The River of No Return

window. When Arkady broke the silence, his voice was peevish. “Your English peasants, they are not very friendly.”
    Nick chuckled. “I hope you didn’t call them peasants to their faces.”
    Arkady turned from the window, his hands spread. “I did not get the chance to call them anything. I drink their beer and eat their food, and no one will talk to me. I am a foreigner and a stranger.”
    “But you listened.”
    “Yes. To the chatter about you, I listen. A little about the new earl, Lord Dar-something?”
    “Darchester.”
    “Yes. There is a new earl, and he is hated. I thought, perhaps he is Ofan, so I push my chair back to hear the conversation that is happening behind me. I learn that he is an ugly man, an old man. But already, they say, he has a young mistress. The peasants, they know the mistress before he came. She is young and beautiful, but they say she is the daughter of a whore, perhaps. This bad mother is why she will be with the ugly earl.”
    Nick frowned. He didn’t remember any woman with that story in the village. “A local girl?”
    “Yes, so they said. But I think an Ofan would not have a mistress that local people know; he will not take that risk. This is not our man.”
    “I wonder if it was the earl’s mistress that I saw today. I saw a girl when I was out walking.”
    “Pretty?”
    “I think so. I was quite far away and the sun was behind her. But she was shapely. She could ride like a Valkyrie. I wouldn’t have thought she was an old man’s mistress, but it’s been so long. I can no longer read the women of this time.” Nick took a swallow of brandy. “If she is his mistress, perhaps she is open for a little dalliance.”
    “You will steal your neighbor’s mistress? Is that the sort of man you are, back here in the past?”
    Nick grinned. “No . . . not steal. Maybe just borrow?”
    “Bah! To be unmarried! I tell you, it is hard to be married to the Alderwoman. She knows everything. My leash—it is very short. I so much as smile at a girl in this time, she will know it two hundred years later.”
    “You wouldn’t have it any other way, Arkady.” Nick drained his glass and stood. “Don’t try to fool me.”
    He was surprised to see the Russian blush. “Yes. I love her like I love my own life. She is my heartbeat.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    T he next morning Nick was down at the stables at dawn. He’d left orders for a hunter to be saddled, and he was delighted when he saw that it was Boatswain who was waiting for him in the yard, a groom by his shoulder. When he heard Nick’s step he looked up and tossed his head, whickering and stepping to the side. The groom held him firm. “He has missed you, my lord.”
    Nick took the reins and stroked the stallion’s neck. He let that spicy scent of horse and leather fill his nose. “How are you, old man?” He reached into his pocket and fished out a carrot. Boatswain took it daintily from his master’s palm. Nick turned to thank the groom, but Boatswain would not tolerate the shift of attention from himself and blew snot all over Nick’s hand. Nick accepted the cloth the groom handed him and looked Boatswain in the eye, seeing the horsey amusement there. “I’d forgotten about you and your tricks.”
    Boatswain snickered, pleased with himself.
    “He’s sixteen now, my lord, but at heart he’ll always be a colt.”
    “I hope so. Thank you for readying him for me.”
    Nick mounted. He hadn’t been on horseback in years, and it felt good, though he knew he would suffer for it later. “Now then, Boatswain,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do, and more to the point, what I can do.”
    They set out at a canter, and Nick relaxed into the easy gait. Boatswain was older and heavier; Nick could feel the difference in the horse’s stride. It was a cold, overcast morning, not as sparkling as yesterday. He urged his mount on, his heartbeat quickening as he thought of the mysterious woman in black. He wanted to be at the pathway into the trees when she appeared. A dalliancewould be the perfect thing to smooth the transition back into this time. The perfect thing to keep him from drowning. Boatswain picked up his pace, breaking into a gallop, and Nick’s body shifted to accommodate.
    “Like riding a bicycle,” Arkady had said about women. But Nick was as anxious as a fifteen-year-old; what would she be like? He had left for Spain when he was twenty, and before that he had sown his wild oats among the demimonde