[1997] Once and Future Love Read online

  Praise for Anne Kelleher

  and A Once and Future Love…‌

  “What a fascinating book! Ms. Kelleher has taken time travel to a new level. Packed with energy and intrigue, this is one not to miss! The time period is cleverly brought to life, and the author does a credible job of handling various historical elements.”

  —Amy Wilson, Literary Times

  A superb medieval romance with a time travel twist

  “A Once and Future Love is a passionate time travel romance that is based on a love that flows forever. Both incarnations of Richard are fabulously drawn, but especially intriguing is the modern day soul coping with the loss of a loved one. Kelleher’s novel [is] a spectacular Medieval romance with a time traveling twist.”

  —5 stars from Amazon Top Reviewer Harriet Klausner

  “All lovers of time travel should look to acquire this book for their keeper shelves! Superb read!”

  “Full of visceral detail, this book almost made me wish I could step in an English castle and vanish into the past.”

  “This is probably one of the best time-travels I’ve ever read. It’s rich with history, and the characters are completely believable. I thought the author did a particularly great job with the hero—I could really fall in love with him!”

  A Once and Future Love…

  England, 2014. When Richard Lambert’s beloved wife dies, he thinks he will never find love again. Until, while exploring a medieval tower, he falls from the steps—and into another time…

  England, 1214. When Richard wakes, he’s in the body of his ancestor, who is near death from battle. As his wife nurses him back to health, she finds he is not the cruel man she knew. And he discovers a second chance—with his one and only love…

  OTHER BOOKS BY

  ANNE KELLEHER

  The Ghost & Katie Coyle, Berkley, 1999

  Love’s Labyrinth, Berkley, 2000

  The Highwayman, Berkley, 2001

  Silver’s Edge, Harlequin, 2004

  Silver’s Bane, Harlequin, 2005

  Silver’s Lure, Harlequin, 2006

  How David Met Sarah, eFitzgerald, 2011

  When David was Surprised, eFitzgerald, 2012

  Conjuring Johnny Depp, eFitzgerald, 2013

  Written under the name Anne Kelleher Bush

  Daughter of Prophecy, Warner, 1995

  Children of Enchantment, Warner, 1996

  The Misbegotten King, Warner 1997

  The Knight, the Harp & the Maiden, 1998

  A ONCE AND FUTURE LOVE

  Anne Kelleher

  For my once and future love…‌whoever that turns out to be.

  CONTENTS

  Praise

  About the Book

  Other Books by Anne Kelleher

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  A Message from the Author

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  PROLOGUE—ENGLAND

  SEPTEMBER, 1214

  The icy rain sluiced the blood from the gray faces of the dying and the dead, and pooled in the little valleys of staring eyes and gaping mouths. Lord Richard de Lambert, the most recently appointed of all the wardens of the Welsh Marcher country by His Grace, King John, wiped the bits of flesh that clung to the blade of his broadsword on his thick cloak of Frisian wool, and nodded as he surveyed the carnage. “This should teach them.”

  De Lambert looked over his shoulder at Hugh, his ward and brother-in-law, who sat hushed and grim-faced on his horse amongst the men-at-arms. “What’s the matter, Hugh? Never spitted a Welsh rabbit?” With the point of his sword, he nudged the crumpled body of a dark-haired child, no more than five or six. The rest of her family lay in a slaughtered pile a few feet away. De Lambert grinned in the face of Hugh’s obvious discomfort, showing even white teeth in a lean, tanned face that many—including his own sister—thought handsome.

  Hugh shuddered. He was fifteen years old, and, but for a few words never spoken by his parents before a priest, there would’ve been no need for de Lambert’s presence in his life, nor that of his half sister’s. If he had been the legitimate heir, rather than Eleanor, he would have proven to the king, by force of arms, if necessary, that he had no need for a guardian, especially not one so rapacious as this. But Hugh didn’t dare say anything that might draw de Lambert’s quicksilver temper. He’d acquired enough new scars in recent months. He looked down and wished either himself older, or de Lambert dead.

  Geoffrey de Courville, captain of the men-at-arms, and himself the bastard of a Norman knight, glanced first at the boy beside him, and then at the lowering sky. He cleared his throat. “Shall we go, my lord?” He tightened his hand on the reins of de Lambert’s mount and pulled his own cloak closer to his throat. The stallion stamped and pawed, as though impatient to return to a warm stall and dry oats.

  “All right, Geoffrey. We’ll go.” De Lambert sheathed the broadsword, and slung his sodden cloak over his shoulder. “I’ve got a wicked appetite.” He swung into the saddle, his movements graceful and sure for such a big man. At the look on Hugh’s face, he burst out laughing. “Have to toughen you up, boy. A man without land must earn his bread—right, Geoffrey? Unless, of course, you’d like to be a priest.”

  Hugh shifted, biting back a retort to the sneer in de Lambert’s voice. He caught Geoffrey’s eye and glanced away. He would not lower himself to the level of these animals, no matter if he had to bite his own tongue off. “No, my Iord. I have no calling to the Church.” Rain found its way beneath his cloak and trickled down his neck, but Hugh grit his teeth and refused to allow his discomfort to show.

  De Lambert cast one more look around the remains of the village. The empty huts stood in a forlorn circle, and the bodies littered the clearing, twisted in their final agony. “We’ll come back and burn it all when this cursed weather breaks.” He flapped the reins, and the horse broke into an easy trot. The other men wheeled around and followed after, hooves crashing through the undergrowth.

  Hugh brought up the rear. Beneath the thick canopy of leaves, the downpour was reduced to a steady drip. It had been a cold spring, and a wet surnmer, and now it looked as though the autumn would be both. Out of sight of the rest, he allowed himself to shiver, and pulled his cloak higher.

  His nose was red. Water dripped from beneath his chainmail hood. Before de Lambert and his minions had come to Barland Keep, Eleanor would have met him at the door, laughing and scolding, with dry clothes and a bowl of steaming wine. But now, Eleanor would be hidden in her solar and the hall would be a dark, dank cavern. The servants would be hiding in the kitchens, only to emerge when de Lambert bellowed for his dinner.

  Lost in his thoughts, Hugh was startled when Geoffrey’s horse reared and screamed, and one of the men in front of him fell to the ground with an arrow protruding between his shoulder blades. De Lambert wheeled his mount immediately, drawing his broadsword with one hand. “On guar—” His voice ended
in a gurgle, cut off as an arrow sliced past his throat. Another arrow thudded into his chest. For a moment, he went rigid, as though astonished, and then slumped sideways in the saddle.

  Amid the confusion, Geoffrey reached for his lord’s slack reins. As a volley of arrows fell on the hapless company, Hugh turned away from the milling soldiers. Behind him, he heard Geoffrey calling for some semblance of order. He crouched low, spurring his horse toward another trail that led to the keep, and hoped God would forgive him for wishing them all dead.

  CHAPTER 1

  ENGLAND—SEPTEMBER, 2014

  The road wound down through the thatched roofs of the village, past tidy garden rows of cabbages edged with marigolds, clotheslines heavy with sheets and underwear, and low stone fences where bicycles leaned like contorted grandfathers resting in the late afternoon glow.

  Richard Lambert slowed the borrowed little Morris to a stop and ducked his head out the window, peering left and right at the crossroads.

  On his right, an ancient church hugged the slight rise as though it had been planted, not built. The crooked tombstones in the churchyard looked like weathered mushrooms surrounding it. Behind the church, rolling green hills rose in successive waves to the mountains of Wales, which formed a dark blue backdrop against a paler sky.

  As he watched, four women in faded housedresses emerged from the church, carrying mops and buckets hung with damp rags. They paused on the porch and eyed him enough that he knew they’d noticed the newest stranger in town.

  He looked to the left. At the bottom of the row of shops, beyond the greengrocer and the butcher, the bakery and the post office, was a two-story half-timbered pub. Over the door was the word “Courage.” A swaying sign proclaimed the name of the pub to be The Lamb and Bears.

  “Well, El.” He spoke aloud, out of habit. That was his nickname for her from the beginning, based on Lucy’s listing in the campus directory when they met. “I made it.” She had not been gone long enough for him not to notice her absence. A year after her death, his first impulse was still to wait a few minutes whenever he got into a car, to call her at the end of a day, to check with her first before he made plans.

  He eased his foot off the clutch and cautiously guided the car down the narrow street. What passed as a sidewalk would barely accommodate more than one pedestrian at a time, and when a car happened to be driving down the street, surely passersby were required to flatten themselves against the gray stone walls of the buildings.

  It was like a miniature, he reflected, as he pulled into the tiny lot beside the pub. England was full of little cars, little streets, little houses full of little rooms with low ceilings and winding staircases.

  But England had been the land Lucy loved. She had spent her girlhood here, somewhere in the West Country, returning to the United States when she was eighteen and her father’s company transferred the family.

  They’d only managed to come to England once, in all the years of their marriage: their honeymoon, a whirlwind ten day extravaganza they’d spent mostly in London and the town Lucy had spent her childhood. Struggling students when they met, their courtship had been brief—the day he’d met her, it felt as if he recognized her, had been looking, somehow, for her. And she, amazingly enough, had seemed to feel exactly the same way about him. Then the children came so quickly after they married—six, in all—and there was never the time to plan another trip across the ocean. Nor the money, between mortgages and car payments, orthodontists, piano lessons, and college tuitions.

  They’d intended to travel to their heart’s content when the youngest finished college. This was supposed to be their first destination. Lucy had been so excited to discover what she believed to be an ancestor of his in the 13th century, that even at the end she talked about a trip. “Promise me,” she said one day, lying in her hospital bed, her face in the middle of a puddle of sun. “Promise me you’ll go there after I’m gone.”

  “Anything you want,” he’d replied, picking up her hand and holding it, fragile as a fallen leaf, against his cheek.

  They never thought she’d be gone so soon, that the years they had together would be so brief.

  He remembered how she used to sing medieval songs as she worked about the house, and read poetry in bed, her voice still husky from their lovemaking. Even though he usually understood almost nothing of what she said, the words still conjured images in his mind, images of the two of them in medieval clothing, wandering through some green and misty garden. He remembered lying back and listening to her, the pictures flashing like photographs past his mind’s eye, so real he almost felt as if they could’ve been memories of some distant lifetime.

  Richard ducked his tall frame just in time and straightened slowly to his full height. A huge fireplace of blackened brick dominated the wall to his left, with a long bar on his right. The hearth was empty, and there were no other patrons. He checked his watch. Three o’clock.

  A middle-aged woman with graying hair, wearing a blue smock, entered from the door in the middle of the opposite wall, wiping her hands on a towel. “May I help you, sir?” She spoke with the musical lilt of Wales.

  I’m looking for my wife, he almost answered. Instead he managed, “I, uh, I was just looking around. Would I be able to get something to eat?”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, sir. The kitchen’s closed. You’re a bit late for lunch, and we don’t serve food again till tea time, but I could get you a ploughman’s lunch—bread, cheese, tomato—if that’s all right.”

  “That sounds find. And something to drink?”

  Her face folded into a smile. “That’s always available. Have a seat.” She nodded at the round tables in front of the fireplace. “I’ll be right back.”

  Obediently he sat and looked around. A coat of arms hung on the wall behind the bar, presumably the source of the pub’s name, for it depicted a lamb between two bears standing upright. Lucy would have known the proper heraldic description.

  He nodded at it when the landlady returned. As she set bread and cheese and tomato before him, he asked, “That coat of arms—is it yours?”

  “Heavens, no,” she laughed. “That’s supposed to have belonged to the family that was here once—the Lamberts. They were the local squires until about the sixteenth—no, seventeenth century.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “Well.” She put her hands on her hips and seemed to settle more comfortably on her feet. “I’m no historian, but I believe the Lamberts sided with the king against Cromwell. They all died in the Civil War, and if there were any survivors, they never came home.”

  “But you still keep the arms over the bar?”

  “Three hundred years isn’t so very long ago. You’re American, aren’t you?” When he nodded, she shrugged. “Your country’s still brand-new compared to this one. You’re on holiday?”

  “Sort of.” He picked at the cheese. “My last name’s Lambert. My wife—she taught medieval history. She thought that my family might have come from this part of England. We were supposed to make this trip together. But we never had the time.”

  “I’m so sorry, sir.”

  He looked up quickly, into the woman’s soft sympathetic eyes, but the catch in his throat made speech impossible.

  “You’ll want to see the ruins of Barland Castle,” she continued.

  He sliced the bread in half. “Only ruins?”

  “I’m afraid so—but they’re not far. And they do go back nearly a thousand years, all the way to 1066. The manor house was burned by Cromwell’s men, and there’s nothing left of that. And there’s some graves in the churchyard you might care to see—though don’t go there after dark.”

  “Why not?” He laughed. “Is it haunted?”

  “It’s said to be. They say that the first of the Lamberts was one of King John’s men. He terrorized the country—a plaque in the church commemorates his slaughter of this whole village. But in later life, he settled down, repented of his sins, and built the church for the repose
of the poor souls he murdered. And the murdered don’t rest well, they say, even if the murderers sleep in peace.”

  Richard smiled. England was full of ghosts, Lucy always said, and she had delighted in collecting stories. What self-respecting village wouldn’t have a few gray ladies or headless knights galloping down the streets at midnight?

  The landlady set a pint of dark ale before him. “The ruins aren’t far. Just down the road past the church, over the first two hills. At the bottom of the second, you’ll see a lane on vour left. Turn there. That’s Harry Powell’s road, but he won’t mind. Go past his pasture, and the road will turn to gravel. Follow it right up the hill. You can’t miss it.’

  Amused, in spite of his sadness, Richard nodded his thanks. He finished his lunch, paid for it, and left debating whether to go first to the church or the ruins. There was still plenty of daylight. He could see the ruins, then come back and stop at the church. Lucy’s friends in Hereford weren’t expecting him until eight o’clock. There was plenty of time to see both.

  He followed the winding lane between the tall hedgerows misted with Queen Anne’s lace and turned on to Mr. Powell’s road, hoping that Harry was as accommodating as the landlady claimed.

  “In England,” Lucy used to say, “the very air smells good.”

  He took a deep breath. The very air smelled strongly of cow. The lane curved sharply up a steep incline. He shifted the car down to second gear. As the Morris putted slowly up the hill, Richard prayed that one of Mr. Powell’s cows wouldn’t suddenly choose to cross the track. Finally the ground leveled out, and a clearing emerged.

  He parked the car. He sat for a few moments, wondering if he would feel some sense of deja vu, some genetic memory of the place, but all he was aware of was an acute sense of loss. This was Lucy’s trip. She should have been here—listening to the coo of the wood pigeons, watching the sun-dappled leaves stir in the breeze. He took another deep breath, and this time, the air was sweet, a blend of moist earth and green growing things.