by Lynn Kurland
Humphreys knew, of course, about his activities in Scotland. He accompanied him there frequently, reputedly finding the society of Jane Fergusson and her brood to be a pleasant reminder of his own children raised before he took over the care of Stephen himself. If he had questions about exactly what Stephen was doing in Ian MacLeod’s backyard, he had never asked them. If he found himself troubled by his encounters with Kendrick of Sedgwick, or Zachary Smith, who was married to Kendrick’s rather blatantly medieval sister, or any number of other interesting individuals who managed to show their faces at Artane at various and sundry times, he never indicated it.
But Stephen wasn’t sure what Humphreys would say to his actually taking part in any paranormal activities.
Humphreys rose and tucked his book under his arm. “My lord?”
Stephen pushed away from the door. “I have an emergency which requires absolute discretion and secrecy.”
Humphreys didn’t even so much as lift an eyebrow. “Of course, my lord.”
“I am going to engage in a … paranormal oddity.”
“Indeed, my lord.”
Stephen shrugged out of his jacket on his way across the room, and Peaches’s shoe fell out onto the floor. Stephen picked it up and handed it to Humphreys on his way over to the desk under the window where he’d left his mobile.
“And the other, my lord?” Humphreys asked without alarm.
“That’s the question that needs to be answered.” He found his phone, then looked at his valet, secretary, and keeper of several secrets. “I’m going to call Zachary Smith.”
“The lady Elizabeth’s brother,” Humphreys noted, “the current Earl of Wyckham, and the husband of Mary de Piaget, sister of the Earl of Seakirk, daughter of—”
“Well, no need to get into that genealogy, is there?” Stephen said cutting him off before his eyebrows went up any farther. Just thinking about familial connections had apparently done what Peaches’s shoe could not. “I’m going on a little trip.”
“What shall I pack, my lord?”
Stephen considered quickly. “I think I’ll wear riding clothes. I’ll need my overcoat.” He paused. “And a sword.”
“A sword, Lord Stephen?”
“See what Kenneworth has hanging on his walls,” Stephen said, looking up Zachary’s personal mobile number. “I’ll filch it later.”
“Should it be sharp, my lord?”
“I wouldn’t dare hope for it.”
Humphreys only looked at him before he nodded, then made his way out of the room. Stephen waited until the door had closed behind him before he dialed. Zachary picked up on the second ring.
“The only reason I’m humoring you,” he said, sounding rather weary, “is because I’m pacing the halls with the most beautiful baby ever born in my arms to keep her asleep.”
“Would you ignore me otherwise?” Stephen asked politely.
Zachary laughed quietly. “Probably not. I’m always happy to offer a realistic perspective for your latest academic adventure, though I’m probably not the best one to ask. What’s up tonight?”
“Peaches Alexander stepped through a time gate and I need to go fetch her.”
Expletives accompanied a phone down to the ground. Stephen waited patiently whilst Zachary fumbled with a phone, a baby started howling and was taken by her mother, and equilibrium was restored.
“How long ago?”
Stephen gave him the details in as few words as possible, outlined his options for dressing the part, as it were, and asked his most pressing question.
“How do I know where she’s gone?”
Zachary sighed. “That is the question. If I could get there soon enough, I could give you an idea of what the gate is doing, but I don’t imagine you’ll want to wait.”
“I was hoping to go within the hour, but I don’t dare until the house has gone to bed. I need to spread about some story of Peaches having gone home on her own. The last thing I need is David Preston poking his nose in this.”
“I can’t believe you’re at his house at all,” Zachary said with a bit of a laugh. “Following Peaches there?”
“In a roundabout way,” Stephen agreed. “I was invited, if you can believe it.”
“As were all your girlfriends, probably,” Zachary said, “just to provide a bit of entertainment.”
“How did you guess?”
“I read the odd gossip rag in Tesco now and again,” Zachary said. “You rarely make the cover, but it doesn’t take much digging to find the goods on your social life on about page six.”
“The social life I would like to have is being interfered with by one-half of the relationship being slightly out of reach. Now, do you have any useful suggestions on how I might remedy that?”
“So, you’re interested in Peaches Alexander now?”
“Zachary,” Stephen warned.
Zachary only laughed. “I’m honestly not taking the situation lightly. I don’t remember there being a gate near Kenneworth, but let me call Jamie and ask him what he knows. I’ll text you a couple of suggestions for emergency exits, on the off chance the gate shuts behind you and won’t open again.”
“Which won’t happen,” Stephen said firmly.
“Hmmm” was the only reply.
Stephen suppressed the urge to curse. “Well? What else do I need to know about the gate?”
“Generally,” Zachary said slowly, “you just think about where you want to go and voilà, you’re there. It can sometimes be more useful to think about the person you’re following if you don’t have a clue where that person has gone. That’s assuming that the gate is working smoothly.”
“Assuming?” Stephen echoed.
“Well, you know the trouble we’ve had with the gate near Artane. Very unpredictable these days. I’m not sure that it won’t eventually implode and destroy itself.”
“I find myself surprised by how that thought disturbs me.”
Zachary laughed. “I imagine my father-in-law Robin would say the same thing. It’s too bad you’ve never had the chance to meet him. I think you would like him.”
“Please, don’t wish anything else on me,” Stephen said grimly. “Make your call, if you would, then I would very much appreciate a contingency plan or two.”
“I’d have a snack, if I were you,” Zachary advised. “And take food with you.”
“I’m not planning on being there long enough for a meal.”
“Whatever you say,” Zachary said, sounding amused. “I’ll get back to you soon.”
Stephen hung up, then stuffed the phone in his pocket. He was sure Humphreys would manage his investigations under the radar, as it were, but he would have to be a bit more visible for the moment. He would tell anyone who would listen that Peaches had been called away on an emergency, and he’d seen her sent off in a cab. He would then lay the groundwork for Humphreys being able to tell the party that he himself had been forced to leave before dawn for a very good reason he would leave to his valet to invent.
Because the very last thing he needed was Kenneworth sending out a search party for Peaches and having half the group disappear into the center of the garden as well. It was one thing for members of his family to engage in … well, the things they engaged in. It was another thing entirely to draw into their exclusive circle of adventurers those who might not be quite as discreet about the places they’d gone.
He retrieved his jacket, put it on, and left his room to set up his part of the subterfuge.
Chapter 13
Peaches was having a very bad dream.
She dreamed that she was lying on the ground, trussed up like a Christmas goose, listening to some marginally well-dressed man point at her in a threatening way. He was speaking French, but in spite of all her years of its study and her recent lovely conversations with Raphaela Preston, she couldn’t understand a bloody word of it. It wasn’t like those dreams where she found herself standing in a leotard alone on a coffee table where her thighs were just at the r
ight height for everyone to get a perfect look at them. No, this was much more perilous—and apparently being conducted in a foreign language.
Her stomach growled and her haranguer stopped his diatribe and glared at her. He said something that she couldn’t make out. Then one of the henchmen she hadn’t noticed standing next to him came over and poked her with a stick.
It was then she realized that she wasn’t dreaming.
“Ouch,” she said, trying to move away from the stick. She realized very quickly that that wasn’t possible because someone else was standing behind her with his foot on her side. He gave her a shove with that foot, which left her on her stomach with her face in the snow. She managed to lift her head well enough to breathe, then regretted it because it also allowed her the view of the man drawing his sword.
“But I’m a fairy,” she blurted out in her best French.
It had worked for her younger sister Pippa. It was odd, though, how what worked for one sister didn’t work for the other. The announcement that she wasn’t just a nutter escaped from the local loony bin didn’t seem to have impressed her new friends as much as she’d hoped it would. The conversation that ensued was agitated and unhappy. She managed to shift a little so she could at least see them as they were probably arguing about what would be the best way to put a fairy to death. Why hadn’t she said she was a powerful witch who would cast a spell on them if they didn’t back off right away?
She would have given anything for any number of household chemicals that she could have used to amaze and astonish, but she was fresh out of a basic chemistry kit. And it looked like she was fresh out of time to escape.
Mr. Swordwielder had obviously had enough of chatting with his friends over her fate. She would have complimented him on being a man of action, but he was holding on to that sword as if he meant to do business with it.
He started toward her.
She closed her eyes, seeing her life play before her in one long, slow-motion movie.
And then she heard the clang of sword against some other kind of metal. She would have thought maybe it was the guy’s sword clanging against an as-yet-undetermined piece of armor worn by someone not her, but a quick glance upward revealed that his sword had come to rest abruptly against a rather fancy-looking ornamental-type sword.
That foofy-looking sword was currently being wielded by an absolute nutcase. She found that the ruffian foot resting in the middle of her back was suddenly no longer there thanks to a kick backward by her—well, she supposed he was her rescuer. He was at least standing with his back to her and seeing to her attacker. In her book, that made him a good guy.
She managed to roll over onto her side and then struggle to her knees. Her hands were tied behind her back, which made that rather difficult, but she was in a fair bit of peril and that gave her an added bit of inspiration to get herself mobile.
It was only after her head cleared that things took a turn toward weird. And given who her parents were, she knew weird.
She sat back on her heels and watched the guy in front of her, who was dressed rather sportingly in riding clothes and a long, dark coat, continue to fight. All right, so she was fairly sure she wasn’t dreaming; she wasn’t at all sure she wasn’t having a full-blown, broad-daylight sort of hallucination. Her rescuer was outnumbered by not only the head guy who had a sword and knew how to use it, but the three thugs she had seen earlier in Kenneworth’s garden before she’d fainted. She was tempted to pat herself and see if anything untoward had happened to her while she was unconscious, but her hands were currently unavailable so she gave up on that idea.
She did, however, look behind her to see ruffian number four stirring. In fact, he stirred right up to his feet and began to swear.
“Hey,” Peaches squeaked. “Hey.”
She watched as her rescuer turned long enough to plow the hilt of his sword into the face of the guy behind her. The hilt was, as she had noted earlier, one of those fancy basket types adorned with all kinds of scrollwork and a few gems. One of the gems came off in Thug Number Four’s forehead. He blinked, then fell backward and landed with a crash. He didn’t move.
Peaches found herself hauled to her feet without ceremony. Her dress made a horrendous rending sound, but she noticed that less than she noticed the fact that she was no longer wearing her shoes. And then she realized something else.
Her rescuer was none other than Stephen de Piaget.
She swayed at that realization, partly because she hadn’t expected to see him where he was and partly because he was displaying swordplay she hadn’t imagined he possessed. Gone was that rather elegant Mr. Darcy type who knew his way around a library and no doubt had many similar well-dressed academic and nobleman friends. In his place was a Viking berserker who obviously knew how to use not only a sword, but also his fists and his feet.
If she’d had her hands free, she might have been tempted to put the back of her hand to her brow and indulge in a good, old-fashioned swoon.
And then it occurred to her just what she was seeing: Stephen de Piaget looking a great deal like one of those medieval de Piaget lads she knew. She frowned, but he didn’t notice.
“Hey,” she called.
He was apparently hard of hearing as well.
“Hey, you,” she called, thinking that perhaps he hadn’t realized she was talking to him.
“I’m a little busy right now,” he threw over his shoulder.
“Where did you learn to do all that? I thought you couldn’t do anything with a sword.”
He ignored her a bit more. She actually couldn’t blame him at present because the outnumbering was starting to look a little more serious than it had a few minutes earlier.
Stephen fought the leader of the group, who looked remarkably like a scruffy David Preston, for a moment or two, then punched him full in the face. Minor Thugs Two and Three were then completely disabled, but in their defense, they had likely never had modern riding boots hit them quite like that under the chin. She imagined they would awake from their dreamless slumbers to hurry off and tell anyone who would listen about the warlock who had bested them with his magical shoes.
She found Stephen stumbling back into her. More of her skirts pulled away from the bodice as she backed up.
“Are you going to answer my question now?” she asked. He was within earshot. There was no sense in not having a little conversation with him while she could. “You know, the one about why I thought you couldn’t do anything with a sword?”
“Why would you think that?” he asked tightly, fending off the man who just had to be a Kenneworth progenitor.
“Because you weren’t doing a very good job with Montgomery,” she said.
“I lied,” he said with a grunt, sending the first thug off to slumber thanks to a fist under his chin. That left him only the lord of Kenneworth to deal with.
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Why didn’t you admit to what you could do?”
“Because,” he said, dragging his sleeve across his eyes, “my grandmother does not approve of unapproved activities.”
“You have a grandmother?”
The look he shot her over his shoulder left her deciding that perhaps silence was golden. Well, it did for a bit until her curiosity got the better of her. It wasn’t all that often that she saw Stephen de Piaget unplugged. He wasn’t insulting her, she was slightly numb from the cold, and the time seemed to be right for a little light conversation.
“Are you saying your grandmother wouldn’t approve of swordplay?”
“Yes,” he said tightly.
“Where did you learn to do this?”
“From Ian MacLeod.”
“Of course.” She shook her head. “Everyone learns swordplay from Ian MacLeod.”
“And if they don’t, they should.”
“What else doesn’t your grandmother approve of?” she asked. “Things that don’t involve tweed?”
“You know,” he said, backing up and forcing her
to back up a bit more, “you could make this easier if you’d stop yammering at me for just one minute.”
“For just one?”
He looked at her in surprise, then he smiled before he turned back to his battle.
Peaches thought she might have to look for somewhere to sit down very soon. So he’d only smiled at her in a grave and polite way up until that moment. The smile he had just given her, that small little smile that seemed actually quite friendly, was something else entirely. She looked behind her, stepped over the man lying there and limped over to a tree. She had seen ropes worn through by rubbing them against the bark of a tree in movies. Given that she felt like she was on a set that should have been outlawed as cruel and unusual, she supposed there was no point in not giving a standard cinematic trick a try.
It was more difficult than it looked. That was, she supposed, because she was in a bit of a hurry, hoping that Stephen wouldn’t get himself killed on the end of what looked like a very serviceable sword. His sword, however, looked rather wimpy.
“Is that your sword?” she called.
“Hell, no. And stop—”
“Yammering at you,” she finished. “That was the last time, I promise.”
He didn’t bother to thank her, which she supposed his infamous granny would think was a display of bad manners, but she couldn’t blame him. He had his hands full at the moment.
Her own hands, however, were free before she realized that she was rubbing her wrists alone against the bark. In her defense, she was rather distracted by listening to Stephen engage in conversation that sounded quite a bit like French but most definitely wasn’t. It was that same medieval sort of Norman French that John spoke when he thought no one was listening.
Peaches leaned back against the tree and decided abruptly that if she had to be stuck in what she guessed was medieval England, it was best to be stuck there with Stephen de Piaget, medieval historian.