Roses & Haunts Read online

  What could she say to that? Nothing. Alynia fell silent as they approached a three-story house in the center of the village. It had the distinct look of an inn, dual chimneys in the back pumping out a delicious blend of wood smoke and freshly baked bread. Her stomach agreed with the assessment, rather loudly, and the brick wall at her back chuckled again.

  He pulled the horse to a stop, a young boy rushing out of the stable to take the reins. Knife-Wielder dismounted first, the reason she knew it was him having everything to do with the bayonet held in his left hand. His right reached up towards her, silently offering his hand. Her instinct begged to make his nose match Captain Jerrick’s via an up-close-and-personal with her steel-toed boot.

  That arm crushed against her ribs again, and she let out her own grunt of pain. Dammit, she kept forgetting he was a trained warrior, and as much as he treated her like a petite damsel in distress, he read her every movement like she was a dangerous suspect in his sights. Holding her securely against him like that was for more than a chauvinistic feel-good on his part. It let him keep an eye on her through her body movements and allowed him to keep his eyes focused on outside threats.

  Dammit, she wasn’t supposed to approve of that. But again, her estimation of him rose a notch.

  “I surrender,” she gasped, hands unsuccessfully trying to pry his arm free.

  “Do you?” He asked, his other hand slipping into her hair and yanking her head back, staring hard into her eyes. “Do you know what that means? You are fire. Trouble. I do not want trouble here. Obey me, Fraulein Caprice. All will go well, ja? Do not obey, and I will be forced to hurt you until you do. Do not make me.”

  Translation: He had her number, alright. And he wasn’t going to buy any sale of good behavior on face value. She’d earned his eye, and it was going to stay transfixed on her until he was certain she’d truly capitulated.

  She swallowed hard, her head cranked back at a painful angle. “I understand.”

  “Give me your word.”

  “I give you my word that I won’t start trouble here.”

  He eyed her much like Iowin would, and she had to wonder if her poker face was truly that terrible. Slowly, he let go of her hair, nodding once to Knife-Welder. The bar of his arm blessedly released, and she more crumbled downward from the horse than slid off. Christ on a cracker, the man was strong! Knife-Wielder took up the steel arm duty, catching her as she slid. One quick movement sliced through her bonds. A second movement tucked her in close under his arm while she regained her breath.

  “This is a good place,” Captain Jerrick dismounted, tossing his reins to the boy. “You will be cared for here. Do not make me—”

  “Yeah, yeah, do not make you regret this. I got it the first time.”

  “I do not think that you did.”

  She finally drew in enough breath to let out a decent sigh, clutching at her side. “Look, you son of a—”

  “Captain!” a voice shouted warmly.

  Three heads whipped towards the double doors of the inn. A lovely young woman, who couldn’t be more than twenty if she was a day, skidded to a halt on the flagstone steps. Copper-colored hair glinted in perfect ringlets across her shoulders, pinned in all the right places for that soft romantic look every damn damsel favored. Her gown was the color of fresh hay, the light yellowish gold making her hair shine like polished metal, like someone had spun copper ore into delicate hair. Wide brown eyes warmed at the sight of him, her skirts clutched in petite hands, ready to rush to his side.

  Until she focused on more than just his face. Namely, the Anti-Three Stooges arranged before her: Bloody, Grumpy, and Unwilling. Two guesses were all that was needed to figure out which was which.

  “Oh, Captain, what happened?” She rushed forward anyway, plucking a handkerchief from her cleavage and making a beeline towards Captain Jerrick’s busted up nose. As if the cotton could magically cure the damage.

  Captain Jerrick took a page from Alynia’s book, wrapping an arm protectively around his broken (Ha!) ribs, yet making the motion a part of the formal bow he executed in the girl’s direction. “Fraulein Linnet,” he greeted just as warmly, accepting the token of affection and placing it to his nose. “I am a mess, my lady. Do not approach. I will ruin your dress.”

  “Fiddlesticks with my dress,” she cooed—actually cooed!—hands dancing lightly just above his soiled clothing. “It will clean or I’ll fetch a new one. Who did this to you?”

  Alynia half expected those blue orbs to shift her way, and she was all prepared to jump on that grenade. Hell yeah, she’d kicked his ass. Hell yeah, she’d do it again. And yes, she’d be most willing to teach any woman who wanted to learn how to put a kidnapper in their place. However, his eyes remained locked on the honey-brown of Linnet’s.

  “Battle is battle, my lady. I will not talk of such to polite company. I bring you a gift instead,” he gestured towards Alynia. “I found your cousin on the side of the road and in need of help. Bandits took her escort and her goods. I brought her to you in good faith,” His expression dared Alynia to open her mouth in contradiction. “Fraulein Linnet Caprice, I present your cousin, Fraulein Aloisia Caprice.”

  Chapter 5

  Surprisingly enough, she wasn’t wearing a corset. All those bodice-ripping romances had it wrong. Linnet called the garment currently holding her bosom upright and wrapping around her stomach a “stay.” Alynia had to hold back the obvious jokes regarding the name.

  The thing was comfortable enough, rather like a PVC top back in her goth days. So comfortable, in fact, that Alynia made a mental note not to fight her mother if the suggestion of a corset-top wedding dress entered the conversation. As much as she hated to admit it, the skirts weren’t all that horrific either. They were rather light given the amount of them she had on her body. It was the combination of stiff petticoats and the stay that was the hardest thing to get used to and walk in. Alynia couldn’t shake the feeling of having that many yards of linen hanging off her ass, and that, combined with the corset-like stays, turned actions as simple as walking into a freaking Olympic event. She’d had no idea how much she normally slouched when she walked, sat, or stood still.

  The stays apparently knew, and like a fabric version of her grandmother, it made her sit up straight whether she wanted to or not. She perched on the edge of a chair, afraid to lean back and crush the series of folded bows and fabric attached to her skirt, and unable to slouch due to the stays reinforcing her spine from outside her ribs. Thank every star ever that Captain Jerk hadn’t broken one of her ribs with the press-and-squeeze maneuver. Otherwise the stay thing was a serious no-go. She had the feeling he knew just how much pressure to apply to a woman’s ribs to induce unconsciousness without doing damage. And it wasn’t from any creepy-stalker-murderer vibe, either.

  No, just the creepy beheading boys on battlefields vibes. Alynia rubbed her eyes, trying not to groan aloud. She’d seen some truly horrific stuff in her line of work, but nothing was going to make her forget the image of those boys losing their heads.

  Linnet tsked, the sound resonating like crystal rather than sounding vexed. “Don’t do that, my dove. We’re going to have to start your eyes all over again.”

  “Sorry,” Alynia reached towards her hair, and then stopped at a rather annoyed stare from Linnet. It’d taken two hours and god knew how many pins to set her hair in colonial ringlets. No need to start that all over again, too.

  Alynia ground her teeth and did her best to remain still. After the initial shock of meeting her ancestor, she’d been all but tossed to the proverbial she-wolves of the village. So many women all aghast at her horrible experience. So many women digging through their closets to find articles of clothing to fit the poor ‘Lady Aloisia’ and soothe her troubled mind. Captain Jerk wandered away the moment the first word of condolences fell from kind lips, a bit of a smirk playing across his lips. The bastard. Cloth descended into her lap by the bolt-load, shoes and a few small pieces of jewelry found their way into a
large chest. Coin changed hands for the goods, Linnet dutifully counting out the money from a pouch that looked suspiciously German. Well, the crest on it didn’t look like anything she’d ever studied in American History for that matter, and it certainly wasn’t the crest of the Caprice Family.

  Next was the hot bath treatment and being told not to come out of the water for at least an hour. Doctor’s orders, they’d said, treating hot water like it was the cure for everything.

  Maybe it was to them. A hot bath: the 1789’s version of penicillin.

  She said a silent prayer to whoever was listening for all those vaccines she received as a child.

  Finally, a bowl of stew and several thick slices of fresh bread were brought to her little room, again with orders to eat all of it and rest. Her stomach rumbled, the coffee she’d imbibed for breakfast had all but evaporated in the hours since heading back to Mom Stop 27. She all but descended on that bowl of stew, thankful no one was around to witness the obscenity by which she consumed every drop and every crumb of that bread—regardless of how hard that was in her stay.

  She shook her head ruefully, and focused on the plan: fuel up quickly, find Iowin, and GTFO. Iowin was out there somewhere. She had to find him, then find out what was bringing the Horseman forward to their time, and… and…

  …and she realized her second mistake of the day as her fingers numbly dropped the spoon. The food. They’d drugged her food. The spoon clanged like a gong against the polished wood, at least to her ears, and her knees hit the floor. The room stretched out before her eyes, wavering in and out of focus, the door suddenly eight million miles away. Her hands were next to greet the floor, followed by her shoulders, and then her head. Across the world, the door slipped open, a familiar set of boots tromping towards her like stomping elephants.

  “Fuck me,” she cursed, her voice thick and her words slurred. “You drugged me, you asshat.”

  “Ja,” the Jerk in question replied, slipping an arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. “Valerian root in your stew. Helps to sleep. You need to rest.”

  “Not an… a damsel in… distress.”

  “Nein,” he laid her gently in the bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. “I do not know what you are. I know what you are not. You are not a rebel traitor. You are not British. Your weapon is stranger than your clothes. I will learn what you are, Fraulein Aloisia, before our time is through.”

  Great. She’d run afoul of the Hessian equivalent of a CSI, who’d managed to have her weapon collected by one of his minions while she was bound like a gift. Classic her.

  Wasn’t life… just…

  Darkness.

  That was until Linnet shook her awake the following afternoon, and the whole ‘dress the damsel’ ordeal worked its way into full gear.

  “Why do you do that?” Linnet asked, gently rubbing the cream rouge into the apple of Alynia’s cheek.

  “Do what?”

  “Constantly mutter to yourself. I thought you mentioned a see-es-eye? Is that a French word of prayer? It sounds French to me.”

  Alynia fought for the millionth time not to smack the girl’s fingers away from her face. “What makes you think it’s French?”

  “Captain Jerrick informed Father that you were my father’s sister’s daughter’s cousin from France, seeking asylum here in the colonies. That’s why your letter of introduction was lost along with all your belongings,” she made with the pity-face again. “I’m so sorry for your loss, cousin. I can’t understand the madness gripping your country. To side with the rebels against the Crown? It’s not right.”

  It was a good thing Linnet was applying mascara to Alynia’s eyes. It gave a great excuse to stare at the woman unblinkingly. “So you and this village are loyalists to the Crown?”

  Her pretty little pout rolled into a bit of a frown. “We are loyal to those that serve our interests,” she said politically.

  “Like, say, Captain Jerk?”

  She laughed, the sound like goddamn bells. “Captain Jerk? Oh, I shall have to call him that from now on if he lets you do it. Isn’t he such a wonderful man? Forsaking his homeland to help us keep our own.”

  Any minute now, Alynia was certain Linnet was either going to break into song al la Disney Princess, or words like ‘swell’ ‘dreamy’ and ‘swoon’ were going to take center stage in her vocab. Either one was going to lead to Alynia performing a swan dive out of the third floor window to get away from it. The girl seriously had a crush on the Hessian. Truly and utterly batting her eyes at a blood covered general who should have lost his head on—

  Oh hell.

  The cannonball that nearly took her head off when she’d arrived in the past. Was that the one meant to knock the block off of Captain Assface? And speaking of ass faces, unless the drugs in her stew were LSD-worthy, she couldn’t have imagined the flawless line of his profile as he lifted her off the floor. Flawless, as in no more broken nose. No raccoon eyes. No wheezing grunt from folding himself over broken ribs to lift her off the floor, either. While they were tallying the magical sins, just what had possessed her to devour that stew with a vengeance? She knew better than to eat anything brought to her by a captor.

  She knew better.

  It would have taken a miracle to make all that happen. A miracle, or, say… a rather powerful Caprice witch casting a spell on her.

  Mayhap the one currently applying cream to her lips so they could go to dinner ‘properly’ attired.

  “He doesn’t know you’re the one protecting him, does he?”

  Linnet jerked, nearly dropping the lip brush. “What do you mean?”

  Alynia pushed Linnet’s hands away from her face finally. “Your father and Captain Jerrick. The whole village is under your protection spell, isn’t it?”

  Linnet tittered, the sound less like bells and more like strained glass about to shatter. “Now how could one woman do all that? I’m not a solider or a politician. I’m just—”

  “A witch. Like me.”

  This time it was Linnet who messed up the makeup session, slapping fingers quickly against Alynia’s mouth. Actual tears welled in those dark brown eyes. “Watch your tone, dear cousin,” she whispered quickly. “Accusations like that can land a woman in the fires, even in our enlightened time.”

  She caught the other woman’s wrist and yanked her fingers away. “Then tell me what the fuck you did,” Alynia whispered just as furiously. “I’m willing to bet it was your magic I felt pressing down on me over two hundred years later.”

  Linnet gaped at her, lips twisting between a smile of amusement and a look of abject terror. Alynia sighed, clutching her skirts in both hands until her fingers shook. Dammit, where was Iowin when she needed him? He could make anything sound appealing and appropriate. Those words about the future coming off her lips must have sounded utterly insane.

  The way Linnet made with the paleness, sitting down hard on the stool next to her, let her know she’d failed yet again to deliver the time-traveling news with delicacy.

  “You can’t be serious,” Linnet gaped. “I’m not that powerful, no woman in our line has ever been that powerful in forever. And what do you mean centuries, as in from the future? Captain Jerrick said—”

  “Captain Jerk lied to you,” she said bluntly, relishing not a little the insult she threw into that name. “He did it for his own protection, and for yours. I know for a fact that he doesn’t know what you are because he pointblank told me he doesn’t know what I am. But he’s going to find out, Lin. He’s all but made it a mission to pull the secrets out of me, by hook or by crook.”

  “He would never!”

  “He already promised me he would,” Alynia said gravely. “Right in front of your house, he told me to obey or he’d put the hurt on me until I did. Does that sound like someone willing to turn a blind eye to a little witchy magic, especially if he learns you bespelled him, and I’m not talking about charm or beauty here?”

  Tears spilled down those rosy cheeks, l
ips trembling. “It was only a protection spell. I only wanted to keep him alive so we could marry.”

  The impulse to shake Linnet until her china-doll head popped off and rolled across the floor nearly overwhelmed her. Alynia settled with rising to her feet, pacing the floor and rubbing at her forehead. Careful, of course, to make a full turn before pacing the other direction. Tripping over the skirts once while getting into them the first time was enough for a lifetime.

  “Look, something else happened other than your charm spell, Linnet. Something powerful enough that Iowin and I rode the remainder of it down two hundred years into the past.”

  “Who is Iowin?”

  “My husband.”

  Linnet let out her breath in a whoosh, looking like she might need her stay loosened, or whatever one did to keep a woman from fainting.

  “You’re married,” she whispered, the sound suspiciously like a giggle. A giggle of relief.

  Seriously, that’s what the girl was taking away from this conversation? “What of it?”

  Linnet sat up a bit straighter, dabbing the tears off her cheeks with a kerchief. “Nothing, I only meant that—”

  Alynia shook her head back and forth, crossing her arms over her chest. “You honestly thought I’d want to take a run at Captain Jerkface?”

  The girl had the grace to blush and look away. “Why wouldn’t you? He’s rich and strong, handsome, and honorable, too. His brother is Frederick II of Hesse-Kassel, a Landgrave. Think of it like a Prince of Germany. He has no heirs, so Jerrick is next in line for the title. Imagine getting out of this village and seeing the world, of never having to worry about money or food or wars ever again. Why wouldn’t you want that, or him?”

  Why not, indeed? She didn’t have the meanness in her to break Linnet’s heart with the truth. Money wouldn’t stop wars or poverty or starvation. The world waited to erupt in Linnet’s future over so much more, dragging every nation in to brutal conflicts, each one more bloody than the last.