One Enchanted Evening (54 page)

Peaches shot him a look, but he only returned that look with wide-eyed innocence. Peaches scowled at him, then sat back and let Tess take over the questioning. It was enough at the moment to simply watch the souls there who were connected over centuries. In spite of the fact that she had cut her teeth on some fairly far-out ideas, the thought of time traveling and ghosts and all other things paranormal was almost too far-fetched for her.

She looked at her sister Tess and pursed her lips. Now, there was one who’d been made for traipsing around in the Middle Ages. She was half surprised her twin hadn’t learned to use a sword, but maybe that was next on her list of things to do, now that she’d gotten used to hanging out in Sedgwick, pretending to live in another century.

“Who?” Genevieve asked incredulously.

Peaches snapped back to the conversation, feeling like she’d missed something she shouldn’t have.

“William of Sedgwick,” Kendrick was saying with a shrug. “He was our cousin Arnulf’s eldest. Montgomery took him in trade for Gunnild, which I suppose wasn’t a good trade, but better than the alternative.” He was holding the book Pippa had found in Artane’s gift shop. “And this obscure little tome was written by a certain William Sedgwick Maledica.” Kendrick shot his wife a look. “I imagine that name is familiar.”

Peaches watched the blood drain from Genevieve’s face. There was a story there, but she had the feeling it wasn’t going to be a good one.

“Why is the name familiar?” Tess asked, holding out her hand for the book. “Do you know him?”

“Knew him,” Kendrick said. “It’s a very long tale, one far too tedious to tell today. Suffice it to say, he had reason for not wanting your sister to travel back and save my uncle.”

“Kendrick,” Genevieve said in a low voice, “why didn’t you say anything to Pippa? She could have told Montgomery—”

“And changed history,” Kendrick said, reaching for her hand. “My history in particular, which would have left me without you.” He kissed her hand. “You wouldn’t want to sentence me to a life of hell, now, would you?”

“Even I couldn’t wish that on you,” Mary said with a sigh.

Kendrick shot his sister a wry look. “Thank you so much, love.”

Mary started to speak, then clapped her hand over her mouth. She leaped to her feet, then bolted from Lord Edward’s solar. Zachary stood, wished everyone a good afternoon, then hurried off to follow his wife.

Peaches watched them go, then looked up as Kendrick and Genevieve excused themselves as well. Megan shifted her sleeping daughter in her arms and exchanged a look with her husband. Gideon helped her to her feet, then clapped Stephen on the shoulder on his way across the room.

“Come home more often.”

“I’m not sure I can stomach the odd happenings here,” Stephen said faintly.

Gideon only laughed and put his arm around his wife as he walked with her from the room.

Peaches continued to sit in front of the fire until the silence became a warm, comforting thing. She finally came to the point where she thought she could look at Tess and not weep.

“I think she’s happy.”

“How could she not be?” Tess said quietly. “He was crazy about her.”

“Hot showers,” Stephen said distinctly. “Hot tea, fast cars, and scones with clotted cream.”

Peaches smiled at him. “Are fast cars still on your list considering your uncle has your keys?”

He pulled another set from his pocket.

Peaches laughed. “Come on, Tess. Let’s go home. I’ll help you organize your prop room and get Pippa’s hope chest organized. She’s going to wonder what that key I stuck in her backpack is to.”

“How will she take possession of it?” Stephen asked with a frown.

“Zach said to just shove it through the time gate and hope for the best,” Peaches said. “I get the feeling he knows what he’s talking about.”

Tess shivered. “Please don’t give me any details. I don’t know about you two, but I’m done with paranormal happenings for a while, thank you very much.”

“You shouldn’t have accepted a castle,” Stephen said wisely.

“They’re generally layered with history and other unusual things.” He rose with a sigh. “I daresay I need an extended spell in a very pedestrian, unmagical library. I think tomorrow I’ll see you ladies back to Sedgwick, then embark on a research project to soothe my frazzled nerves.”

Peaches looked at Tess and knew they were thinking the same thing: Stephen had seen too much to go back to what he’d been before.

Then again, so had they all. It had been a month full of things she’d never expected, things that had changed the way she would look at life forever. Pippa was living the fairy tale in the past, Tess was wallowing in a fairy-tale present, and she was happy for the moment to let her fairy tale linger in the future. It was nothing any of them had expected, but she had the feeling in the end it would be, one way or another, what they each had dreamed of.

All because of one enchanted evening at Sedgwick when Pippa had walked through magic shimmering in the air.

She rose and left the solar with her sister and Artane’s heir. She silently wished Pippa and Montgomery every happiness, closed the solar door behind her, and followed her sister and her cousin-in-law down the reputedly ghost-free, unenchanted hallway.

Zachary Smith is finished with high-maintenance women, impossible clients, and paranormal adventures. But when he walks through a doorway into a different century—and meets Mary de Piaget—he knows his life isn’t going to turn out quite the way he planned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ALSO FROM
NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLING AUTHOR

When medieval laird Robert Cameron pounds on Sunny Phillips’s door, he isn’t paying a social call. He’s braved a trip onto enemy soil to fetch the MacLeod witch, a crone renowned for her healing powers. But the woman who opens her door to him is enchanting and young . . . and not from his century.

—THE OAKLAND PRESS

—HEARTLAND CRITIQUES

 

 

 

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“[A] superb romantic fantasy trilogy.”

—
Midwest Book Review

“A fantasy world . . . too wonderful to miss”

—
Paranormal Romance