The laws of fairness usually allow one little out to correct really blatant injustice, and I was wondering if you had one.”

“Aye, the curse may be easily broken.”

“Easily?” She sat up in surprise, never dreaming she’d get an answer like that. “Then why haven’t you broken it before now?”

“Because I have not the power to break it,” he replied, his tone somewhat chagrined. “The curse wouldst not even allow me to make mention of it, unless I was first asked, as you have just done.”

“Then where does the easy part come in? If you can’t break it, who can?”

“Whoever is in possession of my sword has that ability,” he explained, “since the only way the curse can be ended is by returning the sword to me without reservation, granting me full ownership of it again.”

“Are you serious? That’s all it would take to break a thousand-year-old curse?”

His nod was endearingly curt. “Then wouldst I be in control of my own destiny again, and my sword would be but a sword, all power gone from it.”

“That would certainly guarantee that there would be no more time hopping, should you ever be tempted again,” she said thoughtfully.

But she already knew she would make that sacrifice too, that she would give him back his sword and his own destiny, whatever that meant. And she really couldn’t put it off any longer.

The sword was in its protective case, back under the bed where she had previously kept it. She got up to pull out the case now and opened it, took the sword in her hands one last time. She imagined she could feel the power surging in it, in protest of what she
was about to do—end its long reign of absolute, unnatural power.

She couldn’t tell Thorn the truth, that her sending him away was best for him. That could produce arguments from him that she couldn’t validate, since they’d deal with the future. So she’d decided it would be best to lie to him, to give him the old it’s-been-fun-but-now-it’s-over routine. She was certain that a man from any century would tend to accept that fairly well, or pretend to for the sake of his pride.

Considering the subject just under discussion, Thorn sat up and looked at her suspiciously. “What do you with that, Roseleen?”

The smile she gave him was tepid at best as she sat on the edge of the bed, the sword grasped carefully in both her hands. She stared at it a moment, almost hating it now, wishing she’d never even heard of it. Who would have ever thought that something this old and deadly could bring her the love of her life? And who would have thought the fates could be so cruel in not letting her have the man that she loved permanently?

“Roseleen?”

She glanced at him, and a lump rose in her throat. She couldn’t get the words past it, not while she was looking at him directly, so she dropped her gaze again and prayed she’d have the strength to stick to what she was doing for his sake if not for hers.

Her voice still sounded unsteady when she got out, “It—it’s time for you to go, Thorn.”

“Go where?”

“Back to your Valhalla.”

“Nay!”

“Yes,” she cut in, and said the rest in a rush while she still could. “I’ll be returning to America soon, getting back to the old grindstone—that means back to work,” she added, before he could ask.

His hand came to her cheek ever so gently. “We were fated to be, Roseleen. It has taken me a thousand years to find you, and now I have, I will not leave you.”

She closed her eyes, fighting desperately to keep the tears back. It was the last touch she would have from him, the last…Oh, God, why was he arguing with her? Why didn’t he just accept her decision and let it go at that?

“You don’t understand,” she said on a rising note. “I want you to go. It’s been nice having you around for a while—you’re a really great lover. But I have to get on with my life now, and you can’t be a part of it.”

“You love me, Roseleen, just as I—”

“No, I don’t.
Now
do you understand? And—and I don’t even want a reminder of you around, which is why I’m going to give you your sword back.”

“Roseleen, nay!”

But she had already leaned forward to place the sword across his lap, and his shout startled her into dropping it on him. In the next second, both Thorn and the ancient weapon were gone.

She stared at the spot where he had been,
which was so completely empty now, the mattress not even dented or slowly returning to shape to prove he’d been there but seconds ago. She touched the empty spot with her hand and burst into tears.

R
oseleen had cried herself to sleep after sending Thorn away. When she awoke, she couldn’t say if it was the same day or the next, but that deep ache was still there—and so was her brother, David.

She had to rub her eyes to make sure she wasn’t seeing things, but he was definitely there, sitting in a chair pulled up beside her bed. And he was smiling at her, really beaming, as if he had some special news to impart that he couldn’t contain any longer.

“Hello there, beautiful,” he said cheerfully and reached over to grab her hand for a gentle squeeze. “Welcome back to the living.”

“Excuse me?” she said, blinking at him. “Did I die or something?”

He chuckled. “No, but it was damn close.”

At that point, she figured he was pulling her leg for some reason she couldn’t begin to guess at, and so she feigned a yawn, leaned back against her pillows, and said in a bored
tone, “Okay, I give. Tired I might be, but half-dead with exhaustion? No, I don’t think so.” But then she remembered all the crying she’d done and added, “On second thought, maybe I’ll allow that I look worse than I feel.”

“I hope you’re feeling better, because you’re looking great—all things considered.”

“All things considered? Come on, David, explain yourself. I’ve never been very good at figuring out puzzles upon first waking.”

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “The doc said you might not remember.”

Her eyes narrowed on him at that cryptic remark. “Remember what? And
what
doctor?”

“Now don’t get upset—”

“David!”

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

She sighed. “Okay, what is it I’m not remembering that you think I should?”

“Rosie, you’ve been sick, so sick that Mrs. Humes not only called a doctor, she was so worried that she also felt it was necessary to call me.”

She frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous. Elizabeth and John aren’t even here, they’re on vacation in Brighton,” she started, only to amend, “Did they return?”

“I don’t know about any vacation they’ve had recently, but they’re both definitely here, and a damn good thing. You could have died if you’d been alone here.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, almost glaring at him. “Okay, this is a joke, right? I
can’t wait to hear the punch line, so why don’t you get right to it?”

He shook his head at her. “No joke. And I don’t mind telling you, I’ve been worried sick.”

“But
why?
”

“Rosie, you had a really bad case of pneumonia. You’ve been out of it for five days straight, not to mention delirious and even hallucinating at times. Your temperature reached 105 degrees at one point, scaring the hell out of us. I wouldn’t let the doctor budge from your side.”

She stared at him blankly for all of five seconds before she blurted out, “But I don’t remember being sick!”

“You really don’t?”

“No, not a bit.”

“I’d count that as a blessing.” He grinned at her. “Some of those hallucinations you were having sounded pretty nightmarish.”

“But I feel perfectly fine,” she assured him. “Just a little tired.”

And that was because all that crying she’d done had worn her out. Or was it? When had that been, exactly? If she’d been out of it for five days, how many days before that had she sent Thorn away?

And then she stiffened as another thought occurred to her. Maybe she and Thorn hadn’t really made it back to the right time after all. Maybe some small little thing still needed to be corrected in the past, something so minor that it hadn’t radically changed the present,
just merely made things somewhat different—enough so she wouldn’t remember being sick, because it was the other Roseleen living in this time who’d nearly died of pneumonia, not her. Just as it had been another Roseleen who’d married Barry, and another Roseleen who had had a prude for a brother that she couldn’t tolerate…

Suspiciously, she said, “Answer a dumb question for me. I’m not married to Barry Horton, am I?”

“Don’t be absurd. You wouldn’t give that bastard the time of day, and if you did, I’d kick his ass before he could set his watch.”

At that she had to grin. “Okay, I believe you. I was just checking, as long as we’re on the subject of things I can’t remember.”

He chuckled. “You must be feeling better. You’re already back to teasing.”

David had insisted she rest for the remainder of the day, and wouldn’t hear any arguments to the contrary. And when the doctor stopped by later to check on her, he added a couple more days to that. Though she’d apparently spent five days in bed already, according to everyone who’d kept a vigil over her, they hadn’t exactly been restful days.

Roseleen still found it hard to believe that she could have been that sick and yet have no memory of it, not even of the onset of the pneumonia. She’d thought she’d remember some sniffles or coughing, a headache maybe, or the start of her fever. But there was nothing
that she could recall in the way of illness. Her last memory was of sending Thorn away, and she was never going to forget that.

Of course, it was possible that she’d been so depressed and heartsick over that, she hadn’t noticed something as minor as sniffles. And according to the calendar, she did have a few more days missing from the time she’d sent Thorn away than just those five spent with her bout of pneumonia, which she couldn’t remember.

It
was
possible that she’d sunk so low into misery after Thorn had vanished that time and the mundane things in life had passed without her noticing it. And whenever she thought of Thorn now, she felt that depression coming on again, so she tried not to think about him—too much.

David helped in that respect. He spent most of each day with her, telling her jokes, telling her about his recent trip to France, playing simple card and board games with her to keep her from climbing the walls.

But the day finally came when she got back to her normal routine, and David returned to his town house in London. Besides filling her notebook with all the things she had seen in the past while they were still fresh in her memory, she had a few things yet that she wanted to research before she returned to the States. And one of the things on her agenda was to make the drive to Hastings.

She left early one morning to do that. She had seen the area in the past, but she’d never
been there before in the present. It was mainly her curiosity that prompted the trip, to see how different the area was now from how it had been in William’s day. And she found it greatly changed.

The swampy meadow was gone, replaced by fishponds. What had been open country before was now full of trees. And Battle Abbey had been built on the exact site where Harold Godwineson had fallen.

Roseleen walked the area, envisioning the battle as she’d witnessed it. Many things might have affected that battle before it occurred, yet it still could have gone either way. William the Conqueror had been a brilliant man, a seasoned professional fighter, and a great tactician, but he’d gained the throne of England through luck and circumstance.

Had anything happened differently, as she’d found out firsthand, William wouldn’t have won against the English, because they had simply outnumbered his forces. And their defensive position would have remained unbreachable if they hadn’t foolishly broken ranks.

She was glad he’d gained his crown. She was glad she’d been able to witness his triumph. Of course, for her to have her own time back, it couldn’t have gone any other way.

D
avid was taking Roseleen to the airport for her flight home. He picked her up a day early, because her plane was scheduled to depart so early in the morning, they’d figured it would be more convenient if she spent the last night at his town house right in London.

Lydia had flown in from France just to say good-bye to her. That last night, the three of them walked to a small pub around the block where the fish and chips came hot and delicious, and ice for drinks was given only upon request.

Roseleen had never understood the Englishman’s propensity for warm drinks, and had never bothered to ask. Fancifully, she liked to think it might go back to the days of guzzling warm mead out of a barrel. The thought at least made her smile—a rarity these days.

She had debated long and hard whether to tell David about Thorn. It wasn’t something that he had to know about, since Thorn was
gone now, never to be seen again. It was more that she
needed
to talk about him, to share her memories of him with someone. And aside from Gail, David was the closest person in her life.

The only reason she was leery of telling him the whole story or even part of it was that he would very likely think she had gone off the deep end, and who could blame him? It was, after all, an unbelievable experience she’d had. She’d be the first to agree with that.

Time traveling, witches with supernatural power, curses, a thousand-year-old Viking who resided in what the world considered a mythical place where time practically stood still. Very, very unbelievable. And yet, it had all happened, and she really did need to talk about it.

David and she were on the way to the airport early the next morning before Roseleen finally got up the nerve to broach the subject of Thorn with him. And she began in a roundabout way, hoping to keep her brother’s shock to a bare minimum—at least to start.

So she said in an offhand manner, “David, I gave Blooddrinker’s Curse back to its owner.”

He glanced over at her, his tone merely curious as he asked, “What are you talking about? You weren’t able to buy that sword, remember?”

Roseleen hadn’t expected to be the one surprised here, or confused. Maybe he had misunderstood her.

“What are
you
talking about?” she asked him. “You bought it for me.”

He shook his head before he assured her, “No, I didn’t. I suggested it, but you were so pissed off at Sir Isaac Dearborn because he wouldn’t deal directly with you that you told me to forget it. Dearborn still has the sword as far as I know, and he’ll be lucky if he ever finds a buyer for it, it’s in such bad condition.”

“It was in excellent condition!”

At that point, he turned to give her a really perplexed frown. “Rosie, what the devil’s gotten into you? You never even got a chance to see the sword.”

She sighed, deciding he’d either forgotten and needed his memory jogged a bit, or they were talking about two different swords. “David, you bought me the sword. You sent it to me in the States, and I brought it here. And those dreams I told you about? About meeting the sword’s original owner? Well, they weren’t dreams after all, they were quite real. The sword turned out to be cursed. It came part and parcel with the original owner, Thorn Blooddrinker, whom I was able to summon just by touching the sword. And I got to know him so well that I—I fell in love with him.”

After a few moments of staring at her as if she had grown a second head, he said, “That’s quite a dream you had there, Rosie.”

“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you, David. It wasn’t a dream, it was all real.”

“Okay, to repeat a phrase that you threw at me not too long ago—I can’t wait to hear the punch line, so why don’t you get right to it?”

“I wouldn’t joke about something like this,
David. Didn’t you hear me? I said I fell in love with the man. And it’s hurting like crazy that I sent him away for good by giving him back his sword. But he would have been miserable if I had allowed him to stay here. His thinking was antiquated, his profession was antiquated. He was happiest when he was swinging a sword at someone.”

“Rosie, stop and think for a minute, will you? If you never owned the sword to begin with, and I promise you that you didn’t—I wouldn’t lie to you about that—then none of what you’ve just told me really could have taken place, could it?”

“But—”

“Just think for a minute, and you’ll see I’m right. It was just a dream you had while you were so sick, the high fever you were running at the time probably making the dream much more vivid than your usual dreams, which would account for your thinking it was real. But it couldn’t be real, because you never got your hands on that sword in the first place, so you couldn’t have used it to summon anyone, or given it to anyone to send him away.”

A dream? How could her heart ache over a dream? How could she remember nothing of a serious illness, but everything about a dream? And yet, if she never had possession of the sword to begin with…

Then she had never really met and known Thorn Blooddrinker, let alone loved him. He wasn’t real, any more than her dream was.