“Makes sense,” Tamsyn agreed, then added, “I mean, pretty much the only thing making sense at the moment, so I’m taking it.”
They all started heading back toward the castle, Tamsyn’s arm once again in Bowen’s, and it should probably bother her just how easy that was getting for her, but it didn’t.
What did bother her was the idea that Bowen’s magic might be on the fritz. It was one thing to be stuck in another time with a witch. It was another if that witch couldn’t access magic, a thing that seemed like it might be pretty damn useful in this situation.
“So your magic,” she started, but Bowen just shook his head.
“It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Consider me not worried,” Tamsyn lied.
Tywyll House was still lit up, and as Tamsyn stepped inside and handed her borrowed coat to a footman, she could feel the warmth of the house slipping into her, a big contrast from how the home had felt in the present.
In fact, everything looked different. It was still technically the same—same floors, same suits of armor and portraits of glowering ancestors—but something was different.
“It’s not haunted now,” Tamsyn said, and Sir Caradoc gave a booming laugh at that.
“Haunted?” he asked. “Oh, had you heard those rumors? No, no, there hasn’t been a ghost at Tywyll House since . . . Darling, who was our last ghost?”
“The Blue Boy,” she called back. “Sweet little fellow, but glad to see the back of him! And that was . . . oh, ’51, I suppose? ’52? Before him, there was the Headless Lady, but we haven’t had any since.”
Tamsyn wondered if she’d ever be in this world long enough to talk so casually about ghosts.
Down the hall, the Yule log was indeed roaring away, filling the whole downstairs with a pleasant warmth, and Tamsyn happily accepted another mug of tea as Emerald approached, her eyes wide.
“Your outfit is . . . it’s very . . .”
Oh, right. Bowen’s tux fit in just fine, but Tamsyn was wearing a jumpsuit with a way lower neckline than any of the other women were rocking this evening, and she smiled at Emerald with a shrug.
“This is how women dress in America,” she said, hoping a teenage witch living in the wilds of Wales in the 1950s didn’t have a lot of access to fashion magazines.
And she must not have, because Emerald just nodded slowly, her voice slightly awestruck. “America,” she echoed, just as from somewhere in the house, a clock chimed.
“Goodness, it’s already past midnight!” Lady Meredith exclaimed, checking a delicate diamond watch on her wrist. “I’m sure everyone wants to get to bed.”
She threw a saucy look at Bowen and Tamsyn that had Tamsyn’s stomach swooping.
“Especially you two lovebirds,” Lady Meredith went on, and then winked. “Don’t worry, I’ve got the perfect room for you. It’s a bit small, but I don’t think you’ll mind snuggling in, will you?”
“I . . . snuggling is . . .” Bowen started, red creeping up his neck, and Tamsyn took his hand, squeezing it tightly.
“We don’t mind at all, Lady Meredith,” she said, and, gulping hard, followed her hostess up the stairs.
Chapter 12
Bowen wasn’t sure what it said about him, both as a witch and as a man in his thirties, that with everything currently going on at Tywyll House—Yule, the now canceled wedding of his own fucking grandparents, a spell or more likely a curse that had sent him and the woman he had only recently realized he was in love with hurtling almost seventy years into the past—the thing that currently had him staring at the ceiling, worry churning in his gut, was that at any moment, Tamsyn was going to walk out of the bathroom in this suite they now shared, and he was going to be alone with her.
In a bedroom.
With only one bed.
At night.
With her in . . .
Well, he wasn’t sure. Lady Meredith had had a bunch of clothing sent up for both of them after he’d made up a story about their luggage clearly not surviving their magical transit. Bowen was currently wearing a monogrammed set of black pajamas, an elegant “CMG” stitched in gold thread over his heart, which made him feel a bit like he was in a play or something. One of those old farces where bedroom doors kept opening and closing, and the hero kept ending up in the bed of the wrong woman.
What had Lady Meredith given Tamsyn to wear? What did women even wear to go to bed in 1957? Hell, Bowen wasn’t that up to date on what women wore to bed now, so was it any surprise he didn’t have a great handle on vintage nightwear?
The water was still running in the bathroom, and he wondered if Tamsyn was in there wondering what he was wearing.
Christ, she was going to piss herself laughing once she saw him. Maybe he should at least take the shirt off? Or would that just make it worse? Would he feel like a bigger tit wearing the full bloody costume, or would sitting out here shirtless make him feel all the stupider?
Bowen had just reached for the first button of the top when he heard her call out, “If you laugh at me, I swear to god I’ll kill you!”
With that she stepped out of the bathroom, and Bowen . . .
Well, he didn’t laugh exactly.
It’s just that . . .
“I know,” Tamsyn said, throwing up her hands. “They may claim Tywyll House no longer has a ghost, but I sure as shit look like one in this thing.”
This thing was a white nightgown that went from her chin to the floor, complete with long sleeves that ended in lacy ruffs where her hands should have been. Her long, dark hair flowed over her shoulders, longer than he’d realized—she usually had it up in a ponytail—and Bowen found he couldn’t help but say, “You look like you should be carrying a candelabra and wandering the halls.”
Tamsyn lifted one hand, and Bowen assumed she was trying to flip him off, but all that lace obscured whatever rude gesture it was, and she sighed, ineffectually shoving at her sleeves.
“At least it’s warm?” she said. “Downstairs was downright balmy with that Yule log, but it’s chillier in here, even with that.”
