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Chapter One
December 2019
New York City
He clicked theremote. The TV came on. Television—it truly was a marvel that still mystified him. He was thankful for the invention, for with it he was able to see and hear her every night. He clicked her channel, tossed the remote onto his bed, and pulled up his jeans.
“Hey, Sebastian.”
His friend and roommate, Candace Riley, pulled aside the long purple curtain that separated them and stepped into his room. “You know you have a light switch for more light right here on the wall, right? All the fairy lights are pretty but you’re prettier. I’d rather see you.” She smiled with her painted black lips, flashing pretty, white teeth at him, and fell on his bed.
There wasn’t anywhere else for her to sit. His room was small. So were Candace’s and Evie’s. But of the three, his room was the smallest. Fair, since he had been the last one in. The two friends had invited him to move in with them when they found out, after meeting him at the club a week and a half ago, that he was homeless.
His space housed a bed that was too short for a comfortable night’s sleep. A wooden four-drawer dresser was pushed against the wall opposite the bed. Atop it was a small plastic Christmas tree with lights and little Christmas bulbs, and a twenty-inch TV, bought with his very first paycheck. There was a window with a view of a dirty alleyway, and nothing else. It was a far cry from his enormous manor house in Surrey, when he was a baron in the eighteenth century. Of course, he missed it. But he’d had to go. He likely would have hanged for killing the Earl of Chester and the Viscount of Sutton. He’d seen his opportunity to escape, and he took it. Still, he missed his worldly goods.
“Thank you,” he said in his deep British accent compared to her New York one. “But you know I’m still not used to bright lights in my eyes.”
The night he’d left everything in seventeen twenty-four and arrived here in the year twenty nineteen, he’d landed in astore.The lights in this store were brighter than anything he’d ever seen before. They’d almost blinded him. It hadn’t come from any kind of fire, but as Harold, his friend from the hospital had told him, from electricity. Another marvel. The light switch scared the hell out of him the first time he’d used one in the hospital though. Talk about bright lights. He appreciated the genius of them, but he didn’t like them.
“Right,” Candace said and watched him dress. He didn’t mind. He’d always been one to enjoy an audience.
“What did you say the ophthalmologist at the hospital said about your eyes changing to gold?” she asked. “I mean, hazel can do that, I suppose. But yours aren’t hazel. They’re vivid green. I don’t think they should change like that.”
He hadn’t thought he would ever get used to the blacklipstickshe wore, but he was wrong. He’d grown to like it on her. It fit her. Candace lived her life on the outskirts of everything else. Her hair was short on one side and long on the other. Purple on the short side and teal on the long. She wore beaded tunics and long skirts. Sometimes she wore Dr. Martens and sometimes she wore nothing on her feet. She did nothing to look glamorous and slept with both men and women.
“He said ’tis likely nothing.” He smiled at her. He’d known her for a little over a week, and she was always concerned about him. So, too, was Evie, really. He was lucky to have two good roommates. “He couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary, but there were more tests to run. But I just got out a fortnight ago. I need a break from doctors.”
He held up two shirts, both black, long sleeves, one had a collar, the other didn’t.
Candace pointed to the one without the collar. “Shame to cover up all of that.”
He smiled. Aye, his body never looked better. Peopleexercisedin twenty nineteen. He’d started the practice at the hospital. When he got out, he joined a gym with two of the male strippers from the club where he worked in security. He hadn’t been at it long with the weights, but he could see an improvement already. After all, his job called for him to be fit, not to mention the riders who were after him. So far, they hadn’t found him. But he knew that it didn’t mean they’d given up. He had to be prepared when and if they returned. He remembered the things he’d heard that night, like the riders believing the detective’s friend, Mr. Simeon was Merlin the wizard. They believed Pendridge or the brooch was supposed to lead them to King Arthur. He still found it just as ridiculous as he had the first time he heard it, but if it was, then so was their belief that the brooch led one to his true love.
And that bit of information, he believed.
The hospital had been a blessing in disguise. It was there that he learned much about the new world before he stepped into it. It was where he’d recovered from three broken ribs and a ruptured spleen after being struck by acarthe night he’d arrived. The greatest marvel of all, besides the cell phone, was the treatment of illness. His spleen was repaired with surgery, from which he went to sleep sick and woke up with very little pain and ready to begin his long recovery.
But watching things on a screen was very different from living them. He remembered running through the twenty-first century streets of New York City, horns blaring, lights changing all around him from yellow to red to green, everything overwhelming his senses. Big metal carriages racing, hitting him…
Watching her on the nightly news soothed him, emblazoned her face and her many different expressions onto his heart and worked to quiet the dark beast inside. He memorized how she breathed and moved. He remembered how she’d tasted when he kissed her, like cinnamon and stunned curiosity, and how she had slapped his face for taking such liberties. These things often made him smile.
“You should strip,” Candace suggested, breaking the spell Noelle had over thoughts. “You’re better looking than any of the strippers.”
He didn’t want to strip or show off his more intimate movements. In the past, he would have leaped at the chance. Such adoration. And they tucked money into your G-string! He’d enjoyed women. They had been a part of his escape, part of who he used to be.
He didn’t want to be that man anymore. He also didn’t want to break the law in the future. Here, every man had to go through a trial. Sometimes, it took months or years just to find out if you had to go to jail or not. No. He wanted things to be different now. Now…
“And now from Chelsea, where our very own Noelle Upton is reporting on the Christmas celebration in Chelsea Park, kicking off the Christmas season on this December 5, 2019. Noelle, over to you.”
Now, he wanted her.
Sebastian sat on the edge of the bed and pulled a combat-style boot onto his right foot. Ankle socks. Elastic. Almost as good as denim.
His gaze was settled on her on the screen while she spoke. Noelle. She looked even more beautiful against a backdrop of Christmas trees, six-foot candy canes, and colorful lights. Beautiful Noelle. He wouldn’t strip because of her. He didn’t do a lot of things because of her. He hated the way his eyes soaked in every inch of her like some lovesick fool. She stopped his heart. She stopped his brain. He knew it was mad. He didn’t know her. But hers was the first face he saw when he left all he knew and came here. The first voice he’d heard. It didn’t help that she was gloriously beautiful with her flowing pumpkin-colored hair and her big sea-colored eyes. They were intelligent eyes with secrets just beyond a surface of strength and quiet amusement. Even with her reindeer hat and red and green scarf, she had a predatory, feline look about her. She made the blood in his veins burn.
“She’s not far from here,” Candace pointed out. “You should go see her.”
“What would I say?” he scoffed. “Hey there, we met when you thought I was robbing that bright store. Remember? And then those riders appeared right out of nothing with their snorting horses and long swords drawn as they barreled toward us? Remember now?”
