Misadventures with a Time Traveler Read online

  Misadventures with a Time Traveler

  Angel Payne

  This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2019 Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Design by Waterhouse Press

  Cover photographs: Shutterstock

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  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For Thomas, my own beautiful prince and the king of my heart.

  Thank you for believing in this one!

  Contents

  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

  Acknowledgments

  Don’t miss any Misadventures!

  Also Available from Waterhouse Press

  Excerpt from Shark’s Edge

  More Misadventures

  About Angel Payne

  Prologue

  Max

  1789 – Angers, France

  Time has turned traitor on me.

  Angry shouts are followed by fiery swoops of pitch-dipped arrows. The reflections of the attack make their way inside, painting the stone walls in shades of red, orange, amber. The lights dance up and down the hall like gleeful wraiths of hell itself.

  But the mob outside is not gleeful at all.

  They are furious.

  France is birthing itself into something new. The old ways—and every single member of the aristocracy representing them—are now seen as evil as Lucifer. And as is the way of birth, there must be blood.

  Tonight, the rabble is out for mine. Furious whispers suddenly echo behind me in the corridor.

  “By the saints. They are going to kill him,” gasps Kavia. The servant who has always been like a second mother to me has never sounded so petrified, and I clench every muscle to fight the tangible pull of her fear.

  “Oui.” Carl is no help, which comes as no surprise. Kavia’s burly spouse has never been much for words. At a time like this, I am not certain whether to thank him or curse him for the trait. “Most likely,” he adds. “And soon. Unless we do something.”

  “You mean unless I do something.”

  Kavia’s comment has me pivoting back around to fully face them—but my scrutiny can’t help me decipher the truth behind their words. They have spoken to each other like that, with meanings layered upon meanings, since the days Kavia was shoo’ing me and my wooden play swords out of her pristine kitchen.

  “Dieu!” she spits into the tense pause. “This is insanité. Because the king is a dolt, they paint every landed man and woman in the country with the same colors?”

  “Oui.”

  As Carl returns to his brevity, Kavia huffs again. “How does this make any kind of sense?”

  I admit my own dire interest in a usable answer to that. Our family can never be labeled as the idle rich. We have worked hard to give back to this valley, helping its denizens through births, deaths, and the crises between. Many of the furious faces in the courtyard are framed differently in my mind, still joyous from when we played together as boys and girls.

  At last, Carl growls out an answer to his wife. “Hatred spurns fear—and panic.”

  “And sheep like to panic,” Kavia mutters.

  “Oui.”

  “Hmmmph,” she snorts. “So how do sheep know about screaming to cut off both his heads?”

  I save poor Carl from having to answer that with my laughing bark. In the doing, I save the shreds of my own composure. For a few moments, my fear has something useful to do.

  Yes, I am afraid.

  And I sense that Kavia and Carl know it too, despite my feeble attempts to rebuild my emotional armor. The barriers are like tree bark now, ready to snap as soon as the mob outside becomes the mob inside—

  And they drag me away.

  Undoubtedly to the same fate they have given Mother, Father, and Bastien.

  Or maybe they will not take me away. Maybe they will make an example of Lord Maximillian De Leon, meting a special death for a special nobleman. Drawing and quartering? Bayonet wounds and then salt bath? A forced drowning in the river?

  I laugh again, but it burns now. The bile in my gut has become acid in my throat—but before I retch, Chevalier lopes up the corridor with impeccable timing. I drop to my knees and embrace my beloved wolfhound, burying my face in his damp fur. How did I barely flinch when hearing of my family’s executions but clench back tears from a mere whiff of Chev’s mangy smell?

  Words. I need words. Finally, the salvation of the syllables comes. “You are the last of the family, Chev,” I croak. “You will remember our legacy, oui?”

  His soft whimper seeps through my senses. He too feels the crowd’s rage on the air.

  “My lord.” Kavia steps next to us and gently shakes my shoulder. “Please. There is not much time!”

  “Time?” Carl asks. “For what?”

  The woman says nothing.

  I clench my jaw to the point of pain.

  She is right. This is all insanity. But I will not be alive to see much more of it.

  Which means I need to be thinking about necks besides my own.

  Though my legs feel like seaweed, I force myself to stand. My lungs join the burn of my eyes as a sickening boom shakes the walls and floors.

  I grab Kavia by the arm. “You all need to leave. Right now.” I jump my stare between her and Carl. “Both of you and the rest of the staff. Whoever remains. You have all been steadfast, and my gratitude has no bounds, but now—”

  “Stop.”

  Shock causes me to drop my hold. “Pardon me?”

  Incredible. Despite the dwindling length of my life, I am once more dripping with affronted arrogance.

  “Be quiet, Maximillian, and listen to me.”

  Carl fills my stunned pause by wheeling around, already pinning his wife with a glower. “And what exactly will he listen to, woman?”

  Kavia’s eyes, always such a flat gray, gleam with unholy light beneath the dingy kerchief on her head. “I know what I am doing, gentlemen. Strong blood courses through my veins.” She pulls in a formidable breath. “The blood of sorcerers and mages, of wizards and—”

  “Gypsies.” Carl spits the word. “You mean unholy village fair gypsies casting equally unholy spells.”

  I lock my glare down on Kavia once more, bizarrely fascinated with the growing gleam in her gaze. “What is he talking about?”

  “Abominations,” Carl spews before she can get a sound out. “Spittle in God’s eyes.”

  Kavia hisses like a cat in a rain barrel. “Fermé!”

  “What—”

  The fall of her hand atop my chest, as violent as the battering ram at our mansion’s front door, commands me to new silence. “I am not the one who will save you, Maximillian.” A strange heat spreads from her fingers, seeping across my heart
and lungs. “This is what will save you.”

  I flinch but am unable to step away, impaled by her deepening spell. “B-By all that is holy.” Or is Carl correct, after all? Is this enchantment a hex of the unholy? “Kavia? Wh-What are you doing?”

  “Not me, my lord. You.” She steps back, but the coals in my chest remain. I can barely breathe. “Your heart, and the magic inside it, are why you will not die today.”

  “S-S-Stop.” The command rasps from a throat turned to parchment, but I force more words to my lips nonetheless. “You will stop these deranged ramblings. At once.”

  “But my lord—”

  “I said at once, Kavia. There will be no more of this heretical nonsense. I shall face my fate with the honor of a De Leon.”

  “Honor?” Her pleadings are gone, replaced by a biting laugh. “What honor? Your family name is worth less than the mud trampled by that mob.” She stabs a finger toward the window. Steps forward with equal defiance. Locks her gaze directly to mine. A week ago, all three acts would have seen her punished for insubordination. Today, I can only chastise her with a steady glower. “Do you want to live, Maximillian?”

  I bare my teeth. “What kind of a question is that?”

  She dips a serene nod. “All right, then. If you want to live, you must choose to do so. And you can only do that by listening to me.”

  “Kavia, by the blood of Christ Almighty—”

  “No.” Her gaze grows brighter, this time because of brimming tears. “By your own blood, Maximillian.” She presses a trembling palm to my face. “And I cannot allow that to happen.”

  I blink hard. Inhale and exhale with even more force. A pressure I cannot ignore, in my head and over my heart, emanates from Kavia’s fingertips as strongly as the heat did.

  “Woman,” I dictate from between locked teeth, “what are you about?”

  “Keeping you alive, Maximillian. That is all I am about.” Though her grip returns to its former urgency, her lips tremble. Her chin wobbles. “You…you cannot die today, Max. You must survive this…Your Majesty.”

  The mob grows louder. So does the storm that breaks free in my mind. My body goes limp. I am helpless to resist Kavia’s frantic yank, urging me down the corridor. I stumble along as if in a haze—because I am in one.

  Because my mind fights to wrap around that single, stunning word.

  Majesty.

  “Dear God.” It is a whisper on my lips but a truth in my mind. My truth. Somehow, I have always known it but never believed it. Even now, after hearing Kavia declare it, I am not certain that I truly do.

  “How…do you know…”

  My words are severed by a violent clap of thunder.

  Not from the sky.

  From the front door.

  Kavia pushes me into a shadowed bedroom. Once we’re inside, I seize her by her elbows. “Kavia. Answer me! How the hell do you know—”

  “Because I was there.” Her emotional rush takes me aback. For all my righteous demand, I didn’t expect this swift confession. “The night you were born, sweet boy,” she blurts through tears that flow even harder. “The sole occasion that Louis, Dauphin of France, ever acknowledged you as his true son.”

  I wait, breath held, for the joy those words are supposed to bring. Instead, I am assaulted by a thousand more questions about my birthright. But I do not have the freedom to voice even one. The mob rams the door with greater force. The very air shudders, preparing for their incursion.

  “Mon Dieu.” Kavia paces the room, her skirts swishing. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What to do? What to do?”

  She eyes the bed on its pedestal, the wash bowl on its stand, the writing desk in the corner…

  And dashes to the huge wardrobe in the far corner.

  Without hesitation, she swings open the chest’s heavy doors. Fabric, ribbons, and shoes tumble out. The thing is stuffed with gowns, which my mother had not yet distributed to her maids, along with the usual accessories—reticules, gloves, hats. How she loves all the extras.

  Loved them.

  Grief torches my soul and stiffens my body. She is gone, as is Christophe De Leon, the man who was father to me in every way but blood. Bastien too. My brother. Holy God, how I miss you already, Bas.

  The admissions bring stark recognition. Kavia is right. Our family name—the only one I have ever known or claimed—is now dust. I am posturing for no reason. And here is the gypsy maid who has adored a bastard prince since the day he was born, begging him to believe in her for a few moments in return. Though moments are all I have left, I can think of no better way in which to spend them. I owe Kavia that much. The woman has kept a secret that would have had me slain long before now.

  “Get in!” Kavia drags me through the sea of frippery, all but throwing me inside the wardrobe. “Hurry, my lord!” She ignores the pained grunt I emit when my forehead collides with the top of the chest. Once inside, I am swallowed by a new mound of perfumed fabrics. The layers of silk and satin barely muffle the revolutionists’ fury. I swallow hard, preparing for the agony of being their fresh target.

  Until my terror is replaced by bewilderment as Kavia jumps inside the hiding space with me.

  Her eyes are nearly aglow, but her fingers are shaking. She burrows in and tunnels her gaze to mine. “They are almost here,” she says. “So listen to me well.”

  “No.” I wrap my hands around hers. “You listen first. My fate should not be yours and Carl’s—so I want you to get out of here. I mean it. Carl knows the way to the hunting lodge—”

  “My lord!”

  “I will not abide your misplaced loyalty,” I state. “At this point, it is naught but sacrificial suicide. You are both to leave here. Do not think about saving me again.”

  The mob grows louder.

  Kavia raises her chin. “I understand. I will not think of saving you again, my lord.”

  I release a heavy breath. “Good.”

  “Because I am saving you now.”

  “Ventrebleu.”

  “Maximillian. Please.”

  I look back up to her—but do not want to. In ten seconds, the woman seems to have aged ten years. Her cheeks are sharp and gaunt; her gaze shimmers with surreal light. My heart cracks. “Damn it, Kavia!”

  “Please! You must listen to me!”

  I lift a grim smile. “Have I not always listened to you?”

  “Fermé,” she rebukes. “And do as I say, child.”

  The silvery glaze in her eyes locks me down like shackles. My hands plummet as if those bonds are real and my movements are no longer my own.

  “Kavia,” I choke out, consumed by the tightening grip of her inexplicable force. “What—are you doing to—”

  “Fermé.”

  I watch, mesmerized and horrified, as she rocks her head back. The whites of her eyes take over her sockets. Words command her lips, babbling a language I do not understand. She seizes my wrists and digs her fingers into the center of my pulse. She does not relent.

  Tighter.

  Tighter.

  Tighter.

  She burns her power into me…

  Through me…

  “By the Virgin.” I yank back to cross myself, but the woman holds on. She possesses the strength of twelve men. Her grasp is a burning, conquering presence through my being. “Kavia!” I fight her, threatening to topple the wardrobe. “This has gone too far. I order you, as your lord and master, to cease—”

  “Au-delà du temps. Au-delà de la raison. Dans ton demain, confiance à ton cœur.”

  The words are understandable but illogical. Beyond time. Beyond reason. In your tomorrows, trust your heart.

  “Kavia? What in God’s name…”

  But I am robbed of words as I gape at the freakish changes in the woman’s countenance. Kavia’s face is still there, but another’s has been layered atop it. The new face appears as if she has worn a veil to church. And the face on that veil…

  Is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

&nbsp
; Skin like crushed pearls. Eyes like the depths of the forest, with catlike tapers at the corners. Feline lips, full and crimson. And her hair…

  By every saint I can remember, her hair.

  The thick black mane resembles billows of the finest Paris satin, rivers of the softest Italian velvet. I long to clothe my entire body in its luxury. To wrap it around my bare skin as I do other things to her naked form. To touch her everywhere…

  Who is she?

  The question burns as potently as my lust. Even now, in this moment of darkness and doom, with a mob raging for my destruction, I crave to claim her. To know her as no one else has. To possess her…

  Who is she?

  Every fiber of my being screams with need. Every inch of my cock pounds with desire.

  Who is she?

  I am not aware of actually vocalizing it until Kavia’s gaze ignites like silvered sunlight. “You…you see her?”

  “Oui,” I grate.

  “Of course. Praise God!”

  No. Not praise God. This is the devil’s work, and the fantasy woman on that wicked veil is his emissary. I can conceive no other explanation. This vision looks too much like heaven to be from anywhere but hell, spun from the fabric of my most sinful imaginings.

  I struggle to cross myself.

  “Saints help me.”

  As the truth ignites in me.

  Kavia is a witch—and her witch’s touch has granted her access inside me. And now she is using that weakness against me. To drag me to damnation…

  And I do not care.

  My chest aches. My blood burns. My hands are numb, as if the hounds of hell have already bitten them off.

  I still do not care.

  The sorceress resumes her mad chanting. But this time, the devil’s beautiful emissary is channeling herself through Kavia. I somewhat recognize the tongue. The words sound English but bizarre.