He laughs at me. “Everyone needs to see the King," he says sarcastically.

  "This is important. He'll want to see me." I say urgently.

  "This one’s prettier than the last wench who tried to get in. Too bad the King’s bed is rarely empty these days or else he might want to give her a try,” he jokes with his brunette companion guard.

  A sick feeling fills my stomach at his insinuation. I shake it off. Really, who am I to judge? I’ve been with several other men. Even married one.

  In my defense though, hundreds of years have passed. He’s only been without me for six years. I push my selfish thoughts out of my head. Because that's what they are, selfish. I was kidding myself if I thought that James and I would have an immediate happy reunion. Six years is still a lot of time for things to happen.

  My heart still aches from losing him. Not for the first time I wonder if he mourned for me the way I’ve mourned for him.

  "Please inform the King that Juliet Caris is waiting outside the gates," I try again in what I hope sounds like an authoritative voice.

  The guard shakes his head. "Madam, you’re not getting in. If you want to offer your services, we can try them out first and give our recommendations to the King," he says with a lecherous chuckle.

  The gate suddenly creaks open behind him. An old woman steps through with silver hair that glistens in the sun. She’s dressed in a simple lavender dress with a tidy white apron tied in the front of it. She stares at me intensely. "Did you say your last name was Caris?" she asks suspiciously, eyeing me up and down. She frowns when she sees my strange outfit.

  I’ve got to get some new clothes.

  She stares at me waiting for an answer. I don’t recognize her, and it seems like she doesn’t recognize me. Only my last name.

  "Yes," I respond cautiously.

  "Did you know a Margaret Caris?" she asks, and my heart jumps a bit at the mention of my mother’s name.

  “My mother’s name was Margaret Caris,” I respond quietly.

  “Your Mother?” she asks with wide eyes.

  I nod.

  There were questions in her eyes...questions, but also knowledge. No one ever mentioned my Mother if they could help it. Abandoning your husband and child was frowned upon no matter what time period you were in.

  I guess I had ended up just like her.

  “What is your business here?” she asks. The guards watch us in annoyed silence. I was surprised that they were being so deferential to her.

  "The King and I are old friends." I tell her, trying to keep my voice steady. She stares at me for another long minute.

  "Let the girl in," she finally says to the blonde guard who had propositioned me only moments before. Both guards look reluctant to obey her. By the look of the woman’s clothes, she’s part of the royal household staff. Evidently a higher up if the guards feel like they have to listen to her.

  "This is on you if the King is upset," the guard barks, moving aside to let me pass him.

  The woman rolls her eyes. “What isn’t on me these days?" she asks in an annoyed tone.

  I step through the gates quickly, afraid that one of them is going to change their minds and not let me through at any second. I walk up to the woman.

  “Follow me,” she sighs. I can hear the guards muttering about me behind us. I’m glad that I can’t hear what they are saying.

  "May I ask your name?" I ask the woman as we begin to walk, wanting to be able to thank her by name. It’s more luck than I usually have that I’ve found two people in one day that have offered to help me.

  "Joan," she says.

  "Did you know my Mother?" I ask tentatively, momentarily distracted from my quest to find James in the face of someone who seemed to know something about my past.

  “You’re the spitting image of her, you know,” she says, not exactly answering my question.

  I tried to remember what my mother had looked like. She had left when I was four so all I had in my memories of her was a fuzzy image of a beautiful brunette woman. Father had burned all the paintings of her in rage at her disappearance.

  “Do you have a wandering heart as well?” she asks me.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” I tell her, my mind racing with the hidden connotations in her words.

  We reach a bench outside what I recognized as the doors to the Throne Room. The heavy wooden doors were closed.

  "The King is with his advisers currently," she says, once again ignoring me. “You’ll have to wait out here until he’s done.”

  I nod obediently, feeling like a chastised child as I settle myself on the hand carved bench that sits in the elaborate hallway.

  She begins to walk away.

  “Wait,” I call out, jumping up from the bench, suddenly frantic to try and get more information out of her.

  “Come find me after you reunite with the King. I’m in the kitchens more than not,” she says as she continues to walk away.

  I feel the urge to follow her, to badger her until I get more answers, but I hold myself back. I can only solve one problem at a time and reuniting with James needs to be my first priority.

  I settle back onto the bench to wait, my mind whirling with everything the day had brought. A few hours ago, I had tried to fling myself off a cliff. A few hours ago, I had been with Liam.

  And now I was in medieval England about to reunite with my ex-fiancée.

  There would be a time that I would need to face the events of this morning. Where I would need to contemplate the fact that I had almost killed myself. I didn’t think I could deal with what I had done at the moment. It was hard enough to keep my feelings at bay at the fact that I had left Liam. I’m sure that it would be a great first impression to see James again, a man who most likely believed I had left him, while crying over my last lover.

  One thing that I couldn’t ignore was the fact that Liam had seen me disappear today. None of my men had ever been present when I had disappeared. I wonder what he's thinking. He had to believe me now, I thought wryly. It hurt to think that I had finally gotten what I wanted, someone to believe me. And then I had left once again.

  So, I tried to distract myself.

  I had forgotten how beautiful Windsor Castle was. I could have visited it in some of my centuries of travels, but I never could bring myself to come here. There were too many memories that would've haunted me as I walked along the ancient stone hallways.

  Footsteps sound in the hall, signaling that someone is approaching. A tall, thin, elegantly dressed blonde woman walks towards me from down the hall, attended by five women who look to be her handmaidens. She looks at me curiously but doesn’t say anything to me as she stops outside the Throne Room. One of the handmaidens opens the door to the throne room, and they all go in.

  Who was she? The answer of who she probably was, was obvious...but my mind didn’t want to comprehend that. She had been dressed regally...like a royal. All I could hope was that she was a Lady or Baroness from a nearby estate, come to pay her respects to the King.

  The alternative of who she was pushed me closer to the insanity I was always trying to keep contained.

  The doors to the Throne Room open again and I look up expectantly as another guard appears.

  He looks up and down the hallway, his eyes widening when he sees me sitting huddled on the bench.

  “Do you have business with the King?" he asks after he has recovered from examining my outfit.

  "Yes, I'm an old friend of the king," I explain. Surprisingly, my explanation seems to satisfy him. “He will see you now.”

  I stand up, my legs starting to shake. I was going to throw up. There was no other way to describe the feeling I had as the guard ushered me through the doors, into the Throne Room. I walked in and I immediately saw him in the center of the room.

  He was as beautiful as ever.

  He’s lounging in his throne, laughing with one of his advisors. I soak up the view of him like I was dying of thirst and he was the only one who could quench it. Every memory, every touch he had given me came flying back through my mind. It felt like the hundreds of years that had passed had disappeared. At that moment, I was the same girl in the apple orchard, seeing her prince for the first time.

  Although he was King, his rich brown hair was still overly long for the current trends. It was tousled as if he couldn’t stop running his fingers through it and a few pieces of hair have fallen across his forehead in messy disarray. His cheekbones have gotten even sharper with the passage of time and I trace them down to his strong jaw, a jaw that is covered in at least a few days’ worth of growth. From there my eyes follow the line of his firm, full lips which sat under a long, straight nose in perfect proportion with his features.

  It was a magnificent package, but I knew his eyes were what completed it. I was desperate to see them.

  "James," I whisper. He stiffens mid-sentence. It’s obvious to everyone in the room that he recognizes my voice as I can feel their attentions turn away from their conversations and towards me. He sits up sharply in his high-backed throne, his posture becoming stiff and unyielding. Almost in slow motion, he turns his face to look at me, his gaze wide and unbelieving. I watch a myriad of emotions cross his face, shock, awe, something that looks a little like love...and then hate. His eyes hold me spellbound—that same perfect, sky blue color surrounded by thick, dark lashes. Beautiful.

  We stare at each other; the entire room falls into silence as they watch us.

  James looks like he’s seen a ghost. He tries to get up to walk towards me, but he falls back into his chair as if he’s too weak to stand.

  "Your Majesty," someone comments nearby worriedly. James holds up a hand to hold whoever spoke off, not taking his eyes off me. I hope he can read the message in my eyes...the one that says, please forgive me, I love you...I’ve never stopped loving you.

  He must not see it, or he sees it and he doesn’t care. James’ eyes fall to slits of steel, his jaw more tense than I’ve ever seen before. I’m afraid the vein on the side of his neck will explode as it pumps up and down with the grinding of his teeth. More disturbing than any of that is his silence. I stare at his hands, clenching and re-clenching into fists by his side. I whisper his name again, but he flinches at the sound of my voice. The curious stares around the room turn into glares as they follow the King’s lead.

  James is silent. His eyes turn light and empty before my eyes. Nothing, no emotion. Not the expressionless expression that usually is given away by the intensity in his gaze. There’s nothing there when he looks at me.

  “James.” his name comes out choked this time.

  I’m afraid.

  Afraid that it was a mistake to come here, afraid that we could never again be us. The rigid set of his shoulders straightens even further, and his lip curls up.

  “Guards, take her to the dungeon,” he orders in a cold, unfeeling voice.

  Oh, no. No, no, no. “Please, James. Let me explain . . .”

  “Get her out of here,” he roars angrily, cowing everyone in the room with his rage. He settles back into his chair, his face changing from anger to devastation.

  He finally speaks to me.

  “I can’t look at you.”

  I close my eyes in defeat, wishing I could melt into the ground and into non-existence.

  The guard who allowed me into the room is next to me then in an instant, the hint of his body odor filling the small space between us. When I look up, there’s a hint of compassion in his gaze, but it does nothing to alleviate my heartbreak.

  Taking my arm, he practically carries me towards the door since my legs seem to have failed me. Breaking free, I throw myself back towards James eliciting a gasp from the crowd who I’m sure have never seen such unseemly behavior towards their monarch. He dips his head away, closing his eyes as he does. With his hands fisted, he remains stiff underneath my seeking grip.

  “Look at me,” I whisper, wincing at the desperation that clouds my tone. “Please.” A single tear falls over my lid, cool against my heated cheek as it drops in slow motion and with the movement of his head. The man I love beyond reason blurs like a hologram before me, as if he could disappear in an instant if I make a wrong move. Fighting against the tears, my fingers clench into his biceps. When our eyes meet, I choke on a cry. He’s buried under too many emotions to understand them all, but one is very clear. Revulsion. His mouth trembles with it.

  “I can’t be near you right now,” he says.

  The words are a train, barreling at full speed and slamming into my chest.

  I crumble, emotionally and literally. My knees go first, my fingers failing in their grip on his arms. What have I done? If not for the guard who has come to get me again, I’d pool to the floor.

  As it is, I allow him to move me away from James where I’m met by the stares of what feels like a hundred strangers. There are no sympathetic eyes to ease my anxiety or a friendly shoulder to lay my head on. I see out of the corner of my eye the blonde woman from the hallway sitting in the corner surrounded by her group of girls. She’s watching me sharply, an ugly frown on her face. As I’m being led away, I realize I do recognize one other person besides James, Richard, one of James’ childhood friends. He stands behind the crowd, blending into the shadows. I had met him a few times during James and I’s courtship. He shows no sign that he recognizes me.

  The guard is silent next to me as he marches me from the room. I hope that I haven’t gotten him in trouble since he was the one who allowed me into the room to see James in the first place. I hang my head. My company is my own and I tunnel into myself as my mind drifts, farther and farther away into the depths of my troubled mind.

  I recoil, as does everyone I’m sure, at James’ ferocious roar behind the now closed door and the following diatribe that’s lost as we get farther down the hall. Time is nowhere to be found. I have no awareness of anything around me as the entire walk is spent replaying what just happened while at the same time hoping James gives me a chance to explain.

  I never meant to hurt him.

  I’m jerked from my trance as a clang echoes around me, signaling that we’re at our destination.

  The underground prison.

  My stomach, which has been on shaky ground since I saw Windsor’s towers, rolls again. It’s a good thing I haven’t eaten since yesterday. I close my eyes as they well with tears. I don’t want to cry. It seems to be all that I do. I will the waterworks away, looking at my new place as the guard closes the cell door behind me and locks it.

  I sit in the cold dark by myself. I start laughing a bit hysterically to myself as I think about the fact that ending up in the Windsor prison cells was one of my main fears the first time that I met James. How ironic that it’s where I ended up.

  Chapter 3

  I listen to the drip, drip, drip of water as it falls from the ceiling in the dank and moldy cell. There’s the smell of decay and rot all around me. It’s a miserable place and it fits my current mood perfectly.

  I was foolish to think that my first interaction with James would have gone any differently. I can’t get the look on his face out of my mind, that mixture of fury and devastation.

  I long for his touch. I long for the touch of all of my men. Gabriel would be calmly telling me that everything would be all right. Landon would have threatened to kill James for me. Will would have said something to make me laugh. And Liam. Liam would have told me I wasn’t alone, that he would always be there for me.

  Maybe I had been a particularly horrific person and I somehow just hadn’t realized it in my first life. It was the only explanation I could think of at the moment of why my entire life read like a tragedy.

  A tragedy with beautiful moments that had lit up my dark nights with light that surpassed even the stars, and the rest of the story filled with crippling despair.

  One thing was clear, even though it had been years, as soon as I saw James again, I was that same girl, desperately in love with the prince she couldn't have.

  I guess he didn't feel the same.

  It seems to me that the cell is haunted, and even though I had spent the majority of my life alone, I still hated it at the moment as the ghosts of my past whirled around me.

  A door opening down the hall caught my attention. I peeked through the bars to see who it was. It was two of the guards that had been guarding the palace gates when I had first arrived.

  "Well, what do we have here?" the blonde guard says lecherously.

  A shiver of unease goes down my spine. They had seemed relatively normal by the light of day, but there was no light down here, only the flicker of a lighted torch on the wall. In the shadows, the guards looked sinister, men that I should be very afraid of.

  "It looks like the cook wasn't right about your chances, was she?" the other guard says with a laugh.

  I remain silent. They could tease me all they want. That certainly wouldn’t affect me. The memory of James's face when he saw me, however, would affect me forever.

  "Cat got your tongue, pretty lady? Is a guardsman not enough to get you to spread your legs? You only would do it for a king?"

  He pulls a key out of his pocket, presumably to my cell, and my dread intensifies. I had been in dangerous situations before obviously, there are certain centuries and places in the world where it was definitely not safe for a woman to be traveling on her own. And of course, I could never forget the fact that I saw firsthand what bad men can do when I lived with Clara.

  But someone or something had always intervened before it got too far with me. Looking behind the guards, I could tell we were all alone down here with the exception of the other prisoners.

  What are you doing?" I ask, panic present in my voice. The prison door slides open with a clang. The blonde guard walks in, fiddling with his pants to loosen them. My panic intensifies.

  "Get out of here! The King will kill you for this," I order, trying to put some authority in my voice, although there’s little likelihood that James would even care at this point.

 

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