One Enchanted Evening (47 page)

The tone of his voice was enough to have her rethinking her plans. She stepped away from him far enough to look at what was behind her yet still keep him in her sights. She glanced at the spot where she’d last seen Montgomery, then realized exactly what she was looking at.

A time gate.

She started to shake. In fact, she began to shake so terribly that she almost frightened herself. A hand again took her by the arm.

“Let’s go back up to the keep.”

She turned to the man. “Who are you?”

“Zachary Smith,” he said with a smile. “Who are you?”

“Pippa Alexander.”

Zachary Smith looked at her for a moment or two, then stared at the gate that was now nothing more than dead air. “Who were you running with?”

She could hardly breathe. “You wouldn’t know him,” she managed.

“Maybe not,” Zachary agreed, “but why don’t you try me?”

“Montgomery de Piaget,” Pippa said, taking hold of a sudden feeling of defiance. “Now, are you going to tell me why I can’t back up five feet and try to go find him, or am I going to punch you really hard in the face and leave you on your knees wishing you’d let go sooner?”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a condescending smile. It was a smile that somehow said that he might understand a bit what she was feeling.

“I’m properly cowed,” Zachary said gravely, “but I hope you’re properly warned.” He paused. “I couldn’t decide if it was Montgomery or John. They’re twins, you know. And they look so much like their eldest brother that I think if we were to see them all at the same age, it would be difficult to tell them apart.”

Pippa retrieved her jaw from where it had fallen to her chest. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Their older brother,” Zachary said patiently. “Robin de Piaget.”

“And how the hell do you know
him
?” she demanded.

“He’s my father-in-law.”

Pippa found herself flat on her backside before Zachary even reached for her. He squatted down in front of her and put his hand under her chin, lifting her face up.

“I think you’re going to faint,” he remarked.

“I’m not.”

“Hmmm,” was the last thing she heard.

 

 

She
woke in a bed. She wouldn’t have called it her bed because her bed was now ashes in a landfill, but it was definitely the bed she’d woken up in that morning. She opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling for a bit, then turned her head.

Peaches and Tess were sitting there in two chairs by her bed, looking like identical statues carved from marble. They were very pale and very still.

“When did you two get here?” she croaked.

“About an hour ago,” Peaches said seriously.

“Stephen had the feeling we should come,” Tess added. “I had no idea my car would go that fast.”

“We’re lucky he didn’t get a ticket,” Peaches said with a shiver.

Tess shook her head. “He drives a lot between the university and a flat he keeps in York. I think he knows where all the speed cameras are.” She looked at Pippa. “We heard about Montgomery.”

Pippa sat up, but her head began to spin so badly that she found herself lying back down again without really knowing how she’d gotten there. “I think he was going to ask me to marry him.”

“I expect so,” Peaches agreed.

Pippa allowed herself approximately thirty seconds of dizziness before she sat back up. She gritted her teeth and swung her legs to the floor. “I need to get to a library, or a bookstore, or something. Now.”

Peaches exchanged a look with Tess, then reached behind her and pulled something out of her bag. “This what you’re looking for?”

Pippa looked at the book that had started all her stress, then met her sister’s gaze. “I’ve already read that one. I want more information.”

Peaches set the book on the floor, then stood. “All right. We’ll go with you. Where to?”

“I want to look in the castle’s gift shop. If that doesn’t tell me what I want to know, I might have to break into the public library.” She looked at Tess. “Do they have libraries here?”

“Probably not in the village, but up the coast surely,” Tess said, standing up. “Why don’t we try the shop first? If that doesn’t work, we’ll go up the coast tomorrow.”

Pippa had no intention of waiting until tomorrow, but she supposed she didn’t need to say as much. If the gift shop didn’t cut it, she would beg Stephen to rifle through his father’s books. One way or another, she had to have details that night.

She had to stand still for a moment or two until she felt more herself, then she walked over to the door and opened it.

Stephen was standing against the wall under a fake torch, looking so much like Montgomery that she almost wept. Instead, she put her shoulders back and lifted her chin.

“I need books.”

He inclined his head. “Of course, my lady.”

The thought of the very rich and powerful son of the Earl of Artane giving her such deference was ridiculous, but she wasn’t about to argue with him. She took the arm he offered and walked down the passageway, then down the stairs to the great hall. Stephen stopped so suddenly, he almost ripped her arm out of its socket. She looked up at him in surprise.

“What is it?”

He could only nod in the direction of the lord’s table. Pippa looked, but only saw Kendrick and Gideon laughing over something. Gideon looked over, then smiled.

“Stephen, get over here, old man. I don’t think you’ve met the Earl of Seakirk.”

Pippa understood suddenly why Stephen looked so shocked. “Haven’t you ever met him?” she asked.

“Heard a bit about him,” Stephen said faintly, “but no, I’ve never met him. I’m not home all that much.”

“He’s Montgomery’s nephew, you know,” she said. “I think that makes him your uncle.”

Stephen took a deep breath. “He couldn’t look any more like Montgomery.”

“Or like you, actually.” She smiled up at him. “You should get to know him. I can guarantee there will be swordplay involved.”

“Heaven help me,” Stephen said with feeling.

Pippa laughed a bit, feeling a very brief respite from the grief that felt like a fist clutching her heart. She walked Stephen over to the table, then stood back as Gideon, with irrepressible glee, introduced Kendrick and Stephen to each other. He seemed to find his older brother’s consternation to be endlessly amusing. Pippa supposed there was good reason for it, but she didn’t have the time to figure out what it was.

She stood back and watched something of a little family reunion. Stephen pulled Tess and Peaches into the fray, as it were, introducing them to his parents and his newfound relations. Pippa went to stand against one of the walls, because she had to have something to lean against. She wasn’t going to be rude, but she really needed a little foray into history before it completely got away from her. Either that, or she wanted a brief trip to the time gate.

Unfortunately, Zachary Smith was watching her, so she supposed the latter wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.

She jumped when she realized Kendrick was no longer over with his family but had come to stand next to her instead.

“It was like this then,” he remarked.

She looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“My father’s hall, during his time. Artane was always full of cousins and aunts and uncles.”

She turned to face him. “Do you remember me?”

He looked more serious than she had ever seen him. Admittedly, she hadn’t spent all that much time with him, but there was no trace of anything remotely resembling teasing in his face.

“Please don’t ask me that,” he said very quietly.

She caught her breath. “Why not?”

“Because to change your future is to change your past, my past, and Montgomery’s past.” He took a careful breath. “Do what you have to, Persephone, and let Fate play her hand as she will.”

“Do you believe in Fate?”

“Absolutely.”

She looked back over the hall. “If Genevieve were in the past, would you leave all this and go back to live with her there?”

“Do you have to ask?”

She supposed she didn’t. She looked up at him. “I love him.”

“I know.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me how he feels about me?” she demanded.

He lifted one eyebrow. “Do I need to?”

She looked at him narrowly. “I just want you to know that if I get back there and we both survive it, I will make your young life a living hell.”

He scratched his head. “You know, I get that a lot. Can’t think of what I do to deserve it.”

“I’m starting a list. I’ll let you know when I’ve finished it.”

He laughed and put his hand on her shoulder. “One of your sisters—and damn me if I’m not surrounded by copies of either my sons, my uncles, or your sisters everywhere I go—one of them told me you were looking for a little history.”

“Have any locked away?”

“I can get you a key to the shop,” he offered. “I don’t let my wee ones in there, but I have been known to snoop now and again myself.” He winked at her. “I have a fondness for history.”

“I imagine you do.” She paused, then looked up at him searchingly. “Montgomery didn’t tell me anything about why you’re here in this time instead of your own. In case you’re curious.”

“Did you ask?”

“Nope.”

He smiled. “You are a discreet woman, Persephone Alexander.”

“Go get the key, my lord.”

He pulled a silver key out of his pocket. “We’ll take Stephen with us, just so the bobbies don’t come and handcuff us. Besides, that’ll give me a chance to watch him gape at me a bit longer. ’Tis vastly entertaining, truly.”

She imagined it was and she imagined she wished he would just shut up and start walking. She did manage to get him and his nephew out the door in a reasonable amount of time, with Peaches and Tess coming along for the short walk across the courtyard. Within minutes, she was standing in front of a rather long shelf of things that pertained either to the castle or its inhabitants. Kendrick took one end, Tess took the other, and she began in the middle.

It took almost an hour, but she finally found what she was looking for.

And when she did, she avoided hyperventilating only because she was afraid she would pass out right into a rack of very pricey-looking china. She shoved the book at Tess.

“Read it.”

Kendrick and Stephen stood there, still as stone, watching gravely as Tess read the paragraph to herself, then read it aloud.

Montgomery had died. Twenty-four hours before a woman who announced herself as his fiancée had arrived to save him.

Pippa turned and walked out of the shop. She continued on back into the great hall and then upstairs, ignoring questions, comments, and concerns that were gently floated her way. She was going to stop in her room, but she found herself carrying on down the passageway and up other stairs that seemed to wind forever.

It was probably already too late to even attempt a rescue.

She pushed open the door to what she assumed was a circular tower room, then flicked on the lights, intending to just have a bit of peace from prying eyes. She was surprised enough to see it occupied that she could only stare stupidly at the four men clustered there. One of them was in a chair, bound with ropes, and the other three were standing around him, dressed, respectively, in a kilt, another kilt, and Renaissance England duds.

She knew that because she was a costume designer.

She wondered if she might be heading down the road that led to Cindi’s room in the local crazy hotel, but got hold of herself before true hysteria set in. She started to back out the door, an apology on her lips, then realized she recognized the red-haired Scot. She’d seen him loitering in Tess’s castle.

Well, before he’d vanished, of course.

He made her a low bow. “Mistress Pippy,” he said with a gap-toothed smile.

“Ach, Hugh, you’ll terrify the lass unless you make a proper introduction for us,” said the other Scot, walking over and making a low bow. “I am Ambrose MacLeod, Miss Alexander. These are my partners in crime, as it were, Hugh McKinnon and Fulbert de Piaget.”

Pippa nodded to herself. She’d known it would all come down to crime. Trespassing in castles not their own, tying up innocent guys, also in castles not their own—

She realized, with a start, that she wasn’t looking at D-list actors in the midst of rehearsing a scene from a lousy cop movie; she was looking at ghosts. Somehow, given the month she’d had, she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised.

Ambrose MacLeod smiled kindly. “We’ve tidings for you, my dear. Tidings from that miscreant there which will help you in your quest.”

Pippa spared a brief and futile wish for something out of her mother’s stash to help her deal with what she was seeing, then decided that since it might be classified as the least of the weird things that had happened to her over the past month, she could probably deal with it by normal means. She took a deep breath, nodded to her hosts, then pointed at the man sitting in the chair with the hood of his cloak pulled over his face.

“Who’s the miscreant?”

Hugh pulled the hood back with a flourish. Pippa gasped at the sight of Martin of Sedgwick sitting there, looking particularly belligerent.

“What are
you
doing here?” she asked in surprise.

“Spilling his cowardly guts,” Fulbert said, plucking a mug of something out of thin air and having a swig. “Of course, he wouldn’t need to if Hugh hadn’t put his oar in where it wasn’t wanted.”

“I was well within me rights to do so,” Hugh said, glaring at Fulbert. “She’s
me
kin, ye unimaginative Brit.”

“She is
not
your kin,” Fulbert said. “By the saints, man, can ye not read a pedigree chart?”

“She’s kin of someone I didn’t want to kill,” Hugh said, through gritted teeth, “a someone who just happens to be a cousin several spots removed, which
makes her family
.” He shot Fulbert a look of promise, then turned a smile on Pippa. “I didn’t mean to push ye into the moat, missy.” He doffed his cap and bobbed a quick bow. “I meant to acquaint you with young Stephen de Piaget, but me pushing went awry.”