One Magic Moment (15 page)
“He’s a gentleman.”
“I imagine he is, damn him to hell,” he muttered. He looked at her, then made shooing motions. “Go on, woman. Go inside.”
“Are you always this bossy?”
“I’m protective.”
“Awfully protective of someone you don’t like.”
He looked at her evenly. “I never said I didn’t like you, Tess.”
“You said I bothered you.”
“Two entirely different things, love.”
She was tempted to call Stephen and tell him to get lost, but she was afraid if she did, she would do something stupid, like throw herself in John de Piaget’s arms and tell him that she now understood why her sister had fallen so hard for his brother in such a short time.
“Be nicer to me tomorrow,” she advised.
He lifted an eyebrow. “I haven’t begun to be nice to you.”
And that, she could safely say, was one of the more terrifying things he’d ever said to her. She walked away while she still could, though she made the mistake of turning and looking before she shut the door. John was leaning against the wrought-iron fence with his arms folded over his chest, watching her.
Heaven help her, she was in trouble.
She shut the door before she got into any more of it.
Chapter 8
J
ohn
walked into a building that was almost as old as he was, then frowned as he looked about him for some indication as to where Tess might be teaching. He supposed it wouldn’t be one of the smaller chambers, so he made his way to what looked to be a lecture hall.
ohn
walked into a building that was almost as old as he was, then frowned as he looked about him for some indication as to where Tess might be teaching. He supposed it wouldn’t be one of the smaller chambers, so he made his way to what looked to be a lecture hall.
He wasn’t unfamiliar with places of higher learning. He had, over the course of the past eight years, attended many lectures at various universities. It also wasn’t that he hadn’t had an excellent education at his father’s direction, but there had been, he would readily admit, a few new things added to the body of knowledge since his father’s day. Just becoming familiar with even a sketchy overview of all the history he’d missed had taken him a solid year of reading every chance he had.
He had, as the opportunity had presented itself, attended lectures at Cambridge along with many concerts. He was actually rather surprised he’d never seen Tess before. Then again, he likely wouldn’t have taken a class from her given his determination to avoid all things medieval.
Ah, how the mighty were fallen, something he was especially cognizant of as he put his ear to the wood of the door, then opened it slowly.
The hall was larger than he would have expected, but that might work to his advantage. He would be able to slip into the back of it without being noticed.
Or, perhaps not. Tess looked at him the moment he closed the door soundlessly behind him, then went back to her lecture. That he could have borne, perhaps. It was looking for a seat at the back of the hall and finding only one empty one that unnerved him. Of course, that could have been because a man had removed his well-used briefcase from it and nodded encouragingly.
The Viscount Haulton, as it happened.
John would have looked for somewhere else to sit, but he’d been caught, and he was nothing if not polite. He supposed he might come to regret that at some point.
So he sat down next to the future Earl of Artane and suppressed the urge to pull his sunglasses down over his eyes. He supposed that would call more attention to himself than he wanted, so he refrained.
And aye, he knew bloody well whom he was sitting next to. He had a BlackBerry and knew how to use it. Not that he’d needed a quick search to figure out who the man was. A good look at him would have told John all he needed to know.
It was a paranormal oddity that would have sent his eldest brother Robin into fits they would have all heard about for months.
“Interested in this sort of thing?” Stephen de Piaget, future sitter on Rhys de Piaget’s family seat murmured politely.
John only nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak and not blurt out something he would regret. In truth, it was all he could do simply to remain seated there and project an aura of calm.
He’d known it would happen sooner or later, that encountering someone from home. He’d just never expected it to be in conjunction with the pursuit of a woman he truly wanted nothing further to do with—
He took a deep breath and shook his head mentally at his ability to lie to himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t want anything to do with her.
It wasn’t that at all.
He looked up at her standing behind the lectern, her dark hair pulled back in her usual business chignon, her too-thin frame clothed in a skirt and conservative dark sweater. All she lacked was a pair of librarian’s glasses perched on her nose to look the part of a university fixture.
He wondered how old she was. His age, perhaps, or a bit younger. He also wanted to know where she’d been born, what her youth had been like, why she had decided to come to England where she had attracted the gaze of the Earl of Sedgwick, planted herself in that castle, then found her way to his shop where he had stood in the shadows, laid eyes on her, and found himself utterly and completely lost.
He’d never believed in love at first sight.
Before.
He turned away from that thought as quickly as possible and settled for simply watching the girl lecturing up there on the stage as if she truly knew what she was talking about—which, he discovered after only a few minutes, she most definitely did. She was discussing the politics of medieval England as if she’d been privy to the king’s councils, dissecting the skirmishes of the time period as if they’d been a chess game and she a master of the art.
Very well, so he hadn’t stopped to think that there was a reason she’d earned her degrees at such a young age. He had assumed they were of a less taxing nature. Humanities, perhaps, or music appreciation.
“She’s brilliant,” Stephen de Piaget said, “isn’t she?”
John nodded, because he could readily hear that for himself.
“B.A. in art history,” Stephen murmured. “Her masters in Old and Middle English, and her PhD in Medieval Political Thought. I have often told her she was born in the wrong century.”
“If she’d been born in medieval times, they likely wouldn’t have allowed her any education at all,” John said, before he thought better of it.
“Sadly enough, I imagine that’s true,” Stephen agreed. “Unless perhaps she’d been born to a more enlightened sort of man.”
John didn’t dare comment. His father had certainly been that sort of enlightened man, for his daughters had been subjected to the same rigorous education his sons had. John merely nodded, hoping Stephen would take the hint and leave him alone. Whatever else they did there at Artane, they apparently still taught the lords’ sons manners. Stephen sat back and remained blessedly silent for the rest of the lecture, most of which John didn’t hear.
He was too busy trying to breathe normally.
’Twas madness. He had his life, his discreet, private life where he controlled any and all access to anything he could do and anyone he might have been. What he wanted was to go back to that life and—
He had to take another deep breath. Nay, as difficult to admit as it was, he feared going back to that safe life was becoming less possible by the moment. He had stepped out of what was comfortable, not the first day when he’d taken Tess her credit card, but the next day when he’d taken out a business card and written Studio Five’s address on the back. Though he wished he could say otherwise, the writing down of that address hadn’t been a random thing; it had been a purposeful, deliberate, absolutely deranged decision, but he’d made it just the same.
Because he’d wanted to see her again.
He couldn’t blame Tess because he was uncomfortable. He was, after all, the one who’d opened the damned door and pulled her inside. In a manner of speaking.
But that didn’t mean he was obligated to sit and converse with Stephen de Piaget any longer than he had to. The moment Tess finished and the applause died off, he rose, turned to Stephen, and inclined his head.
“Thank you for the seat, my lord.”
Stephen rose as well. “We missed you at supper last night.”
“I didn’t want to intrude.”
Stephen looked at him from gray eyes that were the mirror of his own. “I have no designs on her, old man.”
“Neither do I,” John said, though it sounded hollow to his own ears.
Stephen pursed his lips, then leaned in slightly. “Hurt her and I’ll kill you.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“And stop lying to yourself, you wee git,” Stephen said in disgust.
John felt his mouth fall open. Stephen flashed him a brief smile that made him look so much like Robin, John almost flinched. He suffered Stephen’s hand clapping him rather more firmly than necessary on his shoulder before Stephen picked up his portfolio and threaded his way through the remaining students to the front of the hall. John watched him shake Tess’s hand very professionally, lean in and say something, then start toward the front door of the hall.
John found himself the recipient of a final look he didn’t mistake for anything but warning. He nodded in acknowledgment of the threat, then happily watched the last of Stephen disappear through the door. He found himself a bit of wall to lean back against so he could wait until the last of the students had gone and Tess was alone.
He walked to the front whilst she was gathering her notes and stowing them in a backpack that had obviously seen a great deal of use. He would have mistaken her for a student if he hadn’t known better. Or at least he would have until he was standing five feet from her and she lifted her head and looked at him.
Then he mistook her for nothing but a goddess.
His first instinct was to bolt. After all, despite what it meant for his future happiness, he had resolved never to entangle himself in any sort of permanent arrangement with a Future girl.
He suppressed the urge to sigh. He certainly wasn’t in the market for a wife, but he also couldn’t imagine beginning a relationship with the woman in front of him that ended with a casual word and a wave as he walked away. The saints pity him, he was a fool.
He woke to find her standing directly in front of him and he couldn’t remember having seen her move.
“Too many deep thoughts, John de Piaget?”
“Only about lunch,” he said, desperate not to talk about anything more serious. He stepped back and made her a little bow. “After you, Dr. Alexander.”
She frowned at him, but said nothing. He followed her silently up the way between the chairs until they reached the doors. He caught her hand before she reached for one of them, then opened the door for her. She looked up at him.
“Your chivalry is showing.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m trying to be nicer about it.”
She leaned against the opposite door and looked up at him. “Why?”
He suppressed the urge to say something off-putting, though he supposed it would have been the safer course of action. He ruthlessly squelched the urge to flee. He was—or had been—a knight of the realm with spurs on his heels that hadn’t been put there out of pity. He had faced sterner tests than simply being pleasant to a woman who stole his breath every time he looked at her.
But he also couldn’t blurt out that he wanted to be nicer to her because he didn’t want her to dislike him. He considered a bit longer, then leaned against the opposite doorframe.
“I’m trying,” he said, taking another in an endless series of deep, steadying breaths, “because you deserve it.”
“But you said you didn’t want to see me again.”
“I also said I could be a bit of an arse.”
She looked up at him, smiled faintly, and walked away. “So you did.”
He caught up with her and only had to stop her at one more door before she seemed willing to allow him to ply a bit of chivalry on her.
He saw her into his car, then took a fortifying breath or two as he rounded the boot. Perhaps it was just best to not think about anything at all unless it had to do with lunch.
He avoided the trendiest of the pubs near the university and headed instead for the most rustic. He supposed he was eventually going to give himself away as something he didn’t want to if he didn’t stop gravitating to things that were old. He found the nearest car park, then surrendered to the thought of dings on a car he should have left at home.
He ploughed through lunch, because there was literally nothing that put him off his food, then looked up and realized Tess was not as enthusiastic about her meal. He stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth.
“Not good?”
“It’s delicious.”
He frowned. “You’re not one of those prissy women who won’t eat something that’s put in front of them just to impress a date, are you?”
“No, I’m one of those who doesn’t like to waste the hardearned money of men who take me out to lunch,” she said shortly, “which is why I didn’t order all that much.”
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