One Enchanted Evening (25 page)

She might have shivered.

He knew he had.

“Humor me and let me care for you properly.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said faintly.

“Allow me.”

“I can’t.”

“Aye, you can. And you will.”

She looked up at him. “Because you’re not accustomed to being gainsaid?”

“Exactly.”

“Well,” she said slowly, “maybe just this once.”

He was about to tell her she wouldn’t regret it, but he wasn’t sure they wouldn’t
both
regret it.

He handed Pippa’s reins to a stable lad, then offered her his arm. It seemed perfectly natural, as if he’d been doing it for years. He tilted his head toward the hall and she nodded and walked with him. He knew the peace couldn’t last, but he fully intended to enjoy it whilst it did.

He walked into the great hall with Pippa only to find it in a complete uproar, with Joan and her kitchens lads and lasses running about as if the king himself were set to arrive. That couldn’t have been caused by François’s arrival, which meant something else was afoot. Montgomery stopped one of his lesser guardsmen who had been pressed into kitchen service.

“What is it?”

“There is going to be a wedding, my lord,” the man said breathlessly. “The queen has said so.”

“Who is the bridegroom?” Montgomery asked in surprise.

The man looked at Montgomery as if he’d lost his wits. Montgomery felt something slide down his spine. It wasn’t the healthy bit of anxiousness he briefly felt at the beginning of a battle or the slight unease he occasionally enjoyed at the sight of a very formidable opponent.

This was something that made him want to turn and bolt.

“Well,” he managed, “speak up, man. Who is the bridegroom?”

“Why, my lord
,
’tis you.”

P
ippa
looked down at herself and felt as if she’d been in a dream for days, a dream that had been full of things she hadn’t expected, a dream that had ended the same way it had begun: with her walking out of her bedroom to go downstairs to a party where her sister would be, as usual, the center of attention.

Only the torches on her current walls weren’t fake, and Montgomery de Piaget hadn’t said a word when he’d been informed he was going to be getting married to the Fairy Queen.

Pippa had checked under Cindi’s pillow and found only five pills left, which meant her sister was coming to the end of her good-times road, though she was probably still firmly entrenched in the land of delusion. She could only hope Cindi didn’t pop out of her daydreams, break into some modern song, and then expect everyone to sing the chorus with her.

She walked down the stairs to the great hall, slipping by cousins who snarled at her, and the lady Gunnild, who looked at her as if she would have liked nothing better than to take the knife she wore openly in her belt and stow it in Pippa’s back. She ran for the kitchens before Cindi could notice her and before she had time to see if Montgomery was looking forward to or dreading his wedding feast.

She paused at the passageway leading to the kitchens and looked back over her shoulder. Cindi was standing in the middle of the great hall, looking upward at the ceiling that was in need of a patch here and there, and spinning around and around with her arms stretched out. Her hair was hanging in filthy strands around her face and down her back, her dress was very much worse for the wear, and her crown kept falling off her head.

It was tempting to say that served her right, but Pippa couldn’t. She couldn’t even bring herself to continue on to the kitchen. It certainly wasn’t anything she particularly wanted to do, but she found herself turning and walking back out into the great hall. She caught her sister by the arm, then made her an elegant curtsey worthy of the finest of Shakespearean actors.

“My queen,” Pippa said deferentially.

Cindi scowled at her. “What do you want?”

Words she hadn’t intended came out of her mouth. “I came to prepare you for the wedding feast, Your Majesty.” She reached up and touched Cindi’s crown. “A beauty queen must always look her best.”

Cindi’s own mantra must have penetrated her fogged brain because she nodded slowly. Pippa looked for a likely spot, but there really wasn’t anywhere private besides Montgomery’s solar. She supposed that would have to do. She took Cindi by the arm and walked her across the hall. She knocked and smiled at Fitzpiers when he opened the door.

“Don’t you ever stop working?” she asked.

“I’m making up for years of something approaching neglect,” he said with an answering smile. “Lord Montgomery inspires that sort of labor, doesn’t he?”

Lord Montgomery inspired a great many things, but she supposed she shouldn’t list them. She nodded, because that was the safest thing to do.

“Are you looking for a bit of quiet?” he asked.

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

He shut the door for her, then went back to his work. Pippa sat Cindi down in a chair in front of the fire, fetched a cup of wine for her sister, then started from the bottom and worked her way up.

By the time she was finished trying to resurrect Cindi’s appearance, she was fetching wine for herself as well. It was a good thing she’d had so much practice in getting Cindi ready for pageants when Cindi’s assistant had flaked out yet again or she might have been less sure of her results. She had done the best she could with what she had. She certainly hadn’t had the time to sew on all the crystals she was keeping in her pockets, but she doubted Cindi would miss them. At least Cindi had kept herself in Montgomery’s room most of the time so her contact with the local soil had been kept to a minimum.

Pippa stood back and admired her work. Cindi looked up.

“Well?”

“Stunning.”

“Of course,” Cindi said, but she didn’t sound as majestic as she usually did.

Pippa didn’t want to push her. She was nervous enough about the dwindling supply of drugs in her sister’s possession. She was definitely not one to advocate mind-altering substances—she had seen what they had done to her parents—but she also didn’t want her sister have a full-blown freak-out in the middle of dinner.

After dinner, maybe, when Montgomery would be taking her upstairs and making her his wife. Cindi could lose it completely then. Maybe Montgomery would put his foot down then. She couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t before. After he’d received the news of his impending nuptials, he’d simply deposited her in his solar, then retreated to the lists. She’d almost wished she’d known how to use a sword. She would have gone with him.

She hadn’t seen him at all that morning, though she suspected by the looks of the men straggling back into the hall that he’d continued his workouts.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to speculate why.

She sighed deeply. The fairy tale had turned into a nightmare and she was still the one covered in soot. There was a comforting familiarity about that, though, so she didn’t fight it. Especially since she had other things to do besides be a part of any fairy tale. Manhattan called and she fully intended to answer. Her sort-of-woven plans to get back home were getting a little threadbare, but she hadn’t given up. Sooner or later Cindi would find herself back in reality—married or not—and then they would have to make a decision.

And Pippa’s would be to get the hell out of Dodge.

“I’m certain lunch is ready,” Cindi said, lifting her chin. “Pave the way, serving girl.”

Pippa opened the door, but that was as far as she got before Cindi shoved her aside and swept into the great hall, looking for all the world as if she really had been the Queen of Fairy come to gaze upon her loyal subjects. Pippa could almost wrap her mind around the thought of a man, namely Montgomery, being willing to marry her sister. She was nothing short of stunning.

She left Cindi to twirling again in the middle of the hall, rather tidier than she had been an hour before, and walked off to check on the goings-on in the kitchen. There were two sets of cooks at the fire—difficult even on a good day and made all the more difficult by the temperament of François. Joan had done her best to stay out of his way since last night, but that was difficult when she was cooking for fifty and he was cooking for less than ten.

She backed into Montgomery before she realized he was behind her. She turned in time to have him catch her by the arms to steady her. He looked down at her gravely.

“How do you fare, lady?”

“Better than you, I imagine,” she said brightly. She knew she sounded less bright than brittle, but since she had no reason for it, she pressed on. “Bridegroom jitters and all.”

“Hmmm,” was all he said.

“Cindi’s waiting for you in the great hall,” Pippa continued, because if she’d stopped talking, she might have allowed herself to realize just how much her life sucked.

Wasn’t it enough that she was semi- stuck, hundreds of years out of her time, without a serger? Or electricity to run that serger? Or even some decent bolts of fabric and a needle and thread? Now she had to be perky and cheerful when her sister was poised to marry a guy she had started to like?

And what wasn’t there to like about him? He was bossy, true, and irritatingly medieval in his attitudes, but he had a lovely smile, a dimple, and a deliciously dry sense of humor. He wasn’t an actor. He hadn’t asked her to check her pockets for cash so he could fill up the feed end of his horse.

Of course, the fact that he was living several centuries in the past was a big Karma-engineered relationship obstacle, but since she was making a list, there was no sense in not being positive.

“Persephone.”

She closed her eyes briefly. If he would just stop saying her name that way, she might stand a chance of being truly objective about him. She looked up at him and attempted another bright smile.

“Aye, my lord?”

He started to speak, hesitated, then shut his mouth and shook his head. He put his hand on her shoulder exactly as she’d seen him do a dozen times to his squire, then he nodded to her and walked away.

Well, obviously he wasn’t too broken up by the thought of only getting to call her
sister
for the rest of his life.

She clapped her hand to her forehead on the off chance it would dislodge some last vestige of common sense. There was no reason to consider any of it seriously. Cindi couldn’t marry Montgomery de Piaget because he was eight hundred years older than she was and he lived in a time without plastic surgeons and photo shoots. Her sister would be satisfied with her life for about seven seconds after she’d come down off her high and realized what she’d gotten herself into. Even if she’d managed to reconcile herself to camping for the rest of her life, she never would have been able to appreciate Montgomery’s finer chivalric qualities.

Pippa put her shoulders back. Obviously, she was going to need to take matters into her own hands. She didn’t want to be the one to be the impediment to a happily ever after, but obviously she was going to need to. All she had to do was wait for the right time during the ceremony, then come up with some sort of reasonable-sounding objection.

She was going to check her sister for sharp objects first, though given Cindi’s powerful right hook, maybe she should just check for room to duck.

François was fussing over something that actually smelled heavenly. She didn’t want to ask what sorts of unhealthy fats were loitering in it. She tasted when a taste was offered, then heaped well-deserved praise. François accepted the accolades with a modest smile and handed her something sweet.

She almost envied Montgomery his dinner table and expanding waistline.

She made herself scarce until lunch was served, then hovered at the back of the hall by the kitchen passageway not because she wasn’t hungry but because she almost couldn’t bring herself to watch what was going on. It was like a train wreck, just too horrible to look away from. Montgomery was sitting next to Cindi, looking gorgeous and charming and more wonderful than he had any right to. Cindi was flirting madly with him, but Pippa knew her sister was seeing only a gorgeous face, not the man who was kind to his squire, ruthless with his men, and generous enough to teach a greenhorn how to trot so she would be safe in a time that wasn’t at all safe for a city girl with only twenty-first-century skills.

What a waste.

As was attempting to enjoy a wooden bowl full of things that one of François’s assistants brought her. She couldn’t taste it, so she merely held on to it and felt quite thoroughly ill.

Toasting began as dinner wound down. Gunnild rose and reminded everyone she was the lady of the hall and was happy to see her cousin so happily settled. Boydin followed, telling a ribald tale or two about Montgomery that couldn’t possibly be true given that the stories were completely out of character for the man she knew. Montgomery shifted uncomfortably, as if he were considering getting up to offer a few corrections. Pippa was ready to offer a few thoughts of her own, but before she could, Gunnild had shoved a frail, sickly looking man Pippa could only assume was a priest to his feet.

“The time for the ceremony has come,” he wheezed. “Unless there are impediments to the marriage.” He looked at Gunnild. “The banns have not been read—”

“Never mind that,” Gunnild said shortly.

“We have no chapel—”

“We don’t need one,” Gunnild snarled. “Be about your work, old man.”

The man had another drink, spilling most of it down the front of his tunic, then he apparently took his courage in hand. “We’ll carry on, unless anyone has a reason to protest—”

“I do,” Pippa said loudly.

She realized only as the company was divided between looking at her and looking at Montgomery that she hadn’t been the only one to voice that sentiment. The priest looked first at her, then at Montgomery.