One Enchanted Evening (48 page)

Pippa blinked. He had pushed her? Somehow, she just wasn’t surprised. She would have thanked him, but he seemed suddenly quite occupied by exchanging insults with Fulbert de Piaget. She wished desperately for somewhere to sit, but since there didn’t seem to be anything handy, she leaned against the wall and watched as Ambrose MacLeod walked over to a glowering Martin and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Now, friend,” Ambrose said mildly, “give her the tidings I’ve told you to reveal.”

“Or you’ll do what?” Martin spat.

“Make the rest of your unlife hell is my guess,” Fulbert offered. “Don’t think ye’d care for it, but that’s just my opinion.”

Martin turned his glare on her. “I didn’t kill him and that’s all I’ll say. You divine the rest, since you’re so clever.”

“Does he die?” Pippa whispered.

Martin clamped his lips shut and only glared at her. Pippa looked at him for a long minute, then at the three ghosts.

“Will any of you tell me about the past?” she asked.

Ambrose shot Hugh a look, then turned to her with a gentle smile. “We can only give you a push in the right direction, lass. The rest is up to you.” He paused. “I think you know more about young Montgomery’s situation at Sedgwick than we ever could, especially considering the trustworthiness of this lad here.”

Pippa considered Martin for a moment or two, then thought about his siblings and his mother. She supposed she should put Lord Everard of Chevington into the mix as well given his blatant insults sent Montgomery’s way. The unfortunate truth was, the murderer could have been anyone.

Assuming the history books were right.

She looked at Hugh and managed a smile. “Thank you for the push.”

He twisted his cap in his hands. “Then ye don’t mind the past—”

“
I
certainly would,” Fulbert said, draining his cup. “Bed-bugs, winter, the French. Or, worse still, the Scots—”

Hugh spun around to glare at him. “Apologize.”

Fulbert looked at Hugh in silence for a moment or two, then flicked his mug into oblivion. “Nay.”

Swords were drawn. Pippa decided it was past time to leave ghostly antics up in towers where they belonged. She thanked Ambrose quietly, ignored Martin, then left the room with the sound of metal ringing in her ears. She paused on the landing, then decided she wasn’t quite ready to face either questions or decisions quite yet. A few minutes on the roof to simply let the sea breeze blow through her overworked brain was probably what she needed the most.

She walked out onto the roof, then along the parapet until she found a likely spot to look out over the ocean. The endless roar was mesmerizing, which was handy given that she needed to be mesmerized. She wished she’d had more ghostly assistance, but when it came right down to it, no one could really help her but herself.

If she had the courage to do so.

She listened to the waves for a bit, wondering if Montgomery had ever stood in the place where she was, or if he was standing there now—

Before he rode off to Sedgwick to meet a death he likely expected, but might not see coming.

She was preparing herself to jump right into that thought when she realized she wasn’t alone on the roof. She realized with equal certainty but even more terror that she was all on her own without Montgomery’s very sharp sword to protect her. She carefully turned her head, then almost fell off the roof when she realized who had come to join her.

“Come to organize me?” Pippa asked her sister faintly.

Peaches walked over to her, then leaned against a wall that looked sturdy enough to hold up to that kind of thing. “I think you’re conflicted.”

Pippa shook her head sharply. “No, I’m terrified.”

“That you’ll lose him, or that you’ll manage to get back to save him?”

“Peaches, that’s too blunt.”

“You need blunt,” Peaches said in a normal voice. It wasn’t even her soothing organizer voice. It was just her everyday voice, as if she just had something to get off her chest and didn’t really care how it was received. “Sometimes, sister dear, you just can’t have it all.”

“Can’t I?” Pippa asked, stalling.

“No,” Peaches said, “you can’t. No one can. You can’t have a full-time life as a clothing designer in New York and a happy marriage back in the Middle Ages. I can’t spend all my time traveling the world while at the same time organizing peoples’ sock drawers. Tess can’t be a full-time academic, and a full-time party planner, and a full-time mystery writer with a dozen kids running around the castle poking each other with fake swords.”

Pippa managed a smile. “Does she want all that?”

“I don’t thinks she knows what she wants,” Peaches said frankly, “but I think
you
know what
you
want.”

“I don’t—”

“Pip, why do you design things with a medieval flavor to them?”

“Because I love medieval things.”

“Why?”

Pippa shrugged helplessly. “Because I like dropped waists and sheer fabric draping from conical headgear. I like the romance—the very unrealistic romance, I might add—of men and women dancing by candlelight in a stone-walled great hall.”

“That isn’t it,” Peaches said relentlessly. “When women put on your dropped-waisted, open-chain-belted, silk-and-velvet gowns, how do you want them to feel? Itchy? Uncomfortable?”

Pippa laughed a bit, then suddenly found it not quite so funny. She clutched the rock under her fingers. “I want them to feel like princesses.”

“Why?” Peaches asked gently.

Pippa felt tears spring to her eyes. “Because that will mean they’ve found their handsome princes and they’ll go off to live in their castles full of music and love and the laughter of children.”

Peaches stepped forward and hugged Pippa tightly. “I suspected as much.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. Let’s go. I think you have your answer and I think you need to pack. The earl’s invited us to stay as long as we like and he is seemingly resigned to all sorts of very strange goings-on in his castle. We’ll all fit right in.”

Pippa stopped her before she walked away. “I’ll miss you.”

Peaches blinked rapidly. “I didn’t come up here to talk about that. We’ll deal with that later. You have a few phone calls to make to sisters and sundry. Lord Edward’s giving you free rein in the gift shop so you can take a few things back for your future husband, and Mary’s offered to give you a riding lesson in the morning.”

“Who’s Mary?”

“Zachary Smith’s wife.” Peaches looked at her. “She’s Robin de Piaget’s daughter. You know, Kendrick’s younger sister.” She paused. “That would make her, I believe, Montgomery’s niece.”

“I have a headache.”

Peaches laughed and linked arms with her. “You need dinner.”

Pippa suspected she might need something a little more bracing than dinner, but maybe that wasn’t such a good idea considering she needed a clear head.

She walked with Peaches along corridors and down stairs, considering what they’d discussed earlier. The truth was, it wasn’t so much that she loved the fabric she sewed with, or the designs, or all the vintage trim, it was that she loved what it represented: a connection with the past, beautiful women standing on battlements waiting for their knights to come riding home, ladies who had their lords watch them from across a noble-filled court with love in their eyes. Her clothes represented the fairy tale and the fairy tale boiled down to a man and a woman falling in love, having children, and living happily ever after.

She wasn’t as dewy-eyed as she’d been in her youth. She knew that didn’t work out for everyone.

But she wanted it to work out for
her
.

And she could either keep on with fabric and sequins and dreaming of her knight in shining armor, or she could turn the fairy tale on its head, take a chance, and go off to rescue him before one of his bloody cousins managed to kill him.

No matter what the history books had said about her timing.

She looked at her sister. “Thank you.”

Peaches only hugged her briefly. “Not yet, Pippa. I’m not ready to talk about that yet.” She dragged her sleeve across her eyes and cleared her throat. “But you’re welcome.”

Pippa smiled in spite of herself and continued on down the hallway.

M
ontgomery
woke, realizing only then that he’d been unconscious. He sat up and looked around him, then leapt to his feet. Artane was there behind him.

Only it was missing several modern additions he’d noticed over the past pair of days.

He spun around and froze. There in front of him was the time gate. He knew it, because it was the same gate he’d ventured near scores of times in his youth. He leapt forward only to find himself jerked backward. He whirled around, his hand on his sword, only to realize he didn’t have his sword. It was inside Artane, true, but that Artane found itself several centuries in the future.

And that Artane was, he knew with a sinking heart, several centuries from where he now stood.

He shook off the hand of his brother-in-law Jackson, who stood in front of him, watching him gravely.

“Don’t,” Jake said calmly.

“Are you mad?” Montgomery demanded. “I must—”

Jake took hold of him again in a grip that wasn’t so easily brushed off that time. “Listen to me, Montgomery. Look at what you’re stepping into before you do something stupid that I can’t fix.”

Montgomery cursed, but the tone of his brother-in-law’s voice checked his impulse to rush ahead and consider the advisability of it later. He supposed it wouldn’t cost him too much to at least look. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see, but he knew what he didn’t see and that was any sign of Pippa.

Instead, he saw warriors of different vintages, scenes of bloodshed, the ghosts of women and children fleeing. Or at least he did for a moment or two. The scene then changed to men and women in other dress, men with weapons he didn’t recognize, ground that didn’t look as it should have. The scene shifted again and again, more times than he could count. Unfortunately, none of the scenes was the one he wanted to see. He took a deep breath and looked at his brother-in-law.

“What are you telling me?” he asked, weary beyond belief.

“I’m telling you that if you step into that spot, you won’t wind up where you want to be.”

Montgomery considered. “How did you know to be here at this particular time?”

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force,” Jake said dryly. “No, I’m kidding. I just had a hunch I might see something interesting this morning.”

Montgomery rubbed his hands over his face. “I have to get back.”

“Not today, you don’t.” Jake looked him over from head to toe. “And just so we’re clear, if you do go back to the future, I want those jeans before you leave.”

Montgomery pulled out Stephen’s keys. “Want the Mercedes, too?”

“Damn you,” Jake said with a laugh. “Don’t tell me someone let you drive.”

“Not as much as I would have liked.”

“No doubt,” Jake said. “Whose car was it?”

“Stephen, son of the current—or future—lord of Artane, Edward.” He slid Jake a sideways glance. “Know either of them?”

“Our twenty-first-century lord Edward? Aye. Stephen? Never met him. I’m surprised, though, that he let you drive his very expensive beast.”

“He let my future wife drive. I only convinced her to give me a turn.”

Jake looked at him with a smile. “Your future wife? That sounds promising.”

“It would be, if I could get myself back to her. And to answer what you haven’t managed to ask yet, I followed her to the Future so I could ask her to wed me.” He shoved the keys back into his pocket. “And now I need to follow her again because I got separated from her before I could spew the question out.” He looked up at the sky. “It was evening when I felt myself falling, but it’s now morning here.” He dragged his hands through his hair and cursed. “She must think I’m dead.”

“Which you very well may be if you try the gate right now.” Jake’s expression was very grave. “Please, Montgomery, trust me on this.”

“How do you know so much about this?” Montgomery asked, pained.

“I’ll tell you later,” Jake said, then he nodded toward the keep. “Let’s go inside and regroup. I’m sure we’ll find answers in a bottle of your father’s finest.”

Montgomery blinked. “Did you know you’re speaking modern English?”

“So, brother, are you.”

“Which I can thank
you
for,” Montgomery said with a scowl, “given all the times I eavesdropped on you.”

“Real knights don’t eavesdrop,” Jake said airily.

“They do when they can’t escape the incessant chattering in a tongue not their own,” Montgomery grumbled. “I will admit it was rather involuntary, at first, but my curiosity did get the better of me. After all, I thought you and Jennifer were faeries. Well, and Abigail, too, I suppose. Imagine my surprise to recently find out the truth.”

“I can only imagine,” Jake murmured.

Montgomery shot him a dark look, but couldn’t find it in him to say anything else. He simply turned and looked at the gate. He could still see echoes of things swirling in it, things he didn’t particularly care for. He studied it for several moments in silence, then looked at his brother-in-law.

“It won’t work now, will it?”

Jake considered the spot before them, then shook his head slowly. “I’m no expert, of course, but I don’t like the feel of it. You might try to force the gate to your will, but I’m fairly sure you wouldn’t manage it now. A different time, perhaps, but not now. Then again, there’s no guarantee it would work even under the best of circumstances.”

“But I have to reach her.”

“I understand,” Jake said quietly. “Believe me, I understand.” He paused and considered for a moment or two. “I suppose you could wait here for her to come to you, if you think she will. It might take hours, or it might take months.”