by Lynn Kurland
She watched morosely as Cindi flirted with Stephen. In fact, she watched Cindi at it for so long that she began to have a grudging admiration of her sister’s technique. Cindi was managing to keep Lord Stephen captivated and charm little girls at the same time with an ease that was truly remarkable.
Periodically, Cindi would excuse herself to Tess’s office only to return with renewed energy for both her pursuits. Pippa followed her once, out of a morbid sense of curiosity, only to find her sister helping herself to something out of a little bear-shaped cookie tin she pulled from a pocket in her skirt. The tin looked suspiciously like what their mother had been clutching earlier in the week, a container that Peaches had been fairly sure contained brownies.
And they all knew what sort of things their mother baked into brownies.
“She’s stoned.”
Pippa looked at Tess who had materialized next to her, accompanied by a disapproving frown.
“Nah,” Pippa said. “It’s just jet lag.”
“Are you kidding?” Tess said severely, gesturing to Cindi, who was again flitting off into the room with boundless amounts of energy. “She’s giggling, for pity’s sake.”
“Maybe she took too many aspirin.”
“What she’s going to take is a very short trip into my moat if she doesn’t get it together,” Tess said furiously. “Damn her, she is not going to blow this for me. Stephen de Piaget is not someone I want to look like a flake in front of.” She looked around very briefly, then took Pippa by the arm. “Let’s go rifle through her things.”
Pippa wasn’t opposed to it. It might give her the chance to find and confiscate other sartorial goodies before Cindi could parade them in front of Mr. Deep Pockets.
She followed Tess up the stairs and down the hall—only to find herself squeaking in surprise at what she saw.
There was a red-haired, Claymore-bearing, bekilted Scots-man standing just outside Cindi’s door, looking terribly guilty. Pippa grabbed the back of her sister’s bodice and realized only after Tess complained that she had almost jerked her sister off her feet.
“What?” Tess asked, turning around to look at Pippa in annoyance.
Pippa pointed over Tess’s shoulder. “Him.”
Tess looked back down the hallway. “I don’t see anything.”
Pippa felt her mouth fall open. Now she didn’t, either, though she was a hundred percent positive she’d seen someone standing there not ten seconds earlier, someone with knobby knees and dirks stuck down his socks.
“Jet lag,” she managed. She was definitely losing something and she thought it just might be her mind. She turned around and looked at her sister. “I need a nap.”
Tess took her arm. “Take one later. We’ve got investigations to carry out now.”
Pippa let Tess pull her along down the hallway without complaint. It didn’t take long to get into Cindi’s room and even less time for Tess to unearth a bottle from a fluffy pile of tulle. Pippa sat down in a chair strewn with foundation garments.
“Advil?” she asked.
“Valium,” Tess corrected. “It’s Mom’s stash.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the bottle says Mom’s stash,” Tess said. She sat down on top of an evening gown that had to have cost a small fortune—or been free from a designer. “Maybe we can assume she mistook the bottle for aspirin.”
“Probably,” Pippa agreed. “And she certainly can’t help it that her drug-induced silliness is going to leave a dozen six-year-olds scarred for life from watching the fairy queen drape herself all over some dude dressed in a tunic and tights.”
“I wish I could see the humor in it,” Tess said with a sigh, “but I’m having a hard time now. Well, at least the pills are gone and she’ll be back to herself tomorrow.” She tossed the bottle back into the middle of the pile of clothes and rubbed her hands over her face. “What else can go wrong?”
“Don’t ask,” Pippa warned. “Trust me, you don’t want Karma delivering the answer.”
Tess pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s go finish the party. I’m afraid we’re going to be earning every penny of our fee tonight.”
Pippa realized after only another half an hour that Tess had grossly understated the truth. No amount of money was worth the misery of covering for Cindi. The girls kept wanting to touch her, and all she wanted to do was touch Lord Stephen. Pippa took over when it was painfully clear that her sister had chucked her good sense over her shoulders along with her shoes that had somehow landed in the punch bowl.
By the time she had straightened her wings for the thirtieth time—that was definitely a design flaw to examine later—she was ready for the party to be over. She wasn’t sure how enchanting the evening had been for her, but the girls were completely starstruck by Cinderella the real fairy-tale queen and her handsome prince, the future Earl of Artane.
For her, the evening had been less enchanting than exhausting. She had played games, directed the opening of presents, served cake, and handed out the special trinkets Tess had prepared for each of the guests. She was vastly relieved when Cindi clapped her hands together and gathered the girls close.
“Your mummies and daddies are outside waiting for you across the bridge,” Cindi said brightly, slipping her arm through the crook of Lord Stephen’s elbow. “Let’s go find them, shall we? Now, where is—?”
Pippa watched Stephen duck just before he would have been wing-whipped by the enormous appendages Pippa had definitely not had anything to do with. She admired his reflexes—if such a thing was possible while being disgusted with his apparently inability to resist Cindi’s charms—until she realized Cindi was talking to her.
“What?” she asked, pulling herself back to the present.
“Hold my train,” Cindi said. “You’re my lady-in-waiting, remember?”
Pippa would have told her sister to kiss off, but there were ten pairs of six-year-old eyes watching her closely. No sense in not playing the part.
But after the party, Cindi was in big trouble.
She nodded deferentially and picked up the train of Cindi’s gown. Perhaps she could have been forgiven for paying more attention to fondling crystals and lace than she did to where she was going. She ran into Cindi’s back once and had a more-vigorous-than-necessary swat from Cindi’s wand as her reward. She bit her tongue only because impressionable children shouldn’t have to listen to her shout at her sister. She was released from her duties while Cindi made a valiant effort to deliver each little girl to her mother and father for safekeeping. Pippa didn’t want to cut her sister any slack—it would really hamper her ability to do her in later—but she had no choice. When Cindi was on, she was really on.
With any luck, Pippa would get her on a plane sooner rather than later and get down to the business of getting her own business taken care of.
She stood at the end of the bridge and watched, then realized she wasn’t watching alone. She looked up to find Stephen standing there. It was growing dark, but she could still see quite a bit of his expression, which seemed at the very least to be quite thoughtful.
“Your wings are a bit more discreet than hers,” he offered.
“I’m not much for flashy, though I will admit I’ve been picking up things that fell off Cindi’s dress all night.” She patted her pocket protectively. “I could probably sell them and make a fortune.”
He smiled. Pippa wondered at that moment why it was that Tess wasn’t snapping him up. Maybe Tess could marry him, they could adopt her, and she could live out the rest of her life in Tess’s fairy-tale castle, gathering inspiration from the surrounding walls.
“You must have interesting family reunions,” he offered.
“We terrify my parents,” she admitted. “We didn’t turn out to be flower children, so we’re all in some way a huge disappointment.”
“I understand that,” he said with a deprecating smile. “My father and younger brother tell me constantly that I was born in the wrong century
due to my less-than-corporate interests. But I suppose you and I are consigned to the time period we have.” He glanced at Tess. “I think your sister might have appreciated a different place in history, given her love for the politics and battles of the Middle Ages.”
Pippa didn’t want to blow it for Tess, so she kept her mouth shut about the sword thing. Unfortunately, as handsome as Stephen de Piaget was, if he played with swords, he wasn’t the guy for Tess. Her sister needed a nobleman with buckets of money, a closet full of tweed jackets, and a pipe he smoked only in his library that he would build outside castle walls so Tess wouldn’t have to smell the leftovers. He would probably need to drive a Volvo.
“I’m curious, however,” he said, turning back to her, “what inspired you to create your designs. They have just the right touch of, well, whatever they have is just the right amount.” He shrugged, looking quite uncomfortable. “I’d say magic, but I don’t believe in magic.”
“Neither do I.”
And she didn’t. Normally. At the moment, she was tempted to.
There was something about standing next to a drop-dead-gorgeous guy while in front of what was surely the most romantic-looking castle in all of England that inspired a bit of wishful thinking. Or just plain wishing. She wasn’t sure which it was, but as she looked up into the fading twilight at the stars that sparkled in a particularly magical way, she couldn’t help but do a little wishing for herself.
For a chivalrous sort of guy who would want to have a second date with her.
She shivered, and she was fairly certain that wasn’t from the chilly fall evening. There was something in the air . . . something otherworldly. She looked over her shoulder to see if Cindi felt it too and was flipping out.
Nope, no freak out. Just Cindi walking toward her in a cloud of what could only be termed bippity- boppity-boo swirls, as if a fairy godmother had waved her wand and scattered sparkles all over her. Pippa looked up so quickly she pulled something, but there was no moon, no spotlight, no stray flashlight being shined out a window by some enterprising ghost Cindi had potentially made some sort of Faustian bargain with.
It was such a flabbergasting sight that Pippa could only stand there and gape. She didn’t even flinch when Cindi spun around and she got a face full of wing. She absently picked a stray crystal off her tongue and pocketed it along with the handful of others she’d found in various states of abandonment over the past three hours.
Something was definitely up.
“I’m sorry,” Stephen said politely. “I was discussing clothing with your sister—”
“I know more about it than she does,” Cindi said brightly.
“Well, I say—”
Pippa felt someone push her. She looked behind her but found nothing there.
Maybe Fate was trying to give her a little nudge in the right direction. She gathered her intestinal fortitude like a weapon and stepped between Cindi and Stephen only to have Cindi elbow her aside. She was torn between complaining to her sister and offering a few choice words to whomever was behind her, occasionally giving her a substantial push. Stephen seemed to be happy to get in on the game, for he moved around Cindi as if he would rather have been talking to the purveyor of less-flamboyant evening wear.
Not to be outdone, Cindi continued to put herself in his way. Pippa was to the point of giving her sister a big old tug, but her sister was stoned, as it happened, and Pippa couldn’t bring herself to be that big a jerk.
But she also couldn’t bring herself to be a doormat, so she stepped between her sister and Stephen only to hear Cindi squeak and fall into her. She in turn lost her balance with a squawk and went stumbling through a cloud of sparkles. She was too far off-kilter to save herself, leaving her with no doubt that she would soon find herself falling into Tess’s moat without a hope of rescue.
She didn’t suppose it was the best way to impress Stephen, but maybe Cindi would fall in with her and get a cold. She might then be required to stay in bed for a couple of days, giving Pippa a couple of days to ingratiate herself with a certain man with money to invest.
Or, even better, maybe she would fall into the moat, Stephen would pluck her from the water, then suffer an overwhelming case of chivalry and go out of his way to make all her dreams come true.
It could happen.
She closed her eyes, bracing for the shock of ice-cold moat water—
Hugh McKinnon stood on the edge of what he was quite certain was a time gate, with his hands outstretched, and thought he might have to rethink his plan to go at the matchmaking business alone.
He took off his cap and wrung it into a shapeless mass as he contemplated this new and undesirable turn of events. He had intended to push his Pippy into Lord Stephen’s arms and thereby begin what he’d been certain would be the start of a beautiful relationship. Instead, the yellow-haired sister playing the Faery Queen had gotten in his way and he’d ended up pushing her, which had led her to pushing Pippy, which had led to his charge going off to places unknown and potentially dangerous.
He looked around him to see if anyone else had noticed his alarming faux pas.
That little gel, Hailey, was staring out from the back of her parents’ motorcar. Nay, she wasn’t staring, she was gaping at him as if it were all his fault. He wanted to tell her it was just a tactical error that could be rectified and would she please keep it to herself, but he didn’t suppose he would have the chance. And given how many other ghosts she seemed to encounter on a regular basis, Hugh wasn’t altogether certain she wouldn’t rat him out to those he might rather have left in the dark.
He was no coward, but he knew when to retreat and regroup. He plopped his cap back atop his head and turned to march off into the gloom as if he had places to go. Which he did. And those places were very far away from anywhere anyone might have considered his usual haunts.
He would rethink, investigate, then solve, because he was all Pippy had, so he would rise to the occasion and do his best by her. After all, they were kin. If one looked far enough down the branches of the proverbial family tree. He had no other choice but to continue to take matters into his own hands and fix them.
Because if Ambrose MacLeod found out what he’d done, he would kill him.
Again.
Chapter 5
Montgomery didn’t believe in magic.
He reminded himself of that with no small bit of enthusiasm. ’Twas true that he might have, in his youth, considered things of an inexplicable and magical nature, but he hadn’t done so in at least a decade. If he encountered something he couldn’t manage with his sword or explain away by normal means, he left it alone. Torchlight was something to give relief from darkness, moonlight was there to allow him to avoid riding his horse into a ditch, and air that shimmered was nothing more than sunlight on water, on blades, or on expensive jewels.
This, though, was another matter entirely.
He stood at the end of his drawbridge and stared at a spot in front of him where . . . well, the only way to describe the spot before him was that the air was bloody shimmering with some sort of—he had to take a bracing breath or two before he could finish the thought—otherworldly light. Worse still, in the midst of that shimmering he saw what he could only term a doorway opening where no doorway could possibly have found itself.
Damn it, anyway.
He blamed Gunnild. If she hadn’t insisted on entertaining the entire countryside—at his expense, no less—he wouldn’t have come outside to have a bit of relief from the entertainment he couldn’t stand being provided for people he would rather not see again, and then he wouldn’t have been faced with what he was facing.
Which was something, he was sure, that had nothing to do with magic.
Or at least he thought so until through that, er, magical doorway came stumbling a woman, slender, squawking, and sporting . . . wings.
He reached out and caught her by the arm before she went sprawling into his cesspit. He hoped, belatedly, that he hadn’t ripped her a
rm free of its moorings. He started to say something to her, but apparently the gate hadn’t finished with him. To his very great surprise, out stumbled a second woman, easily the most glorious creature he had ever clapped eyes on in the whole of his life—and he had seen quite a goodly number of very beautiful women. This one, however, outshone them all.
He thought he might have heard a splash, but he honestly couldn’t have said. He was far too busy being overcome by the vision in front of him.
The woman, if that’s what she was instead of some creature from a dream, was dressed in a white gown so exquisite, he could scarce look at it. Her hair was so pale a gold, ’twas almost white. Her face . . . Well, angels must have wept over a face such as hers for there was no flaw in it that he could see. Her skirts were voluminous, true, but he could see that her waist was slight and—
He shifted uncomfortably. She was well endowed, to be sure, in a way that made him slightly nervous, though he couldn’t have said why. He averted his gaze, because his mother had taught him decent manners, and concentrated on anything but what he shouldn’t have been looking at.
It was only then that he realized what it was past that perfection that stunned him so.
She had wings as well.
He wondered, with no small bit of desperation, if he’d lost his wits somewhere during the day. He drew his hand over his eyes to block out the vision before him and quickly reviewed the events of the day to see if he could divine the moment when that might have happened.
The day had been interminable, true, beginning well before dawn thanks to the shouts of the lady Gunnild that last-minute cleaning needed to begin. He might not have minded that so much if he hadn’t been up half the night trying to settle on a figure that didn’t seen unreasonable to use in fortifying the castle as a whole. He didn’t care to spend all his gold on stone whilst leaving nothing to use for steel and new horseflesh, but he also couldn’t fill his keep with men and horses and not have a way to protect them. ’Twas going to be damned expensive, but there was nothing to be done about it.