One Enchanted Evening (8 page)

“I can hardly believe he wants to see my designs.”

Tess glanced at her. “He’s already seen most of them, so you can believe it. And if you can stay awake, here comes another miracle.” She pointed out the front windshield. “Look.”

Pippa looked. And she felt her mouth fall open.

There, in front of her, was a medieval castle.

In fact, it was so steeped in its medievalness that she had to take a quick gander at her surroundings to make sure she was still in the twenty-first century. The countryside was of no use whatsoever in determining that. The forest was thick and lush and completely free of anything that might have passed for a Mini Mart. If she hadn’t been riding in a car, she would have suspected she had stepped back in time hundreds of years.

Tess pulled into a car park that was nothing more than a few indentations in the grass, then stopped the car and turned it off. “Well?”

Pippa hardly knew where to begin. The castle was, in a word, spectacular. It sat smack in the middle of a small lake that was so still, she might have been looking at a stretch of polished glass. From where she sat, she could only see two towers on each corner, though she supposed there were two at the back corners as well. The crenelated towers and walls were in mint condition, the stone clean and sound. All it was missing was the sound of horses and perhaps a guardsman or two walking along those towers with the business ends of their swords shining in the sunlight.

She wanted to ask Tess to tell her again about the miraculous stroke of good fortune in winding up with the key to a castle she’d never expected to own, but maybe that could wait. She wasn’t one to believe in magic, but in this, she couldn’t deny that her sister’s life belonged in a fairy tale. And now to see the castle in person . . . Well, it was one thing to imagine how it might be as she’d been slaving away over costumes made just for the upcoming party; it was another thing entirely to see the reality sitting there in front of her.

“I’d better write this in my diary,” Tess said, sounding amused. “My little sister, speechless.”

“I’m not sure speechless begins to describe my condition,” Pippa managed. “I can’t believe this is yours.”

“Neither can I. I pinch myself every time I drive up the way.” She pulled the keys out of the ignition and opened her door. “Let’s go inside.”

Pippa got out, then paused. “What about Cindi?”

“Maybe fairies will steal her.”

Pippa smiled at Tess. “I knew there was a reason you were my favorite sister.”

“Peaches is your favorite sister, but I know I’m always coming in a close second.”

“Tess, you’re twins. I love you both equally.”

“That’s because you can’t tell us apart,” Tess said airily. “You have to spread the love liberally on the off chance you’re sucking up to the wrong one.”

“And here I was going to tell you that after today, you may have pulled ahead in the race.”

Tess locked the car. “I deserve it, obviously. We’ll come back to get Princess Pukesalot later. If she wakes up, she can crawl over to the tea shop for something strengthening.” She linked arms with Pippa and tugged on her. “Let’s go inside. I can’t wait to hear what you think.”

Pippa walked with her sister across the bridge that was indeed very stable and through a gate with three different sets of portcullis spikes hanging over it. She stopped in the courtyard and gaped. There was a garden in one corner, the stables and a smithy along one wall, then a little chapel tucked into the lefthand corner. Tess pointed to the big building dominating the other back corner.

“That’s the great hall. We’ll go upstairs and put your stuff down, then I’ll let you rest for a bit before the madness starts.”

Pippa trailed after her sister up the trio of stairs to the great hall, then had to stop on the topmost one. An enormous feeling of déjà vu swept over her—and she was intimately acquainted with all the ramifications of
that
. She immediately reclassified the sensation as a result of too much rich food at some point in the recent past, then carried on after Tess.

But she couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow, at some point—no doubt still in a very vivid dream she couldn’t remember—she had walked where she was walking.

Weird.

She followed Tess inside a great hall that was just as amazing as the initial view of the outer walls. Tapestries measured in feet, not inches, hung down along the stone walls, and enormous fireplaces flanked the room, set into the wall and sporting gigantic stone hearths carved with scenes of stags and boars. There were groupings of chairs in front of each hearth and a long table at the back of the hall, boasting heavy, high-backed seats. She fully expected to see servants dressed in authentic medieval peasant gear come spilling out of the kitchen, carrying trays of delicious edibles.

“What’s the tofu quotient in your dinners?” Pippa managed.

“Nonexistent. We only use good English beef here, with quite extensive vegetarian selections for those so inclined.”

Pippa looked at her sister, then laughed. “You sound like you know what you’re doing.”

“I would say that’s only because it pays the bills, but the truth is, I love it,” Tess admitted. “I don’t think the reality of the Middle Ages would have been at all to my taste, but pretending for the evening while still having the conveniences of modern life upstairs is wonderful. And speaking of upstairs, I put you right next to Stephen, on the off chance that you encounter him in the middle of the night on your way to the kitchen to hunt for snacks.”

“I imagine you just put me there to have something between him and Cindi.”

Tess smiled. “Might have.”

Pippa followed Tess up the stairs and down the passageway that was lit by lights in the shape of torches. The rock was smooth under her hands, as if countless fingers had been run along its surface over hundreds of years, and cold. She waited until Tess had opened a door, then found herself inside something that surely had looked in medieval times just as it did at present. There was a bed with a wooden canopy, hung with heavy drapes, and other less austere things that were obviously of a more recent vintage. Pippa walked in, feeling as if she were walking into a dream. She stopped in the middle of the room, then turned around slowly.

“It’s spectacular,” she managed. She felt her way down into a chair. “I can’t believe this is yours.”

Tess sat down on the edge of the bed. “I agree, but before we’re both overwhelmed by the thought, why don’t I let you get some rest, then we’ll go have lunch in the tea shop?”

“I didn’t see the tea shop,” Pippa said, “but I’ll admit I was a little distracted at the time.”

“It’s tucked away in the forest. I initially wondered about the location of it from a business perspective, but I’ve come to appreciate that keeping all signs of modern life out of a person’s initial view of the castle is the best idea. I might as well make the experience as authentic as possible.” She pushed herself to her feet and smiled. “I’ll be back in an hour. I’m going to go pour coffee down Cindi and see if I can get her sober in time to flutter tonight.”

Pippa was tempted to stop her sister and ask her a few pertinent questions about paranormal activities, but Tess escaped before she could. She watched the door shut, then went to look for some cold water to splash on her face. The last thing she wanted was to sleep through introductions to a man she was sure held the key to her future.

 

 

A
couple
of hours later, she was yawning at herself in the bedroom’s full-length mirror and wondering if she might have gone a little too far on the discreet scale. She could see the extra touches to her dress—the drape of her skirts, the shape of the bodice, the points of her sleeves—but she wasn’t sure anyone else would. Subtle might not be what got her more than one date with Stephen de Piaget’s deep pockets. Unfortunately, it was all she had at the moment, so she would just have to go with it and hope her scintillating personality made up the difference.

She made sure her backup stick was in her pocket, then adjusted her fairy wings and turned toward the door. No time like the present to get on with her future.

She opened the door and jumped a bit in spite of herself. A man was standing against the far wall under the light of a torch. He straightened immediately and made her a little bow.

“Miss Alexander? I’m Stephen de Piaget.”

Yes, indeed he was. Pippa shook his hand because she had decent manners even while being dazzled by extraordinary good looks. Tall, dark-haired, and yes, he obviously spent more time with a sword than poring over medieval manuscripts. The medieval-looking getup he was wearing only added to that impression.

“I wanted to meet the designer before the little girls made too much of a ruckus screaming over their lovely gowns,” he said with a small smile.

“Happy to meet you,” Pippa said, fighting the urge to fan herself. She had expected him to be attractive in a tweedy, professor-ish sort of way, not immensely distracting in a hunkish sort of way. Tess had a very annoying habit of leaving out pertinent details, a habit Pippa fully intended to chide for her at her earliest opportunity.

Stephen inclined his head down the hallway. “Perhaps we should go raid the kitchen for a bit of courage before the festivities begin.”

She nodded, because that was all she could do. She followed him down to the great hall, concentrating on not rolling down the circular staircase. She would have gone along with him to the kitchens for the proposed snack and hoped it would cure what ailed her, but Stephen was pulled aside by his friend who was paying for the whole affair, and she found herself cornered by the mother. She realized she was more jet-lagged than she thought, because she didn’t hear much of the conversation past
ghost
and
spooky
.

Unsurprising.

She grabbed a glass of something that looked like juice and got half of it down herself before she heard everyone fall silent. She didn’t have to look behind her to know who was sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Tonight, though, she almost managed a smile. After all, she
had
made Cindi’s dress.

“That is the most amazing gown,” Stephen said faintly, coming to stand next to her. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Thank you,” Pippa said modestly. If ever there were a time to take a little pride in all her hard work, this was it. “As I said before, it’s a little more understated than what I usually . . . do . . .” She turned around slowly, looked at the apparition at the bottom of the stairs, then felt her mouth fall open.

Her sister was stunning, as usual, carrying herself as if she were indeed some sort of fairy-ish royalty deigning to grace mere humans with a glimpse of her glorious self. But it wasn’t Cindi’s frighteningly spectacular face, the fact that she looked almost coherent, or her enviable figure that left Pippa gasping. She could hardly believe her eyes, but there was no denying it.

Cindi was wearing a dress Pippa hadn’t made.

It was white, with a fitted bodice and billowing skirts made of what Pippa could tell at fifty feet was an obscene amount of hideously expensive taffeta. Lace dripped from the sleeves and cascaded down from the waist, while tastefully marching up the bodice seams to curl lovingly around the neckline. There had to have been a small fortune in Swarovski crystals dripping from every reasonable location. Cindi sported a pair of fairy wings that were even wider than her dress. Pippa supposed that with the right gust of wind, she might have taken flight, damn her anyway.

Cindi’s hair was swept up into a messy bun with tendrils curling artfully down her neck but not around her face—heaven forbid anything should compete with the absolute perfection of
that
. And atop it all, like a diamond-encrusted candle atop a fancy birthday cake, was a tiara that was almost blinding in its sparkliness.

Pippa thought she just might kill her sister this time.

“Well, I say,” Stephen said weakly.

She could just imagine what he would say if he could manage to pick his jaw up from off the floor and use it for the purpose of speaking.

He looked at her in surprise. “Did you make that?”

“No,” Pippa said shortly.

“I must admit, I thought not,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “It is lovely, to be sure, but I daresay your designs are a bit less . . . er, how shall we say it?”

“Gaudy?” Pippa suggested.

“Ah—”

And that was the last thing he managed before the beauty queen fluttered down in a flurry of skirts and tapped her chosen victim on the arm playfully with her wand that easily sported a thousand dollars’ worth of crystals. Pippa was half tempted to follow Cindi around and gather up all the stones she lost. It might be a decent way to make a quick buck since it was obvious by the look on Stephen de Piaget’s face that any conversation with him was going to be out of the question before the clock struck twelve and she turned back into a pumpkin.

She watched morosely as Cindi flirted with Stephen. In fact, she watched Cindi at it for so long that she began to have a grudging admiration of her sister’s technique. Cindi was managing to keep Lord Stephen captivated and charm little girls at the same time with an ease that was truly remarkable.

Periodically, Cindi would excuse herself to Tess’s office only to return with renewed energy for both her pursuits. Pippa followed her once, out of a morbid sense of curiosity, only to find her sister helping herself to something out of a little bear-shaped cookie tin she pulled from a pocket in her skirt. The tin looked suspiciously like what their mother had been clutching earlier in the week, a container that Peaches had been fairly sure contained brownies.

And they all knew what sort of things their mother baked into brownies.

“She’s stoned.”

Pippa looked at Tess who had materialized next to her, accompanied by a disapproving frown.