And there, pinned to her dress right over her heart, was Y Seren.
Tamsyn felt dizzy all of a sudden, that slippery, sliding feeling even stronger, because this small child still glaring up at Bowen was named Madoc, and Tamsyn could see the traces of the old man she’d met just this afternoon in this little boy.
And looking at the woman in front of her, Tamsyn somehow knew this was Lady Angharad Meredith—Annie—but a much younger version.
She looked at the group of people standing around in the hedge maze, all looking at her and Bowen with open curiosity, and she didn’t recognize a single face except . . .
“Rhys,” Bowen murmured, and it was that—seeing Bowen go pale and stagger back a step—that was when Tamsyn started to truly and thoroughly freak out.
Because one of the men in the group did look an awful lot like Bowen’s youngest brother. Same dark hair and blue eyes, same slim build and striking height, but he was wearing glasses, and there was none of Rhys Penhallow’s sparkle about him. If anything, the guy looked like he’d just been sentenced to life in an oubliette.
The man must not have heard Bowen, because he didn’t reply, but Lady Meredith stepped forward. “Might I ask what you’re doing here in our garden?”
Her voice was pleasant, but her eyes were steely, and Tamsyn reminded herself that even a nonagenarian Lady Meredith had been pretty formidable. In her prime? She was the kind of woman men probably went to war over.
Hell, Tamsyn was pretty sure she’d invade France if this lady asked her to.
“I’m Bowen Penhallow,” Bowen said, and Tamsyn turned to him, eyebrows practically levitating in the air somewhere above her face, because did he really think just saying his name was enough to get them out of whatever weird thing this—
“Ah!” Lady Meredith clapped her hands together, smiling. “A Penhallow. Then you’re here for the wedding.”
If Tamsyn had been disoriented before, now she felt straight-up insane, and she looked at Bowen with a sound that was, unfortunately, a cross between a “Huh?” and a “What?” and somehow came out “Whuh-ugh?”
“I’ve told everyone not to use magic for travel when it comes to Tywyll because it’s always such a mess, so no wonder you ended up in the garden, but never mind, here now, and not a moment too soon, eh, Harri?”
She looked back at the man who looked so much like Bowen’s brother, but he only scowled, pushing his dark hair off his forehead with an impatient gesture. “I don’t think some random cousin I’ve never even met can fix this, Annie,” he said, and then looked back to Bowen and Tamsyn. “Shame you’ve come all this way, because the wedding is off. Elspeth’s changed her mind.”
With that, he turned and stalked off, several of the other men of the party trailing him. Tamsyn heard a muttered “Steady on, lad, steady on,” while another man clapped Harri on the back so hard Harri nearly tripped.
“It’s jitters, mate, nothing more. She’ll come around, you’ll see.”
Lady Meredith watched them walk off, then sighed. “Oh, it’s a good thing you’re here, indeed, Mr. Penhallow. I’m afraid poor Harri is going to need all the help he can get. We all are. Now come along, Madoc, and stop digging in the dirt, you’re ruining your clothes.”
“Mrs. Beasley says no one can dig to the center of the earth, but if you have enough time and patience, I think you can,” Madoc said, even as he dusted off his hands and went to his mother. “Of course, once you get close to the core, you’ll need a space suit, but I can get one of those.”
He turned and squinted at Tamsyn. “You sounded American. Do you have a space suit?”
Tamsyn actually did—an old job at Cape Kennedy, nothing she ever wanted to repeat—but she was saved from answering as Madoc placed a muddy hand in his mother’s and said, “Perhaps I should build my own space suit. If I’m going to be the first Welshman to dig to the center of the earth, I shouldn’t rely on foreign help.”
“Too right, my love, too right,” Lady Meredith said kindly, then looked back over her shoulder at Tamsyn and Bowen. “You and your wife are welcome at Tywyll, Mr. Penhallow. Wedding or no. I’ll have a room prepared for you both, and”—her eyes drifted over Tamsyn’s jumpsuit—“perhaps you’d like to change into something . . . warmer, and . . . less modern.”
The group made its way back to the house, a line of flashlights and murmuring voices, and endless chatter from Madoc.
Tamsyn stood there next to Bowen, freezing, probably in shock, and not entirely sure she wasn’t having some kind of psychotic break.
And yet her next words to Bowen were still “Did she call me your wife?”
“She did,” he confirmed, but that didn’t seem to rattle him nearly as much as it did Tamsyn.
And Lady Meredith was putting them in the same room.
A room that probably had only one bed.
A bed they’d share.
Bitch, you have apparently gone back in time. Maybe prioritize better when it comes to which thing should be freaking you out the most.
Crossing the few steps that separated them, Tamsyn stood in front of Bowen. “So we, um . . . we time traveled?”
“Seems like,” he replied, still staring in the direction the party had gone.
“And that’s little baby Sir Madoc. Only he’s not a sir yet, obviously. And Annie! Oh my god, Annie was—is—a dish, good for her. And it’s not raining! And Y Seren is here! And . . . okay, yeah, that’s all I’ve got for ‘Things About This That Are Good, Actually.’ You?”
“I’ve heard of these kinds of spells,” Bowen mused, stroking his beard idly. “Temporal displacement. It’s hard as hell, though. Literally in some cases. Really dark magic to alter the course of time, and obviously a real fucking mess if you do anything wrong.”
“Right, so I asked for things that were good about this situation, and you’re just giving me things that are bad, and honestly that’s less than ideal, Bo.”
“Well, here’s another bad thing,” he replied with a sigh, then jerked his chin in the direction of the house. “That fellow. The one who looks like Rhys.”
“The one who’s a Penhallow,” Tamsyn said with a nod. “A distant cousin?”
“My grandda,” Bowen said darkly, and Tamsyn sucked in a breath.
“And your grandmother is . . . ?” she asked, but she already knew before Bowen said it.
“Elspeth,” he confirmed. “The woman who just called off their wedding.”
Chapter 10
