“You think that … you and I?” The words hung in the air for a moment.
I didn’t answer. I probably blushed again.
285/356
Hudson tilted his head back and grinned. He looked like he might break out laughing.
What did that reaction mean? Did he think the idea of us being a couple was funny, that it could never happen?
I sent him a challenging look. “I suppose you’re too good to marry me?”
He leaned against the carriage wall, settling in with satisfaction.
“Not at all. You’re King John’s fiancée, the heroine of the story. One day Disney will make a movie about this and then you’ll have thousands of little girls toting around lunch boxes with your face on them.
Me, I’m only a nameless extra.”
“Then why do you look so smug?”
“I’m contemplating telling our kids I met their mother at a police station after she was brought in for questioning.”
“That’s probably grounds for not marrying you right there. And besides, I’m not positive you’re Junior’s father. I bet when I go back to New York I’ll meet lots of brunet guys with wavy hair and weird pinky fingers.”
He leaned forward, checking on the baby. “How is Stetson doing?”
“Junior is doing fine.”
Hudson tucked the blanket back around him where it had come loose. “I’m never going to live in New York, so that means you must stick around Arizona. A city-girl-finds-her-country-roots sort of thing.”
“Maybe you fall so desperately in love with me, you follow me to the city. Country-boy-sheds-his-boots sort of thing.” Hudson rubbed his jaw, considering. “No, you don’t want to raise Stetson in some apartment building in a city. A growing boy needs a yard. Trees to climb. Mud to play in—”
“The Empire State Building. Museums and cultural events—” 286/356
“A horse.”
“Snow.”
Hudson opened his mouth to speak and stopped suddenly. A new thought had occurred to him and whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
“Maybe Chrissy didn’t take the baby from the twenty-first century.”
“You think she stole some random baby from here that just happens to look like you?”
“Not random. Ours. Maybe this means we never get home. We’ll marry each other here because we’re the only ones around who won’t think we’re crazy when we do modern things. If we made it back to our own century, what are the chances we would even live in the same place back home, let alone get married?” Judging by his facial expression, not great.
That stung. It was like he was telling me he could only see himself marrying me if I were the last woman on earth—or at least the only woman on earth who knew what dental hygiene was.
He let out a deep breath. “Forget I said that. We shouldn’t think about being stuck here. We’ll get home.” I couldn’t forget he said it. He had been trying to come up with a sensible reason why he would ever marry me.
After that bit of discussion, Hudson changed the subject to con-tingency plans. He not only wanted to figure out a plan B, he also went over plan C and D and probably would have gone beyond plan Z if there were more letters in the alphabet. He went over what I should do if the carriage were stopped by King John’s men, if we were separated, attacked, lost, wounded, captured, or ran out of food. Hudson’s face was completely serious during these instructions, and I wondered which fate he was trying to change: being stuck in the Middle Ages, or marrying me because of it.
Chapter 21
We stopped at an inn to eat and hire fresh horses for the rest of the trip. By getting new horses now, Bartimaeus’s horses would be rested and waiting for him on the way home. After some deliberation, Bartimaeus decided it would look suspicious if Hudson and I didn’t go inside the inn to eat while the horses were being switched. He scoped out the place for king’s men, then came back and told us, “When the horses are ready, we’ll leave. No dawdling. I have to go oversee things in the stable. Innkeepers are all cheats and scoundrels.” This sort of speech was probably the reason why the wizard was known as Bartimaeus the Proud and not Bartimaeus the Friendly.
After he left, Hudson climbed out of the carriage, then helped me down. He kept hold of my hand when I was on the ground, intertwin-ing my fingers with his. When I looked at him questioningly, he said,
“It’s part of our cover. You’re my wife.” I wasn’t sure who the cover was for, since no one else was on the street by the stable and no one could see us yet from the inn window. “And,” Hudson went on, “this is our son, Stetson.”