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of honey. It seemed a normal enough breakfast, if you could ignore the armored knights standing guard not ten feet away. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get used to the sight of them. It didn’t help they wore tight fitting hose and tunics that gaped, exposing hard, masculine bodies. Maddie looked down at her food, her cheeks burning and wondered how many times she’d blushed since being here. Too many times to count.
    To keep herself occupied, Maddie toured the keep, surrounding buildings and visited the village stalls. The people living within these grand walls were friendly and accommodating, and she’d enjoyed her time with them.
    Come each morning, she’d hoped to miraculously arrive back in the twenty-first century. But it hadn’t happened, and over the past days, Maddie accepted that fate had, in fact, sent her flying through time, and plonked her in the twelfth century.
    And being here, living in this society brought home the fact, she could very well be stuck in 1102, forever. It wasn’t feasible to believe this type of life was a farce her friends had organized to tease her with. So it must be true. The constant use of words such as naught, anon, comely, and wench, no matter how amusing, hammered home the era she now lived, and Maddie wondered how she’d manage.
    She was dressed today in a purple woolen gown, with a white chemise underneath to eliminate the annoying itch of the rough wool. With some debate, Maddie was saved the embarrassment of plaiting her hair like a child and instead had tied it back using a piece of ribbon she had found. It didn’t matter what she looked like, anyway, so long as she was comfortable. She bit into some bread and welcomed how her breakfast settled her nervous stomach.
    Over the past days whenever she thought of meeting her husband again, her stomach somersaulted not knowing how it would turn out. Who knew what her life would be like when he decided to take an interest in her.
    A servant stopped at her side and topped up her goblet of mead. Maddie eyed the beverage with abhorrence then turned at the sound of someone entering the hall. She looked up, surprised to see the woman who’d slept with the baron walk toward the dais. The supposed distant cousin who was staying for a time.
    Dressed in a grey chemise, with an overlying red gown, the lady walked toward the table with all the precision and grace of a woman of high birth. Long, golden blonde hair hung loose, highlighting fair skin and perfect angelic features.
    Maddie shifted on her seat, feeling like an adolescent surrounded by beautiful teenage girls again. She smiled in a gesture of friendship—better that than enemies—and soon realized her mistake when the woman scowled and ignored her.
    The woman cast dismissing sneers at everyone then settled herself at the dais like a regal queen. Distaste and loathing overtook Maddie’s nerves. The woman certainly thought a lot of herself and very little of anyone else. At the sound of brisk footsteps, Maddie looked away and met the scowling glare of her husband.
    He strode toward the dais, barking out orders as he went. The distaste he felt for his wife obvious in the way he looked at her. Maddie frowned and wondered why. Their families had been neighbors for many years. One would assume there would be some sort of amity. His eyes sought his mistress and yet his features remained cold and blank. Odd.
    Maddie gulped down the mead and cringed. So, she’d married a cheating arse who had the audacity to have his mistress live under the same roof as his wife.
    Well, she wouldn’t put up with it. She may be twenty-first century born, but even she knew such an arrangement in this time was not acceptable.
    “Lady Madeline, allow me to introduce you to your guest, Lady Veronica de Walter.”
    Maddie looked over to the baron, surprised he was lowering himself to speak to her. He sat down on a large ornate chair and summoned a servant.
    “My guest? How do you figure that?”