Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Present Day

England

The next time she traveled halfway across the world, she was going to pack all her belongings in a bag with a functional zipper.

Imogen Honoria Maxwell looked at what her too-full suitcase had just belched out in untidy piles around her and wished she had the energy to be embarrassed. As it was, all she could do was imagine how blissful it might feel to lie down on those piles and nap.

She looked up what seemed an endless number of stairs at King’s Cross station, then wondered if she would draw undue attention to herself if she simply sat down in the midst of unmentionables and cried. She didn’t cry as a general rule, preferring to sort of slide past Fate’s notice whenever possible with a cheerful smile and a stiff upper lip, but she was in unusual and dire circumstances. She’d just finished a hellish trip she’d been sure would last the better part of eternity, she was in a foreign country where they drove on the wrong side of the road, and she had one shot at being brilliant at a job that could potentially bring her one step closer to her dream career. It was best not to add any more drama to what she already had going.

At least there didn’t seem to be a crowd of Londoners scooping up her stuff and running off with it. That was the last thing she needed, to be in the wilds of England with no clean underwear.

“Here, miss, let me help you.”

Imogen looked blearily at the people pushing past her and realized that someone had actually stopped to help her. She would have blushed at the sight of a very masculine hand gathering up her underclothes and stuffing them back into her suitcase, but she was too jet-lagged to do anything but stand there and yawn. She made a halfhearted effort to feel bad about not helping—no, that was too much trouble, too. She would have made a mental note to remind herself to get more sleep next time before a big trip, but she didn’t have a pen and her mind was a blank. Maybe she would remember it later.

The man straightened and picked up her suitcase, broken zipper and all. “Is the rest of your gear manageable, think you?”

She would have laughed a little at the turn of phrase, but before she could, she got a good look at her rescuer.

All right, so she wasn’t one to go for blonds. That guy there was definitely gorgeous enough to leave her wondering if she’d made that decision precipitously. He smiled, and the sight of his dimple left her smiling as well.

“Well,” she began.

“I’ll fetch your other case along as well, shall I?”

“Um—”

He didn’t seem to require more than that, which was good because she didn’t have any more than that to offer. He moved her second suitcase away from where she’d been standing guard over it, then fumbled very briefly with the extended handle before pushing it back inside its hiding place and simply hefting it as he had its misbehaving companion. He started up the stairs, then paused and looked over his shoulder.

“Can you manage your wee rucksack?”

“Rucksack?” she echoed.

He smiled and Imogen reconsidered again her hesitation about men with fair hair. Maybe it was the personality that mattered, not hair color, but she really didn’t have a chance to give that too much thought. She was too busy trying to haul herself and her wee rucksack up the stairs after a guy who should have had the decency to look as if he were lugging two heavy suitcases up those same endless stairs.

Maybe he was a hallucination. She paused on the landing to catch her breath and examine that idea. After all, what were the odds that a very handsome stranger would simply up and help her in the middle of a big city? She couldn’t even begin to face that math. All she knew for sure was that she wasn’t currently wrestling two suitcases all by herself and that was the sort of thing didn’t happen outside hallucinations. It was probably best to just play along until she snapped back to reality.

She gathered her strength and started off after a guy who seemed to know where he was going, which she couldn’t argue with. At least he didn’t seem to be having nefarious designs on her underwear.

“Headed north, are you?” he asked pleasantly, dropping back to walk beside her.

She looked up into gray eyes—so that was their color—that perhaps should have seemed at odds with such blond hair but didn’t. “Ah . . .”

“Beautiful country up north,” he said, “and look you, here’s your train right there. Have your ticket, aye?”

She was fairly sure she did, but that would have necessitated looking in her rucksack—er, her purse—for it. She supposed the best she could hope for was a seat where she could rummage through her stuff and hope it was still there. She could hardly believe they’d come so far through the station without her having noticed it, but maybe delusions were just like that.

“Imogen!”

She looked around blearily for the originator of that shout and finally saw a petite, dark-haired woman waving at her, obviously trying to get her attention. Imogen sighed in relief, realizing then just how nervous she’d been about her UK guide managing to find her. She waved back, then remembered her rescuer. She looked up at him.

“Thank you . . .” She waited for him to supply a name, but he only smiled.

“Of course,” he said with a little bow. “Chivalry is always convenient.”

Chivalry. What an interesting way to put it. She stared after the man thoughtfully, watching him walk away, then melt into the crowd.

“Who was that?”

Imogen struggled for one last view of him. “No idea. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

“Next time, Imogen, get a name and number.”

Imogen looked at Tilly Jones, the woman who had promised to be her lifeline for the next four months, and sighed. “I would have, but he just spent five minutes rifling through my underwear. I was too off-balance to do anything but hope he wasn’t making value judgments.”

“Rifling through your knickers?” Tilly asked, looking as if she very much wanted to laugh. “Not that.”

“Well, I suppose there was less of that and more just stuffing them back into my suitcase, but honestly I was just too sleepy to really identify which it was. Getting his name and number was beyond me.” She yawned. “I think I need a nap.”

“And to think you could have been napping on that shoulder if you’d worked a little bit harder just now.”

“That kind of luxury would have been wasted on me, I’m afraid.” She rubbed her eyes, wondering how it was possible so that so much grit could have found its way into them. “I think I left my ability to recognize a good-looking guy somewhere back on my endless trip here.”

It wasn’t the only thing of the male persuasion she’d left behind, but she supposed that was something she didn’t really need to discuss at the moment. The truth was, her love life wasn’t complicated, it was a disaster. If her life had been her suitcase, the contents wouldn’t have been strewn hopelessly all over King’s Cross, they would have been piled in a gutter where the only thing to do would have been to stand on the curb and admire the wreckage.

No, better not to even begin to think about it.

“I think I’d make the effort for someone who looked like that,” Tilly said.

“Oh, please just don’t make that effort now,” Imogen said. “I have no idea where I’m going. I don’t even think I could find the train, much less figure out when to get off it.”

“The train’s right here, Imogen,” Tilly said, sounding faintly alarmed. “And we’re going to Edinburgh. Don’t you have the itinerary I sent you?”

“Of course I do,” Imogen lied. She’d meant to download it to her phone on her way, but she’d been too busy trying to keep up with all the plane changes to think about anything past London. She’d been planning on enjoying a nice cappuccino in a café with Wi-Fi before looking for the right train, but then her suitcase had exploded and she’d been distracted by a blond demi-god, and . . . She took a deep breath and smiled at Tilly. “I’m just grateful you found me before I wandered off somewhere I shouldn’t have. You know, until I’m more awake and can be captain of my own ship again, as it were.”

“Of course,” Tilly said with a smile. “You did it for me last year. Turnabout’s fair play.”

Imogen wasn’t going to argue with her, especially now that she was at her mercy, but the fact was Tilly was very overqualified for her current job as Imogen’s assistant. Tilly had a pair of degrees from prestigious film schools while she herself had two degrees in subjects she was too tired to name at the moment. She had leaped at the chance a year earlier to be an assistant to Tilly, who had been one of the minor assistants to the set designer of a major period film. That the roles were now reversed was a gift. It also could have been that the son of the executive producer was trying to bribe her into dating him, but maybe that was something she could think about later, after she’d had a good night’s sleep and could face it.

All she knew with certainty was that Tilly couldn’t have been thrilled about the reversal of roles, but she was an expert at placating cranky people and Tilly was, from what she could tell, a pragmatist. They would manage. Besides, she might find herself in the middle of nowhere without anyone to rescue her. Tilly might be her only link to civilization, so it was a good idea to keep her as happy as possible.

“Long journey so far?” Tilly asked politely.

“Endless,” Imogen said, with feeling. “I think I’ve seen half a dozen airports.”

“Your sister the travel agent was having one over on you?”

“Yes, and she’ll pay, believe me,” Imogen said grimly, trying to forget the recent memory of landing on grass thanks to what had been billed as a luxury flight with scenic bonuses galore. The only scenic bonus she’d been interested in had been getting off that puddle jumper and onto something with more than four seats. Pristine Maxwell had started and sold an alarming number of businesses in her short corporate career, but her current interest was travel. Imogen wasn’t sure she hadn’t decided on that just so she could send her siblings on horrible trips.

“What did you do to her this time?”

“Who knows?” Imogen asked carelessly. “And if I knew, which I’m not saying I do, I don’t want to think about it. I’d rather think about my revenge for the fifty-three-hour trip I’ve just enjoyed. I’m planning on repaying her by posting on all possible social media platforms unflattering pictures of her wearing braces. Then I’ll unfriend her. She’ll be crushed, I’m sure.”

“And you’ll be out of the country where she can’t kill you.”

Imogen smiled. “See? Things are looking up already.”

Tilly laughed. “Absolutely. Now, what can I get you to enjoy with your revenge?”

“I need coffee,” Imogen said. “And chocolate. Preferably together, but at this point, I’d take either in any form I can get them, thank you.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with on the train.”

Imogen paused and looked at her seriously. “This trading places thing is very strange. If I weren’t so tired, I’d feel worse about it, I promise.”

“Life changes,” Tilly said, shrugging.

Imogen wasn’t sure how to even begin to respond to that, so she put it off for later. Tilly was right, of course, but that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable. But what could she do? She hadn’t considered for a nanosecond turning down her current job opportunity. If Tilly was committed to being a part of the moviemaking process, Imogen was past obsessed.

She had wanted to live in the world of filmmaking for as long as she could remember. She’d tried to distract herself with university and grad school degrees that had gotten her parents’ notice mostly off her, but her true calling had been singing a Siren’s song to her the entire time. When the chance to be a grunt on a real, live movie set had come along thanks to a roommate breaking her leg—such a shame and fortunately something she’d had nothing to do with—she had ditched her PhD program without a backward glance and jumped without hesitation onto the dream train. Her parents had been appalled and her siblings speechless. She’d been thrilled.

That job had turned into other jobs as grunts on other shoots, opportunities to cement a reputation as a dependable, creative sort of gal to have around. All part of her master plan to eventually nudge some good old boy out of the director’s chair and plant her own backside there.

She couldn’t blow her current gig, no matter how jet-lagged she might have been.

“Let’s get ourselves seats, then I’ll find us something to drink.”

Imogen nodded, then let Tilly take one of her suitcases, leaving her with the one that hadn’t vomited its contents all over unsuspecting Londoners. She followed Tilly onto the train, trusting it was the right one.

She paused at one point only because there was no possible way to get past the foot that was extended into the aisle. The stiletto adorning that foot was something even her functioning suitcase would have suffered from an encounter with. She frowned. That hadn’t come out right in her head and she half feared she’d said it aloud. She was going to post braces pictures and anything else she could dig up on her phone when she had a decent connection and the mental wherewithal to make use of it. Prissy would pay dearly.

“Excuse me,” she said, trying not to slur her words.

The owner of that foot pulled it back into her own space. “Not to worry.”

Well, she wasn’t worrying, though maybe she should have been. She wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t looking—blearily, of course—at some species of nobility. She didn’t suppose royalty traveled in regular train cars, but what did she know? If ever there had been a passenger out of place on a regular old train, it was that woman there who simply dripped class and elegance. Imogen suppressed the urge to try to resurrect her own appearance. She couldn’t remember when she’d last brushed her teeth or combed her hair. Probably better not to think about it.

She managed to shuffle past the stunning Audrey Hepburn lookalike, shove her suitcase where Tilly told her to, then collapse into a seat. She was thrilled to leave the rest of the details to someone far more awake than she.

She leaned her head back against the seat and considered whether or not she deserved to be as wasted as she felt. She had, at her father’s insistence, trusted her sister to get her a good deal on her flight. That had been her first and last mistake. She had taken off from Denver and landed at Heathrow. That she’d visited a dozen different airports and enjoyed little hops in planes better suited to dusting crops than carrying passengers and their luggage was perhaps beside the point. Her older sister had known exactly what this job meant to her and how badly she needed not to look like an idiot at any time during its execution. It was payback, pure and simple.

She had hoped one of her other three siblings would have been the target of Prissy’s ire over that recent summer barbeque incident where they hadn’t intended to leave Prissy behind with the folks and half a dozen children under the age of four. Without a car. Or a wallet.

It hadn’t even been her own idea. She might have been the one to enjoy it the most, but who could blame her? She and Prissy were a mere eleven months apart and she had her own list of insults to be irritated over. Quietly, of course, but she was beginning to think that maybe she was past the quiet stage.

The truth was, she had been so surprised to be included on the instigating side of familial shenanigans instead of being the target of them, she’d gone along without pausing to think what Prissy might do to her after the fact. She should have known travel would be involved somehow.

Well, that was behind her for the moment, behind her with half a dozen other things she didn’t want to think about. Her immediate future was mapped out very clearly, her job description was unambiguous, and she had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a name for herself. If that weren’t enough, she had four months in Scotland and England to look forward to. What wasn’t to love about that?

She yawned and decided she would give staying awake one more try. The sooner she got past the time change, the better. She would have made small talk, but Tilly wasn’t back yet. Perhaps that was for the best. There was something about being on a train pulling out of an historic station in London that called for something more than idle conversation.

She stared out the window at the endless number of flats and houses and tiny backyards and let herself wonder about who lived there, what they did to feed their families, if they wished they lived somewhere else. It was something she did wherever she traveled, mostly because imagining herself in someone else’s life had been a great escape from her own. It was the reason she’d first fallen in love with movies. And once she’d realized that movies were a great escape to simply watch, she’d wondered what it would be like to actually make one. She’d saved her allowance, cleverly hiding it behind cleaning supplies her siblings wouldn’t have lowered themselves to use even if death had loomed, then bought herself the cheapest video camera she’d been able to afford.

Her world had changed the moment she’d first pushed the on button.

The rest of the story was probably no more interesting than the flights of fancy any other teenager with a crazy family took, but it had been her life and she’d discovered for herself not just a way to make it bearable, but make it wonderful. With any luck, all the exercising of her imagination she had done over the years would come in handy when she was a famous filmmaker.

In time, the sway of the train and the charm of the British countryside was so comforting and peaceful, she found herself closing her eyes to better enjoy the first. And once her eyes were closed, it seemed a shame to waste all that rocking without using it as a reason to nap. She leaned her head against the wall and felt reality slipping away.

She woke an indeterminate amount of time later. She realized her face was adhered to the glass of the window only because it hurt to pull it away. She managed to unstick her eyes long enough to look at Tilly and mumble a few coherent words.

“Where are we?”

“An hour or so out of Edinburgh,” Tilly said. “Close enough for another nap if you like.”

“I’ll never sleep tonight if I don’t pull it together now,” Imogen said, rubbing her eyes. She wished she had something else pithy to say, but she was too tired for pithy.

“Your coffee’s cold,” Tilly said. “Sorry about that.”

Imogen didn’t care. She was simply grateful for something that resembled food, no matter its temperature. She drank, waited for some of her brain fog to recede, then propped her chin on her fist and tried to concentrate on the scenery. She watched the coast, wondering if there might be a spot of sand there for a good stroll. There looked to be a decent amount of sand. There also looked to be an enormous castle out there. She suspected she was either still dreaming or she had wandered into a dream. She was fairly sure she was seeing things that couldn’t possibly exist in real life.

She rubbed her eyes and looked again out the window. The castle was still there, though it was going to be out of frame soon. She looked at Tilly.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing with what she realized was a shaking hand.

Tilly frowned. “What is what?”

She waved her hand toward what she was seeing and only succeeded in rapping her knuckles smartly against the window. She sucked on them. “That out there.”

“Farmland.”

“No, over there,” Imogen said. “By the ocean.”

“Oh,” Tilly said, peering thoughtfully into the distance. “That’s Artane.” She looked at Imogen and smiled. “It’s a castle, Imogen. You might want to get used to them if you’re going to be crawling over them for the next couple of months, looking for the good stuff.”

“But it’s enormous.” Imogen had another look. “At least it looks enormous from here.”

“It looks enormous from there as well,” Tilly said dryly. “We could rent a car and go, if you like.”

“It’s probably just a shell, isn’t it?” Imogen asked, hardly daring to hope for anything different.

“Oh, definitely not,” Tilly said. “It’s been owned by the same family for the past eight hundred years. From what I’ve seen, they’ve managed to hold on to quite a bit of history over the years, which is a polite way of saying I don’t think they’ve thrown anything out.”

“You’ve been inside?” Imogen asked in surprise.

“Years ago. I guess you can take that to mean they do let the public in now and then. Stephen de Piaget is the current lord, I’m fairly sure. I had a class from him at Cambridge. I’m not sure I can parlay that into a personal tour, but I could try if you like. Who knows what you might find inside the walls?”

“I’ve been sent on a mission for the unusual and quirky,” Imogen said, “not just the regular old medieval stuff.” She tried to ignore the regret she felt over that. To her mind, medieval was medieval and it was all amazing. To actually be in the same room with things that had been used by others centuries in the past . . . well, how could she not get excited about that? Quirky was great, but so was an original sword forged hundreds of years ago. When she had her own projects and wasn’t beholden to the whims of a director who wasn’t her, she would look for authentic over odd.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t in charge and her director was, she had to admit, one of the worst in the business. He was in charge of not just a medieval period piece, but a medieval period piece with music. Dancing knights, singing swords, she had no idea what else he wanted, but she knew it had to be quirky. And given that she’d been given a big, fat promotion on this project, she was going to deliver quirky if it killed her. Which it just might.

“I should have just googled quirky medieval stuff,” she said, wondering how much of what had been going on in her head she’d said aloud. Tilly didn’t looked shocked, so perhaps she’d managed to hold on to her complaints more successfully than she’d thought.

“At least you’re not having to look for locations.”

“Oh, I’m supposed to keep my eyes open for that as well,” Imogen assured her. “And provide lots of unusual stuff that looks medieval but doesn’t cost medieval.”

“Well, that’s what happens when Max Davis is writing the checks,” Tilly said with a sigh. “He likes to be really hands-on about it all. At least he’s safely tucked away in Manhattan until after New Year’s.”

“He is, but Marcus is coming over in a month to see how things are going.”

Tilly swore. Imogen understood. Marcus Davis was a royal pain in the backside, the son of a producer with unlimited funds, a man who thought he should be in front of any camera at all times. The guy lived his life worried about presenting his best side for whomever might be looking his way. With a camera in their hands, of course. Or a phone. Or just an admiring audience comprised of souls who had no sense of pitch. The thought of that was almost enough to make her wonder if her sister could put her on another puddle jumper and send her off into Podunkville where she could lose herself in a field of something tall and not have to deal with giving Marcus Davis the tour of future locations.

Never mind facing the moment where she would have to tell him that no, she really didn’t want to date him. It wasn’t going to go well.

She yawned. When that didn’t help, she yawned again. Artane had gotten itself too far behind them for her to gape at it any longer, so she supposed it would be all right to close her eyes. And once she did, she realized she was going to miss the rest of the scenery. She would have to catch it with Tilly in the car when they traveled south.

She realized there was something that was bothering her, and it wasn’t just the raw spot on her forehead she now had thanks to too much contact with the window. It took her far longer to figure it out than it should have, but when she did, it was almost enough to wake her up.

How had that blond guy known which train she was supposed to be taking?

She tried desperately to attach enough importance to that to keep herself awake, but it was hopeless. Sleep beckoned. She was fairly sure it had a comfy, overstuffed chair and a plaid blanket right there, calling her to in a way she couldn’t resist. She fought the urge valiantly for a few more minutes, then decided that if there was one thing she knew, it was when to throw in the towel. A little nap, then on to being brilliant at finding all sorts of odd and quirky medieval items.

She could hardly wait to see what she might find.