by Lynn Kurland
“Wait, ’tis my turn,” Nicholas said loudly as Montgomery walked away.
“In a moment,” Montgomery threw back over his shoulder. He strode over to her, then stopped and made her the same sort of formal bow he’d made his nephew. “Good morning, Persephone,” he said, with a smile. “Sleep well?”
“Frighteningly well,” she admitted. “It was luxurious.”
“Nicholas must have put on the good featherbed for you. Usually he trots out the one stuffed with twigs, lest his guests feel too comfortable.”
She couldn’t blame his brother. Between the bed and the lunch, she was tempted to hang around as well. She nodded toward the boys. “Training the future generation?”
“Aye, my nephew James,” Montgomery agreed. “I fear he will soon outpace me and I will be digging deep for skill I don’t often use.”
“Yes, I’d be worried about that,” she said dryly.
He started to say something, then hesitated. “I was going to train with my brother, but if you—”
“Would like to watch?” she interrupted. “I’d love to.”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “If you don’t mind, I think I will, though I’ll beg him not to humiliate me. I won’t be long.”
She honestly didn’t care how long he took. She soon found herself wrapped in a very luxurious blanket thoughtfully sent out by the lady Jennifer, she was enjoying a sunny day, and she had a gorgeous man to ogle while he was too busy working to notice. What wasn’t to like about that?
So she spent a good part of the afternoon lusting after the young lord of Sedgwick. He was, she could say with all objectivity, the most handsome specimen she had ever had the good fortune to lust after. He was built like his brother, fought like his brother, and apparently talked medieval trash as well as his brother. They were mirrors of each other, but one fair-haired and one dark, and obviously quite good friends. She supposed that made sense given that Nicholas had sent Montgomery a cook and Montgomery hadn’t taken offense at the gift. Their banter reminded her sharply of the way she and Peaches—
The thought of that caught her so tightly around the heart, she found it difficult all of a sudden to breathe. She wasn’t sure why—she was going to get back home eventually—but for some reason just the thought of never seeing her sister again was enough to leave her blinking hard to avoid tears.
She wrapped the blanket up around her face not because she wanted to hide her expression but because she was getting cold. She shivered for good measure at the chill breath of air that had blown down her neck.
That was just as well, because it restored her sanity. What was she thinking to even look at Montgomery de Piaget as anything but potential material for extensive fantasizing later when she was safely back in the future, sitting in a new apartment full of fabric and notions and the patterns for her own designs strewn from one end of a very long worktable to the other?
Yes, she could hardly wait to get back to the twenty-first century. In fact, she was so ecstatic about the thought of it that she couldn’t keep from making lists about all the things she just couldn’t wait to see again. She started with Cheetos and moved through the four food groups of cheese-and-butter-slathered grains, sauce-covered vegetables, pizza, and finally chocolate. Once she’d examined the food to her satisfaction, she turned to the wonders of modern plumbing, modern sanitary items, and modern indoor climate control.
After that, she examined what was most important: complete fashion world domination. First she would take New York by storm, then Paris, then Milan. Her shows would be standing-room only for those who had booked years in advance; her innovations would be the talk of every design school of note; her clothes would be plastered all over billboards and buses and fashion magazines. Maybe she would even allow the occasional photo shoot for Cindi. No sense in not being generous since she could be.
She was slightly less enthusiastic about the other pieces of her life she would be trying to salvage and put back together. She envisioned doing time on Peaches’s couch where she would be lovingly beaten over the head with lectures on the virtue of getting her affairs in order and getting to know a good insurance agent.
No, she could ignore that part. Once she found her flash drive, she would have her designs in one place and the wherewithal to come up with others in the person of Stephen de Piaget, who no doubt still had his checkbook at the ready. Really, what wasn’t to like about any of that?
Well, there was the fact that she would be leaving in the past a man who obviously loved little children, had the patience of Job, and made her feel fragile and protected.
Then again, he probably made his fiancée feel fragile and protected, too, so maybe she was missing something that was just part of a fairy tale she wouldn’t star in.
Typical.
And a part of her past. She was finished with being supporting cast. She would, when she got back to her proper place in time, wrench that bloody crown off Cindi’s head and plop it down on her own. She had somewhere along the way—probably when Montgomery de Piaget had taken the time out of avoiding being killed by his cousins to teach her the completely unnecessary skill of riding a horse—discovered her inner diva. She was finished with letting her sister run roughshod over her. She might not even let Peaches get too far with her I-told-you-to-get-renter’s-insurance lecture. She was going to create her own fairy tale, complete with clothes to go with it, and she was going to attract the kind of guy who would deeply admire her diva-like qualities, then go off to do manly things like eat pork rinds and watch football, leaving her free to design other things to use as props in the happily ever after she was living that starred hers truly.
She studiously avoided thinking about the fact that she was almost living that medieval fairy tale she was so hell-bent on designing.
Not that that fairy tale would have come true, even if she’d been willing or able to stay in the past. Not only was Montgomery very inconveniently engaged to a woman he never talked about, he was medieval nobility and she wasn’t, which made him about as available as a quick trip to the Mini Mart located on the far side of the moon.
She looked up to find him standing five feet in front of her, watching her with a grave smile playing around the corners of his very beautiful mouth.
“What?” she said defensively.
“You were looking fierce.”
“I was thinking diva thoughts.” She lifted an eyebrow. “A diva is sort of like a queen. She’s the star of her own play and everyone there has to bow to her wishes.”
He smiled a bit more. “You?”
“Don’t you think I have it in me?” she asked archly.
He considered for a bit. “I think you might be a benevolent diva,” he conceded. “Perhaps.”
“Is your fiancée a diva?” she asked.
He looked faintly startled. “Good heavens, nay. She is, um, quite submissive. To a fault. Never gainsays anyone. The perfect wife, I’m sure.”
“I should think you’d want someone with a bit more spunk,” she said tartly
He shook is head. “I like quiet women without opinions. Plain, unattractive, and quiet.”
“You said quiet twice.”
“That is, obviously, how much I value quiet.”
She didn’t think quiet would wear very well with him, but perhaps she was wrong. She accepted his hand and stood, then didn’t protest when he clasped his hands behind his back. He was engaged, after all.
“My brother will provide music tonight,” he said slowly. “Would you care to dance?”
“With you?” she asked in surprise.
He gave her what obviously passed for his best diva imitation. “Do you think me incapable of it?”
She laughed before she thought better of it. “I wasn’t worried about you, buster—I mean, my lord. I was worried about me.”
“I’ll teach you the steps.”
And that was exactly what she was worried about. He would spend the evening being nice to her, quite potentially to
uching her hand and looking at her with those very lovely gray eyes of his, and she would be in big trouble.
But if he wanted to dance with her, who was she to refuse? She could dance with him, spend a couple more days camping with him to get back to his castle, then back to the fairy ring, then she could get home and forget about him.
Then she might just take a tent and hang out on Tess’s front lawn for a while. She had a good imagination; she could pretend she heard the ring of swords, or the clucking of chickens, or the endless bellows from François for quiet so he could create his masterpieces properly. Just the memories of those things would be inspiration enough for an entirely new line of clothing that would bring Manhattan to its knees.
Montgomery offered her his arm. She took it because it was like having a big brother, yes, that was it. A big, rough, football-playing, hockey-loving, ready-with-his-fists kind of brother who would have surely picked up the slack her father had left hanging.
And that had been a lot of slack.
She rubbed her eyes suddenly. She needed sleep, chocolate, and jeans. She was really starting to lose it. She cast about for something useful to talk about.
“Will your fiancée mind if we dance?”
He shook his head slowly. “She’s a good gel.”
Pippa didn’t think his fiancée was a good girl, she thought she was the luckiest girl in the thirteenth century. And as long as she could imagine that lucky girl as a total hag, complete with warts and an irascible, if not tractable, set of personality flaws, she would probably manage to get through the rest of her diva-saturated life.
Probably.
Montgomery put his arm back around her shoulders suddenly. “I think perhaps you sat in the shade too long this morning. You’re chilled.”
She wasn’t, but wasn’t going to say as much. She took another in her endless series of deep breaths, then supposed if she was going to have her heart be broken, she might as well do a proper job of it.
So she didn’t protest when when Montgomery saw her settled in front of the fire in the great hall, then made sure she had something to drink before he ran upstairs and did the fastest changeroo she’d ever been witness to. Within ten minutes he was sitting next to her again, laughing at something his brother said and accepting onto his lap Thomas, the two-year-old reluctant napper, who seemed to find his uncle very much to his liking.
Pippa couldn’t help but envy the woman who would someday be a part of that lovely, traditional family circle—even though it found itself in medieval England.
She didn’t want to think about how much she suddenly wished that woman could have been her.
Montgomery reached over to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, interrupting her unsettling thoughts. “Are you still going to dance with me tonight?” he asked with a small smile.
“If you want,” she managed.
“I want.”
Heaven help her, she was in trouble.
Chapter 17
Half a se’nnight later, Montgomery paused on the edge of the clearing next to Sedgwick, looked at the wreck that lay before him, and sighed. Perhaps he would do well not to go to Wyckham very often. It provided too sharp a contrast between what he had and what he wanted to have, though at the moment, he would have been happy with walls that were intact and a garrison he could trust to protect him.
He shifted in his saddle, more weary than he should have been. It wasn’t that the journey had been unpleasant, for it hadn’t been. Pippa had been grateful for whatever he’d been able to do for her, she made delightful conversation, and she wasn’t opposed to sleeping out under the stars when no obliging structure could be found to house them for a night. The weather had been cooperative, their meals edible thanks to gifts from Nicholas, and the journey noteworthy in its lack of ruffians encountered.
It wasn’t that he was weary in body; he was weary in his heart. Robin would have mocked him endlessly for such an admission, but there it was. Worse still, he had no one to blame for it but himself. He had been the one to make his situation worse by spending an evening with Pippa in his brother’s great hall, teaching her how to dance. Of course he’d needed to look at her constantly, just to make certain she was learning the steps properly, and he’d needed to touch her just as often to make certain she understood when in the dance that was called for. And when he’d thought she might like a rest, he’d sat with her before the fire, watching the way the light fell on her dark hair and flickered over her fair features. He had tried not to be too obvious about his scrutiny, but even so Nicholas had looked at him knowingly a time or two.
With good reason, unfortunately.
He looked again at his castle and found in the sight a bracing dose of reality. His home wouldn’t withstand the most feeble assault from ancient ruffians with creaking knees and rusty swords, and his cousins wanted him nowhere near the place. No medieval woman with any sense would have accepted an invitation to dine with him. How was he to ask a woman from the Future to give up what he was certain was a world of marvels to come live in his hovel?
He wasn’t Nicholas with a luxurious keep on the shore in France where he could retreat whilst his English home was being repaired, nor was he Robin, who had a spectacular, impenetrable fortress in which to shield those he loved. Even Miles had taken his hall and made it a place of beauty and security for his beloved wife and wee ones. He himself had only one place to lay his head and it might as well have been on a battlefield for all the protection it offered.
He looked at the woman he couldn’t have and shouldn’t want sitting next to him on a horse she had ridden quite well over the past se’nnight and attempted a smile.
“Here we are,” he said.
She only nodded. “I’ll go search.”
He hesitated. “I would rather you wait until I’ve seen what disasters have occurred during our absence. It galls me to say as much, but I’m not convinced you’re safe in the keep without my looking after you.”
“Of course,” she said, looking slightly surprised. “Thank you.”
She was certainly welcome, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Perhaps she wouldn’t find her little box for quite some time and she would learn to appreciate not only his castle but he himself.
A man could dream.
He could also have his chest pierced by an arrow if he wasn’t watching where he was going. He breathed still only because the man standing atop the gate was a poor shot. Montgomery pulled his knife free of his boot, fully intending to fling it, only to realize it was Boydin standing there.
“Oh,” Boydin called with affected horror, “is that you, Monty lad?”
Montgomery clamped down on the almost overwhelming desire to drop to the ground, then chase down his cousin and kill him. He looked up at Boydin without smiling.
“Aye,” he said evenly, “ ’tis I. Perhaps if your eyes fail you thus, you should leave the guarding of the gate to someone more able.”
Boydin only smirked and walked away. Montgomery replaced his knife, then urged his stallion forward and kept control of his temper only barely as he dismounted in front of the stables. He handed his reins off to a stable lad, then went to help Pippa down from her horse. He set her on the ground with great care, then looked at her. She was studying him as if she’d never seen him before.
“What?” he asked warily.
“You have amazing control over your temper.”
He shrugged, a little uncomfortably. “I do not like to act hastily, never mind that Boydin seems more than willing to do so if it means seeing me dead.” He attempted a smile. “I think I may live to regret not having thrown them out the front gates the first day.”
“You’re very kind.”
“ ’ Tis my gravest fault.”
“No, I think that would be your dimple,” she said solemnly.
He laughed briefly, in spite of himself. “My mother considers that my greatest asset.”
“Your mother is a very wise woman, then,” Pippa sai
d. She took her gown from her saddlebag, then paused. “Where to now?”
“With me to my solar,” he said seriously.
“I might like a trip to the garderobe first. I think I can manage that without help.”
He supposed so, but he wasn’t particularly happy about watching her walk away, so he didn’t. He would be doing that soon enough in truth. There was no sense in doing it more often ahead of time than he had to.
He caught sight of Petter and his lads, hard at work on different holes in his walls. Progress, such as it was, was being made. For all he knew, his keep might be battle-worthy before winter. At least he would have the pleasure of François’s delights to savor in front of the hearth in his solar.
A pity he would be enjoying the meals alone.
He waved away one of the stable lads and set to tending his and Pippa’s horses himself. It wouldn’t be a long distraction, but it would be welcome one.
A pair of hours later, he had reassessed the condition of his home. The kitchen had undergone a pleasant transformation in his absence. Apparently, François had unbent far enough to give Joan a lesson or two in how to improve her stews, to the great delight of the men who were partakers of her efforts. Fitzpiers had delivered a report of a robust late harvest, which would keep not only their people fed but the table supplied well into the winter. Montgomery had been pleasantly surprised to find Everard had departed for points unknown and not returned. Unfortunately, that had been balanced out nicely by the reports he’d heard from Joan of how his cousins had eaten copious amounts of food and discussed in very loud voices each and every rumor that had surfaced that Montgomery had been entertaining the Faery Queen and was likely either a faery or a warlock himself.
’Twas unsurprising, to say the least.
He had released Pippa from his scrutiny half an hour earlier, simply because she looked restless and he was certain his cousins were too occupied with supper to bother her. He supposed the sooner she found her little stick, the happier she would be, though he couldn’t say the same for himself.