by Lynn Kurland
Pippa had found herself rudely interrupted at that point by the shopkeeper, who seemed not to care that she was the owner’s sister. There had been a bit of a scuffle over the book. Pippa would admit that when she had jerked it away from the woman, she might have overturned a teapot or two. It was also possible that she might have thrown a rather substantial resin replica of the castle in the direction of the woman’s terrier who had been ordered to sic. In return, she’d been clobbered over the head with a stitchery kit that had contained not only cloth and thread but wooden stretcher bars.
Things had spiraled out of control after that.
Pippa supposed the only reason she was now standing in her sister’s great hall instead of languishing down at the local pokey was because Tess had come looking for her at just the right time. The shop had suffered minimal damage, but the shopkeeper’s pride had been grievously wounded. Pippa had apologized, grudgingly, but she hadn’t let go of the book. Never mind that she’d almost dropped it in the moat when she’d managed to get it back open to the place where she’d been keeping her middle finger and read what was written there.
Lord Montgomery had never married.
That might have been because he’d been killed.
Tess had yanked the book away from her and instructed her sternly to stop making noises that frightened them. Pippa had agreed meekly, then followed her sister up to her room where she’d been pushed into a chair and told to sit. She had sat, because her legs hadn’t been equal to the task of holding her up any longer. It was one thing to think Montgomery was miserable without her; it was quite another to think his life had been cut short, perhaps even because of her.
It had taken the rest of the morning to get her sisters to leave her alone so she could break into Tess’s office, find the book, and read the rest of the story. The only comfort she’d subsequently found was that there was apparently some disagreement on the fate of that early lord of Sedgwick. Some reports said he’d been killed outright while others said he’d been maimed so badly in an attack that the rest of his life had consisted of merely being carried to a sunny spot in his courtyard and left there for the day whilst others went about their work.
For Montgomery, she wasn’t sure which would have been worse.
She’d spent the afternoon getting pruny in the shower, because that had seemed the safest place to be. She’d managed to forget about Montgomery for long stretches of time—at least five minutes a shot—and concentrate on her own life.
Her life in which every moment that passed was full of the knowledge of how his would end.
Tess and Peaches had dragged her out of the shower eventually and forced her to come downstairs for the party. They’d insisted it would cheer her up. What would have cheered her up was the ability to send Montgomery a note that said that he really should keep an eye out for cousins with his death on their minds.
Then again, he probably knew that already.
She sighed and rubbed her hands over her face, struggling to bring herself back to the present. What she really wanted was for him to dump the mouse and come for her, but she was living in the Land of Reality, not some fairy tale, and in the real world, medieval lords didn’t risk everything to come to the future to look for a woman they probably didn’t have any feelings for.
She pushed away from the wall, then shot Peaches a dark look when she did the same thing. “I’m going to go get something to drink,” she snapped.
Peaches only clasped her hands behind her back and smiled. Pippa didn’t imagine Peaches’s shoes were nailed to the floor, so she would probably be making her own trip to the kitchen as part of her guard-dog duties. She sighed and started trudging across the hall, dodging dancers who were like a continual stream of motion in front of her. Well, except for one of them who was simply standing in front of the fireplace. Pippa looked up, intending to toss him a compliment on his good sense.
Only she found, quite suddenly, that she couldn’t.
There, standing across the way from her was a man dressed in medieval clothing, sporting a medieval sword, and looking more handsome than any reenactment knight could possibly have looked. But that might have been because he wasn’t a reenactment knight.
He was the real deal.
Pippa made some sort of noise, but she didn’t want to identify it. Instead, she started walking again before she realized she was moving. Well, she actually ran, but she didn’t think anyone would fault her for it. Montgomery strode toward her rather quickly himself, then caught her as she threw herself into his arms. Pippa gasped as he clutched her to him, but she wasn’t about to ask him to let her go.
“I say,” a disgruntled male voice said from next to them, “I don’t think that’s part of the dance.”
Pippa laughed, because she couldn’t help herself, then caught the breath she’d lost as Montgomery set her back on her feet. “No, I suppose it isn’t,” she managed. She looked up into Montgomery’s beloved face and couldn’t stop smiling. “You came,” she said, breathless still.
“The gate opened,” he said, sounding a little breathless himself. “And it just about shut itself on my arse.”
She laughed, feeling altogether giddy. “I’m relieved you’re undamaged.”
He reached up and brushed her hair back from her face. “I am as well,” he admitted, then he smiled gravely. “You left your shoes in my courtyard. I thought I should bring them to you and see if they still fit.”
“It’s an awfully long way to come to bring back a pair of shoes,” she said. “Wouldn’t they fit your fiancée?”
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She supposed if she’d had any sense at all, she would have put her arms back around him and spent her time convincing him why she was a better choice for him than some no-name girl with big ears and a petite nose, but apparently she didn’t have any sense left.
And he didn’t seem inclined to let her go.
“She has enormous feet,” he said solemnly, “and hands like a blacksmith. Now, might we discuss other things? Perhaps we should move out of the way of the dancers to do so. I fear someone will draw a blade on us soon.”
“I don’t think you have much to worry about,” Pippa said, finding it hard to breathe properly. She realized that her teeth were chattering as well. What next, weakness in her knees?
Or being pulled behind a medieval lord who had a bad habit of doing just that. She peeked around his shoulder to find Tess and Peaches standing there.
“Montgomery, those are just my sisters,” Pippa said. She paused. “They’re twins.”
“So I see,” he said faintly.
Pippa tried to walk around him only to walk into his arm that had extended suddenly like a railroad-crossing guard gone awry. She pushed his arm down and moved to stand next to him, then looked at her sisters with what she hoped was an appropriately disinterested expression.
They weren’t buying what she was selling.
She gave in and smiled so hard it hurt her cheeks. “Tess, Peach, this is Montgomery de Piaget. Montgomery, these are my sisters, Tess and Peaches.”
He took their hands one by one and bowed low over them. “Enchanté,” he said politely.
And then he reached for her hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow.
Pippa thought she just might have to laugh soon. She listened to Montgomery exchange basic pleasantries with her sisters and smiled at the sound of his French with its medieval inflection. It was without a doubt the most wonderful thing she’d ever heard. She didn’t even protest when she found herself suddenly with her nose pressed against his back. She only sighed and looked around his shoulder again to now find Stephen walking toward them.
“Montgomery—”
“I’m keeping you safe, woman. Stop fighting me.”
“That’s your nephew, my lord, not the French army.”
He grunted at her, then must have gotten a good look at that nephew because he flinched. Pippa took the opportunity to pop out fro
m behind him and attempt to get a good look at his expression. He was gaping at Stephen as if he’d just seen a ghost. She couldn’t blame him. Stephen looked enough like him that they could easily have passed for brothers. Stephen came to an ungainly halt and gaped back.
“Montgomery de Piaget meet your nephew, Stephen,” Pippa said, trying not to let her giddiness turn into uncontrollable shivering. “Stephen, meet Montgomery.” She paused and looked at Tess’s colleague. “I believe his father built your father’s hall.”
Stephen held out a hand that shook just the slightest bit. Pippa couldn’t have said Montgomery’s was any steadier when he shook his nephew’s, but that moment passed too quickly for her to make much of it. They were suddenly exchanging some species of male chitchat, but she didn’t pay attention to it. She was too busy trying not to read anything into the fact that Montgomery had put his arm out in front of her and had scooted her so she was standing just slightly behind him, or that he had kept his hand wrapped around her wrist, as if he wanted to make certain she didn’t escape. She supposed she wouldn’t have been surprised to see him draw his very sharp sword soon to mark his territory, but maybe he thought that might be going a step too far.
She looked at her sisters to find them looking between Montgomery and Stephen with expressions of astonishment. Peaches managed to tear her gaze away from the men long enough to gape at Pippa.
“Wow,” she mouthed.
Pippa only smiled. Again.
“Perhaps, my lord,” Stephen said, inclining his head, “you would care for something to eat?”
“Later, if you don’t mind,” Montgomery said with equal politeness. “I’ve actually come to dance with this lovely woman here. Persephone, will you favor me?”
Pippa realized Montgomery was talking to her, though it took a moment or two before what he’d asked registered. She smiled, feeling altogether breathless.
“You’re sure you don’t want something to eat first?” she managed.
“Later, after I’ve looked my fill.”
She took a deep breath and tried to put the brakes on her rampaging imagination. It was possible he was talking about the great hall. It was, after all, quite a bit more spectacular than it had been in his day. He could have been interested in Stephen, or Tess’s guests, her sisters. He could have simply wanted to hand her her shoes, scope out the twenty-first century, then hightail it back home before he turned into a pumpkin.
Then again, it was her hand he was holding as he led her across the hall and it was her hand he kept hold of as they waited for the music to change. She was tempted to grill him one more time about his fiancée, but even she could see that might ruin the moment. The man had traveled over eight centuries to bring her a pair of shoes, and now he wanted to dance with her. The least she could do was humor him.
She smiled when she heard the musicians play something that sounded a bit like what she’d heard at Wyckham. “I think I know this one.”
“I daresay you do, my lady.”
She found that while she might have known the dance, she wasn’t able to concentrate on it. That might have had something to do with the fact that she was unable to take her eyes off Montgomery. She had no idea why he’d really come. Coming all that way simply to put shoes on her feet was easily one of the lamest excuses she’d ever—
She stumbled to a halt.
That was a little on the Cinderella-ish side, wasn’t it?
“Persephone?”
She smiled up at him and did her best to concentrate on what she was doing. That was made ever more difficult each time she touched his hand in passing or looked up at his face to find him staring at her with a level of intensity that passed even her father’s ferocious attention to the Plexiglas seams of the cases that held his signed Abbey Road album. No, this was intensity in an entirely different league.
Fortunately for her, the music ended before she embarrassed herself too badly. She stood in front of Montgomery, forced herself to keep her arms down by her sides instead of throwing them around him again as she so desperately wanted to do, and looked for something innocuous to say.
“Let me feed you,” she offered. “Though I should warn you that there might be a few new additions to your kitchen.”
“I know,” he said with a shiver. “I’ve seen them.”
“Frightening?”
He chewed on his words for a moment or two. “I’m not sure I want to admit to that.”
“I’ll keep you safe,” she promised.
He smiled ruefully, and she fell in love with him all over again.
She was in deep trouble.
“I’ll allow it tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow, however, I will be back in charge, as usual. This is an aberration.”
“Whatever you say, cupcake.”
He tucked her hand under his arm. “Lead on, lady, if you will. And pray find me something I might recognize.”
Given the excellence of Tess’s chef, she didn’t doubt there would be something on the fire that would be at least edible. Perhaps Montgomery was fortunate he’d arrived on an evening where his particular time was being celebrated. She heard him catch his breath softly as they entered the kitchens, but he didn’t give any other sign of being freaked out. She had a quiet word with Tess’s cook, then found a stool for Montgomery and a place at a worktable. He pulled the stool out for her instead, then went to fetch another for himself. He sat, then looked at her gravely.
“I left your shoes outside in the current year’s courtyard.”
She had to take a bracing breath. “I can’t believe you braved the gate to bring me shoes.”
“The truth is—” He looked up suddenly, then rose.
Pippa thought she might like to kill whoever had interrupted what she was sure would have been a stunning confession of his true motives. She looked up to find that her future victims were her sisters trailed by a still stunned-looking Stephen de Piaget. Tess put Stephen on a stool, then smiled at Montgomery.
“I should be out there playing host,” she said in her excellent French, “but I wanted to make sure you were comfortable, um, Lord—”
“ ’Tis just Montgomery,” Montgomery supplied. “I am pleased to see the castle looking so well.”
“I can’t take credit for that,” Tess said, blushing. “It was restored in 1850—” She had to take a deep breath. “I suppose you don’t want all the details now. I can give them to you later, if you like.” She paused. “If you’re staying—”
“I would like to, if you have room for me,” Montgomery said with a grave look. “I will, of course, pay—”
“Of course you won’t,” Peaches interrupted with a snort. She laughed a little. “I just meant that, well, you’re almost, um—”
She trailed off uncomfortably, then fell completely silent as Montgomery favored her with the same sort of charming smile she’d seen his brother Nicholas wear as well. Genetics at work again, apparently. Pippa looked between her sisters to find them both blushing furiously. She rolled her eyes. Her sisters looked as if they’d never been in the same room with a man before. Admittedly, Montgomery was luscious, but blush-worthy?
He took her hand, then favored her with a very small, private smile before he continued on a conversation with her sisters in French that seemed to bridge almost eight centuries quite easily.
She blushed as well.
At least Stephen was refraining from that kind of reaction. He simply sat on another stool and gaped.
“Stephen,” she whispered, then she pantomimed closing her mouth with a finger under her chin.
He shut his mouth with a snap, but looked no less overcome.
Pippa understood completely.
“How is your sister Cinderella?” Montgomery asked politely. “Is she happily recovered from her camping experience?”
If her sisters hadn’t been felled before, they were then. Pippa watched as they shared a brief look of approval, then found themselves seats where they could more easily fall all over M
ontgomery. She might have given them a territorial sort of shove and a warning look, but she honestly couldn’t blame them because she was doing the same thing.
And, after all, hers was the hand he was holding.
He let go of her long enough to examine a very lovely meal of beef and vegetables with whole-grain rolls. He tasted everything hesitantly at first, then apparently found it all familiar enough to down with obvious pleasure. He didn’t care for the glass of wine Peaches handed him, but he was quite happy to have water. Pippa hadn’t eaten dinner, but she didn’t manage it then either because all she could do was watch him.
The truth was, she hadn’t expected to see him again. She’d spent an inordinate amount of time telling herself that she didn’t want to see him again, that her life was back to normal and she was happy, happy, happy about it.
She was a dreadful liar.
And that made her very nervous. She needed the future with its marvels. She didn’t want the past with its cold and crumbling walls and people who would just as soon have killed her as to look at her. She wanted murder and mayhem to be limited to the big screen—
Murder and mayhem.
All of a sudden she didn’t feel very good. Everything she’d read earlier that day came back to her in a terrible rush. If the historians were to be believed, the man next to her would in the very near future either die or be wounded seriously enough that he would live out his life a shell of his former self.
“Pippa?”
She felt his arm go around her. She turned toward him and pressed her face against the rough weave of his tunic because it was easier to hide her expression that way.
“It’s nothing,” she managed.
“You’ve had a long day,” he murmured. “Perhaps I should see you to your chamber.”
She had to blink a time or two. She’d had her miserable future planned out, she’d already begun to grieve over what lay in store for him in his future, she’d been prepared to soldier on and make do—
And then she’d seen him across the great hall and everything had changed again.
She pulled back and looked into his very lovely gray eyes. “I’m fine.”