by Lynn Kurland
Chapter 19
Tess wasn’t sure weariness quite described what she was feeling. She considered several other adjectives as she walked—stumbled, really—along with John toward a castle she could see rising up in front of them, but none of them could quite do justice to the bone-deep exhaustion she felt.
At least the end of the road was hopefully there in front of them. She’d been able to see the keep for quite some time, actually—no doubt the benefit of traveling on foot. It was a lovely, fairy-tale sort of castle that had first been shadowed by predawn darkness, then lit by a rare, clear-skied sunrise. She would have enjoyed it more, but she wasn’t altogether sure she wasn’t hallucinating it.
She’d long since stopped even wondering if John would ever indulge in polite conversation again. If he’d been taciturn when she first met him, he had descended into new and unfathomable depths of silence over the past two days. She couldn’t blame him. Medieval England was probably the last place he wanted to be, much less discuss.
Not that he’d been unkind. The man was chivalry embodied, briskly though it might have been exercised. He’d found places for them to stay, chopped wood for their meals, and forced her to sit at least a handful of times a day so he could see for himself if she had blisters on her feet or not.
But he hadn’t spoken beyond the most basic of conversation about the weather and her health. She couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t sure she hadn’t limited herself to those same subjects during those first couple of weeks after Pippa had gone back in time.
To marry his brother.
She felt his hand catch hers suddenly. She turned and looked at him blearily. “What?”
His eyes were full of something another might have called anguish. At that moment, it occurred to her that perhaps he hadn’t just stumbled accidently into a time gate eight years ago. Maybe something had happened somewhere along the line to force him to leave medieval England.
She wondered what it was costing him now to return.
He stuck his jaw out. “Don’t look at me that way.”
“What way is that?” she said hoarsely.
“As if you expect me to soon break down and bawl like a bairn.”
She looked at him for another minute or two and wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t do just that. He looked absolutely shattered. She closed her eyes, then stepped forward and put her arms around him. It took a moment, but she felt his arms come around her.
“You won’t weep,” she said. “But if you wanted to, I would understand.”
He held her close, wrapping her in an embrace that was equal parts desperation, affection, and protectiveness. He bent his head and pressed his face against her hair.
“Thank you for understanding,” he said, very quietly. “I haven’t been pleasant.”
“You can be a bit of an arse,” she agreed, “as we all know.”
He laughed a little, a rasping sound that sounded like it was indeed on the verge of something very emotional, then he pulled back only far enough to look down at her. “Your sister and my brother,” he said, a little breathlessly. “Damn you, Tess, couldn’t you have told me?”
“Why don’t you look back over our volatile relationship, my hedging friend, and tell me just when I should have done that so it didn’t send you scampering off the other way?”
He was silent for some time. “Did you want me to remain?”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, pulling out of his arms. “You’re not about to wring that sort of admission from me right now.”
He reached out and gathered her back to him. “What I want you to admit was how deceitful it was of you to date me for so long without giving me a single bloody clue you knew all about me.”
“I’m discreet.”
He laughed, sounding pained. “I suppose you could call it that.” He held her for several more, eternal moments, then released her only far enough to put his arm around her shoulders. “Let me escort you safely inside my brother’s keep, see you fed and warmed, then we’ll discuss it all at length. I’ll attempt then to redeem myself from my pratishness.”
She smiled, then felt her smile fade. “Don’t ditch me.”
“I wouldn’t think to,” he said in a very low voice. “Not here. Actually, not anywhere.”
“And that’s probably only because you don’t have your keys.”
“I have them,” he said. “They’re stuck quite uncomfortably down my boot. And nay, it has nothing to do with what I do or do not have. I would never leave you behind.”
She closed her eyes briefly, then looked up at him. “Are we in trouble?” she managed. “Are we stuck?”
He took a deep breath. “Let’s worry about that after we’ve seen who’s at home here. And if I survive the encounter,” he muttered.
“John—”
He nodded toward the keep. “I’m past thinking clearly, Tess. We’ll seek shelter, sleep until we wake, then see what can be done.”
“What if your brother’s not home?”
“My father is at Artane,” he said with a shrug. “That’s a pass to quite a few venues not open to the average traveler.”
She pursed her lips. “You’re slipping back quite easily into the role of powerful lord’s son.”
He shook his head slowly. “If you only had any idea how unsettling that is, you wouldn’t tease me about it.”
“I like you unbalanced,” she said pleasantly. “It gives me an opportunity to herd you for a change.”
“You can herd me right back into your arms as soon as you’ve recovered from this miserable journey here—for which I apologize profusely. I would have done it differently if I could have.” He looked at her briefly. “Your sister and my brother.”
“Life is weird.”
“It is indeed.”
The gates were open, but guardsmen were loitering there. The man she assumed was their captain took a look at John, made him a low bow, then looked at her and frowned.
“My lord Montgomery,” he said slowly, “and Lady Persephone . . .”
“Is my brother home?” John asked, not correcting him.
“Of course, my lord.” He looked behind John. “But your guardsmen, my lord . . .”
“We’ve had a spot of trouble,” John said easily, “but all is well now. What we need most, I daresay, is simply a place to sit and rest for a bit.”
“Very well, my lord. Let me escort you inside.”
Tess listened to the Norman French roll off John’s tongue as if he’d never not spoken it. She expected him to release her hand, but he didn’t. He merely laced his fingers with hers as they walked along behind the knight with a very bright medieval sword at his side. A page had been sent scampering ahead toward the keep to deliver heaven only knew what sort of tidings. She looked up at John in time to find him watching her.
“We might have a few things to discuss,” he said very quietly.
She pursed her lips. “Yes, all that rubbish about your misspent youth. You’re a terrible liar.”
“I am not. I’m a very good liar. And I never lied.”
“You withheld critical bits of truth.”
“I didn’t want you to think I was mad and lock me up where I couldn’t look at your fetching self as often as I liked.”
She would have blushed, but she was too nervous. Not for herself, but for John. “You’re not going to manage to throw me off balance with that kind of thing.”
“It won’t be for a lack of trying, believe me,” he said. He looked up at the hall, then caught his breath. “The saints preserve me.”
“Want me to protect you?”
He shot her a look. “I don’t hide behind women’s skirts.”
“They’re my skirts, my lord.”
He stopped suddenly, turned her to him, and pulled her into his arms so quickly, she lost her breath.
“I don’t think he’ll kill me if you’re holding my hand,” he whispered hoarsely against her ear. “So don’t let go.”
&
nbsp; She hugged him quickly, then stepped back. “I won’t.”
“How’s your French?”
“I’ll manage.”
He took a deep breath, then took her hand again and turned toward the hall. “Here we go,” he murmured half under his breath. “A prayer at this point would not be unthinkable.”
Tess knew she probably wasn’t the first person to think it, but she couldn’t help but wish she’d been able to sit back and watch from the comfort of time and distance a video of what was unfolding in front of her. She would have known from the reviews how the movie ended, and she would have spared nothing but a moment’s worry over how things were going to play out. And while she might have felt some sympathy for the players, it would have been a more academic, removed sort of sympathy.
Instead, she was feeling her heart wrench out of her chest because she was standing in the middle of a family reunion that she thought might not go very well.
Nicholas—and it could have been no one else given how greatly he resembled John except for the fact that he was blond and not dark-haired—loped down the stairs with an easy grace that reminded her so much of John, she almost flinched. He looked slightly puzzled.
“Montgomery,” he said, walking toward them, “and Pippa, of course. Where are your men? I thought you two were . . . for . . . ah . . . France—”
He apparently got a good enough look at her that he realized she wasn’t her sister. He looked at John, then the blood drained from his face and he swayed. John reached out a hand and clamped it on his brother’s shoulder to steady him. Nicholas looked at him, looked at her, then backed away and leaned over with his hands on his thighs.
John was completely still. Tess would have worried about him, but he still had hold of her hand and he wasn’t breaking any of her fingers, so she supposed he was still hanging in there.
Nicholas simply breathed in and out for several minutes, then straightened. His color wasn’t any better, but he hadn’t passed out so she supposed he would count that as being good enough. He extended his hand to her.
“You have to be Persephone’s sister.”
“Tess,” she supplied, then she realized he was speaking in English. “Her older sister, but not by much.”
He bent over her hand with a formal sort of bow, then released it. He looked at her other hand in John’s, then back at her.
“You might want to let go of him for this next bit,” he said politely.
John’s breathing didn’t change, but she felt him stiffen. Nicholas wasn’t wearing a sword, but she didn’t imagine he needed it to do damage with. She looked at John, disentangled her fingers from his, then took a step away from him. He took a deep breath and looked at his brother.
“Hello, Nick.”
Nicholas cursed him. Then he threw his arms around him and hugged him so tightly John squeaked. And he wept. Tess felt her eyes begin to burn at the sight. Nicholas pulled back, cursed a bit more, kissed John on both cheeks, then embraced him again in a manly way that included several rounds of backslapping that no doubt left bruises. He kissed him again, then slapped him on the back of the head before he released him.
“You bloody fool,” he managed, dragging his sleeve across his eyes. “Where in the hell have you been? Wait, don’t answer that.” He shot John a dark look. “I can guess.”
Tess looked at John. He looked no less affected than his brother. In fact, if she were to be completely accurate, his eyes were very red and he had to clear his throat before he could speak.
“I imagine you can.”
Nicholas threw up his hands. “I’m not sure if I should embrace you again or take my sword to you. You bloody fool.”
“You’re repeating yourself,” John said with the faintest of smiles. “Old age creeping up on you, is it?”
Tess found herself the recipient of Nicholas’s look of disbelief. “How do you manage to endure him?”
“I ignore him a lot.”
Nicholas laughed. “I daresay you would have to.” He rubbed his hands over his face, blew out his breath, then took John by the shoulder and slung his arm around him. “You both look as if you’ve been running for a solid se’nnight. Before we think about anything else you need food and hot fire, then sleep. Separately, unless you have something you want to tell me.”
“We aren’t wed,” John said, lifting his eyebrows briefly, “though I’ve been attempting to woo her. If I convince her to agree to anything else, it will be in spite of what she’s been through over the last few days.”
Nicholas grunted. “Obviously you’ve been without my useful influence for too long if you haven’t gotten further than that with her. I’ll aid you as I can in that endeavor. Tess, you might want to hold on to the other side of him as we go. He looks completely undone.”
Tess had to agree, though Nicholas didn’t look any better. For herself, all she knew was that trying to follow their rapid French—no matter how good she thought hers was—was giving her a headache. Or that might have been from trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she was walking through a medieval courtyard with a medieval lord and holding on to his equally noble younger brother’s hand.
Talk about hands-on research.
“I’ll have the whole tale when your lady doesn’t look as if she’ll drop where she stands. Perhaps you should be holding on to her instead of the opposite. Jennifer will find her a place to lay her head.”
“Or perhaps Jennifer would rather talk about the fact that Tess knows her sister, Megan,” John offered with an enormous yawn.
Nicholas’s mouth fell open, then he looked at John and shut it. “I refuse to make comments on paranormal oddities.”
“I would appreciate that.”
“You’ll hear enough about it from Robin when he learns you’re home. I’m assuming you’ll go to Artane.”
John took a deep breath. “I hadn’t thought that far, though I would like to see Father and Mother, aye.”
“You’d have to go to France for that,” Nicholas said. He looked at Tess briefly. “You won’t regret that journey, I daresay. Montgomery and Persephone are there with them now, waiting for Sedgwick to be restored. That’s one reason I was so surprised to see you—or, rather, who I thought you were—here.”
Tess would have commented, but she found she could hardly keep her eyes open. She didn’t protest when John put his arm around her. She realized he’d picked her up only because she found she wasn’t walking any longer. She knew he didn’t have any more energy than she did, but it wasn’t as if she could carry him. She closed her eyes and put her arms around his neck.
“I didn’t bring any money to go to France,” she murmured.
“By the saints, John,” Nicholas said in astonishment, “how have you been treating this poor gel? Forcing her to see to you?”
“I haven’t,” John said with an exasperated snort. “She just has these unpalatable ideas about independence and getting her own way.”
“If you think you have troubles with her now, just wait until after she’s spoken with Jennifer and become acquainted with all the subversive tactics she uses on me.”
“The saints pity you,” John muttered.
“A small price to pay, believe me.”
Tess held on tightly so she wouldn’t fall, then supposed that wasn’t necessary. John wasn’t going to let her fall. After all, he’d taken care of her for almost five days in very trying circumstances. He would have taken care of her for all the days before then if she had let him . . .
She promised herself a good think later, when she could open her eyes again.
“John?” she managed.
“Aye, love?”
“I don’t think I can stay awake any longer.”
“Don’t try, Tess. You can sleep in peace here.”
She hadn’t realized before just what a luxury that was. She sighed deeply, then cast herself into the welcoming arms of insensibility. She could only hope she would awake in the same century as John.
> She thought she just might be finished with anything else.
Chapter 20
John woke at dawn, shivering. It took a moment for his head to clear enough that he realized he was in one of his brother’s guest chambers and not in his own cottage, but memory flooding back helped him with that soon enough. He stared up at the wooden canopy above his head, contemplating the absolute improbability of his current locale. He had never thought to return to his own time—which felt less like home and more like a tourist destination than he’d suspected it might—much less see any of his family again. It was difficult to remember he was no longer a green lad of nineteen winters, but a man of almost twenty-eight years who had seen things that would have turned his father gray overnight.
He rubbed his hands over his face, then threw back the covers and forced himself out of bed, cursing to keep himself warm. It was day, though he honestly had no idea what time it was. He pushed himself to his feet, then walked over to the hearth and kicked up the embers into something warm enough to serve him briefly. Morning, perhaps, since the fire had burned down to almost nothing. He yawned, grateful for the sleep and wishing he had the energy to have a bit more. But that would leave Tess possibly fending for herself and that he couldn’t do, not even in Nick’s hall.
He turned to look for water to wash with and found it on a table next to the hearth. That he had to break through a layer of ice to get to it was unsurprising but an unsettling reminder of just where he was.
He raised his eyebrows briefly in appreciation of the luxury of his brother’s home—at least he hadn’t had to brave a winter stream to wash or forgo washing altogether—then set to his morning’s ablutions as if he’d never spent a day away from his usual routine in medieval England. He had his wash, shaved with a knife, then put on clean clothes and serviceable boots provided so thoughtfully by his brother. He reached for his sword and belted it around his hips, then stuck a pair of daggers down his boots, though he wondered why he bothered. It wasn’t as if he would have to kill anyone to gain the breakfast table.
He dragged his hands through his hair and sighed deeply. Killing ruffians to keep Tess safe had been necessary but very unpleasant. He’d forgotten, living his soft life in the Future as he had, just how brutal medieval England could be. He wouldn’t be unhappy to leave it behind. Assuming he could leave it behind.