Lord Sebastian's Secret (The Duke's Sons #3)(49)

Mr. Mitra fell silent. Georgina’s father cursed even as Joanna Byngham gave a forlorn moan. Georgina blinked at the candle flames. She felt as if she was returning from a great distance, and yet had never moved from her seat in this room.

Only Mr. Mitra seemed undisturbed. Calmly, he put the drum back in his bag and extinguished the incense. He moved from the carpet to one of the chairs. When he sat down, it was as if the stranger Georgina had glimpsed in him had disappeared once more. Or retreated from public view, she thought. Papa’s pleas had lured him out, but the…exposure had been temporary.

“We must each recount our experiences at once,” said Georgina’s father. “If we do not, they will fade and be forgotten, like dreams.”

Joanna didn’t wait for a further invitation. Leaning forward in her chair, eyes burning with a wild enthusiasm Georgina had never seen there before, she spoke. “I was the high priestess of a temple built from great blocks of buff-colored stone. It was hot. I could see palm trees through the archway. I had long, black curls and a band of gold around my forehead. I wore red skirts that swung out wide as I danced before a painted idol. There were bells on my hands.” She clapped her fingers against her palms again, looking…exalted. That was the word for it, Georgina thought. And here was an unexpected side of her former governess. Meeting Sebastian’s startled gaze, she decided it was a good thing Randolph had gone.

The others gazed at Joanna in silence. She ignored them, staring at the ceiling as if she could see right through it. Mr. Mitra was frowning. He seemed about to speak, then didn’t.

“I was in a battle,” said Georgina’s father after a while. “I had a sword—not a saber, an old-fashioned long sword—and I wore a sort of chain-mail shirt.” He took a deep breath and grinned at Mitra. “I think we did it, my friend. I returned to the age of Offa! Inhabited my former self. King of Mercia.” He shook his head. “It was astonishing. Quite immediate. I took a heavy blow to my ribs in the fight.” He put a hand to his side, then turned to glower at Sebastian. “If your brother hadn’t disrupted the process, I daresay I would have found out a great deal more.”

“Sorry,” muttered Sebastian, wondering why everything was always his fault. Georgina’s father might have expected that a churchman wouldn’t care for…whatever that had been. He rubbed his forearms, hair still prickling with unease. It had been surprisingly unsettling.

The marquess turned to Georgina. “What about you, my dear?”

Georgina blinked and let out a long breath. “It was strange, Papa.”

“In what way?” He leaned forward as if to draw the details out of her. “Just tell us anything your remember.”

She gazed at the wall opposite. “I was spinning. I have never done so, but I’m sure, somehow, that’s what it was.”

“In a dance of some sort?” asked Joanna. “Was there a sacred enclosure?”

“No, spinning thread, I mean,” Georgina replied. “From wool.” She held up her hands and examined them. “My fingers were gnarled and wrinkled, as if I was quite old and had worked very hard for many years. And then just before Randolph left, I seemed to see a stone hearth and a battered wooden table, perhaps some bunches of herbs hanging from the beam above.” She looked up, cocking her head. “It was rather like those cottages over near our northern borders, Papa. The ones you said needed rebuilding because they’re so old-fashioned and run down.”

The marquess frowned at her. “That can’t be right,” he said.

“It sounds like a peasant dwelling,” commented Joanna. “Spinning has been a constant activity in such places for thousands of…”

“It can’t have been real,” their host interrupted.

Sebastian wondered what the marquess’s definition of real might be in this case. He’d noticed that Mr. Mitra looked more interested in Georgina’s story than the others.

“The Stanes have no peasant blood,” declared the marquess. “None whatsoever. Georgina is simply too inexperienced to have done the thing right.”

“I have said many times that this has nothing to do with family inheritance,” Mitra said. He sounded weary.

Georgina’s father ignored him. Turning to Sebastian, he barked, “What about you?”

Sebastian would have preferred to skip his turn, particularly now that the older man was clearly irritated. He knew he’d have even more trouble than usual putting this odd experience into words. But there was no avoiding it. Everybody was looking at him, waiting.

He held out his arms, clothed in his familiar blue coat. Of course they were. What else would they be? “I thought I saw…designs painted on my arms,” he began. “Bare arms, I mean. All over them, wrist to shoulder. They were like the things sailors get. What are they called? Tattoos? Only these weren’t pictures, just lines that rather…swirled.”

That sounded daft, but he’d gotten the distinct sense that they moved as he watched. It had threatened to make him queasy. He’d had to look away. “Felt like there was a heavy bit of metal around my neck. Couldn’t see that. And I had on really awful trousers. Some kind of hideous red-and-blue check.” He looked at Georgina. “Not the sort of thing I’d ever wear,” he assured them both.

Georgina’s father, whose frown had been deepening, leaped to his feet, fists clenched. “A damned Welshman, by God! The kind of savage Offa fought off all his life.”