Pippa shook her head. She didn’t suppose a heart that felt like it was broken—especially since she was thrilled to be back in her proper place and time—counted as being hurt. Maybe that ache in her chest was indigestion, or contact with something in the moat she hadn’t remembered.
“Pippa?”
“I’m fine,” Pippa managed. “Cold, but fine.”
“I’ll take her upstairs,” Peaches said, taking Pippa’s arm in that no-nonsense grip again. “Tess, your shirt is wet. Go change and we’ll meet in Pippa’s bedroom later.”
“I’ll bring tea,” Tess said weakly. “And something to eat. Stephen, are you hungry?”
“I’ll forage for something for you girls,” Stephen said, “then deliver it. I’m not sure you’ll want me underfoot for anything else.”
Pippa forced herself to focus on him. “Stephen de Piaget, you’re a very nice man.”
He shifted and looked almost as uncomfortable as Montgomery did when enduring the heaping of praise on his head. It must have been a family trait hardwired into generations of de Piaget men. Pippa managed a smile, then let Peaches pull her away and help her up the stairs. She squelched down the hallway next to her sister.
“When did you get here?” she asked finally.
“About thirty-six hours after you disappeared,” Peaches said, sounding as if she hadn’t enjoyed the process. “Tess called and I came running.”
“Expensive.”
“Lord Stephen paid for my ticket.”
“Those de Piaget men are very chivalrous,” Pippa said, before she realized what she was saying. “Or so I’ve heard.” She shivered violently, once. It apparently didn’t matter what century Sedgwick found itself in, it was still cold as hell inside the walls.
“That’s an interesting observation,” Peaches said carefully.
Pippa imagined Cindi had told all sorts of interesting stories—interspersed no doubt with drug-induced hallucinations. She supposed she would have to set the record straight at some point, but she wasn’t sure she could manage that at the moment. It was all she could do to get herself into her bedroom.
She realized eventually that she was simply standing in one place, staring at the instant water heater attached to a showerhead. Someone somewhere along the way had obviously knocked out a wall between rooms and turned one of them into a bathroom. Handy, that.
She realized, after she heard Peaches say her name again, that she hadn’t answered her sister’s question. That was becoming a bad habit, that losing touch with what was in front of her.
The hazards of time travel, apparently.
Which she was never going to do again, of course. She was happy, happy, happy to be back in the twenty-first century with all the noise and junk food and hot water that hadn’t been heated by a servant.
“Pippa,” Peaches began in the same voice she used while beginning the weaning-away-from-useless-junk process with her clients, “I think you would feel more like yourself if you got in the shower, don’t you?”
Pippa looked at the water that Peaches had turned on, then nodded numbly. “Can’t think of anything I’d like more.”
“Pippa,” Peaches said slowly, “do you realize you’re speaking French? Well, sort of. Your accent has really gone downhill.”
Pippa laughed a little, but she stifled it very quickly. She sounded as if she was about to lose it. That was ridiculous given that she was so perfectly happy. She hadn’t lost anything but cold fingers and toes. Montgomery was going to marry his docile, mousey bride, and she was going to go on to rise Godzillalike from the sea and stomp all over competing designers in Manhattan’s garment district. Being lost in the Middle Ages for even a brief time had been very good for her. She was feeling damn fierce.
“Do you want me to stay with you?”
Pippa shook her head and concentrated on using the right English words. “I’m fine, Peaches.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’ve been camping.”
“Cindi says you were stuck in Faery.”
“Cindi was strung out on valium during the trip,” Pippa said. “I’m fine.”
Peaches sat down on the toilet lid. “I’ll wait right here to make sure.”
Pippa supposed there was no hope of dislodging her sister from her perch, so she stripped and got into the tub, pulling the curtain around so Peaches wouldn’t watch her fall apart from the sheer joy of being where she was supposed to be. She was already getting back in the swing of things. The proof was that she was able to weep silently. She was sure that was an improvement over the sounds she’d been making earlier.
She still wasn’t warm when she finally shut off the water.
Peaches waited for her to dry off, then wrapped her in a fluffy robe that had obviously been warmed in front of the fire. Pippa followed her sister back out into a room she was very grateful to discover wasn’t Montgomery’s, sat while her sister combed out her hair, then happily wrapped up in a blanket that had also been warmed against the fire.
She realized quite suddenly that her hair was almost dry and her sisters were sitting in chairs nearby. She wasn’t holding a cup of anything, but there was one on the table next to her chair. It was cold. She looked at Peaches and Tess.
“Did I fall asleep?”
Tess shook her head, looking more grave than Pippa had ever seen her.
“You were very far away,” Tess said quietly.
“I don’t remember it,” Pippa said faintly. “I seem to be losing chunks of time.” She almost laughed. That was an understatement, but maybe one she shouldn’t elaborate on at the moment.
“Want to give us any details?” Peaches prodded gently.
Pippa shook her head. She couldn’t. Not until she’d gotten back to the gate and at least said a proper good-bye. Then she would be able to give her sisters the entire story.
“It might make you feel better to know I have your flash drive in my room,” Tess said suddenly. “Cindi fessed up to hiding it from you.”
Pippa realized that her sister wasn’t blurting out things in a random way. She had apparently been saying quite a few things that had somehow simply disappeared into a void while Pippa had been trying to simply breathe in and out. She focused with difficulty on her sister. “What did you say?”
“I pried your backup stick out of Cindi’s grasping hands,” Tess said carefully. “I threatened her with the revealing of all kinds of embarrassing things about plastic surgery if she didn’t cough it up.”
“And you still locked her up afterward?”
“I’m a terrible person,” Tess said, “and she was driving us crazy.”
“The truth is,” Peaches said dryly, “it was either a very nice detox facility with people who were paid to care about her or Tess’s attic where I would have left her with a jug of water and a loaf of bread. It seemed like a better alternative for her.”
“Did she give you any details about her adventure?”
Peaches exchanged a look with Tess, then shook her head. “Nothing that made any sense.”
Pippa supposed Peaches wasn’t one to be talking about things making sense given that she was the one who bought into all that time- traveling romantic drivel. But given that she’d just lived two weeks of it quite happily, she supposed she wasn’t the one to be offering any criticisms.
“You know,” Tess said slowly, “I think the best thing for you would be to have a cup of tea, then get yourself to bed. Things will look better in the morning.”
Pippa nodded, because she couldn’t have agreed more. Things would indeed look better in the morning because she was now in a castle that was perfectly restored with all the things she knew she simply couldn’t live without. She watched Tess get up, empty out her cold tea, then refill it with something that steamed. She waited for a minute or two, tried to sip what Tess had poured for her, then gave up. She sat back, pulled the blanket closer around her, then looked around for a distraction. Trying to get to sleep was definitely not g
oing to be it. She looked at Tess.
“Tell me a story.”
Tess exchanged a look of alarm with Peaches before schooling her features into something less troubled. “What kind of story?” she asked.
“The story,” Pippa said. “You know, your fairy tale.”
“You don’t believe in fairy tales,” Tess managed.
Pippa didn’t want to tell her that she’d recently had a change of heart, because that would have led to too many questions, so she settled for a reasonable-sounding falsehood. “I’ve had a rough couple of weeks and I need a distraction.” She paused. “I just want to hear about something that works out the way it’s supposed to.”
The look Tess shared with Peaches had attained an entirely new level of alarm, but Pippa closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch her sister try to turn it into something . . . well, less.
Tess cleared her throat. “If you want,” she said slowly.
“I want,” Pippa said, keeping her eyes closed and leaning her head back against the chair. “Go on and entertain me.”
“All right,” Tess said carefully. “Let me set the scene for you, because that’s what good storytellers do.”
Pippa supposed her sister was doing that less because she wanted to set the scene and more because she probably wanted time for Peaches to get the guys in white suits on the phone, but she wasn’t going to protest. Might as well enjoy the time she had where she was. Who knew when that time would be over?
“About a year ago, I was speaking at an academic conference—”
“On medieval political thought,” Peaches put in.
“Well, yes, since that’s what my degree is in, I thought it appropriate,” Tess said. “So, I finished my presentation, then chatted with the attendees afterward, as I usually do—”
“You’re so polite,” Peaches said.
“Are you going to let me tell this story?” Tess demanded.
“I don’t get castles dumped in my lap,” Peaches said. “I’m trying to live vicariously through you.”
“Live silently,” Tess suggested. “So, to continue, there I was, working my way across the room, when an old man walked up to me and asked me if I wanted a private tour of a gem of a castle hidden away in a forest.”
“Did you think he was hitting on you?” Pippa asked, because she supposed Montgomery would have asked the same thing. She imagined that if Montgomery had been standing next to Tess, that old man wouldn’t have dared approach her without a proper, Regency-style introduction.
“He was every day of eighty,” Tess said with a snort, “so no, I didn’t think he was hitting on me. But yes, I brought along a couple of friends for protection just the same because I’m suspicious by nature. I took his tour, was apparently speechless enough to suit him, then remained speechless as he just up and handed me a key to the front door.”
“Just like that,” Peaches said with a sigh. “Why don’t these sorts of things happen to me?”
“Because you don’t like to drive on the left?”
“I could get used to it.”
Pippa was torn between thinking she could get used to quite a few things and suppressing her overwhelming joy that she would never have to. Really. A world without cell phones, air travel, and neighbors’ stereos keeping her up all night was a terrible thing to contemplate.
“And then the guy disappeared,” Peaches said with a sigh. “It really does seem like a fairy tale.”
“It does,” Tess agreed, “but there were no special effects sparkles involved. He just said he was tired of the medieval reenactment business and thought I would take it over quite well, given my background. He left and I haven’t heard from him since except for a letter about six months after the fact from his lawyer telling me there was a safe-deposit box he’d been instructed to tell me about if I lasted in the castle that long.”
“What was in the box?” Pippa asked, though she already knew the answer.
“Money,” Tess said with a smile. “Money enough to see to repairs and taxes for a very long time, though the note said he thought I wouldn’t have any trouble keeping the business going. People are fascinated with the Middle Ages.”
“I can see why,” Peaches said, stretching her feet out toward the fire. “Romantic stuff.”
Pippa supposed she might have some not-so-romantic details to add to the conversation, but now was not the time. Besides, Peaches was right. Even the thought of medieval life was romantic stuff.
Especially when there was a medieval lord involved.
“I can thank a certain Lord Darling for the modern amenities,” Tess continued. “The castle had fallen into a bit of disrepair by the end of the eighteenth century. He bought it in 1850 and poured all his fortune into restoring it.”
“Maybe he’s your mystery geezer,” Peaches said with a yawn, “and he was just waiting for the right girl to come along and love the place like you do. Maybe he was a time-traveling sort of guy.”
“I don’t believe in paranormal incidents,” Tess said firmly.
“To the endless despair of your ghosts,” Peaches laughed.
Pippa listened to her sisters discuss the merits of having resident ghosts in a proper English castle, then wondered if along with stories of old guys with stuffed safe-deposit boxes and ghosts in kilts, her sisters knew anything about the former inhabitants of Sedgwick.
But if she asked, then they would want to know why she wanted to know. She wasn’t quite ready to talk about that yet.
“Pippa, you should go to bed,” Tess said quietly. “I think you’ve had a long day.”
Yeah, about seven hundred fifty years’ worth of long, she wanted to say, but that would invite even more questions she didn’t want to answer. She nodded, let Tess and Peaches put her to bed, then didn’t argue when Peaches said she thought it might be useful if Pippa had someone to watch over her. And given that Peaches didn’t kick like Cindi did, Pippa wasn’t unhappy to have the company.
She also wasn’t unhappy to have a toothbrush, a flush toilet, and a luxurious hot water bottle to put at her feet when she finally put on a nightgown and crawled under a down comforter that was covered with exquisitely soft sheets. Yes indeedy, the future was a great place to be.
She supposed if she repeated that often enough, she might actually begin to believe it.
She wondered what Montgomery was doing, if he was even thinking about her past being relieved that she was back in her own time and he didn’t have to be responsible for her any longer.
She fell asleep, ignoring the tears that leaked down the side of her temples and got her hair and her very lovely, ergonomically correct pillow wet.
Yes, the future was the place for her.
Chapter 21
Montgomery woke to crushing pain. He turned his head, then grunted as the side of his head came in contact with the floor. Obviously, his current straits could be credited to a sword hilt to his skull. He lay there, simply breathing in and out, waiting for the pain to recede enough to allow him to think. And once it did, he almost wished it hadn’t.
His last memories were of seeing Pippa being chased across his drawbridge by not only Boydin but Ada as well.
Right before she ran through nothing and disappeared into the ether.
He could hardly believe he’d witnessed the like, but he couldn’t deny it. He’d started after her, fully intending to follow her through that faint hint of shimmer, but apparently he’d been felled before he could do so. He wondered if he’d been rescued or if someone had captured him. He decided quickly that the latter could not possibly be the case. If he’d been in Gunnild’s clutches, he never would have woken at all.
He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, then jumped as Phillips’s face appeared suddenly hovering over him. He closed his eyes briefly, then looked up at his squire.
“How long have I been senseless?” he asked hoarsely.
“Three days.”
Montgomery sat up, but that didn’t last long.
He didn’t protest as Phillip and Maurice helped him lie back down. He supposed another few minutes of being prone wouldn’t hurt him. At least his lads had dumped him in front of the fire, which he greatly appreciated.
He lay there until the chamber stopped spinning around him, then gritted his teeth and pushed himself upright again. He forced himself to remain where he was until the urge to retch left him. He gladly accepted a cup of wine when Phillip pressed it into his hands.
He drank it, only realizing then that he was starving. He wasn’t, however, going to pour things down himself he would be revisiting soon thereafter, so he decided food could wait.
“My lord,” Phillip said, kneeling down next to him, “I have grave tidings about Mistress Pippa.”
Montgomery focused on him with an effort. “Aye?”
“I think she drowned.”
“What?” Montgomery exclaimed.
“She fell into the cesspit, or so Boydin said, but she never resurfaced.” He paused. “I would have normally refused to believe him, but I’ve not seen her since that time. ’Tis possible she fled into the woods. Forgive me, my lord uncle, but we’ve not dared to search for her. The situation here in the keep is . . . dangerous.”
Montgomery could only imagine. He put his hand over his eyes for another moment or two until he felt like he could manage the pain, then he reached out to take Phillip by the arm.
“You did right,” he said. “I don’t think she drowned, my lad. I think she is safer wherever she is than she would be here with us right now.” That was perhaps an understatement, but there was no sense in saying as much. And it was likely better that the souls in his keep believed her to be either dead or escaped into the surrounding woods. If she ever returned—
He put the sword to that thought immediately. She wouldn’t return and he wouldn’t want her to. She was safely back in her time with complete fashion world domination to see accomplished—whatever she’d meant by that. He supposed he shouldn’t have felt any sort of jealousy at all that his nephew Stephen, who likely had all the wealth in the world to offer to the right gel, would be there to ease any lingering discomfort Pippa might have felt from her sojourn in a time not her own. Perhaps she would find someone else to love who could provide for her things he couldn’t possibly manage—