One Enchanted Evening (29 page)

She supposed it would be rude to just hang out in bed all day, so she forced herself to get up, wash, then put on a dress apparently left for her. It was made of such lovely fabric she couldn’t help but linger and fondle just a bit. She continued to study the weave as she left her room and walked down the passageway. It wasn’t linen, she didn’t think, nor was it cotton—

Pippa paused at the sound of humming. She watched who she could only assume was Jennifer, the lady of Wyckham, walking down the hallway in front of her toward the stairs. Jennifer blew her hair out of her eyes, adjusted the baby she was carrying, then held down her hand for what looked to be a two-year-old boy.

“
Allons-y
, Thomas,” she said. “Let’s find you some supper.”

And then the humming, which Pippa realized was coming from Jennifer herself began again. It was something she half recognized, but she couldn’t lay her finger on the name of the tune. She frowned. Had she been in the Middle Ages too long? Admittedly, it had been a little unnerving not to be able to immediately identify the composition of the cloth she was wearing, but surely that was no indication of the arrival of a complete mental breakdown. She briefly ran through the collection of things her parents had hummed for her—which included but hadn’t been limited to Grateful Dead tunes and Beatles standards—but came up empty-handed. Maybe she would try again after she’d had something to eat.

She followed Jennifer—which seemed to be an odd name for a medieval woman to have, but what did she know of the time period?—down the circular stairs, then paused at the edge of the great hall.

It was no wonder Montgomery sighed a lot when he looked at his hall.

There was an arch that spanned the hall from one side to the other, with an enormous fireplace set in one wall and a dozen gorgeous tapestries lining the rest of the stone. There was even a second-floor gallery with light coming in from windows set back too far for her to see. The entire effect was one of elegance and refinement.

It was spectacular.

She lingered there in the shadows for a moment or two and wondered about Montgomery and his family. His brother was obviously rich as Croesus with the castle to prove it. She wasn’t sure why Montgomery had gotten stuck with Sedgwick, but maybe there was more to medieval inheritances than she knew. He seemed to have the money to pay his stone masons to fix his walls, which she supposed he would need to have done if he ever managed to kick his cousins out. No sense in having a way for them to come back inside and kill him.

She shook her head over the thought. She had obviously been in the Middle Ages too long. Murder and mayhem were starting to seem like standard—

Murder and mayhem. She frowned. Hadn’t Peaches said something about Tess’s castle having more than its share of that going for it?

She shook her head. That surely had nothing to do with Montgomery. He would drop her off at the time gate, go pick up his future bride, and his life would go on without incident.

And without her.

She shook aside her unproductive thoughts and wondered if she might possibly get something decent to eat. She looked for Montgomery, didn’t see him, then decided the best thing to do was follow Jennifer to the kitchens—assuming that’s where she’d gone.

She stopped at the edge of the kitchen as she had the edge of the hall to have a look at the lay of the land. The kitchen actually looked a lot like Tess’s with happy staff, ample workspace, and what apparently passed for a medieval rack with pots hanging on it. The lady of the hall was in mid-discussion of something with her cook when she apparently realized she wasn’t alone. She turned to Pippa, then smiled.

“Persephone,” she said, walking over with her boys in her arms. “Welcome to Wyckham. I apologize for not greeting you last night.”

Pippa thought a little curtsey couldn’t go wrong, so she offered it and had a laugh in return.

“Take a baby instead of bowing,” Jennifer said, handing over a boy who had pale blond hair and enormous blue eyes. “Let’s go find something to eat. Montgomery and Nicholas ate hours ago and are now out in the lists, though that probably doesn’t surprise you.”

Pippa shook her head, then enjoyed the happy distraction of a little lad who regarded her with serious eyes, as if he saw things in her he really shouldn’t have been able to. She followed Jennifer out to the great hall, surrendered the baby to his mother, then sat down to what was definitely the best meal she’d had so far on her involuntary vacation. She wasn’t sure what passed for polite small talk in medieval England, but she supposed she couldn’t go wrong with confining her remarks to the weather and the lady of Wyckham’s health, which she did.

Half an hour later, Jennifer held a very sleepy baby in her arms and a fractious toddler by the hand.

“I think the lads have had enough,” she said easily, “so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get them upstairs.” She smiled. “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding the lists, if that’s where you’d like to go. The garden is also lovely, but perhaps a bit chilly today.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Pippa said, getting up and pulling out Jennifer’s chair for her. She had another laugh in return, then stood back and watched the lady of the hall lure her older son up the stairs.

Howls soon ensued when the lad apparently realized just what sort of activity his afternoon was going to include. Pippa smiled to herself, then left the great hall and walked out into an unseasonably comfortable fall afternoon. She followed the sounds of swords and soon found herself on the edge of what apparently served as Lord Nicholas’s training field.

She was quite happy to find a bench there, ready to accept her swooning self.

All right, so she had no business looking where she couldn’t have, but since she was stuck in the Middle Ages for at least another few days without really much to do she supposed she had to keep herself occupied somehow. And if that keeping included appreciating a medieval knight in all his glory, how could she be faulted for it?

She was accustomed to dating—generally just once—academics. She’d dated PhDs, MSes, BSes, and even the occasional dean. They had been, without exception, acquaintances of Peaches’s, and they had, without exception, never asked her for a second date. She had occasionally wondered if she unnerved them by staring a bit too long at the weave of their shirts. Now, she suspected she’d just never had the good fortune to run into a real man.

One like the man on his knees in the lists, fighting off the ferocious advances of a seven-year-old wielding an obviously well-used wooden sword.

Pippa couldn’t help but smile. Montgomery’s sword was made of wood as well and looked to have been designed for his opponent’s stature. The contest didn’t go on for much longer, though she supposed by the groan Montgomery made when he got up off his knees that he had been at it for quite a bit already. He made his vanquisher—Nicholas’s son, by the look of him—a very low bow, then handed over his sword. The boy threw his arms around Montgomery and hugged him tightly, then collected his brother, who had been training with his father, and walked over with a swagger to a bench set against a far wall. Montgomery said something to Nicholas that made him laugh, then glanced her way.

“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.